My memory is a bit fuzzy here, hope someone can help me out. Is there any indication as to precisely how much time passes between the end of ST XI and the beginning of STID? I seem to recall reading somewhere that it's supposed to be around six months, though I personally reckon it's a little longer than that, closer to a year, if only to provide more time for Admiral Marcus to have awakened Khan, recruited him into Section 31, and had him perform a couple of covert missions under the John Harrison identity.
About a year. XI happens around 2258.42 if I remember correctly, Spock mentions it in his log after Vulcan's destruction. In STID we see the date in London as 2259.55, at the beginning of the movie. In these movies the number after the . indicates the day of the year out of the 365 days. So from dead Vulcan to couple waking up in London 378 days had passed.
I think it's a year. I watched my CinemaNow download of it a couple nights ago, but can't you just about hear Kirk say to Pike during the scene about Kirk's log something about "in the time I've been in command, in that year" or something like that? I could be incorrect, but the stardates do line up to be a year, and Orci and all said it was a year later.
Is six months really long enough for Marcus to have recruited Khan and sent him on a couple of missions?
Actually, I think it's mentioned by Khan that the Botany Bay was found when Starfleet did a sweep of nearby sectors for other threats some time after the Kelvin was destroyed, so he was in Section 31 for longer than a year.
Khan: But as a result of the destruction of Vulcan, your Starfleet began to aggressively search distant quadrants of space. My ship was found adrift. I alone was revived. Kirk: I looked up "John Harrison." Until a year ago, he didn't exist. Khan: John Harrison was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause.
Of course, you have to wonder why S31 would disclose the existence of one of their agents to the public, even under a false name.
From the bits of dialogue I remember, we don't know that Khan would have performed "missions" for Marcus. Supposedly, Khan provided input on how to build new weapons, or at least how to improve on them. This may well have been a full-time job, but more importantly, it is likely to have been a short-leash one. Marcus wouldn't have much motivation to let Khan wander outside Section 31 think tanks. At least not until he chose to use Khan as an excuse for starting the war with the Klingons. Did he choose that after Khan rebelled and escaped? Or was the rebellion and escape part of Marcus' plan? The stardate data seems definite enough. Although the new format is awfully confusing. Robau gives the date as 2233.04, as if the zero served some role there. But evidently the system isn't positional: there's no requirement for the 4 to be the second digit after the dot, obviously. Or else 2259.55 would be the 550th day of the year rather than the 55th. So why the zero? Is Robau just a zero fetishist, insisting on having his starship's pennants repainted, too? Timo Saloniemi
For what it's worth, the crappy tie-in comic, Countdown to Darkness, which was allegedly Orci-blessed, has Kirk saying that he and Spock "haven't been working together too long."
[announcer voice] For the answer to this question, we go now to The Wormhole, who has a Special Report. [/anncr vc]
Well, it is the closest we'll ever get to an actual explanation. Robau just loves the number zero. It would work, especially given the badass nature pre-XI hype assigned to him. But unfortunately now we have Science Officer 0718, as far as canon is concerned has no connection to Robau. Though for the sake of a no-prize we can declare him Robau's love child or something. Ooh, the 718th thing on his list of importance. And now onto Sports...
I think there's some tie-in material online, stating that Khan did do some field work for S31, specifically investigating Klingon activity in the Phaedus system. Perhaps Marcus felt that with the rest of Khan's people in his possession, Khan would not try to escape or overstep his bounds, out of fear for their lives.
IIRC, Khan was involved in something called "The Praxxis Project" - it's kinda crazy that perhaps he's responible for the moon's premature detonation in this timeline.
"The Praxxis Project" is barely legible in the blanked-out portions of the reports here: http://trekmovie.com/2013/05/15/tre...fleet-memorandum-on-into-darkness-viral-site/
The Praxis Project was compromised? Judging from the film, it appears to have gone okay to me, assuming the purpose of the project was to destroy it, thus weakening the Klingon Empire.