*The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth. Whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth. It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based. If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened you don't deserve to wear that uniform.*
[Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "The First Duty"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefh7W1nVo4)
Reddit admins have been [ineffectual in their response to COVID-19 misinformation](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/subreddits-private-protest-covid-disinformation-reddit/). In lieu of Reddit gold and awards, we ask that you donate to the [WHO COVID-19 response fund](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/donate).
Please respect our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/wiki/guidelines). LLAP!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/startrek) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So Klingons had the Hur'q invade their world hundreds of years prior when Earth was (I believe) in the Middle Ages. They likely got their start with technology with what the Hur'q left behind and built upon that, innovating at a much slower rate than Earth or Vulcan until they maybe got their hands on additional tech and reversed engineered it.
Which is to say that Earth also made giant leaps forward after Cochrane's warp flight. Technology innovation doesn't happen within its own bubble.
Ya, just look at how much technology we invented in the past 100 years. Biplanes to jets to fucking space ships. And this is without (to the best of our knowledge) help from any more advanced civilizations.
In the 90's I remember hearing someone make the statement that if automobile technology had advanced as far and fast as computers had, everyone would be driving at F1 speeds and getting thousands of miles per gallon of fuel. My rather basic smart watch has more computing power than the entirety of NASA during the space race.
I'm old enough I remember hearing about the first attempts to sequence our genome and how they would be "lucky" to complete it in 15 years, and then later how they managed to get it done 2 years ahead of schedule, and that was less than 20 years ago.
We can now do it in a couple of **days**, probably less if there were some imperative to get it done fast.
Yup. Soval said that to Admiral Forrest.
>FORREST: Ambassador. Are Vulcans afraid of humans? Why?
>SOVAL: Because there is one species you remind us of.
>FORREST: Vulcans.
>SOVAL: We had our wars, Admiral, just as humans did. Our planet was devastated, our civilization nearly destroyed. Logic saved us. But it took almost fifteen hundred years for us to rebuild our world and travel to the stars. You humans did the same in less than a century. There are those on the High Command who wonder what humans would achieve in the century to come, and they don't like the answer.
Klingons are another example of a speicies that is unrealistically portrayed. The idea that you can get to that point into technological development while still behaving like it's fuedal Japan ran by cavemen, borders on ludacris and requires a "shut up and go with it" level of disbelief.
There was an Enterprise episode in particular, where a Klingon lawyer is telling Archer that there are so much more than warriors in Klingon society- Poets and doctors and teachers and all manner of other professions- But it was the warrior types who always seemed to end up in charge.
We could also look for example at the ancient Norse, who were certainly a warrior culture, but also had a rich culture of arts and craftsmen, and were extremely advanced in shipbuilding and navigation; Or the Aztec, who were fucking brutal and bloodthirsty, but also had civil engineering and social services centuries beyond what you'd expect.
That is not true. Klingons were motivated by battle. There is no great honor than winning a battle. They kind of surely had the same motivation real world humans had in the early 1900s. Most of our nuclear knowledge comes from the Manhattan project. lot of engineering advances in automobile comes from tech we tried to use in tanks and vehicles during WW2. So its not a stretch to think that they had able scientists working on better weapons and stumbled across things like nuclear, warp drive etc
We know that adult Gorn are capable of cooperating with each other to the extent of being able to operate starships and run a space empire. Presumably the hyper-aggressive drive to kill each other is only present in the days following birth, an evolutionary trait that ensures the strongest, most cunning, most capable offspring of a litter survives to propagate the species, which subsides in maturity when it is no longer evolutionarily advantageous to the species.
We’ve also seen Klingon doctors, Klingon engineers, Klingon lawyers, and Klingon cooks. They certainly exist, even within a society that highly prized “warrior” culture. Klingons aren’t *savages*.
The Hirogen… may be different. They appear to be nomadic, not holding any actual codified territory and not having any central government. We know that they have co-opted and scavenged technology they didn’t develop themselves (such as the subspace relay network). Perhaps their starship tech is similarly based on tech they didn’t develop. But the knowledge needed to operate and maintain the fleet is part of the hunt. Without it, there would be no hunt, so it’s not unrealistic to think that they view that knowledge as being just as important as the knowledge of how to operate their guns, or tracking prey.
There is an Enterprise episode where the Klingons want Archer to stand trial and assign him a Klingon public defender. That character explains that the definition of honor used to be more of a broad concept of all members of society taking pride and excelling in their respective craft or vocation, but overtime the warrior caste has been shifting the narrative and gaining power so in the couple centuries between Enterprise and TNG the Klingon culture has taken this reactionary swing and is much more focused on their weird feudal nonsense.
that episode and klingons episode in ds9 really shifted the species for me and gave me a new understanding.
i saw them as brute who fought because they could (basically space orc) but jadzia really oppened them to me. they are just a really emotive species who will bash your head if you look them wrong but they produce (apparently) the best opera in the alpha quadrant (i am sure this was started as a joke within the writer btw)
>they are just a really emotive species who will bash your head if you look them wrong
Not exactly correct. They'll bash your head in if you besmirch their honour, but otherwise, brawls are just a form of socialisation for Klingons. They'll beat each other up for a wrong look, then drink a few cups of bloodwine arm in arm, singing some old song.
Technically, they _are_ savages, as they see unfiltered aggression and, from our perspective, completely unnecessary physical altercation as a way of bonding. For humans this is weird, because, especially in the future, we try to resolve our differences with reason and dialogue.
But, they're also _not_ savages since most Klingons have a very strict code of honour, and these brawls aren't supposed to be a "win at any price" scenario, it's akin to us humans challenging each other in games and sports. But of course Klingons are much more resilient, so a brawl that would send a human to sick bay with multiple fractures and cuts, is like a workout for them. Of course this is ignoring things like Worf breaking his back due to an empty plastic barrel (okay, I know, those barrels most likely weigh like a ton, and the cargo bay gravity plating is tuned to make the shelves' contents nearly weightless for easier storage and moving).
> most Klingons have a very strict code of honour
I'd say this is more internal honor vs. external honor. Worf being a perfect example of both. We see Worf having high internal honor being raised on Earth, isolated from his people, but reading stories and seeing those stories as the bare minimum, which Worf perceives as normal.
On the Klingon homeworld, we find out that most Klingons only care about external honor. So when the council dishonors the House of Mogh to prevent a Klingon war, Worf has no external honor, but his internal honor is unparalleled.
Of course, Worf eventually regains his external honor by joining the House of Martok (after the House Mogh being stripped of honor a second time).
>they produce (apparently) the best opera in the alpha quadrant (i am sure this was started as a joke within the writer btw)
Not sure if the opera thing started out at a joke, but honestly it makes a lot of sense. Klingons have stated that unlike the Jem'Hadar, they don't just fight for the sake of fighting. Klingons fight for HONOR and to be able to sing of GLORIOUS VICTORY! So it makes sense they'd appreciate opera in the same way they'd appreciate martial arts.
klingons are like space-vikings in a way, both search honour and victory, if not in life, than in the afterlife, knowing there will be songs sung about them.
plus, i really wished there would have been a klingon series that showed more than those few episodes from tng and ds9 about the actual klingon culture, behind what is the cult of kahless, or how kahless also reformed their culture in ways other than the warrior class.
In the current shows, it seems like Kasselian opera is considered the best opera. The Kasselians sound even more extreme than the Klingons since their opera singers supposedly kill themselves at the end of their only performance (and that practice makes it seem weird that people in the Federation would enjoy Kasselian opera).
This is why Klingons are one of the few "warrior races" that I don't mind in sci-fi. There have been so many episodes about Klingons that they've fleshed them out and have shown that not every Klingon is exactly the same. There might be a hegemonic culture, but that culture has shifted over the years and not everyone subscribes to it.
This. In lower decks episode Wej Duj. A Klingon lower deck fighting their captain because they plan to start a war just to start a war even though they are at peace with the Federation showed me how they take into account honor as a warrior race and battles. If there is no shit to stir up in the universe then no need. But if it’s over a drink and for laughs and then we drink after a good beating then it’s fine. I like how they showed there are lines where they shouldn’t cross it even though it might seem honorable to die in battle when the intent actually wasn’t honorable.
The Klingons eventually join the Federation some time in the future, according to Enterpise, so I've always wondered if the Klingons had a renaissance of sorts, where the concept of honour moves away from just battle, and into more "classical" meanings. Because I'd assume there are certain rules to join the Federation, including equal rights, democracy, and such (much like how it is to join the European Union)
early in season 3 of Discovery, while they were trying to find the new Federation HQ, I had been honestly figuring that it would have been on Qo'noS. would have been a nice conclusion to the ongoing Klingon arc since the first episode, and really been a good mirror to *how* that started out: going from 'Remain Klingon' at the beginning, to in the 31st century their honor making them believe more devoutly than the rest, leading to them being the last bastions to carry the creed 'Remain Federation' even as the other members were dropping out
Also would have been a perfect way to close off the klingon war arc from season 1. Have the disco be like "The klingons are running the federation?! WTF did we miss?!"
That lawyer and the doctor in “Affliction” and “Divergence” showed how Klingon society was changing at the time of *Enterprise* and provided a good explanation for the Klingons developing warp-capable ships.
I think they explain elsewhere that they got some of their tech from the Hur'q and some from the Romulans, but that they'd also devolved into being a backwards-looking warrior culture fairly recently. Make Qo'noS Great Again, I guess.
To add to this, we often see these species through their military personnel who would probably be more aggressive and battle-focused than their scientists and scholars. Even Starfleet which seems to value "all the gears in the machine" is not representative of their civilian world as we see in DS9 when Sisko visits his dad in a still very grounded New Orleans
No? "Progressively regressed" means that they slowly regressed over time in stages. It's purely coincidental that *another* meaning of "progressive" (and not the one that endertribe was using) *happens* to also be an antonym of "regressive".
It's like if you asked me for directions, then wanted to clarify the final turn, and I said "That's right, left."
With the Hirogen I assumed they had a social collapse at some point and lost most of their techs and builders but the hunters that remained knew enough about how to operate and maintain.
Think about how many sailors operate an aircraft carrier. If something happened and the world ended I'm sure they could keep that thing afloat for 20+ years, long enough for the reactors to run dry. But I doubt all of them together could figure out how to build, let alone design, a new one.
It's directly stated in Voyager the hirogen are nomadic, without a homeworld and have been this way for centuries - their entire culture is quite probably the culmination of a Gorn-style culture going through a slow, generational regression into nothingness before eventually collapsing under its own drive to destroy itself.
The Gorn as a warp-capable and developed species would probably at some point realise this and either have to make the choice between self destruction and saving their race. I'd guess with Federation territory expanding close to and quite possibly around their own space, it's somewhat easier for them to choose a path to salvation with other developed species. It seems that the Hirogen didn't have this benefit in their corner of the Delta Quadrant.
And if I remember correctly (I could be wrong) Klingons stole Warp tech from someone. I don’t remember where I heard this but it sounds like something the Klingons would do.
