Space Seed

[Nerys Myk]

One of the things that makes Space Seed a important episode is that it inserts a lot of history into canon. Specific dates on the eugenics war, number of supermen, number of nations taken over, how the supermen were defeated, what happen to the survivors.

That said, I now find myself growing fatigued.

Oddly enough it also has a "date stamp" the runs counter to what is now accepted as continuity. Kirk says Khan has been asleep for two Centuries, placing TOS in the 22nd Century rather than the 23rd.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Actually, although I never considered it before, it can be rationalized and still fit into accepted continuity. If the Botany Bay could have accelerated to the right relativistic speed then time dilation could have had the effect of letting let them sleep for about 200 years rather than the objective 270 or so. I don't have the formula right at hand, but it shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

I got this idea in another thread sometime back. Here's the quotes:

After losing the Eugenics War, Khan and his genetically-enhanced minions flee Earth on the Botany Bay, which I guess wasn’t capable of near-light speed or even impulse since McGivers mentioned in “Space Seed” that Earth’s early interplanetary vessels were sleeper ships until the ion drive was invented for higher sublight speeds sometime in the early 21st century. So Khan and his crew couldn’t use time dilation since the Botany Boy was simply too slow.

To the contrary, I'd argue that Khan did benefit from the time dilation of high relativistic speed flight.

After all, in the episode, it is claimed that Khan slept for about two centuries. However, Khan was underway from 1996 (given in the episode) to the mid-to-late 2260s (established elsewhere in Star Trek), which amounts to 270 years, or about three centuries. How do three centuries become two? Why, because Khan is flying at an appreciable percentage of lightspeed!

In order for about 270 years of travel to become less than 250 years of cryosleep, Khan would have to be moving at about 0.45 times lightspeed. And that's in every way acceptable and desirable - because at such a speed (plus a bit of acceleration time), he would get to a distance of hundred-plus lightyears, which is great for ending up in an area of space that would be virtually unvisited for the early part of Khan's flight; then visited by humans for a while (the ENT adventures happened at such a distance); and then again abandoned by Earth traffic, like "Space Seed" says.

Also, many of the stars of the constellation Cetus are at such a distance from Earth, so Kirk could maroon Khan at the nearest habitable yet desolate planet and this would end up being Ceti Alpha V. (Or something like Eta Ceti A V, but our heroes would drop the Eta as unnecessary in the context.)

A ship capable of 0.45 times lightspeed need not be fast enough for noncryogenic interplanetary travel, mind you. It would all be a matter of acceleration. If the ship could sustain one gee, it would take about half a year to work up to said relativistic speed - and a week to go to Jupiter. But if the ship could only sustain 0.1 gee, that'd be three weeks to Jupiter, and still Khan could reach his interstellar cruising speed in a matter of just a few years. At some point, cryogenic sleep might become necessary for insystem trips, while nevertheless allowing for intersystem travel.

That is, assuming that the ship wouldn't be relying on conventional rocketry which requires propellant mass. And since the Botany Bay doesn't look like she'd have giant fuel tanks anywhere, I guess this assumption holds true. (Yes, we can see that more than half the external containers have been jettisoned, or perhaps never bolted on in the first place - but even a full set of sixteen wouldn't give enough propellant for conventional insystem let alone interstellar rocketry. So the containers are more probably cargo, or perhaps even the location of the cryochambers.)

Timo Saloniemi

I feel like an idiot. All these years and the explanation for the discrepancy between Khan's claim of two hundred years and the actual more like three hundred years has been staring me in the face.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I dunno. Kirk's estimation seems to be based on Spock and Scott's comments on the vintage of the ship. Scotty comments that their engines are nuclear powered. No idea if they can reach 0.45 times lightspeed with those. Would Kahn actually be headed to Cetus region? Kirk only drops Khan off on Ceti Alpha V because its along the route the Enterprise is headed.

