Touche!He wasn't, because his dad was a respected Romulan military commander.
The New Klingons
- Thread starter INACTIVEUSS Einstein
- Start date
I hope they show a diversity of Klingons or the multiple ethnic groups approach still wont work, as the TNG population can't just have disappeared during DSC.
Kelvin Klignons, DSC Klingons, TNG Klingons, and maybe TOS Klingons.
Kelvin Klignons, DSC Klingons, TNG Klingons, and maybe TOS Klingons.
Maybe not disappeared, but they don't have to be acknowledged, given the 100 year gap.
He's so important to the Star Trek franchise that he's appeared in a grand total of 2 episodes out of 729 episodes and films! That's an entire 0.27%!
Kahless is not that important to Star Trek. He's a nice bit of backstory detail for supporting characters.
Others have pointed out how ridiculous "The Chase" is from a scientific POV. I just take it as a handwave for why so many species are humanoid (the real reason being, of course, the limitations of a television and even film budget).
Also, as much as I appreciate the Klingon pronunciation, it's just "Pah-Wraiths"
D'oh!
This.
As others have noted, TrekBBS's own Christopher L. Bennett used Miri's planet as part of a jumping off point for his Department of Temporal Investigations novel Forgotten History. The gist of it being that Miri's planet was actually Earth from another timeline where the kill-the-adults plague happened; in that timeline, the Andorians and Klingons had by the 23rd Century united in a conflict against an imperialistic Vulcan which had previously detected the Romulans' 22nd Century attempts at infiltrating their government, then defeated and culturally assimilated Romulus.
They literally evolved on different planets. They should plausibly share no common genetics at all. Realistically, a Klingon/Human hybrid or a Bajoran/Cardassian hybrid should be as viable as, say, a chipanzee/giraffe hybrid or an elephant/alligator hybrid.
I briefly considered that Miri's planet was the original when I posted above, then I realized we have a long tradition of star gazing on this planet that goes back ten thousand years, and if there had been a change in the night sky since then, we'd have noticed. On the other hand, maybe the duplication happened before that. Or maybe Miri's planet was in a place in the galaxy where the night sky was similar and the change in constellations would have been less obvious. We'd look for phenomena such as Vega once being the North Star -- wait a minute ...
IIRC, Forgotten History established that Miri-Earth had only recently been displaced into the Prime Timeline.
IIRC, the The Fall novel The Poisoned Chalice establishes that that planet -- Magna Roma -- was indeed comprised of Humans who had been transplanted there by the Preservers. Magna Roma undergoes significant cultural change and by the 2380s has become a Federation member world.
The Bolian invasion rendered the empire hairless in this time period.
Works for me.
Why would people smoke if they know it's poisonous? Why would people dye their skin, or pierce themselves with pieces of metal in their most intimate body parts? Cultures do weird things sometimes.
It's not a screw-up, it's a deliberate choice to go in a different direction. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. But you're confusing your subjective opinion with objective right or wrong.
I just took that as him saying there are multiple Klingon cultures within the Empire, competing with one-another for power. Which makes sense -- hell, there are multiple cultures in Ohio competing with one-another for power!
Or, y'know, they want to go in a different direction but think they can do that without it being a complete break from what's been done before. Shocking, I know.
Okay, let's make one thing very, very clear:
Star Trek is a work of fiction. It is all make-believe. Things that were previously established in other Star Trek shows were not holy writ; a large corporation hired people to sit down in a room and make it up, and then hired other people to pretend they were real while they got paid to play dress-up on sets made of wood in California.
I do not say this to disparage Star Trek. Star Trek is a wonderful collection of works of art. But Star Trek is not real, and that means that, yes, as with any work of fiction, the owners can choose to revise it. Which breaks verisimilitude sometimes, yes; too bad. But if the owners of Star Trek choose to revise it -- what is often called a "retcon" -- that is absolutely something they are allowed to do. It is not a "lie." It is not a "lie," because Star Trek is not real and nothing in it is set in stone. Star Trek, like any work of art that has not entered public domain, is owned by someone who can choose to revise it howsoever they want.
With 24 houses, we should see every single iteration eventually. Especially since they mentioned different planets of origin for many of them.I hope they show a diversity of Klingons or the multiple ethnic groups approach still wont work, as the TNG population can't just have disappeared during DSC.