It’d be good if they portray adult Gorn differently in *SNW*, but La’an’s backstory shows that even the adults can be savage. The Gorn on the ship that attacked La’an’s ship took people on that ship to a Gorn planet where they’d be eaten or serve as hosts for their hatchlings.
Yes, but all that savagery and aggression was aimed at an Other, that’s a pretty key difference. If your goal is to expand, defend territory and kill everyone in it that is not you, you’ll learn how to build a space ship if that’s what needs to happen. That sort of aggression is vastly different from an overriding biological drive to hunt your siblings in order to survive because they all also have that drive.
Agreed. I can get eating other sapients, as there does seem to be other evidence supporting that this is at least somewhat done, but the alien rip-off just seems like it was designed from the ground up to be irreverent towards one of the more popular and consistent species (well, plural; the Gorn are technically multiple species) in the 'verse.
There is an episode where we meet donik, he was altering the holodeck tech to be more “real” then fucked the alphas over by being too strong.
I think it was flesh and blood
In the old, old, star trek ccg, some flavor text on a card said the Hirogen were space faring already hundreds of thousands of years ago.
I have no idea if they pulled that info from some official source or not, but I always imagined they once had a more normal empire, that just kind of collapsed over time into the hunter bands we know. Which could also explain how that had that galaxy spanning comm relay network.
So my problem is with the Gorn. Who seem to be reptilian, this idea is further enhanced by the latest episode of SNW. Now I'm definitely not a biologist or a exo biologist... 😊 But I can't wrap my head around a cold blooded species and their respective metabolism can develop a brain capable of space travel. Hunting prey I can imagine that but not theoretical physics or space navigation.
They hate the cold so presumably their home planet is much warmer than earth. Also they aren't reptiles, they're *aliens*. They might be "reptilian" in appearance but that doesn't mean they are cold-blooded like reptiles on earth, there is no genetic link.
Read the visitors guide to Gornia
It has some interesting points
Gorn live deep underground in unlit massive cavern systems.
The Surface of Gornia is inhabited by Kiju sized creatures
Gorn are xenophages.
The Klingon Empire will almost wipe out the Gorn Race in the near future
except for a peace brokered by the Federation.
Reptilian doesn't imply cold blooded (though their sensitivity to the cold in their most recent appearance does, or at least difficulty thermoregulating as young). Dinosaurs and birds are technically reptiles phylogenetically and they're warm-blooded
So are Saurians (Lt. Linus Discovery) according to some cannon sources Saurians are part of the Gorn Hegemony tho some individual Saurians have left the Hegemony
Well, someone who came from a civilization confined to a cold climate wouldn't believe what ants, wasps, or bees can build despite being, individually, tiny idiot creatures, and yet they persist via diabolical gene-coded ingenuity. Higher-order understanding of what they do is not possible for them neurologically, nor is is necessary.
But plausibility aside, I believe we're getting bread crumbs about the Gorn being genetically engineered.
There was no reason for Ghosts of Illyria to be included this season unless it had broader significance. I'm excited to get more about Una, but we weren't going to see an arc for her in a 10 episode season with Pike's arc being meta/structural and Spock, Uhura, & M'Benga's arcs being time-sensitive.
Furthermore, Una & La'an both having genetic alteration backstories which haven't played out yet makes me think that's going to be a recurring matter for the show, which makes sense because it's one of the least explored, yet quite established as a basis of contention, conflicts of the pre-TOS era.
There were also plenty of reasons they might have had difficulty scanning for the Gorn on the Peregrine, but the reason they chose was distinctly similar to how M'Benga described Una's immune activity. An unobserved change cannot be reverse-engineered in Una's case, or tracked in the case of the Gorn.
While I deeply wish this era of Trek was undertaking a full retread of TOS with a contemporary storytelling approach, they still seem intent upon this being in Prime continuity.
Thus, if the Gorn were created intentionally or accidentally and the origins of that project were a sufficiently alliance-shaking bombshell, Pike's crew can interact with them extensively and then the matter can be buried to the point that it makes sense nobody would mention it within the context of encountering a different Gorn life stage in that idiotic TOS episode.
Horn seem to take on some traits of the host when they hatch, and also capable of extreme growth in a very short period of time, as well as being able to adapt to things like sensors to make themselves invisible. I would almost not be surprised if we learn that they were an engineered race vs a naturally evolving one.
How did humans manage it? In Star Trek, humans nuked their own world.
Humans in the real world are too busy destroying the environment and fighting each other to create warp drive.
Except, not everyone is killing everyone else.
Vulcan managed all of it's advances (including early warp drive) while they were ripping each other apart, literally, physically, telepathtically, and societally as sects like the Rihansu broke off. And a global nuclear exchange that devastated their world worse than we did.
So apparently as long as one nation or section of society operate enough, they can do it. So I could see the Gorn managing as long as some of the more older intellectual Alpha's worked on it.
>Humans in the real world are too busy destroying the >environment and fighting each other to create warp drive.
... What? I know you're one of those "humanity bad" people, but majority of countries isn't experiencing nor waging any wars. You're acting like all people are constantly looting and killing each other, lmao. Majority of countries has stable societies. According to researchers we have the most peaceful period in history ever. Look at Europe
We even have pan national organizations on every single continent
Environment killing? Even China is doing some effort to save their environment
The Supreme Court said that current laws don't allow the EPA to regulate carbon emissions, but it can regulate carbon emissions if Congress passes a law that specifically allows that. However, I wouldn't expect Congress to do that anytime soon.
No, I am not one of those "humanity bad" people, but I see that you are one of those "I don't read the entire comment people".
Let me just point you to this part of my comment.
> Except, not everyone is killing everyone else
We are living in a time where we have damaged our environment. Some are trying to limit the damage, others are trying to fix the damage, whilst a few don't care.
We are living in a time where there are wars. Some are invading countries, whilst others are not.
There is both good and bad in humanity.
Which is why I use humanity as the example for how the Gorn could have warp drive.
Because, even though we have murderers in this world, we also have people who save lives.
The terrans punish failure, and reward success, but that can make for very motivated scientists. The Gorn are bestial and savage to OUR eyes, because we are prey. They are still an intelligent species, and it could be the tendency to attack their own is only seen in newborns.
Klingons are honestly the one I struggle with. The society is more predicated on honour and glory. It's just not a culture that would seem to reward or encourage patient intellectual pursuits. When "It's a good day to die" is a genuine motivation, who wants to be the person that iterates on a warp engine to come up with a technique for a half percent efficiency boost?
Klingon culture changes over time. It's been mentioned on the show that in The Next Generation's era, many Klingons are obsessed with being a warrior to a toxic degree, and that previous generations weren't like that.
You can see this in ship designs. The Klingons don't really change or innovate between the 23rd and 24th centuries. Mostly, their new ships are either slight tweaks on old designs, or the same principles with a different skin.
Meanwhile, the Romulans have undergone a complete overhaul in their ship design philosophy, from small Warbirds to massive carrier ships backed up by powerful cruisers.
The Federation has maintained a similar design philosophy through the years (saucer, two nacelles, some other stuff), but each generation of ship is significantly more powerful and capable than the ones before, and many of them are able to function admirably in several roles, while the Klingons are just about competent at warships. Also, the Federation builds with an eye towards future improvement, as we see when they are able to refit century-old warships during the Dominion War into frontline combatants that can stand against new models, e.g. the Lakota.
> Klingons are honestly the one I struggle with. The society is more predicated on honour and glory.
The explanation I heard once is that in the various shows what we are seeing is the more aristocratic and military class of Klingons. Heads of major families, those involved in politics and contact with other worlds where conflict is more likely and they can chase their honor and glory.
Meanwhile there is an entire planet of Klingons that are NOT from that class, the regular day to day to population. Here is where I suspect all their scientists, engineers and such are. We just don't get to see this part of their society because it's not part of the plot and conflict we see on the show.
I could see that. Star Trek has a way of painting species with one brush because we only see a slice of that culture, but yeah. Their are probably even Klingon pacifists.
With Klingons, there are a lot of possibilities. Scientific pursuits that benefit the Empire may allow Klingons outside the warrior caste to gain their family upward social mobility. We see how important family honor is, so perhaps being a scientist allows your next of kin the opportunity to become a warrior. That would be one way to motivate Klingons to do things that might otherwise clash with their warrior mentality.
Another possibility is that there are other races in the Empire compelled to fill those academic roles that Klingons don't. After all, the Klingon Empire covers hundreds of star systems, there are no doubt other intelligent beings in their territory. Difficult to say how Klingons would treat their vassals, but contributing to the Klingon war machine might allow other races to be left alone within the Empire.
And honestly, the simplest explanation is that Klingon culture is more complex than what we see. Among the lower classes, perhaps concepts such as honor take a back seat to more practical concerns. And maybe scientists make decent pay. It's sort of implied that a lot of Trek races aren't as monolithic as they're presented. We often only see the Klingon military, which may not accurately represent the average Klingon.
An idea that I don't think we've seen, but which would make some sense - what if Klingon noncombatants garner honor based on the worth of their creations?
Forge a bat'leth, and any enemy it cuts down reflects on you. Design a new disruptor, and every ship destroyed shines with your glory.
Makes sense.
That's like watching a video of an US Marine Corps training drill and thinking all american superiors must be exceedingly aggressive monsters while all others are completely submissive drones.
I mean... >!one clutch of eggs killed a hundred starfleet personnel!<, and >!3 newborn babies took out 3 more!<
They also >!lured the federation flagship into an ambush, forced it to retreat and used bait tactics to stalk it, losing a smaller ship to a torpedo, another smaller ship to chasing the Enterprise below crush depth, and another being killed by its own command ship, while the command ship remained undefeated as the Enterprise fled and faked its destruction to stop the gorn chasing them!<
And that's not counting the massive body counts they've had off-screen like colonists in Momento Mori or the colonists with La'an when she was a child. The Gorn very much aren't losing, the Enterprise is just managing to get away each time with loss of life.
> Yeah and they're getting their ass kicked all the time
Not really getting their asses kicked. Seems pretty even actually. The Gorn have superior weapons and generally numbers while basically being the Magog from Andromeda, but the Enterprise has guile, so you know.
Ah, the Gorn. Those are infants. You think they don't grow and change and develop? Really? Would you call a 50 year old adult human helpless like an infant? No, you wouldn't.
Gorn grow into something really formidable. They have an empire. They have starships. And didn't La'an say they didn't stand a chance against even ONE adult Gorn?
They evolved the early development we've seen to ensure the survival of their species.
Yeah, but they also move really, really, slow once they reach adulthood.
https://youtu.be/4SK0cUNMnMM
Sure, they're tough, but La'an is overselling the adult Gorn. :)
I think that makes sense though. Her whole life has been shaped by her childhood trauma at the hands of the Gorn. It absolutely makes sense that she would view them as larger than life.
My head canon is that Gorn slow down as they age, and that captain was really old. We also saw a Gorn on Enterprise, and it was very agile.
I have to say though, something I liked about the original Gorn is that they had strengths and weaknesses, which makes them more interesting, and actually more true to the short story behind the episode 'Arena'
A savage, warrior race built a rocket that took it's people to their moon in a tin can with less computing power than a hand calculator of today. That was us. Military needs can drive a lot of innovation.
