James Tiberius Kirk was a 23rd century Human Federation Starfleet officer. As a Starfleet cadet, he was instrumental in the defeat and death of Nero, a Romulan bent on the obliteration of the entire United Federation of Planets. As a result, he was commissioned directly to the rank of captain and appointed as commanding officer of the service's flagship, the USS Enterprise.
A year later in 2259, Kirk faced Khan, an enhanced Humanfrom the late 20th century with superior strength and intellect. However, the crew of the Enterprise managed to stop him, following the sacrifice of Kirk. Spock managed to capture Khan with the help of Uhura and Dr. McCoy managed to revive Kirk. Afterwards in 2260, the Enterprise set out on the first five-year mission.
In 2263, during its five-year mission, the Enterprise was destroyed by Swarm ships, led by Krall, stranding the crew on Altamid. The crew and Jaylah, who was also stranded by Krall, later managed to leave the planet after repairing the USS Franklin, a ship commanded by Balthazar M. Edison that went missing in 2164. Kirk and his crew traveled to StarbaseYorktown and stopped revenge plans put into motion by Krall, who was revealed to be Edison. Afterwards, Kirk was given command of the USS Enterprise-A and continued his five-year mission.
Early life[]
James Tiberius ("Jim") Kirk was a Human descendant of European settlers on Earth's American continent, who pioneered the western frontiers of the United States of America in the 19th century. (TOS: "Spectre of the Gun") The son of Starfleet officer George Kirk – first officer of the USS Kelvin – and his wife Winona Kirk, he was born on January 4th, 2233 aboard the Kelvin's medical shuttle no. 37, in the midst of an unprovoked attack on the Kelvin by the Narada, a 24th century Romulan mining vessel commanded by Nero.
Winona had been evacuated from the severely crippled Kelvin, along with the rest of the crew, and gave birth to James while George Kirk died piloting the Kelvin into the Narada in a kamikaze attack. The young Kirk was named James Tiberius after Winona's father and George's father, respectively.
Jim was raised in Iowa, in Midwestern North America, on Earth. His mother remarried. As a young boy, Jim had a somewhat rebellious streak in him as he once, for example, stole his stepfather's 1965 Chevy Corvette convertible, drove it recklessly, got into a high speed chase with local police, then nearly died when he barely managed to jump out, as he drove the car into a quarry. As he grew up, he had little sense of purpose and by 2255, he was an aimless rebel who had found himself on the wrong side of the law on more than one occasion.
When Kirk was a boy, Winona told James that George had owned a PX70 motorcycle. According to Winona, George often put Winona on the back of the vehicle and it drove her nuts.
While visiting a bar near the Riverside Shipyard in 2255, an inebriated Jim met and began flirting with a Starfleet cadet named Nyota Uhura. Although annoyed by Jim's advances, Uhura was surprised that Jim knew what was involved in the study of xenolinguistics. Moments later, the twenty-two year-old Jim Kirk engaged in a bar fight with three male cadets, including Hendorff, who were irritated at his cocky attitude and the attention he was giving Uhura. He was ultimately overwhelmed by the cadets until Captain Christopher Pike broke up the fight. Pike, who had written his dissertation on the USS Kelvinand was familiar with Jim's story, pushed the young man to challenge himself and reach the greater potential he was capable of achieving, calling him "the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest".
Pike tried to persuade him to join Starfleet, firmly believing he could do more with himself than get into bar fights and break all the laws in the state of Iowa. Kirk laughed at the idea of joining Starfleet, but Pike reassured him that, with his "off-the-chart" aptitude, he could make captain and have his own ship in only eight years. He reminded him that his father had saved eight-hundred lives, including Jim's and his mother's, and dared young Kirk to do better.
Soon after their conversation, and to the surprise of Pike, Jim decided to enlist with the intent of completing the Academy training in three years. He rode onto the shipyard, gave his bike to a construction worker, and boarded a shuttle for new recruits heading to Starfleet Academy. It was on his trip to the Academy where he first met and befriended Doctor Leonard McCoy.
Starfleet career[]
Kirk and McCoy became close friends at the Academy, though Kirk frequently exasperated McCoy with his maverick nature. Kirk had an eye for attractive female cadets and he once ended up in the dormitory of an Orion female cadet named Gaila. He was caught and hid under the bed when her roommate, Cadet Uhura, arrived unexpectedly. On discovering him, she angrily threw him out.
