star trek dr soong khan

The Life And Legacy Of Dr. Soong, The Creator Of Star Trek's Data

E arly in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the android Data ( Brent Spiner ) explained his backstory to his new crewmates on the U.S.S. Enterprise-D. He knew that his creator was a man named Dr. Noonien Soong, and that he was discovered on a distant colony that had been destroyed. Data had no memory of his life on the colony. Later in the series, Data would learn he was not unique, as Soong also made an earlier model named Lore (also played by Spiner). Data had no emotions, but Lore did. Lore was also able to shake off his ethical subroutines and lives his life as a villain. He would recur throughout "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and would be up to no good in every appearance. Lore remembered Dr. Soong and the colony, but, being a devious liar, was coy about the actual details.

In the fourth season episode "Brothers" (October 8, 1990), Data and Lore were remotely "activated" to return to a secret laboratory deep in the galaxy. There, they found Dr. Soong (also Spiner) still alive and very, very old. It was in this episode where a lot of the Soong backstory and philosophy would be filled in, and Trekkies would take furious notes on the new canonical details about Data. 

Dr. Soong explains a few important things about himself in "Brothers." For one, he explained that making an android as advanced as Data is a careful and difficult affair. No cyberneticist has been able to recreate Data, and even Soong himself would have trouble perfecting the model (Lore's antisocial behavior was proof of his troubles). He also lays out, in plain language, why he wanted to make android clones of himself: By making offspring, Dr. Soong feels he can brush against immortality.

Dr. Soong's Background

We eventually learn Soong was the result of a multi-generational obsession with constructing a "perfect human." The Soong family was long obsessed with eugenics, and when that failed, got into building androids. Dr. Noonien Soong was a curmudgeon and an eccentric. His ancestors were largely all supervillains. Perhaps Lore's propensity for evil was an unintentionally inherited trait that Noonien programmed into his brain without thinking about it. 

Some additional backstory: Dr. Soong once worked with a man called Ira Graves (W. Morgan Sheppard), who claims to have taught Noonien everything he knew. When Ira met Data in the episode "The Schizoid Man" (January 23, 1989), he described himself as Data's grandfather. It seems Dr. Graves merely wanted to shunt his consciousness into Data's body. After Dr. Graves and Dr. Soong split up, the latter moved to the above-mentioned colony. The colony was attacked from space by a massive intelligent crystal that consumed living matter, and Dr. Soong was assumed dead in the attack. Lore also escaped destruction by allying with the Crystalline Entity. As punishment, he was disassembled and locked in a blast-proof bunker. (Data later found and reassembled him.)

Dr. Soong was only able to chat with Data for a day before his death at Lore's hands. Dr. Soong aimed to give Data an emotions chip, a widget that would allow the android to feel for the first time. The chip was also meant to fill in Data's missing memories, allowing him to recall life on the colony prior to the Crystalline Entity attack. But Lore stole the chip and escaped. A lot of Data, then, remained a mystery. 

Other Quirks Of Data's Brain

In later episodes, some of those mysteries were revealed. In the episode "Birthright Part I" (February 22, 1993), Data was zapped by a bolt of electricity, fell unconscious, and began hallucinating. It seems Dr. Soong programmed Data with the ability to dream. This was part of his "evolution," as Dr. Soong knew that Data would learn and grow and become more human over time. Dreaming was sort of like Data "leveling up." 

Dr. Soong was also married -- in secret -- to a woman named Juliana Tainer ( Fionnula Flanagan ). Data met her in the episode "Inheritance" (November 22, 1993). She died, but Dr. Soong was able to replicate an android clone of her, effectively making her Data's android mother. But she doesn't know she's an android, and her mechanical system is designed to trick medical scanners. In "Inheritance," it was also announced that Juliana had an aging program that would give her gray hair and wrinkles over time ... and that Data had a similar program. Dr. Soong, then, wanted his androids to look elderly over time. This was a handy way to incorporate actor Spiner's natural aging into a character that was ostensibly immortal. 

Oh yes, and in "Star Trek: Nemesis," it was revealed that Data also had a prototype older brother named B-4. His brain didn't work well. 

In recent "Star Trek" shows, ancestors of Dr. Soong began to emerge. The mystery of Data's creator was solved by a long-running intergenerational obsession that actually stemmed from unsavory motivations. Soongs of the past were miffed by humanity's imperfections and wanted to start tinkering with genes as a result. 

The Other Soongs

Note: "Star Trek: Enterprise" takes place about a century prior to "Star Trek."

