Posted in: Audio Dramas, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: star trek, Star Trek: Khan, Starfleet Academy

Star Trek: Khan: Kirsten Beyer on Podcast Twist, Augment Canon & More

Star Trek: Khan EP/writer Kirsten Beyer spoke with us about the audio drama's finale twist, Dr. Rosalind Lear's future, Augments, and more.

Writer and executive producer Kirsten Beyer has done so much in terms of worldbuilding of the new Star Trek canon at Paramount+ from Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and the upcoming Starfleet Academy, but when it came to help fill in the gap between The Original Series episode "Space Seed" and 1982's The Wrath of Khan, reuniting with director/writer Nicholas Meyer for the commissioned audio drama Star Trek: Khan, she jumped at the opportunity. Originally meant to chronicle the lives of Khan Noonien Singh (voice of Naveen Andrews), former Starfleet officer Lt. Marla McGivers (voice of Wrenn Schmidt), and the Augment survivors of the S.S. Botany Bay, the story expands how they tried to tame a savage world of Ceti Alpha V unaware of the planet's existing dangers, and the cataclysmic event that would devastate the planet, and test their will.

Setting the stage for the story is Dr. Rosalind Lear (voice of Sonya Cassidy), who ends up onboard the USS Excelsior under Captain Hikaru Sulu (voice of George Takei) as the story takes place years following 1991's The Undiscovered Country and Lear trying to investigate the events following "Space Seed" and how much Kirk (William Shatner) knew of the Botany Bay preceding TWOK that ended with the Augments' death onboard the hijacked USS Reliant. Beyer spoke to Bleeding Cool about the twist at the podcast's end of Lear's origins, how she wanted to approach the reveal, if we will see the Federation's controversial stance against enhanced beings in the upcoming Starfleet Academy, set in the far distant future of the 32nd century compared to the podcast's timeline of the 23rd century; and how she navigated through the conflicting canon on the Augments.

Star Trek: Khan EP/Writer Kirsten Beyer on Dr Rosalind Lear, the Character's Future, and Filling a Major Puzzle Piece in Khan's History

When writing Star Trek: Khan, the bulk of the narrative was obviously about Khan, Marla, and the Augments. Towards the end, we got more of a focus on Dr. Rosalind Lear, so as you were planning her storyline, were there aspects of her that you wanted to tease within the narrative about her Augment nature that she inherited from her father for within her interactions with Tuvok (voice of Tim Russ), or was it something that you wanted to save for the reveal at the very end?

I wanted to lay in certain traits in her character and personality that wouldn't necessarily make you go, "Oh, she's an Augment!" from the get-go, or "She's got some of that Khan blood in her." When we did the reveal at the end, which was not all that surprising, it wasn't so much about hiding who she is. Once you find out Marla's pregnant around episode four ("Magical Thinking"), it feels like, "Oh, that's probably who that is," but there were a lot of qualities about her, like the fact that she's not in Starfleet. The fact that she seems to have a chip on her shoulder about Starfleet, not something that we usually see in our Star Trek universe. Most people think Starfleet's great, so what's her problem?

Her "take no prisoners" attitude toward everyone, particularly Sulu, but also a little bit with Tuvok. She starts the story feeling like she's going to be able to manipulate these guys into getting whatever she wants out of them. As it goes on and she's learning more about the truth of what happened and learning more about them, she must adjust her strategies, right? All those things were very consciously done so that when it was revealed to who she was, she'd be like, Yeah, of course that tracks.

Is Star Trek: Khan meant to be an enclosed story as far as tying those loose ends between The Original Series "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan, or do you have some idea of potential with the Rosalind character down the line, given the ending, and perhaps expanding her future?

This story is done. The fact that she exists now in the universe as a character means anybody is free to play with her if they want to. It might be more of a tie-in situation just because none of our main shows are set anywhere near this period right now. If it was going to happen any time in the near future, it would be that way, but no, I don't have a Rosalind Lear audio drama planned in the short term.

As far as the way that the franchise executed the Augments in general from TOS, Enterprise, and Strange New Worlds in terms of how the Federation in Star Trek has handled enhanced beings, how has Khan expanded that discussion, and how will we see any similar storyline in Starfleet Academy?

Not at this point. There are no connections to Starfleet Academy, which is so far in the future that it feels like the goal there is to keep pushing our story forward into the future, right? Although it's always going to be informed by what came before it. This story again is only able to add a few tantalising facts about Khan's history on Earth. I understand people want to know that whole story, right? When we first met him, all we knew was that somehow, he ruled over a quarter of the earth for a certain period of time, was the best of the dictators, and then at the end, there were some Augments fighting amongst themselves. We then learned that there were all these other frozen embryos, and then we learned they were raised in labs, right?

Even though that's an alternate timeline, I accepted that premise that that's where they all came from, so I had to create as much of my own understanding as I could, based on just the very little that we had. What always made sense to me was that the Augments were created in labs by Western scientists who were trying to create an army of supermen they could use to fight the battles they weren't able to win at the time. Whether you're talking about the eighties, nineties, or the early 2000s, depending on which timeline you want, I didn't want to hit a specific timeline either.

I didn't want to be specific, so we were intentionally vague about that. So they bred these guys to go fight a war for them, and then they did, and they conquered the area they were supposed to conquer. Their creators came back and were like, "Fabulous! We'd like the keys to that kingdom now, and y'all can go back to the lab until we need you again." By that time, Khan and his people realized they were really good at this, and the people who were running the world sucked at it, so they decided we're going to be better at ruling these people than you guys are, and they decided to try to take over.

They took their shot, it went well for a while, then it all fell apart, and ultimately, he had to take the last of the people he was super close with, and the children from that last lab, which was something we created for this audio drama, and get them off the planet. We have Space Seed happen, so that's as much of it as I fleshed out, and everything that refers to it is possible within that framework.

All nine episodes of Star Trek: Khan, which also stars Olli Haaskivi, Maury Sterling, Mercy Malick, and Zuri Washington, are available to listen to on podcasts and on YouTube.

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