I felt the same. Also, they give Khan full access to all the ships databases, with no supervision or oversight. Doesn't seem right.
Space Seed could have been a two-parter
- Thread starter Shat Happens
- Start date
Only the leaders of any uprising. He still needs regular people. There aren't Augment janitors
In a nearly flawless ep, that's one very very minor thing that doesn't entirely work for me. When you see and hear Mirror Kirk in that one scene and realize that he has no clue what's happening to him - despite the awesome acting by Shatner and Nimoy and the outstanding dialogue - you have to wonder how the heck Mirror Spock ever put up with him for more than 30 seconds.
Fair point, but for some reason I never had a problem with it. I thought it was about Khan wanting to look outside his own small group for companionship. Plus, Marla capably assists him in taking over the ship (and more importantly, helps the Starfleet crew take it back) - she was pretty skilled.
Exactly! "There were no massacres under his rule" and "[h]e was the best of the tyrants." The ep takes pains to paint him as a complex figure with at least some allegedly redeeming qualities, not a genocidal madman. (Fifteen years of exile later and he's quite different.)
Why would non-Augments accept being second-class citizens?
Same reason people do today, it takes a lot to provoke an uprising. And if Khan is a halfway competent leader, and only kills those who actually rebel ("no massacres under his rule", the most people won't want to risk it, even with numbers on their side.
Why do you think he had any internal uprisings? The small amount of evidence points to him being driven away by external armed forces as part of the war.
Well, Mirror Kirk was obviously hysterical and losing it in the one scene we see him in. I imagine he was bit more quietly crafty to start out, the way that Prime Kirk bided his time until he figured out what the deal was with the MU.
Considering how quickly Khan resorts to torture and attempted murder as he's taking over the ship in "Space Seed," I have a feeling that "There were no massacres under his rule" was just propaganda that had been passed down over the centuries. "Khan's massacres were covered up" seems much more likely to me.
Holy guacamole I never though that. Marla can give the starship to whoever she decides to.
History is written by the victors. Why would the people who defeated Khan perpetuate propaganda that favored Khan? This would be like the Allies printing positive propaganda about the Nazis.
Surely any positive statements about Khan's legacy were thoroughly fact checked prior publication.
History is not always accurate, and Spock outright says at the beginning of the episode "Records of that period are fragmentary." It's not a stretch to think they might have something wrong.
I don't think Khan committing crimes that went unreported by history means he's not a complex character anymore. But "the Best of the Tyrants" is still a tyrant, and I think it's only sensible to acknowledge that.
The fact is the complex character of "Space Seed" is still described as "the most dangerous" of the tyrants, went to war with other supermen after he was attacked, justified taking over 3/4th of the planet as "offering the world order," was physically and mentally abusive to Marla McGivers, cut off life support to the bridge to take over the ship, and stuck Kirk in McCoy's decompression chamber in order to force the rest of the crew to capitulate to his demands. He was always doing evil shit.
How could Space Seed be fleshed out?
Yeah, it's true that Kirk had to find a neat way to physically outdo the physically-superior opponent due to episode runtime, especially after Khan - out of nowhere - wants to blow up the ship what with him still quite within it and all, but did the story have enough narrative meat and depth? I'd wager that part two would underrun, be very slow, or pacing across both parts ensuring both parts would be intolerably slow. For 1960s pacing standards, no less.
Now, "A Taste of Armageddon" - That glosses over, among other things, Ventikar and how their people would be reacting to when their computers stop receiving signals from Eminiar-7. All its details could easily have been fleshed out for a fantastic two-parter. How the episode manages to gloss over issues and still remain satisfying is really competent scriptwriting in of itself. But it easily could have fleshed out more, had a second part been committed for it.
Yeah, it's true that Kirk had to find a neat way to physically outdo the physically-superior opponent due to episode runtime, especially after Khan - out of nowhere - wants to blow up the ship what with him still quite within it and all, but did the story have enough narrative meat and depth? I'd wager that part two would underrun, be very slow, or pacing across both parts ensuring both parts would be intolerably slow. For 1960s pacing standards, no less.
Now, "A Taste of Armageddon" - That glosses over, among other things, Ventikar and how their people would be reacting to when their computers stop receiving signals from Eminiar-7. All its details could easily have been fleshed out for a fantastic two-parter. How the episode manages to gloss over issues and still remain satisfying is really competent scriptwriting in of itself. But it easily could have fleshed out more, had a second part been committed for it.
I'm not saying that they would be good as two parters, but:
Arena
Amok Time
Return to Tomorrow
By Any Other Name
And to an extent:
The Ultimate Computer
And The Children Shall Lead
The Enterprise Incident
Is There In Truth No Beauty?
The Savage Curtain
have fairly clear changes/shifts at about the halfway mark.
Arena
Amok Time
Return to Tomorrow
By Any Other Name
And to an extent:
The Ultimate Computer
And The Children Shall Lead
The Enterprise Incident
Is There In Truth No Beauty?
The Savage Curtain
have fairly clear changes/shifts at about the halfway mark.
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But KHAN did NOT genetically modify himself... merely follow the path presented to him ... he msutvhave had a lot of conditioning to think he was superior.... but he is still human. And "modern" people still have a number of advantages
I thought Marla following Khan at all was a stretch. She betrays her oath and everyone she knows on the Enterprise for a person out of history? If they gender-flipped it and had a male crewmember betray his oath and ship for a historical female come to life, would that be believable? I don't think so.