Have you read Shakespeare in the original Klingon? Yes? Then this thread is for you!

Discuss the scenic beauty of Q'onos, and the legendary reign of the great Kahless. Discuss the political structure of the High Council, the three billion Klingon Rituals of Honor, how Klingons "like it rough," their cuddly pet targs, and whether Klingons, like Ruffles, are better with ridges.

Who was the greatest screen Klingon of 'em all? Michael Dorn's Worf? John Colicos' Koloth? Michael Ansara's Kang? Roxanne Dawson's B'Elanna Torres? Gowron?

Do you prefer the Yellow Peril/Commie Surrogate Klingons in the original series? The loveable ultra-nationalist/feudal lordship Klingons of TNG and DS9? The po-mo Klingons of Enterprise?

Would you eat live Gagh? Listen to a full-length Klingon opera? No?

You have no honor!

Honestly, I am just sick of the Klingons. You have no honor this, you have no honor that - except for when you don't but we say you do and when you do but we say you don't. The Klingons started to annoy me in the latter years of DS9 and ENT hasn't done anything to change my opinion.

I was able to give the Klingons a pass in the later seasons of DS9, as their society was obviously in a bit of turmoil, and that's when the extremists in any culture rise to the forefront. But Worf's discommodation was out of line. You can't protect a society's honor through dishonorable acts.

On the other hand, I dug the Duras sisters beyond all belief. Great scenery-chewing villains, easily up there with Khan and Q as some of the most entertaining adversaries the Federation has ever faced.

Martok. He had Worf's complex code of honor (winning easy battles is not the path to honor), but without the stick up his butt.

This is a tricky question. I would say that Worf is the best character who happens to be Klingon, but I would agree with Cleo that Martok is the character who is the best at being Klingon.

Absolutely. I liked Worf well enough in TNG, but in DS9 his every other line seemed to be "I am a Klingon warrior!" or "He is without honour!" Enough! We get it!

One thing that seemed to be invisible on DS9 was the part of Klingon culture that wasn't warrior-like. You don't get to build interstellar starships by hunting targs with spears. Where were the scientists and engineers? They just seemed a very one-dimensional species during DS9.

Although I have to say I do like Martok, and I even have a soft spot for Gowron's eye-popping scenery-chewing.

Well, to be fair, the crew of DS9 only had to deal with their military. The only time I can remember them going into Klingon territory was when they infiltrated that space station to try to kill Gowron.

Speaking of which, that episode convinced me that Sisko made a better Klingon than Worf. The guy just didn't knew how to relax. Sisko, on the other hand, was having the time of his live.

There was that moment during Children of Time, when Worf rounded up the Klingons to help with the harvest. "Your enemy is time!" But that's really it.

What annoys me most about the whole "honour" thing is it's used in contradictory manners. It's honourable to both fight to the death, or run away to fight again. It's honourable to sneak around under cloak, but it's also honourable to march headlong into enemy fire. The word gets thrown around by Klingons until it loses all meaning.

Yeah, but I saw it as being similar to how humans use the word "morality". There's generally a common underlying theme, but the manner in which the concept is expressed varies wildly depending on one's upbringing and experience.

I always thought that gave the Klingons depth. They didn't agree on what honor was. Lots of Klingons told Worf there was no honor serving in Starfleet, but then others accepted that Worf serving well in Starfleet gave him honor. Martok was honorable by placing service to the Klingon Empire over his own personal honor.

Lots of Klingons have sought honor by fighting battles in medicine and science, rather than literal battles of fighting.

What bugged me was when B'Ellanna faced her mother on the holodeck, and was ashamed of being an engineer. I was almost yelling: "You're the engineer! The ship can't run without you! That's plenty of honor right there!"

Of course, as she was raised among humans, she may have had an extreme idea of what "honor" meant, much as Spock tried to out-logic Vulcans.

ENT's made something of a mess with the different classes of Klingons as well, I think.

BTW, is that title phrase spelled correctly?

Is it "K'Plach" or "K'Pla"? I've seen it both ways.

The DS9 dvds subtitle it as "Q'Plaa", for whatever it's worth.

