Khan question

[EJA]

It is clearly stated in TOS "Space Seed" that Khan Noonien Singh seized absolute power over all of South Asia and the Middle East. How could Khan have gotten all of those nations in his empire just like that? He can't have just invaded and devastated them, as dialogue in "Space Seed" also says that Khan's government was actually quite peaceful and reasonable, and only started to get in trouble after Khan was attacked from outside his empire.

Incidentally, I now believe that the Eugenics Wars occur around the 2040s, mainly because I reckon it stretches credibility a bit too far to have the current situation with the War on Terror, Iraq invasion, etc, happen after Khan.

 

[Timo]

Gaining control of "quarter of the world", as the episode stated, could be accomplished simply by becoming President of India. That's also a pretty good approximation of "from Asia through the Middle East", as the extent of Khan's realm was described, assuming that taking control of India would also entail conquering Pakistan (a surefire way to get a good and popular hold of India!).

The episode further states that the supermen came to power by simultaneously taking control of over forty nations. This takeover was also described by our heroes as a collection of "petty dictatorships". Sounds like a series of palace coups instead of ruthless military conquest and massacre of the masses. It wouldn't be that difficult to imagine that some 40 nations in southern Asia and the Middle East would be in a situation where a palace coup would be possible - and if a determined group engineered all those coups simultaneously and under a joint goal, the individual nations would not take advantage of instability in their neighboring countries as would otherwise be the case.

I reckon it stretches credibility a bit too far to have the current situation with the War on Terror, Iraq invasion, etc, happen after Khan

But there is no indication that the Trek universe would "have" the current situation. No mention has been made of an Iraq invasion by the United States, for example (although Iraq has always been a target of US ambitions, and probably will remain so quite regardless of local and global events, because Iraq has oil). Nothing has hinted on a War of Terror, either - quite to the contrary, Data in "The High Ground" praised terrorism as an (apparently relatively benign) means by which Ireland gained its independence in the early 21st century, an argument he would not have made had the current feelings about global terrorism existed and left their mark in the history books.

At most, there has been a brief visual of an aircraft impact on the WTC tower in one ENT episode - but no exposition to connect this visual with terrorism. For all we know, this was a harrowing aviation accident in the Trek universe. Or possibly a Soviet strike, an Econ attack, part of General Green's dastardly devices...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

In the episode Spock said that Khan and his little peer group seized control simultaneously in over forty countries, after the war there were some 90 missing supermen, which implies the there were far more before the war. each countries take over might have been accomplished by groups of hundreds of supermen. Each group being of the "correct" racial, ethic and religious type.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Khan alone controled "more than a quarter of the world. From Asia through the Middle East." The implication is other supermen controled various parts of the remaining 3/4.

 

[The Wormhole]

It is clearly stated in TOS "Space Seed" that Khan Noonien Singh seized absolute power over all of South Asia and the Middle East. How could Khan have gotten all of those nations in his empire just like that? He can't have just invaded and devastated them, as dialogue in "Space Seed" also says that Khan's government was actually quite peaceful and reasonable, and only started to get in trouble after Khan was attacked from outside his empire.

Political manipulation seems most likely. Possibly, at first he formed an alliance among the various nations which slowly dissolved and became one super-nation.

 

[FormerLurker]

Let's also remember the supermen were bred to be ruthlessly ambitious, not ruthlessly bloodthirsty. The former is conducive to achieving control, the latter is not.

 

[JoeFromEarth]

In the episode Spock said that Khan and his little peer group seized control simultaneously in over forty countries

There are many republican and republican commentators that would say Barack Obama and the democrats "seized control" of Washington. Same would go for those who opposed Bush when he was elected.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

In the episode Spock said that Khan and his little peer group seized control simultaneously in over forty countries, after the war there were some 90 missing supermen, which implies the there were far more before the war. each countries take over might have been accomplished by groups of hundreds of supermen. Each group being of the "correct" racial, ethic and religious type.

That's my assumption, too. The augments formed a growing elite of people who had both superior abilities and perhaps were held in awe by the general population. People might have thought that by supporting the augments, they could earn the right for themselves or their loved ones to be augmented and join this emerging new elite.

I wouldn't worry about pre-existing political conditions. I think the Eugenics War story is intended to be one of those sudden, sweeping technological changes that upends everything surprisingly quickly. Everyone is still obsessing about the old stuff and they get blindsided by the new stuff suddenly sweeping in and making the old stuff irrelevant.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Data in "The High Ground" praised terrorism as an (apparently relatively benign) means by which Ireland gained its independence in the early 21st century, an argument he would not have made had the current feelings about global terrorism existed and left their mark in the history books.

Understandably, BBC2 in the UK have never shown The High Ground because of that line. Certainly those feelings existed in Ireland (of course) and Britain at the time.

 

[Timo]

The implication is other supermen controled various parts of the remaining 3/4.

Or that Khan bested the other supermen eventually. Since he's the only superman ever truly mentioned by name (in any context other than the heroes actually stumbling onto an Augment, such as in TAS "The Infinite Vulcan"), it seems like a good assumption that Khan was the last superman standing, and the most important of them by far; the others got at most those "petty dictatorships" in those 40 small and insignificant countries.