In a three-part episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise" -- "Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments," which aired in early November 2004 -- audiences were introduced to Dr. Arik Soong (Spiner), a mad geneticist who had been altering and "enhancing" humanoid DNA. Because he was banned from his eugenics programs on Earth (eugenics are a big no-no in the world of "Star Trek"), he was forced to implant Klingons with enhanced human DNA. This is why the Klingons from the original "Star Trek" looked more human from the Klingons in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." There was finally a canonical reason, and it was because of a Soong. At the end of the three-part episode, after Arik is arrested for his genetic shenanigans, he announces that gene manipulation isn't the right path. Perhaps he'd try cybernetics instead. Of course, it would take several generations to perfect ... 

In the first season of "Star Trek: Picard," set several decades after "Next Generation," audiences found that Noonien Soong, in addition to building robot "children," also had a biological child. This was Dr. Altan Soong (yet again played by Spiner), who was still building androids, even though doing so was deemed illegal. He lived in hiding on a hidden planet with a secret colony of android children. In a very Gene Roddenberry fashion, the androids all wore diaphanous robes. They also all had emotions. Just like with Dr. Noonien Soong, however, the color eventually came under threat from a massive, destructive space deity. Altan would shunt the consciousness of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) into an android body. Picard and Data now have that in common.

There was at least one additional Soong besides.

In the second season of "Star Trek: Picard," the timeline reached back even further. In a time-travel story set in the year 2024, audiences met  Dr. Adam Soong (you guessed it: Spiner), who was already growing clones and tinkering with genes. He had already grown an adult daughter (Isa Briones), but she was only the latest in a long line of short-lived meat-bots. 

When a character from the future tells Adam that his genetic research was about to be halted by the show's protagonists -- because eugenics is icky -- Adam immediately began doing villainous things to them. He ran over Admiral Picard with a car. Eventually, Adam's villainy would be stopped by his latest cloned daughter. As she fled, she trashed Adam's lab. Later, out of the rubble, Adam Soong would extract a folder marked "Khan Project." It seems that Data's distant ancestor would be responsible for creating Khan, the villain from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." 

The above-mentioned Altan would return in a recorded message in the third season of "Picard," explaining he had scooped up the android brains of Data, Lore, B-4, and a few Soongs and shoved them all into a composite body (also Spiner) that looks like it's in its early 70s. That was how Data, who had died twice in the past, was able to return for the series. It's a little farfetched, but Spiner seems to be enjoying himself playing all his characters at once. 

So Dr. Noonien Soong may have been initially presented as a benevolent (if a little self-obsessed) engineer who wanted to build children and push the limits of mechanical consciousness. As "Trek" has progressed, however, he became part of a dark legacy. 

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How Star Trek: Picard’s ‘Project Khan’ File Can Fix Its Biggest History Problem

The 'Project Khan' file seen in the season 2 finale of Picard could be the first step to fixing Star Trek's biggest history problem.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Picard, now streaming on Paramount+.

In Star Trek: Picard fans were introduced to yet another Dr. Soong who happens to look just like Data (or, more accurately, Brent Spiner the actor who played him). In the last scene we see of this character in the past, he’s holding a file called “Project Khan” dated 1996. While it might seem like a quick reference to Star Trek’s most infamous villain, it may actually be the first step to fixing the franchise’s biggest history problem.

The original series’ USS Enterprise encountered the Botany Bay spaceship adrift in the void in the 1967 episode “Space Seed.” There they met Khan Noonien Singh, played by Ricardo Montalban. In the briefing Spock gives to the crew, it’s revealed that from the years of 1992 to 1996, this genetically engineered superhuman—and a group of others just like him—took over the entire Eastern hemisphere and fought a bloody war that killed millions. After the war, he and the other augments were sent into space in suspended animation.

RELATED: Star Trek: Picard Complicates Earth's History with Vulcans

At the time when this was written, 1996 was three decades away. During the second wave of Star Trek storytelling, Khan’s reign came and went in the real world’s history. Yet, despite numerous Trek characters traveling back to our present since, the Eugenics Wars—which lead directly to World War III—have never been retconned. They still happened from 1992 through 1996 as far as the in-universe canon is confirmed. However, the Project Khan file Dr. Soong is looking at in the Picard finale is the first reference to the date specified in the original series since.

The next hard date we get comes from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , episode “Past Tense.” Some characters are sent back to Earth in 2024, which is the same year Picard travels to. It’s just two years before the start of World War III. In Star Trek: First Contact , after an encounter with the Borg, the Enterprise travels back in time to the day before humans made first contact with the Vulcans. That date is April 4, 2063, which is “about 10 years” after the end of the third world war. So, that means the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s, allegedly the precursor to nearly 30-year World War III was separated from it by another 30 years.

