T'Pau (Star Trek)

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T'Pau as a young woman as played by Kara Zediker in Star Trek: Enterprise.

In the fictional Star Trek universe T'Pau is a Vulcan elder who has appeared in several episodes of both Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: Enterprise. T'Pau is also the name of a starship featured in the spin-off series, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Born in the Earth year 2122 (calculated from information given in the Enterprise episode "The Forge"), as a young woman T'Pau was part of a faction known as the Syrranites who rebelled against the ruling Vulcan High Council in 2154, later graduating to leader of the group following the death of Syrran himself. T'Pau encountered T'Pol and Captain Jonathan Archer of the Earth Starfleet ship Enterprise during this incident which led to the overthrow of the corrupt Vulcan High Command and a move toward greater acceptance of philosopher Surak's teachings, as well as Vulcan abilities such as katra transfer and mind-melding.

During the "Kir'Shara" incident of 2154 that led to the toppling of the Vulcan High Command, T'Pau administered a therapeutic mind-meld to T'Pol, curing the Enterprise officer of the neurological condition known as Pa'nar Syndrome which she had contracted from an improperly trained melder.

The older T'Pau, played by Celia Lovsky in the original Star Trek series.

A century later, an older and much wiser T'Pau presided over the kunat kalifee ceremony in which Mr. Spock is forced to fight Captain Kirk after Spock is rejected by his bride-to-be, T'Pring. Kirk and Doctor McCoy both express surprise in T'Pau officiating at Spock's wedding ceremony - having had no idea previously that Spock's family was that highly placed.

In her later years, T'Pau became a highly respected Vulcan leader both to Vulcans and other races. She is notable as the only being to refuse a seat on the council of the United Federation of Planets. She has a distrust of "off-worlders" which dates back to before her encounter with Archer. T'Pau was able to use her influence to allow the Enterprise to shield Kirk from the consequences of disobeying Starfleet orders in bringing Spock to Vulcan.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, a Vulcan starship named the T'Pau was taken over by Romulans in 2368 for the purposes of carrying troops for an invasion of the Vulcan homeworld. The Romulans destroyed the ship with disrupter fire when their invasion plans were revealed by Ambassador Spock.

T'Pau made no other appearances in any other episodes of the various incarnations of Star Trek, nor did she appear in any of the movies. She does however appear in several non-canon books.

T'Pau first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek original series episode, "Amok Time", played by Celia Lovsky.

In 2004, the younger version of the character appeared in the Star Trek: Enterprise episodes "Awakening" and "Kir'Shara" in which she was played by Kara Zediker. (When Enterprise was first conceived, the intention was for young T'Pau to serve aboard the starship, perhaps suggesting why she later grew to distrust "off-worlders". Instead, the producers created a new character, T'Pol.) Due to physical differences between the younger and older actresses, some Trek fans have suggested that this T'Pau is a different character, however the writers of the series have stated that the characters are one and the same (much like the fact that Zefram Cochrane was played by two actors of very different physical types in the Original Series and the film Star Trek: First Contact).

The older T'Pau from the original series spoke with a pronounced accent, whereas the younger T'Pau as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise spoke with a lighter accent. This may be due to the fact that the older T'Pau was actually speaking English; her younger self could have been speaking her native Vulcan (rendered into English through the Universal Translator). In real life, however, there have been many examples of people developing more pronounced speaking accents as they age (an example being Sean Connery's Scottish accent).