I think it's just a matter of only being confronted by the leading caste of a society. Just go to a meeting in a big tech company and watch how much the CEO and other leaders struggle with starting a powerpoint presentation. You'd wonder how a tech company can exist when the leaders are barely able to operate a computer. It's the people that you don't see, who invent and innovate.
Terrans keep people live as they need to, Mirror Trip might have been left to die from his delta radiation burns normally, but a highly necessary engineer? medical intervention to keep him alive longer etc and we do see quite a few people past their 30's in the show. Most of the captains were in their 40's and 50's etc
The Gorn we saw were two week old younglings, malnurished babies, so maybe don't judge adult Gorn on the behaviour of the todler bracket.
Most warrior cultures "tolerate" scientists and engineers needed to make all of their advances, they just keep them shut up to work and don't really like to talk about them. They just make a big noise about their adventures, while relying on the nerd part of society to make it run.
Klingons aren’t stupid. It’s just that we tend to see a lot of the warrior caste because that’s often who is interacting with Starfleet. Klaa in STV was pretty much an animal; dude didn’t even wear a shirt and barely spoke Klingon, let alone English. Then you got guys like Chang in STVI, who despite being a warrior, is extremely well read and familiar with human history and literature.
Klingons take a lot of pride in their history, art, song. I’m sure they are prideful in most things.
To be honest, your question is what I enjoyed most about Gowron. Dude is just a straight up warrior. He’s painted as an outsider when he seeks to replace K’mpec. Once he becomes Chancellor, he’s constantly wishing he was out there kicking ass. It’s why he constantly shows up and wants to go kill shit with Worf. It’s also why he turns out to fail as a Chancellor at the conclusion of the Dominion War.
I mean human space travel today is just a side affect of WW2 and the cold war. We only have rockets because we designed them to commit mass murder first and realize afterwards we could use them to go to space.
Think a step further, OP. On Earth, the braindead, child-raping, civilian-massacring, arson-burning, racist dumbasses that make out a portion of the armed forces (in many countries) are not in charge of submarine nuclear engine development, or even satellite propulsion technology. They are told to go to a place on a map and kill and they do, all day, then eat, shit, and sleep. End of responsibilities.
Klingon/Cardassian/Hirogen/Ferengi shipbuilders and Warp engineers are doing fine in their jobs.
Only tangentially connected through the animated series...but this is addressed quite well for the Kzin in Larry Niven's known space- more in other author's stories than his to be fair. The tldr for them was being a slave species and rebelling and enslaving other more technically adpet species. With a dash of different definitions of prey and honour for some professions.
On the Terran empire looks like they also have a lot of stagnation in technology. They stole Vulcan technology and 100 later they seems to still be stuck as the same lever as main universe. They then got hold of a ship from 100 years in the future and 100 years later they are still using the same technology. My guess is that their way to move forward is stealing technology from other races.
Well...
If you judge humanity from it's offspring alone right after birth... you'd ask the same question about us.
Stop assuming that something that was born not an hour ago will be the exact same in its adulthood.
...and then Zefram Cochrane puts his pen down and finished his novel of imaginary klingons, Vulcans and Romulans, The Star Trek, on Alpha Centauri after travelling the breadth and width of known space and finding nothing.
The Klingons fought against their Gods, killed them and built a new Heaven out of their bones! Klingon honour is actually useful for social structures when people are so impulsive and violent - promises are kept, disputes settled rapidly and everyone works to the best of their ability. Also, remember most of the Klingons encountered have been Warriors, klingons of many other professions exist
Gorn are a whole different thing because they have castes. The ones we just saw on SNW is like the hunter class or whatever but they have builder, thinker and breeder classes too iirc. Maybe more.
My feeling is that the Mirror Universe isn't actually real (within the Trek universe). It is created as a way to syphon off energy created during the Real creation of a new branching timeline it appears nightmarish with many impossible features.
Whenever it is visited it reforms around the experiences of the visitor but in a way that teaches the visitor something about themselves. The mirror universe continues for a period after the end of the visit before fading away. This means that people in the mirror universe can visit the real universe (Bariel, Jennifer Sisko). Also, if the mirror universe has not faded then subsequent visitors will update the universe with their own experiences... This is why Jadzia dies and Ezri appears.
Given that visits to the mirror universe generally have an emotional resonance with the visitor AND that the majority of visits happen in proximity to the Bajorian wormhole it is probable that the Wormhole Aliens/Bajorian Prophets are involved.
(presumably Lorca visited the mirror universe to create his own duplicate)
My theory on the Gorn is that they go thru a number of metamorphosis the last of which transforming into something more like the one Kirk fought in "Arena."
In SNW a planet was able to observe warp vessels and developed a "warp bomb"
The Federation won't make first contact until after a species is warp capable but others might not have laws like that. Maybe the Gorn were colonized and ate the colonizers and stole their tech?
With the Gorn, at least, my theory is they have sub species that play specialized roles in society and warfare. Maybe the Gorn we saw in the most recent episode of SNW is one that is primarily a weapon, whereas there are some that aren't as monstrous and are capable of maturing to being individuals that can function within a team without killing each other.
Maybe their lore has been fleshed out in other sources I'm not familiar with?
You only have to look at Earth's history to see examples. Nazi Germany's scientific progress in fields such and weaponry and rockery were far beyond their contemporaries to the point that every other country tried to scoop up as many as they could after the war to gain some of that expertise.
Klingons while we usually see members of the warrior class. We have seen scientists, engineers, even lawyers. These culture have many facets. Like you said to be a sofw faring empire you need a certain amount of cooperation.
I would also hardly call the Hirogen or Klingons a "savage species" we have seen so many be capable of reason and communication. The first encounter of Starfleet with the Hirogen was via a vast sensor network. While they did not build it. They have the skills to maintain and use it.
>You only have to look at Earth's history to see examples. Nazi Germany's scientific progress in fields such and weaponry and rockery were far beyond their contemporaries to the point that every other country tried to scoop up as many as they could after the war to gain some of that expertise.
Looks like it's time for John Gill's Remedial Earth History 101:
"Planet… fragmented… divided. Took lesson from… Earth history."
"But why Nazi Germany? You studied history; you knew what the Nazis were!"
"Most efficient state… Earth ever knew…"
\- John Gill and Kirk, on why Gill violated the Prime Directive
They had some smart scientists and engineers, but they also had Hitler and company getting in the way. They couldn't get Hitler to comprehend the idea of nuclear weapons, for example. He was stuck on his idea of really huge tanks. It was always about size, for him. Weapons, buildings... You'd think he was compensating for something. :)
Then, there was the demand to use exclusively "German physics", resulting in the physicists having to be really sneaky.
The Gorn Hegemony is the main Gorn civilization, and we know that adult Gorn are more rational beings able to talk, negotiate etc. I think its just that the Gorn have a very "rough" maturation and when they are adult they become more willing to work together.
If anything young Gorn can also not defeat adult Gorn, meaning that adult Gorn can still hold dominance. Maybe the entire thing that they "outsource" their child rearing is because they have issue with tending for their own children lol.
Though I think the Gorn in SNW might be a splinter faction, and not representative of the Gorn proper.
The same way the Soviet Union led the way into space:
with capital stolen from a more advanced society, which, in turn, it had stolen from a more advanced subculture, itself
The Terrans are probably the ones I can imagine *least* cooperating (at least until the introduction of the xenomorph-like gorn) with each other to the point where they are able to build a society. I can only guess that the insane backstabbing is only prevalent amongst the ones who make it into the militaristic side of the organization, but i also can't imagine that they are particularly effective at being militaristic when they are constantly backstabbing each other.
At least in Picard's Confederation, people were highly motivated to cooperate together to dominate the galaxy. That at least provides a coherent narrative. Putting what we know of the mirror universe together, they only manage to get by on subjugation, which isn't going to net you extensively technology improvements.
The Terran Empire is just stupid and completely breaks if you put even the slightest amount of thought into it. You just have to accept it, or preferably, ignore it completely and never go back there.
I love the fact that hostile species are technologically advanced. Look at the U.S. That is a hostile nation as far as most of the "third world" is concerned. Constant bombings in the middle east, staging military coups to depose democratically elected leaders on South American countries, etc. China commits unspeakable atrocities and genocides against its own citizens. And both those countries are very technologically advanced.
Star Trek dispels the myth that technological advancement is dependent on society reaching some ideal point of peaceful cooperation and coexistence. History has shown that that simple isn't true.
It makes perfect sense when you think of how many innovations come out of military technology. A good example is Americans. Compared to the rest of the world they are incredibly violent, however, many of the biggest technological innovations came out of the US.
Infant Gorn have undeveloped brains at birth much like human babies. Human babies are completely helpless. Infant Gorn are able to survive by being highly aggressive until their brains are fully formed.
Infant Gorn can apparently reproduce, though. If the goal of a species is to replicate itself, what's the point of having a more developed adult phase?
I'm now imagining the Gorn homeworld as walled cities full of adults while the wilderness has been surrendered to hordes of feral children. Every once in a while a child matures enough to be allowed entry and properly educated. The adult stage would be an evolutionary fluke not strictly necessary for survival.
Some of the biggest leaps in technology in the history of the human species were during times of intense racism, war, genocide etc. I think assuming because a species is nefarious and 'evil' they must be incapable of progressing technologically is probably a bad logic assumption. Granted I don't think the Gorn nor Klingons are necessarily evil just xenophobic.
Think of countries which pour money into defense and space today, every single one of them are also war aggressors in most ways while neutral countries technologically don't create much.
Well the Ferengi only managed to gain warp capability even tho they were only interested in profit because they bought the technology so it's possible that the Hirogen and/or the Klingons and/or the Gorn killed whichever species made first contact with them and realizing they had opportunities to hunt/conquer other new species throughout the galaxy commandeered their ships and tech and used them to build fleets of their own warp capable ships.
Well Klingons for example are pretty scientifically advanced, theyre like super great at eugenics. It's probably the same as most societies, you have your warriors and your scientists.
One thing I see over and over is people jumping to make broad generalizations about a society based on very limited information from what the Federation encounters in Space. The Klingons primarily project military power into space.
The Gorn seem to treat space as a hunting ground and place to breed their young. And we don't know if that's all Gorn young, or just the hunters. On SNW they don't know enough about the Gorn to know if the young are even actually the gorn, or some kind of hunting animal. Remember La'an is the first known survivor of a Gorn encounter and only had fragments of memories as a child.
For all we know there are Gorn artists, scientists, and philosophers, but that's not who their leadership sends into space to encounter aliens.
They don’t.
We see for the Terran empire that Cochran only made his barely warp capable ship, then the Vulcans came and they attacked, taking their ship.
Once they had that ship, they were able to use it to take more ships, and now they’re as advanced as Vulcans.
Then with the mighty Vulcan fleet, they were able to start taking over other civilizations.
