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"Worf and Klingon Honor" (analysis video by SF Debris)

starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
Very worth a watch.

https://youtu.be/rnWOHVOVgFQ
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    Heh... "honor"... and people wonder why Romulans call Klingons brainless savages. :p
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  • artan42artan42 Member Posts: 10,450 Bug Hunter
    I liked his video on using 'honour' and 'courage' as double entendres.​​
    22762792376_ac7c992b7c_o.png
    Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
    JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.

    #TASforSTO


    '...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
    'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
    'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
    '...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
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    '...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek

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  • artan42artan42 Member Posts: 10,450 Bug Hunter
    patrickngo wrote: »
    Klingons as shown prior to "Discovery" (and their Klingork mutations) never developed those mechanisms.

    This is of course, a lie. DSCs Klingons have the exact same identically inconsistent code of honour as all of the others.​​
    22762792376_ac7c992b7c_o.png
    Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
    JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.

    #TASforSTO


    '...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
    'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
    'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
    '...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
    'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
    '...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek

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  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    patrickngo wrote: »

    Worf was the kid who grows up in the suburbs trying to be 'gangsta' or 'Cowboy', and from that view, it looks inconsistent as hell, but if you bothered to pay attention to the video linked above, you might've begun to understand that it WAS very internally consistent, even to the point of including the rule of natural consequences (which doesn't often happen with Trek Writing, particularly not with two dimensional societies like the Vulcans.)

    One of the best early episodes is the start of Wof's arc with K'Ehyler early on (the Klingon sleeper ship) that Klingons think Worf is uptight, overly traditional, and a fuddy-duddy. And I love, love Redemption with how much Worf's (human) moral structure doesn't match the Klingon honor structure despite his best efforts.

    The Klingon honor system is pretty internally consistent, the intentions seems to be fighting the challenges will help handle the fact it is an 'external' system - like Quark's bravery noted in the video and the adversary confirming his dishonor with how he acts.

    Most of the major players that act 'dishonorably' do so in a way humans would recognize but avoid the consequences in the Klingon system thanks to the external pressure that's put to bear - the moral structure seems to assume no one will amass enough power or followers to be immune to the force of external condemnation (see the bitter pill the High Council was swallowing with Duras).


    This was a nice summary video.
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  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited April 2018
    One of the best early episodes is the start of Wof's arc with K'Ehyler early on (the Klingon sleeper ship) that Klingons think Worf is uptight, overly traditional, and a fuddy-duddy. And I love, love Redemption with how much Worf's (human) moral structure doesn't match the Klingon honor structure despite his best efforts.

    Can't respond in more detail because I'm cooking but I LOL'd at "fuddy-duddy". I actually came up with a rather charming Klingon expression to describe Worf: DuDwI' muSujmo' Sa'Hut DuDwI' reH Sa'Hut.
    "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
    — Sabaton, "Great War"
    VZ9ASdg.png

    Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,003 Arc User
    > @patrickngo said:
    > Thing is, Pre-Discovery Klingons have a societal structure more akin to wolves (...)

    How so?
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
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  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    patrickngo wrote: »
    they look to outsiders like disorganized, unorganized, on-the-verge-of-civil-war at all times, but the truth of the matter is, their culture is rooted in a different principle

    Even Worf's nanny was a decent combatant! A nanny, admittedly, for effectively an heir to a duchy, but still.

    The Klingon Empire managing to project a more monolithic external front in the TOS era probably didn't help the impression of 'the Empire's about to collapse' as the Federation learned more about their internal politics after the Organian intervention - there's plenty of groups historically which managed to cut down the bickering or put issues on hold when facing external enemies. Then when the pressure came off - look out!

    I'm not too familiar with wolf pack structures; I know recent evidence shows they're more familiar than previously indicated.

