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‘star trek: strange new worlds’ star christina chong discusses her heartbreaking childhood connection to la’an noonien-singh.

In a revealing chat with THR, Chong discussed turning pain into strength and using all those emotions to better capture and understand the complexities of her character.

By Ryan Parker

Ryan Parker

Former Senior Reporter

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Christina Chong as La’an of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Memento Mori.”] 

Christina Chong instantly understood her Star Trek: Strange New Worlds character, La’an Noonien-Singh. It was a heartbreaking realization.

With an English mother and Chinese father, the actress was brutally teased in her youth because of her ethnicity. Mostly, it was the last name that made her an easy target for the spewed venom, she explains to The Hollywood Reporter.

La’an, the Enterprise’s newly assigned chief of security, faced similar struggles in her youth as a descendant of the Augment tyrant Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalban). She is tormented and ridiculed, and thus as an adult struggles with self-acceptance and building personal relationships. Bottom line: She has some serious walls.

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But in Thursday’s episode, “Memento Mori,” La’an begins to soften as some complicated layers are peeled back while she faces her greatest fear, in arguably the most intense and emotional chapter yet in the new Paramount+ series.

In her chat with THR , Chong discussed turning pain into strength and using all those emotions to better capture the complexities of La’an, all the while developing a new appreciation for the lessons of Star Trek .

We are finally getting to see what a deep and complex person La’an truly is. Between feeling like an outcast for being Noonien-Singh to a horrifying Gorn survival backstory, can you talk about developing her character’s composition?

What I connected to was being judged for who you are and your name. Although my mom is English, my dad is Chinese. And I don’t necessarily look English, and I don’t necessarily look Chinese, but my name is Chong. And throughout my childhood, that brought on bullying and racism. The whole journey of both being judged, having that stigma attached to a name and who you are, was easily translatable and easy to personalize.

How awful you connected to La’an for such a horrible reason.

I had this deep kind of feeling of being ashamed growing up. I remember being at school and if my mom would say, “Your dad is picking you up tonight,” fear would set in because I thought, “If Dad comes to pick me up, everyone will be reminded I’m part Chinese, and the next day the bullying is going to be even worse.” I felt that shame, and I never really wanted to be seen around my dad because of that. I remember this one time walking through the playground to the car and people pulling their eyes in front of my dad.

It was only really when I was about 14, and I went to a performing arts school where everyone was from a different background, that for the first time I felt accepted for who I was. They all were talented, and they all wanted the same thing. And that’s parallel to the crew on the Enterprise. La’an comes onto the Enterprise, and they accept her for who she is. It’s been an incredible journey, how Star Trek has enabled me to use my experience and put that into her. Timing-wise, it all sort of clicked.

In addition to the deep, emotional connection, did you realize right away the strong, classic Star Trek threads in her DNA via Khan and the Gorn?

I had to do a lot of research. There was a two-week quarantine period where I just completely blitzed The Original Series and Discovery . I didn’t really know anything when I’d been given this role. I accepted the job obviously knowing that it’s a huge franchise, and when they told me about Khan, I was just like. “Wow, this is an amazing character arc!” And it’s crazy that you get to know so much about her in such a short period of time, especially in episode four. You get a full history of what she’s been through and understand why she’s so guarded.

On top of all those layers, it seems to me she is plagued with serious survivor’s guilt over the Gorn massacre, which is making her even more closed off to any personal connections. Am I on the right track?

You’ve nailed it on the head. It’s the fibers of guilt, but it’s also accepting her personal loss. The Enterprise crew is her new family. In a way, she’s taken her role as security chief to protect her new family. I think why she’s holding herself back is for her, if you love somebody, they then get killed. So, it’s better to remain guarded, keep that distance. But then when she is faced with her biggest fear, her walls do start to come down. And I think she really starts to realize she’s got to take these risks if she wants to really live. She has to start opening up and connecting and letting people in. She’s still got a long way to go, and that’s her main journey throughout the season.

Backtracking for a moment, that was an intense fight between La’an and Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) in episode three. Tell me about training for that moment.

A lot of rehearsal went into that because we didn’t film the fight when we filmed the episode. That was filmed later as a pickup day, so we had a lot of time to rehearse. But it’s funny, every time we came into the rehearsal room, it would change. So it was like, that fight you learned last week, it’s now this. That happened about five or six times because of things still working out, like the set and different ideas. We did do a lot of it ourselves, but I have to say that the credit goes to our stunt doubles. We did do a lot, but those tricky big throws and lands — all them.

And lastly, I would love to hear what the show has come to mean for you. In my previous cast interviews, I was told the bonds and friendships became strong instantly. Accurate for you, too?

I had no expectations for this show coming in because I had no real knowledge of how Star Trek was loved because if you don’t watch, you don’t understand. For me, coming in, it’s been such a huge gift to slowly unravel. The cast is incredible. We all bring something unique. I love that we all have different personalities, which somehow, weirdly gel on- and off-set. But the biggest revelation for me, on a personal level, was the message that Strange New Worlds continues to pass on of hope, diversity and inclusion.

Interview edited for length and clarity. 

New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stream Thursdays on Paramount+.

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Star Trek: Khan Noonien Singh's Last Words Are Deeper Than You Think

Khan with a bloody face

Classic Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) has had a long-lasting legacy that continues into the current canon. Decades after he died in one of the best Star Trek films , "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," the Federation is still profoundly affected by his misdeeds. This is in part because he pushes for genetic engineering, but it's also a testament to how charismatic he was as a character. After being an episodic villain in "Star Trek: The Original Series," he returned to wreak havoc on Admiral Kirk (William Shatner). Khan's quest for vengeance leads to his demise, but not before his famous last words.

"No! No! You can't get away ..." Khan says to the Enterprise as it flies away. "From Hell's heart ... I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath ... at thee." Star Trek has long leaned into taking inspiration from modern-day classics, and that is where Khan's final words come from. He is reciting "Moby-Dick," the Herman Melville epic about Captain Ahab's quest to destroy the titular whale. This ending is fitting for the film, as Ahab and Khan were both vengeful captains in their own right. While Ahab quested to kill his literal white whale, Khan went after his metaphorical one. Kirk was always the foe that got away. But Khan's farewell is about more than surface-level connections.

Khan is an epic figure

Like Captain Ahab, Khan is such a larger-than-life character that he has stood the test of time. "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" focuses on the repercussions of Khan's effect on the world through the eyes of his descendant, La'an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong). Khan's devotion to genetically augmenting the human race defines him, and he never changes his mind. Similarly, Ahab is as vitriolic as he was when he first started hunting the whale. He fails to kill Moby-Dick and watches it destroy his ship and most of his men. Even so, he uses his final moments to curse the whale. He understands his fate, but wouldn't change anything. This is also the place that we leave Khan at the end of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

After sustaining injuries on his ship, he shows no remorse for what he did. His actions directly cause Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) death and reaffirm he was only ever interested in world domination. He dies, cursing Kirk while he himself is the one who caused his downfall. He dies as he lived, full of hate. The tragedy of it all is that he could have turned back at any moment. But like Ahab, his fate was to be drowned by his own revenge.

Den of Geek

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Reveals Unexpected Khan Connection

Strange New Worlds just invoked the legacy of iconic Star Trek villain Khan Noonien-Singh.

noonien singh star trek

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La'an and Khan Noonien-Singh in Star Trek

Khan Noonien-Singh is widely considered to be Star Trek ‘s best villain. Introduced in The Original Series episode “Space Seed,” Khan (as played by Ricardo Montalbán) would go on to be the eponymous villain in Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan , effectively killing fan favorite character Spock in the feature film’s climax. (It’s OK… he got better.) Subsequently, the character made appearances in other corners of the franchise, including on Enterprise , Deep Space Nine , and in the (worst) reboot film Star Trek Into Darkness , where he was played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Now, a different Noonien-Singh is poised to play a main character on Strange New Worlds , the series set during Captain Pike’s tenure as the Enterprise captain. English actress Christina Chong has been announced as La’an Noonien-Singh in the upcoming Trek show. Color us intrigued…

First, some backstory: Khan Noonien Singh was a genetically engineered superhuman who, during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s (you remember those, right?), controlled more than a quarter of the Earth. When deposed, Khan and 84 of his super-friends escaped from Earth on a freighter ship, placing themselves in a cryogenic sleep. Khan wakes up more than two centuries later, when the Enterprise finds his ship. Once a power-hungry ruler, always a power-hungry ruler, so Khan quickly moves to take over the ship, with the help of the apparently impressionable Enterprise historian Marla McGivers . Kirk eventually manages to stop Khan, and sentences him and his friends (including future wife Marla) to life on an uncolonized planet known as Ceti Alpha V. Let’s just say the sentencing backfires, with Khan coming back with a vengeance in The Wrath of Khan 15 years after the events of “Space Seed.”

Given that Khan is still in cryogenic sleep during the years Strange New Worlds is set (and has been for more than 200 years), it’s unclear how this new Khan character could be related to the iconic villain… but you don’t just slap the surname “Noonien-Singh” on someone without a solid plan. (Right, J.J. Abrams?) The most obvious explanation would be that La’an is a descendant of Khan’s family, but in the world of Star Trek , the possibilities are endless. Time travel is a recurring plot mechanic in the franchise, which means La’an could be an even closer relative than the broad timeline implies. Could Khan and Marla have had a child who somehow survived everything going south on Ceti Alpha V… who then travels back in time? Yes, it’s a bit contrived but there an almost-canonical precedent for a Khan kid. At some point in the Wrath of Khan production process, Khan had a child , but the subplot/character was cut from the story.

McCoy, Chapel, and Spock on the bridge of the Enterprise, as Uhura stands in the background on Star Trek

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My favorite theory? La’an is Khan’s sister, daughter, or other close relative from before Khan went into cryogenic sleep. Augments like Khan had many, for want of a better term, “superpowers”: They are five times as strong as the average human, and much more durable with stronger heart muscled and greater lung efficiency. Additionally, they are very smart. But perhaps their most useful trait is their expanded lifespan; Augments live twice the average lifespan of a human. If La’an is an Augment (and has an excellent skin care routine), then she could be Khan’s contemporary from the 90s or shortly thereafter. Khan was no doubt forced to leave people behind when he fled Earth. Was La’an one of those people?

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Whatever Strange New Worlds ‘ reason for naming a character Noonien-Singh, I hope it’s a good one. There’s so much potential when it comes to the space Khan holds in Star Trek canon, and the recent Trek invocation of that legacy was a muddled mess. Strange New Worlds , don’t f this up.

How do you think La’an will be related to Khan? Let us know your theories in the comments below.

Kayti Burt

Kayti Burt | @kaytiburt

Kayti is a pop culture writer, editor, and full-time nerd who comes from a working class background. A member of the Television Critics Association, she specializes…

You've Heard That Name Before: The Name 'Noonien Singh' Explained

Promotional image from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

When the crew of the Enterprise on "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" was announced, fans might have been shocked to see the name of the ship's chief of security: La'an Noonien Singh. Played by Christina Chong, the character shares her name with one of the franchise's most infamous villains. While the exact connection between La'an Noonien Singh and Khan Noonien Singh is still a mystery, it's guaranteed that having such a controversial surname is going to cause some problems for the franchise's newest security chief. Khan was Captain Kirk's (William Shatner) greatest foe, a genetically-engineered superhuman who at one point ruled over nearly a quarter of Earth's population. 

Casual fans recognize Khan best from the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," in which Ricardo Montalbán, who also played Khan on the original series, seeks revenge on his nemesis. Kirk infamously screams his name in rage in one of the franchises' most memeable moments, with Shatner's face contorted into an angry grimace, his fists shaking. So how, exactly, does a character who is a member of Starfleet end up with the name of one of the worst war criminals in the universe? 

Star Trek: The Original Series

It's important to realize just how big of an impact Khan had on humanity in the "Star Trek" timeline. He was part of a eugenics program that was intended to create a race of superhumans, and 1993 (remember, "Trek" was originally produced in the '60s), these genetically-engineered people took over more than 40 nations, and Khan himself became absolute ruler of about one-quarter of the planet. Despite being an authoritarian dictator, Khan's rule was relatively peaceful, though he kept his citizens on a tight leash. The superhumans, called Augments, began to fight amongst themselves before involving other nations. The Eugenics Wars ended with most of the dictators overthrown or killed, but Khan found himself and 84 of his most devout followers exiled on a ship named the SS Botany Bay, after the Australian penal colony. The escapees were put into stasis and the ship set off for an unknown destination, eventually being discovered by Captain Kirk and the USS Enterprise in 2267, an event we see firsthand in the original series episode "Space Speed." Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) rescues Khan from stasis, and the crew of the Enterprise chooses to leave the remaining inhabitants undisturbed.

It doesn't take too long for Khan to take advantage of Kirk and the rest of the crew, reawakening many of his followers and taking over the Enterprise. When the crew fights back and his plan is foiled, Khan tries to explode the Enterprise's warp core ... though Kirk is able to defeat him by smacking him with a large metal rod. Kirk offers Khan and his followers two options: face the Federation's justice or try to start a new colony on the nearby planet Ceti Alpha V, which is habitable, though definitely not a paradise. Khan and the followers choose the colony and Kirk gives them some basic supplies to start their new lives. Unfortunately, there is a massive environmental disaster on the planet only six months after the Enterprise leaves, leaving only the colonists and indigenous, horrifying Ceti eels alive. Many of the Botany Bay colonists die slow, horrible deaths as the eels' young invaded their brains ... including Khan's wife.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn

22 years later, the USS Reliant sends members of its crew down to the planet, which they believed to be uninhabited, as a part of a project tied to terraforming. Commander Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), formerly of the Enterprise, and his captain, Clark Terrell (Paul Winfield) are captured by Khan, who uses some Ceti eels to take over their minds and discover Kirk's location. He sets a course for his revenge, growing more obsessive as time goes on. He seems to get his revenge, at least in part, when he maroons Kirk and his away team inside of the planetoid Regula I, much like Kirk had marooned him on Ceti Alpha V. But the Enterprise rescues Kirk and the away team, as they always do, and head off to battle with Khan and the commandeered Reliant. In a final act of desperation, Khan activates the experimental Genesis device that was intended for Ceti Alpha V, hoping to take the Enterprise out with him. Instead, the Enterprise zips off at warp, leaving Khan to die alone. 

