Klingon First Contact
- Thread starter JJohnson
- Start date
A disastrous first contact that lead to decades of war.
It was never specified when mankind made official first contact with Klingons, until "Broken Bow". We know Vulcans had been in contact before then.
There's a strong chance there was no official first contact between the klingons and the federation until the battle of the binary stars - they'd been quiet since Archer's time, but Klingon raids date back to the 2230s or 2220s.
All of this matches with history presented in TOS, TNG, DS9 and the films, which includes
70 years of conflict in TUC (so conflict from about the 2220s)
A disasterous first contact (between federation and klingons - shown in discovery and leading to decades of hostility) - from tng
Border Conflicts in the 2230s and 40s around Sherman's planet (from TOS episodes)
I see no evidence that ent or dsc have changed anything regarding klkngpn federation history.
There's a strong chance there was no official first contact between the klingons and the federation until the battle of the binary stars - they'd been quiet since Archer's time, but Klingon raids date back to the 2230s or 2220s.
All of this matches with history presented in TOS, TNG, DS9 and the films, which includes
70 years of conflict in TUC (so conflict from about the 2220s)
A disasterous first contact (between federation and klingons - shown in discovery and leading to decades of hostility) - from tng
Border Conflicts in the 2230s and 40s around Sherman's planet (from TOS episodes)
I see no evidence that ent or dsc have changed anything regarding klkngpn federation history.
IIRC, in the 1993 Star Trek Chronology, Klingon first contact was speculated to have occurred 50 years prior to "Day of the Dove" based on a line from the script which never made it to air.
Discovery did not depict a first contact.
There was no contact with the Klingons for 100 years except for the occasional border skirmish.
It was the first real contact in 100 years, but it wasn't first contact.
We know that the klingons attacked burnham as a young child - 2230s.
Spock was talking in 2293, which ties in with hostility since the 2220s.
When did the federation and the klingons have official (non skirmish) contact before the 2250s?
The 1997 revision of the encyclopaedia states "first contact between the klingons and the federation was in 2218". Not klingons and humans, or vulcans. That matches up with my memories of the chronology and the first edition of the encycolpedia.
However there's nothing in the transcript to support this.
The earliest known contact between klingons and humans was 2063.
Yeah that 2218 thing was in the Star Trek Fact Files too I remember, in it's very first issue (1996) on the Star Trek timeline page. Odd that they tried to make something "fanon" into canon. And then people tried to bash ENT for it all the time "ooh look they've changed the timeline, they're ruining everything, bla bla bla," when it was never canon at all to begin with.
Unless there are any others.. was Worf on Earth in Time's Arrow? Its been years since I've watched that.
Worf & Lily. Depends if you include half-Klingon, then it's B'Elanna and some hicks in 1996
Unless there are any others.. was Worf on Earth in Time's Arrow? Its been years since I've watched that.
Look! They've changed the timeline. They're ruining everything! bla bla bla!
It being placed into the Chronology at 2218 pretty much nailed it as more than fanon, but a non-canon rule of thumb adopted into RPGs, novels, and comics until Enterprise changed it all.
Worf didn't go with the rest in Time's Arrow. Picard explicitly beamed down and orders Worf not to go into the past (and takes his place), over Worf's strenuous objection. 1996 is the earliest Klingon-Human contact in canon.
Except they haven't. There is no proof that federation/Klingon hostilities didn't start pre first contact, in or around 2218, with 70 years of hostility, but official first contact with federation and klingons was in 2256, which wasn't exactly a success - feeding in to picard's atatemg.
When was Michael attacked by Klingons as a child? Vulcan extremists bombed her school.
The Federation made first contact with the Klingons the same time it did humans, Vulcans , Andorians, etc.... Prior to founding. They were grandfathered in.
First contact in Star Trek is another example of Earth centricity. On Voyager they celebrated First Contact day, the day humans made first contact with Vulcans. Really? Why not the day Vulcans made first contact with Tellar? Another example of the homo sapiens only club.
Humans and Vulcans both made first official, formal contact with the Klingons prior to forming the Federation. Can't undo that.
Michael's human parents were killed in an attack on Doctari Alpha by Klingons. Presumably, Michael was there. The Extremely Logical attack on the Vulcan Learning Center was a later thing that almost killed Michael (already being raised by Sarek, at the time).
The novel The Final Reflection, it was interesting that the Klingons and the Humans had different years for first contact.
Because the Humans didn't realize for decades that the people they were interacting with and sometimes fighting were Klingons, while the Klingons knew right from the start they had met the Humans.
Because the Humans didn't realize for decades that the people they were interacting with and sometimes fighting were Klingons, while the Klingons knew right from the start they had met the Humans.
The one way it can work is if the years preceding the 2220s were even more peaceful, meaning the minimal contact after the Donatu V nastiness would still carry the torch of "hostility" to the 2250s and then to the 2260s, across the Organian Peace, and all the way to TUC.
It's not as if the Organian Peace was really peaceful, but it's not as if it was open warfare, either. So history writers could use it as support for two opposite interpretations: that Klingons barely lifted a finger against the Feds (because their attempt at a late 2260s war embarrassed everybody involved), or that Klingons never gave up their war even in face of divine opposition (because proxy wars raged for the rest of TOS at least).
So what the Klingons did between ENT and Donatu could go two ways, too. And as long as this activity or lack thereof didn't quite amount to a Donatu, Spock could choose Donatu as the sharp transition from "not very nasty" to "unremittingly hostile", even if it's a more or less arbitrary point event in the middle of fuzziness.
Timo Saloniemi
Doctari Alpha was in the 2220s or 30s and fits in Spock's 70 year line (Spock ahvong learnt to round figures by this stage). Based on transmitted information there was no contact between humans and the Klingons after the augment virus in 2154 and until doctari alpha in 2230ish. That later wasn't counted as real first contact, just klingons appearing and shooting. It wasn't until a starfleet admiral talked to the Klingon leader that official first contact between the federation and klingons happened, in 2155, leading to decades of war (Or perhaps history records first contact as doctari alpha or another skirmish)
(We know doctari alpha was when burnham was a young child, we know she is older than Spock - but not older, we know Spock was born 2230, that puts doctari alpha in the 2225-2235 range.
(We know doctari alpha was when burnham was a young child, we know she is older than Spock - but not older, we know Spock was born 2230, that puts doctari alpha in the 2225-2235 range.
First Contact Day was the event that directly lead to the Human-Vulcan alliance, which directly lead to the founding of the Federation once the Andorians and Tellurites got on board.
Makes about as sense as Columbus Day in America.
Or more likely the Vulcan Ascendancy club. ENT put forward that the Vulcan (certainly for the first century) dominated the Humans and exercised control.
So, "First Contact Day" might have been the Vulcan's idea, which they recommended that Humans celebrate.
How much control the Vulcan's continued to exert by way of the Federation is unclear, but Journey to Babel says that Vulcan provides guidance for multiple other Federation members.
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