This actually doesn't make any sense at all. Into Darkness is set in 2259; the Eugenics Wars were in 1992-96. It's been 263 years since they ended. Everyone involved in them is dead, so are their children, their grandchildren, their grandchildren's children, and their grandchildren's children's children.
Even if someone were to see Khan Singh walking around, who's going to recognize him but a historian of the Eugenics Wars? And even if they did recognize him, on doing so are they really immediately assume that a guy who's been missing for two and a half centuries is in front of them, or are they just gonna think that they're looking at someone who happens to resemble Khan? Seriously disguising him would be as simple as a giving him a haircut and letting him grow a beard, and even that is completely unnecessary. I've met half a dozen guys who look like Napoleon but my thoughts never run to "Oh my God he escaped St. Helena after all!"
This is assuming that they even let Khan walk around in the first place, which just seems like a critically stupid idea.
At the risk of Godwinning the thread, there's a reason the toothbrush moustache stopped being fashionable, and it wasn't because of Charlie Chaplin.
If you look like a known despot and dictator, people won't necessarily think you are them, but they might be suspicious of your motives and your 'affinity' toward a particular ideology. Racial profiling is not that unheard of in Star Trek, and neither is stereotyping.
If you're a guy named "John Harrison" and you look like an unassuming white male human, chances are nobody is going to notice you -- they sure as hell didn't notice him near the end of the movie when he was trying to blend in through the crowds. You put a turban on him, or maybe give him Ricardo Montalban's neatly groomed long hair from Space Seed, and give him a distinctive ancestory, and you have someone easier to single out in a crowd.
And clearly they did let Khan walk around in the first place, that was the entire point of the movie. He had an incredible degree of mobility as a result of his Section 31 training that made him a formidable asset to Admiral Robocop, but unfortunately grew out of his control.
The explanation should have been after the reveal. That way you don't spoil the reveal, but you also explain why he looks the way he does. The perfect place in the movie was then Kirk confronted Khan in the brig and Khan explained who he was. That whole sequence in the comic pages I linked to above should have been a montage with Khan's narration. It would have taken 5 minutes or less, but answered so many questions. If they had done that and left out the lame reverse death scene at the end, the movie would have been SO much better!
At the risk of Godwinning the thread, there's a reason the toothbrush moustache stopped being fashionable, and it wasn't because of Charlie Chaplin.
If you look like a known despot and dictator, people won't necessarily think you are them, but they might be suspicious of your motives and your 'affinity' toward a particular ideology. Racial profiling is not that unheard of in Star Trek, and neither is stereotyping.
If you're a guy named "John Harrison" and you look like an unassuming white male human, chances are nobody is going to notice you -- they sure as hell didn't notice him near the end of the movie when he was trying to blend in through the crowds. You put a turban on him, or maybe give him Ricardo Montalban's neatly groomed long hair from Space Seed, and give him a distinctive ancestory, and you have someone easier to single out in a crowd.
And clearly they did let Khan walk around in the first place, that was the entire point of the movie. He had an incredible degree of mobility as a result of his Section 31 training that made him a formidable asset to Admiral Robocop, but unfortunately grew out of his control.
As the comic pages above explain, the reason they changed Khan's appearance was not just so other people wouldn't recognize him, but so he wouldn't recognize himself. They did their best to wipe his memory, but changing his face also kept him from getting it back longer than otherwise, I'm assuming.
As the comic pages above explain, the reason they changed Khan's appearance was not just so other people wouldn't recognize him, but so he wouldn't recognize himself. They did their best to wipe his memory, but changing his face also kept him from getting it back longer than otherwise, I'm assuming.
Yeah, but that gets a bit more involved. I'd assume most people can easily understand the concept of cosmetic surgery for espionage purposes more than memory alterations and brainwashing.
At the risk of Godwinning the thread, there's a reason the toothbrush moustache stopped being fashionable, and it wasn't because of Charlie Chaplin.
