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 to be Sikh , from the northern region of India.
Khan lived up to the axiom coined by one of his creators, "superior ability breeds superior ambition". By , a wave of the genetic "supermen," including Khan, had simultaneously assumed control of more than forty of Earth's nations. From to , 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 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. In the mid- s , 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 , he took control of a DYclass 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. The boarding party 's arrival and investigation of the Botany Bay activated Khan's stasis unit to revive him — but the ancient mechanism faltered.
The decision of Captain James T. Kirk to remove him from the stasis chamber, and Dr. Leonard McCoy 's subsequent ministrations, saved Khan's life. Twelve of the stasis units had failed during the voyage out from Earth. Kirk, and the Enterprise , taking the Botany Bay in tow, left the remaining 72 sleepers for disposition at Starbase 12 following their leader's successful recovery.
The Botany Bay 's undocumented departure, and the fragmented records of the period, initially obscured the identity of the sleepers from the Enterprise crew — but the man with incredible recuperative powers in sickbay led Kirk to suspect their genetically-manipulated nature.
Khan took advantage of Kirk's hospitality. He familiarized himself with his lost history by absorbing the ship's technical manuals. He discovered a weakness in the attraction he engendered from the pliant and submissive ship's historian , Lieutenant Marla McGivers. At a dinner given in Khan's honor, Khan regaled the captain's table with a romantic interpretation of the Eugenics Wars, until he was finally prodded by Kirk into declaring " We offered the world order!
Eventually, Kirk and Spock identified their guest as being the deposed tyrant from Earth's past. Khan was confined by Kirk to his quarters. Khan, however, soon began his takeover of the Enterprise , starting with his influence over McGivers. Re-boarding the Enterprise , Khan took control of the Enterprise from engineering and cut life support to the bridge. With the crew subdued and Kirk held hostage, Khan asked the officers to spare Kirk's life by joining him in his quest to take the Enterprise to a colony "willing to be led" by himself more correctly, to be conquered by him, a task which the arsenal of the Enterprise would make most simple.
The officers' recalcitrance led McGivers, unwilling to go so far as to participate in murder, to betray Khan and release Kirk. The Augments were disabled with anesthetic gas, but Khan was quick enough to avoid inhaling the gas by shutting himself in the Engineering section and isolating its atmospheric and life-support functions from the effects of the gas.
Khan attempted to destroy the Enterprise with a warp core overload as Kirk engaged the tyrant in physical combat. Although Kirk was a skilled opponent, Khan's superior strength enabled him to quickly outmatch the Starfleet officer. During the fight, Khan overconfidently boasted that he had five times the man's strength, ergo Kirk was no match for him. When it became clear that Kirk could not defeat Khan hand-to-hand, Kirk pulled loose a heavy flow-control rod and used it to subdue him.
Kirk retained some admiration for the determined, capable man of history. The prospect of imprisoning and rehabilitating the Augments seemed to Kirk to be unavailing to the Federation. Instead, Kirk granted an opportunity to Khan and his followers: colonize the dangerous but habitable nearby world of Ceti Alpha V. McGivers was given by Kirk the choice of facing court martial or joining the new colony. With Starfleet -issue cargo containers for shelter, Khan and his people settled in to life on their new world.
Khan's ingenuity and the meager shelter of the cargo containers kept his people alive while most of the indigenous life perished. The rugged indigenous Ceti eels survived — and as the only hosts available for their young, Khan's people were beset by the creatures.
Over time, Khan lost twenty of his people to the slow, maddening death caused by the eels, including his " beloved wife. Neither Kirk nor Starfleet followed up on the colony's progress, probably because Starfleet and Federation records never recorded the colony as official, and due Starfleet cover.
The starship USS Reliant , attached to Project Genesis and tasked with finding a suitable proving ground for the device, finally arrived at the apparently lifeless world in Captain Terrell and Commander Pavel Chekov , the latter of whom himself was a former Enterprise crewmember, beamed down to survey the planet they assumed to be Ceti Alpha VI , where they were captured by Khan. After using a pair of juvenile Ceti eels on his captives, Khan demanded to know the nature of their mission and the whereabouts of James Kirk.
