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Khan Noonien Singh (alternate reality)

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Khan Noonien Singh (or simply Khan ) was the most prominent of the genetically-engineered Human Augments of the late- 20th century Eugenics Wars period on Earth . Many Augments were genocidal tyrants who conquered and killed in the name of order, with Khan and his kind being frozen in cryogenic sleep.

In the 23rd century , Khan was revived by Admiral Alexander Marcus to design weapons and ships to prepare for war against the Klingon Empire . He was given a new identity, that of John Harrison , an English Starfleet commander . Khan, however, rebelled, and after believing his crew had been killed, he began a one-man campaign against Starfleet. His crew of augments remained frozen and Khan struggled to save them during his campaign. After gaining his revenge on Admiral Marcus, he was later stopped by the crew of the USS Enterprise and returned to cryogenic sleep with his crew.

• 1.1 20th century origins
• 1.2 21st century temporal changes
• 1.3 23rd century return
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Background information
• 3.2 Apocrypha
• 3.3 Reception
• 3.4 External link

Biography [ ]

20th century origins [ ].

One of the few historic pictures of Khan from the 1990s

Records of the period, including Khan's origins, are vague. Khan was born, or created in 1959 . ( Star Trek Into Darkness ) He was the product of a selective breeding or genetic engineering program called Project Khan , based on the eugenic philosophy that held improving the capabilities of a man improved the entire Human race. Augments produced by the program possessed physical strength and analytical capabilities considerably superior to ordinary Humans, and were created from a variety of Earth's ethnic groups. Khan's background was suspected by McGivers to be Sikh , from the northern region of India . ( PIC : " Farewell "; TOS : " Space Seed ")

Khan lived up to the axiom coined by one of his creators, "superior ability breeds superior ambition". By 1993 , a wave of the genetic "supermen," including Khan, had simultaneously assumed control of more than forty of Earth's nations. From 1992 to 1996 , Khan was absolute ruler of more than one-quarter of Earth's population, including regions of Asia and the Middle East . Considered "the best of tyrants "; Khan's reign was considered the most benevolent. His regime was free of much of the problems that plagued Earth history of that era – as Khan was never known for engaging in massacres, genocide or wars of aggression. However, the citizens of his regime enjoyed little freedom. Khan had little, if any, respect for individual liberty, which was also a key issue for Earth history. As such, personal initiative and financial investment were low, and scientific progress suffered as a result.

Khan aboard the Botany Bay

In the mid- 1990s , the Augment tyrants began warring among themselves. Other nations joined in, to force them from power , in a series of struggles that became known as the Eugenics Wars . Eventually, most of the tyrants were defeated and their territory recaptured, but up to ninety "supermen" were never accounted for.

Khan escaped the wars and their consequences along with eighty-four followers, who swore to live and die at his command. He saw his best option in a risky, self-imposed exile. In 1996 , he took control of a DY-100-class interplanetary sleeper ship he christened SS Botany Bay , named for the site of the Australian penal colony . Set on a course outbound from the solar system but with no apparent destination in mind, Khan and his people remained in suspended animation for Botany Bay 's centuries-long sublight journey. ( TOS : " Space Seed "; Star Trek Into Darkness )

21st century temporal changes [ ]

Khan as a child in 2022

Due to the changes caused in the timeline as a result of various Temporal Wars , the original events concerning the rise of Singh were pushed back, and events reinserted themselves at a later date in the timeline. According to Romulan temporal agent Sera , in a revised 2022 timeline, " And all this was supposed to happen back in 1992, and I've been trapped here for 30 years trying to get my shot at [Khan]. "

The Khan of this era lived in Toronto , Ontario , Canada , at the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement .

As a child in the revised timeline, he witnessed La'an Noonien-Singh shoot and wound Sera, his would-be assassin . La'an entered Khan's room and found her infamous ancestor cowering behind his bed. When Khan asked if she was going to kill him, she looked at the gun and sat it on the desk next to the bed. La'an assured him that she would not hurt him, as she proceeded to wipe Romulan blood from his face. Curious, La'an asked if he was alone, or if there were others like him. Khan gestured to a photograph on the wall of himself and six other children. He then asked if she was going to take him away. La'an told him that it may not make sense to him, then or maybe ever, but he was where he needed to be. She walked to the entrance of the room, activated the temporal transporter device in front of Khan, and returned to her own time period.

Khan’s legacy in the altered timeline was a history of torture, genocide, and his descendants.

In an alternate timeline , which was created from the revised timeline, Sera successfully assassinated Khan by blowing up a nearby fusion reactor (also destroying Toronto ) after a Federation Department of Temporal Investigations agent was shot and failed to protect Khan. As a result, a dark future for Humanity emerged in which Earth was nearly uninhabitable, Starfleet and Federation never formed, and the Romulan Star Empire was the dominant force of the region.

This timeline was averted after Khan's descendant, La'an, encountered the temporal agent aboard the USS Enterprise who directed her to return to the past, and with the help of James Kirk , from the, now, alternate timeline. The two time traveled to the past and La'an stopped Khan's assassination and restored the timeline to as she knew it. ( SNW : " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ")

23rd century return [ ]

Khan's false ID "John Harrison"

Following the destruction of Vulcan in 2258 , Admiral Alexander Marcus of Section 31 initiated a program to militarize Starfleet and began searching the galaxy for weapons to be used in the war with the Klingon Empire that he now believed was inevitable. Soon after, he discovered the SS Botany Bay adrift.

Despite knowing Khan's history, Marcus decided to bring him out of cryogenic suspension, believing his savagery and superior intellect would be prime assets to his cause. Having his voice and physical appearance heavily altered, Khan was reawakened and recruited under the identity of Section 31 agent, "John Harrison". Marcus forced Khan into working with him by threatening to kill his fellow Augments, and set him to work designing weapons and ships for Starfleet, including the Dreadnought -class USS Vengeance .

Disgruntled, Khan tried to smuggle his crew away in advanced long-range torpedoes but was discovered and forced to flee alone. Believing Marcus had killed his crew, he coerced Section 31 agent Thomas Harewood into betraying Starfleet by offering a blood transfusion for Harewood's terminally-ill daughter . Harewood agreed, and Khan replaced his Starfleet Academy ring with a bomb .

After his daughter was cured with a vial of Khan's blood and its regenerative platelets , Harewood went to work at his office in the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London , where he dropped the false Starfleet ring into a glass of water, igniting the bomb and destroying the facility. In the midst of the chaos, Khan used the opportunity to inspect a salvaged terminal to gain the confiscated formula for transwarp beaming .

Harrison piloting Jumpship 208

Before he set off the explosion, Harewood sent Marcus a message, explaining he had been threatened by Khan. Knowing that Marcus would call an emergency meeting in the light of the bombing, Khan rigged a combat efficient jumpship with a portable transwarp beaming device and headed to the Daystrom Conference Room . As the conference was underway, Khan appeared and laid waste to the conference, killing Admiral Pike , Captain Abbott and many other high ranking Starfleet officers. James T. Kirk disabled the jumpship , but Khan beamed himself away before it crashed. He arrived in the one place Starfleet could not go: Qo'noS , the Klingon homeworld.

"John Harrison" reveals himself on Qo'noS

Undeterred, Kirk was granted permission by Marcus to travel to Qo'noS and fire 72 experimental photon torpedoes on Khan's location. However, at the behest of his crew, Kirk chose to defy his orders and opted to arrest Khan instead. While Kirk led an away team with Spock , Uhura , and Hendorff , acting captain Sulu transmitted a message to Khan, warning him to surrender or be destroyed by the newly designed shipboard torpedoes.

Suspecting the newly designed torpedoes were the very torpedoes he smuggled his crew into, Khan sought out the away team to confirm. Khan found Kirk, Spock, and Uhura being attacked by a Klingon patrol and single-handedly killed dozens of Klingons . Confronting the landing party , Khan asked how many torpedoes the USS Enterprise had on board. Spock informed him of the count, which corresponded exactly to the number of his former crew members which were still in stasis. Khan then surrendered to the landing party. Kirk, angry that his mentor's murderer had saved them, punched Khan repeatedly but was unable to render him unconscious.

Khan in custody

From the brig , Leonard McCoy took a blood sample to analyze the secret behind Khan's superhuman strength and abilities and injected it into a dead tribble . Khan refused to answer Kirk's questions; he instead gave him coordinates to the spacedock near Jupiter where the Vengeance was constructed, and suggested he open one of the experimental torpedoes.

Kirk gave the coordinates for the absent Montgomery Scott to investigate, while McCoy and Marcus's daughter Carol opened up a torpedo and discovered a cryogenically frozen man within and realized that he was 300 years old. Khan finally explained who he was to Kirk, and revealed that the torpedoes contained his fellow surviving Augments as part of a cover-up.

Marcus appeared in the Vengeance and demanded Kirk hand over Khan. Kirk refused, and the Enterprise warped back to Earth with the intent of putting Khan on trial, which would certainly expose Marcus in the conspiracy. As Khan predicted, Vengeance caught up in subspace and fired on the Enterprise as it arrived outside Earth.

Kirk and Khan team up

Marcus beamed his daughter over to the Vengeance and prepared to destroy the Enterprise but Scott, who had snuck aboard the Vengeance at its spacedock, deactivated its weapons. Kirk and Khan donned thruster suits to fly over and commandeer the Vengeance .

Meanwhile, Spock consulted his older counterpart from another timeline regarding whether he ever encountered Khan Noonien Singh : the old Spock responded he had, that he was dangerous, and that it had required a great sacrifice to stop him. Kirk had also grown suspicious of Khan and advised Scott to stun him after they had taken over the bridge of the Vengeance .

When they arrived on the bridge, Scott stunned Khan while Kirk admonished Marcus for compromising the Federation. However, Scott's phaser stun only temporarily subdued Khan, who quickly recovered and flung himself at Scott and Kirk, overpowered them, then stomping upon Carol's leg. Khan then used his bare hands to crush Marcus's skull, extracting revenge on his once tormentor.

Khan then sat in the command chair and ordered Spock to hand over the torpedoes or he would kill Kirk and resume bombarding the Enterprise . Spock obliged, and Khan beamed Kirk, Scott and Carol back into the Enterprise 's brig, but reneged on the deal. Spock, having predicted Khan's betrayal, had ordered McCoy to remove the stasis pods and detonated the torpedoes after they were beamed over, crippling the Vengeance before she could destroy the Enterprise . Khan cried out in anguish at the apparent loss of his crew.

Khan sets the Vengeance on a course with the heart of Starfleet

The damage sustained caused both ships to be drawn by Earth's gravitational pull. To prevent the ship crashing into western North America, Kirk sacrificed himself reactivating the ship's warp core . Khan, on the other hand, directed the Vengeance on a crash course for Starfleet Headquarters , though the computer could not guarantee that Khan would make it.

The Vengeance slammed into the old prison on Alcatraz Island, careened across San Francisco Bay , and then plowed into several buildings, demolishing several skyscrapers. When the Vengeance crashed into the city, Khan leapt off the bridge and posed as a shocked survivor. Spock beamed down to execute Khan and avenge Kirk's death, pursuing him onto automated flying barges. In the Enterprise 's medbay , McCoy had just examined Kirk's body when the dead tribble on his desk came back to life.

Khan in stasis following his defeat

The fight took the two combatants on to two automated barges. Spock had the advantage of creativity, and extensive knowledge of martial arts, but Khan had the superior advantages of superhuman strength, speed, thought and durability. Spock attempted to subdue Khan with a nerve pinch but Khan managed to overcome the pain.

As Khan attempted to use his bare hands to crush Spock's skull, Spock managed to counter it with a mind meld . Near the end of the melee, with Spock again in Khan's cranial crushing lock, Uhura beamed down and fired several stun shots to distract Khan. Spock tore a piece of metal from the barge and broke Khan's arm. Spock started repeatedly pummeling Khan, coming very close to killing him, Fortunately, Uhura revealed Khan's blood could save Kirk, and Spock just knocked him out.

After his blood was used to revive Kirk, Khan was placed back in suspended animation with his crew from the Botany Bay . ( Star Trek Into Darkness )

The geneticist Arik Soong believed Augments like Khan could be created without exhibiting his more vicious, psychopathic or megalomaniacal instincts. Soong's "children", created from Augment embryos stolen in 2134 , failed to live up to the hopes of their "father". Soong believed Khan and the Botany Bay to be nothing more than a myth, although his "children" believed differently. ( ENT : " Borderland ", " The Augments ")

Memorable quotes [ ]

" I can save her. " " What did you say? " " Your daughter, I can save her. "

" Captain, are you going to punch me again, over and over, until your arm weakens? Clearly you want to. "

" John Harrison was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause. A smoke screen to conceal my true identity. My name… is Khan . "

" Why would a Starfleet Admiral ask a three-hundred year-old frozen man for help? " " Because I am better. " " At what? " " Everything. "

" Alexander Marcus needed to respond to an uncivilized threat in a civilized time, and for that, he needed a warrior's mind – my mind – to design weapons and warships. " " You are suggesting the Admiral violated every regulation he vowed to uphold, simply because he wanted to exploit your intellect. " " He wanted to exploit my savagery! Intellect alone is useless in a fight, Mr. Spock. You, you can't even break a rule; how can you be expected to break bone? "

" My crew… is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do… for your family?"

" You… You should have let me sleep! "

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Bringing back Khan Noonien Singh was discussed before the release of Star Trek ; on the film's audio commentary , it is stated the filmmakers considered having a shot of the SS Botany Bay after the credits, but opted out in case they decided not to use the character. Director J.J. Abrams said, " It'll be fun to hear what Alex and Bob are thinking about Khan. The fun of this timeline is arguing that different stories, with the same characters, could be equally if not more compelling than what's been told before […] Certain people are destined to cross paths and come together, and Khan is out there… even if he doesn't have the same issues. " [1]

Co-writer Damon Lindelof said the jumping-off point for the sequel's story was deciding whether Khan would be the villain, and he, Kurtzman and Orci weighed the pros and cons of using the character. [2] Abrams commented that, in comparison to Nero from Star Trek , the writers wanted "a much more nuanced and complex villain" for Into Darkness . ( Cinefex , No. 134, p. 72) Due to the massive popularity of how Khan had been represented before, however, "there was a good year of debate," explained Alex Kurtzman, over whether to include Khan in the upcoming movie. With a laugh, Orci phrased this issue, " To Khan or not to Khan. " Kurtzman observed, " The choice to play in that sandbox is really complicated because when a character was as beloved as Khan, you really have to have a reason to do it. " [3] During the debate, Lindelof wanted to use Khan, while Orci was against this option.

The filmmakers found a compromise by developing a story that would not entail Khan, and then determining if he could be "reverse engineered" into it. [4] Stated Kurtzman, " If we could take that [tale] and then incorporate Khan into the mix in a way that felt reverent and appropriate for that story, we would do it. Without that standard, we wouldn't […] We all loved the 'Space Seed' back story, the idea that he was a man who loved his crew as his family – that was the understandable and relatable agenda. And then we built outward from there. " [5] Eventually, Orci felt " the details became too juicy to avoid. Genetic super man from a time that understood war and savagery, etc. Once we had a basic structure that did not necessarily necessitate him, we were able to tailor the script itself to details and inspirations that he brought. " [6] Lindelof added the story-line avoided " The audience [knowing] something the bridge crew did not, which was 'Whatever you do, don’t wake that dude up.' So we didn't want to put the bridge crew behind the audience in terms of what they knew about Trek . " [7]

Khan's undercover name was inspired by his name in an early draft of the script for " Space Seed ", John Ericssen. Orci said, " We shot the movie using the name Ericsenn [sic] but decided it would give it away[,] so we cheated the name Harrison into everyone's mouth! " [8] According to John Eaves , the character's production code-name was April , another character Orci said he had considered as a villain. [9] [10] Once they chose to bring Khan into their film, the screenwriters were not necessarily eager to additionally incorporate a moment when the character's name is shouted in anger, as happens in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , because they considered it vital that such a reaction be a natural and realistic one. [11]

Khan was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch . Before he was cast, Abrams approached Benicio del Toro for the role. [12] There were some complaints, particuarly from the Sikh community, over casting a white actor for a role of a Indian Sikh. [13] [14] [15] Orci said they shied away from casting an Asian actor as Khan because " it became uncomfortable for me to support demonizing anyone of color, particularly any one of middle eastern descent or anyone evoking that. One of the points of the movie is that we must be careful about the villain within US, not some other race. " He also stated the "true essence" of Khan's character was "that he was a genetically engineered superman," "not where he was from or the color of his skin." [16] In response to a question asking whether Khan's appearance was "cosmetically altered to avoid detection," Orci said that the theory was an "interesting idea. Could be." [17] Also, in answer to a question about Khan's change in features, Orci stated, " Uhm… one of his abilities is that he is a shape shifter? " [18]

Cumberbatch commented the role was "daunting because of the legacy involved and the amount of speculation about [Khan] possibly being the villain." ( Empire issue 289, p. 23) Lindelof said of writing for Cumberbatch that " when you can get [a] monologue to come out of [his] mouth, does the 'writing' even matter? I mean, seriously, I made that guy say 'Milk, milk lemonade, and this is where the fudge is made' and it scared the living shit out of me. " [19]

Cumberbatch was cast two weeks before filming. Mary L. Mastro , head of the film's hair department, wanted Khan to have black hair to contrast with the blond Kirk. She recalled, " JJ called a meeting with the creators involved in what he was going to look like and [Cumberbatch] walks into the room with super-short blond hair. My mouth dropped open, like, 'Oh, great.' " The schedule was altered slightly to give more time to determine Cumberbatch's appearance in the film. [20] The filmmakers considered giving Cumberbatch a shoulder-length wig, but Abrams felt he looked better without it. ( Star Trek Into Darkness iTunes enhanced commentary) Costume Designer Michael Kaplan wanted Khan to be "dapper," giving him " a number of very long, elegant coats. It's nice, even in the distance, to be able to recognise a character right away. He's pretty high fashion-looking. "

Cumberbatch trained one-to-one with his stunt double, Martin De Boer , learning basic martial arts. De Boer described Cumberbatch as "'very receptive to learning. I've had actors who want to be an action star but don't want to put in the work, and he was the opposite, he said, "'I want to train as much as I can.' He was very committed. Besides working with us, he was working with his personal trainer five, six days a week; he really got in shape." De Boer said that, because of Khan's strength, Cumberbatch "wanted to have more static and powerful movements. That strength changes the rules of the martial arts we use. You don't have to do five punches, you just have to use a couple of moves and he takes out the guy already." [21]

Bad Robot Productions went to great lengths to hide Khan's identity, even screening the space jump scene to the press with life sign readouts displayed as "Harrison" and Spock's lines referring to Khan overdubbed to refer to Harrison. Bryan Burk defended the strategy, stating, " Even if you don't even know who Khan is, you know that you're watching a film where for forty-five minutes or an hour of the movie you are ahead of the characters. So you're just kind of waiting for them to catch up with what you already know, that he is not who he says he is. " [22] Cumberbatch said the secrecy was fine for him, though Alice Eve did tease him, saying, " The lies, Benedict, the lies! " Recalling times when he had sneaked into screenings to see the audience's reaction to Khan revealing himself, Cumberbatch remarked that "to have that moment – that's worth any amount of subterfuge or holding back on reveals." ( Empire issue 289, p. 23)

The creative staff were ultimately very pleased with how Khan is depicted in Into Darkness . " Ultimately, I think we felt that we found a reason and a way to do it that was all of the things we needed it to be, and yet really different, " voiced Kurtzman. "I think the mistake that we could have made, that we didn't want to make, was to do a version of what Ricardo Montalban had done so brilliantly, and then fall short of that […] There are things about Khan that are very familiar, and there are things that are entirely different, and that's exactly what we wanted to do. " [23]

However, Abrams voiced regret over keeping Khan's identity a secret. " The truth is I think it probably would have been smarter just to say upfront 'This is who it is.' It was only trying to preserve the fun of it, and it might have given more time to acclimate and accept that's what the thing was, " he said. He added that hiding Khan's presence was mandated by the studio, who did not want to alienate non- Star Trek fans with the impression they had to learn about who Khan was to enjoy the film. Abrams agreed with that notion but " wonder[ed] if it would have seemed a little bit less like an attempt at deception if we had just come out with it. " [24] Responding to Burk's comment that it might have hurt the film if the audience knew Harrison was Khan before Kirk did, Abrams added "the truth is it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference in that regard." [25]

When asked if Cumberbatch could reprise the role, Lindelof replied, " To answer that question would be to determine whether or not he actually survives this movie, but if he survives this movie, we would be incredibly stupid to not use him again. " [26] As to whether Khan's blood could disrupt dramatic tension in the next film, Orci said they "figured there are so many horrible ways to die in space that no medicine could save you from that we would be okay." [27]

In the Star Trek Encyclopedia  (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 411), the authors considered it possible that the red matter -created black hole caused differences in the past from the Prime Timeline. On page 414 of volume 1, this is the information on the Khan of " Space Seed " and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan :

• Brilliant, charismatic, and extremely aggressive, Khan was a genetically engineered human who attempted to gain control of the entire planet Earth in the 1990s during the Eugenics Wars. From 1992 to 1996, Khan was absolute ruler of more than a quarter of Earth, from South Asia through the Middle East. He was the last of the tyrants to be overthrown. Khan escaped in 1996 aboard the sleeper ship S.S. Botany Bay .

On the following page, this is the information on the Khan of Star Trek: Into Darkness:

• In the Kelvin Timeline, Khan Noonien Singh was the brilliant, ruthless leader of a group of genetically engineered humans, or Augments, who nearly conquered Earth during the 20th-century Eugenics Wars. Khan attempted to commit genocide of those whom he deemed inferior, that is, most of Earth's population. Khan and his people were condemned as criminals, placed into cryogenic sleep in cryo tubes , and exiled aboard a ship sent into space.

Apocrypha [ ]

Cumberbatch also portrayed Khan/Harrison in three "Disruptions" videos to promote the film, in which he analyzes Kirk, Spock, and Uhura's weaknesses and declares he will threaten them. [28]

According to his biography on the Star Trek movie app, "John Harrison" was born in 2228 in Dover , Great Britain , Earth to Richard and Sara Harrison. Harrison was one of nine survivors of the attack on the colony on Tarsus IV in 2246 , and both of his parents were killed in the attack. He graduated from the London School of Economics in 2250 .

After graduating, he was appointed associate researcher, Starfleet Data Archive (London), East Annex in 2255. He was tasked with collection, organization and analysis of declassified data received from Starfleet-commissioned starships and from Federation member states.

The 2013 virtual collectible card battle game Star Trek: Rivals uses two cards showing Khan: #105, titled Commander J. Harrison, and card #111, titled Human Augment Khan.