Khan and the other Augments were considered so potentially dangerous that genetic engineering was outlawed by the Federation in the late 24th century, though scientists continued researching it in secret and it was possible to get black market genetic engineering to enhance traits, which we saw with Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ." His parents had illegally paid someone to augment their son, to make him smarter and stronger, and though Bashir never demonstrated any of Khan's narcissistic or tyrannical tendencies, he did struggle with his genetically altered status for much of his life.

Who is La'an?

That's everything there really is to know about Khan Noonien Singh, but what about the woman on "Strange New Worlds" who bears his name? We know that she is related to Khan in some way, though the series' co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman was very dodgy about how, exactly: 

"She's related to Khan, for sure, and, uh, and the deal will unfold ... We don't want to bring folks into the show to be splashy. We want to dig deeply into characters that are part of our ensemble and then, obviously, we're open to getting our arms ... but right now, what you see is what you get."

Having a character that's related to Khan is an interesting way to approach the character, though I hope they don't try to actually bring him back. "Strange New Worlds" is a prequel series to the original series, which means it's possible for Khan to be woken up at some point during this show. Theoretically . Khan is just such an emotionally charged character for everyone involved, from the fans who love him in "Star Trek II" to those who would rather forget the Kelvin timeline version (where he was played by a forgettable Benedict Cumberbatch). 

As far as La'an's concerned, she will have to reconcile sharing a name with one of history's greatest villains. From what we've seen so far, she seems like a tough, no-nonsense security officer, but could that be a way to protect herself from any cruelty she might experience on account of her name and heritage? Many of the characters on "Strange New Worlds" have ties to other "Trek" characters and stories, but hers might be the most complicated, with potential to explore what it means to have the blood of a monster inside you. 

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Characters / Star Trek: The Original Series - Khan Noonien Singh

Edit locked, khan noonien singh.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tos_khan_4159.jpg

Played by: Ricardo Montalbán , Desmond Sivan (child, Strange New Worlds )

Dubbed in french by: françois chaumette (star trek ii), dubbed in brazilian portuguese by: darcy pedrosa, appearances: star trek: the original series | star trek ii: the wrath of khan | star trek: strange new worlds.

Khan: Khan is my name. Kirk: Khan, nothing else? Khan: Khan.

A 20th-century genetically-engineered tyrant who ruled a quarter of the world in the 1990s. As his fellow "supermen" (or Augments) were overthrown, Khan and roughly 80 of his followers launched themselves into space in cryogenic sleep before being found by Kirk. With his weakness being his ambition, Khan then tried to seize control of the Enterprise with the help of Marla McGivers, the Enterprise ship historian whom he managed to seduce. It failed thanks to the crew's opposition and an attack of conscience from McGivers. Kirk then exiled Khan, his followers, and Marla to a remote but hospitable planet as an act of mercy, giving them the chance to build a new society. Unfortunately, not long afterwards, the planet suffered a catastrophic ecological disaster and, being completely forgotten by Kirk, Khan grew vengeful toward the man who cast judgement on him...

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  • A Father to His Men : He saw his fellow super humans as a family, to the point where he vowed to avenge Joachim when he died following a crippling blast on the Reliant .
  • Affably Evil : In his first appearance, Khan's pretty charming, polite, and a bit of a rogue, just like Kirk. However, come Wrath of Khan and Khan is just losing it.
  • Alas, Poor Villain : At the end of Wrath of Khan , he's lost everything, including his beloved wife as well as his people, along with any hope of being able to establish a society for them. As he's left to die in the exploding Reliant , he remains Defiant to the End , reciting dialogue from Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick before the Reliant explodes. All that potential he had as a superhuman was essentially wasted out of a desire for control and revenge.
  • Ambiguously Brown : He's a genetically-augmented human from some point in the late 20th century. Culturally, he's a North Indian Sikh, but as he is also a genetically-engineered human, his DNA could contain many different genetic traits (his Mexican accent, however, is difficult to explain - especially after the effects of various Temporal Wars caused his birth to be bumped a half century later ... and to Canada ).
  • Anti-Villain : Cruel and immoral his actions may be, he wants a society that he and his people can thrive in, no matter how many others have to suffer for it.
  • Arch-Enemy : More than a hundred years later , Spock would credit him as being "the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise ever faced."
  • Ascended Extra : Goes from a random Villain of the Week to the main antagonist of The Wrath of Khan and one of the franchise's most iconic villains.
  • A tie-in comic to Star Trek Into Darkness addresses Trek 's Alternate History directly, starting with Khan nuking Washington, D.C. in 1992 .
  • The final episode of Star Trek: Picard Season 2 implies and the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds confirms that under the Alex Kurtzman production umbrella the Eugenics Wars are being moved from the 1990's to the 2030's, with the implication that the 1990's is when the technology to create Khan was developed. This could be explained as Spock getting the dates wrong due to incomplete records, if it weren't for one line from The Wrath of Khan in which Khan himself states he departed Earth in 1996.
  • The third episode of Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds untangles the thread by revealing that Khan is responsible for bringing humanity to a dark age, which ultimately brings humanity to eventually form the Federation and Starfleet. Khan himself is the target of a temporal war to prevent this from occuring, which only succeeds in delaying his rise from the 1990's to the 2030's. His failure to rise culminates in humanity failing to progress beyond their own Solar System, having failed to ally with other species such as the Vulcans who are eventually wiped out in a war with the Romulans.
  • Bread and Circuses : His ruling style back when he was a dictator over a fourth of Earth, at least compared to his competitors, which was enough to give him a legacy as "the best of tyrants." Notably, there were no massacres under his rule, and he didn't involve himself in the Eugenics Wars until after his territory was attacked. On the other hand, the people under his rule were reduced to subjects with few freedoms.
  • Breakout Villain : Originally just a Villain of the Week . Ever since Wrath of Khan , he's arguably the most highly-regarded villain in the entire franchise.
  • Character Catchphrase : He has a particular way of saying "Admiral" he develops once he learns Kirk has gotten a promotion. At least one interpretation is Khan thinking Kirk got that for dumping him on Ceti Alpha V (because why wouldn't it be about Khan?), and raging jealousy that that's what he got while Khan got the shaft.
  • Classic Villain : Khan represents a nice combo of Pride and Wrath .
  • Control Freak : Khan demands absolute obedience from everything. While some of his followers can object, none of them will sway him from his course.
  • Damned by Faint Praise : He is seen as "the best of tyrants" in regards to the Eugenic Wars.
  • Dramatically Missing the Point : A fan of Moby-Dick , Khan sees himself as Captain Ahab and Kirk as his White Whale. Khan seemed to have forgotten how Ahab's quest for vengeance ended. Not just self destruction - he understands and accepts that - but that Ahab didn't even get a chance to make sure he succeeded.
  • The Dreaded : Even a century after his death, Starfleet is still terrified of him. It's outright said that the main reason the Federation still has a No Transhumanism Allowed policy in the Star Trek: Prodigy era is because they're scared of a new Khan rising from the ashes. His reputation even extends into a new timeline: When young Spock asks for information about Khan, Spock breaks his own oath not to tell him about the future to warn him about how dangerous Khan is, outright saying that he's the most dangerous enemy the Enterprise ever faced.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones : While he started manipulating Marla McGivers to betray Starfleet as a tool to escape, he came to passionately love her after she joined him in exile. He forgave her betrayal of him to her old crew, and she ruled as his queen. Her death on Ceti Alpha V - more than that of his other loyal followers - is what drives the man who once conquered a quarter of Earth.
  • Evil Overlord : Back in the day, anyway. He tries to give it another go in "Space Seed" but is thwarted and offered the opportunity of becoming one to an abandoned planet. But when the planet unexpectedly suffers a catastrophe that devastates him and his followers , he settles on a simpler motive.
  • Joachim begs Khan to ignore Kirk and exploit Genesis. Khan shoves him aside and orders the Reliant to follow the Enterprise into the Nebula.
  • Faux Affably Evil : Becomes one in The Wrath Of Khan , blinded by his desire to get revenge on Kirk. That doesn't undermine his intelligence, though.
  • Genius Bruiser : A Superhuman with immensely powerful physical and mental capabilities.
  • Glass Cannon : Has the physical strength to bend a phaser in half with his bare hands and effortlessly lift a spacesuit-wearing Chekov with one arm, but gets taken down by Kirk with a pipe.
  • Greater-Scope Villain : Arguably his interactions with the Enterprise are much smaller in significance compared to how much his role as a 20th Century Dictator defines and causes the creation of the Federation.
  • Heinousness Retcon : In Space Seed , and to a lesser extent Wrath of Khan , Khan is introduced as a 20th century dictator, but otherwise fairly little is made of him. It's in fact noted that he's only one of several dictators active at the time - if the strongest of them. He's otherwise unremarkable and obscure enough that unraveling his identity is a huge chunk of the episode, and the crew need a briefing to explain who the man was. Scotty, and later Kirk even confesses having a degree of admiration for the man. Bones even mentions in slight defense of Khan that "there were no massacres" in his rule, though Spock immediately states, "and little freedoms." Later series would characterize Khan as basically Trek's version of Hitler ( with Captain Picard alluding to both of them in the same breath ). A man whose name is a byword for evil and death, and whose actions are so despicable, the Federation centuries later is still sort of processing the trauma of them, and has laws on the books to stop a man like him from ever being made. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds even had admirals admit that these laws are draconian and discriminatory but humans are still so sensitive about what Khan did that repealing them is unthinkable.
  • Hero Killer : He was directly responsible for Spock's death in the second movie. Hard to fit the trope more plainly when you've done that .
  • Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act : His descendant La'an Noonien-Singh has to save his life as a child in 2022, not just so she will be born but also as Romulans had sent an agent back in time to kill him. It turns out that without the Eugenics Wars to make humanity want to be better, whilst humanity will still reach space they will become the isolationist United Earth Fleet an easier smaller target amongst many rather than the alliance that is the Federation.
  • In Love with the Mark : He started off manipulating Marla, but quickly came to genuinely love her.
  • Karma Houdini : He was this In-Universe for his crimes during the Eugenics Wars. While all the other superhumans were implied to have been killed or imprisoned, Khan managed to escape on the Botany Bay . Even when he's later released by the Enterprise crew, there's no serious talk of putting him on trial and he's eventually given a whole planet of his own to rule. Then Ceti Alpha VI exploded , depriving Khan of his beloved wife and sentencing him to a hellish existence on a Death World .
  • Morality Pet : His possible son Joachim, who he genuinely loves and cares about.
  • Motive Decay : Initially, all he wants is to create a society where he and his people can thrive, but by the time of The Wrath of Khan , all he wants is revenge against Kirk.
  • Mr. Fanservice : He's almost always wearing an outfit that displays his muscular chest and great physique.
  • My God, What Have I Done? : Khan's final moments include one of these with the death of Joachim, who may very possibly be his biological son and almost certainly is his adopted son. Realizing he got him killed doesn't deter him from further actions, though.
  • Navel-Deep Neckline : A Rare Male Example , his pecs are well displayed.
  • No Shirt, Long Jacket : In the movie (though the jacket is quite damaged), to show off Montalban's great shape.
  • No Transhumanism Allowed : In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , it's explained that Khan is the reason the Federation prohibits genetic modification or engineering.
  • Photographic Memory : Implied to be one of his genetically engineered gifts, and stated explicitly in the novelization of Wrath of Khan and the expanded universe's "Khan trilogy". He tells Chekov he never forgets a face, and even after 15 years he still seems to have the Enterprise 's technical specifications committed to memory, given that he still has perfect knowledge of the ship's weak points.
  • Pride : He has oodles of it.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure : At least to his fellow superhumans. His interactions with Joachim in Wrath of Khan show that his followers are comfortable enough with him to give him critical feedback without any hesitancy, although in the end his own authority is absolute.
  • Vaguely justified in that Khan and Singh are both overwhelmingly common Indian names, however.
  • Revenge Before Reason : He will do anything to kill Kirk, no matter how self-destructive. Even when Kirk is clearly baiting him into an obvious trap, Khan seems physically incapable of resisting the urge to roar into it, so fervent is his hatred. Khan: No... you won't get away. From Hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee...
  • Revenge Myopia : Khan ignores Chekov's observation that he attacked Kirk after the latter had taken in him and his crew.
  • Rule of Symbolism : Much of the conflict between Kirk and Khan plays out like Paradise Lost , with Kirk as God and Khan as Lucifer . Khan even lampshades this in "Space Seed." In The Wrath of Khan , he has two copies of Paradise Lost on his bookshelf (one which included Paradise Regained ).
  • Sanity Slippage : By the time of The Wrath of Khan , he’s lost it thanks to being stranded on Ceti Alpha V and the death of his wife and most of his followers.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can : He and his cryogenically-frozen followers, in the episode " Space Seed ." And again in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , when he's abandoned on Ceti Alpha V (which the crew of the Reliant mistake for Ceti Alpha VI after a natural disaster alters its orbit and destroys its environment).
  • Sequel Adaptation Iconic Villain : Star Trek: The Motion Picture had the crew of the Enterprise confront V'ger as the antagonist. Wrath of Khan brought Khan back and more dangerous than ever.
  • Silver Fox : For a man who was stranded on a nightmare planet for two decades, Khan still managed to age pretty damn well, and he clearly knows it. Check out them pecs, for one.
  • Skilled, but Naive : Other than his pride and ambition, one of Khan's greatest weaknesses is that, despite his incredible intellect, all his knowledge and experience is that of a 20th century man, and he lacks the decades of experience in space that Kirk has. This shows when he's unable to quickly find the Reliant 's command console override despite having memorized Starfleet's standard starship technical specifications, and when he fails to consider that space is three-dimensional during starship combat. Spock: He's intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist : In Wrath , at least regarding Kirk and all collateral damage. Khan: I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you... and I wish to go on hurting you.
  • Stalker with a Crush : Meyer confirmed that the Foe Romance Subtext between Khan and Kirk was intentional, and Khan twists Moby Dick lines to “he tasks me, he tasks me and I shall have him.”
  • Star-Crossed Lovers : He and his wife, a crewman on the Enterprise who suffered from Heel–Face Revolving Door Syndrome.
  • Suddenly Shouting : "This is Ceti Alpha Five!!
  • Why Khan wants Project Genesis. With his homeworld destroyed and his people dwindling in numbers, he feels that terraforming a planet is the only way to ensure his and his people's continued existence.
  • In "Space Seed", Khan makes it clear he believes that he would have been the eventual victor of the Eugenics Wars if things had gone differently (" One man would have ruled eventually. As Rome under Caesar, think of its accomplishments!")
  • The Bad Guy Wins : Yes, Khan is killed by the end of The Wrath of Khan , but what happens after that? Spock — Kirk's closest friend — dies painfully as a result of radiation poisoning in his efforts to repair Enterprise enough to escape the Genesis Device detonation . Then as a result of his quest to bring his friend back from the dead , Kirk loses not only his beloved Enterprise but also his son. Ultimately, Khan has done far worse to Kirk than kill him — he hurt him.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass : Khan becomes far more ruthless and unhinged in The Wrath of Khan , thanks to his Sanity Slippage and single-minded vendetta against Kirk.
  • Tragic Keepsake : Khan wears a Starfleet emblem on a chain around his neck, strongly implied to have been part of Marla McGiver's uniform. note  It's also a continuity problem: The insignia is similar to the belt buckle worn as part of the movie uniforms, however was not actually present on the uniform McGivers would have worn.
  • Tragic Villain : Subverted. Khan has all the hallmarks of a tragic character, having suffered a great loss that drives him to committing evil, but while he is sympathetic, he was a ruthless dictator even before this. The only thing it really changed was how evil he was, causing him to go from Affably Evil to a spiteful, unhinged demagogue.
  • Trouble from the Past : He perfectly embodies both the modern age's charismatic daring and its prideful ambition, transported through time almost 300 years to menace the utopian future of the 23rd century, which he comes to believe is ill-prepared to resist himself and his crew of supermen. Kirk ultimately proves him wrong on that account.
  • Ungrateful Bastard : Kirk and company find a stasis ship just in the nick of time, as Khan's own capsule is about to fail, revive him and his followers, and treat him with frankly undue courtesy given who he is— so Khan decides to steal his ship. Then Khan resents Kirk leaving him and his people on Ceti Alpha V, even though that was more lenient than taking him back to Earth, where he would have been prosecuted as a war criminal.
  • Justifies his quest to Take Over the World as an attempt to unify humanity during a time of war.
  • Subverted by the movie, in which it becomes abundantly clear he isn't as interested in conquering as he is in killing one man over a grudge.
  • Wicked Cultured : His Final Speech comes from Moby-Dick , he mentions Paradise Lost before Kirk exiles him, and the Botany Bay appears to have other classic books. Part of his obsession with Moby-Dick in particular seems to be because Khan was stuck on Ceti Alpha V with only a handful of books to read, leading him to read them over and over again.
  • Young Conqueror : Both Expanded Universe versions of his Origin Story (the 2001 novels by Greg Cox and the 2014 comic book tying in to Star Trek Into Darkness ) place him as being either in his early or late 20's during the Eugenics Wars. The novels indicate that faster-than-normal maturation is part of his genetic modifications.

