Khan Noonien Singh (or simply, Khan), was the most prominent of the genetically-engineered Human augments of the Duyi'zu Universe, considered even over three centuries later to have been "the best" of them. Reappearing with a cadre of Augment followers,
Khan was to become a notorious enemy of James T. Kirk, as well as a warning of the danger in attempting to create "supermen" through technological means. Records of the period, including Khan's origins, are vague. He was the product of a secret selective-breeding and genetic engineering program, based on the eugenic philosophy that held improving the capabilities of a man improved the entire Human race. Augments produced by the program possessed physical strength and analytical capabilities superior to ordinary Humans, and were created from a variety of Duyi'zu Earth's ethnic groups. Khan's background was suspected to be Sikh, from the northern region of India.
Biography[]
Records of the period, including Khan's origins, were vague to know. Khan was either born, or created in 1959 (1XX4 NE). He was the product of a selective breeding or genetic engineering program called Project Khan, based on the eugenic philosophy that held improving the capabilities of a man improved the entire Human race. Augments produced by the program possessed physical strength and analytical capabilities considerably superior to ordinary Humans, and were created from a variety of Earth's ethnic groups. Khan's background was suspected by McGivers to be Sikh, from the northern region of India.
Khan lived up to the axiom coined by one of his creators, "superior ability breeds superior ambition". By 1993 (1XXX NE), a generation of genetic "supermen," including Khan, had simultaneously gained control of more than forty of Duyi'zu Earth's governments. From 1992 (1XXX NE) to 1996 (1XXX NE), Khan had absolute rule over more than one-quarter of the planet's population, including regions of Asia and the Middle East. Considered "the best of tyrants"; Khan's reign was considered the most benevolent. His regime was free of much of the problems that plagued his earth's history of that era – as Khan was never known for engaging in massacres, genocide or wars of aggression. However, the citizens of his regime enjoyed little freedom. Khan had little, if any, respect for individual liberty, which was also a key issue for Duyi'zu Earth history. As such, personal initiative and financial investment were low, and scientific progress suffered as a result.
In the mid-1990s, the Augment tyrants began warring among themselves. Other nations joined forces to overthrow the tyrants in which became known as the Eugenics Wars. Eventually, most of the tyrants were defeated and their territory recaptured, but up to ninety "supermen" were never accounted for.
Khan escaped the wars and their consequences along with eighty-four followers, who swore to live and die at his command. He saw his best option in a risky, self-imposed exile. In 1996 (1XXX NE), he took control of a interplanetary sleeper ship he christened christened SS Botany Bay,, named for the site of the Australian penal colony. Set on a course outbound from the solar system but with no apparent destination in mind, Khan and his people remained in suspended animation for Botany BayTemplate:'s centuries-long sublight journey.
23rd century return[]
The USS Enterprise discovered the Botany Bay in 2267 (1414 NE). The boarding party's arrival and investigation of the Botany Bayactivated Khan's stasis unit to revive him – but the ancient mechanism faltered. The decision of Captain James T. Kirk to remove him from the stasis chamber, and Dr. Leonard McCoy's subsequent ministrations, saved Khan's life.
Twelve of the stasis units had failed during the voyage out from Earth. Kirk, and the Enterprise, taking the Botany Bay in tow, left the remaining 72 sleepers for disposition at Starbase 12 following their leader's successful recovery. The Botany Bay's undocumented departure, and the fragmented records of the period, initially obscured the identity of the sleepers from the Enterprise crew – but the man with incredible recuperative powers in sickbay led Kirk to suspect their genetically-manipulated nature.
Khan took advantage of Kirk's hospitality. He familiarized himself with his lost history by absorbing the ship's technical manuals. He discovered a weakness in the attraction he engendered from the pliant and submissive ship's historian, Lieutenant Marla McGivers. At a dinner given in Khan's honor, Khan regaled the captain's table with a romantic interpretation of the Eugenics Wars, until he was finally prodded by Kirk into declaring "We offered the world order!"
Eventually, Kirk and Spock identified their guest as being the deposed tyrant from Earth's past. Khan was confined by Kirk to his quarters. Khan, however, soon began his takeover of the Enterprise, starting with his influence over McGivers. With her help, Khan escaped to the Botany Bay – and revived his followers, including Joachim, Joaquin, Kati, Ling, McPherson, Otto, and Rodriguez. Re-boarding the Enterprise, Khan took control of the Enterprise from engineering and cut life support to the bridge.
