Klingons Augments

[MattJC]

Anyone else confused by this two parter?
As much as I loved season 4 and I appreciate that they tried to tie this story in with the Augments 3 parter, but it left me a bit confused.
Mostly with the Klingon Augments who invaded the NX-01.
Were they part of the genetic engineering experiment before the viral outbreak or were they infected by the virus itself?
I've been checking both Memory Alpha and http://www.chakoteya.net/
and there is dialogue that suggest both.
I understand most of the story, but this stumps me.

 

[zenophite]

From what I remember the virus was used to actually deliver the genetic modifications and then mutated or was somehow incompatible with the Klingon organism. As such it is a side effect of the process whereby the klingons tried to enhance themselves. Of course it has been a while so i don't recall if that's entirely correct.

 

[Trekwatcher]

I think a little confusion in this regard is understandable. This whole arc is, IMHO, a bit muddled. They end up tripping over their own underwear a bit for all the trying they do to make the klingon forehead story mesh with the TOS and post-TOS worlds. Phlox really shines here, but it is a bit of a mess overall. The weakest of the S4 3-episode arcs, if you asked me.

 

[Cronos6939]

What happened was:
They made the augments. One of the test subjects was suffering from the Levodian flu, which mutated when it was exposed to the Augment serum, and then became highly infectious and spread. Once the disease was realized, Antaak stopped his experiments, but the disease continued to spead the Augment genome.

People at Stage 1 of the now-spreading virus got Augment abilities, but by Stage 3, were infectious themselves and started dying.

The unit of soldiers was part of the experiment, and were given the Augment serum, but then were also exposed to the disease. During the raid, they weren't infectious yet.

 

[MattJC]

What happened was:
They made the augments. One of the test subjects was suffering from the Levodian flu, which mutated when it was exposed to the Augment serum, and then became highly infectious and spread. Once the disease was realized, Antaak stopped his experiments, but the disease continued to spead the Augment genome.

People at Stage 1 of the now-spreading virus got Augment abilities, but by Stage 3, were infectious themselves and started dying.

The unit of soldiers was part of the experiment, and were given the Augment serum, but then were also exposed to the disease. During the raid, they weren't infectious yet.

That does make a bit more sense, but this bit of dialogue implies that they were injected with the virus:


PHLOX: General, I know the Klingon fleet is on its way, and I understand what this project cost you, personally. Antaak told me about your son.
K'VAGH: He died in combat for the Empire.
PHLOX: At least he was spared the final stage of this disease. May I ask how he was infected?
K'VAGH: Command chose his unit for the augment experiment when we had exhausted our supply of prisoners. My son was a warrior. He asked for no special treatment, and I gave him none.

 

[DarthPipes]

I thought they tied the "human Klingon" thing to the Augment storyline quite well. I don't think they had to explain why Klingons looked the way they did on the original series but it was a good story here. It would make sense for the Klingons to try something like this if they ever encountered humans that were physically stronger than them.

I heard they threw the reference to Dr. Soong in this storyline because they wanted to get Spiner back for it.

 

[zenophite]

What happened was:
They made the augments. One of the test subjects was suffering from the Levodian flu, which mutated when it was exposed to the Augment serum, and then became highly infectious and spread. Once the disease was realized, Antaak stopped his experiments, but the disease continued to spead the Augment genome.

People at Stage 1 of the now-spreading virus got Augment abilities, but by Stage 3, were infectious themselves and started dying.

The unit of soldiers was part of the experiment, and were given the Augment serum, but then were also exposed to the disease. During the raid, they weren't infectious yet.

boy was i wrong

 

[commodore64]

Darthpipes, it looks like we have the opportunity to disagree. Worf's off-hand explanation ("we don't talk about that time") in Trials and Tribblations was just dandy.

I was really disappointed with this arc. The storyline wasn't very entertaining, the directing was terrible (they tried the BSG cam-work with little success) and the acting wasn't that good.

Ent in season 4 spent a lot of time trying to sound like TOS, instead of trying to emulate the best parts of TOS: good characters and friendships in "strange new worlds." My biggest beef during season 1 and 2 was that they didn't use the mythology of Star Trek to build up an interesting show. My biggest beef during season 4 is they tried too hard in all the wrong ways. The Forge was the right way. These two eps were the wrong.

 

[zenophite]

^ while the results were not spectacular I thought that it was a good enough explanation for the forehead disparity.

 

[DarthPipes]

I didn't think they had to explain but I thought for the most part, the explanation was pretty good.

I agree that The Forge did a great job with the original series mythology.

 

[Skywalker]

I do like that both Bashir and O'Brien's guesses in Trials and Tribble-ations ("A virus?" "Genetic engineering?") were correct. I wonder if Sussman did that intentionally.

 

[MattJC]

I do like that both Bashir and O'Brien's guesses in Trials and Tribble-ations ("A virus?" "Genetic engineering?") were correct. I wonder if Sussman did that intentionally.

I love the idea behind this 2-parter, it's just some of the smaller details that throw me off.
Stuff like that which I already mentioned and other things like what was it that was injected into Archer that gave him those ridges?