Ok, I know I am nitpicking, here, but in no way a starfleet transporter would allow anybody without starfleet clearance to teleport in or out of a ship holding a weapon, especially one stolen from a Starfleet officer.
Now hate me. 😉
The only time I ever saw a weapon not be allowed on the ship through the transporter in TOS was when Kirk ordered the Klingon disruptors deactivated in Day of the Dove. Even in TNG anyone can beam anywhere with anything unless counter acted by orders. Even Roga Danar had free run of the transporters in The Hunted. He just needed power. They didn’t have the ability to lock him out any other way.
I know this is sci-fi (and kind of late in the story), but wouldn’t a phaser attack on an automobile cause an incendiary explosion, rather than reduce it to a puddle of iron and carbon residue? The story is compelling!
That poor Starfleet officer in the hospital must be freaking out if she has access to a TV.
I’m very interested in seeing what direction you’ll go with it all. There’s so much potential for parallels to be done between normal humans doing horrible things for whatever they think is the “greater good” and a lot of the stuff that must have happened during the Eugenics wars.
Especially considering that it’s canon from TOS that Khan only fought defensive wars, and yet normal humans are always keen to think themselves necessarily morally superior when talking about him. Which is amazing considering the horror of the bombings we saw they did earlier in the comic to try and assassinate Khan. It’s human nature to dehumanize the enemy to reduce one’s potential guilt (and to blame that enemy and chalk it up to greater good when you try to hit him but get instead a bunch of children, perhaps… although we never did see if she did that or if she has more self-awareness than that and blamed her own government for the things in the war, which would be better) but Lydia is now striking at normal humans, not people like Khan, so it’s far closer to home.
Also, it’s interesting to note that she is so convinced of her moral superiority and of her right to decide who lives and who dies, that rather than do this in secret, she had her girlfriend watch. She wouldn’t do that if she wasn’t completely convinced the girlfriend would back her up, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to be in for a rude awakening.
McCoy mentions in the briefing room that there were no war’s under Khan’s rule until he was attacked. I would image that would have been the case only after he took power of “a quarter of our world”. There must have been some aggressive action to take those regions. That’s one of the reasons I felt ok pushing Khan’s reign back into the 80s. He had to have been running someplace before he finished annexing other countries in 1992.
The fact that canon states there was no war in his area up until they were invaded (and thus had to go to war to defend themselves) is clear, and also means that there’s many possible ways he rose to power, but pure violence mustn’t have been it, since he would have been ruling over whatever place he took over first, and so invading other places to expand his territory would have counted as war and gone against what McCoy said.
The actual expansion of his territory might have had more political maneuvering and people choosing his rule over that of whatever more oppressive government they might have had at the time. After all, we don’t know how long the war has been going for when he rose to power, or what was the geopolitical situation in the area then. It’s very intriguing.
I always wished to see a truly objective and well executed take on Khan’s part of the past as a long series of novels or something, because the potential for an interesting story is immense.
I personally think that more than just a warrior, he must have been a genius strategist with Machiavellian insights.
Machiavelli’s “Prince” was inspired by Cesare Borgia (although he isn’t the only origin for the content), who has the reputation of being a horrible tyrant mostly through scandalous nonsense and fabricated gossip, but if you look at the actual historical events were (Sabatini has an excellent book on that which cut through all the hearsay and gives all the facts), he was unseating actual tyrants and giving war-torn places order and law throughout his rapidly expanding conquered area.
In some places, strongholds where people were fed up of the tyrants ruling over them would turn against them and open the city’s doors to CB when they heard he was approaching, and would send emissaries offering him the city. He was also ahead of his time by having an organized army that he paid and outfitted, and which he forbade from pillaging/harming/etc. the population of the places they went through. There’s a number of fascinating examples of him being very different from the tyrants of the area, and striving for order and peace in his lands.
I always wondered if perhaps the reason why Khan chose to wear the title of prince instead of king or emperor or whatever (he says in TWOK that he was a prince when he ruled), was because he might have felt admiration for Cesare Borgia, given some of the similarities. And since CB is himself such a fascinating and much maligned historical character, I always wanted to see a detailed account of what Khan’s life might have been like prior to the Botany Bay.
*”had” not has
** “what the historical facts were”
Sorry for the typos.
By the way, Cesare Borgia’s armies also had ahead-of-the-time advanced weaponry, designed by Leonardo Da Vinci, who worked for him for a long time.
So, not designed by CB himself, but still another little tidbit that makes me think of Khan, and of what he likely had also.
Ok, I know I am nitpicking, here, but in no way a starfleet transporter would allow anybody without starfleet clearance to teleport in or out of a ship holding a weapon, especially one stolen from a Starfleet officer.
Now hate me. 😉
The only time I ever saw a weapon not be allowed on the ship through the transporter in TOS was when Kirk ordered the Klingon disruptors deactivated in Day of the Dove. Even in TNG anyone can beam anywhere with anything unless counter acted by orders. Even Roga Danar had free run of the transporters in The Hunted. He just needed power. They didn’t have the ability to lock him out any other way.
