Did Khan Design The Vengeance or Just The Weapons?

[TRON JA307020]

That's one thing I am unclear about. The vengeance seems to be faster than the Enterprise or at least more efficient. Did Khan design the whole ship and the weapons or did he give Marcus some pointers on what kinds of weapons to design. While NuKhan is as smart as Prime Khan I don't see how he was able to make any actual advancements. In TWOK Prime Khan had trouble finding the override button on the reliant to get the shields back up when Prime Kirk was able to get the reliant's shield s down. This was after Prime Khan had read all the technical journals on the TOS enterprise only 15 years earlier. So unless the current incarnation of Khan somehow got smarter I believe NuKhan just gave Marcus some pointers on what to design. Basically like what people like Steve Jobs did. Tell your engineers what you want without having any technical drawings or even knowing how it works and see if its possible. I just have a hard time believing that NuKhan is somehow smarter than Prime Khan when they are supposed to be the same person in different realities. Opinions.


Prime Khan frantically looking around the reliants helm console to find a button to get the shields back up says: Where's the override! THE OVERRIDE!!!

(I love that part) Link to confused Prime Khan:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4pcIuo6Kbw

 

[Kor]

Prime Khan did read the Enterprise engineering specs (I hope it was just the version for public reading) on his own in "Space Seed" and became familiar with the ship's layout and functions.

Ship systems might have changed enough in fifteen years that he couldn't immediately find the override for an obscure remote shield function after being in the captain's seat for a brief time.

Presumably, NuKhan was receiving much more focused and specialized technical training during his months with Admiral Marcus and Section 31. Under those circumstances, he could probably become very proficient at Starfleet technology.

Kor

 

[martok2112]

He may have helped with some structural and internal design (one of the reasons why he was able to navigate the interiors of the Vengeance so well), but I don't know if he had a hand in its more technical aspects like the ship's streamlined crew requirements (even being able to be run by only one person), and warp drive. He may also have had some hand in its weapons systems.

Something that (in later years) always astonished me about TWOK was how did Khan's crew learn how to navigate and plot warp jumps for the Reliant. I mean, sure, some of the stuff might be automated, but methinks that even a superhuman with superior mental capacity might have to take some time to actually learn how to plot courses through subspace...more time than the film allowed for....

But, as always, Martok's Law of Storytelling forgives this oversight, and it makes for an entertaining movie.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Prime Khan did read the Enterprise engineering specs (I hope it was just the version for public reading) on his own in "Space Seed" and became familiar with the ship's layout and functions.

Ship systems might have changed enough in fifteen years that he couldn't immediately find the override for an obscure remote shield function after being in the captain's seat for a brief time.

Presumably, NuKhan was receiving much more focused and specialized technical training during his months with Admiral Marcus and Section 31. Under those circumstances, he could probably become very proficient at Starfleet technology.

Kor

Which also begs the question of why did Marcus go through all that trouble with Khan. Yeah he did have a supposed superior brain but with all the species Starfleet had encountered couldn't marcus have more easily found someone that was a ruthless genius that grew up with the modern technology to create him some new WMDs. Why not just steal some alien advanced tech? It seems to thaw Khan out, retrain him by threatening to kill him people and then ordering him to design new stuff would take a long time. Even though both incarnations of Khan are geniuses Prime Kirk beat Prime Khans butt twice and proved himself smarter than Prime Khan. And we know in the NuTrek timeline that NuKirk is a genius. What I am getting at is that Marcus should have been able to find a genius somewhere that would have been willing to help him. He had a whole ship of evil Starfleet officers willing to help him on the vengeance. I am sure he could have found a somewhat morally corrupt Starfleet officer that was the equal genius of NuKirk.

 

[Cyke101]

Prime Khan did read the Enterprise engineering specs (I hope it was just the version for public reading) on his own in "Space Seed" and became familiar with the ship's layout and functions.

Kor

I actually forgot about that fact, which is an excellent point. Prime Khan read up about the Enterprise and knew how to strike in a very brief amount of time in Space Seed. And in TWOK, Khan knew exactly how to debilitate the Enterprise, after a similarly short amount of time on the Reliant.