I thought it was a different word entirely. The only Klingon word I know is Q'plaa, so I wouldn't know if this was trying to be a different word.
I think Enterprise has made it make sense. Both not-Martok from "Judgment" and the doctor from "Aflliction/Divergence" have chosen non-warrior professions and see their professional struggles as battles they can conquer. Not-Martok was lamenting how Klingon culture was turning into a culture where everyone wants to be a warrior.

I think that helps explain how they can be spacefaring, but place all this value on being warriors instead of scientists. It's a fairly recent cultural shift. B'elenna is used to a Klingon culture that stresses honor through literal battle, so she thinks she should be ashamed of being an engineer.

That's a good point, but Cardassian society was very militaristic and yet we got to see Cardassian scientists. I don't need to see Klingon non-soldiers every week, but it would have been nice to have a bit more acknowledgement that there were some other aspects to their society.

I agree with this as to the meaning of the word, but thank god all humans don't run around saying "he is without morality" every ten minutes. I don't have an objection to the complexity of the Klingon interpretation(s) of the concept of "honour", in fact I think it's one of the most interesting things about them, but I do object to the word being in half the Klingon scenes. To me, it just seems like lazy writing.

Oh, and on my Klingon T-shirt, it's spelt Qapla. So take your pick, I suppose!

True. We only do that when there's an election.

There was the Klingon lawyer played by Ron Canada in Rules of Engagement.

There was also Martok's wife, Sirella.

Edit: And the one episode she was in ("You Are Cordially Invited") featured a Klingon wedding. There were no literal battles in sight there.

I feel like in all my hours of Trek we met a Klingon scientist who was used to getting hassled for his profession. I think he was like in one scene, maybe TNG. Eh I don't know. I actually really like the Klingons and I think it was in large part because of Martok. He was the best of what Klingon society had to offer. He was tough, but he wasn't all bluster and beligerance. He was passionate and could show vulnerability and compassion. Some of the best scenes were between Martok, Sisko, and Worf during the war. I agreet that Martok was the best Klingon but I love me some DS9 Worf.

Does anyone remember what Ezri said about the Empire and how she thought it was dying or some such? She really blew up at Worf. I have to say I loved Worf's discommendation. It showed the Klingons were as political as anyone else. I loved watching Worf and Picard leave together. I think it cemented their friendship. It madke for good TV. What ep was that?

"The Klingon Empire is dying...and I think it deserves to die." In the same speech, she mentioned how Worf was the most honorable (!) Klingon and if he was willing to endure corruption... what hope was there for the rest of them?

You may be thinking of TNG's "Suspicions", where a bunch of scientists are testing shields that let ships fly through stars. There is a Klingon scientist, but it's actually the Ferengi scientist who gives the "Yes, I'm a scientist and my society doesn't tend to approve of that" speech.

Even though it's the Ferengi that says that, I think it could have been said about Klingons just as easily.

Some of the stories involving the Klingons didn't make any sense. I remember one story on TNG where the Klingons were having a leadership succession crisis. But instead of resolving the matter on their own, the Klingons turned to Picard, an outsider to arbitrate.

The Klingons are suppose to be a highly xenophobic and paranoid society; yet they turned to a foreigner (Picard) to help them chose their leader, no less a foreigner who is a member of one of the Klingon Empire's most hated adversaries, the Federation. It would have been akin to the politburo of the former USSR asking an American military officer to their secret meeting in order to help them choose their next dictator. It wouldn't have made any sense.

As for Worf, what bothered me about him was how he knew so much about Klingon cultural practices. I thought that Worf was adopted by a human family at an early age and was raised in a human environment. Yet Worf acted like he knew all about honour and everything else that was Klingon. If an African was raised in the United States, it would be highly unlikely that that person would know so much about African culture.

I can sort of believe that about Worf- his parents did make an effort to give him some Klingon culture in his upbringing, and as the only Klingon around, he may have tried harder at being Klingon than even other Klingons. Still, I can imagine that some Klingons may have snickered behind Worf's back: "Oh, there goes that bumpy-headed human in his Starfleet uniform. Thinks he's all Klingon with that sash of his."

As to the point about Picard, the two groups were at peace at the time, but it's still weird. Maybe like France asking an American general to settle an election question today.

