How might SNW explain the physiology of the Klingons that have ridged foreheads versus the smooth foreheads that come from the failed augment experiment in ENT? A refresher: during the run of ENT, Klingons attempted to replicate the experiment of Human Augments. It ends up failing, which results in the physiology of the population changing, thus giving a in-universe explanation for why the makeup in TOS varies from how they appear TMP and onward.
How might SNW address this bit of lore? TOS takes place during 2265-2269. SNW first episode “Strange New Worlds” is 2259, six years prior. We already know Klingons with ridged foreheads exist thanks to DIS. We even see some during “The Broken Circle”. Might one possible way of explaining the change be a shift in the military and/or political factions of the Empire that lead to more of the smooth foreheads Klingons dominating?
I’ll stand by the position that the Enterprise augment virus arc was an error, and the “explanation” for Klingon ridges is the same one you should use for the bridge of the Enterprise looking like it was cobbled together from plywood and plastic beads. This issue was best left to Worf’s lampshade in DS9 Trials & Tribleations.
It’s really interesting which visual differences humans will accept unthinkingly and which we will demand answers for. The Klingon ridges thing comes up constantly, but I have yet to see anyone earnestly ask why all the characters in Lower Decks have huge eyes and unnaturally uniform coloration, or why hand phaser beams in TOS go so much more slowly than later phasers and why everyone agrees to stay really still while they are being fired.
I feel they already have; the Klingon bridge crew from the musical episode appeared as TNG-ridged.
Truly a subtly unretconning of the Klingon look without even addressing it.
I think with Disco S1 they attempted a reset that didn’t work. They all looked the same. Nobody really liked it. So they reverted to giving them hair and there’s a throwaway line in S2 by Burnham that’s tantamount to admitting failure by the show runners. And then we don’t hear anything about it again. My guess is SNW will continue with ridged Klingons and just never explain it.
If they really wanted to go into canon, you could say there was the augment era during ENT, then they fixed their ridges with a hypospray, and then just before SNW reaches TOS times, there was a recurrence of the augment craze on Qronos. Or a COVID like virus escaped from a lab. It would be odd because all the characters we know from TOS never comment on this oddity - Spock, Kirk, Uhura have all seen ridged Klingons, then the smooth kind, and then ridged again in the movies. But stranger plot points have been ignored in Trek. Borg Queen anyone?
With the Borg Queen they have never explained if the different actors are all the same character or different iterations of the Queen.
I think that’s my point. With PIC S2 we even get a second version of the Borgs. What’s that all about? And then dropped and never discussed again. None of it is really reconcilable. They haven’t explained it because they can’t get out of corners they write themselves into. The Klingons are just another dishonorably unfortunate corner.
The smoothening virus, as per Phlox, would eventually be bred out of the Klingons. Kang, Koloth and Kor had plastic surgery to restore their ridges. From this, I could only assume that the writers might show a smooth forehead Klingon and give a character, probably a young one, a throwaway line to pay a little fan service.
I really enjoy the lengths that the writers go to connect the many decades of Trek. It just proves that they are nerds themselves, as it should be.
That would work if SNW came after TOS. But in DIS and SNW we’ve seen ridges. But no direct mention of the events of “Affliction”. So by the late 2260s, why would a majority of those alive exhibit one singular trait that is considered a defect and suddenly disappear after 2270?
EDIT: If both groups of Klingons always exist side-by-side then writers would likely want to make it clear in dialogue. I think they should.
I believe this was addressed in an interview somewhere where the Disco writers said they planned to go with Rodenberry’s desire to “pretend the Klingons were always like that” and ignore the Enterprise lore completely. Let me see if I can find it.
EDIT: It was Ted Sullivan in 2017 in an interview with Wired.
That was a great read, thanks.
Kinda surreal to read about disco without also reading about disappointment.
Wildest part is how good it sounded at the time:
“Things are at a fever pitch right now, I believe we can all agree. The devastation, the oppression, the genocide, the division around the world, I think it has reached a fever pitch, and I absolutely think that it’s causing people to lose hope in a lot of ways,” she says. “So yes, I think people are looking for something to hold onto, they’re reaching and grasping for glimmers wherever they may find them. It’s why I feel so honoured and blessed to be a storyteller, number one, and to be telling this story, because I believe it speaks to that. I believe seeing this utopian future, even with its challenges, is incredibly, incredibly hopeful and inspiring.”
Here is a lot idea just tell a good story and gloss over that stuff remember Klingon’s don’t talked about it with outsiders and that includes the viewers.sorry forgot what com this was carry on
