Canon TOS/TMP Starships-of-the-line

[Ithekro]

I could see the Romulans attempting to keep their Vulcan roots a secret from the humans as it is a good means of influtration into enemy lines. Also the Romulan goverment has been known to enact long term missions that involve deep cover or possibly the attempted overthrow of the Vulcan government from the inside. After that they can have unification on Romulas' terms. After the formation of the Federation, this might have been the only way to overthrow Vulcan and defeat the Federation during those 100 years of relative quiet from the other side of the Romulan Neutral Zone. After the encounter with Kirk, the secret was out and thus they had to make other plans (but still long range ones as see in TNG when they had a respected Vulcan actually be a deep cover Romulan agent).

 

[Timo]

One wonders... Was the secret out after "Balance of Terror"? Only some 430 loyal Starfleet personnel witnessed the event and survived to tell the story - and how many of those actually learned the secret of the Romulan faces?

If the secret had been kept until then, then most methods of keeping it (witnesses sworn to secrecy, bribed to silence, memory-wiped or killed) would again be applicable here. We know Kirk didn't die, but we never learn he would have told anybody outside Starfleet, either.

Perhaps encounters like that were actually quite common in the century between the war and TOS, and just went unreported to the public?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JES]

^^ That would suggest a cover-up.

 

[Ithekro]

Well at least by TUC the Romulans were at the peace conference in large numbers. Unless they were repeatedly mistaken as Vulcans in these sorts of deals I would imagine that Romulans being Vulcan origin would have become public knowledge. IT certainly was by TNG.

If McCoy was slipping Romulan ale across the border, one might imagine the secret could have gotten out via trade routes once Romulas started being active again.

 

[Timo]

I'm sure the secret did get gently eased out some time after TOS but before TUC. Yet it's a separate and intriguing issue whether the pointy-ears in yellow robes at Khitomer were Vulcans, Romulans, Romulans masquerading as Vulcans, or Vulcans masquerading as Romulans. Or perhaps Cartwright or Chang's cohorts masquerading as either, as befits their Scooby Doo plot...

Those yellow-sashers have two flags: the IDIC one and the Bird-of-Prey one. And they appear to be led by two people in yellow: Sarek of Vulcan and Nanclus of Romulus. Some of them openly smile at the conclusion of the adventure, others remain stoic.

Perhaps Khitomer was a show of unity and possible reunification, a bold effort on the part of Vulcans even if perhaps insincere on the part of at least some Romulans...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm sure the secret did get gently eased out some time after TOS but before TUC. Yet it's a separate and intriguing issue whether the pointy-ears in yellow robes at Khitomer were Vulcans, Romulans, Romulans masquerading as Vulcans, or Vulcans masquerading as Romulans. Or perhaps Cartwright or Chang's cohorts masquerading as either, as befits their Scooby Doo plot...

Those yellow-sashers have two flags: the IDIC one and the Bird-of-Prey one. And they appear to be led by two people in yellow: Sarek of Vulcan and Nanclus of Romulus. Some of them openly smile at the conclusion of the adventure, others remain stoic.

Perhaps Khitomer was a show of unity and possible reunification, a bold effort on the part of Vulcans even if perhaps insincere on the part of at least some Romulans...

Timo Saloniemi

If you're one of those people (like me) who believes that TOS and TNG don't actually go together, then it's possible that Romulus was in the process of joining the Federation at the time, which would explain Nonclus' presence in the President's office and the Operation Retrieve briefing. Reunification would have been well underway in that case, brokered by the Federation (and Sarek in particular). We also hear from Caitlin Darr that the Nimbus-III project was enacted about 20 years earlier, which would put it just a few years -- or even a few months -- after "Balance of Terror." So the Romulans had been forced out of the shadows at that point and probably just decided to roll with it.

TNG presents a massive incongruity with the Romulans again retreating back into militarism and isolationism just a few years later, and still another incongruity by presenting the Klingons as a major military power just half a century after supposedly demilitarizing to deal with the Praxis disaster. If the Klingons didn't demilitarize, their homeworld should be an uninhabitable rock by now and the Klingons wouldn't be an empire so much as a heavily armed nomadic diaspora.

IOW, I'm thinking that the TOS movies actually diverge sharply from the TNG timeline; it cannot and should not be reconciled.

 

[Timo]

it's possible that Romulus was in the process of joining the Federation at the time, which would explain Nonclus' presence in the President's office and the Operation Retrieve briefing

Such a process would be possible in any version of the Trek universe(s), continuous or discontinuous. Whether it would be an honest process or yet another Romulan ruse... Who knows? But Romulan government probably changes at least as often as the weather (ST:NEM makes this basically canon!), and there might really have been a gust of detente at the time.

