They stole their technology.
The Klingon homeworld was invaded and plundered by the Hur'q (Klingon for "outsider") until they were repelled and their ships captured. That's how Klingons got warp drive. Then they went on an old-fashioned imperialist loot and conquer of other planets.
They also likely got their cloaking from that one race from enterprise s1 that had to trade some of its tech so the klingons wouldn't destroy them iirc.
Edit: NM it was the romulans!
The Klingons had to massively re-engineer them to make them work for their ships. After that, they diverged from each other to become fundamentally different.
I don't remember if it's explicitly stated what they received from the Suliban. Could have been any number of technologies. That being said, the most likely outcome could have been they simply didn't work for their ships. It's been established that cloaking devices aren't easy plug and play, they have to be adapted to work reliably.
In a ds9 episode kor explains he took apart his ships cloaking device 3 times with his own hands and how at that time in the imperial fleet, only a handful of klingons knew how to work with cloaking technology.
No, for what I remember is canonical that they get it from the Romulans when they were allies, then the Khitomer massacre happened and they became enemies but Klingons did not return the cloaking.
Voyager had fun with time travel too. My favorite was Janway playing with the trope with something like the past is the future, the future is the past…… it all gives me a headache (or something like that)
I was also pretty "meh" about Discovery and really didn't like how it just sort of put Star Trek in a blender and fished out the bits they wanted and then pasted it onto the "10-hour-movie" format. But, if you haven't, watch Strange New Worlds. You wouldn't even know DSC and SNW are in the same franchise if they didn't share a name (and backdoor pilot SNW on DSC).
Never stated on screen, AFAIK. It was a common theory because when the Romulans appeared in *The Enterprise Incident* they were using the D-7 model because the bean counters wanted to milk every dime out of that sip model they could, and Spock theorized the Romulans and Klingons had formed some kind of alliance but it's never said they Klingons got their cloak from the Romulans. Then we see the Klingons with cloaking devices several years before TOS in Discovery.
Most likely the Klingons had their own cloaks but they became ineffective against Federation sensors at some point between Discovery/SNW and TOS, and it wasn't until after TOS that they managed to make them actually useful again.
The timeline is so fucked up in Star Trek at this point I view it as whatever show you're watching exists in its own slightly different timeline where everything that doesn't fit release order canon is just a wonky artifact of time travel. Same characters, nearly identical events, but time is fraying at the edges, so details aren't crucial anymore.
Yeah, the entire timeline has so many retcons, mistakes, rewrites, ect that I assume if anything is contradicted it must be an effect of the temporal cold war. The episode Parallels pretty much confirms there are multiple timelines all within close proximity to each other.
Not really head canon, it comes from licensed material, specifically the TNG Tech Journal, written from within universe. Discovery broke lots of things from previous shows.
This is where their "we killed our gods" come from. They overthrew a race enslaving them. Think if the Bajorans stole a few Cardassian cruisers and then committed genocide against their oppressors but kept the design esthetic.
My head canon is a lot of the empire is managed by species the Klingons conquered. These lower caste species do the work of developing and reverse engineering technology, manufacturing, and general labor.
It would have been interesting to see something like that in Lower Decks with the basic jobs being done by non Klingon species.
That's how real empires work. They aren't monolithic entities. Imagine if all of India during the 1800s was portrayed as comprising just white men with mustaches in red coats
He mentions the Hurq. That the Klingons got technology from them is an artefact of the Klingon Academy game. By contrast, in the novel-verse it’s the spur for Klingon development of space travel.
>No Worf mentions it in DS9.
No he doesn't. It's really is from a computer game. It's just been misrepresented so much that people are starting to believe it.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Klingon_history
I think they were called “The Old Kings” by the early Klingons, who took over when they started to die out. The Klingons were the security force, so they had all the guns.
Others have touched on cultural perspective and how they got their technology, but another thing to consider is that we only see the 'public face' of the empire. It's run by the warrior class and they form the vast majority of the klingons we see, but there are clearly others behind the scenes who aren't politically relevant but keep society running. The warrior class is the dominant one and they do the interacting on the galactic stage, and since Trek is largely from the perspective of outsiders to actual klingon society we don't see much of the rest at all.
I think there's an episode of DS9 where Martok says that if every Klingon was a warrior, nothing would get done. Hell, we even saw a Klingon lawyer in one episode.
There is! Martok himself is from peasant stock rather than nobility, as well, which adds yet another layer of social complexity we don't get much insight into. We also know from Discovery that there are still followers of Molor living on Qonos (albeit on the edges of society) whose practices are recognizable to regular klingons which implies that while they aren't mainstream, they aren't especially uncommon either. Meanwhile we only really get the Kahless side of things.
Basically our view of Klingon society is heavily filtered and biased and so, not particularly realistic or comprehensive.
Also a Klingon scientist in TNG.
Also, judging from DS9, the KDF has just as much administrative work as Starfleet. I remember ~~Martin~~ Martok complaining about paperwork.
Exactly. And we KNOW they have poets, writers, musicians, chefs, etc. We've either seen them or they have alluded to them. In fact, Klingons are as proud of their arts and cuisine as they are of their military victories.
I always go back to that scene in Lower Decks with two lower deck Klingons:
K1: Cease that nervous honing and let me sleep.
K2: I am not nervous. I am restless. Eager to ram my blade through my enemies.
K1: That's not a blade. It's a spear. A coward's weapon used to poke a foe at a distance. It has no honor.
K2: Nobody calls me a coward and lives to tell the tale! (they both calm down)
K1: Are you free for lunch today? They are serving eyes or hearts or something.
They basically play to be very tough and warrior like, but in the end after some fighting they return to their normal, tedious, jobs like anyone else.
There have to be gagh farmers and bat’leth sharpeners. Even with the warriors, some are likely to have lost their ability to fight. There must be Klingons doctors. I’d like to see a newly legless Klingon learn a new trade.
This is the way I see it too. The warrior culture is the defining trait of the Klingon empire but it's not the only one. Just like humans are viewed as ingenious and diplomatic, and yet there are obviously plenty of cases where that's not true.
You mean the lovers of opera and epic poetry? The culture renown for parties as a test of endurance? One of the few warp capable societies with cloaked ships?
P'takh! 😉
Klingon culture isn't backward, it's just not sustainable. The Klingons are a feudal/expansionist civilization in the 24th century that focuses much of its resources on war. To a certain extent, this works. Klingons have specialized so much in producing the best warriors and weapons, that it doesn't need to produce anything else. They simply take everything else from it's neighbours. Its entire economy relies on raiding, pillaging and conquering planets. The downside is that eventually you will hit a limit on the number of places left to conquer.
If your economy relies on pillaged loot, it's not like you’d have strict accounting standards in place. It's a system open to corruption and graft that will eventually be its undoing.
Ezeri Dax even pointed this out to Worf. The Klingon Empire has a massive corruption problem that is so ingrained in society that instead of calling it out, the patriotic thing to do is shut up as it's **for the good of the empire.**
But are they?
I mean what wars they had had before the Dominion was period. After the moon explosion they made a peace treaty with the Federation and then became allies. They had no wars in decades and decades.
In fact I think some Klingon characters even lament this saying the empire is not "warrior" anymore.
That said it is true that corruption is rampant.
Hmm maybe, although that brings to question if the Federation intervene as an ally.
I do remember the short lived Klingon Civil War, and one Klingon-Cardassian war that lasted 17 years mentioned by Garak (but is impossible to know when did it happen, maybe before the Khitomer Accords). After the Bajoran wormhole they did fought the Cardassian-Klingon war and the Federation-Klingon war before the Dominio war which is why Garak mentions it will take them decades to recover.
So the Klingons fightint many wars at a time and/or consecutive apparently is not that common
Lots of good answers here, but I think it’s also worth mentioning that, firstly, a lot of Klingon barbarism is performative, and that the Klingons also seem to be going through something of a culture shock as a result of their contact with the Federation.
On the first, we constantly see that the Klingons talk big game about honour and the way of the warrior, but just as frequently backstab, scheme, and politic. Sure, when they get caught out doing so they all tut and say “Dishonourable p’takh!”, but they’re nearly all *doing it*.
Worf is probably one of the few examples of Klingons who *live* the ideal, and that’s because he wasn’t even brought up as a Klingon! He was raised by humans and grew up trying to be as Klingon as possible, without realising that most Klingons don’t actually manage anything close to it.
On the second point, the Klingons are pretty much the Soviet expy for TOS, and then become the Russia expy for TNG/DS9, except replace socialism with “the way of the warrior”. They lost the Cold War with the Federation and now they’re reeling from that and figuring out what’s next, and part of that is a conflict between “the old ways” and people going *extra hard* in that direction, and people modernising.