By the way, was there ever any mention of the events of the beginning of TUC on TNG? In the movie, they made it sound like Q'onos was going to be completely evacuated, that massive Federation aid was needed, and so on.

As far as I know, they never referred to that on TNG. I think we're supposed to assume that the new peace allowed them to help fix the homeworld.
There's a piece of Worf's backstory that doesn't get brought up a lot, and I have a hard time picking out its origins in canon. But according to what I've read, Worf spent his young adult years on the Klingon homeworld, throwing himself into the culture and learning everything he could, essentially overcompensating for the fact that he'd been raised by humans. To follow your analogy, an African raised in the US could go to Africa and learn the culture and decide to live by it.
I think the dying-from-being-poisoned Klingon leader chose Picard because he didn't trust anyone else. Any of the Klingons around him might have helped to poison him, and he couldn't pick Worf because Worf was still dishonored.

That's the excuse, anyway. I'm not sure I buy it, either. But the other Klingons do repeatedly challenge Picard's authority in the matter, so that helps make it more believable to me.

I dunno, Cleo. I have a hard time reconciling Worf's life with that piece of information. For example: Why'd he join Starfleet and not the Klingon force? Also, we know the Rozhenkos made an effort to give him Klingon values and all...it doesn't really add up.

It never made sense to me that Worf was fostered to humans in the first place. Who decided that?

His parents were killed in an attack, along with most (all?) of the colony, and a Starfleet ship came to the aid.

I know. I meant why didn't they take him back to a Klingon planet or give him to Klingons to foster? If they just took him to Earth, that's kind of like kidnapping.

Especially since his brother was raised by Klingons. So it's not like there were no one on his homeworld who could care for him.

But then again, to use a contemporary example, it's not like families don't adopt children from other countries. So maybe it's not so strange, after all.

The offical story was that Mogh (Worf's father) had betrayed the colony to the Klingons. Sending him back to Kronos might have ended up leading to his death.

Bumping over from the Borg thread:



I was thinking the other day that one interesting thread in TNG and DS9 was the basic assumption of triumphalism. IMHO, ST6 mirrored the thawing of the Cold War - we had a possibility of constructive peace with the Klingons, but they were still an empire worthy of respect (notwithstanding that they needed Kirk & Co. to save them).

By the time of TNG and DS9, Klingons, Ferengi, and ultimately Cardassians and the Dominion are just quaint also-rans in galactic history, who need to be managed until they adopt Federation values. Various characters enjoy Klingon food or holoprograms or whatever, but Worf regularly overthrows their empire whenever he has a weekend free.

On the topic of Klingon scientists...

Jean Lorrah wrote two TOS novels, The Vulcan Academy Murders and its follow-up, The IDIC Epidemic, in the late eighties. Both are quite good, and I like her depiction of Vulcans...not so much that they are emotionless, but that their emotion is all the deeper for being unspoken. Ties in with what Spock said in one of the cartoon episodes: "Vulcans do not lack emotion, they simply control it very carefully." In Lorrah-verse, Kohlinar is an optional thing, and not all Vulcans seek to attain it.

Anyway, The IDIC Epidemic involves a Klingon scientist as a main character. He was an oddball in his culture because of his propensity for science rather than battle. But he found his niche in the Vulcan science colony Nisus, which, with its many different species living and working together, sought to put IDIC into practice.

I recommend both...they're out of print but you should have no trouble finding them at a library or used-book shop.

I don't think it lost all meaning, really. Maybe the word was overused, but here's the thing: At times, it may be honorable to run away, just like it may be honorable to kill yourself when taken prisoner (but not if there are still enemies to fight). On the one hand, it makes honor a much more complicated thing to grasp. On the other hand, honor becomes whatever the hell the writers want it to be...


There was a novel called Ishmael that established what happened (not canon, I know): There was a species called the Hur'Q who conquered the Klingon homeworld when they were still a galactic backwater killing each other off in meaningless wars, technologically on the level of Vikings. The Klingons overthrew the Hur'Q and stole all their technology, which is how they came to be so feudal socially but so technologically advanced. This always made a certain amount of sense to me. ALso, the Hur'Q were mentioned in DS9's The Sword of Kahles, so maybe there is something to it...