More probably, though, the Romulans were promising close cooperation and alliance with the UFP - and with the Klingons! By not telling one side of the dealings made with the other, they could upset the balance of terror that until then had prevented the Klingons and the Feds from having a war of mutual annihilation. Romulus wouldn't have to actually do anything in the war, except stand back.

I see no fault in the events of the 2290s being different from the events of the 2360s. A lot can happen in between. Just think of the ups and downs that Russia has been through recently - from arch-enemy to a potential NATO partner to a second-rate opponent all the way back to an arch-enemy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JES]

True, who would have thought that Russia would go from potential ally to arch-enemy all over again? I certainly didn't see that coming. I thought that the days of Russia being an enemy had long since died, but now Putin is being pretty antagonistic.

And the Klingons would have had 70 years to recover, and to remilitarize, or at least build a formidable defense fleet.

And during that time, I see no problem with the Romulans going from potential ally to arch-enemy, to going into seclusion, to rearing their pointy ears again. I'm sure that Senators come and go, and every time that a Praetor retires (or dies), the policy of the Romulan Star Empire shifts as well.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

True, who would have thought that Russia would go from potential ally to arch-enemy all over again?

People who are easily taken in by handwaving and/or media propaganda to believe that Russia is or will ever be again America's "arch enemy?"

And the Klingons would have had 70 years to recover, and to remilitarize, or at least build a formidable defense fleet.

Funded by WHAT? Unless they're using the fingernails of everyone who starved to death after the Praxis Event as currency, Kronos can't afford that kind of military buildup without immediately driving itself into bankruptcy. Really, the only way they could have gotten OUT of that mess in the first place is by massive infusion of foreign aid brokered by the Federation; to take all of that aid and then spend it on a huge military that they no longer have a reason to use would be rather asinine.

And during that time, I see no problem with the Romulans going from potential ally to arch-enemy, to going into seclusion, to rearing their pointy ears again. I'm sure that Senators come and go, and every time that a Praetor retires (or dies), the policy of the Romulan Star Empire shifts as well.

It would have to be a major shift -- like an actual shooting war between the Federation and Romulus -- to bring about that kind of change. Nothing like that is actually mentioned, but it's also not impossible.

 

[Timo]

Trek politics are dictated by blink-and-you-miss-it disasters of astronomical magnitude and by the loco motives of alien mindsets. How could one expect any sort of long-term consistency there, when we humans manage to get our own history all tangled up even with much lesser punctuation and much more fathomable obsessions?

"Funding" is a rather nonsensical concept in this context anyway: whatever the Klingons want to do with their economy is their business, and they can simply print as much money as they wish and value it as they like, as they apparently aren't in the habit of trading with anybody else anyway. Any "funds" or "credits" the Feds supplied wouldn't even be good for wiping Klingon arses, as they supposedly are too abstract for that... The amount of raw materials available on and beneath the Homeworld won't change with the Praxis crisis or the recovery therefrom, and that's basically all that matters.

Also, it's not as if anybody really died in the explosion AFAWK (that is, not tens of millions lost from the workforce or anything), and while a "key energy production facility" might be down for a while, getting free energy has never been a major problem in Star Trek.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Trek politics are dictated by blink-and-you-miss-it disasters of astronomical magnitude and by the loco motives of alien mindsets. How could one expect any sort of long-term consistency there, when we humans manage to get our own history all tangled up even with much lesser punctuation and much more fathomable obsessions?

That's just it: we're actually talking about a much shorter timescale than we're dealing with even in terms of human politics, but happening with planets/civilizations of much greater size. TNG goes on to imply that Federation/Klingon emnity was alive and well as recently as the 2340s; without Federation intervention, the Empire (and Kronos) should have been dead by then and FAR from any position to be "negotiating a peace treaty" as Castillo puts it.

"Funding" is a rather nonsensical concept in this context anyway

Not according to Spock, who convincingly argues that the Klingon Empire doesn't have the resources to deal with Praxis "due to an enormous military budget." We've also had glimpses into the Klingon economy in DS9, enough to know they're not a post-scarcity society. Since you yourself invited the real-world comparisons, I'm wondering if you understand what happens to an economic system when a government suddenly produces huge sums of currency with nothing to back it up?

The amount of raw materials available on and beneath the Homeworld won't change with the Praxis crisis or the recovery therefrom, and that's basically all that matters.

