Klingon Aging Question...

[dHunter333]

judging from what i've seen on screen (alexander and the older klingongs from TOS on DS9)
is that klingons age very quickly into adulthood (10 years makes you 20 physically) and then slow down incredibly

an average klingon life span is what, 100+?
if the klingons from TOS are still alive they'd have to be at least 80, if they were very young in tos (like 15)
but more than likely they were 100+

with alexander
late season 2 he was conceived
assume 9 months'ish later he is born
thats mid season 3
then early season 4
1 year later max
he should be 1 year old
an at least 5 year old actor portraying a 1 year old?
i believe they mention he is 2 but the actor has to be 5
anyway
as we continue to see him he ages very quickly, when he joins the crew, he has to be 5, or 6
yet in reality he'd be 2 or 2 and a half
then on ds9 he looks at LEAST 16, i'd say 17+
and that is only 4 or 5 years later when he should only be like 8

can someone explain klingon aging?
i know the vulcans/romulans live quite a while 250+
humans can live to be 120 or so (take bones)

 

[Timo]

It is common in the television world for all species to behave that way: incredibly fast childhoods, then long adolescence (that looks more like 20-30-somethingness) followed by eternal adulthood. In Star Trek, the symptoms strike the all-human Molly O'Brien, too.

However, it could well be that Klingons indeed mature very fast, then die young in a violent manner. Or then learn to be top dogs of the pack, and live virtually forever. Vulcans could well be the same, and it's us humans who have weak genes and grow old very quickly. Not much to "explain" there, just a general recommendation to accept what we're shown.

On the specific matter of Alexander, however, the idea that he was conceived during TNG "The Emissary" is somewhat noncanonical. Sure, Worf and K'Ehleyr have sex in that episode. But they had also had a relationship several years prior, and it's quite possible they had sex back then, resulting in Alexander before the split-up. Perhaps K'Ehleyr wouldn't have told Worf about the kid back then (knowing that Worf was an ultra-conservative and would insist on something silly such as marital vows), and perhaps she didn't tell him in "The Emissary", either.

When the boy does show up in "Reunion", the dialogue does not establish that Alexander would have been conceived in "The Emissary", nor that he would be merely one or two years old, nor that his existence would be a surprise to Worf. It's entirely possible he's already seven at that time, the result of a pregnancy in the liaison six years before "The Emissary".

IIRC, Alexander's age is not mentioned in dialogue even in the later episodes, curiously enough...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[dHunter333]

"However, it could well be that Klingons indeed mature very fast, then die young in a violent manner. "

not sure if i'm mis reading but klingongs dont die young in a violent matter
they die old like kor and koloth did

i can accept that klingongs have fast childhoods
kind of like their redundancy organs, over time their bodies have adapted to their harsh lifestyles
a warrior race would want to grow to teen years quickly in order to fight!

 

[Timo]

not sure if i'm mis reading but klingongs dont die young in a violent matter
they die old like kor and koloth did

But how many old Klingons do we see? One probably has to be a Dahar Master in order to survive to see the day one's hair turns grey.

Perhaps Klingons are so warlike because they live so long and thus compete for resources so bitterly? Perhaps that's the reason Vulcans were so warlike, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JustKate]

The other thing to remember is that TV seasons do not equal years. Just because something occurred one or two seasons previously, that does not necessarily equate to one or two years previously, although it could, of course, and often seems to. If they don't give us star dates, we really can't tell for certain. If they don't mention a star date for Emmisary, you could probably figure it out by calculating from episodes that aired around the same time and that do mention star dates. If anybody has, I'd be interested to see it, though you'll notice that I'm not offering to do it myself.

But I must disagree with you slightly, Timo - I think we (the audience, that is) are led to believe that Alexander was conceived during The Emissary. So if the star dates show that Alexander is really only a couple of years old when he is reunited with his father, we're going to have to fall back on the "matures rapidly" theory - which actually works pretty well for me. Most species on Earth (I'm hedging, but I think it's more like "all species on Earth") mature much more rapidly than humans, so I don't see why Klingons, even 3/4-Klingons, can't as well.

 

[Vic Sixx]

I thought it was not especially logical for Kor, Koloth and Kang to appear on DS9. Up to that point the books seem to point out that Klingons had fairly short life spans, but DS9 blew that away. I know the books aren't canon, but their appearances didn't help much, two died right away. And to top that off, now they had ridges, which seemed to contradict what Worf said in the Tribbles DS9 episode. Well sort of.

