Presumably yes although the membership in council scene would therefore seem too small, not having them all. But my point was that (apparent) Starfleet membership doesn't seem to correspond with humans predominating either numerically or in terms of power in the Federation.
Undiscovered Country Dinner Scene
- Thread starter Charles Phipps
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I have always viewed the Klingons as an analog to Feudal Japan. So viewing the scene through that context, it makes a little more sense, though as to the original question, I think the point of baiting Kirk would make more sense given the eventual plot o0f the framing of Kirk in order to destroy the drive towards peace and accommodation with the Federation vs. the desire to continue Imperial ways of hegemony (which is being abandoned).
The dinner scene doesn't bother e as much as it it seems it does some in this thread, as much as the idea that an exploding moon somehow will cripple an entire interstellar empire. That plot point is simply ludicrous. While the Praxis explosion/shockwave scene opening of the film was a great scene, as a plot driver that it would somehow force a truly interstellar empire to fundamentally change course is absurd.
It also doesn't jibe with by then already established aspects of Klingon home-world not being decimated ecologically within the time-frame of TNG season 3 (with episodes such as "Sins of the Father").
Just my 2/100ths of a strip of gold-pressed latinum.
The dinner scene doesn't bother e as much as it it seems it does some in this thread, as much as the idea that an exploding moon somehow will cripple an entire interstellar empire. That plot point is simply ludicrous. While the Praxis explosion/shockwave scene opening of the film was a great scene, as a plot driver that it would somehow force a truly interstellar empire to fundamentally change course is absurd.
It also doesn't jibe with by then already established aspects of Klingon home-world not being decimated ecologically within the time-frame of TNG season 3 (with episodes such as "Sins of the Father").
Just my 2/100ths of a strip of gold-pressed latinum.
I always took the Praxis event as representing a global catastrophe which the Klingons couldn't combat on their own. With the end to hostilities, they could now pursue methods to fix the problem, that might not have been available to them during hostile relations, such that it is no longer a concern by the time of TNG.
I have no problem expecting the destruction of a moon could present such a monumental problem, or that the tech & methods exist in the Star Trek universe to repair it, which they may well have afforded them, once they are a more peaceful member of the galactic community. The only issue I have is that they'd still be looking to sabotage what is ultimately their own home world's existence, rather than face the music, so to say. No one at that level of catastrophe is thinking "Yeah, but if we save our planet, we have to stop being enemies with those people, & screw that noise"
It doesn't take a lot of resources to pacify a planet-bound subject species when you have warp driven warships.
"Our tribute is expected by such-and-such date, or the next passing ship will glass one of your cities from orbit"
Personal perspectives differ of course, but I simply don't find it convincing that a vast interstellar empire, spanning hundreds of star systems and a sizable portion of the Alpha quadrant, could somehow be brought to it's knees by the destruction of a single moon.
Particularly an empire which is aggressively expansionist and willing to conquer, occupy and exploit a myriad planets.
Of course the storyline of ST:TUC was a barely veiled metaphor for the collapse of the Soviet Union (with Praxis as an analog for Chernobyl) and was even openly talked about by the filmmakers as such at the time.
Sure, & the destruction of Praxis was more than the loss of a moon. It represented a threat to Qo'nos itself, as a pollutant to it's ozone. The idea was that the Klingon home world was dying. If the Federation lost Earth, it might not end them, but it would maybe be the beginning of the end of their dominance of the galaxy, at that time. Certainly that's the case of Klingons & their homeworld
So the premise of the story goes. I simply don't find it that convincing as a plot device.
I posit that even a loss of an entire world, even a so-called homeworld, over the course of 50 years (per the dialog in the film) could be entirely accommodated by an actual interstellar empire without missing much of a beat.
Again, your parsecs may vary, but I always found that core premise in ST:TUC's plot to be a bit too incredulous.
Maybe if you measure it in resources or territories, but geopolitically, sphere of influence, balance of power etc...? I'm not so sure. England is just an island, & at one time their empire controlled vast territories. Had the island suffered a catastrophic end, it probably would've shut them down globally eventually. In my opinion, the parallel works, but you're surely entitled to yours too
True but in the 23rd century, why bother? We see no labour camps or Mining colonies apart from Rura Penthe, which is tiny. Trek is vague on food production but feeding colonies does crop up occasionally. But what does a Klingon colony do? Do the Klingons just exist to fight each other? Organia was a convenient staging post to house troops and supplies but is that the only reason to have a subject world?
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Or Mara knew about Section 31 dirty secrets
I always saw it that Praxis exploding was just the proverbial straw which broke the Empire's back.
You've just described Brexit
On Praxis they were mining for energy I believe! When the moon exploded said energies could have affected the atmospheres of Q'onos and many other Klingon worlds in the vicinity! Plus most of the Klingon Empire resides in the Beta Quadrant, Lestatdelc! 
JB
JB
I don't have a problem with the Praxis plot point. All we're told is that it's their "key energy production facility," which is vague enough to cover a lot of ground. Maybe it was the only source of dilithium in the Klingon Empire. Maybe it was the only place that had the capability of processing it. Maybe there was something else that made Praxis unique and vital to the Empire. Maybe the Klingons had strip-mined all the other worlds in their Empire at that point, and were desperately looking to expand. We just don't know. All we really know is what the movie tells us, that the Klingons had overextended themselves and put too much emphasis into their military budget, so they couldn't sustain the Empire with the unexpected loss of Praxis.
Can't be. That's what they're mining on Rura Penthe. All your other hypotheticals are plausible.
Would slave labour mine it quick enough though?
Doesn't matter. "The Aliens' Graveyard" is full of laborers, full enough to mine enough to meet quota on a regular basis. Most of them probably don't even fill a cart per shift, even on a good day. But there are so many that the carts get filled, nonetheless.
As someone already mentioned, the Federation Council has very few human faces at all. I'll also add that the Federation president was often non-human, and that the Federation includes multiple non-human species who are visually indistinguishable from humans, so we actually don't really know how big the percentage of humans in Starfleet is, though they do seem to be the biggest group there. But there are also other important Federation organizations that we know very little about, so those could easily be dominated by some other species.
The Klingons are perfectly willing to cooperate with locals rather than conquer, given the right circumstances. We saw them winning hearts and minds on TOS multiple times, often by granting local people the technology to smite their enemies in exchange for local resources/use of their planet as a base.
Albeit they were planets that were not part of the Klingon Empire. Conquering them was impractical.
Basically the Empire doesn't operate democratically but that doesn't mean they have nothing to offer I suppose . How much of Kirk's pitch to the Organians was propaganda? Kor is ruthless but there is a war and the planet is strategically important. We can't necessarily extrapolate to inside the Klingon border.
In the light of present world events , it would be interesting to see a story where a planet votes to leave the Federation.
They weren't in the Empire then, because they were always shown in the process of choosing between the Empire and the Federation. We don't really know if they eventually became part of the Empire or remained loosely connected vassal states. (I'm referring here specifically to those planets that actually chose the Klingon side, which of course doesn't include Organia.)
But in terms of explaining how the Empire can operate without needing vast legions in every territory, it doesn't matter if those worlds became Klingon planets, political protectorates or just allies. The important thing is that they freely chose to associate with the Empire.
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