I'm not sure how long Marcus and Khan had been working together, but give someone of Khan's intelligence the military guidance and backing of Marcus, one of the Starfleet's top brass, and suddenly Khan becomes much, much more frightening. If he could study and figure out the TOS-E in a few hours, giving him a few months would probably very truly lead to a dreadnought. As Kor points out, Khan had a little help along the way, but Khan with help can do so, so much. So it's not like Khan just woke up and went straight to the drawing board.

With that said, there may be a hint of Khan's limited 3d weakness from TWOK evident in the Vengeance. The ship would be well guarded from the sides, but there's a giant hole in the middle of the saucer, and the bridge only gets structural support behind it. If you were able to attack on the dorsal or ventral sides of the ship, it would be vulnerable to more fire! Khan -- in any reality -- needs to play more space fighter video games

 

[TRON JA307020]

Prime Khan did read the Enterprise engineering specs (I hope it was just the version for public reading) on his own in "Space Seed" and became familiar with the ship's layout and functions.

Kor

I actually forgot about that fact, which is an excellent point. Prime Khan read up about the Enterprise and knew how to strike in a very brief amount of time in Space Seed. And in TWOK, Khan knew exactly how to debilitate the Enterprise, after a similarly short amount of time on the Reliant.

I'm not sure how long Marcus and Khan had been working together, but give someone of Khan's intelligence the military guidance and backing of Marcus, one of the Starfleet's top brass, and suddenly Khan becomes much, much more frightening. If he could study and figure out the TOS-E in a few hours, giving him a few months would probably very truly lead to a dreadnought. As Kor points out, Khan had a little help along the way, but Khan with help can do so, so much. So it's not like Khan just woke up and went straight to the drawing board.

With that said, there may be a hint of Khan's limited 3d weakness from TWOK evident in the Vengeance. The ship would be well guarded from the sides, but there's a giant hole in the middle of the saucer, and the bridge only gets structural support behind it. If you were able to attack on the dorsal or ventral sides of the ship, it would be vulnerable to more fire! Khan -- in any reality -- needs to play more space fighter video games

Yeah I will concede that point that Khan did have much more time to go over starfleet technical journals. It just seems a pain in the butt for marcus to have to go through all that just to get new weapons. There were a myriad of easier ways to get it done.

 

[Cyke101]

Prime Khan did read the Enterprise engineering specs (I hope it was just the version for public reading) on his own in "Space Seed" and became familiar with the ship's layout and functions.

Ship systems might have changed enough in fifteen years that he couldn't immediately find the override for an obscure remote shield function after being in the captain's seat for a brief time.

Presumably, NuKhan was receiving much more focused and specialized technical training during his months with Admiral Marcus and Section 31. Under those circumstances, he could probably become very proficient at Starfleet technology.

Kor

Which also begs the question of why did Marcus go through all that trouble with Khan. Yeah he did have a supposed superior brain but with all the species Starfleet had encountered couldn't marcus have more easily found someone that was a ruthless genius that grew up with the modern technology to create him some new WMDs. Why not just steal some alien advanced tech? It seems to thaw Khan out, retrain him by threatening to kill him people and then ordering him to design new stuff would take a long time. Even though both incarnations of Khan are geniuses Prime Kirk beat Prime Khans butt twice and proved himself smarter than Prime Khan. And we know in the NuTrek timeline that NuKirk is a genius. What I am getting at is that Marcus should have been able to find a genius somewhere that would have been willing to help him. He had a whole ship of evil Starfleet officers willing to help him on the vengeance. I am sure he could have found a somewhat morally corrupt Starfleet officer that was the equal genius of NuKirk.

Trying to find someone to go up specifically against nuKirk seems rather myopic, considering that when Marcus released Khan, that was months before Kirk essentially volunteered for the mission. Kirk wasn't Marcus' primary enemy or objective, he was just a pawn that fought back.

