How many times did Kirk falsify his log?
- Thread starter JonnyQuest037
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By TWOK Khan was 'round the bend. Even Captain Terrell admitted it, and he was under Khan's influence when he told Kirk that Khan "went wild. He slit their throats, he wanted to tear the place apart."
I dunno. I think meeting actual aliens will be humans a lot less judgmental of other humans. By dint of being 100% human the supermen are still going to seem relatively "normal" compared to a Vulcan or an Andorian or what have you. As such, I doubt fellow humans would be very "bigoted" against them in the same way that people of Khan's time would be.
Or then humans will project their bigotry at the Augments all the more, especially when being anti-alien gets your planet sterilized by the powerful entities you insult. Hating supermen who don't even exist any more is the safe option!
And it looks good, too. "See how tolerant we are: we hate the intolerant among us with such passion!"...
Tellingly, we see no anti-Augment propaganda in the actual late 20th and early 21st centuries, when the matter would still have been topical, but there's plenty to go around in the 24th century.
Timo Saloniemi
And it looks good, too. "See how tolerant we are: we hate the intolerant among us with such passion!"...
Tellingly, we see no anti-Augment propaganda in the actual late 20th and early 21st centuries, when the matter would still have been topical, but there's plenty to go around in the 24th century.
Timo Saloniemi
It took some time for people to gain the proper perspective about the issue apparently. A very very long time.
Or the improper one; difficult to tell.
It's rather inconvenient that we only get to view this Augment issue through the most successful and apparently the most notorious of the lot. Would Khan have been a bigger monster than his kinsmen and -women in order to rise to rule them all? Or would he have showed more restraint and civility, and for that reason risen above the uncontrolled berserkers we saw in the ENT Augments story?
Yet Khan isn't all that notorious - Kirk fails to recognize him in two universes. Perhaps he just ruled in a faceless fashion, being known by reputation but not by his appearance? Or then he was but one Augment in a long chain of supermen and -women who controlled vast swaths of Earth until deposed by their betters (worsers?). Perhaps "Khan" becomes a household synonym to "Augment" only after the very public events of ST2:TWoK?
I guess the question deciding whether Kirk would falsify the "Space Seed" reports is, did meeting the real Khan confirm or contradict Kirk's preconceptions of the man? The events support the "ruthless but just, no massacres" image, as Khan never actually kills anybody, and only really attempts to kill one person in a logically minimalist move in chess-with-live-pawns. This doesn't mean the image would necessarily have been true - Khan could still be every bit as evil as in ST:ID, but wouldn't need to employ those parts of his nasty personality against Kirk yet.
Timo Saloniemi
It's rather inconvenient that we only get to view this Augment issue through the most successful and apparently the most notorious of the lot. Would Khan have been a bigger monster than his kinsmen and -women in order to rise to rule them all? Or would he have showed more restraint and civility, and for that reason risen above the uncontrolled berserkers we saw in the ENT Augments story?
Yet Khan isn't all that notorious - Kirk fails to recognize him in two universes. Perhaps he just ruled in a faceless fashion, being known by reputation but not by his appearance? Or then he was but one Augment in a long chain of supermen and -women who controlled vast swaths of Earth until deposed by their betters (worsers?). Perhaps "Khan" becomes a household synonym to "Augment" only after the very public events of ST2:TWoK?
I guess the question deciding whether Kirk would falsify the "Space Seed" reports is, did meeting the real Khan confirm or contradict Kirk's preconceptions of the man? The events support the "ruthless but just, no massacres" image, as Khan never actually kills anybody, and only really attempts to kill one person in a logically minimalist move in chess-with-live-pawns. This doesn't mean the image would necessarily have been true - Khan could still be every bit as evil as in ST:ID, but wouldn't need to employ those parts of his nasty personality against Kirk yet.
Timo Saloniemi
Reading this and considering how quickly Khan resorts to torture in "Space Seed" makes me think that maybe there were massacres under Khan's rule in the 1990s, and Khan just covered his tracks really well.
...And then somebody uncovered them, perhaps in association with the events of the second movie in either universe, and Khan became a "war criminal" and a valid reason to burn Julian Bashir on a stake?
The basic concept of "Space Seed" sort of speaks against Khan being too evil. If he merely lived down to Kirk's expectations, it would be all right for the hero to essentially grant amnesty to the man - but if he revealed himself to be a disappointment, Kirk would no longer be a hero for showing lenience, but a co-villain. But it's a Goldilocks thing: if Khan is too civilized, then Kirk has no reason not to bring him back to the civilization, to be judged by those enlightened peers of Kirk's who do judging as a profession.
It's only at the darker edge of the Goldilocks Zone that Kirk would be compelled to lie to his superiors. But it's also the dramatically most interesting edge...
Timo Saloniemi
The basic concept of "Space Seed" sort of speaks against Khan being too evil. If he merely lived down to Kirk's expectations, it would be all right for the hero to essentially grant amnesty to the man - but if he revealed himself to be a disappointment, Kirk would no longer be a hero for showing lenience, but a co-villain. But it's a Goldilocks thing: if Khan is too civilized, then Kirk has no reason not to bring him back to the civilization, to be judged by those enlightened peers of Kirk's who do judging as a profession.
