tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Mar 15 23:11:43 2014
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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Last X and testament?
<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div>I respect the effort you are making here, though it still seems that you are confusing the idea that respect and reputation somehow translate into a last will and testament.</div><div><br></div><div>1. The actions of a living person survive their death. This has to do with the reputation of the House. As I said earlier, we follow Kahless because of his deeds, not because of his lineage, and certainly not because he wrote his wishes, so now, we are legally required to follow them. We aren’t.</div><div><br></div><div>2. The widow is a living person, responsible for maintaining something approaching continuity of leadership so that the reputation of the House can be maintained, even as the other half of the leadership changes. The widow is the only echo of the dead man remaining. If you kill the leader of a house, you don’t have to deal with the dead man’s wishes. You have to deal with the dead man’s wife. You deal with HER wishes. If you earn her respect, perhaps your wishes shall carry more weight than that of the man you defeated.</div><div><br></div><div>3. Again, the widow is the living person who still possesses anything relating to the House. A victor over the former leader has no claim to those possessions independent of the claims of the living widow. He must join with her in owning those possessions. The wishes of the dead live on only if the living widow shares those wishes.</div><div><br></div><div>4. The High Counsel is dealing once again with honor and reputation. Their role as you describe is that of judge within a meritocracy. Do you think that a dishonorable leader of a household can write out a list of who he wants to get his things when he dies and have his wishes legally protected? If he does not earn the respect of the High Counsel, he can’t even have his LIVING wishes fulfilled in terms of property. His possessions cease to be his, based upon the negative judgement of his merit.</div><div><br></div><div>5. There certainly is a legal system, though its focus is pretty clearly on honor and merit much more than on the protection of property beyond the finite boundary of life. It exists to punish criminal and dishonorable activity, and even to kill or imprison those who do not uphold the ideals of Klingon culture. That doesn’t imply that great pains will be taken to pass on the full measure of wealth from one who has died to one who has not earned that wealth. If you serve your House well and your father dies, the House will provide for you. This is for the sustainability of the House more than for the sustainability of you. If your father brought wealth to the House, it is in the interest of the House for you to have the resources to continue serving the reputation of the House.</div><div><br></div><div>When a House loses a leader, it does not become an entity ruled by a spirit. It gets a new leader. If there are no members capable of filling that role, the House falls. Its assets are forfeit for distribution to houses who have leaders. A dishonorable leader is not a leader in a meritocracy, and so, the Counsel can declare his leadership null and void, and so take his property, his soldiers and wealth.</div><div><br></div><div>It will not do so with the mere death of a leader for any House which has a new leader to replace the dead.</div><br><div>
<div><div>lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh</div><div>Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably</div></div><div><br></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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<br><div><div>On Mar 15, 2014, at 11:44 PM, Rohan Fenwick <<a href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected]</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div class="hmmessage" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div dir="ltr">ghItlhpu' lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh, jatlh:<div><div>> I really think that Klingon mentality is closer to, “Hmm. I really liked<br>> SarIS a lot before he died next to me in battle, but the battle’s over<br>> now, he’s dead, and those look like nice boots. I wonder if they are<br>> my size…” I mean, they probably wouldn’t fit is son, right?<br><br>I know it's tangential to your argument, but this is an instance where you're projecting Terran behaviour onto Klingon culture. It isn't just hale and hearty 20-something Klingons that are sent to be fighting soldiers; it is entirely possible that a Klingon who dies in battle has one or more adult children.<br></div><div><br></div><div>In any case, I've put forward a number of counterarguments, which I have tried to be very careful in constructing based primarily on canon:<br><br>1) We know that for Klingons, the actions of a living person survive their death: {qaStaHvIS wej puq poHmey vav puqloDpu' puqloDpu'chaj je quvHa'moH vav quvHa'ghach} "the dishonour of the father dishonours his sons and their sons for three generations" (TKW p.155). This is explicitly supported by the (non-canon) events by which Worf and Kurn are held responsible for the alleged treason of Mogh some twenty years after Mogh's death (TNG "The Sins of the Father").