What does the ritual involve ? <| sep |> Yeah you ' re probably right . We need to do something about this shit . <| sep |> You ' re at that age where it ' s normal for you to drift apart from old friends . There ' s nothing wrong with it . <| sep |> True , but Kirk was commanding the Enterprise in TMP II as an Admiral . He was demoted to Captain in IV . V . well , nobody can explain V . VI , I got the impression that Spock wasn ' t in the Enterprise chain of command . He was diplomatic staff being transported via the Enterprise . Although that ' s just headcanon . If he was still Enterprise XO , you ' d think Kirk would have noticed the latenight longdistance calls to Qo ' noS . Possibly Chekov was XO until Spock pulled rank when Kirk was arrested .