But, anyway you squint at it, most assumptions about Captain Kirk, or even non-canon stories depicted in the past, have always suggested he did captain at least one ship prior to the Enterprise. Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhura, and Chapel, all together, on the bridge of a starship, for the first time. Years later, of course, Kirk would flip this dynamic: a human captain, himself, with a Vulcan first officer, Spock. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Paramount+.