 

[Timo]

But the books could still hold true, as the average Klingon is likely to get slain at a young age... Even if he or she had three centuries of biological life left in his or her body.

But I must disagree with you slightly, Timo - I think we (the audience, that is) are led to believe that Alexander was conceived during The Emissary.

Oh, no disagreement about that. It's just that none of the episodes ever makes it explicit.

Some people seem to think that Alexander came as a rude surprise to Worf in "Reunion", but the dialogue rather suggests that Worf at that point was fully aware he had a son. Or at least there is no dialogue in which Worf would express surprise at Alexander's existence - he jumps straight into discussing the implications of his recent discommendation on his relationship with the mother and (although he avoids the subject) the son. Dorn's facial expression and body language when Alexander beams aboard doesn't really suggest surprise, either, but more like social discomfort - although that could just be a Worfism, the Klingon warrior being socially uncomfortable about being surprised but never showing the actual surprise.

Things would work out a bit more smoothly if we accepted that Alexander was from the earlier liaison and not from "The Emissary". So why go to the extra complication of following assumed writer intent, moreso when said writer failed to make the intent clear?

Granted that "The Emissary" has some dialogue suggesting that Worf is inclined to marry every woman he has sex with, right after having sex. And since the two aren't married in "The Emissary" yet... But OTOH, the dialogue also hints at a romantic past between the two, and doesn't exclude a history of copulation - and it does make reference to it being an oft-repeating theme in the relationship that Worf tries to be traditional and K'Ehleyr balks and refuses. So perhaps they have had sex many times, and they have had this conversation every time as well?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RoJoHen]

"However, it could well be that Klingons indeed mature very fast, then die young in a violent manner. "

not sure if i'm mis reading but klingongs dont die young in a violent matter
they die old like kor and koloth did

He means that the crappy Klingons die young in battle, but the good Klingons (like Kor) were so good that they managed to outlive (and probably kill) most of the crappy Klingons. It's like Klingon Darwinism.

 

[Myasishchev]

Kor, evolutionary success, has over five hundred children.

 

[JustKate]

Oh, no disagreement about that. It's just that none of the episodes ever makes it explicit.

Some people seem to think that Alexander came as a rude surprise to Worf in "Reunion", but the dialogue rather suggests that Worf at that point was fully aware he had a son. Or at least there is no dialogue in which Worf would express surprise at Alexander's existence - he jumps straight into discussing the implications of his recent discommendation on his relationship with the mother and (although he avoids the subject) the son. Dorn's facial expression and body language when Alexander beams aboard doesn't really suggest surprise, either, but more like social discomfort - although that could just be a Worfism, the Klingon warrior being socially uncomfortable about being surprised but never showing the actual surprise.

Things would work out a bit more smoothly if we accepted that Alexander was from the earlier liaison and not from "The Emissary". So why go to the extra complication of following assumed writer intent, moreso when said writer failed to make the intent clear?

Granted that "The Emissary" has some dialogue suggesting that Worf is inclined to marry every woman he has sex with, right after having sex. And since the two aren't married in "The Emissary" yet... But OTOH, the dialogue also hints at a romantic past between the two, and doesn't exclude a history of copulation - and it does make reference to it being an oft-repeating theme in the relationship that Worf tries to be traditional and K'Ehleyr balks and refuses. So perhaps they have had sex many times, and they have had this conversation every time as well.

I see. Well, it's certainly a tenable theory, as are virtually all of your theories. I think you're reaching a bit, but so what? Those of us who care about such things, and I am one of them, all have to do a bit of reaching to make things fit in Trek. I think I prefer to reach in the direction of the "maturing faster" theory, but it's still a reach, I admit.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

Though the time of Alexander's conception is not made explicit, the dialogue just before Worf and Kehleyr do the nasty on the floor of the dialogue certainly implies that they have not been er... intimate...in the past, i think the dialogue is something to the effect of:

Worf: we weren't ready
Kehleyr: I was
Worf: no we were both too young

Also, Worf being such a stickler for honor would almost certainly have insisted they "take the oath" if he had known a child had been concieved from any..er..union occuring prior to "The Emisssary"

 

[kissthestar]

It's comforting to see SOMEONE who looks older than me...

