The basic problem with Discovery's Klingon redesign is that no matter how you slice it, they completely erased anything klingon about that established race and inserted something that was entirely different. Unlike the Andorian visuals (depicted in this thead), which appear to have embraced much of what that race had previously established and then enhanced that dynamic somewhat; with the Klingons (a beloved franchise staple) they chose to replace what was, with what is. That this was done in a purported prequel, is where the confoundment began among the fanbase.
I'm trying to adapt, but the effort is challenging!
I suspect a huge portion of that, is that the show's developers didn't think it mattered, or didn't like the elements that people who DID like old-school TNG Klingons liked.
TNG Klingons aren't "old-school". These Klingons are "old-school"!
And TMP made them unrecognisable! Sticking ridges every which way and changing their iconic costumes for tacky pleather. They ought to fire that director guy, Rod sombody or other.
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
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
That... actually makes a LOT of sense.
However I do want to point out something.
Before the Sarco got blown to bits by Discovery, it was a relative stalemate with the Klingons making minor inroads against the Federation. Kol was a unifying voice among the Klingons. He had power and a ship to back it up. After Discovery destroyed the Sarco, that changed. Starfleet was no longer facing one unified force with one strategy, it had devolved into a mad dash by each participating House to gobble up as much territory as possible. First to Earth gets bragging rights sort of thing.
Starfleet was no longer facing a unified enemy. It was facing multiple, smaller enemies with different tactics.
Remember that Starbase 1 was marked not with the symbol of the Klingon Empire, but the specific crest of ONE Klingon House. The sudden change in tactics lead to a near total collapse in Starfleet's strategy. They could fight one enemy and hold their own for the most part, but against many with different strategies... they just couldn't keep up.
yeah, it's like the difference between fighting against seven of the same faction VS. seven different factions/generals in C&C Zero Hour, all of which play in different ways - you can counter one, maybe two, but not all seven
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
What Mara said was that there were 'poor' planets in the Klingon system, not 'four'.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
What Mara said was that there were 'poor' planets in the Klingon system, not 'four'.
According to the transcript at IMDb.com, Mara's speech was:
We have always fought. We must. We are hunters, Captain, tracking and taking what we need. There are poor planets in the Klingon systems. We must push outward if we are to survive.
So, multiple systems, but in a region where the worlds they can use are poor in available resources (no idea which resources, although since Klingons are much more intelligent than Kazon, I think we can rule out water as being scarce).
I'm not that great, but that's not the point; they didn't coordinate their movements and I was able to use that. same thing here; the Klingons may have racked up impressive cosmetic victories, but in that disordered state, a merely competent commander is all Starfleet would need to turn those wins into disadvantages-if it played out that way behind the scenes of discovery, then it makes a hell of a lot more sense-if the Klingons are 'winning' battles with 3-1 casualties and unable to make full use of gains, they're like a rotted waterballoon, just takes a bump to collapse it. if that's so, then L'Rell's 'extortion' is a way for failures to salvage their careers and return home 'victorious' rather than in a jar or box when (not if) Starfleet counterattacks.
a great example would be world war one, and it happened in 1918-"Operation: Michael". brought the germans to within 50 miles of Paris, and probably cost them the war.
If Starfleet and the Council were doing anything other than facing complete annihilation they would not have abandoned everything the Federation stood for by hiring the Mirror Empress to destroy the Klingon Homeworld. Cornwell's "Wo ist Steiner!" moment when she realizes Starbase 1 fell without her even realizing it was priceless....it really underlines the sheer, criminal incompetence of the Starfleet High Command. Considering Starbase 1 was, at 100 AU from Earth, at the edge of our solar system, I doubt the war was going very well for Starfleet. Personally, I doubt the Mirror Empress's mission would have helped by that point, even if it had succeeded. The Klingorcs busy exterminating Federation citizens largely unopposed would have merely all headed for Earth to take the Federation into the abyss with them. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Romulan Neutral Zone, the Praetor's popcorn is just about ready.
I love it when @patrickngo pulls out his creativity for constructive ideas.
Some interesting thoughts.