Khan, undergoing reconstructive surgery

The comic book series Star Trek: Khan begins after Khan's capture and him being brought to trial before the Federation Court and establishing his history subsequent to the divergence of the timeline but prior to his encounter with the Enterprise . The Section 31 starship USS Vanguard discovered the Botany Bay drifting in space and take custody of Khan. Quickly using their databanks to determine his identity prior to awakening him, Admiral Marcus orders that Khan's face and voice be reconstructed from their Indian origins to a more northern European origin and has his memory blocked with the intent of convincing Khan that he is John Harrison, a Starfleet researcher in London's Kelvin Memorial Archive who lost his memories in an accident during a failed mission to Qo'noS.

He is given the task of helping advise Section 31 on possible enhancements to Starfleet weapon, shield and propulsion technology (which is to be incorporated aboard the USS Vengeance ) as well as taking on a mission to destroy Praxis with the help of a portable transporter he designed and built. The mission is a success (explaining the destroyed moon seen in orbit of the Klingon homeworld in the film), but in the process, Khan rediscovers his memories of his true identity.

Discovering that his crew is being held in the London facility and forging transmissions from Marcus, Khan is able to load his crew into the long-range torpedoes with the intent of stealing a starship with them aboard, but before departing, Khan invades Marcus' home and demanded to know the truth before planning to kill him. The admiral, planning for Khan's rediscovery, has him targeted by a jumpship outside the window, forcing Khan to flee. His plan, now circumvented, forces him to coerce Thomas Harewood into destroying the London facility and set the events of the film into motion.

Star Trek: Khan also establishes that he was originally an ordinary Indian boy named Noonien Singh and was an orphan living in an impoverished New Delhi slum. In 1972, he was captured, along with other impoverished children, and taken to a research facility to be a test subject for genetic engineering experiments. In August 1985, as a young man, he escaped from the research facility, along with the other genetically engineered test subjects, and began a rebellion. He later gives himself the title of "Khan", out of admiration for historical Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan , naming himself "Khan Noonien Singh".

By the end of series however, doubt is cast about how much of the events depicted in Khan's backstory is in fact truthful. Given the fact that his backstory is mostly only conveyed through what Khan tells the Court, Kirk points out that it is entirely within Khan's best interests to paint an overall sympathetic story of himself rather than simply disclosing a factual retelling of his actual past. Khan was then placed back into stasis, with Kirk noting that despite everything, Khan had managed to get exactly what he wanted.

In the second issue of the Star Trek: Ongoing story arc The Khitomer Conflict , it was established that Khan and the other Augments were stored at a top-secret facility on an asteroid , with the location of the facility highly classified to the point that even Kirk himself didn't know where they were held.

Khan's female counterpart

Like the rest of the characters in the parallel universe of Parallel Lives, Part 1 and Part 2 , he has a female counterpart ( β ).

Khan as a Red Lantern

Khan returned in the comic crossover mini-series Star Trek - Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds , where he serves as one of the primary antagonists. In 2262 , the Red Lantern Atrocitus needed to find a source of rage to recharge his Power Ring and his journey lead to him to discover the asteroid facility where Khan and the other Augments were locked away. He then broke into the facility and begun freeing them, including Khan. However, Khan overpowered the alien and knocked him out while also taking possession of his ring. Before he could slay his foe, he was confronted by Green Lanterns Kilowog , Guy Gardner and John Stewart . After Gardner revealed that the ring was loyal only to Atrocitus, Khan crushed the alien with his foot and he became the ring's new bearer, using his rage to easily defeat his new foes. After explaining his new appearance to his troops, Khan led his men to seize control of the USS Bryant where he once again encountered Kirk and Spock. Though Hal Jordan tried to fight Khan, the Augment managed to best him as well, but his boasting left him open to an attack from the other Lanterns and a photon torpedo barrage from the Enterprise . Defeated, Khan used his ring to recharge the Bryant and make his escape. Making his way to Qo'noS, Khan overthrew Orange Lantern Larfleeze and bargained with the Klingon High Council to aid him in attaining the power of the planet Oa and use it to conquer the Federation. Using his ring to supercharge the Klingon warships, Khan followed Kirk to Oa, only for the captain to be chosen by a Green Lantern Power Ring before the Augment could slay his foe. As the fighting intensified, the Augments were all defeated, depriving Khan of his power. Though he attempted to goad Kirk into slaying him, Kirk stuck to his morals and simply knocked Khan out and returned him to prison while Khan's ring was seized by the Enterprise crew for study.

Reception [ ]

Entertainment Weekly saw parallels between the new Khan and figures such as Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein , as both men were allied with the US before turning on them. [29] Simon Pegg commented " Iraq had nothing proven to do with 9/11 , and yet Bush used that as an excuse to start a war with those people. You can always see the Klingons as like Iraq and John Harrison the proxy for Osama bin Laden. " [30]

Lindelof further acknowledged the terrorism parallels in an interview with StarTrek.com , as Khan's 72 torpedoes reminded them of the notion of 72 virgins in paradise. Lindelof responded " Of course it is a coincidence, because that is a number taken from canon. It was pointed out to us at the scripting phase – the 72 virgins – and that actually gave us pause, because we didn't want people drawing that comparison… but there it is. " [31]

The New Yorker also saw parallels between the debate to execute or arrest Khan with that of the issue of targeted killing . [32]

External link [ ]

• Khan Noonien Singh (Kelvin timeline) at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Who is Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek?

Star Trek is a 60-year saga known for its gorgeous starships and equally gorgeous heroes but Khan Noonien Singh is the series' most important villain.

The galaxy far, far away has Darth Vader, the Emperor, Grand Admiral Thrawn and a host of other iconic baddies. Yet, Star Trek and the galaxy right, right here isn't as focused on individual villains that way. However, if the universe created by Gene Roddenberry has a single, identifiable villain it's a 20th Century human who found himself in the future. Khan Noonien Singh is an important villain in Star Trek , and those who don't already know his story are in for an incredible adventure. The character has a long history in the nearly 60-year-old saga, and he remains important to its past and future.

Originally appearing in the Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 episode, "Space Seed," the character was conceived as a Viking-style character. Roddenberry, however, wanted to subvert the audience expectations of the 1960s by changing that background. The character was named Khan Noonien Singh, in part because Roddenberry hoped a similarly-named acquaintance from World War II would see it and seek him out. (Alas, he never did.) The character was conceived as an actor of West Asian heritage, but the only actor they could convincingly cast to play the futuristic super man was Ricardo Montalban. In 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness, Benedict Cumberbatch was cast to play Khan Noonien Singh, despite him looking more "Viking" than West Asian. While "Space Seed" is an iconic Star Trek: TOS episode, it wasn't until his return in 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan written and directed by Nicholas Meyer. Not only did this revitalize the character, but the film reenergized the entire Star Trek franchise after The Motion Picture failed to spark joy in the hearts of Trekkers.

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Who Is Khan Noonien Singh In the Star Trek Canon?

The "Space Seed" episode revealed two things about the Star Trek universe. It revealed the "Eugenics Wars," which involved Khan Noonien Singh. Khan, among others, were genetically engineered to be "perfect" humans. The episode also revealed that as a result of these wars the "records" of that time were mostly lost to Starfleet. Still, Spock told Captain Kirk Kahn ascended into power in 1992 and was defeated in 1996 (30 years from the show's real-world present-day). Khan and 96 of his fellow genetic augments were put into a kind of stasis and sent off into space, where they drifted until the USS Enterprise found the vessel and awakened them. A historian on the Enterprise, Marla McGivers, was charmed by Khan and, almost, helped him take over the ship. Once Kirk and company retook the vessel, he allowed Khan, McGivers and his people to settle on Ceti Alpha V to build a new life for themselves.

In the beginning of The Wrath of Khan , Pavel Chekov (a character not added to The Original Series until Season 2) landed on what they believed was Ceti Alpha VI. They soon found Khan and what remained of his people, because the planet had "shifted" its orbit after a cataclysm. Kahn captured Chekov's ship, the USS Reliant, and used it to take possession of the Genesis Device. Created by Kirk's former partner Carol Marcus and Kirk's son David, it could take a lifeless world and make it teeming with life in hours. Khan wanted to use it as a weapon, but he also wanted to visit vengeance on Kirk. At the end of the film, he's defeated and famously quotes Moby Dick before he uses the Genesis Device to destroy his own ship. "From Hell's heart I stab at thee," he says, "for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."

In Strange New Worlds Season 2, Khan's descendant, La'an Noonien Singh , was sent back in time to the early 21st Century to stop a cataclysm. In Star Trek: Voyager , the crew was sent back to 1996, but instead of a Eugenics War-ravaged landscape, they found the dawn of the internet age. This was established as the "fault" of another time-travel accident. When La'an arrived in her past, she encountered Sera, a Romulan agent from the "Temporal Wars." She was sent back to 1992 to kill Khan in order to prevent the Federation and Starfleet from ever existing. Yet, because of the other time-shenanigans, Khan wasn't born until the 21st Century. "Time pushes back," she told La'an, implying that "canon events" aren't just limited to the Spider-Verse.

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Why Khan Noonien Singh Is So Important to Star Trek Fans and Storytellers

Khan Noonien Singh remains important to the larger Star Trek story because of what he represents about the universe's past. The Eugenics Wars, now set in the mid-21st Century also coincided with "World War III," the cataclysm from which Star Trek 's ideal future emerged. In Star Trek: First Contact , the crew of the USS Enterprise-E are sent back to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes the first warp-drive flight, causing the Vulcans to visit Earth. Khan represents the personification of the worst of humanity. Notions of superiority, violence and authoritarianism are the main impediments, Roddenberry believed, to the idyllic future humanity was capable of achieving.

His many returns, from "Space Seed" in Star Trek: The Original Series to The Wrath of Khan are a warning that these human foibles, like Star Wars ' Palpatine , will somehow return if people aren't careful. Yet, Khan didn't just help create the universe in the narrative. After The Motion Picture , fans hoped for a return to the type of storytelling Star Trek: TOS was known for. Nicholas Meyer delivered a film that felt a bit like an episode of the show on a grander scale. Yet, it also kicked off a run of four more movies that helped cement Star Trek as an enduring franchise. Fans were enamored by the film and its sequels. Even when he's not present, he influences the story. Star Trek: Picard Season 3 thematically echoed the "trilogy" that started with The Wrath of Khan through Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home .

Khan is a genetically altered super man who was so cruel, violent and despotic he almost destroyed the planet. Yet, like most real-world villains, the actual Khan was charming, seemingly measured. Ricardo Montalban infused the character with gravitas and even humor, along with his impressive bare chest (which was not a prosthetic in the movie). If the heroes of Star Trek represent the best of humanity, Khan represents the worst of it. Heroes are defined by their villains, and any hero that can take out a guy like Khan Noonien Singh is an impressive one indeed.

'Star Trek: Khan' Finally Answers Why Benedict Cumberbatch Was So White In 'Darkness'

Way back in May, when it was finally revealed that Benedict Cumberbatch would be playing the villainous Khan Noonien Singh in " Star Trek Into Darkness ," fans cried foul.

The character was first played by Mexico-born Ricardo Montalban in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," as well as back on the original "Star Trek" TV show. Now, long after the cries of "whitewashing" have died down to a whimper, a new in-canon comic book released this week seeks to explain just how Khan went from Latino, to very, very Caucasian.

"Star Trek: Khan #1," released in comic-book stores Wednesday by IDW Comics, takes place right before the end of "Star Trek Into Darkness," specifically between the scene where Kirk wakes up in the hospital after "dying," and Cumberbatch's Khan is shown to be cryogenically re-frozen. The comic kicks off at the trial of Khan, with Starfleet officers showing off a picture of Montalban's Khan and asking why Cumberkhan "looks nothing like him." Khan then jumps into his backstory, in order to reveal the truth.

That's when Khan's ethnicity gets even more confusing, and writer Mike Johnson (along with "Star Trek" movie writer and story consultant on the comic Roberto Orci) pay homage not just to the movies and original series, but also Khan's original conception. In the original "Star Trek" TV series, Khan wasn't Caucasian or even Latino: He was from Northern India. In the comic, we learn that Noonien Singh was an orphan from the streets of India, kidnapped into a eugenics program and built into a super-smart super-strong super-human. By the end of the first issue of the comic, Khan has led his fellow eugenics-fueled orphans into a rebellion -- but he's still very obviously Indian in heritage.

How Khan's ethnicity will change from Indian to Latino to Caucasian is obviously a big question the series is going to answer -- though we're not sure how literally whitewashing an ethnic character is going to damp down any outcry.

That said, Johnson and company have been releasing some pretty excellent, in-continuity "Star Trek" comic books for the past few years, revamping old episodes of the original TV show, but filtered through the lens of the new movie crew. Johnson has already shown he has a handle on how to take potentially cheesy storylines (and sometimes downright antiquated one, like one involving Spock's mating rituals), and make them exciting and relevant for a modern audience. So, this comic certainly demands the benefit of the doubt.

The series is six issues long, so it might still be a while before we have any definitive answers about Khan's heritage, though we'll be sure to check back in with the series here at MTV News.

"Star Trek: Khan" continues monthly from IDW Publishing.

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Interview: Christina Chong On How La’an Is (And Isn’t) Like Khan In ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’

| May 4, 2022 | By: Laurie Ulster 161 comments so far

When it was announced that Strange New Worlds included a character named La’an Noonien Singh, fans immediately saw a connection to the Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh. It has been confirmed that La’an is a descendent of the infamous genetically enhanced Khan, and at the gold carpet premiere in New York, TrekMovie had a chance to talk to actress Christina Chong about that connection and more.

In terms of being a Noonien Singh, does the show explore why La’an would keep such an infamous name?

I don’t know how much I can reveal about that, but what you will see with La’an is the fact that she does carry similarities to Khan in the way she has natural abilities for combat, she’s tactical, she’s fierce, she’s a fighter. She has that hard exterior. But she is not at all like him in her purpose. She has a completely different purpose. Her purpose is to keep her new family alive, the Enterprise crew. They are her new family and they are all she has, actually.

And does she feel the burden of her family name?

Absolutely. One-hundred percent. She feels like the way I relate to it when you’re bullied as a kid. I was bullied for being Chinese as a kid. So in that way, you’re judged for who you are and what you look like and where you come from. I’m descended from a Chinese father. La’an is descended from Khan. But it’s getting rid of that feeling of how you’re not worthy or you’re not good enough, or that you should be painted with the same brush. She very much works through being painted with the same brush. She’s working through that. And she gets through the other side of it—starts to, at the end of season one. And then season two, who knows? Maybe she’s got enhanced genetic capabilities. I don’t know. [laughs]

Christina Chong as La’an

You are just over halfway through season two, right?

We’re on episode seven right now.

With Jonathan Frakes directing…

Yeah, Jonathan Frakes!

You have done a lot of action in your previous roles, was there new specific training for Star Trek action, or did they assume you know how?

I think they figured, ‘Yeah, she knows what she’s doing.’ I used to be a dancer as well, so the choreography side of it, I love that. I love figuring it out and putting it all together. But yeah, I didn’t really have anything special. It was also COVID as well. So there wasn’t really any time for training. We were in lockdown in London and it was seven days from finding out I had the role to being in Toronto. So there was no time.

But did they give you phaser training, at least?

Oh, yeah. That was like, “Uh, how do I do this? Is it like a gun?” Because obviously, I have never used a phaser before. But yeah, definitely on set there was some. I also remember the first time I used a tricorder, I was like, “Ethan, how do I do this?” [laughs] So yeah, they’ve been great. Ethan, Rebecca, and Anson have been great at helping us figure the world out for the first time.

Christina Chong at NYC premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount Plus)

And in terms of what you’ve already filmed so far, do you have a favorite episode so far?

Episode eight. Without a doubt. Episode eight, because my little Roonie Boonie is in it. My little dog. She’s a toy Cavapoo and she’s my dog. And I read the script for episode eight and I was like, “I feel like Runa could be in this.” So I asked Chris Fisher, our producer/director on set, “What do you reckon, Chris? And he was like, “I’ll pitch it to [co-showrunner] Henry [Alonso Myers].” I thought he wasn’t going to pitch it, but he did. And the next script the script came she was in it, like proper in it, she’s got close-ups and everything!

Christina’s dog

Last summer, presumably when they shot episode eight, Chong tweeted out a photo of her beloved dog and how she brought joy and smiles to the cast of Strange New Worlds .

That’s just my baby dog… Runa has brought a tonne of joy and smiles to the entire cast and crew of #strangenewworlds #startrek #mascot #cavapoo pic.twitter.com/6rQZAP9pu9 — Christina Chong (@ChrissyChong) July 21, 2021

Apparently, Runa has taken a liking to the series star.

Runa thinks she’s @ansonmount girlfriend 🤣 — Christina Chong (@ChrissyChong) July 21, 2021

More NYC SNW interviews to come

Stay tuned for more gold carpet interviews from the New York premiere of Strange New Worlds . And check out our earlier interviews with Strange New Worlds co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers  and executive producer Alex Kurtzman . And with stars Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn .

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  debuts on Thursday, May 5 exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., Latin America, Australia and the Nordics. The series will air on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave in Canada. In New Zealand, it will be available on TVNZ , and in India on Voot Select . Strange New Worlds will arrive via Paramount+ in select countries in Europe when the service launches later this year, starting with the UK and Ireland in June.

Find more stories on the  Star Trek Universe .

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Wouldn’t Spock have remembered her and put two and two together when researching Khan after he was awakened? Scratching head here!

Yeah, that’s one thing that doesn’t make a lot of sense about her character’s existence.

Agreed this is what is confusing me, just like T’pring being here as I was thinking this could contradict Amok Time.

I am curious but a little worried how they will do it

So I went back and watched Amok Time. Although I always thought Spock said that he hadn’t seen her since the betrothal, I had evidently just inferred that. He doesn’t actually say it. So he could have met her in the interim, and just didn’t mention it when he was explaining the betrothal part.

That’s probably my biggest problem with this iteration of Trek. They try to include elements from the past and tie it all in, but they do such a bad job executing it. There is so much material in Trek and for whatever reason, the writers haven’t been the best at bridging things well. Discovery had issues with this – largely due to where the initial seasons take place. Picard also has issues with this despite it not being a prequel series.

Strange New Worlds looks like a great show. It is limited due to its setting and established canon. Bringing a descendant of Kahn into the mix feels silly. I’d be perfectly happy with this character and history if she had any other name. It’s not a deal breaker for me, and the show still looks interesting and I’m looking forward to it.

It makes one realise how smart Gene Roddenberry was in his insistence that TNG not reference TOS in those early days. It allowed TNG to be its own show and when it brought TOS characters and references later on they felt earned.

Excellent point, Neill. Something that really hadn’t occurred to me during the years TNG aired.

The attitude back then was different from now. Back then they intentionally did NOT want to reference the original show. It’s why it was set some 80 years later. To distance itself from it. To help it be it’s own thing. I’ve said before I was not a fan of that as I preferred them to stay in the TOS movie era for a new show but I understood why it was done. Now the attitude at Trek is that if they can make a link to an older show then they WILL do it. And a big reason for that is it is obvious that is what the fans want. Why do you think all the TNG cast is coming back for the final Picard season? Pretty sure that was not the original intent when the show was being planned.

Exactly. And when you think about it, it’s kind of asinine in general for us all as fans to be whining about a few minor canon inconsistencies when many of us are kind of demanding they do new series like SNW and Picard’s TNG Reunion season.

It’s a no win scenario for the writers — I feel for them! Canon is not meaningless, but we should focus on the big picture of canon and not sweat the small stuff like this cool new character who is descendant of Khan.

How is this a no-win situation?? What fan was begging to A. see a Noonien Singh descendant and B. Place them on the Enterprise??

This is their own weird obsession with Khan ONCE again. The irony is fans have been saying they DON’T want more Khan. This has been the case since STID. Most fans kept saying we don’t need him in the Kelvin movies, seriously. Just don’t do it. They put (sort of) put him in the movie anyway and we know how that worked out.

And here we are again.

They are only making their own problems. No one was remotely asking for this.

Hmm, you might be confusing the fan hatred (including mine) for the weird STID move with the White Brit version of Khan?

Excepting that, I want to see the Nick Meyer Khan limited series, I have read and really liked Mack’s Khan prequel novels, and I’m very exciting for Khan’s descendant to be in SNW.

I’m fine with more Khan, provide it’s not JJA’s “Peaky Blinders / Khan” mashup ridiculous character…lol

No tons of people didn’t want Khan in STID. That was made clear many times. Trekmovie even created polls about it multiple times and how many wanted Khan prior to STID. He never got more than single digits.

But yeah it help not only did they put Khan in, but then they put in someone who didn’t even act or resemble which begged the question why put him in at all then, but that’s been beaten to death of course.

Even the Khan show idea, you can feel the groans on the boards when it was discussed by most fans and probably a reason why it never got any real traction.

But this team seems oddly obsessed with a character most of the fanbase has moved on from long long ago.

Yea, because the crew was just staring the mission and it was way too early…plus the casting choice just mystified the F out of everyone. Yea, based on all that, I was one of the tons of people who didn’t want that.

And I think we would agree that most fans were really warm to the idea of the Khan Nick Myers story.

So it’s really about how they do it. And we really don’t know yet on SNW regarding this character. Perhaps by the end of the season she will be a fan fav and will be all over the Trek conventions in the next year?

I always hated the Nick Meyer Khan idea. But since it was suppose to be a 3 hour mini-series, it wouldn’t have been a big deal either. Most people didn’t like it when they thought it was another show. And yes it can still be good, it just doesn’t feel necessary to do either since we know the guy’s entire life story. I will say if they want back to the Eugenics war in the story then yeah more people would be into that idea.

And I’m not saying La’an the character won’t be good or interesting. She could be a great character. I just wish they gave her a different back story. She could even still be an augment and maybe a secret embryo that survived from Cold Station 12, but directly related to Khan himself is just fan service no fan was ever asking for.

That right there. I think this would be a bit easier to take if she was a leftover augment. Some sort of secret she had to protect or something. But noooo…. We have to have the link to the Khan man himself. (eyeroll)

When John Harrison announced he was KHAAAAAAN in STID, I nearly walked out of the theatre. It’s the only movie I’ve ever wanted to walk out of in disgust. So many interviews leading up to the movie promising it wasn’t Khan, and I recall Roberto Orci hanging out here saying the same things. Didn’t help that it wasn’t a very good movie either.

For me, I was prepared since I heard the news ahead of time. When I got over my initial eye roll I stayed open minded about it and thought “Well, I assume they will explain it in the movie.” NOPE! So it’s funny people think this situation will get some long thought out explanation and may not even be one at all. I’m just pretty cynical about a lot of this new stuff lately. But we’ll see!