 

[Tiberius]

I don't like how Marla McGivers went all love struck over Khan why did she?

You're not honestly surprised that a woman goes for the abusive jerk just because he is charismatic?

I'm not saying all women are like this, but I've seen it lots of times.

 

[Pauln6]

With modern story-telling Khan would be a great character to keep around for say a six episode arc while he gets to grips with the modern world, learns about his opponent, works in manipulating McGyvers, and then makes his move. It's a shame that so much Trek was so epsisodic. There's a balance to be struck between allowing fans to dip into the show and telling more complex stories (I think Buffy and NuBSG hit the right balance, Lost teeters on the brink of too much, DS9 possibly not quite enough, and Flashforward has gone too far. The jury is still out on SGU and Caprica). I'd have loved to see more of the sixties Khan working his mojo.

 

[Forbin]

What TWoK truly lacked was Marla McGyvers. Madline Rhu was still around at the time, and even though she was, I think, wheelchair-bound, that would have played right into the plot. Khan would blame Kirk for his wife's tragic crippling or something.

 

[JustKate]

I don't like how Marla McGivers went all love struck over Khan why did she?

You're not honestly surprised that a woman goes for the abusive jerk just because he is charismatic?

I'm not saying all women are like this, but I've seen it lots of times.

Silly me. I expect people, male or female, who have sworn an oath and been trained to do their duty to - you guessed it - do their best to fulfill that oath and do their duty. Or if they don't, we need to be shown a lot more motivation than was provided by this episode. Because we are shown nothing except that Khan is hot. Woo-woo. Beyond Antares and Pauln6 might very well be right that it would have been much more believable (and much less disliked by me! ) if the writers hadn't gone for the cheap and easy Lust at First Sight plot contrivance. Because it's stupid. Really.

 

[Rojixus]

And I truly loathe Marla McGivers. In fact, I think you'll find most female TOS fans (not all but most), as well as quite a few male TOS fans, really dislike how the character goes all gooey over an alpha male, forgetting her training, forgetting her duty, forgetting her crewmates, forgetting everything except that Khan makes her feel hot all over. High school girls - the weak and shallow ones - might act like that, but for an adult and an officer, her conduct was inexcusable. You can't even excuse McGivers, although some have tried, on the basis of standards being different in the 1960s. Mildred Gillars, sometimes known as "Axis Sally," served 10 years in prison for broadcasting propaganda for the Nazis - she claimed she'd done it because she fallen for some guy, too - and her trial was in 1949. And she was a civilian. So yes, some standards were different in the 1960s, but at least as of 1949, treason was still treason, and what McGivers did was treason. Kirk acted like a nincompoop over that, too.

Thank you! How could someone like that ever make it out of Starfleet Academy? In any event, I loved that episode. It's a shame they didn't make Khan a recurring villain.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I don't like how Marla McGivers went all love struck over Khan why did she?

You're not honestly surprised that a woman goes for the abusive jerk just because he is charismatic?

I'm not saying all women are like this, but I've seen it lots of times.

Silly me. I expect people, male or female, who have sworn an oath and been trained to do their duty to - you guessed it - do their best to fulfill that oath and do their duty. Or if they don't, we need to be shown a lot more motivation than was provided by this episode. Because we are shown nothing except that Khan is hot. Woo-woo. Beyond Antares and Pauln6 might very well be right that it would have been much more believable (and much less disliked by me! ) if the writers hadn't gone for the cheap and easy Lust at First Sight plot contrivance. Because it's stupid. Really.

Khan wasn't just hot. He was Ricardo Montalban hot. You need a whole new vocabulary to describe that.

 

[Maurice]

Trek didn't need a recurring Dr. Lovelace type. Khan wasn't so memorable, and even with TWOK I never got the love. He's even less dimensional in that movie than in the episode.

 

[Tiberius]

I don't like how Marla McGivers went all love struck over Khan why did she?

