How do you do, fellow Klingons.
Was there ever a reason given for retconning Klingons in TNG? Did producers just want them to appear even more alien or something?
Tng Klingons followed the TOS movies that came out earlier.
The TOS movies changed Klingons because they finally had the makeup budget to make them look alien.
I doubt it was just a budget thing. Drawing weird aliens is far cheaper than makeup, but TAS Klingons were not weird yet.
I believe @Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world is correct. The large budget for TMP compared to the episodes allowed them to make makeup choices they couldn’t make before.
Of course, Enterprise explains the whole difference thing. Everyone but me apparently hates it. I thought it was a pretty decent explanation for the two types of Klingons (pre-Discovery’s third).
It was also hinted at by Bashir during “Trials and Tribble-ations”.
It makes sense to me. Why wouldn’t the Klingons try to take advantage of augment technology during a cold war?
And I don’t remember them saying they turned the whole population into Klingon augments, or did they?
I have a theory about this!
It falls under the umbrella of why transhumanism (or transklingonism, or whatever you like… transbeingism?) is so rare in Star Trek. None of the major powers have fully embraced cybernetic or genetic augmentation. Why?
Earth has the Eugenics Wars which is used to explain how leery they are of genetic augmentation, and it could also explain their conservative attitude towards cybernetics. The encounter with the Borg would just reinforce this pre-existing attitude. But the Klingons, the Romulans, the Cardassians? Why haven’t any of them fully embraced either genetic or mechanical augmentation?
The theory is that, in the Star Trek universe, “natural” evolution is the only stable way for species to advance. The augments led to the Eugenics Wars, and you’ve also got the Bynars who went full cybernetic and nearly had their civilization collapse due to one bad solar flare. The changelings, the Douwd, and the Q, on the other hand, seem to have evolved to their extraordinary powers taking the long route. The Borg are the ultimate example of the dangers of advancing too quickly; they became a cancer species so aggressive that every other sentient species cannot help but ally against them and seek their destruction.
If augmentation were a viable means of advancement in Star Trek you would expect to see more examples of it in the galactic community, but you don’t, so there must be a very good reason why it isn’t.
I think most, if not all. Probably a few unaffected pockets.
But they never made that clear, right? So for all we know it was just the Klingons near the Federation border so they could be ready to fight.
There really wouldn’t be much need to augment scientists and bureaucrats and such. We know they have the former and Klingons must have the latter because the empire needs people to delegate things.
Why is Spock so white
Too much tranya.