It was at the Academy that Kirk also met Commander Spock. Kirk had failed the Kobayashi Maru examinationtwice but decided to take it a third time, being sure that he would succeed. He eventually managed to cheat the test and won. Spock, who programmed the "no-win scenario", later investigated the matter.
While discussing his cheating ways with head of the Starfleet Academy Board Admiral Richard Barnett, Kirk argued that the test itself was a cheat, and stated that he didn't believe in the no-win scenario. Kirk asked to face his accuser, and Spock stepped up. This was the first time the two met, and they clashed over their differences.
Kirk and Spock continued to engage in a heated argument (the accused becoming particularly agitated when Spock suggested that, "of all people", George Kirk's son should recognize the no-win scenario), until the hearing was suddenly interrupted after Starfleet received a distress call from Vulcan.
Many of the cadets were called into action after the news but Kirk – who had been suspended because of his recent academic dishonesty charges – was not allowed to join. McCoy, however, was able to get him aboard the Enterprise by injecting him with a vaccine that temporarily rendered him sick so he could be transferred to the ship on medical grounds.
Kirk tried telling Captain Pike and Spock about Nero's attack and his trap, and with the help of McCoy and Uhura, he was able to convince Pike about the trap. Pike raised the Enterprise's shields as they entered the Vulcan system, only to find a massive debris field of destroyed Federation starships having been attacked by Nero.
As Pike was en route to a shuttlecraft to negotiate with Nero, he appointed Kirk as acting first officer under acting captain Spock and volunteered Kirk to disable the Narada's drill platform.
Along with Chief Engineer Olson and Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, Kirk skydived onto the platform. Olson was vaporized by the drill, leaving only Kirk and Sulu to disable it. Facing off against two of Nero's crew, Kirk and Sulu eventually killed both of their adversaries before destroying the platform, but not in time to prevent Nero from successfully completing his plan to destroy the planet Vulcan.
Before returning to the Enterprise, Sulu fell off the drill platform and began plummeting toward the surface of Vulcan. Kirk jumped off the platform to save him. After intercepting Sulu, Kirk had the helmsman pull his parachute, but it was knocked off, leaving them both in freefall. However, Ensign Pavel Chekov managed to compensate for Vulcan's gravitational pull and beamed both of them on board. Kirk attempted to dissuade Commander Spock from a rendezvous with the rest of Starfleet at the Laurentian system. He urged him to go after the Narada as the ship left for Earth, rather than waste time trying to gather additional forces in the opposite direction, but Spock was relentless. When Kirk became more and more heated in his objections, Spock finally ordered Kirk's removal from the bridge, knocked him out and threw him off the ship in an escape pod.
Kirk landed on Delta Vega, some fourteen kilometers away from a Starfleet outpost. Despite an inhospitable environment, he left his escape pod and soon was chased by an indigenous animal which was dispatched by an even larger predatory creature. When Kirk fled into a nearby cave, the creature was scared away by an elderly Vulcan man, who revealed himself to be Spock from a future timeline. Though Kirk initially dismissed this as "bullshit", he changed his mind when the old man demonstrated his knowledge of Nero. The elderly Spock revealed to Kirk through a mind meld Nero's intentions, also telling him that in his timeline, Kirk was the captain of the USS Enterprise. Understanding that their only hope was to have the Enterprise pursue the Narada instead of returning to the fleet, they realized that they had to get the other Spock to step down from command.
Fortunately, while the Enterprise had long since left the system, Spock was aware that one of the officers at the nearby outpost was Montgomery Scott, who, in his universe, had devised a way to beam onto a ship at warp speeds. After Spock gave Scott his own equations a century ahead of schedule, Kirk was advised by Spock, before Kirk and Scott were beamed onto the Enterprise, that he needed to elicit an emotional reaction from the young Spock so that everyone could see that he was emotionally compromised and unfit for command; according to the elderly Spock, the only way to defeat Nero was for Jim to take command of the ship himself.