When the original series prequel Star Trek: Enterprise aired, they did a few episodes about Khan’s fellows, now dubbed “augments.” This storyline was meant to address the inconsistency of how Klingons looked in the original series versus how they came to look (with advanced makeup effects). While it illuminated a lot about their creation and their connection to the sinister Soong family, it did not go into the war or the timeframe of when everything went down.

RELATED: Star Trek: Picard Reveals the History Between Q and Guinan

As is typical with these big “Star” franchises, in between installments they turn to their expanded universe to address these problems. Author Greg Cox wrote a trilogy of novels to help “fix” the Khan story, including how Khan knew Chekov in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan , since Walter Koening hadn’t been cast when “Space Seed” aired. In these books, Cox takes a unique approach to the Eugenics Wars. While this book is not canon, it is a blueprint for how future Star Trek tales could make it so.

In the Khan book trilogy, rather than lead their conquered territories openly, Khan and the other augments stick to the shadows. Through puppet governments, lies, and fake disasters to cover up the body counts, the Eugenics Wars were waged in secret. Now, the easier thing to do would be to retcon the dates of the war itself. Yet, with the file folder in Star Trek: Picard it seems that something happened in 1996 with Khan, and Dr. Soong was involved. This may be the first step of Star Trek finally addressing the glaring disparity between their fictional history and our real-world one.

In Strange New Worlds while talking to an alien race about how their divisions could destroy them, Captain Pike shows “historical footage” of the January 6, 2020, riot in the US Capitol as part of a presentation on how World War III almost destroyed humanity. The 1990s may have been problematic for the “troubled history of the future” 1960s Star Trek envisioned, but the 2020s seem to be meshing with their pessimistic vision too well for comfort.

RELATED: Star Trek: Picard Gives the Borg the Ultimate Sleeper Agent

Series creator Gene Roddenberry and his fellow Trek storytellers are not fools. They knew that getting into the “history of the future” in the show was a tricky proposition. Thus, since the beginning, various Trek characters noted that the historical records of the mid-20th through mid-21st century are spotty and full of inaccuracies. This detail alone means they could merely hand-wave away any such inconsistency. Yet, putting 1996 on the Project Khan file means that franchise producers Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman are possibly going to address this in a future series, whether it’s Picard season 3 or some other show.

Even so, it’s unclear what Project Khan would be. After seeing the events of Picard season 2, Dr. Soong was likely heavily involved in eugenics projects of the past. So, the file could be details about how he helped created Khan and the other augments. Yet, since the file was dated 1996, it might deal with the creation of the Botany Bay and the hibernation technology. Soong used it to keep his creations alive rather than have them executed for their crimes.

Ultimately, the Project Khan file might just have been an Easter Egg thrown into the Picard season 2 finale by the writers because they’re massive Star Trek fans. Yet, if it does signal a future show or streaming service exclusive movie focused on Khan, the biggest Star Trek history question could finally be answered.

Look for more clues to what Project Khan is in Star Trek: Picard, all seasons currently streaming on Paramount+.

Den of Geek

How Modern Star Trek Gets Khan Wrong

The legacy of Khan looms large over Star Trek, including in Picard and Strange New Worlds. But they keep missing the target.

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Star Trek Picard is, unsurprisingly, an absolutely treasure trove of continuity and easter eggs . Sometimes that’s fun, like when Seven of Nine silences the same bus punk that Spock did in Star Trek IV , and sometimes it’s baffling, such as when Guinan mysteriously de-ages and forgets Picard existed some time between the 19 th and 21 st centuries, or Picard’s Hallucination Dad adding a bunch of unnecessary backstory while gloating he kept his hair (despite the fact we already know he didn’t ).

One of the subtler and longer-running threads of this series has been the plot around geneticist Adam Soong, ancestor of Data’s creator and excuse to keep casting Brent Spiner after Data has been killed off.

But Soong’s plotline is more than just “A 400 year-long male line of eerily identical mad scientists” and it ties into a piece of plot arc and worldbuilding that traces back to one of Star Trek ’s earliest and best-loved episodes. It’s also a story that has had its original meaning and message shifted and changed over decades of references and efforts to make it relevant to modern concerns and technology.

Lineage of a Space Seed

Adam Soong’s plot in Picard season 2 revolves around his efforts to cure his daughter’s genetic disease (said daughter is played by Isa Briones, who played Data’s “daughter” Soji Asha in Picard season one, because Data’s family takes family resemblances seriously ). We know that this fascination with genetics is going to stick, because his descendant, Arik Soong (played by Brent Spiner) will be responsible for stealing and rearing to maturity a band of “augmented” embryos leftover from the Eugenics Wars, which are first mentioned in the original series episode and undisputed classic, “Space Seed.”

