Spoilers Is the Klingon War within canon?

[timmy84]

Short story. I work retail and one of drivers who makes deliveries to the store I work at likes Star Trek, but he refuses to watch Discovery. His reasoning is that they caused Star Trek Axanar to be cancelled since they would be covering the same topic.

This made me think that whatever they do I was gonna give the show a shot. So far I haven't been disappointed. Then the end of this weeks episode happened.

My first thought is whatever is happening right now in the show is gonna be undone with time travel. The Klingons never occupied 20% of the Federation. Now its just story telling but ultimately inconsequential stuff until they can fix the damage to the timeline. Then I started to think. Does this actually violate canonical history?

My train of thought focused back onto Axanar (am I spelling that right?). This was suppose to focus on the Battle of Axanar where Captain Garth (of Izar) wins a great battle. In canon, we never learn who the opponent was. So instead, outside of canon, its the Klingons. This is do to a reference to an Star Trek games rulebook reference to "The Four Years War". So for some people, a war with the Klingons has already been accepted as a possibility.

So now we are at Discovery. They have traveled to the future by almost a year, and 20% of the Federation has been occupied by the Klingons. Is this unacceptable? I thought about it and no I don't think it is.

"Well why have we not heard about it?" you might be asking. Well, it took 5 seasons (or 4, its late and I'm not gonna look up the exact time) to learn that the Federation has been in an active conflict the entire time with the Cardassians. A species we have never heard of. A war that cost millions of lives on both sides. That lasted decades. What about V'Ger? That was crazy, but no one talks about it. Why didn't the Organians stop the Klingon - Federation border war before the Dominion? Didn't that violate the peace treaty?

I don't think this is gonna be undone (although I can be wrong). This war is happening, and has happened by the time we get to Kirk, the soldier diplomat of the Federation. A captain who came up in a Starfleet who fought a losing war for a year at this point (being 10 years before TOS, Kirk is somewhere serving in Starfleet). A Starfleet who tosses General Order One out the window to negotiate mining rights with primitive people in the hopes of gaining an advantage over the beaten Klingons who may invade the Federation again at anytime.

 

[Lord Garth]

My default assumption had been that there had always been some type of hostilities between the Federation and the Klingons for 70 years up until TUC. "An end to almost 70 years of unremitting hostility, which the Klingons can no longer afford," to quote Spock. Hostility doesn't necessarily mean war... but that also doesn't mean there weren't any.

And 10 years is a long time for things to happen. It would be pretty boring to have the status quo remain exactly the same for 10 years. Let alone 70.

Before someone says anything about "What about everyone saying there was little contact between the Federation and the Klingons for 100 years between ENT and DSC?"

Well, you have a point but 70 years before TUC (set in 2293) is the 2220s. So, I'm guessing the skirmishes during the 30 years leading up to DSC were significant enough for Spock to include them... or I'm becoming too generous. Or, at almost 40, I'm starting to just not care anymore. Either way. Who knows?

But a Klingon War in the 2250s doesn't violate canon. Not that anything we say -- or you say -- would ever change the delivery guy's mind.

The 20% of the land the Federation lost can be won back. Or maybe it isn't won back. That still leaves 80%.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Yeah a conflict sometimes between ENT and TOS is in canon. We knew nothing other than there was a conflict.

 

[Timo]

It's a balancing act. On one hand, Kirk himself and his old flame Carol Marcus like to claim that the UFP is at peace and furhtermore that Starfleet has kept that peace for "a century" (Marcus in ST2) or "over one hundred years" (Kirk in TAS "The Infinite Vulcan"). On the other hand, Klingon hostility since the 2210s is "unremitting", and Kirk himself was a "warrior" in his youth (which happens to be the exact time period of DSC!).

A war that ended two minutes after Lorca jumped to MU would have been perfectly acceptable: a bit of practical training for Kirk the Warrior, but barely a footnote in the history books. It would be a war for the warriors, not for the populance at large - a case of the fighters keeping the peace by fighting a lot.

A war that involves the Klingons conquering lots of UFP space is more complicated. But so far we only learn of them conquering space, literally. Do the Klingons actually set foot on those planets the surroundings of which they now control? If so, what will the locals remember of the occupation? Will there be mass executions, "Errand of Mercy" style? Or just a token planting of a flag, after which the invaders move on towards Earth and ultimate glory?

Wars that come and go without anybody noticing much are par for the course for the "peaceful" Federation in the 24th century. Would the same be possible in the supposedly more compact UFP of the 23rd?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

"Errand of Mercy" treats the outbreak of war with the Klingons as being a new thing, rather than the resumption of a ten-year-old conflict. So as far as I'm concerned, it's an invention of DSC and their version of the Trek universe.

FASA squeezed a war into their wargame RPG version of TOS' backstory. TNG referenced "decades of war" stemming from Klingon first contact which was directly contradicted by ENT: "Broken Bow".

 

[Cox of Seagulls]

You can see it on screen, can't you?

 

[Timo]

But TNG spoke of a contact "centuries" before the events, so the contradiction isn't with what happened after "Broken Bow", it's with interpreting "Broken Bow" as having been the event itself.

And "Errand of Mercy" never says there wasn't war before. What it tells us to accept is that the UFP has arch-enemies who never were mentioned before; basically, it is also telling us between the lines that there has been war with these guys, the best proof for which is that nobody ever mentions it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

And "Errand of Mercy" never says there wasn't war before. What it tells us to accept is that the UFP has arch-enemies who never were mentioned before

Is there any part of Star Trek where you don't have to deliberately ignore the creator's intent in order to make it work?

