DR. LEONARD MCCOY A STAR TREK PERSONNEL FILE
Early Life
Born in 2227 on Earth in the State of Georgia in the United States to David McCoy and his wife. He attended the University of Mississippi in the 2240s. Afterward, he attended Medical School and then joined Starfleet.
Starfleet
In 2251 Dr. McCoy led an inoculation program on the planet Dramia II to battle the Saurian virus. After he left, a plague wiped out most of the colonists.
Dr. McCoy, in 2253 created a surgical procedure for grafting neural tissue to the cerebral cortex of humanoid brains.
By 2266, Dr. McCoy was a lieutenant commander as a science division officer stationed on Capella IV before joining the USS Enterprise after being less than impressed with the local’s lack of hospitals or need for aid. McCoy became the head of the science division.
Enterprise
McCoy treated the mental condition of Captain Kirk after the transporter pulled him into two people, good and evil. McCoy counseled his Captain, showing off his psychiatric skills, and explained why having two sides made him human and balanced. Kirk chose to reintegrate.
The Enterprise conducted a routine medical examination of archaeologists of an extinct civilization at the outpost on planet M-113, McCoy encountered a former beau of his by the name Nancy Crater. Unfortunately, Nancy was just a doppelganger, a shapeshifter and last of its kind that had murdered and taken over her attractive appearance to stay alive. The creature subsided on the salt of living creatures. Using an attractive appearance to lure their prey and then hypnosis to control them. Eventually using McCoy, the creature boarded the Enterprise. It continued killing and only when Spock was attacked and Kirk’s life was in jeopardy was McCoy able to break through the illusion. With the knowledge that of it being the last of its kind, McCoy asked for forgiveness before killing it with a phaser.
In 2267 the Enterprise encountered the SS Botany Bay after the ship was detected by its morse code signal. A landing party that included Dr. McCoy went aboard. The ship was over 200 years old, which led to the shocking discovery of the away party finding 84 humans in stasis chambers. 12 died after their pods failed. McCoy found the survivors to be in remarkable shape, with strong lung efficiency and their muscular strength exemplary. As they inspect the pods, one began to fail. The ship’s historian, McGivers begged Kirk to save him as he asked how long he had been in stasis. Kirk agreed and the man was transported to the Enterprise.
Spock reviewing Earth’s records found no trace of the ship. Kirk believed based on the name that it may have been a criminal transport. Spock disagreed as the Botany Bay was a very advanced ship to be wasted on criminals. How it survived so long troubled Spock though. The man awakened, and seeing a scalpel among the collection of antique medical gear, took it, going back to his bio bed as he heard McCoy working, to feign sleep. McCoy doing his rounds to check on his patient was caught unprepared as the man grabbed him by the neck and pointed the scalpel at it. McCoy, keeping calm answered this threat with sarcasm telling the man to make up his mind on whether he will choke or cut his throat. He even suggested where to put the scalpel on the carotid artery. The man approved of his bravery giving McCoy the instrument. McCoy replied that he was trying to avoid an argument. The man quickly demanded to speak with the person in charge of the vessel.
Kirk arrived and requested his name. He was ignored by the man and deflected with a question of his own about where the ship was headed. Kirk responded with Starbase 12. The man then replied with his name, only giving one word, “Khan”. Kirk attempted to get more but was rebuffed by claims of fatigue. He said he was an engineer once and would love to study the ship via manuals. Kirk and McCoy assisted him in learning how to use the computers.
Kirk, McCoy, Scott, and Spock check the historical records and determine that the person who identified as Khan was the notorious Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically engineered Augment, war criminal, and tyrant of the Eugenics Wars that devastated Earth. Kirk ordered Khan confined to quarters. However, Khan quickly overtook his guards after a visit from the Captain and commandeered the Enterprise by turning off the life support controls until the crew was unconscious. The crew awakened to find themselves being held at phaser point and their Captain in a decompression chamber. Khan threatened to kill Kirk if the crew didn’t help his Augment Soldiers that had been awoken. The Historian McGivers, who had become romantic with Khan but not at the expense of hurting her crew, freed Kirk. Kirk battled Khan and eventually won. Khan accepted to be left on an uninhabited planet rather than go to a penal colony, telling Kirk, "it is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven."
Later that year, Dr. McCoy’s tonsils, taken out when he was a youth, regrow due to the presence of Omicron Spores. The whole crew of the Enterprise, except for Kirk, were overtaken by the spores’ influence and mutiny, leaving Kirk alone on the Enterprise, communications jammed. The spores finally started to affect him but his love for the Enterprise caused such a passionate aggressive response that it broke him free and left him with the answer on how to retake his ship and crew.
In what would be one of the biggest events in McCoy’s life started when he accidentally injected himself with an overdose of cordrazine. The Enterprise had been investigating temporal disturbances near an unnamed planet. Kirk and Spock along with their landing party had discovered an ancient civilization’s ruins and an archway portal. McCoy’s injection resulted in a temporary loss of sanity with paranoid delusions. Overpowering anyone in his way, he escaped to the surface and stumbled into the portal which transported him to the past on Earth. Kirk and Spock were shocked to find that they now lived in a time with no Enterprise and no Starfleet. They entered the portal to find their friend. They arrived early and befriended a woman named Edith Keeler in 1930s New York. Spock pinpointed the change in the timeline, and that it was Edith and her death that prevented the pacification of the US to not enter WW2 and allow the Nazis to win the race to the Atomic Bomb. McCoy had saved her. Kirk put duty before love and prevented McCoy from saving Edith from being hit by a car. They returned to their future with McCoy.
McCoy’s talents as a xenobiologist assisted the silicone lifeforms of Janus VI when the Horta matriarch had been injured, with a bandage of thermal concrete.
