I need some information on Klingon-Fed combat during TOS and pre-TOS and Klingon ships in general. I know about Axanar (maybe) and Donatu V, but are there any canon (meaning on-screen, either live action of ANIMATED) references to combat during this time. Can anyone site any instance of combat between a D7 and a Constitution? Here's what I know.
1. According to Trimble's Concordance, in TAS "More Tribbles, More Trouble" Koloth's ship "Devisor" paralyzes Enterprise with some sort of disruption field, which this site (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/3751/KlingonShip.html) describes as a poorly functioning projected stasis field with enormous power requirements. The Klingons are also said to have a new weapon, the photon torpedo. Can anyone confirm this or tell me more about how this device worked? Did the Klingons have photon torps in TOS?
2. In another thread Phelps mentioned an attack on Federation outpost on Caleb IV by Kor and Kang in the old, cloak-capable D-5 cruisers. Any guesses when this actually happened? Does the presence of cloaks suggest it happened after TOS?
3. According to Trimble, the D7 has a crew of 440, per Day of the Dove. Any other refernences to crew size?
4. What's the name of the Klingon fleet? Trimble say "Imperial Fleet" is used in "Friday's child" and "Time Trap," but TNG and DS9 seem to use "Klingon Defense Forces." Any comments?
5. What was the extent of combat between Kor's Klothos and Enterprise in "Time Trap"?
6. Trimble says a Klingon "battleship" is mentioned in Friday's child. It is supposedly the largest in the KIF, carries troops, and is "armed with a heavy deflector shield, which is almost a cloaking device." Comments?
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
quote: Comments?
Trimble makes a lot of stuff up. None of this sounds very likely.
1) I seem to recall the Klingons pulling some 'stasis weapon' shit in 'MTMT', or one of the TAS episodes, anyway.. the explanation that it didnt work and was energy-expensive is a good explanation for why it should stay buried. Good riddance...
1a) We dont know specifically what a lot of Klingon weapons are, but I wouldnt trust TAS to dictate that Klingons might not have had photorps.. its one of those semantics issues like 'Romulans having simple impulse'.. its vague and confuses something that otherwise should be quite clear.. Klingons have always had launching weapons.. thats what the big hole is for in the front.. the nature of the warhead is what is at question, and we have no information as to what they fired in ENT or TOS.
I believe the only weapons seen firing in TOS were the disruptors on the ends of the warp nacelles, in 'Elaan of Troyius' We know that by TMP they were definitely firing torpedoes, but i doubt they were ever specified to be photon torpedoes.. They fired torpedoes from their rear tube in ENT too..
2) No information to be found here.. I sincerely doubt the TAS Klothos was called a D-5, but thats just my opinion.. I do assume however that Klingons didnt have cloaks until after 'Enterprise Incident' where the Romulans had D7s. Kor seemed to be the Klingon fleet's equivalent of Kirk, so its likely he could command two ships of the same name 'Klothos', and possibly the second one was of a different design.
3) The D7 has less internal volume than the Constitution-class, so i doubt it had more crew (remember, Constitutions were the most packed of Federation ships at 430.. Voyager has a similar internal volume but 1/3 that crew).. however, more non-canon sources have stated that Klingon ships sometimes carried troops in cryo-stasis. A few bays of a hundred or so frozen troops would justify that estimate, but it seems really far-fetched
4)The United States has an Armed Forces consisting of a Navy, an Army Corps, a Marine Corps, an Air Force and a Coast Guard. It seems like the Klingon Empire could have a Klingon Defense Force with an Imperial Fleet, maybe a Colonial Infantry, and whatever contradictory term they want to throw at us tomorrow.. its not really a conflict at all. (the example of frozen soldiers i remember from a patch i saw at a convention.. instead of the motto 'to protect and serve' it said 'Klingon Imperial Cryo-Marines -- To Reheat and Serve'.. i laughed until i stopped!)
5) Not sure on that one.. they had to make friends and physically dock the two ships together to escape as i recall..
