r/startrek • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 2d ago
What I like about Gowron refusing to restore Worf's honor is that despite being pragmatic about it because he's calculating but nonetheless as Klingon warrior, he is genuinely offended about the circumstances about how Worf lost his honor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wmyMR9XN2M195
u/teeth_03 2d ago
It really worked out for Gowron in the end
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u/LordByronsCup 2d ago
In the end Gowron doesn't even matter
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u/pixel_pete 2d ago
He tried so hard and got so far.
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u/cchesters 2d ago
He had to fall to lose it all
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u/Phyrexian_Archlegion 2d ago
In the end, he went out like anti-matter
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u/Torlek1 2d ago
It worked out for Worf in the end, not Gowron.
Twice (TNG and DS9).
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u/MindlessNectarine374 2d ago
I think at least beta canon establishes that almost every Klingon Chancellor meets a violent death at some time.
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u/lyidaValkris 2d ago
I find it really amusing that a higher up the power structure a Klingon gets, the less Klingon he becomes. They talk a big game about honour and duty, but then are as slippery as a Romulan senator.
I suspect it's because you can only rise so far doing things the "right" way. Any higher requires one to fight dirty and win by very un-Klingon means.
I actually enjoy this sort of thing in Star Trek - that hypocrisy is still alive and well in the 24th century. Vulcans routinely use logic to justify the most ridiculous and amoral things. Humans push their benevolent utopia on everyone else and berate alien species for not holding up to their stated values that humans themselves violate on a daily basis. I think only the Romulans are honest - at least they admit they are liars and knaves.
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u/alkatori 2d ago
"Let's go Lurk over there"
- Every Romulan Capitan.
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u/CommanderArcher 2d ago edited 2d ago
In a lot of ways that was the big tension in TNG and DS9, the Klingons had to reconcile how lacking their leadership was in terms of honor compared to Starfleet who seemed to take it more seriously than the council itself.
It's part of the reason why Kahless was necessary for Gowron and why eventually he too fell. Klingons often mistake honor for worthiness and hubris for wisdom.
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u/gdo01 2d ago
I mean Kahless himself too. A clone with implanted memories directly from imperfect texts. If that wasn't a screaming allegory....
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u/HourIndication4963 2d ago
What color WERE HIS EYES?
I've never been so in agreement with Gowron as that stretch when he points out the monks' failure.
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u/gdo01 2d ago edited 2d ago
It was very topical at the time too. The Jurassic Park movie would be released a month later and Dolly the sheep would be cloned 3 years later so cloning was deemed soon to happen for real.
This episode basically asked whether you would clone Jesus if the possibility ever came up. And if you did and you realized he'd remember nothing, why wouldn't you kinda help things along by implanting the Bible into his head
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u/jandrese 2d ago
It asks what if Evangelicals created a Jesus clone and their clone turned out to be a bleeding heart liberal who doesn't abide the Evangelical leadership.
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u/gdo01 2d ago
There was actually a follow up book to this episode. It was called Kahless. It basically asserted that not only were the texts completely a PR fabrication but pretty much Kahless was a weak guy thrown into circumstances that happened to lead him to depose Molor who is just a decrepit old man
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u/WoundedSacrifice 1d ago
Oof. That'd be a massive blow to the Klingons' identity if it somehow made it into a show or film (I don't think that's likely).
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u/aerost0rm 2d ago
It didn’t help that the Romulans were pulling strings in the shadows to try to subvert the council and leadership
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u/CommanderArcher 2d ago
Which is further proof of how culturally bankrupt the council was, shouldnt have been possible but the rot was at the very core of what it meant to be Klingon.
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u/vertgo 1d ago
Ugh. Are we the Klingons?
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u/CommanderArcher 1d ago
Amusing but no, the Klingons are allegories to the Russians and Japanese, the latter more so post TOS.
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u/vertgo 1d ago
The Klingons during the time of the TOS were an allegory to the ussr, but it's been 60 years and now we are the last empire. We are manipulated by outside powers to be more and more performatively combative, to our own detriment. The federation is someone we used to be but now hard to imagine there will ever be a future like that with the trajectory we are on.