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For those who haven’t seen the episode, which is likely a small number if you have got this far into the article, “Space Seed” concerns the Enterprise discovering an ancient spaceship from the year 1996 floating dead in deep space. On board that ship is an army of cryogenically frozen soldiers from the “Eugenics Wars,” the “last of your world wars” according to Spock (a matter of some continuity confusion by itself , even if you ignore that these wars supposedly took place during the Clinton administration). Their leader, Khan Noonien Singh, is woken up, then he proceeds to wake up the rest of his people who go on to take over the Enterprise until Kirk stops him.

It is the kind of high concept, one-off science fiction morality tale that Star Trek excels at, and that would have been that, if Harve Bennett hadn’t seen it and realized Khan was the perfect villain for his sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture .

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan became an instant classic, and the benchmark all future Star Trek movies were measured by, and so the Eugenics Wars became a cemented piece of Trek lore, even as the actual ‘90s came and went.

Khan would next be mentioned quite a while later, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Dr Bashir, I Presume?” In that episode, Rear Admiral Bennett (named after Harve?) says, “Two hundred years ago, we tried to improve the species through DNA resequencing. And what did we get for our troubles? The Eugenics Wars. For every Julian Bashir that can be created, there’s a Khan Singh waiting in the wings – a superhuman whose ambition and thirst for power have been enhanced along with his intellect. The law against genetic engineering provides a firewall against such men. And it’s my job to keep that firewall intact.”

The plot is continued through “Statistical Possibilities” and “Chrysalis” where we learn what happens to other genetically augmented humans in the 24 th century.

The next time Khan would come up was in Star Trek: Enterprise ’s trilogy of episodes, “Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” and “Augments” where Brent Spiner returns to play Data’s creator’s ancestor, Arik Soong who has stolen frozen embryos that survived the Eugenics Wars and allowed them to grow to term. A later two-parter story reveals that Soong’s research was stolen by the Klingons, leading to a viral epidemic that gives them all flat foreheads in time for The Original Series to start.

And finally, back in the movies Star Trek Into Darkness brings Khan back, played by Benedict Cumberbatch with magic blood that can raise the dead. We won’t dwell on that more than necessary.

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From Eugenics to Genetic Engineering

But across all these stories there is a subtle change. The words “Eugenics Wars” keep getting namechecked, but nobody really mentions eugenics itself anymore. It was always “genetic augmentation” or “gene resequencing.”

These are different things. Eugenics is an act of selective breeding – in the same way we breed fatter cows and faster race horses, eugenics argues we can breed stronger, smarter, healthier humans. Soong’s daughter in Picard would not be helped by eugenics- rather than seeking to cure her, it would argue she should be sterilized (at best) to prevent her disorder being passed on.

Now, you could argue that this is simply a result of our understanding of technology increasing and the stories reflecting that. After all, in one original Star Trek episode, Spock refers to a “black star,” an entity that for all its description sounds identical to a black hole, but we are happy to use the updated terminology in Star Trek today.

But watching “Space Seed” again it is clear the language the characters are using is precise and deliberate. Khan and his crew are the result of efforts to “improve the species through selective breeding,” resulting in “an improved breed of human.” Khan himself is described as “a product of selected breeding.”

Now, there are logical problems here, such as the fact that selective breeding takes many generations to work, and assuming Khan is the same age as Ricardo Montalbán when he played him, he must have been born no later than 1950 — 17 years before “Space Seed” aired, but that’s not an insurmountable problem.

More important than continuity tangles is what “Space Seed” was actually about , because like most of the best Star Trek stories, it is a story with very real moral and political issues at its core.

A Better Kind of Nazi

To understand “Space Seed” you need to understand when it was written. For the episode’s first audiences, World War II was as recent a memory as 9/11 is today. The Nazis had been rightfully vilified, but that certainly hadn’t (and still hasn’t) meant an end to racism or other ideas that the Nazis stood for.

The thought experiment at the heart of “Space Seed” is “Okay, the Nazis were bad, racism is evil, but what about the ideas  underlying  Naziism? If you can breed better horses, why can’t you breed better people?”

So, with Khan and his crew, Star Trek gives us Nazis with the “bad” bits taken out. Khan’s crew is ethnically diverse (even if that’s not exactly shown on the screen). Scotty describes them as “mixed types. Western, mid-European, Latin, Oriental.” Khan himself is from North India, and a Sikh, although this raises questions as Ricardo Montalbán is a Mexican actor descended from Spanish immigrants, and is completely clean-shaven.

Khan’s band are driven by science, not nationalism, and they have dropped any ideas of white supremacy. They seize power in 40 nations, uniting people “like a team of animals under one whip,” but even Kirk and his human colleagues express admiration for Khan as the “best of dictators” to tease Spock, because even in the 23 rd century being an edgelord is a still a thing.

But ultimately the episode shows Khan remains a villain, that if you strip out all the “problematic” elements of Naziism its underlying ideas are still toxic, resulting in a strata of people who think they’re better than other people and entitled to rule over them. The problem with the Nazis was not that they did it wrong, it’s their fundamental premises.

By the time of the actual ‘90s and the early ‘00s, Nazis seemed far more like something from the history books, and our concerns were far more technological. Enterprise tried so hard to reconcile and namecheck its own continuity, it never really stopped to think about what the Khan story was actually about. This leads to weird situations like Archer being told the research that led to the augments could have cured his dad’s “Clarke’s Syndrome” while Soong’s plans to “liberate” a lab full of frozen embryos seems weirdly anti-abortion rather than anything to do with science. The whole plot ends up echoing movies like Deep Blue Sea or Rise of the Planet of the Apes , where the moral, intentionally or not, is “trying to cure Alzheimer’s is wrong.”

Star Trek is going back to its roots with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , a show following Captain Pike and the Enterprise on more planet of the week type morality plays. One of the new crewmembers of this version of the Enterprise is Chief Security Officer La’an Noonien Singh , who appears to be related to Khan despite not appearing to be of Mexican or North Indian descent. So “Space Seed” is not a story Trek is planning to leave alone any time soon. One does wonder why Spock, Uhura, and Nurse Chapel never mentioned working alongside one of Khan’s relations when they met, but that is a problem for another day.

But at the same time, eugenics hasn’t gone away either.

In February 2020 once-respected scientist Richard Dawkins tweeted a lengthy thread defending the scientific efficacy of eugenics as a British political advisor was fired over espousing eugenic ideas. The response to the firing, across the press, was various right-wing commentators saying, “Well, yes, obviously Nazis are bad but…”

Not long after the world was overrun by a pandemic which multiple countries responded to with policies that led disproportionately to deaths among disabled people .

Maybe “Space Seed”’s message doesn’t need updating. Maybe we just need reminding of it.

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Perhaps the best episode Star Trek has done about eugenics or genetic engineering, other than “Space Seed,” didn’t reference Khan at all. In Star Trek: the Next Generation ’ s “The Masterpiece Society,” the Enterprise encounters a human colony where everyone has been bred and engineered for their role in society, and all illness and disability has been genetically removed.

When the colony faces destruction at the hands of stellar core fragment, the solution is found in the engineer, Geordi La Forge’s visor. The world is saved thanks to a tool that was designed to help a blind person see. La Forge himself points out that in this world, he never would have been born. Star Trek ’s vision, sometimes called “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations,” where we provide visual aids and wheelchairs rather than trying to make disabled people not exist, means that it can come up with solutions less diverse societies can’t.

Chris Farnell

Chris Farnell is a freelance writer and the author of a novel, an anthology, a Doctor Who themed joke book and some supplementary RPG material. He…

La'an's Noonien-Singh Family Augmentations In Star Trek: Strange New World Explained

In the latest episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," called "Ad Astra Per Aspera," Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) is put on trial for her genetics. It seems that she was not human as initially thought, but a genetically enhanced Illyrian. Chin-Riley lied about her species and her genetic status on her applications to Starfleet Academy and is now facing a court martial. While this may not seem like a big deal to non-Trekkies, those versed in Trek lore will know that genetic alteration is a massive no-no. 

In the timeline of "Star Trek," Earth underwent a series of devastating wars in the 1990s called the Eugenics Wars. It was a time when genetically enhanced humans moved to conquer the Earth, and largely succeeded. One of the more notorious conquerors of the Eugenics Wars was Khan Noonien-Singh, the character played by Ricardo Montalbán in the 1967 Trek episode "Space Seed" as well as the 1982 feature film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." As anyone who has seen Khan's episodes know, genetically enhanced supermen are prone to domination and villainy. 

Because of the Eugenics Wars, the Federation became incredibly draconian about the practice, strictly outlawing anyone who engages in genetic tinkering. This is not just bad news for Commander Chin-Riley, but also for Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh, Khan's long-lost granddaughter. As a descendant of Khan, La'an bears the same genetic enhancements. Despite inheriting the trait from birth, her genes might put La'an in legal trouble with the Federation. 

Genetic augmentation was most deeply explored in a notable three-part story arc on "Star Trek: Enterprise." "Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments" aired on October 29, November 5, and November 12, 2004. 

