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Agents of Yesterday for Romulans and Klingons

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  • spiritbornspiritborn Member Posts: 4,248 Arc User
    > @foxrockssocks said:
    > (Quote)
    >
    > I get that, and I have no idea what is going on under the hood with STO. However, they have already done a copy/paste job with a couple Fed patrols to turn into a mission for the KDF.

    It depends on how those pats were coded, TOS faction is just a variant of the regular FED (same with the DSC faction I assume) so for most thing the system treats it as FED and it's only few things where it matters. It was a pain to get the faction mechanics to behave in the Foundry and there was far less thing we could break and those thing were limited to our missions
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    We can banter all we want, but bottom line is they don't care about Klingons or Romulans and that's why you're not getting it.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc Member Posts: 5,459 Arc User
    edited September 2020
    You know, they could just let KDF and ROMs play through AOY as KDF and ROMs that underwent genetic/surgical changes to appear as human/vulcan/andorian/tellarite. Call it temporal intelligence gathering or something.

    They can add in some sort of temporal contact to anchor that end of the story better. Maybe have the contact be one of the people sent forward in time in AOY and they live it through that person's eyes, as part of a Khitomer alliance effort.

    While obviously it isn't the best solution, it would likely be the easier/cheaper solution.

    That's a good idea, though I wonder how easy it would be if they have a bunch of bard-coded bits that require your character to be the "TOS Federation" faction.

    I imagine those problems aren't more than a copy>paste and/or find>replace job, but who knows.

    You would be surprised at how kludgy and irregular things like that get in a large, long maintained program. That is one of the things that makes refactoring such a major effort for instance, you never know what odd bits of code may depend on a quirk of the code you are changing.

    I get that, and I have no idea what is going on under the hood with STO. However, they have already done a copy/paste job with a couple Fed patrols to turn into a mission for the KDF.

    In the case of AoY it is possible that the character is actually "faction 0" (like Romulans and Dominion start out before choosing a side) instead of "faction 1" (the Federation faction). If that is the case they might be able to just hook a TOS Klingon/Romulan character generator into it as a "spy" and play Federation arc out until the end where Daniels (or the Klingon or Romulan equivalent) extracts them and sends them to Qo'nos or the Flotilla as appropriate to continue. It is a bit of a longshot, but it might work though the character might have to be technically 'alien' instead of the official version of the race or some similar restriction for it to work.

    The starting Boffs could be a problem, but that could possibly be fixed by them being part of your spy cell (Tarsi could actually be T'arci for instance (which works for both), Skavrin could really be S'kavron a Romulan dwarf, or K'vrang a Klingon dwarf, and so on) and their surgical disguises are removed during the transition and catchup process or something along those lines.

    It would not be as interesting as the Klingon-Romulan (they had an alliance or at least exchanges back then remember) side of the story but it could work to get the transponders for those two factions if the code is set up that way (and that is a big IF). On the other hand, if the old AoY characters started out as 'faction 1' it would probably be easier to make Klingon and Romulan versions from scratch.
  • lianthelialianthelia Member Posts: 7,820 Arc User
    We can banter all we want, but bottom line is they don't care about Klingons or Romulans and that's why you're not getting it.

    Pretty much this...I mean even in the year of the klingon, kdf is already getting screwed...I'm betting the new ship is gonna be like the franklin and kdf wont even get access to the console or trait.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    That's a good idea, though I wonder how easy it would be if they have a bunch of bard-coded bits that require your character to be the "TOS Federation" faction.
    Cryptic has mentioned in the past that the reason why KDF players can't go to ESD normally is that doing so would cause all the NPCs to start attacking you, since they would detect your Klingon faction status, and FED NPCs are normally hostile to Klingon faction NPCs.

    I would guess they would have to go through and replace all the NPCs in those missions with faction neutral NPCs so everyone doesn't just start auto attacking you because of your Klingon faction status.
    That was ESD 1 and 2, ESD 3 has faction neutral NPCs.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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  • paradox#7391 paradox Member Posts: 1,774 Arc User
    It'll be interesting to see how AoY Roms react to the destruction of their homeworld, once Kail sends them to the future.
  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc Member Posts: 5,459 Arc User
    edited September 2020
    Actually there is quite a bit more about both of them than a lot of people realize, especially the Romulans, from hints in the dialog of TOS and some of the later series and other sources.

