I prefer this approach.
Explanation for Romulan Ridges?
- Thread starter Arpy
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I prefer this approach.
He always reminds me of this guy...Yeah I actually preferred the way they looked in The Wounded
They had a more reddish undertone and overall had a more severe look
I'm assuming these cardassians are from a different tribe than the gray skinned ones. I'd also like to add its possible Seska is from the same tribe as these Cardassians as she had tannish skin with brown hair. I know she still had partial bajoran appearance but I've always suspected her original appearance is similar to the cardassians of the wounded rather than the gray ones from ending of TNG to DS9.
I always favored the idea that some romulans have klingon blood from the times in history when they have been allies.
It was mentioned in TNG that Romulans kill children with disabilities such a blindness at birth. With that sort of attitude I doubt they would have tolerated children with Klingon characteristics even if they were allies.
We did see a planet that Worf visited that had Klingons & Romulans living together and intermarrying.
If it can happen there it probably happened elsewhere as well.
That is a different situation The Klingons and Romulans were forced together and both effectively exiled from their societies. I doubt Romulan society as a whole would have accepted children from interspecies relations.
Why head ridges?
I expect it's the same reason for Klingon's being "bumpy headed freaks" from the stage show "Those Krazy Klingons". Too many lonely nights spent in "battle".
It was a nice little throwaway line to wink at the fans and acknowledge the differences in makeup approaches across the different eras of the franchise.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Just like Trials and Tribulations simple and brilliant "we do not discuss it with outsiders" line.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Just like Trials and Tribulations simple and brilliant "we do not discuss it with outsiders" line.
And we all know how that turned out don't we?
I always loved that explanation. Simple, effective, just enough. More wasn't needed
Some have ridges, some don't. Just never saw it in TOS because Kirk never bumped into one, didn't mean they didn't exist just that we never saw the crew meet one. We don't see every single moment of their lives.
I think it is a offhand tip of the hat to Gene's "explanation" of the differences in Klingons from The Original Series to The Motion Picture.
Yes, that seemed to be the pretty obvious implication from what Laris said (and the slap).
Also notice that all the bumpy northerners speak English with an American accent (except for that one dude in the preview for episode 4), whereas the few smooth-headed southerners have accents such as British and Irish. Does this imply that the southerners are the traditionally the posh ruling/noble class of Romulan society?
Kor
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Exactly. And Picard and crew never bumped into a smooth-foreheaded Romulan. Why not? It doesn't matter; we should just just go with it.
The obvious reason for TNG making ridge-headed Romulans is that they wanted to change up the makeup; they wanted to do something visually different that TOS did. It's just like when Roddenberry changed the look of Klingons for TMP; he did so just because he wanted to change the visuals of TOS.
Roddenberry came out and said this. He [paraphrasing] told us to imagine that the bumpy headed Klingons were the way Klingons always were. So that means, according to what Roddenberry said when TMP came out, when we see the smooth headed Klingons in TOS reruns, we are just supposed to imagine they look the same as the TMP (and later TNG) Klingons.
I don't mind the explanation given in Picard, since it's likely just a throwaway line anyway. However, I would have been fine if the didn't mention any explanation at all. Granted, there is a slight difference between Romulans in TOS vs TNG AND the look of the Klingons in TMP vs TOS; that difference being that we were outright told that TOS Romulans looked indistinguishable form Vulcans. But I can live with that discrepancy.
Don't for get chin and cheek dimples.
)
A line of thought they took to the logical conclusion in DS9's Blood Oath, when several TOS Klingons reappeared (played by the same actors, even) with ridged foreheads.
Trials & Tribble-ations is being brought up as a "simple explanation", but that was (in a sense) the episode that created the conundrum, by establishing that Klingons had actually looked like they did in TOS in-continuity, rather than it having been retconned out.