Kelvin Klignons, DSC Klingons, TNG Klingons, and maybe TOS Klingons.
Certainly, but it doesn't "ruin" anything.
The guy in this picture is a good middleground between Discovery Klingons and traditional Klingons. Had they put couple of bearded guys like this among those hairless nosferatus, the overall impression would have been far less jarring.I hope they show a diversity of Klingons or the multiple ethnic groups approach still wont work, as the TNG population can't just have disappeared during DSC.
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Sure. But there is a difference between saying you don't like something and saying that a retcon is a "lie" or that something is "wrong" if it breaks verisimilitude or contradict minor points of canonical trivia.
I don't really like the new Klingon designs. But I also recognize that my reaction to that is subjective and that changes in canon have always happened and always will.
Meh. I'm fine from a physiological perspective with the ridges being sensory organs.
Consider the pit organs on a snake that can sense infrared (which on some snakes are inset behind ridges). Those pit organs allow snakes to build an infrared map of the world around them, just like our eyes allow us to build a visible light map.
Maybe there are similar pit organs associated with the Klingon Ridges that allow them to "see" in infrared to at least some extent.
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Ha ha! If a retcon means the show is not canon, then that would make every Star Trek show non-canon.
I think rectons are something that need to happen or should be expected to happen once something reaches a certain level. The amount of content that Star Trek has just on screen alone (from various people over the decades) almost requires there to be retcons to various degrees and it's not like Star Trek hasn't done it before within the same series not less.
I've always felt strongly Star Trek should never be boxed in by the original series, especially when it comes to the technology and how various aliens look. Those are two of the biggest things impacted by the time period it was made it and money. I'm willing to extend that to the other series as well but I think the other series are modern enough that you could keep the relative look of them intact but with more detail for HD TVs. There area few more aliens in those though that should get revisions too. I've always wanted the aliens to look more aliens. Some were designed to look more human like the Vulcans. That's likely not changing. Others weren't but were limited by budget and techniques. If those are changed then see what you can do. It's not like they're being given extra arms or legs or anything crazy to really alter how they look and move.
I honestly don't understand the freak out some have been doing though. Dislike the new look or not. Klingons were never that attractive looking to me. Like Orcs in say Warcraft I've always enjoyed the various characters because of their personalities. More so then some characters that were more physically appealing. An alien race looking a bit more alien shouldn't be a problem I feel. They don't look that much different from how they've looked from TMP onward. They look radically different from TOS but as said no one should be held to or boxed in by TOS.
There are times though where I wonder if people are reacting more overboard on purpose simply because they're not getting their way. I think there is a difference between someone genuinely not liking the look of something and a person acting like it's the most horrible decision made and that the show is going to fail as a result. That the creators have no respect for Trek, etc... That stuff needs to stop.
I've always felt strongly Star Trek should never be boxed in by the original series, especially when it comes to the technology and how various aliens look. Those are two of the biggest things impacted by the time period it was made it and money. I'm willing to extend that to the other series as well but I think the other series are modern enough that you could keep the relative look of them intact but with more detail for HD TVs. There area few more aliens in those though that should get revisions too. I've always wanted the aliens to look more aliens. Some were designed to look more human like the Vulcans. That's likely not changing. Others weren't but were limited by budget and techniques. If those are changed then see what you can do. It's not like they're being given extra arms or legs or anything crazy to really alter how they look and move.
I honestly don't understand the freak out some have been doing though. Dislike the new look or not. Klingons were never that attractive looking to me. Like Orcs in say Warcraft I've always enjoyed the various characters because of their personalities. More so then some characters that were more physically appealing. An alien race looking a bit more alien shouldn't be a problem I feel. They don't look that much different from how they've looked from TMP onward. They look radically different from TOS but as said no one should be held to or boxed in by TOS.
There are times though where I wonder if people are reacting more overboard on purpose simply because they're not getting their way. I think there is a difference between someone genuinely not liking the look of something and a person acting like it's the most horrible decision made and that the show is going to fail as a result. That the creators have no respect for Trek, etc... That stuff needs to stop.
