Question for RHW, with SPOILERS for ENT's "Affliction" Options

[Dev F]

Hey, Robert . . .

So now that this week's episode of Star Trek: Enterprise has finally given us the official explanation for why TOS-era Klingons had no forehead ridges, would you care to share the explanation you came up with during the development of "Trials and Tribble-ations"?

I mean, you wouldn't be spoiling our speculative fun anymore since ENT already did that, right?

[Robert Hewitt Wolfe]

Huh? I don't watch Enterprise, so I have no clue.

[tomalak16]

BIG plot spoilers (basically an outline of the plot) for latest ENT ep 'Affliction':

Basically it's that the Klingons are trying to create Khan Noonien Singh-style geneticly enhanced people (known as 'Augments' in ENT) but their failed research led to the human augment DNA that they stole, and tried to adapt, taking over the Klingon DNA and dissolving the cranial ridges on the test subjects.

Then, one of the subjects had Levodian Flu, which prompted the Augment DNA to mutate and become an airborne virus. So basically there's a virus going around the Klingon empire, giving them all flat foreheads.

Quite how, if they ALL end up with flat foreheads, the process is reversed in centuries to come .... well, who knows?

[Christopher]

Quite how, if they ALL end up with flat foreheads, the process is reversed in centuries to come .... well, who knows?

I have never understood why anyone would assume that all TOS-era Klingons must have had flat foreheads. I mean, the only Klingons we ever saw in TOS were in the military. We never saw a Klingon civilian, a Klingon city, a Klingon planet. The "smoothies" could've been a ruling minority with an apartheid-like civilization, banning the ridged majority from military service; or they could've been an oppressed minority used as cannon fodder in the military; or they could've been a minority within the military itself, but got assigned exclusively to deal with humans because of their part-human genome (like the Chinese principle, "Use barbarians to deal with barbarians"). And those are just a few possibilities. There's simply no reason to assume that the limited sampling of Klingons we saw in TOS represented the entire species at that time.

Besides, next week's title is

"Divergence,"

not "Replacement."

This post has been edited by Christopher: Feb 20 2005, 09:04 PM

[Cardie]

Chris, next week's title is a spoiler and should probably be put in spoiler space.

Cardie

[Analog Kid]

@ the Klingon Flat Forehead Conspiracy. ™



Ya know, I never watch Enterprise (then again, the only Trek I watched regularly was TOS ) but THIS I want to watch.

(Saul chuckles mightly as he leaves this thread.)

[Christopher]

Chris, next week's title is a spoiler and should probably be put in spoiler space.

I think the idea of a title being a spoiler is reductio ad absurdem. Titles are widely disseminated and intentionally publicized by the creators of a work. I don't think it makes sense to call something a spoiler if it's given away intentionally by the creators. I mean, is it a spoiler to reveal that somebody in Hitchcock's Tony Perkins/Janet Leigh picture is a psycho?

Now, maybe my interpretation of the title's meaning could be considered a spoiler, but I don't think so because it's just my interpretation, not a verified fact.

[Robert Hewitt Wolfe]

Hmmm, okay...

So this episode actually uses a very similar approach to the working theory we had.

In our case, the genetically engineered virus was inteneded to make Klingons look like humans for purposes of infiltration and espionage. Then it got out of the bottle.

We also had an idea that the release of the virus was engineered by someone who saw Earth and the Federation the way the Japanese of the Meiji Era saw the West... ie... they're doing well, let's dress like them and remodel our culture after them so we can eventually beat them at their own game.

Sounds like a pretty cool episode of ENTERPRISE. And one that explains the forehead thingie in a way that fits with all the available evidence.

[Dev F]

Thanks! It looks like great minds thunk alike, huh?

So it's not just a happy accident that the new official explanation matches both hypotheses given by O'Brien and Bashir in "Trials and Tribble-ations" ("What happened? Some kind of genetic engineering?" "A viral mutation?"). It looks like the plan all along was that both O'Brien and Bashir were right.