    One interesting thing is that much of the bickering we see is periods where the leadership spot is open (poor Quark). Duras's dishonor was forcing the spot open early. Worf had to overcome a lot of internal debate to challenge a sitting Chancellor despite his Klingon and human honor seeing Gowron as unfit for the position.
    Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker

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  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,003 Arc User
    patrickngo wrote: »
    (...)
    some really good work was done in the 1960's and 1970s on how pack dynamics function.

    A whole lot of which had to be discarded with research performed in the current decade pig-3.gif

    That was my reason to ask. Most of the time the "wolf comparison" is brought up people talk about a model used in human interactions which uses animal terminology. "Alpha and Omega" are way more important for 'teambuilding' or 'leadership' seminars of modern companies than they are for actual wolves. As a ecologist I was just curious which one we were actually referring to, as I couldn't for the life of mine try to make any sound parallels between a wolf pack and a fictional empire/culture of humanoids.​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
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  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,003 Arc User
    patrickngo wrote: »
    No equivalence is ever 100%, but in general terms, Klingon interactions do NOT resemble Avian or Reptilian interactions as the showrunners for Discovery claim.
    (...)

    Of course they don't. I am going on a limb here, but I'll say every. single. time. anyone makes a animal comparison to get a point across they lack the actual biological and ecological knowledge of how and why the analogy one makes is hopelessly romanticized at best and complete nonsense usually. Making an alien faction based on a few selective inspirations of animals is fun to do, I am usually a fan of the concept, but in terms of either Klingons or Klingorks it doesn't really work when you understand that the fields of science involved are not things you can learn by skimming a encyclopaedia article in your lunch break.

    In almost all cases the classic "pack" structure people usually associated with a fixed ranking structure and challenges to leadership are things we can observe in captivity. Do you know which species creates a hierarchical structure of one dominant Alpha, intermediate ranks which take certain duties and perform certain tasks during stages of the day and a Omega who usually takes a beating to ease out tensions due to a lack of evasion territory? Within these social groups it frequently happens that after enough territorial marks are removed or the Alpha does not display it's dominance as it once did one of the other stronger animals will try to get it into submission. This model which is often used to describe a certain mammalian species. Yes, that's right: It's mice.

    I'm not entirely sure why you think social animals gather so "slower and weaker get eaten first". They do so to conserve energy, form defensible units and social bonds. Amongst your aforementioned ducks, most prominently mallards, gatherings have a better chance of spotting predators and select guards allow other animals to rest. Packs of herd living animals like cattle are also safer in a herd as they can set guards and shield the offspring behind "defensive lines" of strong adults standing shoulder to shoulder. While weak and sick individuals will be singled out by predators, as preying on something is dangerous and it's safer to hunt those individuals (and at the same time provide ecosystem services of reducing the change of plaque spread etc.), this is hardly the "reason" for social structures. If you will, Klingon cloaks would be something that resembles actual predatory behaviour: Only strike if you have a clear advantage. A predator being ambushed will always try to flee rather than fight, as any fight bears the risk of injury which is almost certain death for them. Many so called "prey" species like ruminants, are much more dangerous once their flight distance threshold is crossed since their first instinct will be to end the threat. Basically, for a person it is much more dangerous to face a pissed off cow than it is to face a wolf.

    My point is: Yes, DSC's writing staff's talk about "apex predators" or "snake sense" or whatever is nonsense. But so is comparing Klingons to wolves. They have a very clear feudal society with kings (great house leaders), a emperor (the chancellor) and a less functional but mystical figurehead (Kahless). This could be translated to the HRE or many medieval European societies or Japanese ones (Clan Daimyos, Shogun, Emperor). Romulans are a centralised police state, Cardassians fascists and so on.​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    Wolf social structures are also more fluid than some people give them credit. The "position" of Alpha male isn't analogous to king. It's simply whichever is most feared by the others... today. tomorrow is a new day.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,003 Arc User
    edited April 2018
    Wolf social structures are also more fluid than some people give them credit. The "position" of Alpha male isn't analogous to king. It's simply whichever is most feared by the others... today. tomorrow is a new day.