6) Deflectors as cloaks.. hmmm.. kind of like using a toaster as a telephone? Maybe spock means some kind of signal deflecting countermeasures, but seeing as the ship wasnt invisible, i think this could mean that TOS era Klingons definitely didnt have cloaks readily available to all ships, since they were half-assing it using a deflector to cover their emissions
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Masao: I know about Axanar (maybe) and Donatu V,
Just be sure that you get the date for Donatu V right, if you use it. The battle was twenty-three years before "The Trouble With Tribbles" (TOS), set in 2267. That puts the battle in 2244, not 2242 as Okuda erroneously places it in his Chronology... despite mentioning the twenty-three year gap in the notes!
quote:Originally posted by Masao: 1. According to Trimble's Concordance, in TAS "More Tribbles, More Trouble" Koloth's ship "Devisor" paralyzes Enterprise with some sort of disruption field, which this site (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/3751/KlingonShip.html) describes as a poorly functioning projected stasis field with enormous power requirements. The Klingons are also said to have a new weapon, the photon torpedo. Can anyone confirm this or tell me more about how this device worked? Did the Klingons have photon torps in TOS?
Photon torpedoes were never seen in use by Klingons during the original series, but the Klingons do have them in 2151 (and an upcoming episode of Enterprise will discuss that fact in more detail), so it's just coincidence that they never used them on screen. The only weaponry I remember seeing a D-7 fire are green bolts that emerged from the front of the nacelles. (If, of course, this is in the Starfleet Museum universe, the Klingons may or may not have photon torpedoes at that time ).
As to the stasis field, your information is accurate. I'm not sure if it was called a "stasis field" in the episode, but I think it really just worked like the Breen energy disruptor. The Enterprise was frozen mechanically, but it wasn't true time-stopping stasis because the crew was unchanged.
quote:Originally posted by Masao: 2. In another thread Phelps mentioned an attack on Federation outpost on Caleb IV by Kor and Kang in the old, cloak-capable D-5 cruisers. Any guesses when this actually happened? Does the presence of cloaks suggest it happened after TOS?
Any guess as to the time would be purely a guess... but I would certainly put it after the Romulan alliance due to the cloak. On the other hand, Kor was going senile at the time. For all we know, the ship wasn't a D-5 and didn't have a cloak after all.
quote:Originally posted by Masao: 3. According to Trimble, the D7 has a crew of 440, per Day of the Dove. Any other refernences to crew size?
Not that I know of, but the "Day of the Dove" reference is accurate, despite the above complaints.
I can't really help you with the other questions, sorry.
[ December 05, 2001: Message edited by: Ryan McReynolds ]
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
Oh, i thought the 440 number was one of Trimbles suppositions.. did the episode explicitly state that number? (Oh wait.. did we even see that Kangs ship was a D-7? it could have been a D-4 or a D-8�.. oh well)
[ December 05, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Thanks for your comments so far.
Quote: "...but the Klingons do have them in 2151 (and an upcoming episode of Enterprise will discuss that fact in more detail), so it's just coincidence that they never used them on screen."
"Enterprise" ain't canon. The Ghost of Roddenberry told me so. Anyways, my Starfleet Museum article (which is now a boring 10,000 words long) is going to describe classes D2 through D7, and only the last one looks like a K'tinga.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:"Enterprise" ain't canon. The Ghost of Roddenberry told me so.
Okay, so the Ghost of Roddenberry told you 'Enterprise' wasn't canon but 'Voyager' was? Uh-huh, sure.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay:
Okay, so the Ghost of Roddenberry told you 'Enterprise' wasn't canon but 'Voyager' was? Uh-huh, sure.
The Ghost of Roddenberry told me that I must raise an army and destroy Berman and Braga... Oh wait, it's just the medication talking.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
Kor said that the cloak was new at the time, then went on to tell about how he operated the device for three days, being one of the few engineers who knew how. To me, that sounds like TOS era. On the other hand, the Sherlock Holmes wanna-be's in Star Trek VI were quite certain that the cloaked ship could be nothing but a BoP. How would they conclude that a battlecruiser is, say, too big to fit underneath the Enterprise if they didn't even have video footage of the torpedo exiting the launcher, footage that could've proved there and then that the Enterprise never fired? Nobody questioned the BoP conclusion for a second.