I suspect that that the loss of the Sarcophagus ship did indeed damage the Klingon unity. In the short-term, it lead to a more aggressive and unpredicatable Klingon force - but in the long run, it might have allowed Starfleet to turn the tide. If you realize that certain Klingon Houses are not on good terms, it's easier to isolate them. A central command means that House A will send ships to House B if House B is under attack, but if the two consider each other rivals, they won't do that.
But the problem is always the losses you suffer until you get there. I think that is always a factor Starfleet and the Federation are considering in wars (IMO, it's also a factor why they would sue for peace against the Cardassians, for example. Sure, maybe in the long run the Federation would win, but it would cost a lot of lives, military personnel and civilians.)
And I think it is not that surprising that the 23rd century Starfleet might accept more aggresive and radical solutions then you'd expect from Picard's era. I think they are still growing their moral and ethical spine. There are probably more Admiral Leyton's and Cartwrights in this era, and a Nechayev would probably be considered a moderate...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Culturally
-Klingon mummification was mentioned in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home".
-Klingon reverence for the dead was mentioned in the DS9 episode "The Ship".
-Ritualistic Klingon cannibalism was mentioned in DS9 episodes "Shadows and Symbols", and "the Sword of Kahless".
-T'Kuvma's religious beliefs of "The Black Fleet" was mentioned in the DS9 episode "Soldiers of the Empire".
-The Klingon armor was taken from unused TMP concepts, and fits with the Klingons being "space samurai".
-Klingons taking prisoners has been an established concept since the introduction of Rura Penthe in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", and we know from the Enterprise episode "judgement" that its been around for over 100 years before Discovery began.
Visually, they look basically the same, except bald. Slap some hair on them and they look like updated TNG/DS9/VOY Klingons
Discovery replaced literally nothing, and, if anything, chose to focus on obscure aspects of established lore, rather then just skimming the superficial surface like most trek has done.
The creators of TRIBBLE did not put this much effort into their Klingons. Klingons in TRIBBLE are murderers who look for an excuse to murder. That's it. That is all there is to these Klingons. TRIBBLE Klingons have two traits: lying and murdering. The only Klingon that did not lie was Voq, and he was physically and mentally mutilated until he was just as deceitful as the rest. Their ships, equipment, even their physical appearance is just an exercise in fantasy. They have spikey, ugly ships because they are a spikey, ugly people. Nothing more than that.
I love it when @patrickngo pulls out his creativity for constructive ideas.
Some interesting thoughts.
I suspect that that the loss of the Sarcophagus ship did indeed damage the Klingon unity. In the short-term, it lead to a more aggressive and unpredicatable Klingon force - but in the long run, it might have allowed Starfleet to turn the tide. If you realize that certain Klingon Houses are not on good terms, it's easier to isolate them. A central command means that House A will send ships to House B if House B is under attack, but if the two consider each other rivals, they won't do that.
But the problem is always the losses you suffer until you get there. I think that is always a factor Starfleet and the Federation are considering in wars (IMO, it's also a factor why they would sue for peace against the Cardassians, for example. Sure, maybe in the long run the Federation would win, but it would cost a lot of lives, military personnel and civilians.)
And I think it is not that surprising that the 23rd century Starfleet might accept more aggresive and radical solutions then you'd expect from Picard's era. I think they are still growing their moral and ethical spine. There are probably more Admiral Leyton's and Cartwrights in this era, and a Nechayev would probably be considered a moderate...
23rd Century Starfleet, thanks to it's Cold War mentality, wouldn't have gotten into the mess Cornwell and her fellow cretins got them into in the first place. Cornwell and Surak's genocide plot was a frank admission of defeat, they were finally ceasing to even pay lip service to the principles they were unwilling to fight for in the first place in a desperate bid for survival. The initial Binary Suns confrontation would have had a more organized, robust, and professional response, and once the Klingorcs launched a totally unprovoked war against the Federation, and began butchering civilians wholesale, they would have responded ferociously. The Klingon inter-house rivalies? That would have been observed, noted, explored, and ruthlessly exploited while Starfleet looked for a means to regain the initiative. One thing they wouldn't have done is pin all their hopes on one vessel on Independant Ops finding a McGuffin. I would also expect at least attempts to interdict the Klingon's supply lines. But then, nothing I've seen of TRIBBLE Season 1 indicates Starfleet Command had any idea what it was doing. Eventually, Starfleet's better organization and the Federation's latent economic power would have turned the situation around and the invaders would have been pushed out. What happened after that would depend how radicalized Starfleet, the Council, and the remaining Federation citizenry had become by the deaths of millions (or perhaps a billion or more) of innocent people.