It was McCoy who found the cure for a flying one-celled parasite that had been destroying life across whole star systems.
McCoy saved Spock’s father, Sarek, when he suffered multiple heart attacks due to a faulty heart valve. Vulcan biology was greatly unknown by humans. He was able to successfully repair Sarek’s heart, operating with the ship shuddering from attack by the Orions.
McCoy saved Spock’s life by keeping him alive when his brain was stolen by the Eymorgs, an underground civilization on Sigma Draconis VI. His brain was given to the Eymorg Controller machine. McCoy restores Spock’s brain after its rescue from the machine, with a little help from Spock, upon which McCoy retorts, "I'll never live this down, this Vulcan is telling me how to operate."
In 2268, McCoy was diagnosed with a terminal disease known as xenopolycythemia and given one year or less to live. Afterward, the Enterprise encountered the Fabrini and their ship the Yonada. It was discovered in their database to have the cure.
In 2269, McCoy was promoted to commander, a rank he would hold for another 25 years.
Kirk ordered McCoy to study the psychological impact of warning the Mantilles of the impending danger of an unidentified cosmic cloud approaching. The planet only had a little over 4 hours till impact, and warning them would result in planet-wide panic.
In 2270, McCoy was arrested when he visited Dramia again for the mass murder of the Dramia II colonists. When he was there he might have accidentally started a plague and he would then be guilty of the charge. They discovered that the source of the plague was traveling through the auroras the planet had. The cure, McCoy discovered was in the Saurian virus antibodies, the very virus McCoy had first been sent to combat on Dramia.
Nearing the end of their 5-year mission, McCoy discovered a vaccine for the deadly life prolongation project virus that had killed all adults on the planet, leaving the youth with impossibly long lifespans. He was unable to narrow down the correct size in dosage he decided, as he was just an old country doc in space to just “shoot from the hip.” He was correct and the vaccine was a success.
With his time done, he retired from Starfleet, grew a beard, and proclaimed he would never return to Starfleet.
Return to Starfleet
However, Starfleet was not done with him. In the mid-2270s, Fleet Admiral Nogura, using a "reserve activation clause" at the request of now Admiral James T. Kirk, reactivated McCoy's commission. Angry and belligerent, he refused to use the transporter until the other five crewmembers safely were transported. Upset at Kirk for ending his retirement, McCoy did calm down and served as the Enterprise's chief medical officer during the V'ger incident. He treated Spock after his attempt at mind-melding with Lt. Ilia who had become part of V’ger had overwhelmed him. The scans McCoy performed showed that Spock endured massive neurological trauma from the mind-meld. McCoy was interrupted by laughing, soft laughter coming from Spock, who had regained consciousness, saying he should have known. Afterward, he continued to serve with his shipmates aboard the newly refitted Enterprise.
Khan’s return and Project Genesis
McCoy was aboard the Enterprise during the training exercise that was diverted to Regula I after Starfleet received a call for help. Khan was back, intent on stealing the Genesis Device that Carol Marcus had created. He assisted in the rescue of the surviving scientists of Project Genesis and witnessed the results of her work. McCoy was in Engineering when Spock went to reactivate the ship’s warp drive. He objected because the room had been flooded with radiation that would kill anyone in there quickly. Spock used the Vulcan nerve pinch to incapacitate the Doctor but did something unexpected in this, he deposited his Vulcan katra, his soul, into McCoy. Spock saved everyone, and passed, leaving McCoy grieving along with his crewmates.
Returning to Earth, McCoy’s behavior became irregular and unlike him. He seemed to exhibit Spock like behaviors and a desire to travel to Vulcan. Then he was placed in protective custody as he had been attempting to find a way to travel back to the new Genesis planet. Sarek told Kirk about the Vulcan katra and they deduced that McCoy had part of Spock’s soul within him. The crew of the Enterprise, despite losing the ship thanks to rogue Klingons, managed to take a Klingon ship and rescue a revived Spock on the surface of the planet. The pair underwent the fal-tor-pan, an ancient, legendary Vulcan technique, which reunited the katra with Spock on Vulcan. En route, McCoy admitted to Spock that he had greatly missed his rival, and was afraid of possibly losing him once again.
Save the Whales, Save the Earth
Afterward, the crew faced a mountain of charges for saving Spock and was returning to Earth to face them. Before they could face them, a probe that had not received an answer to its signals, and because of this was intending to sterilize the planet. Spock discovered that the answer it sought was from an extinct species, the Humpback whales. Kirk planned to travel back into the 20th century, a plan which did not thrill McCoy, and take 2 whales into custody. During this mission, McCoy had to use a 20th-century hospital to save his crewmate Chekov’s life. He paused his efforts and saved an elderly woman suffering from kidney failure with 23rd-century means, and gave no mercy on his thoughts of 20th-century medical practices.
The tank that he helped design worked and the mission to save the planet with 2 whales was a success.
In 2293, the Enterprise was sent on a diplomatic mission to escort a Klingon envoy to Federation space for peace talks. During this escort, the Enterprise fired on the ship and an assassin killed the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon. Captain Kirk was blamed, with his son’s death at the hands of Klingons being the motive. McCoy’s lack of experience with Klingon physiology left him unable to save Gorkon after they boarded. Both Kirk and McCoy were found guilty and sentenced to a life sentence of hard labor on the penal asteroid Rura Penthe. Spock saved them and together they found who was actually behind the Khitomer conspiracy and in doing so prevented a second assassination. Their efforts safeguarded a conference that began the eighty-year era of peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
Seventy-one years after the Enterprise-A was decommissioned, the 137-year old Admiral Leonard McCoy inspected the medical layout of the USS Enterprise-D during its first mission. Assisted in his tour of the ship, he remarked to Lieutenant Commander Data, "You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."