Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Where are all the other aliens?

This is topic Where are all the other aliens? in forum General Trek at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/341.html

Posted by Fructose (Member # 309) on :

Ok, the fed has tons of aliens in their space and we get to see many of them. But what about the Klingons and Romulans? They must have other races in their midst, but we haven't seen them. (Or at least I can't remember them.) So where are they? Did the K's and the R's kill them all? If so, why is the Fed teaming up with the K's? If not, then where are they? If this has been dicussed before, please let me know. I just thought of this as I was driving home and I thought it would be worth dicussing.

------------------
It doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing as long as you look good doing it.

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Interesting topic. I've thought about this a number of times myself, and apart from the "Smooth Forehead" Klingons (which they DO NOT TALK ABOUT), I can't think of any either. In the TOS context, I'm sure it's because they didn't have the budget for the makeup.

Interoffice memo:
Creating the Gorn for Arena ate our makeup budget, so for the next three episodes, Spock will be on leave, and all the aliens will look just like humans with different costumes.
(Preferably females in skimpy ones.)
--G. R.

As far as the movies, TNG, and later, I'll bet they never thought of it.

--Baloo

------------------
"Just because you know you're right doesn't mean you are."
-- Me
http://www.geocities.com/cyrano_jones.geo/

[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited April 13, 2000).]

Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

The only aliens I remeber seeing in association with the Klingons was in the gulag in ST6. I figured that the Klingons were always something like the Soviets/Russians or maybe the British Empire: they subjugated a lot of ethnic peoples, but the officials and other public faces (athletes, cosmonauts, artists, academics) were mostly ethnic Russians. There are probably conquered worlds, but we haven't seen them yet.

------------------
When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Well, flipping through the Encylcopaedia - you can find that there was mention of the Kriosians!?! In "The Mind's Eye" Wanting to leave the Klingon Empire... And that the Empire was trying to put it down... or something like that. The strange thing is we see the Kriosians again in "The Perfect Mate" No mention of the Klingons though, so maybe they INDEED did leave the Empire. I think the Romulans have the Korvallans?? As part of the Romulan Empire.

Andrew

------------------
"Who wouldn't be the one you love
Who wouldn't stand inside your love." - Stand Inside Your Love, The Smashing Pumpkins

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

I thought the Klingon Kriosians were biologically Klingonlike colonists instead of a distinct race, but I guess they could have looked different. The Krios in the Krios/Valt Minor conflict probably was a completely different planet of the same name...

The Corvallen were working for the Romulans in "Face of the Enemy", but weren't necessarily a subjugated race. The Cardassians have had their Kressari and Xepolite allies as well, and again we never learned if these were independent races or subjugated slaves or something in between.

There have been some explicit slave races, but not many. Cardassia enslaved Bajor. The Son'a had the Tarlac and the Ellorians in "First Contact", and the Trill slugs of course have the Trill hosts (who only form a small part of the total population) as their willing slaves of a sort. The Dominion has nothing but slave races.

Perhaps there's something in the logistics of enslaving an alien race that makes extermination (or uneven political alliance, as perhaps with the Cardie-Kressari case) a more practical solution for all but the most advanced slaver races? Perhaps all slave races are likely to rebel the way the meek and spiritual Bajorans did, in which case enslaving simply isn't worth it on the long term?

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :

Cool.
When were the Kressari and the Xepolite mentioned, BTW?

------------------
Devil: Oh look at the time! I'm late for services.
Stone: Services?
Devil: A group of young teenagers that have been celebrating the Black Sabbath are planning on deep-sixing their gym teacher tonight. I'm gonna go and give them a little encouragement.

Brimstone. May it rest in syndication.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

This is a subect that WOULD have been explored in MY idea for a series. (See the Post about Series V). Given that the Klingon and Romulan Empires are almost (or are they?) as large as the Federation, it seems inevitable that they SHOULD contain other civilizations. Of course, there could be other explanations why we don't see them, such as:

1: Empires sometimes exterminate the natives for various reasons.

2: The Empires have repressed the other cultures so much that they are seldom seen or represented on board vessels.

