What if Khan was picked up by someone else?
- Thread starter Tenacity
- Start date
Yes. Picard would have called a conference in the briefing room where there would have been much hand-wringing over whether awakening the crew would constitute a violation of the Prime Directive.
I was just joking. Things be getting tense in here
Was it? I never took it that way. I thought... genetically engineered meant maybe denser muscle mass, bone density etc... not traditional human engineering. I mean hypothetically, we might be able to engineer humans with gills if we wanted. Certain other primates have greater strength than humans, it's in the realm of possibility?
And this based on what exactly? Is there something Cumberbatch has done to make you think this?
I don't have anything against Cumberbatch as a person or an actor. I just don't think he was the right actor for this role. And it's not just his skin color, either, though that did get in my way. As other commenters have said, he doesn't project the kind of passion, energy, and charisma Montalbán did. He's ice to Montalbán's fire. He's really a different character. Not a bad one, necessarily. As others have said, if he had been a different character people probably wouldn't have had much of a problem with him. What if, say, Khan hadn't survived and John Harrison was another superman?
And since I think I've just written my fourth comment without ever once addressing the actual thread topic: I think Khan would have been in deep, deep doo-doo if the Botany Bay had been discovered by the Defiant. Picture if you will, Khan expounding on how superior he was to the common run of humanity, and Sisko saying casually, "Would you like to hear about the time I met an omnipotent being in a boxing ring?"
And since I think I've just written my fourth comment without ever once addressing the actual thread topic: I think Khan would have been in deep, deep doo-doo if the Botany Bay had been discovered by the Defiant. Picture if you will, Khan expounding on how superior he was to the common run of humanity, and Sisko saying casually, "Would you like to hear about the time I met an omnipotent being in a boxing ring?"
Well, the reason Khan got as far as he did was because Kirk didn't exactly disagree with the guy. Would Sisko? Depends on the DS9 season where this adventure takes place. Past S3 or at least S4, Khan offers to bring the world ORDER!, and Sisko takes a look around and tells Khan to get to work. And Julian to stop that competitive bitching, because surely two ambitious superhumans have plenty of common ground and should get along just fine.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I always thought that Khan was a follower of the Sikh warrior religion/belief system not necessarily actually born into a Sikh racial group.
Khan was a product of 20th century engineering which I assume meant that they genetically put the best of the best into Khan's genetics. I imagine a combination of many racial groups. I just thought he took a fancy to the tenants of the Sikh warrior class.
If Khan had been picked up by someone else other than Kirk or Marcus I would have thought he would have just taken over the ship (most probably a lesser ship) until he could take over a better one,
Khan was a product of 20th century engineering which I assume meant that they genetically put the best of the best into Khan's genetics. I imagine a combination of many racial groups. I just thought he took a fancy to the tenants of the Sikh warrior class.
If Khan had been picked up by someone else other than Kirk or Marcus I would have thought he would have just taken over the ship (most probably a lesser ship) until he could take over a better one,
Not really....
MCCOY: No, I'm good, but not that good. There's something inside this man that refuses to accept death. Look at that. Even as he is now, his heart valve action has twice the power of yours and mine. Lung efficiency is fifty percent better.
KIRK: An improved breed of human. That's what the Eugenics War was all about.
MCCOY: I'd estimate he could lift us both with one arm. It will be interesting to see if his brain matches his body.
So, Khan was not bragging at all. What information was resented about the Eugenics War gave every indication that they were close to "supermen", which is confirmed by McCoy.
If he was actually a Sikh he'd wear a Dastaar (ਦਸਤਾਰ) and a beard, not to mention a kirpan (knife), etc. How McGivers ever pegged him as a Sikh is beyond me.
Which leaves basically three options, slightly intertwined:
1) She was lying, trying to stop Kirk from spacing the monster before she had her way with him. She would also be well informed about whether anybody aboard could contradict her.
2) Being Sikh is different in the Trek timeline. Perhaps always was, perhaps something changed a lot around the late 20th century or so (due to a big war involving a big racial putsch, say - Eugenics Wars, anybody?).
3) Data from the 20th century and before was lost or corrupted or otherwise unavailable to our heroes and the villainess.
McGivers successfully lying might depend on the Trek Sikh not being quite so recognizable and/or them being more obscure. OTOH, a different type of Sikh might also fade to obscurity differently, perhaps due to active effort.
McGivers not getting caught would flow from her initially being successful: even if googling for Khan, our heroes might not google for Sikh, or might outsource the work to the Lieutenant even if Spock gives the presentation to the Captain.
What needs to be covered here is the lack of facial recognition databases or their use. Our heroes have mug files, and ever since "Conscience of the King" those have been inconclusive. Here, Khan's face ultimately may be what provides the match; in the 2009 movie, it is no wonder the face would not register (except as "Harrison"), and McCoy's blood sample would only provide the desired results slightly after the horse had run away, met a few mares, eaten half the apple orchard, and returned to the stable to gloat and fart. (Of course, the unintended results would be quite useful!)
Yet why is searching for a face so slow and sometimes inconclusive? Simply because there are trillions of faces to choose from, with too many false positives even for advanced search engines? Or because faces are so disposable or malleable in the Trek context? The 2009 movie would favor the latter model...