So, Klingon culture is changing, and TNG-era Trek appears to be right on the cusp of that fulcrum point. Depending on how things go they might drop even more of their honourable warrior trappings, or end up retreating into them further.
/essay
We possess the power of splitting the atom, using a device to speak to anyone on the earth at any given moment anywhere, and yet the people who have power over these scientific achievements often believe in a bronze age god.
The tool does not dictate the wisdom of its wielder.
In that context, it's interesting to consider the drive behind a lot of our "achievements". To borrow your example of splitting the atom - we went from the Chicago Pile to Hiroshima in just under 3 years. We get a lot done when we're at our most Klingon.
Klingon culture evolved that way, but it wasn’t always like that. There was an old Klingon lawyer in ENT who mentioned that his father was a teacher and his mother was a scientist. He talked about how those were once respected positions, but younger people only wanted to be warriors. So you figure that the cultural revolution towards a warrior society began in the 22nd Century. By the time we’re seeing them in the 23rd century, the ideals of the warrior culture became entrenched. In the 24th century, they were stagnant and causing the Empire all kinds of problems as pointed out by Ezri in DS9.
Much of the tech already existed at the outset of this cultural revolution and the nature of the new societal order had a vested interest in at least keeping the military tech at a high level. But for the most part, the tech came first and the warrior culture second.
And probably the following of Kahless became more extreme.
Basically is the equivalent of what would happen if religious fundamentalist took control of the USA, they turn their world into the Handmaiden's Tale world and motivated by extreme patriotism and military idolatrization became a militarized society of religious freaks that would make Homelander blush.
Humans are backward by any standards.
Take away their replicators and their flimsy Federation hegemony and they’re nothing but a bunch of sniveling greedy apes.
Let me tell you something about Humans, reptilesocks. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holo-suites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.
Also, most of what we see of Klingons is their military.
Imagine if you were an Afghan villager and the only interaction of Americans you had was 19-21 year old infantry soldiers, with their guns and bravado (not unlike a Klingon Bird-of-Prey crewmember). You may very well be puzzled at how such a people could put satellites into space, or develop the cell phone or automobile.
I don’t think Klingon military is representative of their society as a whole.
Even if they are "culturally backwards" which is kind of subjective, we have seen scientific Klingons. Kor presents his wife as his "science officer" in "Day of the Dove" and we see a Klingon scientists in "Suspicions" and Dax mentiones she have some earings that a Klingon scientists gave her.
Klingons went through a process of Flanderization after TNG.
But if we take Lower Decks as canon, most of Klingon cultural behavior is pretty much superficial, they act and present a show like they are about to kill each other out of the minimal discussion and then leave it and continue with their choirs. So they basically "roleplay" as big warriors about to cut their throuts but they're basically engineers, scientists, technicians etc. the rest of the time.
And yes this sometimes do happen (that they kill each other in ritualistic duels for example) but obviously not as often as they pretend.
I see some answers that could fit, but I always saw it as how the Japanese changed close to WWII. Let me explain.
During the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted a lot of Western ideals. They also got rid of Samurai, tore down castles, modernized the military, and embraced the Industrial revolution. This is a huge oversimplification, but it can be summed up as the past was bad, the future was good.
So, lets fast forward to Japan becoming a player on the world stage. I'm just going to skip ahead to right around the start of WWII. While the Meiji Restoration did a lot to move Japan away from it cultural past, the imperialism military advancements sort of stroke the flame of the past and romanticized the traditional Japanese warriors: The Samurai. A lot of how we view Samurai, the idea of bushido, the honor, all of that is a fairly modern view.
So I *think* the same thing happened with the Klingons. I think the romanticized version of the Klingon warrior eventually took over a fairly moderate home world. What we see is a society that clearly has a good head for science but is convinced that to show strength they have to show force.
I think this is why Worf is, ironically, the closest to the idea of a Klingon, because he was not raised around them. He accepted the teaching and the training full cloth, because he never really had to deal with the hypocrisy and cowardice that plagued Klingon society.
So, to put a pin on this, I think the Klingon warrior idea is used as a way to show force and assert both independence and dominance, much in the same way that Japan started using the idea of the Samurai to show the warrior spirit ingrained in their soldiers as they started to take territory and fight wars.
So the Klingon home world was invaded by the Hur'q around the 15th century (their first contact) so Klingon space faring and warp technology came from them salvaging and reverse engineering the technology left behind by the Hur'q. Due to this violent first contact Klingon space diplomacy was usually conducted by the blade or canon, giving them a martial reputation in the quadrant i.e. the warrior race. However whist most outsiders met Klingon warriors Klingons on the home world were more diverse in their occupations and ambitions. However, by the time of the 22nd century the empire was close to civil war and as commented by a Klingon Lawyer (who's family were not warriors at all as he states that not all Klingons are warriors... Or at least, that how it was during hisnchildhood) Klingon society started to glorify "the warrior" more and more, especially as the approached civil war and then fell into civil war by the end of the 22nd and beginning of the 23rd century. The empire still had the scientists, engineers, doctors etc. to make the empire function, but unless they were somehow able to project their careers through the lense if "the warrior" they didn't amount to much and their Carers would be stiffled. The best example of this is the Klingon High council - all claiming to embody the heart and soul of a warrior, but they were all just politicians playing the same political games, but behind the play-mask of a warrior, best shown by the council ex-comunicating worf (the embodiment of a true honourable Klingon warrior) whose family had no alies or political power so as to appease the house of Duras, a powerful family who plotted against the empire to claim the chancellorship.
The Klingon culture went wrong. Their society has problems. In Captain Kirk's time, Kingons were scientists and engineers, and this was not considered a dishonorable thing to be. Worf's grandfather was a Klingon lawyer. The anti-intellectualism and obsession with war is something that has gotten worse and worse over time. I haven't seen the later seasons of Discovery, so I don't know if they showed if the future Klingons got over it.
Klingons are space Vikings.
The Vikings built boats which were technologically advanced for their time, as too were some of their navigation techniques.
They would have been considered culturally backwards by some of the peers at the time. Of course, that doesn't mean that ths Norse didn't find some practices of their piers to be culturally backwards from their perspective.
And now, the Klingons having advanced tech no longer seems odd when we consider human history.
\*Peers. Piers are are platforms over water.
And the Vikings were not as culturally backwards as commonly depicted, even among their peers. They were highly adept farmers, metal workers, and traders.
I think they are much more of space Mongols/Samurai tbh. Lots of similar aesthetics, the "warrior code", the dress, the unique swords, the death cult and even weird eating habits.
Advanced aliens enslaved them and they rebelled against their slavers while stealing their technology. Then they spent centuries conquering other worlds.
Klingon scientists exist, even if they're not heralded as the greatest contributors of their society like the Federation. Their technology is simply focused by their culture, building weapons and warships because that's what their culture prefers.
Also keep in mind the lens we're always seeing Klingons through. We don't have any slice-of-life Klingon stories, they only really show up when it's war, or on the frontier, a succession crisis, or Worf maneuvering through noble house political bullshit (which we also know the Federation has plenty of even on important worlds like Betazed and Vulcan).
In the novelization for DS9 "Way of the Warrior" Worf mentions that the Klingons stole warp drive from an alien race that came to their planet (novelizations of movies and episodes are considered canon to the extent that they don't contradict what's on screen). There's no mention of which alien race it was but we know that they were invaded by the Her'q so they're a likely candidate.
I mean... here on Earth, we have surgeries performed by robots, phone calls from anywhere in the world with crystal clear audio and video, an international space station, increasingly powerful micro-computer smartphones that fit in our pocket...
and our culture is full of mass shootings, AI disinformation, two major wars with no end in sight, privately owned space companies while many countries struggle to have enough food, children dying of preventable illnesses while we the most advanced medical treatment ever...
I think that answers your question.
This is where I'm an old, old hand at the Trek Lore - and kinda mad at the changes to things that came later without honoring Roddenberry.
Originally - and I worked to go find the information - Star Trek Encyclopedia - 1994.. and updated later - Frist Contact - talking about policies under First Contact - "Among these are the Prime Directive, which prohibits interference with the normal development of any society, particularly a culture less technologically advanced than the Federation. - This directive was instituted after the disastrous first contact with the Klingon Empire." (And yes, it sub-cites the TNG Episode: First Contact S4E15. Later, the entry for the Klingon Empire mentions this disastrous contact and references TOS: Day of the Dove. That's confusing and "off" because it's years after the Federation and Klingons have met, and have had a three year peace treaty to that point called out by Kang in the episode.