So the question is, did the Klingons actually solve the problem, or did they just stick those resources back into the "enormous military budget" that got them into this mess in the first place? If they did the latter, then the Empire goes out in a blaze of glory (the "die trying" option Gorkon feared). If they did the former, it will be a VERY long time before they ever become a major military power, but in that case they no longer have a reason to since their principal enemy -- the Federation -- are the ones who helped them get back on their feet.

Also, it's not as if anybody really died in the explosion AFAWK (that is, not tens of millions lost from the workforce or anything), and while a "key energy production facility" might be down for a while, getting free energy has never been a major problem in Star Trek.

Just what do you suppose an "energy production facility" actually is? Or in the modern context, "energy exploration?" It's not really a source of energy, it's a source of the means to produce it easily.

Namely, dilithium (overmining was the problem, remember?).

Praxis is their KEY energy production facility. This means it's their primary source of dilithium, which they use in all of their starships and domestic power consumption. The fact that their most productive source of dilithium is on their own moon explains a lot about the Empire and why it exists the way it does; the fact that that moon no longer exists says a lot about what it should eventually become, and the level of existence -- political, economic and military -- that it will now have to accept.

None of which is reflected in TNG. For all intents and purposes, the Praxis Event does not and cannot fit into that universe.

 

[Timo]

we're actually talking about a much shorter timescale than we're dealing with even in terms of human politics

How so? The world was completely rewritten in about six years last mid-century; in about four just before that; and in matters of decades at many an occasion prior to that.

without Federation intervention, the Empire (and Kronos) should have been dead by then

I'm not really sure why there should be that "and" there, or the first part, but somehow the loss of homeworlds does collapse empires in the Trek universe, so let's let that stand.

Yet if the Federation can help the Klingons, it sort of follows that others can, too. Probably including the Klingons themselves. They may have been spending unwisely, but they supposedly don't lag behind the Federation in technology or other knowledge.

The Feds claimed there was a fifty-year window in which to act to save Qo'noS. But the window in which the Federation could act must have been much narrower: they blew their chance by not subjugating the Empire within the first helpless couple of years already.

the Klingon Empire doesn't have the resources to deal with Praxis "due to an enormous military budget."

Shifting that should be a breeze now that the Feds have stopped shooting at them. There's 50 years in which to repair Qo'noS - but no indication that it should take 50 years to do that! A few years in which no new battlecruiser fleets are budgeted might take care of it already.

I'm wondering if you understand what happens to an economic system when a government suddenly produces huge sums of currency with nothing to back it up?

Basically nothing. Assuming, that is, that the system exists in a vacuum. And it would appear that the Klingon system very much does - indeed, any space empire would (yes, the poor pun intended, too). What possible reason would there exist for a star empire not to be a closed system? Inflation is something you can trivially manage with your printing of funny money when you are the only player in the field.

So the question is, did the Klingons actually solve the problem, or did they just stick those resources back into the "enormous military budget" that got them into this mess in the first place?

Yup. And the answer might simply be "yes". Thirty years might be plenty to both save the Homeworld and rearm to a war that brings the UFP to its knees.

The answer might also be "yes" in the sense that the solution did not involve saving the Homeworld. A relocation of the Seat of the Emperor (and the Comfy Chair of the Chancellor) to a less dead world might have sufficed.

Just what do you suppose an "energy production facility" actually is?

In the context of Praxis, it's hard to tell - but since there's that doubletalk about mining, it's probably a place where energy-releasing natural resources are both extracted and processed.

Yet Praxis is but one moon (we don't know where, but various sources would suggest in orbit around Qo'noS). Somehow, energy from there kept the Empire going. So we're talking about the ability to ship energy between star systems - and it then becomes a matter of rerouting the shipments so that the loss of a central source can be compensated for,w here it matters, until other sources can be brought to play.

This means it's their primary source of dilithium

To nitpick, we have no evidence Praxis and dilithium are in any way related. And we have no evidence that mining for dilithium would "produce" energy, in any sense of the word.

the fact that that moon no longer exists

But it does; if anything, the explosion has made it easier to access the mineable resources deeper within.

For all intents and purposes, the Praxis Event does not and cannot fit into that universe.

You can't very well argue that the Fukushima Event cannot fit into the universe where Japan will continue to exist and prosper and have nuclear power and whatnot... And that was bigger than Praxis in relation to the size of the political-economical entity.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JES]

True, who would have thought that Russia would go from potential ally to arch-enemy all over again?

