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Busting a myth about Klingons
karmog
Member Posts: 115 Arc User
I've noticed that some people still resort to absurdity when they describe Klingons, which can give a wrong impression for picking a faction. The following evidence clears up one more myth:
Star Trek: Klingon prologue.
"You have heard this about Klingons: We kill anything that stands in our way; we enjoy the taste of innocent blood. . . . Lies! Honor is what we treasure; honor above all things. [ . . . ] You outsiders, you see only our fierceness, our love of battle; you do not see the tIgh that shapes our every act."
tIgh (English: n. custom)
Considering the credits, this is as good as canon.
Star Trek: Klingon prologue.
"You have heard this about Klingons: We kill anything that stands in our way; we enjoy the taste of innocent blood. . . . Lies! Honor is what we treasure; honor above all things. [ . . . ] You outsiders, you see only our fierceness, our love of battle; you do not see the tIgh that shapes our every act."
tIgh (English: n. custom)
Considering the credits, this is as good as canon.
Post edited by karmog on
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Klingon(s)
Klingons may believe in great ideals, but many of their actions contradict them.
1. that was before the klingon honor concept to the series was established the way it was in tng and beyond.
2. that was the house of duras, and they dont respresent the klingon empire, just their own house.
3. & 4. wars are always chaotic and precarious to contain. these things happen.
5. as worf stated, there is nothing more honorable then a swift success and destroying the support structure of your enemy is usually the best way to take down a foe.
6. that was directed specifically against worf, not starfleet.
7. when drunk as anyone knows all too well, your inhbitions are lowered and the real person is seen, its clear that klingon saw that quark was being disrespectful to kozaks position however kozak is already a notorious klingon of bad. and that was his own actions while drunk.
8. d'ghor was manipulating finiances to win a house war, again that was him alone and he paid for it.
9. that was gowron specifically targeting martok as a political rival.
all of what you stated down has absolutely no direct relevance to the empire as a whole.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Well said, the Federation is not judged on the actions of the minority like say when Captain Sisko poisoned the atmosphere of those planets. It was his doing not the entire Federations.
But Duras is an old and powerful House. Saying that they're just one bad apple is a bit disingenuous when they were highly influential and could only get that way in feudal or pseudo-feudal society like the Empire is by having support from lesser houses. Hell K'mepec was more than willing to throw Worf and his family's honour under the bus (Mogh itself was an old and powerful House too) just to appease Duras.
Picard even scoffs at 'klingon honour' in that episode. 'What does it say about an Empire that claims to value honour?' (going from memory, can't remember the exact wording but that was the gist)
You're very dismissive of what some consider to be war crimes. Yes wars are chaotic and so on, but if your troops don't - in general - maintain discipline, then you don't tend to become cream of the crop. Whatever else we might think of the klingons and their warriors, they are in-universe no laughing matter or laughing stock. (unlike say the ferengi, who even Quark goes 'lol we're not warriors.')
Point I'm making is that even in war, there are standards that you follow. If those standards aren't followed, your army has a discipline problem. If those standards are followed, then the standards must be as we see them. For example...
...That's a standard that the klingons adopt.
Now the thing about 'honour' is that it is usually defined as 'your performance in something is above and beyond the mean'. So essentially it's a code of behaviour that is reflective of its society's and culture's values. In Starfleet, they won't attack civilians and will even give their life to save civilians, whereas klingons don't value life so highly. They will use civilians and even kill them if it's a means to an end.
Which again, contradicts at least part of what the OP is talking about if it's to be treated as a generalisation. More realistically, some klingons are bad, some are good, Worf in particular is very much the 'lawful good' type of klingon, while Duras for example is the Chaotic Evil type. Martok is probably more lawful neutral or neutral good, whereas Gowron would be chaotic neutral since he goes a bit nutty at the end.
It was still sneaky and underhanded while paying lip service to the idea of honour that klingons supposedly value.
Well yeah, but so what? Gowron was the ******n Chancellor of the Empire at a time of war. That's not the right time to play politics with his warrior's lives.
Gowron was also not above rewriting the history page like how just a few months after his success against the House of Duras in a civil war he decides to omit any mention of the Federation helping him - that help btw was absolutely crucial and he would have failed had Picard not blockaded klingon space from Sela's shipments.
I think you're kind of ignoring how a lot of what Solemkof's examples actually DO reflect on the Empire as a whole. That is to say, they represent the Empire as it actually is, not how the propaganda wishes it to be. Ezri even pointed out how the Empire and its values are basically dissonant with the actions it undertakes.
Actually, it is reflective of the Federation to be judged by the Captains of Starfleet. Captains are supposed to be the face of the Federation in first contact situations, in other forms of diplomacy like how we see Picard and Kirk act on numerous occasions.
Furthermore, if his actions were war crimes, then it absolutely DOES reflect poorly on the Federation that he received no reprimand for his actions. I have a huge problem with that episode, because they kind of gloss over the whole idea that Sisko did what he did. You could argue that he was justified - the Maquis fired first and by doing so said to all that they were willing to use such means against the cardassians. You could argue that what he did ultimately stabilised the situation in an 'all's well that end's well' fashion. You could argue that he prevented the cardassians from retaliating and escalating the situation, which could have triggered an (early) war.
The problem is none of that was argued in the episode or any subsequent episode. It should have been the A or B plot of the episode immediately following 'For the Uniform'. But, and it's a big But, the immediate episode after it was 'In Purgatory's Shadow', so perhaps official sanction would have happened but the crisis with the Dominion tabled it and eventually he was exonerated off-screen.
Well spoken (typed). I am very fond of Klingons, but it is obvious that the average Klingon behaviour does not reflect the code of honour Worf values highly, maybe because he's not raised within the actual Empire but on Earth. You have "good" Klingons and "bad" ones, but I think the amount of sneaky backstabbing and manipulation in the house wars alone let the Romulans actions' seem tame sometimes.
Klingons are not just samurai vikings. There are Lawyers, Farmers, Engineers as well as Spies and Assasins. And in the end it is a feudal society, greatly hindered by petty feuds between bored noble's houses who'd do almost anything to get rid of their rivals and get the largest piece of the pie, so to speak. Some houses and individuals more than others. Just think for a moment that the "best" Klingons we know, Worf and Martok, are both commoners who are originally far away from all the noble's tricks and games.
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ive put red numbers there so it saves on needing to cut and paste quote points and its easier to get a list going.
1. kor changed, back in the day he was thinking about all that fighting and such but he knew his time had come and gone and was looking for a way in contemporary klingon honor codes to go out as a hero instead of some other pathetic way like dying in bed. saying kor never changed is like stating that romulans are still vulcans.
2. they are still a house with their own voice, it represents just the house and nothing more. km'pec was trying to keep a war from happening, but considering how much klingons want a war, it was going to happen regardless. as for what picard wrote to complete your response, "You admit the truth, and yet you expect him to accept punishment? What does this say of an empire who holds honor so dear?". houses rise and fall, some have more power then others at various points. but its still just one house and one voice.
3. im not dismissive, war happens, it always does and frequently the first casualties of war are the truth and innocence. you can explain anything you like but in a chaotic war, you get sides that are so eager to fight they end up creating more problems then it solves, i.e. war crimes and others are willing to sit back and pull the strings from a far, whatever the case the simple fact of the matter is, klingons live for war, and sometimes these things happen. a similar example was the klingons attacking a field hospital full of people from ds9, however it took some attention from the higher ups to put a stop to the conflict. you cant expect klingons to be as held back as humans its not a part of who they are and the same with your rationalization.
4. klingon honor is based on how well you do as a warrior in the empire, slaying a more dangerous enemy face to face will gain you a lot of honor, slaying an unarmed ferengi on his feet and goading a klingon into an execution is not honorable. same with manipulating finances or committing suicide unless there are no other alternatives, cowardice and many other traits how you can loose honor. to gain honor you must fight and stand your ground, face down an enemy. however as the story of the fool and the wind, the man went out of the gates of the city and stated to kahless, i will make the wind respect me. he was killed as kahless then stated, the wind doesnt respect a fool.
the very idea your stating about each klingon is their own means its completely blown the whole entire argument to pieces already. but i will continue on because it would be rude not to. :P
5. theres nothing to be found in that point, he was found out and punished for it with dishonor and the council turning their backs on him.
6. the point is and as you stated yourself, that each person is different and can not be used as a whole over the entire empire which you were pointing at. but just for the sake of the argument, gowron didnt want martok taking away all the attention and honor and building his reputation up beyond a dahar masters type of honor, that would be bad for gowron, gowron got jealous and expected martok to take the council for himself with his sheer popularity and honor he has taken as well as the friendly relations with the federation, not once did gowron think about chatting with martok about his plans and finding a way of combining that power to be used to even more devastating effect on the enemies of the empire, he took it on himself for his own needs to discard martok. it was for leadership of the empire as gowron saw it but it wasnt an issue that was important to the empire and it shouldnt of been.
