I-Chaya

I-Chaya was a beloved pet sehlat kept by Spock's family until his heroic death in 2237. (TOS: "Journey to Babel")

History

I-Chaya was a family pet, belonging first to a young Sarek, and later to his son, Spock. Sarek's Human wife, Amanda, was rather fond of I-Chaya as well. (TOS: "Journey to Babel")

Saving Spock

In 8877 of the Vulcan calendar (2237), Spock decided to perform his kahs-wan ordeal prematurely, trekking through Vulcan's Forge to the L-langon Mountains. An eager I-Chaya insisted on following Spock, despite being given orders to the contrary. This turned out to be fortunate when a le-matya (a dangerous animal native to Vulcan) attacked Spock, prompting the sehlat to come to the boy's defense.

I-Chaya fought the creature as best he could, becoming mortally wounded in the process. Both he and young Spock therefore had to be rescued by the adult Spock, who, posing as his younger self's cousin Selek, had traveled into the past to prevent his own premature death.

Death and burial

Young Spock managed to locate a Vulcan healer to help I-Chaya (and, in so doing, successfully completed his rite of passage). Sadly, the sehlat's condition was beyond hope when the healer arrived, as he had been poisoned by the claws of the le-matya, a deviation from adult Spock's memories of the original timeline.

Faced with the choice of allowing his companion to die slowly and painfully, or giving him a peaceful release from his suffering, young Spock logically decided to have I-Chaya euthanized.

Spock's parents later had I-Chaya's body brought back from Vulcan's Forge, to be buried in a place of honor on the family property. (TAS: "Yesteryear")

Alternate timelines

In an alternate timeline in which the sehlat did not die, young Spock perished instead, as "Selek" had not been present to save the boy from the le-matya's attack. Prior to adult Spock's time travel, neither man nor beast had perished at that juncture. (TAS: "Yesteryear")

Legacy

Upon returning to the restored timeline, Captain James T. Kirk asked Spock what had happened, to which the Vulcan replied, "One small thing was changed this time. A pet died." When Kirk suggested that it wouldn't make much difference in the scheme of things, Spock replied, "It might, to some." (namely, himself) (TAS: "Yesteryear")

In 2259, while speaking to Christine Chapel, Spock recalled having leaned on his bond with I-Chaya during his difficult upbringing on Vulcan. (SNW: "Spock Amok")

At a diplomatic reception aboard the USS Enterprise in 2268, Amanda Grayson mentioned Spock's pet sehlat to his colleagues. She described the creature as a "fat teddy bear", much to the amusement of Doctor Leonard McCoy. The doctor had inquired whether young Spock played like ordinary children while growing up, to which she had replied that Spock had been very fond of his sehlat. Spock then clarified that "On Vulcan, the teddy bears are alive, and they have six-inch fangs." (TOS: "Journey to Babel")

Years after the animal's death, biographies written about Spock would reference I-Chaya indirectly as the Vulcan's childhood pet sehlat. (SNW: "Those Old Scientists")

The prologue of Spock's memoir, The Many and the One, referred to I-Chaya's disobedience of young Spock's orders as having been a "fortunate turn of (events)". (PIC: "The Star Gazer")

Anything but canon moments

Personality

Amanda regarded I-Chaya fondly, characterizing him as a "fat teddy bear". The sehlat often played on Amanda's emotions to get what he wanted. Young Spock, on the other hand, considered himself to be immune to the creature's tactics, claiming as much when I-Chaya attempted to accompany him on his kahs-wan.

Young Spock also confided in the sehlat, acknowledging his fears that he wasn't a true Vulcan, which several of his peers had suggested earlier. (TAS: "Yesteryear")

Background information

I-Chaya was partly based on a cat that D.C. Fontana owned, a feline named Bobby McGee as a reference to the song "Me And Bobby McGee". ("Yesteryear" text commentary) In 1974, Fontana explained, "As to who and what I-Chaya would be as a character, I decided he would be closely patterned on my large cat, Bobby McGee. While Bobby is not old and fat, he has the same affection, snuggle-ability, the fastest claws in the West, and complete disregard for orders. 'One word from me, and he does exactly as he pleases.' The statement fits both Bobby and I-Chaya." (Babel #5; Enterprise Incidents, number 11, p. 27)

The animal is commonly referred to as "Eye-chai-ah" in the final version of "Yesteryear", although the pronunciation that was originally intended is "EE-chai-ah" and "Yesteryear"'s script phonetically spelled the name in that way. The name's pronunciation was changed during recording of the episode's vocals, initiated with an error that the production staff then tried to cover up by changing all readings of the name to "Eye-chai-ah." D.C. Fontana much preferred the original pronunciation, referring to it as the "proper pronunciation" and remarking, "The name – always, forever, and correctly – is 'EE-chi-ah.' The other pronunciation is awkward, 'Lumpy,' lacking smoothness, and unpleasant to the ear. In short, it is not Vulcan." (Babel #5; Enterprise Incidents, number 11, p. 27) By way of clarifying how the sehlat's name was to be pronounced, the novelization of "Yesteryear" (in Star Trek Log 1) commonly spells the name as "Ee-chiya".

In the script of "Yesteryear", I-Chaya was described thusly: "This particular sehlat has a brown coat frosted with patches of grizzled beige, and one of his worn, yellow fangs is broken off at the tip, indicating he is aging." The teleplay additionally specified that I-Chaya had been owned by Spock throughout Spock's life.

In 2021, the game Star Trek Timelines gave away copies of young Spock and I-Chaya to celebrate the franchise's 55th anniversary. ^{(citation needed • edit)}

Apocrypha

The Pocket TOS novel Sarek noted a December 7, 2237 diary entry by Amanda in which she expressed her confidence that a then-missing Spock would be well looked after by I-Chaya.

In Assignment: Eternity, Roberta Lincoln shared a memory of I-Chaya with Spock during a mind meld.

By the time of Year Four, Issue 5, Amanda had added a stone memorial for I-Chaya to Spock's family ancestral burial grounds, an idea that Sarek attributed to their son.

In the Strange New Worlds VII story "All Fall Down", memories of I-Chaya were among those that McCoy experienced while harboring Spock's katra.

External link

• I-Chaya at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works