@Crazy Eddie - I fully agree.
Note that I've never watched Gundam, the colony drop was just my example of space physics being used in war; i.e. everything becoming a potential mass weapon, and any space state being capable of constructing large scale habitats by nature of their power generation capacity as a civilization.
My previous post was a lament that we do not see speculative space physics and military logistics more, when (stepping back from the show's themes), we could see that, purely for the love of future engineering and speculative fiction, rather than any greater dramatic reason. Engineering porn.
But, on another topic, now that you have brought it up:
It was not a serious contention that the Klingons are anything but a flash-in-the pan, or an argument that they are necessarily in a total war, as we have a lot of other threads discussing that - the nature of their history, and the present state of their culture. The show itself presents no clear picture yet - the Federation at least seems to consider this an existential threat. I have argued in the past that the Klingon Empire might need to be better organized than feudalism and dogma simply to function as a space empire with warp field specialists and quantum physicists at all, when running up against foes with a greater organizational capacity on different planets - but I wasn't making that case here - my previous post, for just a moment, presupposed that Klingons are in possession of an effective modern military infrastructure - while I know that they may not be, hence the long preamble:
"wars are not always conducted in a way that resembles the total wars of the 20th century"
"not every sci-fi explores the same themes"
"big wars aren't always like this, it could be that neither side has that kind of infrastructure or the desire to escalate it that far"
But now that we have opened the topic, let's discuss the wider picture of the war and it's impact on Star Trek's coherent history. We all know the current Klingon analogy is Islamism, not communism or fascism any more. But this wasn't always the case, as we know:
This view of the Klingons had their sociology theoretically aimed at "the collective good" rather than "individuality," .... The Klingon Empire was also a metaphor for Communist China and its allies in the Vietnam War, namely North Vietnam and North Korea. - indirect John Colicos
"And I think he was basing a lot of it on the kind of attitude of the Japanese in World War II, the Nazis in World War II, because Gene was a World War II veteran marine and he really took all this to heart. And as a result, he modeled them on the worst villains he knew." - D C Fontana
The Klingon Empire becomes an analogy for regimented anti-individualistic totalitarian societies within 10 years of in-universe time. The writers can either (1) depict it happening now, or they can (2) depict it happening between now and then, or they can (3) ignore that previous thematic intent, or they can (4) just not explain the change at all.
Possibility 1 is unlikely.
Possibility 2 is becomes unlikely the longer this show extends toward TOS.
Possibility 3 I do not like, as it does two things - a). it renders a previous work less coherent in context when there is nothing wrong with TOS's Cold War themes being fully respected, and b). it ossifies the Klingon Empire into a feudal structure across all depictions from ENT to VOY, whilst (in terms of trusteeship of Star Trek) making it harder for future writers to ever take them in a different direction to Ronald D Moore's memo ever again, including the timeless archetype of totalitarians/fascists/militarists that made for such great villains in TOS era.
Possibility 4 is most likely, but a missed opportunity for some great drama.
Although, to some extent, both options 3 and 4 make TOS's Klingons problematic, I only want to address one of those four possibilities really, the one that I like the least. The one I fear they might choose. Let's imagine they choose to go with option 3, and just suggest Klingons have always been Ronald D Moore Klingons:
We have to remember Klingons are also Star Trek's Daleks, not just Star Trek's Jihadists - but claiming that they were always clannish anti-intellectual fanatics behind the scenes, even during TOS, dilutes depiction of them as a 'Cold War thriller' threat, with all the capacities for destruction of a post-enlightenment state - that sneaking past their border is equivalent to crossing that Iron Curtain, or that Qo'noS is as hostile a location as Pyongyang, or one of the old closed cities (i.e. Into Darkness) - they make it harder for the Klingons to be written as Star Trek's totalitarians again, or redefined as any future social adversary we haven't yet imagined, if they are depicted as less than a rival Soviet superpower, and more of a society without the scientific base of one - an Iraq, using up an antique fleet it can't replace - or an ISIS, only capable of unconventional war.
Sure, the writers have the power to throw out the creative intention of TOS, if they wish, and retcon Ronald D Moore's clannish divided Klingons as the way Klingon society always was - pretend Kor was just some feudal lord all along, and his troops were levies. But how much more interesting if Klingon society was not a monolithic family-obsessed religion-obsessed aristocracy for 250 years from ENT to VOY, but went through changes as vast as a Cultural Revolution, where all this mystical obsession with Kahless was thrown out by the Red Guard, and planners plowed funding into infrastructure? This is science fiction, so we can have our cake and eat it too - we can have extremist analogy Klingons now - and Soviet analogy ones later too - throw in explorations of lots of different historical events from history like revolutions as J Michael Straczynski did with Babylon 5.
If they are not going to depict the Klingons as a capable Great Power now, then what worries me is that they may leave no room for the Klingons to change into one before TOS - they are leaving it perilously close to TOS for them to suddenly be a militarist rival to the Federation. Just like a disciplined force of Romans 9 times out of 10 would win against a force of disorganized tribes, by out-preparing them, and out engineering them (building a double wall around Alesia, or a ramp up the walls of Masada), I have doubts about whether a state that was less organized could run an empire against planets with centralized scientific bodies, or maintain any kind of parity with the Federation.
That's what bugs me - but if they end up being permanently feudal, I guess we will learn to live with it.
Before the Romulan Wars, which had been suggested as being a kind of WW2 of the Alpha Quadrant. DS9 alluded to the last great attack on Earth happening around then, suggested that if the Federation hadn't arisen, there would be Romulan outposts on Alpha Centauri. But then ENT happened, and had Earth Starfleet seemingly hardly operate any ships, and that I know, bugged a lot of people at the time, as it limited a war everybody imagined was horrible, into possibly something more limited. This despite the show choosing a setting literally a few years before said war. I see this as being a similar moment. DSC could become a considered establishment of why the Khitomer Accords sounded like the end of the Soviet Union in TUC, and have some faith in audiences to understand more than just present history - or it could again treat each show as a self-contained thematic universe and fail to build interesting links of history.
It presents a unique opportunity, as what could be more interesting than showing a society in change from this to that. The Klingon Empire is heavily implied to be a totalitarian superpower - Admirals being worried about Klingon influence (TOS: "Amok Time") - Klingon agents supplying weapons to primitive planets (TOS: "A Private Little War") - Qo'noS being the most inscrutable planet in the galaxy for Federation citizens ("Into Darkness") - Kang's wife Mara complaining about how Starfleet would steal their technological secrets (TOS: "Day of the Dove") - Kor being remotely monitored despite being a commander, and leading a highly regimented invasion force (TOS: "Errand of Mercy") - crews competing over the development of planets (TOS: "The Trouble with Tribbles") - Kruge seeing the Genesis device as something that would break the parity of force ("The Search for Spock") - peace negotiations ending 70 years of unremitting hostility after an ecological disaster ("The Undiscovered Country") - everything speaks Cold War.
From feudalism and clans to that? Are they gonna depict a Klingon Revolution? I wish they would.
Yawn.
