How does Klingon society work?

[indolover]

Is literally every Klingon a warrior/serves in the Klingon military?

What I gather is that Klingon society is ruled by a warrior caste, and it is from this warrior caste that the Chancellor and Klingon High Council come from. Kind of like how Martok said he couldn't be Chancellor since he was a commoner, and how Worf could be since the House of Mogh was a noble one.

So, what about civilians? What about the people who grow the worms for Gagh? Or who write the operas that Worf likes? Or the people their priests/clerics? So, if a person in Klingon society is a painter, and never fights in the military or dies while fighting, he would not go to Stovokor?

 

[JustKate]

I always imagined it as being kind of like medieval Europe, in which every male serf is, at least in theory, a foot soldier for his lord. Or maybe more like the U.S. Marine Corps, in which every Marine, no matter his actual job (mechanic, attorney, etc.), is also trained in combat and has to qualify on the rifle range and all that kind of thing.

 

[Biggshow]

"How does Klingon society work?"

My friend, Kralk, son of T'nek, says, "Very well, petaq. What's it to you?"

 

[EnsignAmy]

I always imagined it as being kind of like medieval Europe, in which every male serf is, at least in theory, a foot soldier for his lord. Or maybe more like the U.S. Marine Corps, in which every Marine, no matter his actual job (mechanic, attorney, etc.), is also trained in combat and has to qualify on the rifle range and all that kind of thing.

That sounds right, wasn't Spartan society like that?

 

[JustKate]

^ Yes, I think you're right. Maybe somebody more familiar with ancient Greece (that's not one of my best historical periods) can enlighten us further.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Actually, I think Feudal Japan probably fits better. Nobody outside the Empire really knows anything about the Empire except what they see from the warrior caste, because only the warriors ever leave home. It's probably more extreme than this, even, with the warriors actually making up a dominant cultural group that likes to speak on behalf of the entire race even though they only represent a portion of the whole.

Not that it matters much, but I tend to believe Klingons are alot more diverse than we've been lead to believe and the Klingons we've seen so far only represent those fortunate/ambitious enough to be close to the imperial inner circle (which makes them all, neccesarily, part of the same elite clique, however it is they ended up getting there). Sort of like how humans might some day end up represented by a handful of high-minded stuffed shirts straight from the set of The West Wing.

Klingon society is probably quite rigidly layered without a great deal of upward mobility. I would be highly surprised if what we've seen over the years represents even a tenth of their cultural functioning or background (since we know for a fact this applies to humans, it's actually a foregone conclusion, isn't it? Not all humans are explorers either, despite Picard/Janeway's assorted homilies).

 

[maneth]

Indeed. I'm glad Enterprise let us see a more diverse view of Klingon society. For a start, if they were all warriors they'd never developed warp drive, they would've exterminated themselves before getting that far.

I do think that feudal Japan was used as a model for Klingon society. I'm pretty sure that's where they got the strict honor code from, and the fact that they prefer hand-to-hand combat (a bit inefficient in a world of phasers, wouldn't you say?).

 

[captcalhoun]

read Klingon Empire: A Burning House. Klingon farmers, soldiers, opera singers, doctors, chefs and politicians all appear and all with different opinions on what 'honour' is.

 

[maneth]

Okay, I was ignoring the books for now. I've read some but not enough and no Klingon-centered ones. Besides, I doubt all of the published works count as canon.

 

[Timo]

None of it does. Nevertheless, writing on Klingons is surprisingly coherent, despite getting off to a bad start when many early novels relied on the interpretation from FASA roleplaying games and the popular novel Final Reflection written in concord with that RPG material - even when the movies and later the spinoff shows shot off in an entirely different direction. Thing is, Final Reflection left such an impression that later novelists have done their best to merge its Klingon worldview with that of the aired shows and movies - and some TV writers have brought elements from that book to the episodes of DS9, too.

The idea that the warrior nature of the Klingons would merely be their interstellar interface, with more variety hidden in the deep homefront, is a good and working one. I'd also suggest that the warriors are the most religious of the castes, heavily restricted by a code of conduct that has in fact been engineered for controlling the warrior class. They can't help boasting their warrior prowess, bravery and honor, because the very existence of their caste depends on that. If they began thinking and working outside the box, the rest of the society would consider them a menace to general safety, and would undermine the warrior caste by any and all means necessary. The warriors would probably quickly crumble without the support of industrial tycoons, farmer barons and shrewd civil servants, all of whom rely on a strong but controllable warrior caste to protect their precious interests.

It wouldn't be in the interests of these background forces to reveal the exact nature of this servitude, of course. Far better to leave the outside world in the belief that only warriors exist, that only warriors matter, that only warriors can be confronted.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DevilEyes]

Is literally every Klingon a warrior/serves in the Klingon military?

