“Authentic Sin”
Star Trek: Khan Episode 8—debuted Monday, October 27, 2025
Written by Kirsten Beyer and David Mack; primarily based on a narrative by Nicholas Meyer
Directed by Fred Greenhalgh
“The thriller that 5 years of toilings has but to resolve. Why would any individuals, gifted as you might be with huge energy, decrease yourselves to the extent of weak creatures?”
“All the time with you, when confronted with states of being you can’t entry: humility, selflessness, grace, the creativeness fails.”
“Go away my spouse out of this.”
–Khan and Delmonda
The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Khan explodes onto the scene this week with essential revelations, dramatic twists, and deepening issues. This new full-cast audio drama continues to be a few of the finest Trek of the final decade—in any medium—because it digs deeply into canon, into literature, and into characters that had appeared totally explored. As Dr. Rosalind Lear runs out of time, she makes an important discovery, whereas on the similar time sharpening the thriller that’s Ceti Alpha V. Khan reveals his true colours to the Elborians, and an outdated menace to Khan’s management resurfaces. The entire story is thundering in direction of what guarantees to be an epic conclusion in subsequent week’s remaining episode, with a number of items to this fascinating puzzle of a sequence but to be revealed.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
After seven episodes the place they generally felt like an afterthought, occasions aboard the united statesS. Excelsior in 2296 balloon in significance. A lot of the episode’s 34-minute runtime is spent with Dr, Lear, Ensign Tuvok, and Captain Sulu as Lear sees her biases challenged, clears Captain Kirk’s repute, and panics that she has run out of time to perform her as but nonetheless secret final aim. Ensign Tuvok’s suspicions about her motives sharpen, and within the story of the survivors on Ceti Alpha V, he finds a touch to a technological innovation that has eluded Federation scientists for many years. Captain Sulu is grateful for the restoration of his former captain’s honor, however is anxious when Dr. Lear beams again right down to Ceti Alpha V with out permission. All the stuff set within the TOS film period is attention-grabbing and gripping this time round, and hints at massive issues to return. Dr. Lear is clearly hiding issues, and the audio we hear from the previous makes the entire sequence’ mysteries much more tough to resolve.
The 2296 scenes additionally serve to fast-forward the Ceti Alpha V storyline by 5 years as Lear narrates a abstract of life on the beleaguered planet after the demise of Lt. Marla McGivers. The time is spent on the development of the rescue ship out of components from the wreckage of the Elborian starship. The alliance between the Augments and the Elborians holds for these 5 years, as some survivors die of hunger as a result of decreased rations, relationships between some Augments and a few Elborians blossom into friendships and romances, and Khan’s daughter, Kali, grows quickly as a result of her Augmented genes.
Ceti Alpha V as seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Paramount)
Now situated in 2272, on the eve of the launch of the finished starship Enterprise, the story demonstrates the love that Khan has for his daughter, who prefers Yeats and Shakespeare over her mom’s favourite romantic, Coleridge. The following day, the Enterprise will launch from the survivors’ underground cavern, carrying its four-person crew led by Delmonda, along with his Elborian engineer Kamura in addition to Khan’s champion and helmsman Joachim and devoted scientist Paolo aboard for the Augments. Earlier than the launch, Khan should lead the remainder of the surviving Elborians and Augments again out to the floor, because the launch will destroy the cavern through which the ship was constructed. The Enterprise will seek for one other spacefaring species and convey again assist, a rescue mission that’s anticipated to final about six months.
However as Yeats wrote in his poem, “The Second Coming,” “Issues collapse; the centre can’t maintain; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…” Khan’s alliance with Delmonda is simply as robust as his belief within the alien, and Khan’s skill to belief was way back crippled by the traumas of his previous. First, Khan locations restrictions on which spacefaring species the rescue ship is to hunt out: “Anybody however Starfleet! Starfleet has demonstrated of their failure to test our progress within the final 5 years their callous indifference to us. Certainly, I can’t be sure that Captain James T. Kirk didn’t deliberately depart us on what he knew was a doomed world.” In his efficiency as Khan, Naveen Andrews right here begins to let unfastened Khan the vengeful madman that followers keep in mind from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Naveen Andrews within the recording sales space as Khan (photograph credit score: Jasper Lewis)
Past this, Khan additionally single-handedly orders a change within the crew roster of the Enterprise: Now he’ll command the mission himself, rather than Delmonda, and Kali will be part of the crew rather than Paolo. Delmonda is caught up quick by these developments, and by the truth that Khan had not consulted with him over the modifications. Issues come to a head as Delmonda confronts Khan, and eventually, after 5 years, makes use of his psychic powers to impose his ideas on Khan’s thoughts—displaying Khan the occasions that transpired simply earlier than his ship’s crash on Ceti Alpha V. Whereas this scene options garbled audio that’s obscure, it seems that the Elborians’ spatial compression drive malfunctioned, dropping containment, and Delmonda gave the order to vent the engines’ fearsome energies over Ceti Alpha VI, inflicting the destruction of that world. As I suspected in episode 5, it’s the aliens who’re at fault.
All the pieces turns into clear for Khan in that second. “It was not destiny. It was not eternity’s design. It was YOU who destroyed my world.” Khan’s reversion to his primary degree of mistrust of any type of altruism is the “Authentic Sin” of the episodes title. Delmonda avers, “Maybe you see now why I selected to withhold this fact.” And Khan’s reply is chilling and completely in character: “I see solely the face of my enemy.” The writing right here is great, with David Mack and Kirsten Beyer translating Nicholas Meyer’s story and character beats into dialogue and incident. It now turns into clear what Khan’s plan is: He and Kali will escape Ceti Alpha V aboard the Enterprise, by no means to return. The remaining Augments, underneath Ursula’s management, will seize management of the provides again on the planet, ravenous out the remaining Elborians. However ultimately, even the Augments will all die out as a result of lack of provisions, and Khan and Kali will discover a new world to construct Khan’s empire on.
Whereas Ursula has accepted the cost to steer the Augments and implement Khan’s plan, it isn’t clear she understands Khan doesn’t intend to return, and he or she and the remainder will all starve to demise. The episode’s remaining shock is the return of Ivan, on the eve of the launch, presumably able to recruit Ursula and different Augments for some remaining act of rebel towards Khan.
All of that is thrilling, with sound results, music, and performances working collectively to current a narrative of betrayal, bigotry, and battle that pulls its heartbeat from a few of the biggest poetry written within the English language. It’s Star Trek at its finest: an amplified view of human feelings and motivations instructed towards a science fiction backdrop, stuffed with deep references to literature and philosophy and punctuated by motion, romance, and intrigue.
Hear now
New episodes of Star Trek: Khan debut every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. It is usually out there on YouTube. Khan will wrap up subsequent week with episode 9, on November third.
Right here is the complete seventh episode by way of Apple podcasts.
Sustain with information and evaluation in regards to the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
