It had taken a good portion of Sybok's trip to Earth to fill out the basic application that he had downloaded from the brochure which had requested pages upon pages of personal information from his medical history to what he liked to do in his free time, and included a number of preliminary aptitude tests which had to be performed in front of a witness. Fortunately for him, one of the members of the ship's crew who had initially been incredulous over his career choice had kindly agreed to be said witness.
Shortly before the ship was due to arrive on Earth, the application had been sent to the Starfleet Academy, and confirmation of its receipt had been received. He was scheduled to meet with a representative of the Academy two days after his arrival.
After two days in which boredom set in since he had nothing worthwhile to do as the application had already been sent and the human passengers had appeared uncomfortable when he'd attempted to join in on their leisure activities, the ship had finally arrived at Earth. After what felt like an interminable wait, he debarked with his fellow passengers, and boarded a shuttle which took them to Customs in the portion of San Francisco which had originally been the city of Pleasant Hill if his brief studies on the history of the city which had expanded over the centuries until it had reached the former state capitol of Sacramento had been correct.
He hadn't known what to expect when he'd finally left Customs and made his way out into the city to find temporary lodgings. He'd heard that the sky of Earth was blue, but that apparently was not the case, as when he looked up upon setting foot out of the front door of the sprawling complex, he had found it to be a rather ominous shade of gray. As he stood there wondering about the physiological differences between his species and that native to this planet that had the humans perceiving this shade of gray to be blue, and pondering over the mystery of the outside being colder than the indoors during daylight hours he felt what felt like a drop of water hit his nose.
As he stood there contemplating this development, he was hit by several more drops of water. He'd heard that the Humans had a propensity for pulling what they called practical jokes. Was this one of them?
As Sybok was getting his first experience of rain, his father was sitting in his office contemplating the message he'd just sent concerning said Vulcan. He'd washed his hands of his eldest two weeks before when the young man had attempted to steal his mother's Katra for some reason which somehow involved Sha Ka Ree and a divine creator. Sybok was now no longer welcome on Vulcan, and any offspring he may have would have to go through a thorough vetting process before they would be allowed to so much as set one toe on the soil of that world.
As the reasons for Sybok's exile were meant to be kept private, he could not divulge them to Starfleet who had come asking him questions since his son had applied to their academy for some strange reason. It was with some serious misgivings that he had sent a message to the Commandant of the academy telling him that there weren't any outstanding problems with his offspring. From the eager look on the woman's face at the prospect of having a Vulcan recruit, he had a feeling that she wouldn't question him further about the boy who was as good as enlisted as far as the higher-ups were concerned.
He would not be telling Spock who had idolized his older brother far too much or his wife who would end up letting something slip anything about where Sybok had gone. As far as they would be concerned, he had hared off for parts unknown, and was most definitely not further shaming the family and ruining their reputation by enlisting in an organization that could be considered military considering the fact that the ships they flew were armed, and the recruits were trained in the use of weapons for purposes that weren't strictly ceremonial.