3: When the Romulans or Klingons move in, everybody else moves out (there goes the neighborhood!)

4: Their space could be more sparely populated with suitable stars.. say only M or O B and A-type stars (like as we know it is more likely to form around F, G, and K-type stars)

5: The "Preservers" or the "First race" (or the Iconians, or the "First Federation" or the Q, or whoever) seeded the Federation area heavily, but other places less so.

But more likely, it just wasn't in the budget.

------------------
"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

Posted by Fructose (Member # 309) on :

Well, extreminating the populations would have been extreamly difficult considering that a space faring race would number somewhere in the billions (like us today). And having them move out would be even more difficult, moving say 6 billion people would be very time consuming and nearly impossible. I can see repressing them, but after a while the would revolt just like slaves. I think they star theory or the "First Race" theory would be more likely given the nature of people. But the whole budget thing really hampers the discussion.

But you know, the delta quad sure has a bunch of aliens in it and it's nowhere near the federation. Maybe the First Race just missed a spot or two.

"Hey you missed a section over there"

"I was going for a little artistic expression. Can't you see the flower I made?"

"Oh yeah...very nice. Can you do a dog?"

[This message has been edited by fructose1 (edited April 14, 2000).]

Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

For a pragmatic, unsentimental race like the Klingons, what to do with a population might depend on a simple cost/benefit analysis. Let's say there's a nice planet with a few billion people living on it.

What do you want from the planet?
1. Minerals and other resources of the planet, such as trees, animals, water
2. Land for colonization and food production
3. A big rock for a military base
4. Something like Risa

What do you want from the people?
1. Consumers for quality Klingon household appliances
2. Taxpayers/Tribute
3. Slave labor/cheap labor
4. Friends/happy members of your enlightened stellar family
5. Technology, intellectual resources, musicians for Klingon opera houses
6. Nothing, just get lost

It seems to me that if you only want the planetary resources and nothing from the people, it might be easiest to just kill everyone. In The Chase (TNG), a single Klingon ship very quickly made a planet uninhabitable (albeit one without an advanced civ). Even if a planet is spacefaring, civil defense for an entire planet would be extremely difficult, unless you already had, for some reason, an entire network of Strangelovian mine shafts. If you want to get something from the people themselves, the benefit of what you can get has to be balanced with the cost of pacification. If pacification costs too much in terms of manpower and materiel, again it's simpler to kill everyone.

You may notice that these kinds of actions are rather like those of the Nazis. Are we assuming that the Klingons are that bad, that they are, in effect, Space Nazis? As someone asked earlier, are these the kind of people that the Federation wants to deal with?

------------------
When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Well, the empire's mellowed a bit since it first formed.

------------------
You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend far too much time reading this sort of trash.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

The Klingons are unsentimental? Oh, I strongly disagree with that.

------------------
"What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity."
--
Camper Van Beethoven

Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

"Sentimental" is probably the wrong word. I was trying to suggest that they don't let sentiment get in the way when they must do unpleasant things, like Kruge killing the woman who stole the Genesis data. I agree the Klingons are sentimental or maybe extremely emotional. I'm sure they enjoy a good cry when they receive greeting cards. Well, you know what I mean.

------------------
When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Yes, I do.

I imagine some of that has to do with changing social mores within the Klingon Empire. The U.S., for instance, doesn't act the same way it did during the Cold War. The concept of honor is so nebulous that there should be surprise that there are several differing interpretations of "what Kahless" meant floating around.

------------------
"What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity."
--
Camper Van Beethoven

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Of course, it could also be that the evil guys are in fact in control of really small corners of the galaxy. Their mean spirits make up for what they lose in volume, so they are worthy opponents of the more complacent UFP even if they are only fraction the size. Perhaps there simply aren't all that many planets that have been conquered by Romulans or Klingons?

Klingons are always fighting over this region of space or that. But since when have they actually *won* anything? Perhaps they are like dogs that have no idea what to do with a cat once actually catching one - or cheetahs, unable to figure out what to do with prey that doesn't run away. Ruling over a planet isn't half as fun for a Klingon as fighting over it...

