Khan Noonien-Singh in The Savage Curtain?

[Warped9]

Starfleet, and perhaps a number of Federation officials, could well have reasoned bringing Khan and his group back into society was a risk they weren’t willing to take. Rehabilitation was probably considered highly unlikely. As it was they could well have figured Kirk’s action wasn’t a bad idea after all. And Kirk didn’t try to hide it. Indeed he did the smart thing in getting them off his ship ASAP. Kirk might also have thought it was too risky delivering them to a Starbase so he parks them on Ceti Alpha 5 and tells Starfleet who tell him they will deal with it. Or not as it turns out by deciding to leave Khan where he is.

And who knows? Maybe Starfleet was monitoring them periodically from a distance until they saw Ceti Alpha 6 explode and shift Ceti Alpha 5’s orbit therein laying waste to it. Note from orbit the Reliant barely detected any signs of life. From a distance scans might not have detected any survivors so they assumed everyone was dead. At some point Kirk might also have gotten word about what happened and accepted the notion Khan and company were most likely all dead. So he files that away and goes on with his life.

Khan’s idea that no one was checking up on them is flawed. It’s as if he expected people beam down to check with him personally. But why would Starfleet or anyone have to risk that if they can scan from a distance? Everyone on board Reliant was safe…until they beamed down and were captured.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Ceti Alpha VI

Ceti Alpha VI was the uninhabited sixth planet of the Ceti Alpha system. This planet was located inside Sector 25712 of the Alpha Quadrant and was located a considerable distance from the Delphic Expanse and the planet Denobula as well as three days away from Regula I at an unspecified warp...

memory-alpha.fandom.com

Neither of these explanations has malice behind it. But what if it was intentional?

 

[Warped9]

Ceti Alpha VI

Ceti Alpha VI was the uninhabited sixth planet of the Ceti Alpha system. This planet was located inside Sector 25712 of the Alpha Quadrant and was located a considerable distance from the Delphic Expanse and the planet Denobula as well as three days away from Regula I at an unspecified warp...

memory-alpha.fandom.com

Neither of these explanations has malice behind it. But what if it was intentional?

A big question I’ve long had is what makes a planet explode? I’m not versed in this field , but nothing I’ve learned has ever suggested a planet could explode on its own. Even big multiple volcanoes wouldn’t likely do that. That said there are two possibilities that occur to me.

First is the planet didn’t actually explode, but more likely was hit by something, possibly a massive asteroid or fragment of something. A big enough impact could conceivably wreck the planet and cause orbits to shift. From Ceti Alpha 5 it might look like Ceti Alpha 6 had exploded. Telescopes are pretty much they only way Khan and company could see something of what was happening.

Second is Ceti Alpha 6 is deliberately destroyed by…someone. And why they would deliberately destroy a lifeless planet is anyone’s guess.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Trying (and failing) to take out Khan and company? If TWOK had leaned into that plot thread...

Guess we won't find out until the audio drama (possibly).

 

[Warped9]

Trying (and failing) to take out Khan and company? If TWOK had leaned into that plot thread...

Guess we won't find out until the audio drama (possibly).

Thats a rather roundabout way of trying to kill him. It would be a lot simpler to attack Ceti Alpha 5 directly in some way or other. Poison the atmosphere and/or water. Nudge an asteroid or meteor into the planet. Just drop a bomb on him and his settlement.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

They aimed and missed (calculation error) and couldn't fire a second shot for reasons.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

A big question I’ve long had is what makes a planet explode? I’m not versed in this field , but nothing I’ve learned has ever suggested a planet could explode on its own. Even big multiple volcanoes wouldn’t likely do that.

While I still don't know exactly what made Ceti Alpha VI explode, a few years back I came up with an explanation for how it might have partially reformed and still appeared to be an intact planet by the time the Reliant came around.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

A big question I’ve long had is what makes a planet explode? I’m not versed in this field , but nothing I’ve learned has ever suggested a planet could explode on its own. Even big multiple volcanoes wouldn’t likely do that. That said there are two possibilities that occur to me.

First is the planet didn’t actually explode, but more likely was hit by something, possibly a massive asteroid or fragment of something. A big enough impact could conceivably wreck the planet and cause orbits to shift. From Ceti Alpha 5 it might look like Ceti Alpha 6 had exploded. Telescopes are pretty much they only way Khan and company could see something of what was happening.

Second is Ceti Alpha 6 is deliberately destroyed by…someone. And why they would deliberately destroy a lifeless planet is anyone’s guess.

This reminds me of the time Earth got whacked by Theia, and our Moon congealed out of the swirling debris. What a week that was. Definitely one for the books.

But these things happen so seldom that you have to be watching over a cosmological time scale. The statistical likelihood that Ceti Alpha 6 should buy it during the cosmic nanosecond of Khan's lifetime is pretty amazing. You can't make this stuff up!

 

[Warped9]

This reminds me of the time Earth got whacked by Theia, and our Moon congealed out of the swirling debris. What a week that was. Definitely one for the books.

