Are We All Too Harsh On The Kazon?

[Farscape One]

I've always disliked the Kazon. I know a vast majority of people never cared for them, either.

But I wonder if we have been too harsh in our judgments on that group.

The idea of different sects within was interesting, if not executed very well.

The reason I ask is I recently just thought of something when "ALLIANCES" was eliminated in a game. The Trabe had the Kazon under their thumb and rule for a LONG time, and only recently got independent. Based on dialogue, probably only about 30 or 40 years at most.

The Kazon being free only a few decades may explain why they are the way they are. Sadly, not everyone who goes through wars for independence stay together afterward. I think dialogue to that effect was mentioned somewhere.

I agree they are not a worthy adversary, but is it possible we are being too harsh on them overall?


Side note: since the Kazon and Trabe were from the same planet, it brings up another question. Why didn't such an event happen MUCH earlier in their history?

 

[FederationHistorian]

Personally, I’ve never disliked the Kazon. I think they were a formidable foe for Voyager - particularly the more powerful Kazon sects - and I would have been okay with them being around for the full seven seasons as one of their major adversaries. There were eighteen sects of them; we only saw a handful of them onscreen, and there was no reason that they could not unified as the Kazon Order in later seasons. And I liked that Seska allied with them. In hindsight, she should never have been killed off. Her character added something to Chakotay. It’s a shame we never saw Cullah again either.

However, Voyager was in Borg space. So, there was no way that the Kazon, or for that matter the Hirogen or the Vidiians, would ever get to play that role.

 

[cosmic mouse]

I agree they are not a worthy adversary, but is it possible we are being too harsh on them overall?

Probably.
They are somewhat simplistic as far as Trek villains go, which may be part of the reason they are maligned, especially when viewed in comparison to other VOY villains such as the Vidiians (creepy as hell) and 8472 (threatening, complex, and very unlike the humanoid species VOY encountered). The Kazon may be a victim of comparison more than anything else. I don't dislike them exactly, but I do regard them on a lower level, as far as villains VOY encountered repeatedly. They're just the least interesting and not quite threatening enough for my tastes...

 

[C.E. Evans]

I never had a problem with the Kazon and liked the idea that there were different sects of them (an idea that would eventually be reused in ENT with the Xindi). The Kazon may have been too different from the regular Star Trek bad guys in that they weren't really a military power or a sadistic madman with an uber-weapon, but essentially a loose collection of poor space gangs. They may have fared better in the Star Wars Universe than in Trek, IMO (just give them long hooded cloaks).

All that being said, I also didn't have a problem with the Voyager eventually leaving them behind as the ship was destined to do so anyway.

 

[BigDaveX]

I think what really hurts them is their obvious similarity to the Klingons - even in the make-up design - which can't help but lead to comparisons with them. And considering that the Klingons have been around since the franchise's earliest years and got a lot of development over on TNG and DS9, the Kazon were always going to come off badly in that comparison, especially when they seem to be generic bad guys at best, and complete incompetents at worst.

The other early series villains, the Vidiians weren't really any great shakes either, but they were at least distinct rather than just being inferior knock-offs of another species, which I think is why they don't get as much flack from fans.

 

[Farscape One]

I think you might have nailed it.

It's the comparing that hurts them the most. Even among villains on VOYAGER alone... Vidiians were a MUCH better one, and they first appeared only a couple episodes after the pilot.

 

[valkyrie013]

Never really liked the Kazon, or also the Vidiians.. Well, not in the rolls the writers gave them.
Voyager was established as going home, and even taking an indirect way without any shortcuts, she's still going 500 LightYears in a year.. How big is Kazon space? Where was Voyager in there space in the beginging? I doubt a somewhat newly free Kazon had control of 500 Ly worth of space..
They just didn't work as a Long time villian of the show, especially with the same ship/captain giving chase.. It always seemed that voyager was a faster ship than the Kazons..
Now that doesn't mean they were'nt good villians, they had there times, and would have been good as like a 10 episode "Arc" of going through there space and learning about them etc. But most of the time they were just ripoff klingons with less money..
I just never liked when writers/show takes a concept that may last for a few episodes, or half a year and drag it out for a full season or like the Kazon 2 years.. the zindi were that as well.. not enough material to fill the time.

 

[DonIago]

I might have liked the Kazon more if they hadn't almost all been so uniformly antagonistic toward Voyager. What's the point of setting up different sects if they all pretty much look and act the same? In how many episodes does it really matter whether they're Nistrim or Ogla or Relora? In how many episodes do we meet a Kazon who comes across as generally reasonable, much less likeable?

As with having the Maquis aboard Voyager, it's another situation where the writers set up an interesting premise and then dropped the ball on execution.

Then there's the question of whether Voyager really should have encountered the Kazon for as long as they did, but there's arguments either way on that one.

At least with the Vidiians we had some indication that not all of them were jerks willing to steal your kidneys at the first opportunity. Of course, they're also a bit more sympathetic in general.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The idea was a good idea, but the execution was like Klingons Lite. Due to the network they were on they were not allowed to go the places that might have made the Kazon work.

With the Vidians I got the impression that most of the population wanted the hamburger but didn't want to see how it was made. So they could protect themselves from feeling morally culpable.

