Birth of the Federation

I am watching Trouble with Tribbles just now, and the idea is what fluff or story reason did they say the differences with the Klingons from The Orignial series to the Movies to TNG and beyond?

I know in ST DS9 they gave the answer, or something of Worf saying "We don't talk about it", I can't remember.

So is there an explanation of the differences of Klingons between TOS and TNG? I mean appearnces wise.

Also I found it weird the Klingon captian was bowing to Kirk when he left. So I see other things have chaged too.

This was also explained "somewhat" in enterprise when some klingons stole genetic material (same stuff Kahn was given). This gave them human features.

thunderchero

you can watch it in the ENT episodes: "Borderland", "Cold Station 12" and "the Augments"

The Klingons stole DNA research from superhumans and used it to try to become superklingons. But it didn't work very well (I think someone disabled the super-traits at the end of an Enterprise episode) and they ended up just LOOKING human, but really getting nothing out of it. It was a relatively poor way to explain away something which was really just a changed premise / budgetary limitation. The issue was only openly addressed in the first place inside ST canon because they wanted to remake the Tribbles episode for DS9, during ST's 30th Anniversary. Worf's tongue-in-cheek response turned into a 2-part Enterprise episode. There are plenty of other things about TOS which weren't openly addressed in any episodes, such as why Klingon and Romulan ships looked the same, or why the console buttons looked like hard candies...

Not quite^

They did gain the abilities of Augments(at least in part). But in the process started to look human and emotionally react as humans. (not explained well) it also started to cause fatal degeneration of the vital organs. (apparently the virus tried to reconfigure their innards to match those of a human) It also was as easily transmissable as the flu. Thus they had to find a cure or it'd eventually wipe out the Klingon race. It did leave lingering changes though. The cranial ridges would dissolve after contracting the virus, but the cure merely removed the virus from their systems, it didn't undo the damage.

Actually the bit about ships WAS addressed. the klingons hate the romulans because they were once ALLIES. but at some point the Romulans decided to terminate the alliance in what came to be known as "the Khitomer massacre". Prior to this the Romulans and Klingons regularly exchanged technology. It's how Klingons came to possess cloaking technology.

TOS was made back in the 70s. Back then console buttons that looked like hard candies were normal(in real life).

see that wasn't hard at all.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/incon ... eheads.htm


The above link gives a full explanation of the forehead problem.

Did they ever explain the Romulan forehead ridges in any of the series?

Cheers.

geon wrote:Did they ever explain the Romulan forehead ridges in any of the series?

So far I have only read speculative notes about those. Some say its an inheritage from another Race that the Vulcan exiles have mingled with either on their long voyage or on Romulus itself. Others say, its like with the Remans some environmental reason that have evolutionary altered their appearence.

Obviously not all Romulans have those Ridges, independently of the timeframe we saw them on the shows.

"genetic drift" IE Romulans are really the same species as Vulcans. But have been an isolated population so long that they have certain genetic differences. Apparently this applies within the Romulan race as a whole as well.

marhawkman wrote:"genetic drift" IE Romulans are really the same species as Vulcans. But have been an isolated population so long that they have certain genetic differences. Apparently this applies within the Romulan race as a whole as well.

Sounds reasonable, strict intermarriage rules between various Romulan genetic strands could be the reason. I wouldn't go too far, and say that the Romulans have some kind of breeding program to evolve various subraces. But on the other hand we know that they are pretty keen in genetic engineering and then we have the Remans, .....

Edit: Sorry for hijacking the thread, but its seems the Klingon foreheads have had thourough explaination by the creators, even if not very reasonable after all.