People who are easily taken in by handwaving and/or media propaganda to believe that Russia is or will ever be again America's "arch enemy?"

And the Klingons would have had 70 years to recover, and to remilitarize, or at least build a formidable defense fleet.

Funded by WHAT? Unless they're using the fingernails of everyone who starved to death after the Praxis Event as currency, Kronos can't afford that kind of military buildup without immediately driving itself into bankruptcy. Really, the only way they could have gotten OUT of that mess in the first place is by massive infusion of foreign aid brokered by the Federation; to take all of that aid and then spend it on a huge military that they no longer have a reason to use would be rather asinine.

I don't know! Maybe they founded a lot of other colonies in those 70 years, and mined them for raw materials! Materials they could use to build more ships!

And during that time, I see no problem with the Romulans going from potential ally to arch-enemy, to going into seclusion, to rearing their pointy ears again. I'm sure that Senators come and go, and every time that a Praetor retires (or dies), the policy of the Romulan Star Empire shifts as well.

It would have to be a major shift -- like an actual shooting war between the Federation and Romulus -- to bring about that kind of change. Nothing like that is actually mentioned, but it's also not impossible.

Yeah, the Tomed Incident, in some crazy Rommie and his crew had their ship ram a Federation outpost, and nearly start a shooting war.

 

[Timo]

We don't know exactly what happened in that incident, not canonically. It may have been a whopping big deal that cost millions of lives and shook galactic politics - or it may have been a Romulan named Tomed saying "End transmission!" in a very rude manner before closing the channel for the next fifty years.

Tomed gets just two mentions in all of Star Trek: it's an "incident" in TNG "The Neutral Zone" and a "mission" in ENT "Kir'Shara". Neither of these is badly at odds with the David George story about that "ramming incident", nor is it impossible that Tomed might be the name of a place and a ship. Or of a person, after whom both the place and the ship were named. Or whatever the order.

In any case, it's pretty clear that "incidents", "massacres", "disasters" and the like create sudden twists and turns in Trek politics. These may be the deliberate doing of one deviously plotting party, or something that takes all parties by surprise, but there you have it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

One might note that the Klingon fleet is full of older ships. There are few modern warships. Everything else is Birds of Prey style ships and recommissioned D7 types. The huge battle between the Klingon fleet and Deep Space Nine had only five modern warships on the Klingon side. Sure several of the BoPs might be newer than 70 years old, but they are still an old design.

Likewise a lot number of Starfleet ships are Miranda-class or Excelsior-class based. Starfleet does start getting more modern ships involved than the Klingons as the numbers of First Contact based ships and the number of Galaxy and Nebula class ships goes up in battles.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

we're actually talking about a much shorter timescale than we're dealing with even in terms of human politics

How so? The world was completely rewritten in about six years last mid-century

No "the world" was not. The political destiny of Europe was, to be sure, but only inasmuch as the tension between the West and the Soviet Bloc. The Chinese Revolution took much longer, but even then was largely a consequence of Japan's flash-in-the-pan militarization and conquest drive.

Actually, it was the end of the FIRST World War -- and not neccesarily even the war itself -- that redrew the political/social/economic lines of most of the world, with the disbursement of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Revolution and the slow reversal of British Imperialism. This is a timespan from the 1900s to the mid 1930s that saw a dramatic shift in the power structure of the entire world, primarily due to the rapid decline of several large imperial powers and the equally rapid rise of several new ones. This didn't happen after world war II because the existing power structure remained more or less intact: the same imperial powers that began the war (USA, Russia, Britain) were relatively intact, while the upstart "breakout" regimes in the Axis powers had been blasted to a cinder and were gone. Thus despite the climactic end of the war, the power structure that settled into place after 1914 has remained more or less undisturbed through 2014. The primary exceptions are Japan and China, but ironically in China's case it's because they had a massive upheaval during the Revolution and the slow shaking off of western imperialism.

My point is, there isn't a case in history -- not even recent history -- where a dramatic and far-reaching reversal of political fate swings right back to its initial starting condition in such a way that said reversal is nearly invisible. Put another way: the history of the Federation/Klingon/Romulan relationship is inconsistent with the history suggested at in the TOS movies precisely because their TNG treatment was written BEFORE the TOS movies and couldn't have taken it into account in the first place.

Yet if the Federation can help the Klingons, it sort of follows that others can, too. Probably including the Klingons themselves.

The Klingons couldn't do it with their existing military priorities, and they knew this, and the Federation knew this. That was actually the entire premise of TUC, and it's not up for debate.

they supposedly don't lag behind the Federation in technology or other knowledge.