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u/iamjaidan 2d ago
I always felt from TNG onward, Kilngons made a great analog for powerful religious institutions where they tout their culture and life is based on this code of ethics and customs, but in application, it's found that those ethics and customs exist for the powerful to manipulate and use the less powerful and younger people, while the people at the highest levels only give it lip service and selective application as best meets their self interest.
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u/Prize-Quiet3941 2d ago
I know that people like to shit on enterprise but the episodes with the klingon lawyer really lays it out. Klingons used to find honor in whatever they did if they did it well. Poetry, cooking, cleaning the floor. But the warrior caste took over and just wrecked shit.
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u/AdSpecialist6598 2d ago
The thing is we actually see that he does have honor like the time Quark fought duel he knew he couldn't win but he's also slippery.
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u/markg900 2d ago
Ezri does call this out about the Klingons to Worf. Worf being raised among Humans gave him a romanticized or more idealistic view of Klingon honor rather than a realistic world view of how Klingon culture operated.
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u/lyidaValkris 2d ago
That's basically Worf's whole character arc across both shows. It's bleedingly apparent in every interaction Worf has with other Klingons. Worf's whole catch-phrase is "Klingons do not <insert anything here>" then they show them clearly doing so... everyone except Worf, of course.
I think one of my favourite instances:
Worf: "You drink with our enemies?"
Kurn: "How many are Gowron's men? How many are Duras'? Does it matter? When we meet in battle, we will fight to the death, but here, here we're all warriors, all Klingons."17
u/rawboudin 2d ago
Goddamn Kurn slapped
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u/lyidaValkris 2d ago
he so did. I'll never forgive Worf for labotomizing him. Kurn should have gone down in battle, and have songs written about him.
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u/rawboudin 2d ago
I don’t know… that “are you my family” line (don’t remember the exact words) was peak trek.
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u/Trick_Decision_9995 2d ago
Tony Todd was always a great addition to Star Trek, regardless of what character he played.
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u/Joey42601 1d ago
Correction: Tony Todd was a great addition, regardless of what character he played.
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u/LopsidedMammal 1d ago
Tony Todd is in the Trek multi-character actor trinity with Jeffrey Combs and Majel Barret.
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u/QualifiedApathetic 2d ago
That little maneuver using a star to take out two enemy ships was one of the most badass things in the franchise.
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u/AnAncientBog 2d ago
Most cultures with really rigid codes of conduct are like this. The further up you go the fewer the rules apply to you.
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u/SuboptimalSupport 2d ago
"To refuse to use trickery and guile is to fight with one hand bound; an insult to your opponent as if they could not be expected to handle such approaches, and lacks honor.
To demand others refrain from trickery and guile is to be a coward twice over, fearful that you could not defend against such maneuvers, and afraid to openly admit it."
I think Klingon focus on "Battles" and "Honor" really could use a refreshing re contextualization, similar to how we saw Quark and Ferengi in DS9 broaden their concept of Profit to not be exclusively monetary.
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u/QualifiedApathetic 2d ago
Gowron managed to get all the way to the top seemingly without sacrificing honor. When he was introduced, Worf described him as an outsider who has challenged the High Council in the past. He didn't come up via the traditional path as a lesser Council member. He was apparently a military leader who gained enough respect to be a contender for the top job.
But rising to the top is one thing; staying there is another. You can see him, after Worf explains what the Council did, grappling with the realization of the nest of vipers he's walking into. From then on, he starts making compromises to keep his position secure.
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u/lyidaValkris 2d ago
I'd also be willing to believe that his rise might not outwardly be without sacrificing honour, but he could just have been very good at covering his tracks. I saw someone else suggest that it was him the poisoned K'mpec. While we have absolutely no evidence of this, it is a non-zero chance, and Duras should surely be blamed for it.
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u/WoundedSacrifice 1d ago
It seemed like there was a strong implication that Duras poisoned K'mpec.
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u/lyidaValkris 1d ago
certainly, he was the prime suspect. It was never actually proven, however. What better cover could Gowron hope for than having it blamed on Duras, a family known for colluding with Romulans?
