How did Klingon, Kazon, etc become spacefarers?

[Thorius]

I suppose this is one of those premises of Trek you just have to accept, but perhaps the writers have provided explanations somewhere that I'm unaware of?

The basic question is this: How does a species like the Klingon or Kazon, which seem extremely savage, and who would despise and marginalize any member of their own species who wasn't a "warrior", ever develop warp-capable war ships? You need advanced science and engineering, manufacturing (which implies things like accountants and managers)?

With the Kazon, we can at least say that they overthrew the race which had basically enslaved them, so they got the technology from the other race, but that still leaves the Klingon. How does a savage race of "warriors" like the Klingon, ever manage to achieve such advanced levels of technology?

 

[Anwar]

The Klingons aren't really that savage, we've seen more restrained, "civilized" (by human standards) ones like lawyers.

And also, a spacefaring species called the "Hurq" invaded their world over a thousand years earlier. It's possible they got their tech from stealing from them.

 

[Lanny77]

The Klingons aren't really that savage, we've seen more restrained, "civilized" (by human standards) ones like lawyers.

And also, a spacefaring species called the "Hurq" invaded their world over a thousand years earlier. It's possible they got their tech from stealing from them.

This is the most likely reason. Revenge and resources are probably what drove the Klingons to space.

Enterprise seemed to imply that the empire regularly undergoes cultural shake ups, with the warrior caste becoming more dominant around Archers time. Also, 90% of the time we see the klingons, it's mostly the military we're seeing so it's easy to assume they all must be savages if we see that side most often

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Kazon were once slaves to the Trabe. They got all their ships, technology etc from them (VOY: "Alliances")

The old novel "Ishmael" postulated a similar backstory for the Klingons. Thosands of years ago, the tribal Klingons were absorbed into the Karsid Empire as workers and slaves. 600 years ago, the Karsids vanished mysteriously, leaving the Klingons ships and technology. Old ships and technology, hence every Klingon ship being a beaten-up old rustbucket.

 

[Mage]

Appereantly, according to a novel (The Art Of The Impossible) Klingons went into space to seek revenge on invades; Ch'gran rallied his people to set of into space to seek revenge on the Hur'q. He build seven starships, which were all lost after sending news they found a world to settle on.


As for the Kazon, their ships are all Trabe ships, a species they shared a world with and who used the Kazon as slaves. The Kazon rebelled, took the Trabe ships as their own and conquered the Trabe, forcing them of their world.

 

[toughlittleship]

As Jadzia, says in "Soldiers of the Empire", "The Klingons are as diverse a people as any other". We really only saw the warriors and soldiers.

As for the Kazon, wouldn't they have stolen technology from the Trabe?

 

[The Dominion]

Something I always wonder about the Kazon though, is how much they actually understood about the technology they were using.

 

[Lanny77]

Something I always wonder about the Kazon though, is how much they actually understood about the technology they were using.

There's probably a small few who do working as engineers but are looked down upon the more aggressive majority. Most kazon would only have the most rudimentary understanding, the "I press this and stuff happens. I don't care how or why. All I care is that it does" kind of understanding, the kind most modern day people have about their laptops. They know there's motherboards and processors but they can't tell you squat about how it actually works

 

[C.E. Evans]

Something I always wonder about the Kazon though, is how much they actually understood about the technology they were using.

Probably the same most people know about the technology we use today. Most know the basic maintenance stuff, but if something more serious goes wrong, they either discard that particular item or find someone who knows how to fix it.

 

[Forbin]

I would imagine that once the most powerful nation of Klingons conquered all of their own planet, they wanted more, and struck out to conquer the stars.

IIRC, didn't the Kazon go into space to try to find water for their dying planet? And they couldn't find any except on Kes' planet? Never mind that water ice is everyfuckingwhere in the galaxy?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Maybe the Kazon never figured out that ice is water

 

[Forbin]

They did look pretty damn stupid.

 

[Rojixus]

Make no mistake, the Klingons are a lot more refined and crafty than they come off in TNG or DS9. I would guess that Klingons would value scientists that could fight as well as they think, an entire caste of Genius Bruisers if you will. Don't forget that Socrates was also a soldier.

As for the Kazon, those idiots don't look like they could operate a blanket let alone a starship. They probably only know how to punch in coordinates for their ships to travel. When their ships inevitably break down, they probably board an enemy's ship and kill the enemy crew.

 

[Thorius]

I would imagine that once the most powerful nation of Klingons conquered all of their own planet, they wanted more, and struck out to conquer the stars.

IIRC, didn't the Kazon go into space to try to find water for their dying planet? And they couldn't find any except on Kes' planet? Never mind that water ice is everyfuckingwhere in the galaxy?

Yeah, I thought the whole water-shortage plot device in the early Kazon episodes seemed a bit far fetched. Once you have warp travel, you should be able to find lots of water. It really is one of the most abundant substances in the cosmos.

Also, considering the Kazon had no problem chasing Voyager for 6 freaking months across space before finally giving up, even if their "local" area was a "desert", so to speak, they obviously should have been able to travel far enough to find a system with ice comets, planets with water, or a water vapor nebula.

Barring that, they could maybe harvest free hydrogen from space, and oxygen from any class-m planet, or from rocky asteroids with oxide minerals (which are extremely abundant in the universe, since oxygen tends to bind with everything it touches), and burn the hydrogen in the presence of the oxygen.

 

[T'Girl]

Probably the same most people know about the technology we use today.

Was talking to a woman from South Carolina, who had recently purchased a electric car (Chevy Volt), she couldn't understand why I said her car was powered by coal.

"But it doesn't use any fuel."

 

[captcalhoun]

 

[Thorius]

Probably the same most people know about the technology we use today.

Was talking to a woman from South Carolina, who had recently purchased a electric car (Chevy Volt), she couldn't understand why I said her car was powered by coal.

"But it doesn't use any fuel."

To be fair, South Carolina has one of the highest percentages of any state of electricity generated by nuclear power, so you might as well have said her car was powered by Uranium. It'd be just as accurate. The truth is, electric cars will be powered by a variety of sources, depending on what market you live in. In the Pacific NW and areas serviced by the Hoover Dam, those electric cars are powered mainly by water.

I think the electric cars are a great idea (despite the fact that electric cars execution so far is still rough), but I wouldn't slam people as being environmentaly naive for buying a Volt or Leaf or similar vehicle. After all, if we can switch our grid away from fossil fuels towards a mix of renewables and nuclear, then those cars will save carbon in the long run.

 

[captcalhoun]

they do still reduce people's carbon footprint compared to driving around in some gas-guzzling SUV or a V8 muscle car...

 

[Deimos Anomaly]

Not forgetting that apparently advanced piece of neuro-interfacing nastiness, the Klingon mind sifter.

 

[Relayer1]

War is a great catalyst for technological progress. Klingon spacegoing technology was probably a result of the arms race on Qo'nos...