That magic blood sure causes way more problems than it fixes. At the end of TWOK, it seemed pretty clear to me that Khan and crew were goners. Everybody was dead except Khan and then he seemed to succumb to his injuries shortly after activating Genesis. However, if he's got magic blood, he should've been fine. Maybe his crew died immediately, but what about he and Joachim? In about 10 minutes, they'd have healed. Kinda takes the drama out of it. I won't even get into the fact that death is now curable. Unless Starfleet just decides that it's too dangerous to wake up the superpeople to cure death, but it's clearly worth the risk. I think it's clearly worth the risk. You probably don't even have to wake them up to do it.
The magic blood reversed radiation damage, cured the little girl of illness and resurrected a very basic life-form (the tribble), but I doubt it can heal the kind of catastrophic injuries like Khan and his crew sustained in WoK. And, of course, that technology has been banned since 1996 (as seen in DS9, ENT etc), because humans are stupid.
Well hold onto your hat, because doctors are already using serum made from human blood to cure all manner of ailments in the 21st century. As I mentioned in threads here before, a work colleague was recently part of a world clinical trial - six patients in all - who had their own blood removed, distilled down to a few cc's of serum, injected into a formerly incurable damaged ligament... and they were cured, with the ligament repairing itself, where ten years of previous efforts had failed. Scientists are also harvesting placental blood and platelets to reverse ailments. It's very early days. They can only imagine what might be possible by the 23rd century. Based on what evidence? In any case, the Genesis Device exploded. People used to die from smallpox, too. Ooooh, death is now curable!
Let's be clear here though...the blood did not just 'reverse radiation damage'. It resurrected an utterly dead human being, who was killed by having every cell in his body bombarded with deadly radiation. How is that easier to fix than bodily harm that hasn't even killed the person yet? I'm only arguing that specific point though, I'm not saying Khan in TWOK should have been fine. Because I'll be damned if I accept that TOS Khan and his peeps have magic blood on the level depicted in STID. Prime supersedes ALT-Trek in all things for me. Yeah, but in the ALT Universe, they already perfected it in 1996 or so.
Bones says "you were barely dead" - he was irradiated, died, was taken out of the core, frozen and then cured of the radiation damage and resuscitated, and then didn't regain consciousness for two weeks. I think Khan being immune to radiation makes a lot of sense, considering the threat of nuclear annihilation that hung over the world in the 60's - it's something everyone would definitely want in their super soldiers. And their immunity to illness and healing abilities were (further, reading Nerys Myk's quotes above) established in Star Trek: Enterprise's "Borderland": ARCHER: They're dangerous. SOONG: They're the future. They're stronger, smarter, free from sickness, with life spans twice as long as our own. You, more than anyone, should appreciate what this means. ARCHER: Why me? SOONG: Your father suffered from Clarke's Disease. His final years were marked with extreme pain. ARCHER: My father has nothing to do with this. SOONG: He didn't need to suffer. Genetic engineering could've cured him. Those who want to suppress my Augments are the same ones who condemned your father to death. http://www.chakoteya.net/enterprise/80.htm Now, if the next movie shows Khan being knifed in the gut and the wound closing up immediately, or him being blown up and having serious burns heal in seconds or minutes, I will say it's definitely a big change made. But in this case, I think they've just cranked up and perhaps simplified elements (i.e. an injection of engineered blood over what I originally assumed was some genetic engineering procedure, although I think the above quote works really well the new way) that were already there.
Ah, but the name would have meant something to the triumvirate of TOS--they weren't children out for a joyride but professional men who knew their history well enough to discuss Khan's merits, despite their disapproval. (Yes, I know they didn't figure it out immediately in "Space Seed" but the scene in the briefing room shows they were all well-acquainted with his history once they did identify him.) The real problem with Khan's blood is how it reveals the movie's supposed convictions to be hollow. Spock strongly objects to assassinating Khan without due process but, after losing his closest friend to him, seems intent on killing him. Believe it or not, I'm cool with that; Spock's past his breaking point and a reversion to pre-Surakian savagery makes sense and is emotionally affecting. This is what I do have a problem with: Uhura beams down and stops Spock from killing him by saying "He's our only chance to save Kirk!" Um, first off, why can't they use the blood of any of the other 72 supermen? But that's a minor quibble. The real problem is how selfish it is. Uhura should have said: "Spock, stop! This isn't you! This isn't Vulcan! This isn't Admiral Pike! This isn't your mother! This isn't Kirk!" And thus, just like that, Spock does the right thing for the right reason. Only after that should the tribble miracle have happened. ST09 had the same problem: Kirk opens fire on Nero's crippled and crumbling ship because Nero gives him a rude but impotent "fuck you" in response to Kirk's offer of assistance, then Kirk almost gets the Enterprise trapped in the black hole's gravity well because he waits a second to silently gloat. Why not have Nero not simply refuse to surrender but to actively try to destroy the Enterprise, either by locking a tractor beam on her or, better still, shooting harpoons trailing rillistrongium chains into her? Kirk could then echo his alterna-self from the last time we saw an adversary choose to turn his offer of rescue into attempted murder-suicide and mutter, "I have had enough of you." And then say: "Mr. Sulu, fire everything we've got" I like both movies just fine--they are third and fourth on my list of Trek films--but these two instances aren't simply lazy storytelling, they betray a moral rot that has no room in Trek but is all too common among 21st century screenwriters and directors.
I could write a novel about how much I hate JJ-Trek and why the "magic blood" specifically is a dumb idea. But instead I leave this idea: I really feel that the magic blood is one of few things added to STID that kinds of tries to make Spock and Kirk feel a little bit more like superheroes, like Superman or Spider-Man. The whole films plays out like some kind of sci-fi comic book movie. The magic blood was really just the frosting on JJ Abrams' crap cake. *sigh*
^^If they really wanted to do that, they just had to pay a visit to the planet from "Plato's Stepchildren", where Spock Prime invented a serum which granted telekinetic powers (and then was of course entirely forgotten about) I agree this is Trek in the vein of a comic book movie, whatever one's views on them is.
Spock invented 'the force' ! So I guess if we ever encountered a Jedi in TOS he would've simply come up with an anti-force serum The blood was created so they could stage a twok death sequence and genesis style resurrection in the same movie and take the K/S friendship to its limit.
I'm more worried about long distance transporting but as ever the gang on how Star Trek Into Darkness should have ended pretty much covers both points.
Meh. Considering how close JJ et al made the Klingon homeworld to Earth, millions of augmented Klingon warriors, full of Khan blood, should be pouring into the solar system in the matter of hours, well before enough long-range transporters can be built.
Had they said "nanite infused blood" or some similar Berman Era technobabble, would it have made it any better?
^ Genetic manipulation is a funky thing in Trek isn't. I recently rewatched the VOY episode "The Fight". In it Chakotay says that a family doctor suppressed a gene which causes cognitive disorder; before he was even born.Other members of Chakotay's family were known to suffer from it as well. That's genetic manipulation and or eugenics (since Chakotay was altered before birth). Something the Federation allegedly considers a no-no. Also remember Chakotay was a member of the Starfleet before he resigned and joined they Maqui. It's not unreasonable to assume the Fed would permit some genetic tinkering. I don't think the Fed government would close genetic enginerring off to people who knew they were going to be born with mentally and or physically handicapped babies.