Then again, strictly canonically the "D-5 cruiser" Klothos could easily be an early BoP. Martok used Kor and Kang's Caleb IV tactic of strafing runs with his five BoPs -- how do you do a strafing run with a battlecruiser? Alternatively, the D-5's could've been decomissioned by the 2290s, and the BoPs remained the only Klingon ships with cloaks.
BTW, nobody questioned Kor's story in that scene, although they'd *always* do when he lapsed, so I doubt anyone held back out of respect. On the other hand, many said they didn't know he was at Caleb IV, so how could they check?
[ December 05, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
the ghost of roddenberry told me to do acid, but he told me this while i was on peyote, so i don't know who to believe, him or the giant frog.
--jacob
[ December 05, 2001: Message edited by: EdipisReks ]
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Can anyone with the tape or the script disc give me a verbatim quote of the discussion of the D-5? Sounds interesting.
Snay said: "Okay, so the Ghost of Roddenberry told you 'Enterprise' wasn't canon but 'Voyager' was?"
Nope, he added that Voyager ain't canon either.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
MARTOK (nods) I'm going to send the Malpara and Ning'tao in ahead of the rest of the squadron.
21 CONTINUED: (2)
MARTOK (Cont'd) They'll make a single strafing run on the base and then head out of the system. When the enemy sends out repair crews to assess the damage, then the rest of the squadron will decloak.
Eager grins go around the table.
MARTOK (continuing) With any luck, we'll catch them with their entire damage control effort underway.
KOR Excellent! An excellent plan, general.
MARTOK I'm glad you approve.
KOR Of course. It's the same tactic Kang and I used against the Federation during the battle of Caleb Four.
KOLANA You were at Caleb Four?
DAROK Of course he was! (to Kor) Forgive the ignorance of these children.
KOR I was a young officer once; I know how irrelevant the past can seem.
KOLANA We would be honored if you would tell us about Caleb Four.
21 CONTINUED: (3)
DAROK SYNON Tell the tale. Yes, tell us!
Kor hesitates for only a moment.
KOR There's not much to tell really... the battle was over almost before the Federation knew it had begun.
(beat) I commanded the first division from the Klothos -- one of the old D-Five cruisers -- while Kang commanded the second division.
As Kor launches into his story, Martok pushes back from the table and silently fumes. Worf knows that there's trouble brewing on the horizon...
KOR (continuing) Now, you must remember that in those days, the cloaking device was a new piece of technology... there were only a handful of engineers in the Imperial Fleet who knew how to operate them. So before we left Chronos, I spent three days in the engine room...
And that's all about the subject -- Kor's story is interrupted here.
[ December 05, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Wow! Thanks a lot, Phelps!!! Very interesting.
My initial interpretation of that bit of dialogue would be that Caleb IV happened sometime before TOS, in particular the mention that they were "young officers" and the designation of D-5. Also the fact that the peace imposed by the Organia would have ruled out that kind of stuff. Of course, we have to reconcile this with the possibilty that Klothos is same ship in the post-TOS TAS and the idea that the Klingons got the cloaking device from the Romulans sometime during TOS. Could be a different Klothos and maybe this is a cloaking device independently developed by the Klingons. Is the idea that the Klingons got cloaks from the Romulans mentioned on-screen or is it something we've all just assumed?
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
We've only assumed that Klingons got the cloak from the Romulans.
Note: Kor says that like everybody else, he was a young officer *once*, not *at the time*. He already had his own command, of the Klothos, regardless of the practical need to spend a few days working the cloak.
As for the date -- in "Day of the Dove" Kang was outraged at the supposed violation of the treaty by the attack on the Klingon planet (actually done by the alien), suggesting that something on the scale of Caleb IV happened before "Errand of Mercy". However, it also should've happened after "Balance of Terror", or the crew wouldn't have acted so surprised by the new Romulan "invisibility shield" (they'd rather say "Ok, so the Romulans can cloak, just like the Klingons at Caleb IV").
