30

How exactly do the Klingons justify using cloaking ships, a strategy which necessarily involves sneaking up on an enemy and catching them unaware? Wouldn't sneak attacks conflict with their notion of honour?

all 8 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Jestersage@startrek.website 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A while back I am also thinking of this question, which led me to think about Klingon Honor, which led me to think of the meta origin of Klingon's Honor comes from Samurai's honor... which resemble "face"

From there, I posted the version 1 of how Klingon Honor is a Mistranslation of Face in here: https://startrek.website/post/432321

Version 2 is at reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/158nyup/klingon_honor_itself_is_a_mistranslation_both_in/. It's far more refined.

TLDR: Klingon doesn't have Honor; they have "face" (due to meta reason of translating "face" to Honor). If you think about face, even cheating is allow; and if you consider cloaking is a type of cheating, then it's not against face. Oh, and a society that focus on face will inevitablely have a high level of corruption dominated by those in power, be it China, Korea, or Klingon.

[-] JWBananas@startrek.website 8 points 1 year ago

Winning is the most honorable thing a Klingon can do.

[-] WintLizard@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago

Is it dishonorable for an Owl to strike down a mouse, snatching it before it has any chance to react? I would say no. You could see the tactics of a Klingon Bird of Prey in the same way.

[-] bouh@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

To add to the other comments, honour is a notion that only ever hold among peers. You respect a peer with honor, but a lesser one doesn't deserve honours. A honourable knight is buried with the honours, but a lowly peasant isn't. A knight doesn't have any trouble running down a peasant with its horse. But against a knight he will go down from his horse to fight his honourable peer.

There is an idea of valour in this. When you fight someone of equal value, then resorting to easy tactic doesn't prove your worth against him, you merely used a loser tactic. But against someone you and everyone know is lower, no one care, you're already doing him the honour by merely fighting him. A lower enemy doesn't deserve a honourable fight.

This concept of value and how honour only apply to someone of equal or higher value is important to understand.

Applied to Klingons, they would be stupid to not use a technology like stealth. The question is whether they use it among themselves in fights where honour is a matter.

Oh indeed there are situations where honour doesn't matter. If you need to kill a whole family (for matters of bloodline and right to a crown for example) then you'll deal with honour later.

[-] Cleverdawny@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

By killing anyone who says they're dishonorable?

[-] T156@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

How exactly do the Klingons justify using cloaking ships, a strategy which necessarily involves sneaking up on an enemy and catching them unaware? Wouldn’t sneak attacks conflict with their notion of honour?

As another Klingon points out, the only honour is in victory.

The Klingon code of honour is pretty flexible, and there seem to be a lot of different interpretations of it. Some more dogmatic Klingons, like Worf, might find it dishonourable, and avoid cloaking if they can, but there are other Klingons who are less adherent to tradition, and would freely make use of cloaking as they wished.

this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
30 points (100.0% liked)

Daystrom Institute

3444 readers
7 users here now

Welcome to Daystrom Institute!

Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.

Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.

Rules

1. Explain your reasoning

All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.

2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.

This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.

3. Be diplomatic.

Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.

4. Assume good faith.

Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”

5. Tag spoilers.

Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.

6. Stay on-topic.

Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.

Episode Guides

The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS