Are Klingons Samurai In Space?

[Aaron]

I've been reading Shogun and I've been struck by the similarity between the Samurai of 18th Century Japan and the Klingons. I've seen the Klingons compared to Vikings on more than one occasion, notabably on the main site. But I think they have more in common with Samurai than Vikings. Consider this:

Samurai of the 18th Century despised guns as dishonourable - Klingons prefer to fight with their swords as Samurai did.

Samurai commit ritual suicide if they are going to be captured or dishonoured - Klingons commit suicide if captured (method unknown)

Samurai prefer to doe in combat - So do Klingons

Samurai beleive that woman exist to service them - Klingons seem to have a similar belief, woman are not allowed to own property or serve on the High Council.

What do you think? I'll post more when I finish Shogun,

[JME2]

While showing them to have samurai-like codes of honor and weaponry, they have always been more Viking than Samurai in their attitudes of eat, drink, and fight another day.

[Praxis]

I've been reading Shogun and I've been struck by the similarity between the Samurai of 18th Century Japan and the Klingons. I've seen the Klingons compared to Vikings on more than one occasion, notabably on the main site. But I think they have more in common with Samurai than Vikings. Consider this:

Samurai of the 18th Century despised guns as dishonourable - Klingons prefer to fight with their swords as Samurai did.

Samurai commit ritual suicide if they are going to be captured or dishonoured - Klingons commit suicide if captured (method unknown)

Samurai prefer to doe in combat - So do Klingons

Samurai beleive that woman exist to service them - Klingons seem to have a similar belief, woman are not allowed to own property or serve on the High Council.

What do you think? I'll post more when I finish Shogun,

Klingons are more like Vikings. Similar to Samurai in the things listed above, but Vikings also believed in a hall of the dead...just EXACTLY like Stovokor. They did a lot of stuff Vikings do.

[Zor]

Also, the Design of anything Klingon (Besides there Laguage (I think) and there ship's outside) is Viking with some Asian Elements thrown in.

There simply not Samauri because Samauri had some Class to them and were not just a hoard of Angry Morons, They also used Ranged weapons (Mostly Bambo Bows, and were generaly backed up with Crossbowmen Conscripts) made use of Cavalry Tactics, and could get away with using swords because firearms were baned in uses outside of Defending Japan from Foreigners.

I should also Remind you that it was not just Woman the Samauri thought were beneith them. They had athority to kill someone who did not bow before them.

[omegaLancer]

Also, the Design of anything Klingon (Besides there Laguage (I think) and there ship's outside) is Viking with some Asian Elements thrown in.

There simply not Samauri because Samauri had some Class to them and were not just a hoard of Angry Morons, They also used Ranged weapons (Mostly Bambo Bows, and were generaly backed up with Crossbowmen Conscripts) made use of Cavalry Tactics, and could get away with using swords because firearms were baned in uses outside of Defending Japan from Foreigners.

I should also Remind you that it was not just Woman the Samauri thought were beneith them. They had athority to kill someone who did not bow before them.

Actuall the Samauri were also master of Archery from horse back. And the Ban on firearm came only after the massive destruction that firearms brought to the Samuari ranks when first introduced.

[Patrick Degan]

There may have been an idea to cast the Klingons as space samurai in the initial TOS movies, but by the time TNG was hitting its fifth season, the space viking image became set in concrete.

[Aaron]

Klingons are more like Vikings. Similar to Samurai in the things listed above, but Vikings also believed in a hall of the dead...just EXACTLY like Stovokor. They did a lot of stuff Vikings do.

Crap. I had forgotten about Stovokor, err Valhalla. The Samurai, at least the buddist ones beleived in reincarnation.

I should also Remind you that it was not just Woman the Samauri thought were beneith them. They had athority to kill someone who did not bow before them.

Thats true, they could kill anyone beneath them who didn't show the proper respect. In fact in the first chapter of Shogun, a Samurai beheads a villager that didn't bow low enough to him.

[Praxis]

Also, the Design of anything Klingon (Besides there Laguage (I think) and there ship's outside) is Viking with some Asian Elements thrown in.

There simply not Samauri because Samauri had some Class to them and were not just a hoard of Angry Morons, They also used Ranged weapons (Mostly Bambo Bows, and were generaly backed up with Crossbowmen Conscripts) made use of Cavalry Tactics, and could get away with using swords because firearms were baned in uses outside of Defending Japan from Foreigners.

I should also Remind you that it was not just Woman the Samauri thought were beneith them. They had athority to kill someone who did not bow before them.

Actuall the Samauri were also master of Archery from horse back. And the Ban on firearm came only after the massive destruction that firearms brought to the Samuari ranks when first introduced.

Right, and Klingons run into battle using knives instead of long range guns.

[Aaron]

Actually the Samauri were also master of Archery from horse back. And the Ban on firearm came only after the massive destruction that firearms brought to the Samuari ranks when first introduced.

From what I have read, most of the Samurai felt that using guns in combat was dishounarble, even before the ban. The Samurai believed that the true test of a soldier was in hand to hand and individual combat. Although they did use bows, maybe they felt they were permissable because you still had to use your strength to fire it, unlike a musket which was much more mechanical.

The Samurai also lived according to Bushido (warriors code0. The Klingons have something similar, I don't know what it's called though. Did the Vikings have similar beliefs?