Commander John Harrison/Khan Noonien Singh (Kelvin Timeline)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/harrison.jpg

Played by: Benedict Cumberbatch

Dubbed in french by: pierre tissot, dubbed in brazilian portuguese by: ronaldo júlio, appearances: star trek into darkness.

Starfleet's top agent, before a perceived betrayal by his superiors sent him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the entire Federation command structure.

  • The Ace : As Harrison himself claims, he is simply "better" at everything . Justified, as he is genetically designed to be so.
  • Adaptational Jerkass : The original Khan was in no way a nice person, but he was Affably Evil , at least in "Space Seed", and had an entertainingly hammy persona. This one is far more cold blooded and stoic.
  • Adaptational Villainy : As seen above, in Space Seed Khan had committed no massacres in his reign. Here Spock refers to him as committing mass genocide on any being he deems "less than superior".
  • Aesop Amnesia : Openly vows to resume "the work" he and his crew had done prior to banishment. Despite having failed in his despotism in the Eugenics Wars, he still hopes to start right over.
  • He also has a spinoff comic. See Villain Episode .
  • Alternate History : The Villain Episode tie-in comics tackle the Failed Future Forecast issues around the Eugenics Wars head on... by showing Khan nuking Washington D.C. and Moscow... in 1992 .
  • The Antichrist : He's not supernatural, of course, but the tie-in comics use a fair share of "The Beast of Revelations" imagery when describing his rise to power during the Eugenics Wars.
  • Arch-Enemy : For Kirk, much like Nero for Spock in the last film . And well, himself for Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .
  • Boasts about his superhuman abilities. Harrison: I am better. Kirk: At what? Harrison: Everything. note  In the novelization , the tone of voice he says this with isn't that of a boast, but a simple statement of fact by a man who knows that it's true.
  • Boasts about how he's going to end you. Harrison: I will walk over your cold corpses.
  • Badass Longcoat : Sports a black trenchcoat with a hood. He even steals one off a chair towards the end of the film to replace it. Presumably, this was to help disguise him to some extent.
  • Benevolent Boss : Zig-zagged between this and Bad Boss . While he does seem to truly care for his crew, he was also a ruthless tyrant and war criminal 300 years prior. Harrison: My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?
  • Berserk Button : Threatening his crew or implying that they're dead is a seriously bad idea. Admiral Marcus found that one out the hard way.
  • Big Bad : A Starfleet agent with superhuman abilities turned terrorist. He's really Khan Noonien Singh, an infamous war criminal working for Starfleet under an assumed identity.
  • Big Bad Ensemble : Serves as Into Darkness 's main antagonist, alongside Admiral Marcus . Towards the climax, however, Khan kills Marcus , establishing himself as the sole Big Bad .
  • Big "NO!" : He yells "No" when he thinks that his crew has been killed after the torpedoes explode on his ship.
  • Bio-Augmentation : Genetically engineered for superhuman strength, endurance and intelligence.
  • Bullying a Dragon : Nice job trying to force a 300-year-old superman stronger, smarter and more ruthless than you to do your dirty work by threatening to kill his crew (which is essentially his family), Marcus .
  • Byronic Hero : A Villainous example. He fits the bill in a few ways: Brooding, charismatic, sympathetic and physically attractive but also incredibly vengeful, prideful and was once an Evil Overlord back in the day.
  • Canon Character All Along : This is one of Into Darkness 's main twists. John Harrison is revealed to be none other than Kirk's Arch-Enemy Khan Noonien Singh.
  • Canon Foreigner : Subverted. He's actually Khan Noonien Singh.
  • The Chessmaster : Most of the events of Into Darkness are the result of Harrison's planning and manipulations.
  • Chewing the Scenery : While there is some mugging during "annoyed/angry exposition" , when he gets furious, Evil Is Hammy gets into full force. You should have let me SLEEP!
  • Commanding Coolness : Harrison's falsified rank in Starfleet was Commander.
  • Cool Starship : The USS Vengeance , a jet black Federation dreadnought that Harrison helped design and later steals after killing Admiral Marcus .
  • Creepy Monotone : Making him even more scary. And a complete inversion of Ricardo Montalban's hammy original. Benedict Cumberbatch 's performance just drives the whole thing home since you really can't watch him like this without shuddering at least once.
  • Dark Is Evil : Dresses exclusively in black clothing. Benedict Cumberbatch also dyed his hair black for this film again. Also, the Vengeance , a pitch-black monster of a warship, was his design, and he takes command of it near the climax of the film.
  • After Kirk's utterly ineffective beatdown on Kronos, Harrison contemptuously repeats Uhura's invocation of Kirk's rank. Harrison : Captain .
  • During his conversation with Spock after Harrison hijacks control of the Vengeance . Spock : You betrayed us . Harrison : Oh, you are smart , Mr. Spock.
  • Death Seeker : When he thinks his crew is dead, Khan has shades of this when he attempts to ram The Vengeance into Starfleet Headquarters. Harrison : SET DESTINATION: STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS! Vengeance's computer system : Engines compromised. Cannot guarantee destination. Confirm order. Harrison : Confirm.
  • Despair Event Horizon : He crosses it when he believes his beloved crew to have been killed. After that, Khan stops caring if he lives or dies, setting the Vengeance on a suicide run to Starfleet Headquarters.
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu : As he notes, Starfleet really should have kept him asleep .
  • Dragon-in-Chief : Marcus forced him to help design the USS Vengeance for Starfleet but he is a much more direct threat to the heroes than the Admiral and only serves him to save his crew, and Harrison shows himself to be the more competent villain when he kills Marcus to commandeer the Vengeance .
  • The Dreaded : Spock Prime's encounters with Harrison/Khan's prime universe counterpart are enough to convince him to give Spock information about him, despite his previous pledge to let Spock walk his own path.
  • Driven to Villainy : Subverted. While his present motivations are to get back at Starfleet for Admiral Marcus for holding his family hostage, Khan was a war criminal before being frozen, and was specifically defrosted for both his intellect and his willingness to use it aggressively .
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette : He has dark hair, retains his actor's pale complexion and serves as a contrast to Kirk and Admiral Marcus .
  • Emperor Scientist : In the tie-in comics it's indicated that this was his ruling style after he accomplished his initial conquests.
  • Empowered Badass Normal : Being a bio-engineered super-human, he's a Nigh-Invulnerable One-Man Army Evil Brit in a Badass Longcoat . Not even an extremely angry Vulcan on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge was enough to stop him without help.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones : Wants to save his former crew who were on board the SS Botany Bay . Harrison: Is there anything you would not do for your family?
  • Evil Brit : Retains the accent of his actor, the British Benedict Cumberbatch .
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good : His terrorist attacks are motivated by his suspicions that Starfleet has already killed his crew, mainly because that's exactly what he would have done in their place. Later, after the torpedo incident, he again assumes that his enemies have killed off his crew and decides to make the Vengeance 's name very literal. One gets the impression that Khan just can't wrap his head around other people not being as murderous and willing to kill for convenience as him.
  • While Harrison/Khan displays similar mannerisms to that of Spock in his initial appearance, the differences in their character increasingly become apparent following The Reveal . Khan actually goes so far as to distinguish himself from Spock by pointing out that he indulges and takes pride in his savagery while Spock suppresses such emotions. Harrison: Intellect alone is useless in a fight, Mr. Spock. You, you can't even break a rule. How could you be expected to break bone ?
  • Evil Is Hammy : Even when he's not raising his voice, he is full of Cold Ham with the way he overenunciates his words.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy : Starfleet really shouldn't have tried to manipulate or threaten him.
  • Evil Is Petty : Being shunned after helping Marcus with his warmongering plans is as bad for him as the fact the admiral kept his "family" hostage.
  • Evil Overlord : Ruled over a quarter of Earth centuries ago.
  • Evil Sounds Deep : Benedict Cumberbatch plays the character with a deep baritone voice.
  • Fantastic Racism : He finds being at the beck and call of the genetically "inferior" humiliating.
  • Face–Heel Turn : He went from a decorated member of Starfleet to a terrorist trying to destroy it. Only not; the John Harrison identity was created for him when he was thawed, and the closest he came to working for Starfleet was his unwilling stint making weapons for Admiral Marcus.
  • Fallen Hero : Subverted. He was a bad guy long before his falsified past.
  • Fatal Flaw : Pride . While his original timeline version was more defined by the It's Personal nature of Wrath pushing him to obsessively pursue Kirk in Revenge Before Reason , here, his condescending contempt for Kirk’s crew manifests as arrogance bordering on blindness— in particular, he seems incapable of conceiving that Spock could have the cunning to match him even briefly, or meet Khan’s savagery with his own. The first costs him his ship, and the second leads to a brutal fist fight with the half-Vulcan that is more than even Khan could have predicted.
  • A Father to His Men : He genuinely cares about his crew and will do anything to protect them. Harrison : My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?
  • Faux Affably Evil : Though Harrison genuinely cares for his crew, the politeness he demonstrates towards Kirk and others is relatively fake. Once his nominal allies have outlived their usefulness , he'll have no hesitation about killing them.
  • First-Name Basis : Upon the revelation of his true identity, he's addressed solely as "Khan". Only Spock Prime even mentions the rest of his name.
  • Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke : Harrison is a One-Man Army created through genetic manipulation. It turns out to be the first hint of his true identity.
  • Genius Bruiser : He's incredibly intelligent ( within a year, he learned enough about 23rd century technology to design advanced weaponry, as well as the nigh-unstoppable USS Vengeance ) and extremely strong (enough so to crush a man's skull with his bare hands ).
  • Guns Akimbo : For the shootout with the Klingons, he wields a phaser rifle in one hand and a Chainsaw-Grip BFG in the other.
  • Hannibal Lecture : Delivers several speeches while captured over the heroes' shortcomings.
  • Healing Factor : Heavily implied but not seen. Harrison's blood allows his cells to heal at an astonishing rate, which he uses to heal a sick girl in the beginning in exchange for a favor. Later, Bones revives a dead tribble with it, and then uses it to save Kirk .
  • The Heavy : Harrison's actions are what set off and move along the plot of Into Darkness .
  • Heel–Face Brainwashing : The tie-in comics show that after they found the Botany Bay , Section 31 gave Khan extensive plastic surgery, a memory wipe, and a fake life history in an attempt to turn him into John Harrison, Hero of the Federation . After he finds out what was done to him, he's understandably pissed.
  • Hero Killer : This guy has killed a whole bunch of Starfleet officers, including Pike . Near the end of Into Darkness , Khan's attack on the Enterprise manages to kill Kirk himself, although the crew do manage to save their captain.
  • Human Popsicle : Was cryogenically frozen for about 250 years. He ends the film this way, too .
  • Icy Blue Eyes : Which serves to highlight his cold, calculating personality.
  • Implacable Man : Over the course of the film, Harrison withstands a ( completely ineffective ) beating from Kirk, stunning shots from a phaser, an explosion that cripples the Vengeance , and the Vengeance crashing into San Francisco, all of which barely slows him down. Exaggerated during his fight with Spock, where he forces his way through a Vulcan nerve pinch and takes roughly a dozen stun shots from Uhura's phaser without going down. Ultimately, it takes Spock beating him nearly to death to subdue Khan .
  • In a Single Bound : The first time we see him, he jumps an enormous distance into battle and lands perfectly.
  • In Spite of a Nail : No matter the universe, Khan and Kirk will always end up at each other's throats.
  • Ironic Echo : He does underestimate Spock somewhat, telling him that intellect alone is useless in a fight and that Spock "can't even break a rule. How would [he] be expected to break bone ?" Guess what, Spock manages to do exactly that just fine to him in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the climax of the film.
  • Taunts Kirk as he destroys the Enterprise. Harrison: No ship should go down without her captain.
  • Taunts Admiral Marcus as he crushes his skull. Harrison: YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME SLEEP.
  • Taunts Kirk while securely imprisoned. Harrison: Captain, are you going to punch me again, over and over and over , until your arm weakens? Clearly you want to.
  • Karmic Death : Marcus was planning one of these for Harrison when you take into account that he was to be killed by the torpedoes he designed, which also contained his crew. Luckily, Kirk didn't go through with that plan and opted to arrest him. Even better, Harrison surrenders himself the moment he finds out about the number of the torpedoes.
  • Kick the Dog : Right before he kills Admiral Marcus , he stomps on Carol's leg hard enough to break it.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch : Murders Carol's father, the equally evil Admiral Marcus .
  • Knight of Cerebus : If you thought Nero was nasty, he pales compared to this guy.
  • Kubrick Stare : Harrison occasionally tilts his head down and to the right and then angrily stares up to look more threatening.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler : Subsequent release materials, his Villain Episode comic mini-series, and even the DVD/Blu-ray cases of Into Darkness make no secret of the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch's character is, in fact, Khan.
  • Leitmotif : Besides the main theme, Khan's theme is the most noticeable leitmotif in the movie. It's oddly heroic, which makes sense when you look at the movie's symbolism and realize he's not so much meant to be Osama Bin Laden as he is meant to be Leonidas .
  • Lightning Bruiser : The thing that stands out most about his fighting style is just how damn fast he is. The second thing is how strong he is, to the point that he can carry a cannon with one hand or squash people's skulls like melons. The third thing is how he can withstand multiple punches and phaser stuns without slowing down.
  • Love Makes You Evil : Played with. He was certainly evil before, but his actions in Into Darkness are driven almost entirely by his love for his crew.
  • One-Man Army : Harrison is a "one-man weapon of mass destruction" who takes on entire Klingon security teams by himself. Admiral Marcus : For reasons unknown, John Harrison has just declared a one-man war against Starfleet.
  • Manipulative Bastard : He cures Thomas Harewood's comatose daughter to manipulate him into suicide-bombing a Starfleet records office. This in turn causes most of the Starfleet officers to gather in one place, where he promptly tries killing most of them.
  • Manly Tears : When he talks about his crew during his capture on-board the Enterprise , tears are seen streaming down his face while he looks away from Kirk and Spock the entire time.
  • Meaningful Re Name : The Villain Episode tie-in comics reveal that his birth name was Noonien Singh; he named himself Khan after completing his conquest of the Middle East and Central Asia.
  • Mirror Character : As he points out to Kirk, both of them would do anything to protect their respective crews .
  • Moral Myopia : Genuinely cares for his former crew and is distraught and furious when he thinks they've been harmed, and while his actions toward Starfleet and the Enterprise crew may possibly be justified, in his mind they were unlawfully kidnapping him for justified actions, his other actions make it clear that he barely considers the rest of the genetically inferior population to even be people. In fact, Spock mentions that Khan was accused of practicing eugenics in Earth's past.
  • More Dakka : His attack on the meeting at Starfleet Headquarters basically consists of him shooting the crap out of his target. He doesn't exactly skimp on bullets when it comes to fighting the Klingons, either.
  • Downplayed. When Kirk confronts him over his massacre of Starfleet officers, he indignantly protests that Marcus was holding his crew hostage. In his eyes, they weren't innocent civilians, as Kirk claims, but military personnel that Khan believes killed his defenseless crew, so he sees it as a case of Pay Evil unto Evil .
  • He also claims that he was labeled a criminal and exiled from Earth, ignoring his actions as a tyrant.
  • When he threatens to kill everyone on the Enterprise if Spock does not return his crew, he says he "will have no choice" but to do it if Spock defies him. However, it was Kirk and Scotty who double-crossed him by having him stunned once they had taken the Vengeance , so in Khan's eyes, the crew is not entirely innocent and have proven untrustworthy, which is solidified when Spock double crosses him again by arming the torpedoes.
  • Takes a huge pounding over the course of the movie, and only ever shows a few scratches.
  • Faked being stunned by a phaser shot at point blank range .
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown : He delivers a pretty vicious one to Spock during the finale of Into Darkness . Once Uhura arrives and Spock manages to recover, Khan finds himself on the receiving end.
  • No-Sell : Takes a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Kirk, and only registers some mild annoyance. He also manages to shrug off the Vulcan nerve pinch, albeit with some pain, but considering most beings crumple after being subjected to it...
  • Not So Stoic : At three points of Into Darkness : he sheds a tear as he reveals his story to Kirk and Spock, dissolves into sheer rage while beating Kirk and killing Admiral Marcus, and loses it completely during his Villainous Breakdown .
  • Older Is Better : When Kirk wonders what possible value a man who's been frozen for the past 250 years could be to the leader of Starfleet, Harrison implies that he was awakened to help militarize Starfleet because as a conqueror from the savage 20th century he has a better understanding of combat and warfare than the more peaceful, evolved humans of the 23rd century. His 20th century genetic enhancements also make him far stronger and smarter than any 23rd century human.
  • One-Man Army : Takes out an entire squad of Klingon commandos and several of their gunships by himself, wielding an assault rifle and a beam cannon .
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business : Inverted: the only scene in which he is not menacing is pure comedy, with him giving Kirk a shocked look at Kirk's casual reply to their imminent space jump.
  • Papa Wolf : He's completely bent on recovering and protecting the rest of his people, and his Roaring Rampage of Revenge is mostly because he thinks they're all dead ( twice ) . He even refers to them as his family— see Even Evil Has Loved Ones .
  • The Paragon Always Rebels : Harrison was Starfleet's best agent before he rebelled. Subverted, however. While he could be considered a "paragon" in the sense of his physical and mental abilities, Khan was never truly a Starfleet agent (or if he was, it wasn't by choice); that position, like the entire identity of "John Harrison", was nothing but a lie fabricated by Section 31.
  • Depending on how you look at it, using his blood to cure Lucille Harewood of her illness could count at this. Granted, Harrison was most likely manipulating her father's desperation to get him to agree to carry out a terrorist attack for him, but even so, he could have found someone easier to coerce.
  • Also, his saving Uhura from the Klingons by attacking before they kill her. She was distracting them from him while alive, but her death itself would have been just as good. And sure, it was probably in his favor to keep all of the Starfleet officers alive, since a MORE pissed-off Kirk might have been less receptive to what he had to say, but it's not like Harrison needed a communications officer alive to carry out his plans.
  • Poisonous Captive : The Enterprise crew manage to shut Harrison in the brig, only to receive a withering Hannibal Lecture from him.
  • Pride : His defining character trait is his certainty in his own superiority. The hell of it? He's not even wrong. This is a man so ridiculously good at literally everything that he nearly single-handedly designed an entire militarized sub-Starfleet and then nearly destroyed the entire Starfleet/Federation edifice on his own , with no help from anyone else.
  • Race Lift : He goes from being played by the brown-faced make-up-wearing , Mexican Ricardo Montalban to the white-skinned, British Benedict Cumberbatch. And Khan is meant to be Indian, which neither men are. The tie-in comics detailing his youth and origins reveal that he is really Indian. It's shown that Admiral Marcus gave him extensive plastic surgery along with a memory wipe in an attempt to recruit him as a Section 31 super-operative.
  • Really 700 Years Old : The guy's been in cryo for 300 years.
  • Retired Monster : He wanted to be this... but they wouldn't let him sleep.
  • The Reveal : His true identity is Khan Noonien Singh, of Space Seed and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , a genetically modified superhuman who had been awoken after centuries of cryosleep by Admiral Marcus and forced to develop advanced weapons.
  • The Rival : While he shares several traits with Spock, he and Kirk's relationship has a somewhat competitive edge to it. What did you expect? It's Kirk vs. Khan the remake. They also have a pretty clear understanding of each other, and both are cunning enough to prepare for their inevitable betrayal during an Enemy Mine . And without his revenge hard on from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Khan proves the victor, because he is "better."
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge : Is out to take revenge on the entire Federation for what he believed was the murder of his beloved crew .
  • Rogue Agent : Was Starfleet's best agent before a perceived betrayal by his superiors sent him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the entire Federation. It's a cover story for his work at Section 31 and his true identity.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant : Khan, in a change up from the original chain of events, ends up with Spock as his primary adversary in this film. He lacks the grudge that defined him from being marooned by Kirk in the prime-timeline, and ends up spending more time in an Enemy Mine with Kirk than he does fighting him, since without that glaring flaw of It's Personal with Kirk, he can make wiser decisions around him. Kirk still seems to gain his respect as a Worthy Opponent with a similar care for his crew, but this movie might be called Wrath of Spock once Kirk's Almost Dead .
  • Sealed Evil in a Can : A former Evil Overlord accused of war crimes, cryogenically frozen for centuries in a derelict ship... until Starfleet Intelligence found him. He ends the film this way, too.
  • Self-Serving Memory : Khan described himself and his followers as being meant to "lead others to peace in a world at war" before being branded as criminals and forced into exile. While it's likely that this genuinely is how Khan sees himself, he conveniently leaves out the minor detail that he and his crew were war criminals who did everything in their power to take over the world. This is quite similar to the scene in Space Seed where Khan gives another romanticized description of the Eugenics Wars, stating that he and the other supermen "offered the world order" and an attempt to unify humanity.