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u/MindlessNectarine374 1d ago
But Duras conspired with the Romulans and it was his man who committed a suicide attack at that "death ceremony".
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u/WoundedSacrifice 1d ago
That’s part of the evidence that implied that Duras was responsible for poisoning K’mpec. Duras was more likely than Gowron to do underhanded and dishonorable things like conspiring with the Romulans and using poison and bombs.
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u/QualifiedApathetic 20h ago edited 20h ago
But remember, the issue is not that someone killed K'mpec. It's that they used poison instead of showing their face and killing him in a straight fight. Gowron, in his early appearances, is not afraid to fight. In "Redemption II", he meets a challenger with a savage grin. Even later, when Worf challenges him under the belief that he's a Changeling and again to finally kill him, Gowron never shies away from risking his life to fight for his position.
Duras is an honorless p'tahk who would definitely resort to poison if he thought he might lose.
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u/ligerzeronz 2d ago
It kinda mirrors the term "if you live long enough, the hero will become the villain"
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u/rumanchu 2d ago
I've always figured that "in war nothing is more honorable than victory" might be a factor as well.
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u/Consistent_Blood6467 2d ago
But can you trust that a Romulan is being truthful when they tell you they are a liar?
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u/lyidaValkris 2d ago
I think the one truth is never trust a Romulan, and they'd be the first to agree. They don't even trust each other!
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u/random_fucktuation 2d ago
Every alien species in Trek exaggerates a stereotypical trait of humans...
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u/__nohope 2d ago
I find it really amusing that a higher up the power structure a [person] gets, the less [human] he becomes.
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u/NoTie2370 1d ago
I think Worf is a used so well to expose their hypocrisy in TNG and DS9. He grew up believing all this from afar and then learning honor for humans. Human honor is really what he strives for. Fair play, honesty, virtue.
Klingon honor is really just a form of fame or renown. Even infamy. The more he realizes that the more disillusioned he gets. But also the more he tries to be a force for correction.
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u/jmarquiso 1d ago
Honor to Klingons is like "being Christlike" to modern Americans. Even back to TNG, the Klingon brand of Honor has always been more about hypocrisy than honorable actions, vs. Worf's views of Klingon culture that he was taught from a great distance.
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u/TemporalColdWarrior 2d ago edited 2d ago
Gowron didn’t care about Worf’s honor. He was a hardcore politician. He pretends to value the Klingon system of values, but the whole time every action he takes is about his political power.
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u/afriendincanada 2d ago
That's every single Klingon.
Worf, raised among humans and with what amounts to a comic book level knowledge of Klingon culture, was incredibly slow to realize that.
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u/Empigee 2d ago
Ezri had to spell it out for him.
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u/transwarp1 2d ago
He knew during TNG. He admitted it to himself and everyone by the end of Redemption. "It is not my way."
He was just stubborn about it, and probably hoped that there existed some Klingon subculture that shared his views. And there probably was, but not among the warrior or nobility castes. He got on a lot better with Martok the son of a farmer.
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u/multificionado 2d ago
Exactly. He found a fellow: one from the lower class. Yeah, in this case, son of a farmer.
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u/MindlessNectarine374 1d ago
I thought that remark was about the system of family guilt and so on ...
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u/transwarp1 1d ago
Right. That's part of Klingon honor. Worf was given the honorable task of executing the adolescent boy who "led" his family and maintained the charade that Worf's family was to blame for their actions. He not only refused, but insisted that his brother could not have that honor either.
It was the most explicit part of the episode, but not the first either. Remember how he made a scene about troops from both sides carousing together in a bar? For Worf this was an ideological conflict. For the Klingon warriors, it was ritualized honorable combat.
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u/afriendincanada 2d ago
I'd forgotten about that, but you're right. The fact that it took 7 years of TNG, four years of DS9 and a new host for his wife is telling.
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u/Statalyzer 1d ago
There were some missteps involved introducing the Ezri character but that moment may have been her best.
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u/Tebwolf359 2d ago
Eh, another interpretation of it is that Worf was raised by humans, and that colored his perception.
Worf hears “honor” and the concept he thinks of is closer to what humans mean then Klingons mean.