You're not honestly surprised that a woman goes for the abusive jerk just because he is charismatic?

I'm not saying all women are like this, but I've seen it lots of times.

Silly me. I expect people, male or female, who have sworn an oath and been trained to do their duty to - you guessed it - do their best to fulfill that oath and do their duty. Or if they don't, we need to be shown a lot more motivation than was provided by this episode. Because we are shown nothing except that Khan is hot. Woo-woo. Beyond Antares and Pauln6 might very well be right that it would have been much more believable (and much less disliked by me! ) if the writers hadn't gone for the cheap and easy Lust at First Sight plot contrivance. Because it's stupid. Really.

If that was really the case, they wouldn't have to worry about double crossers. Even in the military today this is a problem. You really think this won't be the case in the future?

 

[Pauln6]

I don't like how Marla McGivers went all love struck over Khan why did she?

You're not honestly surprised that a woman goes for the abusive jerk just because he is charismatic?

I'm not saying all women are like this, but I've seen it lots of times.

Silly me. I expect people, male or female, who have sworn an oath and been trained to do their duty to - you guessed it - do their best to fulfill that oath and do their duty. Or if they don't, we need to be shown a lot more motivation than was provided by this episode. Because we are shown nothing except that Khan is hot. Woo-woo. Beyond Antares and Pauln6 might very well be right that it would have been much more believable (and much less disliked by me! ) if the writers hadn't gone for the cheap and easy Lust at First Sight plot contrivance. Because it's stupid. Really.

In defence of McGyvers' character, she was a historian who romanticised the dominant males of old so her obsession with Khan was plausible on one level. Her behaviour was still pretty lame though.

 

[RAMA]

Just love this episode Ricardo Montalban is a great villian for Kirk I liked the scenes between Khan and Kirk it was like mutual respect even though Khan is a bad guy anyway what are your thoughts on this episode?

I think you need to stop writing run-on sentences it sounds like you're all excited and out of breath really man punctuation is your friend.

That being said....

Two words.

Marla. McGivers.

MMMm.

Okay, three words.

It bothers me how an educated, intelligent female officer was so easily manipulated and duped...kind of a silly male fantasy...that a woman will be so overwhelmed with our masculinity they'll fall for anything. Much more common in plots of the 60s. My wife rolls her eyes at this episode. She did look good though...

RAMA

 

[Agenda]

Trek didn't need a recurring Dr. Lovelace type. Khan wasn't so memorable, and even with TWOK I never got the love. He's even less dimensional in that movie than in the episode.

Khan only made two appearances in all of canon. He can barely be called a recurring character.

 

[Timo]

It bothers me how an educated, intelligent female officer was so easily manipulated and duped

I know Khan had rather long hair and a big chest, but to call him "female"..?

I mean, if anybody was manipulated and duped in that episode, it was our favorite supervillain. His path, from a welcome sex toy for the bored McGivers, to her free ride to a position of power, to her victim in callous betrayal, to her docile hubby, should probably have sent the male audience reeling in protest...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

Trek didn't need a recurring Dr. Lovelace type. Khan wasn't so memorable, and even with TWOK I never got the love. He's even less dimensional in that movie than in the episode.

Khan only made two appearances in all of canon. He can barely be called a recurring character.

Kor was supposed to be a reocurring foe, but John Colicos was unavailable so the character became Koloth and then Kang.

 

[Warped9]

^^ And we are the richer for it.

 

[Maurice]

Thank you! How could someone like that ever make it out of Starfleet Academy? In any event, I loved that episode. It's a shame they didn't make Khan a recurring villain.

Trek didn't need a recurring Dr. Lovelace type. Khan wasn't so memorable, and even with TWOK I never got the love. He's even less dimensional in that movie than in the episode.

Khan only made two appearances in all of canon. He can barely be called a recurring character.

Which I never said he was. You deleted the item I was replying to, and ergo read my reply out of context.