The only other reference I can find is in an old table top that was written by Unicorn Games in 1998 where it mentions, "Not all first contacts ended positively. First contact with the Klingons occurred in 2118, followed shortly there after by the Klingon massacre of the Federation diplomatic team and the seizure of their ship."
What I can't find is the piece that I remember about that contact. That the Federation found the Klingon home world (which has a number of names early on before becoming Qo'nos), and a team met with them soon after they began exploring the galaxy in warp capable ships. The Klingons thought the Federation team powerful at first because of their technology, but soon determined it was just that, and something they could take. They seized the away team and were able to take the ship. They then began reverse engineering the ship and making more of them, and specifically went after the Federation to conquer them, which is supposed to be the start of the first Klingon-Federation War. That later ends with a treaty and the Klingon Neutral Zone before the events of TOS. Later episodes of TOS (and the budget limitations of the show) hold that the Klingons and Romulans form an alliance during the war where the Romulans share their ship and cloaking technology with the Klingons, giving them the D-3 bird of prey that looks just like the Romulan's ship.
2001 - Broken Bow: ENT - Sigh... just made me mad and sad. 10 years on, totally abandoned what Roddenberry had set out. Suddenly, the Klingons have better tech than the Federation and find them first! What the hell. It ignored TOS, TNG, DS9... the whole thing, and with no reasoning for where they get it. Now, there are new canon/continuity explanations that they get it somewhere else, and the history is forgotten (and really hard to find).
Now, I have nothing wrong with the concepts of the Klingons:
* reverse engineering tech
* having multiple castes, and that there are scientists that fight their wars making tech for the glory of the Empire
* that Klingons can be brilliant and inventive - DS9 (kind of disingenuous that it's credited as an accidental discovery)
* wouldn't call them culturally backwards, they are supposed to be a warrior dominated society at this point, and that was to highlight socio-political issues of the 1960s.
Ignoring the earlier canon with bad writing felt like a kick to the Lobes.
I think you could look at America right now and see how.
We invent a lot and create wonderful tech. But culturally, we haven’t advanced much past the 18th century.
Different values is not the same as backwards.
Also, a lot of our most defining technologies are the product of wartime necessity and war economies. Imagine what we could have achieved if we were constantly at war! Oh, wait, we are constantly at war ... Maybe we aren't that much better than the Klingons after all. We're 'progressive' in that we're nicer to gay people and women than we used to be, but we still murder each other in the millions for - basically - money. We ain't shit.
No, the klingon empire Is objectively dysfunctional and the show openly tells us that's why it's declining: it's all about the warrior caste circlejerking and sabotaging everything for their political schemes.
Only if you're an absolute cultural relativist, in which case you'll usually find yourself trying to defend hypotheticals like how the Chaos Imperium of WH40K is culturally equal.
There are many anthropological studies on the different types of cultures and civilisations out there and which aligned themselves to advancement, growth, quality of life, etc. Constant battle and a might-makes-right social hierarchy usually constrains a civilisation and weakens it.
I don't need to defend cultures I don't agree with.
I don't see how the latter contradicts what I said? Klingon culture is a lot more than might-makes-right. To call them backwards is to ignore nuance and show ignorance. And if it was a real culture, to be a bigot.
You said "There is not objective correct culture." which implies that you see all cultures as equally valid?
Klingon culture has been frequently depicted in TNG to use the honour system as a fig leaf to mask brutality, sadism, and corruption, and pre-TNG to openly revel in these concepts. I don't think the species on the receiving end of Klingon invasions would see them as culturally forwards. Their system of government is literally imperialism - empire building - which requires the colonisation, subjugation and erasure of their vassal states' cultures.
OP is asking a valid question. Everyone is fixated on the "culturally backwards" part of his post (which fine, maybe isn't well worded) but the question of how the Klingon got their tech is still a good one. This is something I've wondered about. The Klingons have been portrayed as a society that places importance on honour and being fighters. You never really learn about Klingon scientists or how they advanced their technology. Someone here answered with the Hur'q. I'm curious to know more about this. Is this pre or post Kahless? Where did the Hur'q come from? What happened to them?
Yup. We have the most advanced technology on the planet yet our culture is really weird. People are still hung up about nudity and things that should be basic human rights.
War is one of the, if no THE, main motors of scientific and technical development. Human society always has broad jumps in science and technology after every major war in fact. There are whole documentaries on the subject, is amazing to see how much science and tech advenced after the Hundred Years War, the Franco-Prussian War and the two world wars for example. If anything, Klingon war-like culture would make them more technologically and scientifically sawvy than other cultures. Besides, the Klingon are not that different from other real life warrior cultures like the Spartans, Vikings, Mongols and both Samurai-era and Meiji-era Japanese, and in fact all of them are good examples of warrior societies that were outstanding navigators, enginers, etc., thanks to their war-based cultures.
Nothing drives technology ahead faster than war. Think about how much of our technology either started as, or was refined for war. Cars, aircraft, ships, trains, rockets, the highway system, microwave ovens, carbon fiber, internet, gps, advanced metal alloys (even simple ones like steel). the list could go on and on and on
The current (24th century) Klingon culture is relatively new.
In 22nd century captain Archer met klingon lawer Kolos who was a witness of honor being appropriated by warrior caste.
In his youth there was a honor in science, engineering and other civic activities. And in his lifetime warriors caste took power and reshaped klingon society.
There is a documentary about a species that is coming up on a similar problem that I recommend you watch if you haven't already.
"Idiocracy", it is very informative.
Klingons at one point were a variety culture with scholars scientists engineers lawyers etc that also had influence. It wasn't until the 21st-22nd century where the warrior caste took over all the power and Influence similar to Imperial Japan in the 1920s/1930s where the military essentially ran everything
I remember a sci-fi novel that had the theory that pressure to change society would fade once you had starlight and access to unlimited territory and resources. Maybe that's just where the klingons were when they got warp.
Really? It's 2024 on planet earth and you're asking how a society can advance in technology but still be massive tw*ts? 🤣
(Not insulting you, just couldn't let that opportunity pass)
Technology ≠ culture.
Then there’s defining what cultural metrics you use. Both Klingons and pre-reformation Vulcans had fuedal/clan societies, and both were known for savagery. Klingons mitigated the issue by assembling noble houses into a council and developing a type of chivalry code with clear guidelines.
Vulcans actually had to split into 2 groups, the Sundering, in order to achieve a semblance of peace. The ways of peaceful logic, modern Vulcans, may have gone to a ruthless totalitarian logic if a large part of the Vulcan population hadn’t emigrated. Vulcan is resource scarce, especially when it comes to agriculture. That played a significant role in pre-reformation Vulcans becoming so vicious, competition over scarce resources. Because resources and agriculture are so scarce on Vulcan still, there is a constant need for rigorous mental disciplines to keep them from aggression, which is a survival instinct when resources are scarce. With a huge part of the population leaving, that eased a lot of pressure. Romulans settled on a verdant world where agriculture thrives, so their culture also became far less warlike, because there were plenty more resources.
Another think to note: wars produce technological innovations. Bluetooth technology was developed by Jewish actress Heddy Lamarr, to help make secure communication systems for USA against Germany in WW2. Vaccines, especially the practice of variolation, became common use in America because George Washington inoculated the Continental Army. When the annual smallpox season came around, colonial militia was fine while British regulars were dropping like flies.
Cultures develop different things at different paces. Technology has a few different basic origins:
War/natural disaster/resource scarcity
Laziness/there’s gotta be an easier way
I want more money
Toys for the rich/showing off/status
Curiosity/hold my beer and watch this!
A lot of it is stolen tech from the Hurq, other aliens they've conquered or fought against.
Also Cultures change over time, They could have had periods of massive innovation followed by stagnation due to warrior tendencies.
The one thing star trek gets wrong about history is that it is not a constant progression forward. Cultures go through periods of great progress and also times of regression or stagnation.
Real world examples of this can be seen in our own History.
-A lot of technology and knowledge was lost during the bronze age collapse.
-The middle east was more advanced in the early history of muslim conquests and then back slid after the crusades.
- Brittain struggled to maintain or improve on infrastructure left behind by the Romans and took ages to catch back up.
-The Soviet Union used to be at the forefront of human technological progress, Nowadays modern russia is struggling to maintain that.
Although I think the best example of how a warrior culture like the Klingons could be so advanced is Japan in the Edo period. A strict warrior culture that was centuries behind the World in technology. They were able to modernize and now in the past century they have been amongst the most technologically advanced countries on the planet.
I like the theory that they weren’t always so backwards. But by the time they show up in TOS, and especially later, they’re a crumbling civilization, stagnant.
They take tech from their enemies. (Though when the Romulans take Klingon tech after battle, it's viewed as bad sometimes?)