I think the perfect date for the battle is 2266, right before the Organian Treaty. Being such a disaster for the Federation, and such a victory for the Klingons, it might explain why they were about to go to war.
[ December 06, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:. Anyways, my Starfleet Museum article (which is now a boring 10,000 words long) is going to describe classes D2 through D7, and only the last one looks like a K'tinga.
Drool...
As for the Kor/D-5/cloaking device debacle...
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Kor was telling a tall tale there. Maybe the tactics that Kor used at Caleb IV were similar, but didn't use a cloaking device.
I'm going to quote a Museum article to support my point: "...the Federation historian must naturally approach the Klingon records with a healthy dose of skepticism, since combat reports are often intended to glorify a ship's commander rather than to give an accurate account of a specific event." ([url= http://www.starfleet-museum.org/postwar-romulans.htm]Source[/url])
I think the same is true for old geezers telling war stories. Probably Kor did indeed exhaustively study the cloaking device during one campaign, but it probably wasn't during the Caleb IV campaign.
In fact, I'd bet that Federation-Klingon hostile activities were almost totally curtailed at any point after the Organian Peace Treaty. There might have been a few skirmishes, but no major actions at all after 2267.
Regarding the crew size of the D-7, remember that a Klingon's idea of a good bunk is a simple hard shelf. So they probably bunk together in a rather small space. Plus, there's no need for extensive science or medical facilities, and so that accounts for the much smaller volume of the Klingon ship compared to the Constitution-class.
About the Klothos and it being a D-5 cruiser... well, if the Federation can re-use ship names, so can the Klingons. The Klothos seen in TAS was simply a different ship.
quote:"Enterprise" ain't canon. The Ghost of Roddenberry told me so.
Amen to that. I prefer to believe that the entire series is taking place in an alternate timeline, given how Braga is f*cking with temporal mechanics...
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
The fact that this cloak was so hard to operate suggests to me that it wasn't the plug and play Romulan cloaking device we saw in the Enterprise Incident. That device just needed to be plugged in and turned on. On maybe Klingon engineer are a lot less intelligent than Starfleet engineer. I'm thinking that this might be a Klingon version of a cloaking device, which took a lot of very precise balancing of output from various devices but still didn't work very well. So, maybe Starfleet didn't even recognize it as a true cloak. I'm assuming that the Klingons had encounter the Romulan cloaking systems sometime before "Balance of Terror." For all we know the Klingons and Romulans had been fighting for decades and the Romulans were getting the upper hand because of their effective cloaking device. To Klingons attempted to cobble together a rather unstable cloaking system themselves. Since it didn't work that well, they were willing to trade a complete ship and reactor system (D7) for the Romulan cloak.
(All these contortions are killing my back)
I'd like to believe that ship designations, like Starfleet registries, are at least semi-chronological, so I'm thinking these events predate the appearance of the D7 by a considerable time. So, unless we assume this is the Romulan cloaking device, this Caleb IV could have happened almost anytime before Errand of Mercy
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
You're basing your arguments largely on the Organian treaty and the lower number in the D-5 designation, suggesting Kirk, Spock, and other senior officers never thought of comparing the Klingon cloak, used to conceal the presence of a Klingon fleet that would achieve a major Klingon victory over the Federation while they were busy doing repairs, victory that the senior officers and the scientist Spock should've heard about, to the Romulan "invisibility shield" because the latter seemed easy to install in "Enterprise Incident".
However, I doubt that ease of installation and operation has anything to do with the basic technology behind any cloak, which is the selective bending of light and other electromagnetic radiation. Hence, if the Klingons had been using cloaks of any kind, especially in such a major victory over the Federation, someone on the Enterprise should've known and said so, not kept silent and theorized or even doubted the existence of an invisible ship as they did in "Balance of Terror."
[ December 06, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The Federation needn't necessarily have known about the cloaks after Caleb IV. All they knew was that the Klingons suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Maybe they thought it was just some sort of sensor-jamming.