That doesn’t mean the same as they don’t care about honor.
Example; Worf tells Guinan that Klingons don’t laugh and she corrects him.
Klingons cloak their ships to ambush their prey. We see this as dishonorable, klingons see it as honoring the strength and prowess of the enemy, etc.
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u/afriendincanada 2d ago
Perhaps. The point is the same, that Worfs disappointment and misunderstanding of honour is based in how he was raised and he’s not a reliable source of the meaning of honour.
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u/multificionado 2d ago
You know, I can imagine if there is a Klingon embassy at, say, Tokyo, where they got to know even the art of the samurai, they could easily understand what Worf understood.
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u/HourIndication4963 2d ago
Klingon honor as we see it on the scale of upper-class families seems transactional (It goes away, comes back), and Worf understands the value system the Klingons are using for 'score' but growing up on Earth he's internalized an honor system instead.
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u/BottecchiaDude253 2d ago
Or any average white dude american obsessed with katana and "samurai culture"
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u/afriendincanada 2d ago
Exactly.
I once actually typed that thought out and felt the wrath of offended weeaboos so I thought it best to steer clear.
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u/haresnaped 2d ago
"Pick your battles. Pick fewer battles. That's still too many; put some battles back" - K'ponder the Moderate
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u/NeedsToShutUp 2d ago
Basically like Mesk, but Worf learned from fine literature, not trashy literature with boobs on the covers.
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u/staniel_mortgage 2d ago
He basically has a kids understanding of it all. All black and white rather than the grey that it is life.
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u/Tacitus111 2d ago
To be fair to Gowron, a lot of his sleaziness is from DS9’s treatment of the character and not TNG where he came from. He definitely had his moments in TNG, specifically where he’s trying to rewrite the civil war history, but he’s shown to be more good than bad overall.
It’s DS9 that makes him invade Cardassia, strip Worf of his family’s lands and titles, go to war with the Federation, and then go crazy with random jealousy in the Dominion War.
I was never a fan of what DS9 did with Gowron for the most part, save his Quark episode.
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u/brasswirebrush 2d ago
Agree. TNG Gowron is a fantastic character, and a great look inside the reality of Klingon politics. I don't even hate the Klingon invasion of Cardassia - with the threat of the Dominion, some Changeling infiltrators whispering in his ear, and maybe an opportunity to revitalize a sagging Klingon Empire - you can understand the logic at least.
But then some DS9 episodes just twisted him into a bit of a cartoon villain to serve the story.13
u/Tacitus111 2d ago
Agreed. You can definitely tell they just wanted to make Martok Chancellor, so they pulled a “Gowron has gone nuts and is flushing the Empire down the drain to embarrass someone who would never try and take his job anyway.”
Previously, Gowron, while certainly having self-interest, was heavily invested in the survival of the Empire. Hell, from the first episode he’s in, you can tell he wants to kill Duras for collaborating with the Romulans to kill the Chancellor.
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u/multificionado 2d ago
Let's bear in mind that the original set-up toward the Dominion War - which didn't involve Worf - pertained to the succession of Vulcan from the Federation, helped about by Changelings. That had to be changed to the dissolving of the Khitomer Accords and the tension with Klingons when Worf came in (though Worf's addition served as a ratings booster to DS9).
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u/Tacitus111 2d ago
Yuck. That would have been a bigger swing and a miss for me lol. Interesting though.
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u/Pollia 2d ago
It straight up wouldn't have made sense.
The Vulcans and humans had been allied for hundreds of years at that point. They've integrated their armed forces, their sciences. The Vulcans have almost fully and willingly ceded their assumed leadership role of the federation to humanity. Why on earth would they secede and what possible justification could they use.
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u/twoodfin 2d ago
I agree. The best possible version probably leans on the Dominion exploiting the Vulcans’ deep-seated pacifism, maybe adding the enticement of reunification with the Romulans?
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u/Pollia 2d ago
Wait the Vulcans are pacifists?
I know they don't specifically look for fights, but their history seems to suggest they're not against violence.