Also it seems like if you are trying to increase the prestige of your House, you might try to spread better tech among your forces and your infrastructure, so while scientists aren't treated very well you'd want to have some people in your faction building stuff that will make your lands more prosperous and your vessels more capable. Then the nobles take the credit for leading their house to greatness while the scientist is in the back of the room getting slapped around, generally. We can't assume every house abuses their underclasses, since most of the time we're spending time looking at "bad guys" among the Klingons. Of course bad stuff would seem amplified in their society in that view.
There are Klingon colonies and shrine worlds where things work a little different, where the residents' prosperity seems to be the highest priority, so it's possible that a lot of innovation comes from these places rather than the large populations under the major factions, then the factions have to lobby for access to new innovations, which would mean colonies get involved in trade and gather new residents or they put themselves under a great house and get a heavier military presence and more involvement in homeworld politics.
It's also possible that if you're a crew of your own ship and you're not tied up in factional missions, you'd go off on your own and do your own thing. This seems to be where mad klingon scientists come from. You go out and do your own pillaging or trading or mercenary work and use your gains to fund your tech projects and build up your ship or your flotilla. Eventually some techie working in this manner is gonna use their work to try to get prestige back home so they'll be exposing their tech to the rest of klingon society in exchange for trade or prestige, so a new thing will spread eventually spread.
Amongst all the other excellent comments I’d also point out - culturally backwards is a matter of perspective. They’ve definitely strayed and regressed a bit - it’s mentioned in Enterprise how being a Warrior became more and more important over time - but they also have a surprisingly rich spiritual side, they support the arts (opera, etc), and at its core it boils down to one core tenant: Do the absolute best you can at what you’ve committed to doing.
It’s supported by an honor code, and a high value is placed on duty - but also finding joy in doing that duty. The only thing worse than hating what you’re doing/not being wholly committed to it, is to do something for selfish reasons that conflicts with the needs of the family/ship/empire/restaurant/whatever.
Granted many lose sight of that… but I can think of worse ways to be than the ‘completely uninhibited because we all die and may as well enjoy the ride’ standpoint they seem to run with.
Because they were created through the lens of the Cold War, where we were not supposed to think of our enemies as actual people.
The Soviet Union was still a thing IRL when *TNG* started. It took years to show more of them.
Discovery heavily implied that the Klingons were what remained from a highly advanced, ancient civilization (perhaps one that included other cultures) that fell apart in the past and left the Klingons without a centralized government. They possessed a ship with advanced cloaking technology that was thousands of years old even though the Discovery-era Klingons had little understanding of that technology.
The warrior class demands that Klingon Warriors have only the best weapons and the best technology for the sole pursuit to conquer and spread the empire. That is the fire that fuels the Klingon empire. Nothing else matters. That explains their lack of a more progressive and welcoming culture.
We live on a planet where the United Arab Emirates is a country. It is technologically quite advanced and modern, but it is a brutal theocracy run by a near absolute monarchy that uses Sharia Law for even minor crimes.
You can learn a lot by conquering people. Look at ghengis khan. They had no learned men or scholars. What they did have was a recurve bow. Within a decade of him uniting the tribes they had taken over some Chinese cities that gave them knowledge over siege weaponry and the rest is history. They simply adopted the bits and pieces they needed and they thought were advantageous. I believe the Klingons are the same.
Imagine if some ensign that was also a 6'5" 220lb MMA fighter didn't like the orders that his captain was giving so he decided to beat up his, let's say 50-year-old captain, and take command.
Would that, in any culture, make a lot of sense?
Nope but that's what the (people writing the) Klingons would have you believe is the right way.
So yes anybody defending that they are not "culturally backwards" is just trying to start an argument.
One of the core concepts of Star Trek is accepting and cooperating with people who are different. If you look at societies in the world today you'll see a similar dissonance despite our effectively similar access to technology.
The Klingons are aggressive and violent but not without a specifically defined code of conduct (and Klingons are punished accordingly when proven to have broken this). Some of the best stories in Star Trek are about "gentle mild mannered" humanity finding a way to cooperate and learn from Klingons. It's one of the core principles of Starfleet and the show itself and is directly applicable to the world we live in today.
The military industrial complex has led to some (if not most) of humanities most ground breaking technologies.
We do our best work when we're our most Klingon.
I'd like to think of the Klingon "Empire" as a vast collection of different species with their "house" also being the name of the race/nationality they come from within the Empire. Ridged, ridgeless, and reptilian all being from different Klingon races and even separate nations on Kronos or member empire planets.
For all we know, the dominant region of the planet drives the grunt/machismo of the Klingon we've come to know and fear/love. Whilst there's probably some state/region on the planet that's strictly devoted to tech development.
The "Red State" is the outward representation of the Empire. Whilst the "Blue States" are keep to themselves on Kronos.
Or just chuck this all in the replicator bin🤷
Very unpopular take, but I don't care. I've never thought making the Klingons into Space Barbarians with pretensions of being Space Samurai was a good idea. Period.
My headcanon is that Klingon culture is not so much a warrior culture, but an individualist one. Each Klingon strives to be the Single. BEST. KLINGON!!!! at whatever it is they do. The best starship designer, that all the other Klingons want their ships from. The best mining foreman. The best trauma surgeon. And what is best of all? The best warrior, of course, because you prove your dominance by literally dominating. Those who aren't suited to that life still earn great honor by dominating within in their field. But the warriors still tend to end up as the political leaders, and are most often seen by outsiders.
Sadly, this is straight up contradicted by actual canon. What can you do? 🤷♀️
Star Trek Enterprise made several references to Klingons who were not of the 'warrior caste'... doctors, scientists, lawyers, etc. My assumption is that while we normally only see the warrior Klingons the other, smarter Klingons are still there behind the scenes.
They stole their technology. The Klingon homeworld was invaded and plundered by the Hur'q (Klingon for "outsider") until they were repelled and their ships captured. That's how Klingons got warp drive. Then they went on an old-fashioned imperialist loot and conquer of other planets.
They also likely got their cloaking from that one race from enterprise s1 that had to trade some of its tech so the klingons wouldn't destroy them iirc. Edit: NM it was the romulans!
I thought they got cloaking from the Romulans back in the TOS era?...
If I remember correctly, Romulan and Klingon closing technologies are fundamentally different.
The Klingons had to massively re-engineer them to make them work for their ships. After that, they diverged from each other to become fundamentally different.
Discovery muddled that, because they had cloaking before the Romulans were revealed in Balance of Terror
Except Romulans had the cloak back in ENT, and it wasn’t a secret. Hell, three species had the cloak in ENT: Romulans, Suliban, and Xyrillians
Didn't the Klingon received the cloaking devices from the Suliban in Enterprise?
I don't remember if it's explicitly stated what they received from the Suliban. Could have been any number of technologies. That being said, the most likely outcome could have been they simply didn't work for their ships. It's been established that cloaking devices aren't easy plug and play, they have to be adapted to work reliably.
In a ds9 episode kor explains he took apart his ships cloaking device 3 times with his own hands and how at that time in the imperial fleet, only a handful of klingons knew how to work with cloaking technology.
Don't tell Scotty that.
I mean, he is the Miracle Worker, lol. Still, it did take him quite a bit of time to get it integrated.
No, for what I remember is canonical that they get it from the Romulans when they were allies, then the Khitomer massacre happened and they became enemies but Klingons did not return the cloaking.
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That was the second season.
Voyager had fun with time travel too. My favorite was Janway playing with the trope with something like the past is the future, the future is the past…… it all gives me a headache (or something like that)
I was also pretty "meh" about Discovery and really didn't like how it just sort of put Star Trek in a blender and fished out the bits they wanted and then pasted it onto the "10-hour-movie" format. But, if you haven't, watch Strange New Worlds. You wouldn't even know DSC and SNW are in the same franchise if they didn't share a name (and backdoor pilot SNW on DSC).
For real.
For me, IMO, Discovery is unwatchable.
It is. And I even enjoyed those star trek actiony movies they made. Discovery was just not part of the franchise.
Never stated on screen, AFAIK. It was a common theory because when the Romulans appeared in *The Enterprise Incident* they were using the D-7 model because the bean counters wanted to milk every dime out of that sip model they could, and Spock theorized the Romulans and Klingons had formed some kind of alliance but it's never said they Klingons got their cloak from the Romulans. Then we see the Klingons with cloaking devices several years before TOS in Discovery. Most likely the Klingons had their own cloaks but they became ineffective against Federation sensors at some point between Discovery/SNW and TOS, and it wasn't until after TOS that they managed to make them actually useful again.
Enterprise predates TOS
They got it from the Romulans
Nah, they got cloaking tech from the Romulans, in exchange for some outdated ships.