    TOS showed at least three different Klingon physical types. The fact they are never seen together and that they have very small differences in uniform implies they have the same feudal structure where houses supply whole ships and other units just like the other series, so anything from later series probably applies to them as well. And any small differences can be chalked up to different houses which makes the whole thing easier to implement.

    The uniforms across all the houses shown in TOS had insignia in purple, gold, and silver which probably corresponds to department. If so then purple is probably science because Mara was the chief science officer and wore the purple, though it is also possible that they split it some other way. In any case, color is not rank dependent because all the colors appear on crew regardless of rank. STO could easily treat it as Purple=Science, Gold=Tactical, Silver=Engineering (though not spelled out in dialog one of the extras with the silver insignia seemed to do most of the engineering stuff along with Mara).

    Kor's house seems to be more a surveillance culture than those of Kang or Koloth, the way Kor talked implied that it was in place for a long time and he took it for granted.

    Other house differences are that Kang's house fielded ships with mixed sex crews while the other two apparently did not. Also Kang's crew had more purple insignia than the others so they may have had a higher percentage of science personnel. Oddly, it was Kor who later flew a ship that carried a lot of experimental gear and generally acted like a science variant of the D7 instead of Kang, but then again all of the houses probably had a mix of ships of all roles.

    Speaking of which, there are three known ship classes based on the same spaceframe in TOS/TAS: the D6, D7 and the Klolode class (which appears to be the science oriented class of the set going by what it did in TAS). What difference in role or age between the D6 and D7 is unknown, only that there are few visible differences except for the placement and size of (presumably shuttle) doors, (that comes from the prank pulled on Roddenberry that the D6 and D7 designations came from in the first place).

    There is also a scout ship that is instantly recognizable as such, so it is probably not built on the same hull as the other three (in the original graphics it is barely visible but could easily have been a raptor from the vague outline.

    Kor accused the Federation of trying to " hem us in, cut off vital supplies, strangle our trade! You've been asking for war!" which means the Klingon empire was probably not much larger than the Federation in volume though probably much denser since unlike the Federation they were not interested in creating a big friendly interstellar community and skipping the ones who declined to join, they were mainly interested in resources and room for their own use (which is also in line with the fact that they were out in space for centuries by that point and had not spread out across the whole galactic arm). Also, Klingons apparently claim worlds that they do not actively occupy yet.

    It is known from Kor's story in DS9 that the Klingons got Romulan style cloaking technology sometime around TAS or a little after, the fact that no Klingon ships even attempted to cloak in TOS before that implies that either the DSC style cloaks did not exist at all or that they were completely useless against Federation sensors in the 2260s.

    Also, there was some kind of (probably minor) war between the Federation and the Klingons in 2263 because Kang mentions that there has been peace between the Federation and the Klingon empire for three years by 2266.

    The Klingon transporters are slightly faster, significantly quieter and shimmer instead of sparkle. The had agonizer technology similar to the Terran empire. Their hand disruptors made a wailing sound similar to Herald space weapons. Their communicators are a little smaller than the federation equivalent and do not appear to have the sensor function the movie era ones do.

    TOS Romulans on the other hand are quite a bit different from the TNG ones culturally.

    During TOS they were going through a transition from something like a republic to a corrupt authoritarian empire. We know that it was a transition to an authoritarian government because Mark Lenard's character and the old centurion talked about it in "Balance of Terror", and it is shown to be corrupt in dialog about Decius and his "friends" along with Decius's attitude and actions. The reunification movement could have had some of its roots in the displaced traditionalists fed up with the downward direction the culture was going.

    That fits the production background information that it was modeled on a mix of the ancient Roman republic/empire transition and Germany during WWII, so realworld information from them can be used for analogies about the Romulans. Player characters could be from the dwindling old guard faction and would naturally gravitate to the new Republic in the way a Romulan AoY character would need to for the game to work out.

    That episode also revealed the Romulans fought a number of wars recently but not against the Federation and probably not against Klingons either since they were surprised by the Federation warp drive which is so similar to the Klingon one.

    While the Romulans obviously had some kind of FTL drive, Scott did not recognize anything like that on the warbird. Interestingly, the retcon of impulse drive from emergency matter-antimatter rockets to a gravity drive opens up the possibility that the Romulans used a variant of that which neutralized pseudomatter enough (perhaps using some quirk of the singularity) to push a little way beyond the speed of light similar to the on-board stardrives in Mass Effect. It is likely that Scotty would mistake them for impulse drives.

