These Klingons have funerals and use corpses to decorate the hulls of their ships. The Klingons I know scream for thirty seconds and toss away dead bodies because they are only an empty shell.
Spoilers Should they have used Romulans instead? (Spoilers, probably)
- Thread starter The Wormhole
- Start date
T'Kuvma's group is different, they follow different rituals.
The whole point is there are 24 houses, each of which have their own customs and traditions. These guys decorate their ships with coffins. In TOS, we don't really know what they did. In TNG, they do away with the coffin. Sounds like the changes in national policies from administration to administration. Something critical obviously comes out of this for the Klingons, which sets the tone of their interactions with the Federation for the next few decades.
You know, I don't get why people think adhering to basic canon "ties the hands" of the writers. How many times have you shaken your fist at the clouds and swore "Damn you, writers! Why didn't you ignore canon and write an 1890s script involving Nazis racing to build lasers to take over the moon colony?!!!"
Good writers are, by their nature, creative. They can find a way to tell the stories they want without changing the established history of the Universe in which they work. So Discovery writers can't use Romulans as a main villain. Boo hoo. They were in TOS for what, all of two episodes? Why are they the goldmine of antagonists for Trek?
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Well, in this case, given the lead character of the show was raised by Vulcans making her more or less Vulcan by association, Romulan villains seem the logical course of action given their connection to the Vulcans, and given they have for some reason decided the Klingons haven't been seen for nearly a century, why not just go with the race that have canonically been away since the same timeframe? Just because Balance of Terror exists and what's established there isn't much of an excuse. Hell, that episode made it seem like the Federation was unaware of cloaking technology, Kirk and Spock discuss it as a theory only. And yet, many races seen on Enterprise had cloaking technology, including the Romulans themselves, and in this episode we see the Klingons have cloaking technology. And I'm not even getting started on the "simple impulse" line.
Besides, if canon is this damn important, than just go ahead and make this a separate timeline already. At them moment, having Discovery be part of the Prime Universe is creating too many unnecessary "round object in a square slot" problems that shouldn't even be a part of the show at all.
I don't see why. Because they look the same? The only person who was at all impacted by that in BoT was Lt. Styles (and to a lesser extent, Spock). The premiere episode of Discovery also goes out of its way to establish that Burnham is an expert in Klingon society, which makes them very relevant (she's one of the only experts around when you need one).
Because it's setting the stage for the TOS era, in which the Klingons are the arch-enemy.
That's because the writers of Enterprise couldn't work their way through a story without using the established tropes of the 24th century. They were more concerned with connecting Berman-era fans with Enterprise, and much less so about making it a true prequel to TOS. Dare I say they weren't "good" writers at all, but rather writers who were lazy and too interested in writing fangasms.
Like what? (not counting the visuals, which are required to tell the story to and keep the interest of a 2017 audience).
I disagree that the religious fundamentalist thing is inconsistent with past Klingon behavior, we have established in the TNG era that Klingon have a religion, so why wouldn't they have religious fundamentalists? We have never seen much of evidence of the Romulans having a religion. Its easier to justify the Klingons as religious zealots then it would be for the Romulans.
Because they have a shared history.
Considering Turn About Intruder suggested women can't be captains in Kirk's era, I think some canon is best ignored. I don't even mind ignoring Balance of Terror to have Romulans appear in this show.
Good stories are more important to me then continuity porn.
Maybe these Klingons are different then TNG era Klingons, considering its in the past and they are in some sort of cult.
Frankly I am getting sick of the Star Trek monocultures, where everyone in a culture acts the same, why wouldn't the Klingons have sub cultures.
The line I think you're referencing from Turnabout Intruder is:
JANICE: Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair.
To which the replies are:
KIRK: No, it isn't. And you punished and tortured me because of it.
JANICE: I loved you. We could've roamed among the stars.
KIRK: We'd have killed each other.
JANICE: It might have been better.
That doesn't say "Women can't be starship captains". It is a jab at Kirk from his ex-lover, saying that *HE* won't admit women into his world of being a starship captain, because to him the priority is clear. She would have taken second place, and it would have been disastrous for their relationship.
Fair enough, I stand by my idea that continuity should be a tool, not something you should be chained to at all costs. I rather have a good story then vapid attempts at continuity porn.
Star Trek has made great efforts to establish itself as the franchise that keeps to continuity as much as possible. Most fans love it for that. I don't understand the purely contrarian viewpoint espoused by many here that Star Trek must abandon continuity to save itself. As I said, good writers can work around such constraints. I wouldn't worry.
Most of this has arisen because they chose to use Klingons instead of Romulans as the adversaries. So I ask again: why are Romulans the golden ticket to great plots?
Except I am pretty sure there were continuity issues in past Star Trek shows and movies, with a canon this big you will have continuity issues and how many young people today care if this series adheres to the continuity of an episode from 50 years ago.