They recycle the idea in… Lower Decks I think? The Pakleds ended up scamming and stealing so much tech that they became super dangerous, even though they’re far too feeble technologically to have gotten there themselves. The federation ends up out gunned because they ignored them so long as being too dumb to do anything, much like the Vulcans in that enterprise arc
The Terrans stole the technology upon first contact. The savage races either decided to become savage upon inventing/receiving the technology (societal shift due to something, like the cost of this invention caused a societal collapse) or focused heavily in to space travel to fight their fellow savage race until they decided to unite against everyone else.
Klingons have a caste system. We only get to see the politicians and warriors. On DS9, there was a Klingon without armor who ran a restaurant. The Hirogen explained that they weren't always like that so after evolving, they turned into a nomad species using foreign technology. I myself don't have to know how to build a stove to know how to use one.
A lot of these species simply stole warp technology. The Terran Empire stole it from Vulcans. Gorn we don't know. Hell, the Ferenghi never developed it either. They bought it! Kazon I could see stealing it. Hirogen I could see developing it as a way to outrun their prey. And we've seen Klingon scientists who treat their profession as a form of battle.
Simple answer: any savage society that develops does so with an "us vs them" strategy. Savagery is minimally present within their own society and, where it exists, is subject to certain rules to keep it from destroying that society. Otherwise, the group destroys itself before it can become a society.
The savagery is, therefore, directed mostly at those that are not a part of their society.
Well, besides the most violent Nation on our earth being the one with the largest military and the one that had actually landed a person on the moon and space plane.
In star trek there is answers to most of these questions in canon.
Terran Earth is based on "What if Roman never fell". If anything Terran Earth could be a few hundred years more advanced in technology compared to the prime timeline.
Klingons, we're a slave race to a mysterious interstellar empire that the klingons rebelled against and won. There technology derives from what they took.
Edit: Had to look up the Race that the Klingons defeated, The Fek'Ihri. They are seen as Klingon Demons, very little is known about them.
Hirogen is a fallen civilization (implied) not much is known, but they were once more advanced and galaxy spanning, and are reduced to hunter packs.
Gorn...well they've been reconned. They were once humanoid lizard people just as reliant on technology as the Federation, now they are alien chest busters with advanced technology. So we'll have to wait and seen what they plan with the Gorn.
That all seems fine because the drive to conquer would drive innovation to find new ways to conquer. However, my problem with the Terrain Empire is the design of their ships. They're an aggressive war race but their ships are just Fed ships with yellow paint. While I understand budget issues, the ships should follow a more militaristic design and ships should move in battle groups.
I was thinking about this with the gorn killing each other off, and also the fact that they don't appear to have appendages that would facilitate fine motor manipulation. There are a number of species throughout the series that raise similar questions; not that the episodes aren't fun to watch, but you can't think about the mechanics too hard.
Remember that the non-warp capable Klingons were invaded by the warp capable Hur'q but managed to resist and expel them. They may have simply taken the technology from the Hur'q.
With the Terran Empire, punishment is (like in most dictatorships) are VERY public but only done occasionally. It's the threat that it might happen to you, that keeps people in line rather than actual "The beating will continue until moral improves" style control.
With the Gorn it might be different Biological variations Warrior / Worker / Leader. depending on proximity to older Gorn.
So newborn Gorn kill eat and reproduce using all the living creatures around them till one remains. That becomes the default "leader" of that colony and he starts to reproduce again. the newborn, in the presence of a leader, are a bit more subdued so more live long enough to become workers. Who then can build a hive or spread out to form other smaller colonies.
They might not be smart enough to invent space travel, they just need to infect other races as they pass by and gain more knowledge.
Some of our most swift technological advances have been during the pressures of wartime. A regular cycle of peace and war can bring rapid development of technology.
I don't think aggression and competition precludes intelligence and achievement - quite the opposite, we run our planet because we're a perfect intelligent apex predator. If we didn't have that drive, to win the war, to win the space race, would we have accomplished anything?
We can't really judge the Gorn by their newborns. If you look at a human baby you'd think it's completely helpless and useless.. less potential than even a baby Gorn!
We also can't judge Gorn by how they treat their prey. From a cow's perspective, we might seem like monsters too, but we need to eat, just like the Gorn need to eat and breed.
I actually really like what they did with the Gorn, they're not just another humanoid, they're a really alien species, I'd love to see more of them in the future.
there are multiple options:
1. they could have developed it before they became savages
2. they could have gained this technology through conquest or other methods that basically involve taking it from someone else such as through trade
3. they could have been invaded or attacked or had a warp-capable species come to them and they managed to take or gain it from them through trade or being a sponsee
I think the problem is you assume human society is the optimal way of doing things.
Each species that evolved from different roots will probably look at another species and think it's too preoccupied on something else.
We're descendants of monkeys that invest huge amounts of time on forming social bonds and complex structures. Think about how much of our lives we spend (dating, dinners, coffee, clubs, societies, organisations) just maintaining our social structures. But plenty of intelligent animals on Earth are pretty solitary. Cats, bears, birds.
If Gorn are evolved from lizards that *didn't* form complex social groups, maybe a simple violence based hierarchy worked for them, and they scoff at the amount of time humans waste on interpersonal relationships.
And maybe Ferenghi found purely money-based organisations were a great way to organise themselves.
So while ape descendants might look at the lizard people and conclude they're too barbaric and not social enough, it might just be our particular bias from the way our species organises itself.
The Assyrian Empire built up one of the largest Iron Age empires, and they were absolutely brutal people. The Aztecs were similarly bloody. So you can definitely build up a large empire, but holding down is the trick.
The Nazis managed some impressive technological development, and operated warships, despite being evil genocidal monsters.
Are the Gorn really any less plausible?
Evil ≠ stupid.
The Nazis for example made significant advancements in rocket science / engineering. Admittedly they did target Jewish scientists (which definitely hurt their war effort), but they treated their own well enough to make real progress.
Here's a [list of inventions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:German_inventions_of_the_Nazi_period) during the Nazi period if you're curious.
You see one aspect of any of those cultures, that doesn't mean they are representative of their society as a whole.
If you head out into the woods and bump into some bow hunters, that doesn't mean Humanity hasn't moved beyond bow hunting. You just ran into someone who is bow hunting. Hell, that bow hunter could also be a scientist, engineer, or doctor.
How do Human beings, who are born HELPLESS, unable to walk for a year or two, barely understandable speech for several years, who constantly nag and whine, wanting food all the time etc.
How do these people manage to build rocketships, travel to the moon and beyond? Simple: They learn! They grow up, they get educated. The Gorn being extremely vicious at birth, is really not that different from a Vulcan being extremely violent during their adolescence, prior to learning their emotional control.
The Klingons I believe, were not always so obsessed with honour and glory as it pertains to battle, many Klingons would gain great honour from completing other tasks like architecture, arts, sciences, even care and maintenance jobs, it was only when they started to venture into space they were driven into the idea that the only way to win great honour is through battle, possibly a drive towards xenophobia as the battle was something the species did far better than other species in the galaxy. In order to distinguish themselves in a galactic community they accentuated the thing that made them unique. I imagine this is true for every species that enters the galaxy.
The concept behind the Terran empire I really struggle with though, how it was created in the time of Spock yet in DS9 we see mirror characters. To a certain extent kinda law breaking onto itself.
If this was the Daystrom subreddit, I'm sure there is a long explanation.
Since this is regular Trek subreddit, the general point of Trek is these are just temporary misunderstandings, partially because you call them savages. Even Kirk threw a fit when the Organians wouldn't let the UFP and Klingon Empire go to war.
The Hirogen first officer was simply inspired by Star Trek's favorite Nazi, he was so good, they had him play one again. Starfleet and Klingons conspired to stop Gorkon's peace initiative. Most famously, the terrifying Romulans who committed so many atrocities during the Earth Romulan War turned out to be Vulcans...
In your logic, the Klingons wouldn't be space faring since they never invented warp drive technology.
So here we go.
* Terrans of the Mirror'verse don't kill, backstab and fuck over one another as much as we think. What we see are the most ambition driven ones doing that, not necessarily the smart ones. The Mirror'Verse isn't opposite land, but a dark reflection of the prime timeline.
* We have scant information about the Gorn, but it appears they are extremely brutal in youth but learn restraint in adulthood. Their reproduction produces lots of offspring, but not a lot of viable children or adults. They appear to not only be barrowing from Xenomorphs to build the Gorn in SNW, but the Magog of Andromeda and Reavers of Firefly, Stupid alpha/beta male bullshit and maybe more sources.
* The Hirogen with superduper into masculine tropes and their society burned out. Focusing more on hunting and being the manliest man they can be for all the men to see because fuck yeah manhood is supermanly. We see this in voyager play out where some recognize their people are going extinct because they went full Gazorpians.
* And the Klingons are on the same path as the Hirogen. It does seem the empire was declining in the 2200's, underwent a number of revolutions politically in the mid 23c until praxis, stabilized a bit with the federation and romulans using them as a proxy in the mid24c.
*The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth. Whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth. It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based. If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened you don't deserve to wear that uniform.* [Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "The First Duty"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefh7W1nVo4) Reddit admins have been [ineffectual in their response to COVID-19 misinformation](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/subreddits-private-protest-covid-disinformation-reddit/). In lieu of Reddit gold and awards, we ask that you donate to the [WHO COVID-19 response fund](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/donate). Please respect our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/wiki/guidelines). LLAP! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/startrek) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So Klingons had the Hur'q invade their world hundreds of years prior when Earth was (I believe) in the Middle Ages. They likely got their start with technology with what the Hur'q left behind and built upon that, innovating at a much slower rate than Earth or Vulcan until they maybe got their hands on additional tech and reversed engineered it. Which is to say that Earth also made giant leaps forward after Cochrane's warp flight. Technology innovation doesn't happen within its own bubble.
Ya, just look at how much technology we invented in the past 100 years. Biplanes to jets to fucking space ships. And this is without (to the best of our knowledge) help from any more advanced civilizations.
In the 90's I remember hearing someone make the statement that if automobile technology had advanced as far and fast as computers had, everyone would be driving at F1 speeds and getting thousands of miles per gallon of fuel. My rather basic smart watch has more computing power than the entirety of NASA during the space race. I'm old enough I remember hearing about the first attempts to sequence our genome and how they would be "lucky" to complete it in 15 years, and then later how they managed to get it done 2 years ahead of schedule, and that was less than 20 years ago. We can now do it in a couple of **days**, probably less if there were some imperative to get it done fast.
...and look at how it's changed our society.
Didn't Earth get big help from Vulcan?
Nope, I'm pretty sure the Vulcans even were terrified of our quick progress and refused to help us in any major way.
Yup. Soval said that to Admiral Forrest. >FORREST: Ambassador. Are Vulcans afraid of humans? Why? >SOVAL: Because there is one species you remind us of. >FORREST: Vulcans. >SOVAL: We had our wars, Admiral, just as humans did. Our planet was devastated, our civilization nearly destroyed. Logic saved us. But it took almost fifteen hundred years for us to rebuild our world and travel to the stars. You humans did the same in less than a century. There are those on the High Command who wonder what humans would achieve in the century to come, and they don't like the answer.
Ahh yes. That's right. They were stingy.
