Also one of the Vanguard novels explained just how Ceti Alpha VI exploded in the first place (since planets don't normally explode for no reason).
Why did Kirk let Khan go at the end of Space Seed?
- Thread starter The Rock
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Also one of the Vanguard novels explained just how Ceti Alpha VI exploded in the first place (since planets don't normally explode for no reason).
And when they do, supermen tend to be involved....
Taking over a ship from its captain and crew and inciting one crewmember to mutiny isn't underhanded?
It's heroic and clever. At least when a hero is doing that, and the circular argument works widdershins, too.
Bullshit. Khan used no lethal weapons, and carefully controlled the use of his nonlethal ones so that no casualties resulted. If our heroes were taking a ship from Klingons, they would be firing phasers left and right and we'd be cheering. Khan just happens to be more civilized.
Every timeline seems to have its Marcus-analogue "outlier", so we get our norm right there...
That's a historical eyeblink compared to how homing in "really" happens in the human society.
A "street sign" would be a sensor reading anyway, not a coordinate. You don't locate street signs by referring to a book in your pocket or anything.
Hmh? We've never seen an arrival where it would have been specified that coordinates were used for the approach. For all we know, every arrival in Star Trek is by terminal homing, and it's a capital offense to rely on coordinates because you lose starships (and planets!) that way.
Khan is also compared to Napoleon in the original episode, and the implication is that Napoleon was a horrible monster the poor mankind of the late 20th century, let alone the 23rd, can't even bear thinking about. Which is a wholly valid sentiment to have. Still doesn't mean Napoleon should have been considered a war criminal. He was simply very bad news to all civilization because of his ambition.
Timo Saloniemi
Bullshit. Khan thought he'd killed Kirk in the decompression chamber, was sending Spock to die next, and was threatening to kill crewmembers one by one until they cooperated...and when it was clear he'd lost the ship, he tried to destroy it in engineering.
That came after he had gained control of the starship by nonlethal means. Kirk could certainly pat himself on the shoulder for conquering an enemy vessel that way.
The difference is that at that point, Kirk would just tell the ship's crew "Fine; I'll kill you later" and pilot the ship to wherever he wanted. Khan didn't know how, and needed to coerce the crew to cooperate.
That Khan apparently wanted to blow up the ship afterwards is a rather silly twist of events. But that, too, sounds like a great way to blackmail Kirk: if the crew won't cooperate when Khan threatens to kill the Captain, perhaps the Captain will cooperate when Khan threatens to kill the crew? That Khan would have gone through with his threat is far from said.
Timo Saloniemi
The difference is that at that point, Kirk would just tell the ship's crew "Fine; I'll kill you later" and pilot the ship to wherever he wanted. Khan didn't know how, and needed to coerce the crew to cooperate.
That Khan apparently wanted to blow up the ship afterwards is a rather silly twist of events. But that, too, sounds like a great way to blackmail Kirk: if the crew won't cooperate when Khan threatens to kill the Captain, perhaps the Captain will cooperate when Khan threatens to kill the crew? That Khan would have gone through with his threat is far from said.
Timo Saloniemi
He disabled life support. If that's not lethal force, I don't know what is. Khan was absolutely, positively, trying to kill people.
Really, the way you can twist episodes into a pretzel trying to interpret them in the exact opposite way they were intended boggles my mind sometimes.
I think it is the other way around.
I would want Khan and company off my ship as quickly as possible. A lonely planet is perfect for them. A prison without walls or spacecraft.
Put then near anything with resources--and they'll be on the move again.
Should have left a probe in orbit to check up on them.
Their loss itself could have been a warning.
Spock said that it would be interesting to check on them in 100 years...there were no promises to drop by anytime sooner than that.
Or even then.
As for McGivers, Kirk was in the habit of lying about how his crew died. The letter specifying the A&A officer's gruesomely heroic death had no doubt already been sent to the parents, tailored so that they would never feel the need to dig into the story and find out their daughter was traitorous scum, lamentably so far unhanged.
You seem to be totally misunderstanding the scene. Khan was negotiating. (And when one says "I am willing to negotiate", that by definition is negotiating, so Khan wasn't "being an evil liar in addition wanting to kill", or other such nonsense.)
It's a function of those responsible for the intending not being all that clever. When one writes a hero, one often ends up describing a villain, and vice versa.
Khan may wear a black hat, but it should not come as a surprise to us that Kirk likes Khan. Kirk liked his villains. He found Kang an okay guy after the Klingon had brutally killed many of his crew (some of them several times over!). In reverse, Kang found Kirk an okay guy after the human had brutally killed all of his crew (or so it seemed). And it's not a factor of Kirk liking or hating Klingons: he judged Kras and Kruge differently, and they had a different measure of Kirk.
Here the writer may have been trying to write a villain, but he was not simply incompetent - he was deliberately holding back. After all, he wanted the adventure to end with the marooning, and that would only work if Khan wasn't too evil. Which he clearly wasn't, compared to yer standard TOS adversary.