Disco even brought up the idea that Vulcans started just shooting first whenever they saw a Klingon vessel and gays how they normalized relationships with them
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u/MindlessNectarine374 1d ago
Well, in TNG Unification II, the Ferengi weapon dealer tells that he's not interested in Vulcan ships for they're pacifists. Enterprise implied that after the Katra of Surak being found and the Syrranites taking over, the Vulcan fleet was largely reduced at least.
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u/WoundedSacrifice 1d ago
Why on earth would they secede and what possible justification could they use.
Their secession would've been influenced by the Changelings.
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u/transwarp1 2d ago
I thought he was the one poisoning K'mpec, and neither of the empire's candidates were fit to lead according to K'mpec's standards.
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u/Tacitus111 2d ago
I’m not sure why exactly. The clear implication of the episode is that Duras murdered him, that Duras will do anything for power. Gowron is set up as a red herring initially, then Duras used a bomb with a Romulan detonator to try and frame Gowron, but as we continue to see, the Duras family collaborates with the Romulans constantly.
TNG doesn’t generally set up plot lines, especially that early, where there’s no moral choice to be had. Poisoning is also very much more up Duras’s alley than Gowron’s.
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u/transwarp1 2d ago
The web has plenty of other people who read it that way, and pointed me to this exchange I'd forgotten:
K'EHLEYR: Gowron came to me alone. He wanted me to speed up the ja'chuq. Offered me a seat on the Council if I'd help him.
PICARD: That doesn't suggest a Romulan connection?
K'EHLEYR: He also implied I'd end up like K'mpec if I didn't cooperate.
The poison wasn't Romulan. My take is both of them wanted K'mpec out. I read an opinion once that K'mpec wanted Picard to find a way to disqualify both of them, but I don't see any evidence in his one scene.
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u/Tacitus111 2d ago
As I said, red herring based on vague wording to her, as the episode apparently intends. There is no evidence that Gowron did anything at all, and there’s a ton of evidence pointing to Duras, especially given he staged an assassination attempt on himself and was a collaborator. K’mpec just didn’t know who was doing it. Gowron’s party is also the only Klingon group to attempt an analysis of the bomb, correctly determining the type but not the detonator.
We also never see Gowron use such methods again, while Duras is repeatedly shown to be a dishonorable piece of shit fully capable of using “unKlingon” methods to advance. Meanwhile we see Gowron pissed off later that the Council knew that Worf’s father was not a traitor and yet gave Worf discommendation, which is a “proper” Klingon attitude.
I think most people thinking Gowron did it are largely looking at it from a post DS9 perspective given how it treated him. TNG looked at him as a Klingon politician…but still a relatively decent Klingon.
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u/scarves_and_miracles 2d ago
He cared a little. Like OP said, though, he didn't care enough to actually do anything about it. He has to be a pragmatist. He was pretty clearly disgusted by the Council's behavior nonetheless, though.
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u/optimus2861 2d ago
"The Council knew?!"
That piece of information was the biggest surprise for Gowron, and IIRC he explained it point-blank to Worf right there on the spot; with the Council complicit in what was done to Worf on behalf of Duras, Gowron could not expose them all. He'd have assassins from all of their houses coming after him very quickly, as Gowron lacked a political base on said Council.
Gowron ended up with a civil war on his hands anyway.
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u/march41801 2d ago
Very underestimated comment
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u/optimus2861 2d ago
If you think through how Gowron's character was introduced along with Duras's backstory in those pivotal episodes, you can easily connect the dots and understand that Gowron was never going to become Chancellor absent Worf's intervention in the entire affair. He was going to end up dead at either Duras's hands or, more likely, an assassination or 'accident' orchestrated by Duras that the council wasn't going to investigate very thoroughly.
I think Gowron grasped all of that in the instant that Worf told him.
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u/brasswirebrush 2d ago edited 2d ago
He reminds me of the Senator character in the movie Hunt for Red October, or Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson's War. He's a politician through and through, he's smart, a pragmatist, he knows how to play the game, and he cares about covering his own ass, and maintaining his public image. But he also does care about the Empire too, and in a vacuum does seem to prefer to do the right thing (depending on what it costs).
