Klingon: Encyclopedia II - Klingon - Klingon biology

Klingon - Klingon biology

Roughly humanoid in appearance, Klingons typically sport long manes of luxuriant hair, and males, moustaches, and beards. Perhaps their most prominent external feature is their ridged forehead. These intricate, bony patterns, which are also visible on their feet, vary by family line and are an 'evolutionary' remnant of their prehistoric crustacean forms, when Klingons had a more extensive exoskeleton.

Most body functions incorporate multiple redundancies, such as redundant stomachs, lungs, livers, an eight-chambered heart, and twenty-three ribs. This characteristic, known as "brak'lul," makes Klingons incredibly resilient. According to visual effects producer Dan Curry, Klingon ribs are arranged in a latticework; the structure might be compared to chainmail. The character Spock once said Klingons lack tear ducts, although Klingon myth states that Kahless once filled the ocean with his tears. The Klingon expected lifespan is at least 150 years.

Klingon mating rituals involve limited domination and combative attitudes. Par'MaCHaI (singular par'MaCH) are chosen mates for dedicated recreational sexual congress, equivalent to fiancées among Terran humans. Then Lieutenant Worf, when questioned in this area of Klingon lore, said perhaps obliquely that females scream, are very aggressive, and throw furniture – the males, conversely, read poetry aloud and duck a lot.

Klingon females reportedly search for their own partners, whom they deem worthy of copulation. Normally this has to be a male of great strength, valour and at least possess great courage. The mating process can be a very wild and sometimes violent affair. When Worf was questioned by Guinan while still onboard the Enterprise-D, as to why he had not taken a par'MaCH, the Klingon said he was only chaste in concern for the "safety" of his fellow female crewmates. Guinan joked that many would find a male Klingon "tame," producing a rare laugh of pleasure from Worf. Later aboard Station Deep Space Nine, Worf engaged in romance with Jadzia Dax, a Trill with deep connections to Klingon society. Their first night of relations produced a surprising number of contusions and broken limbs for Doctor Bashir – until the Klingon woman Lady Grilka arrived, with a very injured Quark in tow. Bashir reportedly did not want to know what had happened.

Klingon pregnancies run 30 weeks. The Process of giving birth can sometimes take days. Interbreeding is possible with Betazoids (Worf's and Troi's alternate-timeline children), humans (B'Elanna Torres and K'Ehleyr), Romulans (Ba'el), and Trill (Yedrin Dax). Thus they are all the same biological species. Klingon traits remain dominant over several generations.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country depicts Klingons having violet blood (based on the metal ion manganese according to some unofficial sources) similar in appearance to Pepto-Bismol, but all other depictions of Klingon blood have been red, like human blood. In Star Trek universal terms, this may have resulted from a unique atmospheric gas mix on the Klingon vessel - as suggested by the renegade boarding party's need to wear environmental suits, rather than merely wearing disguises. Another widely discussed possibility is that the color change was a side-effect of the Augment Virus. (The mundane reason behind the issue is, violet blood allowed Star Trek VI to maintain a PG-13 rating rather than something more restrictive. It also facilitates discerning Klingon blood from other species' blood without the aid of a tricorder or similar means; Colonel Worf makes this distinction during the movie's dénouement.)

By the 24th century, Klingons abandoned racial distinctions within their own species. Although there are a wide variety of skin tones and eye colors, and some variation in hair colors, these differences are generally ignored by Klingons. However, the lack of prominent cranial ridges is ridiculed, with "your mother has a smooth forehead" being a common insult.

Klingon - Human looking Klingons

From the year 2154 until sometime after the events of Star Trek: The Original Series about a century later, Klingons had external features resembling Humans' and wore their hair in a more conservative fashion than that seen later (and previously), which in actuality was due to the limited budget Gene Roddenberry had to work with. The physical changes were canonically explained in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode Divergence, where it was revealed that Klingons, who had appeared in Star Trek: Enterprise previously with the physical characteristics seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager were changed by a virus accidentally created when a Klingon was genetically altered in an attempt to improve the race. The genetic engineering was done using research by Dr. Arik Soong, a human. Because of this, human physical characteristics emerged before the virus eventually killed the infected Klingon. The fatal effects of the virus were halted by Doctor Phlox, however he was unable to prevent the physical changes, which would be passed on from parent to child. Presumably, by the time of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Klingon genes had proven stronger and eliminated the human characteristics, or the condition was cured in some other way, as humanlike Klingons were no longer seen after this point.

There also appear to be four distinct "races" of the "original" Klingons, based on both canon (Star Trek broadcast or filmed) and non-canon material. In TOS, there appeared two "races": some who were pale with neatly groomed hair and others much darker (a greenish-brown), with thick, bifurcated eyebrows. The two never appeared together. The differences in the two phenotypes may explain, in part, Dr. McCoy's immediate lack of knowledge of Klingon anatomy when he tried to save Chancellor Gorkon in 2293.

The four "races" are discussed in detail here. These races were based on the various makeup forms viewed during the run of TOS, the TOS film series, and the "Next Generation" Klingons. In TOS, the Klingons shown lacked ridges on their heads, were greenish brown (a minority were "caucasoid" pale; see last paragraph). The second "race" were the "Mark Lenard" Klingons, shown in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. They were tall, thin in build, with a single crested ridge extending over their partially bald heads, to the occipital bun on the rear of the skull (Some fans refer to these Klingons as either Battle Class Klingons, or derisively as "duck's ass" Klingons, based on their haircuts). The third Klingon was represented by General Chang in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. This Klingon was only slightly ridged in the center of the forehead, lacking the "normal" side ridges. They were largely hairless except for a small wisp at the back of the skull and (in males) a small goatee. The fourth, and most common shown in Star Trek, are the ridged or "Worf"-type. They were first portrayed by Lady Vyxis and Lord Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. They became retconned as the main type of Klingon with The Next Generation, and in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Worf explained in Trials and Tribble-ations that the smooth-headed Klingons aboard Station Deep Space K-7, were in fact real Klingons, but the reason for them lacking forehead ridges was something Klingons never spoke of with outsiders.

