Also, what the heck happened with no supervision of Khan in exile?

[Warped9]

I'm still of the opinion that most such questions about Khan are based on hindsight after TWOK. Kirk and crew had lots of adventures and lots of missions they in theory could have revisited. TWOK aside, Khan and Co.were of no bigger importance than Miri's planet or Vaal's planet or a dozen other places/situations they visited. I mean, really, except for Starfleet being brain dead re the Reliant, a few dozen people, supermen or not, marooned on a backwater planet, aren't all that interesting and won't be able to do a whole lot in the span on one generation. Basically, it's Gilligan's Island... and smart as Khan is, his people aren't going to build a nuclear reactor out of coconuts.

This makes sense.

I'm sure Kirk filed a reasonably detailed report considering everyone aboard knew of Khan's existence and what transpired. People talk and you can't be absolutely sure no will say anything.

So he files his report and Starfleet says it's now in their hands and Kirk needn't concern himself with it any further.

After that who knows what happens.

It's also hard to credit that one planet can be mistaken for another unless by some extreme chance both planets are near identical in size and composition, or at least close enough to rationalize that one can be mistaken for the other.


Also likely is that the writers of TWOK just handwaved it all as a flimsy rationalization to tell the story they wanted to tell.

This isn't a problem with "Space Seed." It's a problem with the retroactive continuity introduced in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Exactly.

 

[Ithekro]

Some of these theories are nice and all, but there is one thing that keeps messing them up, Chekov. Chekov recognized the meaning behind the "Botany Bay", He recognizes Khan after he takes his face protection off. Chekov also knows that Khan was left on Ceti Alpha V and that there was life there (past tense).

What Chekov doesn't know, for some reason, is that this is Ceti Alpha V. He still thinks it is Ceti Alpha VI and that somehow Khan hopped planets, until Khan yells at him that "This is Ceti Alpha V!" Why I wonder? Chekov may not have been the navigtor that day, but he knows he way around a star system. Whatever happened to Ceti Alpha VI must have been really impressive to not only shift the orbit of Ceti Alpha V, but also make it seem like it was Ceti Alpha VI. (I wonder if they thought it was Ceti Alpha V that exploded? That would make sense if Chekov wasn't in the slightest bet worried about this system, if they all expect Khan to be dead due to the destruction of the world he was left on.)

 

[Timo]

When Chekov voices out his confusion over why Khan "moved from one planet to another", he seems to think Khan would have been better off at Ceti Alpha V. He probably doesn't think, then, that Ceti Alpha V would be dust!

(Sure, he may be thinking HE would have been better off had Khan stayed there and perished, but that's not the sentiment he's relaying there. Be it subterfuge or genuine, he seems to be arguing with Khan that coming to this hellhole was his own fault and shouldn't be blamed on anybody else.)

I still don't think anybody had any interest in how the Ceti Alpha system was faring and how many planets there were. Only one planet there would be of interest to the characters, and only due to the surface conditions (Chekov seeks those, Khan wants to escape those); everything else, such as orbital parameters or the exact name, would be irrelevant.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Still, you'd think that when approaching the system they'd have noticed there was one few planets then there should've been.

 

[Timo]

That's it, though - why should they notice that?

The only way to notice that a planet is missing is to search for it in the first place. There would be no motivation to search for a planet on the off chance that a big lump of nothing would be found in its place, now would there?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[f14peter]

That's it, though - why should they notice that?

The only way to notice that a planet is missing is to search for it in the first place. There would be no motivation to search for a planet on the off chance that a big lump of nothing would be found in its place, now would there?

Timo Saloniemi

I would beg to differ. I don't need to be searching for something to notice it's not there. Canon has established that Star Fleet possesses the ability to obtain fairly detailed sensor scans of planetary systems from quite some distance. Even to the extent of determining if any life existed (or no longer existed). Figuring out if a system has X planets or X-1 planets should be standard fare. Not to mention that a starship is probably mandated (for innumerable safety and security reasons) to maintain constant baseline scanning around all points constantly. Approach to a planetary system would most likely trigger at minimum an established scanning protocol, which should include comparing findings (including number of planetary bodies) against known information.

Scanning is such a basic and engrained part of space travel in the ST universe that it's such a regula ... er, regular function that would be so sufficiently staffed and equipped that it wouldn't come down to "extra work".

Besides, "a planet" is exactly what they were looking for, and they would have to take a peek at every one in a system to make the determination whether is was suitable or not for their project ... at the very least as they approached the system.