[Isolder74]

The Vikings had a warrior code, but nothing as elaborate as the Samauri. Like many things in Sci-fi, the Klingons have elements from many cultures but in general they behave like Vikings. Things like the Besrkergang fit Klingon ethos pefectly

[General Zod]

also unlike the samurai, the klingons are berserkers that fly into a rage at the drop of a hat. that's far more fitting to the vikings.

[Stormbringer]

Actually the Samauri were also master of Archery from horse back. And the Ban on firearm came only after the massive destruction that firearms brought to the Samuari ranks when first introduced.

From what I have read, most of the Samurai felt that using guns in combat was dishounarble, even before the ban. The Samurai believed that the true test of a soldier was in hand to hand and individual combat. Although they did use bows, maybe they felt they were permissable because you still had to use your strength to fire it, unlike a musket which was much more mechanical.

It was permissable because the bows they used to a good deal of skill and training to use as they did. As I've been given to understand the final forms of them could give the classic English longbow a run for it's money.

[CDiehl]

I'm not certain how the idea that samurai claimed to consider firearms dishonorable is relevant. This idea hits a pet peeve of mine, because I tend not to take a culture's proclamations about honor or propriety in battle at face value. In real life, putting yourself at a disadvantage has nothing to do with honor, and everything to do with stupidity. If they thought firearms were so terrible, the samurai would never have touched them when Europeans showed them to them initially. Of course they did, and tried to eliminate them only because they became a threat to themselves. The same can be said of the crossbow, and of firearms, among medieval knights. Ultimately, Klingons not using their disruptors, which they went to the trouble of making and issuing to their troops, doesn't make them honorable or samurai-like, but complete, unbelievable morons.

[Guardsman Bass]

After 1858, when many samurai under the Tokugawa regime were resisting the forces of the Shimoru and Mori clans(who would set up the Meiji regime), didn't they use captured guns?

[frigidmagi]

After 1858, when many samurai under the Tokugawa regime were resisting the forces of the Shimoru and Mori clans(who would set up the Meiji regime), didn't they use captured guns?

Yes, their objection wasn't based on modernization, but that it was going to fast for them. They also protested the lost of the samurai class' power (I think you can guess what the big thing was for most of them).

[Beowulf]

Actually the Samauri were also master of Archery from horse back. And the Ban on firearm came only after the massive destruction that firearms brought to the Samuari ranks when first introduced.

From what I have read, most of the Samurai felt that using guns in combat was dishounarble, even before the ban. The Samurai believed that the true test of a soldier was in hand to hand and individual combat. Although they did use bows, maybe they felt they were permissable because you still had to use your strength to fire it, unlike a musket which was much more mechanical.

It was permissable because the bows they used to a good deal of skill and training to use as they did. As I've been given to understand the final forms of them could give the classic English longbow a run for it's money.

Not to mention that they had pretty much always used bows. Even the earliest depictions of them will have a bow somewhere.

[Stormbringer]

From what I have read, most of the Samurai felt that using guns in combat was dishounarble, even before the ban. The Samurai believed that the true test of a soldier was in hand to hand and individual combat. Although they did use bows, maybe they felt they were permissable because you still had to use your strength to fire it, unlike a musket which was much more mechanical.

It was permissable because the bows they used to a good deal of skill and training to use as they did. As I've been given to understand the final forms of them could give the classic English longbow a run for it's money.

Not to mention that they had pretty much always used bows. Even the earliest depictions of them will have a bow somewhere.

No doubt tradition did play role. But the fact is that the bows used in combat were far harder to use as compared to fire arms.

[Pablo Sanchez]

From what I have read, most of the Samurai felt that using guns in combat was dishounarble, even before the ban. The Samurai believed that the true test of a soldier was in hand to hand and individual combat. Although they did use bows, maybe they felt they were permissable because you still had to use your strength to fire it, unlike a musket which was much more mechanical.

A key distinction is that while samurai disliked gunpowder weapons they still used them to maximum effect. They did not disdain the weapons as some accounts claim, but they rather recognized them as being more effective and efficient than anything else availabe--this was why Ieyasu Tokugawa banned them.

Some samurai actually favored the muskets, because a samurai recieved rewards for each enemy of standing that he killed. Sniping with a musket (as opposed to the volley firing practiced by conscripts) allowed a samurai to collect many more heads than he could with a bow or sword.

Not to mention that they had pretty much always used bows. Even the earliest depictions of them will have a bow somewhere.

Samurai were actually horse archers almost exclusively until the 13th century, when for some reason there was a shift from traditional evasive Asian tactics into an almost Western system of shock battle. But even afterwards their primary behavior was similar to the English mounted longbowmen, who rode hobby horses for mobility and dismounted for battle. Samurai evidently rode to battles and dismounted to use their bows, after which they would either break the enemy with a foot charge or mount horses and ride down routers.

[Jawawithagun]

IIRC discipline and quite a rigid hierarchy also were part of the samurai package, two things I have yet to see in a Klingon

[Zor]

Not realy related, but the Japanese had a Shitload of Firearms made between the Ban and the First Contact with Europeans.

Those Japanese, Give them a gun and a decade latter there nation is filled to the brim with them.

[Joe]

After 1858, when many samurai under the Tokugawa regime were resisting the forces of the Shimoru and Mori clans(who would set up the Meiji regime), didn't they use captured guns?

Nitpick, the year you're thinking of is 1868, not 1858.