Star Trek

i doubt that, Klingons are the most popular star trek species, mst people will use them.

well i bet alot of people will be human and vulcan. Lots of non-trekkie people will want to just be human

Say your right and its like 50% klingons, 25% human 25% vulcan. If they do what i think they'll be doing. it'll be a good fair split.

If it's 33% 3 ways, when klingons are playable, some people will start a new character to try it out.

I do feel pretty let down by this desicion.  It seems like a rushed choice with no real thought gone into the outcome.
The Klingon Empire should be left out until it can be a fully playable seperate entity.

((To be honest, I do not much of the variations and choices of anything stated))

Quote (Aiten @ Jan. 19 2005, 7:31 pm)

I do feel pretty let down by this desicion.  It seems like a rushed choice with no real thought gone into the outcome. The Klingon Empire should be left out until it can be a fully playable seperate entity. ((To be honest, I do not much of the variations and choices of anything stated))

the klingons should be replaced with the bajorans, bolians or andorians. Whats the point of having Klingons in the game? When it doesnt have its own faction...

Aiten I think it's a very highly well thought out.

It gives the problem of the very large amount of people who don't want to start over their character. We do know that they will have to have the ability to change sides. If they like to play Klingon, they will be Klingon. They then will be gaining rank and they can join the klingon empire when it's available at very little cost.

Andorians would make a perfect Klingon replacement race that fits much better.

Just like current Klingons Andorians were once very militaristic, they're now making a large appearance in Enterprise so they're more popular to new star trek watchers. They're also one of the federations founding species.

I appreciate your attempt to make us believe that you can come up with a compelling reason for the Federation to have a huge number of Klingons serving within their ranks...

But honestly, if they tried that BS in DS9, I would have stopped watching.  It would be like taking Hamlet and instead of killing everyone at the end, have them all fully recover and live the hollywood happily-ever-after way.  Every time that Klingons came on the show, there was strife and conflict...that's what they were designed, as a plot device, to do.

The simple reason being is that aliens and monsters are created in fiction so that the writers can better illustrate the differences between humankind and them.  It can show us our fears and concerns in a light different than that of reality.  The Klingon Empire represents more to us (at the very least, me) in canon than just a cool race with nifty swords and cool ships...WAY more and I think that THAT concept has been thrown into the discount bin.

Klingons represent everything that we have (or ever had) to be afraid of on a global scale...communism, rogue states with nukes or even an overbearing domestic policy that reduces human freedoms.  The species directly illustrates how unstable the world is, how important it is to maintain good relations with our neighbors...and that illustration cannot be maintained if their cohesiveness is comprimised.

It absolutely MUST remain a seperate entity in order to continue to do what Gene Roddenberry created it to do.

The Romulan empire, on the flip side, represents everything we have to be afraid of and don't know about.  They are shrouded in mystery, much like China...we think we know China, what they are capable of and what they would do in certain circumstances...but it still scares me spitless to hear that they have 800 missles pointed at Taiwan (Who the USA is legally obligated to protect in the event of invasion) and have increased their military budget by 25% only years ago.

These things are supposed to be reflections of reality painted into fantasy.  That, if you don't know, is the whole point of the fantasy/science fiction genres;  to paint humanity in a different light that explores real life problems and explains them in a way that cannot be done conventionally.

Will this make Perpetual richer?  Yes, probably.  The younger (Berman and Braga influenced) generation doens't have the foggiest clue what Star Trek started out being about...and I forsee this being just another nail in the coffin that will eventually make the Trek franchise become just another footnote in science fiction history.

Let's explore why Enterprise is failing so miserably in the ratings.

It's appealing to the older generation of trekkies like myself and refuses to give the B&B crowd what they want.  Season 3 explored a damned interesting parralell between terrorism and the real world and showed a hopeful resolution to the whole bloody thing.  The kids (under 30) that account for the majority of TV ratings these days don't want that.  They want 'wow' special effects and hot chicks and borg borg borg.  Voyager gave them that, hence the 'success' of that show.

It burns me up that 'success' has to be measured in terms of rating and money....do you all forget that TOS only lasted 3 years??  TOS had NONE of that and became probably THE most influential television show of all time.  It illustrated relationships between USA and the communist world.  It talked about racism in a way that TV never could before because of censorship.  It opened people's eyes to a different way of thinking and showed that just because something had always been done one way doesn't mean that it has to be this way in the future.

Just because you can write your way out of an established trek canon does not necessarily mean that you SHOULD.  Explain to me how you can demystify and critically neuter the image of the Klingons and make it sound 'compelling' and 'plausible'.

Quote (Cormoran @ Jan. 20 2005, 10:16 am)

this isn't merely a 'suspension' of canon here Juliano, they've gone and strapped a nuclear warhead onto canon and detonated it. As it is with this info i'm simply not going to buy ST:O.

Oh my god, you're an idiot! As I've said in various other threads, this is a GAME set almost a decade AFTER the huge cooperation between Klingon and Federation forces in the Dominion War, how can you destroy canon that DOES NOT EXIST. And wait, right here on the OFFICIAL Star Trek website, Paramount state that NOTHING but what we see on the Television Screen and Two Taylor books can be considered canon, so what if they deviate a little from it, #### happens.

These guys have to appeal to a larger audience than you sicophants and the Klingons are a hugley recognisable part of Star Trek. Yeah, I would prefer them to be playable as part of the Klingon Empire, but so what if they're not? Get over it ffs.