I think a plausible in-universe explanation doesn't exist. The only one would be someone on Reliant dropped the ball so severely as to be unbelievable.

 

[Anwar]

Even if Chekov completely forgot about Khan (somehow), you'd think standard procedure for going to some outer system would be to look at old maps to make sure you're going to the right place.

Then when they get there...no one notices that what was there doesn't match up with the map they used to go there to begin with?

 

[Wingsley]

Weird thing is that Chekov makes it seem like Ceti Alpha V is Ceti Alpha VI. Even if you buy the bit about planet VI spontaneously exploding, the only way to mistake planet V for planet VI is if they are both the same mass and size, and planet V somehow shifted magically into planet VI's orbit. (Also, one would assume that planet VI was originally in a more distant orbit from the Ceti Alpha star; reasonably assuming this to be the case, if planet V shifted further away from its sun, one would assume the result would be a cooler climate due to fainter sunlight (Earth vs. Mars, for example).

 

[Timo]

Canon has established that Star Fleet possesses the ability to obtain fairly detailed sensor scans of planetary systems from quite some distance. Even to the extent of determining if any life existed (or no longer existed).

Yet all our examples of our heroes discovering the loss of planets involve them going in for point blank studies, or receiving a distress call first, or both. Never do they notice that an entire star system (save for the star!) has gone missing, not until they are right atop it. It's not particularly unnatural to assume that smaller anomalies would go unnoticed even at the point blank stage.

Scanning is such a basic and engrained part of space travel in the ST universe that it's such a regulus ... er, regular function

Actually, it's extremely rarely that our heroes scan for anything without specific prompting, or that their scanners automatically inform them about a phenomenon not smack on their direct path. Failing to notice entire planets missing is consistent with TOS and with TNG; so it failing to scan "just in case".

Besides, "a planet" is exactly what they were looking for, and they would have to take a peek at every one in a system to make the determination whether is was suitable or not for their project

They are looking for a rare variant of desert planet, obviously. They can't be going blindly from system to system, or else they would all die of old age, or Starfleet would assign multiple ships to the task. The likelier scenario here is that they have a list of potentially useful worlds, extremely cursorily charted by previous ships or probes or remote observations, and they go through them and them only, one by one.

Which means that when they enter the system, they scan for the local desert world and home in on that. Such a process will not provide them with any warning that a planet in the system has gone missing: the sensors simply scan the system, point them towards the desert world, and that is it. Other planets spotted will be ignored.

Then when they get there...no one notices that what was there doesn't match up with the map they used to go there to begin with?

It is probably bad practice to assume that maps hold true - too much can change in the Trek universe, as evidenced by this very adventure. A sensible navigator scans for that which is there, and ignores any claims of what ought to be there.

Terrell's navigator was sensible: he or she got the ship to the local desert planet in one piece, without unnecessary detours or anything. It's too bad that Khan lurked there. But it can't be that records would have told where Khan lurks and hence CA VI would have been fine even if CA V had to be avoided. Chekov's surprise is too total for that, Terrell's ignorance too deep. Rather, we must assume that the records tell nothing about Khan - at least not to people with Terrell's clearance level.

...the only way to mistake planet V for planet VI is if they are both the same mass and size, and planet V somehow shifted magically into planet VI's orbit.

Only if one has detailed information on the planets. Starfleet doesn't need detailed information - its ships can cope with cursory information, which is no doubt much faster and cheaper.

If Starfleet did have detailed information on the Ceti Alpha system, it would not need to send the Reliant to study the system - it could send Terrell to the Kelvin Memorial Library to study the system!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marsden]

Well, planets seem to be numbered going away from the star, so 1 is closest, 9 or whatever is furthest away. Reliant was approaching from outside of the system, maybe they were counting down from the ninth planet and got to six and landed, but it was five and they didn't bother to double check.

I don't think there's any mistake about the fact that the Reliant's crew made a mistake, just like Kirk should never let the Reliant cripple the Enterprise in the first place, more mistakes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Don't they just punch some buttons and the ship takes them there?

Destination: Ceti Alpha VI.

Sit back and enjoy the ride

 

[Timo]

Exactly. If you were arriving at Earth from outside Sol in a 1960s style spacecraft, you would worry about the exact position of every gravity source in the system. If you were arriving in a 2260s style starship, you'd just go there; certainly you personally wouldn't have to mind the automated navigation, and probably even the computer could ignore anything smaller than a star and simply fly a beeline to the destination.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nebusj]

Well, planets seem to be numbered going away from the star, so 1 is closest, 9 or whatever is furthest away. Reliant was approaching from outside of the system, maybe they were counting down from the ninth planet and got to six and landed, but it was five and they didn't bother to double check.

