I know that has been long established that Vulcans have very long life expectancy but I am a little confused with Klingons. In the DS9 Episode Once More Into The Breach Kor we learn that he was alive in the time when Kang was about in Kirk's era. So that must been Kor must be at least around 200 years old. Has it every been established how old Klingons can get?
Well, Kor was probably a fairly young man when he appeared in TOS, as were Kang and Koloth. When we see them again in DS9, it's just a little over a century later, so I would imagine they were (approximately) a little under 150 years old -- maybe around 140. Given the way they look, and Kor's failing mind in "Once More Unto The Breach", I would say that the average lifespan for a Klingon is 145-155 (well, a Klingon that manages to avoid getting killed in a fight before then, that is ).
In fairness, Kor's lifespan is roughly consonant with human lifespan in the 23d/24th centuries--McCoy, who was in his late thirties or early forties or more in TOS, is still alive in 2363, and could easily still be mouthing off to Vulcans in 2375.
In more than one instance (The Making of Star Trek book for instance) Roddenberry stated that Klingons have fairly short life spans...40-50 Earth years short...explaining why they were always so testy. This was tossed out the window when DS9 producers decided to bring Kor and the gang back...Explaining why many are confused. Sadly, since the long lived Klingons were established on film, while Roddenberry's comments werent backed up by anything said or shown on film (and even if it was, probably would have been ignored), we now have long living Klingons as canon.
Just don't ask about the Cardassian life span. DS9 made it very confusing, and then DS9 novels followed and made a real mess out of it (as well as Bajoran life spans).
I always thought Klingons *could* have long lives, but almost never actually do, since their greatest hope is to die in battle, and this usually happens when young. "There are old warriors, and there are bold warriors. But there are no old, bold warriors."
I'd say that since Kor Kang and Koloth seemed pretty vital in their 140s, their lifespan is somewhere between that of a (24th century) human and a Vulcan, at 160 or 170 years or something like that.
Klingons certainly do have accelerated growth rates, given Alexander's quick aging throughout TNG and DS9.
With all those backup organs (I guess the only thing they don't have is a second brain) I think it's no surprise they can reach over 150 years.
I wonder if there is a place on Klingon Driver's Licenses where they can opt to donate organs to science.
One might argue that the longer an individual of a species lives, the greater threat he becomes to fellow members of the species - at least in the human lifestyle. Since Vulcans/Romulans and Klingons are very humanlike in their lifestyle (more or less the same sort of community forming, pairing habits, sex life, cultural mores and so forth) yet live long, it's no wonder they are constantly at their speciesmates' throats. One'd have to have a "warrior culture" where the elderly are kept few in numbers by lots and lots of violence... I wonder how it goes with Romulans. Some live long and prosper, like Pardek ("Unification"), who seems to have been Spock's agemate at Khitomer and who survived till the late 2260s at least. Are others culled in their hotheaded youth? Or is there a higher percentage of old Romulan warriors than there is of old Klingon warriors? In "Balance of Terror", the Romulans claimed to be veterans of many campaigns, yet for the past century they had not been allowed outside the Neutral Zone. Now, which theory does this support? The one where they fight with each other all the time, and die young as a consequence? Or the one where they live really long, so that the characters of "BoT" were in fact veterans of the old Romulan/Earthling war, and of conflicts that preceded that one? Timo Saloniemi
I'd say that Romulans probably have species they fight against on the other side of the Empire (specifically the opposite side from their border). There's also the possibility that there were smaller empires besieged within Romulan territory that the Romulans may intiallly spread around, then when they were ready, came at those smaller empires from all sides. To be honest, I have no problem with the concept with the idea that Klingons have seemingly long lifespans, their biology is already shown to be incredibly tough, and if they're a warrior species, if they don't have long lifespans, they'd certainly need to be prodigious breeders (not that it wouldn't help to do so even with long lifespans) if they were to keep their numbers strong and healthy for wars and battle.
That really threw me off! In the end, I ended up having to put the Cardassian lifespan at 150-200 years: not quite as much as a Vulcan, but enough to explain what we saw in "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night." With the Bajorans I'm not totally sure--would they be longer-lived than humans, or no? Personally, in my own take on the Trekiverse, I see humanity as one of the galaxy's shorter-lived species. (Not counting, of course, species like the Ocampa.) That we die faster might even serve to explain our rate of technological development as compared to other species, too--we have to move fast, as individuals, because we don't have the kind of time that a Vulcan, Klingon, Romulan, or Cardassian would to accomplish what we set out to do in our lives.
I think so too. And this means we tend to breed faster, and as medical science extended our lifespan beyond its natural limits, perhaps disproportionately with long-lived Vulcans, Klingons, Rommies, etc., we began to outnumber everyone, and hence had a greater quantity of intellectual resources to draw from. For what it's worth, I figure this is why the Federation as a gestalt seems to out-tech the rest of the galaxy; the UFP theoretically utilizes every mind in every species that is subject to it, whereas the Cardassians (as an example) decided that Bajoran scientists, philosophers, teachers, and engineers (and lawyers! would be better put to use pushing carts of ore from one end of a space station to another.
Klingon life expectancy? Due to poor hygiene and the high incidence of mindless thuggery in their society I'd imagine that it's very low. However, Klingons are clearly capable of living to a ripe old age, as the likes of Kor demonstrate.
So Kor bathes more often? Wouldn't it suffice to have Cardassians, much like Klingons, reach high physical and social stature at an early age? Very young children were being trained in the art of torture in "Chain of Command". Perhaps Dukat, coming from a good family, was the head honcho of Terok Nor at the ripe age of twenty? Making him the same age as Kira's mother would put him at sixty in the framing story. He could plausibly be in his fifties for the time we see him in preceding DS9. All we have to believe in addition to that is that he began to look like fifty at twenty already. Unless that was part of the Orb illusion; substitute a younger-looking Dukat there, and you might have realism. Timo Saloniemi