But these things happen so seldom that you have to be watching over a cosmological time scale. The statistical likelihood that Ceti Alpha 6 should buy it during the cosmic nanosecond of Khan's lifetime is pretty amazing. You can't make this stuff up!

It's science fiction. Of course you can.

 

[Maurice]

Planets can't explode on their own. The gravitational binding energy is so great that it takes an enormous outside force to shatter one (we're talking the entire energy output of the sun for a certain period) without it quickly reforming into a sphere. But then again, Star Trek science mostly isn't.

 

[Warped9]

Planets can't explode on their own. The gravitational binding energy is so great that it takes an enormous outside force to shatter one (we're talking the entire energy output of the sun for a certain period) without it quickly reforming into a sphere.

Of course not. That's why I'm more partial to the idea of a large impact event. At least that has a semblance of credibility to it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah, I assume checking on Khan was given to the next ships who's assignment was to patrol that area. They swung by, saw what happened and marked it off as "destroyed no survivors." Ceti Alpha becomes a system with out any higher lifeforms on the books.

 

[Warped9]

Yeah, I assume checking on Khan was given to the next ships who's assignment was to patrol that area. They swung by, saw what happened and marked it off as "destroyed no survivors." Ceti Alpha becomes a system with out any higher lifeforms on the books.

I could just imagine Spock telling Kirk he'd read a report of a cataclysmic event in the Ceti Alphi system and the conclusion all life had been wiped out.

Kirk, shaking his head: "Such a waste, Spock."
Spock, reflective: "Indeed. A man of such intellect and ability could have accomplished great things."

 

[BillJ]

No. Green adds additional flavor and context to the universe.

 

[Maurice]

Anything that could potentially have slammed into Ceti Alpha V or VI would have been apparent to the Enterprise’s sensors when they marooned them. It would require Spock to be negligent or at keast very unSpockian. None of it is logical.you just have shrug it off.

It could have been worse. As originally scripted Kirk had deliberately left them on a borderline uninhabitable world. The cataclysm we got was because Roddenberry balked at the idea Kirk would effectively sentence Khan’s group to a virtual death sentence.

 

[Warped9]

Anything that could potentially have slammed into Ceti Alpha V or VI would have been apparent to the Enterprise’s sensors when they marooned them. It would require Spock to be negligent or at keast very unSpockian. None of it is logical.you just have shrug it off.

Who says? If they're not scanning for something like that then who says they would have seen it. That's magical thinking.

 

[Metryq]

I've always been struck by the similarities between Khan and Green's uniforms.

I wonder if costumes repurposed a Space Seed jumpsuit to make Green's uniform?

You could make this your doctoral Theiss on television costume design.

 

[Shawnster]

Anything that could potentially have slammed into Ceti Alpha V or VI would have been apparent to the Enterprise’s sensors when they marooned them. It would require Spock to be negligent or at keast very unSpockian. None of it is logical.you just have shrug it off.

Not if it was artificial, like a planet killer.

 

[Warped9]

Not if it was artificial, like a planet killer.

Dod anyone check if the doomsday machine went through the Ceti Alpha system sometime before it ran into the Constellation and the Enterprise?

 

[Phaser Two]

Starfleet, and perhaps a number of Federation officials, could well have reasoned bringing Khan and his group back into society was a risk they weren’t willing to take. Rehabilitation was probably considered highly unlikely. As it was they could well have figured Kirk’s action wasn’t a bad idea after all. And Kirk didn’t try to hide it. Indeed he did the smart thing in getting them off his ship ASAP. Kirk might also have thought it was too risky delivering them to a Starbase so he parks them on Ceti Alpha 5 and tells Starfleet who tell him they will deal with it. Or not as it turns out by deciding to leave Khan where he is.

And who knows? Maybe Starfleet was monitoring them periodically from a distance until they saw Ceti Alpha 6 explode and shift Ceti Alpha 5’s orbit therein laying waste to it. Note from orbit the Reliant barely detected any signs of life. From a distance scans might not have detected any survivors so they assumed everyone was dead. At some point Kirk might also have gotten word about what happened and accepted the notion Khan and company were most likely all dead. So he files that away and goes on with his life.

Khan’s idea that no one was checking up on them is flawed. It’s as if he expected people beam down to check with him personally. But why would Starfleet or anyone have to risk that if they can scan from a distance? Everyone on board Reliant was safe…until they beamed down and were captured.

This discussion leads to the second big problem with the WOK setup. How could the Reliant possibly miss the number of planets in this system and fail to note the discrepancy? All the more so because they weren't just making a temporary stop - they were evaluating the system for its suitability to host a top-secret, military-backed science project?

And it's not just a matter of, "Oh, well, Ceti Alpha V looked a lot like the recorded description of Ceti Alpha VI, so . . . . " You enter the system, which contains at least six planets. You aren't interested in the total number, but one looks good for your purposes, so you call it Ceti Alpha Six, which according to everything we know and all principles of logic means that you are counting planets outward from the star they orbit and you want the sixth one out. You count six planets out and you orbit.

That means, if Ceti Alpha VI exploded, that you end up on the former Ceti Alpha VII, not Ceti Alpha V.