BTW, very off topic but did you also use to post on IMDB? That was my old stomping ground until the message boards with ka-put but I use to time on the Kelvin movie boards, mostly STID and Beyond. There was someone with the same handle there on those boards too.

I knew it was Khan 6 months before the movie came out and couldn’t believe how so many fans were in denial here and elsewhere.

We can add that Khan prequel series to the list of David Mack Star Trek series that really would make great limited streaming series, although I think Vanguard be the most likely to happen.

As I said when they borrowed Control for S2 of Discovery and decided to validate the Kelvin movie version of the Prime Universe future in Picard rather that using the best of the Litverse (Destiny), with the novels carrying the fans for nearly a decade and a half, if the stories onscreen don’t hold up to the stories in the books, better to put aside the egos (and the creator cut of the residuals) and actually use the great IP in Mack’s books that ViacomCBS ALREADY OWNS.

At this point, I can’t think of any logical reason why none of Mack’s series have been adapted.

Hey TG47 it’s great to see you posting again! :)

It seems like you disappeared around the time Picard started but I know you have a life. I am curious about your thoughts on Picard this season. I think you already know mine and it isn’t good lol.

I have never read any Star Trek novels before but I know how much fans like you like Mack’s work. I don’t understand why they don’t adapt any of the novels for TV or films either, especially the way fans praise them. But I guess they have their reasons.

Yea, I love the Khan prequels, and would love to see it on P+ some day.

Like you, I am fine with more Khan, provided it’s done right.

[blockquote] We can add that Khan prequel series to the list of David Mack Star Trek series that really would make great limited streaming series,[/blockquote] The Khan prequel books were actually written by Greg Cox, unless there’s also a separate series by David Mack that I’m not aware of.

Thanks for the correction, you are right, of course. I have them somewhere in my cluttered house.

I have no issues with them making links to past Trek but how they are doing it is feeling absurd. Having the TNG cast doesn’t create any canon problems at all so that’s fine, it works. But having a Noonien Singh on the freaking Enterprise with other characters who knew nothing about Khan in Space Seed is just ridiculous. There is no reason for her to be on this show, none. It only creates canon issues, not highlight them and that’s the problem with so much of these new writers started with giving Spock a sister in Discovery.

It’s like they think audience want all these ridiculous connections for fan service. No fans want good stories with good characters first and foremost. They only put that into question when they do things like this.

I disagree, but I totally get where you are coming from. This is exactly the way I felt about what I think was the biggest fan service dumpster fire of all time — the Enterprise Klingon Augment Virus two-parter. lol

BTW, in WOK, Chekov remembered Khan, but Checkov was not serving on the E at the time of that ep, so this has happened before.

Again, at least it’s orders of magnitude better that White Brit Khan. And at least it’s not as head scratching as to why was this supposedly famous first captain of the E (Archer) and his ship (NX-01 E) were never mentioned in 35 years of Trek eps previously — you don’t see Kurtzman making up new Enterprises and new Enterprise Captains like Berman had the audacity to completely F with canon on, thank god.

I didn’t like the Augment Virus story line and found it unnecessary but it didn’t change canon either.

THIS is changing canon. That’s a big difference.

I’m not defending the Khan remembering Chekhov thing, but you also know that was just a mistake. They clearly just didn’t realize the character wasn’t on the show then. This is apples and oranges.

And Kurtzman gave Spock a sister lol. I mean, that’s messing with canon in a way no one EVER did before. And it looks like it will keep going in this kind of direction.

I’ll wait to see how they do it (as if I have a choice lol) but outside of pulling the usual making it ‘classified’ (A Discovery tradition) I don’t know how it won’t contradict Space Seed in a big way.

Just like Spock/Burnham it’s creating situations no one was ever asking for. I just don’t get the point? Enterprise, Discovery and now it looks like SNW all share these type of issues sadly and why I’m not a huge fan of prequels in the first place.

I know the point. It’s because these writers aren’t confident they can create fascinating and interesting stories with people who mostly stand on their own. They have to throw in a safety net of a link to something in the past to hook in the fans who clearly want it. I find it lazy, myself. But that is the reason. It’s OBVIOUS the Spock-Burnham connection was made in case the show stumbled. And it did the very first season so they went to that lifeline right away. Consider they said you would never see Spock and all that. That was true only if the show worked.

“I know the point. It’s because these writers aren’t confident they can create fascinating and interesting stories with people who mostly stand on their own.”

I’ll buy that. But then again, when many fans “drool” all over the character canon connections on LDS most weeks, and also view the best part of DSC as the season with Pike’s E, I totally get why they aren’t super confident to not bring in these canon character connections. Fans are fickle — like today, it’s oh no, we don’t like this particular canon character connection, but tomorrow night it’s going to be thanks for giving us the cannon connections we wanted.

They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

“And Kurtzman gave Spock a sister lol. I mean, that’s messing with canon in a way no one EVER did before. And it looks like it will keep going in this kind of direction.”

But no, Harve Bennett gave us Sybock. See, right there you say “in a way no one EVER did before” you unequivocally prove the broader point I have been making today that a lot of fans who are acting all shocked like Kurtzman is doing something new here so easily forget that this has all happened time and time again in the Berman, Bennett and Roddenberry eras. I mean you basically just said giving Spock a sister is a canon mess that no one has done before, completely forgetting that Sybock was the same deal, right?

And I would argue that the Bennett thing is a worse canon brainfart, because Michael was adopted and lived with them for what, 10 years only, maybe?

Sybok didn’t lead his own show AND was a Starfleet officer on top of that. He was in one bad movie and disappeared after that. That’s why Burnham was worse MUCH worse!

What’s funny is they didn’t learn from that lesson but doubled down. Doing an idiotic thing because someone else did it first doesn’t make the argument stronger…at all! Especially since Sybock has all been wiped from canon.

I still think giving Spock a sister was one of the WORST ideas Discovery done (and they had a lot of bad ideas lol). It’s part of the reason they had to throw the ship a thousand years into the future just so Spock can pretend she died and never spoken of again. Yeah Sybock was bad, Burnham was worse! At least they got to kill off that mistake. With Burnham, they literally just pretend she stopped existing lol. Man, this show!

I get your opinion there, but I will point out that if they hadn’t figured out a plot device like that to bring in Spock and the Enterprise into a core part of a DSC season, then all Star Trek fans would not be getting to see the premier of SNW tomorrow.

Maybe it wasn’t the best possible plot device, but it got us SNW. All Sybock got us was a really bad movie that most of us would like to forget.

Here is the thing about Sybok though. Kirk directly addressed the elephant in the room in that movie by pointing out Spock never told him of a brother.

We all know Chekov in WoK is a continuity error. I recall Koenig himself said he knew but if he spoke up he knew he would lose lines! So he clammed up. And honestly, and this is the real key, issues like that don’t matter too much if the overall product is GOOD!!!! And there are other plot holes in the movie

BTW from my POV the biggest fan service dumpster fire of all time is the entire Lower Decks show.

“BTW from my POV the biggest fan service dumpster fire of all time is the entire Lower Decks show.”

I stand corrected. You are 100% correct. Nothing else comes close.

I would argue Chekhov wasn’t even a continuity error. Just because Space Seed didn’t show him doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. No ep of TOS or canon references Chekhovs stardate as his first day serving on Enterprise.

Unless you buy Koenig’s joke that Chekov met Khan in the head… Then no. Khan never saw Chekov and should have never recognized him even if he was on the ship elsewhere.

Koenig himself basically confirmed it was a continuity error though.

TNG referenced TOS often in the early days. One of the very first episodes was a sequel to “The Naked Time.”

And that’s all it was, references. This is dropping in a character as a full time cast member and somehow pretending her entire back story won’t be part of the show. If that wasn’t the case, why is she even there? These people just can’t help themselves.

Yet it’s weird how many people here today seem to have forgotten that freaking Dr. McCoy was in the first ep on TNG? An obvious cameo handover from TOS to TNG.

I feel like I am seeing a bunch of fan comments today that are inconsistent with Trek series history. It’s human nature though — people get sentimental about the old shows and eps and tend to forget the issues that bothered them years back on those shows/eps.

How is Dr. McCoy showing up on the Enterprise breaking canon? Dude, your ‘arguments’ are getting silly now. No one cares about a cameo or having old characters show up, it’s about a character whose entire existence makes NO sense from what we know about TOS.

They have been doing ridiculous things on these shows from the start and why fans have issues with these shows. If you and others don’t. that’s fine of course. But it’s funny these writers know the fanbase they have and yet keep doubling on this stuff.

That’s not my point. I was commenting on several people today (e.g. Neill Stringer) commenting that TNG did not have connective tissue to TNG early on. It’s like they forgot that McCoy was in Ep 1. That’s all.

I have no issues with the McCoy scene — I like it and I DO NOT think it breaks canon.

OK, I apologize then. Yeah it’s so many posts so the debates are getting a bit muffled.

No worries. BTW, just saw the Kenobi trailer…wow!

Yet after The Naked Now there were no major references for a few years. Ira Behr recalls the difficulty of being able to mention Spock’s name in the episode Sarek, and this episode featured Spock’s dad.

The Naked Now was the one and only time they brought up the “old Enterprise” in the first few seasons. They didn’t even mention any characters names. I think they did it because one of the things “The Naked Time” did on TOS was give a little character depth right away so the audience could get a little idea of what made some of these people tick. TNG used it the same way.

Well Dr. McCoy was actually in the first ep, Encounter at Farpoint, and he’s in a rather lengthy scene with Data that is a very sappy passing of the torch from TOS to TNG, and the scene ends with them referring to the Enterprise.

I guess they didn’t specifically mention “McCoy” or directly say “old Enterprise,” but that’s a technicality.

OK… But I consider that cameo more of a conceit than a real honest to goodness reference for story purposes. I mean, compare that to Relics, that came some 6 seasons later.

DeForest Kelley was in the first episode. How is that not referencing?

McCoy was a passing the baton moment. Like Picard on Emissary and Quark on Caretaker.

Also notice McCoy was never referred by name.

But Ira Behr said there was resistance to mention Spock in the episode “Sarek”

That’s all legalezze. It’s a two minute scene with McCoy and Data, and everyone watching knew McCoy was being sappy about the old Enterprise, and everyone knew it was McCoy.

It it quacks like a duck, flies like a duck and swims like a duck, it’s most probably a duck. Yea, the were referencing the old E with one of the old E’s characters main characters over the course of scene, obviously.

I love how comments like this act like this didn’t occur in the past Trek eras. Like Alex Kurtzman invented character canon inconsistencies that screw with Trek timeline events? Come on, man!

This has always happened, and will continue to happen. Canon is guidance, but each iteration of the franchise does change it — hopefully it happens in small ways only like this example. It is what it is.

Well, the difference is that these canon inconsistencies usually weren’t right there in the names of new characters. Rather than fudging with the details of a past episode, like Khan meeting Chekov, this time it feels moreover like a marketing scheme.

Like someone said we’re still getting big numbers with this Khan character. Our analytics suggest that using his name, or at least part of the name, might help spark interest in this series, along with Pike, Spock, Number One, Enterprise, etc. It’s spreadsheet thinking.

For me, personally, I can go either way with this canon stuff. Canon schmanon. But this particular instance seems a bit patronizing to fans.

Also novels can work a way round it.

You mean like coming up with a play on Spock’s name, say Sybock, because they know that fans really respond to Vulcans?

Or coming up with and implausible plot device to bring Spock back to life after the actor departed because it was critical to the movie box office?

Been there, done that. Nothing new here.

They never established Chekov’s service record being at odds with his meeting Khan. Not trying to use any pretzel logic here, but it’s reasonable to assume that he was onboard, even though the actor doesn’t appear in the episode.

I don’t like using the Stardates as evidence since they were just making up those dates as they went along, but Chekov is in “Catspaw”, which has an earlier Stardate than “Space Seed.” He was onboard the ship if you accept the stardates.

Catspaw: 3018.2 Space Seed: 3141.9

Koenig himself basically confirmed it was a canon error.

So much for canon being “meaningless”…lol

You know… you should really look the term “canon” up. Every time you try to “gotcha” me about my canon stance, you come off not only as being stalkerish, but also confused.

It’s a shame this site doesn’t have a way for people to block others. The way One Lion follows me from thread to thread is creepy.

A lot of us been begging for a blocking feature for years. That would go a loooong way and cut down on the silly back-and-forth that’s done here with people you have no interest in talking to.

I would love to have that feature. There is nothing worse than someone getting personal with you in a juvenile fashion just because you raise a technical issue with them on their Star Trek remarks. I should know, as I use to be “that guy” a Trek fan lifetime ago…which I guess means I should be more sympathetic to this type of behavior.

OK I will try harder to ignore that type of behavior and just move on.

I’ve been thinking the other way: Since Khan wasn’t that well-known (???) in Space Seed without research or immediatly recognized, why should it affect La’an being a descent of him 260 years later?

Actually I read that as Khan was well known but the story was he was defeated and the fact that scores of them escaped in the sleeper ships was hidden from the public. There was no reason Kirk & Co would think this was Khan and only checked out the story after becoming curious.

Actually, it turned out that Scotty, for one, was totally familiar with him. They just weren’t initially aware of who it was that they’d managed to pick up.

And I don’t know why fans, one day out from the premiere of this show, have convinced themselves that the producers don’t have an explanation for this character’s existence. (Now whether it will be a good explanation is anyone’s guess.)

I think the easiest thing to do would be send La’an Khan forward in time a millennium or so at the end of the series and have everybody else pretend she didn’t exist so that universe doesn’t implode ;)

It’s brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should be a writer for this show Corinthian7! I think they would go for an idea like this!

Kirk seemed to have realised who Khan was too.

The other thing is that some commenters here are mistaken about Eugenics Wars era-Khan’s place in human history. There was an entire scene in Space Seed where the conversation between Kirk, Scotty and McCoy (along with a somewhat outraged Spock) made it very clear that 23rd century humans regard Khan as a controversial historical autocrat but not a villain; Kirk and Scotty even admit to admiring Khan as a historical figure.

So the closest real-life equivalent of Khan is Julius Caesar, not Stalin or Hitler etc.

Christina Chong’s remarks about La’an “feeling not worthy or not good enough” and being “painted with the same brush” can be interpreted in different ways — especially if the “baggage” of carrying Khan’s name and bloodline isn’t regarded as a stigma but the legacy of a Julius Caesar-type ancestor as one of the towering figures of Earth’s history. That could certainly cast quite a long shadow of high expectations, as least where other humans and La’an herself are concerned.

But as you’ve rightly said, it would be best if fans don’t jump the gun but wait for the show, rather than prematurely jumping to conclusions either way.

Just imagine it as a reboot. If TPTB insist that it isn’t one they shouldn’t put that many head scratchers in it.

agree. I’d much rather if they had just started Disco as a new universe and took it from there and then differences are fine. Sure – having three universes is a little weird, but they could have saved themselves from looking like they just don’t care about things like continuity.

I feel like I’m going to have no choice but to do just that when watching SNW. Otherwise these canon violations are going to drive me absolutely nuts. I have to say, things like this ALREADY popping up are not giving me a good feel prior to the premiere.

People forget that these are shows and it’s a fictional universe, not historical footage. We also don’t know how the Soong character will fit in yet. Just because Spock later meets her ancestor doesn’t mean he has to say “I served with your descendent a few years ago”. Sometimes people wind themselves up over a line from over 50 years ago instead of just enjoying the story in front of them. Is DS9 a different universe from TNG because Trills were retconned for DS9? No, you accept it as a retcon and move on.

It’s just annoying that TPTB claim in every fluff interview how important continuity is to them but then make retcons for no good reasons.

Actually, Spock did tell Khan that. Right after the bathroom incident with Chekov!🤣

Been saying since Discovery they should’ve just rebooted the show from that point on and it cuts down the complaints by 80%. But to keep pulling these ridiculous ideas and pretend it fits into PU canon is eye rolling to say the least.

Agreed Captain. This is the most puzzling character addition, and even distracting to a degree. There seems to be a desire to tie Khan to everything. Personally, I would have preferred they flesh out underdeveloped race (like they’re doing with the Andorians). Another Deltan would have been interesting.

Could they really do much with the Deltan in a PG-13 show?

They introduced Deltans in TMP and that movie is rated G. And they just like sex. It’s not like Star Trek hasn’t shown people in bed before. They don’t have to be walking around naked or anything.

Yes but this is a full on series. Eventually they would have to get into the Deltan culture in some fashion. But I made that comment tongue planted party in cheek.

OK, no worries!

Khan is like Trek’s Joker. TPTB just can’t help themselves.

Who says he did not? Episodes do not follow every second of every character’s life and conversations.

Do you see the resemblance? I don’t. And the guy they found in space was “just Khan…” Maybe there are a lot of Khans in the future. The same goes with Zeframs… it took a while to link good ol’ Cochrane with “just Zefram” in “Metamorphosis”.

Reminds me of Berman force-fitting in the NX-01 and Archer, yet TMP established as canon that the previous Enterprise was the XCV-330, and also there had never been a reference from and TOS and TNG ep or movie to Captain Archer which is really hard to believe if you take the timeline too seriously (like I do, lol).

And then there is Chekov remembering Khan…don’t get me started on that on. lol

That sort of thing doesn’t bother me. No one was saying that was ALL the Enterprises. And more importantly…. ST: E did not exist when TMP was made. So it wouldn’t have been there anyway. I guess they could CG in the NX-01 in one of those images on the Director’s cut…

That and that ship is still part of canon. It just came before the NX-01 did which was made clear in STID. So was one of the early Enterprises as the movie stated. I don’t see that a problem at all.

Yea, later in Enterprise the papered over this canon-rewrite with and ep the relegated the XCV-330 to a test ship. So they fix this arrogant canon change by later have a BS app that codifies their canon change.

“XCV-330gate” LOL

But it was stupid canon to break. You could have had the same show. Just make the NX 01. Be the XcV and have it be a ring ship. Done and done.

Agree to disagree. I had zero problems with it. I do not consider very small production issues like blurry photos of old Enterprise’s in a feature made long before any of the Berman shows existed to be something they really NEED to stick to like glue.

LOL, I have the Eaglemoss XL model of it with the Starships Guide that goes with it, which includes the history of it from TMP to why it wasn’t used in Enterprise. It’s awesomely bold and looks so much better than the derivative, cluttery mess of junk known as the NX-01

EXACTLY !!!

So your are Starfleet, and you are rebuilding the flagship of the fleet, the Enterprise, and you decide to put a commemorative display of the past Enterprises. So you put in TOS Enterprise, the original sailing ship Enterprise, a military aircraft carrier, and then to round out Starfleet E’s you deliberately don’t include the famous NX-01, which played out such a big role in early Federation/Starship history and which was captained by the famous Admiral archer…but instead include this XCV-330? That just sounds silly! LOL

I have a real hard time buying that, and I have never heard a good explanation from anyone on why I should by that argument.

They’ll probably just handwave it, just like they “reconciled canon” in Discovery S2 by making it “top secret”. Honestly I’m not counting on much. They don’t care.

I hope to God the Khan connection works/make sense. I’m trying to be positive here…

I hope so too but I just have no faith it will.

Same, but considering their record on how they reconciled other canon issues (that THEY created), I’m not particularly hopeful.

It’ll take a huge amount of suspension of disbelief that Spock and Uhura didn’t bother to mention in “Space Seed” that they served with a descendant of Khan.

Yes it certainly will.

maybe they didnt care. like in Space Seed whats spock gonna do when he find out hes Khan Nooiean Singh? – immediately Space Book the descendant he worked with and be like ‘hey ur great great grand father is tryin kill us yo!’ (maybe he did do that lol)

They totally did mention it. It was offscreen so you didn’t see it. Episodes do not follow every second of every character’s life and conversations.

That’s a feeble explanation. Using that logic, literally anything can be ignored, in which case there’s no point in even having continuity between stories.

Seems very similar to Alara and Talla from The Orville.

And that’s EXACTLY why they went that route! 😕

Why even bother with these kinds of gimmicks? You know they are just going to screw it up.

I agree. I wish they would just think of new ideas instead of trying to rehash old ones. We’ll see…

It tells me this staff have little faith in their ability to tell original stories with original characters. That they feel the need for “safety nets’.

I’m all cool with this character, love the actress.. and I think I would have gone for her related to Khan too…. but you can’t help but think you could have your cake and eat it too by making her related to say Joachim from the Eugenics Wars. I mean you just basically ignored the Eugenics Wars in Picard and now you are going to play the difficult game of her being related to Khan but it being not a big enough deal to screw up Space Seed? Okay….

There is nothing in Picard that says the eugenics wars did not happen in the 90s…just like how when Voyager traveled to the late 90s there was no mention of the Eugenics Wars.

That was some war eh!??

It is ridiculous to have this character. First of all, why? Why do they need to do this? They don’t have any other story potentials? Please.

Next, Spock would absolutely remember her.

Finally, all this talk about her having genetic abilities is just ridiculous. She would likely be 7 – 10 generations removed from Khan. There would no longer be any extra abilities. And how many relatives of past conquerors have any notoriety? Do relatives of Napolean have that as their mantra? Again, please.

That’s my point. Even in today’s society having a relation to a known figure in ancient history is considered more of an interesting oddity than anything else. What can they do with her in a time where it is even LESS of a thing in society?

Exactly! I am descended from Mayflower passengers. I’m so far removed from that ancestor that it’s really just an “interesting oddity” that I bring up at Thanksgiving and maybe one or two other times a year it comes up. I have a feeling this will be a defining characteristic.

Also, only a very small fraction of my genetic code is theirs. Heck, I’m as tall as my dad, and he’s only one generation removed from me. My parents both wear glasses (as do I), but my brother has better than 20/20 vision.

There’s two possibilities:

• Nearly every generation for the last ~200 years has been Augments, with little non-Augment DNA being introduced.
• Augment DNA (somehow, through the power of “science”) always overwrites non-Augment DNA.

Well, relatives of Napoleon do have a certain cache in France. But Khan I would think would be more comparable to Stalin. Yes, there are descendants of Stalin, but most are not proud of it and most changed their name.

Just to reiterate a longer comment I posted upthread, Khan is not comparable to Stalin but someone like Julius Caesar, a controversial real-life historical figure who elicits mixed feelings or actual admiration in many modern-day people (depending on their perspective). Space Seed had a scene focusing on a detailed conversation between the main bridge officers making this basic point. Kirk, Scotty and McCoy expressed admiration for the historical Khan and even explained their reasons by listing Khan’s positive traits, albeit with the caveat of also admitting to the “appalling” human streak of admiration for benevolent autocrats. They certainly wouldn’t do this if Khan was equivalent to Stalin.

