Evolution of Klingons - the missing link

NemoTheBlue

So there's a new crew pack in the portal called "Evolution of Klingons", but it doesn't include a single classic Klingon with a smooth forehead.

There are 6 crew from 6 series, but the TOS representative is General Chang from ST VI, with cranial ridges. Unfortunately, DB had no other options among existing crew, as the entire "smooth head" contingent is Kang, Kor, Koloth and Mara who are all 3* crew.

Honestly, I don't know where I'm going with this beyond calling attention to it; it just seems a poor choice of theme pack when there's a gaping hole in the line-up for the originals who highlight the evolutionary theme in question.

For Cardassia

I noticed that too.

This would have been a good opportunity to add a new 4* TOS Klingon. Alternatively, they could have used one of the smooth-forehead Klingons from ENT.

GhostStalker

Here's my question. I think I'll use spoiler tags for those who haven't seen Star Trek Discovery:

It sort of made sense from a "future magic tech" perspective when the Augment virus in ENT caused Klingons to look human. Granted, it's ridiculous to think any virus could literally warp your bones in minutes, but whatever. On Discovery, they could have introduced that virus again to show how Voq became Ash Tyler, but they chose not to. They chose to show him enduring multiple surgeries, which is NONSENSE - If you show Klingons with massive football shaped heads, it implies their brains take up that space. They would have had to shrink Voq's brain. I mean even if you ignore the biology, it's just a spit in the face to Enterprise. They were presented with an easy solution, and they chose to say "No, we don't care about canon, let's do this nonsense." Which seems par for the course for Discovery.

Pallidyne

GhostStalker wrote: »

Here's my question. I think I'll use spoiler tags for those who haven't seen Star Trek Discovery:

It sort of made sense from a "future magic tech" perspective when the Augment virus in ENT caused Klingons to look human. Granted, it's ridiculous to think any virus could literally warp your bones in minutes, but whatever. On Discovery, they could have introduced that virus again to show how Voq became Ash Tyler, but they chose not to. They chose to show him enduring multiple surgeries, which is NONSENSE - If you show Klingons with massive football shaped heads, it implies their brains take up that space. They would have had to shrink Voq's brain. I mean even if you ignore the biology, it's just a spit in the face to Enterprise. They were presented with an easy solution, and they chose to say "No, we don't care about canon, let's do this nonsense." Which seems par for the course for Discovery.

Wasn't Arne Darvin surgically altered to appear human in the Tribble incident? Now I'm not a Discovery fan, but this particular piece just occurred to me.

GhostStalker

A little different, Arne Darvin was a Klingon from a time (from a TV Series!) when Klingons looked like humans with more hair and shinier skin! It was far less "suspension of disbelief."

Edit: I want to stress that my main point here is that Enterprise literally handed them a trick to use and they were like nahhh thankssss we don't watch Star Trek.

Pallidyne

GhostStalker wrote: »

A little different, Arne Darvin was a Klingon from a time (from a TV Series!) when Klingons looked like humans with more hair and shinier skin! It was far less "suspension of disbelief."

Edit: I want to stress that my main point here is that Enterprise literally handed them a trick to use and they were like nahhh thankssss we don't watch Star Trek.

I get it and I feel that Disco does that a lot (hell I'm not bothering to watch anymore at least for now), but in this case, it's actually plausible either way.

GhostStalker

Guys don't get me wrong. As a show, Discovery is good. It looks visually beautiful, the action is great, and the stories are deep. I like it as a show. But it just feels like they don't "honor but evolve" Star Trek - instead they sort of mock it.

The Great Gornholio

Does anyone else think this pack should have included: Dahar Master Koloth (New) instead of Kor?

PS: I think I know what inspired the Klingon appearance in Discovery, Jerry the Drac from Enemy Mine!

Ego Draconis

I'd like to see a Klingon Archer as he appears in the ENT episode. I have a giggle or two every time I look at him. In game, it certainly would make my day

Hunter247

GhostStalker wrote: »

Here's my question. I think I'll use spoiler tags for those who haven't seen Star Trek Discovery:

They chose to show him enduring multiple surgeries, which is NONSENSE - If you show Klingons with massive football shaped heads, it implies their brains take up that space.

Not sure it requires it but what the hey

Why would it imply that their brains take up the entire space of the heads. It is perfectly possible that the increased space is because of additional skull thickness or plates. From an evolutionary stand point a warrior who has a thicker skull or additional organs (which we know the Klingons have from Worf's surgery in TNG) would be a clear advantage as it would make them tougher and harder to kill

In fact I seem to remember that when Worf devolved his skeleton became even more tougher (suggesting that over time the evolutionary impact became less important i.e. technological evolution compensated)

[TFA] Celeres

I'm not exactly a DSC curmudgeon, but I refuse to accept the 'new' Klingons. You have to imagine that piss poor decision to turn them into extra-terrestrial orcs was driven by too many suits and too many creatives feeling the need to "own" content they didn't initially create.

[SSR] The Iron Cow

GhostStalker wrote: »

A little different, Arne Darvin was a Klingon from a time (from a TV Series!) when Klingons looked like humans with more hair and shinier skin! It was far less "suspension of disbelief."