That is VERY much up for debate, considering that the only advanced technology they seem to have is related to military or intelligence purposes. Even in the 24th century they place an amazingly low priority on scientific analysis or intelligence of any kind. Which means if the Klingons were able to save themselves, it would have been at the expense of their existing military priorities, which would have far-reaching consequences for their development years later.

The Feds claimed there was a fifty-year window in which to act to save Qo'noS

No, it was a fifty year window after which Qo'nos would have "depleted its supply of oxygen." The Klingons would have to either take serious steps to repair the damage to their atmosphere while at the same time dealing with the devastation from the explosion itself, or they would have to find new planets on which to relocate most of their population. The latter is the military solution Gorkon feared, the former is what the Klingons were asking of the Federation in terms of a lasting peace and demilitarization (plus the aid they asked for in the Khitomer Conference).

There's 50 years in which to repair Qo'noS - but no indication that it should take 50 years to do that!

Put it this way: the United States has experienced multiple highly destructive natural disasters in the past 50 years, none of which were large enough to affect our military spending priorities OR affect our foreign policy agenda so dramatically.

It wasn't Kronos' Hurricane Katrina. The Klingons genuinely believed they were facing extinction. They were desperate, and willing to try anything.

So no, it isn't "a few years in which no new battlecruiser fleets are budgeted." It is, in fact, the Klingon apocalypse. IF they ever manage to build warships again, they will be the new ships of the "post-Praxis" generation, built under a new government and a new social order that barely remembers what the old one looked like.

TNG doesn't have to worry about that, of course, because the Praxis event isn't part of that timeline. The Klingon Empire is just a thing that's been variously passive or aggressive, hostile or friendly, since at least the 22nd century up until the Enterprise-C convinced them that, yes, the Federation CAN be honorable and even a worthy ally.

Basically nothing.

Is the wrong answer. In fact, it's almost the ONLY wrong answer.

Yup. And the answer might simply be "yes"

Yes, it could be, if the Klingon Empire ceased to exist as a meaningful entity and Kronos ceased to be their homeworld. Bear in mind that in the 23rd century the Klingons DID NOT have the military power necessary to actually roll over the Federation; even if victory was possible, it would be an extremely costly one.

The Praxis Event would have doomed forever any hope they might have of defeating the Federation. It wasn't a question of victory for them, it was a question of whether or not they were willing to accept the terms of a peace deal with the Federation in order to survive. According to some Klingons, that cost wasn't worth it ("Better to die on our feet than live on our knees.")

But in the universe created by TUC, there is NO possibility of the Klingons ever again being a major threat to the Federation. Not in a few years, not in thirty. Their choice was to either put their guns away and come to a reasonable compromise, or try to go down fighting. If at some point they chose to do the latter, the Federation would have squashed them like the cowering wretches they were.

Not so in the TNG universe where the Klingon Empire had always been strong and remained strong even in the early years of 24th century. Even less so, a universe in which the Klingons need an incident like the Battle of Narendra-III to have a reason to trust the Federation.

Yet Praxis is but one moon (we don't know where, but various sources would suggest in orbit around Qo'noS). Somehow, energy from there kept the Empire going. So we're talking about the ability to ship energy between star systems - and it then becomes a matter of rerouting the shipments...

How does rerouting shipments change the fact that you no longer have anything to ship???

Think about that. Praxis is their key energy production facility. If Praxis blows up, then the majority of the energy it was producing is not being distributed; however that energy was being transferred, it ISN'T anymore.

When you loose 60% of your output, you can't reclaim that lost 60% be rearranging how it's distributed. You can RATION it, sure, but that's not going to restore production, temporarily or permanently. Not unless you actually reduce your consumption by a huge degree, which is probably what the Klingons' demilitarization involved: all the dilithium resources that would have gone into military projects are now being diverted just to keep the lights on.

If the Klingons didn't rebuild Praxis, then they either expanded out and conquered new resource worlds in order to restore their previous imperial lifestyle -- which would lead to them being curb-stomped by the Federation -- or they abandoned the lifestyle in favor of survival. That was the choice that Praxis left them.

TNG does not reflect their ever having had to make that kind of choice before. Again, the reason for this is obvious.

For all intents and purposes, the Praxis Event does not and cannot fit into that universe.

You can't very well argue that the Fukushima Event cannot fit into the universe where Japan will continue to exist...

If the Fukushima Event had been the cause of Japan's surrender in World War II, then it is VERY MUCH the case that the Japanese Empire cannot continue to exist in that timeline.