Timo Saloniemi
1) She was lying, trying to stop Kirk from spacing the monster before she had her way with him. She would also be well informed about whether anybody aboard could contradict her.
2) Being Sikh is different in the Trek timeline. Perhaps always was, perhaps something changed a lot around the late 20th century or so (due to a big war involving a big racial putsch, say - Eugenics Wars, anybody?).
3) Data from the 20th century and before was lost or corrupted or otherwise unavailable to our heroes and the villainess.
McGivers successfully lying might depend on the Trek Sikh not being quite so recognizable and/or them being more obscure. OTOH, a different type of Sikh might also fade to obscurity differently, perhaps due to active effort.
McGivers not getting caught would flow from her initially being successful: even if googling for Khan, our heroes might not google for Sikh, or might outsource the work to the Lieutenant even if Spock gives the presentation to the Captain.
What needs to be covered here is the lack of facial recognition databases or their use. Our heroes have mug files, and ever since "Conscience of the King" those have been inconclusive. Here, Khan's face ultimately may be what provides the match; in the 2009 movie, it is no wonder the face would not register (except as "Harrison"), and McCoy's blood sample would only provide the desired results slightly after the horse had run away, met a few mares, eaten half the apple orchard, and returned to the stable to gloat and fart. (Of course, the unintended results would be quite useful!)
Yet why is searching for a face so slow and sometimes inconclusive? Simply because there are trillions of faces to choose from, with too many false positives even for advanced search engines? Or because faces are so disposable or malleable in the Trek context? The 2009 movie would favor the latter model...
Timo Saloniemi
Interesting theories...and she did say--
MARLA: From the northern India area, I'd guess. Probably a Sikh. They were the most fantastic warriors.
"I'd guess" and "Probably" are not confirmation. Further, for purposes of deep space travel whoever this "leader" and his fellow travelers were, probably meant there were flight and/or duty standards requiring no personal religious and/or cultural accoutrements, so she was basing her theory on racial traits, if anything at all.
It might help if we knew more about what the Botany Bay was all about, too.
Our heroes rule out the use of a spaceship as a means of banishing criminals. But we never quite learn whether they were right to do so. Why is Khan's getaway vehicle named after a penal colony? Where did Khan get the ship? Who launched the ship and why?
Much of what McGivers tells us is suspect, either in the context of the episode, or vs. what we know of the real world, or vs. what we know of Star Trek in the broader view. The bit about interplanetary travel taking "years" before 2018 is iffy, say, if Khan can go interstellar in one of those very ships, and if trips to Saturn are still in the future and folks are mainly visiting Mars. Is McGivers also lying about identifying Khan's berth as that of "the leader"? Or is she able to tell at a glance that this is in fact a prison transport, and the ponytail guy is in the slot for Chief Warden and for that reason wakes up before his prisoners?
She may simply be making up random shit in a field of expertise where she reigns sovereign - it's not as if she were all that interested in actually helping out her superiors. And events then conspire to make it attractive for her to smoothly transform her lies-out-of-laziness-and-contempt into lies-to-bed-the-hunk, with little risk of, or in, getting caught.
Timo Saloniemi
Our heroes rule out the use of a spaceship as a means of banishing criminals. But we never quite learn whether they were right to do so. Why is Khan's getaway vehicle named after a penal colony? Where did Khan get the ship? Who launched the ship and why?
Much of what McGivers tells us is suspect, either in the context of the episode, or vs. what we know of the real world, or vs. what we know of Star Trek in the broader view. The bit about interplanetary travel taking "years" before 2018 is iffy, say, if Khan can go interstellar in one of those very ships, and if trips to Saturn are still in the future and folks are mainly visiting Mars. Is McGivers also lying about identifying Khan's berth as that of "the leader"? Or is she able to tell at a glance that this is in fact a prison transport, and the ponytail guy is in the slot for Chief Warden and for that reason wakes up before his prisoners?
She may simply be making up random shit in a field of expertise where she reigns sovereign - it's not as if she were all that interested in actually helping out her superiors. And events then conspire to make it attractive for her to smoothly transform her lies-out-of-laziness-and-contempt into lies-to-bed-the-hunk, with little risk of, or in, getting caught.
Timo Saloniemi
If Orion Syndicate slavers found the ship, there would be no more Orion Syndicate...
I think Madlyn Rhue misspoke. The line in the second revised script (12/13/66) was "Possibly a Sikh..."
And speaking of that script, here's how it describes Khan:
And, for fun, here's how Ericssen is described in the final draft script (12/8/66):
Marla was looking at the sleeping Khan when she made this statement. It was a conclusion based on looks. So she couldn't have been commenting on any religious affiliation Khan converted to unless there were visual clues to support the conclusion.
Another possibility Timo didn't mention was 4. Mara didn't know what she was talking about. She may not have been the best and the brightest. She may have graduated bottom of her class. She may have been talking out of her butt and just grabbed the first cultural group that popped into her head.
In reality whomever wrote the script probably didn't know much of anything about the Sikh culture, either.
Didn't they have his first name as 'Thorvald' ? I seem to remember that. The root Thor connoting strength.
And the Ericssen spelling to distinguish from the painter Thorvald Erichsen.
We are given no reason to think that Marla was lying or wrong.
No, we aren't, but 'round these parts many prefer to ignore what is actually shown or spoken.