It’s obviously going to depend on how SNW depicts things, but La’an’s “baggage” isn’t necessarily something negative but the burden of having a famous and widely-admired (albeit controversial) overachiever for a direct ancestor. Some people in that situation would just be proud of it, others would feel it’s a hell of a lot to live up to.

I feel like the dumbest part of it is that she still has the same last name as Khan…like, it’s been what, 300 years? People marry other people! It’s so, so ridiculous to think they retained a name like that for so many centuries.

To be fair, perspectives on descendents of “past conquerors” (or ancestors in general) depend on the part of the world you’re from. Historical lineages are still a very big deal in some cultures. But it’s correct that this isn’t supposed to be a big deal for most humans by Star Trek’s 23rd century, whether the ancestor is famous or notorious.

The genetic stuff…Well, sometimes traits do run in families, even centuries later. It depends on how dominant those genes are and how much the families have historically intermarried with people with similar traits.

As for Khan, being genetically engineered as a “superman”, maybe his genes were deliberately “supercharged” in some way so that some of his traits/abilities are inherited and dominant down the generations. I’m just guessing here, of course ;) But it wouldn’t be surprising if SNW has that kind of pseudoscientific explanation for La’an’s abilities.

Question: I watched an interview with the actress last night and she said her character had a secret genetic capability she was hiding. How could she hide her genetic abilities if she had to go through starfleet medical testing with 23rd century medical technology not finding out?

How did Bashir?

He not only came 100 years later but his enhancement was his mind. Seems reasonable that given the advances in the science over that time and that it was his brain he of all people would have the smarts to hide his skills.

Bashir wasn’t a full augment. He was made smarter and had better visual coordination but he couldn’t pick up someone with one hand or anything.

She probably used the same method that Tyler did to hide the fact he was a Klingon. ;)

I’ve figured out her special enhancement: 2.5 DIMENSIONAL THINKING

Lorca, Darvin and Bashir.

next? (I’m sure I can come up with more given time)

This is a comment for TrekMovie folks. Thank you, first of all, for keeping us informed and fostering this community. Even though I am about to say a “but”, I am genuinely thankful and love what you do.

As I read this article, though, and then googled “NYC SNW premiere”, I found that there is this whole multi-week event at the NYC Paley Center, which on May 1, included a screening of the first 2 episodes of SNW… open to the public!

Why didn’t TrekMovie preview this? I mean, we get previews of cruises, and books, and merchandise, and even random obscure auctions. But a pre-screening of SNW open to the public! Plus a whole exhibition devoted to Star Trek… No article about that? Or did I miss it?

I am so bummed I missed it. Fortunately, it seems the exhibit keeps going through May, so I can at least still catch that.

Hi. I’m heading to Paley in a few weeks, but I am pretty sure it’s the same exhibit that was on the cruise as well as Mission Chicago . (I put in links so you can see that yes, we did cover the props and the costumes.)

Thank you both for answering! I hope to catch the exhibit, of course. I mostly meant the Premiere on May 1, and the sale of public tickets on April 22. But understood–links were out there and it was said in the podcast (per Anthony’s next post). I missed that. Thanks again.

It actually was mentioned during a podcast 2 weeks ago and linked here on the site. https://trekmovie.com/2022/04/22/podcast-all-access-star-trek-looks-forward-to-strange-new-worlds-and-up-for-this-weeks-picard/

But as Laurie said, It was the same thing that we already showed in our coverage from Chicago.

We need an episode where Mr. Arex lends a hand or three.

Then why keep the name? You know, there’s no shame in changing it when it carries that kind of baggage. I remember hearing somewhere that before WW2 there were around a dozen Hitlers listed in the New York phone book. After the war, there were zero. Just sayin, La’an.

The funny thing is, if they hadn’t included the Noonien part of her name, nobody would have much of an issue. Sure, we would wonder if there was a connection to Khan, but Singh is such a common name there would be a reasonable doubt. And they could’ve had fun teasing us whether she is his descendant or not for a while.

Yup, big ol facepalm on keeping a highly-charged hyphenated name for 300 years. Maybe they’re a family of fascists and proud of it?

This feels like a very BAD creative choice for a character. Honestly there really isn’t much you can do with this character. You can’t have her be ostracized because that doesn’t line up with human society of that time. You can’t have her with genetically enhanced abilities because it has been shown time and time again that those who have been genetically enhanced start feeling superior to those around them. Unless that is the point of the character. But then, it would be a repeat of what we have already seen before.

I suppose it is possible something will be done with her that has not been considered that is interesting. But based on this interview it sure doesn’t sound like it. This element of the show does not bode well.

Not as bad as having, I don’t know, Spock’s sister or something. But agree.

Or Captain Archer and the NX-01 Enterprise.

What was wrong with that? It didn’t contradict anything.

Yeah I don’t understand that either? How does Archer contradict anything? We knew Starfleet was around in the 22nd century. And he wasn’t Kirk’s grandfather or anything. (Thank Kahless!)

In TMP, they show a display in the crew lounge that has the previous Enterprises’s on it, and the starship they show before TOS Enterprise is not the NX-01; it’s a completely and radically different design, called the XCV-330. This bold and cool design was suppose to be the ship for Enterprise, and Okuda and Drexler based their initial design on it, but Berman wanted a completely different design done from scratch, so he arrogantly retconned canon by directing those two to redesign it. So they then tried in their second design to present something that still looked a bit like the XCV-330 to be consistent with Roddenberry’s intention, but Berman overruled that design as well an ordered them to start from scratch on a completely new design — so he retconned canon just because he had the power position to do that.

Regarding Archer, yes, a lawyer would say that Archer doesn’t contradict anything, but it strains credibility to me that — given all of the key, formative major events and missions that Captain Archer made, then earning him a promotion to one of the most famous Admirals in Starfleet history — that he is not referenced by any Star Trek character in 35 years of episodes. Surely they could have picked one of the many names of previous Starfleet officers or at least their family names mentioned in various eps over the previous 35 years to make this more believable. I realize this is the weaker of my two points here, but in combination with the starship issue above, it does again point out the footloose-and-fancy-free way that Berman treated canon.

Berman came up with the entire Enterprise series idea without much regard to canon — he just created stuff in the series because it looked and sounded good. For example, all the tech and the “universe look” itself in Enterprise looks much more like a prequel to TNG then a prequel to TOS. Where are the clean-lined ships that we saw in TOS? The ships all looks like pre-TNG ships, not pre-TOS ships. He didn’t care to get it right. He preferred to create his own canon just because he could.

Yeah I know what the XCV-330 is, I actually stayed awake long enough for that part lol. It’s another Enterprise and came before the NX-01, which no one is arguing, so I don’t really follow your argument? It’s still part of canon and that was made clear in STID it was an earlier Earth ship and probably before Starfleet was a thing. It doesn’t mean the NX-01 never existed either. And obviously it didn’t at the time because there was no show in 1979. But it fits in canon well now and STID did a great job fitting both ships in the timeline since everything before the Kelvin incident is still considered Prime Universe history too.

And no offense, it look really ugly to me. I glad it wasn’t the main ship on Enterprise. I didn’t love the NX-01 originally either but it looks more like a Starfleet ship.

As for Archer, the character didn’t exist until the show started. And he was a character from 1-200 years prior from TOS and TNG. He was now a footnote in history by now. It’s not like they ever talked about anyone in that time period before. If they did, then they would’ve just named the character after that guy I imagine. That was the beauty of setting the show so earlier than the others, there was really no hard canon beyond the Romulan war.

But hey, that’s why I say over and over it’s the reason I hate prequels and wish they stay away from ALL of it. But here we are lol. Just keep going forward you wouldn’t have nearly these debates over past canon.

But writers and producers like putting their own stamp on things. That’s why Spock has a sister and a Noonien Singh served on the freaking Enterprise a few years before they ran into Khan.

They used the TOS movie designs as the official TOS style. I thought Enterprise did pretty well as a prequel for both TOS and TNG.

Sorry… But it sounds to more to me that you are annoyed they didn’t use that version used in a 1979 movie more as the ship for the Enterprise show. It doesn’t contradict anything. There is nothing that says that immediately preceded the original E or if there were even 4 versions before it. There were only rooms for what… 5 or 6 images so they chose 5 or six of the many Enterprises that came before the refit. It’s really a stretch at all. Far less than Burnahm being Spock’s adoptive sister.

Admittedly I am pleased with the production design of Enterprise. It really felt like it could evolve into what we saw on TOS over time. Unlike the crap show we got with Discovery. So I’m going to have to disagree on this one.

Well it’s a very slight contradictions but it contradicts TMP when Decker showed the history of Ships named Enterprise.

All he did was say that all those ships were named Enterprise. He said nothing that they were all predecessors to the current Enterprise.

If this were a legal case in court, sure you win that case. That and $3 will buy you a cup of coffee.

Common sense-wise though, it strains credibility as to why the famously important to the Federation founding NX-01 captained by the famous Admiral Archer, would not be proudly displayed on the commemorative display of famous past Enterprises.

I mean, the starship has been built and paid for by Starfleet, for Christ’s sake — of course the NX-01 is going to be there. I mean, can you imagine how embarrassing that would be if members of the Archer family were on board and they didn’t see their grandad’s ship.

So putting on my BS filter, I am not buying that that Starfleet would not have the NX-01 on that display. Of course the NX-01 would be on that display!

True…but still bad enough.

A contradiction? in Star Trek? This is impossible, clearly <Insert hated showrunner> is incompetent!

We’ve never seen instances of characters remembering other ones that weren’t on the show yet. Khan definitely didn’t remember Chekhov in TWOK the Holy.

Exactly, and I was beginning to think I was the only person today who doesn’t have this perspective. It’s like people really think that this approach is something new that Berman, Bennett, Rodenberry would never had done. Lol

I don’t think the issue is necessarily this being something new, but rather used again instead of going in a totally original or different way. I think people here are just annoyed that they had to go to this well again after Burnham and all the other instances mentioned.

The Burnam-Spock thing got us SNW, and that part of that season of DSC with Pike and company I would say was the high point of DSC for most fans. And the near-weekly canon character connections on LDS are drooled over by many fans (not me).

So what is P+ suppose to think given this sort of fan response? Obviously, they will not conclude that they need to be more original and not do more canon-based characters.

I’m not saying Berman, Bennett, Roddenberry wouldn’t have done it. But till Enterprise they always moved forward. Canon is much easier when you look forward and not back.

Here’s a fun advice I’ll give to all “canonistas” (such as I) out there:

After watching a new SNW, BEFORE jumping to conclusions, watch the pertinent linked episode from TOS. It will help you separate real canon from “conclusions derived from what we’ve seen before that somehow become a notion of canon in our minds.” Because SNW (I’ve watched the first five) is threading VERY CAREFULLY, in ways that somehow may seem to condradict canon, but actually don’t. Including pertaining that alien race Akiva loves to mention. You’ll see. :-)

I appreciate that, Salvador. So they’re walking a tight-wire, not surprised.

What, you mean fans shouldn’t assume the worst and complain Kurtzman is f’ing everything up with canon? Wow, you have some nerve suggesting that.

Love the appeal to assessment based on actual evidence rather than headcanon and/or whatever “Blish” added in the Starlogs or gamma canon authors of the myriad of TOS novels have added to colour in the gaps of what’s actually been onscreen.

Which outlet do you work for?

“But she is not at all like him in her purpose. She has a completely different purpose. Her purpose is to keep her new family alive, the Enterprise crew. They are her new family and they are all she has, actually.“

Khan in Into Darkness: “My crew is my family, Kirk. ls there anything you would not do for your family?”

Khan also exhibited deep affection for his crew and followers in Space Seed and TWOK.

Not a big deal. There are plenty of people who are related to tyrants, infamous gangsters and master criminals. The only problem with this, is that it’s too on the nose. Had this new character been just “La’an Singh” instead of “La’an Noonien Singh” (and KHAN isn’t a first name; it’s a title, and “Noonien” is a male first name, btw), this issue wouldn’t be so controversial. Oh, well. Blame it on the timeline changes caused by the Temporal Cold War, I guess.

Looking forward to the show but this is a HUGE red flag of what I suspect will be many unfortunately.

More proof supporting the idea that the current Star Trek writers lack creativity.

Khan Noonien Singh

Character » Khan Noonien Singh appears in 67 issues .

Genetic superman, an Augment from the late 20th century. Warlord whose followers controlled nearly a quarter of the Earth before fleeing aboard the SS Botany Bay. Discovered in 2267 by Captain James T. Kirk, Khan would become his greatest enemy.

Summary short summary describing this character..

Star Trek: Khan

Star Trek/Green Lantern

Star Trek Magazine

Star Trek: Khan Ruling in Hell

Khan Noonien Singh last edited by gravenraven on 07/06/23 07:02PM View full history

Khan was created for the original series Star Trek episode " Space Seed ", and was named in honor of Gene Roddenberry 's friend from World War II , Kim Noonien Singh. Roddenberry hoped his friend would hear his name on television and contact him, but never heard from Mr. Singh.

Genetic Engineering

Records of the period, including Khan's origins, are fragmentary and therefore vague. He was the product of a selective-breeding and genetic-engineering scientific program, based on the eugenics philosophy that held improving the capabilities of a man improved the entire Human race.

Augments produced by the program possessed physical strength and analytical capabilities considerably superior to ordinary Humans, and were "engineered" from a variety of Earth 's ethnic groups. Khan's background was suspected to be Sikh, from the northern region of India .

The Eugenics Wars

Khan lived up to the axiom coined by one of his creators, "superior ability breeds superior ambition" . By 1993, a wave of the genetic "supermen", including Khan, had simultaneously assumed control of more than forty of Earth's nations. From 1992 to 1996, Khan was absolute ruler of more than one-quarter of Earth's population, including the regions of Asia and the Middle East. Considered "the best of tyrants" , he severely curtailed the freedoms of his subjects, but his reign was an exception to similar circumstances in Earth history – lacking internal massacres or wars of aggression. In the mid 1990s, the Augment tyrants began warring among themselves. Other nations combined their efforts to force them from power in a series of struggles that became known as the Eugenics Wars. Eventually, most of the tyrants were defeated and their territory recaptured, but as many as ninety "supermen" were never accounted for.

Khan escaped the wars and their consequences along with 84 followers (including Joachim, Joaquin, Kati, Ling, McPherson, Otto, and Rodriguez) who swore to live and die at his command. He saw his best option in a risky, self-imposed exile. In 1996, he took control of a DY-100-class interplanetary sleeper ship he christened the SS Botany Bay , named for the site of the Australian penal colony. Set on a course outbound from Earth's solar system, but with no apparent destination in mind, Khan and his people remained in suspended animation for Botany Bay's centuries-long sublight journey.

“We offered the world order!”

They were discovered in the Mutara sector in 2267 by the U.S.S. Enterprise , captained by James Kirk . Kirk and an away team including historian Marla McGivers went aboard the Botany Bay and revived Khan, unaware of his involvement in the Eugenics Wars. Khan studied ship records, quickly bringing himself up to speed on 271 years worth of technological innovation. He then revived his own people and captured the crew of the Enterprise. The crew regained control of the ship and Kirk left Khan to rule on the abandoned planet Ceti Alpha V with 71 followers and McGivers, who became his beloved wife.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

" Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish best served cold? Well...it is very cold in space! "

But the new colony was on Ceti Alpha V for only a few months when Ceti Alpha VI exploded, shifting the orbit of Ceti Alpha V and killing many of Khan's people. With the loss of most life on the planet, except the Ceti eels, Khan's indomitable will reemerged. The eels took 20 of his followers, including his beloved wife. Fourteen years later, the U.S.S. Reliant went down to what they thought was Ceti Alpha VI, only to find out that due to the planet's shift they were really on Ceti Alpha V.

Khan and his people quickly captured Captain Clark Terrell and First Officer Pavel Chekov . The eels were dropped into their ears, affecting the cerebral cortex to allow them to become obedient to suggestion by Khan. He used them to capture the Reliant and strand its crew on the planet, returning to his merciless beginnings as leader. Kirk, now an Admiral, was left with a skeleton crew of trainees to investigate. Khan had the Reliant feign communications problems, allowing him to approach and fire on the un-shielded Enterprise. Khan gave Kirk five minutes to inform his crew that they must unconditionally surrender. Kirk used the Reliant's prefix code to override their shields and fire back. Khan now had to flee, his ship limping away as Kirk beamed to the center of the Genesis planet. Khan's suggestion triggered Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov to transport the Genesis device up to Khan's ship.

Once Terrell was ordered to kill Kirk and refused, vaporizing himself with his own phaser to avoid murdering a fellow officer, Khan decided to maroon Kirk on the planet, leaving him with these words:

"I've done far worse than kill you...I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me – as you left her – marooned for all eternity at the center of a dead planet. Buried alive...buried alive!"

But following another ruse, Kirk and the rest of his party were beamed back up to the ship and fled toward the Mutara Nebula. Kirk taunted him, and Khan once again let his anger get the better of him in his quest for revenge. He pursued Kirk into the Nebula, losing track only to be overtaken and fired on. The ship nearly destroyed, a dying Khan activated the Genesis Device. He perished in an explosion of creative force that failed to reach the escaping Enterprise, delivering his last words, from Melville's Moby Dick as he did so:

" No, no...you can't get away. To the last...I will grapple with thee. From Hell's heart, I stab at thee....For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee... "

Personality

"Captain, although your abilities intrigue me, you are quite honestly inferior. Mentally, physically. In fact, I am surprised how little improvement there has been in human evolution. Oh, there has been technical advancement, but, how little man himself has changed. Yes, it appears we will do well in your century, Captain. Do you have any other questions?"

Khan is a megalomaniac who craves power above all else. While competent in many fields, particularly leadership and strategy, he is overconfident to the point that he will assume his "superior intellect" is more than sufficient to compensate for his lack of experience in a particular activity (ship-to-ship combat in space).

Characteristics

• Name : Khan Noonien Singh
• Homeworld : Earth, India
• Born : Mid-20th century
• Species : Augment (Human)
• Gender : Male
• Height : 6'
• Weight : 175 lbs
• Hair Color : Black (gray in Wrath of Khan)
• Eye Color : Brown
• Age : 300+ (due to cryogenic suspension, 1996-2267)
• Died : 2285, Mutara Nebula
• Affiliation : Great Khanate

Skills and Abilities

"It was only the fact of my genetically engineered arrogance that got us into this mess."

Khan possesses incredible physical and mental attributes, making him physically, mentally and intellectually superior to even the most exceptional of humans:

• Enhanced strength : He possesses superhuman strength, capable of knocking a person into the air, crushing a phaser pistol in his fingers and lifting a grown man off the ground with one hand.
• Enhanced durability : Khan was extremely durable, and could withstand immense amounts of damage with complete ease, shown during his fight with Kirk.
• Superior intellect : His intelligence is incredibly high, making him the perfect strategist. He possesses a very precise memory - he never forgets a face - and is capable of quickly deducing completely correct conclusions based on little-to-no information.
• Master strategist : Khan became extremely adaptivity in space combat and strategy, shown widely throughout The Wrath of Khan .
• Expert combatant : Khan's strength, intelligence and strategic abilities make him an expert fighter - he uses his brute strength and durability to overwhelm an opponent, but also relies on the overconfidence of his opponents. He only lost his fight with Kirk because of his own arrogance and overconfidence.

Alternate Versions

Children of khan.

In an alternate timeline where the Augments won the Eugenics War, Khan became the ruler of a genetically engineered Human race called the Children of Khan who sought to conquer all of known space. His followers managed to conquer the planet and Khan himself was noted to have finished his conquest of the United States by arriving in Washington in order to accept the President's surrender. His actions led to the Great Ascension of Humanity and he led his people as the First Khan, the Eternal Master and the First Lord of Mankind. Through his actions, he managed to lead his people against numerous alien races and conquered them such as the Andorians who knelt in servitude before him.

His empire later came under attack from the Romulan Star Empire during the Romulan War of the 2100's. At some point, he was noted as having seduced and killed a Romulan commander after which he stole a cloaking device from the Star Empire. It was noted that he died as an elderly statesman after living for over two centuries and had a grandchild who continued to lead the Augment empire. Through his leadership, he became a well respected leader of his people and revered by them for centuries.

Before his death, he was also involved in a program that led to his intelligence and memories being implanted into a computer. With the development of holotechnology, this intelligence was capable of manifesting the appearance of Singh in various points of his life. The program was highly sophisticated as it required three times the processing power of a normal holoprogram. This created a potent counsel which only high ranking Princeps were capable of accessing and thus gained a measure of Khan's wisdom as he advised these younger Augments on their role in the future of their race.

Into Darkness

"You think your world is safe? It is an illusion, a comforting lie told to protect you. Enjoy these final moments of peace, for I have returned, to have my vengeance."

In the alternate Kelvin timeline, Khan's origin remains the same, but he instead of being revived by Captain Kirk he is revived Admiral Alexander Marcus of the Federation to construct weapons and warships for an upcoming war with the Klingon Empire. To prevent any suspicion, Khan was given the alias of "John Harrison". Khan would rebel against Starfleet by conducting acts of terrorism, one of which included the murder of Admiral Christopher Pike . The Enterprise crew captures him on Kronos, and he reveals the truth about his motives to them, his past and Marcus' plan to wipe out his people. Khan assists Captain Kirk in an attempt to arrest Marcus, but betrays Kirk, kills Marcus, and capture the massive battleship, the USS Vengeance. Khan attempts to destroy the Enterprise, only to be tricked by Spock . He then attempts at another escape by sending the Vengeance into Starfleet's base and San Francisco .

Khan is eventually defeated in combat by Spock, who uses his blood and regenerative DNA to revive the deceased Kirk. He is then put back into cryogenic sleep along with his cohorts.

Khan is an extremely powerful, unpredictable, ruthless and brutal person who mostly enjoys terrorizing and killing people and destroying everything in his path. Also, as he is confronting and negotiating with Spock in exchange for Kirk and Marcus' daughter, he seems to have a very massive sense of manipulation. Besides being ruthless and powerful, Khan is also an extremely intelligent and brilliant individual who has vast sophistication and wisdom.

