A pre-TOS Klingon war. Evidence?

The contact with the Klingons was centuries ago, led to decades of war and supposedly resulted in the adoption of the First Contact procedure.

All of these factors rule out the incident depicted in "Broken Bow", because it neither happened multiple centuries before Picard's words, nor would have gone better had UFP-style First Contact Rules been followed. Whether it was disastrous can be debated, but certainly the immediate and direct result wasn't decades of war.

But Picard isn't just an Earthling. Since he represents all the species of the Federation, it is tempting to think that he's speaking of Vulcan first contact with the Klingons. If that went disastrously, sometime in the 18th century or so, and led to decades of interstellar war that the Vulcans then won, this would explain both why Vulcans are proponents of UFP-style First Contact Rules in the ENT era, and why Klingons are well known to them yet keep their distance from Vulcan and, incidentally, Earth.

In any case, the decades of Klingon war are unlikely to be compatible with the specific war we're speculating upon here, considering Picard's definer of "centuries ago". And this was basically always so, because "centuries ago" as of mid-TNG already makes the issue pre-2161 unless we really twist Picard's words. UFP first contact never was a serious option in interpreting the dialogue; human first contact, probably even less so.

Timo Saloniemi

 

First Contact with whom becomes the question in Picard's statement regarding the Klingons.

 

...And as said, Vulcans are the ones who have a Spy First, Contact Later, Don't Touch Primitives and Barbarians policy in force in ENT. Plus some sort of history with the Klingons, never described much.

(Would it be plausible for Andorians or Tellarites to have had those decades of war with Klingons? Would some ENT dialogue specifically preclude this?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

I don't recall any Klingon-Andorian contact mentions. The Tellarites know of the Klingons to be sure.

 

Damn continuity defecators!

 

Yep, from "First Contact":
PICARD: It was my error, not hers. Chancellor, there is no starship mission more dangerous than that of first contact. We never know what we will face when we open the door on a new world, how we will be greeted, what exactly the dangers will be. Centuries ago, a disastrous contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war. It was decided then we would do surveillance before making contact. It was a controversial decision. I believe it prevented more problems than it created.

Add to that this snippet from another thread, from Spock in STVI:

SPOCK: The dismantling of our space stations and starbases along the Neutral Zone, an end to almost seventy years of unremitting hostility with the Klingons, which the Klingons can no longer afford.

Working back from 2293 (TUC's date according to the somewhat flawed Star Trek Chronology), that puts "unremitting hostilities" beginning in 2223.

Enterprise: "Broken Bow" established Klingon First Contact in 2151, and ignored what "First Contact" established about it (which Dennis wrote, and he didn't mind). As @Albertese said, the Temporal Cold War offers an out for just about anything.

 

I'd been so turned off anything Axanar by the fan film debacle, I'd forgotten how much related backstory there was in TOS to draw off of (virtually none of which was even touched on in the Garth-worshipping fan film script). It'll be fascinating to see if Discovery draws on any of it.

 

I don't see how ENT 'pooped' on anything. I'd say having a Klingon crash land on Earth; and the first thing a Farmer does when he sees him is shoot him with a Shotgun - and then the Vulcans intervening so the Klingon Empire doesn't send a Fleet over in retribution a fairly disastrous "First Contact". YMMV

 

Then again, IMHO the ENT encounter "fails" on all counts, and therefore is not at fault at all because it obviously describes some utterly unrelated event.

1) 2151 is just barely "centuries" before 236-whatever, and a rather unusual usage of the expression.
2) The contact itself wasn't disastrous to either side, resulting in no casualties; even the minor damage to property was due to third parties and actually preceded the contact itself.
3) The incident did not lead to decades of war, or at least there has been no story so far linking any of the Klingon/UFP conflicts or combat incidents with "Broken Bow". Whether any of those even add up to "decades" between "Broken Bow" and "First Contact" is highly debatable, although DSC appears obligated to comment on that one way or another.
4) Also, nothing about the incident would have benefited from either of the sides following a policy such as practiced by Picard in the episode.