It bears repeating here: the Klingons were not facing an economic depression or a sudden inconvenient resource shortage. The Klingons were facing extinction. Their efforts to reach out to the Federation under a flag of truce was only possible because a certain percentage of Klingons were willing to swallow their warrior pride (which is immense) in order to ensure the survival of their species.

 

[Ithekro]

It seems like the Klingon Empire was eventually repaired in the 24 century. Sometime before the 2340s. At this point the Klingons seem to be rather resentful of what the Federation probably made them do to repair the damage caused and exposed by Praxis' destruction. A resentful Klingon Empire opposite a more or less peaceful and potenally pacifistic Federation? A Federation that might not yet be in direct conflict with the Cadassian Union and is working up plans for a giant luxury liner of an exploration vessel (Galaxy-class). A Federation that has not had to deal with the Romulans in a generation and has had the Klingons more or less round up for about two generations. A Federation that is moving away from what remained of their military-like 23rd century nature.

Now the Klingons decide that with the Homeworld secure and the shackles of the Federation are finally removed, it is time to address their lost pride. The warrior spirit calls for blood and conquest that they have been denied for maybe two generations. The sciences are even more lost than before. The modern Klingon seems much less refined as a Klingon in Kirk's day. The Klingon Empire, now driven by the old notions of honor and blood, start pulling all those old D7s and Birds of Prey out of mothballs. Upgrade them with modern weapons while constructing new ships using these old designs as a way to get more ships in space in as little time as possible. Even scaling up the Bird of Prey just to get larger hulls into space with more modern weapons.

Before the Romulans start attacking again and the Enterprise-C gains the Klingon's respect, the Klingons are likely setting up to fight the Federation. That it was an Enterprise that stood its ground and was lost defending a Klingon planet was likely what changed the Klingons' minds. Enterprise has been a name that has been haunting their relations with Earth and the Federation since the 2150s, with Kirk's Enterprise being the great enemy and Archer's Enterprise being the reminder of embarrassing times for the Empire. The Enterprise-B was probably involved with the Klingons as well and yet another reminder of that name in the Klingon minds.

The idea I suppose would be that the Klingon Empire would have a lot of old starships. Starfleet might have old ships, but it seems like they were putting ships away in favor of fewer new ships and a backbone of Excelsiors across Federation space. Even by the Dominion War the Klingons have a lot of old style ships that are viable in combat against Starfleet and Cardassia (less so against the Dominion, but they make do). With those sorts of numbers, and time, it seems like the Klingons (in Yesterday's Enterprise) were able to roll over the Federation in a prolonged war. This might not mean the Federation was losing everything, but more had lost the will to keep fighting after twenty years and was considering surrender to get Klingon terms to at least stop the fighting and perhaps get some normal life back into the region.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It seems like the Klingon Empire was eventually repaired in the 24 century. Sometime before the 2340s. At this point the Klingons seem to be rather resentful of what the Federation probably made them do to repair the damage caused and exposed by Praxis' destruction. A resentful Klingon Empire opposite a more or less peaceful and potenally pacifistic Federation? A Federation that might not yet be in direct conflict with the Cadassian Union and is working up plans for a giant luxury liner of an exploration vessel (Galaxy-class). A Federation that has not had to deal with the Romulans in a generation and has had the Klingons more or less round up for about two generations. A Federation that is moving away from what remained of their military-like 23rd century nature.

Now the Klingons decide that with the Homeworld secure and the shackles of the Federation are finally removed, it is time to address their lost pride. The warrior spirit calls for blood and conquest that they have been denied for maybe two generations...

But we already addressed this issue in "Heart of Glory."

That is, the Klingons (some of them, anyway) are DEFINITELY wishing for the good old days of the warrior era, days which are long past and aren't coming back. Far more importantly is the fact that the existing Klingon government is far from resentful towards the Federation; quite the contrary, in fact, they alternate between disdain and indifference and are at worst annoyed by their presence.

All of which can be made consistent with the TUC timeline, EXCEPT for the notion of the Empire having a substantially powerful military force. The loss of Praxis and the end of the conquest drive means they would have to switch to more constructive means of meeting their material needs, eschewing conquest and expansionism (of the kind Korris and Konmel were looking for) in favor of cooperative trade and collective problem solving.

Truth be told, it's not as if the Klingons could even be allies with the Federation UNLESS they had put their militaristic ways behind them. The Redemption War in TNG could be reinterpreted in that context, where the Klingon military isn't actually that large and most of the combatants were really just private militias whose allegiance to the Empire was theoretical at best. That would, however, require quite a bit of tinkering with the internal logic of "Redemption" and "Yesterday's Enterprise."

