So you're just going to ignore
this, then? We never saw the DSC ships
themselves, but we saw others at least as different from your standard battlecruiser/BoP design lineages as they are—in fact, a couple of the DSC designs are actually
closer to the "classics" than those—suggesting there has
always been greater variety out there than we might have thought based on more frequent re-use of just a few designs.
Apologies, I missed your earlier post. Those other Klingons ships are basically Klingon green ship textures on various boxy arrangements, all intended as noncombatants. The DSC Klingon vessels are their frontline battleships, even with the same names as their ENT/TNG/DS9 equivalents but
completely different designs.
...but which never meant TMP was supposed to be in a different continuity from TOS, and which was ultimately addressed and explained in-story, even if it took another couple of decades' worth of films and series for it to happen, and wasn't ever really necessary in order for most people to be nonetheless able to see it all as one continuous fictional universe.
But we all knew TMP (and later) Klingons didn't
really fit in with what we saw in TOS. And with so much more lore added to the Trek universe in the meantime, so much time spent exploring the Klingons in TNG and DS9, yet we never saw any Klingons with grey or purple skin, or ridges down their necks. We all know the real-life reason - someone told a designer to come up with a new Klingon look unlike anything we'd seen before.
Whether that's enough to make it a separate real-life continuity to the original is up to the viewer.
I'm not sure how this is incompatible with hairy Klingons. When you start seeing Klingons with hair in DSC, will you say it's internally inconsistent, I wonder? Certainly the heightened senses have been established already, and even the hairiest Klingons have been basically bald (if you don't understand what I mean, google "Bill Bailey"). The ridges being an extension of their spine goes back to TMP, and can also be seen hinted at in TNG with Worf's spinal injury.
Technically, quotes from writers and designers would be
inside sources. Outside sources would be, for example,
ScreenRant, and indeed, they are often BS. These sources aren't required to "justify" anything, but they do offer insight into the creative process - something that you seem intent on being willfully ignorant of. Interestingly you gloss over the fact that the whole discussion above begins with a comment that existing canon history is integral to the design process, and yet still manage to conclude that this is evidence of an alternate approach.
When we see Klingons with hair in DSC? Don't hold your breath.
The creative process proves deliberate discontinuity with what's been shown before. They cherry-picked the bits they liked, and ignored and changed the rest.
I like the new-look Klingons. I think their ship designs, although less original than the classic D7 and Bird of Prey, are pretty cool. But the Bird of Prey now has more in common with Stargate SG-1's Gua'uld Death Gliders than it does the vessel first seen in Star Trek III and the D7 looks like a truncated version of SGU's Destiny.
It's incredible how deeply entrenched this agenda of yours is and how completely un-self-aware you've become. You've made it your mission for months now to convince people that their acceptance of the story is them being brainwashed by clever marketing. You've explicitly mocked and belittled not only other viewers, but the creative team themselves and what they're laboring toward. Your rejection of that is the epitome of headcanon.
If the DSC creative team have an issue with me and my "agenda", they can drop me a PM. If the DSC marketing team have an issue with me, they can do likewise.
If the DSC writers have an issue with my pointing out that the visual continuity between their show and the rest of Trek is next to non existent, they can PM the art department because that's their problem.
Besides, I'm pretty sure the DSC producers and writers (and especially artists) are very much aware that their show has a different look to previous Treks, and that it breaks continuity here and there. I'm also pretty sure they don't mind one bit.
Don't mince words. You are speaking of alternate realities. One where Klingons are monolithic, and another where Klingons are another kind of monolithic. It may not be as explicit as the theory that FC and ENT are in a divergent timeline, for instance, but it's no less a fringe headcanon theory that defies the story as presented and will never be validated on-screen.
No. Alternate realities are part of the storyline, they're in-universe timelines. I'm talking about real life. Producers telling artists to ignore what's been previously established and replace it with something new, which is what's happened here. Compare with ENT, another prequel to TOS where the Klingons and their ships are pretty much the same as seen in the classic movies, TNG, DS9 and VOY. DSC could have had a look that fitted just as closely as ENT, but they chose not to.
That we got a narrow view of Klingons for much of Trek doesn't "depict" them as monolithic any more than
this depicts Worf as weak and incompetent. DS9 did much to correct that, but that doesn't mean there were two Worfs (in before Marsh tells us that DS9 Worf was one of the alternates from "Parallels"). Various episodes over the years have showed us that there is more to Klingons but humans are typically ignorant and racist toward them. DSC is taking that idea and running with it.
While depicting Klingons visually with a deliberately new and incompatible look. And showing us none of the previous versions of Klingons, not even among the 24 Klingon houses (which would have been the ultimate time to do so if they wanted, among the holograms in the second episode). None of the old uniforms, hair, beards or starships.
It's nice that you choose to imagine all the new stuff alongside the old, but that's not what they're showing us. They rebooted the visuals. It wasn't an accident. And no amount of wishful thinking on your part is going to make it all slot perfectly together.