Following the advice of Ambassador Spock, Kirk goaded Spock with assertions that Spock cared nothing for what had happened to Vulcan or the death of his mother, whom he accused Spock of never having loved. The last remark did the job and Spock violently attacked Kirk, nearly to the point of killing him, before Sarek stepped in and stopped him. Following Spock immediately relinquishing command. Kirk, as acting first officer, took command and ordered pursuit course of the Narada to Earth.
Kirk later beamed onto the Narada with Spock, who deferred to Kirk as captain. After an intense firefight in which they killed several Romulans, they made it to the elder Spock's ship. Upon being identified as its pilot, Spock quickly realized exactly who Kirk's unknown benefactor had been. Leaving Spock to secure the ship, Kirk went to retrieve Captain Pike.
In searching for the captain, he encountered Nero and his first officer, Ayel. Kirk was quickly overpowered by the pair of Romulans, but when Nero, after boasting that he would kill Kirk just like he had with his father, discovered that Spock had destroyed the drill, he furiously returned to the bridge. Initially, Kirk was no match for Ayel either, but the Romulan was overconfident and was too busy mocking his "weak" victim to notice the theft of his disruptor. Offered the chance to speak, Kirk's "last words" were "I got your gun!" and Kirk shot the Romulan Ayel point-blank in the chest. Kirk then retrieved Pike, who repaid his savior by grabbing the stolen disruptor and gunning down two Romulans walking in on the escape.
Against Spock's advice once again, Kirk decided to give Nero and his remaining crew a chance to beam to the Enterprise and surrender. After Nero strongly declined, Kirk decided to fire all weapons, and the Narada was finally destroyed in a massive black hole created by red matter it was carrying. The Enterprise was nearly destroyed as well, but Kirk had Scott eject the ship's multiple warp cores and detonate them, creating a blast wave strong enough to push the Enterprise out of danger.
Upon his return to Earth, Kirk was commended and officially appointed as captain of the Enterprise by Admiral Barnett for his actions, which demonstrated his ability as an extremely able commanding officer fully capable of leading a Federation starship crew in the most dire of situations.
Dressed in his new captain's uniform, Kirk took command of the Enterprise. Commander Spock arrived and requested the permanent post as Kirk's first officer, which Kirk was honored to accept. He sat down in his chair and, officially as captain of the Enterprise, led his crew and ship to another adventure.
A year later, Kirk violated the Prime Directive on Nibiru, saving Spock's life from a cold fusion device detonation inside a volcano. During the rescue, the Enterprisewas exposed to the primitive Nibirans, who began worshiping the ship as a god. Returning to Earth, Pike informed Kirk the Admiralty headed by Alexander Marcus would be sending him back to the Academy, and that perhaps he had been promoted too soon. That night, Kirk drowned his sorrows in a bar, when Pike appeared to reveal he had convinced Marcus to let him appoint Kirk his first officer, because he still had faith in the young man. As a result, however, Kirk was demoted to the rank of commander rather than captain.[]
The two then attended a summit, in the Daystrom Conference Room at Starfleet Headquarters, regarding the bombing of the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London. Marcus ordered a manhunt for the perpetrator, a rogue commander named John Harrison. Kirk analyzed surveillance of Harrison at the debris site, and questioned why Harrison bombed an archive for the information he needed. Kirk then realized Harrison would be aware protocol dictated such an attack would precipitate meetings like these: Harrison then showed up in a jumpship and opened fire.
Kirk wrapped a fire hose around a rifle and threw it into the jumpship's engine, causing it to crash. Before it did, Kirk saw Harrison glaring at him and then beaming himself away. Kirk returned to the conference room to find Spock with Pike, who had died of a chest wound, and mourned his friend's death. The next morning, Kirk was notified by Scott that Harrison had used a portable transwarp beaming device to escape to Qo'noS, the homeworld of the Klingon Empire. Kirk informed Marcus, who explained the Archive had actually been a Section 31 facility, which Harrison had needed to steal the beaming device from. Marcus reinstated Kirk's command and rank as captain, giving him permission to hunt down and execute Harrison, and allowed him to reinstate Spock as his first officer.