But Marcus was vindicated in picking Khan over a familiar alien or the tech available to them (Starfleeet, after all, is supposed to be a composite of all sorts of tech -- ENT established that it's not all human tech, but rather tech boosts from various member worlds, exploration, and encounters). With rather mundane tech like a rifle and a ship-mounted energy weapon, Khan was able to destroy several Klingon shuttles and defeat an entire platoon of Klingons by himself on foot -- and in canon by this point in history, the Klingons were deemed to be more powerful and much more of a threat than the Xindi (a neat twist by Enterprise, I felt). Khan being able to do that with garbage is highly impressive, but for all we know, Marcus *did* give Khan advanced alien tech to design the Vengeance. Khan, after all, had access to the transwarp beaming device (alien in the temporal sense -- Spock and Scotty Primes had it first, decades after the 2250s), which only a select few had access to and was one of the top technologies at Starfleet at the time.

Also, no alien race in Prime Trek came up with ship-mounted arcing energy weapons before, not even the Borg; there are plenty of examples of magnets or collectors for certain types of energy, but not really weaponized like that. They *could* be a Khan invention, which is also impressive and the evidence of the kind of unique but blood thirsty thinking that Marcus was looking for. Quality of knowledge is one thing, but application is another.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Prime Khan did read the Enterprise engineering specs (I hope it was just the version for public reading) on his own in "Space Seed" and became familiar with the ship's layout and functions.

Ship systems might have changed enough in fifteen years that he couldn't immediately find the override for an obscure remote shield function after being in the captain's seat for a brief time.

Presumably, NuKhan was receiving much more focused and specialized technical training during his months with Admiral Marcus and Section 31. Under those circumstances, he could probably become very proficient at Starfleet technology.

Kor

Which also begs the question of why did Marcus go through all that trouble with Khan. Yeah he did have a supposed superior brain but with all the species Starfleet had encountered couldn't marcus have more easily found someone that was a ruthless genius that grew up with the modern technology to create him some new WMDs. Why not just steal some alien advanced tech? It seems to thaw Khan out, retrain him by threatening to kill him people and then ordering him to design new stuff would take a long time. Even though both incarnations of Khan are geniuses Prime Kirk beat Prime Khans butt twice and proved himself smarter than Prime Khan. And we know in the NuTrek timeline that NuKirk is a genius. What I am getting at is that Marcus should have been able to find a genius somewhere that would have been willing to help him. He had a whole ship of evil Starfleet officers willing to help him on the vengeance. I am sure he could have found a somewhat morally corrupt Starfleet officer that was the equal genius of NuKirk.

Trying to find someone to go up specifically against nuKirk seems rather myopic, considering that when Marcus released Khan, that was months before Kirk essentially volunteered for the mission. Kirk wasn't Marcus' primary enemy or objective, he was just a pawn that fought back.

But Marcus was vindicated in picking Khan over a familiar alien or the tech available to them (Starfleeet, after all, is supposed to be a composite of all sorts of tech -- ENT established that it's not all human tech, but rather tech boosts from various member worlds, exploration, and encounters). With rather mundane tech like a rifle and a ship-mounted energy weapon, Khan was able to destroy several Klingon shuttles and defeat an entire platoon of Klingons by himself on foot -- and in canon by this point in history, the Klingons were deemed to be more powerful and much more of a threat than the Xindi (a neat twist by Enterprise, I felt). Khan being able to do that with garbage is highly impressive, but for all we know, Marcus *did* give Khan advanced alien tech to design the Vengeance. Khan, after all, had access to the transwarp beaming device, which only a select few had access to and was one of the top technologies at Starfleet at the time.

Also, no alien race in Prime Trek came up with ship-mounted arcing energy weapons before, not even the Borg; there are plenty of examples of magnets or collectors for certain types of energy, but not really weaponized like that. They *could* be a Khan invention, which is also impressive and the evidence of the kind of unique but blood thirsty thinking that Marcus was looking for. Quality of knowledge is one thing, but application is another.

True but Prime Khans "override" mishap still bothers me. He should have known how to override the damn shields. Such a simple task should have been easy with all the info he had supposedly absorbed by being able to operate the reliant. If NuKhan is anything like Prime Khan it just seems he would be able to absorb Starfleet technology but not really advance it because while he is a genius and can learn things was he really a engineer? I mean he couldn't find the override!!!