    We know from "The Enterprise Incident" (confirmed by internal production memos) that Romulans started using Klingon D7s (or D6s) modified to fire plasma torpedoes (instead of the photon torpedoes the Klingons are later shown to fire). While they are never shown firing their energy weapons there is nothing wrong in assuming they either use the original Klingon weapons or changed them out for plasma beams/bolts.

    On the ground they use Klingon gear like the hand disruptors but not the communicators, they used wrist comms (shown by Joanne Linville improvising and talking into her sleeve when they did not give her a prop) instead. In game terms they could use a mix of Klingon disruptor and and their own plasma weapons (probably based on the TNG models).

    Part of that Klingon gear was probably transporter tech, since they failed to set their shields to block transporters or even keep a sensor watch on the Enterprise to look for transporter activity, the kind of beginner mistakes one would expect from people dealing with something fairly new. That means they would use the same quiet shimmer transporters as the Klingons (or perhaps a signature green variant of them once they start building their own).

    Kirk and company assume that the Romulans never developed warp drive because they concentrated in weapons tech instead (Roddenberry touched on that focus again with Elaan's distain for anything but weapons tech in "Elaan of Troyius") but Joanne Linville's character gave a clue to a better reason when she said that Romulans are a poor but proud people.

    In TOS the measure of wealth was Dilithium crystals since it was as indispensable for energy generation as unobtainium was in "Avatar", which implies that the Romulans did not have a good source of them. Since starships are very hard on the crystals it is probable that the Romulans developed the singularity cores as a way around that shortage.

    It is also known that Romulans mainly differ from the Vulcans on a philosophical and cultural level (including language), and physiological differences are a matter of probability since the exiles had a different ethnic mix than the ones who remained on Vulcan. Both cultures have people with and without the "V" ridges but the ridgeless seem more common on Vulcan while the Romulans have more of the ridged people. Saavik only stood out from a natural Vulcan only by having an uncommon blood type by Vulcan standards (according to the novelization) for instance.

    There is more that can be gleaned about the TOS era of both Klingons and Romulans, but those are the highlights, and it should be enough to base an AoY character generator and scenario modifications on. The problem comes down to priorities and whether STO wants to do another AoY enough to allocate the resources to do it with all the other things they have going.



    Post edited by phoenixc#0738 on
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    edited September 2020
    That's a nice summary of what can be guessed from the hints we have.
    There is more that can be gleaned about the TOS era of both Klingons and Romulans, but those are the highlights, and it should be enough to base an AoY character generator and scenario modifications on.

    Cryptic could do something, but I think story-wise it would still require too much guesswork to offer anything close to the nostalgia based on canon we got for the Federation side. Maybe they could scrape together a Klingon Academy tutorial like with Discovery, then have you jump forward after a single episode? You get to be a TOS Klingon, but you're only in the TOS era for a very very short time.
  • westx211westx211 Member Posts: 42,206 Arc User
    There is actually 1 or 2 TOS Klingon and Romulan ships that they made for Agents of Yesterday but never released to the players, you were able to view them in the foundry but well thats gone.

