Finally caught up with the last few seasons. A mixed bag to be sure. But after playing the missions to raise L'Rel from the dead I'm now incredibly confused about the Klingon Afterlife / Feklhri...
It's previously revealed that the Feklhr of Klingon mythology, who aided Molor in battle against Kahless, and then were sent to the mythological Gre'thor are actually a species engineered by the Dominion. And that they did in fact aid Molor. We've previously seen Grethor in the show, as a vision, and STO, as a vision.
But in this episode we go there, and it's a real place, with the actual souls of Klingon warriors. Has this ever been explained? I'm just wondering how the Feklhri, and their leader ended up there, and somehow also got the power to take souls from Klingons there??
I don't have a problem with Grethor being an actual place that the Feklhri have made there home, and how that's inspired Klingon beliefs. I just don't get how the Feklhri have actually come to have some power over Klingon life and death. Has that ever been explained?
Mythological Fek'Irhi probably do exist but lack physical forms and possess the Dominion clone Fek'Ihri bodies, every time we visited Grethor it was more of an Astral Projection thing rather then teleporting since our characters woke up in the same spot they left.
I would have preferred them sticking to the "mystical vision quest" thing, but the feklhri following us back into space at the end sort of undoes that doesn't it? Feels like the writer's got confused between the real ones and mythological ones without thinking it through.
> @paradox#7391 said: > Mythological Fek'Irhi probably do exist but lack physical forms and possess the Dominion clone Fek'Ihri bodies, every time we visited Grethor it was more of an Astral Projection thing rather then teleporting since our characters woke up in the same spot they left.
This is just a theory though? It's quite a big leap to expect us to take.
The thing is, there is no proof we went to Gre'thor in this newest mission.
The only thing we know for certain is that we sniffed some incense, and had a near death experience where we possibly hallucinated everything.
Except the L'rel clone didn't work until we sniffed this incense.
again it's possible that Klingons are latent telepaths who can only access their abilities via vision quests like this and what we did was essentially create L'rell's mind via telepathy while tripping on what ever was in that incense.
There's nothing there that cannot be explained by any other thing then "we went to the literal Klingon hell".
I think it's intentionally left vague as to what exactly happen so your guess is as good as mine. IIRC they did this exact same thing in the VOY episode that dealt with Grethor.
People talks about the Fek'Irhi showing up and L'Rell waking up afterwards as potential proof or mere coincidence, but there are also some more credible ones:
-people hallucinating the exact same thing at the same time and interacting with each other is definitely hard to believe
-after waking up, L'Rell acts as the whole thing did happen, remembering everything and thanking you
-no-one would know of the circumstances of Voq's demise outside of L'Rell herself, since for all the Klingons knew, Voq/Tyler tried to kill her. While this would likely classify as a dishonorable death, the hallucination wouldn't portray Voq as her "greatest love", worth switching place to Gre'thor to save him, if it was based on memories of the participants
-Gowron probably wouldn't act like he did in the mission, based on Martok's memories
There is literally no reason to assume that Gre'Thor is not an actual place you can go at will and get dead souls back into bodies, if there is a clone lying around. But this shows that Klingons are highly adept at genetic engineering and cloning, sprinkling their practices with a bit of mysticism just like Vulcans do.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
People talks about the Fek'Irhi showing up and L'Rell waking up afterwards as potential proof or mere coincidence, but there are also some more credible ones:
-people hallucinating the exact same thing at the same time and interacting with each other is definitely hard to believe
-after waking up, L'Rell acts as the whole thing did happen, remembering everything and thanking you
-no-one would know of the circumstances of Voq's demise outside of L'Rell herself, since for all the Klingons knew, Voq/Tyler tried to kill her. While this would likely classify as a dishonorable death, the hallucination wouldn't portray Voq as her "greatest love", worth switching place to Gre'thor to save him, if it was based on memories of the participants
-Gowron probably wouldn't act like he did in the mission, based on Martok's memories
Yes, all this! The sum total of this mission did not leave it very open to Grethor being anything but real, unlike the original Afterlife missions.