People might have thought that by supporting the augments, they could earn the right for themselves or their loved ones to be augmented and join this emerging new elite.

Also, Khan and pals might have possessed quite a few technological secrets. The supermen may or may not have been originally created in order to use them for world conquest, but at least some of them were first-rate scientists (again, see TAS). They might have had important things to sell, buying their way to power and making the conventional superpowers turn a blind eye when they took control of India and the surrounding regions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Incidentally, I now believe that the Eugenics Wars occur around the 2040s, mainly because I reckon it stretches credibility a bit too far to have the current situation with the War on Terror, Iraq invasion, etc, happen after Khan.

I see no need to move the Eugenics Wars in the timeline. It's not like Spock gave a vague idea of when they took place, he gave exact years (1992-1996).

Never understood this need to reconcile Trek's timeline with our own.

 

[Timo]

It's such a self-defeating pursuit anyway. Even if we wanted an apocalyptic nuclear war in the 2050s, we won't get pointy-eared aliens and FTL drives by 2063. Why deliberately aim for disappointing ourselves?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Incidentally, I now believe that the Eugenics Wars occur around the 2040s, mainly because I reckon it stretches credibility a bit too far to have the current situation with the War on Terror, Iraq invasion, etc, happen after Khan.

I see no need to move the Eugenics Wars in the timeline. It's not like Spock gave a vague idea of when they took place, he gave exact years (1992-1996).

Never understood this need to reconcile Trek's timeline with our own.

It's such a self-defeating pursuit anyway. Even if we wanted an apocalyptic nuclear war in the 2050s, we won't get pointy-eared aliens and FTL drives by 2063. Why deliberately aim for disappointing ourselves?

Timo Saloniemi

One of the reasons I favored a hard reboot versus what we got in Star Trek 2009. As we move forward, I continue to see this desire to move events forward that conflict with the real-world timeline. Thus compressing the events of Star Trek's fictional timeline.

A hard reboot would've allowed Star Trek to take place further in the future and would've allowed events like The Eugenics Wars, World War III and the Romulan War to be spread out.

I'm sure someday we'll get that hard reboot.

 

[Timo]

It's still pretty futile, because events will catch up: we'll get things that will completely outdate the TOS vision of the 23rd century long before the real 23rd century begins, so why bother doing fine-tuning that allows the TOS vision of the 21st century or the 20th century to come to pass at some other century? Better just ditch the Trek concept altogether and do something completely different.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Better just ditch the Trek concept altogether and do something completely different.

Timo Saloniemi

But we all know that'll never happen. Trek is a known product that brings the studio dollars. So then you need a way to keep Trek fresh and relevant to newer audiences.

 

[T'Girl]

Possibly, at first he formed an alliance among the various nations which slowly dissolved and became one super-nation.

Problem with that is that Khan was in power for less that five years.




~

 

[Warped9]

Incidentally, I now believe that the Eugenics Wars occur around the 2040s, mainly because I reckon it stretches credibility a bit too far to have the current situation with the War on Terror, Iraq invasion, etc, happen after Khan.

When, oh when are people going to stop trying to reconcile Trek's reality with our own? It was already apparent when TOS was in production that Trek's reality wasn't our own and was never meant to be.

 

[The Wormhole]

Possibly, at first he formed an alliance among the various nations which slowly dissolved and became one super-nation.

Problem with that is that Khan was in power for less that five years.

Okay, so not so slowly then. He could have still have formed an alliance among nations and those nations dissolved and became one super-nation.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Incidentally, I now believe that the Eugenics Wars occur around the 2040s, mainly because I reckon it stretches credibility a bit too far to have the current situation with the War on Terror, Iraq invasion, etc, happen after Khan.

When, oh when are people going to stop trying to reconcile Trek's reality with our own? It was already apparent when TOS was in production that Trek's reality wasn't our own and was never meant to be.

I'm pretty sure it was meant to be our "future". That the mid-20th Century seen in certain episodes didnt quite line up with what became our history is no more disproving of that than of any other TV show set in that or any other "present". I'm not going to claim "alternate realities" for Mission Impossible because of fictional dictators or for Bewitched because there is no McMahon and Tate or magic in the real world either. All were meant to be happening in the real world's present/future/whatever.

 

[EJA]

I believe there have been references to 9/11, the War on Terror, the Middle East campaign, etc, in some Trek fiction published recently. I think something as globally important should happen in the Trekverse too, which is why I have difficulty placing the Eugenics Wars in the era they were originally said to have occured in. If most of Asia and the Middle East fell under the control of genetic supermen in the 1990s, I can't see people like Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussain still being around afterwards.

Then again, now that I think about it, there are also problems with putting Khan in the era immediately leading upto the Third World War of the mid-21st century. It's stated in episodes of TOS and ENT that few records survive of the Eugenics Wars by the Starfleet era, but everyone seems to know everything that happened with Colonel Green and the ECON; one episode of ENT even mentions a movie being made about WW3!! So if the Eugenics Wars happened only a decade or two prior to WW3 (at the most), why are there so many uncertainties?

It seems like whether we keep Khan in the 1990s or move him forward in time to our future, there are difficulties.