Someone pointed out that the attack mihgt have happened at the time of "Errand of Mercy", and that it was what caused the Federation to declare war. I doubt that this would be right. After all, if Kor had just won a huge victory like that, why would the Empire have hurriedly shuffled him off to a military governorship that he didn't want? They should have been praising him, not punishing him. I would guess the battle had to be well before EoM, and the nature of the cloaking device just wasn't made clear to the Feds.
Of course, there's also the possibility (or probability?) that Kor was just talking out of his ass... :-)
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Phelps said: "You're basing your arguments largely on the Organian treaty and the lower number in the D-5 designation, suggesting Kirk, Spock, and other senior officers never thought of comparing the Klingon cloak, used to conceal the presence of a Klingon fleet that would achieve a major Klingon victory over the Federation while they were busy doing repairs, victory that the senior officers and the scientist Spock should've heard about, to the Romulan "invisibility shield" because the latter seemed easy to install in "Enterprise Incident".
Yup!
Anyways, I just wanted to find out what was known and possible interpretations of it. Since this is going into my fan fiction (Starfleet Museum), I'm not trying to find the one single most likely explanation or convince others of it. Just looking for ideas at this point.
Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :
There is another possible time frame for the Battle of Caleb 4.
Dates:
2267 Organian Peace Treaty
2270 "Day of the Dove" (In episode, Kang says the Klngons have kept their side of the treaty for three years.)
2285 ST III: The Search for Spock In a discussion aboard the later named HMS Bounty, the Klingon Captain mentions peace negotiations between the Federation and the Klingons.
So, between 2270 and 2285, the imposed peace of the Organian Treaty dissolved into conflict. Based on data that we have for the use of the cloaking device, the Klingons didn't have a cloaking device in the 2260's or the early 2270's (TMP). They did have a cloaking device by 2285. So, this gives us a window of 12 years (2285-2273=12) in which the Battle of Caleb IV could have taken place.
Furthermore, Kor was relaying a story of Klingons in a weakened position gaining the upper hand by subterfuge and cunning. Just like the mission they were on.
So, in conclusion, after the loss of the IKS Amar in 2273, the Klingons learned how to use the cloaking device. As they learned the cloaking device, the Organian Treaty was violated and rendered null by actions taken by both parties-the Federation and the Klingons. The Battle of Caleb 4 would have taken place in these days, probably mid-2270's to late-2270's.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
This sounds quite good. Regardless of how the Klingons got their cloaks, the technology would probably remain "new" for a few decades at least. So even a mission in the 2270 would fit the bill, even though we have no direct verification of Klingon aggressions towards the UFP in that period.
However, the way Kor mentions the "old" D-5 cruisers does make me yearn for something a little more dated. And I agree that a Klingon attack some time before "Balance of Terror" could still involve cloaks, as long as the surprise was so complete that no witnesses remained to the use. Perhaps Caleb IV was annihilated. Or perhaps the people who saw the cloaks in action (the ATC officers or the perimeter patrol teams) were killed, and only "ignorant bystanders" survived.
If we go by "Unexpected", we might in fact say that the Klingons got the cloaks first, and then gave them to the Romulans. Being new to the device, the Romulans badly botched up their first mission and revealed the secret of the device's existence. The device wouldn't be very "new" to Kor then, though, unless it took a century or so to refine it from the "Unexpected" form to the final practical TOS form.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :
During the run of the first series, there was no mention given of the Klingons having a cloaking device. Considering the number of times that battle did take place between these two fleets in the original, we would have heard of the Klingons having this device.
Contrary to fan opinion, I side with canonicity when it states that the Romulans didn't have warp drive prior to 2269 ("Insurrection"). We know that in 2269 that the Romulans were using Klingon warships equipped with warp drives and cloaking devices. In this deal, what did the Klingons get? I think they got the cloaking device and lessons on how to build a stronger ship.
As shown in the first series, Klingon warships weren't really a match to Federation ships. A single scout could be destroyed by a volley of torpodoes ("Errand of Mercy") or a battlecruiser damaged by several well targeted phaser strikes ("Elaan of Troyius"). After suffering horribly in battle, the Klingons needed an advantage in warfare. This advantage was the cloaking device. They could sneak in on an enemy ship and strike the ship before the crew had time to react.
As for the Romulans, their ships were no match for Federation starships. They might have been able to travel close to the FTL barrier, but they couldn't do warp. Within a year of the battle at the Neutral Zone, the Romulans were forced to use ten of their warbirds to drive a single starship out of their territory ("The Deadly Years"). So, at a disadvantage, they formed a temporary alliance with the Klingons and learned warp drive. They later abandoned this warp drive system for a more unique and complicated warp system involving the use of singularities.
Why didn't the Klingons ask for cloaking technology from the Xytherians? Klingons were able to defend themselves and their worlds. They had the advantage against the humans. No nation in the 2150's could conquer the Klingon nation.
So, the canonical evidence points to the Klingons having cloaking technology after 2269. And the Romulans having warp technology after 2269.
And, there is evidence of conflict between the two sides in the words of the Klingon commander in ST 3. He specifically states that negotiators of his nation and that of the Federation are working on a peace treaty. A peace treaty is usually discussed after a period of intense, bloody conflict.
And I just remembered somthing else-we do have the earliest known ship to have cloaking technology in the Klingon fleet. In that 7th season episode of Voyager with the religious Klingons, a D-7 from 2275 used a cloak to hide itself from the sensors of the USS Voyager NCC-74656. We know that the IKS Amar didn't use cloak in 2273 when she and two sister ships engaged V'Ger based on visual evidence of the battle. So, between 2273 and 2275, Klingons first employed the cloaking device on selected ships. This narrows the window for the Battle of Caleb V to 10 years (2275-2285).
[ December 07, 2001: Message edited by: targetemployee ]
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
This is certainly one working model of how things could be. There's plenty of room for models to the contrary, though. So far we mostly have absence of evidence instead of evidence of absence when it comes to early cloaking devices. And that's to be expected, isn't it, when we are talking about something that *cannot be seen* when it's working right?
Consider this: we know little about how Klingons age, except that they are fully grown adults at eight (at least if they are 1/4 human like Alexander) and tend to grey out by sixty or so (Worf in "AGT..") but can survive till the triple digits (Kor, Kang, Koloth, Darvin). See the other thread.
So Kor could have been walloping Calder IV well before TOS, and could in theory be alive in Archer's time already if dramatically needed. Klingon cloaks could have been a novelty back then. And given how Klingons are so utterly superior to humans at that point it would be no wonder if their attacks left no witnesses and their cloaks stayed a secret for the better part of a century.
It would only be with the escalating of hostilities in the 2220s that the Klingons would be pressed to closer contact with humans, and the battlefield would be leveled somewhat. Kor would have plenty of time to fall in some disfavor & accumulate the years that would make him senior enough to be a planetary governor. The fashion statements of the day would hide his age easily enough. Kang could be fifty years his junior or more...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :
If the show Enterprise gives us a cloaked Klingon battlecruiser, then, Timo, your hypothesis stands.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Not that I'd be especially happy if *that* happened...
Frankly, I hope the writers will simply surprise us with something even more unexpected as regards the cloaking history. There's so much leeway there for them to indulge themselves.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Hang-on... has Enterprise shown us CLOAKED Klingon ships!?!
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
No, it hasn't. It has made reference on two occasions or so to ships equipped with "stealth technology" which some people are getting all huffed up about because they think they're cloaking devices.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
2273 for TMP now?
the 5year mission ended in 2270 and the refit is eighteen months.. that yields you 2271 (as chronicled) for TMP.. or at the latest, 2272.
I understand that Q2 pushed the end of the 5YM back from the chronology date of 2269, but it warrants the addition of one year, not two.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
I think it comes down to this -- if all we knew was that the ship was a D-5, then the simplest and mose likely date would be way before TOS. However, we also know it had a cloak, which complicates things since we haven't seen Klingons cloak until after TMP, and we know Kirk hasn't heard about a Klingon cloak before "BoT". That evidence pushes the date to after TMP, and is also supported by the Klothos operating as late as TAS.