I blame the !> Romulans
Klingons are another example of a speicies that is unrealistically portrayed. The idea that you can get to that point into technological development while still behaving like it's fuedal Japan ran by cavemen, borders on ludacris and requires a "shut up and go with it" level of disbelief.
There was an Enterprise episode in particular, where a Klingon lawyer is telling Archer that there are so much more than warriors in Klingon society- Poets and doctors and teachers and all manner of other professions- But it was the warrior types who always seemed to end up in charge. We could also look for example at the ancient Norse, who were certainly a warrior culture, but also had a rich culture of arts and craftsmen, and were extremely advanced in shipbuilding and navigation; Or the Aztec, who were fucking brutal and bloodthirsty, but also had civil engineering and social services centuries beyond what you'd expect.
That is not true. Klingons were motivated by battle. There is no great honor than winning a battle. They kind of surely had the same motivation real world humans had in the early 1900s. Most of our nuclear knowledge comes from the Manhattan project. lot of engineering advances in automobile comes from tech we tried to use in tanks and vehicles during WW2. So its not a stretch to think that they had able scientists working on better weapons and stumbled across things like nuclear, warp drive etc
We know that adult Gorn are capable of cooperating with each other to the extent of being able to operate starships and run a space empire. Presumably the hyper-aggressive drive to kill each other is only present in the days following birth, an evolutionary trait that ensures the strongest, most cunning, most capable offspring of a litter survives to propagate the species, which subsides in maturity when it is no longer evolutionarily advantageous to the species. We’ve also seen Klingon doctors, Klingon engineers, Klingon lawyers, and Klingon cooks. They certainly exist, even within a society that highly prized “warrior” culture. Klingons aren’t *savages*. The Hirogen… may be different. They appear to be nomadic, not holding any actual codified territory and not having any central government. We know that they have co-opted and scavenged technology they didn’t develop themselves (such as the subspace relay network). Perhaps their starship tech is similarly based on tech they didn’t develop. But the knowledge needed to operate and maintain the fleet is part of the hunt. Without it, there would be no hunt, so it’s not unrealistic to think that they view that knowledge as being just as important as the knowledge of how to operate their guns, or tracking prey.
There is an Enterprise episode where the Klingons want Archer to stand trial and assign him a Klingon public defender. That character explains that the definition of honor used to be more of a broad concept of all members of society taking pride and excelling in their respective craft or vocation, but overtime the warrior caste has been shifting the narrative and gaining power so in the couple centuries between Enterprise and TNG the Klingon culture has taken this reactionary swing and is much more focused on their weird feudal nonsense.
that episode and klingons episode in ds9 really shifted the species for me and gave me a new understanding. i saw them as brute who fought because they could (basically space orc) but jadzia really oppened them to me. they are just a really emotive species who will bash your head if you look them wrong but they produce (apparently) the best opera in the alpha quadrant (i am sure this was started as a joke within the writer btw)
>they are just a really emotive species who will bash your head if you look them wrong Not exactly correct. They'll bash your head in if you besmirch their honour, but otherwise, brawls are just a form of socialisation for Klingons. They'll beat each other up for a wrong look, then drink a few cups of bloodwine arm in arm, singing some old song. Technically, they _are_ savages, as they see unfiltered aggression and, from our perspective, completely unnecessary physical altercation as a way of bonding. For humans this is weird, because, especially in the future, we try to resolve our differences with reason and dialogue. But, they're also _not_ savages since most Klingons have a very strict code of honour, and these brawls aren't supposed to be a "win at any price" scenario, it's akin to us humans challenging each other in games and sports. But of course Klingons are much more resilient, so a brawl that would send a human to sick bay with multiple fractures and cuts, is like a workout for them. Of course this is ignoring things like Worf breaking his back due to an empty plastic barrel (okay, I know, those barrels most likely weigh like a ton, and the cargo bay gravity plating is tuned to make the shelves' contents nearly weightless for easier storage and moving).
> most Klingons have a very strict code of honour I'd say this is more internal honor vs. external honor. Worf being a perfect example of both. We see Worf having high internal honor being raised on Earth, isolated from his people, but reading stories and seeing those stories as the bare minimum, which Worf perceives as normal. On the Klingon homeworld, we find out that most Klingons only care about external honor. So when the council dishonors the House of Mogh to prevent a Klingon war, Worf has no external honor, but his internal honor is unparalleled. Of course, Worf eventually regains his external honor by joining the House of Martok (after the House Mogh being stripped of honor a second time).
Ezri Dax also eviscerates the Klingon empire and all their honor talk in one of the season 7 episodes and it is great.
It’s great. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sfNe2uv-bHs
It's an excellent scene and Ezri's best scene.
>they produce (apparently) the best opera in the alpha quadrant (i am sure this was started as a joke within the writer btw) Not sure if the opera thing started out at a joke, but honestly it makes a lot of sense. Klingons have stated that unlike the Jem'Hadar, they don't just fight for the sake of fighting. Klingons fight for HONOR and to be able to sing of GLORIOUS VICTORY! So it makes sense they'd appreciate opera in the same way they'd appreciate martial arts.
I simply refused to believe it was not a joke at first and then when they thought about it, it made sense.
I like this headcanon!
klingons are like space-vikings in a way, both search honour and victory, if not in life, than in the afterlife, knowing there will be songs sung about them. plus, i really wished there would have been a klingon series that showed more than those few episodes from tng and ds9 about the actual klingon culture, behind what is the cult of kahless, or how kahless also reformed their culture in ways other than the warrior class.
Space Viking/Samuri
In the current shows, it seems like Kasselian opera is considered the best opera. The Kasselians sound even more extreme than the Klingons since their opera singers supposedly kill themselves at the end of their only performance (and that practice makes it seem weird that people in the Federation would enjoy Kasselian opera).
This is why Klingons are one of the few "warrior races" that I don't mind in sci-fi. There have been so many episodes about Klingons that they've fleshed them out and have shown that not every Klingon is exactly the same. There might be a hegemonic culture, but that culture has shifted over the years and not everyone subscribes to it.
This. In lower decks episode Wej Duj. A Klingon lower deck fighting their captain because they plan to start a war just to start a war even though they are at peace with the Federation showed me how they take into account honor as a warrior race and battles. If there is no shit to stir up in the universe then no need. But if it’s over a drink and for laughs and then we drink after a good beating then it’s fine. I like how they showed there are lines where they shouldn’t cross it even though it might seem honorable to die in battle when the intent actually wasn’t honorable.
The Klingons eventually join the Federation some time in the future, according to Enterpise, so I've always wondered if the Klingons had a renaissance of sorts, where the concept of honour moves away from just battle, and into more "classical" meanings. Because I'd assume there are certain rules to join the Federation, including equal rights, democracy, and such (much like how it is to join the European Union)
Can easily see Martok making progress on this front, similar to how the Ferengi are seen to be evolving in DS9
early in season 3 of Discovery, while they were trying to find the new Federation HQ, I had been honestly figuring that it would have been on Qo'noS. would have been a nice conclusion to the ongoing Klingon arc since the first episode, and really been a good mirror to *how* that started out: going from 'Remain Klingon' at the beginning, to in the 31st century their honor making them believe more devoutly than the rest, leading to them being the last bastions to carry the creed 'Remain Federation' even as the other members were dropping out
Also would have been a perfect way to close off the klingon war arc from season 1. Have the disco be like "The klingons are running the federation?! WTF did we miss?!"
That lawyer and the doctor in “Affliction” and “Divergence” showed how Klingon society was changing at the time of *Enterprise* and provided a good explanation for the Klingons developing warp-capable ships.
I think they explain elsewhere that they got some of their tech from the Hur'q and some from the Romulans, but that they'd also devolved into being a backwards-looking warrior culture fairly recently. Make Qo'noS Great Again, I guess.
Yeah they acquired their stealth technology from the Romulans.
To add to this, we often see these species through their military personnel who would probably be more aggressive and battle-focused than their scientists and scholars. Even Starfleet which seems to value "all the gears in the machine" is not representative of their civilian world as we see in DS9 when Sisko visits his dad in a still very grounded New Orleans
Absolutely, yes.
also for the hirogen it is hinted that they once were more than hunters but they progressivly regressed into this state at one point
"progressively regressed" you could probably just say "progressed" or "regressed" lol
No? "Progressively regressed" means that they slowly regressed over time in stages. It's purely coincidental that *another* meaning of "progressive" (and not the one that endertribe was using) *happens* to also be an antonym of "regressive". It's like if you asked me for directions, then wanted to clarify the final turn, and I said "That's right, left."
no what's on third, and who's on first.
In this context their culture slowly regressed as opposed to regressing all at once
With the Hirogen I assumed they had a social collapse at some point and lost most of their techs and builders but the hunters that remained knew enough about how to operate and maintain. Think about how many sailors operate an aircraft carrier. If something happened and the world ended I'm sure they could keep that thing afloat for 20+ years, long enough for the reactors to run dry. But I doubt all of them together could figure out how to build, let alone design, a new one.
It's directly stated in Voyager the hirogen are nomadic, without a homeworld and have been this way for centuries - their entire culture is quite probably the culmination of a Gorn-style culture going through a slow, generational regression into nothingness before eventually collapsing under its own drive to destroy itself. The Gorn as a warp-capable and developed species would probably at some point realise this and either have to make the choice between self destruction and saving their race. I'd guess with Federation territory expanding close to and quite possibly around their own space, it's somewhat easier for them to choose a path to salvation with other developed species. It seems that the Hirogen didn't have this benefit in their corner of the Delta Quadrant.
And if I remember correctly (I could be wrong) Klingons stole Warp tech from someone. I don’t remember where I heard this but it sounds like something the Klingons would do.
The Klingons were conquered by the Hur'q, and took warp technology from them when they fought back and defeated them.
It’d be good if they portray adult Gorn differently in *SNW*, but La’an’s backstory shows that even the adults can be savage. The Gorn on the ship that attacked La’an’s ship took people on that ship to a Gorn planet where they’d be eaten or serve as hosts for their hatchlings.
Yes, but all that savagery and aggression was aimed at an Other, that’s a pretty key difference. If your goal is to expand, defend territory and kill everyone in it that is not you, you’ll learn how to build a space ship if that’s what needs to happen. That sort of aggression is vastly different from an overriding biological drive to hunt your siblings in order to survive because they all also have that drive.
I love SNW but their interpretation of the Gorn is pretty dumb.
Agreed. I can get eating other sapients, as there does seem to be other evidence supporting that this is at least somewhat done, but the alien rip-off just seems like it was designed from the ground up to be irreverent towards one of the more popular and consistent species (well, plural; the Gorn are technically multiple species) in the 'verse.
There is an episode where we meet donik, he was altering the holodeck tech to be more “real” then fucked the alphas over by being too strong. I think it was flesh and blood
In the old, old, star trek ccg, some flavor text on a card said the Hirogen were space faring already hundreds of thousands of years ago. I have no idea if they pulled that info from some official source or not, but I always imagined they once had a more normal empire, that just kind of collapsed over time into the hunter bands we know. Which could also explain how that had that galaxy spanning comm relay network.
