Khan Noonien Singh

Khan Noonien Singh is a fictional villain in the Star Trek universe. He first appeared in the original ' series episode "Space Seed", and then in the film '. In both cases he was played by Ricardo Montalbán. He is generally referred to simply as Khan.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Khan seeks vengeance

For approximately six months, life on Ceti Alpha V was harsh but fruitful for Khan and his people, as they worked to tame the wild planet. But then Ceti Alpha VI, the system's sixth planet, exploded. This shifted Ceti Alpha V's orbit to one similar to the now-missing sixth planet. The stresses of the gravimetric shockwave resulted in major climactic changes and earthquakes.

Related Topics:
Ceti Alpha VI - Earthquakes

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Once the planet had stabilized, huge amounts of dust in the atmosphere caused surface heating, turning the planet into a desert wilderness. High-velocity winds made the air choking and barely breathable, leaving only a limited atmosphere dominated by craylon gas. Some of the colonists managed to survive, but the greatest hazard to their existence proved to be not the unrelenting hostility of the environment but the one other surviving species: the Ceti eel. Over the following 17 years, 20 of Khan's people, including his wife, Marla McGivers, were killed by these creatures.

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In 2285, almost two decades after Khan and his people had arrived on Ceti Alpha V, the crew of the U.S.S. Reliant conducted a close-range sensor scan of the planet as part of the top-secret Project Genesis, and they mistakenly believed it to be Ceti Alpha VI. Khan, angry and vengeful that Kirk never checked up on their settlement, abducted the Reliants captain Clark Terrell and his first officer Pavel Chekov when they went down to the surface, and he then implanted Ceti eels into Chekov and Terrell's ears, rendering them helpless to his suggestions. Khan then took control of the Reliant, hell-bent on revenge. His second-in-command Joachim argued that there was no need to take on Kirk as they had a ship and could go where they pleased, but Khan was obsessed with proving his superiority.

Related Topics:
''Reliant'' - Project Genesis - Clark Terrell - Pavel Chekov - Ceti eels - Joachim

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Once Khan had learned about the Genesis device, he had Chekov contact its creators to instruct them to hand over the device on Kirk's orders. Khan knew that they would contact Kirk to try and prevent this and that this would bring his enemy to him to find out what was going on.

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When the Enterprise reached Regula I, Khan was able to launch a surprise attack, as Kirk disregarded regulations ordering a defensive posture when the Reliant refused to respond to hails. The Enterprise was crippled, and Khan contacted them so that Kirk would know who his adversary was before he destroyed them. Fortunately, Kirk was able to buy time by promising to beam himself over to Khan's ship with all the information regarding Project Genesis. This gave Kirk the chance to tap into the Reliants command prefix code and lower its shields before he gave the order to fire on the ship.

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Endgame

With both ships badly damaged, they were forced to withdraw to carry out repairs. By the time partial power had been restored on the Enterprise, Khan had managed to get his hands on the Genesis Device. While Kirk and Spock tricked Khan into thinking that the Enterprise still required days of work of repair and was helpless, Khan's ship was still in far better condition than Kirk's. In order to even the odds, Mr. Spock recommended that they enter the nearby Mutara Nebula where static discharges would interfere with both ships' shields and sensors.

Related Topics:
Mr. Spock - Mutara Nebula

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On board the Reliant, Joachim was reluctant to follow the Enterprise into the nebula as he knew it would negate their advantage. However Kirk contacted them and taunted Khan. The genetically enhanced madman, frustrated at Kirk's ability to thwart his best efforts to defeat him, could not resist the opportunity to prove his superiority and ordered his ship to follow the Enterprise.

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Both ships scored direct hits on one another as they blindly maneuvered around each other, until Spock noted that Khan's tactics indicated only two-dimensional thinking, as for all his intelligence the great dictator lacked any real experience in space combat. Kirk ordered the Enterprise to move downward before coming up behind the Reliant and firing multiple torpedoes. The Reliant was completely disabled and all the crew were killed, except Khan, who refused to accept defeat. He was determined to take Kirk with him, and in a last desperate effort he activated the Genesis device.

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Spitefully eloquent to the very end, Khan revelled in the idea that the Genesis Project would ultimately kill Kirk. Yet even this final consolation was denied him, as he succumbed to his injuries just after seeing the Enterprise warp away to safety, thwarted one last time by Kirk. However, Kirk's victory was not without its price. Spock had sacrificed his life to enter the damaged, radiation-contaminated engine room to repair the Enterprises warp drive, enabling Kirk and the rest of the crew to narrowly escape the detonation of the Genesis device.

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