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I just watched the episode of DS9 where the Defiant meets its descendants on the planet Gaia. There was an offset from the farmers and villagers, those who became the Sons of Mogh, they became 'klingon warriors'. They took pride in that they never did any work with the farming or agriculture, and only hunted and traded with the village. This seems like a way of getting out of work to me. It especially seems similar to Jack and the Hunters in Lord of the Flies.

Might this be why the Klingon warrior is taken up by so many klingons, it means that you don't have to work hard, you drink, you party, and consider yourselves above those who actually make food and such.

Do I have something here or is it a lot of gibberish?

Every warrior-caste is kind of parasitic.

As a farmer or worker you either work for the "warriors", who are to lazy to work for themself and therefor steal what they need from you

or

you work for the warriors, who protect you from the "warriors", who are to lazy to work for themself and therefor steal what they need from you.

That they are primarily hunters shows how they contributed to the settlement. While they prided themselves as warriors, there basicaly was nothing to fight. But they could hunt. And those who can hunt well providing fresh meat and animal products can make a fairly decent living on such a settlement.

Given that Klingon warriors do not last long in a fight (ie they are phasored before they can move into bat-leth range) they have every right to be lazy. THEY will lay down their lives when the empire asks them to. They live as they please because when battle starts they will be asked to die for the empire with no questions asked. The lazy lifestlye is a sort of reward that says live as you please BUT you will die when the state need you. Farmers etc do not have that burden

If they hunt, and then trade, they are still doing work. And if they can survive off of that, then who is to say they are being lazy?

If someone can make a living doing 4 hours a work a day than 8 hours a day, then is he being lazy, simply because he is working less?

Maybe they're just better at hunting so do that, and then trade to get the stuff they are inefficient and producing. In other words, they are doing what they have a comparative advantage in.

Yeah, it's not like they're artists.

FaxModem1 wrote:I just watched the episode of DS9 where the Defiant meets its descendants on the planet Gaia. There was an offset from the farmers and villagers, those who became the Sons of Mogh, they became 'klingon warriors'. They took pride in that they never did any work with the farming or agriculture, and only hunted and traded with the village. This seems like a way of getting out of work to me. It especially seems similar to Jack and the Hunters in Lord of the Flies.

Might this be why the Klingon warrior is taken up by so many klingons, it means that you don't have to work hard, you drink, you party, and consider yourselves above those who actually make food and such.

Do I have something here or is it a lot of gibberish?

Interesting point. I just saw that episode too.

Hunting actually requires a skilled professional, who works consistently. In this case, it seemed that they needed to hunt to provide for a settlement, which means that they would have needed to do a considerable amount of work to support themselves. This isn't necessarily being lazy.

What I'd like to know is why Klingons seem to use swords and other melee weapons in general combat, seemingly for reasons of honour, yet find cloaks perfectly honourable weapons in space.

What I'd like to know is why Klingons seem to use swords and other melee weapons in general combat, seemingly for reasons of honour, yet find cloaks perfectly honourable weapons in space.

I believe Worf said it best. Victory is the most honorable thing of all.

Yeah. These are people who hail the slaughter of an entire city as a great historical moment. I would not be so quick to accept any claims about honor from a Klingon.

Cloaks could be seen as a spacer version of camoflage, like a hunter. So a cloaked vessel would be sent towards an enemy ship, to engage it one on one, in an honorable battle. If the Federation can see a Klingon ship or few approaching, they would likely divert several ships towards the contact, to engage and destroy.

With cloaks though, the Klingons can get their one on one battles, for honor.

Honor codes are bent like pretzels when convenient. The Japanese warrior code didn't have a problem with sneak attacks. A not atypical response in feudal Japan to giving a samurai insufficient respect was him cutting you down. Warrior codes exist to legitimize and support the warrior class as well as bind it to whoever is issuing the code.

The chivalry movement was started in southern France by troubadors who often had wealthy women as their patrons. I don't have to explain why it isn't surprising that the code calls for treating women with respect.

For heavily armored knights, head to head combat was the highest and most honorable. Missle weapons weren't respectable under the code, especially crossbows that with which a commoner with only a little training could actually be dangerous to a knight. Gee, I wonder what kind of fighting favors a heavily armored, well trained guy with a big melee weapon?

frigidmagi wrote:

What I'd like to know is why Klingons seem to use swords and other melee weapons in general combat, seemingly for reasons of honour, yet find cloaks perfectly honourable weapons in space.

I believe Worf said it best. Victory is the most honorable thing of all.

Yes, I understand that. That's not the point I'm making.

My point is about their retarded melee weapons, and how they seem to go in with them in favour of phasers drawn on numerous occasions. If victory was the most important thing, they'd not use some mostly honourary weapon like a batleth.

Imperial Overlord wrote:Honor codes are bent like pretzels when convenient. The Japanese warrior code didn't have a problem with sneak attacks. A not atypical response in feudal Japan to giving a samurai insufficient respect was him cutting you down. Warrior codes exist to legitimize and support the warrior class as well as bind it to whoever is issuing the code.

It also helped that Samurai served in the same way knights did; they were sort of "pseudo-nobles."

For heavily armored knights, head to head combat was the highest and most honorable. Missle weapons weren't respectable under the code, especially crossbows that with which a commoner with only a little training could actually be dangerous to a knight. Gee, I wonder what kind of fighting favors a heavily armored, well trained guy with a big melee weapon?

But there's a difference here. Knights(and Samurai) were expensive shit, and, to some extent, you got what your money payed for; they were good in many circumstances. Klingon warriors, on the other hand, are basically commoners with big swords.

Guardsman Bass wrote: But there's a difference here. Knights(and Samurai) were expensive shit, and, to some extent, you got what your money payed for; they were good in many circumstances. Klingon warriors, on the other hand, are basically commoners with big swords.

Not really.

Samurai could only function because firearms were outlawed on the pain of death for any idiot who knew how to biuld one and wasnt someone special and metal armour was practically non-existant.

Knights arent much better.

Both the society which gave rise to the chivalry style Knights and the Samurai can only function because the technology and society was deliberatly retarded to prevent the little people (aka non-nobles & commoners) from having any effective way of combating or challenging the system.

The Klingons match this; the batleth is fundementally a stupid weapon and would require significant training to use it. With tecknology, the requirment to keep large numbers of commoners around is significantly reduced.

And there may not be any Klingon commoners. All of the population may to considered noble and live off the backs of conquered alien species.

The Japanese managed to adapt when Admiral Perry came along and it was adapt or be assimilated. The Tokugawa's got the boot, they crash industrialized, and grafted a version of the samurai code onto their entire military and to some extent to their whole society.

Replicator Tech and other species would allow klingons to maximize the amount of their population engaged in military matters.

I vastly prefer the Klingons of J. M. Ford's The Final Reflection. They were alien, but understandable. The canon ones are a dumbed down and simplified version of Ford's badasses (I respect Vikings far too much to call ST Klingons space vikings). Hell, even the humans were tough in that book.