The modern Klingon seems much less refined as a Klingon in Kirk's day.

And far less educated to boot.

Suddenly I'm wondering if the primary difference between the 23rd and 24th century Klingons is that a lot more of the latter grew up in poverty and that Klingons really HAVE become the "alien trash of the galaxy."

 

[Mytran]

The Redemption War in TNG could be reinterpreted in that context, where the Klingon military isn't actually that large and most of the combatants were really just private militias whose allegiance to the Empire was theoretical at best. That would, however, require quite a bit of tinkering with the internal logic of "Redemption" and "Yesterday's Enterprise."

Yesterday's Enterprise isn't so much of a problem, since much of the "facts" gleaned from that episode take the form of speculation by a bunch of war-torn officers from a parallel universe. And yes, I know it supposed to be an alternate history based on our own but that really doesn't work logically, since the key event (a big explosion at Narendra) is a natural event in the timeline without any external interference. As a result, the outcome of the Ent-C's adventures started and ended 20 years before Picard finds the anomaly, with an alternate timeline not even on the cards.

The only other reference to the Ent-C and Narendra is in Redemption during Selar's introduction. But then it is merely referred to as an "incident", with no mention of alternate timelines or Klingon armadas fighting the Federation. So in the Prime timeline we really don't know what happened at Narendra.
Together with interpreting the battles in Redemption as the result of private militias, the events of TUC seem ever more plausible in a TNG set up.

 

[Timo]

No "the world" was not. The political destiny of Europe was, to be sure, but only inasmuch as the tension between the West and the Soviet Bloc.

And? I'm sure the Cardassians and Tholians could pretty much ignore Praxis when it happened, but it sure shook their worlds later on. Ditto with the European World Wars - what happened during the fighting might have been confined to certain nations (all across the globe), but what happened between England, France, Germany, Russia and the United States turned China, India and Brazil upside down just the same.

This is a timespan from the 1900s to the mid 1930s that saw a dramatic shift in the power structure of the entire world

...And it can be divided into any number of five-year stretches where the shift went in one direction, only to be reversed during the next stretch. History is wobbly. Praxis would be no exception.

My point is, there isn't a case in history -- not even recent history -- where a dramatic and far-reaching reversal of political fate swings right back to its initial starting condition in such a way that said reversal is nearly invisible.

Sure there is. Germany came, went, bounced back, went again, and came again. And Germany is still a kingpin nation that affects the economy and politics of the entire world.

Germany really is the closest analogy we have to Klingons, in that there's this great feud going on with two neighbors, a lot of colonial nastiness that never reaches the level of declared war, and later on a revelation that there are even bigger players and bigger feuds overseas, with a comparable feud of their own. But not just that: any case of two rival nations is one of teeter-tottering successes and defeats (say, England and France, or any of the Mediterranean trade powers), with each generation (or sometimes half a generation) swearing that everything has changed for the better/worse, only to have their kids face a reversed situation.

Put another way: the history of the Federation/Klingon/Romulan relationship is inconsistent with the history suggested at in the TOS movies precisely because their TNG treatment was written BEFORE the TOS movies and couldn't have taken it into account in the first place.

Neither TNG nor the movies describe the relationship in overlapping terms, so there is no inconsistency there. No consistency, either, because there simply isn't enough material to go by, but we can always fill the gaps or consider them filled and then declare consistency. That's the default position, after all - pseudohistory aspires to be history, so it's not deliberately and artificially inconsistent (unless this is a plot point, especially in scifi).

The Klingons couldn't do it with their existing military priorities, and they knew this, and the Federation knew this. That was actually the entire premise of TUC, and it's not up for debate.

It is explicated indeed that the Klingon military priorities were the reason the Klingons were in trouble. The solution is trivial: shunt some of the budget to saving Qo'noS.

That is VERY much up for debate, considering that the only advanced technology they seem to have is related to military or intelligence purposes.

It would be quite odd for that technology to exist in a vacuum. Moreover, Klingons thanks to their intel prowess have access to knowledge, and this is discounting the fact that the Feds are giving it to them for free anyway.

The likely scenario, after all, is this: Klingons agree to the Khitomer Accords and their various limitations on their aggression and related escalation. Feds send in their aid teams, which assess the situation and tell what should be done. Klingons get cracking with it. Feds come back and say that this, this and this ought to be done as well so that things don't backslide again, and their experts' continuing presence is required for such. Klingons tell them to bugger off, are happy with the half-baked job, and start building battle cruisers again.

