What if Khan was picked up by someone else?
- Thread starter Tenacity
- Start date
I find him a bit of a big head to be honest! Born with a silver spoon in his mouth as they say over here!
JB
One interesting point about the episode Space Seed was the way that the Enterprise released the Botany Bay from it's tractor beam and let it drift off into space but must have gone back for it afterwards so that Khan and his people had somewhere to live on Ceti Alpha V at first anyway!
JB
JB
How so? In the second TOS movie, Khan is living in Federation cargo containers, not in his ancient ship. (Although the UFP logo is impossible to spot in the movie, the shape of the containers is easy to spot.)
Kirk would have done wisely not to give Khan access to any of his possessions. Khan himself might originally have brought aboard a few things, though, including his most beloved books, packaged with cargo straps belonging to the old ship.
I doubt Khan ever brought along any colonization gear. The very idea of settling on a planet seems to surprise him. For all we know, he set out in order to loop back and reconquer Earth - or in order to achieve exactly what he did, hijack his future rescuers. His "How long?" would be a very pertinent question: has he been forgotten, can he get away with it?
Timo Saloniemi
Kirk would have done wisely not to give Khan access to any of his possessions. Khan himself might originally have brought aboard a few things, though, including his most beloved books, packaged with cargo straps belonging to the old ship.
I doubt Khan ever brought along any colonization gear. The very idea of settling on a planet seems to surprise him. For all we know, he set out in order to loop back and reconquer Earth - or in order to achieve exactly what he did, hijack his future rescuers. His "How long?" would be a very pertinent question: has he been forgotten, can he get away with it?
Timo Saloniemi
C
C57D
Guest
Of course, one more question is where the Botany Bay was when our heroes stumble across it.
Being an ancient sublight ship, I guess that even after burning all its fuel it still wouldn't achieve more than the smallest fraction of C. And so, even given roughly 200 years drifting at that fraction it still would not have got very far beyond Sol's system.
Which then makes me wonder how it remained unspotted for so long?
The core if the UFP must have quite a flow of traffic, not to mention Starfleet patrols etc.
Which then raises another question "Why Ceti Alpha?" why not return Khan and co to justice on Terra?
Being an ancient sublight ship, I guess that even after burning all its fuel it still wouldn't achieve more than the smallest fraction of C. And so, even given roughly 200 years drifting at that fraction it still would not have got very far beyond Sol's system.
Which then makes me wonder how it remained unspotted for so long?
The core if the UFP must have quite a flow of traffic, not to mention Starfleet patrols etc.
Which then raises another question "Why Ceti Alpha?" why not return Khan and co to justice on Terra?
We might also argue that the ship had a futuristic, nearly fuel-independent drive system capable of modest acceleration but also of sustaining it basically indefinitely. This would give the "years" of travel time within Sol, but also allow for a mid-relativistic final velocity that would
a) create meaningful time dilation, so that Khan's three centuries of travel would mean he slept for two centuries, and
b) propel the ship to a distance of 100+ lightyears in the time allotted.
At such a distance, spotting would be nontrivial: starship sensors have never accomplished such a feat across more than a dozen lightyears in any era, and the dead little ship would be an atypically challenging target. At such a distance, traffic centered on Earth or Vulcan would also already be dispersed, with Earth plausibly having visited the region and then moved on, as suggested in the episode. But the distance would still be within the limits of the ST2:TWoK birthday cruise, while OTOH far enough from Earth for the establishing of a secretive research facility that seldom sees starship visits.
As for returning Khan to justice, that's the very thing Kirk did not want to do. He admired the man enough, and/or disagreed with the standing policy against supermen enough, that he instead wanted to give Khan a second chance, in a safe place where he would never again interact with mankind and thus pose no risk (to Kirk's career, let alone mankind).
Dropping off Khan might have been something Kirk needed to do in secret. Meaning he could not deviate too much from his flight plan, meaning Ceti Alpha would be close to the site where Khan was found, aka the Mutara Sector in other contexts. Which again nicely fits with evidence external to "Space Seed", in this case ENT "Twilight" where the last humans flee from Earth to a distance that is both sufficient and attainable by the tech of the day, and choose Ceti Alpha V.
Even if Kirk dealt with Khan over the counter (but used his clout to keep the action low-key anyway, meaning poor Captain Terrell never had any flags pop up when he next visited the planet), dropping Khan off at the very nearest possible location would seem prudent... No cell could be trusted to hold him, after all, and Kirk might get more mutineers than just the one if Khan lingered.
Timo Saloniemi
a) create meaningful time dilation, so that Khan's three centuries of travel would mean he slept for two centuries, and
b) propel the ship to a distance of 100+ lightyears in the time allotted.
At such a distance, spotting would be nontrivial: starship sensors have never accomplished such a feat across more than a dozen lightyears in any era, and the dead little ship would be an atypically challenging target. At such a distance, traffic centered on Earth or Vulcan would also already be dispersed, with Earth plausibly having visited the region and then moved on, as suggested in the episode. But the distance would still be within the limits of the ST2:TWoK birthday cruise, while OTOH far enough from Earth for the establishing of a secretive research facility that seldom sees starship visits.