 

[Kor]

Well... I always thought that Khan in TWOK didn't seem to have quite the "superior intellect" that was boasted about, even compared to his manner in Space Seed. I mean, two-dimensional thinking? Really?

And besides, all the unlabelled blinky lights on the Reliant were completely different than the unlabelled blinky lights that he saw on the Enterprise fifteen years prior.

Kor

 

[martok2112]

Khan and company had to have been instructed somewhat by either Chekov or Terrell on how to operate ship's systems, as well as relying on his memory of the older Constitution class starship tech manuals.

In the novelization of TWOK, Khan says he is grateful to Chekov and Terrell for providing him with a ship so like the Enterprise.

If we apply that to the movie, then we can apply the following as well:

The Ceti Eels do not completely overwhelm their victims with a succeptibility to suggestion. It just makes it maddeningly painful when they resist strongly. Khan may have ordered Terrell and Chekov how to run the tactical systems for an engagement, but he clearly did not anticipate that Kirk would manage to remote control his own captured systems.

There is a possibility for Terrell and Chekov's lack of information in the "override" area.

They maintained hope that Kirk, a renowned starship commander (whom Chekov knew better than most anyone on Reliant, except for maybe Commander Kyle), would personally respond to the Genesis problem, and would enact the "prefix code" (something that any seasoned starship commander might try) that would allow Kirk (or whomever responded to the Genesis situation) to at least temporarily render Reliant ineffective, and thereby they omitted that particular piece of information....a form of passive resistance that the Ceti Eels could not react to.

Khan simply did not ask, and Terrell and Chekov did not volunteer information that was unbidden. When Kirk pulled the "prefix code" act, Khan was caught completely by surprise. By the time he deduced that there had to be a counter to Kirk's override action and started frantically looking for it, well....

 

[Kemaiku]

Both.

 

[Timo]

In TWOK Prime Khan had trouble finding the override button on the reliant to get the shields back up

It's highly unlikely that an "override button" would have existed. What would be the point? Overriding must be a procedure, and a fairly complicated one at that.

Did Khan design any technology for Marcus at all? His forte was savagery: were this WWI, Field Marshall Marcus would value him for things like "Have you thought about using flamethrowers?" and "Why not flood the trenches with some sort of a poisonous gas?" and "Shouldn't you be killing their babies with aerial attacks?".

The technology would come from Starfleet, but Khan would tell them how to apply it. "You have photon torpedoes - but those are wussy. Let me tell you how to change the relationships of the various components so that these things actually hurt the other guy. Now, enlarge the fuel tank... What? Yes, the fuel tank. Trust me on this. (beheads one engineer) I am the chief savage around here."

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cyke101]

In TWOK Prime Khan had trouble finding the override button on the reliant to get the shields back up

It's highly unlikely that an "override button" would have existed. What would be the point? Overriding must be a procedure, and a fairly complicated one at that.

Did Khan design any technology for Marcus at all? His forte was savagery: were this WWI, Field Marshall Marcus would value him for things like "Have you thought about using flamethrowers?" and "Why not flood the trenches with some sort of a poisonous gas?" and "Shouldn't you be killing their babies with aerial attacks?".

The technology would come from Starfleet, but Khan would tell them how to apply it. "You have photon torpedoes - but those are wussy. Let me tell you how to change the relationships of the various components so that these things actually hurt the other guy. Now, enlarge the fuel tank... What? Yes, the fuel tank. Trust me on this. (beheads one engineer) I am the chief savage around here."

Timo Saloniemi

That's also a possibility. I'm reminded of industries and fields that that hire outside consultants to work as project managers, whether it be architecture, advertising, home design, manufacturing, etc. If Marcus is so military driven, and everything in the military is bigger, I imagine that he perceived Khan as some sort of super-project manager; indeed, project managers don't necessarily need to know every little detail, just the concepts, the means to coordinate its completion, and enough understanding to offer advice to his stakeholders (in this case Marcus and S31).

Now I'm making Marcus sound like a figure from a Dilbert comic. He's the nuPointy-haired Boss!

 

[TRON JA307020]

Both.

