The ENT episode Judgment touches upon the growing influence and power of the warrior class, and resulting marginalization of other classes such as scientists, teachers, legal scholars, etc. Affliction and Divergence also mentioned differences between the warrior caste and healers. Kor
But none of these episodes says that there is a caste system. In fact, nothing even suggest that you can't be a warrior if you're not the son of a warrior. The Bajoran on the other hand really had a caste system before the occupation and got rid of it in order to fight the Cardassians. In the capitalist world which today means most of the countries, we are in a class system but not, at least not explicitly, in a caste system. It's hard for someone in the lower classes to get to higher classes but not impossible. In a caste system, it would be impossible.
There is a famous novel by Poul Anderson, The High Crusade (1960) where an alien ship landed in a village in medieval England and the villagers took it over and headed into space and formed an interstellar empire. Sort of what Coeurl planned to do in A.E. Van Vogt's "Black Destroyer". Fans of the "known space" stories of Larry Niven may wonder how the rather lazy and unintelligent Slavers or Thrintum or the fierce and non intellectual Kzin even became advanced enough to travel in interstellar space. It might be guessed that the only way they could have become advanced enough was to capture that technology from unlucky visitors to their planets. And I believe that is the canonical explanation, that the Thrintum were visited by and enslaved Tunctipun to begin their interstellar conquests, and that the primitive Kzinti were contacted by visiting Jokoti to serve as mercenaries but overthrew the Jokoti. A Klingon myth is told in DS9 "You are Cordially Invited": And I tend to suspect that this myth might possibly be based on a dim memory of how the first Klingons were created by an advanced race to be warriors for the advanced race, and the Klingons eventually killed their creators and took over their interstellar realm. If that was the case the Klingons would have acquired advanced technology from their creators and established a space empire with many subject species. Most Klingon advances in science and technology since then would have been made by members of the subject races with only a small fraction of it made by Klingon scientists and engineers.
I don't know. Poul Anderson and A.E. Van Vogt were great storytellers but they had the kookiest ideas. People from Medieval times would most likely think that the aliens were magicians or angels or devils or some other thing like that. Plus the ship would likely be controlled through some kind of computer, the computer. would likely have very sophisticated protections, I mean even the aliens are likely not to all have access to the whole ship!! I mean a Captain has access to things that are off limits to a simple crewman! the computer would respond to an alien language, to complex orders!! Do you realize how many very sophisticated concepts an illiterate from hundreds of years ago would have to assimilate in order to pilot a plane for example, let alone a spaceship? I am sorry but I find this story completely unbelievable.
In the specific case of the Thrintum or Slavers, their mind control abilities would make it rather probable to take over the Tnuctipun - and even so in the end some of the Tnuctipun managed to revolt and eventually all intelligent life in the galaxy was destroyed in the revolt. In the specific case of the Kzin, a group of Kzin was recruited as mercenaries by the Joktai and no doubt learned a lot about Joktai science and technology before overthrowing the Joktai. This could have proceeded like a number of take overs by "barbarian" mercenary soldiers in Earth history, such as in the fall of the western Roman Empire and especially the legends of the Anglo-Saxon conquest in Britain, which it may be remembered took over eight hundred years to complete. In my Klingon theory, I imagine that the first Klingons were educated by their creators, and may have served them for lifetimes before revolting and overthrowing them. The myth that the first two Klingons killed their creator gods would be just a myth based on a very dim and distorted memory of the actual event. So I imagine that the Klingon revolt against their creators would been much more likely to succeed that the English villagers efforts in The High Crusade.
I think I'd agree that Worf sucks in Birthright, initially, but goes a fair way toward unsucking himself by the end. Those youths were still being oppressed or suppressed. It was at least right of him offer the whole truth, they'd been kept from, despite his initial prejudices.
Worf sucked from start to finish, imho. Worf couldn't leave well enough alone. Those Romulans and Klingons created a community. They built something positive from a negative beginning. Worf could have learned a thing or two from the people of that community, about tolerance, about non-violence and a peaceful lifestyle. Instead it had to be Worf's way and only Worf's way. At the end, Ba'el stood with Worf when her father was about to execute him. And Ba'el also stood with those other Klingon youngsters for their right to leave, even though she knew that she herself wasn't going anywhere. Did Worf show any appreciation or that he learned anything from what Ba'el did? No. Worf just left with the other Klingon youngsters. Worf offered no hope to Ba'el or showed any understanding for Ba'el. Worf didn't encourage those Klingon youngster, who had left the the planet with him, to challenge Klingon prejudices or stand up for their non-violent lifestyle if they so choose to continue that lifestyle when they got to Kronos. I thought Ba'el and even her father, who ultimately was open minded enough to let the youngsters go, were honorable. It was hard to say the same thing about the small minded Worf.
..This being the short version. The struggle nevertheless emerges as a true epic, spanning countless generations and involving sacrifices and patient subtlety that puts any "resistance" stories of our world to shame. I believe the correct spelling is "Jotoki". And the extended explanation for Kzinti technology, as per Dean Ing's short stories that Niven embraced, is that not only did the Kzinti (who already were flying jet planes) get tech from turning tables on their Jotoki masters back when they were clever - they also deliberately dumbed themselves down when they obtained the technological means, turning the females into mindless gangster molls and sex toys, and the males into almost equally brainless caricatures of brawny superstuds. Guile was something they lost in the process, a price they considered a bargain for the ability to live their most cherished fantasy. That it's but a myth now suggests great timespans and allows for a lot of interesting stuff after the fact, though. The current social structure (and biology, as the Klingons are also described as avid self-experimenters!) might be more the result of these later events than the original revolt, then. Of course, the Klingons may have gotten enslaved at a late timepoint, too, being already Kzin-advanced rather than English-primitive. The event just gets pushed back to pre-Kahlessian times out of shame. Klingons are supposed to be good at rewriting their history, after all, as made explicit by Gowron's efforts and implicit in their great bragging tradition... The enslavers then could be the Hur'q, who onscreen are merely considered raiders rather than occupiers, but who get the Klingon throne for a brief time in the novels. But I don't think the old English would have been any more stupid than the folks of today. Give them a few decent meals, and they'd be up to speed on the nature of their gods or oppressors, even if they hadn't been taught at school exactly what "coming from the fourth planet of Zeta Ridiculi" means. Conversely, clever as we may consider ourselves, we'd be out of our depth with any true interstellar travelers; if generic human ingenuity and aggression didn't suffice for the English, it wouldn't suffice for our revolt, either. Timo Saloniemi
As I recall, the Klingons were invaded and enslaved by the Hurq; but eventually revolted and drove the Hurq off their world but kept control of the Hurq technology and ships left behind (which they'd been brought up with and trained to use in some fashion while enslaved) - and used said Hurq tech to build/form their own interstellar empire.
A lot of that info comes from non-canon sources. I think the only info ever given on the Hur'q within televised Trek was that they invaded and looted the Klingon homeworld. Kor
It has been many years since I watched 'Birthright', perhaps because if Worf sucked in it, he's not the only one. I must have skipped these two episodes if they suck too?
To the point about Worf not being raised as a Klingon, how would someone like Kurn, or Martok have handled the situation differently?
I don't know about Kurn but Martok would have been more of a diplomat, for a Klingon he was a live and let live kind of guy. Plus he had himself been the victim of a die-hard reactionary so he could certainly sympathize with the plight of the marginal.
I'm with Worf on this one tbh. That community was ready to execute him pretty quickly. Picard would never allow that community to go on, he would take one look at the lies and lay the first duty on them