It's funny that Kras is not identified on screen isn't it! We only learn his name from the credits and for all we know he could have been a member of Koloth's crew as well!
JB
JB
The Savage Curtain - Like it, love it or hate it?
- Thread starter BlueStuff
- Start date
Well, he was Kras, after all. Wasn't he?
I'm pretty sure the writers and producers of "The Savage Curtain" envisioned Kahless as contemporary with other 23rd century Klingons, hence why he looks exactly like Kor, Kang, Koloth, etc. and wearing the same uniform. Having Kahless be an ancient leader was a TNG invention. As for the Augment virus, I doubt Kahless's appearance in TSC was any kind of worry on their minds.
Right, and Kahless in TSC was drawn from the minds of the crew (not sure if it was just Kirk & Spock), so in their minds, he had on a contemporary uniform. Makes sense.
What I want to know is how the Excalbians learned about Kahless' peerless - dare I say unforgettable - vocal impressions! Did Kirk & Spock know about his repertoire from the history books? Shouldn't they have mentioned it when Kahless was faking Surak's sad screams?
And out of universe, why the heck did the writers come up with that?? What an awesome, sinister little touch.
Always liked this ep. The rock creature was really cool. A neat alien that wasn't human looking. Would have even been a better ep if filmed in a outside locale
The "TSC Kahless was drawn from Kirk's mind who didn't know what the real Kahless looked like" idea was Michael Okuda's speculation when he wrote the Encyclopedia, I believe. But I never really thought that was a satisfactory explanation. The most famous Klingon in the universe from a past point in history, and Kirk had no idea what he looked like? So if Kirk didn't know what Abraham Lincoln looked like, Abe would have appeared looking like a 23rd century contemporary human in contemporary clothes?
I think knowing what your favorite leader from your ancestral home country looked like versus an enemy alien are two pretty different things. Maybe there wasn't a lot of archived footage of Kahless. 
FWIW, Roddenberry's story outline, dated May 9, 1968, has this in the teaser:
In the broadcast episode, the above was summarized in Spock's line, "We're being scanned, Captain. A deep probe, incredibly swift."
That had less to do with the actual historical Klingon and more to do with the fact that actual Excalbians took on these forms, and therefore, if they could mimic the appearance of a person, they could surely change voices to mimic another (at least according to Savage Trade - I don't know if the episode intended "Kahless" to be an Excalbian shapeshifter or just a hologram-like image).
The outline and script drafts indicate, to varying extents, that all the entities we see on Excalbia -- except for Kirk and Spock, of course (
) -- are Excalbians. In the outline and early draft, they're explicitly referenced as actors, except for Yarnek. In those versions, Yarnek is "The Playwrite."
Last edited:
Ah. Kahless wasn't necessarily a mockingbird - that's one example of their true IDs/abilities asserting themselves.
I never got the impression that Abe, Surak, Kahless, et. al were Excalbians too. If that were the case, then Yarnek wouldn't have needed to show his true form: He could have just taken the form of another historical figure and not divulged his plan until later.
Last edited:
The clue that Abraham Lincoln was an Excaliban was Mr. Spock scanning him before beam up and reporting:
Fascinating. For a moment, it appeared almost mineral. Like living rock with heavy fore claws. It's settling down now to completely human readings.
Then later, It would seem that we were held in the power of creatures able to control matter and to rearrange molecules in whatever fashion was desired. So they were able to create images of Surak and Lincoln after scanning our minds and using their fellow creatures as source matter.
So everyone on the planet but Kirk and Spock were Excalibans. Yarnak had no reason to hide his form or his plan, he honestly expected Kirk and Spock to teach him the difference between good and evil.
A good question too, because there's so much of both in the world and hardly anyone agrees which is which.
Fascinating. For a moment, it appeared almost mineral. Like living rock with heavy fore claws. It's settling down now to completely human readings.
Then later, It would seem that we were held in the power of creatures able to control matter and to rearrange molecules in whatever fashion was desired. So they were able to create images of Surak and Lincoln after scanning our minds and using their fellow creatures as source matter.
So everyone on the planet but Kirk and Spock were Excalibans. Yarnak had no reason to hide his form or his plan, he honestly expected Kirk and Spock to teach him the difference between good and evil.
A good question too, because there's so much of both in the world and hardly anyone agrees which is which.
Why didn't the other imposters do it, if this wasn't a trait significant to Kahless, the Unforgettable?
