Has anyone ever successfully explained why Klingons and other aliens look so much different now than in the Original Series?? Did anyone ever make a big deal about this during SNG’s first season? The only thing I can recall being said was from a DS9 episode. Warf says ‘Don’t ask, we don’t like to talk about it’. Or something like that.
Anyone know what’s up??
Great!! Wrong freaking forum…
i believe that ds9 had a trouble with tribble time warp thing. one of the ds9 folk asked worf what happened. he said " we don’t talk about it." i believe it was some sort of horrible accident thing that genetically altered all kligons.
Since there was never an actual answer given in the series, I can’t throw it to General Questions. So we’ll just make a slight adjustment.
What is your theory as to the difference between the ST Klingons and the NG Klingons?
It was Q’s fault.
Whatever it was, it must have happened sometime between TOS and Star Trek VI, in which (IIRC) the Klingons were new-style. It has been many years since I saw any of those movies, but weren’t they driving a Klingon bird-of-prey in ST IV? There must have been Klingons in that one, but I don’t remember what they looked like.
One theory I read was that Klingons, like humans, have a number of different races. At the time of the original Star Trek series, the smooth headed race controlled the Klingon Empire. In the time between the original series and the Next Generation, there was a massive uprising and the lumpy headed race took over. I’ll admit I don’t recall where I read this or if it was an “official” source.
Problem with that theory is that several Klingons appeared in both the original series and in later series (notably DS9), namely Kang and Koloth. In TOS, they were smooth foreheaded, in DS9, they were bumpy-brained.
My theory is that somehow an experiment with time-travel went wrong, and altered the history of the entire Klingon species. Note that not only do they look different, but the original Klingons were amoral totalitarians, whereas now they have all these scruples about “honor”.
Geek time.
In ST:IV the Bird of Prey (Botnay Bay) was leftover from ST:3. Kirk & crew beam over, and blow the Enterprise up with most of the Klingon crew on it, to keep it out of Klingon hands.
No explination is ever given, aside from Worf’s in “Trials and Tribblations”. Of course, even if both races knew each other, they didn’t recognise Worf as being Klingon. 
i’m sure someone will come up with an explination sooner or later.
I found a quote the other day (whilst looking for a translation from a friend’s comment on my leaving card…can you believe that I found klingon to icelandic translation of it in 5 minutes, but couldn’t find a decent, non-dead icelandic-english dictionary anywhere on the web?) - anyway the other quote that I found whilst searching was a klingon insult - “your mother has a smooth head”. Make of that what you will (I guess the father smelling of elderberries isn’t really relevant here…)
Why? The original series didn’t have enough money for prosthetics. They tried to keep things cheap - salt shakers as diagnostic devices, transporters to reduce the number of sets, etc. No regular aliens seen were very different. TNG had more bucks.
[ul]
[li]Kahless was bumpy-headed (from TNG)[/li][li]TOS Klingons weren’t[/li][li]Since “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” on, they have been bumy-headed[/li][/ul]
And since some of the TOS Klingons have re-appeared being bumpy-headed, it strikes me that it was some sort of covert medical experiment on the Klingon military in the 23rd century. When it was stopped, those experimented on regrew their natural bumps.
lets face it. ST:TOS has more inconsistencies in it than the KJV of the NT. So if the old smooth-headed Klingons worry you, the new bumpy-headed Klingons disturb you, don’t worry. It’s only TV.
Ah, but Kahless appeared in TOS (along with Lincoln, the guy who founded the Vulcan’s school of Logic-above-all, and a few others) with a smooth head.
Ah, but that Kahless was created from an image in Kirk’s mind. Since the only Klingons he had met had smooth heads, his mental image of Kahless had a smooth head as well.