| “ | I'm proud, very proud, to be your son | „ |
| ~ David to Kirk |
David Marcus was a secondary protagonist introduced in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He was portrayed by American actor Merritt Butrick.
Marcus was the son of famed Starfleet officer James T. Kirk and Doctor Carol Marcus, and was born either in 2259 or 2260. David had inherited some of his father's personality traits - including impatience and recklessness.
When La'an Noonien-Singh expressed an interest in a relationship with Kirk, Carol was pregnant with David as a result of the complicated relationship Kirk and the elder Marcus had, and Kirk declined to pursue a relationship with La'an because he didn't want to mess things up between himself and Carol.
After David was born, Carol felt that Kirk would be better in her world instead of Kirk's world, and raised David on her own. David did meet his father and his father's crew during childhood on several occasions, however relations between David and his father remained quite tense. David harbored a deep distrust and resentment of Starfleet growing up. He attended the Daystrom Institute, where he once attended a lecture given by Spock. David earned his doctorate at the age of 22.
By 2284, David was working alongside his mother at the Regula I station on the Genesis Project - which was developing an energy field delivered by torpedo that could rapidly terraform a planet or other celestial object. Because of his impatience he employed protomatter in the Genesis matrix - which seemed to solve some of the problems the team was having in creating the matrix. By 2285 Marcus and his fellow scientists were far enough along that they had created a Genesis torpedo. Despite Marcus's concerns about Starfleet, the project team began working with Starfleet to find a suitable planet to use the torpedo on. Starfleet deployed the USS Reliant to assist the team. Reliant began searching for a suitable planet. Unfortunately, the ship encountered Khan Noonien Singh and his band of Augments, who promptly hijacked the Reliant.
Under Khan's control, the Reliant arrived at the station. While Marcus, Carol, and another scientist named Jedda escaped to the planetoid Regula, Khan and his Augments murdered everyone left behind before heading off to attack the Enterprise. When Kirk arrived at the station he found out from Captain Clark Terrell and Commander Pavel Chekov that Khan had murdered the scientists when they wouldn't tell him where the Genesis Device was. Heading to the station's transporter room Kirk, Chekov, Terrell, Saavik, and Leonard McCoy beamed to the caverns on Regula.
Once there Kirk and his party were attacked by David, who believed his father to be the man who murdered the people left behind on the station, and the man who tried to take the Genesis Device for his own purposes. Carol tried to persuade David that his father wasn't responsible for what happened. Meanwhile Terrell and Chekov used the distraction to pull phasers on the others. David nearly got himself killed when he rushed Terrell. Saavik tackled David when Terrell fired his phaser, keeping David from being vaporized but the shot meant for David instead killed Jedda. Terrell and Chekov gave Khan the coordinates for the Genesis torpedo, and Khan beamed the device on to the Reliant. Terrell and Chekov were unable to bring themselves to kill Kirk or the others, and Terrell took his own life instead while the eel controlling Chekov exited Chekov's body.
Beamed back on board the Enterprise Marcus and his mother were taken to sickbay. During the final battle with Khan, Marcus went to the bridge to observe the situation. When the defeated Khan activated the countdown on the Genesis Device, Marcus recognized the energy field building up on the Reliant, and warned Kirk that the torpedo would explode in four minutes. Spock sacrificed himself to bring the warp drive on line so the ship could escape the resulting Genesis wave when the device exploded. After Spock's funeral, Marcus told Kirk he was proud to be Kirk's son.
Soon afterwards, Marcus and Saavik transferred to the USS Grissom in order to undertake a detailed survey of the planet. During this time the two began a relationship. Arriving at the Genesis Planet the ship began detailed sensor scans of the planet. Marcus and Saavik discovered that there was a wide variety of weather and ground conditions within a few hours walk of each other. The sensors soon detected Spock's torpedo followed by an animal life form. No one expected an animal to be present on the surface. Marcus and Saavik were able to talk Captain Esteban into beaming them down to the planet. Arriving at the spot where Spock's torpedo had soft landed, they discovered microbes around the torpedo which were undergoing rapid evolution because of the Genesis wave. The pair soon discovered the living body of Captain Spock, who was regenerated by the wave and was rapidly aging as the planet aged.
Grissom was destroyed by a Klingon bird of prey commanded by Commander Kruge. Saavik, Marcus, and Spock were captured by Kruge and his men on the planet surface. Marcus sacrificed himself to keep a Klingon soldier from killing Saavik when Kruge ordered his men to kill one of his hostages. Saavik later told Kirk that Marcus had died bravely, and had saved her and Spock from death at the hands of the Klingons.
The death of Marcus deeply affected Kirk and Carol for the rest of their lives. Sulu - a father himself - would later reflect that despite the brave front Kirk put up, Kirk was never quite the same after the death of his son. Kirk came to hate and despise Klingons for the death of Marcus, and it took the death of the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon to snap him out of his hatred towards the Klingons. After Kirk exposed the conspiracy to scuttle peace talks between the Empire and the United Federation of Planets, Gorkon's daughter Azetbur told Kirk he had restored her father's faith, and Kirk responded her actions had restored his son's.
A Starfleet analysis later vindicated Marcus using protomatter in the Genesis Device, finding the planet had died not because of protomatter being used, but how the device had been deployed. The torpedo had been meant to be deployed on an existing planetary body and the resulting energy could've focused exclusively on rebuilding the planet - which would have been quite stable. It had not been meant to be exploded inside a nebula and forced to create an entire solar system from scratch. As a result the Genesis wave didn't have the energy to properly construct the Genesis Planet. Also, Saavik believed the plasma field created by the destruction of the Genesis system would someday cool and another Genesis Planet would eventually form.
Quotes[]
| “ | Every time we have dealings with Starfleet, I get nervous. We are dealing with something that… could be perverted into a dreadful weapon. Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That's exactly the kind of man… | „ |
| ~ Marcus |
| “ | I used protomatter in the Genesis matrix. | „ |
| ~ David, admitting his big mistake to Saavik. |
| “ | I'm sorry, sir. Just don't surrender. Genesis doesn't work. I can't believe they'd kill us for it. | „ |
| ~ David Marcus, urging his father not to surrender to the Klingons. |
Trivia[]
- The movie version of The Search For Spock had Marcus unilaterally deciding to use protomatter in the matrix. In the novelization, however, Marcus wasn't comfortable with using protomatter, but did nothing to stop the rest of the team from using protomatter in the device.