Now, I can sort of see why Spock Prime would still consider Khan a grave threat. After all, he achieved barehanded what Rojan did with superior technology; he was a mere human when taking the ship with the same ease as the android Norman did. But Khan of "Space Seed" did not yet warrant the smearing he got from Prime, and Khan of TWoK should not have been included.
Timo Saloniemi
As for McGivers, Kirk was in the habit of lying about how his crew died. The letter specifying the A&A officer's gruesomely heroic death had no doubt already been sent to the parents, tailored so that they would never feel the need to dig into the story and find out their daughter was traitorous scum, lamentably so far unhanged.
You seem to be totally misunderstanding the scene. Khan was negotiating. (And when one says "I am willing to negotiate", that by definition is negotiating, so Khan wasn't "being an evil liar in addition wanting to kill", or other such nonsense.)
It's a function of those responsible for the intending not being all that clever. When one writes a hero, one often ends up describing a villain, and vice versa.
Khan may wear a black hat, but it should not come as a surprise to us that Kirk likes Khan. Kirk liked his villains. He found Kang an okay guy after the Klingon had brutally killed many of his crew (some of them several times over!). In reverse, Kang found Kirk an okay guy after the human had brutally killed all of his crew (or so it seemed). And it's not a factor of Kirk liking or hating Klingons: he judged Kras and Kruge differently, and they had a different measure of Kirk.
Here the writer may have been trying to write a villain, but he was not simply incompetent - he was deliberately holding back. After all, he wanted the adventure to end with the marooning, and that would only work if Khan wasn't too evil. Which he clearly wasn't, compared to yer standard TOS adversary.
Now, I can sort of see why Spock Prime would still consider Khan a grave threat. After all, he achieved barehanded what Rojan did with superior technology; he was a mere human when taking the ship with the same ease as the android Norman did. But Khan of "Space Seed" did not yet warrant the smearing he got from Prime, and Khan of TWoK should not have been included.
Timo Saloniemi
Cutting off someone's oxygen isn't the opening to a negotiation. It's attempted homicide.
I wouldn't say that Kirk and Kang liked each other. The most I would say is that they had a moment of understanding after they defeated a mutual foe. I can't imagine Kang hanging around for very long after that to go get coffee with Kirk in the commissary or anything. If anything Kang high-tailed it out of there at the earliest opportunity (or he was put into the brig. It's been a while since I've watched "Day of the Dove," and I can't recall if Kang's ship was destroyed or not).
Now Kirk and Kor, or Kirk and Koloth? Maybe. At best they seemed to be polite adversaries who enjoyed sparring with each other. But I would never, ever, mistake that for friendship. Kirk knew what they were capable of. If he shook hands with either of them, he'd be sure to count all of fingers afterwards.
NM
They do if it's the second season.
... which, come to think of it, is when Ceti Alpha VI blew up. Previously unidentified victim of the Doomsday Nomad Amoeba?
I can't decide if I really like this idea or if it's too "small universe syndrome" for me.
On the topic, I don’t think putting Khan and his men in a prison would work out in the long run. He nearly hijack a ship and can you imagine just how the Federation would try to deal with a large group of supermen? I'd wisely lock them in seperate prisons...As in each person since I won't consider grouping them in one place after what they did.
But yeah, I think Kirk saw that while Khan attempted to steal his ship and is an infamous figure of Earth’s past, Khan is still a tad reasonable to deal with, hence just putting him and his crew a place to stay and not be bothered with.
Now Kirk's biggest mistake of this solution is not really checking the place once in a while...Or tell Starfleet about it. Cause if we know much about Khan, he raises a rather hefty body count if he's pissed about how many of his men died from something he sees as a great injustice to him.
But yeah, I think Kirk saw that while Khan attempted to steal his ship and is an infamous figure of Earth’s past, Khan is still a tad reasonable to deal with, hence just putting him and his crew a place to stay and not be bothered with.
Now Kirk's biggest mistake of this solution is not really checking the place once in a while...Or tell Starfleet about it. Cause if we know much about Khan, he raises a rather hefty body count if he's pissed about how many of his men died from something he sees as a great injustice to him.
Yes an unfilmed scene would have seen Kirk and Kang debating their differences in ideology while in orbit around a neutral planet! The scene is in James Blish's book!
JB
Yeah, they have to be because Starfleet is presented otherwise as very successful in performing its functions. The organization wouldn't function successfully if most of its leadership were mad, erratic, corrupt etc.
Street names and house numbers are not part of a navigation coordinate system? Yeah right. And of course, humans have to use their senses to utilize navigation information, that's a point not even worth raising. A ship's navigator has to use his eyes to take a star sight or read a sounding chart.
Homing on what? If planets are so likely to be in the wrong place that navigation information has become useless, and the only way to get to one is to look for a match of known physical characteristics, that would argue for an extensive pre-arrival evaluation of the system as well as the planet. Unless CA5 matched 6 in every possible measurement, it would still be an open question as to what planet it was and Terrell and co. would not be so casually certain about where they were.
Kirk and Khan morally equivalent? OK, whatever.
Well, they were defeated in nineteen ninety-whatever; they're not invincible and the Federation shouldn't be intimidated by them.
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