Ceti Alpha V Ceti Alpha V was the fifth planet of the Ceti Alpha system , in Sector 25712 . It was home to the non - sentient Ceti eel s , and briefly hosted a colony made up by the crew of the . The planet was described as " barely Minshara - class " in 2156 and " habitable , although a bit savage , somewhat inhospitable " in 2267 . However , shortly thereafter its orbit shifted and it became decidedly more hostile . ( ; ; ) Ceti Alpha V was located a considerable distance from the Delphic Expanse and the planet Denobula as well as three days away from Regula I at an unspecified warp speed . The nearest starbase was Starbase 12 . ( ; ; ) History . In 2267 , after discovering the " Botany Bay " adrift in space in an unnamed sector , the ancient spacecraft was rigged for towing by crew from the " Enterprise " . Traveling at warp factor 2 , the " Enterprise " , with the " Botany Bay " traveling alongside , entered the adjacent Sector 25712 on a heading toward the sector ' s command base - Starbase 12 . This heading brought the starship near the Ceti Alpha star system . After a failed spacejacking by Khan Noonien Singh , he , his lover Marla McGivers , and his Augment followers were settled on this planet by Captain James T . Kirk . ( ) Only six months later , Ceti Alpha VI exploded , shifting Ceti Alpha V ' s orbit and turning it into a desert - like world , dominated by craylon gas and high - velocity winds . The planet thus became inimical to life , with the only remaining known indigenous species being the Ceti eel . In 2285 , the visited the planet as part of Project Genesis . Mistaking it for Ceti Alpha VI , Captain Clark Terrell and XO Commander Pavel Chekov beam ed down to the surface , only to be taken prisoner by Khan and his surviving followers . Khan then hijacked the " Reliant " and stranded its crew on the planet ' s surface . The crew were later recovered by the USS " Enterprise " , following Khan ' s death at the Battle of the Mutara Nebula . ( ) " In an alternate timeline , Ceti Alpha V was the refuge for the last 6 , 000 members of the Human race from 2156 to 2165 – survivors of the devastating Xindi attacks on Earth and its colonies – as it was far from the Delphic Expanse . The colony ' s location was kept secret for a great deal of time , but a Yridian discovered it by tailing Doctor Phlox , thus allowing the Xindi to attack . " ( ) Ceti Alpha V inhabitants . Khan Noonien Singh and his followers including Ling , McPherson , Otto , Joaquin , Joachim , Rodriguez , and Kati , as well as Marla McGivers were the first known settlers . Temporary inhabitants included the crew of the " Reliant " comprising of Kyle ( a commander at that time ) , Helmsman Beach , and others . Appendices . Background information . Starbase 12 ' s sector was named in " " episode . In the script of , a scene description referring to a view of Ceti Alpha V from space in 2156 characterized the planet as " a dry , inhospitable - looking Class - M planet . " In the same script , the surface view of Ceti Alpha V as of 2165 was described thus : " " Dozens of makeshift Human dwellings are clustered in this small valley . We ' re on a harsh but habitable Class - M world . . . only a few occasional patches of vegetation are visible here and there . " " The writers joked on the audio commentary for " Twilight " that , if it wasn ' t bad enough the Xindi killed off almost all of Humanity , a hundred years from " Twilight " , Ceti Alpha V would have been destroyed as well . For " Twilight " , a digital matte painting of the surface of Ceti Alpha V was created by Black Pool Studios . The located Ceti Alpha V in the Mutara sector . According to " " ( " United Federation of Planets II " ) and " " ( " Federation Historical Highlights , 2161 - 2385 " ) , the Ceti Alpha system was located in the Beta Quadrant . Apocrypha . The spin - off novel " " explicitly addressed the above issue . Spock postulated that Ceti Alpha VI ' s destruction and the environmental impacts on Ceti Alpha V had another , shared cause ( possibly a small black hole passing through the system ) , while apparently the miscounting resulted from the " Reliant " s crew counting inward , finding the outermost planet ( and mistaking the remains of Ceti Alpha VI for part of an outer asteroid belt ) . In Vonda N . McIntyre ' s novelization of " " , the planet is called Alpha Ceti V . There was some dialogue between the " Reliant " s bridge crew speculating about the cause of the discrepancy between the planet count of the system reported by an old interstellar probe ( 20 ) and the current count ( 19 ) – one possible conclusion they drew was that the limitations of the probe ' s imaging systems had led to inaccurate data being reported . This dialogue occurred shortly before Terrell and Chekov decided to beam down to the planet .