Somewhat off topic, not being main characters:
What about the augmented children at the time of the Eugenics Wars?
SPOCK: I have collected some names and made some counts. By my estimate, there were some eighty or ninety of these young supermen unaccounted for when they were finally defeated.
KIRK: That fact isn't in the history texts.
SPOCK: Would you reveal to war-weary populations that some eighty Napoleons might still be alive?
Note that to the precise Spock "alive" equals "unaccounted for" and presumably "accounted for" equals "dead". This certainly gives the impression that any superman or superwomen caught was instantly killed.
And what about any superboys and supergirls who might have been alive during the Eugenics wars and survived the mass bombings that wiped out whole populations? Were they killed on sight or thrown into solitary confinement for life?
Khan and 84 other persons were in suspended animation on the
Botany Bay.
KIRK: How many alive?
SCOTT [OC]: Twelve units have malfunctioned, leaving seventy two still operating. Thirty of those are women.
This gives the impression that there were 42 men occupying the rest of the 72 functioning units, but it is certainly possible that they included some children.
Captain's Log. Stardate 3143.3. Control of the Enterprise has been regained. I wish my next decisions were no more difficult. Khan and his people. What a waste to put them in a reorientation centre. And what do I do about McGivers?
[Briefing room]
(The senior staff are in dress uniform again.)
UHURA: Record tapes engaged and ready, Captain.
KIRK: This hearing is now in session. Under the authority vested in me by Starfleet Command, I declare all charges and specifications in this matter have been dropped.
MCCOY: Jim. Agreed you have the authority
KIRK: Mister Spock, our heading takes us near the Ceti Alpha star system.
SPOCK: Quite correct, Captain. Planet number five there is habitable, although a bit savage, somewhat inhospitable.
KIRK: But no more than Australia's Botany Bay colony was at the beginning. Those men went on to tame a continent, Mister Khan. Can you tame a world?
KHAN: Have you ever read Milton, Captain?
KIRK: Yes. I understand. Lieutenant Marla McGivers. Given a choice of court martial or accompanying them there.
KHAN: (gazing into her eyes) It will be difficult. A struggle at first even to stay alive, to find food.
MARLA: I'll go with him, sir.
KHAN: A superior woman. I will take her. And I've gotten something else I wanted. A world to win, an empire to build.
KIRK: This hearing is closed.
I fail to see the waste in putting Khan's people in a reorientation center. After being "reoriented" they could use their talents to be very useful and to gain wealth and prestige. It seems to me that the waste would be to send them to a primitive world to struggle to survive without making any contributions to wider society, something that countless billions of persons have done before.
And Kirk only asks 2 out of 74 prisoners which fate they desire Where's the democracy in that? does Federation law recognize the other 72 augments as Khan's slaves?
And the first prisoners at Australia's Botany Bay colony didn't go on to tame a continent all by themselves. They were later joined by many thousands of prisoners and free persons who went on to tame Australia. I'm not sure if 74 persons would be enough to found a viable colony on a strange new planet without any aide from outside for decades or centuries.
In WOK 15 year's later Khan's few surviving people look like they are in their twenties. Maybe Khan's supermen and women aged much slower than normal people. Maybe they are the under-fifteen-years-old children of Khan's adult followers, kids who look older because being supermen they grow faster than normal humans. Or maybe they are aged between 20 and 30 like they look and were aged 5 to 15 on the
Botany Bay. In any case, Khan's people have had a hellish time on Ceti Alpha V, and in the latter two cases they were kids for part or all of that suffering.
Then the adult or teenage augments escape from their hell planet and are free and their crazy leaders gets them vaporized!
Of course it is possible that the hundreds? of cadets and trainees aboard the
Enterprise might have included some as young as the uncertain age of Khan's followers.
Midshipman Peter Preston looked very small and young when I first saw him. Then I recognized Ike Eisenmann and decided he was old enough for Starfleet, if possibly too short. And then Vonda N. McIntyre's novelization and the script both say that Preston was fourteen years old. So I am uncertain whether the
Enterprise rivals Khan's group for the title of having the youngest person killed in the movie.
And then there is this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_of7mShM5N1g/SpfniPl9F-I/AAAAAAAAAKg/hF-ZvMOg02Q/s1600-h/khans_son.jpg
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/another-pic-surfaces-of-khans-baby-from-twok.102909/
But of course none of them are main characters in
Star Trek or WOK.
)
