ENT: Divergence

[clearspira]

The DS9 scene was a great funny line, but everything since has just complicated things. Enterprise should have either ignored it or just started with smooth head Klingons.

If they're going to do something different with the Klingons (or Romulans or Cardassians, for that matter), why not address their "Empires". If their sections of the galaxy are as teeming with life as the Federation and their territories are of comparable sizes, where are all the subject species? As far as we can tell they have no say in military and government, nor are they apparently even welcome on the home planets. What do they think of arbitrary "Neutral Zones" that prevent them from escaping to the freedom of the Federation? I get some of this was covered with the Cardassians with the Maquis, but it was still with mainly Federation and Bajoran citizens. As far as I know, we've never seen a single non-Klingon citizen of the Klingon Empire.

You realise that the only way for me to answer that effectively would mean delving into the immigrant debate... which is risky to say the least.

[TGLS]

If they're going to do something different with the Klingons (or Romulans or Cardassians, for that matter), why not address their "Empires". If their sections of the galaxy are as teeming with life as the Federation and their territories are of comparable sizes, where are all the subject species?

What makes you think that the Federation is naturally teeming with life like that? Maybe the reason why there are so many species in Federation space is because they take in everyone the other powers toss out...

[Darth Wedgius]

The DS9 scene was a great funny line, but everything since has just complicated things. Enterprise should have either ignored it or just started with smooth head Klingons.

If they're going to do something different with the Klingons (or Romulans or Cardassians, for that matter), why not address their "Empires". If their sections of the galaxy are as teeming with life as the Federation and their territories are of comparable sizes, where are all the subject species? As far as we can tell they have no say in military and government, nor are they apparently even welcome on the home planets. What do they think of arbitrary "Neutral Zones" that prevent them from escaping to the freedom of the Federation? I get some of this was covered with the Cardassians with the Maquis, but it was still with mainly Federation and Bajoran citizens. As far as I know, we've never seen a single non-Klingon citizen of the Klingon Empire.

As far as escaping to the Federation goes, I think that might be mostly solved by interstellar travel being really hard. Refugees can get from Syria to Europe on something that floats and has an engine. If the refugees had to build a Saturn V to cross the Mediterranean, I think more would stay home. And say they have their own Cochrane (or blueprints) and a decent aerospace industrial base, still, a refugee ship travelling around at warp 1.5 is going to be pretty easy prey for a Ph'legm cruiser at warp 6.

I wondered about life in the Klingon Empire during TNG's run. I imagine they didn't want to show the UFP allied with an empire that potentially enslaved whole worlds. The closest I can remember them getting to that in TNG was the episode, "The Mind's Eye," the one where Geordi was brainwashed to assassinate a Klingon governor of a colony that wanted out of the empire. Even then, I don't think they said whether the subjects were Klingons or not.

[Beastro]

The DS9 scene was a great funny line, but everything since has just complicated things. Enterprise should have either ignored it or just started with smooth head Klingons.

If they're going to do something different with the Klingons (or Romulans or Cardassians, for that matter), why not address their "Empires". If their sections of the galaxy are as teeming with life as the Federation and their territories are of comparable sizes, where are all the subject species? As far as we can tell they have no say in military and government, nor are they apparently even welcome on the home planets. What do they think of arbitrary "Neutral Zones" that prevent them from escaping to the freedom of the Federation? I get some of this was covered with the Cardassians with the Maquis, but it was still with mainly Federation and Bajoran citizens. As far as I know, we've never seen a single non-Klingon citizen of the Klingon Empire.

The Empires need taken down a notch.

Cardassia has been, Romulus has been wounded thanks to 2009 Trek, that leaves the Klingons.

I'd like to see the Klingons get sick of a ceremonial Emperor Kahless and have pushes for the restoration of an abolute monarchy that results in fragmenting civil war that de facto results in the Empire becoming several Klingon nations ala China's Warlord Period, with other AQ powers supporting and counter supporting different groups to benefit from it while hoping it keep the Empire weak for them to expand into the power vacuum.

I wondered about life in the Klingon Empire during TNG's run. I imagine they didn't want to show the UFP allied with an empire that potentially enslaved whole worlds. The closest I can remember them getting to that in TNG was the episode, "The Mind's Eye," the one where Geordi was brainwashed to assassinate a Klingon governor of a colony that wanted out of the empire. Even then, I don't think they said whether the subjects were Klingons or not.