[Robert Hewitt Wolfe]

Looks to me to be a case of two sets of people drawing the same conclusions from the same evidence... and like Manny Coto watched "Trials." =P

[Cardie]

I think the idea of a title being a spoiler is reductio ad absurdem.  Titles are widely disseminated and intentionally publicized by the creators of a work.  I don't think it makes sense to call something a spoiler if it's given away intentionally by the creators.  I mean, is it a spoiler to reveal that somebody in Hitchcock's Tony Perkins/Janet Leigh picture is a psycho?

Now, maybe my interpretation of the title's meaning could be considered a spoiler, but I don't think so because it's just my interpretation, not a verified fact.

I just know that some people who frequent GMD are highly spoiler-phobic, and it's not a good idea to reveal anything about an episode that hasn't aired, because these people scrupulously avoid anything that might spoil them for an episode, including what's in the publicity material. It takes a minute to put it in spoiler tags.

Reviews has always had a more lax policy, which is why I didn't call you on the title reveal there, although even in Reviews, information about episodes not being reviewed is supposed to be spoilered.

It also doesn't seem to be very fair argumentation for you to trump people's theories with the title of an upcoming episode they may not have sought out, especially if it's not spoilered.

Oh, and it's reductio ad absurdum.

Cardie

[MuseZack]

I still prefer my theory, that 23rd Century flat-headedness was the Klingon equivalent of the white Afro-- a deeply silly attempt to ape another ethnic group's appearance-- pictures of which are later purged from the photo albums in shame. Kor, Kang, and Koloth probably had a good laugh about the horrible fashions of their youth over blood wine.

[GiGi]

Hmmm, okay...

So this episode actually uses a very similar approach to the working theory we had. 

In our case, the genetically engineered virus was inteneded to make Klingons look like humans for purposes of infiltration and espionage.  Then it got out of the bottle.

We also had an idea that the release of the virus was engineered by someone who saw Earth and the Federation the way the Japanese of the Meiji Era saw the West... ie... they're doing well, let's dress like them and remodel our culture after them so we can eventually beat them at their own game.

That was always my idea too. It seems pretty obvious and a good one, if I say so myself

[Christopher]

Well, I'm going to miss my pet theory that there was a second race of Klingons -- perhaps a hybrid with a more humanlike race of colonists -- that was born smooth-headed and gradually grew ridges later in life. That struck me as the simplest explanation for Kor, Kang and Koloth, and it also explained why General Chang in ST VI had such underdeveloped ridges -- he would've represented an intermediate stage.

[DWF]

I honestly don't see what the big deal about the ridges are and I certainly can't see wasting a story arc explaining it.

[NeuralClone]

Or, someone decided to change the look of the Klingons after getting a larger budget...

[DWF]

Or, someone decided to change the look of the Klingons after getting a larger budget...

I kind of doubt that, the older nonridged Klingons are easier on the budget as are this multipart storylines. The reason why the didin't have the ridges in the first place was supposedly a lack of money, once they had the money when the first movie was made, they changed the look.

[Jean Prouvaire]

I honestly don't see what the big deal about the ridges are and I certainly can't see wasting a story arc explaining it.

They didn't. The fact that the episode solved the Klingon forehead mystery is quite incidental to its plot. It's an easter egg, albeit a very visible one.

[KRAD]

Any attempt to explain it beyond the non-answer we got in "Trials and Tribble-ations" is, IMO, a mistake, because there is no good way to explain it that won't cause problems. A non-answer is the best answer in this case.

[Christopher]

Any attempt to explain it beyond the non-answer we got in "Trials and Tribble-ations" is, IMO, a mistake, because there is no good way to explain it that won't cause problems. A non-answer is the best answer in this case.

Well, in the sense that some fans won't like abandoning their pet theories, yes. And in the sense that it will raise new questions, though whether that's a problem is debatable. But I think Messrs. Sussman and Coto based a pretty darn good episode around it, and provided an explanation that was fairly satisfying as far as it went; and I look forward to seeing how next week's writers (I think it's the R-S's doing the teleplay) resolve it.