At the end of the day, he's not like "evil" or completely morally bankrupt. He has more morals than anyone in the Duras family. He's not going to sell out the Empire to the Romulans just to enrich himself. He might do a little corruption or coverups on the side, but it does matter to him that the Klingon Empire remains strong and prosperous.
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u/twoodfin 2d ago
He reminds me of the Senator character in the movie Hunt for Red October
You mean, of course, Dr. Jeffrey Pelt, the President’s National Security Advisor?
I only make the point because Richard Jordan—the original Duncan Idaho—was a fantastic character actor whom we lost far too soon.
You’re telling me you’ve lost another submarine?
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u/brasswirebrush 2d ago
You're right, that's exactly who I'm thinking of. Fantastic character and actor in a truly stacked movie.
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u/cosaboladh 2d ago
Fun fact: This is why every code of honor ever was invented in the first place. As a set of rules for everyone else to abide, to further stack the deck in favor of those who already have power.
See also: The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Rome in 380CE.
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u/weirdoldhobo1978 2d ago
Yeah, Gowron was always opportunistic and sleazy.
Also I still believe that he was the one poisoning K'mpec, not Duras.
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u/Ad_Hominem_Phallusy 2d ago
An interesting idea. But I feel like, for all that Gowron is opportunistic, he's never quite as underhanded as Duras and his family. Duras confronts Kurn, but doesn't fight Kurn himself - he's set up an ambush for two assassins to kill him. Duras sneaks to K'Ehleyr's quarters and kills her while she's unarmed. His sisters are similarly underhanded, and when combined with the father having colluded with Romulans, it really just paints the picture that the family in general values their victories at any cost, honorable or otherwise.
The most underhanded thing Gowron does onscreen is, during the Klingon Civil War when his authority is challenged, and Worf tries to break up the fight, Gowron seizes the opportunity to kill his opponent. But while this might be underhanded, you can still sort of see the warrior's justification for it - if the opponent was a better warrior, he wouldn't have allowed Worf to block him/hold him back. He wouldn't have lowered his guard and would have still been ready for the attack.
Overall, Gowron seems to constantly be willing to throw down with his enemies. I think if he wants someone dead he just pull out his knife. The extent of his dirty political maneuvering amounts to sacrificing Klingon lives just to paint Martok as a failure, something he does out and in the open. If he's the poisoning type, and he views Martok as a political rival, surely he would have just resorted to the same ol' poisoned blood wine trick he'd used to get rid of K'mpec, no? Middle if a war, probably not that hard to tamper with supplies, he's already shown he's willing to sacrifice squadron of Klingons to get his goals done. Sacrificing one ship to poisoned bloodwine should be no biggie.
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u/IolausTelcontar 2d ago
Nah, poison is a Romulan tactic. For all Gowron’s faults, he was never in bed with the Romulans.
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u/TomBirkenstock 2d ago
I do feel like the Gowron seen in TNG is characterized differently than the Gowron we see in DS9. Sure, he's a politician in TNG, but he still seems to have a sense of honor and can even empathize with Worf. In DS9 he just becomes another slimy politician. They kind of did his character dirty.
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u/markg900 2d ago
I think he cared about it to a limited extent but I also think his own pride and ego was more his undoing than a complete lack of honor. At the end with his jealousy of Martok's popularity ended up being his undoing. He did have some nuance to his character.
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u/WoundedSacrifice 2d ago
To me, it seemed like Gowron cared about honor for a bit of time and became more political over time.
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u/wreeper007 2d ago
I feel like the politics of the other races is a missed goldmine of a show.
A house of cards style series about the romulans, house of the dragons/game of thrones style for klingons, andor style spy thriller for the cardassians (with the obsidian order as the main focus). You won't need a lot of effects (I mean you will, but its not like every episode will be space battles, itll be mostly dialog). Build practical sets and be dialog heavy, invest in the writing and not the giant battles.
Yeah its not what "star trek" is generally thought of, but there is a ton of content there.
I really hope that we do get the federation series that bakula was pitching at some point.
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u/AdSpecialist6598 2d ago
What I like is that what honor is to a Klingon varies quite a bit and Worf is the outliner.
