Funny / Spock's World

• Scotty "training" the cadets in the beginning of the book. The Enterprise's head engineer manages to scare the poor guys half to death.
  "What if these poor children had to reassemble a warp engine by themselves one of these days with only impulse running and a pack of Klingons howling along behind them? They've got the brains for it: would they be on the Enterprise if they didn't? Best they learn how now. We'll be tidy again in twenty minutes. Or I'll know the reason why!" added Scotty at the top of his voice.
  The scuttling got much more frantic. Apparently Scotty's crew considered the chief engineer in what Jim had heard them describe as 'one of his moods' to be slightly more dangerous to deal with than mere Klingons.
• McCoy's response to the referendum:
  • To his utter shock, McCoy finds out that T'Pau requested he speak at the referendum. When Kirk asks him whether he will, the doctor answers with exasperated resignation that he's never turned down a chance to debate a Vulcan and he can hardly refuse an argument with the entire planet.
    Bones: I'm a doctor, not a —
    Kirk: Belay it.
  • Later on, as the doctor warms up to the idea, he wonders aloud if Vulcan has ever heard an old-fashioned Southern filibuster. Spock deadpans that he'd better not exhaust the audience's patience with too many amazing examples of illogic if he doesn't want to start the secession vote early.
• Sarek being Not So Stoic in the face of human jibes:
  • Amanda's insults toward Sarek during their courtship when she thinks he's being too smug. This is also true In-Universe, where one of these made Sarek lose his breath from laughing so hard.
  • She once made him laugh so hard that she thought he was having a heart attack and tried to do CPR on him. This just made him laugh harder, as she was doing chest compressions on his liver.
  • When they get married, the Earth media reports it as "Earth Woman Marries Little Green Man." Amanda's retort to the press is "There is nothing little about my husband," which she has to explain to Sarek (who starts laughing again).
• When Sarek and Amanda use test-tube procedures to conceive a child, there's a tense moment among the Vulcan med techs working on making sure the embryo survives. When the process proves successful, the narrator lets us know there was no excessive celebration - they were after all Vulcans - but that "there was an insufferable air of smugness around the labs for the next few months."
• The referendum itself:
  • This scene as the Power Trio are checking in:
    "I want popcorn," McCoy said suddenly.
    The young woman looked up at him from underneath very pertly slanted brows and said calmly, "No eating in the auditorium, sir. Next?"
    They headed into the auditorium. Spock was looking bemused: McCoy was grinning. "You cut it out," Jim said. "Just for that, you're not getting the aisle seat."
    "Spoilsport."
  • Recurring character K's'l'tk opens up the referendum - Vulcans show their respect for diversity by allowing the least humanoid species present to open proceedings, and she's a giant glass spider - and gets into an argument with an arrogant ("Tenured," McCoy figures) Vulcan about the very nature of reality itself... which K's'l'tk wins by biting that arrogant Vulcan on the leg.
    "Fascinating. For someone who on most levels of consideration doesn't exist, you scream with great enthusiasm. And I heard you too. Better have that looked into."
    • Which McCoy approves and is permissible under Vulcan debate rules.
    "...that showed him. Get all Zen with me..."
  • This line from McCoy to a prejudiced Vulcan author who apparently doesn't know how to translate Terran:
    Though I must say, I enjoyed your article on the evolution of blood sacrifice in human cultures. That is not what major-league football is for...
• The scene where they stumble upon a gift shop for tourists that sells snow globes with Mount Seleya inside. McCoy declares them to be the tackiest thing that he's ever seen, and Spock rebuts that they were imported from Earth.
  • McCoy then tells Kirk that they have to work even harder to keep Vulcan in the Federation, at least until they share the lesson of how to make a good quality souvenir.

---