Edit: I want to stress that my main point here is that Enterprise literally handed them a trick to use and they were like nahhh thankssss we don't watch Star Trek.

Bingo. Sadly that "nahhh thankssss" mindset is basically the entire show.

From the first episode where they just had to have a racist white male admiral despite Archer saying 100 years earlier that Starfleet was no longer like that, to the "spore drive" to comically over the top tech like the holograms that weren't used by Federation until the end of DS9...this series doesn't care at all about Star Trek canon. Combine that with the fact that it's basically Game of Thrones in space now, and it's obvious the creators wanted a sci fi show for millennials, not a Star Trek show.

I am ambivalent on the Abrams movies, but at least they updated the tech in a reasonable way. The consoles might be more shiny and modern than TOS, but they didn't invent insane timeline-breaking stuff like drives that can teleport you across the entire galaxy faster than a transwarp network.

Torias327

Am I the only one that thinks Burnham is pregnant and they are going to use that to bridge the gap between Orc and Modern Klingon? I feel like it’s so super obvious it hurts.

GhostStalker

Torias327 wrote: »

Am I the only one that thinks Burnham is pregnant and they are going to use that to bridge the gap between Orc and Modern Klingon? I feel like it’s so super obvious it hurts.

No, for one thing, no offense, that's nonsense. One baby born in the 2250s won't change a thing. But we've seen Klingons in ENT already. I apologize, but I can't fathom a way that seems obvious. On a lighter note, this seems like the kind of show where a baby gets put into the plot to be killed mercilessly!

Paund Skumm

Torias327 wrote: »

Am I the only one that thinks Burnham is pregnant and they are going to use that to bridge the gap between Orc and Modern Klingon? I feel like it’s so super obvious it hurts.

Probably you are alone in this...

Except modern Klingons were there in Episode 1 of ENT... they went to great pains to explain the “human looking, brown-faced, fu-Manchu” of TOS being a retrovirus in ENT.

I don’t see how we get from Orc to Fu Manchu Klingon 10 years later then to “modern” (ie, Lobster on forehead Barak in TMP) in 10 years via a pregnant Burnham.

Torias327

The vast majority of Voqs people died on the Tomb Ship, per the show. If there are only scattered ships of Klingons now, with how fast and loose they are playing with science and lore and universes and time and fungal networks..... I don’t know. I won’t be surprised at all if she’s pregnant in the season finale.

The ENT connection SHOULD invalidate my guess, but it wouldn’t be the first time a Klingon face didn’t match the time lines correctly.

Pallidyne

Torias327 wrote: »

The vast majority of Voqs people died on the Tomb Ship, per the show. If there are only scattered ships of Klingons now, with how fast and loose they are playing with science and lore and universes and time and fungal networks..... I don’t know. I won’t be surprised at all if she’s pregnant in the season finale.

The ENT connection SHOULD invalidate my guess, but it wouldn’t be the first time a Klingon face didn’t match the time lines correctly.

Maybe these are all faux Klingons and all get wiped out, with a Triumphal Kor, Koloth and Kang standing over their fallen bodies.

For Cardassia

Pallidyne wrote: »

Torias327 wrote: »

The vast majority of Voqs people died on the Tomb Ship, per the show. If there are only scattered ships of Klingons now, with how fast and loose they are playing with science and lore and universes and time and fungal networks..... I don’t know. I won’t be surprised at all if she’s pregnant in the season finale.

The ENT connection SHOULD invalidate my guess, but it wouldn’t be the first time a Klingon face didn’t match the time lines correctly.

Maybe these are all faux Klingons and all get wiped out, with a Triumphal Kor, Koloth and Kang standing over their fallen bodies.

Plot twist: They're actually a completely different species pretending to be Klingons, but no one remembers what the Klingons from 90 years ago looked like so no one noticed.

Paund Skumm

Pallidyne wrote: »

Torias327 wrote: »

The vast majority of Voqs people died on the Tomb Ship, per the show. If there are only scattered ships of Klingons now, with how fast and loose they are playing with science and lore and universes and time and fungal networks..... I don’t know. I won’t be surprised at all if she’s pregnant in the season finale.

The ENT connection SHOULD invalidate my guess, but it wouldn’t be the first time a Klingon face didn’t match the time lines correctly.

Maybe these are all faux Klingons and all get wiped out, with a Triumphal Kor, Koloth and Kang standing over their fallen bodies.

It’s a complete cluster fart now... Voq is houseless so his people is essentially T’kumvats house... but all the Klingons that came from the 24 houses all look like orcs so in DSC, Orc is the default.

I don’t see the logic jump to she’s pregnant... I mean she could be for the heck of it but how that fits into the rest...

If they just left the Klingons more or less the same, we would be good... I mean they didn’t screw around with the Vulcans, Andorians or even Tellarites (despite what someone else said, the piggies always had tusks... they just look more boar like now)... leave the bloody Klingons alone for freak sakes.

