posted
I'm sure this has been brought up HUNDREDS of times, but was there ever any canon explanation for why the Klingons suddenly "mutated" from the ones we see in TOS to the ones we see in the movies and TNG? If there isn't, any speculations on the matter?
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Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
The only theories that I know of were put forth in that episode which were genetic mutation or viral invection. At least the Klingons acknowledge that. But of course, you have to wonder if Kirk and company ever asked the same questions.
Well, I do remember another theory... different Klingon races on the same planet. May help explain the TNG-style Klingons on Enterprise. But overall, nothing concrete in the way of explanations.
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posted
Well, before Enterprise I remember an amusing theory where the TOS Klingons were a genetically engineered sub-species of Klingons designed solely to infiltrate, understand, and fight Humans. Doesn't make much sense, but it sounded amusing at the time. Heh.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, the fact that Kang, Koloth, and Kor all appeared on DS9 with modern makeup, along with the modern makeup on ENT Klingons, is a pretty clear sign that we're just supposed to believe that the race *always* looked like that. The "Trials and Tribble-ations" line by Worf was simply for the benefit of the viewers, a little joke by the writer for our amusement.
-MMoM
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posted
The main problem there, if you are trying to think logically, is that you'd think that one of Bashir or O'Brien would have known that Klingons looked a bit different back in the day. Kirk's battles with them apparently being a bit famous and all.
I always preferred the "They always had the bumpy foreheads, we just didn't see them" answer (which also works for the Romulan ridges), but "Trials and Tribble-ations" buggers that up. Unless you ignore the line.
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posted
This may well be just a case of some Klingons having ridges and some not, just as if an alien saw an asian or black man he might think that all humans looked exactly like their only example. Mabye they are kind of Klingon albinos with some recessive qualities.... Also, Klingons were doing some really dis-honarable things back then, so mabye the houses just wiped them all out with the tribbles.
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posted
There's also the evidence that Kahless had a bumpy forehead. Worf's statue of him fighting his brother and the cloned Kahless to name a couple.
However, I've noticed that the Klingons were not just changed in their appearances. To me, it also seems as if they underwent an attitude readjustment during the same time that their appearances changed. It's like they got meaner and more irrational when they got the bumps. It could just be my imagination, though.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: This may well be just a case of some Klingons having ridges and some not, just as if an alien saw an asian or black man he might think that all humans looked exactly like their only example.
Well unfortunately, as I said, the SAME INDIVIDUAL KLINGONS (namely Kang, Kor, Koloth, and Kahless) have appeared as both the old and new versions. What, they ALL had plastic surgery in the past century?
-MMoM
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posted
I bet they did all get plastic surgery, and I blame the supermodels and fashion magazines of mid-23rd century Q'onos. They made the ridgeless Klingons feel weak and ugly, so a massive cultural movement began where all of them went under the knife to reach the Klingon beauty ideal.
Damn magazine editors and models. They've always know how to kill a person's self-esteem.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Perhaps the idea of genetically engineered soldiers does make some sense... if Kor, Koloth, and Kang received plastic surgery after the High Council decided that the entire program was just a bad idea.
And later Klingons don't discuss it with outsiders because it was such a silly idea.
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
ok, my theory is a bit of a doozy, but it fits the facts.
during the temporal cold war, the Future-guy was giving out genetic enhancements to the Suliban like they were candy, as rewards and tools to be used. we know the Klingons were involved too, of of FGs main goals in the pilot was to mess with Klingon politics.
perhaps, at some later date (temporal cold wars can't really be limited to smaller scope--even if Archer ends the whole thing, there may still be instances of other places in the timeline where FG tampered, even if its chronologically after his defeat) future guy may give a girf of genetic ability to Klingons.. we know the Suliban have the ability to disguise themselves as other species.. like the chick who kissed Archer in the pilot ep. so maybe this ability is dispersed in the Klingon gene pool and used for some reason. Kang, Kor, Koloth all receive the ability to reshape their faces and appear less Klingonish, as do many other Klingons.
Then they switch back to normal Klingon appearance at will for the movies.
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posted
I remember a line in either an episode of contemporary Trek (TNG/DS9/VOY) or in a book or something where a Romulan is complaining about the 23rd-century technological alliance between the Romulans and Klingons. He or she said "they got all the best of our culture and we got the worst of theirs". That's the best commentary I've ever seen on how the Klingosn went from sneaky to honorable and the Romulans the converse.
As for the foreheads... I had no problem with the old explanation -- that they were always supposed to be that way but TOS didn't have the budget for it. I would have been even happier if Kor, Kang, and Koloth had shown up on DS9 with the same sort of subdued ridges Chang had in ST VI. I'd have less of a problem with that than their sudden turtlehead manifestation. "Trials and Tribble-ations" just pisses me off...
--Jonah
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Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Back during TNG's 3rd season I submitted a script to the show that dealt with the Klingons pretty head-on (pun intended). Unfortunately, my agent landed my script at the Star Trek offices right around the time Sins of the Father was being shot, and they went a different direction that my idea, so that was that.
My take on it (this is long before old Klingons started showing up with bumpy heads) was that "Klingon" was the traditional name of the Warrior caste, and that anyone who was a Warrior of the Empire was a "Klingon". The guys we saw on TOS would have been humanoids whose part of the Empire most closely butted up against the Federation, and were thus the ones Kirk tended to encounter. In my script these guys were the ones who traded ships with the Romulans, which totally pissed off the "real" Klingons, who then reduced them to "subject" status and ground them down under the Empire's heel.
Mind you, the script wasn't ABOUT this, but it was a subtext that came as the plot advanced and we met such subject races (think of Eastern Bloc countries) who were unwilling members of the Empire. (I was interested in the morality of being allies with a race of conquerors who most certainly ruled entire civilizations by force.)
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