It was M'Pec who chose Picard, because he couldn't trust anyone on the Council. Because he knew what assholes they all were. Because he was the King Asshole.


I always thought Worf was overcompensating by immersing himself in Klingon culture. But it would have been nice to sometimes see something carry over from his human upbringing. And damn, for an orphan, did he not have the most family members of any Trek character?


Thanks, Miss Jennifer...I knew I read about that storyline somewhere but couldn't think of where. There was a similar character, I think, in A Flag Full of Stars

My favorite part of Klingon culture, which seems to have been abandoned after the first season of TNG, was how they called the body "an empty shell" and just said "dispose of it". Like the body didn't matter. I like that, it's kind of how I feel about death and dying, and it set them apart from most other cultures I've heard about. This attitude was gone by the time DS9 aired The Ship when Worf and O'Brien performed the Klingon ritual of sitting with the body to protect it from predators. That kind of sucked.

I was just thinking about Worf apologizing to Morn before throwing him off his barstool. That kind of summed up the whole character to me: He'd like to be a warrior, but he's still too human (prune juice, "Minsk!", etc.).

That's an interesting attitude toward the body. I think Zoroastrians have something similar: Belief in the afterlife is so strong, they don't even bury bodies.

It must be said that DS9 Worf is ten times the TNG Worf, the reason, the Klingon stuff isn't at the forefront, its just an influence.

I've never believed that there was one set understanding of honour, even in the Empire, there are many ways to be honourable, in service to your House or the Empire. I'm guessing that B'Elanna thought she was acting with honour joining the Maquis and defending the Federation colonists against the Cardassians and that the Federation and Starfleet was without honour for not defending their own people enough. That makes her feelings regarding her own career choice, to be an engineer rather than a pure warrior, to persue science rather than just brute force as a solution, all the more ironic. It also makes her a damn sight more complicated than she would seem on the surface. I wonder why they never tapped into that really?

I would love to see more evidence of Klingon's glorifying something other than glorious death on the battlefield, or at least an explanation as to why this is so important when they would have to have enjoyed a period of relative stability and peace in-order to develop to a level where they were a viable space-based civilisation. I wonder how the Klingon's responded to their victory against the Dominion despite the odds. Martok would know just how bad things had gotten, he would see that the Klingons were loosing people hand over fist when the Federation's more proactive field medicine, technology and greater desire to live to fight another day meant that they probably lost fewer people proportionally than the Klingons who don't know when to quit. I imagine that Martok would have started putting some money and effort into catching up, spinning it as "honouring our warriors sacrifices" and "ensuring more warriors can fight another day and gain even more glory for themselves and their House" or something like that and probably doing a lot about the corruption under Gowron.

Actually Martok is the coolest Klingon by a mile. He's just THE MAN! He owns himself, he is comfortable with his choices, he does not throw people's lives away, he is a good leader of men and he respects people who are different than he is i.e. humans, despite the fact that he doesn't always understand them.

I really like the way that the franchise uses half-Klingons as a way of knocking the stuffing out of the Empire without demeaning what it is to be Klingon completely. B'Elanna obviously and Susie Plakston - you know, Alexander's mother, can't spell her name for the life of me. They have to live with what being both means, not just being a Klingon living in the Federation as Worf must do, he is essentially Klingon, they are both at the same time and this means they have to redefine what honour means for them personally, as well as bringing a different perspective to the table. I like that they are open about the flaws of the Empire and sceptical about the death fantasies of their people, particularly as B'Elanna is an engineer and Susie is a diplomat, a very un-Klingon thing, they had humour and spunk and a point to prove, whether that was because they were damn good at what they did or whether it was some sort of chip-on-the-shoulder, "I'm a hybrid and I don't quite fit in" thing I don't know. They understand it but they are prepared to choose what works best for them and what doesn't and leave that. B'Elanna uses the aggression and the physical attributes and sees a lot of the rest of it as pompous, or at least feels rejected. Its touching something bigger than most characters in Trek, they are culturally kinda hemogenous (I can't spell), you know, the same, they all sound the same and act the same, they are either human, or might as well be human like say Deanna Troi. This is the way Trek allowed ethnicity and ethnic tension to drift into their perfect future. Which is interesting because I was a bit sceptical about "oh there's another Klingon, going to be lots about honour in the Delta Quadrant," when Voyager started. Spock would understand that tension, Seven would understand that tension too, Spock is a hybrid, Seven is one too, essentially. Do you see what I mean?

