Spaceflight Chronology

Any acknowledgment at all = embracing the issue, AFAIC. And they did, big time, when they did T&T IMO. Maybe they didn't choose to DELVE into it at the time (which wasn't appropriate for the episode in question anyway), but it WAS mentioned...which may have been what led to the ENT two-parter in the first place!

 

Uh huh. And my point is, we were better off before that little mistake was made. It was completely unnecessary to address the issue.

 

Agreed about the necessity...though the way they CHOSE to address it was significantly better than I thought it would be. (Thanks to Manny Coto, I'm sure.)

 

It was pretty good. I certainly enjoyed the episodes involved. But it also felt a little fannish to me and a bit improbable. [shrugs] As much as I love DS9 and the final season of Enterprise, I do wish they hadn't bothered with the explanations.

 

Oh yes, didn't you get the memo? "TOS is God and everything else sucks".

That's pretty too, actually.

Since you enjoy saying "ENT bunk" over and over again, you might want to try sleeping in that bunk.

 

Jayne: I'll be in my bunk.

 

Which is a perfectly legitimate opinion to have. Not one that I agree with myself, but each of us has things we accept or don't accept from Trek. I don't think there's anyone I've met here that didn't ignore some part of what was aired. Just because your view of Trek encompasses more than just TOS is fine. Making fun of those whose views don't match yours is not.

Don't get personal about this again. Post, not poster. OK?

 

I'm even more hard core. I consider Roddenberry's original pitch a work of genius. However, the actual filmed pilots and the entire Star Trek series were crap. Therefore, I consider only the pitch canon.

Back on topic:
I saw the Spaceflight Chronology at my university bookstore when it was first published but didn't buy it (or the Star Trek Maps, also on sale) so that I could save money for beer and pizza. I spent the next 20 years trying to track down a copy. When I bought one of those fan-made technical readout/timeline blueprint sets (by Larry Miller, I think) from Intergalactic Trading Post in the early 1990s, I didn't even recognize that all the illustrations and events had been ripped off from the Chronology. When I finally got online in the mid 1990s, I was quickly able to track down a copy fairly cheaply.

It's a fun book and had, for its time, a plausible history of the Star Trek universe. However, if I had had a copy since 1980, I might not have started my own work drawing and describing historical starships, instead being content to look at what the Goldbergs and Rick Sternbach had produced. So, not having a copy of the book ultimately worked out pretty good for me.

 

Yeah, I know, and that was always my least favorite part of that episode. I loved the fact that DS9 brought the big three out of retirement. But making them ridge-head, when we KNOW they were the human-looking Klingons, seemed a cop-out to me. I guess, if they were going to continue the trend up to that point of ignoring the TOS look, it would make sense. But they embraced the TOS Klingon look and made it canonical by addressing it in T&T, and later in ENT.

I just wished they had allowed Kor/Koloth/Kang to be what they were, and let the actors do the work instead of the make-up.

 

Exactly.

 

Yeah, but there were changes in the Klingons even more fundamental than makeup between TOS and DS9. Whatever happened to Klingons monitoring each other as Kor himself was in "Errand of Mercy"? Did anyone watching TOS before TNG came out happen to think of Klingons as "honorable"?

Klingons as originally conceived were two-dimensional villains. Barbaric, state-centric, ruthless and painted up like the love children of Ming the Merciless and Fu Manchu. To their credit, the writers for TNG tried to flesh out the Klingons and render them more likable, but they did so by substituting some two-dimensional characterizations with equally monolithic and bland traits. Oh gee, they're "honorable" now ... I guess that makes 'em okay, then.

 

Well, Kor himself would be case in point: respecting Kirk as a worthy enemy, staying true to his word, expecting rules to be obeyed. Koloth was polite to a fault, and embarrassed beyond belief when caught in a lie. Kang even in a crazed state was able to negotiate with Kirk; he also stressed that Klingons had honored the Organian peace while Kirk had not.

Hmm. Every villain as originally conceived is two-dimensional. Only repeat performances allow for growth - and the four Klingon appearances of note in TOS (Kor, Koloth, Kras, Kang) all portrayed a different kind of character. Ruthless 2D villain; sneaky 2D villain; cowardly 2D villain; a bit dense yet honorable 2D villain. Put together, that's eight dimensions!

Timo Saloniemi

 

As a TOS fan prior to the existence of TNG, I acknowledge that the word "honor" was not often used to describe Klingons. In Kirk's own words, Klingons were seen as "brutal and aggressive". But even their brutal and aggressive actions spoke of a code of honor within their own race and culture. In other words, the Federation didn't see what they did as honorable, since the Federation was an organization that prized freedom, personal liberty, individual self-determination, etc, and the Klingons were the opposite of that. However, the Klingons clearly operated within their own definition of honor, even if the word wasn't used as such until TNG days.

You see it very clearly in Kor and Kang, perhaps not so much with Koloth, as he was obviously party to Arn Darvin's spy mission, which I doubt traditional Klingons would consider honorable. Honor would require an open battle, not subterfuge. That whole mission had to be the result of High Council beauracrats who hadn't been in battle in decades and their blood had run cool.

Maybe I'm wrong, and projecting my own opinions into his character, but I can't see Kor supporting Darvin's espionage. Rather, I can see Kor, upon discovering Darvin was a surgically altered spy, pull his D'ktagh (or however you spell it) and killing Darvin where he stood for underhanded treachary unbecoming of his house, then challenging Kirk to combat for control of Sherman's planet. And smiling that sly grin all the way.

 

Honor codes are basically never self-imposed. Typically, they are the product of a small elite group trying to control a large and militarily powerful group. And that small elite group wouldn't frown on espionage, even if it insisted that its warrior class not approve of such things.

Just watch Klingon Imperial Intelligence (another Ford/SFC concept translated to canon) engage in sneakiness beyond Darvin's, in "Visionary": they operate undercover, posing as honorless drunkards, to gain access to a replicator-cum-transporter to remotely place an automated assassination device!

Keith RA DeCandido's excellent The Art of the Impossible shows a nice contest of wills between an honorable Klingon starship commander and an honorable II agent, in true Ford style.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yeah, I'll grant that. Plus there is the "Errand of Fury" series of novels that has undercover Klingon agents too.

But none of these are truly canon.

I guess I have a double-edged contention. In reality, the writers and producers of TOS had not really envisioned the whole code of honor aspect of Klingon warrior culture. That didn't come until TNG (clearly Kruge in TSFS was also not honorable in that sense, but we get the impression he was a rogue and not operating under High Council orders or sanction).

But within the fictional universe of Trek, nothing that happened in TOS, other than Koloth/Darvin, contradicted the code of honor that was fully developed later.

Actually, I rather got the impression that the TOS writers saw the Romulans as more honorable than Klingons, from a Federation viewpoint of honor.