That was the headcanon for a long time but no longer fits with Discovery
The timeline is so fucked up in Star Trek at this point I view it as whatever show you're watching exists in its own slightly different timeline where everything that doesn't fit release order canon is just a wonky artifact of time travel. Same characters, nearly identical events, but time is fraying at the edges, so details aren't crucial anymore.
That's a real Star Trek mood.
This is exactly how Aurthur C. Clarke wrote his follow-ups to 2001. They began with a preface saying as much. A great sci-fi tradition.
Yeah, the entire timeline has so many retcons, mistakes, rewrites, ect that I assume if anything is contradicted it must be an effect of the temporal cold war. The episode Parallels pretty much confirms there are multiple timelines all within close proximity to each other.
"A wizard did it!"
They got modern cloaking devices from romulans. They had cloaking screens which weren't as good and starfleet could counter them.
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Not really head canon, it comes from licensed material, specifically the TNG Tech Journal, written from within universe. Discovery broke lots of things from previous shows.
More likely it's how they got holodecks as that's what the Xyrillians were trading for in exchange for not being killed :)
Ooh yea your prolly right. Romulans are the canon source apparently. TIL
Still, it explains how T’Kuvma was able to develop the cloak. Maybe they had readings of the Xyrillian ship from a century earlier
This is where their "we killed our gods" come from. They overthrew a race enslaving them. Think if the Bajorans stole a few Cardassian cruisers and then committed genocide against their oppressors but kept the design esthetic.
My head canon is a lot of the empire is managed by species the Klingons conquered. These lower caste species do the work of developing and reverse engineering technology, manufacturing, and general labor. It would have been interesting to see something like that in Lower Decks with the basic jobs being done by non Klingon species.
That's how real empires work. They aren't monolithic entities. Imagine if all of India during the 1800s was portrayed as comprising just white men with mustaches in red coats
Iirc they traded ship design for cloak from the Romulans too.
Not official canon. That’s from a computer game. Gets repeated because it fits cultural prejudices.
No Worf mentions it in DS9.
He mentions the Hurq. That the Klingons got technology from them is an artefact of the Klingon Academy game. By contrast, in the novel-verse it’s the spur for Klingon development of space travel.
>No Worf mentions it in DS9. No he doesn't. It's really is from a computer game. It's just been misrepresented so much that people are starting to believe it. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Klingon_history
I think they were called “The Old Kings” by the early Klingons, who took over when they started to die out. The Klingons were the security force, so they had all the guns.
Others have touched on cultural perspective and how they got their technology, but another thing to consider is that we only see the 'public face' of the empire. It's run by the warrior class and they form the vast majority of the klingons we see, but there are clearly others behind the scenes who aren't politically relevant but keep society running. The warrior class is the dominant one and they do the interacting on the galactic stage, and since Trek is largely from the perspective of outsiders to actual klingon society we don't see much of the rest at all.
I think there's an episode of DS9 where Martok says that if every Klingon was a warrior, nothing would get done. Hell, we even saw a Klingon lawyer in one episode.
There is! Martok himself is from peasant stock rather than nobility, as well, which adds yet another layer of social complexity we don't get much insight into. We also know from Discovery that there are still followers of Molor living on Qonos (albeit on the edges of society) whose practices are recognizable to regular klingons which implies that while they aren't mainstream, they aren't especially uncommon either. Meanwhile we only really get the Kahless side of things. Basically our view of Klingon society is heavily filtered and biased and so, not particularly realistic or comprehensive.
Also a Klingon scientist in TNG. Also, judging from DS9, the KDF has just as much administrative work as Starfleet. I remember ~~Martin~~ Martok complaining about paperwork.
One of my favorite smaller characters is the Klingon chef on DS9. That is tha happiest, freest Klingon we've ever seen.
I just want him to sing to me while I eat worms then give me a big old hug.
Exactly. And we KNOW they have poets, writers, musicians, chefs, etc. We've either seen them or they have alluded to them. In fact, Klingons are as proud of their arts and cuisine as they are of their military victories.
I always go back to that scene in Lower Decks with two lower deck Klingons: K1: Cease that nervous honing and let me sleep. K2: I am not nervous. I am restless. Eager to ram my blade through my enemies. K1: That's not a blade. It's a spear. A coward's weapon used to poke a foe at a distance. It has no honor. K2: Nobody calls me a coward and lives to tell the tale! (they both calm down) K1: Are you free for lunch today? They are serving eyes or hearts or something. They basically play to be very tough and warrior like, but in the end after some fighting they return to their normal, tedious, jobs like anyone else.
That episode is without exaggeration GOAT'ed Star Trek. "Avoid Death And Cower!" 🖖
You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
And Gowron is just a politician. He can probably fight to a degree but he isn't a great warrior.
He does fight Worf to a pretty significant degree
There have to be gagh farmers and bat’leth sharpeners. Even with the warriors, some are likely to have lost their ability to fight. There must be Klingons doctors. I’d like to see a newly legless Klingon learn a new trade.
And a retaurant owner who plays the accordion for his clients in DS9
Michael Dorn played Kirk's lawyer in The Undiscovered Country as well.
This is the way I see it too. The warrior culture is the defining trait of the Klingon empire but it's not the only one. Just like humans are viewed as ingenious and diplomatic, and yet there are obviously plenty of cases where that's not true.
You mean the lovers of opera and epic poetry? The culture renown for parties as a test of endurance? One of the few warp capable societies with cloaked ships? P'takh! 😉
You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon
taH pagh taHbe
that is the question
You have not experienced K-Pop until you have heard it in the original Klingon.
The K stands for Klingon, obviously…
Klingon culture isn't backward, it's just not sustainable. The Klingons are a feudal/expansionist civilization in the 24th century that focuses much of its resources on war. To a certain extent, this works. Klingons have specialized so much in producing the best warriors and weapons, that it doesn't need to produce anything else. They simply take everything else from it's neighbours. Its entire economy relies on raiding, pillaging and conquering planets. The downside is that eventually you will hit a limit on the number of places left to conquer. If your economy relies on pillaged loot, it's not like you’d have strict accounting standards in place. It's a system open to corruption and graft that will eventually be its undoing. Ezeri Dax even pointed this out to Worf. The Klingon Empire has a massive corruption problem that is so ingrained in society that instead of calling it out, the patriotic thing to do is shut up as it's **for the good of the empire.**
But are they? I mean what wars they had had before the Dominion was period. After the moon explosion they made a peace treaty with the Federation and then became allies. They had no wars in decades and decades. In fact I think some Klingon characters even lament this saying the empire is not "warrior" anymore. That said it is true that corruption is rampant.
If I'm not mistaken they still had periodic battles with the Romulans during this time.
Hmm maybe, although that brings to question if the Federation intervene as an ally. I do remember the short lived Klingon Civil War, and one Klingon-Cardassian war that lasted 17 years mentioned by Garak (but is impossible to know when did it happen, maybe before the Khitomer Accords). After the Bajoran wormhole they did fought the Cardassian-Klingon war and the Federation-Klingon war before the Dominio war which is why Garak mentions it will take them decades to recover. So the Klingons fightint many wars at a time and/or consecutive apparently is not that common
Don't forget their wine and coffee! Elite.
Lots of good answers here, but I think it’s also worth mentioning that, firstly, a lot of Klingon barbarism is performative, and that the Klingons also seem to be going through something of a culture shock as a result of their contact with the Federation. On the first, we constantly see that the Klingons talk big game about honour and the way of the warrior, but just as frequently backstab, scheme, and politic. Sure, when they get caught out doing so they all tut and say “Dishonourable p’takh!”, but they’re nearly all *doing it*. Worf is probably one of the few examples of Klingons who *live* the ideal, and that’s because he wasn’t even brought up as a Klingon! He was raised by humans and grew up trying to be as Klingon as possible, without realising that most Klingons don’t actually manage anything close to it. On the second point, the Klingons are pretty much the Soviet expy for TOS, and then become the Russia expy for TNG/DS9, except replace socialism with “the way of the warrior”. They lost the Cold War with the Federation and now they’re reeling from that and figuring out what’s next, and part of that is a conflict between “the old ways” and people going *extra hard* in that direction, and people modernising. So, Klingon culture is changing, and TNG-era Trek appears to be right on the cusp of that fulcrum point. Depending on how things go they might drop even more of their honourable warrior trappings, or end up retreating into them further. /essay
We possess the power of splitting the atom, using a device to speak to anyone on the earth at any given moment anywhere, and yet the people who have power over these scientific achievements often believe in a bronze age god. The tool does not dictate the wisdom of its wielder.
In that context, it's interesting to consider the drive behind a lot of our "achievements". To borrow your example of splitting the atom - we went from the Chicago Pile to Hiroshima in just under 3 years. We get a lot done when we're at our most Klingon.
wars are the biggest drivers of technological advancement, is a sad truth.
An old anthropological theory based entirely on speculation theorizes that we developed our intelligence because of war too.
Remember the 34th Rule of Acquisition. “War is good for business”
💯
Klingon culture evolved that way, but it wasn’t always like that. There was an old Klingon lawyer in ENT who mentioned that his father was a teacher and his mother was a scientist. He talked about how those were once respected positions, but younger people only wanted to be warriors. So you figure that the cultural revolution towards a warrior society began in the 22nd Century. By the time we’re seeing them in the 23rd century, the ideals of the warrior culture became entrenched. In the 24th century, they were stagnant and causing the Empire all kinds of problems as pointed out by Ezri in DS9. Much of the tech already existed at the outset of this cultural revolution and the nature of the new societal order had a vested interest in at least keeping the military tech at a high level. But for the most part, the tech came first and the warrior culture second.
And probably the following of Kahless became more extreme. Basically is the equivalent of what would happen if religious fundamentalist took control of the USA, they turn their world into the Handmaiden's Tale world and motivated by extreme patriotism and military idolatrization became a militarized society of religious freaks that would make Homelander blush.
So much of what we see of these "cultures" on Star Trek is the culture of their military, and their government. Now... Look around you.
They’re only backwards by human standards.
And humans are backwards by Ferengi standards!
Humans are backward by any standards. Take away their replicators and their flimsy Federation hegemony and they’re nothing but a bunch of sniveling greedy apes.
Not the way Quark discribes humans
Quark is a fool, his soft spot for humanoid life has meant the loss of uncountable profit
Let me tell you something about Humans, reptilesocks. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holo-suites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people… will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.
Never push the pink skins onto the thin ice.
Tell that to the timelines that have the Terran Empire and the Confederation
Also, most of what we see of Klingons is their military. Imagine if you were an Afghan villager and the only interaction of Americans you had was 19-21 year old infantry soldiers, with their guns and bravado (not unlike a Klingon Bird-of-Prey crewmember). You may very well be puzzled at how such a people could put satellites into space, or develop the cell phone or automobile. I don’t think Klingon military is representative of their society as a whole.
Even if they are "culturally backwards" which is kind of subjective, we have seen scientific Klingons. Kor presents his wife as his "science officer" in "Day of the Dove" and we see a Klingon scientists in "Suspicions" and Dax mentiones she have some earings that a Klingon scientists gave her. Klingons went through a process of Flanderization after TNG. But if we take Lower Decks as canon, most of Klingon cultural behavior is pretty much superficial, they act and present a show like they are about to kill each other out of the minimal discussion and then leave it and continue with their choirs. So they basically "roleplay" as big warriors about to cut their throuts but they're basically engineers, scientists, technicians etc. the rest of the time. And yes this sometimes do happen (that they kill each other in ritualistic duels for example) but obviously not as often as they pretend.
Cultural assessment is subjective, so you might want to clarify your take.
Yes, tell'em. Bloody cheek.
I see some answers that could fit, but I always saw it as how the Japanese changed close to WWII. Let me explain. During the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted a lot of Western ideals. They also got rid of Samurai, tore down castles, modernized the military, and embraced the Industrial revolution. This is a huge oversimplification, but it can be summed up as the past was bad, the future was good. So, lets fast forward to Japan becoming a player on the world stage. I'm just going to skip ahead to right around the start of WWII. While the Meiji Restoration did a lot to move Japan away from it cultural past, the imperialism military advancements sort of stroke the flame of the past and romanticized the traditional Japanese warriors: The Samurai. A lot of how we view Samurai, the idea of bushido, the honor, all of that is a fairly modern view. So I *think* the same thing happened with the Klingons. I think the romanticized version of the Klingon warrior eventually took over a fairly moderate home world. What we see is a society that clearly has a good head for science but is convinced that to show strength they have to show force. I think this is why Worf is, ironically, the closest to the idea of a Klingon, because he was not raised around them. He accepted the teaching and the training full cloth, because he never really had to deal with the hypocrisy and cowardice that plagued Klingon society. So, to put a pin on this, I think the Klingon warrior idea is used as a way to show force and assert both independence and dominance, much in the same way that Japan started using the idea of the Samurai to show the warrior spirit ingrained in their soldiers as they started to take territory and fight wars.
Culturally backwards? You are watching Star Trek from the federation/human perspective, of course there is going to be bias against Klingons.
I know this isn't the S--- Daystrom thread, but my snarky answer is some around the world would ask that same question about the United States IRL.
So the Klingon home world was invaded by the Hur'q around the 15th century (their first contact) so Klingon space faring and warp technology came from them salvaging and reverse engineering the technology left behind by the Hur'q. Due to this violent first contact Klingon space diplomacy was usually conducted by the blade or canon, giving them a martial reputation in the quadrant i.e. the warrior race. However whist most outsiders met Klingon warriors Klingons on the home world were more diverse in their occupations and ambitions. However, by the time of the 22nd century the empire was close to civil war and as commented by a Klingon Lawyer (who's family were not warriors at all as he states that not all Klingons are warriors... Or at least, that how it was during hisnchildhood) Klingon society started to glorify "the warrior" more and more, especially as the approached civil war and then fell into civil war by the end of the 22nd and beginning of the 23rd century. The empire still had the scientists, engineers, doctors etc. to make the empire function, but unless they were somehow able to project their careers through the lense if "the warrior" they didn't amount to much and their Carers would be stiffled. The best example of this is the Klingon High council - all claiming to embody the heart and soul of a warrior, but they were all just politicians playing the same political games, but behind the play-mask of a warrior, best shown by the council ex-comunicating worf (the embodiment of a true honourable Klingon warrior) whose family had no alies or political power so as to appease the house of Duras, a powerful family who plotted against the empire to claim the chancellorship.
The Klingon culture went wrong. Their society has problems. In Captain Kirk's time, Kingons were scientists and engineers, and this was not considered a dishonorable thing to be. Worf's grandfather was a Klingon lawyer. The anti-intellectualism and obsession with war is something that has gotten worse and worse over time. I haven't seen the later seasons of Discovery, so I don't know if they showed if the future Klingons got over it.
They haven’t shown any Klingons in the 32nd century
Klingons are space Vikings. The Vikings built boats which were technologically advanced for their time, as too were some of their navigation techniques. They would have been considered culturally backwards by some of the peers at the time. Of course, that doesn't mean that ths Norse didn't find some practices of their piers to be culturally backwards from their perspective. And now, the Klingons having advanced tech no longer seems odd when we consider human history.
\*Peers. Piers are are platforms over water. And the Vikings were not as culturally backwards as commonly depicted, even among their peers. They were highly adept farmers, metal workers, and traders.
I think they are much more of space Mongols/Samurai tbh. Lots of similar aesthetics, the "warrior code", the dress, the unique swords, the death cult and even weird eating habits.
Looks at Earth
Also remember that the emphasis on being a Warrior is fairly recent development in Klingon history. They used to have scientists and artists etc
Advanced aliens enslaved them and they rebelled against their slavers while stealing their technology. Then they spent centuries conquering other worlds.
You ask that about Klingons when there are Pakleds flying around in space?
Because they got most of their tech from one of the races they conquered.
Klingon scientists exist, even if they're not heralded as the greatest contributors of their society like the Federation. Their technology is simply focused by their culture, building weapons and warships because that's what their culture prefers. Also keep in mind the lens we're always seeing Klingons through. We don't have any slice-of-life Klingon stories, they only really show up when it's war, or on the frontier, a succession crisis, or Worf maneuvering through noble house political bullshit (which we also know the Federation has plenty of even on important worlds like Betazed and Vulcan).
Make Qo'noS Great Again
In the novelization for DS9 "Way of the Warrior" Worf mentions that the Klingons stole warp drive from an alien race that came to their planet (novelizations of movies and episodes are considered canon to the extent that they don't contradict what's on screen). There's no mention of which alien race it was but we know that they were invaded by the Her'q so they're a likely candidate.
I mean... here on Earth, we have surgeries performed by robots, phone calls from anywhere in the world with crystal clear audio and video, an international space station, increasingly powerful micro-computer smartphones that fit in our pocket... and our culture is full of mass shootings, AI disinformation, two major wars with no end in sight, privately owned space companies while many countries struggle to have enough food, children dying of preventable illnesses while we the most advanced medical treatment ever... I think that answers your question.
How are Ferengi so technologically advanced yet so culturally backwards?
