Voq/Ash surgery and Klingon code of honor

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by TrickyDickie, Feb 7, 2019.

  1. TrickyDickie

    TrickyDickie Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Discovery, as a series, has thus far amped-up technology beyond what we saw in the original series. Personally, I reached a point where canon issues stopped mattering for me. I don't care what they do with canon, one way or the other.

    For this topic, the higher level of technology comes into play.

    I forget where in Trek, over the years, that the concept originated, but it makes sense in-universe: transporter-based surgery.

    With that method available as a tool, the Klingons could have taken Voq and Ash and scanned them, mapped them, and merged them....at least to take care of the biological part of the equation. Seems like that would have eliminated all of the complex and problematic issues of physically breaking bones and paring down, etc, etc. Tuvix, from Voyager, is somewhat of a precedent, albeit not a deliberate one.

    The interesting question arises: would Klingons choose to go that route, if it was an option? If the....easy way happened to be a better way, that would make Voq more easily pass for human and eliminate issues arising from the trauma of the procedure that might give the game away, would the Klingon code of honor allow it? Or would the code demand that a Klingon show strength at all times, making 'the hard way' the only way?

    Klingons have often been characterized in such a way as to suggest that they are quite one-dimensional and not all that capable of patience, subtlety, setting things in place in such a way as to look to what is best in the long-term, etc.

    Are Klingons really the 'bull in the China shop' that just rages ahead, with no capacity to calmly reason things out, even when it is to their own advantage to handle things that way?

    Has there been a shift, since the original series, that has made the average Klingon more violent and possessing of less reasoning power? Kor had guile. Kruge screamed "We are Klingons!"

    Did the writers bring about the Voq/Ash surgery in the manner it was portrayed simply to amp-up the drama beyond what a less harsh tranporter-based method might have produced? Or do they believe that it is Klingon nature and part of their code to do everything in the harshest way possible?
     
  2. pst

    pst Commodore Commodore

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    i think it was the game of thrones-ification of star trek they were shooting for in season 1. gory, violating surgery for the sake of shock, like eating kelpien entrails and georgiou's face.
     
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  3. Kor

    Kor Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The Klingon "code of honor" is a matter of lip service, to justify whatever they feel like doing this week.

    Kor
     
  4. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    They really didn't seem to have any clue on how to pull it off. It seems they've set their targets in a more manageable range this season.
     
  5. donners22

    donners22 Commodore Commodore

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    There was a deleted scene in The Enterprise Incident where Spock asked the Romulan Commander why they would ally with Klingons - as Klingons had no honour.

    The whole Klingon honour thing was a TNG invention; in TOS, Romulans were the honourable ones.
     
  6. Kor

    Kor Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    TSFS hints at a certain barbaric sense of honor with one line of dialog, but I feel that TNG and DS9 took it overboard and in the wrong direction.

    Kor
     
  7. Succubint

    Succubint Captain Captain

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    Klingons celebrate their 2nd rite of Ascension with a gauntlet of painstiks, which might kill you. They love doing things the hard way.

    However, we've seen Klingon lawyers and doctors in ENT portrayed as more thoughtful and less brutish in how they solve their problems. L'Rell herself speaks of her house Mokai as being far more subtle and scheming in the way they operate. TOS Klingons were often plotters, dealing in espionage and treachery. That seemed to change later when concepts of a Warrior code, honor code were introduced in TNG. Worf seemed to have a really idealized vision of what a true Klingon was, how honorably they conducted themselves etc. It was pointed out to him by others and proven over time that his image was false. But considering he'd been brought up by humans, it's kinda understandable he might grasp at such an unrealistically narrow portrayal of what it meant to be Klingon.

    Note that the Klingons boast about eating the hearts of their enemies, even Worf screams out that "The bile of the vanquished flows over my hands" They've never been squeamish about blood and entrails and other such viscera. Considering their fave battle weapons are the bladed bat'leth and the mek'leth , is it any wonder there's gore in their stories? Up until now, the Trek series couldn't depict such combat more realistically due to ratings. That said, I wasn't a big fan of the Voq/Ash transformation scenes. I get that they were wanting to maximize the trauma of what he went through to show his commitment and how it potentially damaged him mentally as well, but it was too much for me.
    The bloody battle scene in Point of Light, however, was great in my opinion. Because yep, you get throat slashed or disemboweled by a bladed weapon it's not going to be pretty.
     