The Augments

Trek's ban on genetic augmentation was always lurking in the background of the franchise, but it was rarely spoken of aloud. It seemed generally accepted that tinkering with a child's genes prior to birth ... well, it merely wasn't done in the future. It was not just taboo, it was illegal. 

It seems that Khan, the other genetically enhanced tyrants of the Eugenics Wars — and a lot of Earth's genetic manipulation in general — was perpetrated by several generations of men named Soong.

In "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Dr. Noonien Soong (Brent Spiner) was the creator of the android Data (Spiner), his evil twin Lore (Spiner), as well as his prototype B-4 (Spiner). Later on, in the above-mentioned three-part arc of "Enterprise," audiences would learn about an ancestor of Noonien's named Dr. Arik Soong (Spiner). It was Arik, a villainous character, that had fully implemented an intergenerational gene manipulation project that stemmed from Khan and the Eugenics Wars. Arik was keen to enhance people for his own nefarious eugenics purposes and had been implanting Klingons with altered human DNA to make them stronger. His goals were wholly nefarious, and an illustration as to why altered genetics were banned.

It seems, in so doing, the Klingons began to look more human. This was the in-canon reason why Klingons looked the way they did in the original series, but had enlarged craniums by "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." It seems the altered Soong genes were merely being thinned by normal Klingon reproduction. At the end of the "Enterprise" arc, Arik realized genetics was not an ethical way to build a superman. Maybe, he posited, an android would be better. It might take a few generations ... 

And he wasn't the last we'd hear of the Soong family.

The star of the Khan Project

If we reach all the way back to 2024, we'll meet Dr. Adam Soong (Spiner again). In the second season of "Star Trek: Picard," the show's main cast would travel back in time and meet one of Data's earliest ancestors keen on genetic manipulation. Yes, the goal to create a "perfect being" has been continuing apace for centuries. Adam — also a villainous character — was attempting to build a daughter from scratch, ridding her system of imperfections and illnesses. Adam would eventually ally himself with the Borg (don't ask), and try to assassinate an ancestor of Picard's (again, don't ask). 

Adam's adult daughter (Isa Briones) would eventually learn that her genes were being manipulated against her will, and would destroy Adam's research and flee. The despondent Adam, in digging through the rubble of his burned-out lab, would find a file folder detailing something called the Khan Project. Yes, it seems that Data's great-great-great-great grandfather was the man responsible for kicking off Earth's eugenics project in earnest. One family created both Data and Khan. This would be a shocker if it weren't ... well, if it weren't so silly. 

One might note that I said earlier that the Eugenics Wars took place in the 1990s, and that "Picard" takes place in 2024. Yeah, Trekkies are keen to ignore that. It seems that the future of "Star Trek" keeps getting pushed back.

Which leads us right back to La'an. During the Eugenics Wars, it seems Khan had a child, and that child had La'an. While La'an was not genetically altered, she still carries her grandfather's augmentations. Technically illegal, but given that she is a generation removed, it's likely Starfleet gave her special dispensation. She's certainly not hiding, as she still uses the name Noonien-Singh. 

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The Augments

• Episode aired Nov 12, 2004

The Augments have yet again escaped. While Dr. Soong wants to hide the embryos, Malik has an entirely different and way more cruel plan. The Augments have yet again escaped. While Dr. Soong wants to hide the embryos, Malik has an entirely different and way more cruel plan. The Augments have yet again escaped. While Dr. Soong wants to hide the embryos, Malik has an entirely different and way more cruel plan.

• LeVar Burton
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Brannon Braga
• Scott Bakula
• John Billingsley
• Jolene Blalock
• 14 User reviews
• 4 Critic reviews

• Capt. Jonathan Archer

• Cmdr. T'Pol

• Lt. Malcolm Reed

• Ensign Travis Mayweather

• Ensign Hoshi Sato

• Cmdr. Charles 'Trip' Tucker III

• Dr. Jeremy Lucas

• Dr. Arik Soong

• N.D. Engineer

• Klingon Com Voice

• Operations Division Ensign
• (uncredited)
• Enterprise Crewman
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia This three-part story arc established that in the 22nd century, genetic engineering was completely banned on Earth after the Eugenics Wars, even for genetic research which could be used to cure critical illnesses. At the end of the story, Archer expresses his hope to Dr. Soong that research into genetic engineering that could cure life-threatening diseases would actually be resumed. According to Dr. Bashir in Doctor Bashir, I Presume (1997) , by the 24th century genetic engineering was indeed used by that time to treat serious medical conditions, though trying to genetically engineer Humans with "superior" abilities was still banned.
• Goofs The Universal translator does not translate the Klingon word Qapla' when the Klingon patrol ends the transmission with Enterprise.