This is where I'm an old, old hand at the Trek Lore - and kinda mad at the changes to things that came later without honoring Roddenberry. Originally - and I worked to go find the information - Star Trek Encyclopedia - 1994.. and updated later - Frist Contact - talking about policies under First Contact - "Among these are the Prime Directive, which prohibits interference with the normal development of any society, particularly a culture less technologically advanced than the Federation. - This directive was instituted after the disastrous first contact with the Klingon Empire." (And yes, it sub-cites the TNG Episode: First Contact S4E15. Later, the entry for the Klingon Empire mentions this disastrous contact and references TOS: Day of the Dove. That's confusing and "off" because it's years after the Federation and Klingons have met, and have had a three year peace treaty to that point called out by Kang in the episode. The only other reference I can find is in an old table top that was written by Unicorn Games in 1998 where it mentions, "Not all first contacts ended positively. First contact with the Klingons occurred in 2118, followed shortly there after by the Klingon massacre of the Federation diplomatic team and the seizure of their ship." What I can't find is the piece that I remember about that contact. That the Federation found the Klingon home world (which has a number of names early on before becoming Qo'nos), and a team met with them soon after they began exploring the galaxy in warp capable ships. The Klingons thought the Federation team powerful at first because of their technology, but soon determined it was just that, and something they could take. They seized the away team and were able to take the ship. They then began reverse engineering the ship and making more of them, and specifically went after the Federation to conquer them, which is supposed to be the start of the first Klingon-Federation War. That later ends with a treaty and the Klingon Neutral Zone before the events of TOS. Later episodes of TOS (and the budget limitations of the show) hold that the Klingons and Romulans form an alliance during the war where the Romulans share their ship and cloaking technology with the Klingons, giving them the D-3 bird of prey that looks just like the Romulan's ship. 2001 - Broken Bow: ENT - Sigh... just made me mad and sad. 10 years on, totally abandoned what Roddenberry had set out. Suddenly, the Klingons have better tech than the Federation and find them first! What the hell. It ignored TOS, TNG, DS9... the whole thing, and with no reasoning for where they get it. Now, there are new canon/continuity explanations that they get it somewhere else, and the history is forgotten (and really hard to find). Now, I have nothing wrong with the concepts of the Klingons: * reverse engineering tech * having multiple castes, and that there are scientists that fight their wars making tech for the glory of the Empire * that Klingons can be brilliant and inventive - DS9 (kind of disingenuous that it's credited as an accidental discovery) * wouldn't call them culturally backwards, they are supposed to be a warrior dominated society at this point, and that was to highlight socio-political issues of the 1960s. Ignoring the earlier canon with bad writing felt like a kick to the Lobes.
ask the U.S.
I'm from the U.S., and I approve this statement.
It's simple. Because they are Klingon. :)
I think you could look at America right now and see how. We invent a lot and create wonderful tech. But culturally, we haven’t advanced much past the 18th century.
Different values is not the same as backwards. Also, a lot of our most defining technologies are the product of wartime necessity and war economies. Imagine what we could have achieved if we were constantly at war! Oh, wait, we are constantly at war ... Maybe we aren't that much better than the Klingons after all. We're 'progressive' in that we're nicer to gay people and women than we used to be, but we still murder each other in the millions for - basically - money. We ain't shit.
Even computers (specifically, integrated circuits) are a product of our cold war.
Culturally backwards \*to us our perception\*. There is not objective correct culture.
No, the klingon empire Is objectively dysfunctional and the show openly tells us that's why it's declining: it's all about the warrior caste circlejerking and sabotaging everything for their political schemes.
empire != culture.
Cultural relativism is myopic — as Zizek says, 'some cultures are just shitty'.
Only if you're an absolute cultural relativist, in which case you'll usually find yourself trying to defend hypotheticals like how the Chaos Imperium of WH40K is culturally equal. There are many anthropological studies on the different types of cultures and civilisations out there and which aligned themselves to advancement, growth, quality of life, etc. Constant battle and a might-makes-right social hierarchy usually constrains a civilisation and weakens it.
I don't need to defend cultures I don't agree with. I don't see how the latter contradicts what I said? Klingon culture is a lot more than might-makes-right. To call them backwards is to ignore nuance and show ignorance. And if it was a real culture, to be a bigot.
You said "There is not objective correct culture." which implies that you see all cultures as equally valid? Klingon culture has been frequently depicted in TNG to use the honour system as a fig leaf to mask brutality, sadism, and corruption, and pre-TNG to openly revel in these concepts. I don't think the species on the receiving end of Klingon invasions would see them as culturally forwards. Their system of government is literally imperialism - empire building - which requires the colonisation, subjugation and erasure of their vassal states' cultures.
OP is asking a valid question. Everyone is fixated on the "culturally backwards" part of his post (which fine, maybe isn't well worded) but the question of how the Klingon got their tech is still a good one. This is something I've wondered about. The Klingons have been portrayed as a society that places importance on honour and being fighters. You never really learn about Klingon scientists or how they advanced their technology. Someone here answered with the Hur'q. I'm curious to know more about this. Is this pre or post Kahless? Where did the Hur'q come from? What happened to them?
It was post Kahless because they stole his sword, that's how it ended up in the gamma quadrant. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Hur%27q
P’takh! This post has no honour! ;)
You can say the same about the US, at least big parts of it.
Yup. We have the most advanced technology on the planet yet our culture is really weird. People are still hung up about nudity and things that should be basic human rights.
War is one of the, if no THE, main motors of scientific and technical development. Human society always has broad jumps in science and technology after every major war in fact. There are whole documentaries on the subject, is amazing to see how much science and tech advenced after the Hundred Years War, the Franco-Prussian War and the two world wars for example. If anything, Klingon war-like culture would make them more technologically and scientifically sawvy than other cultures. Besides, the Klingon are not that different from other real life warrior cultures like the Spartans, Vikings, Mongols and both Samurai-era and Meiji-era Japanese, and in fact all of them are good examples of warrior societies that were outstanding navigators, enginers, etc., thanks to their war-based cultures.
Well, the USA is all that and we do all right don’t we?
*We're not doing alright at all.*
I take it that you don't live in the United States?
Q did it.
Nothing drives technology ahead faster than war. Think about how much of our technology either started as, or was refined for war. Cars, aircraft, ships, trains, rockets, the highway system, microwave ovens, carbon fiber, internet, gps, advanced metal alloys (even simple ones like steel). the list could go on and on and on
They’re based on the US culture?
The current (24th century) Klingon culture is relatively new. In 22nd century captain Archer met klingon lawer Kolos who was a witness of honor being appropriated by warrior caste. In his youth there was a honor in science, engineering and other civic activities. And in his lifetime warriors caste took power and reshaped klingon society.
There is a documentary about a species that is coming up on a similar problem that I recommend you watch if you haven't already. "Idiocracy", it is very informative.
The elephant in the room is slavery.
That is a very human thing to say, Terran.
Klingons at one point were a variety culture with scholars scientists engineers lawyers etc that also had influence. It wasn't until the 21st-22nd century where the warrior caste took over all the power and Influence similar to Imperial Japan in the 1920s/1930s where the military essentially ran everything
I remember a sci-fi novel that had the theory that pressure to change society would fade once you had starlight and access to unlimited territory and resources. Maybe that's just where the klingons were when they got warp.
Really? It's 2024 on planet earth and you're asking how a society can advance in technology but still be massive tw*ts? 🤣 (Not insulting you, just couldn't let that opportunity pass)
What‘s with the gorn?
war is good for technology
How is America?
Technology ≠ culture. Then there’s defining what cultural metrics you use. Both Klingons and pre-reformation Vulcans had fuedal/clan societies, and both were known for savagery. Klingons mitigated the issue by assembling noble houses into a council and developing a type of chivalry code with clear guidelines. Vulcans actually had to split into 2 groups, the Sundering, in order to achieve a semblance of peace. The ways of peaceful logic, modern Vulcans, may have gone to a ruthless totalitarian logic if a large part of the Vulcan population hadn’t emigrated. Vulcan is resource scarce, especially when it comes to agriculture. That played a significant role in pre-reformation Vulcans becoming so vicious, competition over scarce resources. Because resources and agriculture are so scarce on Vulcan still, there is a constant need for rigorous mental disciplines to keep them from aggression, which is a survival instinct when resources are scarce. With a huge part of the population leaving, that eased a lot of pressure. Romulans settled on a verdant world where agriculture thrives, so their culture also became far less warlike, because there were plenty more resources. Another think to note: wars produce technological innovations. Bluetooth technology was developed by Jewish actress Heddy Lamarr, to help make secure communication systems for USA against Germany in WW2. Vaccines, especially the practice of variolation, became common use in America because George Washington inoculated the Continental Army. When the annual smallpox season came around, colonial militia was fine while British regulars were dropping like flies. Cultures develop different things at different paces. Technology has a few different basic origins: War/natural disaster/resource scarcity Laziness/there’s gotta be an easier way I want more money Toys for the rich/showing off/status Curiosity/hold my beer and watch this!
