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Klingon Warriors suck?

Naxilus

Cadet
Newbie
I find it extremly annoying that every time there is a fight between the main cast of the shows and a klingon warrior the klingon is easily defeated. The klingon is raised from childhood to be masters of hand to and and weapons combat. it really makes no sens to me how any federation officer would have a chance to deafeted them. Ofcourse the federation also has combat training but im willing to bet that any klingon warrior have 10 times more. I guess shooting accuracy between federation troops and klingon could be similar but in melee combat any klingon should win easily.

while im on the subject there has also been a few episodes where federation troops defeated Jem'Hadar warriors in melee combat, they are even genetically made to be master warriors. how could anyone that has not spend their entire life training defeat them. That also makes no sens to me at all.

what do you guys say?
 
Of course they lose, they swing around curvy blades and the Federation reach for phasers.

Most of the times we see main characters as the ones involved in combat. Dax, Sisko, Worf, Data, Riker. Characters who we have been given reason to think might be exceptionally good in combat. Usually the regular greenshirts get killed immediately.

Now, why Gem'Hadar never seem to cloak, you can blame the writers.
 
The goldshirts have always looked green to me. Must be a white/gold dress thing. Everyone else sees them as gold.

Remember in Way of the Warrior, in the fight in ops, everyone not a main character was dead and Kira had a non-life threatening gash on her abdomen.
 
Now, why Gem'Hadar never seem to cloak, you can blame the writers.
The Jem'Hadar don't actually carry around personal cloaking devices. Their shrouding ability is a biological skill which requires intense concentration to pull off, concentration they can't keep up while fighting someone.
 
The Jem'Hadar don't actually carry around personal cloaking devices. Their shrouding ability is a biological skill which requires intense concentration to pull off, concentration they can't keep up while fighting someone.

That explains why they can't attack while invisible, but it doesn't explain how in some episodes they forget they have the ability.
 
Klingons arn't any better trained than Starfleet officers.

We can safely assume that Starfleet is trained extensively in combat; and are kept at peak fitness - we even see it - Picard was in marathon-running fitness - Malcolm Reed was well versed in hand-to-hand techniques - officers in DS9 were able to hold their own against Jem'Hadar - TOS era crew hit the gym and practiced judo - Voyager crew were trained to rappel down rock faces.

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Starfleet may be peaceful, but it prepares for the eventuality of conflict.

And Klingons don't seem to be any biologically stronger than a human.

I know modern culture has sorta acclimatized people to the idea that martial cultures must be inherently ninja-like in their skill, but Star Trek takes the more realistic historical view - which is that there isn't much difference between trained soldiers - other than equipment and discipline.

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The only time when martial cultures might be slightly better is if, like the Rajputs or Gurkhas or Scots, they are engaged in low-level endemic warfare, and therefore are able to withstand the psychological rigors of a battlefield situation a bit better, due to a courage-based culture developing. But even then, the difference can be negated entirely by "discipline" - hence how time and time again, the British Empire were able to drive off large numbers of attackers from such cultures.

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This can be seen in countless historical examples, where burly loud 'barbarian hordes' were defeated by superior discipline almost every time - Rome vs the Germans and Celts - etc. Its one of the reasons why in my thread on Klingon's being stereotyped, I pointed out that they were more believable during TOS than DS9 (they were practical and calm). I'm
glad the new Klingons in the latest movies are moving back that way.

The fact of the matter is that for the Klingons to have ever built a colonial empire in the first place, they must have been practical and disciplined, rather than relying on martial arts. So TOS Klingons were quite realistic, whereas some later episodes that tried to depict them as being strong out of ferocity were missing the mark. Empires are inherently quite opportunist, but even discounting that, like Rome, which would dig a trench round a town and starve the enemy rather than rush in, it requires organization rather than fanaticism.

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Prodigious and scary levels of organization perhaps - Roman troops were able to construct an 18 kilometer long 4 meter high double-wall around Alesia in three weeks, in order to starve the Gauls out. But that is why they were the greatest fighting force of their age - the ability to dig a latrine is more important than yelling loud in empire building.

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I love Japan (really one of my favorite cultures, if not favorite), but Hollywood (as an example of this idea) has left people with the impression that like a katana is unbreakable and inherently superior to a European medieval sword for example, or that samurai, with their martial ethic, were inherently superior to European knights - this is not the case, and when you read real history it becomes readily apparent that although a katana was a beautifully crafted weapon, it wasn't much different in effect to a mass-produced British or Indian sabre from the 1800s, and that the samurai were not inherently superior to knights.

So all we are seeing is just Klingons being realistic (ironically; one of the last franchises to have resisted the urge to ninja-ify everyone). There is a place for Star Wars style escapism, and a place for more tactical military sci-fi.
 
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And Klingons don't seem to be any biologically stronger than a human.
I have to disagree with that. Worf lifts and throws an adult male human with one arm pretty effortlessly in 'Let He Who Is Without Sin...' That really didn't look like something even a strong human could do. (And yes, I know that it is possible to lift a person with one arm, but not like that.) Kruge also lifts Kirk pretty easily in ST III, albeit he uses both arms. In 'Take Me Out to the Holosuite' Sisko seems to think Worf might be as strong as a Vulcan, who are known for their super strength. In 'Blood Fever' Torres fights Vorik and wins (albeit it still seems that Vorik might be physically slightly stronger.) I recall that in one episode Harry Kim says something about having wanted to be 'strong as a Klingon' as a kid (I couldn't the find reference for that, though, so I might be imagining it...)

I think there is indeed some evidence for superior Klingon strength. I don't think they're as strong as Vulcans, who most of the time seem to overpower humans with laughable ease (ENT being an exception here, they seemed to have forgotten the Vulcan super strength for most of the show), but still stronger than humans. (Worf may be as strong as an average Vulcan as he is really strong Klingon, or may Sisko was just being overly optimistic.)
 