And as far as losses....humans will take extreme losses when the situation demands it. I doubt the Klingons had any idea of the true nature of the people they were dealing with.....especially since the writers of the various Star Trek shows are unable to admit it to themselves.
...nothing I've seen of TRIBBLE Season 1 indicates Starfleet Command had any idea what it was doing.
Nothing I saw in TOS indicated Starfleet Command had any idea what it was doing - there was a reason that admirals and starbase commanders were obstacles more often than they were helpful during Kirk's adventures. And in DS9, Admiral Nechayev reverted to type when she insisted that if Sisko just approached the Maquis correctly, they'd fall into line as Federation citizens.
Basically, REMFs are just not able to easily relate to the frontier, no matter where that frontier is.
Actually, in the TNG episode that featured an alternate timeline created by the disappearance of the ENT-C during its defense of Narendra III, the Federation and Klingon Empire were at war, and it was mentioned that billions of Federation citizens were dead, and that, while not public knowledge, the Federation government predicted a full surrender to the Klingons in another 6 months time.
The Federation has never, at any point in Trek history, been able to withstand the full might of the Klingon Empire's war machine. They could never beat the Klingons militarily, which is why they have always tried to diplomacy their way around them. There is literally no chance of the Federation beating the Klingons in an actual war unless some higher power, like the Organians, comes in to end it for the Federation.
The Federation's inability to prevail against the Empire, of course, was the position of TNG's writers, and now TRIBBLE's. It's not even the main reason why the Feds pursue diplomacy, however. IMO, they are operating on a faulty premise....that Mankind's warlike and tribal nature can be eliminated with Progressive sunshine and rainbows. I don't buy that for a moment....the rhetoric from people who claim to believe that which slips through the cracks in this Forum alone makes that clear. The Founders of the Federation were all warlike races that were trying to change their ways...the Vulcans having to go to extremes to accomplish this...but the old ways still lurk under the surface, ready to come out if the survival of the Tribe ever necessitates it. The threat of being outright conquered by the Empire would be one of those occasions.
My question is....if the Federation stands no chance against the Empire, then why is there still a Federation? I would think that the Empire would have strangled the Federation in it's crib back in Archer's day, and humans would be either slaves or extinct. There has to be some reason that a race that values martial prowess and conflict above all else hasn't sacked their wealthy and supposedly unwarlike neighbor....most likely that reason is because they can't, or at least not without accepting ruinous losses. STO's lore heavily implies that Klingon decision makers see the Federation as a useful foil that they actually need for the Empire's long term viability....that could be a potential reason as well. There is also the fact that the Klingons were ruining their economy and environment during the TOS period trying to keep up with the Federation militarily....and like the Soviets they were stand-ins for had to throw in the towel and admit defeat in the long Cold War with the Federation just to survive.
Personally, I see "Yesterday's Enterprise" and TRIBBLE's entire first season as little more than virtue signalling that isn't supported by the situation we see in the various TV series and movies prior to TRIBBLE. The idea is that the Federation would rather lose to the Klingons than compromise "MUH Principles". You can read any quality work on the Pacific War, or look into why so many movies and cartoons from the 40s have fallen into the memory hole, to learn how untrue that is. The truth of Federation-Empire relations is closer to the Feds hoping the Klingons will eventually see the light, hang up their guns, and join them in what is in effect a support group of hardened killers trying to reform, the Federation, while the Klingons see the Federation like a lion sees a hippopotamus...good eating, but not tasty enough to be worth the risk of getting stomped into paste trying to take down.
My question is....if the Federation stands no chance against the Empire, then why is there still a Federation?.