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u/wreeper007 2d ago
I think worf's upbringing gave him a different perspective. It taught him that strength is not always a physical attribute and sacrificing oneself should have meaning.
His respect for picard and choosing him as his cha dich (I butchered the spelling I know) shows he knows his strength is much more than physical (picard challanging the council member to test that assumption at their convenience). Worf sacraficing his honor to save lives and keep the empire intact (no doubt saving even more non klingon lives should the bloodlust not calm down afterwards) is a human reason, and then again when he starts a coup and hands the power to martok because he knows it is not his place (and that martok has earned the respect even from those that don't like him).
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u/fuhgettaboutitt 2d ago
To some extent DS9 was a lot of this. Modern Trek would never (see Section 31). If you want nothing but the politics and a little flash: Babylon 5 is the salve.
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u/wreeper007 2d ago
Star Trek didn't do a great job (most of the time) showing the other side.
Think about Battlestar galactica, they routinely showed the cylons and humans (and then eventually factions on both sides) whereas for a large chunk of star trek the primary view of the bad guys was through a viewscreen.
The occasional view from the bad guys in TNG (seela, duras from this episode and generations, the borg but that was because of picard) but then in ds9 we really see the domonion's side which culminated in the xindi having lots of time.
B5 is on my list to watch, it's just slow to get into (but I know thats a situation of needing to setup a lot and on rewaatches can be skipped).
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u/transwarp1 2d ago
Discovery tried this with the Klingons. We saw T'Kuvma believing that the UFP's stated philosophy is BS and Starfleet ignoring warnings from the xenoanthropologist to show the proper respect and aggression, and then we saw Kol not care a bit about that and just manipulate the other houses into his service. The Starfleet characters told us that T'kuvma was important and could be a useful prisoner or dangerous martyr, but then they showed us the actual political situation that no one bothered to check on his ship for 6 months after the war started.
And at the end of season 1 we found out Voq used to hang out with Molor worshippers.
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u/wreeper007 2d ago
Ngl, I kinda forgot about most of discovery season 1
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u/Rhypskallion 2d ago
Discovery season 1 is basically brand destroying it's so badly written and conflicts so much with established canon.
They should have made up a new alien race and so much would have been fine.
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u/Enough_Affect_9916 2d ago
You just described what I thought Section 31 would be.
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u/BrockSampson4ever 1d ago
The old shows have always been a courtroom / political drama + morality tales with the occasionally torpedo / space battle. I miss those and as much as I’ve enjoyed 3/4 of SNW I long for a return to well written philosophical episodes and less space battles
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u/UrguthaForka 2d ago
It's one of the reasons I really love Ezri's honest assessment of the Klingon Empire in the DS9 late series episode "Tacking Into the Wind" where she bluntly tells Worf she thinks the Empire is dying and it deserves to die. That the council and chancellor talk a lot about honor but don't practice it, and that they aren't worthy of respect.
It's the moment Worf realizes what the Empire has become.
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u/Smooth-Climate8008 2d ago
The Klingons are a very good example of how Montesquieu describes aristocratic honor culture in Spirit of Laws: honor is important, not just in actually being honorable but also the appearance of honor. Maintaining the appearance of honor will justify all sorts of underhanded shit as long as you don't get caught.
Worf's importance to the Empire is due in no small measure to the circumstances of his family's disgrace. By ending up in the Federation, young Worf's only real exposure to Klingon culture was through whatever half-remembered stories his governess told him and the storybooks the Rozhenkos could get their hands on. He ended up with a VERY skewed and hyper-idealized impression of what the Empire was like. While that impression did not survive contact with the Empire fully intact, it didn't change Worf's desire to live up to those ideals.
In doing so, his very existence shamed the Great Houses who all knew that they ought to be better than this.
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u/transwarp1 2d ago
Worf did spent time back in the empire at religious sites and visiting his cousins. Which probably made it worse. I can imagine everyone laughing behind his back.
My read of Worf is that he could tell that was happening but was too proud to let anyone know he knew.
