Khan's motivation for going to Kronos?

I’d like to discuss Khan’s motivation for beaming to Kronos. Ill first state the facts:

-Khan destroys Section 31. He explains he did this in response to his belief that Marcus had killed his entire crew after he was discovered smuggling them in the missiles he designed.
-Khan beams himself to Kronos.
-Marcus sends Kirk and friends to annihilate Khan with the missiles that contain Khans crew. I should note that Marcus knows the crew is inside the missiles because he states he “didn’t want to burden Kirk with knowing what was inside of them”.
-Sulu sends message saying if Khan does not surrender, he is getting blown to bits with some long range, advanced torpedoes.
-Khan destroys Klingons and demands to know the amount of torpedoes onboard the enterprise. He finds that the answer is 72. Thus, he surrenders.
-Khan gives coordinates to USS Vengeance. Kirk calls Scotty. Scotty finds Vengeance. Soon after Vengeance heads for Enterprise.
-Torpedo is opened. Carol states that in order to grasp the power of the weapon they must open the warhead, and to do so requires accessing the fuel compartment. She states that she is “rerouting the detonation processor”, and when McCoy goes to cut a wire, it activates the missile.

These facts are the juicy ones, because they are the key to understanding the motivations of Khan, er, why he decided going to Kronos was a good idea. Khan had to have known going to Kronos wouldn’t guarantee his safety. He had to expect that doing so after blowing up Section 31 and the attack on Marcus himself would only fuel Marcus’ agenda, that being to start a war with the Klingons. And Khan didn’t go to Kronos with some master plan to get his crew back because he believed them to be dead. So why go? Did he want to give info to the Klingons and maybe allign with them? He had to have known his long range missiles would be used to attack Kronos, killing himself. UNLESS he thought blowing up Section 31 would result in the destruction of all of the missiles, but the film never states this, so I find that this cannot be the solution. So, if he went to Kronos knowing he would be followed, did he hope to pirate a Federation ship and hightale it out of there? If so how? Any ship sent to come after him would most certainly be using the missiles to do so, as they could not be detected by the Klingons and would allow for the safety of the ship carrying out the attack(hence, long range). The only conclusion I have come to is that this is either a plot hole, as well as a plot device, OR he wanted to tip off the Klingons before an inevitable war. It doesn’t ruin the movie for me. In fact, I really freakin enjoyed it. But this is the question that ultimately has me baffled. Thoughts?

 

I find that VERY likely.

 

the reason I stated that messing with the missiles can cause immediate activation is because I think that this fact gives weight to Marcus' decision to not take Khan's crew out of the missiles but have Kirk fire them at Kronos. I know that that last fact may feel out of place so I thought I would make some sense of why I added it in the first place.

 

The problem with the idea of him aligning with the Klingons: he was hiding in completely unihabited wastelands doing nothing to seek them out.

Also, he was a human augment, which means the Klingons (enterprise being still canon in this universe) would almost certainly not trust him.

 

When I watched it, and thought he went there because they wouldn't go looking for him there.

 

I mentioned this question in another thread when I insinuated that I don't know exactly when the alliance between Khan and Marcus ended, because the only motivation Khan could have for going to Kronos is to accelerate the plans Marcus had. (The original reason early in the movie is that the Federation wouldn't follow him there, but that reason doesn't hold up when you start to peel back the plot a bit).

It also should be noted that Bones said that the explosives had been removed from the torpedoes and the cryotubes had been placed inside. So Marcus had to know that the only thing that would have happened when Kirk fired them was that the frozen people would die. If he wanted a war he would have given Kirk armed torpedoes.

This plot is ungainly, and messy.

 

Ok I just watched the scene.
It's actually Carol that gives the relevant technobabble:
ok here's what she says"This fuel container has been removed from the torpedo and retrofitted to hide this cryotube"

I doubt powerful torpedoes can work without fuel
and the people would take all the room where the fuel would go?

 

They would have travelled as far as Enterprises tubes would fire them, then detonate like a firework display giving Enterprises position away.

When the Klingons responded, she would suffer a sudden "malfunction" of her warp drive getting away, and be destroyed, starting the war.

Only Marcus couldn't have seen Scotty resigning, and not being there to keep the engines going long enough to get them in to the firing position first.

 

Carol says they were armed.

The torpedoes may have been over-specced for this purpose. They were designed by Khan, after all.