It seems to be fan assumption that planets are numbered in order increasing with distance from the star. It seems to me at least as reasonable, though, and rather in line with astronomical precedent if they're numbered in order of discovery. This would suggest the bigger planets --- gas giants and the like --- tend to get the lower numbers and more earth like planets something higher up.

My intuition tells me that inhabitable Trek planets tend not to be numbers, like, one and two or really high numbers like eight or nine, and more more likely to be in the three-to-six range, but I don't know whether that actually happens and, after all, that probably more reflects thinking that solar systems would be like ours and have inhabitable planets the third or fourth from the sun, like Earth is and people desperately wish Mars were.

 

[T'Girl]

It's also hard to credit that one planet can be mistaken for another unless by some extreme chance both planets are near identical in size and composition, or at least close enough to rationalize that one can be mistaken for the other.

Starship log, stardate 8130.4. Log entry by First Officer Pavel Chekov ... We are continuing our search for a lifeless planet to satisfy the requirements of a test site for the Genesis Experiment.

This pretty much states that there were no detailed records on Ceti Alpha Six.

.

 

[Anwar]

Which begs the question of why Kirk and co didn't bother checking out the whole system while they were there, since they already had scanned Ceti Alpha V.

 

[MacLeod]

I lean towards the idea Maurice proposes above, that TPTB had many other things going on, and figured Khan and Company would be reasonably safe and secure on Ceti Alpha 5. The thing I cannot get straight, and remember thinking as Chekov realized who he was facing is, how could Chekov have forgotten the star and the planet as soon as they realized it was Ceti Alpha, as Lance alludes to?

Well one possibility is that some 15 or so years would have passed since "Space Seed" and TWOK.

So things to consider, was Chekov even aware of what planet they put Kahn on in the first place? He might not even have been told.

Do you remember every place you visited 15 years ago?

 

[Ithekro]

Chekov mentions that there was life on Ceti Alpha V and that Kahn was given a fair chance, just before Kahn yells at him that THIS is Ceti Alpha V.

 

[Timo]

This is only after Chekov has been rather painfully reminded of the past, of course. But yes, it is clear Chekov knows who Khan is (everybody on the Enterprise knew, and wanted to have his autograph after sex), but also that he was exiled on CA V.

Just another adventure of the week for Chekov, no doubt. And one he wouldn't often recall or talk about, as his own role in it would have been minimal and certainly less heroic than in a couple of others.

Which begs the question of why Kirk and co didn't bother checking out the whole system while they were there, since they already had scanned Ceti Alpha V.

I don't see why they should. It's not their job; the Trek galaxy apparently has trillions of planets, and only a handful of them are actually interesting. We never ever hear of Kirk idly scanning for incidental planets when going through his adventures!

This could be because every star system is already charted to sufficient accuracy for navigation. That's something you can do with telescopes, and never mind that the information is a few hundred or thousand years out of date. This might also suffice for the Genesis team knowing that there's a desert world in the system, but telescopes couldn't tell whether this was suitable for Genesis, so Terrell has to go in and check. As a side product, Starfleet will accumulate a database of desert worlds unsuited for Genesis - but it would be a waste of time to accumulate detailed databases on the other planets in the respective systems if it meant spending even one extra minute in each system.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

I don't see why they should. It's not their job; the Trek galaxy apparently has trillions of planets, and only a handful of them are actually interesting. We never ever hear of Kirk idly scanning for incidental planets when going through his adventures!

Well...it actually is. They're supposed to be seeking out new life and new civilizations, so checking up on unknown worlds is doing that even if said worlds turn out to not have anything after analysis.

 

[T'Girl]

My impression is, while they occasionally got side tracked, that the ship had a set of defined assignments and they were not just randomly going around scanning planets. For the most part they were visiting class M planets only. There were a few cases of the ship mapping entire star systems, but those were rare exceptions.

They went to Ceti Alpha Five only

Kirk told Khan that the ship was going to Starbase Twelve in the Gamma 400 system, after setting Khan and his people up, the ship continued there and didn't hang around to study the rest of the Ceti Alpha system in detail. Because of the events of Space Seed, the ship was likely behind schedule.

.