2. While T'kuvma's plan ultimately succeeded thanks to the bomb plot, his plan was never to actually go an invade the Federation, that was all Kol's idea. If you listen to all his rhetoric its all "we will draw a line in the sand and the Federation will come no closer" not "we will go to all the Federation's worlds and burn them!". T'kuvma's plan was not to invade the Federation, only push them back, because, ultimately, invading the Federation and destroying them would remove the common enemy that united the Klingons together, and thus, result in the Klingons going back to fighting each other and destroying the Empire. Keeping the Federation around as "the enemy" was key to the plot.
This is wrong. He told the High Council that the Federation was icky because they were degenerates who "co-mingled". They were disgusting and their ideas were corrosive. He was perfectly happy to murder everyone in the Federation as long as he became "supreme leader" of the Klingons. That is all he cared about.
I like how that you say that I'm wrong, but don't actually provide any evidence for it.
Also, T'kuvma literally never cared about becoming the leader of the Klingons, all he cared about was trying to save them from self destruction.
You claimed "his plan was never to actually go an invade the Federation, that was all Kol's idea", yet T'Kumva pointed out how the Federation was full of degenerates who needed to die for being degenerate.
but here's where you're both wrong; you're arguing points that are not mutually exclusive, taking extremes here when the truth is likely in the middle ground between your positions.
T'Kuvma not wishing to rule? no evidence of that, him wanting the Empire to unite against a common external foe? absolutely, it's right in his first speech, in the first scene we see any Klingons.
but people who lack ambition do not develop a following (or retain followers), if he didn't want it for himself, you can bet he had someone in mind to take what he intended to forge forward.
T'Kuvma was a LIAR.
He deceived the High Council. He deceived the Federation. He even kept things from his followers. How can we believe anything he says?
His ACTIONS were: give murderers a reason to murder; tell the High Council what they need to hear in order to gain personal power.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
T'Kuvma's ultimate goal was to unify the Empire through Kahless' teachings, bringing ideals of honor back to the Empire. His views of the Federation... I don't think he believed they were degenerates. Quite the opposite in fact. To me, it seemed he both feared and respected the Federation. Respected because he recognized that so many different species were actually working together towards a common goal, which was peace and exploration. Feared because he was afraid that Klingons would be "absorbed" into the Federation and they would lose their identity.
Hence the rally cry of "Remain Klingon".
He may have intended for the Federation to be destroyed, but through that war he may have sought to cement the intended unity of the Empire. Also I doubt T'Kuvma would have approved the terrorist style attacks against Federation starbases because it was not an honorable act. It is more honorable to face your enemy in combat. Not blow them up with a kamikaze attack when they're at their most vulnerable. And I think T'Kuvma would have prefered to occupy Corvan II, so that the mine's dilithium could be used to support the Empire. Not blown to hell.
Kol was the one who allowed all these acts because he came across as the kind of leader who would use ANY tactic to win. He didn't care about honor really. He just wanted to unify the Empire under HIS house' banner.
And as they say... the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
Um... didn't T'Kuvma die in the pilot though when she and her Captain beamed over in full tactical gear? Pretty sure Burnham got him, hence Kol taking over.
Also I doubt T'Kuvma would have approved the terrorist style attacks against Federation starbases because it was not an honorable act. It is more honorable to face your enemy in combat. Not blow them up with a kamikaze attack when they're at their most vulnerable. And I think T'Kuvma would have prefered to occupy Corvan II, so that the mine's dilithium could be used to support the Empire. Not blown to hell.
Kol was the one who allowed all these acts because he came across as the kind of leader who would use ANY tactic to win. He didn't care about honor really. He just wanted to unify the Empire under HIS house' banner.
You seem to forget, Klingon honor has always been about victory in battle, regardless of the tactics used. This is why the Klingons, as a species, are fine with using cloaking devices to annihilate their enemy before they even know whats happening, and why we see even honorable Klingon warriors like Martok triggering solar flares to destroy enemy shipyards. And lets not forget, T'kuvma called for a cease fire to trick the Federation admiral into a sense of safety so he could have one of his cloaked ships ram into the admirals ships, killing him.
There are limits. See. the many and various dishonors of the Duras family in the pursuit of personal victory and the discommendation of D'Ghor for using money to try to overthrow a great house (if victory is all that matters...) There is honor in defeat as well, so how exactly Klingon morality would take any given situation I think depends on viable choices and how one exactly defines the battle (ie. does a decision contradict or stand with a broader ideal of how a Klingon warrior should act, for which there is going to be a lot of grey area which it'll be up to the individual participants to sort through [often by their own needs].)