[ December 07, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by CaptainMike: 2273 for TMP now?
the 5year mission ended in 2270 and the refit is eighteen months.. that yields you 2271 (as chronicled) for TMP.. or at the latest, 2272.
I understand that Q2 pushed the end of the 5YM back from the chronology date of 2269, but it warrants the addition of one year, not two.
You forgot that Kirk said to Scotty, "Two and a half years in Starfleet Operations may have made me a bit stale, but I wouldn't call myself 'un-tried.'" (paraphrase) Later, Decker says to Kirk, "You haven't logged a single star-hour in two and a half years."
Yes, the refit took eighteen months... but, probably due to the re-design proccess, it didn't begin until a solid year after the five-year mission. If the Enterprise returned around the middle of 2270, two and a half years later would be the end of 2272 or the beginning of 2273. If she retuened late in 2270, it would have to be 2273; in any case, 2273 is not an unreasonable conjecture.
(This two and a half year gap is also why The Motion Picture was in late 2271 by Okuda's reckoning to begin with; early 2269 plus eighteen months would only be late 2270.)
Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :
Could we not sort of merge both theories? Since the D-7 seems to have a rather long life, could not a D-5 still be in service (but perhaps near the end of her service life) in the years between "The Motion Picture" and "The Search For Spock?" Indeed, if such a ship was old, that could explain why making the (relatively newly aquired) cloaking device work on it was so difficult.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
Here's another thing -- Kor may not be that old after all. The following statement by Odo in "Blood Oath" is neither too accurate nor serious, but certainly suggestive as I'll show later:
"There's a drunk Klingon [Kor] in my holding cell who must be a hundred years old singing battle songs. Even his best friend [Koloth] who's probably a hundred and fifty years old won't have anything to do with him... so I get the pleasure of listening to his repertoire. "Kor! Dahar Master of the Klingons."
An earlier script note does suggest that Koloth is somewhat older than Kor.
Now, we also learn that Kor fought in the victorious battle of Klach D'kel Brakt against the Romulans, "almost a century ago". Later, when he's fighting the Albino, we get this script note about Kor:
"And he's back at Klach D'Kel Brakt again... he's twenty again..."
It really seems that the writer thought of Kor as being no more than 120 years old. So maybe he was 17 or so when he met Kirk at Organia, his greatest achievements still to come. In his own words, being a military governor was a bad position, and as far as we can tell, he didn't even have his own ship. If he'd scored a major victory once, then fallen out of favor, it would've been a while ago when he'd be too young, even for the possibly fast-aging Klingons.
Hence, I think he was just a "Commander" Sisko type at Organia -- after all, how hard could it have been to govern that planet given what they knew about it -- and only later gained command of the Klothos, met Kang, and went on to fight his biggest battles until about 2289, when he'd meet Curzon during peace negotiations mentioned in "Blood Oath", likely the same as in "Star Trek III".
[ December 07, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Sounds good to me. And tells us nothing new about when Klingons got their cloaks, which I consider a plus in a theory.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
Nevertheless, given the evidence we have, the simpler and more likely explanation is that the Klingons didn't have cloaks until the 2270s and that the D-5 cruisers were used until then. We've seen captains grow attached to piles of junk like the Stargazer: I don't see a problem with that.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
But at the same time, if you're going to make an attack on a well-defended Federation outpost, you're going to want the most advanced warships and weaponry that you can get. Sending a group of old D5 cruisers makes little sense when you have the latest D7's (or even the K't'inga's, if this is post-2270).
Personally, I think that Kor was telling a tall tale when it came to the cloaking device. We all know how Klingons like to exaggerate their tales to increase their glory and battlefield accomplishments; why not assume that Kor was stretching the bounds of credibility? We don't have to assume that every word spoken on the show is objectively and precisely true.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
If the story had that large a truth gap in it, though, surely Martok would have taken notice, considering his rather dim view of Kor in general.