Over the decades, several non-canon novels and comic books attempted to suggest reasons for the change, including the suggestion that the humanlike Klingons were a different race. The early-1990s DC Comics graphic novel, Debt of Honor suggested that the humanlike Klingons were discommoded (a concept introduced in TNG). However, several Klingons who appeared humanlike in Star Trek: The Original Series made appearances on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager with full ridges. It has been suggested that the character of General Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, whose features are less severe than other Klingons, might be a remnant of the humanlike Klingons.

The Star Trek Role playing game published by FASA in the 1980s (also non-canon) suggested the Klingons of the original series were actually human/Klingon "fusions" (hybrids) based on the premise that Klingons took 'know thine enemy' to its logical extreme in that incorporating human DNA and presumably human characteristics into Klingons would make them much more effective in combating them. The "movie" Klingons were "Imperial Race" Klingons, i.e. purebred.

FASA enlisted the aid of Star Trek novelist John M. Ford to depict their Klingons as being part of a paranoid society of both "human-fusion" and "Imperial" Klingons living together, complete with sophisticated nomenclatures, a Klingon Emperor, "thought admirals" and an afterlife known as the "Black Fleet".

In the real world of Gene Roddenberry and other Star Trek story-makers, the change was said to actually be an attempt to make the Klingons more alien, as an ongoing set of characters whose race was nearly identical to humans was considered too unrealistic. This change took place, initially, during the Star Trek movies, when the new Hollywood budget first allowed a much more alien race, but talking about the reasons behind it was treated as a sort of friendly taboo by people associated with the series until it was finally decided to approach the issue during the closing weeks of Enterprise (which is expected to be the final Star Trek TV series for the foreseeable future).

In February 2005 a two-part storyline on Star Trek: Enterprise, "Affliction" and "Divergence", explained canonically why the Klingons changed their appearance.

In an earlier series of episodes, the Augments, humans grown from genetically engineered embryos from the Eugenics Wars of the late 20th century, were defeated by Captain Jonathan Archer and the Enterprise (NX-01) in Klingon space. The Klingon High Council feared that Starfleet was developing armies of Augments and that they would pose a serious threat to the Empire's existence. Even when they were told by the Vulcan High Command that the Augments were created without Starfleet's knowledge or consent, they remained suspicious and so decided to fight fire with fire. The Klingons gained access to the genetic material of the human Augments, and wanted to adapt this genetic engineering to augment their own species. The experiment did not work correctly; at first, subjects did gain increased strength and intelligence, but their nervous systems could not handle the strain and they died. One of the test subjects had a virulent flu, which — combined with the genetic changes wrought by the experiment — became a deadly, airborne plague that spread rampantly across the Empire, from world to world, causing the physical changes to change them into the human-looking Klingons of Kirk's day.

Dr. Phlox of the Enterprise NX-01 formulated a cure for the virus, however not before millions of Klingons were physically altered. And owing to the genetic nature of the virus, these alterations were passed to succeeding generations of offspring.

The Klingons were apparently so embarrassed by the fallout from this disaster, that they absolutely refused under any circumstances to discuss the incident with outsiders in later years. There is also evidence (illustrated by the ignorance of members of the Deep Space Nine crew who encounter humanlike Klingons during time travel into the past in Trials and Tribble-ations) that knowledge of the change might become lost over time to mankind. The Enterprise storyline also indicates that an early form of the Starfleet intelligence service Section 31 was somehow involved in the transformation of the Klingons.

Phlox indicated that "someday" the physical alterations could be reversed.

The episode "Divergence" revealed that not all Klingons were affected by the virus. No canon explanation has yet been offered to suggest why only the humanlike Klingons were seen in The Original Series, save for statements made in "Divergence" that the genetically altered version of the race would be stronger and more intelligent, suggesting they may have been desirable soldiers in later Klingon/Federation conflicts. The Klingons in Star Trek: The Motion Picture were the first Klingon crew that was shown to be dealing with something other than the Federation, so there is no evidence proving these particular Klingons had ever been afflicted. Other possible explanations include the idea that by the time the cure to the virus had been administered to all Klingons, every last one was infected by the virus so that they would have been changed somewhat by the virus anyway. This could also explain the "darker-skinned" Klingon observation stated above. The darker Klingons could have been descendants of Klingons that had only been in the initial stages of alteration when they were cured, so that they retained their more natural pigmentation.

However, the ridge-development cure must have been developed before 2293, the year of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback", which depicts events that took place in 2293, shows the Klingon Kang with ridges, though he had none in the original series episode "Day of the Dove."

It can be calculated, therefore, that the humanlike appearance of the Klingons lasted for at least 125 years, since Enterprise takes place approximately 110 to 115 years before The Original Series, and the reversal mentioned by Phlox could have happened before Star Trek: The Motion Picture which takes place in the early 2270s, but had definitely happened by 2293.

All attempts at retconning aside, the changes in Klingon appearance can best be explained by an inconsistent treatment of pre-existing material by the series' and movies' writers. Fans have followed several variations of both canon and non-canon sources to produce Klingons with varied fusions, mixtures and heritages. These are portrayed in fiction, fan-produced films, and in professional fiction, such as The Klingon Way by John M. Ford and Kahless by Michael Jan Friedmann.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Klingon biology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki