According to its own mythology, the utopia of "Star Trek" had to be earned. Sometime between the present day and the franchise's idyllic future, several destructive wars will break out, causing humankind to experience a reckoning. Recall that Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was born in 1921, so he had very sharp memories of World War II and all of the horrors it produced. Roddenberry came to feel that humanity ought to learn from such horrors, and began to depict war -- at least in "Star Trek" -- as humanity's "low point." Once faced with self-destruction, Roddenberry felt, humans would eventually set themselves on the path to healing and recovery. 

It was antithetical, then, for Roddenberry to depict the character of Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) the way he did. In the "Star Trek" episode "Space Seed", the Enterprise rescues Khan from a cargo ship called the Botany Bay. Khan and several...