Klingon
- Thread starter Xzpezer
- Start date
Where was it established that Klingons and humans only met in the 23rd century?
In many books and episodes etc
This conversation won't get much farther if your response to a request for citation is just going to be "eh, somewhere in all that Star Trek stuff".
As awesome as the books are, they aren't canon to the TV/film Trek universe, and the only mention on-screen is Picard saying it happened "centuries ago" in the Next Gen episode "First Contact" (admittedly what he says next about it leading to decades of war was completely ignored by the ENT writers)
Please provide examples.
Lots of things that were "established" were later ignored. "Space Seed" established that TOS took place in the 22nd Century. That was ignored in TMP when the date was "re-established" to be sometime in the 23rd Century. (In fact, the 23rd Century date was never established during TOS's run.)
As far as Trek books, not a single one is canon. Tons of stuff written in the books were later ignored by TV or film Trek writers.
That said, the date of first contact with the Klingons was never established on screen.
As far as Trek books, not a single one is canon. Tons of stuff written in the books were later ignored by TV or film Trek writers.
That said, the date of first contact with the Klingons was never established on screen.
It was "fanon" for a while that First Contact with the Klingons was 2218, as I remember even the Star Trek Fact Files used that date when it first started.
Not sure exactly but I would presume it comes from a line in a 2268 TOS ep which says something like "conflict with the Klingons has been going on for 50 years" for example and they just extrapolated from that.
EDIT, ah yeah just looked it up, its a Dr McCoy line from Day of the Dove, saying they've been adversaries for 50 years.
Not sure exactly but I would presume it comes from a line in a 2268 TOS ep which says something like "conflict with the Klingons has been going on for 50 years" for example and they just extrapolated from that.
EDIT, ah yeah just looked it up, its a Dr McCoy line from Day of the Dove, saying they've been adversaries for 50 years.
A line, which IIRC, doesn't exist.
^ Well this is the reference
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/2218
I don't think I've even see that TOS ep, maybe once years ago, so I can't recall. If they say it doesn't exist too... maybe it was in the original script/deleted scene
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/2218
I don't think I've even see that TOS ep, maybe once years ago, so I can't recall. If they say it doesn't exist too... maybe it was in the original script/deleted scene
Memory Alpha: "... it appears that line of dialog never actually made it to the finished episode ..."
While interesting, preliminary scripts and outlines and writer's notes and memos don't mean anything. Only what makes it onto the screen counts.
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I don't know that I'd say that. In the absence of any screen canon that flatly contradicts them (which in this case we do have, but sometimes we don't), it shows what the writer's intent was. Not canon, but a good solid fanon to play with until a contradiction comes along."... it appears that line of dialog never actually made it to the finished episode ..."
Preliminary scripts and outlines and writer's notes and memos don't mean anything. Only what makes it onto the screen counts.
The line in "Day of the Dove" might not have made it into the finished product, but a similar line in The Undiscovered Country about 70 years of hostility did.
Combined with Picards line about first contact leading to decades of war doesn't leave much room for interpretation.
Combined with Picards line about first contact leading to decades of war doesn't leave much room for interpretation.
^But "centuries ago... decades of war" and "70 years of hostility" are incompatible points themselves!
It is possible that when Picard spoke of contact with the Klingon leading to "decades of war" he wasn't referring to Human - Klingon contact, but instead a different federation species contacting the Klingons.
Spock's time figure of "almost seventy years of unremitting hostility" would seem to indicate that the federation and the Klingons were not hostile towards each other for sixty or seventy years after Humans had initial contact with them.
So a species that was a member of the federation, or would later become one, had a disastrous first contact with the Klingons around 2230?
If there were "decades of war" , I'd have to wonder when it took place. From what we've seen in TOS and the films, it was a cold war, only going hot in "Errand of Mercy" and then only lasting for a few days.(at best) And analog to US-Soviet relations at the time the series and films were being made. The 70 years of hostility works better, as the Klingons and the UFP, like the US and the Soviets, could be hostile and adversarial without going to war. It also is not an indication when First contact happened, just that 70 years prior to TUC, the Klingons and the UFP began seriously butting heads.
Picard's statement that First Contact with the Klingons happened centuries ago fits better with humans meeting the Klingons in 2151 (A little over 200 years prior to TNG)
Picard's statement that First Contact with the Klingons happened centuries ago fits better with humans meeting the Klingons in 2151 (A little over 200 years prior to TNG)
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