Dr. Arik Soong : [Upon hearing a message from Archer, whom Soong was told was dead] He sounds pretty confident for a dead man.

• Connections Referenced in Inglorious Treksperts: The Best of All Worlds: Trek's Greatest Seasons (2022)
• Soundtracks Where My Heart Will Take Me Written by Diane Warren Performed by Russell Watson Episode: {all episodes}

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• keananersdc
• Oct 24, 2019
• November 12, 2004 (United States)
• United States
• Official Site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Network Television
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 43 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Picard & strange new worlds are telling khan's origin story without him.

Khan's legacy now ties into Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Picard, which even hinted at his origin. We explore why Star Trek still idolizes Khan.

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 2's Finale - "Farewell"

Khan (Ricardo Montalbán) is receiving a renewed focus in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Picard even hinted at telling the supervillain's origin. In Strange New Worlds , Khan's legacy continues in the form of his descendant, La'an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong), who serves as the Security Chief of the USS Enterprise years before Khan is discovered in space and revived in Star Trek: The Original Series . Meanwhile, Star Trek: Picard season 2's finale dropped a shocking bombshell about Khan, linking his creation to the devious Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner). Both instances are new directions that separate Khan from his rivalry with Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner).

Khan Noonien Singh is considered the greatest villain in Star Trek history, and his only real rival is the Borg Queen and the Borg Collective. Khan debuted in the classic TOS episode, "Space Seed," which ended in a cliffhanger that was continued in 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . The fact that Star Trek II gave the genetically-engineered warlord title billing, which is the first and only time for a Star Trek villain, cements Khan's legendary status. Khan is certainly one of the main reasons why Star Trek II is heralded as the best Star Trek movie. Khan was even rebooted in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness where he was played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the alternate Kelvin timeline, although this version of Khan wasn't as well-received as the filmmakers hoped. Yet the two appearances by Ricardo Montalbán's Khan are still the standard all Star Trek big bads are held to, and other movie villains like Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell), Shinzon (Tom Hardy), and Nero (Eric Bana) were created in Khan's mold.

Related: Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Ending Explained (In Detail)

Star Trek: Picard season 2's finale evoking Khan was a genuine shock. After he was totally defeated by Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) motley crew and his own genetically-engineered daughter, Kore (Isa Briones), Dr. Adam Soong opened a drawer to reveal a top-secret file dated 1996 and marked "Project Khan." Given Soong's age in 2024, it's conceivable he was part of Khan's creation when he was a young scientist specializing in eugenics . Indeed, the details of Khan's origin haven't been canonically revealed in Star Trek and so, Star Trek: Picard season 3 may be doing just that. Of course, Ricardo Montalbán passed away but given Star Trek's success with recasting legacy characters, it's possible Star Trek: Picard may show the younger Khan or even potentially reboot him to threaten Picard in the 25th century.

Meanwhile, La'an Noonien Singh embodies Khan's legacy in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The fact that she is Khan's descendant was revealed well before Strange New Worlds premiered and he certainly factors into La'an's fierce demeanor and capabilities thus far. In La'an's backstory, she somehow survived being imprisoned by the Gorn, which may be due to her inheriting Khan's physical and mental superiority. La'an doesn't exhibit Khan 's megalomaniacal drive toward conquest, and she doesn't seem to be evil like her forerunner. B It's also not clear if La'an is actually a genetically-engineered Augment like Khan was. Strange New Worlds will explore and define La'an's exact ties to Khan as the series continues and marches towards the supervillain being revived in Star Trek: The Original Series.

The fear of eugenics creating a villain like Khan is an old idea Star Trek is exploring once more, as Adam Soong's "Project Khan" hints. Part of Star Trek's continuing obsession with Khan is because of the franchise's difficulties in creating other great supervillains. Even the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching/Alison Pill) was redeemed in Star Trek: Picard season 2. After all, Star Trek's mantra has always been turning enemies into friends of the United Federation of Planets. Yet Khan is an outlier who stands above all other Star Trek villains. Star Trek struck gold with Khan in the first year of The Original Series  and the franchise continues to draw water from Khan's well 56 years later. But because Khan is long dead, the only stories left to tell about him are how Khan affects his descendant, as in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , and, potentially, revealing Khan's origin, which could happen in Star Trek: Picard season 3.

Next: Picard's TNG Cameo Retcons TOS & Explains A Missing Season 3 Character

Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are streaming on Paramount+.

