Shao Kahn was told to be Raiden's brother in MK/DC:

The game has not been considered canon though, but this might have something to do with the future canon games. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was lackluster in my eyes and it is not to be taken seriously. Considering how out of style and ugly Shinnok is, a Tarkatan female shouldn't be ruled out, Venkman28. NeRdS could easily uncover this now as Shao Kahn is dead; earlier this information would have lowered his dignity in the eyes of Shao Kahn fans worse. (Raiden = Rayden & Shao Kahn = Shao Khan)
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Shao Kahn's origin, hinted at in Deception and confirmed by Vogel on Twitter, is that he was once what Raiden is to Earth: the protector-god of Outworld. During this time, he also played advisor to the king of Outworld, Onaga. Eventually, something happened to Kahn that we don't yet know, that changed his personality or made him lose his mind, and he decided he'd rather rule Outworld than protect it, so he killed Onaga, denounced his godhood, and became the immortal emperor we know today.

According to Vogel, he's not meant to be brothers with Raiden, the gods don't have family relationships like that. Not in canon, anyway. MKvsDCU is a different universe with some movie references in it.
As for the Tarkatans, their race hasn't even existed as long as Kahn has been alive. They were created during his rule, by crossbreeding Outworlders with demons. The games don't spell it out outright, but Kahn himself probably created the Tarkatans because his army all committed suicide and became mummies when Onaga died, so he needed new, more loyal soldiers.

Fair enough Razor, I do remember that dialogue from Decpetion, I was just wondering why he looked like a Human Tarkartan mix when you see him unmasked. Was it perhaps a curse by the Elder Gods for abadoning his godhood?

He doesn't really look Tarkatan to me, outside of being bald.

I mean, the defining feature of Tarkatans is they have no lips and needle teeth. Kahn has a pretty normal mouth, the thing that makes Kahn look like a monster is he has rows of claws growing out of his eyebrows.

I don't intend that Shao Kahn would be Tarkatan now but why couldn't Tarkatans have multiple variations of them, being mutants, that are still considered Tarkatan? If I remember correctly, even Mileena is considered as a Tarkatan even if she doesn't fill all the characteristics of one. She was meant to become human/Edenian. Mutants are indeterminate at times.

Mileena is a clone of Kitana with Tarkatan DNA mixed in. Hence her looking 90% like Kitana but having the lipless needle-toothed mouth that is trademark of Tarkatan biology.

We have seen some variation in Tarkatan appearances, particularly in Baraka's ending in MK9...but it's mainly in where the spikes and blades are growing out of their arms. Some had spiked shoulders, some had hair, there was a female who had two small blades coming out of each hand instead of one big one, etc. All of them had one thing in common though: no lips and needle teeth.

I believe that the original idea(atleast in the comics)was that all Outworlders looked Tarkatan....including Shao Kahn. That idea was short lived.
I wish NRS would've showed Shao Kahn's face before killing him off in MK9. A poor decision IMO.

Yeah, the idea was shot down in the very early concept stage. This is what Kahn would have looked like if they'd gone the "Everyone in Outworld is Tarkatan" route:



Kind of a weird priest/pope thing going on there, I imagine they were thinking at the time that he'd be more the Emperor Palpatine to Shang's Darth Vader. Then they decided to do the samurai thing with him instead and Shinnok became the Palpatine archetype when they created him.

I didn't know this, it's very interesting and a good story arc. The only problem for me - and my memory of MKD is a little hazy - but didn't it say Shao Kahn poisoned Onaga?

Now...if Shao Kahn played the 'Raiden role' to Onaga as Raiden does to Liu Kang, is it true that he poisoned the DK to remove him from power?
Doesn't seem very god-like, does it?

I mean, in MK9's story, Raiden lights up Liu Kang to prevent him from attacking Kahn, he doesn't meekly poison him when he's not looking
The way I always read it was that at the time, Shao Kahn was in fact weaker than Onaga, and played a role more akin to Shang Tsung's role to Kahn, and the only way he could topple him was via a sneaky manneuver such as poison.

Still, as I said, my memory is cloudy on this, so please correct me if I'm wrong!

It was indeed poison.

For starters, Onaga's as powerful as any other boss character, he might have been able to defeat Kahn in a straight-up fight the same way Kahn can fight Raiden and win.
Second, If he and Kahn would've duked it out, everyone in Outworld would've known who killed Onaga. Generally speaking when you wanna assassinate someone, you don't do it in public and you don't do it to their face and give them the chance to defend themselves.

Poison is quick, easy, and kept it a secret, making it easier for Onaga's kingdom to accept Kahn taking the throne I imagine.
We only found out Kahn was the one who did it because Damashi told Shujinko. And Damashi knew because he was Onaga, he'd learned who killed him from beyond the grave, if he didn't suspect from the very beginning.

That Shao Kahn concept is really bad. Cardinal Kahn ;)

Yes, well that's why they didn't use it lol.

I think shao Kahn was like raiden to outworld like was the God of war or something like that and gave up his position to rule the realm

There's also been theories that Kahn was a mutant Shokan, with 2 arms instead of 4, and more Human hands/feet. I think it was mentioned in MKA somewhere also.

I also don't get how Kahn could be a god, unlees he's a god of war, like said above. Why would he be an adviser to someone stronger than him?



Ka-Tra

Nah, that was just something Mick-Lucifer made up for the webcomic he did a couple years ago. There's nothing like that mentioned in the games.



Because that's what Protector-Gods do, it's more or less the only thing they're allowed to do, is give advice to the mortals of their realm. Which is maybe part of why Kahn eventually stepped down and made himself king, perhaps he got sick of the rules, of not being in charge. He certainly doesn't seem to like the Elder Gods and wants to overthrow them.

I have to wonder why the Elder Gods couldn't have just sent their champions to destroy or capture Shao Kahn for being a threat to the realms, especially since the Elder Gods only really care about their own safety.

Until MK3, Kahn always followed the rules of Mortal Kombat when it came to realm annexing.
Also, he never found any of the Kamidogus, I think they only get their Champion involved when there's Kamidogus afoot.

Now that I think about it, the issue with Shao Kahn's annexing of the realms has more to do with the story elements from MK: Deception with the One Being. If MK's story didn't have that element, there wouldn't be this sort of issue.

You just have to understand the Elder Gods' motivations. Yes, they fear the return of the One Being. But they're also SUPREMELY lazy or something, they really really don't like to get involved in anything that happens in the realms for some reason. Maybe they're afraid of certain villains. Kahn was almost powerful enough to shrug off their attack at the end of MK9, after all. They've actually made non-interference an official policy, when Raiden was an Elder God, they forbid him from doing stuff for the mortals, so he had to step down in MKDA. Maybe getting involved is dangerous for them, like they could accidentally wake TOB up or maybe their power is so great that using it is bad for the fabric of reality, like how everybody using their powers to fight at once is what caused Armageddon?

Anyway, as long as the rules of Mortal Kombat are used to merge realms, there's very little danger of the One Being waking up because it takes a long time to win ten tournaments, and there's so many realms in the universe that taking them one-at-a-time would take forever.

But using the Kamidogus can bring back the One Being immediately. And ignoring the rules of MK and invading realms willy-nilly would mean conquering and merging them much, much faster. That's why the Elder Gods only bother to get involved then - and even with the Kamidogus, they sent champions instead of doing anything personally.