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  8. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    What they did to Voq/Tyler never made a bit of sense.
     
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  9. TrickyDickie

    TrickyDickie Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I agree, in the sense that transforming a Klingon body into a human one through conventional surgical techniques is quite ludicrous. Rather than going that route with their writing, even having the Klingons getting ahold of the technology that exchanged Kirk and Janice Lester's personalities and switching Voq's personality into Ash's body that way would have worked better.

    But, no. Drama, drama, drama. Have to get the flashbacks and PTSD going, to amp-up the drama. :klingon:
     
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  10. Vger23

    Vger23 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'll take drama over predictable sterility any day.
     
  11. TrickyDickie

    TrickyDickie Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I think there's a middle ground somewhere in which extremes of either can be avoided.

    When the drama becomes predictable, it seems like Kingdom of Hollywood has lost a considerable amount of imaginative creativity.
     
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  12. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    If that's a synonym for the backstabbing ones who work against their leaders even while conducting surprise strikes or ambushes in invisible ships, then okay. But the only adversaries in TOS who really had a honor code thing going on were Kor and Kang.

    Also, I'll take new over old, most days. We got something new here, in a situation where old by the internal logic of the show shouldn't have worked: mere superficial surgery couldn't hide Arne Darvin, nor could the diluted-Augment modification, because the respective heroes did see through both of those.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
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  13. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    Even then I think it was mostly something they claimed that they did, but didn't in practice. The only one who really bought into it was Worf, a Klingon who was raised by humans. He probably grew up reading about his people and bought into the mythology they created for themselves and didn't get that firsthand experience as other Klingons would do. It's a bit like how in Game of Thrones Jon Snow truly believed in the Knight's Watch being honorable and all the tales of their bravery, but once he actually showed up learned the harsh reality of it.
     
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  14. Tim Thomason

    Tim Thomason Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Good thing they stopped that.

    <watches previous episode, sees disembowelment and a severed baby head>

    Aww, geez...
     
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  15. KamenRiderBlade

    KamenRiderBlade Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's like driving in China / Taiwan. There are the official rules on the paper / driving test. Then there is reality where driving is bat shit crazy and a Mad Max-ish free for all where everybody crowds in on each other while driving.

    I literally stick my arm out of the window and I can back fist a person riding a scooter in Taiwan during normal hours.

    That's how close Scooters ride and that's how tight the Scooters pack into the streets.



    Klingon Honor on Paper & Reality might be quite different.
     
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  16. KamenRiderBlade

    KamenRiderBlade Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I swear the Kelpian Entrails that they portrayed looked like Cooked Bamboo Shoots that we normally eat in Chinese Cooking. Heck, most of it looked like traditional Chinese Cooking, but given Michelle Yeoh was there, I wouldn't be surprised if they used that to disguise it as Alien Entrails.
     
  17. Jedman67

    Jedman67 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Aside from the gratuitous violence, it serves to show that transforming someone to appear as an alien is no simple feat
    Previous shows did not have the budget to dress recurring characters in such elaborate makeup; and as DS9 showed, 24th century infiltration disguises were a matter of 5 minutes of cosmetic surgery in the medlab. DSC is going for a different approach, showing that converting a klingon to human (or vice versa) would be a massive surgical procedure.
     
  18. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    But as stated, mere cosmetic surgery never worked. A tricorder could see through it at once - the infiltrators only succeeded for as long as they did because they faced people without tricorders.

    Darvin probably was able to bribe his way through medical exams. Tyler was not given the soft touch, though - even though he, too, had the resources of the mighty Klingon spy machine behind him, he was also a prime suspect from the get-go, and got the full battery of tests from the paranoid Lorca and his efficient medical team. So using a bona fide human body was L'Rell's only chance of getting her man through.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  19. Kor

    Kor Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In the 24th century, weren't there also devices to give off false bio-signs to fool sensors? Data's android mom had something like this.

    Kor
     
  20. KamenRiderBlade

    KamenRiderBlade Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    But from my understanding, they took a human, and implanted Voq's memories / psyche into Ash Tyler's body.

    It wasn't so much of a physical surgery so much as a mind transfer to co-exist inside a human body on a sub-concious level, ergo the perfect sleeper agent.

    The Klingons knew that StarFleet could figure out any surgeries for a Klingon disguised as a human, but figuring out what happened to a person mentally is far harder and not as clear.