I'm not sure how much longer we're supposed to give spoiler alerts for Discovery, but just to be on the safe side... Spoiler: Admiral, there be spoilers here!!! I've been thinking about how Voq's transformation into Ash Tyler could be considered an alternative explanation for the human-looking Klingons in TOS. I'm very much aware of the Klingon Augment Virus from ENT, but I have fun imagining Kor, Koloth, and Kang, and all the other human-looking Klingons being those who underwent the choH'a once the process became more streamlined and efficient. Like, maybe they found a way to have the Klingon conscience coexist with the human elements added on without having the subject go bonkers like Voq/Tyler did. That could explain both the appearance and personality of Klingons in TOS. I'm just bringing this up hypothetically, and just for fun. I'm not suggesting that the DSC writers intended to do a retcon of the Klingon Augment Virus. I'm just saying maybe, retroactively, some of those Klingons in TOS were choH'a Klingons? I wasn't sure if this post belonged in the DSC or TOS forum as it refers to both. If the mods feel it should be moved to the TOS forum, then make it so. But I thought there were enough DSC elements to post it here.
Can one of the mods change the title to "Is the choH'a an "alternative" explanation for human-looking Klingons in TOS"? I meant to change that when I was writing this, but forgot. Apologies.
Even with the surgery, they would need to change the DNA. Augment Virus (at least the in-situ DNA editing) was probably used.
I think they said on After Trek that Arne Darvin was supposed to have gone through the same process as Tyler, which makes it something for undercover plants rather than rank and file Klingon officers. I think their thinking is that we pretend all TOS Klingons looked like the DSC ones and the Augment Virus just doesn't exist in their version of the world.
Clearly Tyler, like Arne Darvin, can never go back. So you still need generations of Klingons disfigured by the Augment virus (and solutions like restoring cranial ridges) to explain the likes of Kor, Kang and Koloth having both looks during their lives. "I was once... if you'll remember... far less than you see... and far more than I've become." - Kor, DS9 Blood Oath
Having said that, ENT "Affliction" has this line of dialogue by Dr. Antaak saying he had been disguised as a member of the Mazarite delegation at a medical conference Phlox had been attending. It's hard to imagine Antaak having undergone anything as gruesome as Tyler, to achieve that basically human-like appearance, and that's a century before Discovery.
It was just so mind-numbingly stupid. I mean, I can buy that Klingons are too macho for painkillers, but the surgery must be incredibly complicated and a delicate procedure. Yet we see them using tools less advanced than those modern surgeons use - crude knives which wouldn't look out of place in a Victorian operating theater.
I suppose it could just be the show's umpteenth instance of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing, with the design and effects folks who realize a scene being on a whole different page from what the writers originally had in mind for the scene. (Cue "D7." And "100 AU from Earth." And stealth sensor beacons that practically shout "Starfleet was here!" And and and...) One might imagine someone in a supervisory role would be in a position to catch this sort of snafu before it gets too far along. But one might imagine lots of things...
I wonder if the surgery elements can be explained as less literal and more stylised, in a similar manner to Burnham's court martial, and reflect the perspective of Tyler, a victim of horrible torture, as an unreliable narrator of the surgery to implant Voq, or implant him in Voq or whatever the fuck they did (Jesus, that plot point).
Thank you. Oh yeah. I totally understand and accept that. I was just thinking about this as more of a head-canon thing than anything else. I'm totally fine with DSC's visual re-imagining, but I just think it's fun to try to come up with fanboy scenarios to explain all of these differences. Not just with DSC, but throughout all of Star Trek. Good point. I guess my thoughts on this subject weren't as advanced as I thought they were.
As far as we know Arne Darvin wasn't an implanted personality. The incident with Tyler/Voq probably had them rethink that part of the operation.