Klingon Honour

[Tenebrae]

It's a pretty fickle thing...

 

It has been touched upon before but really, is it "honour" in an meaningful sense of the word, as defined by dictionary.com:

 

honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions

 

Now, which part of murdering innocents, sneaking around and attacking unprepared vessels, going to war with a civilisation that is weak and in turmoil and beating up tribbles is fair, honest or shows integrity? The Klingons have a code of conduct - that roughly seems to translate as... actually, I don't really understand it.

 

We have people tossing around the word "honour" so much that it just doesn't seem to mean anything. It's not honourable to be a scientist... in fact, pretty much everything except fighting and killing (preferably in the most covert, murderous fashion possible) seems to be dishonourable.

 

Anyway, as the board is so dead - I just thought I'd bring this point up.

[TFMF]

They probably find a way of justifying it.

 

"The tribbles were a scourge upon the galaxy and we have rid them from our homes - honerable"

 

"We attacked their ship before they even knew we were there - the fact we were able to pull it off - honerable"

 

Or somthing like that....in most case it's down to those writers...

[[MM]]

As TFMF said but also :

 

The fact that a lot of klingons don't  act "honourably" while spouting the word so often was often a key point of stories in TNG.

 

Often it was the spur for Worf to go off on one of his "cleanup" missions to root out the bad weeds. (TBH I think the only Klingon to actually *act* honourably was Worf himself - and that was only because he grew up away from the rest of them)

 

It's also highlighted in DS9 when Quark gets mixed up in the whole Klingon Marriage thing - there he comments on how deceitful the whole klingon System is (and how at home he felt twisting the situation to his advantage , coming from him that's a real slur on an "Honourable" system)

 

It's a bit like the whole "Vulcan's aren't emotional" thing ;) but that's a different argument :D

 

[Centurion]

It seems once upon a time Klingons acted honorably, but, as the empire grew, they lost their way and started acting less than honorably. You know, it's the kind of thing that happens to every empire at some point... If I'm not mistaken, something like this was suggested in that ST - Enterprise trial episode.

[Amnot Borg]

they did bring back Kahless the clone Empreror to teach morals again... to show them the way... the words mean more than the man...

[Hilander72]

It's a matter of perspective.

 

As I see it Humans and all the other races are dishonourble simply becuse they're not Klingons. Not that this ever has/had some basis in the real World with all the past and present conflicts.

 

Bringing back Kahless to reinstate the 'true' values is almost ridiculous. What if we brought back a major ancient person from the past and reevaluated our own current values/belifes to fit those of the past? Hasn't the World changed so much that the past would no longer apply to the present?

[TetsuoShima]

What I allways thought was anything could be honorable for Klingons, as long as nobody else claimed it wasn't honorable and beat them in the dual that would then naturally occur, since the 'honorable' klingon was dishonored by the claim of dishonorable behaviour or something silly like that, but the above explanations seem equally good or better even...

[slug]

You also have to bear in mind that the Klingons are conceived differently in different incarnations of Trek.

 

In the original series they are an analogy for the Russians albeit as an antagonist rather than any critique of Russian society, in the films they keep some aspects of this, but the warrior element is significantly more emphasised. In TNG the Klingons are set up as allies to emphasise how things had moved on in the time gap. Worf was meant to emphasise this but was originally only scripted for seven episodes.

 

The Klingons went on to become more of a social study for facets of humanity than a representation of any particular group, except possibly a shift from any Russian elements to historical Oriental influence, partly in much of the Klingon design by Dan Curry and also in a lot of the ritual suicide and warrior conduct stuff.

 

I think this is the pont where they started babbling on about honour all the time and the inherent contradictions became more of a critique of honour as a concept and the whole idea of a code of concuct than examples of continuity errors.

 

At this point the Romulans take over as the metaphorical antagonist, but in a way which more closely mirrors relations with China than Russia.

 

Then you get the final two original series films which you must remember were not produced until TNG was underway. The sixth film takes the form of a very open metaphor for the falling of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War and the Klingons at this point show aspects of all of the different things they have been used to represent to date.

 

If you want my opinion the Klingons peaked in the 4th season TNG episode 'Reunion' where they are increadibley unsettling and well directed, they became a bit lame after this, although they ocasionally regained some of their appeal in DS9. depending on how well that particular episode was put together.

