Born out of Gene Roddenberry’s desire to reconnect with an old friend; Star Trek’s most popular villain is also one of the most important officers in Star Trek Fleet Command.
The Basics
Khan Noonien Singh is the leader of the Augments in Star Trek Fleet Command. He’s a command officer. The rub with Khan is that he’s going to cost you an awful lot of independent credits to tier up.
Captain’s Ability
Ruthless Mind – When attacking a station, 50% chance of drastically reducing the mitigation of all opponent’s ships and defense platforms for 2 rounds.
The Augments crew was sold and designed to go after stations. Khan’s captain’s ability (which grows with synergy) will make your attacks on stations much more effective for the first two rounds.
Officer Ability
Savage Tenacity – Every time the ship is hit by a Ship or Defense Platform, Khan increases the Critical Hit chance by (1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%)
This is the big one, it’s big against stations, big against opponents, and big against hostiles and even mission bosses. Anything where you’re going to be in a long, drawn-out battle. This makes a bigger difference the higher your level becomes, as the battles tend to last a lot longer, and your ships are going to get hit more.
If you’re hitting a station that’s defended by several ships and defense platforms, you’re going to be hit a number of times in each round, your chances of scoring a critical hit are going to increase in a hurry.
This ability lets him mix well with any battle crew you could put together. He goes well with Kirk and Spock and also put him with Kumak and Nero for armadas. It’s really “dealer’s choice.”
How You Get Khan
On the bright side, I think there are more ways to get Khan than any other officer in the game.
You can get him in Augment store recruiting packs, you can get Khan shards with transporter patterns, and (after some-flip flopping this week), you can still get him by finishing both the Threat From Beyond and Threat From Beyond (Swarm Sunday) events.
The Great Ricardo Montalban
I’ll talk about Benedict Cumberbatch when I write up John Harrison, for this one, I’m going with the great Ricardo Montalban. Montalban’s Khan set the standard for Star Trek villains.
He was born in Mexico City in 1920. He started his film career in 1941 in New York City, starring in three-minute “Soundies” musicals.
Later that year, he returned to Mexico when his mother was dying, and continued his acting career there. He starred in the 1943 film, Santa. (Which, ironically, was not a Christmas movie.)
After several more roles in Mexico, he caught the attention of Hollywood and was cast as a bullfighter in the 1947 Esther Williams movie, Fiesta, and signed to a long-term contract with MGM. At MGM he appeared in films with Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Cyd Charisse, Shelley Winters, and Lana Turner
Here he is playing piano in Fiesta
Leaving MGM
After a couple of poor showings at the box office in the mid-50s, MGM let him go. Not that he was all that disappointed by the move, “I played caricatures of what a Latin is supposed to be like. In reality, we are family men. I should have had the courage of Dolores Del Rio who returned to Mexico and made her best movies there.”
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After leaving MGM, he did some smaller movies, and did the rounds of early television, appearing on shows like General Electric Theater, The Ford Television Theatre, Celebrity Playhouse, Climax!, The 20th Century-Fox Hour, Wagon Train, and Schlitz Playhouse. In each of these, he appeared in television versions of stage plays. In the Chevron Hall of Stars he appeared in Gene Rodenberry’s first onscreen science fiction production,
Here he was in 1958 as a guest panelist on What’s My Line? (As was William Shatner.)
During the late 50s, he hit the Broadway stage in the long-running play Jamaica singing calypso numbers with Lena Horne.
After this, he did still more plays on television, before making the move to guest-starring roles in TV dramas.
Most importantly for Star Trek, he appeared in an episode of, The Lieutenant. That series was the first one created by … Gene Rodenberry.
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Space Seed
In “Space Seed” writer Carey Wilber‘s original treatment, the Khan character was a Nordic superman named “Harold Erricsen”. This evolved in the first draft, where the character first introduced himself as “John Ericssen” but was later revealed to be Ragnar Thorwald, who had been involved in “the First World Tyranny.” (Remind anyone else of the hidden identity bit from Star Trek Beyond?)
Once Montalban was cast for the role, he became Khan, though it was for a time, Sibahl Khan Noonien.
Here’s an interesting interview with Montalban into the character of Khan.
In the 70s, Montalban was in The Name of the Game; Gunsmoke; Dan August; Bracken’s World; Marcus Welby, M.D.; The Doris Day Show; Sarge; and Nichols. He appeared in feature films including The Devil’s Backbone, Escape from the Planet of the Ape, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and The Train Robbers.
Montalban guest-starred on shows like Here’s Lucy; and Columbo.
And he was in the all-star cast of Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood, which starred among many, many others … Madeline Kahn!
In 1972, Montalbán co-founded the Screen Actors Guild Ethnic Minority Committee with actors Carmen Zapata, Henry Darrow, and Edith Diaz.
In 1975, he became the spokesman for Chrysler.
This was the genesis (so to speak) of people saying, “Fine Corinthian Leather” as part of any Montalban impression.
Coming Back for Star Trek II
In 1977, he was cast as the lead role, Mr. Roarke, in the popular and long-running television show, Fantasy Island. He won an Emmy Award for his role in the miniseries How the West Was Won.
It was quite the stretch for him to go from playing Roarke to Khan, and for a while, Montalban had a tough time getting back into the role. He went back and rewatched Space Seed, and found himself back in the role. Critics called it his best role ever.
Montalban brought an intensity to his portrayal of the vengeful Khan. And there was a particular challenge to the role, as Khan and Kirk never meet during the film. This meant that Montalban wasn’t giving his lines against William Shatner, but replying to a script assistant.
And yes, it was his real chest in Star Trek II.
After Khan
After a cameo in Cannonball Run II, he had a guest part in Dynasty which led to a regular role in its spin-off The Colbys. Montalban played the villain in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and guest-starred on Murder, She Wrote and The Golden Palace. He appeared in a role written specifically for him in all three Spy Kids! movies. And he did voice-over work on Family Guy and Freakazoid.
He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993.
His last role was a voice-over part in American Dad! in 2009
Personal Life
Ricardo Montalban wed Georgiana Young in 1944, and the couple was married for 63 years, until her death in 2007. They had four children.
He suffered a back injury after being thrown from a horse in 1951 during the filming of Across the Wide Missouri that never healed. The pain from this injury increased over the years. Surgery intended to correct this injury in 1993 left him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.
Montalban passed away in 2009 from congestive heart failure.
Trivia
The character of Khan Noonien Singh to his name from Gene Roddenbery’s desire to find a man he served with in World War II. It’s perhaps the greatest mystery in Star Trek history because nobody can find any record of Kim Noonien Wang or Kim Noonien Singh or any combination.
- To Find A Lost WWII Buddy, Gene “Star Trek” Roddenberry Named A Villain After Him
- Hunt for Khan, Searching for Gene Roddenberry’s Wartime Friend
And I couldn’t really get through an article about Khan without touching on Seinfeld, could I?
And out of sheer silliness
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