Spoilers Who is sympathetic to the Klingons?

[Charles Phipps]

Fun filled fact: The Chinese Empire at its height used this as a way to expand its borders Federation style. Rome also conquered Italy without firing a shot after the Etruscans because all of the surrounding states were economically dependent on them. Greece used the threat to become the head of their brief Empire (before they went on to invade many other territories).

On a serious level, I do think what's going on is really a fact we're seeing real-time Values Dissonance leading to cultural misunderstanding on a fundamental level. I don't think T'kuvma ever really believed the Federation came in peace and I think they are seeing expanding of the Federation's borders as a genuine attempt to win by hook and by crook their territory for them. The Klingons see them doing as immoral because they're trying to bribe their way out of the territory rather than engage in honest battle.

They know the Federation are warriors but they cloak themselves in peace and righteousness while actively wanting more and more territory.

*WE* know the Federation really is THAT idealistic.

But to someone like TK, it smacks of a scam because he can't imagine ANYONE thinking like that in such a crapsack universe as the galaxy is shown to be outside of the Federation. I think the dinosaur people's territory in the Gamma Quadrant is the ONLY other pleasant place to live unless you're a Space GodTM.

 

[Kor]

I actually think they're speaking honest-to-Kahless Klingon from a dictionary--which means the poor bastards probably have to speak the dialogue phonetically.

Which is a big mistake because this is complicated religious and politics stuff that needs to be translated.

The Klingon dialog in STD was developed by a Klingon language expert. Robyn Stewart.
Marc Okrand, who created the language as we know it for TSFS (starting from the basis of the few words heard in TMP), has expressed his approval of the Klingon spoken on STD.

Kor

 

[Charles Phipps]

I love Klingon but let the actors speak English!

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Do I feel sympathetic towards the Klingons, not really. I can understand why they would feel threatened by the Federation but they lose sympathy from me by launching attacks on science outposts filled with civilians, like Doctari Alpha.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I'm sympathetic to Voq. The tone of his skin has given him a lifetime of unjustified hardship, and I'd like to see him overcome that.

I'd prefer it didn't happen thanks to murderous terrorist actions, of course.

His relationship with Michael has been given an interesting setup: they tried to kill each other and then his leader killed her leader and then she killed that guy in return. There's a lot of room for juicy "we need to work together" drama if the story somehow goes that route.

Or he can just hate her the whole time and then she kills him. Whatever works.

 

[Mel Tenorio]

To me the Klingon scenes were the best part of the two pilot episodes. They did a great job of actually making Klingons finally seem like actual warriors with a culture as opposed to the long-haired, leather-wearing orcs with metal boots.

I hope we get to see a lot more of them and with T'kuvma dead I still get the feeling we will be seeing many flashbacks of him. Or perhaps he really isn't dead?

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

It's easy to be sympathetic to a culture that seems cool.

Half of us in the west love feudal Japan, it's aesthetics and position in history.

We glorify knights, vikings, cowboys, spartans, pirates, soldiers and kung fu monks.

Sometimes we sympathise when people complain about the encroachment of American culture.

In reality, these societies were not places you would want to live. Sparta was built on murdered slaves (the Spartan rite of passage was to sneak into a nearby slave town and quietly murder a passing slave). Japan was as brutal as any other culture; like all examples of feudalism, it was build on terrible elitism and privilege; samurai tested their swords on tied prisoners, petty criminals trying to feed their family; most of the population lived in poverty. The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings kept a huge fraction of their population as slaves like all classical societies (I wonder how easy it would be to fall into debt and be sold, then beaten for the rest of your short life?) All of them were unaccountable, full of hidden abuse. They were all structured in a way that abuse HAD to happen for the state to function.

The great revolution in culture that changed this was the advent of republics, democracy with universal sufferage, and constitutions that protect the rights of all to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is why traditions fall of of favor, and why the Federation in Star Trek is popular, attracting dozens of species and coming closer and closer to Klingon borders. So while I think Klingon culture is cool, I don't sympathise with a reactionary who just wants to protect Klingon culture for his own pride or ego, without ever asking if it actually deserves his loyalty. Perhaps he should have agitated for a republic that treated everyone in the empire as equals instead.

 

[Charles Phipps]

So is the Kuvah'magh named for T'Kuvma or vice versa?

 

[Mudd]

BTW, for all the talk about giving Klingons their own culture and point of view and a more nuanced treatment - none of that has been on offer so far.

What we've seen is that they're heavily ritualized racists who celebrate war and think that way of life and their borders are being encroached on.

Cardboard alien baddies.

 

[cgervasi]

I like the idea T'Kuvma and his buddies really are utterly misreading the Federation because they live in a galaxy where anyone saying "They come in peace" is just lying to get you sideways. I want to see more of their culture and am really sad they killed the poor bastard.

We should be able to understand the motives of good villains. That's better than the kind who abuse a child or something at the beginning so we don't mind seeing them blown away in a climactic shootout.

The Klingons are reacting to the Lexus and the Olive Tree problem.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

Mind you, the Federation claims to come in peace but in this timeline has just finished a massive war with the Romulans and the Xindi (I feel so bad I thought so little of them I couldn't even remember their name and had to look them up). Its an expanionist hegomonic empire--it's just hegomonic empires spread via bread and circuses not lasers.

That's actually one of the biggest RL criticisms of Roddenberry's view in that he did have a very homogenized view of the future for a man who wanted to make a government celebrating diversity.

I think Gene Roddenbury just realised that for cultures to live in peace, they can be diverse in many ways; but they must respect reason, and the rights of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own happiness. I believe this too. You can't have hegemonic peace with hegemonic respect for life. The rights of man and the constitution are based on reasoned self-interest. Introduce irrational dogmas in which war is preferable to 'cultural suicide' and peace fails. Some people see this as sad; that cultures will lose their uniqueness, that a hegemonic Federation will consume them. But as I said above, the realities of these societies without individual rights and reason were not nice places to live for millions of their citizens. Even today they continue to hide abuses which would unravel if every citizen had equal access to the judiciary and equal representation. What are they afraid of; that their society will have to renounce racism, religious demagoguery and unofficial slavery? A diversity of peaceful societies that respect each other is what Gene seemed to believe in. Vulcans, Humans, Andorians, all very different, but fundamentally democratic. He did not believe that totalitarian societies were equal to democracy however, and wasn't afraid to stand by those convictions.

Let's look at some of our diverse democracies these days: The United States of America, the Republic of South Africa, the Republic of India, the United Kingdom, France, Japan. They are diverse but respect the individual, hold all people equal under the law, and respect life, even if not perfectly living up to their ideals. If that's hegemony, I want it. I don't want genital cutting of women, people being forced by coercive relatives into bullying marriages lasting decades, or priests who tell me what to think, and denounce me if my conscious tells me otherwise.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

What we've seen is that they're heavily ritualized racists who celebrate war and think that way of life and their borders are being encroached on.

It seems to me they are drawing on the war on terror, and extremism - the Klingons were the Soviet Union, and now they take the place of another timely adversary. I just hate to give voice to this because I'm kinda sick of that theme to be honest.

Let's wait and see what happens, we are only three episodes into a multi-season show.

 

[Mudd]

I'm not waiting three seasons to see what happens.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I think Gene Roddenbury just realised that for cultures to live in peace, they can be diverse in many ways; but they must respect reason, and the rights of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own happiness. I believe this too. You can't have hegemonic peace with hegemonic respect for life. The rights of man and the constitution are based on reasoned self-interest. Introduce irrational dogmas in which war is preferable to 'cultural suicide' and peace fails. Some people see this as sad; that cultures will lose their uniqueness, that a hegemonic Federation will consume them. But as I said above, the realities of these societies without individual rights and reason were not nice places to live for millions of their citizens. Even today they continue to hide abuses which would unravel if every citizen had equal access to the judiciary and equal representation. What are they afraid of; that their society will have to renounce racism, religious demagoguery and unofficial slavery? A diversity of peaceful societies that respect each other is what Gene seemed to believe in. Vulcans, Humans, Andorians, all very different, but fundamentally democratic. He did not believe that totalitarian societies were equal to democracy however, and wasn't afraid to stand by those convictions.