    Maybe at one point they were planning to have a Klingon and Romulan version of the AoY campaign, but wound up scrapping the idea. I know that one of the klingon ships Geko mentioned he absolutely hated the design which might have something to do with why it wasn't released.
    Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc Member Posts: 5,459 Arc User
    edited September 2020
    TOS showed at least three different Klingon physical types.
    No it didn't. All Klingons in TOS of the same ridgeless physical type, and there was never any mention, or hint, or there being other Klingon type out there. The TOS movies rectoned Klingons, in their entirety, to be ridged, with the direct implication they were always this way. Enterprise retconed the retcon, to explain the lack of ridges as being a small part of the Klingon population being affected by the Augment Virus. So, canonally, there are two types of Klingons. Even the Discovery Klingons are the same ridged Klingons, except bald. There are only two types of Klingons in canon, and thats over 50+ years canon. There has never been three kinds of Klingons, much less in TOS.
    Speaking of which, there are three known ship classes based on the same spaceframe in TOS/TAS: the D6, D7 and the Klolode class
    No such ship class as a D6 appears in any official Trek material, be it TOS or TAS. And the Klolode is a D7 class.
    It is known from Kor's story in DS9 that the Klingons got Romulan style cloaking technology sometime around TAS or a little after, the fact that no Klingon ships even attempted to cloak in TOS before that implies that either the DSC style cloaks did not exist at all or that they were completely useless against Federation sensors in the 2260s.
    Well it was a big point in Discovery S1 that they were trying to get the cloaking breaking algorithm, and after they returned from the Mirror Universe they gave it to the fleet. So yes, it was useless.
    Also, there was some kind of (probably minor) war between the Federation and the Klingons in 2263 because Kang mentions that there has been peace between the Federation and the Klingon empire for three years by 2266.
    Klingons are known to routinely launch raids against the Federation, even in times when they weren't at war. This was mentioned as happening in the time span between ENT and DSC, while the Klingons were in a civil war, and again in the timespan between ST6 and TNG, when the Khitomer Accords were in affect.
    Kirk and company assume that the Romulans never developed warp drive because they concentrated in weapons tech instead (Roddenberry touched on that focus again with Elaan's distain for anything but weapons tech in "Elaan of Troyius") but Joanne Linville's character gave a clue to a better reason when she said that Romulans are a poor but proud people.

    In TOS the measure of wealth was Dilithium crystals since it was as indispensable for energy generation as unobtainium was in "Avatar", which implies that the Romulans did not have a good source of them. Since starships are very hard on the crystals it is probable that the Romulans developed the singularity cores as a way around that shortage.
    This is directly contradicted by Nemesis, which shows that the Romulans have had massive dilthium mines on Remus, literally right next door, for ages. Romulans have the biggest known deposit of dithium next to their homeworld of pretty much any known species.
    There is more that can be gleaned about the TOS era of both Klingons and Romulans, but those are the highlights, and it should be enough to base an AoY character generator and scenario modifications on. The problem comes down to priorities and whether STO wants to do another AoY enough to allocate the resources to do it with all the other things they have going.
    Most of what you describe in your post comes down to costuming, and animations(like the Klingon transporter effects looking/sound different), and not actual narrative content. And the rest is largely headcanon, not directly stated by the TV shows themselves, and thus, not something Cryptic would use.

    A lot depends on how fine of detail you go. The three Klingon subtypes shown are somewhat more subtle than the current crop of latex heavy makeups but they are different enough to be identified as different, and the TNG versions where they supposedly look more like their non augment-virus housemates shows distinctly different ridge types, and ridge types at least seem to be in line with houses somewhat. But yes, I suppose if all you are looking for is massive differences in rubber appliances they could all be lumped into "ridgless Klingons" like everyone from Earth can can be lumped into "humans from Earth" in a science fiction setting.

    As for the ships, it is the same gray area as the people. Yes, the label D6 has not been mentioned in any of the series, but then again neither was the term D7 until much later. And it is likely that the "D(some number)" designations are Federation codenames for unpronounceable Klingon classes and so are a bit fuzzy and variable compared to the Klingon names for the ships. It is not a big thing either way, but the D6 designation and (very sketchy) description existed in the same prank (and in the same state of fanon) as D7 did before before that latter was officially canonized.

    And yes, the Klolode is most likely a D7 subclass with the torpedo launcher shoved forward though they never actually called it (or any other ship) a D7 in TAS. I probably should have said "at least three different classes or subclasses based on the same spaceframe.

    The costuming and animations are part of what they would need for a Klingon/Romulan AoY. The cultural stuff could come in handy for small details to help it capture the TOS era feel and spark ideas for plot, but it is look and sound that that a videogame uses to convey that feel the most. And if they did do it as the Klingon/Romulan side of the original AoY scenario then they have most of the plot already.

    One aside before I post this, a pet peeve of mine is the misuse of the term "headcanon". It is not properly used the way you seem to think. "Headcanon" is a personal "canon" that directly and unequivocally contradicts the official canon. It not observations or even speculations concerning gray areas that do not directly contradict canon. And it is not the use of things that the production people considered official but the writers never got around to using in scripts.