Yeah, but Hitler is still within living memory - that is, there are still people alive who remember World War II and Hitler, people who grew up in the immediate aftermath of WWII and its effects, and more than that the effects of World War II are still immediately obvious today. Will this still be the case 50 years from now? 100? 263? Hell, do today's kids still think of Hitler as the Worst Thing Ever, or have they found new demons - Saddam Hussein, Osama bin-Ladin, and so on?
Hitler was a Bad Man and historywill remember him...but people won't.
It did not matter if Khan was observant, because by all accounts his faith was mostly stored in himself and the other augments. McGivers is the one who identified him, he never identified himself as a Sikh.
If it was another '60's culture TRIBBLE-up, then nobody needs to get outraged over it to begin with, since clearly the character of Khan Noonien Singh had a nationality that was completely irrelevant to the character and the story itself.
Probably because Singh/Kaur are most often associated with Sikhism. Khan, on the other hand, is most often associated with Islam. And Noonien (Roddenberry's protestations otherwise) is probably made up. Normally, a name like that should be a contradiction in terms...and then there's the whole "hey, it sounds foreign, let's go with that instead of looking in an Indian baby name book," that is the middle name. (At least when I gave Alyosha the last name "Strannik," it is explicitly described as not a normal surname in universe, but chosen for him because of his foster-child status and there is an etymology and rationale behind it. And hey, Dostoyevsky used to make up surnames that suited his aims too, like "Smerdyakov," "Razumikhin," etc.)
At least what I've done to "headcanon" the messed-up name that Khan Noonien Singh is, is to identify it as a pretension on the part of his creators, that he would be the ruler of ALL the subcontinent, whether Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, or otherwise. The name would therefore be a form of grooming him for his destiny. (Still doesn't help so much with "Noonien," but it does soften the blow a bit since it at least moves the name into "intentionally rulebreaking.")
The ship class generated controversy since it was highly unusual to name a ship after religious nomenclature when Gene Roddenberry established that humanity had no need for religion by the time of TOS. To be fair, the Sovereign-class had similar controversy because people felt it was uncharacteristic for Starfleet to name a class of ship after royalty, when it was established humanity had no need for royalty either.
Hm. That second one seems kind of silly and nitpicky because the concept of "sovereignty" still exists, as the Federation does still want to control its territory, unlike the Mizarians.
The religious nomenclature controversy...that was always a very, very unfortunate thing about TNG, in my opinion, and I considered breaking away from that in DS9 to be a huge win for the franchise. So I guess if seen as a true dervish, it doesn't bother me.
We're talking about something that happened in the 1800's or so, but the term "dervish" has entered gaming circles with that same evocation of mysticism, ties to the middle east, and scimitar-wielding barbarians who need to be tamed or killed by 'civilized' men. I think Cryptic went with it (as a result of a naming contest, I believe) because it sounded cool. I mention this because it's so similar to how Gene Roddenberry was thinking when it came to creating the character of Khan. He liked the way it sounded. He liked the idea. But did not actually care about how close to reality all of this really was.
In truth, what most people think of when they think of "Dervish" is about as historically accurate as the Shriners who like to drive around in parades in tiny cars while wearing fezes.
I am guessing the "Dervish-class" controversy took place before F2P? If so that would explain my missing it, because I joined STO (my first and only MMO) when it went F2p.
But yeah, I guess I totally missed the boat on the whole idea that term could be prejudiced. It must have had to do with my typical choice of reading material growing up. At least to me, Sufism evokes images of al-Andalus, which during its existence was one of the major high civilizations of Europe. Later in college I had to study al-Andalus as part of my Spanish major, when I took a course on the history of Spain. And then of course there's Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan--one of the great worldwide vocal talents of the 20th century. (Thank you Peter Gabriel for that musical introduction.)
I wasn't singling you out, it was just another observation that people really do just look for reasons to complain. People look for reasons to get outraged. People look for reasons to attack whatever it is they dislike, just because.
Around some people, you drop the name "JJ Abrams" and you'll get a flood of complaints about lens flares and yes, even the choice of Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. You aren't one of them, obviously. But that's the kind of person who typically complains about the casting choice of Khan. The kind who actually doesn't care about Sikhism, historical accuracy, or the plot of Into Darkness.