The Excalbian identified all the evil doers as from the past and Kahless from the race that Kirk despised as the Klingon whom the rest of his race followed from his legendary tyrannies! TNG came and addressed the character more as a prophet type figure who freed his people from slavery and made them more aggressive in order to never be enslaved again while The Savage Curtain had him more as a military leader from their history than anything else! And unless Kirk had really studied his enemy and their history how would he know?
JB
There's some good philosophy in this episode.
UHURA: See, in our century we've learned not to fear words.
...
KIRK: We've each learned to be delighted with what we are. The Vulcans learned that centuries before we did.
SPOCK: It is basic to the Vulcan philosophy, sir, the combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile.
*****
LINCOLN: There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending.
*****
SURAK: Surely it is more logical to -- to heal than kill.
KIRK: I'm afraid that kind of logic doesn't apply here.
SURAK: That is precisely why we should not fight.
*****
And my favorite is this exchange....
YARNEK: Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results. Do you have an explanation?
KIRK: You established the methods and the goals.
YARNEK: For you to use as you chose.
KIRK: What did you offer the others if they won?
YARNEK: What they wanted most: power.
KIRK: You offered me the lives of my crew.
YARNEK: I perceive. You have won their lives.
KIRK: How many others have you done this to? What gives you the right to hand out life and death?
YARNEK: The same right that brought you here: the need to know new things.
KIRK: We came in peace.
YARNEK: And you may go in peace.
So much there. Kirk essentially teaches the Excalbians that the difference between good and evil is "why we fight"... whether it's to gain power for ourselves or to protect innocent lives. Something they already knew when establishing the goals, but a good lesson for them nonetheless. And then when Kirk expresses outrage at the Excalbians' practice of learning by forced combat, Yarnek reminds him that both the Excalbians and Starfleet are engaged in a kind of exploration, and Kirk has to take a step back and examine the fact that encountering completely alien ways of thinking and learning is all part of "seeking out new life and new civilizations." He has been judging an alien species by human standards. It's a good Roddenberry think piece.
UHURA: See, in our century we've learned not to fear words.
...
KIRK: We've each learned to be delighted with what we are. The Vulcans learned that centuries before we did.
SPOCK: It is basic to the Vulcan philosophy, sir, the combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile.
*****
LINCOLN: There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending.
*****
SURAK: Surely it is more logical to -- to heal than kill.
KIRK: I'm afraid that kind of logic doesn't apply here.
SURAK: That is precisely why we should not fight.
*****
And my favorite is this exchange....
YARNEK: Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results. Do you have an explanation?
KIRK: You established the methods and the goals.
YARNEK: For you to use as you chose.
KIRK: What did you offer the others if they won?
YARNEK: What they wanted most: power.
KIRK: You offered me the lives of my crew.
YARNEK: I perceive. You have won their lives.
KIRK: How many others have you done this to? What gives you the right to hand out life and death?
YARNEK: The same right that brought you here: the need to know new things.
KIRK: We came in peace.
YARNEK: And you may go in peace.
So much there. Kirk essentially teaches the Excalbians that the difference between good and evil is "why we fight"... whether it's to gain power for ourselves or to protect innocent lives. Something they already knew when establishing the goals, but a good lesson for them nonetheless. And then when Kirk expresses outrage at the Excalbians' practice of learning by forced combat, Yarnek reminds him that both the Excalbians and Starfleet are engaged in a kind of exploration, and Kirk has to take a step back and examine the fact that encountering completely alien ways of thinking and learning is all part of "seeking out new life and new civilizations." He has been judging an alien species by human standards. It's a good Roddenberry think piece.
Last edited:
I’m not talking about the character as portrayed in TNG, I’m talking about how he was portrayed in The Savage Curtain. Yarnek didn’t specify what time period Kahless came from, only that he was responsible for making the Klingon Empire as ruthless as it is. For all we know, Kahless could have done that only 50 years before the episode.
I agree, Kahless could have been currently in power as of this episode. No one mention a time frame for him.
No time specified for any of the other characters either and yes, Kahless could have created their tyranny within the last fifty years or so but all the others were all from long ago like Genghis Khan, Lincoln and Surak, so why shouldn't Kahless be long dead too?
JB
Abraham Lincoln: lived 460 years before the episode.
Genghis Khan: lived 1,100 years before the episode.
Surak: lived 1,800-some years before the episode.
Colonel Green: lived 200 years before the episode.
So there's no rhyme or reason as far as time periods go. Far all we know, both Kahless and Zora could have been contemporary to the 23rd century.
Similar threads