 

[Timo]

Oh, come on - nobody cares about "creators". Those mayflies come and go, and are replaced by other people with other ideas. The only folks in Trek who have any staying power are the actors, who vastly outserve both writers and producers.

That aside, there's no creator intent on "Errand of Mercy" other that what you just made up. They wanted Space Mongols, they wrote Space Mongols. There was no intent to have any sort of a backstory or lack of it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Spot261]

You can see it on screen, can't you?

Applause.

It's on screen, it's canon.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Oh, come on - nobody cares about "creators". Those mayflies come and go, and are replaced by other people with other ideas. The only folks in Trek who have any staying power are the actors, who vastly outserve both writers and producers.

Since actors can and have been recast, they're equally worthless by your standards. Which begs the question... what do you believe has worth in Trek?

That aside, there's no creator intent on "Errand of Mercy" other that what you just made up. They wanted Space Mongols, they wrote Space Mongols. There was no intent to have any sort of a backstory or lack of it.

And the mayfly creator didn't write his Space Mongol outbreak of war to be the second such in ten years. He also didn't write it with the belief that Organian space was already under Klingon occupation and control 10 years previously, as established in Discovery.

 

[Tuskin38]

under Klingon occupation and control 10 years previously, as established in Discovery.

There is nothing saying there are Klingon troops on the planet.

 

[Tim Thomason]

But TNG spoke of a contact "centuries" before the events, so the contradiction isn't with what happened after "Broken Bow", it's with interpreting "Broken Bow" as having been the event itself.

And "Errand of Mercy" never says there wasn't war before. What it tells us to accept is that the UFP has arch-enemies who never were mentioned before; basically, it is also telling us between the lines that there has been war with these guys, the best proof for which is that nobody ever mentions it.

Timo Saloniemi

There's a bit of humano-centrism at play with the "disastrous first contact" meaning first contact between humans and Klingons. Picard is representing the Federation, and he is referring to first contact between the Federation and the Klingons, "centuries before" the episode.

Except, now we know that the Klingons were a well-known species in the region during formation of the Federation. Humans didn't begin decades of war with the Klingons in 2151... but Vulcans may have.

Discovery tells us that the Vulcans first contacted the Klingons in 2016. And it was not pretty and led to a very non-Vulcan policy of attack at first sight. Burnham may have been a little tight-lipped about how many may have died in these "small confrontations", but it was undoubtedly a very tense time.

Within a hundred years, we learn that Vulcan has descended into almost a military dictatorship, and has extended its influence over Andoria and Earth (which Broken Bow shows is surprisingly close to Klingon territory at the time). Forget about the Federation-Klingon Cold War, it's the Vulcans who are changing their entire way of life in order to meet the Klingons head on, if need be.

And then the Vulcan society gets upturned by religious extremists, while the Klingons have to deal with time travellers, Tholians, and then some crazy DNA-altering virus that cripples their society for a hundred years. The Federation filled the gap in the interim, but if Jonathan Archer had not been around, then the Quadrant(s) would've run green and pink with blood for who knows how long.

 

[Captain Killy]

Did the series ever say there wasn’t a open conflict between the Federation and the Klingon Empire prior to the events of TOS? What? No? That’s never been stated in any Trek series? Then an open conflict between the Federation and the Klingon Empire prior to TOS is well within canon.

Canon is nothing more than facts presented on screen. If it’s been said on screen it’s canon, if it hasn’t then it isn’t...until it is. So a hot war between the Federation and the Klingons taking place roughly 10 years before the events in TOS IS canon, because we’re watching it happen.

 

[David cgc]

The war in "Errand of Mercy" is said to be over "the disputed area," which the Klingons say they have an unambiguous claim to. Say, because they seized it militarily, perhaps during some sort of recent, but inconclusive, war?

And there's McCoy's oddball line about Vulcan having been conquered because they don't have booze, which is the latest frontrunner for "offhand throwaway line that was never followed up on that inspired Discovery's plot arc."

 

[Vger23]

TEH CANNON!!!1!1!!

 

[Succubint]

The whole initial incident which led to the Battle of the Binary Stars was a dispute over territory, at least according to T'Kuvma and Voq. Georgiou asserts the beacon and Ship of the Dead is in Federation space, the Klingons assert otherwise. Areas in dispute are clearly a fluid thing depending on which perspective you're coming from.

 

[Captain Killy]

It appears that Discovery may be working from “deep canon” to make this all fit.

https://www.inverse.com/article/407...y-klingon-war-history-canon-classic-tos-sarek


The boundary between the Klingon Empire and the Federation in the majority of Star Trek that happens after Discovery is called “the Neutral Zone.” (There’s a Romulan neutral zone, too, but don’t worry about that right now.) The point is, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan establishes that one part of the Neutral Zone is in the Gamma Hydra system. Guess what: the Battle at the Binary Stars in the two-part pilot episode of Discovery happens in the Gamma Hydra system. Sarek even calls this area the “edge of Federation space.” So, we know that in Discovery’s future, the Neutral Zone has to exist. What better place to draw a boundary on your space map than the location where the war started?

 

[Pindar]

Short story. I work retail and one of drivers who makes deliveries to the store I work at likes Star Trek, but he refuses to watch Discovery. His reasoning is that they caused Star Trek Axanar to be cancelled since they would be covering the same topic.

You should direct him here: http://axamonitor.com/doku.php?id=timeline

so he can see why Axanar isn't being made. It wasn't cancelled because of Discovery.

 

[C.E. Evans]

One person's war can be another person's "hostilities" later down the road, IMO.