From interviews:
Mary Chieffo: I will say I did have a specific eye on the female Klingons. I love all of them. They’re all really fun and interesting. K’Ehleyr was awesome in The Next Generation. I also really loved in Deep Space Nine Grilka. I loved her story with Quark and just how she ended up having to — she worked the system, and she was able to become the leader of her own house, which was, you know it is a patriarchal species, and so that was thrilling particularly because I think L’Rell follows in that vein. The fact that she is full Klingon is fun, too, but of course who doesn’t like B’Ellana?
Kenneth Mitchel: I keep going back to the first Klingon in “Errand of Mercy,” Kor played by John Colicos. He didn’t even have any prosthetics, it was just all make-up. I found what was interesting was that he played everything really subtle, and it was very complex. It was a great launching pad because the idea is that we’re trying to steer away a little bit from the idea of [the Klingons] just being these barbarians. So it was fun to go back to the first Klingon that was shown on TOS. And, then I also did some reading of “The Final Reflection” the John M. Ford book, it also was a great launching pad for understanding the depth and complexity of the Klingons.
That bit about reading The Final Reflection is intriguing to say the least.
Mary Chieffo: I will say I did have a specific eye on the female Klingons. I love all of them. They’re all really fun and interesting. K’Ehleyr was awesome in The Next Generation. I also really loved in Deep Space Nine Grilka. I loved her story with Quark and just how she ended up having to — she worked the system, and she was able to become the leader of her own house, which was, you know it is a patriarchal species, and so that was thrilling particularly because I think L’Rell follows in that vein. The fact that she is full Klingon is fun, too, but of course who doesn’t like B’Ellana?
Kenneth Mitchel: I keep going back to the first Klingon in “Errand of Mercy,” Kor played by John Colicos. He didn’t even have any prosthetics, it was just all make-up. I found what was interesting was that he played everything really subtle, and it was very complex. It was a great launching pad because the idea is that we’re trying to steer away a little bit from the idea of [the Klingons] just being these barbarians. So it was fun to go back to the first Klingon that was shown on TOS. And, then I also did some reading of “The Final Reflection” the John M. Ford book, it also was a great launching pad for understanding the depth and complexity of the Klingons.
So, I guess the sense in which Bryan Fuller viewed "The Undiscovered Country" as a "touchstone" for Discovery was Meyer's treatment of them as believing their culture to be under threat from the Federation - the characterization of the Feds as a "homo sapiens only club."
For those who haven't read The Final Reflection, it presented a 'third' paradigm for Klingon culture, separate from TOS Klingon Empire or the Ronald D Moore Klingon Empire - the Klingons were a culture with a Spartan-like doctrine of survival of the fittest, which influenced their society at every level - the central planning bureau was the overarching body responsible for grand strategic moves designed to enhance the empire's position, but at the individual level, the Klingons operated a brutal meritocracy based on who was the most cunning. It is very interesting that they gave Kol's actor that book to read; it was a very influential view of Klingon culture for a long time, and arguably more organic and interesting than Ronald Moore's ritualistic Klingons - it could represent, say, a period of fascism in their culture around TOS quite plausibly.
I don't have a better screenshot of the computer entry of the Klingons from Judgement Rites, but the description of them was plithy and interesting - a culture that was fascistic and social darwinist where the elements of honor were merely there to restrain the culture from collapsing under it's own infighting.
I don't have a better screenshot of the computer entry of the Klingons from Judgement Rites, but the description of them was plithy and interesting - a culture that was fascistic and social darwinist where the elements of honor were merely there to restrain the culture from collapsing under it's own infighting.
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^
^^ Klarr is bald.
Just sayin'.
^^ Klarr is bald.
Just sayin'.
Which is why The Chase is a perfect explanation for all of this, whether or not we like it or find it plausible, it's still part of canon so we might as well use it. Besides just looking at them it's pretty clear that Klingons, Bajorans, and humans are at least a bit closer than a elephant and an alligator. Now I could see a bit more of an argument with regards to the Cardassians, since they're reptiles.
Because he's described as "the most important figure in Klingon history" does not make him anything more than a trivial reference in a long series of stories called "Star Trek."
This isn't history. It's not anything like history. I'm reminded, in regard to your overemphasis of Kahless's importance, of Walter Koenig's dismissal of the importance of his character's "promotion" in ST:TMP: "I've seen movies where the non-coms are played by John Wayne and Clint Eastwood and the four-star generals are extras."