With the crew subdued and Kirk held hostage, Khan asked the officers to spare Kirk's life by joining him in his quest to take the Enterprise to a colony "willing to be led" by himself (more correctly, to be conquered by him, a task which the arsenal of the Enterprise would make most simple). The officers' recalcitrance led McGivers, unwilling to go so far as to participate in murder, to betray Khan and release Kirk. The Augments were disabled with anesthetic gas, but Khan was quick enough to avoid inhaling the gas by shutting himself in the Engineering section and isolating its atmospheric and life-support functions from the effects of the gas.
Khan attempted to destroy the Enterprise with a warp core overload as Kirk engaged the tyrant in physical combat. Although Kirk was a skilled opponent, Khan's superior strength enabled him to quickly outmatch the Starfleet officer. During the fight, Khan overconfidently boasted that he had five times the man's strength, ergo Kirk was no match for him. When it became clear that Kirk could not defeat Khan hand-to-hand, Kirk pulled loose a heavy flow-control rod and used it to subdue him.
Kirk retained some admiration for the determined, capable man of history. The prospect of imprisoning and rehabilitating the Augments seemed to Kirk to be unavailing to the Federation. Instead, Kirk granted an opportunity to Khan and his followers: colonize the dangerous but habitable nearby world of Ceti Alpha V. McGivers was given by Kirk the choice of facing court martial or joining the new colony. McGivers chose to go with Khan, and Khan took up Kirk's challenge to "tame a world", citing Milton's Lucifer, "It is better to Rule in Hell, than Serve in Heaven."
Second Exile[]
With Starfleet-issue cargo containers for shelter, Khan and his people settled in to life on their new world. Only six months after their landing on Ceti Alpha V however, a cataclysm on Ceti Alpha VI shifted the system's orbits, causing massive ecological devastation on Ceti Alpha V.
Khan's ingenuity and the meager shelter of the cargo containers kept his people alive while most of the indigenous life perished. The rugged indigenous Ceti eels survived – and as the only hosts available for their young, Khan's people were beset by the creatures. Over time, Khan lost twenty of his people to the slow, maddening death caused by the eels, including his "beloved wife."
It was the intent of the filmmakers, and a widely accepted fact in Star Trek apocrypha, that this wife was McGivers from the original "Space Seed" episode; however, this was never confirmed on-screen.
Neither Kirk nor Starfleet followed up on the colony's progress, probably because Starfleet and Federation records never recorded the colony as official, and due Starfleet cover. The starship USS Reliant, attached to Project Genesis and tasked with finding a suitable proving ground for the device, finally arrived at the apparently lifeless world in 2285 (1433 NE).
Captain Clark Terrell and Commander Pavel Chekov, the latter of whom himself was a former Enterprise crewmember, beamed down to survey the planet they assumed to be Ceti Alpha VI, where they were captured by Khan. After using a pair of juvenile Ceti eels on his captives, Khan demanded to know the nature of their mission and the whereabouts of James Kirk.
Vengeance[]
Using his captives' vulnerability to suggestion, Khan and his followers hijacked the Reliant. Khan marooned the crew of the Reliant on Ceti Alpha V. With knowledge of the awesome potential of the Genesis project, he used Chekov to notify spacelab Regula I of Reliant's pending arrival and their intention to retrieve all Genesis information, "as ordered by Admiral Kirk." Khan's lure proved successful. The Enterprise, engaged in a training cruise at the time, altered course to investigate the odd reports from Regula I.
Khan's lieutenant, Joachim, called out his superior on the beginnings of his obsessive behavior. Joachim suggested that he had already beaten Kirk by foiling Kirk's plans for him and the Augments. Khan's reply gave the first indication of the price that exile on Ceti Alpha V exacted on his ability to reason or – more accurately, to govern his overpowering passions:
Arriving at Regula I, Khan raged through the space station. He was seeking the now-missing Genesis data, and tortured those station crew members unable to escape the suspicious return of Reliant. When they proved uncooperative, Khan slaughtered them. He then left Terrell and Chekov behind, as they might prove a useful means to monitor Kirk's communications and follow his lead to Genesis, in the event that the Enterprise reached the station.
Khan intercepted the Enterprise, which was en route to Regula I. Concealing her intent, Reliant approached, feigning communications trouble, and mounting a devastating surprise attack using the Reliant's phasers to cripple the Enterprise. Khan hailed to gloat over his triumph and discuss terms of surrender. His only reward proved to be Kirk's initial open-mouthed stare of surprise.
