An incomplete kal-toh
A completed kal-toh
Kal-toh was a Vulcan game of intense strategy that could be played solitaire or by multiple individuals.
The object of kal-toh, as stated by Tuvok, was "not about striving for balance but about finding the seeds of order even in the midst of profound chaos." A kal-toh set consisted of a number of playing rods called t'an. Harry Kim rather described it as "The object of the game is to turn this jumble of rods into a perfect sphere", and that each player took turns to position pieces, the one managing to form the final intended shape winning. (VOY: "Alter Ego", "Riddles")
When Kim referred to kal-toh as "Vulcan chess", Tuvok commented that, "Kal-toh is to chess as chess is to tic-tac-toe." (VOY: "Alter Ego") Kim played several games with Tuvok, noting that it was surprisingly addictive for a game of pure logic, although he never managed to defeat Tuvok before Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant. (VOY: "Alter Ego", "The Omega Directive", "Riddles", "Endgame")
A common error among novice players was to place the t'an on opposite sides of the kal-toh attempting to introduce a spatial balance, a strategy that would most certainly fail. (VOY: "Alter Ego")
In the holoprogram created by The Doctor, EMH program 4C in 2373, the holograms of Socrates and T'Pau played kal-toh together. (VOY: "Darkling")
Tuvok, Icheb, and Kim often played a match of kal-toh together. Tuvok had been taking lessons from a master from age five. Icheb also was quite talented with the game, although Tuvok blamed Icheb's first victory over him on an early manifestation of his degenerative neurological condition. (VOY: "Alter Ego", "Endgame")
During a game played by Tuvok and Kim, Seven of Nine took a turn for Kim and beat Tuvok in one move, claiming she used elementary spatial harmonics to do so. (VOY: "The Omega Directive")
In 2399, Seven of Nine and Raffaela Musiker played kal-toh aboard La Sirena. (PIC: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2")
A kal-toh game was present in Lt. John Foster's quarters on the USS Titan in 2401. (PIC: "No Win Scenario")
In 2404 of an alternate timeline, Captain Kim kept a kal-toh game in his ready room aboard the USS Rhode Island. (VOY: "Endgame")
A completed game of kal-toh is in the shape of two nested icosidodecahedra connected by the center points of their edges.
A different game referred to as Vulcan chess was shown in TAS: "The Magicks of Megas-Tu".
External links[]
- Kal-toh at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works