Torias327

I am basing my guess off of the fact the spore drive also needs to disappear and phase out due to it essentially being Zaphod’s Heart of Gold. If they find a way to time slip the baby back in time in the ship, it takes all the Disco-centric lore issues away to move forward into Kirk’s time. Admittedly it’s a stretch, but 10 years is no time to fix what they’ve written without temporal play getting involved.

GhostStalker

We're giving WAY too much credit to the showrunners of Discovery here. The Iron Cow has it right: They just don't care. Let's stop making excuses for that and just enjoy the show for what it is. A NEW, reimagined, dark and dystopian 21st century take on Star Trek.

Pallidyne

GhostStalker wrote: »

We're giving WAY too much credit to the showrunners of Discovery here. The Iron Cow has it right: They just don't care. Let's stop making excuses for that and just enjoy the show for what it is. A NEW, reimagined, dark and dystopian 21st century take on Star Trek.

Or don't, and go watch better shows and not pay CBS for this.

Paund Skumm

Pallidyne wrote: »

GhostStalker wrote: »

We're giving WAY too much credit to the showrunners of Discovery here. The Iron Cow has it right: They just don't care. Let's stop making excuses for that and just enjoy the show for what it is. A NEW, reimagined, dark and dystopian 21st century take on Star Trek.

Or don't, and go watch better shows and not pay CBS for this.

Yeah, we get it for free on Space Channel...

For Cardassia

Paund Skumm wrote: »

Pallidyne wrote: »

GhostStalker wrote: »

We're giving WAY too much credit to the showrunners of Discovery here. The Iron Cow has it right: They just don't care. Let's stop making excuses for that and just enjoy the show for what it is. A NEW, reimagined, dark and dystopian 21st century take on Star Trek.

Or don't, and go watch better shows and not pay CBS for this.

Yeah, we get it for free on Space Channel...

Yayy Canada :P

Travis S McClain

Not that it matters or that anyone asked, but I hated ENT's convoluted, pedantic attempt to reconcile the aesthetics of TOS Klingons with the rest of them. But then, I was content with Worf's "We do not speak of it with outsiders" cop-out.

Pallidyne

Travis S McClain wrote: »

Not that it matters or that anyone asked, but I hated ENT's convoluted, pedantic attempt to reconcile the aesthetics of TOS Klingons with the rest of them. But then, I was content with Worf's "We do not speak of it with outsiders" cop-out.

Lol it was just one more nail in the coffin for me for ENT.

Sometimes a lil mystery is good. Frankly ENT could have not needed the odd plot by just doing the smooth foreheads in Broken Bow, etc.

Paund Skumm

Pallidyne wrote: »

Travis S McClain wrote: »

Not that it matters or that anyone asked, but I hated ENT's convoluted, pedantic attempt to reconcile the aesthetics of TOS Klingons with the rest of them. But then, I was content with Worf's "We do not speak of it with outsiders" cop-out.

Lol it was just one more nail in the coffin for me for ENT.

Sometimes a lil mystery is good. Frankly ENT could have not needed the odd plot by just doing the smooth foreheads in Broken Bow, etc.

I think everyone was OK with the truth which was due to budget constraints and prosthetic technology (look at TOS Tellarites) in the 60s, they just changed... just like the bridge sets with real screens and computers instead of colored buttons. Trying to explain it was unnecessary... so I wonder if they will try to explain the New Orc Klingons... I know... Saruman got his hands on the Klingons and made them into Uruk-Hai !!!

Travis S McClain

Despite my antipathy (and to be honest, I actually like the new look, which I find considerably more imposing and threatening than previous designs), I will concede that seeing the old school Andorian and Tellarite was a bit jarring. It did take me out of the episode for a moment. My first thought was, "Hey! Cool!" and then my second thought was, "Wait, why are they still the same?" Not that there's any reason they can't be the same as before, mind you.

Then I got back into the episode because I was invested in these characters and interested in their goings-on, and that's all I feel I can ask of any TV series.

To come back a bit more on topic, there aren't many recognizable, unused TOS Klingons who feel right for a 4* card, but one that I think would is Arne Darvin, who has been mentioned in this thread already. I won't even speculate whether Charlie Brill's likeness rights are easily negotiated; that's DB's problem, not mine. But if he could be brought into the game, I'd welcome him.

Paund Skumm

They could also put out an old version of him from DS9 as well...

Captain Sushi

Saboteur Darvin 3*
Temporal Saboteur Darvin 4*

WaldoMag

Paund Skumm wrote: »

Torias327 wrote: »

Am I the only one that thinks Burnham is pregnant and they are going to use that to bridge the gap between Orc and Modern Klingon? I feel like it’s so super obvious it hurts.

Probably you are alone in this...

Except modern Klingons were there in Episode 1 of ENT... they went to great pains to explain the “human looking, brown-faced, fu-Manchu” of TOS being a retrovirus in ENT.

I don’t see how we get from Orc to Fu Manchu Klingon 10 years later then to “modern” (ie, Lobster on forehead Barak in TMP) in 10 years via a pregnant Burnham.

Thanks I was looking for a comment I could use for mine.
I had forgotten about the TOS episode that had Kahless.
Kahless predated the augment Klingons.
Therefore, the TOS episode proves that the actual augments are the Klingon with ridges.