A lot of people replying with theories. I'd be fine with any of these, just want to know if there's been an explanation along these lines in other canon, or if the writer's are just being unclear. It's fine to forgive the clumsy handling of the J'Ula U-turn, but without explanation making Klingon afterlife real is a bit much for me. You've got to be very careful introducing an actual soul into a universe that previously has leaned heavily on there not being one.
There is no definitive explanation. I think they tried to leave it vague this time around too to have the kind of mystery and plausible deniability of the first missions into Grethor, but I don't think that worked at all.
Well there is a Voyager episode with similar premise that deals with B'Elanna Torres dealing with the dishonor of her mother, in fact a lot of the look of Gre'thor comes from that episode and it's similarly vague about if things are real or if Torres is just hallucinating things.
Don't expect any clear answers here the vagueness is intentional.
I guess I'll have to hope they address it in the future. Seems for certain the Feklhri will continue to play a bigger part with the way things are going. Would be great if it turned out L'Rel was actually an imposter and it was all orchestrated by the Feklhri.
I guess I'll have to hope they address it in the future. Seems for certain the Feklhri will continue to play a bigger part with the way things are going. Would be great if it turned out L'Rel was actually an imposter and it was all orchestrated by the Feklhri.
While not impossible it's doubtful that things will get explained again the vagueness here was intentional so it's highly unlikely they address it either way.
Also I doubt the Fek'Ihri will play any major role in the storyline anymore, I suspect they were there to give a plausible enemy that all factions could agree was a bad thing and the Klingon Empire forces would put down their differences and reunite to fight against.
J'Ula's deal really boils down to "I'll kill J'mpok and Akaar" and doesn't really need the Fek'Ihri to reappear in the story, the role they Fek'Ihri played is done they're not needed anymore.
It's also possible, of course, that both explanations are correct - that Gre'thor and Sto'vo'kor are in fact literal realms of the Klingon dead, and that when the Founders were engineering servants to control Klingons, they modeled said servants on the Fek'Irhi quite deliberately, to control through fear. (Unfortunately, controlling Klingons through fear doesn't work nearly as well as they'd hoped...)
Comments
> @paradox#7391 said:
> Mythological Fek'Irhi probably do exist but lack physical forms and possess the Dominion clone Fek'Ihri bodies, every time we visited Grethor it was more of an Astral Projection thing rather then teleporting since our characters woke up in the same spot they left.
This is just a theory though? It's quite a big leap to expect us to take.
Except the L'rel clone didn't work until we sniffed this incense.
again it's possible that Klingons are latent telepaths who can only access their abilities via vision quests like this and what we did was essentially create L'rell's mind via telepathy while tripping on what ever was in that incense.
There's nothing there that cannot be explained by any other thing then "we went to the literal Klingon hell".
I think it's intentionally left vague as to what exactly happen so your guess is as good as mine. IIRC they did this exact same thing in the VOY episode that dealt with Grethor.
-people hallucinating the exact same thing at the same time and interacting with each other is definitely hard to believe
-after waking up, L'Rell acts as the whole thing did happen, remembering everything and thanking you
-no-one would know of the circumstances of Voq's demise outside of L'Rell herself, since for all the Klingons knew, Voq/Tyler tried to kill her. While this would likely classify as a dishonorable death, the hallucination wouldn't portray Voq as her "greatest love", worth switching place to Gre'thor to save him, if it was based on memories of the participants
-Gowron probably wouldn't act like he did in the mission, based on Martok's memories
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Yes, all this! The sum total of this mission did not leave it very open to Grethor being anything but real, unlike the original Afterlife missions.
Don't expect any clear answers here the vagueness is intentional.
While not impossible it's doubtful that things will get explained again the vagueness here was intentional so it's highly unlikely they address it either way.
Also I doubt the Fek'Ihri will play any major role in the storyline anymore, I suspect they were there to give a plausible enemy that all factions could agree was a bad thing and the Klingon Empire forces would put down their differences and reunite to fight against.
J'Ula's deal really boils down to "I'll kill J'mpok and Akaar" and doesn't really need the Fek'Ihri to reappear in the story, the role they Fek'Ihri played is done they're not needed anymore.