• Aliases : John Harrison
• Height : 6' 1''
• Weight : 172 lbs
• Hair Color : Black
• Eye Color : Blue
• Age : 300+ (due to cryogenic suspension, 1996-2258)
• Status : Cryogenic suspension
• Affiliation : Great Khanate, Section 31
• Muscular capacity augmented beyond human extremes
• Can kick a person several feet into the air
• Can punch through walls
• Capable of cracking open a human skull with his bare hands
• Skin is abnormally tough and resistant to bladed weaponry and explosions
• Completely immune to phaser blasts and lasers
• Can jump from vast heights
• Possesses an IQ of well over 300, approximately
• Capable of absorbing and calculating enormous amounts of information instantaneously
• Capable of thinking three-dimensionally
• Logical to an extreme
• Possesses an extremely eidetic memory
• His eyes can process environments with extreme precision
• Can survive abnormally long periods without fresh oxygen
• Blood cells possess extraordinary regenerative abilities
• Speed of heart rate and lactic acid production means can engage intense physical activity for days on end
• Nervous system and procession of thought means his reflexes are incredibly fast and precise
• Genius-level intellect
• Has matched and very nearly defeated Spock in close-quarters combat
• Capable of wiping out an entire Klingon battalion single-handedly, and killing them all without sustaining a single blow
• Can pilot a ship larger and infinitely more complex than the USS Enterprise single-handedly
• Master strategist
• Master of manipulation
• Expert on orbital skydiving
• Extreme arrogance - superiority complex
• Will do anything to preserve the lives of his people
• Psychopathic personality means that his sanity has very narrow limits
• Susceptible to surprise attacks in combat
• Can be fooled by a person of extreme intelligence that matches or exceeds his own

Weaponry and Equipment

• Portable transwarp beaming device (Ship only)
• USS Vengeance
• Three man cannon (Can carry and wield effortlessly in one hand)
• Phaser pistols
• Phaser rifles
• Combat knife
• Portable life-support equipment

Other Media

Star trek ii: the wrath of khan (1982).

Khan is portaged by actor Ricardo Montalbán .

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Khan is portaged by actor Benedict Cumberbatch .

In 2262, Khan and 72 Augments were awakened by the Red Lantern founder Atrocitus who demanded obedience from them, however, Khan and his followers defeated him. He then took his red power ring as he could sense it calling to him and becomes a Red Lantern, killing Atrocitus. The Green Lanterns try to fight Khan and the Augments, but are quickly defeated and retreat. Khan overthrows Larfleeze and makes a proposition to the Klingon High Council: join him in exchange for their freedom from Sinestro 's rule. To make this alliance more lucrative, Khan is aware of Sinestro's plan after gaining information from Larfleeze, and he wants the Yellow Impurity and use it to destroy the Federation.

The Green Lanterns and the Enterprise crew team-up to stop Khan and Sinestro, with Kirk becoming a Green Lantern.

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‘KHAAAAN!’: why Wrath of Khan remains the greatest Star Trek movie, 40 years on

A gloriously evil villain, big-screen shocks, mind-control space slugs! The film photon torpedoed everything that went before, leaving a legacy that has yet to be bettered

W hen JJ Abrams began rebooting Star Trek with a fresh cast and crew of the Enterprise in 2009, many hardcore Trekkers complained that the new movies lacked the Apollo-era optimism and vision of space adventure as one giant cosmic morality tale that, in their view, had made the long-running saga stand out from its peers. Gone were slow-paced allegories playing on contemporary western culture, its triumphs and its horrors. In were hectic space battles, time travel, a strange obsession with motorbikes and plenty of fisticuffs.

What many of these critics failed to notice, was that this dichotomy between Star Trek as blockbuster space opera and thinking-man’s sci-fi had been going on for at least three decades before Abrams even got his hand on the Enterprise’s tiller. And to this day, the series’ greatest movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, only succeeded because it broke all the rules expected from an episode of Gene Roddenberry’s creation.

The Nicholas Meyer-directed 1982 film, which celebrates 40 years since its UK release this year, was a low budget follow-up to 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That film lifted a storyline straight out of the 1960s original series: something about a nefarious energy cloud later revealed as an ancient human space probe refitted by aliens that has subsequently achieved sentience and turned on Earth. The plot was so nebulous that even Spock struggled to work out what was going on. It duly picked up middling reviews and was a box-office disappointment for studio Paramount, largely due to its gargantuan (for the time) $44m shooting budget.

Out went Roddenberry (as producer) and in came Meyer to write and direct the project, with a much more frugal $12m budget. As well as including some juicy sci-fi stylings such as the Genesis terraforming program, Meyer, who knew nothing about Star Trek, spotted early on that the sequel needed an antagonist for William Shatner’s Admiral James T Kirk to face off against if it was to achieve the right level of big screen theatricality. The perfect solution was to bring back Ricardo Montalbán’s Khan Noonien Singh from the 1967 TV episode Space Seed, about a group of dangerous superhumans encountered by the crew of the Enterprise, who are left stranded by Kirk on an uninhabited but fertile planet.

At the time this is intended to be a merciful decision by the captain, an alternative to being sent to a penal colony for their crimes. But of course, we swiftly find out in Wrath of Khan that the supposedly perfect world picked by Kirk turned out to be in an unstable region of space, and that most of Khan’s people ended up dead or starving when a neighbouring planet subsequently exploded. Oops.

Cue a Melvillian battle between the two men as Khan takes out 15 years of frustration on his nemesis. Montalbán chews scenery like it’s an Ikea showroom made out of prime steak, yet crucially never slips too far into the realms of pantomime. The veteran Mexican actor remains a terrifying, vengeful force of nature, rage personified, throughout.

At the end of each episode of the original series, there was usually the sense that the Enterprise could fully reset, with danger averted and normal duties resumed. By contrast, the events of Wrath of Khan are so horrific that they can never be forgotten, and the level of threat seems to have been suddenly upped to warp factor 9.9.

Walter Koenig’s Chekov, along with newcomer Clark Terrell (captain of the USS Reliant) are mind-controlled by Khan using hideous space slugs that are painfully, and bloodily lodged inside their ears! Spock dies of radiation poisoning trying to restart the Enterprise’s warp engine! Khan himself is left to die once again after being summarily outwitted by his supposed inferiors. Where The Motion Picture was mildly intriguing, Wrath of Khan represents blood-pumping, big screen shock tactics on an epic scale.

Thirty years later, Abrams tried to recapture its magic with an effective remake, Star Trek Into Darkness. But even with Benedict Cumberbatch as a younger version of Khan (who crucially never got marooned by Kirk in the new timeline, so was really just a boring, big-headed eugenics experiment in human form) most of the original’s bloodthirsty lust for life and death failed to re-manifest.

Into Darkness was once voted hardcore fans’ least favourite Star Trek movie , a nadir for anyone who loved the original series’ more intellectual, cosmic musings. Yet it was all based on a movie that had to destroy everything that went before it, everything that fans expected from a Star Trek episode, just to keep the Enterprise from crashing down to earth for ever.

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The Clever Way Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Covers Up A Potential Plot Hole

This post contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 2, episode 3.

The latest episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," called "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," sees Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) encounter a time traveler in the corridors of the U.S.S. Enterprise. He straps a widget to her hand and she is immediately thrown into an alternate timeline where she is allowed to meet an alternate version of James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley). When Kirk confronts La'an, the pair are just as quickly whisked away to the past — specifically, Toronto in the 21st century. The bulk of the episode is devoted to the pair investigating how they might return to the future while avoiding any damage to the timeline. 

Time travel is nothing new to "Star Trek," and there are multiple stories about how "Trek" characters wind up in Earth's past. In the original series, the crew travels to the 1960s. In "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," they travel to 1986. In "Deep Space Nine," the crew travels into the early 21st century (which, for 1990s audiences, was still the future). Perhaps infamously, the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager once strolled around Venice Beach in 1996. Sadly, they do not groove to "Who Will Save Your Soul" by Jewel. 

But because "Star Trek" has persisted for nearly 60 years, an error has appeared in its continuity. According to Michael and Denise Okuda's sourcebook "Star Trek Chronology," Khan and a race of genetically altered superbeings seized power of 40-some nations simultaneously, instigating an extended conflict called the Eugenics Wars  ... in 1993. 

The Okudas joke in their own book, published in '93: "Fortunately, none of this seems to have come to pass, at least not the last time we checked with CNN or our local newspapers." 

With its latest episode, "Strange New Worlds" tries to account for that discrepancy.

This should have happened in the 1990s

While pursuing all their options in the 21st century, La'an and Kirk encounter a secret enclave of genetically enhanced children in a distant warehouse. One of the kids in the warehouse, one replete with high-security doors and an air of secrecy, is none other than a young Khan Noonien Singh, La'an's grandfather who would grow up to be one of the more notorious villains in the "Star Trek" franchise. 

Khan's appearance in 2023, of course, contradicts the known timeline of "Star Trek," which dictated Khan should have been born in the late 1960s. 

One of the excuses one might immediately be able to glean is that La'an's time-travel widget didn't just throw them into the past, but into an alternate universe where Khan wouldn't be born until the 2010s. But rather than rely on viewers' intuition on the matter, the "Strange New Worlds" showrunners actually addressed it in dialogue. It seems that Khan's caretaker is an alien spy who has been hiding out on Earth, in disguise, for many, many years. There was some vague description of how the alien was waiting to take action, and they mentioned that all of this genetic rigmarole "should have" taken place in the 1990s. It appears there was some sort of time-travel accident that delayed the Eugenics Wars, leaving 2023 Toronto clean and free of war for La'an and Kirk to visit.

So it seems  the Eugenics Wars are still inevitable in "Star Trek," but they were somehow pushed back. How or why they got pushed back was not explained. But worry not, continuity-obsessed Trekkies, they will most assuredly happen. 

But wait ... what about Dr. Soong?

That's not much of an explanation, but it's something. Weirdly, it also puts "Star Trek," ordinarily an assertively humanist show, into the realm of fatalism. By Gene Roddenberry's measure, Earth needed to pass through several devastating wars and nearly face self-annihilation before it could realize the utopian ideal seen in the future envisioned by the show. But the Eugenics Wars have been an important part of "Trek" continuity for so long, now it seems they are destined to happen. 

Of course, even the timeline "update" in "Strange New Worlds" isn't completely clean. It seems that it contradicts events as they were depicted in season 2 of "Star Trek: Picard." In that season, an evil geneticist named Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner) was growing a series of cloned daughters in his underground lab. The daughters tended to die out quickly, so he would accelerate their growth to adulthood. He did this for unethical eugenics reasons. When his latest daughter (Isa Briones) finds out about his weird plan, she escapes his clutches and trashes the lab. While poking through his lab's cluttered remains, Dr. Soong finds a folder labeled "Khan Project," clearly implying that Dr. Soong was about to start his own genetic manipulation experiments to create Khan himself. 

The problem is the second season of "Picard" takes place in the year 2024. By that gauge, Khan wouldn't be born for a few more years yet, grown in a lab by Dr. Soong. By the "Strange New Worlds" timeline,  however, Khan was already a boy in 2023, and Dr. Soong doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight. 

Was this parallel universe tinkering, or were the writers simply not paying attention? It's more likely it was the latter, but I'm sure someone, somewhere will ask about this and we'll get an answer soon enough.

Star Trek: Khan Noonien Singh's Last Words Are Deeper Than You Think

Classic Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) has had a long-lasting legacy that continues into the current canon. Decades after he died in one of the best Star Trek films , "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," the Federation is still profoundly affected by his misdeeds. This is in part because he pushes for genetic engineering, but it's also a testament to how charismatic he was as a character. After being an episodic villain in "Star Trek: The Original Series," he returned to wreak havoc on Admiral Kirk (William Shatner). Khan's quest for vengeance leads to his demise, but not before his famous last words.

"No! No! You can't get away ..." Khan says to the Enterprise as it flies away. "From Hell's heart ... I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath ... at thee." Star Trek has long leaned into taking inspiration from modern-day classics, and that is where Khan's final words come from. He is reciting "Moby-Dick," the Herman Melville epic about Captain Ahab's quest to destroy the titular whale. This ending is fitting for the film, as Ahab and Khan were both vengeful captains in their own right. While Ahab quested to kill his literal white whale, Khan went after his metaphorical one. Kirk was always the foe that got away. But Khan's farewell is about more than surface-level connections.

Khan is an epic figure

Like Captain Ahab, Khan is such a larger-than-life character that he has stood the test of time. "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" focuses on the repercussions of Khan's effect on the world through the eyes of his descendant, La'an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong). Khan's devotion to genetically augmenting the human race defines him, and he never changes his mind. Similarly, Ahab is as vitriolic as he was when he first started hunting the whale. He fails to kill Moby-Dick and watches it destroy his ship and most of his men. Even so, he uses his final moments to curse the whale. He understands his fate, but wouldn't change anything. This is also the place that we leave Khan at the end of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

After sustaining injuries on his ship, he shows no remorse for what he did. His actions directly cause Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) death and reaffirm he was only ever interested in world domination. He dies, cursing Kirk while he himself is the one who caused his downfall. He dies as he lived, full of hate. The tragedy of it all is that he could have turned back at any moment. But like Ahab, his fate was to be drowned by his own revenge.

Star Trek: The Legacy of Khan, Explained

Khan's legacy of genetic engineering lingers in the fearful minds of Starfleet higher-ups, but why is it still such a pervasive part of Star Trek?

Star Trek used Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalban) to introduce genetic engineering into the franchise, much to the detriment of those who’ve come after him. They are seen as dangerous because Khan’s ambitions of world domination made him a threat to Starfleet officers. They are seen as untrustworthy because Khan tried to use the kindness of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to make submissive followers out of the Enterprise crew. They are banned from Starfleet because officers fear someone like Khan having access to Federation resources or secrets .

In Deep Space Nine , this judgment doesn’t take into account that genetic alterations sometimes happen to a child too young to refuse them. In Strange New Worlds , it didn’t consider genetic enhancements as a part of cultural practices. In Prodigy , no one imagines how such negative stereotypes could harm a genetically engineered teenager. All anyone seems to focus on is that making genetic alterations is bad, regardless of the circumstances. In some ways, it’s unfair to those whose genetically-altering experiences might have been out of their hands. In other ways, though, the fear is well-founded for anyone who remembers the Eugenics Wars and Khan’s part in them.

RELATED: Star Trek: Untangling The Problematic Morality Surrounding Holographic Lifeforms

Who Was Khan Noonien-Singh?

Self-improvement is never a bad thing, and Star Trek has always emphasized its importance as part of the pursuit to leave old human atrocities behind. However, there’s a big difference between being the best version of one’s self and using science to be better than others. During the late 20th century, scientists implemented Project Khan to create and study genetically enhanced humans. It resulted in individuals known as Augments who possessed senses, strength, and intellect far beyond that of most of their non-enhanced peers. The Original Series showed fans the tip of this terrifying iceberg when Khan tried to take over the Enterprise in season 1, episode 24, “Space Seed.”

He proved to be cunning and highly intelligent, but he was also manipulative and controlling with a nasty temper. When the Enterprise found Khan’s ship floating in space, they had no idea who they’d stumbled across until it was much too late. They later discovered Khan to be the same genetically-enhanced tyrant who ruled over the lands from Asia to the Middle East during the Eugenics War. He took Lt. Marla McGivers’ (Madlyn Rhue) obsession with powerful warmongerers of the past, and used it to bully her into helping him gain control of the ship. Khan’s deceptive, honey-like charm eventually turned into arrogant cruelty when he threatened to kill the Enterprise crew if they didn’t cooperate with him and his fellow Augments.

Why Is Starfleet Still So Afraid?

Luckily, Captain Kirk and crew lived up to their reputation as creative thinkers in tricky situations. When Khan stood by while an Augment named Joaquin (Mark Tobin) repeatedly struck Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) in the face, it was just further motivation for the crew. They managed to wrestle control of the ship back from Khan and his followers, who were later sentenced to isolation on the uninhabited Ceti Alpha V. This seed they planted would later sprout the crop of catastrophe that reared its devastating head in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . Augments came too close to regaining power for Starfleet’s comfort, and it left them even more paranoid about genetically enhanced individuals.

During the Eugenics War from January 2, 1992, to June 7, 1996, Augments became obsessed with their individual power and began fighting each other. It was the only thing stopping them from collectively obtaining galactic control. This war, as well as Khan's incident, are what spring to the minds of most Starfleet officers when they hear about genetic alterations. They’re afraid that Augments will one day come back for domination in a way that can’t be stopped. More than that, though, they fear the tendency of scientists to unthinkingly apply their skills toward creating monsters while trying to improve people.

Genetically Modified Star Trek characters

This fear led to a Federation ban on any genetically enhanced individuals working in Starfleet. However, this only stopped genetically enhanced applicants from being honest. In Deep Space Nine , Dr. Julian Bashir revealed that his parents had him genetically enhanced as a child in season 5, episode 16, “Doctor Bashir, I Presume.” Amsha (Fadwa El Guindi) and Richard (Brian George) Bashir thought they were giving him a fair chance to make up for the ways he’d been struggling in school. Instead, they left him with a dark secret that almost got him thrown in prison once Starfleet found out.

Una Chin-Riley/Number One (Rebecca Romijn) had a similar experience on Strange New Worlds when Starfleet discovered her Illyrian heritage . This race of beings was known for using genetic engineering to make themselves adapt to their planets, rather than the other way around. Season 1, episode 3, “Ghosts of Illyria” revealed Una’s species, and she was later arrested for it in season 1, episode 10, “A Quality of Mercy.” She’s currently on trial in season 2, and fans are on the edge of their seats in anticipation of what will happen to her next. It’s ironic, since fellow crewmember La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) is a direct descendant of Khan and even carries his last name. But she’s had an easier career than someone whose only connection to the Augment is their experience with genetic alterations.

Dal R’El (Brett Gray) probably has the saddest history when it comes to being genetically enhanced. He’s a human hybrid with 26 different alien variants making up his genetic coding. Like Una and Bashir, he didn’t choose that for himself. Unlike them, though, he was still very young when his secret came out, and it left him vulnerable to the manipulations of an overzealous geneticist in Star Trek: Prodigy . Dr. Jago (Amy Hill) played on Dal’s insecurities in season 1, episode 15, “Masquerade” to implant a chip that would activate his enhanced genes. Only the swift actions of his crew and friends saved Dal from becoming the worst version of himself.

A common theme with many genetically enhanced individuals is their lack of choice. Another one is that Starfleet is more interested in using them to set an example than they are in understanding their stories.

Khan left a strong impression on Star Trek fans. They’ve spent years gushing over everything from his personality to his handsome appearance. Starfleet remembers him and other Augments with much less love, and for good reason. Khan represents aspects of humanity that the Federation has spent a long time desperately trying to hide. They want to forget about the Eugenics War and the Augments who started it. They want time to be the pillow between their hopeful present and their dark past

However, history is repeated when it is not understood, and when the lessons it can teach are swept under the rug. One day, Starfleet will have no choice but to let go of the past and stop allowing it to punish good people. When that day comes, Star Trek will enter a whole new phase of how it treats genetically enhanced individuals – hopefully for the better.

MORE: Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars, Explained

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Published Jun 5, 2022

Vengeance: A Tale of Two Khans

Revenge is a dish best served cold, but how did it turn out for the villainous Augment?

StarTrek.com

Khan Noonien Singh is, arguably, Star Trek ’s greatest villain. He is a complex character whose intelligence, experience and strength made him a formidable and dangerous adversary for James T. Kirk. Khan’s mythos has proved enduring for Trek fans, who’ve seen this character arise across their screens in different decades and even timelines. This character is compelling not only because his engineered intellect and strength make him a threat to Trek ’s protagonists, but because his failing is one that’s easily reflected in our own character and choices. While Khan was compelled by his drive to conquer and gain superiority over others in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode, “ Space Seed ,” it was his need for vengeance in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that cemented his place in Trek lore.

On the surface, it could be argued that Khan’s complaint is not entirely without merit. He agreed to be left on a planet that, while difficult, could provide a way of life for him and his crew that would allow them to flourish, but would prevent them from exercising their militaristic and colonial ambition. As Khan recounts the story to first officer Chekov and Captain Terrell, a cosmological explosion caused planetary desolation six months after their arrival, which led to the deaths of several crew members -- including his wife. Neither Kirk nor Starfleet returned to confirm Khan’s viability or whether his planetary conditions had been altered. There is reason for this, given Starfleet’s reticence regarding genetic engineering, but it seems odd that a humanitarian organization such as the Federation would not have registered the potential harm to these people once Ceti Alpha VI had exploded. This began the process of Khan’s 15-year meditation on revenge and an obsession with seeking vengeance upon Kirk for what he’d lost.

In an essay originally published in 1625, Francis Bacon wrote that “revenge is a kind of wild justice.” If an initial wrong is an offense against law, Bacon argues that the need for revenge puts law aside altogether. This is especially the case with what he calls private revenge, which acts out of vindictive desire. Public revenge is an account of justice where a wrong committed is repaid in like manner/measure. However, Bacon prefaces both public and private by noting the harmful psychology of revenge in each instance. He writes that people meditate upon revenge in order to keep their wounds fresh, to prevent them from healing, to maintain the desire and need for retribution.

This can be easily seen in Khan’s desire for vengeance. He’d kept his wounds fresh and made retaliation his singular object of desire. What’s more, on two separate occasions his first officer warns him of this and attempts to persuade him to leave that path. When Khan first captured the Reliant and later when he successfully stole the Genesis device, Khan’s second-in-command highlights that he’s now free. He has in fact beaten Kirk and proven his superiority over the Starfleet captain. Khan responds, “He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him.” The issue is that while Khan had a starship, he was not free. He was not free from his obsession and longing for revenge. He’d meditated for so long on his wounds that he couldn’t leave them behind or live without them. Ultimately, this obsession leads to his undoing. The thirst for vengeance is never satiated and so it begins to consume itself.

It’s easy to see Khan’s desire for revenge be his own undoing; it’s often a villain’s fate. However, in the Kelvin timeline we are introduced to a troubling reversal. Here, Khan is not the only one bent on revenge. Kirk and Starfleet as a whole are at risk of succumbing to a need for vengeance and public protection. Admiral Marcus is obsessed with external threats to the Federation and is willing to sacrifice the Federation’s principles to preserve its structure. In doing so, he resuscitates Khan and holds his crew hostage to manipulate him into doing the admiral’s bidding. In response, Khan attacks Section 31 and later the command council, killing Captain Pike in the process. Khan is once more seeking revenge for his crew and attempting to gain power for his own ends. However, the loss of his mentor lures Kirk to seek revenge. It clouds his judgment and allows him to also be manipulated by Marcus. Kirk’s obsession with avenging Pike’s death and the war declared on Starfleet by Khan brings him close to sacrificing his principles and his friendships.

Here, the potential fallout of what Bacon called public revenge is also explored. A public wrong has been done, but both on a personal and institutional level, the desire for vengeance causes the implosion of the individuals obsessed with it. Kirk nearly gives up his Federation and Starfleet values, along with his friendship with Scotty, and as Spock points out, his moral foundation. Marcus gives up what the Federation stands for in his need to violently respond to the Klingons he considered aggressors. Khan’s desire for vengeance against all Federation principles and persons results in the loss of those he held most dear. Once more, revenge consumed itself.