    I don't want to say "entirely false" as the alpha role is somewhat associated with respect, but it has really nothing to do with "fear". There is also no competition for the alpha position. A wolf pack (more accurately referred to as "family" scientifically) is simply one adult pair, the "alpha pair" and their offspring in first and (rarer) second generation. That's all there is to it. A younger wolf will never compete for the "alpha male" position as they will not mate with their own mother.​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    angrytarg wrote: »
    Wolf social structures are also more fluid than some people give them credit. The "position" of Alpha male isn't analogous to king. It's simply whichever is most feared by the others... today. tomorrow is a new day.

    I don't want to say "entirely false" as the alpha role is somewhat associated with respect, but it has really nothing to do with "fear". There is also no competition for the alpha position. A wolf pack (more accurately referred to as "family" scientifically) is simply one adult pair, the "alpha pair" and their offspring in first and (rarer) second generation. That's all there is to it. A younger wolf will never compete for the "alpha male" position as they will not mate with their own mother.​​

    Turned out social positions in a constrained setting weren't the same as what develops in a larger space with a larger population -who knew?
    Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker

    Member Access Denied Armada!

    My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,003 Arc User
    Turned out social positions in a constrained setting weren't the same as what develops in a larger space with a larger population -who knew?

    That was my whole point with my mice example from above. In captivity we see very similar social structures with many different species. But those aren't analogous to actual free roaming structures, thus stating anything is "wolf like" while referring to the old "alpha and a pack" structure is faulty.​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • This content has been removed.
  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    edited April 2018
    Hardly. I give the DSC writers points for TRYING to base their technobabble on real science at times. For instance, the thing with the tardigrade taking on outside DNA by horizontal gene transfer was a real hypothesis in a 2014 biology paper, even though it turned out to be wrong (the scientists got DNA of surrounding organisms confused with their tardigrade specimen, same "you done goofed" category as the FTL neutrinos thing). And props for actually using the terms correctly, unlike Voyager with its "crack in the event horizon". That's a surprisingly HIGH level of scientific literacy from a franchise that usually just throws scientific-sounding nonsense words together to fill airtime.
    "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
    — Sabaton, "Great War"
    VZ9ASdg.png

    Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    edited April 2018
    Thinking of scientific accuracy (even the TNG tech manual, the gold-plated latinum standard of consistent technobabble, noted dilithium was basically a magic rock around antimatter) I had a thought on Klingon honor and pragmatism, and I'm even going to tie this to biology; the brief moment of Gowron having to gut a supporter was caused by a strategic failure in Redemption.

    To recap: Gowron's forces had successfully identified and removed Duras supply points in a sector - unknown to them the Romulans were supplying Duras's forces sufficiently they were able to keep fighting in that sector, but from Gowron's perspective, it appeared that Gowron's strategy had failed.

    Gowron was challenged for leadership and had to fight to retain it. Afterward, everyone considered the issue settled (except Worf, who wasn't exactly fond of the conflict resolution method) Gowron was eventually vindicated, when the Romulan supply convoys were interdicted, the Duras effort collapsed almost immediately.

    So this is going to tie to DS9 a bit here too - Kor, near the end of his life, was frail and suffering from dementia. To get Martok back in shape after his PTSD, Worf had to fight him to the point of massive physical exertion.

    Given the redundancies in Klingon biology, I'm wondering if Klingon mental state IS tied heavily to physical state, which would help explain why so many physical challenges have survived technological progression.
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  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,451 Arc User
    That whole thing about "alpha/omega wolves" and strict pack structure came from a study conducted on wolves in zoos, often groups assembled from vastly distant packs. It would be akin to attempting to carry out studies of human social structures based on maximum-security prison populations.

    In fact, wolves don't "pack up" so much as form extended families. They're quite social. They're also sub-sapient, so any analogies drawn between their behavior and those of a sapient species will be inexact approximations at best - at worst, they will be anywhere from misleading to flat-out wrong.