noonien singh star trek

  • Shrouded in Myth : His reputation as Starfleet's top agent precedes him. In his past life, he was also an infamous superhuman tyrant, who was so feared that by the 24th century of the origin timeline his name was apparently on par with Hitler's as shorthand for ultimate evil.
  • Smug Super : Harrison is well aware of his superhuman abilities and makes no effort at false modesty. Harrison: I am better. Kirk: At what? Harrison: Everything .
  • The Social Darwinist : Implied. Spock says that he intends to destroy those he deems inferior. Khan doesn't confirm it, but he doesn't deny, either. The tie-in comics show that Khan genuinely saw himself as humanity's savior and that (unlike some of the other Augment rulers) he explicitly wanted to rule, not destroy. However, the methods he employed to achieve his goal (including nuking Washington D.C. and Moscow) would certainly justify humanity recording in their history that he was an Omnicidal Maniac .
  • Spared by the Adaptation : Khan notably died at the end of his outing in The Wrath of Khan , but was simply put back on ice in Into Darkness — definitely a kinder fate.
  • The Spock : To Admiral Marcus's Kirk . Cold, calculating, and brilliant.
  • The Spook : He worked for Section 31 before the film started.
  • The Stoic : He's usually very calm and calculating.
  • Superhuman Transfusion : Being injected with Harrison's bio-augmented blood temporarily grants others his Healing Factor .
  • Super-Toughness : Barely even flinches when Kirk tries beating on him as hard as he can. Also, nothing seems to be able to incapacitate him for more than a few moments. It takes a Vulcan nerve pinch, a dozen or so point-blank stun phaser hits, a vicious Tap on the Head , then an arm-break, all in rapid succession to finally stun him enough for Spock to get the upper hand.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute : Shares a number of character traits with Khan Noonien Singh from Space Seed and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . That's because he is Khan.
  • Tom the Dark Lord : "John Harrison" isn't an impressive name for a villain. Subverted, as it's actually an alias disguising his true identity as A Villain Named Khan .
  • Tragic Villain : To an extent. See Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds .
  • Transhuman : Harrison has gained superhuman abilities thanks to a little genetic engineering , including a decent Healing Factor , Super-Intelligence , Super-Strength and Super-Toughness .
  • The Unfettered : Khan would do anything for his crew, and after believing them dead, would do anything to avenge them.
  • Villain Episode : Like Nero, he stars in a comic book mini-series exploring his background. The Race Lift issue is brought up on the very first page, with Kirk pointing out at his trial that "Harrison" looks nothing like the very Indian Khan.
  • Villain Respect : As expected from Khan, he gains some genuine, if condescending, admiration of Kirk, especially during their Enemy Mine , and even seems intrigued by Kirk’s reference to his adventure in the preceding film. However, without the It's Personal nature of their feud in the original timeline, Khan is more of a No-Nonsense Nemesis towards Kirk here, and wastes no time in incapacitating him without any fanfare when their alliance is done.
  • Villainous Breakdown : After believing that his crew had been killed, Khan seems to decide "screw it all" and sets the fatally damaged Vengeance on a collision course with San Francisco. The breakdown continues during his fight with Spock. Any emotional control he'd had before is gone , and he brutally pummels Spock in sheer, undiluted rage.
  • Hell, most of the DVD's, Blu-Rays, and even a few digital services outright state who he is.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist : Believes he's ultimately doing what's best for humanity, regardless of what they think.
  • Wham Line : "My name is Khan."
  • Wicked Cultured : Harrison is pretty well spoken for a madman and even paraphrases Moby-Dick (a book that Khan loved in the Prime timeline) at one point when he beams Kirk, Carol and Scotty off of the Vengeance and back onto the Enterprise . Harrison : No ship should go down without her captain .
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds : He may be a bit of an asshole, as well as a ruthless killing machine, not to mention an Evil Overlord at one point, but he's been frozen for 250 years, then turned into a killing machine by the Federation, then tried saving his crew only for Admiral Marcus to take them away from him once again. It's a bit hard not to feel sorry for him.
  • Would Hit a Girl : Breaks one of Carol Marcus' legs.
  • Your Head A-Splode : He can do this with his bare hands and seems to reserve it for people who have really pissed him off. Just ask Admiral Marcus . He also tries to do the same to Spock during their fight and would have succeeded if Uhura hadn't beamed down.
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Heroes Wiki

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La'an Noonien-Singh

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Stop hand

She is portrayed by English actress Christina Chong .

Biography [ ]

Noonien-Singh was born on the colony world Alpha I on December 8, 2228 to Sa'an and Ronu Noonien-Singh. She had a brother named Manu. Noonien-Singh and her family were descendants of the Augment tyrant Khan Noonien Singh , who had fathered at least one child prior to leaving Earth in the 1990s. Noonien-Singh had a difficult childhood, being bullied by others due to her connection to Khan. When her family was traveling on the SS Puget Sound the ship was captured by the Gorn. She and the other passengers were taken to a Gorn nursery. Her family and the other passengers were all killed and used as nourishment for Gorn hatchlings. Noonien-Singh was set adrift in a small spacecraft, which was rescued by the USS Martin Luther King Jr. She became friends with Ensign Una Chin-Riley , who helped her through the ordeal. Inspired by Chin-Riley, Noonien-Singh joined Starfleet herself.