Syfy channel aired the "Redemption" episodes the other night. I saw both eps. The Klingon civil war storyline was very interesting; however, the plot lines involving Worf and Picard seemed seriously flawed. Fortunately, the Worf and Picard plot lines didn't completely spoil the eps, but they were aggravating to watch.

First of all, that the Klingons would have an alien foreigner to be the arbiter of their leadership succession process didn't make any sense. The Klingons are a closed, xenophobic society; so it was absurd that they would have an outsider, Picard, decide who their next leader would be.

The Klingons are supposed to be a proud warrior race. Why wouldn't the Klingons see it as weakness and as lacking honor that they would choose to bring in an alien to help them decide their fate? It just didn't make sense that the Klingons would do such a thing. If fact, no society would voluntarily choose to have a foreigner pick their leader. I guess the writers couldn't come up with a compelling, logical Klingon story without injecting Picard -- in a big way -- right into the middle of it.

The Worf redemption plot was also problematic. If the Klingons value honor as much as they say they do, why would they give a crap about Worf? Worf choose to abandon the Klingons and join the Federation and Starfleet. Why wouldn't the Klingons see that as Worf's betrayal of "his people"? It would be seen as dishonorable. Worf dishonored himself. It would seem reasonable that the Klingons would regard Worf as a nobody.

But no, the Klingon high council not only embraced Worf but brought him into their inner circle. They treated him almost like a prodigal son. They even redeemed his family honor. Even though Worf's father was wrongly accused of misdeeds, the high council could just as well have restored Worf's family honor through Worf's younger brother, who was a warrior within the empire unlike Worf. Like the Picard as arbiter plot line, Worf's redemption plot was absurd as well.

As for Worf himself, I thought the writers in the "Redemption" episodes really turned Worf into an unsympathetic character. Worf went to the Klingon home planet with the intent to restore his family honor as well as to interfere in Klingon affairs. He thought he was entitled to be respected by the high council just because of his family background. But all he was a carpetbagger. It would have been one thing had Worf decided to leave Starfleet and join the empire prior to making his demands. If he had demonstrated that he wanted to be fully a part of the Klingon society, then there might be reason for the Klingons to pay attention to him.

But Worf wanted his cake and eat it too. He wanted to stay in Starfleet and still have the high council meet his demands. A proud warrior race would have laughed at Worf and sent him back to the Federation.

Eventually Worf took a leave from Starfleet to fight on one side of the Klingon civil war. But after the outcome of the war was determined, Worf flip-flopped. He abandoned "his people" once again and returned to Starfleet. Wouldn't that be seen as extremely dishonorable?

Worf couldn't make up his mind as to where his loyalties lie. Either way, for the Klingons as well as for Starfleet, you've got to wonder about Worf's integrity. Yet, at the end, Picard embraced Worf back into Starfleet with open arms, as though Worf's switching allegiance to the Klingon Empire for a while was an insignificant event. And the Klingon high council didn't seem bothered at all that Worf butted in to Klingon affairs and after he got what he wanted from it, once again abandoned the empire for Starfleet.

Where was the honor?

It's been a while since anyone else has posted in this thread. This is an interesting topic. I hope that I'm not just talking/writing to myself.

A week after Syfy aired the "Redemption" episodes, it showed the "Unification" episodes. Granted "Unification" was about the Romulans, but the Klingons had an important part in the storyline. The "Redemption" and "Unification" eps were good examples of what the poster wrote -- that TNG neutered the mighty Klingons.

The defanging of the Klingons was an example of one of the flaws that bugged me about TNG series. I think the writers created a Star Trek crew that was too self righteous and arrogant; and a Star Trek universe that didn't seem realistic.

I agree that the Fed/Klingon relationship in TNG was meant to reflect the thawing of the Cold War. However, the writers almost completely ripped away the essence of the Klingons. Prior to the movie Star Trek 6, the Klingons were depicted as barbaric, brutal (I remember someone from TOS saying that the "Klingons don't take prisoners"), and imperialists. The Klingons didn't respect "human" rights and the Klingon rulers ruled with an iron fist.