I think he just told the real engineers and designers what he wanted and that was it. I truly don't believe he was engineering the vengeance or its weapons. He may have said "make the hull twice as thick as you would normally do" or "can you make the phasers more powerful or put more turrets in?" I think that's the extent of his design. I really don't think Khan could of designed all the actual ship and weapons he was most likely a consultant because of his past life of torture and murder so he knew how to kill.

 

[Cyke101]

Both.

I think he just told the real engineers and designers what he wanted and that was it. I truly don't believe he was engineering the vengeance or its weapons. He may have said "make the hull twice as thick as you would normally do" or "can you make the phasers more powerful or put more turrets in?" I think that's the extent of his design. I really don't think Khan could of designed all the actual ship and weapons he was most likely a consultant because of his past life of torture and murder so he knew how to kill.

That's still a leadership role though, so even if that were the case, the movie painting Marcus and Khan as the two leaders behind the Vengeance development project would still be accurate.

In the real world, large companies and government agencies pay big bucks for independent project managers to come in and provide vision, guidance, leadership, advice, and follow-through to the entity that hired them. On paper (whatever that is for S31) Marcus would probably take all the credit since he's Starfleet, but he probably couldn't have done it to that scale without Khan's valuable input. So operating merely as a consultant doesn't quite match here.

 

[Kemaiku]

That's still a leadership role though, so even if that were the case, the movie painting Marcus and Khan as the two leaders behind the Vengeance development project would still be accurate.

Yup, Marcus let Khan show the engineers what to do to make it work. But kept him on a leash the whole time.

 

[Nebusj]

That's one thing I am unclear about. The vengeance seems to be faster than the Enterprise or at least more efficient. Did Khan design the whole ship and the weapons or did he give Marcus some pointers on what kinds of weapons to design.

Khan's involvement may be at least partly coincidental: the NuEnterprise and the Vengeance would have been in design and under construction roughly contemporary with whatever in the Original Series was the breaking of the ``time barrier'' that apparently gave ships the ability to get from Talos back to Earth surprisingly rapidly. The Original Series also sees a number of apparently warfare innovations --- cloaking devices, plasma torpedoes (from the Romulans), fully automatable starships (from the Federation), the transition from lasers to phasers as landing party weaponry --- so at least some of what goes on might have really had not much to do with NuKhan.

 

[Cyke101]

That's one thing I am unclear about. The vengeance seems to be faster than the Enterprise or at least more efficient. Did Khan design the whole ship and the weapons or did he give Marcus some pointers on what kinds of weapons to design.

Khan's involvement may be at least partly coincidental: the NuEnterprise and the Vengeance would have been in design and under construction roughly contemporary with whatever in the Original Series was the breaking of the ``time barrier'' that apparently gave ships the ability to get from Talos back to Earth surprisingly rapidly. The Original Series also sees a number of apparently warfare innovations --- cloaking devices, plasma torpedoes (from the Romulans), fully automatable starships (from the Federation), the transition from lasers to phasers as landing party weaponry --- so at least some of what goes on might have really had not much to do with NuKhan.

!!!

If it's revealed that Richard Daystrom unwittingly had a hand in the Vengeance's automation system and that his M5 system fell into the wrong hands (Marcus and Khan), that would be a great thread to add to the next movie (and fulfill a collective fantasy of having idris Elba join the cast as Daystrom). Then Daystrom would feel guilt -- justified or not -- over what happened to San Francisco in STID.

Of course, that would be just as guilty of mining TOS rather than going forward like Pegg wants, but I still like the idea of Elba as Daystrom, in any case. And that scenario doesn't have to be the primary plot, either.

 

[BillJ]

The Star Trek: Khan comic had the Vengeance already under construction when Khan was brought to the project. Which is how I view it, as I think it would be impossible to design and build a new ship in less than a year.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Star Trek: Khan comic had the Vengeance already under construction when Khan was brought to the project. Which is how I view it, as I think it would be impossible to design and build a new ship in less than a year.

Indeed. Since it took years for the Enterprise to be constructed, and Vengeance, there is no way it should have been built in less than a year.