What happens to Klingons who are good tactics but suck at melee?

I mean every empire needs great tacticians, but klingons get challenged for stupid stuff alll the time. There was a good reason why mediaval kings tried to ban dueling.

Do klingons have an academy where they only train officers?

How do the noble houses fit into all of this? Does each noble house has his own academy? it would make sense considering how fast the houses chose allegiance in Redemption 1 and 2.

How can a klingon who sucks at melee but is a briliant tactician rise to a high post? Will the noble houses protect these kind of individuals from challanger from other houses? Do Klingon noble houses have a role for a ''consiglieri'' aka talented outsider in their house who is protected by them.

 

It's not just challenges from below Klingons have to worry about but execution from above for incompetence or so their superior can save face, so people can rise purely by dead mens shoes without having to challenge themselves.

In Klingon Jellico remarks to gowron how absurd elevation by melee skill was, gowron replies that "right" will win or somesuch.

Also in the brilliant six book errand series, decently ranked officers have bodyguards. And if you're from a noble house, you can probably get more, so once you're up there, you're fine...assuming you can trust your bodyguards!

 

I'm pretty sure they've mentioned an Imperial Academy in the shows and/or books. They seemed to imply that it was pretty much the Klingon equivalent of Starfleet Academy.

 

It will probably take quite a bit of maneuvering to keep your reputation intact if you cower behind a wall of bodyguards. It may be that this only ever happens if the young man or woman being protected is under the wing of a respected and highly positioned patron or matron whose virtue goes unchallenged. (I wonder if Krax had bodyguards - and if those took a step back every time somebody like Worf threw a legitimate challenge at the boy?)

To be "good at tactics" probably means you are socially skilled and can play your enemies against each other. If you can't do that, you can't manipulate your troops, either, and your brilliant battlefield strategies will remain confined to a simulator. This may be the Empire's loss, but the troops will probably be glad that none of their superiors are harboring wimpy savants who send troops to die in brilliant campaigns without putting themselves in the line.

Timo Saloniemi

 

This maes me wonder how do they shield that from intrigue within the great houses.

 

I wonder if there are dueling alternatives for those knid of people. Like phase pistol duel or battlemech duel or someting along those lines. Is it canon that klingons only duel with bathlet's?

 

Nope, not canon as such. Admittedly, all we have seen is duels with melee weapons, but Worf vs. Duras at least was fought with dissimilar swords. Duras opted for a two-handed, two-edged single straight blade there. And Worf often practiced dueling with just his short mek'leth. We have also seen various types of spear - and Worf in "Birthright" seems to be saying not just that the gin'tak is a weapon of war rather than a farm implement, but that it is still being used for fighting.

Whether ranged weapons could be used for dueling, we don't know. But each side chooses its own weapons, it seems. Perhaps honor concerns discourage either side from picking a weapon that might prove too superior to what the opposition will pick, and thus subject the overarmed duelist to ridicule?

Timo Saloniemi

 

That seems to make sense.

Whatabout spontaneous challenges for captaincy and such? Did both side use the same weapons?

 

Nobody seemed to mind when Riker used a transporter as the weapon to challenge Captain Kargan in "A Matter of Honor"... And Kargan subsequently punched Riker to get back his command. So no, no formal requirement for the type of weapons there, either, it seems.

Timo Saloniemi

 

At least it probably has to be dishonorable killing the captain in sleep.

 

In "The House of Quark", the willingness of D'Ghor to kill a Quark unable to defend himself against a trained warrior out for blood was enough to discredit him to the entire Klingon council.

Klingon society has to have mechanisms in place to prohibit the killing of n00bs.

 

Why didn't Gowron just said that he challenges Toral to a duel when the little snot said he wanted to challenge him?

 

Toral actually was the one who challenged Gowron to a fight. Picard didn't allow it to happen. It was implied that if Picard ruled Toral's challenge valid, an assassin would kill Gowron before the fight.

There is precident that if someone else kills the challenger to the High Council, the matter of their challenge is settled. Worf was the one who killed Duras, clearing the way for Gowron for example.

 

Why wouldn't the assasin kill him anyway, besides Gowron has to have best security in the quadrant.

 

Gowron actually had some shoddy security in those two episodes. In Redemption 2 a random guy just walks up, draws a knife and fights Gowron for example. Even a relative nobody like Kurn boasted about being able to kill Gowron and I don't think it was idle.

As to why not have Gowron killed before Toral's challenge? I would assume it is because Picard didn't rule Toral's challenge for the leadership valid. As the arbiter he decided who could and couldn't challenge. If they killed Gowron before Toral's challenge was approved, they'd probably have to go through all that cerimony they did in Reunion again, which would probably just result in a civil war anyways after a long period of waiting for new challengers and the such.

If Picard had ruled the challenge valid, then the assassin would have killed Gowron and Toral would be left as the only challenger for leadership, much like it was with Gowron when Worf killed Duras.

As it happens, Picard found Toral's challenge invalid and the Duras Sisters pretty much stopped bothering with Toral as a proxy and openly tried to overthrow Gowron with Romulan help.

 

Then he must have studied up on melee because he nearly killed Worf in DS 9.

As for the shoddy security his klingon bodyguards probably cannot stop a challanger from taking part in honorable combat.

That little punk would get challenged and killed immediatly. if we want to retcon it here is an explanation:
If Gowron dies instead of the civil war having 2 camps it would have 3 or four because only Gowron can unite certain houses to fight together.


By the way if Gowron would had said here and now Toral would it had been owrite or do they have to do that in a sacred chamber at x pm?

 

I'm not sure there's just this one way to read the bit about challenge vs. assassination.

It seems to me Picard could be saying that the sequence of events is the following: Picard rules in favor of challenge -> a duel takes place and Toral of course is slain -> even the most "honorable" backers of Duras, seeing the direct path to throne formally blocked, flock under the wings of the Sisters for more covert action -> the Sisters now have enough backing to arrange for the assassination of Gowron.

If Picard does not allow the duel to take place, the Sisters have shot themselves in their feet, because the pro-Duras factions will now wait for Toral to reach the age and fighting competence to take the throne...

Worf certainly reassigned the Chancellor's title without a formal appointment.

Perhaps there would be incentive to arrange for a formal spectacle in the Toral vs. Gowron case, as both sides would want good publicity more than victory. The Duras party would know they couldn't win the duel, so they'd want to milk on the public embarrassment of a grown-up warrior slaying a little boy.

Gowron would want to brush it all under the carpet as quickly as possible, of course. But he might also realize that if he did so, it might look dubious; better kill Toral in public, so that even the most reactionary forces in faraway corners of the Empire would feel that old-style justice has been served.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Even though it doesn't exist on screen, there would have to be more nuance to this society than what turns up on tv, or indeed in the books, if it were to be a ... realistic ... society. Surely there must be many different forms of this society, many layers and different aptitudes - not simply the one-uniform wearing kind of monosociety we are most familiar with? Also surely our view of the society is skewed by seeing through its aristocracy, whose martial believes might be very different from other classes, and the depiction of which cannot genuinely reflect values and cultures from different worlds - each with hundreds of years of linked-yet-separate development.

 

You should read A Burning House by KRAD.