If the remedy requires resources, Klingons obtain those from within their empire. Or then expand the empire to get the resources, for that matter; most opponents aren't as formidable as the Feds, and the Feds don't even need to know where the tri-kumbosite or isolosteroids are coming from.

Which means if the Klingons were able to save themselves, it would have been at the expense of their existing military priorities, which would have far-reaching consequences for their development years later.

...For all of five years, perhaps. There's no real basis for claiming that any other number of years would be more probable.

No, it was a fifty year window after which Qo'nos would have "depleted its supply of oxygen."

So yes, 50 years in which to find a way to survive and implement it. Preferably sooner than later.

So no, it isn't "a few years in which no new battlecruiser fleets are budgeted." It is, in fact, the Klingon apocalypse.

Why should there be any difference? Klingons by their own belief now are dead if

a) they don't repair their home, and/or
b) they get conquered by the murderous Federation scum.

Now they are safe from b, thanks to the Khitomer signatures, and can do a at their leisure. Without the peace, one calamity would be tied to the other, dragging both down to hell. With the peace, there is no such connect.

IF they ever manage to build warships again, they will be the new ships of the "post-Praxis" generation, built under a new government and a new social order that barely remembers what the old one looked like.

Why should anything change? Klingons are conservatives, willing to kill their leaders if they propose drastic change. Even if one set of leaders is coerced to paying lip service to new ideas, they can quickly be deposed of and the ancient Kahlessian rule re-established. Probably with even greater vehemence, as we see in TNG.

TNG doesn't have to worry about that, of course, because the Praxis event isn't part of that timeline. The Klingon Empire is just a thing that's been variously passive or aggressive, hostile or friendly, since at least the 22nd century up until the Enterprise-C convinced them that, yes, the Federation CAN be honorable and even a worthy ally.

...After which the Klingons at least twice reverted to thinking of the UFP as their worst enemy again. There's no reason why Praxis could not fit into that cycle, with the established features.

Bear in mind that in the 23rd century the Klingons DID NOT have the military power necessary to actually roll over the Federation; even if victory was possible, it would be an extremely costly one.

The same went for the Federation, apparently. Yet the conspiracy of TUC suddenly made both sides think they could triumph after all. So the balance must be a really delicate one.

How does rerouting shipments change the fact that you no longer have anything to ship???

"Key" can't mean "sole". If they could build one Praxis, they can build more, given enough time.

Sure, Praxis may be a source of rare natural resources. But if it really is a moon orbiting the Klingon homeworld, then odds are astronomically against "rare" being defined as "so rare that the Empire doesn't have a dozen fallback positions to choose from". And there may be alternate sources to power, too; Germany repeatedly made do with alternatives when deprived of coal or oil, say.

All the dilithium resources that would have gone into military projects are now being diverted just to keep the lights on.

Wanna bet? I'd rather argue a suitable percentage of the power is simply being routed to the loudspeakers that say "Better to huddle in darkness and cold than crawl on your knees in light and warmth"...

Klingons could easily shut down a dozen worlds where humans would only see the option of shutting down a dozen factories.

If the Fukushima Event had been the cause of Japan's surrender in World War II, then it is VERY MUCH the case that the Japanese Empire cannot continue to exist in that timeline.

Doesn't follow.

1) The Japanese Empire did cease to exist, due to certain short-duration calamities, but is back again; that it isn't belligerent against the United States at the moment is just a random quirk in history, but the belligerence with China and the desire to secure natural resources and Lebensraum or security space is still very much there.

2) It didn't take "armageddon" to stop the Japanese Empire from existing for a brief while. But something like Fukushima might have been the decisive element in the Pacific War, had history gone slightly differently. Key there is that this calamity plus war is what would collapse empires; the calamity alone would not be decisive.

It bears repeating here: the Klingons were not facing an economic depression or a sudden inconvenient resource shortage. The Klingons were facing extinction.

There is absolutely no connect between these big words like "armageddon" or "extinction" and the concept that it would take more than half a century to deal with them. (Just see the movies by those names to find out that the solution typically takes about ninety-five minutes!)

Certain types of armageddon can be dealt with swiftly; Praxis seems a key example of such, as Spock immediately can define the steps that will make everything hunky-dory again. From TUC, it seems that all it takes is for the Klingons to stop shooting long enough to let the UFP save the planet; at most the Klingons might expend some of their resources there, but they're a star empire and can afford to expend lots of those.

Timo Saloniemi