Xanadu
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference
Xanadu was a city in Mongolia. It was the summer capital of Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, who from it ruled all of China after he put an end to the Sung dynasty. In the 13th century, the Venetian explorer-merchant Marco Polo visited the Khan there.
After the fall of the Mongolian Empire, Xanadu lay in ruins, and eventually came to be thought nothing more than a legend. In 2152 on the Torothan homeworld, when Jonathan Archer used the name of the city in a geography game, Trip Tucker disputed his use of it, claiming Xanadu was "fictional". Archer replied "That doesn't matter." (ENT: "Desert Crossing")
[edit] Background
In a scene deleted from "Fight or Flight", Travis Mayweather also referenced Xanadu in a game of geography with Archer. The two actually used the same locations as Tucker and Archer did in "Desert Crossing", but in this scene, it was Mayweather who used Xanadu and Archer who disputed its legitimacy.
The ruins of the historical Xanadu were located in the 20th century, but the association of the name with insubstantial, exotic legend persists.
Xanadu was popularized in in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, Kubla Khan. It is this poetic reference which is usually intended, as in:
- the name of the estate of Charles Foster Kane in the 1941 movie Citizen Kane
- the name of a sorcerer in the 1971 Gold Key TOS comic "Sceptre of the Sun"
- the title of a popular 1977 song by the band Rush
- the title of a 1980 feature film starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. This movie also stars James Sloyan and features stuntwork by Eurlyne Epper