 

He thought his people had been killed by Marcus, there's no chance he'd still be allied with him at the time. He only knew his people were still alive when he heard how many torpedoes the Enterprise had brought to the Klingon border.

Marcus intended to kill Khan's people in the torpedoes while killing Khan and igniting his war with the Klingons (with Enterprise crippled for the Klingons to find, and Vengeance ready to meet the Klingons after Enterprise's destruction), all in one swoop.


As for why Khan went to Kronos, I figured he thought setting off Marcus' war would have led to the most death and destruction of any location he could have chosen. It's not like Starfleet was assured victory in Marcus' plan - even with the USS Vengeance it could have turned out like "Yesterday's Enterprise"

 

Khan's reason for going to Kronos is an interesting question because so much of it is left up to the imagination.

-- Did he intend to exile himself there? Going to such a desolate spot, did he previously beam supplies there in order to survive? (That would include the big gun he used, right? I don't see how he could've had that on that little ship with him.)
-- As King Daniel said, maybe he thought that when they discovered where he went, it would provoke the war Marcus wanted anyway. But would he ally with the Klingons? Why? Because they're conquerors? But why would they have him? And Marcus's war was inevitable, then is he trying to start it before Marcus is totally prepared?
-- Maybe he thought he'd goad Marcus and the Vengeance to come after him, whereupon he'd beam aboard with that gun and attempt to take over the lightly-manned ship. His game changed when he realized it wasn't the Vengeance that was sent after him, and his cohorts were on board the Enterprise and still alive.

 

Khan couldn't have wanted to ally with the Klingons, because as another poster has said, he made no attempt to contact them all the time he was there, and when they did show up, he attacked them.

 

I don't think he was there to ally with them, either. But if he did have such an idea, it changed when he heard Sulu's message about the missiles. The chance that his people were still alive became his new directive for action. So, that's probably why he fought the Klingons to save Kirk and the others. They were his ticket to his people.

 

the fuel container was retrofitted. she doesn't state that the fuel container was replaced with the bodies. thus, we must believe somehow the fuel was still present considering the fuel container was retrofitted and present itself.

This statement is incorrect. See the above comment. Like I said, as is stated in the film, the fuel containers were retrofitted to hold khans crew. No where is it implied that because of this they didn’t HAVE a fuel container, nor fuel. and youre not making much sense. the torpedoes were "live". they have to be armed before being used. they aren't constantly armed. that would be a little dangerous aye?

indeed. I like the part about the gun. he doesn't have it when he beams. in the scene where we see him beam to Kronos he is alone with nothing and no one. And he stole it during or after the bombing of section 31. So he either beamed it there and returned to earth to finish up or he got it from a klingon. And I must add, just because sulu scans the area and says there is only one life sign doesn’t mean that in the time between khan beaming to Kronos and the arrival of the Enterprise that Khan didn’t meet someone in a desolate area. It does make sense that if he had information and the Klingons or a Klingon felt it necessary to gain that information that he must do so in a way in which he wont be discovered, as it was stated above that the Klingons are opposed to the augments.

he attacked because he needed to get aboard the Enterprise.

sorry for replying out of order. im tired tonight :/

 

Unless he was lying about believing his people were dead. He certainly was doing his best to make Kirk doubt who was right. Marcus and Khan may have been twisting the truth right to the end, trying to manipulate each other and the rest of the world in general into giving them what they were actually after.

The only other explanation that makes any sense to me is that he wanted to start the war as a form of revenge, like you say. But even that seems weak to me - it implies that he's given up being an actually important factor in this world. Unless he thinks war will give him the opportunity to secretly steal some ships and build his own empire? But even an augment can't crew an entire fleet by himself.

 

thanks pal. I shoulda read over the forum tools when I signed up. I am too impatient!

 

I think that it should have been explained better why Khan went to Kronos and why Marcus kept Khans people in the torpedoes. I don't think the answer is obvious or even logical.
I still liked the movie but to me this is its biggest flaw. Not the Caitians, not the call to PrimeSpock, not Carol's underwear.

 

Realizing that Carol's underwear is not the biggest flaw of the movie is the first step on the path to enlightenment.

 

Also why they get and accept 72 torpedoes to kill one guy running around on a planet.

They wouldn't have fired 72 cruise missiles at Osama bin Laden, just 1.