ENT "Judgment":

Kolos: "You didn't believe all Klingons were soldiers?"
Archer: " I guess I did."
Kolos: " My father was a teacher. My mother, a biologist at the university. They encouraged me to take up the law. Now, all young people want to do is to take up weapons as soon as they can hold them. They're told there is honor in victory — any victory. What honor is there in a victory over a weaker opponent? Had Duras destroyed that ship, he would have been lauded as a hero of the Empire for murdering helpless refugees. We were a great society, not so long ago. When honor was earned through integrity and acts of true courage, not senseless bloodshed."

 

[Myasishchev]

I always imagined it as being kind of like medieval Europe, in which every male serf is, at least in theory, a foot soldier for his lord. Or maybe more like the U.S. Marine Corps, in which every Marine, no matter his actual job (mechanic, attorney, etc.), is also trained in combat and has to qualify on the rifle range and all that kind of thing.

That sounds right, wasn't Spartan society like that?

Not really, unless you don't count the helots. Which a lot of people don't.

^ Yes, I think you're right. Maybe somebody more familiar with ancient Greece (that's not one of my best historical periods) can enlighten us further.

The Spartans were bastards. They were worse than any other Greek city, which is saying a lot.

Then again, Klingons as Spartans makes some sense. It's been demonstrated on Earth that a ruling caste need not be worth a damn economically or intellectually, so long as they maintain a monopoly of force and ability to coerce and parasitize upon the productive classes. Basically every civilization on this planet was originally founded under such principles--from classical Greece and Rome to the Russian Empire to the American South to feudal Japan. The growing complexity of society, which occasioned the rise of the middle class, eventually broke the monopoly of force and that ability to coerce pretty much everywhere in the West, but without the intellectual flowering and widespread adoption of liberal values that also came with the rise of a middle class, the monopoly became increasingly potent.

As far as I can tell, the Klingons never had a middle class, an Enlightenment, or an Age of Revolution. They just wound up with a windfall of alien technology left by a distracted conqueror, and took a nearly medieval social system into space.

With the ultimate high ground and a monopoly of the only force that matters (starships), it's not inconceivable that every Klingon is, if not a "warrior," a parasite upon the intellectual labors of the dozens of species they have no doubt encountered and conquered. This would, maybe ironically, return the Klingons to the allegorical roots Trek writers from TNG on have attempted to remove them from--a cultureless, cruel, totalitarian power that pastiched the Soviet Union.

This doesn't really conflict with Klingon doctors and lawyers and such... although a Spartan/helot situation would explain a lot. I wonder if there's a Klingon krypteia.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

The idea that the warrior nature of the Klingons would merely be their interstellar interface, with more variety hidden in the deep homefront, is a good and working one. I'd also suggest that the warriors are the most religious of the castes, heavily restricted by a code of conduct that has in fact been engineered for controlling the warrior class. They can't help boasting their warrior prowess, bravery and honor, because the very existence of their caste depends on that. If they began thinking and working outside the box, the rest of the society would consider them a menace to general safety, and would undermine the warrior caste by any and all means necessary. The warriors would probably quickly crumble without the support of industrial tycoons, farmer barons and shrewd civil servants, all of whom rely on a strong but controllable warrior caste to protect their precious interests.

It wouldn't be in the interests of these background forces to reveal the exact nature of this servitude, of course. Far better to leave the outside world in the belief that only warriors exist, that only warriors matter, that only warriors can be confronted.

Timo Saloniemi

Hmmmm, I can see several striking (or not so striking, which is in part the point is it not?) parallels with a number of aspects of typical human societies in real life.

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

Indeed. I'm glad Enterprise let us see a more diverse view of Klingon society. For a start, if they were all warriors they'd never developed warp drive, they would've exterminated themselves before getting that far.

I do think that feudal Japan was used as a model for Klingon society. I'm pretty sure that's where they got the strict honor code from, and the fact that they prefer hand-to-hand combat (a bit inefficient in a world of phasers, wouldn't you say?).

Yes I enjoyed this as well.

 

[Xerxes1979]

Indeed. I'm glad Enterprise let us see a more diverse view of Klingon society. For a start, if they were all warriors they'd never developed warp drive, they would've exterminated themselves before getting that far.

Klingon advanced tech orginated with the Hur'q empire, the Klingons simply stole/appropriated it. Also we must remember that their other signature technology, the cloaking device was obtained in an alliance with the Romulans.

While the NX class was clearly outmatched by Klingon vessels in its era, little more than a century later the Constitution never lost to its equalivent ship of the line the D-7 and later K'tinga class. I vote the Klingons as most stagnant stellar empire.