    By the proper definition, Headcanon is saying things like "As far as I am concerned the Star Wars prequels never happened!" and such.
  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc Member Posts: 5,459 Arc User
    edited September 2020
    A lot depends on how fine of detail you go. The three Klingon subtypes shown are somewhat more subtle than the current crop of latex heavy makeups but they are different enough to be identified as different, and the TNG versions where they supposedly look more like their non augment-virus housemates shows distinctly different ridge types, and ridge types at least seem to be in line with houses somewhat. But yes, I suppose if all you are looking for is massive differences in rubber appliances they could all be lumped into "ridgless Klingons".
    This has nothing to do with wanting some sort of massive rubber forehead difference. This is literally nothing, either in universe, or from the people who made TOS, that has ever implied there was more then one kind of Klingon in TOS. This idea of there being more then one type of Klingon in TOS is 100%, unsupported, and made up.
    As for the ships, it is the same gray area as the people. Yes, the label D6 has not been mentioned in any of the series, but then again neither was the term D7 until much later. And it is likely that the "D(some number)" designations are Federation codenames for unpronounceable Klingon classes and so are a bit fuzzy and variable compared to the Klingon names for the ships. It is not a big thing either way, but the D6 designation and (very sketchy) description existed in the same prank (and in the same state of fanon) as D7 did before before that latter was officially canonized.
    No, it isn't. All the Klingon ships in TOS were the same ship, with nothing implying any sort of model difference between them, much less the designation of D6.
    One aside before I post this, a pet peeve of mine is the misuse of the term "headcanon". It is not properly used the way you seem to think. "Headcanon" is a personal "canon" that directly and unequivocally contradicts the official canon. It not observations or even speculations concerning gray areas that do not directly contradict canon. And it is not the use of things that the production people considered official but the writers never got around to using in scripts.

    By the proper definition, Headcanon is saying things like "As far as I am concerned the Star Wars prequels never happened!" and such.
    This is also incorrect, headcanon is, by actual definition
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-were-watching-headcanon-fanon
    "Headcanon generally refers to ideas held by fans of series that are not explicitly supported by sanctioned text or other media. Fans maintain the ideas in their heads, outside of the accepted canon."

    Nothing about headcanon requires that it contradict canon, nor have I ever seen anyone use the term in that manner. Headcanon is simply anything not directly supported by canon that a fan believes in. The belief that the Klingons and Romulans had a brief alliance during the TOS era, to explain why Klingons got Romulan cloaks, and Romulans got Klingon ships, is headcanon. It doesn't contradict canon, as no explanation was given as to how this happened, but it isn't supported by canon either, again, because nothing exist in canon to explain why it happened.

    So, your wrong about what headcanon means. Headcanon is simply anything made up by fans that isn't directly confirmed in canon, contradictory or not. Its always been that way, and I'm not sure where you got the idea it has to contradict, but thats never been a requirement for headcanon.

    The fact that there were three different makeups for Klingons in TOS is a fact, not only is it clearly visible onscreen, interviews with the makeup people and two of the people who played Klingons, Colicos (Kor) and Campbel (Koloth), mention the fact that they had three different makeups. If you want to pretend that they only had one then that is up to you but it does not change what was shown.

    On the other hand, you are partially correct in that at the time TOS was being made there was no concept of houses, they were simply treated as one Empire, an analogy for the Soviet union in the the overall Cold War analogy. Still, nothing they showed, none of the dialog, and even nothing from the production side documents ruled out a house structure so the introduction of it later did not conflict with anything and it is safe to assume that it existed in the TOS era even though the show never explicitly went into it.

    And no, what I just wrote is not "head canon" it is an analysis with a little speculation on the side.

    As for the Klingon battlecruisers, all of them in TOS used the same physical model if you want to get literal on the production side, that does not mean they all necessarily represented the exact same ship. As for the Klolode class/subclass/whatever, it was visually different from the others, and it was used in a different way from the TOS ones. Did it use the same spaceframe as the D7? To all appearances yes. Was it a variant of the D7? Probably. Does it really matter if it is or isn't called a "D7"? Not really.

    In the real world ships are sometimes built on the same hulls and hullforms, like the Ticonderoga missile cruiser and the Spruance destroyer, and even ships of the same class often differ somewhat from other ships in the same class due to upgrades and special mission profiles and whatnot. It is not unreasonable to think the Klingons may have done the same thing.

