| abstract
| - The film opens with a female Vulcan, Lieutenant Saavik, in command of the starship USS Enterprise. The vessel is on a rescue mission to save the crew of a damaged ship in the Neutral Zone along the border with Klingon space. The Enterprise is attacked by Klingon cruisers and critically damaged. This "attack" is revealed to be a training exercise known as the "Kobayashi Maru"; a no-win situation designed to test the character of Starfleet officers. Admiral James T. Kirk oversees the simulator session of Captain Spock's trainees. The USS Reliant is on a mission to search for a lifeless planet for testing of the Genesis Device, a torpedo that reorganizes molecular matter to create hospitable worlds for colonization. Reliant officers Pavel Chekov and Clark Terrell transport down to the surface of a possible candidate planet, Ceti Alpha VI, where they are captured by Khan Noonien Singh. Khan and his fellow genetically-advanced supermen were once rulers on Earth in the late 20th century, but after their defeat they were exiled to space in a sleeper ship. The Enterprise discovered Khan's ship adrift in space fifteen years previously; James Kirk exiled Khan and his followers to Ceti Alpha V after the supermen nearly captured the Enterprise. Khan reveals that after they were marooned, Ceti Alpha VI exploded, destroying Ceti Alpha V's ecosystem and shifting its orbit; Chekov and Terrell have unwittingly landed on Ceti Alpha V. Khan blames Kirk for the deaths of his wife and followers, and plans to avenge them. He implants Chekov and Terrell with indigenous, mind-controlling eels that enter the ears of their victims, and uses the officers to gain control of the Reliant. The Enterprise embarks on a training voyage under the command of Spock. Kirk, conducting an inspection of the Enterprise, receives a garbled message from Space Station Regula I, a remote science laboratory where Kirk's former lover, Dr. Carol Marcus, and their son, Dr. David Marcus, have been developing the Genesis Device. The Enterprise is ordered to investigate and Kirk assumes command of the vessel. Khan uses a surprise attack to cripple the Enterprise en route, killing many of the ship's trainees. A transmission between the two ships reveals Khan knows of the Genesis Device and wants all materials related to the project sent to him. Kirk stalls for time and disables the Reliant's defenses by transmitting a prefix code. With his ship badly damaged, Khan is forced to retreat and make repairs. The Enterprise arrives at Regula I, where they find members of the Genesis team dead. The remaining scientists, including Carol and David, have hidden deep inside the planetoid of Regula. Using Terrell and Chekov as spies, Khan steals the Genesis Device. When Terrell is ordered to kill Kirk, the eels' influence wanes; Terrell kills himself while Chekov overcomes the parasite's control. Though Khan believes he is leaving Kirk stranded on Regula I, Kirk and Spock use a coded message to arrange a rendezvous and pilot the Enterprise into the nearby Mutara nebula. Static discharges from the nebula renders ships' defensive shields useless and compromises targeting systems, making the Enterprise and Reliant evenly matched. Khan pursues his quarry against his lieutenant's advice. Inside the nebula, Kirk uses Khan's inexperience in three-dimensional combat to critically disable the Reliant. Mortally wounded, Khan activates the Genesis Device, which will reorganize all matter in the nebula—including the Enterprise. Though Kirk's crew detects the activation of the Genesis Device and begins to lumber away using impulse engines, with the warp drive damaged they will not be able to escape the nebula in time. Spock goes to the ship's Engineering section to restore warp drive. When McCoy tries to prevent Spock's exposing himself to high levels of radiation, he disables the doctor and tells him to "remember". Spock restores power to the ship, allowing the Enterprise to escape the explosion. Kirk arrives in Engineering just before Spock dies of radiation poisoning. The explosion of the Genesis Device causes a planet to coalesce out of the nebula. A space burial is held in the Enterprise's torpedo room, and Spock's coffin is shot into orbit around the newly formed planet. Kirk and David make peace, and the crew leaves the planet to pick up the Reliant's marooned crew. In the final scene Spock's coffin is seen to have soft-landed on the planet. Spock narrates Star Trek's "Where no man has gone before" monologue as the camera pans forward into a field of stars.
- The 20th century was a turbulent time for Humanity. One of the greatest problems which the species faced was the creation of some dozens of "super Humans" through genetic engineering. Bred to be greatly superior both physically and mentally, some of these men and women rose to become leaders of a significant portion of the globe. They were eventually defeated in a series of devastating "Eugenics Wars" in the 1990s, and it was thought that all had perished. In 2267 the USS Enterprise discovered the Botany Bay, an Earth spacecraft from the year 1996. Aboard were Khan Noonien Singh and some dozens of his followers, products of the Eugenics program who had escaped Earth in the ship preserved in cryogenic suspension. Khan attempted to capture the Enterprise, but was ultimately defeated by Captain Kirk. Kirk was reluctant to send Khan to a Federation penal facility, so instead he deposited the group on Ceti Alpha V, a harsh but liveable planet where they could flourish.Unfortunately, six months after the ship departed Ceti Alpha VI exploded, shifting the orbit of Ceti Alpha V. The resultant environmental damage laid virtually the whole planet to waste. Dozens of Khan's people perished over the next fifteen years, leaving him with a tremendous rage towards Captain Kirk. When the USS Reliant arrived in the Ceti Alpha system looking for a lifeless planet to test the Genesis Device on, they mistook Ceti Alpha V for the destroyed Ceti Alpha VI. Khan captured the captain and first officer of the Reliant and was able to gain their obedience to him using one of the local lifeforms. He quickly took the Reliant, stranding its crew on the planet. Khan attempted to seize the Genesis technology from Regula One, but the station personnel were able to hide it on the Regula planetoid. Admiral Kirk, on board the Enterprise for an inspection of its cadet crew, rushed to Regula to investigate garbled calls for help from the scientists there. Reliant intercepted and badly damaged the Enterprise, but Kirk was able to use the prefix codes of the ship to lower its shields and launched an attack of his own. The Reliant was forced to retreat, allowing Enterprise to limp on to Regula. Kirk succeeded in finding the Genesis device, but was betrayed by Reliant crewmembers still under the control of the Ceti Alpha V lifeforms. Khan secured the Genesis device and abandoned Kirk on the Regula planetoid. Fortunately Kirk was able to escape back to the Enterprise, and led the Reliant into the nearby Motara nebula. Without tactical displays or shields and with limited visibility, the two ships played a lethal game of hide and seek in the nebula. Both took further damage, but eventually Kirk was able to gain a firing position directly behind Reliant and cripple the ship with phaser and torpedo fire. Khan refused to surrender, activating the Genesis device instead. The damaged Enterprise struggled to escape without main power, but could not hope to escape the gigantic explosion. In an act of extreme heroism Captain Spock entered a section of the engine room heavily contaminated with radiation and made hasty repairs to the main energiser, enabling the ship to engage its warp drive and escape shortly before the detonation. Spock was badly injured, and died shortly afterwards. He was fired into space in a torpedo casing, which subsequently crashlanded on the Genesis planet. As Kirk said of his longtime friend, "of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most Human."
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)