The Ni'Var was a Vulcan Template:ShipClass combat cruiser that was in service with the Vulcan High Command in the mid-22nd century. The vessel was commanded by Sopek.
In 2151, the Vulcan High Command sent the Ni'Var to transfer Subcommander T'Pol off of the Enterprise and back to Vulcan. This was due to her role in the destruction of the sacred Vulcan monastery of P'Jem. The Ni'Var sent a commando squad to Coridan after T'Pol and Jonathan Archer were captured. (ENT: "Shadows of P'Jem")
Background
Ni var was a term coined circa 1967 by linguist Dorothy Jones, who wrote the Dorothy and Myfanwy series of Star Trek stories for the fanzine T-Negative in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It literally means "two form" and was an art form practiced on Vulcan in which a subject was examined from two different viewpoints, or in terms of its having two different aspects or natures. Ni var poetry and art were printed in Spockanalia and various other fanzines, and the term (actually part of a sophisticated Vulcan language invented by Ms. Jones) caught on like wildfire in the Star Trek fan community.
"Ni Var" was also the name of a novella originally entitled The Thousandth Man by Claire Gabriel, which was cut down to short-story length for publication in the 1976 anthology The New Voyages (edited by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath). In the story, it was "a Vulcan term referring to the duality of things: two who are one, two diversities that are a unity, two halves that come together to make a whole" (from Leonard Nimoy's introduction to the short story, which did not credit Ms. Jones as the originator of the term). It was much more likely that the ship was named after this story, as Ms. Jones' Star Trek stories were never professionally published and have been largely forgotten.
According to episode co-writer Mike Sussman, the Ni'Var was in fact an homage to the short story published in The New Voyages. The authors of "Shadows of P'Jem" probably were not aware of the origins of the term.
The original novella by Gabriel was the final chapter of a six-part book which is now available for reading at Jacqueline Lichtenberg's website. Template:SuurokClassStarships