Klingons arn't any better trained than Starfleet officers.

why you say that they have the same training? they start combat training in a very low age. I remember one episode where Alexander is about 8 or 9 and one of worfs relatives say that he is far behind other klingons of that age, and alexander it still looked that Alexander had some good techniques. a human child of 8-9 probably never trained a day of their life. and when a human gets to starfleet the spend a lot of time learning science and tactics etc. meanwhile the klingons are learning how to fight.

everything else you said make a lot of sens tho!
 
You have to remember that Alexander is the son of a great house, and an aristocrat - so his childhood may not be representative of all Klingons, since his father was a premier martial artist.

You also have to remember that martial arts training from a young age doesn't necessarily craft a better soldier. It isn't about length of training so much as utility in war, fitness at the time of combat, etc. Also, just like humans, Klingons flunk their hobbies - Alexander was a poor soldier at the time of DS9, despite his father pressuring him. And another point is that martial arts aren't the magic bullet people think they are from popular culture.

Klingon hunting game:

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Human games, such as pareses squares and fencing:

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Weight / cardio training:

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Starfleet clearly encourages people to have a predisposition toward sport and physical fitness (such as Picard's marathon running), and this makes sense in order to train physically fit astronauts, with good cardiovascular health, who can run kilometers across an M-class planet if necessary. Klingons play games at an early age which perhaps encourage skill in hunting, such as throwing a javelin through a hoop - but most human games also promote the development of such skills, whether it's football or tag.
 
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I have to disagree with that. Worf lifts and throws an adult male human with one arm pretty effortlessly in 'Let He Who Is Without Sin...' That really didn't look like something even a strong human could do. (And yes, I know that it is possible to lift a person with one arm, but not like that.) Kruge also lifts Kirk pretty easily in ST III, albeit he uses both arms. In 'Take Me Out to the Holosuite' Sisko seems to think Worf might be as strong as a Vulcan, who are known for their super strength. In 'Blood Fever' Torres fights Vorik and wins (albeit it still seems that Vorik might be physically slightly stronger.) I recall that in one episode Harry Kim says something about having wanted to be 'strong as a Klingon' as a kid (I couldn't the find reference for that, though, so I might be imagining it...)

I think there is indeed some evidence for superior Klingon strength. I don't think they're as strong as Vulcans, who most of the time seem to overpower humans with laughable ease (ENT being an exception here, they seemed to have forgotten the Vulcan super strength for most of the show), but still stronger than humans. (Worf may be as strong as an average Vulcan as he is really strong Klingon, or may Sisko was just being overly optimistic.)

Yeah, it seems to me that Klingons are generally stronger than humans, yet at the same time the depictions of Klingon strength have been based on plot or story line. And many of the Starfleet officers we've seen fight the Klingons have been equally or even stronger like Vulcans or humans who are good fighters. And then the human Augments from Enterprise or Into Darkness that took out Klingons easily.

Klingons' natural strength doesn't compensate for lack of skill against skilled human fighters though.
 
Yeah, it seems to me that Klingons are generally stronger than humans
While we have seen isolated examples of strong Klingons, it would appear that the average Klingon is somewhat weaker than other Humanoids.

A pregnant woman was able to drop a Klingon warrior with a single kick to the stomach.

 
Are we sure they are physically stronger, or is it just that those particular Klingons had been hitting the weights a lot?

Don't forget how much strength naturally varies across humans.

Also just because a person is strong doesn't mean being kicked in the face hurts less.

Take the example of major Kira defeating a Klingon in ops, during Way of the Warrior - she is a hardened veteran of a bloody war of indepedence - a member of the Bajoran resistence, and subsequent Bajoran militia.
 
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I think there is indeed some evidence for superior Klingon strength.

The thing is, though, these were individuals who were noted for their strength. Kruge's antics impressed his own crew, which is probably the very reason he practiced them. And Worf... Well, Worf thinks Klingonhood is what Klingons do in the Klingon equivalent of Marvel Comics (of which he probably has quite a pile under his bed).

We might well speculate that humans are among the most muscularly capable humanoid species in the galaxy, and that even fierce warriors genetically engineered to defeat most of their opponents with ease will be at an inherent disadvantage when facing us small-skulled brutes.

As for warrior skills, a "warrior breed" may be at an inherent disadvantage against conscript armies, hobbled by delusions of superiority and undue emphasis on personal skill. Certainly Klingons would be natural candidates for such inferiority. Jem'Hadar, not so much, but they don't lose out all that often; if they do, they tend to be under orders to let the heroes win!

What bugs me the most here is one of the aspects addressed by USS Einstein. Klingons do have an organized mass army, with standardized equipment and tactics - but both the equipment and the tactics seem grossly inferior, which is not something either a born biological handicap or a cultural quirk ought to dictate for a culture whose sciences, at least the "natural" ones, are easily on par with the Federation. Why is Klingon armor incapable of blocking any of the four threats regularly encountered in Trek fighting: blunt impact, bladed weapons, high speed shrapnel and death rays? I could understand them donning phaser-proof or even phaser-mitigating armor even if it were transparent to knives and made punches hurt more. But the armor doesn't seem to be phaser-resistant even to the degree that the Starfleet coveralls in "Nor the Battle to the Strong" are.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I'm not buying the exceptional individual excuse. Sure, Worf might be somewhat exceptional, but not by that much.
 
Also just because a person is strong doesn't mean being kicked in the face hurts less.
If you compare two people, one who's strong (including good muscle tone), and another who's weak (including flabby muscles), the one who's strong would experience less pain in a fight.


 
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