Ultimate Star Trek: What About the Klingons?

It is 2am on the last night of my vacation.

My fiancée is sleeping quietly behind me and I can't sleep, so I have decided to post another fun and exciting instalment of Ultimate Star Trek, or Why-Can't-I-Just-Love-Next-Generation-Like-Everyone-Else?  You can also replace TNG in that last statement with any other canon Star Trek you like, if TNG isn't your particular favourite.

Just sayin'.

So the subject of tonight's insomniac posting is those most particular of Star Trek adversarial races, the Klingons!

Now for some this is a Klingon;

Did Colicos ever play a hero?

These guys were the first Klingons and they we sneaky, ruthless and very very cunning.  Some say they represented the Mongols, by way of the Communist Chinese, I don't know but to me they represented bad-assery at its' highest!

For a very few, this is a Klingon;

I think I'll have the lobster.

Now we know NOTHING about these guys, as we only ever saw them in The Motion Picture and other than the "idea" or head ridges as well as those uniforms, nothing else about the look carried over to The Search For Spock, the next time we saw Klingons.

For far too many, these are Klingons;

Snaggletooth and Sourpuss to the Battle Pod!

I hate these Klingons.  I really do.  They went from being a cunning and treacherous race to a bunch of Samurai-Biker-Vikings.  Ugh.  The whole obsession with honour, the stop-everything-to-have-an-honour-duel and lastly the promotion via assassination made them a bloody joke compared to the original Klingons.  In my opinion anyways.

And now in the Nu-Trek these are Klingons;

Seriously, I don't even know what to say...

I know nothing about these guys, but they look functionally bizarre to me and I am in no rush to embrace them.

Now the next question I ask myself is, what are the most perfect Klingons to me?  Who do I think of when I think of Klingons?

If you haven't, READ THIS BOOK!

You saw that coming didn't you?  Yeah, these guys rock!  This Klingons are the threat that legitimately could take on the Federation and have a very good chance at winning.  They are total and complete bad asses!

Later the ideas that John M. Ford wrote in here would be used by his roommate who wrote the Klingons supplement for FASA;

1st Edition Cover

A great supplement and really brought life to the Klingons for us.

So my next question is, can all of the above Klingons fit within the Ultimate Star Trek universe?  Yes and No is the answer I come to, but before I go into why not, let's stop and look at why yes.

When we see the 4 different visual types of Klingons we need to ask ourselves if it is possible to have 4 very different, yet somewhat similar  races develop roughly in the same region?  Fortunately Star Trek itself gives us the answer that that is a resounding "yes".

See, the Human type is everywhere;

Terran

Iotian

Deltan

Capellan

Elasian

And yes I could go on, but I felt that was enough examples.  You can also do the same thing with Vulcanoids, though thankfully it stops at Vulcans, Romulans (originally NOT refugees from Vulcan), the Mintakans and the non-canon Vulcanoid Rigellians.

So we have a precedent for the idea of simillar races developing in space.  So much so that TNG did an episode about it where there was a parent race that had seeded the galaxy.  Of course FASA Trek did it first with their Preservers ancient aliens.

Oh one more thing, this guy from Star Trek IV;

I have two voices!

And the President of the Federation;

Admiral Dumb Ass is more like it!

They are of a race that I think is still non-canonly referred to as Efrosians.  Naturally we know less than nothing about them, but they look a lot like Klingons don't they?

Yarp!

So it would be possible to have multiple races of Klingons running around the Klingon Empire, kicking ass and taking names.  Maybe that's what you will do in your Star Trek campaign.

Not me.

Nope in Ultimate Star Trek there are only one type of physical Klingons, the best of all worlds for me;

We come for your daughters... oh and the secrets of Genesis!

Guess who's coming to dinner?

These guys don't sharpen their teeth. They don't care about honour (though glory is a whole other beast!) and then are not so stupid as to promote via assassination, although assassination is a viable political tool to be sure.

They are a serious threat to the Federation and they are aggressive to a fault, something that is very exploitable about them.

They have always looked like this, just like Rodenberry said after TMP came out, and there is none of that "cutesy" bullshit from DS9 about them not looking the same and not wanting to discuss it.

Oh and they do not have tit-useless-half-crescent swords that are fucking retarded and not well designed melee weapons.  And let me save you a lot of wasted words if you are a bat'leth kinda guy, I studied martial arts, but more so know guys who have dedicated their lives to it and have studied multiple weapon forms, they pretty much all have the same opinion about how useless that fucking design it against someone with a normal pointy sword.

So what of the above mentioned samurai-biker-vikings?  Well I have a way of adding them in.  Essentially they are a through back cult, like fundamentalists, who hold the long outlawed belief that Khaless was more than just a Klingon but is in fact a living god!  All that stuff, the honour, the teeth sharpening, Sto-vo-kor, all of it, can be applied to them, an oppressed and actively subjugated sub-culture within the Imperial Klingon Empire. Possibly even having many secret members, who walk like normal Klingons everyday, but secretly are part of the cult.

So there you have it, the Ultimate Star Trek Klingons, cunning, devious, militaristic and very aggressive.  A serious threat and a serious contender for dominant power of the known Galaxy.

Kai the Klingons!