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A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Comments
And TMP made them unrecognisable! Sticking ridges every which way and changing their iconic costumes for tacky pleather. They ought to fire that director guy, Rod sombody or other.
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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However I do want to point out something.
Before the Sarco got blown to bits by Discovery, it was a relative stalemate with the Klingons making minor inroads against the Federation. Kol was a unifying voice among the Klingons. He had power and a ship to back it up. After Discovery destroyed the Sarco, that changed. Starfleet was no longer facing one unified force with one strategy, it had devolved into a mad dash by each participating House to gobble up as much territory as possible. First to Earth gets bragging rights sort of thing.
Starfleet was no longer facing a unified enemy. It was facing multiple, smaller enemies with different tactics.
Remember that Starbase 1 was marked not with the symbol of the Klingon Empire, but the specific crest of ONE Klingon House. The sudden change in tactics lead to a near total collapse in Starfleet's strategy. They could fight one enemy and hold their own for the most part, but against many with different strategies... they just couldn't keep up.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
We have always fought. We must. We are hunters, Captain, tracking and taking what we need. There are poor planets in the Klingon systems. We must push outward if we are to survive.
So, multiple systems, but in a region where the worlds they can use are poor in available resources (no idea which resources, although since Klingons are much more intelligent than Kazon, I think we can rule out water as being scarce).
If Starfleet and the Council were doing anything other than facing complete annihilation they would not have abandoned everything the Federation stood for by hiring the Mirror Empress to destroy the Klingon Homeworld. Cornwell's "Wo ist Steiner!" moment when she realizes Starbase 1 fell without her even realizing it was priceless....it really underlines the sheer, criminal incompetence of the Starfleet High Command. Considering Starbase 1 was, at 100 AU from Earth, at the edge of our solar system, I doubt the war was going very well for Starfleet. Personally, I doubt the Mirror Empress's mission would have helped by that point, even if it had succeeded. The Klingorcs busy exterminating Federation citizens largely unopposed would have merely all headed for Earth to take the Federation into the abyss with them. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Romulan Neutral Zone, the Praetor's popcorn is just about ready.
please dun eat my post
Some interesting thoughts.
I suspect that that the loss of the Sarcophagus ship did indeed damage the Klingon unity. In the short-term, it lead to a more aggressive and unpredicatable Klingon force - but in the long run, it might have allowed Starfleet to turn the tide. If you realize that certain Klingon Houses are not on good terms, it's easier to isolate them. A central command means that House A will send ships to House B if House B is under attack, but if the two consider each other rivals, they won't do that.
But the problem is always the losses you suffer until you get there. I think that is always a factor Starfleet and the Federation are considering in wars (IMO, it's also a factor why they would sue for peace against the Cardassians, for example. Sure, maybe in the long run the Federation would win, but it would cost a lot of lives, military personnel and civilians.)
And I think it is not that surprising that the 23rd century Starfleet might accept more aggresive and radical solutions then you'd expect from Picard's era. I think they are still growing their moral and ethical spine. There are probably more Admiral Leyton's and Cartwrights in this era, and a Nechayev would probably be considered a moderate...
23rd Century Starfleet, thanks to it's Cold War mentality, wouldn't have gotten into the mess Cornwell and her fellow cretins got them into in the first place. Cornwell and Surak's genocide plot was a frank admission of defeat, they were finally ceasing to even pay lip service to the principles they were unwilling to fight for in the first place in a desperate bid for survival. The initial Binary Suns confrontation would have had a more organized, robust, and professional response, and once the Klingorcs launched a totally unprovoked war against the Federation, and began butchering civilians wholesale, they would have responded ferociously. The Klingon inter-house rivalies? That would have been observed, noted, explored, and ruthlessly exploited while Starfleet looked for a means to regain the initiative. One thing they wouldn't have done is pin all their hopes on one vessel on Independant Ops finding a McGuffin. I would also expect at least attempts to interdict the Klingon's supply lines. But then, nothing I've seen of TRIBBLE Season 1 indicates Starfleet Command had any idea what it was doing. Eventually, Starfleet's better organization and the Federation's latent economic power would have turned the situation around and the invaders would have been pushed out. What happened after that would depend how radicalized Starfleet, the Council, and the remaining Federation citizenry had become by the deaths of millions (or perhaps a billion or more) of innocent people.
