THESIS: Our interpretation of what armor should be does not apply to aliens
I would just like to address this one point, which we hear often.
I do not make any claim to the validity of this "Klingon armor", for now let's set that aside.
But I abjectly disagree that aliens would not share the same logic as everyone else, and believe this to be incorrect.
With respect, the difference between fact and fiction is that fact remains true whether people believe it or not. A fact can be independently discovered time and time again across history by people with no knowledge of each others work by independently testing it. A fiction disappears when all sources of the fiction are eliminated.
The reason I bring this up, is that natural physical laws, and also sociological-biological laws, apply across history, no matter what the cultural context is. They would therefore always lead to certain commonalities between all societies - i.e.:
- ). all forms of material intending to stop a blade increase their resistance to the blade proportionally to their utility
- ). all forms of armor in existence seek to protect the user by definition, there are none that actively seek to harm them, by, for example, loading hollow bamboo with smallpox pus, so that an arrow wound would be more fatal.
- ). all societies that employ armor seek to preserve the life of the occupant for some reason, usually so their utility to that society isn't ended
.....and so on.
You can have relativism in personal values - you cannot have relativism in physical reality.
Thus alien societies would not just be illogical flights of fancy, like something out of a medieval fairy tale, where people inexplicably have dog's heads and carry swords made out of giant tulips - they would share similar circumstances, regardless of their alien status, and will develop common solutions - because 2 inches of Titanium stops projectiles better than 1 mm of Aluminum anywhere in the universe. A society that is, like the Klingons/Romulans/Cardassians, humanoid, and at the same level of material advancement - share even more commonailities. A society that has all that, and also exists in a galaxy with trade and communication, share yet more.
A genre can choose to recognize material facts to a greater or lesser extent depending on it's intent. Not all genres and sub-genres of entertainment are alike.
But to argue that an alien society renders logic invalid is contrary to Star Trek's basic premise that logic is universal.
Justifying an artistic decision with "all TV is make believe" - it's akin to saying "all insects are the same" - they may have multiple sets of legs, but a millipede and fly possess rather different phenotype - being able to recognize the difference is nuance - and nuance and context are all-important.
Example:
It might be that society X is at a different level of technological and material capability to our own, and thus can make a spacecraft look entirely unpractical (because it's hull's tensile strength is absurdly high).
But this isn't what Star Trek proposes in regards to the famous humanoids of it's galaxy - they are on a material par with the Federation - or else the entire political dynamic of Star Trek breaks down.
Other, more advanced, more isolated races, may have different material circumstances - but still are bound by logic - at some point their culture did value utility over art, before achieving this apotheosis - and if ever pushed by a greater force again, would be forced by circumstance to revert to utility or perish.
The Klingon Empire is not imperishable. It must therefore make many decisions out of real need, not artistic idealism.
The Star Trek setting additionally makes the thematic artistic choice of deliberately grounding it's design choices in real world analogies, so that audiences have a frame of reference - the Federation flies around in ships that resemble submarines, because flying around in a cloud of sentient goo would alienate audiences.
Ergo: to reflect the thing that Star Trek is aiming for: i.e.
a world informed by the universal applicability of logic, an artistic choice would seek to convey logical values - for example being suggestive of practicality, even if not practical in actuality.
Now, in regards to the Klingon armor.... ....whether it is belivable within the setting will depend on context (is it an antique? is it a standard issue duty uniform?), which we know nothing about right now - I would hope that it isn't a duty uniform - but it wouldn't be a game breaker for me if it was, because as much as it appears to be another example of "fantasy creep" in pop culture, it's not entirely outside the bounds of possibility - it's just I would have preferred something perhaps more
suggestive of a practical army.
But I never cared much about that - my point is that "aliens" is not a way to close down critical thinking, the way that say "fairies" would be - they would still be products of natural selection, and socio-biological realities.
@Baxten was correct in the point he was making, even if I don't agree that the armor is game breaking.