Seeing things from Khan's point of view...
- Thread starter Mike Ram
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Her family was mortified that she abandoned her prestigious Starfleet duties to take up with a genetically enhanced hooligan (very big no no in the Federation, remember the fuss they made over Bashir?) and wrote her off as dead.
Khan wasn't a Federation citizen. He had no reason to expect Starfleet to spend valuable time looking after him, instead of their usual rounds checking up on mining colonies and lunatic asylums, fending off Doomsday Machines, and spying on Romulans. Full schedule, there.
Did the novels ever explain why nobody on the Reliant recognized the Ceti Alpha system? Chekov thought they were on course to Ceti Alpha VI, so obviously they didn't even know it exploded...
It does strike me as odd that Starfleet didn't notice an entire planet blowing up. When the Klingon moon, Praxis, blew up the shock wave hit the Excelsior. No shock waves, or energy spikes were noticed when a whole planet went BOOM. I thought Starfleet with its love of exploration would have noticed it. And would debris from a planet that exploded only 6 months ago still be flying out in all directions?
Ceti Alpha VI when book six month after Kahn & Co. were dumped on CAV, not six months prior to Reliant's arrival. They had been living on that hell world for years.
My bad. Still shouldn't there be evidence of a planet exploding? And wouldn't someone have noticed a planet exploding?
Apparently Chekov didn't check his readings too well. If he could see what he thought was Ceti Alpha VI, where did he think the other five were? He should have noticed a planet missing if one had exploded.
And what *made* Ceti Alpha VI explode in the first place? Planets don't just up and self-destruct for no reason.
And what *made* Ceti Alpha VI explode in the first place? Planets don't just up and self-destruct for no reason.
I think one of the New Frontier books mentioned in passing an exotic alien deviance that blew up and took the planet with it while it was being investigated. At any rate, makes sense it wouldn't be a natural phenomenon. Also, it's just Khan's theory that IV blew up and shifted the orbit of V. Is that really what happened? We don't know.
^ That's a good point, actually. How *did* Khan know what happened? Could he look up into the sky and see Ceti Alpha VI? If not, how would he know that the planet exploded?
I don't see Kirk actually allowing Khan's crew to have a computer or sensor device with which they could scan the area.
I don't see Kirk actually allowing Khan's crew to have a computer or sensor device with which they could scan the area.
Well they appeared to have some sort of computer tech with them. Plus Kirk could have left them a tricorder or two just for basic survival needs-- medicine, weather, food testing, etc. As for Ceti Alpha VI going boom: Either it didn't and Kahn just assumed it was the cause of the climate shift, or it was a big enough to see in the night sky and they witnessed the explosion.
But it shouldn't. After all, Starfleet didn't notice entire star systems blowing up in "The Doomsday Machine". It clearly isn't within the technological capabilities of the Federation to observe distant star systems in real time by telescopes or the like; the only way to learn what is going on is to send a starship to observe.
That is, unless "what is going on" is a really energetic phenomenon that sends out subspace waves or the like. But a planet merely exploding, or being gobbled up by antiproton beams, need not do that. Only lightspeed signals would be sent out; Starfleet would learn of what was happening, but only after a few centuries had passed...
Shock waves and energy spikes would be fictional phenomena, probably associated with the fictional industries that failed (or were sabotaged) on or inside Praxis. A planet blowing up good is something that might happen in the real world, and need not involve fictional subspace waves at all.
This is also consistent with many precedents. Starfleet usually doesn't really know what sort of planets lie in star systems unless a starship goes in and checks. Quite possibly no starship ever went to Ceti Alpha to do an accurate survey - which is why Kirk chose the location for secretly marooning Khan. All that Starfleet records would show of the site would be "There's a desert planet here, Ceti Alpha V", and that's what Terrell's crew would go and check out, a desert planet in the Ceti Alpha system.
It's not as if Terrell's bunch would be much interested in doing a survey of the system or anything anyway. They were already bored out of their skulls, looking for new non-life and non-civilizations and having been disappointed many times already when life and civilizations were found instead. We're not speaking about intrepid space explorers here: we're observing insipid space exploiters.
Whether Chekov knew that Khan was marooned in the Ceti Alpha system is debatable. Kirk probably didn't announce that over the intercom; only he, Scotty, McCoy and Spock plus a few security crew need have known. Chekov would only know that Khan was dropped off somewhere - although as a junior navigator, he might well have figured out where even if he wasn't told...
Timo Saloniemi
Ceti Alpha is in the Mutara Sector, So is Regula which was housing a Starfleet backed research project. It's possible that Starfleet was keeping a eye, on the down low of course, on Kahn and his people. When Ceti Alpha VI went pop they could have just said "Good riddance" and wrote off the whole mess.
Chekov doesn't suspect anything until he and Terrell explore the old cargo hulk and Chekov sees 'BOTANY BAY' on one of the seatbelt thingies.
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I can't believe I completely missed that angle!
Yeah, Chekov must have witnessed the final events of "Space Seed" from some vantage point that didn't leave him completely in the dark. I'd still argue that Starfleet at large was left in the dark, and that Kirk marooned Khan in secret, realizing that his sympathies towards the superman would not be shared by Starfleet Command.
Whether Chekov remembered Ceti Alpha V and Khan is another matter. I mean, stuff like that happened to him basically every two weeks. Perhaps he did remember Khan at some point before beaming down, but assumed that the fearsome freak must be on the next planet over, and left it at that - agreeing with his former commander's controversial views on Khan. Terrell obviously had no idea, so Starfleet records on the star system cannot have contained a cross-reference to Kirk's logs.
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah, Chekov must have witnessed the final events of "Space Seed" from some vantage point that didn't leave him completely in the dark. I'd still argue that Starfleet at large was left in the dark, and that Kirk marooned Khan in secret, realizing that his sympathies towards the superman would not be shared by Starfleet Command.
Whether Chekov remembered Ceti Alpha V and Khan is another matter. I mean, stuff like that happened to him basically every two weeks. Perhaps he did remember Khan at some point before beaming down, but assumed that the fearsome freak must be on the next planet over, and left it at that - agreeing with his former commander's controversial views on Khan. Terrell obviously had no idea, so Starfleet records on the star system cannot have contained a cross-reference to Kirk's logs.
Timo Saloniemi
But if it's in the logs, it's not "secret" (and Kirk's logging it all is part of "Space Seed.")
That's not to say that Starfleet would broadcast that episode to everyone traveling to that system, but I think Kirk was pretty meticulous in his recording of the episode—Kirk may have sympathized with Khan to a degree, but that didn't mean he was willing to jeopardize his own career for him.
Keep in mind that in the "frontier"—be it "final" or American West of the 19th century—the military often was the de facto law in areas without formal civilian justice facilities. So it would be completely normal for a Starship Captain, out in the frontier, to dole out justice in a formal hearing. Starfleet most certainly would have accepted his edict in good faith, as long as he held a proper hearing and documented it as their regulations required.
Orren