In 2259 she was posted to the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike as the ship's acting first officer. At the time she held the rank of Lieutenant. The Enterprise traveled to Kiley 279 to rescue Chin-Riley, who had gone missing during a mission to make first contact with the Kiley people. After rescuing Number One and Pike got the different factions on the world to make peace with each other, Noonien-Singh remained on the Enterprise , and became the ship's new security chief.

Later in 2259 her knowledge of the Gorn was crucial to ensuring the survival of the USS Enterprise after the Gorn attacked a colony and then the USS Enterprise . When a young colony survivor named Fig described the clicking noises made by the aliens who had invaded their colony La'an realized the attackers were likely Gorn and signaled the bridge. When the Gorn ships revealed themselves Enterprise was heavily damaged with seven crew and three civilians being killed in the attack. With assistance from Mr. Spock she was able to retrieve memories that helped her decode messages sent between the Gorn, and fake a message that caused one of the attacking Gorn ships to turn on the other one and destroy it.

While the Enterprise was being repaired at Starbase 1 and the crew off on shore leave, she and Chin-Riley were among the few crew not to go on shore leave. Discovering a game called "Enterprise Bingo" that junior officers and enlisted people played where they had to perform certain tasks without getting caught the two decided to play the game. The pair one-upped the unsanctioned space walk on the list by extending a forcefield and atmosphere over the hull of the Enterprise so they could walk on the hull without spacesuits, and both signed the oldest hull plate attached to the ship.

After another harrowing encounter with the Gorn that led to the death of chief engineer Hemmer, Noonien-Singh took a leave of absence from Starfleet. However, she would soon contact the Enterprise crew to assist her in stopping a plot to reignite the Federation-Klingon War. Afterwards, she rejoined the Enterprise crew and played a pivotal part in defending Una from a Federation tribunal after Una was exposed as an Illyrian.

Navigation [ ]

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Memory Alpha

Noonien Soong

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Doctor Noonien Soong , who was nicknamed " Often Wrong ", was one of the Federation 's leading cyberneticists during the 24th century .

  • 2.1 Appearances
  • 2.2 Background information
  • 2.3 Apocrypha
  • 2.4 External link

History [ ]

Soong was the designer of at least six Soong-type androids : Data , Lore , B-4 , and a recreation of his wife Juliana , as well as two prototypes . He was a descendant of 22nd century criminal geneticist Arik Soong , who started work in cybernetics that his descendants, down to Noonien, continued. An associate of Ira Graves , as well as a star scientist of the Federation in his own right, Soong's early work was highly regarded, and he promised breakthroughs on the positronic brain . After failing to deliver on his promises, the disgraced and utterly humiliated Soong disappeared. Traveling under an assumed name to a colony on Omicron Theta , he continued his research, unbeknownst to anyone but his neighbors. ( ENT : " The Augments "; TNG : " Datalore ", " Inheritance "; Star Trek Nemesis )

While living on Omicron Theta, Soong met and fell in love with Juliana O'Donnell and the pair married in secret on Mavala IV , keeping their relationship secret because Juliana's mother disapproved of her daughter's involvement with a much older man; their intention was to show her later that they could make their relationship work. Together, they perfected his design and built functional androids with advanced artificial intelligence . Each of the androids created by the Soongs represented an advancement and refinement of the potential for their creations. The first three were failures; B-4 was a relatively primitive prototype android, capable of only the most basic speech and motorization. Lore , the fifth attempt, displayed tremendous advances in cognitive abilities and interaction but had difficulty in adapting to ethical subroutines designed to facilitate interaction among Humans and was emotionally unstable. For this reason, he had Lore deactivated and began work on his sixth attempt: Data, who was the most successful. Despite lacking emotional ability and requiring a "learning" period, Data advanced further and more quickly than Doctor Soong had originally hoped.

In 2338 , when the colony on Omicron Theta came under attack by the Crystalline Entity , Soong escaped, but his wife was fatally injured, and he was assumed dead while in fact he continued his research in secret at a new location. The inert body of Data and the disassembled body of Lore were left behind on the colony, to be discovered later by Starfleet. Soong knew Data had been rescued and followed his life in secret, but assumed that Lore had been left disassembled and inert. Some of the research that he did after the attack involved the creation of an upgrade chip to Data that would, among other things, give him the ability to experience the range of Human emotions previously unavailable to him. Because Soong thought Lore to be still abandoned in pieces on Omicron Theta, he did not research how to correct the flaws in Lore's design or integrate the advancements he later made into Lore, which was his original intention.

Noonien Soong (hologram)

A hologram of Doctor Soong from around the time of Juliana's creation

Juliana Tainer

Julia Tainer

Unable to let Juliana go, Noonien transferred his comatose wife's memories into an advanced gynoid body before her passing. The Juliana android, though still a Soong-type design, greatly advanced Soong's goal of replicating Human abilities in an android. The new android design was so advanced that she never realized she was not the original Juliana. When Soong began to become too caught up in his work, she later divorced Soong, moved away, and remarried. In a recorded message, Soong told their "son" Data about his mother and that he had always deeply regretted putting his work before his wife, admitting that the "original" Juliana would have also left him under the circumstances. Unlike the androids Lore and Lal, who had been made to feel emotions yet had to be turned off as their positronic nets could not handle emotional feelings, the Juliana android could handle emotions as her positronic brain was the transferred recipient of Human memories. ( TNG : " Inheritance ")

Soong was believed to have been killed on Omicron Theta, in the Crystalline Entity's attack, when this massacre was uncovered in 2364 . Three years later , however, he was discovered to be alive and secluded in the jungle of Terlina III , where Soong and Juliana had fled after the attack and where he had continued his work to create a perfect emotion chip for his son Data. In an effort to bring Data to him so that he could install the emotion chip, he activated a homing device that forced Data to hijack the USS Enterprise -D in order to travel to Terlina III. Unfortunately, the same homing signal also attracted Lore, who had been re-activated several years before, an event of which Soong was unaware.

During this meeting with his "sons", Soong admitted that he would have preferred Data to go into cybernetics like him rather than joining Starfleet, but nevertheless expressed compassion for both his "sons", trying to convince them to reconcile despite the disastrous results of Lore and Data's first meeting, apologizing to Lore for his inability to help Lore during their initial time on the colony in favor of working on Data instead. Lore was still angry at Soong and jealous of Data yet when Soong told him that he was dying Lore for a few seconds actually felt sorrow for his father. Soong could not understand why Lore had turned out as he did; to find out he disassembled Lore and then constructed Data. Had he not been forced to flee for his life, Soong would have reassembled Lore to fix him. The only differences between the two brothers was that Lore had a type L-resonator and Data had a type R-resonator. Likewise, Data was different in that unlike Lore he could not respond to emotions. Still thinking Lore was disassembled; Soong spent nearly thirty years make an emotion chip designed for Data own positronic brain. However, angered at the discovery that he and Data were not actually as different as he had initially believed, with the only difference being Data's greater ability to adapt to the ethical subroutines that Soong had given him, Lore eventually disabled Data in order to receive the emotion chip himself, and after it was installed, attacked Soong, hastening his death. As Soong laid dying, Data assured him that he would remain to continue Soong's legacy, and, although he commented that he would not be able to grieve for his creator, Soong's last words assured Data that he would mourn his death in his own way, dying shortly after Data called him "father" for the first time. ( TNG : " Brothers ")

Despite Soong's death, this was not the last encounter Data had with his father. Doctor Soong had implanted a subroutine into Data's base programming, enabling Data to dream when he had achieved a certain level of development. The dream circuit was activated prematurely while conducting an experiment with Doctor Julian Bashir from Deep Space 9 . Data's dreams included images of a young Noonien Soong as a blacksmith , forging a bird that represented Data himself. Data also encountered a holo-recording of Soong when he met his "mother" for the first time; after he discovered that Juliana was an android "duplicate" of the original, he discovered a memory chip that included a holographic recording of Soong he had created to explain the situation to anyone who learned what Juliana was. When Data activated the recording and identified himself, the Soong hologram admitted that he was grateful that Data was the one to find the message, noting that he had created a special program to explain the history of Data's mother to his "son" in more detail than he would have provided if anyone else had activated the chip. ( TNG : " Birthright, Part I ", " Inheritance ")

According to the time traveling 22nd century con artist , Berlinghoff Rasmussen , very few records of Doctor Soong's work survived to the 26th century . ( TNG : " A Matter Of Time ")

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

  • " Brothers "
  • " Birthright, Part I " (dream sequence only)
  • " Inheritance " (hologram only)

Background information [ ]

Soong was played by Brent Spiner (who also played Data , Lore , B-4 , Arik Soong , Altan Soong , and Adam Soong ).

According to the script for "Brothers", "Noonian" Soong was ninety years old in 2367, placing his birth in or around 2277 . [1]

Along with Khan Noonien Singh , Noonien Soong was named after a man named "Kim Noonien Singh", whom Gene Roddenberry had known during World War II. [2] Both names were tied together years later, when it was established on Star Trek: Enterprise that Soong's presumed ancestor Arik Soong (see below) attempted to recreate and perfect the same genetic engineering that had produced Khan.

Data's personnel file

Soong's first name was spelled "Noonien" in the scripts for " Datalore " and " The Measure Of A Man ", while all subsequent scripts (" Brothers ", " A Matter Of Time ", " Birthright, Part I ", and " Inheritance ") spelled the name "Noonian". The original okudagram for Data's personnel file seen on-screen in " Conundrum " used "Noonian", while the remastered version used "Noonien", as did the passenger manifest seen in " Inheritance ". The "Noonien" spelling is used in several reference sources, including the Star Trek Encyclopedia  (3rd ed., p. 455), StarTrek.com , and in the Star Trek: Picard Logs .

The first person planned to "portray" Soong was scenic artist Michael Okuda , who – on the suggestion of Producer Robert H. Justman – was photographed as Soong, to be included in a biographical file seen on a computer readout in " Datalore ". However, the scene featuring the bio was scrapped and Okuda's "appearance" never made it on screen. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation 365 , p. 047)

In " Brothers ", Soong was originally planned to be played by actor Keye Luke , who previously appeared as Donald Cory (in TOS : " Whom Gods Destroy "), but Luke, aged eighty-six by this point, was either unavailable or unwilling to do the part. He died only a few months after the broadcast of the episode. ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode Guide )

Brent Spiner madeup to become Noonien Soong

Via an extensive make-up process, Brent Spiner adopts his Noonien Soong persona

Michael Westmore said that the Soong make-up in "Brothers" was made of seventeen pieces. (" Departmental Briefing Year Four – Make Up ", TNG Season 4 DVD special feature)

Comments by production staff, and the casting of Brent Spiner, indicated that Noonien Soong was the great-grandson of Arik Soong . This was supported by Arik Soong's comment about cybernetics in " The Augments ", when he says that developing an artificial lifeform "might take a generation or two."

Apocrypha [ ]

In Diane Duane 's novel Dark Mirror , which takes place in the mirror universe , Doctor Soong was executed as a political dissident, and, consequently, neither Data nor Lore was ever created. A different version of the mirror Soong appeared in the novella " The Worst of Both Worlds ". He was assimilated by the Borg in 2371 .

In the short story "The Embrace of Cold Architects" by David R. George III (collected in the Star Trek: Myriad Universes anthology Shattered Light ), Doctor Soong plays an important role when he is able to save his "granddaughter", Lal , from suffering a cascade failure (which killed her in the main universe) when she follows her "father" to Soong, when he attempts to give Data the emotion chip. In this timeline, her creation was delayed after Data missed a vital conference, resulting in Data constructing Lal several months later than he did in the show.

Doctor Soong returns in the novel Cold Equations : The Persistence of Memory , which reveals that he survived his death by transferring his mind into an android body far more Human in appearance than Data's. After his remaining 'children' – his three early prototypes, B-4, Lal, and Lore – are stolen by the Breen , he manages to rescue them with help from the USS Enterprise -E , but subsequently sacrifices himself to transfer Data's memories from B-4 into his own body, unable to complete the new body he had been attempting to construct due to a recent Borg invasion and the Breen's subsequent attack on his lab. This transfer results in Data acquiring all of Soong's memories and a new ability to use contractions, although he still chooses not to use them, out of habit.

External link [ ]

  • Noonien Soong at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
  • 2 Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • 3 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)

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Published Jun 30, 2023

RECAP | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 203 - 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

They're on a mission to protect something beautiful - the future of humanity.

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Illustrated banner of La'An and James Kirk holding a temporal device

StarTrek.com

In the previous episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ,' " Ad Astra per Aspera ," Commander Una Chin-Riley is acquitted of the charges against her, which included falsifying records, violating Starfleet's code on genetic modification, and two counts of sedition, and granted her request of asylum.

While staying aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise ahead of trial, defense lawyer Neera Ketoul got to know Una's crew as well as their thoughts on the Eugenics War, Augments, and their ship's first officer. Sensing La'An Noonien-Singh's internal shame, Neera assures her that "genetics is not destiny." She wasn't born a monster; just "born with the capacity for actions, good or ill."

In " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ," La’An travels back in time to 21st Century Earth to prevent an attack which will alter humanity’s future history. — and bring her face-to-face with her own contentious legacy.

Illustrated banner with text 'Personnel'

  • La’An Noonien-Singh
  • Dr. Joseph M'Benga
  • James T. Kirk
  • Nyota Uhura
  • Erica Ortegas
  • Sera, photographer
  • Khan Noonien Singh
  • Christopher Pike
  • Una Chin-Riley (Number One)

Illustrated banner with text 'Locations'

  • U.S.S. Enterprise
  • United Earth Fleet ship Enterprise
  • Sh'Rel
  • Toronto, Canada, 21st Century
  • Archaeology Department, Vermont, United States, 21st Century
  • Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement

Illustrated banner featuring text 'Event Log'

As the U.S.S. Enterprise cruises through space, Lt. La’An Noonien-Singh deals with a number of minor crises on the ship, ranging from an argument between a Denobulan cadet and Chief Jay to a noise complaint against Spock and his Vulcan lute. La’An also investigates relics with “suspicious provenance” in Commander Pelia’s possession — one of which boasts a tag declaring it the property of the Archaeology Department, though the chief engineer credits living through every type of natural disaster and economic calamity for turning her into a packrat. Pelia even maintains a bunker she previously resided at in Vermont in case the “whole no money, socialist utopia thing” turns out to be a fad. A security officer brings a painting to La’An’s attention, but Pelia protests that it is a fake and the Louvre must stop calling her.