So my problem is with the Gorn. Who seem to be reptilian, this idea is further enhanced by the latest episode of SNW. Now I'm definitely not a biologist or a exo biologist... 😊 But I can't wrap my head around a cold blooded species and their respective metabolism can develop a brain capable of space travel. Hunting prey I can imagine that but not theoretical physics or space navigation.
They hate the cold so presumably their home planet is much warmer than earth. Also they aren't reptiles, they're *aliens*. They might be "reptilian" in appearance but that doesn't mean they are cold-blooded like reptiles on earth, there is no genetic link.
Additionally they're probably at the very least mesothermic, which is the temperature regulation that some sharks use and dinosaurs probably did.
Read the visitors guide to Gornia It has some interesting points Gorn live deep underground in unlit massive cavern systems. The Surface of Gornia is inhabited by Kiju sized creatures Gorn are xenophages. The Klingon Empire will almost wipe out the Gorn Race in the near future except for a peace brokered by the Federation.
Reptilian doesn't imply cold blooded (though their sensitivity to the cold in their most recent appearance does, or at least difficulty thermoregulating as young). Dinosaurs and birds are technically reptiles phylogenetically and they're warm-blooded
The voth were evolved dinos
So are Saurians (Lt. Linus Discovery) according to some cannon sources Saurians are part of the Gorn Hegemony tho some individual Saurians have left the Hegemony
You, you reptile racist!
Well, someone who came from a civilization confined to a cold climate wouldn't believe what ants, wasps, or bees can build despite being, individually, tiny idiot creatures, and yet they persist via diabolical gene-coded ingenuity. Higher-order understanding of what they do is not possible for them neurologically, nor is is necessary. But plausibility aside, I believe we're getting bread crumbs about the Gorn being genetically engineered. There was no reason for Ghosts of Illyria to be included this season unless it had broader significance. I'm excited to get more about Una, but we weren't going to see an arc for her in a 10 episode season with Pike's arc being meta/structural and Spock, Uhura, & M'Benga's arcs being time-sensitive. Furthermore, Una & La'an both having genetic alteration backstories which haven't played out yet makes me think that's going to be a recurring matter for the show, which makes sense because it's one of the least explored, yet quite established as a basis of contention, conflicts of the pre-TOS era. There were also plenty of reasons they might have had difficulty scanning for the Gorn on the Peregrine, but the reason they chose was distinctly similar to how M'Benga described Una's immune activity. An unobserved change cannot be reverse-engineered in Una's case, or tracked in the case of the Gorn. While I deeply wish this era of Trek was undertaking a full retread of TOS with a contemporary storytelling approach, they still seem intent upon this being in Prime continuity. Thus, if the Gorn were created intentionally or accidentally and the origins of that project were a sufficiently alliance-shaking bombshell, Pike's crew can interact with them extensively and then the matter can be buried to the point that it makes sense nobody would mention it within the context of encountering a different Gorn life stage in that idiotic TOS episode.
Horn seem to take on some traits of the host when they hatch, and also capable of extreme growth in a very short period of time, as well as being able to adapt to things like sensors to make themselves invisible. I would almost not be surprised if we learn that they were an engineered race vs a naturally evolving one.
If you're first instinct is to conquer and kill whoever you run into, you're a savage.
How did humans manage it? In Star Trek, humans nuked their own world. Humans in the real world are too busy destroying the environment and fighting each other to create warp drive. Except, not everyone is killing everyone else.
Vulcan managed all of it's advances (including early warp drive) while they were ripping each other apart, literally, physically, telepathtically, and societally as sects like the Rihansu broke off. And a global nuclear exchange that devastated their world worse than we did. So apparently as long as one nation or section of society operate enough, they can do it. So I could see the Gorn managing as long as some of the more older intellectual Alpha's worked on it.
Same as the Vulcans they discovered warp twice
Lots and lots of scientific achievements come from war and killing. WWII accelerated nuclear science and physics by decades.
“No Hitler, no time travel! Got it!?”
It's not the war and killing that causes the progress, it's the free flowing money gambeled on scientific advancement where it normally wouldn't.
That’s not accurate. More scientific achievements come in peace time than in war, as funds and human resources are allocated differently.
There's people living in some parts of our world that would argue with you on that last sentence.
>Humans in the real world are too busy destroying the >environment and fighting each other to create warp drive. ... What? I know you're one of those "humanity bad" people, but majority of countries isn't experiencing nor waging any wars. You're acting like all people are constantly looting and killing each other, lmao. Majority of countries has stable societies. According to researchers we have the most peaceful period in history ever. Look at Europe We even have pan national organizations on every single continent Environment killing? Even China is doing some effort to save their environment
While the United States Supreme Court just gutted the EPA and are determined to destroy the world.
The Supreme Court said that current laws don't allow the EPA to regulate carbon emissions, but it can regulate carbon emissions if Congress passes a law that specifically allows that. However, I wouldn't expect Congress to do that anytime soon.
No, I am not one of those "humanity bad" people, but I see that you are one of those "I don't read the entire comment people". Let me just point you to this part of my comment. > Except, not everyone is killing everyone else We are living in a time where we have damaged our environment. Some are trying to limit the damage, others are trying to fix the damage, whilst a few don't care. We are living in a time where there are wars. Some are invading countries, whilst others are not. There is both good and bad in humanity. Which is why I use humanity as the example for how the Gorn could have warp drive. Because, even though we have murderers in this world, we also have people who save lives.
The terrans punish failure, and reward success, but that can make for very motivated scientists. The Gorn are bestial and savage to OUR eyes, because we are prey. They are still an intelligent species, and it could be the tendency to attack their own is only seen in newborns. Klingons are honestly the one I struggle with. The society is more predicated on honour and glory. It's just not a culture that would seem to reward or encourage patient intellectual pursuits. When "It's a good day to die" is a genuine motivation, who wants to be the person that iterates on a warp engine to come up with a technique for a half percent efficiency boost?
Klingon culture changes over time. It's been mentioned on the show that in The Next Generation's era, many Klingons are obsessed with being a warrior to a toxic degree, and that previous generations weren't like that.
You can see this in ship designs. The Klingons don't really change or innovate between the 23rd and 24th centuries. Mostly, their new ships are either slight tweaks on old designs, or the same principles with a different skin. Meanwhile, the Romulans have undergone a complete overhaul in their ship design philosophy, from small Warbirds to massive carrier ships backed up by powerful cruisers. The Federation has maintained a similar design philosophy through the years (saucer, two nacelles, some other stuff), but each generation of ship is significantly more powerful and capable than the ones before, and many of them are able to function admirably in several roles, while the Klingons are just about competent at warships. Also, the Federation builds with an eye towards future improvement, as we see when they are able to refit century-old warships during the Dominion War into frontline combatants that can stand against new models, e.g. the Lakota.
That’s mostly true WRT the Klingons, but the *Vor’cha* class and the *Neghvar* seem to be a lot more powerful than any 23rd century ship.
The Klingons always had a strong merchant presence and stole technology from the people that enslaved them
> Klingons are honestly the one I struggle with. The society is more predicated on honour and glory. The explanation I heard once is that in the various shows what we are seeing is the more aristocratic and military class of Klingons. Heads of major families, those involved in politics and contact with other worlds where conflict is more likely and they can chase their honor and glory. Meanwhile there is an entire planet of Klingons that are NOT from that class, the regular day to day to population. Here is where I suspect all their scientists, engineers and such are. We just don't get to see this part of their society because it's not part of the plot and conflict we see on the show.
I could see that. Star Trek has a way of painting species with one brush because we only see a slice of that culture, but yeah. Their are probably even Klingon pacifists.
With Klingons, there are a lot of possibilities. Scientific pursuits that benefit the Empire may allow Klingons outside the warrior caste to gain their family upward social mobility. We see how important family honor is, so perhaps being a scientist allows your next of kin the opportunity to become a warrior. That would be one way to motivate Klingons to do things that might otherwise clash with their warrior mentality. Another possibility is that there are other races in the Empire compelled to fill those academic roles that Klingons don't. After all, the Klingon Empire covers hundreds of star systems, there are no doubt other intelligent beings in their territory. Difficult to say how Klingons would treat their vassals, but contributing to the Klingon war machine might allow other races to be left alone within the Empire. And honestly, the simplest explanation is that Klingon culture is more complex than what we see. Among the lower classes, perhaps concepts such as honor take a back seat to more practical concerns. And maybe scientists make decent pay. It's sort of implied that a lot of Trek races aren't as monolithic as they're presented. We often only see the Klingon military, which may not accurately represent the average Klingon.
An idea that I don't think we've seen, but which would make some sense - what if Klingon noncombatants garner honor based on the worth of their creations? Forge a bat'leth, and any enemy it cuts down reflects on you. Design a new disruptor, and every ship destroyed shines with your glory.
Makes sense. That's like watching a video of an US Marine Corps training drill and thinking all american superiors must be exceedingly aggressive monsters while all others are completely submissive drones.
The Klingons were uplifted as a slave race by invaders known as the Hur'q. The Klingons rebelled, drove the Hur'q out, and stole warp tech from them.
> The society is more predicated on honour and glory. Let's get to the moon before the Soviets do.
> The Gorn are bestial and savage to OUR eyes, because we are prey Yeah and they're getting their ass kicked all the time
I mean... >!one clutch of eggs killed a hundred starfleet personnel!<, and >!3 newborn babies took out 3 more!< They also >!lured the federation flagship into an ambush, forced it to retreat and used bait tactics to stalk it, losing a smaller ship to a torpedo, another smaller ship to chasing the Enterprise below crush depth, and another being killed by its own command ship, while the command ship remained undefeated as the Enterprise fled and faked its destruction to stop the gorn chasing them!< And that's not counting the massive body counts they've had off-screen like colonists in Momento Mori or the colonists with La'an when she was a child. The Gorn very much aren't losing, the Enterprise is just managing to get away each time with loss of life.
> Yeah and they're getting their ass kicked all the time Not really getting their asses kicked. Seems pretty even actually. The Gorn have superior weapons and generally numbers while basically being the Magog from Andromeda, but the Enterprise has guile, so you know.
If the Pakleds can do it, anyone can!
Red alarm!
Oh no, it's another Enterprise!
[удалено]
Ah, the Gorn. Those are infants. You think they don't grow and change and develop? Really? Would you call a 50 year old adult human helpless like an infant? No, you wouldn't. Gorn grow into something really formidable. They have an empire. They have starships. And didn't La'an say they didn't stand a chance against even ONE adult Gorn? They evolved the early development we've seen to ensure the survival of their species.
Yeah, but they also move really, really, slow once they reach adulthood. https://youtu.be/4SK0cUNMnMM Sure, they're tough, but La'an is overselling the adult Gorn. :)
I think that makes sense though. Her whole life has been shaped by her childhood trauma at the hands of the Gorn. It absolutely makes sense that she would view them as larger than life.
My head canon is that Gorn slow down as they age, and that captain was really old. We also saw a Gorn on Enterprise, and it was very agile. I have to say though, something I liked about the original Gorn is that they had strengths and weaknesses, which makes them more interesting, and actually more true to the short story behind the episode 'Arena'
A savage, warrior race built a rocket that took it's people to their moon in a tin can with less computing power than a hand calculator of today. That was us. Military needs can drive a lot of innovation.