    And any attempt to analyze an alien sapient species and biology (related topics) in terms of resemblance to Terran species will again be an inexact approximation at best. The fact that Klingons are bipedal and arranged more or less like us physically doesn't mean that they're mammals as we understand it, it just means that they're bipedal (like the majority of sapient life in Trek, because actors in costumes are a lot cheaper than completely nonhominid characters). They may well have senses that no Terran mammal does, because they are not in fact Terran mammals.

    If you want realistic aliens with realistic social structures drawn from their physiology, I recommend print science fiction. The works of Larry Niven and James White, in particular, are just chockablock with good aliens.
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  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    Ian Douglas (a.k.a. William H. Keith Jr.) also does some good stuff with alien psychology in Star Carrier (although I recommend that series with reservations: he goes a little overboard with the America-F**K-YEAH! in the second trilogy). The Slan are particularly impressive with their perception of space as being a particularly large cave: they evolved underground on a tidally locked world and perceive the world through echolocation.
    "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
    — Sabaton, "Great War"
    VZ9ASdg.png

    Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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  • antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    jonsills wrote: »
    If you want realistic aliens with realistic social structures drawn from their physiology, I recommend print science fiction. The works of Larry Niven and James White, in particular, are just chockablock with good aliens.

    I like Keith Laumer, but they're comedic (my favorite is the race of paranoiacs because planetary vulcanism just happens to put them under constant unending artillery bombardment from random locations) aliens and not the best examples - though one of the Doctors regenerated because his internal anatomy was different enough from humans the medical care killed him.


    Star Trek tends to backfit its species from the story they're trying to tell, and things have gone weirder over time.

    Deanna (the half-human, half-Betazoid) - was surprised that a half-Klingon, half-human was possible, originally. Now we're post Warp 10 space-lizard.

    Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker

    Member Access Denied Armada!

    My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    patrickngo wrote: »
    Spock is explicable as medical science intervening, but Spock was likely a 'mule' (sterile and unable to breed) given he'd been married to a Vulcan and romanced several humans with no issues (or offspring).
    I don't believe that. As a counter example we have Simon Tarses. He's the GRANDson of a Romulan who is pretending to be a Vulcan. If artificial methods had been used for conception his ruse would have been discovered.
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    My character Tsin'xing
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  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,451 Arc User
    Star Trek's use of LEGO Genetics would require an entire dissertation on its own. My favorite part is where the so-called "junk" DNA of multiple sapient species, each of which can be shown to have evolved on its homeworld, still carries coherent pieces of a hologram program that can be interpreted and played back by a standard 24th-century tricorder - and requires the information from representatives of each of the three major polities of the quadrant, because the Precursors were just that goddam clever.

    Essentially, railing at the weird evolutionary history required to justify the Klinks in ST:D is kind of shouting into the wind at this point. We've already seen couples that successfully reproduce despite the fact that their blood is based off of different oxygen-transport methods (for instance, human hemoglobin, using iron, and Vulcan hemocyanin, using copper - although in Terrestrial species using hemocyanin, such as octopuses, the oxygenated form is blue, not green). Heck, for that matter the Discovery herself features a crewmember with Peter Parker's "spider sense", able to tell when he's in danger. (He's apparently spent his entire tour on that ship in utter terror.) Those silly "extra senses" in the ST:D Klinks might be some sort of evolutionary holdover, or they might be the genetic-fashion equivalent of the poulaines, or Crackow-shoes, of medieval Europe - that is, something used primarily to show one's social status, of little practical use - although unlike the tips of Crackow-shoes, the genetic modifications can't be just chopped off and dumped by the roadside when they interfere in battle (as happened in, for instance, the Battle of Sempach in 1386). Either way, the fact that they aren't seen in later iterations of the species, even after the Return of the Ridges in the 24th century, indicates that the senses aren't in any real way useful, just indulged in by the ones possessing them.
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