<br><br>2) We know that even the status of a living person survives their death: the {bIreqtal} ritual is "the ceremony in which the killer of the leader of a Klingon house marries the widow and thereby becomes the head of the house itself" (KGT p.11), which carries the clear implication that the death of the House leader does not immediately terminate all rights of his wife to continue to be recognised as a member of that House.<br><br>3) We know that wealth and status are both matters of inheritance: "[T]here are clear distinctions between those with great wealth and influence and those with little or none. This sort of status is a matter of inheritance" (KGT p.36). The passage about the {bIreqtal} also implies this: marriage to the widow of a deceased head of House seems to be a prerequisite of becoming the new head, indicating that the widow serves as a sort of caretaker head for inheritance purposes and the observance of the {bIreqtal} is necessary to transfer those rights to the new head.<br><br>4) We know that the High Council is capable of exercising jurisdiction over House property rights: "If the High Council determines an action to be dishonorable, not only may it remove the leader of a house from the Council itself, it may also seize the house's lands, forces, and other holdings" (KGT p.38). This is further supported by the (non-canon) instance of Quark's marriage to Grilka to protect her property rights until such time as she could seek intervention from the High Council (DS9 "The House of Quark").<br><br>5) We know that the Klingon legal system is relatively well-developed based on the existence of a not insignificant lexicon of legal terminology (bo'DIj, chut, DIb, ghIpDIj, Hat, mab, meqba', mub, qI'...), and we have actually seen a Klingon legal proceeding on-screen in a film for which Klingon dialogue was specifically created (ST6).<br><br>So to sum up: Klingons have a relatively well-developed legal system. The High Council is capable of exercising jurisdiction over House property rights. Presumably the High Council acts within Klingon law to exercise such jurisdiction. Thus, Klingon law probably has at least some conception of, and jurisdiction over, property rights. House holdings and property are a matter of inheritance, and so Klingon law probably has at least some conception of, and jurisdiction over, inheritance. The actions and status of a living person are capable of surviving their death, at least for some purposes. Presumably lawful and honourable orders given by a living person, which are actions by definition, also survive death. Thus, a living person should be capable of giving lawful and honourable orders - including with regard to the distribution of their property - that remain valid after the person themselves has died.<br><br>Again, it isn't a corpse that gives the orders. It's a body in whom a {qa'} dwells, and in Klingon conception the {qa'} survives the death of its {porgh}. If a {qa'} has given orders, the death of the {porgh} which the {qa'} inhabits should have no bearing on the validity of the orders of the {qa'}.<br><br>taH:<br><br>> We are Klingons, not Ferengi. Accumulating wealth and passing it on<br>> to generations based upon birth and not merit is not an honorable<br>> path.<br><br>To this I have two counterarguments:<br><br>1) Even if you are right, why does inheritance necessarily need to be about birth? Why can't it be about merit, even in a system whereby wills exist? If I were a Klingon ship's captain, why can't I choose to record a will leaving my entire estate to my long-serving second-in-command who has served me intelligently and honourably?<br><br>2) You say that it is not honourable to pass wealth on to generations based upon birth and not merit, yet the whole House system, and everything we know about it, runs counter to your argument. Klingon society is heavily stratified (KGT p.36), and such stratification normally arises only in societies with social institutions for perpetuating inequality of wealth. Although we don't know the Klingon term for it (and indeed Klingons may simply refer to it with a phrase rather than a special lexeme), I contend that one of those institutions in Klingon society may well be something with enough similarity to a will that we would recognise it as such, especially given that (as I argue above) what we know about Klingon law implies at least a certain degree of legal codification of property rights and consequently of rights to inherit such property.<br><br>taH:<br>> This is not our culture. Language and culture are of the same root.<br><br>Absolutely agreed, but for the very reason that it *isn't* our culture, we need to be able to base our arguments on something rather than just make assertions. That's what I've tried to do here: to show, based on cultural and linguistic evidence, Klingons probably have legally enshrined protections for inheritance matters and one of those protections may involve something akin to what we call a will.<br><br>In any event, it still wasn't my initial intention to argue Klingons have such things as wills - only to ask how a Klingon might describe the Terran concept - but never mind; spirited exchange can lead to unexpected places. :)<br><br>QeS<br></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>Tlhingan-hol mailing list<br><a href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected]</a><br><a href="http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol";>http://mail.kli.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol</a></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>_______________________________________________
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