tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 19 08:39:29 1999
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RE: No place like the Homeworld!
- From: Carleton Copeland <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: No place like the Homeworld!
- Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 19:40:39 +-400
QInwIj bojangDI' tuquvmoH!
jatlh quljIb:
>Unvaried terrain suggests to me one of two things: either the Homeworld is geologically very old or very inactive. Unvaried terrain also breeds unvaried cultures; compare the steppes of Russia with the mountainous Balkans. Hardly Klingon no matter which way you look at it.
Do we know much about /Qo'noS ghor/? puSlaw' Qo'noS Daqmey DISovbogh. Hamar HuDmey, ngeng lurSor, nomat DIS je DISovbej. There would have to be a /bIQ'a'/ for /norgh/ to swim in, and the legendary Kri'stak Volcano would indicate some geologic activity. But how do we know what these words mean to a Klingon? Are /HuDmey/ more like the Himalayas or the Poconos? Is /biQ'a'/ a Pacific Ocean or a Black Sea?
Far be it from me to suggest that /tlhingan tayqeq/ is undiversified or monolithic. I think what appeals to me most about the whole Klingon experience is that it is Star Trek's most elaborate effort to flesh out an alien culture. I get so tired of all those planets with *a* capital city and *a* leader. That said, though, I wonder what's so un-Klingon about a *relatively* uniform planetary culture based on honor, warrior values, and of course /tlhingan Hol/.
For all we know, Qo'noS may indeed have produced its own Eskimos, Zulus, Navajos, and Polynesian islanders, not to mention thousands of radically divergent languages, belief systems, and social forms, but even so, these would likely have been intensively assimilated during the fifteen hundred years that the planet has been united under one ruling culture, language, ideology, etc. At least the Klingons we know and love don't seem particularly tolerant of cultural diversity. The /Hur'Iq yot/, I suppose, would have further unified the planet (if this was actually a full-scale invasion rather than an easily hushed-up raiding party that made off with a few relics).
Funny you should mention the Russian steppes, because I've always thought of qeylIS as precisely a kind of Klingon Genghis Khan, whose warriors conquered something very like a planetary empire, using the wide-open Eurasian steppes as a vast transit corridor. If the Mongols hadn't halted their advance into Europe and had somehow managed to hold their empire together, who knows? We might all be Turkic-speaking Moslems with Oriental eyes (lots of Russians have them).
qa'ral