Birth of the Federation wasa game that tried to emulate something with that. The Fed (and the Feringi, which were OP as hell in that game) had diplomacy bonus' allowing members to join them easier while the three others had it harder, and the AI would invade and conquer minor races.

As it panned out, occupying any planet of another race was too much of a hassle given the revolt risks, so the player bribed minors like the Fed did, and when it came to war, it was best to exterminate all life in a system and resettle it with your own people.

Would be neat to see auxiliary species serving the Romulans and Klingons ala the British Indian Army, French foreign units, or expatriate units like the Wild Geese.

[TV-366]

See, all these discussions about empires and whether or not addressing the forehead thing was a good idea are why I don't participate in these threads as much as I'd like. I'm nowhere near as smart or deep as the rest of you.

Case in point; my big gripe about this episode is the lack of followup to the revelations about Malcolm. Archer sent him to the brig, Malcolm threw his lot in with Archer, and he was allowed back to his post just like that? No lingering distrust by the rest of the crew, who don't know why their tactical officer was in the brig during a crisis but knew he was in there? No indication that Archer's going to be monitoring Malcolm's communications just to make sure he's not getting secret messages? You could have a whole episode (or at least a subplot) dedicated to the fallout from this incident, maybe even calling back to "Shuttlepod One" with Tucker being one of the only people to stand by Malcolm and help get people to start trusting him again. Then again, given that Enterprise had a history of jettisoning decent subplots, I shouldn't be surprised this wasn't explored.

[Deledrius]

It really wouldn't surprise me to see that followed up on in the next season, but alas. It definitely feels like an oversight to not give it some kind of nod and acknowledgement that it's lurking under the surface until the next time it's An Episode Plot.

[Worffan101]

Any explanation would have been silly.

True, at least they tried to come up with something that was in the classic Trek style.

I still think Roddenberry's explanation would've been better.

[turbo_sailor67]

If the STD Klingons end up being a result of the augment virus, fine. It is using existing canon in a logical way...And we know from Worf's line in ''Trials and Tribble-ations'' that talking about the augment klingons is taboo so that would explain why we have never heard of them before.

I do however resent the fact that we the viewers have to infer what should already have been brought up on the show. How much controversy would have been dampened by this single throwaway line? (I also have a sneaking suspicion that this explanation for these klingons is in fact so perfect it not only won't be used, there will be something in season 2 that outright contradicts it like an ancient painting or something).

From what I've read, heard, and seen, there are nary a fuck to be given regarding "canon" or anything really "consistent" with Star Trek. Discovery is the Abramsverse brought to TV. It's Bad Robot production, it's Alex I'm-a-dismal-failure-as-a-writer Kurtzman at the helm calling the shots and there is no interest in "lining up" with the Star Trek as we know it.

The big goal at this moment is to re-write all of Star Trek so that all Star Trek's that have come before only exist in broad, sparse interpretations in order to make Discovery effectively the new TOS and so they can make anything up, repurpose and reuse anything from any other Star Trek series and define it as theirs.

Just look at the legal troubles they're having with the plagiarism. I mean DS9 and B5 definitely have strong connections and I do think the idea was to take B5's concepts and implement them into Star Trek; the two shows evolved in very different directions. My first reaction to the Discovery parallels to that game were "Huh, that part is kinda similar" to "Wow now that's strikingly similar" to "Did they seriously just read this guys development blog and decide to make THAT the show? Why?!" It's pretty damning when they both try to offer a concession of no longer using the tardigrade and try to throw Brian Fuller under the bus when they'd already fired him seemingly for being overqualified.

Ultimately methinks CBS never cared about Star Trek other than they knew it was the only thing they had to try and get anyone into the Streaming service. Lord knows why they thought the failed team behind the better-Star-Wars-Prequel-than-the-Star-Wars-Prequel, Star Trek reboot movies.

Discovery just has me so jaded and I went into it with an open mind and zero expectations since I was willing to see what they'd do with it. If I come off sounding prickly, in reality it's more just exasperation and disappointment, like "what a waste/pity. Oh well, c'est la grand prix"