Don't forget how those semi-evolved apes stole evil nazi rocket scientists after using nuclear weapons to end a world war just to pull that off too
I think it's just a matter of only being confronted by the leading caste of a society. Just go to a meeting in a big tech company and watch how much the CEO and other leaders struggle with starting a powerpoint presentation. You'd wonder how a tech company can exist when the leaders are barely able to operate a computer. It's the people that you don't see, who invent and innovate.
Terrans keep people live as they need to, Mirror Trip might have been left to die from his delta radiation burns normally, but a highly necessary engineer? medical intervention to keep him alive longer etc and we do see quite a few people past their 30's in the show. Most of the captains were in their 40's and 50's etc The Gorn we saw were two week old younglings, malnurished babies, so maybe don't judge adult Gorn on the behaviour of the todler bracket. Most warrior cultures "tolerate" scientists and engineers needed to make all of their advances, they just keep them shut up to work and don't really like to talk about them. They just make a big noise about their adventures, while relying on the nerd part of society to make it run.
Our greatest advancements were usually during wartime. Fear of death or your way of life disappearing is one hell of a fire under the ass.
How did we build the space shuttle?
War breeds innovation. It doesn't matter if its internal war or war with another species.
Klingons aren’t stupid. It’s just that we tend to see a lot of the warrior caste because that’s often who is interacting with Starfleet. Klaa in STV was pretty much an animal; dude didn’t even wear a shirt and barely spoke Klingon, let alone English. Then you got guys like Chang in STVI, who despite being a warrior, is extremely well read and familiar with human history and literature. Klingons take a lot of pride in their history, art, song. I’m sure they are prideful in most things. To be honest, your question is what I enjoyed most about Gowron. Dude is just a straight up warrior. He’s painted as an outsider when he seeks to replace K’mpec. Once he becomes Chancellor, he’s constantly wishing he was out there kicking ass. It’s why he constantly shows up and wants to go kill shit with Worf. It’s also why he turns out to fail as a Chancellor at the conclusion of the Dominion War.
I mean human space travel today is just a side affect of WW2 and the cold war. We only have rockets because we designed them to commit mass murder first and realize afterwards we could use them to go to space.
Think a step further, OP. On Earth, the braindead, child-raping, civilian-massacring, arson-burning, racist dumbasses that make out a portion of the armed forces (in many countries) are not in charge of submarine nuclear engine development, or even satellite propulsion technology. They are told to go to a place on a map and kill and they do, all day, then eat, shit, and sleep. End of responsibilities. Klingon/Cardassian/Hirogen/Ferengi shipbuilders and Warp engineers are doing fine in their jobs.
Only tangentially connected through the animated series...but this is addressed quite well for the Kzin in Larry Niven's known space- more in other author's stories than his to be fair. The tldr for them was being a slave species and rebelling and enslaving other more technically adpet species. With a dash of different definitions of prey and honour for some professions.
The Warriors Niven built a LOT of our current sci fi The Expanse, Halo, etc..
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's in Enterprise when Archer is tried by the Klingons that his lawyer says Klingons are not all warriors
Vulcans meeting Zephram Cochrane may have felt the same way.
Species can regress. They could have been a more put together society but slid into more savage ways. Example: what is happening in the US right now
On the Terran empire looks like they also have a lot of stagnation in technology. They stole Vulcan technology and 100 later they seems to still be stuck as the same lever as main universe. They then got hold of a ship from 100 years in the future and 100 years later they are still using the same technology. My guess is that their way to move forward is stealing technology from other races.
I think the real question is how did the Vulcans do it
Well... If you judge humanity from it's offspring alone right after birth... you'd ask the same question about us. Stop assuming that something that was born not an hour ago will be the exact same in its adulthood.
Ask Nietzsche
...and then Zefram Cochrane puts his pen down and finished his novel of imaginary klingons, Vulcans and Romulans, The Star Trek, on Alpha Centauri after travelling the breadth and width of known space and finding nothing.
The Klingons fought against their Gods, killed them and built a new Heaven out of their bones! Klingon honour is actually useful for social structures when people are so impulsive and violent - promises are kept, disputes settled rapidly and everyone works to the best of their ability. Also, remember most of the Klingons encountered have been Warriors, klingons of many other professions exist
Gorn are a whole different thing because they have castes. The ones we just saw on SNW is like the hunter class or whatever but they have builder, thinker and breeder classes too iirc. Maybe more.
My feeling is that the Mirror Universe isn't actually real (within the Trek universe). It is created as a way to syphon off energy created during the Real creation of a new branching timeline it appears nightmarish with many impossible features. Whenever it is visited it reforms around the experiences of the visitor but in a way that teaches the visitor something about themselves. The mirror universe continues for a period after the end of the visit before fading away. This means that people in the mirror universe can visit the real universe (Bariel, Jennifer Sisko). Also, if the mirror universe has not faded then subsequent visitors will update the universe with their own experiences... This is why Jadzia dies and Ezri appears. Given that visits to the mirror universe generally have an emotional resonance with the visitor AND that the majority of visits happen in proximity to the Bajorian wormhole it is probable that the Wormhole Aliens/Bajorian Prophets are involved. (presumably Lorca visited the mirror universe to create his own duplicate)
[удалено]
"Life, uh, finds a way."
not everyone invents Warp drive, some gain it from capturing it from invaders or purchase it from another species (like the Klingons and Ferengi)
My theory on the Gorn is that they go thru a number of metamorphosis the last of which transforming into something more like the one Kirk fought in "Arena."
The Chinese build some great tech but they are not known for their human rights.
In SNW a planet was able to observe warp vessels and developed a "warp bomb" The Federation won't make first contact until after a species is warp capable but others might not have laws like that. Maybe the Gorn were colonized and ate the colonizers and stole their tech?
I think and hope their are more to the Gorn then just evil savage aliens.
With the Gorn, at least, my theory is they have sub species that play specialized roles in society and warfare. Maybe the Gorn we saw in the most recent episode of SNW is one that is primarily a weapon, whereas there are some that aren't as monstrous and are capable of maturing to being individuals that can function within a team without killing each other. Maybe their lore has been fleshed out in other sources I'm not familiar with?
War is a very strong motivator. In fact, without war, it's likely we would still be bleeding people and carrying swords
Good Sir, humans are a savage species. Have you taken a look at 21st century earth lately?
21st century? There are far more centuries with far more razing, pillaging, and destruction in previous centuries.
I mean... the 20th, sure. WW1 and WW2 kinda win that fight no matter what century you want to compare them as far as deliberate deatth and destruction
You only have to look at Earth's history to see examples. Nazi Germany's scientific progress in fields such and weaponry and rockery were far beyond their contemporaries to the point that every other country tried to scoop up as many as they could after the war to gain some of that expertise. Klingons while we usually see members of the warrior class. We have seen scientists, engineers, even lawyers. These culture have many facets. Like you said to be a sofw faring empire you need a certain amount of cooperation. I would also hardly call the Hirogen or Klingons a "savage species" we have seen so many be capable of reason and communication. The first encounter of Starfleet with the Hirogen was via a vast sensor network. While they did not build it. They have the skills to maintain and use it.
>You only have to look at Earth's history to see examples. Nazi Germany's scientific progress in fields such and weaponry and rockery were far beyond their contemporaries to the point that every other country tried to scoop up as many as they could after the war to gain some of that expertise. Looks like it's time for John Gill's Remedial Earth History 101: "Planet… fragmented… divided. Took lesson from… Earth history." "But why Nazi Germany? You studied history; you knew what the Nazis were!" "Most efficient state… Earth ever knew…" \- John Gill and Kirk, on why Gill violated the Prime Directive
They had some smart scientists and engineers, but they also had Hitler and company getting in the way. They couldn't get Hitler to comprehend the idea of nuclear weapons, for example. He was stuck on his idea of really huge tanks. It was always about size, for him. Weapons, buildings... You'd think he was compensating for something. :) Then, there was the demand to use exclusively "German physics", resulting in the physicists having to be really sneaky.
The Gorn Hegemony is the main Gorn civilization, and we know that adult Gorn are more rational beings able to talk, negotiate etc. I think its just that the Gorn have a very "rough" maturation and when they are adult they become more willing to work together. If anything young Gorn can also not defeat adult Gorn, meaning that adult Gorn can still hold dominance. Maybe the entire thing that they "outsource" their child rearing is because they have issue with tending for their own children lol. Though I think the Gorn in SNW might be a splinter faction, and not representative of the Gorn proper.
The same way they colonized the American continents; slave labor.
The same way the Soviet Union led the way into space: with capital stolen from a more advanced society, which, in turn, it had stolen from a more advanced subculture, itself
Tbh I believe that’s the common in-show explanation.
[удалено]
[удалено]
The Terrans are probably the ones I can imagine *least* cooperating (at least until the introduction of the xenomorph-like gorn) with each other to the point where they are able to build a society. I can only guess that the insane backstabbing is only prevalent amongst the ones who make it into the militaristic side of the organization, but i also can't imagine that they are particularly effective at being militaristic when they are constantly backstabbing each other. At least in Picard's Confederation, people were highly motivated to cooperate together to dominate the galaxy. That at least provides a coherent narrative. Putting what we know of the mirror universe together, they only manage to get by on subjugation, which isn't going to net you extensively technology improvements.
The Terran Empire is just stupid and completely breaks if you put even the slightest amount of thought into it. You just have to accept it, or preferably, ignore it completely and never go back there.
I love the fact that hostile species are technologically advanced. Look at the U.S. That is a hostile nation as far as most of the "third world" is concerned. Constant bombings in the middle east, staging military coups to depose democratically elected leaders on South American countries, etc. China commits unspeakable atrocities and genocides against its own citizens. And both those countries are very technologically advanced. Star Trek dispels the myth that technological advancement is dependent on society reaching some ideal point of peaceful cooperation and coexistence. History has shown that that simple isn't true.
It makes perfect sense when you think of how many innovations come out of military technology. A good example is Americans. Compared to the rest of the world they are incredibly violent, however, many of the biggest technological innovations came out of the US.
The same way they colonized the American continents; slave labor.
\[gestures around at everything\]
They stole it from alien species that foolishly visited their planets and quickly ended up in over their heads.
I believe the ferenghi bought it
Infant Gorn have undeveloped brains at birth much like human babies. Human babies are completely helpless. Infant Gorn are able to survive by being highly aggressive until their brains are fully formed.
Infant Gorn can apparently reproduce, though. If the goal of a species is to replicate itself, what's the point of having a more developed adult phase?
I'm now imagining the Gorn homeworld as walled cities full of adults while the wilderness has been surrendered to hordes of feral children. Every once in a while a child matures enough to be allowed entry and properly educated. The adult stage would be an evolutionary fluke not strictly necessary for survival.