[Tenebrae]

Yeah, Klingons DID change a lot - in fact, they totally regressed from The Undiscovered Country. There they seem pretty reasonable (heavy connotations of Chernobyl and the fall of the USSR... in fact, they might as well have put in a flashing sign for all the subtly of that parallel...) there. Then in early TNG, we had Klingons captured and going a bit mental - and they were essentially called dinosaurs but then, after that they seemed to all just be murderous warriors.

 

I'd say by DS9 they seem to be pretty much all treacherous murderers - and yeah, they seemed to steal a fair bit from Bashido with the stuff like ritual suicide (they're supposed to kill themselves when they're captured too... they never do though).

 

Romulans were far more interesting as villains, really. Klingons generally lacked anything approaching guile.

[slug]

As I say, its important to remember that Star Trek VI did not come out until past the third season of TNG had aired.

 

The most obvious sign of this is in 'Yesterday's Enterprise,' when the guy from the Enterprise-C says that they were 'negotiating a peace treaty with the Klingons,' when they got pulled forward some twenty plus years after the events of Star Trek VI, which had not yet been released. It is slightly unfortunate that one of the best episodes of TNG is rather heavily contradicted by the events of the sixth film.

 

Another sign is that the sets from TNG turn up as early as the fifth film, there is one scene where Sybok's followers are quite clearly passing through the corridoors of the TNG Enterprise, add to that they redressed the TNG engineering for the sixth film.

 

I do feel slightly uneasy that I actually know this.

[Tenebrae]

Hahaha, yeah - you seem to be pretty heavy on the knowledge. I suppose you could just write it off as part of the temporal anomaly or something. Personally, I think the "Yesterday's Enterprise" thing was cool and would have made a much more interesting setting for the show but there you go.

 

I suppose it's also clear that they hadn't taken into account the Undiscovered Country because they NEVER make mention of the whole "Qo'Nos being uninhabitable in 50 years" issue, in the film it seems quite clear that the ONLY option that they've actually considered is going to be evacuation but everything seems to be just fine - no explanation given... although, it's debatable that the contents of the films is seldom reference in the regular continuity... not that regular continuity is really that continuous. I suppose another good example is the Motion Picture/Voyage Home scenario, you'd really think that they'd have some kind of defences around Earth if big ol' aliens KEEP knocking on the door.

 

Anyway, I think that the Klingons seem to just become a bunch of thugs by DS9 and yeah, about the only honourable Klingon is Worf. They clearly felt badly about the situation when they got to Enterprise because they had those episodes where they go "Oh, we used to be a good society with scholars and now everyone is just looking to beat up anyone."

 

To be honest, even with the whole Herc invasion the notion of the Klingons being a power to contest with for any length of time given the nature of their culture just seems entirely inconsistent. I mean, the Federation would just outpace them technologically.

[slug]

Had to look up Herc invasion. I'm glad about that.[br]Posted on: January 08, 2007, 07:49:33 AM

---

Oh yeh and the inhabitable homeworld thing, thats actually more of a glairing error, I think I'd read some attempts to explain it, different homeworlds with the same name, some kind of miraculous attempt at cleanup, which would make some sense -in that the only way they could survive was with outside help, which may have involved some kind large scale cleanup.

 

'Don't wait for the translation, answer me know!'

 

That's more or less a direct quotation of some rather heated discussion with Russian delegates at the U.N. during the Cuban missile crisis, which they put into the trial scene in STVI, you'd wander why they were not using universal translators, you could maybe say they are not admissable in court or something. Anyway, it was much cooler having it all needing to be translated, even if it was all in that early 90's 'Hunt for Red October' style where they start a scene in one language subtitled and revert to English part way to show you what they are supposed to be talking.

[Tenebrae]

To be honest, the Herc invasion is a lot like most of the other invasion scenarios - really seems a bit far fetched, although I suppose it's really the only way that they could possibly explain how the Klingons were so advanced but utterly failed to keep the advantage. A friend of mine said it always made him just imagine a "KLINGONS IN SPACE!" type scenario, with them running aboard a ship and just flying around in space without a clue. Honestly, think how hard it is for us to reverse engineer our OWN technology - I can believe that maybe the Klingon could POSSIBLY get one of the Herc ships flying but Trek seems to emphasise that you need a fair level of proficiency to keep everything ticking over. The Klingons just don't really seem to be the type of civilisation that could really manage it with any speed or proficiency.