Of course, Picard could be "coloring" the incident to better serve his agenda. Then again, he could just as easily be making it up of whole cloth.

Timo Saloniemi

 

For what it's worth, the First Draft script for "Day of the Dove" by Jerome Bixby (dated August 9, 1968) has this relevant dialogue from Dr. McCoy.

After Kang and Mara and the rest of the Klingons are taken from the transporter room, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Chekov also leave the transporter room, chatting while walking down the corridor and then continuing their conversation in the turbo-lift.

SCENE 26 INT. LIFT - FOUR

Doors close -- lift starts motion.

McCOY (sour) Fifty years -- eyeball to eyeball with the Klingon Empire. They've spied -- raided our outposts -- pirated merchant lanes. A thousand provocations, and the Federation has always managed to avoid war. Now, this crazy business could pull the trigger!

SPOCK Our log-tapes will indicate our innocence in the matter. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee they will be believed.

KIRK One party -- with violent ideas -- and the willingness to defend them to someone else's death. (pointed) The essence of war, Mister Chekov ...and of prejudice.

Chekov's expression is stubbornly unrelenting.



The line doesn't survive in the final episode--and McCoy's dialogue in Scene 26 in the turbo-lift as ultimately shot doesn't have any cutaways. So it's not like the line was filmed but then trimmed out somehow at some point.

 

I believe it's that cut dialogue which formed the basis for the old '93 Star Trek Chronology's conjectural placement of Klingon first contact, prior to ENT: "Broken Bow" in 2001.

 

Depending on who had access to that script and at what point, it is also potentially behind the Spaceflight Chronology idea that Klingon First Contact took place 45 years before "The Cage". Thus Sternbach may have influenced the Okudas to adopt the idea for that other joint book...

Of course, even if the Klingons were discovered late in the game by Earth or the UFP, they were established to be a fairly ancient scourge of the spacelanes long before any modern episode actually addressed such a first contact date in detail. So we still require an explanation for why the Klingons weren't a threat from Day One, regardless of our definitions of Day One vs. first contact - either the Klingons were known but behaved for a period of time, calling for a story, or then they were unknown despite Earth and its allies starhopping all across the place, again calling for a story.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The Final Reflection stares that Klingons knew of Terrans before we knew of them. They spent the early years examining us (as a possible major opponent) and creating the Human Fusion sub-race to both spy on us and present a more Human seeming Klingon face to us.
Also it is surely possible that the two respective borders were (back in those days) many parsecs apart. It seems (from FASA) that the Orions sat between the two sides territory and played off both sides for a good time until the Klingons "persuaded" them to "help out" their side.

 

Thesde are good stories both, and the problem only lies in them having been outdated by events.

We now know that the "early years of spying" that should precede the early 23rd century onset of open conflict would come after the day humans met the Klingons in 2151, so it's not all that satisfactory a model. Why just spy on us weaklings in the circumstances outlined in ENT?

On the other hand, ENT also shows how easy it is for Klingons to reach human dwellings and vice versa with the starships of the day, and how the two sides already can fight toe to toe with the hardware they have. Humans might see all that as a good reason to remain calm but alert and refrain from further contact - but surely Klingons (Ford, FASA, TOS, TNG, what-have-you) would find the circumstances ideal for open conflict.

Perhaps we should evoke the third classic from RPGs and novels - the idea of the Klingons having their hands full with some other opponent and not being able to squeeze in an appointment with mankind until around 2210-20 or so?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Which is why canon ENT doesn't tie up with the early 80's timelines and events ( surprise !). In the FASA and TFR settings the early Fed Kling meetings were in Orion neutral space between the two interstellar polities. We were already a potential rival. The Klings spied on us and pirated both ships and crews while deciding what to do about us. They created the Human Fusions to take us out, but as you rightly say got distracted by the Kinshaya (again much changed by more recent events ). And after stalemating there, went after us again.