That's why I feel it's important to mention all of these nuances, because either people really shouldn't be as outraged as they allegedley are, or they need to realize the problem isn't the casting decisions -- it's their own dislike for the movie in general, or JJ Abrams in General, or NuTrek in General.
They should just be honest about it.
Sorry for jumping the gun. Given the climate in here in the past few months, where things have been very much on edge in such conversations, I guess I got defensive in thinking I would have to "forcibly" distinguish myself from that sort of behavior since I know some of the things I am pointing out are things that...well...have been pointed out by others.
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Yeah, but Hitler is still within living memory - that is, there are still people alive who remember World War II and Hitler, people who grew up in the immediate aftermath of WWII and its effects, and more than that the effects of World War II are still immediately obvious today. Will this still be the case 50 years from now? 100? 263? Hell, do today's kids still think of Hitler as the Worst Thing Ever, or have they found new demons - Saddam Hussein, Osama bin-Ladin, and so on?
Hitler was a Bad Man and historywill remember him...but people won't.
I dunno, in the era of photography and video, I am not sure those images will so quickly fade.
On the subject of one of those new demons though, this Iranian-Canadian guy had a little "fun" with that idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAjZaSlWG50 (Warning: NSFW language and some gross-out humor.)
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Yeah, but Hitler is still within living memory - that is, there are still people alive who remember World War II and Hitler, people who grew up in the immediate aftermath of WWII and its effects, and more than that the effects of World War II are still immediately obvious today. Will this still be the case 50 years from now? 100? 263? Hell, do today's kids still think of Hitler as the Worst Thing Ever, or have they found new demons - Saddam Hussein, Osama bin-Ladin, and so on?
Hitler was a Bad Man and historywill remember him...but people won't.
Well, Alexander the Great is still remembered and spoken about (and that was 2500 years ago give or take.) And actually - in terms of TOS, Napoleon Bonaparte might be a better comparison to Khan relative to the 23rd century.
My point being? Even in the 23rd century many in the general populace WOULD remember kahn Noonian Singh's exploits.
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Well, Alexander the Great is still remembered and spoken about (and that was 2500 years ago give or take.) And actually - in terms of TOS, Napoleon Bonaparte might be a better comparison to Khan relative to the 23rd century.
My point being? Even in the 23rd century many in the general populace WOULD remember kahn Noonian Singh's exploits.
And yet, virtually no one on the Enterprise did, except a historian.
Well, Alexander the Great is still remembered and spoken about (and that was 2500 years ago give or take.) And actually - in terms of TOS, Napoleon Bonaparte might be a better comparison to Khan relative to the 23rd century.
Sure, your guy off the street knows the name and the very rough details, but how many people know what he actually looked like - verses how many think that he looked like Colin Farrel? And as famous as Alexander the Great was, how many people remember Darius or Antipater? Would the name Xerxes name anything to an average guy without 300?
Even in modern terms, who off the street knows Juv
Hmm...I think in the era of video and photography, it could be a different situation than your example of Alexander the Great...
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She's either an expert on the time period, or she isn't.
If she's an expert on the time period, then apparently the Eugenics Wars and World War 3 were so devastating that the Federation's knowledge of the times are about as reliable as anything in the Fallout series of games, where people just piece together broken artifacts and try to make sense of it all, even if they're completely wrong.
Marla McGivers was also stereotyped as a weak-willed submissive damsel who was so wooed and charmed by Khan that she was willing to commit outright treason against the Federation by helping him.
So, she isn't exactly a great character to begin with -- also a product of the times (I've gone into length about Gene Roddenberry's misogynistic influences in TOS before).
But taking her at face value, either she's about as dumb and reliable as a sack of bricks, or the Federation has a terribly corrupt history of Earth prior to World War 3.
I'd go with fan-girl who thinks she knows more than she really does. But it's not really clear in the episode.
He was kind of a **** long before the genocide; the Rwandan Civil War started in 1990 and he was fraudulently elected and re-elected three times before that. Even though he was dead for the genocide itself he was nevertheless the catalyst for it, but his name is essentially forgotten today, nevermind two hundred-odd years from now.