All these complaints about continuity seems like insular fanboy complaints then anything else. It seems akin to complaining about how a modern issue of Spider-Man doesn't exactly line up with an issue from 1965.
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Most egregious continuity errors were introduced in Enterprise, which pretended to be a prequel but was really a 24th century show that followed Voyager. As for the young people -- I suspect they don't know what happened in TOS to be concerned about continuity.
Spiderman never made the "commitment" to stick to continuity. Star Trek did, and so did the creators of Discovery. Nothing at all about fan boys.
Really? So changing the look and culture of the Klingons in the TNG era wasn't a huge retcon?
There were threads on this site about continuity glitches:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/what-is-the-worst-continuity-error-in-trek-history.139195/
Sure it did, all the main Spider-Man issues are supposed to be continuity with each other, going back to the 60s, but that's not very practical, so issues pop up, same deal with Star Trek.
Really Star Trek only follows continuity when it feels like it. Which is why I don't care if an episode from 2017 doesn't line up with one from 1967.
T'Kuvma had a cloaking device, a staple of the Romulans that they (for some reason) have had since the 2150s, according to Enterprise. I think it's highly likely that they are involved in the Klingon War somehow, perhaps having supplied technology to T'Kuvma in the first place, and pressuring him to unite the Empire and attack the Federation. They're all about intrigue and subterfuge, and getting two groups to go at war with each other screams "Romulan involvement" to me.
In addition, the behind-the-scenes info about "Oh no, of course we can't use Romulans, because of Balance of Terror" is almost too clean-cut to me. The producers want to throw us off the scent of potential Romulan involvement, so when they do show up (probably right before the mid-season break, although maybe later), it'll be a surprise. They already surprised us with the T'Kuvma death, so we are in store for more surprises.
So, I'm pretty sure that they *are* using the Romulans, it's just that the Romulans are doing what they've done a half-dozen times before in four out of six series, hiding and scheming. If they are truly concerned about canon or whatever, then they'll just have to "classify" the Romulan involvement or something like that.
And also, sorry to bring politics into this, but the producers have also been adamant for some reason that the Klingons aren't representing the Russians anymore. That the Klingons represent a modern Donald Trump America. President Trump is currently under investigation for ties to Russia, which is also being investigated for its involvement in the overall 2016 US presidential election. So, if the Klingons are Donald Trump, then who actually are the Russians that have been providing him with the means to propel himself to a position of power? I propose that the Romulans are representing the modern-day Russians.
Or maybe there won't be any Romulans at all, outside of stray mentions, and I am completely wrong.
In addition, the behind-the-scenes info about "Oh no, of course we can't use Romulans, because of Balance of Terror" is almost too clean-cut to me. The producers want to throw us off the scent of potential Romulan involvement, so when they do show up (probably right before the mid-season break, although maybe later), it'll be a surprise. They already surprised us with the T'Kuvma death, so we are in store for more surprises.
So, I'm pretty sure that they *are* using the Romulans, it's just that the Romulans are doing what they've done a half-dozen times before in four out of six series, hiding and scheming. If they are truly concerned about canon or whatever, then they'll just have to "classify" the Romulan involvement or something like that.
And also, sorry to bring politics into this, but the producers have also been adamant for some reason that the Klingons aren't representing the Russians anymore. That the Klingons represent a modern Donald Trump America. President Trump is currently under investigation for ties to Russia, which is also being investigated for its involvement in the overall 2016 US presidential election. So, if the Klingons are Donald Trump, then who actually are the Russians that have been providing him with the means to propel himself to a position of power? I propose that the Romulans are representing the modern-day Russians.
Or maybe there won't be any Romulans at all, outside of stray mentions, and I am completely wrong.
First, the "look" of Klingons didn't change. TMP established they had bumpy foreheads, and Gene Roddenberry admitted that they'd always looked liked that. And 40 years onward, it's pretty much canon.
Second, as to their culture: I think Discovery is establishing that the culture changes according to which house is ruling -- which is mostly consistent with TNG.
The first couple pages of that are discussions of how Spot went from male to female....
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I'm glad that they didnt use the Romulans. I find the Romulans to serve the story better as a more elusive sort of background race who are a superior thorn in the side of the Federation. They're not exciting in the same way as the Klingons (not that I absolutely love the Klingons or anything).
Or maybe I just havent seen any really good Romulan Star Trek episodes yet?
Or maybe I just havent seen any really good Romulan Star Trek episodes yet?
The thing about the Romulans is, that, like in Enterprise, Starfleet can get involved with Romulans at any time. They trick is that Starfleet won't know they are Romulans. If they meet one face to face, they will assume they are Vulcans, and if the Romulans don't tip their hand, the Federation will be none the wiser afterwards. They can used cloaked ships and never show themselves to any starship that will survive the encounter. Or they can used stolen ships and make sure they explode or escape by the end, again denying the ability for Starfleet to identify them as Romulan.
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