Khan's revenge on Kirk = LAME

[MadBaggins]

So Khan is obsessed with getting revenge on Kirk for the death of his wife and other grievances, to a kind of Moby Dick level of obsession. What is his ultimate revenge? Umm...he leaves Kirk in a lovely looking cave, full of food, and the Enterprise disabled above. WTF? THIS is supposed to be punishment for all Kirk's done!? Leaving him in a cave for a short time!? Even though Spock lied about how long it would be for the Enterprise to repair its transporters, Khan still thought it would only be, what was it, two days? So he thought leaving Kirk in a cave for TWO DAYS was suitable punishment for the death of his wife? HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE! Did he think Kirk would take his own life in boredom of being in a cave for a short peroid of time?

"I've done much worse than kill you..." UMM, NO. I'd MUCH rather be left in a cave full of food with my friends and rescue only two days away (or two hours as it really was!) than die, thank you very much!

Instead of saying "KHAAAAAAAN!" in anger Kirk should have said "THANK YOU FOR NOT KILLING ME, KHAAAAAAAN!"

 

[Basill]

I was under the impression Khan was completely ignorant of the Genesis cave and all its wonders. Dr. Marcus and her team had hidden all reference to it. That is why he needed the puppet Terrell and Chekov to lead them to the device itself. Khan even hinted as much; "...buried alive in the center of dead planet. Buried alive..." It wasn't even revealed to Kirk (and audience) until after the puppet strings were so sadly cut.

He also had every intention of blowing the Enterprise out of the stars before they could be of any use to Kirk and party. This is why he was so surprised that the Enterprise was not where he expected she would be. He was planning on swooping in for the kill and his prey had vanished. Two days was not to be Kirk's sentence but I would presume it was for all time.

Even if he knew the Genesis cave was a wonderful paradise, it was still hidden underground, a top secret project, and out touch with the rest of the known galaxy.

 

[archeryguy1701]

If you will note, Khan actually attempted to kill Kirk more than once. When all those failed, he went for the next best thing in his mind, which was leave him in a cold, dark underground cave with x-amount of emergency rations while he blows away the enterprise.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Khan probably didn't know everything and thought he was condemning Jim to a fate worse than just death. And Jim wisely played along.

 

[Nebusj]

Plus, you know, this whole revenge thing was an improvised affair. I'm sure Khan had all sorts of ideas for ways to torture Kirk, but it was several strokes of wild luck that he had any chance to act on them, and the specific circumstances were beyond his control. He had to take his revenges where he could get them.

 

[archeryguy1701]

Peach Wookiee said:
Khan probably didn't know everything and thought he was condemning Jim to a fate worse than just death. And Jim wisely played along.

I don't know, I think Kirk truly blew up down there. I mean, his ship was beaten all to hell, he found a station full of dead people, he watched two people die, and now Kahn is acting like a total jerk and taunting him. Even if I knew things were going to be okay, I think I would be pretty irritable too.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Yeah, though he's also wanting Khan to think he's won. Normally, Jim might be able to not blow up, but he now uses his emotions to his advantage.

 

[D Man]

Plus Kirk knew those transporters would be back up in no time, but yelled KHAAAAN just the same. And we're all better people because of it.

 

[Adagio]

Well, Kirk didn't know about the underground ecosystem either. Furthermore, he would be stuck there. He had no way of knowing what the situation was topside with the Enterprise, so Kirk's reaction makes sense.

Also, I didn't think Khan's reason for revenge was lame at all. No one came to check on Khan's progress on Ceti Alpha V. I'm sure someone in Starfleet must have seen Ceti Alpha VI explode, but no starship was sent to check on Ceti Alpha V, where Khan and his men were. That is quite unusual. At first, Khan was left on a lush planet with a chance to survive. Then, he was left on a wasteland to die in a horrible way, like his wife did. Also, seeing his wife die probably didn't do Khan's psyche much good.

All in all, was Khan making dumb decisions? Yes. Once he had the Reliant, he could have escaped to Klingon or Romulan space and he probably wouldn't have been caught. However, when you're in the kind of rage Khan was in, you tend to make rather boneheaded decisions.

 

[Timo]

The ending of "Space Seed" makes it look as if Kirk never intended to reveal the existence of Khan to the rest of the universe. He didn't bring the man to Federation justice after his attempted mutiny, murder and other un-niceness. Rather, he donated a planet for him to rule.

So people probably wouldn't go check on Khan unless Kirk told them to. Which makes Khan's desire for personal revenge all the more fitting.

As for observing CA VI blow up... I don't think so. In "Doomsday Machine", it wasn't possible to tell whether an entire star system's worth of planets had been blown up unless a starship specifically entered that star system for a look. Federation apparently doesn't keep realtime subspace telescopes fixed on random distant star systems just to see if they happen to explode. Possibly it's not even technologically feasible to see a planet explode via subspace. And lightspeed observations would only reveal the fact a couple of centuries late...