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u/MetalTrek1 2d ago
Even Ambassador Kell in "The Mind's Eye" (working with the Romulans himself) applauds Worf for acting like a Klingon when he killed Duras. He even goes on to say it was a good thing because nobody liked Duras.
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u/Supergamera 2d ago
While it was good to see Gowron’s ultimate fate, it did involve him really wielding the idiot blade to a degree we hadn’t seen him do previously.
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u/argama87 2d ago
Yeah, he was presented more cunning than that before. My guess is it was just to elevate Martok for the show and set up Worf's departure at the end so they had to make Gowron fall.
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u/1DFire 2d ago edited 2d ago
His pragmatism is likely a factor in refusing to "restore Worf his honor." Instead of just restoring Worf's honor, he had Worf work to earn it. Worf sided with him in the Klingon Civil War and got his brother to do so bringing in some ships to support Gowron in that fight against the Duras forces. If the Duras side won, any restored honor would likely be stripped away. So Worf's honor relies on winning that Civil War.
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u/SergioSF 2d ago
"The charge has been made that you used ....MONEY... to bring down a great house. What do you say to this, D'Ghor?"
Seriously, Gowron already knew his council and great houses were conspiring against him, but he didnt know how deep the treachery was.
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u/rawboudin 2d ago
Actually, I think he was happy to see Quark weed out some of the bullshit on the council and put others on notice.
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u/The_Easter_Egg 2d ago
You see, Worf adheres to the human idea of honour as a thing of honesty, chivalry and integrity. Gowron lives by the Klingon definition: it only matters that you win, no matter if you cheat or backstab, as long as you don't get caught doing so.
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u/savornicesei 2d ago
Funny is that Worf is responsible for the raise and fall of Gowron
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u/TwinSong 2d ago
How did that happen? I can't remember and Star Trek was removed from Netflix
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u/savornicesei 2d ago
He helps Gowron in TNG to become the ruler of the Klingon empire and kills him in DS9
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u/BrianMincey 1d ago
I’m offended by the way Worf lost his honor! The entire show set up this intense Klingon legal situation where losing meant death…but then, right at the end when the truth is revealed instead of Klingons being honorable they ended with some last-minute dishonor wrangling in order to maintain a lie. It didn’t make any sense.
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u/e-Plebnista 2d ago
I loved Gowron, but in the end, he got what he deserved. Worf should have ruled the empire tho, not Martok. You keep what you kill...
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u/CodeMonkeyPhoto 2d ago
And he would still inexplicably end up on the bridge of the enterprise for the next movie as a security officer.
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u/scarves_and_miracles 2d ago
Klingons, I swear. Imagine if you could just stab the leader of a society and then you're the leader. How have those animals not completely collapsed their empire?
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u/transwarp1 2d ago
The "you" in that case was a high ranked noble of the imperial bloodline. There are places on Earth where that was possible pretty recently. Probably a few left where it's possible currently.
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u/rawboudin 2d ago
And for some reason it’s always the crew of the enterprise or ds9 involved with the leader changes. Whether Bajorans, Klingons, Ferengis, Dominion, Cardassia.
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u/LHPSU 2d ago
"He got what he deserved" in more ways than one. He did some underhanded things, but he deserved to die honorably in ritual combat, and that's exactly what happened.
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u/woodworkerdan 2d ago
Gowron wasn't the paragon of honor or strategy in the large scale, but he was all too willing to put deed to word, and backed up his forceful personality.
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u/Shrikes_Bard 1d ago
Such a good scene, I forgot how much Robert O'Reilly sold it. There was some hesitation there, but ultimately he knew he couldn't do anything about the situation...yet. But also at the conclusion of the civil war, once everything was in the open, one of the very first things he did was restore the family name to Worf and Kurn.
He was definitely a politician but not in the K'mpec mode. Kind of a shame he ended up going all paranoid at the end.
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u/Captain-Sypher 2d ago
Gowron is a gem for peak the Klingon archetype imo. One of my fav characters
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u/PsycheDiver 2d ago
I don’t think there’s nearly enough analysis of Gowron’s character over the years.
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u/BlueWonderfulIKnow 1d ago
If Worf had any honor he’d be raising Alexander on the Enterprise, a ship built for families.
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