But by the time of TNG, the writers sanitized the Klingons. They were by then allies with the Feds. The Klingons were still portrayed as relatively uncivilized, but they were no longer the brutes that they once were. It was all about honour for the Klingons, not barbarism. The writers portrayed the Klingon behavior as quaint and not menacing or threatening.

I got the impression that the reason the Klingons were neutered by the writers was because the writers couldn't have the Federation, which was run by the likes of the enlightened Jean Luc Picard, be willing allies with a savage empire which the Klingons used to be. I think the writers wanted Picard's hands to be clean. No way would Picard and his ilk ally themselves with barbarians.

There was an arrogance to that. In history, nations have allied themselves to other nations, that have different values, out of necessity. Why the heck were the Klingons allied with the Federation anyway? I understand that the Klingons needed the Feds with what happened in ST6, but why did they continue to be allies during TNG time? Was it ever explained? In "Unification", the Klingons were acting subservient to Picard and the Feds. It was odd to see the once proud and mighty Klingons playing chauffeur to Picard.

Also, it was obvious that the Romulans replaced the Klingons as one of the Feds main enemies. In "Unification", the writers had no problem portraying the Romulan home planet as a police state. Romulans were bad, Klingons good; that was how the writers depicted the two species. And Picard was on the side of good, so the Klingons had to be good and honourable. It just seemed such a dishonest portrayal of the Klingons by the writers.

I have to say that I don't know how the Klingons were portrayed in the later seasons or in the Star Trek series that followed TNG.



I suppose the writers meant for Picard to be the epitome of those Federation values. Too often, he was self righteous because I guess he thought himself to be better than those other species. There was an arrogance to Picard's supposed enlightenment. IMO, that was a major flaw with TNG series.

I wonder whether they could have done better by going down a Japanese route with the Klingons. For the longest time, Meiji Japan, kinda 1870s-1945 was a feudal state with only the barest hint of western-style civilisation covering over some very questionable views about the relationship of the military to the state, what you do with PoWs or civilians in occupied territories, labour laws and the position of women, but mixing that with the attempt to appear respectable, with a state-supported religion and origin theory which gave the people a shared identity the 'Yamato people' and their 'Emperor-God' and at least an attempt to provide decide education and health services and build up the economy to bring Japan into the modern world.

It seems to me a more direct balancing act between the two themes of barely controlled barbarism and honour is the best way to look at Klingons and to remember that we normally only see Klingons through three pairs of eyes, Worf's, B'Elanna's and to a lesser extent, Martok's later on. The best of the best that society produced, smart, intelligent and capable people and they are their immediate associates, especially Alexander, are not necessarily representative of the true nature of the Empire, the Duras' are probably a better measure in some way, ruthless, upstarts and ambitious to a man, particularly not if their civilisation is so based on something as subjective as honour and the manner in which it is applied.

I wonder if the Empire is somehow a bit more of a successful take on what Meiji attempted with the successful intervention of the Federation in Klingon affairs after the Praxis explosion. Klingons may be deverted from killing Feds to more useful persuits which are still honourable because they are useful and yet water-down the worst excesses of what appears to be a pretty unsustainable system in the long-term. Something a little more akin to the fact that the Japanese now try to dominate the world's markets rather than the world itself and are pretty pacifistic even though they have a seriously kickass and rather large military although they call it a Self-Defence Force and have REALLY strict rules on how its used.

The other model is Byzantium, exotic, brutal and not remotely free with some interesting positions on civil liberty and crime and punishment and constantly under pressure from their neighbours and was equally unsustainable as the basis of a modern system of governance.

Without going into historical parallels, I'd always thought that the Klingons simply saw the alliance with the Federation as being useful, and that there was no compelling honorable reason to break it. "Yesterday's Enterprise" would seem to indicate that there were opportunities to break it here and there, but that the Federation proved their friendship and honor through further assistance to the Klingon Empire on various occasions. There's also the fact that they have a history of being on the losing side when going up against Starfleet, though I doubt that this would have been expressed overtly.

Also, space is big. It's not like the Federaton is completely hemming them in. They still have other worlds to conquer in glorious combat in other directions.