The Klingon neutral zone?

[johnnybear]

Funny how we never learned or heard about the klingon neutral zone in the original series! In fact it's only reference seems to be in the movie The Undiscovered Country! We hear of the Romulan neutral zone quite a lot in the show and we even learn of their home planet and system but not the Klingon world! in TNG it was to be called Kling as you all know but they changed it to Quo'Nos and left kling as an area of their planet!The closest we come to seeing klingon space seems to be Trouble with Tribbles as it is set near to the Klingon border! Does anyone else have anything to say about this?
JB

 

[GSchnitzer]

Funny how we never learned or heard about the klingon neutral zone in the original series! In fact it's only reference seems to be in the movie The Undiscovered Country! We hear of the Romulan neutral zone quite a lot in the show and we even learn of their home planet and system but not the Klingon world! in TNG it was to be called Kling as you all know but they changed it to Quo'Nos and left kling as an area of their planet!The closest we come to seeing klingon space seems to be Trouble with Tribbles as it is set near to the Klingon border! Does anyone else have anything to say about this?
JB

The Klingons have a Neutral Zone in the Kobayashi Maru Scenario TWOK.

 

[Mark 2000]

Funny how we never learned or heard about the klingon neutral zone in the original series! In fact it's only reference seems to be in the movie The Undiscovered Country! We hear of the Romulan neutral zone quite a lot in the show and we even learn of their home planet and system but not the Klingon world! in TNG it was to be called Kling as you all know but they changed it to Quo'Nos and left kling as an area of their planet!The closest we come to seeing klingon space seems to be Trouble with Tribbles as it is set near to the Klingon border! Does anyone else have anything to say about this?
JB

I'd say there was no neutral zone for the Klingons. Klingon and Federation ships met in undeclared space all the time. There didn't seem to be a buffer that kept them separate like with the Romulans. The Kobayashi Maru seemed to show the Klingon neutral zone as Klingon space, which is not what a neutral zone is by definition. Chalk it up to the constant confusion writers had between the two species since Enterprise Incident.

 

[drt]

I concur with Mark 2000, the TWOK writers didn't really remember the difference between the two Empires. Amusingly, I recall reading in one fan publication 30 years ago, people wondered that if in TWOK having Enterprise encountering Klingons instead of Romulans in the Neutral Zone was the Kobayashi Maru test throwing in another unexpected variable.

Some of the confusion may have also come from Franz Joseph, as the Technical Manual has a map with an "Organian Treaty Zone" which is essentially identical to the Romulan Neutral Zone.

 

[GSchnitzer]

It may simply be that in TOS time there was overlapping/disputed space, but in the intervening 13 years until TWOK, a Neutral Zone with the Klingons had been negotiated.

 

[Nebusj]

The Klingons have a Neutral Zone in the Kobayashi Maru Scenario TWOK.

No they don't. Wrath of Khan is explicit that the ship is in ``Gamma Hydra, Section 10'', which we know through The Deadly Years to be in or near the Romulan Neutral Zone.

What Klingons are doing in the Romulan Neutral Zone may be unexplained, though it's surely part of the scenario that not only is an invincible Klingon group attacking but it's an invincible Klingon group that hasn't been offended doing the attacking.

 

[Shat Happens]

And its a ovoid:

Not this:

 

[C.E. Evans]

It may simply be that in TOS time there was overlapping/disputed space, but in the intervening 13 years until TWOK, a Neutral Zone with the Klingons had been negotiated.

That is probably the best way to go about it. The Federation and the Klingons were pretty much fighting over/competing for territory throughout TOS' television run and a neutral zone between their borders was probably one way to resolve that.

There's enough implication here and there, particularly in TNG, that the Klingon and Romulan Empires are fairly close to one another, so we can go with even another idea the KNZ begins where the RNZ ends (or vice-versa depending on whatever star chart you're using). To that extent, the term "the Neutral Zone" was commonly applied to both the Klingons and the Romulans during that brief time in history.

 

[Timo]

The Feds are establishing these fancy Zones left and right: neutral, demilitarized, smoke-free, whatever. I see no reason to think that the existence of the RNZ would preclude the existence of the KNZ. Indeed, since the former gets a lot of mention and the latter gets very little, we could deduce that there also exist a Tholian Neutral Zone, the sufficient proof for its existence being that it's never mentioned...

"Definition of neutral zone" in this reality doesn't involve ban on traveling through unless we decide it does. Romulans and Feds are banned from traveling through the RNZ (but both seem to tolerate civilian traffic and smuggling), but we are never told that Klingons couldn't cross the KNZ, at least under some circumstances. Hey, in ST6, the KNZ decidedly exists but Gorkon sails through nevertheless...

And its a ovoid, not this

That's just a matter of scale. Considering how local all the action in "Balance of Terror" is, we're probably just seeing a massive zoom-in to an ovoid. Whether that's the same ovoid as in ST2, we don't know, but ovoid is sort of the default shape for encapsulating surfaces in 3D space (as opposed to things with angles and straight lines in them, or perfect spheres, or whatnot).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

The Klingon Neutral Zone was originally a mistake, because it was supposed to be the Romulan Neutral Zone in WOK until they used Klingons in it (they were more memorable). Then TSFS complicated matters by having Kruge refer to the "Federation Neutral Zone" (again, because they were supposed to be Romulan villains, not Klingons) which further established there now being a Neutral Zone for the Klingons too.