I know this is sci-fi (and kind of late in the story), but wouldn’t a phaser attack on an automobile cause an incendiary explosion, rather than reduce it to a puddle of iron and carbon residue? The story is compelling!
I don’t think the car would explode. Cars on fire don’t explode so I can’t image one that’s been heated into gas in less than 5 seconds would either.
Playing God is like playing with fire, and I can’t wait to see her get burned for this cowardly act of murder and terrorism.
I’m sure by now “the spooks” have noticed that wreckage in the Oregon woods. Me thinks either CIA or Section 31 will be waiting.
She did it. She actually did it.
That poor Starfleet officer in the hospital must be freaking out if she has access to a TV.
I’m very interested in seeing what direction you’ll go with it all. There’s so much potential for parallels to be done between normal humans doing horrible things for whatever they think is the “greater good” and a lot of the stuff that must have happened during the Eugenics wars.
Especially considering that it’s canon from TOS that Khan only fought defensive wars, and yet normal humans are always keen to think themselves necessarily morally superior when talking about him. Which is amazing considering the horror of the bombings we saw they did earlier in the comic to try and assassinate Khan. It’s human nature to dehumanize the enemy to reduce one’s potential guilt (and to blame that enemy and chalk it up to greater good when you try to hit him but get instead a bunch of children, perhaps… although we never did see if she did that or if she has more self-awareness than that and blamed her own government for the things in the war, which would be better) but Lydia is now striking at normal humans, not people like Khan, so it’s far closer to home.
Also, it’s interesting to note that she is so convinced of her moral superiority and of her right to decide who lives and who dies, that rather than do this in secret, she had her girlfriend watch. She wouldn’t do that if she wasn’t completely convinced the girlfriend would back her up, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to be in for a rude awakening.
What part of canon describes Khan as “only fighting defensive wars”? Spock’s summary of Khan’s group stated that they seized power.
McCoy mentions in the briefing room that there were no war’s under Khan’s rule until he was attacked. I would image that would have been the case only after he took power of “a quarter of our world”. There must have been some aggressive action to take those regions. That’s one of the reasons I felt ok pushing Khan’s reign back into the 80s. He had to have been running someplace before he finished annexing other countries in 1992.
And of course we’d have to go to war with him, since he wasn’t one of our hand-picked puppet dictators. Time to buy some more shares of Haliburton.
The fact that canon states there was no war in his area up until they were invaded (and thus had to go to war to defend themselves) is clear, and also means that there’s many possible ways he rose to power, but pure violence mustn’t have been it, since he would have been ruling over whatever place he took over first, and so invading other places to expand his territory would have counted as war and gone against what McCoy said.
The actual expansion of his territory might have had more political maneuvering and people choosing his rule over that of whatever more oppressive government they might have had at the time. After all, we don’t know how long the war has been going for when he rose to power, or what was the geopolitical situation in the area then. It’s very intriguing.
I always wished to see a truly objective and well executed take on Khan’s part of the past as a long series of novels or something, because the potential for an interesting story is immense.
I personally think that more than just a warrior, he must have been a genius strategist with Machiavellian insights.
Machiavelli’s “Prince” was inspired by Cesare Borgia (although he isn’t the only origin for the content), who has the reputation of being a horrible tyrant mostly through scandalous nonsense and fabricated gossip, but if you look at the actual historical events were (Sabatini has an excellent book on that which cut through all the hearsay and gives all the facts), he was unseating actual tyrants and giving war-torn places order and law throughout his rapidly expanding conquered area.
In some places, strongholds where people were fed up of the tyrants ruling over them would turn against them and open the city’s doors to CB when they heard he was approaching, and would send emissaries offering him the city. He was also ahead of his time by having an organized army that he paid and outfitted, and which he forbade from pillaging/harming/etc. the population of the places they went through. There’s a number of fascinating examples of him being very different from the tyrants of the area, and striving for order and peace in his lands.
I always wondered if perhaps the reason why Khan chose to wear the title of prince instead of king or emperor or whatever (he says in TWOK that he was a prince when he ruled), was because he might have felt admiration for Cesare Borgia, given some of the similarities. And since CB is himself such a fascinating and much maligned historical character, I always wanted to see a detailed account of what Khan’s life might have been like prior to the Botany Bay.
*”had” not has
** “what the historical facts were”
Sorry for the typos.
By the way, Cesare Borgia’s armies also had ahead-of-the-time advanced weaponry, designed by Leonardo Da Vinci, who worked for him for a long time.
So, not designed by CB himself, but still another little tidbit that makes me think of Khan, and of what he likely had also.
Well, that can’t be good.
Assassination is far beyond “can’t be good”.
…yeah, I mean, a few pages ago it was all shenanigans in space, and then suddenly, murder. That was rather unexpected.