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The other thing to remember is that TV seasons do not equal years. Just because something occurred one or two seasons previously, that does not necessarily equate to one or two years previously, although it could, of course, and often seems to. If they don't give us star dates, we really can't tell for certain. If they don't mention a star date for Emmisary, you could probably figure it out by calculating from episodes that aired around the same time and that do mention star dates. If anybody has, I'd be interested to see it, though you'll notice that I'm not offering to do it myself.

But I must disagree with you slightly, Timo - I think we (the audience, that is) are led to believe that Alexander was conceived during The Emissary. So if the star dates show that Alexander is really only a couple of years old when he is reunited with his father, we're going to have to fall back on the "matures rapidly" theory - which actually works pretty well for me. Most species on Earth (I'm hedging, but I think it's more like "all species on Earth") mature much more rapidly than humans, so I don't see why Klingons, even 3/4-Klingons, can't as well.

For the "modern" Treks (TNG, DS9, VOY), 1 season IS one year. They initially designed the stardate system that way. This is per Mike Okuda. The start point was 4 (for 24th century), x (season number) xxx.x (up to 999.9, devided evenly across one year).

The system desynchronized from real time (at least the first two digits) ~2 years after the end of TNG, when the 50 stardates started. They continued to use 1000 stardates=1 season=1 year, however.

As a side note: this produced a historical phenominon I like to call the "Christmas Effect": majorly important events have a tendency to occur (in universe) over the Christmas-New Year's holiday season.

 

[mythme]

The aging phenomenon also affected B'Elanna, who is half human. She said that her father left her when she was six years old (in one episode she said she was five). In any case, in Lineage when we see the flashbacks of when this occurred the girl playing B'Elanna looks about 10ish.

 

[Praetor]

That may have been purposeful to maintain implied consistency with Alexander, although B'Elanna was half human and Alexander one-quarter.

 

[FalTorPan]

When I first watched "Reunion," I assumed that Alexander had been conceived during an encounter prior to "The Emissary." It wasn't until I read the first edition of the Okudachron that I even considered the possibility of Alexander being conceived during "The Emissary."

 

[Praetor]

Maybe we can just pretend he was, and assume that Klingon genetics were such that the higher amount of human DNA present, the more accelerated the aging, thus explaining B'Elanna?

 

[Timo]

For the "modern" Treks (TNG, DS9, VOY), 1 season IS one year.

To be sure, DS9 has several references where events that happened, say, three seasons or 3,000 stardates prior are said to have in fact happened four years ago.

Yet this can probably be explained away by saying that our heroes speak of Bajoran years. We have every reason to suspect that a Bajoran year is shorter than an Earth one, for example from the seeming drift of annual celebrations. All the discrepancies could be resolved if the Bajoran year were about 80% the length of the Earth one...

In general, the 1 season=1,000 stardates=1 Earth year rule holds just fine, and is nicely in synch with the airdate year, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[mythme]

^^ This is true EXCEPT for Season seven of Voyager which actually overlaps into the year 2378. This is proven by two major facts:

In "Homestead" the Voyager crew is celebrating "First Contact Day", which almost certainly falls on April 5, a fact which has already been established by "Star Trek VIII: First Contact". Since this episode is the 3rd last, it would therefore appear that by this time, we have entered 2378. However, the Stardate is synchonous with the rest of the season, taking place in 2377. Considering that Neelix specifically says that they are honoring the 315th anniversary of the Vulcan's arrival on Earth, the year can't be anything but 2378.

The jump in time also compensates for the 40 weeks needed for the gestation of B'Elanna's baby who's is discovered in "Lineage" but is born during "Endgame

When does the change of years occur? In "Endgame" Seven notes that her cortical node failed "three months prior". This event occured in "Human Error." This if "Homestead" occurs on March 2378, then "Human Error", which is five episodes prior, probably occurs near the beginning of the year.

But I digress...

 

[USS Excelsior]

Though the time of Alexander's conception is not made explicit, the dialogue just before Worf and Kehleyr do the nasty on the floor of the dialogue certainly implies that they have not been er... intimate...in the past

Not just that but Alexander specifically states onscreen when he tells the teacher he was born on stardate 43205, which is of course in the 3rd season.