The ovoid shape in WOK didn't make too much sense, since it's too small to contain the Klingon Empire's space. So maybe it's just one disputed system or something and was just part of a series of "off-limits" systems that comprised the Klingon Zone.

 

[Timo]

The ovoid shape in WOK didn't make too much sense, since it's too small to contain the Klingon Empire's space.

Hard to tell what the scale of that thing is supposed to be. What it looks like in terms of the graphics themselves and the zoom-in sequence is that the ovoid is barely larger than the starship. Since this is an option we can safely dismiss (as it's revealed that the volume contains at least four vessels simultaneously), we can just as well arbitrarily decide on the scale. Does the ovoid fit between Gamma Hydra and the next star? Not necessarily. Does it lie within seconds of flight from Gamma Hydra, or hours, or years, or centuries? The simulation makes sense for the first two options but not for the last two, yet the possibilities don't stop there.

Certainly the ovoid could encompass all of the Romulan or Klingon empire, or both, if we so decided.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

The Klingon Neutral Zone was originally a mistake, because it was supposed to be the Romulan Neutral Zone in WOK until they used Klingons in it (they were more memorable).

Actually, the Klingons were used in the KM scenario in STII because they needed to reuse the K'T'inga stock footage from TMP. It was STIII that was originally going to use Romulans but switched to Klingons because they were more memorable.

 

[GSchnitzer]

The Klingon Neutral Zone was originally a mistake, because it was supposed to be the Romulan Neutral Zone in WOK until they used Klingons in it (they were more memorable).

Actually, the Klingons were used in the KM scenario in STII because they needed to reuse the K'T'inga stock footage from TMP. It was STIII that was originally going to use Romulans but switched to Klingons because they were more memorable.

The Romulans used Klingon ship design on "The Enterprise Incident" without too much fanfare.

 

[BK613]

TWOK never uses "Klingon" or "Romulan" in describing the Neutral Zone, just Neutral Zone or the Zone. Which makes it seem singular. ATM anyway.

And it should be pointed out that the KM scenario is not the only reference to the NZ in TWOK. McCoy seems to know a Romulan Ale smuggler that brings him a case across the Neutral Zone from time to time.

 

[Dukhat]

The Klingon Neutral Zone was originally a mistake, because it was supposed to be the Romulan Neutral Zone in WOK until they used Klingons in it (they were more memorable).

Actually, the Klingons were used in the KM scenario in STII because they needed to reuse the K'T'inga stock footage from TMP. It was STIII that was originally going to use Romulans but switched to Klingons because they were more memorable.

The Romulans used Klingon ship design on "The Enterprise Incident" without too much fanfare.

And with that said, the writers certainly could have called them Romulan ships, even though they were stock footage of Klingon ships (and quite frankly it would have made more sense), but they didn't do that.

 

[johnnybear]

From later shows like TNG we have learnt that The Klingon and Romulan Empires are very close to each other and in some ways actually overlap! The only time in the TOS series that we have any definition of klingon space is in Trouble With Tribbles and the K-7 spacestation which is close to Sherman's planet (Bub?) The nearest Klingon outpost is said to be within a parsec of their present position and the battle of Donatu v was fought there twenty solar years before!
JB

 

[Marsden]

Actually, the Klingons were used in the KM scenario in STII because they needed to reuse the K'T'inga stock footage from TMP. It was STIII that was originally going to use Romulans but switched to Klingons because they were more memorable.

The Romulans used Klingon ship design on "The Enterprise Incident" without too much fanfare.

And with that said, the writers certainly could have called them Romulan ships, even though they were stock footage of Klingon ships (and quite frankly it would have made more sense), but they didn't do that.

I agree, especially with all of the details that make it Romulan.

It's strange that someone, probably a staffer, went through the research to mention things like Gamma Hydra and "They don't take prisoners." and then someone else comes in and copy pastes all the "Romulans" to "Klingons" even after they both use the same type of ships. I understand the stock footage save a lot of money, but would have hurt them to just say they were Romulans using Klingon ship designs?

If the Romulans were the analogy of the Chinese and Klingons the Soviets, that wouldn't be a strech to see the two empires using similar equipment, so why did they forget that?

 

[johnnybear]

Maybe someone forgot that The Romulans were using Klingon design D-7 Warships in The Enterprise Incident!
JB

 

[Shat Happens]

Maybe they thought there is only one Neutral Zone prohibited to all.

And it's an ovoid.

 

[Dukhat]

It's strange that someone, probably a staffer, went through the research to mention things like Gamma Hydra and "They don't take prisoners." and then someone else comes in and copy pastes all the "Romulans" to "Klingons" even after they both use the same type of ships. I understand the stock footage save a lot of money, but would have hurt them to just say they were Romulans using Klingon ship designs?

The only reason I can think of as to why they made the KM adversaries Klingons (besides the stock footage), was that in the early stages of production, Saavik was half-Romulan and a survivor of some prison camp, which would have invalidated Kirk's statement if he'd said "Romulans take no prisoners."