Let's look at some of our diverse democracies these days: The United States of America, the Republic of South Africa, the Republic of India, the United Kingdom, France, Japan. They are diverse but respect the individual, hold all people equal under the law, and respect life, even if not perfectly living up to their ideals. If that's hegemony, I want it. I don't want genital cutting of women, people being forced by coercive relatives into bullying marriages lasting decades, or priests who tell me what to think, and denounce me if my conscious tells me otherwise.

That is essentially why I like Deep Space Nine's Bajor vs. Federation plot because the Federation's attempts to bring Bajor into the fold are constantly resisted by the fact they expect them to become more French and less Muslim...oh sorry, I mean Earth not Bajoran. The Federation gets continually frustrated until they finally realizes, no, the Bajorans are not going to change and maybe the Federation should just accept them as they actually are--and they do.

Which is to say the Federation accepting people only on their terms was always kind of arrogant and hypocritical.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Federation was never going to make the Bajorans change who they were. Where did you get that idea?

The only problem was back in "Accession" when that Bajoran poet from 200 years ago wanted to bring back the caste system. That's forbidden under Federation law, and would have made Bajor ineligible to join. But the Federation couldn't actually force Bajor to do anything with it if Bajor didn't want to.

Starfleet didn't make Sisko stop being the Emissary, did they? Same story here.

 

[Charles Phipps]

It seems to me they are drawing on the war on terror, and extremism - the Klingons were the Soviet Union, and now they take the place of another timely adversary. I just hate to give voice to this because I'm kinda sick of that theme to be honest.

Let's wait and see what happens, we are only three episodes into a multi-season show.

It depends on where they go with it for me. I would be very interested, for example, if the House of Mogh or House of Gorkon show up in the show and essentially have people who say, "Those dudes aren't us." Maybe potentially also show Federation allies in the war who are unscrupulous or corrupt. If it's going to be an ANGEL IN THE WHIRLWIND by Christopher Nutall "Good decent secular Merica vs. Evil Islam" then I probably won't like it.

Then again, I wrote a science fiction novel from the perspective of Space Fascists who realized, "Wait, are we the bad guys?"

 

[Charles Phipps]

The Federation was never going to make the Bajorans change who they were. Where did you get that idea?

Every episode where the Federation talked about the Wormhole aliens, tried to teach them a secular view of them, and generally bumped heads with all of the quirky Bajoran customs. The Federation always seemed to have serious issues with the fact the Bajorans were a bunch of religious oddballs (and they, even from a theist, a bunch of religious oddballs). One of the things I liked about the conflict was neither side was wrong--it's just the Federation saw the Prophets through their own lens.

The only problem was back in "Accession" when that Bajoran poet from 200 years ago wanted to bring back the caste system. That's forbidden under Federation law, and would have made Bajor ineligible to join. But the Federation couldn't actually force Bajor to do anything with it if Bajor didn't want to.

Starfleet didn't make Sisko stop being the Emissary, did they? Same story here.

Starfleet's handling of it was actually kind of irritating as they tried to have it both ways and wanted to exploit the status until SIsko's vision told him to keep Bajor from joining.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Every episode where the Federation talked about the Wormhole aliens, tried to teach them a secular view of them

They did nothing of the kind. At no time did any Federation official ever interfere with the Bajorans' right to believe as they wish.

If you're referring to Keiko, she taught science in her class because it was her job to do so. Winn accused her of not teaching about the Prophets, but Keiko correctly pointed out: "That's YOUR job."

 

[Charles Phipps]

Okay, sure.

In any case, my biggest hope is we do get PLENTY of Klingon vs. Federation encounters and they aren't just treated as space orcs.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

I don't know squat about them except that they baited a bunch of ships together to murder them.

so far I don't feel much sympathy for them