The parley allowed the more experienced starship commander to override the Reliant's tactical systems using the ship's prefix code to access them. With a few weak phaser shots from the Enterprise, the Reliantlost photon control and warp power (which would also disable the phasers), forcing Khan to retreat to Regula I.
After the Enterprise limped to the space station, a landing party led by Kirk rescued Terrell and Chekov from the storage locker in which Khan had imprisoned them. After Kirk discovered the Genesis device in the bowels of the Regula planetoid, Terrell contacted Khan, who beamed the device to the Reliant. However, Terrell, fighting the effects of the Ceti Eel, refused Khan's order to kill Kirk and instead committed suicide. Resisting the influence of his own Ceti Eel, Chekov collapsed unconscious and the eel crawled out of his ear to be immediately vaporized by a quick blast from Kirk's phaser.
Despite the turn of events, Khan felt some small satisfaction, since Kirk and his party were now marooned within Regula, and the Reliant was on its way to find and destroy the Enterprise. Khan calmly, but hatefully, sneered at Kirk that he had done far worse than simply kill Kirk, and that he would redirect Kirk defeating him last time by leaving him in the same situation that Kirk had left Khan all those years ago;
In an open communication with Kirk, Spock's simple coded message (beginning with the signal, "Hours would seem like days") led Khan to believe Enterprise would need two days to effect basic repairs, unaware that Spock was actually telling Kirk that those repairs would be complete in two hours. After discovering his prey under way at full impulse power and bound for the obscuring clouds of the Mutara Nebula, Khan's pursuit faltered on the advice of Joachim, who knew that pursuing the Enterprise into the nebula would disrupt shield and sensor functions for both vessels. A surprise hail from Kirk, alive and taunting from the Enterprise bridge, threw Khan into a rage, and his passions overcame him. Ignoring the consequences of engaging his enemy on the level playing field of the nebula, Khan spurred the Reliant after Kirk.
The Battle of the Mutara Nebula was the last action of Khan's life. The two starships, barely able to discern one another due to interference within the nebula, exchanged a series of near misses and solid blows, until the Enterprise caught Khan off-guard by descending and then rising to attack the Reliant from behind. Reliant was crippled and adrift with Khan's followers either dying or dead. Rather than surrender, Khan activated the Genesis device, hoping to take Kirk and the Enterprise along with him to oblivion. Unfortunately for him, Captain Spock managed to repair the damage to the Enterprise's engines which allowed the starship to escape at warp seconds before the Genesis Device detonated, destroying the Reliant and Khan with it.
Alternate Timelines[]
Due to the changes caused in the timeline as a result of various Temporal Wars, the original events concerning the rise of Singh were pushed back, and events reinserted themselves at a later date in the timeline. According to Romulan temporal agent Sera, in a revised 2020s (1XXX NE) timeline, "And all this was supposed to happen back in 1992, and I've been trapped here for 30 years trying to get my shot at [Khan]."
The Khan of this era lived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement.
As a child in the altered timeline, he witnessed La'an Noonien-Singh shoot and wound Sera, his would-be assassin. La'an entered Khan's room and found her infamous ancestor cowering behind his bed. When Khan asked if she was going to kill him, she looked at the gun and sat it on the desk next to the bed. La'an assured him that she would not hurt him, as she proceeded to wipe Romulan blood from his face. Curious, La'an asked if he was alone, or if there were others like him. Khan gestured to a photograph on the wall of himself and six other children. He then asked if she was going to take him away. La'an told him that it may not make sense to him, then or maybe ever, but he was where he needed to be. She walked to the entrance of the room, activated the temporal transporter device in front of Khan, and returned to her own time period.
Khan’s legacy in the altered timeline was a history of torture, genocide, and his descendants.
In an alternate timeline, which was created from the revised timeline, Sera successfully assassinated Khan by blowing up a nearby fusion reactor (also destroying Toronto) after a Federation Department of Temporal Investigations agent was shot and failed to protect Khan. As a result, a dark future for Humanity emerged in which Earth was nearly uninhabitable, Starfleet and Federation never formed, and the Romulan Star Empire was the dominant force of the region.
This timeline was averted after Khan's descendant, La'an, encountered the temporal agent aboard, who directed her to return to the past, and with the help of James Kirk, from the, now, alternate timeline. The two time traveled to the past and La'an stopped Khan's assassination and restored the timeline to as she knew it.