La’An vents her frustration in a sparring session with Dr. Joseph M’Benga, who notes the security chief didn’t attend the party for Una in the captain’s quarters. Feeling lonely, La’An leaves and wanders the corridors until she sees a bright flash followed by a man in a grey suit stumbling. Wounded by a bullet, the stranger explains that there has been an attack in the past and La’An must stop it. He hands her a piece of tech and tells her to get to the Bridge as a shimmering wave ripples through the hallway. Suddenly, the klaxon siren resonates across the deck, signaling the ship is at Red Alert. The man dies, then disappears; La’An heads to the Bridge — only to discover James T. Kirk in the captain’s chair.

Captain Spock of the Sh'Rel on the viewscreen in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"

At a loss for words, La’An looks on as Ensign Nyota Uhura announces an incoming hail from a Vulcan ship. Spock appears on the viewscreen, and Kirk identifies himself as captain of the United Earth Fleet ship Enterprise . In command of the vessel Sh'Rel , Spock requests Earth’s assistance in Vulcan’s fight against the Romulan Star Empire. Without Earth’s support, Vulcan faces certain defeat, but Kirk regretfully replies that humanity can’t fight a war on two fronts. Uhura closes the channel, and the Bridge crew stares at La’An until she asks Kirk for a discussion in private.

In the Ready Room, Captain Kirk reacts in disbelief to the notion that La’An is from an alternate timeline. She hypothesizes that the attack mentioned by the man in the grey suit must have changed the future. The security chief brandishes the device he gave her and presumes it protected her from the shifting reality. Believing the stranger wanted La’An to seek out this version of Kirk for help, she denies the captain’s appeal to study the device.* As Kirk attempts to grab the tech, La’An presses a glowing green button — the two vanish in a burst of light…

James Kirk and La'An both grip the same device in city alley near graffitied garbage bins in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

…and find themselves in a cluttered alley. Now red, the device’s button no longer functions. Kirk is puzzled and panicked, but La’An focuses on the task at hand — preventing a time-traveling assassin from succeeding. Lacking a tricorder, communicator, or phaser, the two enter a crowded square in the middle of a city. Kirk thinks they’ve landed in mid-21st Century New York City, but La’An observes they’re in Toronto, the largest city in what was known as Canada — home to maple leaves, politeness, and poutine. Admitting he’d never been to Earth, the captain reveals he was born on the U.S.S. Iowa . In his time, Earth was left in ruin.

The chilly temperature sends the pair to a nearby department store, where Kirk is befuddled by the concept of a revolving door. They switch their uniforms for suitable casual wear, but their lack of currency proves problematic. La’An slips an item into another shopper’s bag; the unwitting shoplifter sets off alarms as she exits, allowing the two time travelers to sneak out. Back on the street, Kirk employs his “marketable 21st Century skills” in a series of outdoor chess matches to obtain a pile of cash. Afterward, the captain classifies the game’s old-fashioned, two-dimensional version as “idiot’s chess.”

James Kirk and La'An stand in a department store in front of turnstile door in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

Spotting a food cart, James orders two hot dogs as La’An tries to figure out their next step. Unsure of how to proceed, the pair stumble across a majestic sunset which captivates Kirk. He compares the view to videos from his version of Earth which show clouds of ash that won’t clear for 1,000 years. His timeline also boasts underground lunar habitats that have no view of the sun at all. James laments for another moment before declaring that one shouldn’t skip good hot dogs when you can get them. La’An suppresses a smirk, while a single bite from the hot dog prompts Kirk to head back to the stand and order a second snack for himself.

Settled into a hotel room for the night, La’An tosses and turns in bed, finally casting the sheets aside and walking over to the living area. She gazes silently at James, who appears to be fast asleep on the couch. The security shief lingers, departing just before Kirk stirs and turns toward where she had stood. The next morning, La’An writes a list of 21st Century historical events in the hope of figuring out what has changed. She asks Kirk to do the same, though he seems more interested in the hotel’s shower and mini-bar. La’An pressures him to focus, and James’ mood immediately becomes serious. Considering his knowledge of temporal mechanics, he knows this is a fork in the road — if they fix La’An’s timeline, they will destroy his . She counters, claiming his timeline isn’t supposed to exist.

La'An and James Kirk look out the window ahead of them in shock

Kirk believes it’d be best for him to enjoy this century’s comforts and then find a way home. His reality is not ideal, but humans have made the stars their home. Settlements are located on the moon, Mars, Venus, and Europa— La’An interrupts, outlining her Earth’s colonization of dozens of worlds and its vital membership in a Federation of species. The argument escalates, with Kirk asserting other species are needed for survival and La’An questioning whether merely surviving is enough. La’An admits that things got bad in her 21st Century, but first contact with the Vulcans ushered in a utopian era and allowed Earth to help the galaxy. She explains that James could be an explorer, particularly as she had heard stories about him from his brother Sam. This revelation catches Kirk’s attention, as Sam had died in his reality. The debate is interrupted by a thunderous explosion; the two look out the hotel’s window to see a section of the Lake Ontario Bridge consumed in fire and crumbling.

La’An realizes the grey-suited man’s “get to the bridge” comment probably referred to this structure rather than a starship’s command center. An hour later, police officers and rescue workers are on scene as reporters and civilians watch the scene in horror. Despite the tragedy, La’An and James agree that this event occurred in both of their timelines. The security chief notices a suspicious piece of wreckage and asks a nearby photographer if she can inspect her pictures. After spying charring on a piece of debris that she interprets to be a photonic bomb’s tell-tale signature, La’An notes that Earth isn’t supposed to have that technology for another 100 years.

La'An and James Kirk driving in a red car concerned at what they see ahead in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

As the burned wreckage is loaded into a van, Kirk jumps into action. He subdues a civilian with a Vulcan nerve pinch to confiscate a sporty red car. James spent six months in a Denobulan prison camp, and his cellmate was a Vulcan. He smiles as he informs La’An that he also learned how to make Plomeek soup in the toilet. James initially struggles with the vehicle, but he works out the issues and drives after the van. La’An emphasizes the need for discretion, and he replies that ‘discreet’ is his middle name. La’An remarks that his personnel file indicated his real middle name was some insane — Kirk interjects, saying that Tiberius was also his grandfather’s name. Calling it the least discreet moniker possible, La’An sarcastically asks if Sam’s full name is “Sam Aurelius Augustus Benedictus Kirk,” but James states Sam is his middle name — most people call him George.

The conversation turns to La’An’s family, and James mispronounces her surname as “Noonien-Soong.” She registers that he never heard of her infamous ancestor, Khan Noonien-Singh. The car chase intensifies — James speeds up to keep track of the van. His wild maneuvers draw unwanted attention from a police officer, who calls in reinforcements to aid him in pursuing Kirk and La’An’s vehicle. The police cars block James’ route, leading to his arrest. Suddenly, the photographer from the bridge crime scene calls out from the sidewalk. She is streaming the encounter from her phone and accuses the officers of purposely pulling over a famous civil rights attorney. As a ruse, the photographer identifies James as a doctor who defends victims of tyrannical law enforcement overreach. Uninterested in the attention, the officer agrees to let Kirk go with a warning.

A Romulan disguised as a human photographer Sera in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

The police vacate the area, and the photographer introduces herself as Sera, while La’An and James call themselves Vanessa and Jim. She discloses that she was also following the van. She hopes to prove her personal theory that the bridge - a symbol of international cooperation - was destroyed so humanity would keep fighting each other rather than the real threat — aliens! James awkwardly gestures toward La’An and notes that “his wife” had been abducted in the past. The three continue their chat as they walk the streets, and Sera describes an international cabal of world governments that she thinks maintains a facility to study alien tech. She has even heard this group has a cold fusion reactor somewhere in Toronto which powers their entire operation. The photographer hypothesizes that many disasters — the Chernobyl meltdown, Tunguska event, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and many more — are all intended to slow down human progress.

The three grab a bite to eat at a restaurant, and the two time-travelers confer while Sera is away from the counter. La’An remains skeptical and perceives the young woman as being unhinged, but Kirk credits the photographer for her ingenuity. Sera returns and shows off a series of mysterious images she retrieved from the internet, one of which features a vessel traversing the sky. James glares at the photographer’s tablet in recognition, his suspicions increasing when she displays surveillance footage of the man who hauled off the wreckage waiting near the bridge 15 minutes before the explosion.

Exiting the building, Sera voices her appreciation for La’An and James hearing her out and not telling her she was crazy. She walks off, allowing Kirk to tell La’An why the picture of the ship sparked his interest — it’s a Romulan Bird-of-Prey. James confirms that there is an experimental cold fusion reactor residing somewhere in the city, because a Romulan first strike destroyed the facility and wiped out Toronto in his timeline. None of that happened in La’An’s version of history, but how can they locate and defend the reactor without a tricorder? Kirk playfully wonders if she had taken any engineering extension courses and was capable of building a cold fusion detector from scratch. The pair pass a television as it delivers a weather report about Vermont, reminding La’An that she might know someone living in that state.

La'An and James Kirk stand outside The Archaeology Department: Antiques & Rare Finds in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

Sometime later, La’An and James exit a taxi outside of a small building ensconced in Vermont’s snowy backcountry. The shop's name, The Archeology Department Antiques & Rare Finds , is spray painted on its forward wall, and Pelia answers the door. The security chief recounts their journey — bribing a border guard, taking a cab, riding four buses — and surprises Pelia by revealing the engineer’s name. She lets the two into her shop, which happens to be cluttered with artifacts — some of which accumulated in Pelia’s collection on the Enterprise . She divulges that she knows Pelia is a Lanthanite, an ancient sect of beings who live impossibly long lives and had fit in amongst humans for thousands of years. La’An points at the painting she saw on the Enterprise and professes Pelia stole it from the Louvre.

Pelia is visibly confused and curious as to how La’An learned this information. La’An confesses she knew Pelia had worked somewhere called “The Archeology Department,” though she initially assumed it had been an actual archaeology department. A search of universities proved fruitless, but they stumbled upon a guy at an electronics store who taught James how to use an internet search. La’An struggles to detail her exact relationship to Pelia without influencing the timeline, finally settling on outlining her goal to protect humanity’s fragile future. Since they all have brain-melting secrets, Pelia agrees to help. However, she’s not an engineer — she works retail! Pelia has not taken a math class since Pythagoras “made the crap up.” She commiserates with James and La’An over beers, insisting she thought cold fusion was pretend, just like Bigfoot or lasers. Frustrated, Kirk states that lasers are also real. Pelia is insulted, but La’An reasons that they need to search for the reactor’s byproducts — excess heat, neutrons, and tritium.

La'An stands in the middle with both hands up calming James Kirk and Pelia in an Earthly home in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

Pelia associates the term tritium with old divers’ watches from the 1980s. She pulls one off of a shelf, claiming the watches lit up until the tritium ran out after 20 years. La’An continues the train of thought — tritium gives off a small amount of radiation, and the watch’s dials must be coated with something that reacts with it, possibly phosphor. James mentions tritium’s short half-life causes it to decay, and La’An deduces it would leave behind residue of the reactive material. She removes the watch’s glass face with excitement, certain that its hands will glow when near a source of tritium. Pelia ponders the notion of becoming an engineer and making an honest living for a change — not that any of her store’s items were stolen, of course.

Back in Toronto, La’An and James have wandered for hours without seeing the watch indicate the presence of tritium. The security chief concedes that she would never have gotten this far without Kirk’s help, and the two share a laugh until James makes his own admission — if they can only save one future, he thinks it should be La’An’s. They pause under the city’s lights, and La’An deliberates over whether they could bring James to her reality.** She lets her guard down, acknowledging that personal barriers often cause her to feel lonely around others. However, James is different. Genuinely unaware of her controversial last name, James initially pretends not to recognize La’An’s references to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing or the Old Testament’s mark of Cain. Realizing his prank, she starts to object, but James moves forward and kisses her. Breathless, she kisses him back.

Sign for the Noonien-Singh Institute in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

The watch’s glow halts the tender moment, and the two ascertain they must be near the cold fusion reactor. Their impromptu detector guides them into a building where they witness a man having his hand scanned and proceeding through a security door. La’An notices the establishment’s sign — Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement — and risks placing her hand on the scanner. The door unlocks, and La’An surmises that it perceived a marker in her DNA. La’An and James spin around at the sound of a voice and see Sera aiming a gun at them. Kirk blocks La’An from attacking and reasons that the “photographer” is actually the time-traveling assassin for whom they have been searching.

Embarrassed that she did not identify him sooner, Sera knows of Captain James T. Kirk’s legacy. The story she told them was true, at least to an extent. Her people — the Romulans — had been slowing humanity’s progress, but she believes they should have gone further than blowing up labs and bridges. Disguised as a human, Sera shocks them by shooting James. Alarms ring as he collapses from the chest wound, using his dying breath to request that La’An say hello to his brother for him. La’An barely restrains her sorrow and rage as the Romulan leads her through the security door.

A door with a child's handwritten label that says 'Khan' in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

Sera kills several guards, but she is not heading to the reactor. That had been Plan A, but she decides to alter her approach by seeking out the genetics laboratory. They arrive in a hall covered in a child’s drawings, and the Romulan urges La’An to open a door with a single word written upon it — Khan. The spy requires La’An’s handprint to gain entry, but the security chief discerns that Sera is there to assassinate Khan Noonien Singh.*** The Romulan’s cabal built computers to predict how certain changes would alter the timeline. Although Khan becomes a brutal tyrant, she states that killing the boy will prevent the Federation from forming and rivaling Romulus.

Many have tried to influence history, and entire Temporal Wars have been fought over it. Sera's frustration grows as she recounts time’s seemingly relentless ability to push back, allowing events to reinsert themselves after each incursion. This was all supposed to happen in 1992, and she has been trapped here for 30 years. La’An defiantly declares that her real name is La’An Noonien-Singh and Khan is her ancestor. The Romulan argues that the device La’An was given will protect her from changes to the timeline, so executing Khan will free her to live a life away from the ghosts of his deeds. La’An momentarily considers it, instead choosing to use the opportunity and disarm her opponent.

La'An uses a towel to wipe away a young Khan's tears in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

During their struggle, Sera manages to place La’An’s hand on the scanner and opens the door to Khan’s room. The fight resumes, but La’An obtains the gun and shoots the Romulan, whose body disintegrates when she presses an implant in her neck. The button on the device which brought La’An here once again shifts its color back to green, though La’An opts not to return just yet. Summoning her courage, she paces through the doorway and finds a boy hiding behind his bed. He asks if La’An is going to kill him. La’An shakes off her uncertainty and assures him that he does not need to be scared of her. She sits with Khan and wipes away his tears. A photo with other children hangs on the wall, so La’An understands that Khan is not the only one of his kind in the facility. La’An tells him that, while it may never make sense, Khan is where he needs to be.