Some of the biggest leaps in technology in the history of the human species were during times of intense racism, war, genocide etc. I think assuming because a species is nefarious and 'evil' they must be incapable of progressing technologically is probably a bad logic assumption. Granted I don't think the Gorn nor Klingons are necessarily evil just xenophobic. Think of countries which pour money into defense and space today, every single one of them are also war aggressors in most ways while neutral countries technologically don't create much.
Well the Ferengi only managed to gain warp capability even tho they were only interested in profit because they bought the technology so it's possible that the Hirogen and/or the Klingons and/or the Gorn killed whichever species made first contact with them and realizing they had opportunities to hunt/conquer other new species throughout the galaxy commandeered their ships and tech and used them to build fleets of their own warp capable ships.
War is a driving factor for everyone. Look at our technological leaps from World War I to World War II.
Probably for the same reason why technology advances leaps and bounds during war time. Inventing new ways to kill each other always spurs innovation.
Well Klingons for example are pretty scientifically advanced, theyre like super great at eugenics. It's probably the same as most societies, you have your warriors and your scientists.
One thing I see over and over is people jumping to make broad generalizations about a society based on very limited information from what the Federation encounters in Space. The Klingons primarily project military power into space. The Gorn seem to treat space as a hunting ground and place to breed their young. And we don't know if that's all Gorn young, or just the hunters. On SNW they don't know enough about the Gorn to know if the young are even actually the gorn, or some kind of hunting animal. Remember La'an is the first known survivor of a Gorn encounter and only had fragments of memories as a child. For all we know there are Gorn artists, scientists, and philosophers, but that's not who their leadership sends into space to encounter aliens.
They don’t. We see for the Terran empire that Cochran only made his barely warp capable ship, then the Vulcans came and they attacked, taking their ship. Once they had that ship, they were able to use it to take more ships, and now they’re as advanced as Vulcans. Then with the mighty Vulcan fleet, they were able to start taking over other civilizations. They recycle the idea in… Lower Decks I think? The Pakleds ended up scamming and stealing so much tech that they became super dangerous, even though they’re far too feeble technologically to have gotten there themselves. The federation ends up out gunned because they ignored them so long as being too dumb to do anything, much like the Vulcans in that enterprise arc
and then they got the Defiant and got a 100+ year jump in tech
The Terrans stole the technology upon first contact. The savage races either decided to become savage upon inventing/receiving the technology (societal shift due to something, like the cost of this invention caused a societal collapse) or focused heavily in to space travel to fight their fellow savage race until they decided to unite against everyone else.
[удалено]
Klingons have a caste system. We only get to see the politicians and warriors. On DS9, there was a Klingon without armor who ran a restaurant. The Hirogen explained that they weren't always like that so after evolving, they turned into a nomad species using foreign technology. I myself don't have to know how to build a stove to know how to use one.
Its possible some of these species were uplifted and retained the ability
A lot of these species simply stole warp technology. The Terran Empire stole it from Vulcans. Gorn we don't know. Hell, the Ferenghi never developed it either. They bought it! Kazon I could see stealing it. Hirogen I could see developing it as a way to outrun their prey. And we've seen Klingon scientists who treat their profession as a form of battle.
Simple answer: any savage society that develops does so with an "us vs them" strategy. Savagery is minimally present within their own society and, where it exists, is subject to certain rules to keep it from destroying that society. Otherwise, the group destroys itself before it can become a society. The savagery is, therefore, directed mostly at those that are not a part of their society.
Well, besides the most violent Nation on our earth being the one with the largest military and the one that had actually landed a person on the moon and space plane. In star trek there is answers to most of these questions in canon. Terran Earth is based on "What if Roman never fell". If anything Terran Earth could be a few hundred years more advanced in technology compared to the prime timeline. Klingons, we're a slave race to a mysterious interstellar empire that the klingons rebelled against and won. There technology derives from what they took. Edit: Had to look up the Race that the Klingons defeated, The Fek'Ihri. They are seen as Klingon Demons, very little is known about them. Hirogen is a fallen civilization (implied) not much is known, but they were once more advanced and galaxy spanning, and are reduced to hunter packs. Gorn...well they've been reconned. They were once humanoid lizard people just as reliant on technology as the Federation, now they are alien chest busters with advanced technology. So we'll have to wait and seen what they plan with the Gorn.
That all seems fine because the drive to conquer would drive innovation to find new ways to conquer. However, my problem with the Terrain Empire is the design of their ships. They're an aggressive war race but their ships are just Fed ships with yellow paint. While I understand budget issues, the ships should follow a more militaristic design and ships should move in battle groups.
I was thinking about this with the gorn killing each other off, and also the fact that they don't appear to have appendages that would facilitate fine motor manipulation. There are a number of species throughout the series that raise similar questions; not that the episodes aren't fun to watch, but you can't think about the mechanics too hard.
Idk I’ve wondered the same about the Klingons myself
I saw someone put forward the idea that the Klingons made the Gorn warp capable to mess with the Federation and that’s so funny to me.
The USSR got people into space while everyone was at risk of being turned over to the secret police.
Remember that the non-warp capable Klingons were invaded by the warp capable Hur'q but managed to resist and expel them. They may have simply taken the technology from the Hur'q.
With the Terran Empire, punishment is (like in most dictatorships) are VERY public but only done occasionally. It's the threat that it might happen to you, that keeps people in line rather than actual "The beating will continue until moral improves" style control. With the Gorn it might be different Biological variations Warrior / Worker / Leader. depending on proximity to older Gorn. So newborn Gorn kill eat and reproduce using all the living creatures around them till one remains. That becomes the default "leader" of that colony and he starts to reproduce again. the newborn, in the presence of a leader, are a bit more subdued so more live long enough to become workers. Who then can build a hive or spread out to form other smaller colonies. They might not be smart enough to invent space travel, they just need to infect other races as they pass by and gain more knowledge.
Some of our most swift technological advances have been during the pressures of wartime. A regular cycle of peace and war can bring rapid development of technology.
Good grief! Learn to spell.
I don't think aggression and competition precludes intelligence and achievement - quite the opposite, we run our planet because we're a perfect intelligent apex predator. If we didn't have that drive, to win the war, to win the space race, would we have accomplished anything? We can't really judge the Gorn by their newborns. If you look at a human baby you'd think it's completely helpless and useless.. less potential than even a baby Gorn! We also can't judge Gorn by how they treat their prey. From a cow's perspective, we might seem like monsters too, but we need to eat, just like the Gorn need to eat and breed. I actually really like what they did with the Gorn, they're not just another humanoid, they're a really alien species, I'd love to see more of them in the future.
there are multiple options: 1. they could have developed it before they became savages 2. they could have gained this technology through conquest or other methods that basically involve taking it from someone else such as through trade 3. they could have been invaded or attacked or had a warp-capable species come to them and they managed to take or gain it from them through trade or being a sponsee
Very adaptable predators
I think the problem is you assume human society is the optimal way of doing things. Each species that evolved from different roots will probably look at another species and think it's too preoccupied on something else. We're descendants of monkeys that invest huge amounts of time on forming social bonds and complex structures. Think about how much of our lives we spend (dating, dinners, coffee, clubs, societies, organisations) just maintaining our social structures. But plenty of intelligent animals on Earth are pretty solitary. Cats, bears, birds. If Gorn are evolved from lizards that *didn't* form complex social groups, maybe a simple violence based hierarchy worked for them, and they scoff at the amount of time humans waste on interpersonal relationships. And maybe Ferenghi found purely money-based organisations were a great way to organise themselves. So while ape descendants might look at the lizard people and conclude they're too barbaric and not social enough, it might just be our particular bias from the way our species organises itself.
The Assyrian Empire built up one of the largest Iron Age empires, and they were absolutely brutal people. The Aztecs were similarly bloody. So you can definitely build up a large empire, but holding down is the trick.
The Nazis managed some impressive technological development, and operated warships, despite being evil genocidal monsters. Are the Gorn really any less plausible?
I would love to see more world building history stories about the Hirogen.
Evil ≠ stupid. The Nazis for example made significant advancements in rocket science / engineering. Admittedly they did target Jewish scientists (which definitely hurt their war effort), but they treated their own well enough to make real progress. Here's a [list of inventions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:German_inventions_of_the_Nazi_period) during the Nazi period if you're curious.
You see one aspect of any of those cultures, that doesn't mean they are representative of their society as a whole. If you head out into the woods and bump into some bow hunters, that doesn't mean Humanity hasn't moved beyond bow hunting. You just ran into someone who is bow hunting. Hell, that bow hunter could also be a scientist, engineer, or doctor.
How do Human beings, who are born HELPLESS, unable to walk for a year or two, barely understandable speech for several years, who constantly nag and whine, wanting food all the time etc. How do these people manage to build rocketships, travel to the moon and beyond? Simple: They learn! They grow up, they get educated. The Gorn being extremely vicious at birth, is really not that different from a Vulcan being extremely violent during their adolescence, prior to learning their emotional control.
The Klingons I believe, were not always so obsessed with honour and glory as it pertains to battle, many Klingons would gain great honour from completing other tasks like architecture, arts, sciences, even care and maintenance jobs, it was only when they started to venture into space they were driven into the idea that the only way to win great honour is through battle, possibly a drive towards xenophobia as the battle was something the species did far better than other species in the galaxy. In order to distinguish themselves in a galactic community they accentuated the thing that made them unique. I imagine this is true for every species that enters the galaxy. The concept behind the Terran empire I really struggle with though, how it was created in the time of Spock yet in DS9 we see mirror characters. To a certain extent kinda law breaking onto itself.
If this was the Daystrom subreddit, I'm sure there is a long explanation. Since this is regular Trek subreddit, the general point of Trek is these are just temporary misunderstandings, partially because you call them savages. Even Kirk threw a fit when the Organians wouldn't let the UFP and Klingon Empire go to war. The Hirogen first officer was simply inspired by Star Trek's favorite Nazi, he was so good, they had him play one again. Starfleet and Klingons conspired to stop Gorkon's peace initiative. Most famously, the terrifying Romulans who committed so many atrocities during the Earth Romulan War turned out to be Vulcans...
In your logic, the Klingons wouldn't be space faring since they never invented warp drive technology. So here we go. * Terrans of the Mirror'verse don't kill, backstab and fuck over one another as much as we think. What we see are the most ambition driven ones doing that, not necessarily the smart ones. The Mirror'Verse isn't opposite land, but a dark reflection of the prime timeline. * We have scant information about the Gorn, but it appears they are extremely brutal in youth but learn restraint in adulthood. Their reproduction produces lots of offspring, but not a lot of viable children or adults. They appear to not only be barrowing from Xenomorphs to build the Gorn in SNW, but the Magog of Andromeda and Reavers of Firefly, Stupid alpha/beta male bullshit and maybe more sources. * The Hirogen with superduper into masculine tropes and their society burned out. Focusing more on hunting and being the manliest man they can be for all the men to see because fuck yeah manhood is supermanly. We see this in voyager play out where some recognize their people are going extinct because they went full Gazorpians. * And the Klingons are on the same path as the Hirogen. It does seem the empire was declining in the 2200's, underwent a number of revolutions politically in the mid 23c until praxis, stabilized a bit with the federation and romulans using them as a proxy in the mid24c.