Kahless

[JRoss]

Take the real-life example of Vlad Tepes. Tepes was a Romanian prince who is viewed by the people of Romania and Albania as a national hero.

To most people in the West he is infamous for his other name, Vlad Dragulea, or Dracula. He is known to have slaughtered many enemies in horrific ways in the name of freedom. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[The Castellan]

Take the real-life example of Vlad Tepes. Tepes was a Romanian prince who is viewed by the people of Romania and Albania as a national hero.

To most people in the West he is infamous for his other name, Vlad Dragulea, or Dracula. He is known to have slaughtered many enemies in horrific ways in the name of freedom. Different strokes for different folks.

You're right, and being half Romanian myself, I can vouch for what you said.

Though I doubt anyone will be saying good words about Dick Cheney or some other modern day Dracula using freedom or security as their age old cry of opposition.

Anyhow, I'd love to know what happened with the clone Kahless.

 

[The_Baroness]

Take the real-life example of Vlad Tepes. Tepes was a Romanian prince who is viewed by the people of Romania and Albania as a national hero.

To most people in the West he is infamous for his other name, Vlad Dragulea, or Dracula. He is known to have slaughtered many enemies in horrific ways in the name of freedom. Different strokes for different folks.

Or more recently, Che Guevara. Lauded as a hero by some, vilified as a villain by just as many.

 

[xortex]

So Kahless being evil is just some propaganda? or maybe he was a freedom fighter against the Hurq?

Kang - 'My wife, Mara. It's my daughter ballet recital. I missed it.'

 

[Sci]

So Kahless being evil is just some propaganda?

Pretty much. Or, at the very least, an unfair Federation evaluation made through the lens of cold war bias.

 

[tighr]

Anyone ever see the film "The Kingdom", with Jamie Foxx? Kinda reminds me of this argument. Especially the way the film ends.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

As for Kahless, I think in TOS, he was shown as how Kirk envisioned him.

Exactly. The Excalbians took all that from reading Kirk's thoughts. Every re-created character in that ep was based on that.

Kahless appearing without ridges in TOS is not a continuity error. At that point, I assume that Kirk had only ever met ridgeless Klingons; he thought they all looked that way. Kirk had no idea what the true (ridged) Klingon appearance was like. So Kahless appeared as a QuchHa' because that is all Kirk knew.

Same goes for Kahless' actions and motivations.

 

[tighr]

Regarding the "ridgeless Klingons" and the augments ret-con, I absolutely hated the idea. I think it was done as a joke by the writers, but in terms of canon it makes no sense. The Klingons seen in TMP were ridged, and that wasn't seen as out of the ordinary.

Everyone knows the real reason for the ridgeless Klingons was make-up budget. Actually addressing it in-show was a bad mistake.

 

[Kertrats47]

Everyone knows the real reason for the ridgeless Klingons was make-up budget. Actually addressing it in-show was a bad mistake.

In that case, it was Deep Space Nine that made the mistake. In "Trials and Tribble-ations," the DS9 crew notices the difference between the Klingons at K-7 and the ridged Klingons they know and love. Personally, I thought that Enterprise's explanation was pretty clever, and honestly, I think it was the best that could be done under the circumstances.

 

[tighr]

Personally, I thought that Enterprise's explanation was pretty clever, and honestly, I think it was the best that could be done under the circumstances.

The Enterprise's episode dealing with the augments would have never existed without the DS9 episode in the first place. Add that to the fact that we already saw ridged Klingons in the Enterprise pilot episode, and it makes the ret-con even more absurd.

 

[The Castellan]

Everyone knows the real reason for the ridgeless Klingons was make-up budget. Actually addressing it in-show was a bad mistake.

In that case, it was Deep Space Nine that made the mistake. In "Trials and Tribble-ations," the DS9 crew notices the difference between the Klingons at K-7 and the ridged Klingons they know and love. Personally, I thought that Enterprise's explanation was pretty clever, and honestly, I think it was the best that could be done under the circumstances.

I liked that story as well, was nice to see the mystery solved, and why they did not wanna talk to outsiders about it.

 

[Skywalker]

Regarding the "ridgeless Klingons" and the augments ret-con, I absolutely hated the idea. I think it was done as a joke by the writers, but in terms of canon it makes no sense. The Klingons seen in TMP were ridged, and that wasn't seen as out of the ordinary.

The virus was cured sometime between TOS and TMP. There, that was easy.

 

[Kertrats47]

The Enterprise's episode dealing with the augments would have never existed without the DS9 episode in the first place.

That was my point!

Add that to the fact that we already saw ridged Klingons in the Enterprise pilot episode, and it makes the ret-con even more absurd.

Of course they were ridged in the pilot, the augment virus hadn't infected them yet... unless I'm missing something about what you're trying to say. If so, my apologies...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ No, you're not missing anything. At the time ENT began, all Klingons had ridges. The Augment virus didn't come along until later.

 

[Sci]

At first, I didn't like the idea of explaining the ridges' absence in TOS. But I came to enjoy the idea later on, as it nicely explains why the Klingons would have come to hate Humans so much given that their initial encounters in ENT's first season weren't all that awful. It also added a level of nuance to Klingon society in the novels, which have established that ridgeless Klingons ended up becoming second-class citizens in Klingon society, an oppressed class used as expendable labor and soldiers by those with ridges. I came to like the idea quite a bit.