In a diary entry written in September 1947, Gandhi wrote, “Anger breeds revenge and the spirit of revenge is today responsible for all the horrible happenings here and elsewhere… Let not future generations say that we lost the sweet bread of freedom because we could not digest it.” In the Prime Universe, Khan had gained his freedom (albeit through violent means), but his obsession with revenge prevented him from digesting that bread. In the end, for Khan, and for Marcus in the Kelvin timeline, revenge was not wild justice, but the abrogation of laws, principles and sanity. The stories of the two Khans show that it’s not just our enemies that can be consumed with a desire for revenge. We, too, must guard against its corrupting tendencies.

Timothy Harvie is Associate Professor of philosophy and ethics at St. Mary's University in Calgary, Canada.  His interests lie primarily in philosophical theology, political philosophy, environmental and animal philosophies, and ideas of the role of hope in society.  He is a lifelong Star Trek fan. http://www.stmu.ca/dr-timothy-harvie/

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Khan Noonien Singh

Source Text:  “Space Seed.” Star Trek: The Original Series . Writ. Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilber. Dir. Mark Daniels. NBC. 1967.

Entry Author: Emma Baker

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Characters / Star Trek: The Original Series - Khan Noonien Singh

Edit locked, khan noonien singh.

Played by: Ricardo Montalbán , Desmond Sivan (child, Strange New Worlds )

Dubbed in french by: françois chaumette (star trek ii), dubbed in brazilian portuguese by: darcy pedrosa, appearances: star trek: the original series | star trek ii: the wrath of khan | star trek: strange new worlds.

Khan: Khan is my name. Kirk: Khan, nothing else? Khan: Khan.

A 20th-century genetically-engineered tyrant who ruled a quarter of the world in the 1990s. As his fellow "supermen" (or Augments) were overthrown, Khan and roughly 80 of his followers launched themselves into space in cryogenic sleep before being found by Kirk. With his weakness being his ambition, Khan then tried to seize control of the Enterprise with the help of Marla McGivers , the Enterprise ship historian whom he managed to seduce. It failed thanks to the crew's opposition and an attack of conscience from McGivers . Kirk then exiled Khan, his followers, and Marla to a remote but hospitable planet as an act of mercy, giving them the chance to build a new society. Unfortunately, not long afterwards, the planet suffered a catastrophic ecological disaster and, being completely forgotten by Kirk, Khan grew vengeful toward the man who cast judgement on him...

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• A Father to His Men : He saw his fellow super humans as a family, to the point where he vowed to avenge Joachim when he died following a crippling blast on the Reliant .
• Affably Evil : In his first appearance, Khan's pretty charming, polite, and a bit of a rogue, just like Kirk. However, come Wrath of Khan and Khan is just losing it.
• Alas, Poor Villain : At the end of Wrath of Khan , he's lost everything, including his beloved wife as well as his people, along with any hope of being able to establish a society for them. As he's left to die in the exploding Reliant , he remains Defiant to the End , reciting dialogue from Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick before the Reliant explodes. All that potential he had as a superhuman was essentially wasted out of a desire for control and revenge.
• Ambiguously Brown : He's a genetically-augmented human from some point in the late 20th century. Culturally, he's a North Indian Sikh, but as he is also a genetically-engineered human, his DNA could contain many different genetic traits (his Mexican accent, however, is difficult to explain - especially after the effects of various Temporal Wars caused his birth to be bumped a half century later ... and to Canada ).
• Anti-Villain : Cruel and immoral his actions may be, he wants a society that he and his people can thrive in, no matter how many others have to suffer for it.
• Arch-Enemy : More than a hundred years later , Spock would credit him as being "the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise ever faced."
• Ascended Extra : Goes from a random Villain of the Week to the main antagonist of The Wrath of Khan and one of the franchise's most iconic villains.
• A tie-in comic to Star Trek Into Darkness addresses Trek 's Alternate History directly, starting with Khan nuking Washington, D.C. in 1992 .
• The final episode of Star Trek: Picard Season 2 implies and the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds confirms that under the Alex Kurtzman production umbrella the Eugenics Wars are being moved from the 1990's to the 2030's, with the implication that the 1990's is when the technology to create Khan was developed. This could be explained as Spock getting the dates wrong due to incomplete records, if it weren't for one line from The Wrath of Khan in which Khan himself states he departed Earth in 1996.
• The third episode of Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds untangles the thread by revealing that Khan is responsible for bringing humanity to a dark age, which ultimately brings humanity to eventually form the Federation and Starfleet. Khan himself is the target of a temporal war to prevent this from occuring, which only succeeds in delaying his rise from the 1990's to the 2030's. His failure to rise culminates in humanity failing to progress beyond their own Solar System, having failed to ally with other species such as the Vulcans who are eventually wiped out in a war with the Romulans.
• Bread and Circuses : His ruling style back when he was a dictator over a fourth of Earth, at least compared to his competitors, which was enough to give him a legacy as "the best of tyrants." Notably, there were no massacres under his rule, and he didn't involve himself in the Eugenics Wars until after his territory was attacked. On the other hand, the people under his rule were reduced to subjects with few freedoms.
• Breakout Villain : Originally just a Villain of the Week . Ever since Wrath of Khan , he's arguably the most highly-regarded villain in the entire franchise.
• Character Catchphrase : He has a particular way of saying "Admiral" he develops once he learns Kirk has gotten a promotion. At least one interpretation is Khan thinking Kirk got that for dumping him on Ceti Alpha V (because why wouldn't it be about Khan?), and raging jealousy that that's what he got while Khan got the shaft.
• Classic Villain : Khan represents a nice combo of Pride and Wrath .
• Control Freak : Khan demands absolute obedience from everything. While some of his followers can object, none of them will sway him from his course.
• Damned by Faint Praise : He is seen as "the best of tyrants" in regards to the Eugenic Wars.
• Dramatically Missing the Point : A fan of Moby-Dick , Khan sees himself as Captain Ahab and Kirk as his White Whale. Khan seemed to have forgotten how Ahab's quest for vengeance ended. Not just self destruction - he understands and accepts that - but that Ahab didn't even get a chance to make sure he succeeded.
• The Dreaded : Even a century after his death, Starfleet is still terrified of him. It's outright said that the main reason the Federation still has a No Transhumanism Allowed policy in the Star Trek: Prodigy era is because they're scared of a new Khan rising from the ashes. His reputation even extends into a new timeline: When young Spock asks for information about Khan, Spock breaks his own oath not to tell him about the future to warn him about how dangerous Khan is, outright saying that he's the most dangerous enemy the Enterprise ever faced.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones : While he started manipulating Marla McGivers to betray Starfleet as a tool to escape, he came to passionately love her after she joined him in exile. He forgave her betrayal of him to her old crew, and she ruled as his queen. Her death on Ceti Alpha V - more than that of his other loyal followers - is what drives the man who once conquered a quarter of Earth.
• Evil Overlord : Back in the day, anyway. He tries to give it another go in "Space Seed" but is thwarted and offered the opportunity of becoming one to an abandoned planet. But when the planet unexpectedly suffers a catastrophe that devastates him and his followers , he settles on a simpler motive.
• Joachim begs Khan to ignore Kirk and exploit Genesis. Khan shoves him aside and orders the Reliant to follow the Enterprise into the Nebula.
• Faux Affably Evil : Becomes one in The Wrath Of Khan , blinded by his desire to get revenge on Kirk. That doesn't undermine his intelligence, though.
• Genius Bruiser : A Superhuman with immensely powerful physical and mental capabilities.
• Glass Cannon : Has the physical strength to bend a phaser in half with his bare hands and effortlessly lift a spacesuit-wearing Chekov with one arm, but gets taken down by Kirk with a pipe.
• Greater-Scope Villain : Arguably his interactions with the Enterprise are much smaller in significance compared to how much his role as a 20th Century Dictator defines and causes the creation of the Federation.
• Heinousness Retcon : In Space Seed , and to a lesser extent Wrath of Khan , Khan is introduced as a 20th century dictator, but otherwise fairly little is made of him. It's in fact noted that he's only one of several dictators active at the time - if the strongest of them. He's otherwise unremarkable and obscure enough that unraveling his identity is a huge chunk of the episode, and the crew need a briefing to explain who the man was. Scotty, and later Kirk even confesses having a degree of admiration for the man. Bones even mentions in slight defense of Khan that "there were no massacres" in his rule, though Spock immediately states, "and little freedoms." Later series would characterize Khan as basically Trek's version of Hitler ( with Captain Picard alluding to both of them in the same breath ). A man whose name is a byword for evil and death, and whose actions are so despicable, the Federation centuries later is still sort of processing the trauma of them, and has laws on the books to stop a man like him from ever being made. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds even had admirals admit that these laws are draconian and discriminatory but humans are still so sensitive about what Khan did that repealing them is unthinkable.
• Hero Killer : He was directly responsible for Spock's death in the second movie. Hard to fit the trope more plainly when you've done that .
• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act : His descendant La'an Noonien-Singh has to save his life as a child in 2022, not just so she will be born but also as Romulans had sent an agent back in time to kill him. It turns out that without the Eugenics Wars to make humanity want to be better, whilst humanity will still reach space they will become the isolationist United Earth Fleet an easier smaller target amongst many rather than the alliance that is the Federation.
• In Love with the Mark : He started off manipulating Marla, but quickly came to genuinely love her.
• Karma Houdini : He was this In-Universe for his crimes during the Eugenics Wars. While all the other superhumans were implied to have been killed or imprisoned, Khan managed to escape on the Botany Bay . Even when he's later released by the Enterprise crew, there's no serious talk of putting him on trial and he's eventually given a whole planet of his own to rule. Then Ceti Alpha VI exploded , depriving Khan of his beloved wife and sentencing him to a hellish existence on a Death World .
• Morality Pet : His possible son Joachim, who he genuinely loves and cares about.
• Motive Decay : Initially, all he wants is to create a society where he and his people can thrive, but by the time of The Wrath of Khan , all he wants is revenge against Kirk.
• Mr. Fanservice : He's almost always wearing an outfit that displays his muscular chest and great physique.
• My God, What Have I Done? : Khan's final moments include one of these with the death of Joachim, who may very possibly be his biological son and almost certainly is his adopted son. Realizing he got him killed doesn't deter him from further actions, though.
• Navel-Deep Neckline : A Rare Male Example , his pecs are well displayed.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket : In the movie (though the jacket is quite damaged), to show off Montalban's great shape.
• No Transhumanism Allowed : In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , it's explained that Khan is the reason the Federation prohibits genetic modification or engineering.
• Photographic Memory : Implied to be one of his genetically engineered gifts, and stated explicitly in the novelization of Wrath of Khan and the expanded universe's "Khan trilogy". He tells Chekov he never forgets a face, and even after 15 years he still seems to have the Enterprise 's technical specifications committed to memory, given that he still has perfect knowledge of the ship's weak points.
• Pride : He has oodles of it.
• Reasonable Authority Figure : At least to his fellow superhumans. His interactions with Joachim in Wrath of Khan show that his followers are comfortable enough with him to give him critical feedback without any hesitancy, although in the end his own authority is absolute.
• Vaguely justified in that Khan and Singh are both overwhelmingly common Indian names, however.
• Revenge Before Reason : He will do anything to kill Kirk, no matter how self-destructive. Even when Kirk is clearly baiting him into an obvious trap, Khan seems physically incapable of resisting the urge to roar into it, so fervent is his hatred. Khan: No... you won't get away. From Hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee...
• Revenge Myopia : Khan ignores Chekov's observation that he attacked Kirk after the latter had taken in him and his crew.
• Rule of Symbolism : Much of the conflict between Kirk and Khan plays out like Paradise Lost , with Kirk as God and Khan as Lucifer . Khan even lampshades this in "Space Seed." In The Wrath of Khan , he has two copies of Paradise Lost on his bookshelf (one which included Paradise Regained ).
• Sanity Slippage : By the time of The Wrath of Khan , he’s lost it thanks to being stranded on Ceti Alpha V and the death of his wife and most of his followers.
• Sealed Evil in a Can : He and his cryogenically-frozen followers, in the episode " Space Seed ." And again in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , when he's abandoned on Ceti Alpha V (which the crew of the Reliant mistake for Ceti Alpha VI after a natural disaster alters its orbit and destroys its environment).
• Sequel Adaptation Iconic Villain : Star Trek: The Motion Picture had the crew of the Enterprise confront V'ger as the antagonist. Wrath of Khan brought Khan back and more dangerous than ever.
• Silver Fox : For a man who was stranded on a nightmare planet for two decades, Khan still managed to age pretty damn well, and he clearly knows it. Check out them pecs, for one.
• Skilled, but Naive : Other than his pride and ambition, one of Khan's greatest weaknesses is that, despite his incredible intellect, all his knowledge and experience is that of a 20th century man, and he lacks the decades of experience in space that Kirk has. This shows when he's unable to quickly find the Reliant 's command console override despite having memorized Starfleet's standard starship technical specifications, and when he fails to consider that space is three-dimensional during starship combat. Spock: He's intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist : In Wrath , at least regarding Kirk and all collateral damage. Khan: I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you... and I wish to go on hurting you.
• Stalker with a Crush : Meyer confirmed that the Foe Romance Subtext between Khan and Kirk was intentional, and Khan twists Moby Dick lines to “he tasks me, he tasks me and I shall have him.”
• Star-Crossed Lovers : He and his wife, a crewman on the Enterprise who suffered from Heel–Face Revolving Door Syndrome.
• Suddenly Shouting : "This is Ceti Alpha Five!!
• Why Khan wants Project Genesis. With his homeworld destroyed and his people dwindling in numbers, he feels that terraforming a planet is the only way to ensure his and his people's continued existence.
• In "Space Seed", Khan makes it clear he believes that he would have been the eventual victor of the Eugenics Wars if things had gone differently (" One man would have ruled eventually. As Rome under Caesar, think of its accomplishments!")
• The Bad Guy Wins : Yes, Khan is killed by the end of The Wrath of Khan , but what happens after that? Spock — Kirk's closest friend — dies painfully as a result of radiation poisoning in his efforts to repair Enterprise enough to escape the Genesis Device detonation . Then as a result of his quest to bring his friend back from the dead , Kirk loses not only his beloved Enterprise but also his son. Ultimately, Khan has done far worse to Kirk than kill him — he hurt him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass : Khan becomes far more ruthless and unhinged in The Wrath of Khan , thanks to his Sanity Slippage and single-minded vendetta against Kirk.
• Tragic Keepsake : Khan wears a Starfleet emblem on a chain around his neck, strongly implied to have been part of Marla McGiver's uniform. note  It's also a continuity problem: The insignia is similar to the belt buckle worn as part of the movie uniforms, however was not actually present on the uniform McGivers would have worn.
• Tragic Villain : Subverted. Khan has all the hallmarks of a tragic character, having suffered a great loss that drives him to committing evil, but while he is sympathetic, he was a ruthless dictator even before this. The only thing it really changed was how evil he was, causing him to go from Affably Evil to a spiteful, unhinged demagogue.
• Trouble from the Past : He perfectly embodies both the modern age's charismatic daring and its prideful ambition, transported through time almost 300 years to menace the utopian future of the 23rd century, which he comes to believe is ill-prepared to resist himself and his crew of supermen. Kirk ultimately proves him wrong on that account.
• Ungrateful Bastard : Kirk and company find a stasis ship just in the nick of time, as Khan's own capsule is about to fail, revive him and his followers, and treat him with frankly undue courtesy given who he is— so Khan decides to steal his ship. Then Khan resents Kirk leaving him and his people on Ceti Alpha V, even though that was more lenient than taking him back to Earth, where he would have been prosecuted as a war criminal.
• Justifies his quest to Take Over the World as an attempt to unify humanity during a time of war.
• Subverted by the movie, in which it becomes abundantly clear he isn't as interested in conquering as he is in killing one man over a grudge.
• Wicked Cultured : His Final Speech comes from Moby-Dick , he mentions Paradise Lost before Kirk exiles him, and the Botany Bay appears to have other classic books. Part of his obsession with Moby-Dick in particular seems to be because Khan was stuck on Ceti Alpha V with only a handful of books to read, leading him to read them over and over again.
• Young Conqueror : Both Expanded Universe versions of his Origin Story (the 2001 novels by Greg Cox and the 2014 comic book tying in to Star Trek Into Darkness ) place him as being either in his early or late 20's during the Eugenics Wars. The novels indicate that faster-than-normal maturation is part of his genetic modifications.

Commander John Harrison/Khan Noonien Singh (Kelvin Timeline)

Played by: Benedict Cumberbatch

Dubbed in french by: pierre tissot, dubbed in brazilian portuguese by: ronaldo júlio, appearances: star trek into darkness.

Starfleet's top agent, before a perceived betrayal by his superiors sent him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the entire Federation command structure.