    As for the definition of "headcanon", maybe it has officially drifted that far out of whack, the internet does drive really weird interpretations of words like that, and all too often uses them for lazy-mode gatekeeping. The definition you linked to was not the one used in writing textbooks only five or six years ago and it impinges on the definitions of fan theory and fanon. And even the Merriam-Webster definition hinges on it being a solid personal belief, which is not what I related, it was analysis, some speculation, and Fanon (which by definition is not personal).

    In any case the definition of headcanon is totally irrelevant in a discussion of how STO could interpret the known information about the TOS Klingons and Romulans to build an AoY scenario for them.

  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,276 Arc User
    which was ridiculous, because the soviets weren't a single contiguous empire either, no matter how much they might've considered themselves to be - it was called the UNION of Soviet Socialist Republics for a reason​​
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  • foxrockssocksfoxrockssocks Member Posts: 2,482 Arc User
    edited September 2020
    which was ridiculous, because the soviets weren't a single contiguous empire either, no matter how much they might've considered themselves to be - it was called the UNION of Soviet Socialist Republics for a reason​​

    Sure, because they embraced individuality in the USSR, allowed a great deal of autonomy to their member states, free thought to their people, and certainly never did any ethnic cleansing to second class citizens from those outer states.

    No, the Federation v. Klingon analogy was a free society vs an authoritarian society and all the inherent issues that come with each. There isn't a real point in showing a serious diversity in an empire where you have no choice in much of anything. Differences are stamped out.

    However, that changes when the empire has reasonably autonomous houses in it, part of a gigantic feudal system, and embraces an individual's personal honor.

    It is entirely reasonable to see the TOS empire as different from the TOS movie empire, and the TNG empire. But it is possible to see them as versions of the same entity, one that has necessarily decentralized its power over the years, and it would be necessary. Centralized governments always fall apart the bigger they get because of gross inefficiency, corruption, and the impractical nature of them.
  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc Member Posts: 5,459 Arc User
    There were three different makekups according to the people involved, and your pictures even show the differences though the long-shot of the extras out in (probably simulated) sunlight is not helpful since the makeup differences were mainly on the face, in fact mainly skin color and eyebrows.
    • The makup for Kang and his crew had the darkest color and had straight, Vulcan style eyebrows (though bushier than Vulcans).
    • Kor and company had a medium tone and distinctly bifurcated eyebrows that went both up and down at the ends.
    • Koloth and his crew had the lightest tone and human style eyebrows.

    And while beards are often cut differently as a mix of style and practicality, there is far less chance that big tough warriors would be plucking their eyebrows so it is probably safe to assume that the differences are natural. The same holds true for skin tone, unless you want to argue that each group uses tanning booths to synchronize that with their shipmates or something.

    Klingons in every single series have shown diversity in the same series, why do you think the TOS ones shouldn't?

    As for the ships, back then Roddenberry had a rule against overexplaining things or explaining the obvious. He did not want technobabble fests about things the viewers could see for themselves, and especially didn't want characters talking to each other about things that would be common knowledge between them they way they did in kids serials and "B" movies. As he put it, in a cop show the hero does not take out their pistol and point out the parts and explain what it all does to other cops (who have their own pistols), so Star Trek was not to do that either. That rule extended to ships and everything else, only explain what what actually was needed for the viewers to get the idea what was going on.

    And no, canon does not work exactly the same way in every production across the whole of Hollywood (the old Star Wars canon is a striking example if this). In fact it does not even work that way in Star Trek. Star Trek canon has always been anything seen or in dialog is hard canon with a side of other in-house information (and at times TAS as it flip-flopped between canon and quasi-canon multiple times) as quasi-canon or occasionally non-canon. In fact, during VOY they even "broke" the no-novels rule for one novel written by an in-house writer which was considered canon, and CBS includes some other things that would be non-canon by your definition as canon, like the comic the Summerville came from. And don't bother arguing canon any further because I will not go down that rabbit hole with you this time.

    So Klingons were just referred to as Klingons unless the plot needed them to be differentiated for some reason (and none of them did, though that might have changed in the cancelled season with its "rivalry" focus between Enterprise and Gr'oth had the series continued), and Klingon battlecruisers were just called Klingon battlecruiser without specifying exactly what class they were. In fact, that was a big part of the prank they pulled on Roddenberry with Shatner and Nemoy yelling at each other about whether some ship was supposed to be a D6 or a D7 because of details like doors.

