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Shao Kahn originally
served as an advisor to Onaga when
the latter ruled Outworld as the Dragon King. Onaga's Empire had become
the most powerful in the realms and so he began searching for a way to
become immortal. Before his goal could be realized, Shao Kahn made his
move by poisoning Onaga and taking his kingdom. Leading whatever troops
that remained loyal to the Dragon King, Kahn continued many of the former
emperor's plans. He continued to add lesser realms to Outworld, either
through direct conquest or through Mortal Kombat.
Shao Kahn appears in Mortal Kombat 1 under the name "General Shao".
A milestone in his
military victories was the merging of Edenia with Outworld. After his warriors
had won in Mortal Kombat, Kahn invaded the realm. On the battlefield, Kahn
killed King Jerrod, and took Queen Sindel as
his wife, raising her daughter, Princess Kitana,
as his own. He had the young princess trained as his personal guard and
as an assassin. Sindel took her own life in an attempt to escape subservience
to the Emperor. Unwilling to be denied, Kahn held her soul in Outworld,
stopping her transition to the afterlife.
Many years later,
Kahn chose Earthrealm as his next conquest. He sent Shang
Tsung and eventually
Goro to
Earthrealm to prepare it for an invasion in the event of Goro maintaining
his position of champion. A turning point came when Prince Goro defeated
the Great Kung Lao and started a winning streak that would last for 500
years. Shang Tsung, a shapeshifter, supervised the tournament. The tenth
Mortal Kombat however, saw the defeat of both Goro and Shang Tsung by a
Shaolin monk, Liu Kang, ruining
five hundred years of Tsung's investment. Shang Tsung begged Shao Kahn
for his life, and came up with a plan to lure Earth's chosen warriors to
Outworld for a second tournament. Shao Kahn spared Tsung's life and restored
his youth. If Earthrealm's champions could be killed, they would not be
able to cause further damage to Kahn's plans. With the captured Kano and
Sonya
Blade as bait, and enraging Liu Kang by sending Baraka and his troops
to destroy the Shaolin temples, they confidently waited for the Earth warriors
to fall into the trap. Despite Kahn's vast power, Liu Kang's determination
saw him through, and he defeated the despot. Unwilling to accept defeat,
Kahn called his armies to destroy the Earthrealm warriors. They fled back
to Earthrealm, out of Kahn's clutches.
By this time, Shang
Tsung was able to resurrect Queen Sindel in Earthrealm, and Kahn would
be able to cross the border to claim her. Kahn had Tsung proceed, and once
he invaded Earthrealm, he began to merge it with his own realm of Outworld.
Nearly every living being in Earthrealm had their souls ripped from their
bodies by Kahn, claiming them as his own. Kahn's day finally seemed to
have come. Kahn sent extermination squads to hunt them down and kill the
remaining survivors, but Lord Raiden had protected
the souls of a handful of warriors. It would be their task to try to stop
Kahn, and return Earthrealm to its normal state. In the ensuing fights,
Kahn was confronted by Kung Lao,
another Shaolin monk and descendant of the warrior Goro defeated to become
champion of Mortal Kombat, but Kahn crushed him. It was Liu Kang who again
managed to defeat Kahn. Worn down from the battle, Kahn recalled his squads
and retreated back to Outworld. This stopped the merger with Outworld,
and restored Earthrealm to its original status. To make matters worse for
Kahn, many of his loyal soldiers had abandoned him, and Kitana had succeeded
in turning Sindel to her side, restoring Edenia as an independent realm.
The emperor was now
greatly weakened, and would remain so for a period of several years, remaining
inactive during Shinnok's war against the gods. The Edenians had in the
meantime made peace and military treaties with the Shokan, on whom Kahn
had always heavily relied, and were ready to attack Outworld a few years
later. It was only through his new commander Kano's ingenuity, and the
stealth of his unreliable assassin Noob Saibot (who critically wounded Goro) was Kahn able to save the day (in a manner of speaking) and force
the Edenian army into a draw. Soon afterwards, the sorcerers Quan
Chi and Shang Tsung entered his throne room, and swore false allegiance
to the emperor. Quan Chi and Shang Tsung caught Shao Kahn off guard and
seemingly killed him. This would appear to be the demise of the mighty
Kahn. In the GameCube version of Mortal Kombat: Deception it is revealed
that Kahn did not die, and that it was a clone that Quan Chi and Shang
Tsung killed. The real Kahn appeared to the wounded Goro and, using what
little power he had left, revived him, thus gaining Goro and the Shokan
as allies once again.
 
  
 
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