• The Ace : As Harrison himself claims, he is simply "better" at everything . Justified, as he is genetically designed to be so.
• Adaptational Jerkass : The original Khan was in no way a nice person, but he was Affably Evil , at least in "Space Seed", and had an entertainingly hammy persona. This one is far more cold blooded and stoic.
• Adaptational Villainy : As seen above, in Space Seed Khan had committed no massacres in his reign. Here Spock accuses him of planning to commit mass genocide on any being he deems "less than superior".
• Aesop Amnesia : Openly vows to resume "the work" he and his crew had done prior to banishment. Despite having failed in his despotism in the Eugenics Wars, he still hopes to start right over.
• He also has a spinoff comic. See Villain Episode .
• Alternate History : The Villain Episode tie-in comics tackle the Failed Future Forecast issues around the Eugenics Wars head on... by showing Khan nuking Washington D.C. and Moscow... in 1992 .
• The Antichrist : He's not supernatural, of course, but the tie-in comics use a fair share of "The Beast of Revelations" imagery when describing his rise to power during the Eugenics Wars.
• Arch-Enemy : For Kirk, much like Nero for Spock in the last film . And well, himself for Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .
• Boasts about his superhuman abilities. Harrison: I am better. Kirk: At what? Harrison: Everything. note  In the novelization , the tone of voice he says this with isn't that of a boast, but a simple statement of fact by a man who knows that it's true.
• Boasts about how he's going to end you. Harrison: I will walk over your cold corpses.
• Badass Longcoat : Sports a black trenchcoat with a hood. He even steals one off a chair towards the end of the film to replace it. Presumably, this was to help disguise him to some extent.
• Benevolent Boss : Zig-zagged between this and Bad Boss . While he does seem to truly care for his crew, he was also a ruthless tyrant and war criminal 300 years prior. Harrison: My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?
• Berserk Button : Threatening his crew or implying that they're dead is a seriously bad idea. Admiral Marcus found that one out the hard way.
• Big Bad : A Starfleet agent with superhuman abilities turned terrorist. He's really Khan Noonien Singh, an infamous war criminal working for Starfleet under an assumed identity.
• Big Bad Ensemble : Serves as Into Darkness 's main antagonist, alongside Admiral Marcus . Towards the climax, however, Khan kills Marcus , establishing himself as the sole Big Bad .
• Big "NO!" : He yells "No" when he thinks that his crew has been killed after the torpedoes explode on his ship.
• Bio-Augmentation : Genetically engineered for superhuman strength, endurance and intelligence.
• Bullying a Dragon : Nice job trying to force a 300-year-old superman stronger, smarter and more ruthless than you to do your dirty work by threatening to kill his crew (which is essentially his family), Marcus .
• Byronic Hero : A Villainous example. He fits the bill in a few ways: Brooding, charismatic, sympathetic and physically attractive but also incredibly vengeful, prideful and was once an Evil Overlord back in the day.
• Canon Character All Along : This is one of Into Darkness 's main twists. John Harrison is revealed to be none other than Kirk's Arch-Enemy Khan Noonien Singh.
• Canon Foreigner : Subverted. He's actually Khan Noonien Singh.
• The Chessmaster : Most of the events of Into Darkness are the result of Harrison's planning and manipulations.
• Chewing the Scenery : While there is some mugging during "annoyed/angry exposition" , when he gets furious, Evil Is Hammy gets into full force. You should have let me SLEEP!
• Commanding Coolness : Harrison's falsified rank in Starfleet was Commander.
• Cool Starship : The USS Vengeance , a jet black Federation dreadnought that Harrison helped design and later steals after killing Admiral Marcus .
• Creepy Monotone : Making him even more scary. And a complete inversion of Ricardo Montalban's hammy original. Benedict Cumberbatch 's performance just drives the whole thing home since you really can't watch him like this without shuddering at least once.
• Dark Is Evil : Dresses exclusively in black clothing. Benedict Cumberbatch also dyed his hair black for this film again. Also, the Vengeance , a pitch-black monster of a warship, was his design, and he takes command of it near the climax of the film.
• After Kirk's utterly ineffective beatdown on Kronos, Harrison contemptuously repeats Uhura's invocation of Kirk's rank. Harrison : Captain .
• During his conversation with Spock after Harrison hijacks control of the Vengeance . Spock : You betrayed us . Harrison : Oh, you are smart , Mr. Spock.
• Death Seeker : When he thinks his crew is dead, Khan has shades of this when he attempts to ram The Vengeance into Starfleet Headquarters. Harrison : SET DESTINATION: STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS! Vengeance's computer system : Engines compromised. Cannot guarantee destination. Confirm order. Harrison : Confirm.
• Despair Event Horizon : He crosses it when he believes his beloved crew to have been killed. After that, Khan stops caring if he lives or dies, setting the Vengeance on a suicide run to Starfleet Headquarters.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu : As he notes, Starfleet really should have kept him asleep .
• Dragon-in-Chief : Marcus forced him to help design the USS Vengeance for Starfleet but he is a much more direct threat to the heroes than the Admiral and only serves him to save his crew, and Harrison shows himself to be the more competent villain when he kills Marcus to commandeer the Vengeance .
• The Dreaded : Spock Prime's encounters with Harrison/Khan's prime universe counterpart are enough to convince him to give Spock information about him, despite his previous pledge to let Spock walk his own path.
• Driven to Villainy : Subverted. While his present motivations are to get back at Starfleet for Admiral Marcus for holding his family hostage, Khan was a war criminal before being frozen, and was specifically defrosted for both his intellect and his willingness to use it aggressively .
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette : He has dark hair, retains his actor's pale complexion and serves as a contrast to Kirk and Admiral Marcus .
• Emperor Scientist : In the tie-in comics it's indicated that this was his ruling style after he accomplished his initial conquests.
• Empowered Badass Normal : Being a bio-engineered super-human, he's a Nigh-Invulnerable One-Man Army Evil Brit in a Badass Longcoat . Not even an extremely angry Vulcan on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge was enough to stop him without help.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones : Wants to save his former crew who were on board the SS Botany Bay . Harrison: Is there anything you would not do for your family?
• Evil Brit : Retains the accent of his actor, the British Benedict Cumberbatch .
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good : His terrorist attacks are motivated by his suspicions that Starfleet has already killed his crew, mainly because that's exactly what he would have done in their place. Later, after the torpedo incident, he again assumes that his enemies have killed off his crew and decides to make the Vengeance 's name very literal. One gets the impression that Khan just can't wrap his head around other people not being as murderous and willing to kill for convenience as him.
• While Harrison/Khan displays similar mannerisms to that of Spock in his initial appearance, the differences in their character increasingly become apparent following The Reveal . Khan actually goes so far as to distinguish himself from Spock by pointing out that he indulges and takes pride in his savagery while Spock suppresses such emotions. Harrison: Intellect alone is useless in a fight, Mr. Spock. You, you can't even break a rule. How could you be expected to break bone ?
• Evil Is Hammy : Even when he's not raising his voice, he is full of Cold Ham with the way he overenunciates his words.
• Evil Is Not a Toy : Starfleet really shouldn't have tried to manipulate or threaten him.
• Evil Is Petty : Being shunned after helping Marcus with his warmongering plans is as bad for him as the fact the admiral kept his "family" hostage.
• Evil Overlord : Ruled over a quarter of Earth centuries ago.
• Evil Sounds Deep : Benedict Cumberbatch plays the character with a deep baritone voice.
• Fantastic Racism : He finds being at the beck and call of the genetically "inferior" humiliating.
• Face–Heel Turn : He went from a decorated member of Starfleet to a terrorist trying to destroy it. Only not; the John Harrison identity was created for him when he was thawed, and the closest he came to working for Starfleet was his unwilling stint making weapons for Admiral Marcus.
• Fallen Hero : Subverted. He was a bad guy long before his falsified past.
• Fatal Flaw : Pride . While his original timeline version was more defined by the It's Personal nature of Wrath pushing him to obsessively pursue Kirk in Revenge Before Reason , here, his condescending contempt for Kirk’s crew manifests as arrogance bordering on blindness— in particular, he seems incapable of conceiving that Spock could have the cunning to match him even briefly, or meet Khan’s savagery with his own. The first costs him his ship, and the second leads to a brutal fist fight with the half-Vulcan that is more than even Khan could have predicted.
• A Father to His Men : He genuinely cares about his crew and will do anything to protect them. Harrison : My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?
• Faux Affably Evil : Though Harrison genuinely cares for his crew, the politeness he demonstrates towards Kirk and others is relatively fake. Once his nominal allies have outlived their usefulness , he'll have no hesitation about killing them.
• First-Name Basis : Upon the revelation of his true identity, he's addressed solely as "Khan". Only Spock Prime even mentions the rest of his name.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke : Harrison is a One-Man Army created through genetic manipulation. It turns out to be the first hint of his true identity.
• Genius Bruiser : He's incredibly intelligent ( within a year, he learned enough about 23rd century technology to design advanced weaponry, as well as the nigh-unstoppable USS Vengeance ) and extremely strong (enough so to crush a man's skull with his bare hands ).
• Guns Akimbo : For the shootout with the Klingons, he wields a phaser rifle in one hand and a Chainsaw-Grip BFG in the other.
• Hannibal Lecture : Delivers several speeches while captured over the heroes' shortcomings.
• Healing Factor : Heavily implied but not seen. Harrison's blood allows his cells to heal at an astonishing rate, which he uses to heal a sick girl in the beginning in exchange for a favor. Later, Bones revives a dead tribble with it, and then uses it to save Kirk .
• The Heavy : Harrison's actions are what set off and move along the plot of Into Darkness .
• Heel–Face Brainwashing : The tie-in comics show that after they found the Botany Bay , Section 31 gave Khan extensive plastic surgery, a memory wipe, and a fake life history in an attempt to turn him into John Harrison, Hero of the Federation . After he finds out what was done to him, he's understandably pissed.
• Hero Killer : This guy has killed a whole bunch of Starfleet officers, including Pike . Near the end of Into Darkness , Khan's attack on the Enterprise manages to kill Kirk himself, although the crew do manage to save their captain.
• Human Popsicle : Was cryogenically frozen for about 250 years. He ends the film this way, too .
• Icy Blue Eyes : Which serves to highlight his cold, calculating personality.
• Implacable Man : Over the course of the film, Harrison withstands a ( completely ineffective ) beating from Kirk, stunning shots from a phaser, an explosion that cripples the Vengeance , and the Vengeance crashing into San Francisco, all of which barely slows him down. Exaggerated during his fight with Spock, where he forces his way through a Vulcan nerve pinch and takes roughly a dozen stun shots from Uhura's phaser without going down. Ultimately, it takes Spock beating him nearly to death to subdue Khan .
• In a Single Bound : The first time we see him, he jumps an enormous distance into battle and lands perfectly.
• In Spite of a Nail : No matter the universe, Khan and Kirk will always end up at each other's throats.
• Ironic Echo : He does underestimate Spock somewhat, telling him that intellect alone is useless in a fight and that Spock "can't even break a rule. How would [he] be expected to break bone ?" Guess what, Spock manages to do exactly that just fine to him in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the climax of the film.
• Taunts Kirk as he destroys the Enterprise. Harrison: No ship should go down without her captain.
• Taunts Admiral Marcus as he crushes his skull. Harrison: YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME SLEEP.
• Taunts Kirk while securely imprisoned. Harrison: Captain, are you going to punch me again, over and over and over , until your arm weakens? Clearly you want to.
• Karmic Death : Marcus was planning one of these for Harrison when you take into account that he was to be killed by the torpedoes he designed, which also contained his crew. Luckily, Kirk didn't go through with that plan and opted to arrest him. Even better, Harrison surrenders himself the moment he finds out about the number of the torpedoes.
• Kick the Dog : Right before he kills Admiral Marcus , he stomps on Carol's leg hard enough to break it.
• Knight of Cerebus : If you thought Nero was nasty, he pales compared to this guy.
• Kubrick Stare : Harrison occasionally tilts his head down and to the right and then angrily stares up to look more threatening.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler : Subsequent release materials, his Villain Episode comic mini-series, and even the DVD/Blu-ray cases of Into Darkness make no secret of the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch's character is, in fact, Khan.
• Leitmotif : Besides the main theme, Khan's theme is the most noticeable leitmotif in the movie. It's oddly heroic, which makes sense when you look at the movie's symbolism and realize he's not so much meant to be Osama Bin Laden as he is meant to be Leonidas .
• Lightning Bruiser : The thing that stands out most about his fighting style is just how damn fast he is. The second thing is how strong he is, to the point that he can carry a cannon with one hand or squash people's skulls like melons. The third thing is how he can withstand multiple punches and phaser stuns without slowing down.
• Love Makes You Evil : Played with. He was certainly evil before, but his actions in Into Darkness are driven almost entirely by his love for his crew.
• One-Man Army : Harrison is a "one-man weapon of mass destruction" who takes on entire Klingon security teams by himself. Admiral Marcus : For reasons unknown, John Harrison has just declared a one-man war against Starfleet.
• Manipulative Bastard : He cures Thomas Harewood's comatose daughter to manipulate him into suicide-bombing a Starfleet records office. This in turn causes most of the Starfleet officers to gather in one place, where he promptly tries killing most of them.
• Manly Tears : When he talks about his crew during his capture on-board the Enterprise , tears are seen streaming down his face while he looks away from Kirk and Spock the entire time.
• Meaningful Re Name : The Villain Episode tie-in comics reveal that his birth name was Noonien Singh; he named himself Khan after completing his conquest of the Middle East and Central Asia.
• Mirror Character : As he points out to Kirk, both of them would do anything to protect their respective crews .
• Moral Myopia : Genuinely cares for his former crew and is distraught and furious when he thinks they've been harmed, and while his actions toward Starfleet and the Enterprise crew may possibly be justified, in his mind they were unlawfully kidnapping him for justified actions, his other actions make it clear that he barely considers the rest of the genetically inferior population to even be people. In fact, Spock mentions that Khan was accused of practicing eugenics in Earth's past.
• More Dakka : His attack on the meeting at Starfleet Headquarters basically consists of him shooting the crap out of his target. He doesn't exactly skimp on bullets when it comes to fighting the Klingons, either.
• Downplayed. When Kirk confronts him over his massacre of Starfleet officers, he indignantly protests that Marcus was holding his crew hostage. In his eyes, they weren't innocent civilians, as Kirk claims, but military personnel that Khan believes killed his defenseless crew, so he sees it as a case of Pay Evil unto Evil .
• He also claims that he was labeled a criminal and exiled from Earth, ignoring his actions as a tyrant.
• When he threatens to kill everyone on the Enterprise if Spock does not return his crew, he says he "will have no choice" but to do it if Spock defies him. However, it was Kirk and Scotty who double-crossed him by having him stunned once they had taken the Vengeance , so in Khan's eyes, the crew is not entirely innocent and have proven untrustworthy, which is solidified when Spock double crosses him again by arming the torpedoes.
• Takes a huge pounding over the course of the movie, and only ever shows a few scratches.
• Faked being stunned by a phaser shot at point blank range .
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown : He delivers a pretty vicious one to Spock during the finale of Into Darkness . Once Uhura arrives and Spock manages to recover, Khan finds himself on the receiving end.
• No-Sell : Takes a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Kirk, and only registers some mild annoyance. He also manages to shrug off the Vulcan nerve pinch, albeit with some pain, but considering most beings crumple after being subjected to it...
• Not So Stoic : At three points of Into Darkness : he sheds a tear as he reveals his story to Kirk and Spock, dissolves into sheer rage while beating Kirk and killing Admiral Marcus, and loses it completely during his Villainous Breakdown .
• Older Is Better : When Kirk wonders what possible value a man who's been frozen for the past 250 years could be to the leader of Starfleet, Harrison implies that he was awakened to help militarize Starfleet because as a conqueror from the savage 20th century he has a better understanding of combat and warfare than the more peaceful, evolved humans of the 23rd century. His 20th century genetic enhancements also make him far stronger and smarter than any 23rd century human.
• One-Man Army : Takes out an entire squad of Klingon commandos and several of their gunships by himself, wielding an assault rifle and a beam cannon .
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business : Inverted: the only scene in which he is not menacing is pure comedy, with him giving Kirk a shocked look at Kirk's casual reply to their imminent space jump.
• Papa Wolf : He's completely bent on recovering and protecting the rest of his people, and his Roaring Rampage of Revenge is mostly because he thinks they're all dead ( twice ) . He even refers to them as his family— see Even Evil Has Loved Ones .
• The Paragon Always Rebels : Harrison was Starfleet's best agent before he rebelled. Subverted, however. While he could be considered a "paragon" in the sense of his physical and mental abilities, Khan was never truly a Starfleet agent (or if he was, it wasn't by choice); that position, like the entire identity of "John Harrison", was nothing but a lie fabricated by Section 31.
• Depending on how you look at it, using his blood to cure Lucille Harewood of her illness could count at this. Granted, Harrison was most likely manipulating her father's desperation to get him to agree to carry out a terrorist attack for him, but even so, he could have found someone easier to coerce.
• Also, his saving Uhura from the Klingons by attacking before they kill her. She was distracting them from him while alive, but her death itself would have been just as good. And sure, it was probably in his favor to keep all of the Starfleet officers alive, since a MORE pissed-off Kirk might have been less receptive to what he had to say, but it's not like Harrison needed a communications officer alive to carry out his plans.
• Poisonous Captive : The Enterprise crew manage to shut Harrison in the brig, only to receive a withering Hannibal Lecture from him.
• Pride : His defining character trait is his certainty in his own superiority. The hell of it? He's not even wrong. This is a man so ridiculously good at literally everything that he nearly single-handedly designed an entire militarized sub-Starfleet and then nearly destroyed the entire Starfleet / Federation edifice on his own , with no help from anyone else.
• Race Lift : He goes from being played by the brown-faced make-up-wearing , Mexican Ricardo Montalban to the white-skinned, British Benedict Cumberbatch. And Khan is meant to be Indian, which neither men are. The tie-in comics detailing his youth and origins reveal that he is really Indian. It's shown that Admiral Marcus gave him extensive plastic surgery along with a memory wipe in an attempt to recruit him as a Section 31 super-operative.
• Really 700 Years Old : The guy's been in cryo for 300 years.
• Retired Monster : He wanted to be this... but they wouldn't let him sleep.
• The Reveal : His true identity is Khan Noonien Singh, of Space Seed and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , a genetically modified superhuman who had been awoken after centuries of cryosleep by Admiral Marcus and forced to develop advanced weapons.
• The Rival : While he shares several traits with Spock, he and Kirk's relationship has a somewhat competitive edge to it. What did you expect? It's Kirk vs. Khan the remake. They also have a pretty clear understanding of each other, and both are cunning enough to prepare for their inevitable betrayal during an Enemy Mine . And without his revenge hard on from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Khan proves the victor, because he is "better."
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge : Is out to take revenge on the entire Federation for what he believed was the murder of his beloved crew .
• Rogue Agent : Was Starfleet's best agent before a perceived betrayal by his superiors sent him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the entire Federation. It's a cover story for his work at Section 31 and his true identity.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant : Khan, in a change up from the original chain of events, ends up with Spock as his primary adversary in this film. He lacks the grudge that defined him from being marooned by Kirk in the prime-timeline, and ends up spending more time in an Enemy Mine with Kirk than he does fighting him, since without that glaring flaw of It's Personal with Kirk, he can make wiser decisions around him. Kirk still seems to gain his respect as a Worthy Opponent with a similar care for his crew, but this movie might be called Wrath of Spock once Kirk's Almost Dead .
• Sealed Evil in a Can : A former Evil Overlord accused of war crimes, cryogenically frozen for centuries in a derelict ship... until Starfleet Intelligence found him. He ends the film this way, too.
• Self-Serving Memory : Khan described himself and his followers as being meant to "lead others to peace in a world at war" before being branded as criminals and forced into exile. While it's likely that this genuinely is how Khan sees himself, he conveniently leaves out the minor detail that he and his crew were war criminals who did everything in their power to take over the world. This is quite similar to the scene in Space Seed where Khan gives another romanticized description of the Eugenics Wars, stating that he and the other supermen "offered the world order" and an attempt to unify humanity.

• Shrouded in Myth : His reputation as Starfleet's top agent precedes him. In his past life, he was also an infamous superhuman tyrant, who was so feared that by the 24th century of the origin timeline his name was apparently on par with Hitler's as shorthand for ultimate evil.
• Smug Super : Harrison is well aware of his superhuman abilities and makes no effort at false modesty. Harrison: I am better. Kirk: At what? Harrison: Everything .
• The Social Darwinist : Implied. Spock says that he intends to destroy those he deems inferior. Khan doesn't confirm it, but he doesn't deny, either. The tie-in comics show that Khan genuinely saw himself as humanity's savior and that (unlike some of the other Augment rulers) he explicitly wanted to rule, not destroy. However, the methods he employed to achieve his goal (including nuking Washington D.C. and Moscow) would certainly justify humanity recording in their history that he was an Omnicidal Maniac .
• Spared by the Adaptation : Khan notably died at the end of his outing in The Wrath of Khan , but was simply put back on ice in Into Darkness — definitely a kinder fate.
• The Spock : To Admiral Marcus's Kirk . Cold, calculating, and brilliant.
• The Spook : He worked for Section 31 before the film started.
• The Stoic : He's usually very calm and calculating.
• Superhuman Transfusion : Being injected with Harrison's bio-augmented blood temporarily grants others his Healing Factor .
• Super-Toughness : Barely even flinches when Kirk tries beating on him as hard as he can. Also, nothing seems to be able to incapacitate him for more than a few moments. It takes a Vulcan nerve pinch, a dozen or so point-blank stun phaser hits, a vicious Tap on the Head , then an arm-break, all in rapid succession to finally stun him enough for Spock to get the upper hand.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute : Shares a number of character traits with Khan Noonien Singh from Space Seed and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . That's because he is Khan.
• Tom the Dark Lord : "John Harrison" isn't an impressive name for a villain. Subverted, as it's actually an alias disguising his true identity as A Villain Named Khan .
• Tragic Villain : To an extent. See Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds .
• Transhuman : Harrison has gained superhuman abilities thanks to a little genetic engineering , including a decent Healing Factor , Super-Intelligence , Super-Strength and Super-Toughness .
• The Unfettered : Khan would do anything for his crew, and after believing them dead, would do anything to avenge them.
• Villain Episode : Like Nero, he stars in a comic book mini-series exploring his background. The Race Lift issue is brought up on the very first page, with Kirk pointing out at his trial that "Harrison" looks nothing like the very Indian Khan.
• Villain Respect : As expected from Khan, he gains some genuine, if condescending, admiration of Kirk, especially during their Enemy Mine , and even seems intrigued by Kirk’s reference to his adventure in the preceding film. However, without the It's Personal nature of their feud in the original timeline, Khan is more of a No-Nonsense Nemesis towards Kirk here, and wastes no time in incapacitating him without any fanfare when their alliance is done.
• Villainous Breakdown : After believing that his crew had been killed, Khan seems to decide "screw it all" and sets the fatally damaged Vengeance on a collision course with San Francisco. The breakdown continues during his fight with Spock. Any emotional control he'd had before is gone , and he brutally pummels Spock in sheer, undiluted rage.
• Hell, most of the DVD's, Blu-Rays, and even a few digital services outright state who he is.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist : Believes he's ultimately doing what's best for humanity, regardless of what they think.
• Wham Line : "My name is Khan."
• Wicked Cultured : Harrison is pretty well spoken for a madman and even paraphrases Moby-Dick (a book that Khan loved in the Prime timeline) at one point when he beams Kirk, Carol and Scotty off of the Vengeance and back onto the Enterprise . Harrison : No ship should go down without her captain .
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds : He may be a bit of an asshole, as well as a ruthless killing machine, not to mention an Evil Overlord at one point, but he's been frozen for 250 years, then turned into a killing machine by the Federation, then tried saving his crew only for Admiral Marcus to take them away from him once again. It's a bit hard not to feel sorry for him.
• Would Hit a Girl : Breaks one of Carol Marcus' legs.
• Your Head A-Splode : He can do this with his bare hands and seems to reserve it for people who have really pissed him off. Just ask Admiral Marcus . He also tries to do the same to Spock during their fight and would have succeeded if Uhura hadn't beamed down.
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Screen Rant

Khan & every augment super power in star trek.

The superpowers of Khan Noonien Singh and Star Trek's Augments are impressive, but potentially deadly, perhaps justifying Starfleet's fear.

• Genetic augmentation in the Star Trek universe is illegal due to the dangerous powers displayed by Khan and his fellow Augments.
• Characters like Dr. Bashir and Number One have faced consequences and discrimination for their genetic enhancements.
• The Klingon Augments inadvertently caused a deadly plague that nearly wiped out the Klingon Empire, highlighting the risks of genetic engineering.

Genetic augmentation is illegal in the Star Trek universe, and the superhuman powers displayed by Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his fellow Augments is a good example of why those laws exist. Star Trek: The Original Series first introduced the concept of the Augments in the classic episode "Space Seed", which introduced Khan as the future nemesis of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). The product of 20th century genetic engineering, Khan and his fellow Augments ruled the Earth with an iron fist before in-fighting led to the Eugenics Wars and the eventual outlawing of genetic enhancements.

Even after his death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Khan Noonien Singh continued to cast a long shadow over Starfleet and the Federation long into the 24th century. The fear of others gaining Khan's superior strength and intelligence have inadvertently punished several Star Trek characters including Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . Most recently, the USS Enterprise's Number One (Rebecca Romijn) was almost discharged from Starfleet due to the institution's fear of Augments and their considerable superpowers.

RELATED: Strange New Worlds’ Number One Trial Couldn’t Fix Star Trek’s Ban On Augments

10 Khan's Super Strength

When Khan took control of the USS Enterprise, he bragged that he had " five times " the strength of Captain Kirk. Fighting the superman in the Enterprise's engine room, Kirk was unable to defeat Khan in hand-to-hand combat. Instead, Kirk had to use a metal rod to beat Khan into submission. Later, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , he showed his superior strength once again when he lifted Commander Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), complete with bulky space suit, clean off the ground on the ravaged surface of Ceti Alpha V. However, Khan used much more of his cunning in his attempts to avenge himself against Captain Kirk.

9 Khan's Intelligence

In "Space Seed", Khan displays his superior intelligence by rapidly absorbing centuries worth of history. This allows him to catch up on everything that's happened since Star Trek 's Eugenics Wars , giving him the information he needs to launch a takeover of the Enterprise. Khan is shown to be a peerless tactician, which is why his Kelvin Timeline counterpart (Benedict Cumberbatch) was tasked with strategizing a war with the Klingons. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Khan quickly figures out how to use the USS Reliant and the Genesis device to unleash his vengeance on Kirk, though in his hubris, he failed to predict his own downfall.

8 Dr. Bashir's Intelligence

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" it was revealed that Julian Bashir was genetically enhanced as a child. Worried that "Jules" was falling behind the other kids at school, his parents took him to Adigeon Prime, a planet where DNA resequencing and genetic enhancement were permitted. Thanks to the treatments, Julian's IQ rapidly increased over two weeks, leaving him with superior intelligence. It was later implied that Bashir deliberately got questions wrong while studying medicine at Starfleet Academy to conceal his genetic enhancements from the organization.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Dr. Bashir later tried to rehabilitate a group of fellow Augments by offering them a chance to use their own superior intelligence to strategize a potential end to the Dominion War. However, this backfired when the Augments, and Julian himself, realized that the only way to end the war without further bloodshed was to surrender to the Founders. Bashir eventually stopped his fellow Augments from enacting this controversial plan, ultimately leading to the Federation's eventual victory, albeit after extensive loss of life on both sides of the conflict.

7 Dr. Bashir's Coordination

Julian's hand-eye coordination was also vastly improved by the genetic augmentations to his reflexes and vision. This is possibly why Bashir initially considered a career as a tennis ace before he eventually decided to study medicine. While at Starfleet Academy, he was the Captain of the racquetball team, a game he continued to play against his best friend Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney). Presumably, it was his superior coordination that led his team to win the Sector Championships in Julian's final year at the Academy.

6 Number One's Super Strength

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 3, "Ghosts of Illyria" revealed that Number One was genetically enhanced. As an Illyrian, Una was genetically engineered before birth and received further enhancements when she was a child. As it was part of their culture, Number One's trial interrogated Starfleet on their persecution of Illyrians due to their fear of another Khan Noonien Singh. One of the augmentations that Una received enhanced her physical strength, and she was able to carry Hemmer with ease when he fell victim to the contagion that ravaged the Enterprise in "Ghosts of Illyria".