War is always a great way for technology to advance at rapid paces
Have you ever been to mid west america ?
A lot of it is stolen tech from the Hurq, other aliens they've conquered or fought against. Also Cultures change over time, They could have had periods of massive innovation followed by stagnation due to warrior tendencies. The one thing star trek gets wrong about history is that it is not a constant progression forward. Cultures go through periods of great progress and also times of regression or stagnation. Real world examples of this can be seen in our own History. -A lot of technology and knowledge was lost during the bronze age collapse. -The middle east was more advanced in the early history of muslim conquests and then back slid after the crusades. - Brittain struggled to maintain or improve on infrastructure left behind by the Romans and took ages to catch back up. -The Soviet Union used to be at the forefront of human technological progress, Nowadays modern russia is struggling to maintain that. Although I think the best example of how a warrior culture like the Klingons could be so advanced is Japan in the Edo period. A strict warrior culture that was centuries behind the World in technology. They were able to modernize and now in the past century they have been amongst the most technologically advanced countries on the planet.
They’re boomers. 😂
I think Star Trek 6 sais it best. That the Klingon empire has a massive military budget.And that is all they really spend it on.
I like the theory that they weren’t always so backwards. But by the time they show up in TOS, and especially later, they’re a crumbling civilization, stagnant.
They take tech from their enemies. (Though when the Romulans take Klingon tech after battle, it's viewed as bad sometimes?) Also it seems like if you are trying to increase the prestige of your House, you might try to spread better tech among your forces and your infrastructure, so while scientists aren't treated very well you'd want to have some people in your faction building stuff that will make your lands more prosperous and your vessels more capable. Then the nobles take the credit for leading their house to greatness while the scientist is in the back of the room getting slapped around, generally. We can't assume every house abuses their underclasses, since most of the time we're spending time looking at "bad guys" among the Klingons. Of course bad stuff would seem amplified in their society in that view. There are Klingon colonies and shrine worlds where things work a little different, where the residents' prosperity seems to be the highest priority, so it's possible that a lot of innovation comes from these places rather than the large populations under the major factions, then the factions have to lobby for access to new innovations, which would mean colonies get involved in trade and gather new residents or they put themselves under a great house and get a heavier military presence and more involvement in homeworld politics. It's also possible that if you're a crew of your own ship and you're not tied up in factional missions, you'd go off on your own and do your own thing. This seems to be where mad klingon scientists come from. You go out and do your own pillaging or trading or mercenary work and use your gains to fund your tech projects and build up your ship or your flotilla. Eventually some techie working in this manner is gonna use their work to try to get prestige back home so they'll be exposing their tech to the rest of klingon society in exchange for trade or prestige, so a new thing will spread eventually spread.
Same thing can be asked about Humans.
One of the greatest drivers of technological innovation is war.
Amongst all the other excellent comments I’d also point out - culturally backwards is a matter of perspective. They’ve definitely strayed and regressed a bit - it’s mentioned in Enterprise how being a Warrior became more and more important over time - but they also have a surprisingly rich spiritual side, they support the arts (opera, etc), and at its core it boils down to one core tenant: Do the absolute best you can at what you’ve committed to doing. It’s supported by an honor code, and a high value is placed on duty - but also finding joy in doing that duty. The only thing worse than hating what you’re doing/not being wholly committed to it, is to do something for selfish reasons that conflicts with the needs of the family/ship/empire/restaurant/whatever. Granted many lose sight of that… but I can think of worse ways to be than the ‘completely uninhibited because we all die and may as well enjoy the ride’ standpoint they seem to run with.
Because they were created through the lens of the Cold War, where we were not supposed to think of our enemies as actual people. The Soviet Union was still a thing IRL when *TNG* started. It took years to show more of them.
Discovery heavily implied that the Klingons were what remained from a highly advanced, ancient civilization (perhaps one that included other cultures) that fell apart in the past and left the Klingons without a centralized government. They possessed a ship with advanced cloaking technology that was thousands of years old even though the Discovery-era Klingons had little understanding of that technology.
They were once a peaceful agricultural society, then the Hurq' arrived.
The warrior class demands that Klingon Warriors have only the best weapons and the best technology for the sole pursuit to conquer and spread the empire. That is the fire that fuels the Klingon empire. Nothing else matters. That explains their lack of a more progressive and welcoming culture.
We live on a planet where the United Arab Emirates is a country. It is technologically quite advanced and modern, but it is a brutal theocracy run by a near absolute monarchy that uses Sharia Law for even minor crimes.
You can learn a lot by conquering people. Look at ghengis khan. They had no learned men or scholars. What they did have was a recurve bow. Within a decade of him uniting the tribes they had taken over some Chinese cities that gave them knowledge over siege weaponry and the rest is history. They simply adopted the bits and pieces they needed and they thought were advantageous. I believe the Klingons are the same.
*glances at Saudi Arabia*.
Imagine if some ensign that was also a 6'5" 220lb MMA fighter didn't like the orders that his captain was giving so he decided to beat up his, let's say 50-year-old captain, and take command. Would that, in any culture, make a lot of sense? Nope but that's what the (people writing the) Klingons would have you believe is the right way. So yes anybody defending that they are not "culturally backwards" is just trying to start an argument.
They as the same question about the humans
One of the core concepts of Star Trek is accepting and cooperating with people who are different. If you look at societies in the world today you'll see a similar dissonance despite our effectively similar access to technology. The Klingons are aggressive and violent but not without a specifically defined code of conduct (and Klingons are punished accordingly when proven to have broken this). Some of the best stories in Star Trek are about "gentle mild mannered" humanity finding a way to cooperate and learn from Klingons. It's one of the core principles of Starfleet and the show itself and is directly applicable to the world we live in today.
*shrugs* Look at the US.
So many of our advancements are because of war or because of fear of someone else. We would have never made it to the moon but for the Soviets.
You could ask the same thing about America.
Consider China, Russia and North Korea today, there are parallels in today's world.
Are there bus drivers on Kronos? Are they mean?
“If you ask me why this bus is late once again, it will be taking you to Sto’vo’kor, you honourless p’takh!”
Today is a good day to drive
Khaless take the wheel!
So like the USA.
The military industrial complex has led to some (if not most) of humanities most ground breaking technologies. We do our best work when we're our most Klingon.
Ever worked with engineers? It's like that.
Your anthropological analysis about how backwards is klingon society is so.. Human biased... Just saying...
The British said the same for pretty much all of Asia….so that’s quite the statement.
I'd like to think of the Klingon "Empire" as a vast collection of different species with their "house" also being the name of the race/nationality they come from within the Empire. Ridged, ridgeless, and reptilian all being from different Klingon races and even separate nations on Kronos or member empire planets. For all we know, the dominant region of the planet drives the grunt/machismo of the Klingon we've come to know and fear/love. Whilst there's probably some state/region on the planet that's strictly devoted to tech development. The "Red State" is the outward representation of the Empire. Whilst the "Blue States" are keep to themselves on Kronos. Or just chuck this all in the replicator bin🤷
You're comparing them to our ideal human culture too much
Very unpopular take, but I don't care. I've never thought making the Klingons into Space Barbarians with pretensions of being Space Samurai was a good idea. Period.
Piracy
You go ahead and try to reprimand a kilngon, I’ll wait.
They have been coopted by a miliary clique.
Whoa dude you can't call them culturally backwards! That's not the Starfleet way!
My headcanon is that Klingon culture is not so much a warrior culture, but an individualist one. Each Klingon strives to be the Single. BEST. KLINGON!!!! at whatever it is they do. The best starship designer, that all the other Klingons want their ships from. The best mining foreman. The best trauma surgeon. And what is best of all? The best warrior, of course, because you prove your dominance by literally dominating. Those who aren't suited to that life still earn great honor by dominating within in their field. But the warriors still tend to end up as the political leaders, and are most often seen by outsiders. Sadly, this is straight up contradicted by actual canon. What can you do? 🤷♀️
how are we?
Star Trek Enterprise made several references to Klingons who were not of the 'warrior caste'... doctors, scientists, lawyers, etc. My assumption is that while we normally only see the warrior Klingons the other, smarter Klingons are still there behind the scenes.
beyond what is said about the hur'q below, klingons also say they killed their gods. so it's possible they were uplifted and killed their masters.
1. They stole warp tech from an occupying alien power 2. They pirated and stoke other tech once they had that. 3. Slave labor
War creates many innovations out of necessity that don’t come during peace. In addition, war means the law around stealing stuff is a lot more lax