 

As to Qo'Nos - yeah, people try and excuse it... but really, it's kind of like the whole Klingon appearance thing. Sure you can try and explain it away, maybe even have an episode to try and do some repair work but it's still just jarring and shows that no one was paying attention. It's kind of like Voyager syndrome - having massive life changing experiences but never talking about them - but on a galactic scale.

 

And yes - I think the quote was rather incongruous... as I said, someone OBVIOUSLY wanted to just make the cold war analogy utterly inescapable to even the most insular Trek fan (not that they'd specifically pick up on that).

 

Personally I preferred the Russian/Klingon thing instead of the pretty much deranged mad men they became. Hahaha, I just realised what happened to the Klingons was the exact OPPOSITE of what happened to the Ferengi. Clearly all the Ferengi aggression was channelled by Q into the Klingons, there's a nice handy explanation for everything. That or the Krenim...

[Chiggy]

Ive always thought of Klingons as honourable to their own kind and to no one else. Worf is the exception because of his human parents so feels a sense of honour and duty towards humans as well as Starfleet.

 

In one of the early episodes of TNG Worf meets up a group of Klingons and before they all die he shows them honour. It is out of 'honour' that they will only speak with Worf as they know they can trust him because he is of their race. In the end Worf has to decide where his loyalty lies...........and chooses the path of a little petak I might add HO HO HO.

 

You have to remember that the Klingon empire is in disarray its hardly surpising there are a lot of criminals I`m sure there are plenty of 'normal Klingons' around but if we saw more of them and fewer of the crazy ones the Klingon race wouldnt make interesting  entertainment.

[Marcroft]

I think that Ezri said it best in DS9 S7 "Tacking into the Wind"

 

"The Klingon Empire is dying, and I think it deserves to die.... I tend to look at the empire with a little more scepticism than Curzon or Jadzia did. I see a society that is in deep denial about itself. We’re talking about a warrior culture that prides itself on maintaining century’s old traditions of honour and integrity. But in reality, its willing to accept corruption at the highest levels... who was the last leader of the high cancel that you respected, has there even been one, and how many times have you had to cover up the crimes of Klingon leaders because you was told it was for the good of the empire? I know this sounds harsh but the truth is you have been willing to accept a government that you know is corrupt… Worf you are the most honourable and decent man that I have ever met, and if your willing to tolerate men like Gowron then what hope is there for the Empire."

 

 

 

 

 

[Tenebrae]

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up - the Klingon Empire is pretty much morally bankrupt - or perhaps honour bankrupt - at it's highest level.

 

Worf always seemed to be covering up for the Empire... but then, I'd say that even he frequently seems disgusted with it... of course, like any good abusive relationship he always goes crawling back.

[Guest c4evap]

Like when they knew his father had not really been a traitor. The Empire screwed him over royally and he took it like a man (?). LOL.

 

c4  ;D

[Tenebrae]

I actually lost count of the number of times Worf was dishonoured, rehonoured and such by the Empire. I think it was about a billion times. You have to wonder why he even bothered after a while... although, I suppose that with his help he managed to clean up a lot of the corruption... but that's really more of a bandage on a gaping wound.

[Arktis]

The implication as I see it is that Klingons are mostly stupid save for some of their craftier, more sinister leaders who only appear to care about honor.  Klingons run around professing the sacredness of honor when they really don't understand much about what they are really doing or what they are talking about.  The basic concept of it being sacred just holds their empire together like so many other dogmas we've all seen and experienced.

[Marcroft]

The other way to go on this is the Klingon perspective of honour.

 

I mean every Trek villian is based on aspects of human society (because that is all we can base them on when creating them).

But perhaps this is a case whereby the Klingons have really been given a different perspective. Or just the writers screwing up.

 

Or maybe its like the double meaning of words that are spelt the same, Like Wind (weather) and Wind (to wind up).

 

Klingons might have honour, and honour - the same word with just different meanings?