So was there something specific you had in mind that he did? It sounded like that in your last post, so I'm just trying to figure out of there was something specific I missed.
So was there something specific you had in mind that he did? It sounded like that in your last post, so I'm just trying to figure out of there was something specific I missed.
I just wanted to know if anyone could recognize the name at all, despite him doing what he did (be the tyrannical dictator of a nation for twentyish years, who's death was the catalyst for one of the worst genocides of the post-Holocaust world) in an age of photographs and videos.
I just wanted to know if anyone could recognize the name at all, despite him doing what he did (be the tyrannical dictator of a nation for twentyish years, who's death was the catalyst for one of the worst genocides of the post-Holocaust world) in an age of photographs and videos.
I hate to say it, the guy had a long name with a pronunciation that would be difficult for most Westerners and the Rwandan Genocide did not get a lot of news coverage here in the States. NAFTA and the Bosnian War were center stage. I bet most do not recognize the Serbian leader in charge despite being on TV a lot. During April of that year, Kurt Cobain and Nixon died.
Even in more recent times, the Sudanese Civil War was mostly forgotten due to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Khan Noonien Singh was genetically engineered, using what one would presume were the optimal human genes available, regardless of ethnic origin. Honestly, it's only surprising he didn't come out looking more like, say, Lister from Red Dwarf (less the dreads and lack of sense of style). I'd have been astonished if he actually looked like an ethnic Sikh. (He certainly wasn't religiously Sikh!)
And NuKhan looking like Benedict Cumberbatch is no more "disappointing" than NuChekov being blond and skinny (as opposed to PrimeChekov's dark hair and husky build) - not many actors have a Nimoy/Quinto-level double.
As a side note, the other remarkable double is not in appearance all that much, but in voice. If you look away when Karl Urban speaks, you can almost hear DeForest Kelly. He's nailed the accent and inflections THAT well.
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Yeah, I don't think you saw ST II: TWOK. It kinda was Kirk's fault. Had he checked up on Khan and his people, they would have avoided a lot of suffering.
I don't know that it should rest individually on Kirk, unless there's evidence he didn't report to Starfleet Command what he had done. Is there something that proves that? If he told no one, then that is a problem. Otherwise, if he reported it appropriately, it would have been on Command to assign the responsibility of regular checks to those engaged in standard sector patrols, as opposed to a 5-year mission that was very quickly going to move out of range of that area and not return any time soon.
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Well, it's not like he just left some probe there. He left a colony of people. One would think he would at least follow up after a time.
From what I have read, the explosion occurred 6 months after he left them there. If we buy that the 5-year mission he was on at the time would have had him consistently pushing further and further out of range and never backtracking towards the explored/more settled worlds, I seriously question the idea that he should be expected turn around and backtrack that far, and suggest again that from the point they received his report, Starfleet Command should have had vessels NOT on long-range missions in the area to check regularly and especially as soon as the explosion was registered.
Unless, again, you think he did not report what he did in leaving them there. Which I do not rule out as a possibility since Kirk was not always one to follow the rules. Is there evidence that happened?
Overall I am not disagreeing that Starfleet should have monitored the situation but unless it went unreported, I think the failure rests at Command.
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"You Thought this was Ceti Alpha Six??"-Khan Noonien Singh, Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan
Kirk obviously did NOT report it, and there was obviously little to no follow-up or observation in the area (if there had been, the Reliant would NOT have been in that system to begin with except to check on the Kholony.)
Good point I did not recall: the fact that Starfleet did not push out updated astrometrics charts shortly following the explosion may indeed be suspect. If Kirk didn't report his actions in "Space Seed" then as I said to valoreah I will concede that Kirk had some fault in what happened to the colonists. Knowing that the 5-year mission would make it prohibitive to turn around should have necessitated reporting to Command so that resources in the area could be appropriately assigned the responsibility.