Hearing voices approaching, La’An touches the device’s button and is transported back to a corridor aboard her Enterprise . She visits the Bridge, exiting the turbolift as Pelia insists to Captain Pike that the statute of limitations for an alleged crime had passed decades ago. Noticing La’An, Pike consults her for her opinion. Remembering Pelia’s assistance in the 21st Century, she encourages him to let the issue slide.

Agent Ymalay pulls up a timeline hologram from a device in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow'

Certain that things have returned to normal, La’An goes to her quarters, only to find Agent Ymalay from the Department of Temporal Investigations**** awaiting her in the shadows. A division of the Federation that investigates and repairs damage to the timeline, the department does not exist at this point in the 23rd Century. Ymalay thanks La’An for completing the mission; though she emphasizes that La’An must not share her experience with anyone. Emotions run high, and a tearful La’An reflects on watching the alternate James die in order to protect a mass murderer. Ymalay warns La’An that telling anyone about what transpired could undo everything she accomplished. The agent retrieves the department’s tech from La’An and disappears in a flash.

Taking a seat, La’An glances at the diver’s watch that remains on her wrist. She clutches a PADD and opens up a channel to Lt. James T. Kirk. La’An introduces herself as the Enterprise ’s security chief, prompting James to wonder what his brother did. La’An calms his fears and claims she just needs a place of birth for Sam’s security file. James says that it is the same place he was born — Riverside, Iowa. Smiling, La’An specifies that he was referring to the Iowa on Earth. James confirms the information, offering to tell her the real dirt on George Samuel Kirk if she buys him a drink the next time they’re on starbase together. Kirk closes out the communication, and a wave of uncontrollable grief overwhelms La’An.

Illustrated banner featuring text 'Canon Connection'

* " The City on the Edge of Forever " - In a similar episode, Captain Kirk and Spock travel to the past via the Guardian of Forever's time portal to save not only Dr. McCoy, but their timeline.

** " Yesterday's Enterprise " - On the Enterprise -D, Captain Picard sends the Enterprise -C back to its proper time believing it will divert two decades of war. This episode also sees an alternate Tasha Yar surviving her timeline's erasure.

*** " Space Seed " - Captain Kirk and the Enterprise will meet the warlord Khan Noonien Singh after discovering his spaceship.

**** " Trials and Tribble-ations " - The Department of Temporal Investigations was first introduced in this Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, where two DTI investigators track down the Orb of Time and its involvement in an assassination attempt on Captain Kirk's life in the past.

Notable Tunes

  • "This Is It" - The Home of Happy
  • "Modern Art" - The Black Lips

Illustrated banner stating 'Log Credits'

  • Written by David Reed
  • Directed by Amanda Row

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Jay Stobie (he/him) is a freelance writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to StarTrek.com, Star Trek Explorer, and Star Trek Magazine, as well as to Star Wars Insider and StarWars.com. Learn more about Jay by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In addition, the series airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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What Star Trek Canon Could Mean for This Important Character's Future

With Star Trek's complex lore, there's little place for new characters to have a long future, especially when they're introduced in a prequel series.

This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , now available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek has been gracing the screens and lives of its fans for over 50 years and, in that time, has built up a strong, long-lasting canon of content spanning in-world centuries. With this plethora of lore comes the challenge of introducing new figures, especially in prequel series, of which there are many. One such example is a key member of the hit new Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds' La'an Noonien-Singh. In fact, La'an's involvement in the greater canon goes beyond just that of a new character -- she has ties to its most iconic villain, Khan Noonien-Singh.

La'an has become an incredibly important part of the series and franchise at large, not least of all because of these connections. With the Gorn becoming one of the central villains of Strange New Worlds, La'an's first-hand knowledge is invaluable to the success of her crew and Starfleet. Moreover, her ongoing 'situationship' with Kirk ingrains her into the backstory of one of the series' most iconic characters. Her time-travel romance featured both a long-term intimacy with the franchise's flagship captain and a definitive tie to her ancestor Khan and his future. La'an's future is up in the air, with her volatile, self-destructive personality offering a few possible outs to align with her lack of involvement in the existing canon. Still, her story intertwines her in a way that would make ignoring her impact a risky move.

RELATED: How Strange New Worlds Centers Spock's Development in His Romantic Conflicts

How Strange New Worlds Ties La'an, Kirk and Khan

Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 3, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," cemented La'an's impact on Star Trek's lore in an irreversible way. In this one episode, where La'an chose to save the life of a future genocidal maniac and her ancestor Khan, the writers corrected the prime timeline, and La'an kept in motion the events that would follow her around for her whole life. The emotional episode saw La'an choose the life of an innocent child over freedom from a burden that weighs on her daily, thus allowing the Eugenics Wars to occur as they did in Star Trek canon. In choosing La'an, a new addition to the franchise, to correct the timeline, the minds behind Strange New Worlds created an irreversible moment in the primary timeline in which La'an was not only involved but directly impactful. This episode also saw her become intrinsically linked to Captain James Kirk, an Original Series icon with a complicated history with Khan himself.

Although the Kirk from "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" is not the same as the Kirk in the primary timeline, the Season 2, Episode 9 musical special, "Subspace Rhapsody," saw him confess that he feels as if he knows La'an, despite having no memories of his alternate self. Kirk then revealed that, though he feels a connection to La'an, he cannot act on it because of his pregnant girlfriend, Carol Marcus . Carol would go on to work on creating the Genesis Planet as a direct result of Khan's work during the war. Kirk and Carol's son David would later be killed on the Genesis planet, so when following the threads, it can be said that La'an's choice to save Khan led to the death of Kirk's son. Kirk's relationship with La'an is strong and complicated, so it would be strange if she didn't come to mind during his future interactions with Khan. Additionally, part of their connection centers on the fact that Kirk doesn't see her as connected to the actions of her ancestor, so following that notion could mean that he simply doesn't think of her in the same vein as he does of the villainous Noonien-Singh.

RELATED: Strange New Worlds Reminds Fans People Are Still Flawed in the Future

La'an Noonien-Singh Is a Warrior

With the Gorn forming such a major and repeated threat to Strange New World's Enterprise, La'an's other defining backstory moment has been vital to the crew's survival. As the ship's security officer, La'an is one of the most skilled warriors because of her status as the sole survivor of a Gorn breeding planet. Her difficult life and traumatic childhood have led to an understandably standoffish personality that often leads her to put herself in harm's way. Although La'an has undergone an arc that seems to be opening her up to vulnerability and the need for teamwork, it wouldn't be out of character if her demise came during a big battle or in the throes of conflict. In fact, it would be the easiest way to write out her character.

This path, while simple, would do a massive disservice to her character. La'an's primary objective throughout the series so far has been the safety and happiness of her crew, who serve as her chosen family. She has often put their lives above her own, and a big part of her character development has been her self-belief and the hope for a future she has gained. If killed off, her impact on Star Trek canon would be diminished, as the franchise would have no reason to add her to future events if revisited. Further, her arc as a character would come to a dissatisfying close, punctuated by the fact that those in lasting canon she is closest to, i.e. Spock, Uhura, Kirk and now potentially also Scotty , go on without acknowledging her.

RELATED: Everything We Know About Dr. Joseph M'Benga in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

A Time Travel Alternative Can Work - La'an's Already Been Through It

One way the series could avoid killing off La'an would be to lean into themes the franchise frequently explores, namely time travel. Star Trek has long explored time travel as a trope ; from episodes in The Original Series or in Discovery -- the series has done almost every iteration of the narrative possible. In addition to traveling in the main timeline, there have also been multiple instances of alternate timelines and dimensions, especially in Strange New Worlds. La'an is involved in both instances in her show, first in the Season 1 finale, where she serves as Kirk's Number One on the Farragut, and the other in the aforementioned episode, where she saves Khan.

La'an's exposure to the Department of Temporal Investigations, as well as alternate timelines , sets her character up for a time-related event in which she disappears, and the members of Starfleet are bound not to speak of her, similar to what happens with Discovery . If the writers were to take a similar route, it would easily transition La'an out of the narrative in a way that didn't cut her off entirely, as killing her would. The major downside to this route is that similar to a warrior's end, it would likely result from a sacrificial moment, diminishing her character development. What the team behind Strange New Worlds choose to do with La'an remains to be seen.

Still, hopefully, they lean into the same idea that saw her exit during the Season 1 finale, choosing to pursue humanitarian work that would see her take a step away from Starfleet without losing her conscious contributions to the story. Whatever her end may be, here's hoping it's a long way off, and fans get to continue to enjoy all that her character, and Strange New Worlds , offer to the world of Star Trek.

Strange New Worlds Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Paramount+.

Screen Rant

Every soong character brent spiner plays in star trek.

Besides playing Data and all of his siblings in Star Trek, Brent Spiner portrayed the android's creator as well as various other Soongs in history.

  • Brent Spiner's diverse acting career within the Star Trek universe allowed him to play every Soong character, showcasing his range.
  • Dr. Noonien Soong, Data's creator, focused on creating androids, while Dr. Arik Soong's experiments led to genetic disasters.
  • Dr. Adam Soong, a villainous figure, sought personal acclaim over the well-being of his cloned daughters and was willing to murder to achieve it.

Most remembered for his turn as Lt. Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation , Brent Spiner also went on to play every single Soong character that has been introduced in the Star Trek universe. Starting with Data's creator, Dr. Noonien Soong on TNG , the celebrated character actor has been tapped to play different Soongs throughout Trek 's extended timeline. Each new Soong gave Spiner a chance to show off his acting range , and they also fleshed out the dynasty of Data's mysterious cyberneticist father. The complicated Soong lineage stretches back to the 21st century as seen in Star Trek: Picard .

Since Data was created in the image of his father, Dr. Noonien Soong, it only made sense to have the chameleon-like actor take a turn as the scientist in one of Data's best episodes , TNG season 4, episode 3, "Brothers." The trend continued when Data's ancestor, Dr. Arik Soong, was introduced in that Star Trek: Enterprise season 4 with Spiner returning for the prequel series. Star Trek: Picard not only allowed Spiner to reprise his role as Data, but it introduced Adam and Altan Inigo Soong , both of whom were from different time periods and offered conflicting views of the Soong family legacy.

How To Watch All Star Trek TV Shows In Timeline Order

6 dr. adam soong, star trek: picard.

Dr. Adam Soong was the earliest known Soong, and his encounters with Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in 2024 Los Angeles were the subject of Star Trek: Picard season 2 . Dr. Soong was an eccentric and dangerous billionaire whose scientific obsession led him to the fields of human genetic engineering and augmentation. Adam created a series of cloned "daughters" through the process, though they all suffered from a deadly genetic defect. In the end, Soong's only surviving daughter, Kore Soong (Isa Briones), discovered the truth about her so-called father and destroyed all of his research.

In Star Trek: Picard season 2's dark alternate reality, Adam Soong was considered a hero by the Confederation of Planets.

The villainous Adam Soong made Data's backstory more interesting , as there were parallels between the struggles of each generation of Soong to perfect their designs. Although Adam was determined to find a cure for Kore's genetic defect, he was driven not by love for his cloned daughter, but rather by a desire to make a name for himself. Soong was so obsessed with his own legacy that he was willing to murder Renée Picard (Penelope Mitchell) to prevent her from making a discovery on the Europa Mission that would render Soong's research obsolete. Far from the mad genius of his successors, Dr. Adam Soong's murderous ways were just mad.

5 Dr. Arik Soong

Star trek: enterprise.

In the 22nd century, Dr. Arik Soong came across Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the NX-01 Enterprise crew in Star Trek: Enterprise season 4, and Arik had taken up the twisted mantel of his ancestor, Adam Soong. Star Trek: Picard season 2 revealed that Dr. Adam Soong possessed a file entitled Project Khan, the genetic engineering protocol that led to the creation of Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his reign of terror. Dr. Arik Soong took the genetic research used to create Khan even further. After stealing genetically altered embryos from Khan's Eugenics War , Dr. Arik Soong raised the enhanced children only to have them violently rebel just like Khan did in Star Trek: The Original Series .

Arik Soong's misguided efforts eventually led to a genetic disaster within the Klingon race, as they used leftover Augment DNA in an attempt to create Klingon Augments.

Dr. Arik Soong tried to convince his Augment "children" not to kill anyone, but when they disobeyed him, he helped Captain Archer stop them. After the failure of his Augments, Arik Soong was taken back to prison, where he decided to shift his focus to the study of artificial life. This marked an important shift in the Soong dynasty, as their focus on artificial intelligence would eventually lead to Data and his brothers. Later, Arik Soong's protégés used his work to create Dal R'El (Brett Gray), a Human Augment hybrid, who did not discover his true history until the end of Star Trek: Prodigy season 1 .

4 Dr. Noonien Soong

Star trek: the next generation.

During the 24th century of Star Trek: The Next Generation , Dr. Noonien Soong's legacy was cemented when his creation, Lt. Commander Data, became a decorated Starfleet officer. A misunderstood genius, Noonien Soong created several androids while living on Omicron Theta, including Data, the prototype B-4, and Data's unstable precursor, Lore . While living among the colonists on Omicron Theta, Lore began to believe himself superior to humans and exhibited frightening behavior. Noonien Soong then deactivated Lore and designed better ethical subroutines for Data. Unbeknownst to Dr. Soong, Lore had communicated with the Crystalline Entity prior to his deactivation, and the Entity then attacked Omicron Theta.

Dr. Noonien Soong had none of the deadly intent of Dr. Adam Soong.

Dr. Noonien Soong was presumed dead in the attack, but he had managed to escape and continued his research elsewhere. In TNG's "Brothers," Soong activated a homing beacon in Data and revealed he had created an emotion chip for the android . Unfortunately, Lore also responded to the homing beacon and stole the chip meant for his brother, before fatally wounding his father. Dr. Soong was legitimately interested in creating artificial life and had ditched his family's previous obsession with genetic augmentation. Though his abandoning of his creations led to Frankenstein -like consequences when Lore murdered him, Dr. Noonien Soong had none of the deadly intent of Dr. Adam Soong.