5 Number One's Glowing Powers

Also in "Ghosts of Illyria", it was revealed that Number One could purge contagions from her body with an enhanced immune system. The effect of this purging was a glowing orange light which enabled her to heal herself. Unfortunately, because of the attention that such an ability would draw in a society which hated and feared Augments, Una nearly died from blood poisoning after her leg was broken as a child. It was only in the safety of her family home that she could use her abilities to fix the fracture.

4 Dal R'El's Multiple Abilities

Star Trek: Prodigy 's Dal R'El (Brett Gray) always knew he was different, and it was revealed in the episode "Masquerade" that he was genetically augmented. Engineered by scholars of Dr. Arik Soong (Brent Spiner), Dal contained the genetic code of 26 different Star Trek species. In "Masquerade", Dal's dormant genes were activated by an implant which allowed him to harness the superior abilities of just some of these alien races. He showed psychic abilities, superior agility, and strangely, the ability to produce a slimy blue substance. Dal's physical appearance was also altered, sprouting Spock-style Vulcan ears , a Klingon beard, and Andorian antennae.

3 La'an's Alcohol Tolerance

In the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 premiere, La'an Noonien-Singh subtly hinted at the future revelations about her own genetic enhancements. In an early scene on the planet Cajitar IV, La'an was seen engaging in a drinking competition with Kr'Gogh (Kyle Kass). La'an downed several mugs of Klingon blood wine, without the ill effects that other Humans usually suffer from. Star Trek Into Darkness ' Khan Noonien Singh was also able to tolerate vast quantities of alcohol, so she clearly inherited this from her ancestor. Presumably La'an has other, hitherto unrevealed powers beyond the ability to outdrink Klingons.

2 The Klingon Augments' Plague Powers

Star Trek: Enterprise 's genetically enhanced Klingon variants also gained the superior intelligence and strength of Augments like Khan and Bashir. However, an unfortunate quirk of the augmentation process also allowed them to spread a deadly plague that nearly wiped out the Klingon Empire. The Klingon scientists accidentally enhanced the Lenovian flu carried by one of their subjects, causing the virus to become an airborne plague. Alongside respiratory problems, the plague also caused victims to lose their proud Klingon cranial ridges, a change that provided a canonical explanation for the flat headed Klingons from Star Trek: The Original Series.

1 Malik's Super-Strength And Ruthlessness

Arik Soong believed that Star Trek 's Eugenics Wars were a result of Humanity's inability to use genetic engineering responsibly, and stole a clutch of Augment embryos to prove his point. Sadly, the uprising led by Malik (Alec Newman) against the Klingon Empire cast doubts on Soong's hypothesis. Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) enlisted Soong's help in convincing his Augments not to start a war between Earth and the Klingons. Like Khan Noonien-Singh before him, Malik was incredibly strong, hyper-intelligent and utterly ruthless, meaning that a peaceful solution was never on the cards. After attempting to kill Soong, Malik was shot dead by Captain Archer, and the Federation failed to be convinced of the benefits of creating superhumans for another century.

The Best ‘Star Trek’ Movie Isn’t ‘Wrath of Khan’

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier would have been a great title for the final Star Trek movie.

As it turned out, the film was so disliked it almost was the final Star Trek movie, and perhaps would have been the franchise’s farewell if not for two key factors. For one, while The Final Frontier was the lowest-grossing Star Trek film to that point, it was still profitable, grossing roughly $70 million worldwide against a budget of some $30 million. For another, 1991 marked the 25th anniversary of the first Star Trek television series, and Paramount wanted a new film in theaters to commemorate the occasion. And so The Final Frontier became the not-so-final frontier for the franchise.

The odds were against Star Trek VI from the start. It would need to be made on an accelerated schedule in order to arrive in multiplexes for Star Trek ’s anniversary, and because The Final Frontier failed to live up to financial expectations, it would need to be made on a tight budget. (The crew repurposed sets from Star Trek: The Next Generation TV show to save money.) After The Final Frontier limped to the weakest box office in the series’ history, there was also some debate over whether to continue with the original cast, or to restart the franchise with a prequel set during Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock’s time in Starfleet Academy. Amidst all that uncertainty, the franchise’s longtime film producer, Harve Bennett, who was widely credited with turning Star Trek into a dependable film franchise, left the series for good.

Conceived amidst that race against time, Star Trek VI became a film about the one faced by all men and women, with Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Starship Enterprise crew pressed into service one last time before retirement on a mission laden with clever allegorical overtones. Improbably, given the behind-the-scenes turmoil, the sixth Star Trek moviealso became one of the franchise’s best — arguably the best this property has ever produced.

READ MORE: Why Star Trek: The Motion Picture Deserves More Love

For its subtitle, director and co-writer Nicholas Meyer chose The Undiscovered Country , a name he had previously wanted to use as the title of his first Star Trek project, The Wrath of Khan. The phrase comes from Hamlet ’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, which is explicitly referenced in the film during a ceremonial dinner on the Enterprise in honor of a potential peace accord between the Federation and their sworn galactic enemies, the Klingons.

Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) raises his glass of Romulan ale and toasts to “the undiscovered country … the future.” But Shakespeare quite clearly intended the phrase to refer to death, as the entire “to be or not to be” soliloquy observes Hamlet as he debates whether to kill himself or to carry on despite the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” (“But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of?”)

While Gorkon may had other intentions in mind, Shakespeare’s undiscovered country hangs over the entire movie. The opening title card dedicates the filmto Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who died about six weeks before its world premiere. The Enterprise is supposedly weeks from getting decommissioned as the film begins, and while some cast members made appearances on other Star Trek projects after this, this was the last time the entire group worked together. The end credits include the main cast’s signatures scrawled across the stars, a classy and melancholy curtain call for this beloved troupe of actors.

In his Blu-ray director’s commentary, Meyer says he and Star Trek star (and Star Trek III and IV director) Leonard Nimoy developed The Undiscovered Country ’s idea shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and intended it as an explicit commentary on “the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Roddenberry conceived the first Star Trek television series as a reflection of its times, and often used the Klingons as Soviet stand-ins to the Federation’s United States; two opposing super powers locked in a perpetual Cold War.

With the end of that Cold War in real life, it was only fitting to create a similar fictional scenario within the universe of Star Trek. So in Star Trek VI , it is the Klingon empire which is on the verge of collapse. Gorkon brokers a fragile peace with the Federation, but after he is murdered under mysterious circumstances, suspicion falls on William Shatner ’s Captain Kirk, who then stands trial in a Klingon court. Meanwhile, Spock and the rest of the Enterprise team must uncover the true culprits, rescue Kirk, and ensure the Klingon-Federation peace treaty gets signed.

Meyer and co-writer Denny Martin Finn find all kinds of clever ways in The Undiscovered Country to repurpose recent history as science-fiction so that the film serves as an ideal bookend to this generation’s story. The Undiscovered Country begins with the destruction of the Klingon moon of Praxis in a mining accident — a “paraphrase,” in Meyer’s own words, to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. After Kirk gets convicted in Klingon court for murder, he’s sent to the alien equivalent of Siberia for punishment. And Gorkon himself was inspired by Russian politician Mikhail Gorbachev. (His name is a portmanteau of Gorbachev and Abraham Lincoln, another assassinated political leader.)

All of these parallels work in harmony with a story that ticks almost every box longtime Star Trek fanscould want from the franchise. The Undiscovered Country is part celebration and part encapsulation, like all the best parts of all the best Star Trek episodes distilled down into a single 100-minute adventure. It includes action, science-fiction, wry comedy, intergalactic political intrigue, Spock sleuthing out a puzzle with ingenious logic, Kirk making out with a beautiful alien (Iman!), and Chekov wearing the most voluminous toupee I have ever seen in my entire life .

While some of the actors’ hair defies the laws of time and space, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise still look undeniably old in The Undiscovered Country , at least by the standards of typical Hollywood blockbusters. In fact, most of the discussion around the film’s release focused on the stars’ advancing age; “Aging Trekkers to the Rescue One Last Time” read the headline of The New York Times ’ Undiscovered Country review .

I was at the height of my own Star Trek fandom in the early 1990s and eagerly bought a ticket to see Star Trek VI in the theater on opening weekend. I will admit: At the time, I was a bit underwhelmed. The cast did look really old, especially to an 11-year-old. Watching them (or, more likely, their stunt doubles) stumble out of their chairs on the bridge of the Enterprise after a photon torpedo hit was a little sad.

Thirty years later, I find The Undiscovered Country less unintentionally sad than deliberately poignant. Roddenberry’s Star Trek was built on youthful optimism for the future; his sincere belief that despite the turbulence and upheaval of the 1960s, a better world lay just over the horizon. The Undiscovered Country shows how many of the young people who grew up with those values became disillusioned with them by the end of the 1980s. Captain Kirk didn’t kill Gorkon, but he speaks out against peace with the Klingons. Decades of war (and the death of his son at Klingon hands in Star Trek III ) have left him an angry and bitter old man. When Spock warns that without Federation intervention Klingon civilization will die in 50 years, Kirk spits back “ Let them die!”

Roddenberry supposedly hated the early drafts of The Undiscovered Country script he read shortly before he passed away. But one of the things I love about the film is that rather than assume the future will become a perfect utopia through osmosis, it shows how humanity in every time period is flawed and messy, and always on the verge of screwing things up. So is Captain Kirk, until he proves it’s never too late for an old dog to learn some new tricks. By the end of the film, he’s come to see the importance of peace and restored the audience’s faith in Roddenberry’s hopeful vision.

Most of Kirk’s growth comes through his conversations with Spock, particularly in one powerful scene that stands as one of the franchise’s finest moments. Spock has his own personal issues in the film; he’s become fixated on a new Vulcan member of the Enterprise crew, Lt. Valeris (Kim Cattrall) who is not all she’s cracked up to be. The exchange below where Kirk and Spock finally level with each other contains perhaps the single most essential line to understanding Star Trek ’s ideals:

“Spock, you want to know something? Everybody’s human. ”

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None of this material works unless Shatner and the rest of the old guard are really old; a fortysomething Leonard Nimoy couldn’t truly sell a line like “Is it possible that we two, you and I, have grown so old and so inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness?”

That’s why I find The Undiscovered Country more effective and more moving than The Wrath of Khan, the consensus pick for the best Star Trek movie ever made from the day it premiered in theaters in the summer of 1982. Rebounding from the slow and ponderous The Motion Picture (a movie I like!), the franchise reversed course with a suspense-filled thriller about Captain Kirk’s old adversary, Khan Noonien Singh, returning from exile to seek his revenge.

As Kirk takes command of an Enterprise staffed mostly with Starfleet trainees, he also grapples with his own mortality. He celebrates his birthday (the film doesn’t specify which one) and receives a pair of reading glasses from Bones. He meets his adult son, David. And he truly faces death for the first time when Spock bravely sacrifices himself to restore the Enterprise’s engine and move the ship out of the way of a cataclysmic explosion. That act leads to the iconic scene where a dying Spock tells Kirk “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.”

It’s a great scene, as is the subsequent one where Shatner eulogizes Spock at his Starfleet funeral while choking back tears. But today its impact is blunted by the fact that these events were undone just one film later. If The Wrath of Khan had been the final Star Trek film, or at least Leonard Nimoy’s final appearance as Spock, it really might stand the test of time as the best Star Trek. But The Wrath of Khan ’s success inspired Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , where Kirk and company revive Spock, and then bring him along for several more big-screen adventures. Instead of Kirk facing death for the first time, he cheats it yet again.

While none of the original Star Trek crew died in The Undiscovered Country , its themes about aging and obsolescence ring truer now than The Wrath of Khan’s do. It’s also more sharply paced, with all that pointed political commentary and less rigamarole about who should command the Enterprise and how a magical prototype called Genesis works. (You may not want to hear this, but The Undiscovered Country has a better villain than Wrath of Khan too; I’ll take Christopher Plummer’s unflappable Klingon General Chang over Ricardo Montalbán over-the-top Khan any day of the week.)

Don’t get me wrong; The Wrath of Khan is a very good movie. The Undiscovered Country is just better. And the closer I get in age to the characters, the more I feel this way. If you offered me copies of both movies to watch right now, I would almost certainly pick the latter.

General Chang likes to quote Shakespeare in his conversations with Captain Kirk, and at once point he recites the famous “to be or not to be” quote from Hamlet. Only the Klingon version he says — “t aH pagh taHbe ” — does not technically translate as“to be or not to be.” A more accurate translation of that phrase is “to continue, or not to continue.”

The original Star Trek cast did not continue past The Undiscovered Country . They went their separate ways, alone into the true final frontier after a great farewell.

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After several days of subjecting the vial found in “Mirrors” to every scientific test imaginable, the Discovery crew is no closer to figuring out what it could possibly indicate; all tests show that it contains nothing but pure, distilled water. Just when they’ve exhausted all options, Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) gets a “call” from Kovich (David Cronenberg), who’s able to provide her with a bit more information: the names and planets of origin of all five of the clue-giving scientists.

(She finds one of his infinity room keys in her pocket; I guess he just beams those onto people?)

Adding to the pile of eccentricity and mystery, Kovich gives this information to Burnham handwritten, on a yellow legal pad. Genuine, of course; none of this replicated nonsense. Why? Because he loves the feel of paper. I like that Kovich is a mystery — and I don’t think I want to know so much about him that he ceases to be one — but I do hope we get a little something more before the series is up. Without that, as time goes on I’m afraid he’ll be reduced to “That time David Cronenberg was on Star Trek for some reason” instead of remembered as a full character.

With Kovich’s intel, Burnham and the team are able to pinpoint planet Halem’no as the location of the next clue. It’s an arid, storm-tossed place where, 800 years ago, the Denobulan scientist on Kovich’s list surreptitiously built five huge rain generators. Disguised as naturally occurring towering rock formations, only one of them remains in operation, and the planet’s entire population lives in its vicinity.

Before Burnham and Tilly (Mary Wiseman) beam down to find the clue, Burnham spends some time listening in on the Halem’nites. They have a typical phonetic language used for everyday communication, but they also have something called whistlespeak — which sounds much more like multi-tonal birdsong than human whistling — and is used for communication across great distances.

Burnham gets very excited about this, not just from a linguistic and anthropological perspective, but also from a metaphorical one; the idea of people coming together from across the vastness of space or across cultural divides is understandably thrilling to her.

Unfortunately, beyond Burnham and Tilly hearing a bit of it once they beam down to the surface, no one actually uses whistlespeak to communicate in the episode! Even when the emotional power of song becomes integral to the episode’s climax, the tune is merely hummed. Communicating across distances — whether across interpersonal divides, divides of time and space, or across the cypher of clue and solution — has been a primary theme of this season of Discovery . I don’t know that I see how the introduction of the linguistic phenomenon of whistlespeak really helps that though, given that it goes virtually unused and, other than Burnham’s explanation of it to Tilly, unmentioned.

Burnham and Tilly join up with a band of pilgrims known as ‘compeers’ — an ancient word meaning ‘companions’ —  who are on their way to the rain generator, known to them as the High Summit… and the home of a temple to their gods. One of the pilgrims is sick from dust inhalation, and is cured by the local leader, Ohvahz (Alfredo Narciso), through some sort of sonic healing ritual using musical bowls.

Talk about a missed opportunity for some of that whistlespeak, right?

Burnham learns afterwards that access to the temple inside the tower is restricted to those people who have completed the Journey of the Mother Compeer, a ritual that proves worthiness to the gods and entices them to bring rain. Burnham asks to perform this ritual, and the next morning she, Tilly, and a host of other pilgrims including Ohvahz’s child Ravah (June Laporte) are lined up and ready to prove themselves.

Multiple people, including the dust-sick woman, urge Burnham to reconsider her enthusiasm for running the Journey and entering the temple. Ohvahz also tries to convince Ravah not to run, but they insist, seeing it as an opportunity to prove themselves. It’s a little ominous, but Burnham’s got to get that clue so, off she goes.

Maybe I’ve just seen Altered States too many times but when I saw that running the Journey started by ingesting a tab of mystery substance I thought the trip was going to turn out to be a psychedelic one. I’m a little disappointed to have to report that nope, it’s just a footrace. More of a leisurely jog really, but one that’s done while very, very thirsty.

Participants drop out along the route, tempted by the bowls of water placed here and there, and Burnham eventually drops out too — deliberately, tempted by something else. Noticing that some moss in a particular area is yellow instead of green, she surmises that the color change is being caused by hypothetical radiation leakage from a hypothetical broken console.

As far as hunches go it’s paper thin, but it does turn out to be correct.

While Tilly continues to run the race to access the tower the traditional way, Burnham contacts Discovery to get a walk-through on how to repair the console. Adira (Blu del Barrio) stumbles their way through for a while before telling Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) that they think someone else ought to take over. “Yes,” I said to myself while watching, “Good thinking Adira, you’re right, they probably should get an expert on 800-year-old Denobulan technology.”

But actually the problem is just that Adira is feeling too flustered and awkward to want to continue, so Rayner declines their request. And why is Adira feeling flustered and awkward? Because Tilly isn’t the awkward one anymore, and Discovery apparently requires that one of them always be fumbling and bumbling their way through a mission at any given time.

Adira and Burnham are successful, and rewiring just that one console is all it takes to repair the rain generator. Tilly, for her part, has made it almost to the finish line alongside Ravah. They’ve each been given a bowl of water to carry across the line as one last temptation, but also one last challenge… as it’s kind of hard to run and not spill water. Ravah trips, their water spilling, and they’re out.

Instead of finishing the race on her own, Tilly returns to Ravah and pours some of her water into Ravah’s bowl. They cross together in a moment that surely was not intended to invoke the ending of perennial elementary school reading list title and book-that-traumatized-me-in-front-of-my-entire-4 th -grade-class Stone Fox , but did.

It’s a nice moment seeing them persevere together (and one with fewer sudden dog deaths than Stone Fox , so I appreciate that), but one’s that’s immediately tempered by the fact that their reward for winning is ritual sacrifice. Oops.

Burnham can’t beam into the “temple”, Tilly and Ravah can’t beam out (or leave any other way), and the rain generator is well on its way to causing the “sacrifice” conditions — which turns out to be a vacuum forming inside the chamber where Tilly and Ravah are trapped during rain generation.

Prime Directive be damned, Burnham beams into the nearby chamber where Ohvahz remains, not wanting his child to die alone. He is understandably freaked when she materializes beside him, and it takes a while to convince him that she’s real and that her explanation, which sounds like something straight out of Ancient Aliens on The History Channel, is legitimate.

Even with that done, there’s still the issue of Ohvahz’s fervent belief that the gods and the very rain itself require the sacrifice. Burnham finally gets through to him by humming a tune she hears Ravah humming to Tilly over an open comm line, and he opens the chamber. Everyone is saved and it rains, hooray.

Star Trek does love its “ritual sacrifices that power ancient machinery” storylines, and over the decades they’ve changed just how “set straight” the alien of the week is in the end, but I’m not sure they’ve ever had one that’s quite as gentle  as this one. Burnham explains the rain generators and their origin to Ohvahz, which leads to him asking some understandable questions about the nature and reality of his gods, which Burnham deftly deflects.

He then — and this is where my bewilderment sets in — casually and almost sadly wonders aloud if they really have to stop the sacrifices, because doing so would be a lot of work. I understand Ohvahz’s concern about the social upheaval of this change (not to mention that they never really needed to have happened in the first place, can you imagine when that gets out?) — but yes, guy, you definitely have to stop sacrificing people.

Oh, and this whole time? The next clue was actually in one of the other rain generators. Welp!

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• Saru (Doug Jones) is once again absent from this week’s episode — and will be out of sight for at least two more weeks (we’ve seen up through episode 508). On social media this week, Doug Jones shared that his temporary exit from the season was a result of his commitments to the Disney sequel Hocus Pocus 2 .
• The clue registered a lifesign in “Mirrors” despite being nothing but inert water, artificially generated by one of the planet’s rain generators. Pretty lucky that Zora (Annabelle Wallis) knew about this charity project, huh?
• Tricorder contact lenses? One please!

• he console Burnham repairs is only the second instance of Denobulan computer interfaces seen in the franchise; the circle-based interface is in line with the control room of the Denobulan ship seen in “Cold Station 12.”
• Burnham showing Ohvahz his planet from orbit after breaking the Prime Directive and being mistaken for a god is reminiscent of a very similar moment between Picard and Nuria in The Next Generation ’s “Who Watches the Watchers”.
• The five scientists who worked to hide the Progenitor technology are Dr. Vellek of Romulas, Jinaal Bix (a Trill), Carmen Cho (a Terran), Marina Derex from Betazed, and Hitoroshi Kreel (this week’s charitable Denobulan).

While Burnham and Tilly are down on the surface, Culber (Wilson Cruz) has been continuing to interrogate his new feelings and experiences. We see him consulting his abuela — or at least an experimental holographic AI of her created from his brain waves, as a “grief alleviation therapeutic” — seeking advice on her spirituality in life… and also a recipe.

She declines to give him spiritual advice, suggesting that he’s jumped the gun a little by not ruling out physical causes for his symptoms, and also the recipe because it turns out she wasn’t actually that great a cook and was secretly replicating his favorite meal behind his back.

(How a program made from Culber’s own memories could know a secret she’d kept from him, I don’t know. Either AI in the 32 nd century is psychic or it still has the pesky 21 st century habit of making up whatever it thinks will satisfy a prompt, accurate or not.)

Also, come on now — I thought Star Trek had already clearly stated its position on how creepy and invasive holographic representations of real people are almost certain to be. Just this morning I saw an ad for an AI that claims to let you speak with exes or deceased loved ones, accompanied by the comment “Absolutely the fuck not.” I do not disagree, and neither, I suspect, does Leah Brahms. Or Kira Nerys, or Deanna Troi, or Chakotay, or…

Reluctant for the help — but also energized by the possibility that this might all just be physiological — Culber opens up to Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and asks for his help and support with a full neurological workup. When no anomalies are found, Culber seems almost disappointed, which Stamets picks up on. Even though it’s a small scene, this moment with Stamets is the one thing in the episode’s exploration of religion and spirituality that I connected with and really appreciated.

Stamets is not a religious or spiritual person, something that Culber is concerned will color his reaction to Culber’s “awakening.” But instead, he’s fine with it, even if he’s not invested on a personal level. His is a “You’re healthy and you’re happy, so I’m happy” philosophy, which seems to me to be the most respectful possible way to approach this type of issue, one that allows both parties to hold and live by their own respective beliefs.

It’s interesting, then, that Culber closes the episode quietly disappointed with this. And Book (David Ajala), who’s had a hard time keeping his own perspective this season, is right on when he gently calls Culber out: “It’s an odd quirk, really, this human tendency to consider something less meaningful if it’s just for yourself.” Stamets doesn’t need to share in this with Culber, he just needs to be there for him, and he is.

Next week: the Breen are back!

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 continues on Paramount+ May 9 with “Erigah,” followed the next day on SkyShowtime in other regions.

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