(Out-of-universe I suspect the writers dropped the ball partly in an oversight and partly because what is now obvious about long-distance communication and computer networking--i.e. the Internet--was not obvious to them then and the idea of rapid updating of "space GPS" charts might not have come to mind.)
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It had also been several years since the end of the Five-Year Mission - the Kholony had been there for fifteen years, and apparently only the first six months were livable. So yeah, can't really absolve Jim on this one...
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At the risk of Godwinning the thread, there's a reason the toothbrush moustache stopped being fashionable, and it wasn't because of Charlie Chaplin.
If you look like a known despot and dictator, people won't necessarily think you are them, but they might be suspicious of your motives and your 'affinity' toward a particular ideology. Racial profiling is not that unheard of in Star Trek, and neither is stereotyping.
If you're a guy named "John Harrison" and you look like an unassuming white male human, chances are nobody is going to notice you -- they sure as hell didn't notice him near the end of the movie when he was trying to blend in through the crowds. You put a turban on him, or maybe give him Ricardo Montalban's neatly groomed long hair from Space Seed, and give him a distinctive ancestory, and you have someone easier to single out in a crowd.
And clearly they did let Khan walk around in the first place, that was the entire point of the movie. He had an incredible degree of mobility as a result of his Section 31 training that made him a formidable asset to Admiral Robocop, but unfortunately grew out of his control.
Sure, I can agree with that.
As the comic pages above explain, the reason they changed Khan's appearance was not just so other people wouldn't recognize him, but so he wouldn't recognize himself. They did their best to wipe his memory, but changing his face also kept him from getting it back longer than otherwise, I'm assuming.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Yeah, but that gets a bit more involved. I'd assume most people can easily understand the concept of cosmetic surgery for espionage purposes more than memory alterations and brainwashing.
Yeah, but Hitler is still within living memory - that is, there are still people alive who remember World War II and Hitler, people who grew up in the immediate aftermath of WWII and its effects, and more than that the effects of World War II are still immediately obvious today. Will this still be the case 50 years from now? 100? 263? Hell, do today's kids still think of Hitler as the Worst Thing Ever, or have they found new demons - Saddam Hussein, Osama bin-Ladin, and so on?
Hitler was a Bad Man and history will remember him...but people won't.
Probably because Singh/Kaur are most often associated with Sikhism. Khan, on the other hand, is most often associated with Islam. And Noonien (Roddenberry's protestations otherwise) is probably made up. Normally, a name like that should be a contradiction in terms...and then there's the whole "hey, it sounds foreign, let's go with that instead of looking in an Indian baby name book," that is the middle name. (At least when I gave Alyosha the last name "Strannik," it is explicitly described as not a normal surname in universe, but chosen for him because of his foster-child status and there is an etymology and rationale behind it. And hey, Dostoyevsky used to make up surnames that suited his aims too, like "Smerdyakov," "Razumikhin," etc.)
At least what I've done to "headcanon" the messed-up name that Khan Noonien Singh is, is to identify it as a pretension on the part of his creators, that he would be the ruler of ALL the subcontinent, whether Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, or otherwise. The name would therefore be a form of grooming him for his destiny. (Still doesn't help so much with "Noonien," but it does soften the blow a bit since it at least moves the name into "intentionally rulebreaking.")
Hm. That second one seems kind of silly and nitpicky because the concept of "sovereignty" still exists, as the Federation does still want to control its territory, unlike the Mizarians.
The religious nomenclature controversy...that was always a very, very unfortunate thing about TNG, in my opinion, and I considered breaking away from that in DS9 to be a huge win for the franchise. So I guess if seen as a true dervish, it doesn't bother me.
I am guessing the "Dervish-class" controversy took place before F2P? If so that would explain my missing it, because I joined STO (my first and only MMO) when it went F2p.
But yeah, I guess I totally missed the boat on the whole idea that term could be prejudiced. It must have had to do with my typical choice of reading material growing up. At least to me, Sufism evokes images of al-Andalus, which during its existence was one of the major high civilizations of Europe. Later in college I had to study al-Andalus as part of my Spanish major, when I took a course on the history of Spain. And then of course there's Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan--one of the great worldwide vocal talents of the 20th century. (Thank you Peter Gabriel for that musical introduction.)