It's only at the darker edge of the Goldilocks Zone that Kirk would be compelled to lie to his superiors. But it's also the dramatically most interesting edge...
Timo Saloniemi
Interesting thoughts. I could see that happening.
I rewatched the episode last night, and I'm convinced that Kirk didn't lie to his superiors about exiling Khan to Ceti Alpha V. The hearing is an official affair all the way, with senior staff in their dress uniforms, ringing a bell at the start of the session, and Uhura recording the proceedings. I can't believe that Kirk would do all of that and then NOT send Starfleet the official record.
I'd say that if Kirk was negligent anywhere, it was in not doing a thorough-enough scan of the surrounding Ceti Alpha system ("Ceti Alpha VI exploded six months after we were left here...") and in trusting that Starfleet would do a better job of following up on Khan's people than they did ("ADMIRAL Kirk never bothered to check on our progress...").
But exiling Khan was perfectly within Kirk's rights as a starship captain, and all done by the book. There's just too much to explain away if that's not the case.
Well, that would depend on exactly why Ceti Alpha VI exploded in the first place. And I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't something that could be easily predicted.
Planets don't just explode for no reason. Something MADE Ceti Alpha VI blow up. It may have been something Kirk couldn't possibly know about...
Well, that would depend on exactly why Ceti Alpha VI exploded in the first place. And I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't something that could be easily predicted. Planets don't just explode for no reason. Something MADE Ceti Alpha VI blow up. It may have been something Kirk couldn't possibly know about...I'd put my money on the likelihood that it was Nerim, mining for Cosmoniium. Oops, wrong forum. Sorry about that.
The intent must have been to suggest a starry wilderness so accessible by warp drive, and yet so huge and flush with Class M planets, that it was literally first come, first served. Land free for the taking by any Federation settlers willing to make the trip.
But even so, for Starfleet to give so much autonomy to a ship captain, it would have to be a situation where the ship is going to be entirely out of contact with higher-ups for a long stretch of time. And I still can't quite see the power to dispense habitable planets at will, unless such planets were really a dime a dozen.
Well, they certainly are elsewhere in Trek. Habitable is to be expected: uninhabited is something of a surprise.
OTOH, "giving" a planet is not a particularly meaningful term here. Khan just sets up a little camp; if somebody else wants to do the same, he, she or it is no doubt welcome. If somebody wants to stripmine the entire surface and has the power to do that within Khan's lifetime, he better sort it out with Khan (that is, do something about Khan's lifespan preemptively if he has any sense).
"Mr. Brack" had rights to a whole planet. Yet it was his practical ability to back up his rights with force that kept Kirk from utilizing the planet to Starfleet purposes, not his legal or moral right alone.
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, "giving" a planet is not a particularly meaningful term here. Khan just sets up a little camp; if somebody else wants to do the same, he, she or it is no doubt welcome. If somebody wants to stripmine the entire surface and has the power to do that within Khan's lifetime, he better sort it out with Khan (that is, do something about Khan's lifespan preemptively if he has any sense).
"Mr. Brack" had rights to a whole planet. Yet it was his practical ability to back up his rights with force that kept Kirk from utilizing the planet to Starfleet purposes, not his legal or moral right alone.
Timo Saloniemi
That's right. There's a howler in TWOK when Chekov says the Reliant is continuing its (apparently frustrating) search for a lifeless planet in space. Like that would be the hard part of Project Genesis.
We really have to insert the "lifeless [Class M] planet [with free oxygen and water present already but without even the most primitive forms of life that would ruin the attempt to prove that Genesis can create life out of no life]" bits there for the writers.
And finding one of those could be infernally difficult even in the real universe - how do you get breathable air if you don't have a chemical process that releases lots of air by expending other resources? Oxygen only remains free because life tries its damnedest to poison other life with it, not realizing oxygen no longer is poison to most other life.
The desert planets they were surveying must have been ones that had fairly recently lost all life to a disaster of some sort (global freezing or baking that did not yet go to such extremes as to bind or dissipate the oxygen). Ceti Alpha VI might have been one of those. Ceti Alpha V made a decent impression of being one, initially at least, although of course it would not have worked out, what with those eels and all.
Timo Saloniemi
And finding one of those could be infernally difficult even in the real universe - how do you get breathable air if you don't have a chemical process that releases lots of air by expending other resources? Oxygen only remains free because life tries its damnedest to poison other life with it, not realizing oxygen no longer is poison to most other life.
The desert planets they were surveying must have been ones that had fairly recently lost all life to a disaster of some sort (global freezing or baking that did not yet go to such extremes as to bind or dissipate the oxygen). Ceti Alpha VI might have been one of those. Ceti Alpha V made a decent impression of being one, initially at least, although of course it would not have worked out, what with those eels and all.
Timo Saloniemi
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