Soong family

• View history

The Soong family consisted of generations of scientists , including some of the greatest geneticist and cyberneticist minds of their time on Earth and later in the United Federation of Planets . For several Soongs, their work resulted in non-traditional beings the Soongs considered their children .

In the 21st century , Dr. Adam Soong was a geneticist in Los Angeles . ( PIC : " Fly Me to the Moon ") Later in the 22nd century , Dr. Arik Soong was a geneticist who considered switching to cybernetics . ( ENT : " Borderland ", " The Augments ")

By the 24th century , Noonien and his then-wife Juliana Tainer considered androids Data and Lore to be their children. ( TNG : " Datalore ", " Inheritance ") Captain Jean-Luc Picard noted Noonien Soong's penchant for using whimsical names in naming his children. ( Star Trek Nemesis )

• 1.1 Early history
• 1.2 24th century
• 2 Background information

Members of Soong family [ ]

Early history [ ].

• Persephone Soong , genetically created daughter
• Despoina Soong , genetically created daughter
• Persephassa Soong , genetically created daughter
• Persephatta Soong , genetically created daughter
• Prosperina Soong , genetically created daughter
• Artemis Soong , genetically created daughter
• Kore Soong , the only successfully genetically created daughter
• Jaya , adopted augment daughter
• Lokesh , adopted augment son
• Malik , adopted augment son
• Persis , adopted augment daughter
• Raakin , adopted augment son
• Saul , adopted augment son
• Udar , adopted augment son
• Yavar , adopted augment son

24th century [ ]

• Altan Soong , reclusive scientist and Noonien Soong's biological son
• B-4 , Soong-type android prototype
• Lore , first semi-successful Soong-type android
• Lal , Data's daughter
• Dahj and Soji Asha , Data's twin neural progenes

Background information [ ]

The male side of the Soong family were primarily portrayed by Brent Spiner in Star Trek: The Next Generation , Enterprise , and Picard . The female side was portrayed by Isa Briones in Picard.

• 3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

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Published May 24, 2022

Strange New Worlds 101: Genetic Engineering

A deep dive into a divisive Starfleet topic

StarTrek.com

Spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode three to follow!

Welcome back to Strange New Worlds 101! We’ve tackled lighter topics like the Prime Directive and the Kirk family for the past two weeks, but today, we’re diving deep into one of the most controversial parts of Star Trek ’s canon: genetic engineering. This issue has been at the heart of many of Trek ’s most thoughtful episodes, and Strange New Worlds follows this trend.

Genetic engineering in Federation worlds is strictly forbidden after the Eugenics Wars on Earth. We get a hint at the Eugenics Wars when, in Star Trek: Picard season two, Dr. Soong has his medical license stripped away for his work in eugenics ; at the end of the season, the only file he has left is something titled “The Khan Project.” That name is enough to send chills down the spines of most Trek fans, as we know what that points to.

Khan Noonien Singh is perhaps the most iconic villain in the franchise. First introduced in the TOS episode “ Space Seed ,” Khan is a genetically engineered tyrant who, along with his fellow Augments, was banished from Earth following the Eugenics Wars and who later became a rival of Captain James Kirk. The wars centered on Augmented humans taking over parts of the planet and becoming dictators, ruling over their territories with an iron fist. Following the end of the second Eugenics War, which led into World War 3, genetic engineering was banned in Federation space, as Starfleet feared the rise of another Khan.

Genetic engineering might be illegal, but that didn’t stop some Federation families from seeking it out for their children. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ’s Dr. Julian Bashir was revealed to be an Augment in the season five episode “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” and was nearly removed from Starfleet as a result. Throughout the franchise, other societies that engaged in genetic engineering made appearances, but the rule against genetic engineering in Federation space never changed.

Genetic engineering plays a huge role in the latest Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode, “Ghosts of Illyria.” The Illyrians are not a part of the Federation due to their genetic engineering, but they are a friendly species. However, in a dramatic moment, Una reveals she is Illyrian, and the reason that she is immune to the virus spreading across the Enterprise is due to her modifications. The cure may lie in her blood.

The other way that genetic engineering impacts the crew is via La’an Noonien Singh, a descendant of Khan himself. She has dealt with the stigma of her infamous relative for her entire life, which has not helped her when it comes to connecting with others. When Una’s secret comes out, she feels betrayed by a woman who helped her and who she considered a mentor and friend. While the episode ends with their bond tentatively mended, it’s still a shocking and important moment in their friendship.

At the end of the episode, Una offers to resign her commission and face consequences for lying about her genetic background, but Pike does not report her to Starfleet. Will this lead to problems down the road? Only the writers of the show know!

Read our recap of “Ghosts of Illyria” here , and let us know your favorite moment on social!

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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.