Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

I figure it'll probably be addressed, and it'll either be a fringe tradition of an isolated faction (as you say), or this whole adventure centered around the Sarcophagus Ship will be such a debacle that Klingons will decide burials are bad luck and resolve to do nothing more complicated with a corpse than toss it somewhere they can't smell it.

 

I think the events of episode 2 could certainly have convinced the Klingons that stopping to retrieve their war dead is a bad idea.

 

A pretty good poster that I happen to disagree with about this thing

 

Another interesting theme that's appeared both in the new TV show and fairly recently in the novels is the notion of certain factions within the Klingon Empire starting to follow the teachings (or at least the personage) of Kahless the Unforgettable during the mid-23rd Century, while other competing factions do not. And ultimately we see the Kahless-disciples seemingly on the ascendant within the empire, and on course to culturally overtake everything to the point where his followers are pretty much everywhere by Picard's era.

This was a major subtext in novels like Kevin Ryan's Errand of... trilogies, which bracket Discovery to some extent on both sides of the timeline, and likewise show us this conflict still playing out by the time of TOS (we also see a couple of Kahless-followers on ENT, too). However, in the show, T'Kuvma initially seemed more preoccupied with appropriating the mythical Kahless iconography to serve his own petty political ends (the show's producers acknowledge the real-world Donald Trump-connections), rather than showing genuine adherence to the underlying philosophies until maybe his death-scene (like his sneak-attack on the U.S.S. Europa using a cloaked ship...although Worf does mention in DS9 that, to Klingons, "nothing is more honorable than victory").

Also: Has the term "workbee" or "worker bee" ever been canonically established in a previous filmed story before last night? I just checked Chakoteya.net, and nothing came up there.

 

I don't believe so. Memory Alpha started calling them "Cargo Management Units" because that was what they were called on an Okudagram, but as far as I know, Workbee has always been unofficial until now.

Another thing that occurred to me (mostly from people in the Discovery forum not seeming to remember it) is that Sarek and Burnham's connection seemed to be a weaker version of the long-distance mental link Trip and T'Pol had in season 4 of Enterprise and up until recently in the post-finale books. I say "weaker" because they began doing it accidentally while asleep, while Sarek had to put a painful amount of effort into it, but the principle seems to be the same (and the fact that it surprised T'Pol is easily explained by the stigma and suppressed history regarding mind-melds and telepathy in general).

 

It's a big empire, and the Klingons themselves are presumably no less diverse on Qo'noS than Humans are on Earth. I got no problem with the idea that T'Kumva just comes from a different Klingon culture than Worf.

I admit I was skeptical at first at the idea of the Klingons only having limited contact with the Federation for approximately 100 years, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense and helps explain why the Federation still knew so little about the Empire in the 2260s if Earth and Vulcan had been in contact with them over a century earlier. To me, the only real stumbling block, in retrospect, is that it might be seen as contradicting Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country's line about the Federation-Klingon cold war beginning seventy years before that film (so circa 2223). But perhaps 2223 was the Federation's first notable contact with the Klingons post-2164ish, and established a pattern of intermittent moments of conflict broken up by long periods of no contact.

The dialogue about the Empire being in disarray and needing unity makes me wonder if there was some major Klingon civil war going on at some point. Is it possible that the High Council had failed to name a Chancellor? Maybe T'Kumva's goal was to be named Chancellor. I'm afraid I only ever read the very last Errand of Fury novel -- did that one establish whether there was a Chancellor or a civil war circa 2250s? Or any other novels?

Memory Beta's entry on Sturka says that he became Chancellor some time prior to 2255, and I think it says that twas Excelsior: Forged in Fire that established this. Arguably that might contradict the idea that T'Kumva is trying to unify the Empire, but then it also says that as Chancellor, he ruled by keeping at least three major factions divided against each other so as to prevent them from unifying against him. So maybe that's what T'Kumva is reacting against? (Does anyone remember if the actual Vanguard novels established when Sturka took office?)

Still, I find myself suspecting that we might need to be ready to consign Sturka and much of what the novels have established about mid-23rd Century Klingon politics to the status of "contradicted by canon."

 

Heh. I totally forgot that it was "Heart of Glory" that established the precedent of Klingon funerary practices. And I guess I blew it out of proportion how different Discovery did it. Room for variation, I suppose.

 

A case of hindsight being 20/20. They didn't consider it the beginning of the war until years later,when historians were able to look back and analyze it from afar.

 

And I could be wrong on this, but is this the first time we've canonically seen Klingons exhibiting prejudice against another of their race for their skin-pigmentation...namely, a certain albino named Voq? While the Albino on DS9 wasn't canonically racially Klingon (only the later novels established this), we've already seen this phenomenon in other offscreen material -- I'm thinking more of Kobry/"Bernie" (from DC Comics TOS Vol. 1), who was also persecuted by other Klingons for his albinism.

This could all be just a massive creative coincidence on the producers' part, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless.

 

Manifest Destiny (alternate reality) comes to mind, too.

 

We haven't seen it before with regard to albinism specifically, but we have seen that Klingons are intolerant of any perceived defect that could be taken as a sign of weakness.

Although it would've been cool if Voq had been a QuchHa' instead of an albino...

 

Really a missed opportunity there.

 

It's pretty unfortunate that Starfleet committed a war crime so casually, but that does track.

This! Klingons are always treated as a monoculture but there is no reason that should be the case. That said, it would have been neat to see a Klingon with hair as one of the guys talking to him via hologram, even for a moment.

 

Wouldn't be the first time.

 

..nor the last!

 

Well, as Major Dad said to Leo McGarry: All war's a crime.

 

Is The Black Fleet actually originally from 'The Final Reflection'? I thought that Ford first mentions it in a material for the FASA RPG? (Which actually mentions it in its promotional material that he will be writing an upcoming novel).

 

Didn't he use a lot of the same concepts in both the FASA guidebook and TFR?

 

Well if FASA used it first, thats fine, but TFR was what people from the Discovery staff cited as an inspiration, so them using Black Fleet probably originated from the novel.

 

IIRC, Mike Ford wrote The Final Reflection and the FASA Klingon stuff concurrently, but publishing schedules meant the FASA stuff was published first.