And as far as losses....humans will take extreme losses when the situation demands it. I doubt the Klingons had any idea of the true nature of the people they were dealing with.....especially since the writers of the various Star Trek shows are unable to admit it to themselves.
Basically, REMFs are just not able to easily relate to the frontier, no matter where that frontier is.
The Federation's inability to prevail against the Empire, of course, was the position of TNG's writers, and now TRIBBLE's. It's not even the main reason why the Feds pursue diplomacy, however. IMO, they are operating on a faulty premise....that Mankind's warlike and tribal nature can be eliminated with Progressive sunshine and rainbows. I don't buy that for a moment....the rhetoric from people who claim to believe that which slips through the cracks in this Forum alone makes that clear. The Founders of the Federation were all warlike races that were trying to change their ways...the Vulcans having to go to extremes to accomplish this...but the old ways still lurk under the surface, ready to come out if the survival of the Tribe ever necessitates it. The threat of being outright conquered by the Empire would be one of those occasions.
My question is....if the Federation stands no chance against the Empire, then why is there still a Federation? I would think that the Empire would have strangled the Federation in it's crib back in Archer's day, and humans would be either slaves or extinct. There has to be some reason that a race that values martial prowess and conflict above all else hasn't sacked their wealthy and supposedly unwarlike neighbor....most likely that reason is because they can't, or at least not without accepting ruinous losses. STO's lore heavily implies that Klingon decision makers see the Federation as a useful foil that they actually need for the Empire's long term viability....that could be a potential reason as well. There is also the fact that the Klingons were ruining their economy and environment during the TOS period trying to keep up with the Federation militarily....and like the Soviets they were stand-ins for had to throw in the towel and admit defeat in the long Cold War with the Federation just to survive.
Personally, I see "Yesterday's Enterprise" and TRIBBLE's entire first season as little more than virtue signalling that isn't supported by the situation we see in the various TV series and movies prior to TRIBBLE. The idea is that the Federation would rather lose to the Klingons than compromise "MUH Principles". You can read any quality work on the Pacific War, or look into why so many movies and cartoons from the 40s have fallen into the memory hole, to learn how untrue that is. The truth of Federation-Empire relations is closer to the Feds hoping the Klingons will eventually see the light, hang up their guns, and join them in what is in effect a support group of hardened killers trying to reform, the Federation, while the Klingons see the Federation like a lion sees a hippopotamus...good eating, but not tasty enough to be worth the risk of getting stomped into paste trying to take down.
T'Kuvma was a LIAR.
He deceived the High Council. He deceived the Federation. He even kept things from his followers. How can we believe anything he says?
His ACTIONS were: give murderers a reason to murder; tell the High Council what they need to hear in order to gain personal power.
Hence the rally cry of "Remain Klingon".
He may have intended for the Federation to be destroyed, but through that war he may have sought to cement the intended unity of the Empire. Also I doubt T'Kuvma would have approved the terrorist style attacks against Federation starbases because it was not an honorable act. It is more honorable to face your enemy in combat. Not blow them up with a kamikaze attack when they're at their most vulnerable. And I think T'Kuvma would have prefered to occupy Corvan II, so that the mine's dilithium could be used to support the Empire. Not blown to hell.
Kol was the one who allowed all these acts because he came across as the kind of leader who would use ANY tactic to win. He didn't care about honor really. He just wanted to unify the Empire under HIS house' banner.
And as they say... the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
There are limits. See. the many and various dishonors of the Duras family in the pursuit of personal victory and the discommendation of D'Ghor for using money to try to overthrow a great house (if victory is all that matters...) There is honor in defeat as well, so how exactly Klingon morality would take any given situation I think depends on viable choices and how one exactly defines the battle (ie. does a decision contradict or stand with a broader ideal of how a Klingon warrior should act, for which there is going to be a lot of grey area which it'll be up to the individual participants to sort through [often by their own needs].)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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