Timo Saloniemi

P.S. for the Klingon friends among us, I grant that the Empire did take Archanis sector from the Feds in DS9. But that's the ONLY successful conquest I know of.

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

I think the Klingon Empire (KE) was one of the first FTL-civs in the vicinity, so they could take over planets relatively easy. The aliens probably were not giving the chance to produce their own starships, or to join the Klingons and that they are either supressed, mixed in with Klingons so well, that they are no longer a specific race or live in reserves, like American Indians.
Furthermore, I think a galactic Empire hasn't all the space it says it has. OK, this came out pretty vague, so I'll try to give an example:
You have the border solar systems and a few inner systems, including Qo'nos. But that doesn't mean that all the space and systems in between are in Klingon hands as well. Maybe a few planets are reserves for the deliberately non-FTL races supressed by the Klingons.

I hope you understand any of this, my English isn't very good today

------------------
"When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators, Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life."
-- Management slogan, Ridcully-style (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent, Discworld)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prakesh's Star Trek Site

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I don't know, Kirk and company seemed to be pretty familiar with Klingon occupation practices during their day, which suggests that the Klingons at least had some.

------------------
"What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity."
--
Camper Van Beethoven

Posted by HrafnWif on :

I kinda resist the idea that Klingons practice planetary genocide on a regular basis. (Murder & mayhem, yes). Remember that killing an entire population was *bad* even for the CARDASSIANS...re. their reaction to the Founder's proposal in the final arc of DS9.

But how many races have warp drive? Wouldn't it be likely that if the client state, excuse me, planet, DIDN'T have warp drive that the imperial state would refuse to hand the technology over? And in that case the locals wouldn't be able to get away and on-camera so to speak.

------------------
...but the universal nature delights in change, and in obedience to her all things are done well...

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I'm not sure I follow. Sure, the Cardassians were opposed to genocide then, but, uh, that's kind of because they were on the recieving end.

------------------
"Oh, it's an anti-anti-WTO song. It's essentially a pro-Starbucks song. I saw this picture of a guy sticking his foot through a plate-glass window in a Starbucks in Seattle, and he was wearing a Nike. Man, couldn't you just change your shoes?"
--
M. Doughty

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Garak once tempted Worf with that "what's a little genocide between friends" rhetoric, in "Broken Link". This could indicate that he knew Klingons actually LIKED genocide, and thus Worf could see the reason and come in help of Garak. Or it could mean Garak knew Klingons LOATHED genocide, and Worf would take so much offense that he'd attack in rage, so Garak could kill him more easily and go on with his genocidal task.

Garak's aim of eradicating the Founders need not indicate a general Cardassian taste for genocide, though. Garak is an ends-justify-the-ends-of-entire-worlds sort of guy who kills when necessary, be it one person or billions. Dukat might not agree with him at all.

Cardassians might spread a reputation of themselves as genocidal monsters, though. They sort of did that for "Chain of Command" already, to entrap Picard. They might have used fear as a weapon in subjugation of Bajor and other planets. In actual fact, they are the most pragmatic-sounding race of them all, and they also are the only one with explicit subject and slave races and minions. I very much doubt they would support genocide, regardless of later-day Dukat's lunatic rantings.

Small-scale killing seems to be just a tool for them, though - in addition to the public executions of the occupation era, they can even rig the whole Terok Nor to automatically explode in case of a mutiny.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by HMS White Star (Member # 174) on :

Hey wait didn't the Dax mention something about the Klingons killing all the tribbles in (errr...I...can't remember the name of the espisode) isn't that genocide

------------------
Somehow you were linked to this page, which doesn't really exist. Well, this one does, but the one you were trying to get to doesn't. Actually, that's not really true either, because it probably does, but either you mistyped it or our webmaster is asleep at the wheel. If the later is the case (you were linked here from a page within **********.net) then please let us know.

If you were linked here from an external site, which is most often the case, it would be nice of you to let them know.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Not in the strictest sense of the term, no.