 

[valkyrie013]

with the viidians, could have showed more of, what would you or your species would have done if this happened to you? Would you be doing the same thing? or just die?? Honestly, would have manufactured ALOT of clones to harvest stuff from.. but hey..

but reading, they got the phage 2000 years ago? I wonder.. did they figure out How it was acquired? Seems there were healthy vidiians out there.. just alot of questions.. not many answers.. another part of voyager that went badly.. could have had voyager encounter species in arcs, and flesh out the species and then leave there space.. with maybe a few chasing the ship till it went to far.

 

[Lynx]

Yes!

I like the Kazon. I think that the concept for them was great and hey were a great enemy for Voyager. Actually a lot better than some of those who showed up later in the series.

I really liked the episodes with Culluh and Seska. A beautiful team!

I would have liked to see more of other Kazon sects as well.

 

[darrenjl]

The whole Kazon/Ocampa area of space Voyager ended up in was very strange. Sort of a backward edge of the galaxy where nobody really had territory, or replicator technology. Or water.

They never explicitly mentioned it but Voyager for its first two years must have taken a rather convoluted route through this region to keep running into the same characters. I guess Ocampa was one end of their space and the Nekrit Expanse the other, and Voyager didn't necessarily cross it in a straight line.

 

[scnj]

They never explicitly mentioned it but Voyager for its first two years must have taken a rather convoluted route through this region to keep running into the same characters. I guess Ocampa was one end of their space and the Nekrit Expanse the other, and Voyager didn't necessarily cross it in a straight line.

Though it's been some years since I last watched Voyager, they often had continuity issues like this. I understand why the Borg kept recurring even after Voyager left their territory, but I seem to recall them travelling some 20,000 lightyears and somehow running into the Malon again. Not to mention the Hirogen somehow coming back in later seasons long after Voyager should have left their space behind.

 

[DonIago]

I've rationalized that once Seska defected the Nistrim started trailing Voyager and leaving their traditional territory.

 

[valkyrie013]

The water thing was.. weird.. I mean.. there is a Kuiper belt and Ort cloud FULL of Proto-Comets and water asteriods.. more water than the Earth oceans by an order of magnitude!
I can understand maybe a "Water Poor" planet.. maybe even system with maybe Half the amount of comets.. but with Neelix who comes from another system seems to be water poor as well.. ?? hmm..

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think if they'd gone with a different makeup design that looked less Klingon, viewers would have been more forgiving.

We're on the other side of the galaxy, fighting guys who look like the guys from our side of the galaxy but with more matted hair.

 

[Lynx]

The water thing was.. weird.. I mean.. there is a Kuiper belt and Ort cloud FULL of Proto-Comets and water asteriods.. more water than the Earth oceans by an order of magnitude!
I can understand maybe a "Water Poor" planet.. maybe even system with maybe Half the amount of comets.. but with Neelix who comes from another system seems to be water poor as well.. ?? hmm..

I agree!

But I have a solution for it which I have published on The Kes Website on the page "Voyager problems-and how to solve them" where you can find a lot of solutions for many of the weird contradictions which showed up in the series from time to time.

If we look at the Ocampa system, Ocampa is the fifth of six planets, according to the book "Star Trek Roleplaying Games, Aliens" which is the only source of information about the Ocampa system except for the official Star Trek sources which don't tell us much..

OK, I'm not into roleplaying games myself but I bought the book because of the information about the Ocampa system.

According to that, the Ocampa system is the sun Caeleron plus six planet, five smaller ones plus a gas giant. The four inner planets are to small, hot and rocky to have any water. The fifth planet which is Ocampa has no water on the surface and the sixth planet is a gas giant, apparently without moons, maybe some small rocky asteroids orbiting it but in that case they are too small to contain any water or ice.

We can also assume that the wars and conflicts between the Kazon sects has made it very difficult for the Kazon-Ogla who are living on the Ocampa surface to travel outside the system. Maybe they are under siege from the Kazon-Nistrim or some other Kazon sect which makes it difficult for them to travel outside the system and difficult for other Kazon-Ogla ships to deliver water to them. As they don't want to leave Ocampa with its valuable Cormaline which they use to trade with, they have to live with the water problem, at least until they can make peace with other Kazon sects nearby or find water in some other way.

The same for Neelix who possibly could negotiate himself out of a siege from other Kazon sects but stayed in the area because of the debris he wanted to salvage and due to his planning to save Kes from the Kazon-Ogla.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Though it's been some years since I last watched Voyager, they often had continuity issues like this. I understand why the Borg kept recurring even after Voyager left their territory, but I seem to recall them travelling some 20,000 lightyears and somehow running into the Malon again. Not to mention the Hirogen somehow coming back in later seasons long after Voyager should have left their space behind.

And didn't Neelix, whom they'd picked up in the first epsode, meet a colony of his own people shortly before they returned to Earth? Just how many lightears did this speies cover?

 

[valkyrie013]

should have had an episode where ( and they might have.. haven't watched the first few season of voyager in years) where Neelix would think of leaving.. there getting pretty far from home.. Do I stay for the long haul or go?

 

[Lt. Munro]

The Kazon weren't that bad...