Anyway, regarding Kirk's decision to maroon rather than bring to justice Khan, I wonder if the genetic misfit would have had any real reason to escape to the Klingons. For all we know, he could have returned to Earth (after ditching the Reliant and hiding the trail of Starfleet corpses he had left behind), told the officials who he was, and claimed custodianship of southeast Asia. If people back on Earth were as much in awe of him as Kirk, Scotty and McCoy were in "Space Seed", after a bit of bureaucracy, he could again be prince of millions...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Stardate]

for me, Kahn anger to Kirk is kind of justified, because why on Earth wasn't Kahn checked on.Put yourself in Kahn shoes. You are marooned in a planet who unfortunately was next to to planet that exploded 6 month later.(I find strange Kirk & co didn't detect that Ceti Alpha 6 wasent unstable?) because there do reason given why it explodeed in the first place. You wife and many of your freinds dies slow death(alien worms).
Also i would have think Starfleet would have notice entire planet had exploded(remember Klingon moon in TUC) in Ceti Alpha system.

 

[Blueicus]

Well, the shockwave from the Praxis explosion was probably due to all of that dilithium and the energy processing plants that were on the planet, a normal planetary explosion probably wouldn't register on sensors unless they were very close.

 

[starburst]

Khans existance was likely fairly classified, Reliants Captain didnt seem to know about him untill Chekov mentioned it.

 

[Basill]

Blueicus said:
Well, the shockwave from the Praxis explosion was probably due to all of that dilithium and the energy processing plants that were on the planet, a normal planetary explosion probably wouldn't register on sensors unless they were very close.

Exactly. The Praxis explosion probably had subspace ramifications. Also, the Excelsior was fairly close, in starship terms anyway, cataloging "gaseous anomalies" while skirting Klingon space.

The Ceti Alpha system was probably way off the beaten path; probably one of the features that factored in both Kirk's decision to plant Khan and his group there, and serve as a useful region for the Genesis experiment. Space is vast and unless you are steadily observing things like individual planetary systems, you are likely to miss such a phenomenon.

I never thought from the original episode that anyone had any intention of checking on the group. Spock even mentioned that it might be interesting to check, in no less than a century, to see what came from the action, lending further metaphor to the episode's title. But regular check ups were probably never in the forecast despite Khan's poor victim rant to his Reliant captives. Still, he was especially miffed that Kirk had prospered and risen to the rank of Admiral while he and his group fought off brain bugs and constantly shook sand out of their underwear. And while I don't sympathize with Khan's revenge plot, add a potato and that is a recipe for salt & vinegar chips any day.

 

[Nebusj]

starburst said:
Khans existance was likely fairly classified, Reliants Captain didnt seem to know about him untill Chekov mentioned it.

I doubt it was particularly classified; after all, who would there be to classify it against? People enthusiastic about re-fighting the wars of three centuries past?

Most likely the Reliant crew didn't know about Khan because they were going to Ceti Alpha VI, not Ceti Alpha V, and whatever the test parameters that Genesis required, no life-bearing planets anywhere in the system weren't among them. (We have to bear in mind that data-management technology is rather more primitive in the Trek universe than in the real one. There are huge gaps in the Google record, certainly, but it's better than the sort of indexing we see from ``The Naked Now''.)

 

[Maurice]

Blueicus said:...a normal planetary explosion...

What constitutes a "normal" planetary explosion? I'm not asking Blueicus as much as pointing out the silliness of the concept in Trek. The only logical reason a body would break up is by being hit by another large body.

 

[Timo]

Plenty of possibilities in the Trek universe. The Great Bird of Galaxy inside deciding to hatch; the stresses of dilithium or olivium in the mantle coming to a cathartic point; a subspace suckhole slingshotting through.

And Khan wouldn't know much about what happened, really. A fleet of Vogons could have wandered by and blasted CA VI to bits, and all Khan would see would be a big kaboom. Or perhaps not a particularly big kaboom at that: perhaps Khan simply woke up one morning to the sound of his world coming apart, and a few days later found that CA VI had disappeared from the now dusty sky. He'd decide the planet had exploded, not realizing it had merely been displaced (along with his own) when a big black hole swept through the system.

Most likely the Reliant crew didn't know about Khan because they were going to Ceti Alpha VI, not Ceti Alpha V

Or because things like Khan really are a dime in a dozen - Terrell might have had plenty of adventures of his own that were much grander, and equally implausible if overheard in a tavern. A random Starfleet captain wouldn't be expected to know or care about the lesser exploits of another random Starfleet captain, even if he were aware that this other captain had later attained some fame and rank.

But I seriously doubt Kirk ever filed a log entry stating that he had let a dangerous criminal escape to an uninhabited planet. Everything about his final decision in "Space Seed" smells of hush-hush, of choosing justice against duty, of having great but grossly illicit sympathy towards Khan.

That's something completely befitting the psych profiles of the likes of Khan. He'd wrap people like Kirk around his little finger, have them do favors for him, then blame them for his own failures and play victim to garner further sympathies and followers. Classic psychopath stuff there.

Timo Saloniemi