3 Dr. Altan Inigo Soong

The 2385 attack on Mars was the inciting incident of Star Trek: Picard season 1, and the fallout from the attack led to the all-out ban of artificial lifeforms. Picard season 1 introduced Dr. Altan Inigo Soong, who was Dr. Noonien Soong's only biological child , and technically brother to Data, Lore, and B-4. Dr. Altan Soong's pursuits were closer to that of his father than his other ancestors, and he partnered with fellow cyberneticist Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales) to illegally pursue artificial life despite the ban. Soong and Maddox went on to build a laboratory and a community of androids on the planet Coppelius.

Bruce Maddox became convinced that someone within the Federation had been behind the attack on Mars, so he created the androids Soji and Dahj Asha (Isa Briones) to uncover the truth.

Altan Soong remained on Coppelius, looking after his android "children," and working on a means to transfer a person's consciousness into a synthetic body he called a golem. Although Soong originally meant for this synthetic form for himself, he later gifted the golem body to Jean-Luc Picard after Picard died of a terminal brain disease. Soong had also created artificial animals like Spot II and synthetic butterflies, proving he had more diverse interests than the other Soongs. After the ban on synthetics was lifted, Soong redirected his efforts to create a newly upgraded version of Data , that also incorporated the memories of Lore, B-4, and Data's daughter, Lal (Hallie Todd).

Data’s Evil Relatives: Every Soong’s Biggest Crimes In Star Trek

2 the soongs abandoned eugenics in favor of androids, later in life, arik soong chose to focus on artificial life rather than genetic engineering..

The changes in Klingon appearance were the result of Dr. Arik Soong's botched genetic augmentation during Enterprise , and his spectacular failures led him to shift his focus from genetics to synthetics before the end of his life. Arik understood that research into artificial life still had a long way to go and that it would take generations before there would be tangible results. From this point on, the Soongs worked in the field of cybernetics, hoping to create artificial life that was indistinguishable from organic life.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the latest Star Trek series to explore the time period between Arik and Noonien, and it could provide more clues about the Soongs and their obsession with artificial life.

By all appearances, Dr. Noonien Soong had stronger morals than his ancestors and genuinely cared for Data and the other androids he created. Throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation , Data became the Soong family's greatest accomplishment, as he saved the USS Enterprise-D on numerous occasions and achieved his own level of humanity. Tragically, Data sacrificed himself to save his friends in Star Trek: Nemesis , but this was not the end of Noonien Soong's best creation.

1 Data In Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Is Soong's Greatest Success

Picard season 3 brought closure to data and the soongs' star trek story..

After his deaths in both Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Picard season 1, Data was officially resurrected in Picard season 3. During their quest to uncover the Changeling/Borg plot to destroy the Federation, Admiral Picard and his crew found what remained of Data being used for security on Daystrom Station . They quickly rescued their old friend, whose consciousness had been combined with those of Lore, B-4, and Lal . Although Lore's personality briefly took over the upgraded android body, Data became the dominant personality in the end.

By the end of Star Trek: Picard season 3, Data had become as close to human as possible.

With this new human-like synthetic body, not only could Data experience physical sensations, but he could also feel organic human emotions for the first time. When piloting the rebuilt Enterprise-D, for example, Data experienced joy that even Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) could feel. Data reunited with his best friend, Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), and the rest of his old crew, bringing his Star Trek story to a satisfying conclusion. By the end of Star Trek: Picard season 3 , Data had become as close to human as possible, finally achieving his life-long dream and cementing himself as the Soongs' greatest success.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Enterprise & Star Trek: Picard are streaming on Paramount+.

noonien singh star trek

How A '50s Western Series Laid The Groundwork For Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" isn't quite like any other "Star Trek" show, and when it debuted in 1993, it was quite the departure from both the original series and "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Instead of following intrepid explorers on starships trekking across the galaxy, "Deep Space Nine" followed the stories of the people who lived on board the space station Deep Space Nine (DS9) — civilians, Bajoran militia, and Starfleet officers alike. Showrunner Rick Berman was in charge of taking the "Star Trek" universe in a new direction following the success of "The Next Generation," but he ended up looking to a rather old television series for inspiration.

In an interview with StarTrek.com , Berman explained the inspiration behind "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and revealed that he and writer/producer Michael Piller got their biggest idea from a classic 1950s Western. That's pretty great given the fact that "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry pitched the original series as the '50s Western series "'Wagon Train' in space," making at least two "Trek" shows directly derived from mid-century Westerns. While there might not seem like there's a lot of overlap between science-fiction and Westerns, they both have the frontier, lawless territories rife with danger, and the great unknown. The two "Star Trek" shows just dealt with those themes a little differently, in part because they were inspired by rather different shows.

Read more: Why Khan Noonien Singh Casts A Shadow Over The Entire Star Trek Universe

Looking To The Rifleman

Berman explained that it was very important for him and his fellow creatives to do something different with "Deep Space Nine" because "The Next Generation" followed so closely in the footsteps of the original series and they knew they "didn't want to send another crew out on a spaceship at the same time the 'TNG' crew was out on the Enterprise." So when the head of the studio at the time, Brandon Tartikoff, suggested a series inspired by the Western "The Rifleman," it sparked something for Berman and Piller:

"It's a father and a son out doing good deeds on the prairie. This was an era when television executives loved to say, 'Let's do 'The Partridge Family' meets 'Father Knows Best.'' Roddenberry evidently had talked about '''Wagon Train' in space' 20 years before and 'DS9' was ''The Rifleman' in space.' I think what [Piller] and I ended up pulling from that was the idea of a father and a son, and we chose to do the story of a man who had recently lost his wife, who was very bitter, and was sent to a very distant space station that was not a Federation facility. As a result, we could have a lot of non-Starfleet people."

This idea led to arguably the greatest "Star Trek" series of them all  and forced the crew into situations unlike those on any other show in the franchise. The station's captain, Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), was forged in fire and became  the best "Star Trek" captain as a result. Berman and Piller were also right on the money with their "father and son" concept because the relationship between Ben and his son Jake (Cirroc Lofton) is not only one of the best in all of "Star Trek," but all of television.

Father And Son On The Frontier

"The Rifleman" followed rancher Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) and his son Mark (Johnny Crawford) as they tried to do right by the world even though things were rough on the frontier just after the Civil War. Like Lucas, Ben has only somewhat recently lost his wife as the result of war and sets out to try and do some good at the extremely distant outpost of DS9. The relationship between Ben and Jake is one of the strongest emotional cores in the series because they are so dynamic and real while also being incredibly inspirational. "Star Trek" has a somewhat rocky history when it comes to child characters on various shows, with some fans who really loathed Wil Wheaton's Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but thankfully they course-corrected a bit with Jake. Sure, he's occasionally annoying and frustrating, but that's his job! He's a teenager!

Eventually Jake became a fully-fledged member of the cast who had major arcs and growth, experiencing the horrors of war both as the son of a pseudo-military commander and as a budding journalist. He also provided a much-needed counter to Starfleet propaganda and had some truly incredible episodes (including one where an older version of him was played by Tony Todd). Maybe one day we'll get a "Deep Space Nine" reunion the same as the one we got on season 3 of "Picard" and we can see what's become of Jake since his dad ascended to wormhole godhood in the series finale. A nerd can dream.

Read the original article on SlashFilm .

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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COMMENTS

  1. La'an Noonien-Singh

    More Fandoms. Sci-fi. Star Trek. Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh was a female Human Starfleet officer who lived during the 23rd century. (SNW: "Strange New Worlds") La'an Noonien-Singh was born December 8, 2228 on Alpha I to Sa'an and Ronu Noonien-Singh. She also had a brother named Manu. (SNW: "Strange New Worlds") La'an and...

  2. Khan Noonien Singh

    Khan Noonien Singh is a fictional character in the Star Trek science fiction franchise, who first appeared as the main antagonist in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed" (1967), and was portrayed by Ricardo Montalbán, who reprised his role in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.In the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness, he is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch.

  3. Khan Noonien Singh

    Khan Noonien Singh (or simply Khan) was an extremely intelligent and dangerous superhuman. He was the most prominent of the genetically-engineered Human Augments of the Eugenics Wars period on Earth. Khan was considered, by the USS Enterprise command crew, over three centuries later, to have been "the best" of them. Reappearing with a cadre of Augment followers in the 23rd century, Khan became ...

  4. Is 'Star Trek's' La'an Noonien-Singh Related to Khan?

    Khan Noonien-Singh was first introduced in the TOS episode "Space Seed."Khan was a genetically enhanced human known as an Augment. He was a major figure in the Eugenics Wars of the late 20th ...

  5. Star Trek's Khan Noonien Singh Strange New Worlds & TOS History Explained

    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has added new layers to the history of Star Trek: The Original Series' genetically enhanced tyrant Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) proving that the character still has a lasting influence on Star Trek decades after his first appearance. In "Ad Astra per Aspera" Number One (Rebecca Romijn) was put on trial ...

  6. 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds': Christina Chong on La'an Noonien-Singh

    Christina Chong instantly understood her Star Trek: Strange New Worlds character, La'an Noonien-Singh. It was a heartbreaking realization. With an English mother and Chinese father, the actress ...

  7. Why Khan Noonien Singh Casts A Shadow Over The Entire Star Trek

    It was antithetical, then, for Roddenberry to depict the character of Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) the way he did.In the "Star Trek" episode "Space Seed" (February 16, 1967), the ...

  8. Strange New Worlds Finally Corrects One of Star Trek's ...

    This Star Trek: Strange New Worlds article contains spoilers.. At the end of the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, La'an Noonien-Singh makes a shocking discovery. Hurled back to ...

  9. Christina Chong's La'an Noonien-Singh Is Rewriting Star Trek History

    The fact that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds features a character with the last name Noonien-Singh meant that we would eventually get an episode like "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," an ...

  10. STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS' Christina Chong on La'an Noonien Singh's

    Jul 6 2023 • 8:38 AM. One of the breakout characters of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been La'an Noonien Singh, the Enterprise 's security chief, played by Christina Chong. Although ...

  11. Why La'an Noonien-Singh From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ...

    Why La'an Noonien-Singh From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Looks So Familiar. La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) has a last name that tends to get her in some hot water in the Federation. This ...

  12. Who Plays Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds?

    Khan Noonien Singh is clearly a South-East Asian name, but Star Trek cast Mexican actor Ricardo Montalbán. However, this was still a subtle, representational coup. Montalbán was a known actor, though he was mostly relegated to guest spots as "the Latin lover." This was, in part, because Montalbán was incredibly fit.

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    Directly - no. They were both named after Kim Noonien Singh, who Gene Roddenberry knew during World War II.. Additional trivia from IMDB:. During World War II, he had a friend named Kim Noonien Singh; after the war Kim disappeared, and Gene used his name for some characters in the Star Trek series (Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Noonien Soong from "Star Trek ...

  14. Star Trek: Khan Noonien Singh's Last Words Are Deeper Than You ...

    Classic Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) has had a long-lasting legacy that continues into the current canon. Decades after he died in one of the best Star Trek films ...

  15. Who is Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek?

    Khan Noonien Singh is an important villain in Star Trek, and those who don't already know his story are in for an incredible adventure. The character has a long history in the nearly 60-year-old saga, and he remains important to its past and future. Originally appearing in the Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 episode, "Space Seed," the ...

  16. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Reveals Unexpected Khan Connection

    Khan Noonien-Singh is widely considered to be Star Trek's best villain. Introduced in The Original Series episode "Space Seed," Khan (as played by Ricardo Montalbán) would go on to be the ...

  17. Who Is Khan Noonien Singh?

    StarTrek.com highlights one of Star Trek's most notorious villains, Khan Noonien Singh. Related. The Epic Voyage of Star Trek: The Cruise VII. Star Trek Universe. 03:07. Happy International Women's Day from the Women of Star Trek. Star Trek Universe. 03:20.

  18. You've Heard That Name Before: The Name 'Noonien Singh' Explained

    When the crew of the Enterprise on "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" was announced, fans might have been shocked to see the name of the ship's chief of security: La'an Noonien Singh. Played by ...

  19. Characters / Star Trek: The Original Series

    Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Shares a number of character traits with Khan Noonien Singh from Space Seed and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That's because he is Khan. Tom the Dark Lord: "John Harrison" isn't an impressive name for a villain. Subverted, as it's actually an alias disguising his true identity as A Villain Named Khan.

  20. La'an Noonien-Singh

    La'an Noonien-Singh is one of the main characters in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds television series. She is the security officer of the U.S.S Enterprise during Christopher Pike's second five year mission with a grudge against the Gorn. She is portrayed by English actress Christina Chong. Noonien-Singh was born on the colony world Alpha I on December 8, 2228 to Sa'an and Ronu Noonien-Singh ...

  21. Noonien Soong

    Sci-fi. Star Trek. Doctor Noonien Soong, who was nicknamed "Often Wrong", was one of the Federation's leading cyberneticists during the 24th century. Soong was the designer of at least six Soong-type androids: Data, Lore, B-4, and a recreation of his wife Juliana, as well as two prototypes.

  22. RECAP

    In " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ," La'An travels back in time to 21st Century Earth to prevent an attack which will alter humanity's future history. — and bring her face-to-face with her own contentious legacy. StarTrek.com. La'An Noonien-Singh. Spock. Pelia. Dr. Joseph M'Benga. James T. Kirk. Nyota Uhura.

  23. What Star Trek Canon Could Mean for La'an's Future

    Star Trek has been gracing the screens and lives of its fans for over 50 years and, in that time, has built up a strong, long-lasting canon of content spanning in-world centuries. With this plethora of lore comes the challenge of introducing new figures, especially in prequel series, of which there are many. One such example is a key member of the hit new Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds ...

  24. Every Soong Character Brent Spiner Plays In Star Trek

    In the 22nd century, Dr. Arik Soong came across Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the NX-01 Enterprise crew in Star Trek: Enterprise season 4, and Arik had taken up the twisted mantel of his ancestor, Adam Soong.Star Trek: Picard season 2 revealed that Dr. Adam Soong possessed a file entitled Project Khan, the genetic engineering protocol that led to the creation of Khan Noonien Singh ...

  25. How A '50s Western Series Laid The Groundwork For Star Trek: Deep ...

    The two "Star Trek" shows just dealt with those themes a little differently, in part because they were inspired by rather different shows. Read more: Why Khan Noonien Singh Casts A Shadow Over The ...

  26. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Bruce Horak ("Hemmer") and Christina

    115 likes, 2 comments - creationent on May 25, 2023: "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Bruce Horak ("Hemmer") and Christina Chong ("La'an Noonien-Singh") are coming to the STLV: The 57-Year M ...