  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc Member Posts: 5,459 Arc User
    And while beards are often cut differently as a mix of style and practicality, there is far less chance that big tough warriors would be plucking their eyebrows so it is probably safe to assume that the differences are natural.
    And? humans have similar variation within ethnicities. I've seen people from all origins with everything from big bushy brows, to paper thin ones. Your argument amounts to saying the wide range of different Klingon ridges we see in TNG and DS9 means they are different kinds of Klingons.... no, it just means Klingons have the same standard variation we see in any other species.
    Klingons in every single series have shown diversity in the same series, why do you think the TOS ones shouldn't?
    Because basic genetic diversity doesn't mean fundamentally different kinds of Klingons as you originally implied.
    As for the ships, back then Roddenberry had a rule against overexplaining things or explaining the obvious.
    This qualifies are neither an over explanation, or explaining the obvious. It was neither obvious that these ships were different, nor would be pointing out important differences be an over explanation(and Trek did this often)
    And no, canon does not work exactly the same way in every production across the whole of Hollywood (the old Star Wars canon is a striking example if this).
    Actually, Star Wars canon follows this exactly. George Lucas himself stated many times that the only thing that was canon was the movies. He admitted to poaching ideas from the novels, but also said that didn't make those novels canon. Star Wars had a large, shared, fanon in its novel series, much like Star Trek does with its novel series, but none of that was ever hard canon by Lucas's own words.
    In fact, during VOY they even "broke" the no-novels rule for one novel written by an in-house writer which was considered canon
    None of the Voyager novels were ever considered canon. They are like the Discovery and Picard novels are now, written to be in line with canon, but not actually canon.
    and CBS includes some other things that would be non-canon by your definition as canon, like the comic the Summerville came from
    CBS does not consider the Somerville canon, as its never appeared in any canon material. All CBS did was get Cryptic and IDW together to share ideas. Neither STO or the IDW comics are considered canon by CBS.
    So Klingons were just referred to as Klingons unless the plot needed them to be differentiated for some reason (and none of them did, though that might have changed in the cancelled season with its "rivalry" focus between Enterprise and Gr'oth had the series continued), and Klingon battlecruisers were just called Klingon battlecruiser without specifying exactly what class they were. In fact, that was a big part of the prank they pulled on Roddenberry with Shatner and Nemoy yelling at each other about whether some ship was supposed to be a D6 or a D7 because of details like doors.
    So a bunch of unsourced headcanon that directly contradicts established canon?

    I don't know what you think I meant when I mentioned that the three different TOS Klingon makeups implied the same diversity between houses as the the other series show, but we actually seem to be in agreement that there are at least three ethnicities shown. Where we apparently don't agree is that the differences could have something to do with house and that their not mixing implies the same feudal house structure that all other series have shown the Klingons to have.

    When you have an evolving continuity that backfills missing information like Star Trek does it really does not matter that the TOS writers never considered details like the house structure because they never did anything that makes adding that structure later on a contradiction.

    For that matter, in real world feudalistic government structures the center of greatest average power fluctuates somewhat, and by chance L'rel's coup in DSC is the kind of thing that centralizes control for a short time in the royals vs nobles tug of war so it actually makes sense that the Klingons would seem a bit less house-centric to outsiders during that period.

    And back to the ships. The resolution of TV at the time would not be able to show subtle details like the doors so the fact they never built models with different shuttle (or whatever) doors is a moot point. For that matter they didn't have any doors detailed on the model at all so technically there is no way of telling if the model used would be considered a D6 or a D7 going by that prank. That is not the case with the Klolode style ship, it had definite though minor visible differences like the pushed-forward torpedo launcher.

    And in any case there is no reason to think the Klingons would be any more organized in their classes and subclasses than the real-world navies of today. In fact, there is reason to expect them to be even less homogenous since in theory they would still be building the ships in the various house shipyards.

    And if you think that before Disney bought them out Star Wars had the same canon rules as Star Trek, all I will say on the matter is that you must not have been paying attention to it at all.

    Why do you think referring to Roddenberry's rules against unnecessary technobabble and stating of the obvious is some kind of "headcanon"? Its not like he never talked about it in interviews, convention talks, and the recording he published of a number of those talks. It is behind the scenes information about the rules they used to write scripts, which is useful in interpreting the show but is not itself any kind of canon, so trying to use terms like "headcanon" in an attempt to gatekeep against it does not work.
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