Khan's History
Khan Noonien Singh (or simply Khan) was the most prominent of the genetically-engineered Human Augments of the late-20th century Eugenics Wars period on Earth. Many Augments were genocidal tyrants who conquered and killed in the name of order, with Khan and his kind being frozen in cryogenic sleep.
Records of the period, including Khan's origins, are vague. Khan was born, or created in 1959. 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, a wave of the genetic "supermen," including Khan, had simultaneously assumed control of more than forty of Earth's nations. From 1992 to 1996, Khan was absolute ruler of more than one-quarter of Earth'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 Earth 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 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 in, to force them from power, in a series of struggles that 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, he took control of a DY-100-class interplanetary sleeper ship he 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 Bay's centuries-long sublight journey.
Following the destruction of Vulcan in 2258, Admiral Alexander Marcus of Section 31 initiated a program to militarize Starfleet and began searching the galaxy for weapons to be used in the war with the Klingon Empire that he now believed was inevitable. Soon after, he discovered the SS Botany Bay adrift.
Despite knowing Khan's history, Marcus decided to bring him out of cryogenic suspension, believing his savagery and superior intellect would be prime assets to his cause. Having his voice and physical appearance heavily altered, Khan was reawakened and recruited under the identity of Section 31 agent, "John Harrison". Marcus forced Khan into working with him by threatening to kill his fellow Augments, and set him to work designing weapons and ships for Starfleet, including the Dreadnought-class USS Vengeance.
Disgruntled, Khan tried to smuggle his crew away in advanced long-range torpedoes but was discovered and forced to flee alone. Believing Marcus had killed his crew, he coerced Section 31 agent Thomas Harewood into betraying Starfleet by offering a blood transfusion for Harewood's terminally-ill daughter. Harewood agreed, and Khan replaced his Starfleet Academy ring with a bomb.
After his daughter was cured with a vial of Khan's blood and its regenerative platelets, Harewood went to work at his office in the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London, where he dropped the false Starfleet ring into a glass of water, igniting the bomb and destroying the facility. In the midst of the chaos, Khan used the opportunity to inspect a salvaged terminal to gain the confiscated formula for transwarp beaming.
Before he set off the explosion, Harewood sent Marcus a message, explaining he had been threatened by Khan. Knowing that Marcus would call an emergency meeting in the light of the bombing, Khan rigged a combat efficient jumpship with a portable transwarp beaming device and headed to the Daystrom Conference Room. As the conference was underway, Khan appeared and laid waste to the conference, killing Admiral Pike, Captain Abbott and many other high ranking Starfleet officers. James T. Kirk disabled the jumpship, but Khan beamed himself away before it crashed. He arrived in the one place Starfleet could not go: Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld.
Undeterred, Kirk was granted permission by Marcus to travel to Qo'noS and fire 72 experimental photon torpedoes on Khan's location. However, at the behest of his crew, Kirk chose to defy his orders and opted to arrest Khan instead. While Kirk led an away team with Spock, Uhura, and Hendorff, acting captain Sulu transmitted a message to Khan, warning him to surrender or be destroyed by the newly designed shipboard torpedoes.
Suspecting the newly designed torpedoes were the very torpedoes he smuggled his crew into, Khan sought out the away team to confirm. Khan found Kirk, Spock, and Uhura being attacked by a Klingon patrol and single-handedly killed dozens of Klingons. Confronting the landing party, Khan asked how many torpedoes the USS Enterprise had on board. Spock informed him of the count, which corresponded exactly to the number of his former crew members which were still in stasis. Khan then surrendered to the landing party. Kirk, angry that his mentor's murderer had saved them, punched Khan repeatedly but was unable to render him unconscious.
From the brig, Leonard McCoy took a blood sample to analyze the secret behind Khan's superhuman strength and abilities and injected it into a dead tribble. Khan refused to answer Kirk's questions; he instead gave him coordinates to the spacedock near Jupiter where the Vengeance was constructed, and suggested he open one of the experimental torpedoes.
Kirk gave the coordinates for the absent Montgomery Scott to investigate, while McCoy and Marcus's daughter Carol opened up a torpedo and discovered a cryogenically frozen man within and realized that he was 300 years old. Khan finally explained who he was to Kirk, and revealed that the torpedoes contained his fellow surviving Augments as part of a cover-up.
Marcus appeared in the Vengeance and demanded Kirk hand over Khan. Kirk refused, and the Enterprise warped back to Earth with the intent of putting Khan on trial, which would certainly expose Marcus in the conspiracy. As Khan predicted, Vengeance caught up in subspace and fired on the Enterprise as it arrived outside Earth.
Marcus beamed his daughter over to the Vengeance and prepared to destroy the Enterprise but Scott, who had snuck aboard the Vengeance at its spacedock, deactivated its weapons. Kirk and Khan donned thruster suits to fly over and commandeer the Vengeance.
Meanwhile, Spock consulted his older counterpart from another timeline regarding whether he ever encountered Khan Noonien Singh: the old Spock responded he had, that he was dangerous, and that it had required a great sacrifice to stop him. Kirk had also grown suspicious of Khan and advised Scott to stun him after they had taken over the bridge of the Vengeance.
When they arrived on the bridge, Scott stunned Khan while Kirk admonished Marcus for compromising the Federation. However, Scott's phaser stun only temporarily subdued Khan, who quickly recovered and flung himself at Scott and Kirk, overpowered them, then stomping upon Carol's leg. Khan then used his bare hands to crush Marcus's skull, extracting revenge on his once tormentor.
Khan then sat in the command chair and ordered Spock to hand over the torpedoes or he would kill Kirk and resume bombarding the Enterprise. Spock obliged, and Khan beamed Kirk, Scott and Carol back into the Enterprise's brig, but reneged on the deal. Spock, having predicted Khan's betrayal, had ordered McCoy to remove the stasis pods and detonated the torpedoes after they were beamed over, crippling the Vengeance before she could destroy the Enterprise. Khan cried out in anguish at the apparent loss of his crew.
The damage sustained caused both ships to be drawn by Earth's gravitational pull. To prevent the ship crashing into western North America, Kirk sacrificed himself reactivating the ship's warp core. Khan, on the other hand, directed the Vengeance on a crash course for Starfleet Headquarters, though the computer could not guarantee that Khan would make it.
The Vengeance slammed into the old prison on Alcatraz Island, careened across San Francisco Bay, and then plowed into several buildings, demolishing several skyscrapers. When the Vengeance crashed into the city, Khan leapt off the bridge and posed as a shocked survivor. Spock beamed down to execute Khan and avenge Kirk's death, pursuing him onto automated flying barges. In the Enterprise's medbay, McCoy had just examined Kirk's body when the dead tribble on his desk came back to life.
The fight took the two combatants on to two automated barges. Spock had the advantage of creativity, and extensive knowledge of martial arts, but Khan had the superior advantages of superhuman strength, speed, thought and durability. Spock attempted to subdue Khan with a nerve pinch but Khan managed to overcome the pain.
As Khan attempted to use his bare hands to crush Spock's skull, Spock managed to counter it with a mind meld. Near the end of the melee, with Spock again in Khan's cranial crushing lock, Uhura beamed down and fired several stun shots to distract Khan. Spock tore a piece of metal from the barge and broke Khan's arm. Spock started repeatedly pummeling Khan, coming very close to killing him, Fortunately, Uhura revealed Khan's blood could save Kirk, and Spock just knocked him out.
After his blood was used to revive Kirk, Khan was placed back in suspended animation with his crew from the Botany Bay.