Using his captives' vulnerability to suggestion, Khan and his followers hijacked the Reliant. Khan marooned the crew of the Reliant on Ceti Alpha V. With knowledge of the awesome potential of the Genesis project, he used Chekov to notify spacelab Regula I of Reliant 's pending arrival and their intention to retrieve all Genesis information, "as ordered by Admiral Kirk.
The Enterprise , engaged in a training cruise at the time, altered course to investigate the odd reports from Regula I. Khan's lieutenant, Joachim , called out his superior on the beginnings of his obsessive behavior. Joachim suggested that he had already beaten Kirk by foiling Kirk's plans for him and the Augments. Khan's reply gave the first indication of the price that exile on Ceti Alpha V exacted on his ability to reason or — more accurately, to govern his overpowering passions:.
Arriving at Regula I, Khan raged through the space station. He was seeking the now-missing Genesis data, and tortured those station crew members unable to escape the suspicious return of Reliant. When they proved uncooperative, Khan slaughtered them.
He then left Terrell and Chekov behind, as they might prove a useful means to monitor Kirk's communications and follow his lead to Genesis, in the event that the Enterprise reached the station. Khan intercepted the Enterprise , which was en route to Regula I. Concealing her intent, Reliant approached, feigning communications trouble, and mounting a devastating surprise attack using the Reliant 's phasers to cripple the Enterprise.
Khan hailed to gloat over his triumph and discuss terms of surrender. His only reward proved to be Kirk's initial open-mouthed stare of surprise. The parley allowed the more experienced starship commander to override the Reliant 's tactical systems using the ship's prefix code to access them.
With a few weak phaser shots from the Enterprise , the Reliant lost photon control and warp power which would also disable the phasers , forcing Khan to retreat to Regula I. After the Enterprise limped to the space station, a landing party led by Kirk rescued Terrell and Chekov from the storage locker in which Khan had imprisoned them. After Kirk discovered the Genesis device in the bowels of the Regula planetoid , Terrell contacted Khan, who beamed the device to the Reliant.
However, Terrell, fighting the effects of the Ceti Eel, refused Khan's order to kill Kirk and instead committed suicide. Resisting the influence of his own Ceti Eel, Chekov collapsed unconscious and the eel crawled out of his ear to be immediately vaporized by a quick blast from Kirk's phaser.
Despite the turn of events, Khan felt some small satisfaction, since Kirk and his party were now marooned within Regula, and the Reliant was on its way to find and destroy the Enterprise.
These are great arguments against the naysayers. I hope to see this movie. One point regarding the Khan storyline. The original Wrath of Khan was Moby Dick. It was a personal story between a man consumed with thoughts of revenge to the exclusion of everything else and the "white whale" that he blames for his misery. Kirk wasn't responsible for Khan's misery in the original the same way that Moby Dick is not responsible for Ahab's.
It's a whale -- it doesn't think that way. If anything, Kirk could have hauled Khan off to prison but showed mercy. As for Khan's anger: I can imagine tragically losing the woman I love could possibly not fill me with rational thoughts. Khan is presented as a perfect superman with a perfect intellect. What happens when that perfection is presented with tragedy and gets twisted? Thanks for doing this. Clearly there are still ways to argue these points, but this is an excellent way to provide both sides.
Although clearly you underestimate Star Trek fans in some regards. They have harped on the similarities between those movies and episodes for years. In a lot of ways, even that issue with Into Darkness is old hat. But I love that you bring up the point about resonance.
Because that's exactly what I love about this sort of thing. Even before the prequels it was completely possible for Star Wars fans to appreciate how Luke was becoming more and more like his father just from the losing of limbs and gaining of robotic replacements alone.
Imagine those movies without that. The other problem more dedicated fans will have with your assessment of Wrath of Khan is that you're taking a far more intellectual approach to it, whereas most of them take a very emotional one. Khan Noonien Singh, a man who once controlled more than a quarter of the Earth during the Eugenics Wars of the s, is their leader.
He has been in suspended animation since the s, having been frozen and shot into space as punishment for his actions on Earth. McGivers joins Khan on the planet to avoid facing court-martial from Starfleet.
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