7. thats a minority you have seen which has colored your own point of view. the empire as a whole is a culture that respects, fighting, honor, being merry, with large tight knit communities and a strong sense of duty to the empire. thats how i see it as a whole, not what gowron did or what martok did or anyone else, the whole empire follows for the majority what you would expect. and if you use the minority to claim this or that. alright then, as an example: when i see erwin rommel fighting as a TRIBBLE, who has no war crimes to his name and has built up an impressive list of people who think very highly of the man and his battle tactics, i see the rest of the TRIBBLE are like that, all very honorable types and very good at what they do and hitler speaks the truth? really?!?! i mean you should think it out more.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
There's a novelization of this, where the person picking the options and playing along with Gorwon is Barcley.
But, if it does based on their influence, then the dishonour of influential warriors - like D'Ghor (who wielded economics instead of a Bat'leth) and Kozak (who gambled away his fortune and fell into his own knife in a drunken barfight) - and great Houses - such as Duras (who conspired with the Romulans across three generations) - and the Empires leaders - such as K'mpec (who hid evidence of Duras' treason) and Gowron (who sacrificed Klingon troops to discredit a general) - reflects on the Empire.
Klingons aren't all bad, and we can argue back and forth how representative on-screen Klingons are of the entire Empire. But I think, the Empire as a whole is only about as good as its leaders, and we have definitely seen a few bad ones among them.
p.s.: Sisko poisoning Maquis colonies atmospheres with trilithium resin should have gotten him a dishonourable discharge at least.
Actually if memory serves...Worf was said to be 'of the blood', that is to say, a descendant of Kahless, thus a noble. Kor was the same way, though by that point in his life, his house was disbanded.
I would be nice if all Trek writers had a consistent idea about what Klingons should be. I'd liken it to how Vulcans are venerated throught all trek up until Enterprise (and to some to degree all the oh-Tuvok put downs in Voyager). So we see TOS Klingons, TNG forward Klingons and probably soon, new reboot Klingons.
This discussion is probably going to be as productive as a debate about religion... please continue.
I can't verify that as I don't remember, but it may be. But either way, he was raised on Earth and as such is still far away from Klingon in-house quarrels
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I believe it was from "The Sword of Kahless" that it was said. I checked Memory alpha of the episode, though they don't have any quotes on that particular thing. But I feel confident that it was said.
A lot of races Vulcans and Klingons included took a step back with Ent though. Vulcans basically became total arses while acting like petulant teenagers rather than cold and logical . Klingons basically went back a step towards the early TNG angry and irrational Klingons.
Thank you! Some one else who understands. Everyone is always "Ooooh but the Maquis are criminals and Sisko had to do it" which is total bs. Based on everything that has ever been said about the almighty Fed Sisko is not a hero but a war criminal.
No Marquis were harmed, so no.
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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Ah ok. Much appreciated.
For what, precisely? He broke a whole ****load of laws, but I don't think he specifically broke any of the laws of war.
This. Klingons have IDEALS which are their code of honor. They live and die by that and are shown as such in the various shows. Since the various shows were Humancentric by and large, Klingons were shown as villains so of course the worst representations are shown. Martok was developed while the Klingons were supposed to be heroic and allied to the Feds so of course he more closely resembled a "Good" Klingon and eventually obtained the highest honors and laurels of that society because he actually lived properly by the Code.
If you compare them to Vikings and Samurai, both cultures were known as serious badasses, and both had good and bad representations.
People are people, be it Japanese, Scandinavian, or Klingon.
He poisoned the atmosphere of a world making it uninhabitable for humans. That is usually classed as a war crime.
As for Klingons, other people have said it already. They have a code of honour which is not quite like human honour which makes it difficult to fully appreciate what they call honourable or not. But it is an ideal. A goal to strive for. Some Klingons succeed and others fall short. Yet still others are clouded by their own misinterpretation of what honour means.
In STO itself the new fed tutorial depicts Kadak as one whose interpretation of honour has far gone astray. There's no glory or honour to be found in killing trainee warriors who are not yet ready for battle. Klingons are supposed to fight strong enemies worthy of battle. He himself calls them "children."
On the other hand we come across a Klingon Captain leading a small fleet to destroy an Undine vessel. He has honour enough to allow you to fight alongside them in battle against the Undine ship, then to allow you to depart unharmed for doing so. That's honourable.
And even then there are the rarely-mentioned and never-seen Klingon engineers, scientists, teachers and other professions that find honour in their jobs. Building ships, researching new technologies. Teaching the next generations.
I guess it depends upon the individual Klingon that crosses your path.