"Cloaks? Bah! We didn't even have them yet." And so on.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
yeah Martok said 'bah!' a lot
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
Who said that all of the ships were D5 cruisers? There was an entire division commanded by Kang, and another one commanded by Kor. Furthermore, Klingons are very traditional when it comes to battle, using knives and bat'leths along with disruptors. It's not all about having the latest technology.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
On the other hand, there is far less honor in defeat than victory.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
Tell that to the European armies that would clash unprotected, out in the open, for centuries. The Klingons used cloaks to hide their fleet! You can't be more dishonorable than that.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Um...yeah. Napoleonic tactics were not pointless exercises in drama, you know. That's more or less how you have to fight if you want large armies armed with relatively primitive firearms.
And your second statement seems to prove my point.
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
quote: It really seems that the writer thought of Kor as being no more than 120 years old. So maybe he was 17 or so when he met Kirk at Organia, his greatest achievements still to come. In his own words, being a military governor was a bad position, and as far as we can tell, he didn't even have his own ship. If he'd scored a major victory once, then fallen out of favor, it would've been a while ago when he'd be too young, even for the possibly fast-aging Klingons.
I'm sorry, Phelps, but I don't think that makes sense. Military governor may not be a position where you can wallow in glory, but you still wouldn't put a wet-behind-the-ears kid in charge of a strategic outpost (Organia must have some strategic value, else why would the Federation and the Empire both be interested in it?). Starfleet could always send an invasion force to Organia, and then what kind of battle experience is the rookie going to fall back on for his defense?
Besides, by that logic, what is the Enterprise doing there? Starfleet obviously felt the situation warranted sending an experienced crew and a top-of-the-line heavy cruiser, not some junior officer in a less powerful vessel. I think its safe to assume the Empire would have a similar level of concern.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
I think we are using the 'Klingons grow up fast like Alexander' theory there.. which i hate to apply in this case.. John Colicos was in his 30s for the episode and i think we should assume Kor was late 20s/mid 30s (adding a little fudge factor there for the klingon aging difference) theres really nothing to be gained by making him in his teens, and it seems a little stupid. There would seem to be just a little age difference Kor/Koloth wise, probably on the order of 10 years.. i dont think they are fifty years apart.. odo's generalization was just that.. a generalization
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Alternate-interpretation theory #4077:
The Klingons and the Feds might have taken a different approach to the issue of Organia. The Empire might decide to send a ship or two there to pick an easy target and then leave a token occupation force there, in hopes of annoying a counterreaction out of the Feds. The Feds would feel obligated to sacrifice a lot of resources to defend/counter-conquer this planet of seeming humans. And Kor could have been sent in there simply to die, to act as human-bait so that the Klingons could advance on other fronts.
Thus, what the Feds see as a planet of strategic value is not of such value to the Klingons, except as a clever feint. And Kor has an inkling of why he wasn't given more forces, or replaced by a more experienced officer, which is why he's in a bad mood - but as a Klingon, he's not all that worried about dying in a glorious (if rigged) battle.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :
The Klingon Empire sent 8 eight ships and hundreds of troops to secure Organia. Kor had a sizeable force. He hated two things-being a military governor and governing, in his words, a population of sheep.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Target: This eight ships and 100 troops is actually mentioned on screen? Trimble's Concordance also mentions a "Unit XY-75847" of Starfleet ships patrolling near Organia. Any idea how many ships it comprised?
Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :
Masao,
One of the members of the Organian Council senses the arrival of eight Klingon ships and the beaming down of hundreds of troops.
As for the unit you mentioned, this is the only time there is a reference to it. We don't know if it is an outpost or a command ship leading a fleet of ships.
As for the number of ships the Federation brought to Organia, Capt. Kirk orders Lt. Sulu to bring a fleet large enough to engage the Klingon ships.
I can enter the direct quotes in later, if you like.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Thanks, TE. The exact quotes aren't essential if you've already given the important info here.
).