Let's all calm down a little on both sides.  Yes, we can't please everyone but all efforts to make sure the game follows canon and expand upon established canon will be made.  The game is set after the events in Nemesis, it has been established Klingons (even if not very many on the show) have entered the Academy, and we have done this before in other games so it's nothing new.  If we made Romulans as a playable Starfleet race then we'd be seriously screwing up canon.  Keep in mind what we do is also not considered canon but we make every effort to follow it while also making sure it's a good, balanced game.

I think opinions are going to be difficult to change on this.
I agree that Klingons should not be sporting Starfleet uniforms. Worf and his circumstances with humans gave rise to a unique situation and a unique Klingon, who then served in Starfleet as result. If he had grown up with his parents he would have almost certainly joined the Imperial fleet.
Starfleet = exploration of the universe, not typical Klingon motives,
Imperial fleet = defend and honour the empire... yup sounds right up every Klingons alley to me.

You could almost compare it to me, a UK citizen, wanting to join the US army instead of the British army. I have great respect for the US armed forces, but there's no way I wouldn't rather serve with my fellow brits (and I'm sure vice versa).

I can understand certain logic put forth by the developers, but in terms of loss gain, I think personally, they've made too much a loss for too little a gain.
In the end, I'm hoping for more species in the short term after release, and controlling as best I can the amount of Klingons onboard any ship I serve aboard.

Hell Torress even quit the academy and joined the Maquis because she saw the federation as too carebear and she was only HALF Klingon.

Since she quit Starfleet, however, Starfleet has fought a war with the Dominion and has taken on a somewhat more militaristic tenor.  I mean, Starfleet essentially has warships now.  And while we have evidence of one half Klingon who rejected Starfleet, we know of another half Klingon (K'Ehleyr) who did not hold Klingon ways in such high esteem, and she had plenty of exposure to Klingon culture.

I dont really see a Klingon joining the federation merely because they are dishonoured, in their culture it would be seen as yet another stain on their families name and would further dishonour them. It's hard to explain just how important honour is to Klingon culture, i'd liken it to something similar to samurai where they would rather kill themselves than dishonour themselves, where they would gladly toil away all their lives merely so their offspring could have the honour they didn't.

This may be true, by and large, but values of humans and the Federation have great appeal, and can worm their way into the hearts of minds of many ... a fact often lamented by Quark.  While few Klingons will have had the same steady long term exposure to the Federation as the Ferengis on DS9, they may be more quick to accept the Federation after fighting alongside them in a difficult struggle, at least enough to relent in their xenophobic ways where the Federation is concerned, and warm to the idea of some kind of cultural interchange.

I'm sure many Klingons would recognize the Federation and Starfleet as an honorable institution, and a strong people (militarily and in other regards).  Meanwhile, their own Empire has a history of corruption and dishonor, where a family like the Duras can betray their own people to the Romulans, and continue working with the Romulans (albeit in partial secrecy) and remain one of the most powerful and popular houses in the Empire.

If the Klingon High Council is willing to turn a blind eye to colusion with the Romulans, surely with someone like Martok at the head of the Empire, relations with the Federation would only improve, and programs like the officer exchange we see in TNG would continue, if not be stepped up.

This increased exposure, I feel would inevitably lead to some Klingons joining Starfleet.  Though "Klingon Honor" is very important to Klingons in general, it's not unreasonable that many Klingons would become disillusioned with the Klingon system after getting a taste of Federation honor.  Not all Klingons are warriors, or necessarily hold the warrior code in the highest esteem, and though I'm no historical expert, I doubt everyone brought up in the Samurai tradition lived according to that tradition, and likely some abandoned it (to some degree, at least) when they had the chance.  With the Klingons, we're talking billions of people here, just a small fraction of them giving up life within the empire (or trying to keep some kind of balance between Starfleet and the Empire, as Worf does) would constitute a huge number of people.

Drawing from canon sources, it really doesn't seem at all absurd to me, particularly depending on the events that take place between ST:Nemesis and when the game is set.  I'll agree that it does somewhat weaken the image of Klingons in the advasarial role, or in the role of tense, "high-friction" allies, but some other race can fill that role.  And just because there might be thousands of Klingons in Starfleet, it doesn't mean that it would be universally accepted as a good thing in the Empire.  This could be used as a basis for my story driven events and missions in the game.

It will be a problem if the Klingon player population outnumbers the human population, however.  It may be necessary to implement some rather strong incentives to play as a human, like a significant positive experience modifier (representitive of human adaptiveness and quick learning).  Playing as races that should be relatively rare within Starfleet (Klingons especially) perhaps ought to be more challenging, and put you at a disadvantage as compared to other races.  Typically in these games you want the races to be fairly balanced, but if humans don't make up the bulk of Starfleet, it just won't feel like Starfleet, and that's a serious problem as far as I'm concerned.

what about tht female Klingon ambassador who was serving in SF in the TNG series episdoe 'Reunion'
and yes HL is right we should all calm down it is getting out of hand

Good post Quinstol. From that angle I could foresee a very small percentage (out of billions) joining the now more militaristic aspects of Starfleet.
If being a Klingon was an option out of many, then I don't think many people would have such a problem. But 1 in 3 is far too small to even cover the logic you have told.
Though as I've said before, expansions will no doubt bring diversity... and the sooner the better.

I think Quinstol said it best. There is no reason for Klingons not to be able or willing to join the Ferderation in the time line the game is in.

well, guess i'll have to now agree with all them people who once told me that the Klingons are now pussy-whipped.