Sorry for jumping the gun. Given the climate in here in the past few months, where things have been very much on edge in such conversations, I guess I got defensive in thinking I would have to "forcibly" distinguish myself from that sort of behavior since I know some of the things I am pointing out are things that...well...have been pointed out by others.
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I dunno, in the era of photography and video, I am not sure those images will so quickly fade.
On the subject of one of those new demons though, this Iranian-Canadian guy had a little "fun" with that idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAjZaSlWG50 (Warning: NSFW language and some gross-out humor.)
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Well, Alexander the Great is still remembered and spoken about (and that was 2500 years ago give or take.) And actually - in terms of TOS, Napoleon Bonaparte might be a better comparison to Khan relative to the 23rd century.
My point being? Even in the 23rd century many in the general populace WOULD remember kahn Noonian Singh's exploits.
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And yet, virtually no one on the Enterprise did, except a historian.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Sure, your guy off the street knows the name and the very rough details, but how many people know what he actually looked like - verses how many think that he looked like Colin Farrel? And as famous as Alexander the Great was, how many people remember Darius or Antipater? Would the name Xerxes name anything to an average guy without 300?
Even in modern terms, who off the street knows Juv
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Juv
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
My character Tsin'xing
So was there something specific you had in mind that he did? It sounded like that in your last post, so I'm just trying to figure out of there was something specific I missed.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
I just wanted to know if anyone could recognize the name at all, despite him doing what he did (be the tyrannical dictator of a nation for twentyish years, who's death was the catalyst for one of the worst genocides of the post-Holocaust world) in an age of photographs and videos.
I hate to say it, the guy had a long name with a pronunciation that would be difficult for most Westerners and the Rwandan Genocide did not get a lot of news coverage here in the States. NAFTA and the Bosnian War were center stage. I bet most do not recognize the Serbian leader in charge despite being on TV a lot. During April of that year, Kurt Cobain and Nixon died.
Even in more recent times, the Sudanese Civil War was mostly forgotten due to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Doesn't change my mind about the new movies though.
And NuKhan looking like Benedict Cumberbatch is no more "disappointing" than NuChekov being blond and skinny (as opposed to PrimeChekov's dark hair and husky build) - not many actors have a Nimoy/Quinto-level double.
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I don't know that it should rest individually on Kirk, unless there's evidence he didn't report to Starfleet Command what he had done. Is there something that proves that? If he told no one, then that is a problem. Otherwise, if he reported it appropriately, it would have been on Command to assign the responsibility of regular checks to those engaged in standard sector patrols, as opposed to a 5-year mission that was very quickly going to move out of range of that area and not return any time soon.
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From what I have read, the explosion occurred 6 months after he left them there. If we buy that the 5-year mission he was on at the time would have had him consistently pushing further and further out of range and never backtracking towards the explored/more settled worlds, I seriously question the idea that he should be expected turn around and backtrack that far, and suggest again that from the point they received his report, Starfleet Command should have had vessels NOT on long-range missions in the area to check regularly and especially as soon as the explosion was registered.
Unless, again, you think he did not report what he did in leaving them there. Which I do not rule out as a possibility since Kirk was not always one to follow the rules. Is there evidence that happened?
Overall I am not disagreeing that Starfleet should have monitored the situation but unless it went unreported, I think the failure rests at Command.
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Good point I did not recall: the fact that Starfleet did not push out updated astrometrics charts shortly following the explosion may indeed be suspect. If Kirk didn't report his actions in "Space Seed" then as I said to valoreah I will concede that Kirk had some fault in what happened to the colonists. Knowing that the 5-year mission would make it prohibitive to turn around should have necessitated reporting to Command so that resources in the area could be appropriately assigned the responsibility.
(Out-of-universe I suspect the writers dropped the ball partly in an oversight and partly because what is now obvious about long-distance communication and computer networking--i.e. the Internet--was not obvious to them then and the idea of rapid updating of "space GPS" charts might not have come to mind.)
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