As for returning Khan to justice, that's the very thing Kirk did not want to do. He admired the man enough, and/or disagreed with the standing policy against supermen enough, that he instead wanted to give Khan a second chance, in a safe place where he would never again interact with mankind and thus pose no risk (to Kirk's career, let alone mankind).
Dropping off Khan might have been something Kirk needed to do in secret. Meaning he could not deviate too much from his flight plan, meaning Ceti Alpha would be close to the site where Khan was found, aka the Mutara Sector in other contexts. Which again nicely fits with evidence external to "Space Seed", in this case ENT "Twilight" where the last humans flee from Earth to a distance that is both sufficient and attainable by the tech of the day, and choose Ceti Alpha V.
Even if Kirk dealt with Khan over the counter (but used his clout to keep the action low-key anyway, meaning poor Captain Terrell never had any flags pop up when he next visited the planet), dropping Khan off at the very nearest possible location would seem prudent... No cell could be trusted to hold him, after all, and Kirk might get more mutineers than just the one if Khan lingered.
Timo Saloniemi
Except Khan doesn't look like a traditional Sikh. But she was just speculating at that point.
...We might even attribute the pronounced lack of Sikh identifying features to McGivers' expertise rather than any shortcomings thereof. That is, she would feel free to speculate seemingly against evidence, because she would well know that beards were incompatible with 20th century cryosleep, as were certain pieces of clothing or worn regalia!
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Again based on what?
So his family has money. What does that have to do with anything?
That's terrific! Excellent continuity repair.
Picard would have surrendered in no time, just like in "Encounter at Farpoint."
Kor
C
C57D
Guest
1990's interplanetry ship with super advanced light speed drive and unlimited fuel !!! !!!!
If wishes were horses and all that!
It gets better still - this was primitive tech that was significantly improved upon in 2018.
At that point, interplanetary trips supposedly ceased to take years. And indeed in the 2030s, we see ships that travel to Mars in a week or so. But even that isn't particularly great going in Trek terms, which is why I feel the balance of performance for the DY-100 must be on slow but steady acceleration.
Basically, ships past 2018 still didn't count as interstellar. But since the DY-100 was, how can this be? We can assume there was a tradeoff, with post-2018 ships having superior acceleration for those Mars runs, but losing the option of great endurance and hence the interstellar prospects.
Timo Saloniemi
At that point, interplanetary trips supposedly ceased to take years. And indeed in the 2030s, we see ships that travel to Mars in a week or so. But even that isn't particularly great going in Trek terms, which is why I feel the balance of performance for the DY-100 must be on slow but steady acceleration.
Basically, ships past 2018 still didn't count as interstellar. But since the DY-100 was, how can this be? We can assume there was a tradeoff, with post-2018 ships having superior acceleration for those Mars runs, but losing the option of great endurance and hence the interstellar prospects.
Timo Saloniemi
But remember one of the subplots of Into dDarkness, Kirk lied in his log entry, but Spock did not.
In addition the entire 400 plus crew knew that the ship had briefly been taken. Maintaining a secret would have been impossible.
Why would most of the 400 even know? Kirk never tells anything relevant in his PAs. "Dear mom, we were hijacked again today. The Captain dealt with it. Nobody died this time around but some historian from J Deck. I think the Captain is improving. Landing party duty tomorrow. I'll be sure to write all about it. Love!"
Spock in ST:ID was a different man from the one who in "Space Seed" just raises eyebrows when the heroes compete on the Best Praise for the Prince of Millions. That Spock would be okay with anything from marooning to drawing and quartering.
In any case, we know for certain that Kirk and Spock and McCoy lie to their bosses about their missions - see "Metamorphosis". Why would "Space Seed" be a special case?
Timo Saloniemi
Spock in ST:ID was a different man from the one who in "Space Seed" just raises eyebrows when the heroes compete on the Best Praise for the Prince of Millions. That Spock would be okay with anything from marooning to drawing and quartering.
In any case, we know for certain that Kirk and Spock and McCoy lie to their bosses about their missions - see "Metamorphosis". Why would "Space Seed" be a special case?
Timo Saloniemi
I don't know really I'm just not a fan and I couldn't stand that Sherlock rubbish!
JB
Excellent. You identified him with your computer system, I imagine
In the final draft script, Ragnar Thorwald -- the dictator of the First World Tyranny -- initially identified himself to Kirk as John Ericssen.
The seventy odd supermen seized control of the ship, how were the 400 crew not going to notice?
Then the captain gassed the whole ship (except for engineering), how were the 400 crew not going to notice?
The Botany Bay was on the starboard side for hours, Khan was walking up and down the corridors with the historian and later a security guard. There was a reception for Khan, later a court proceding.
How were the 400 crew not going to notice?
So just say that. No reason to slag him as a person.
