A question of phrasing

Wasn't it stated in TNG that women may not sit on the council, yet in TUC, Atzebur is the Klingon leader? Whether by power falling to her on the death of her Father or not it is never mentioned again in the series!
JB

 

So in TOS the only female ship captains we saw was a Romulan. Unless you count the Spock's Brain lady.
I'm trying to think in VOY. Aside from Janeway and the Borg most ship's captain seem to be male. Maybe I'm wrong???

 

Madge Sinclair played the captain of the USS Saratoga in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (first black woman captain).

 

Several decades apart.

 

But wasn't it also stated that they never have been allowed? Which puts Atzebur's ascension in doubt?
JB

 

T'Lar murdered that version of Spock and used the body for Spock 1.0's katra

 

Nothing about "never" there in Gowron's "Reunion" claims.

Also, Gowron says women can't serve in the council, but that wouldn't necessarily mean they can't lead. Most monarchies would be like that: the realm would have to suffer the occasional queen, but there would never ever be female ministers or chancellors.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Reunion was filmed before TUC though and I wonder why the writers would ignore comments made in an episode set much later in the time frame!!!
JB

 

I doubt Nimoy and the other writers were paying microscopic attention to what was going on in TNG. After they'd been snubbed by the initial attempt to include TNG into their first idea for ST6, there probably wasn't a lot of interest in consulting with them.

 

Well, decades passed since Azetbur's rule and "Reunion." Policies can change.

 

You're Probably right, but the way the Klingons spoke about it in the episode was that no woman has ever been allowed to sit on the council!!!
JB

 

“History is written by the victors!”

 

The thing about women not serving on the High Council is from "Redemption, not "Reunion." They don't make a big hubbub about it, either. Gowron simply makes a dismissive, matter-of-fact throwaway line that "women may not serve on the Council," and then they move on to something else.

And this wasn't long after Gowron himself tried to bribe K'ehleyr with a seat on the Council (in "Reunion," earlier in Season 4)! He must have been experiencing some kind of short-term memory loss. Or maybe he himself banned women from the Council as a misogynistic overreaction to K'ehleyr refusing his bribe.

So in the big picture, apparently the Klingons went back and forth on this matter over the years (and months). But in any case, I would not want movies of the TOS timeframe to be beholden to anything that was stated in TNG. That's a completely different world.

Kor

 

And in the official version of Gowron's rise to power in Klingon History books, there's ZERO mention of Picard's or the Federation's role in his ascension to Coucil leadership.
From TNG S5 - "Unification I"
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/208.htm

So, yeah, just because viewers know the course of events; what the denizens of the actual fictional Star Trek Universe know (and thus reiterate) may be different when it comes to Klingon History.

 

...For all we know, he said "The women may not serve on the Council", there being a special reason why these two would have to stand it out. With those teeth, who can really tell what is being said?

Timo Saloniemi

 

It's weird though why some writers won't accept what other previous writers have laid down earlier on! Spoils the whole linear consistency of the franchise, whatever franchise that might be!
JB

 

If writers really worried about what the previous writers thought, we wouldn't have gotten Sarek and Amanda. Or Joe Sisko.

It's plenty enough for them to mind what those previous writers actually wrote: Amanda is indeed an "ancestor" of sorts, and it's fine for Ben to talk about his father's illness in the past tense without this needing to mean the father has passed, too. The "women on the Council" thing just takes a bit more effort, and the writers aren't doing that for us. (Ditto for the "cloaking is new in the mid-2260s" thing where the writers do make attempts, but none of it quite suffices yet.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

The actual "phrasing" on the comment was: "The fact one of my ancestors married a human female", so, the ancestor in question is not Amanda, rather its Sarek his father. Just being anal about phrasing.

 

And thank you for that, since this is all about phrasing... And Spock being anal about it is about as Vulcan as one gets.

So, how do we sail around the "now I know why they were conquered" thing? Is that all about Amanda, too? Did she drink Sarek, Skon and Solkar all under the table to get what she wanted?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Hey, at least it's AN explanation!
I quite like the mental picture too