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The Augments were a genetically enhanced group of humans in the science fiction television series The Original Series and Enterprise. They were also refered to as Supermen, an accurate discription considering their superhuman abilites. Augments made their debut in the episode "Space Seed" and representatives also appeared in The Wrath of Khan. In Enterprise, Augments were introduced in "Borderland" and were the focus of a three-episode story arc that continued in "Cold Station 12" and "The Augments".
Overview
Augments, a group of genetically engineered "supermen", born in the late 1960s as the result of an ambitious project to improve the human race. Scientists used a selective breeding program combined with genetic engineering to achieve their aims, and in many ways they succeeded; the "supermen" were mentally and physically superior to ordinary men and women. They were roughly five times stronger than the average person, their lung efficiency was 50 percent greater than normal, and they had an increased capacity for learning. What the scientists failed to anticipate was that creating a superior race meant creating a superior ambition; the "supermen" felt that their advanced abilities gave them the right to rule the rest of humanity.
In 1992, a group of "supermen" seized power simultaneously in more than 40 nations. Khan was considered the most dangerous of the ambitious cadre. At his most powerful, he ruled all of Southeast Asia and half of the Middle East — more than a quarter of the entire planet — but even this was not enough for him. He envisioned ruling the entire world, but so did the other genetically engineered leaders, and they ended up fighting among themselves.
This led to the Eugenics Wars, during which whole populations were bombed out of existence and the entire planet was threatened with a new dark age. Fortunately, by 1996 the tyrants were brought under control by a rebellious population. Most of the "supermen" died or were sentenced to death, but 84 of them, including Khan, escaped aboard the sleeper ship SS Botany Bay
One of the most famous and powerful Augments was named Khan Noonien Singh, who was later defeated and exiled in a "sleeper vessel" that would be encountered by the Starship Enterprise more than two centuries later.
Although initially civil (if forceful) towards James T. Kirk and his crew, Singh's desire for power and conquest made him too powerful to be allowed to roam free. After a failed attempt at taking over the Enterprise, Khan was exiled to Ceti Alpha V, an uninhabited but habitable planet where he would be allowed to reign. Several months later, a nearby planet exploded, destroying Ceta Alpha V's environment. Over the next 16 years, Khan and his followers suffered on the planet, abandoned by Starfleet. Eventually, they were able to hijack a starship, and attempt to take their revenge upon Kirk.
Unknown to Khan, some eighteen hundred discarded Augment embryos from the 1990s were left behind on Earth. They were preserved and after the founding of Starfleet were stored at the Starfleet Medical facility Cold Station 12. Dr. Arik Soong was director of the facility, and stole 19 of the embryos.
Dr. Soong secretly brought the Augments to a remote, secluded planet and raised and schooled them as his own children. The Augments were indoctrinated at an early age to the idea that they were far superior to humans both physically and mentally. When Soong was incarcerated, the Augments were left to fend for themselves for a number of years. Eventually, they escaped their planet and commandeered a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, killing the crew with their bare hands. They subsequently took hostages at CS-12 and were reunited with Soong who sought to obtain thousands more Augment embryos. (Interestingly, the Augments themselves did not know of Khan's sleeper vessel SS Botany Bay, which Soong dismissed as a "myth," as all records concerning its launch were destroyed.)
Ultimately, the Augments were destroyed by the Enterprise NX-01 in the episode "The Augments" when they refused to surrender their nearly-destroyed Klingon Bird-of-Prey, although Soong himself was recaptured.
The ability of the Augments to defeat a group of Klingons caught the interest of the Empire, which was able to obtain a few surviving embryos. These were used in genetic experiments to augment Klingon DNA. However, the experiment went wrong when the human augment DNA proved to be more dominant than the Klingon genes, and mutated into a deadly virus that quickly transformed many Klingons into human-looking creatures. (A cure for the virus was found, but not before millions of Klingons had been altered.)
Deep Space Nine revealed late in its run that Dr. Julian Bashir was the subject of similar augmentation experiments that gave him acute mental and physical abilities.
Appearances
See also
External link
Star Trek races | Human-derived fictional species | Fictional genetically engineered people
"Augment (Star Trek)"