To execute Harrison, Marcus gave the Enterprise seventy-two advanced long-range torpedoes to bombard Harrison's location from orbit, and assigned weapons expert Carol Wallace to the Enterprise. At a hangar, McCoy expressed his belief that Harrison was out of Kirk's league, while Spock protested executing Harrison without trial was immoral. Aboard the Enterprise, Scott protested about not being allowed to examine the torpedoes, and not having time to examine the ship's warp core, which was new but faulty. Kirk accepted Scott and Keenser's resignation, and appointed Chekov to replace Scott. Dejected, Kirk decided to listen to Spock and Scott's advice, and announced they would find Harrison and bring him back for a tribunal.
Before reaching Qo'noS, the Enterprise's warp core broke down, so Kirk took an away team with Spock, Uhura, and Hendorff, disguised as K'normian arms dealers, to find Harrison in a K'normian trading ship. Shortly after acting captain Sulu sent a targeted comm burst from the Enterprise to Harrison's location, Kirk's ship was attacked by a Klingon patrol, and despite maneuvering it through a narrowing gate, the away team found themselves surrounded. Kirk allowed Uhura to exit the ship and negotiate with the Klingons in their native language, but they refused to listen and tried to kill her. Before Kirk and Spock could come out firing phasers, Harrison appeared and single-handedly killed all the Klingons. Kirk accepted Harrison's surrender, but spitefully punched him, only to find his continuous blows had no effect on him.
In the ship's brig, Kirk and Spock interrogated Harrison while Bones took a blood sample, which he studied by injecting into a dead tribble. Harrison only responded by giving Kirk a set of coordinates, and advised the captain to open one of the torpedoes. Spock informed Kirk that Wallace could examine the torpedoes, and also told the captain that he had learned she was actually Admiral Marcus' daughter, a fact Spock had chosen to reveal at that precise point because he felt the information had just become relevant. Kirk also called Scott via a communicator and asked him to investigate the coordinates.
McCoy and Carol Marcus took a shuttle to a meteor to examine a torpedo, but McCoy accidentally activated the countdown and trapped his hand in the device. Kirk ordered to beam them up, but was warned by Spock that beaming up McCoy would also beam up an exploding torpedo. Fortunately, Kirk avoided losing his friend when Carol deactivated the device with less than three seconds to spare. The torpedo finally opened up, and the two officers found it contained a man in cryogenic stasis.
Kirk interrogated Harrison again, who explained he had placed people in torpedoes to smuggle them before he was caught. He revealed he was actually the infamous Khan Noonien Singh, recruited by Admiral Marcus under a new identity to design weaponry and ships for war against the Klingons, and that the frozen people were his fellow Augments, whom the admiral had held hostage. Marcus suddenly showed up in a Dreadnought-class ship, the USS Vengeance, demanding Kirk hand over Harrison. Kirk revealed he knew the truth, and defied the admiral by having Sulu warp the Enterprise back to Earth, where Khan would stand trial and expose the conspiracy. However, the Vengeancewas capable of catching up with the Enterprise in subspace and fired on the ship, halting it as it arrived near Earth and the planet's moon.
After Carol tried to bargain with her father but was simply beamed by him over to his ship, Kirk tried to hand himself over to protect his own crew, but Marcus explained he had no intention of letting anyone in on the plot survive. Before the Vengeance could finish off the Enterprise, its weaponry suddenly deactivated. Scott called Kirk, explaining he had stowed away aboard the Vengeance at the coordinates given by Khan, buying them some time. Kirk, realizing Khan had designed the ship, allied himself with him, and the two donned thruster suits to fly over and commandeer the vessel. Khan's formidable strength was an asset in dispatching any guards they encountered, but Kirk was suspicious of Khan's motives and ordered Scott to shoot him unconscious later.
When they reached the bridge, Kirk confronted Marcus over his betrayal of Starfleet's ideals. However, Scott's attempt to stun Khan did not affect him, and the Augment tackled Scott and Kirk before proceeding to kill Marcus and take the command chair. Khan ordered Spock to hand over the torpedoes, which he complied with, and in return he beamed Kirk, Scott, and Carol into the Enterprisebrig. Khan then turned on Spock, bombarding the Enterprise once more. Spock, who had the cryopods removed from the torpedoes, ordered them to be detonated, severely crippling the Vengeance; the shockwave caused both ships to be pulled by Earth's gravity. Kirk and Scott ran to the warp core, trying to avoid falling to their deaths due to the Enterprise's failing artificial gravity.
