I take issue with that. We are discussing the way I interpret Klingon culture, not my prejudices.
I am Margaret Meade, not George Wallace. 
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus The thing that always annoyed me about Klingons was their language. They were always using it, sometimes in a way that was clearly intended to communicate without others knowing what they were saying (happened in DS9 a few times) - what, was the universal translator programmed not to translate Klingon or something? It’s universal! That’s why all races speak English. The writers seemed to forget this whenever they were dealing with the Klingons.[/QUOTE]
On one occasion, Dax was speaking to a bunch of Klingons. One of them addressed her with a term of endearment in the Klingon language. She then translated the term into English for the benefit of the other Klingons. :rolleyes:
I always thought, with great exception, that Klingons assimilated territory, not people. There were always two classes in the Klingon empire: Klingons and non-Klingon subjects. Klingons, of course, were subject to their own societal structures, however, they were not all warriors. I always looked at them as a caste society with special attention given to the warrior caste.
Really, how do we know we never saw any conquered alien races? In the eyes of a Klingon, would humans be readily distinguishable from Vulcans, or Bajorans? They’re practically identical in appearance except for vanishingly minor variations in facial structure. So maybe the Klingons tend to favor the conquest of alien races with great huge skull ridges. Every so-called “Klingon” not explicitly identified as such onscreen could theoretically be a member of these subjugated species.
In TOS they were only shown invading and trying to directly control one planet (Errand of Mercy) in every other appearance where they involved themselves in the goings on of a planet, they were merely trying to assert control by proxy (Friday’s Child, The Trouble With Tribbles, A Private Little War, Elaan of Troyius.)
IIRC The episode “Day of the Dove” makes reference to Klingon planets being poor, which I always took to mean lacking in material resources. So perhaps the Klingons are more interested in trying to extend their influence to gain beneficial trade agreements.
My guess is that by the time of The Undiscovered Country, they’ve over stretched themselves and their strong central government has collapsed somewhat, so the government is reduced to making agreements with those elements of its society that have looked after themselves to keep the Empire as a whole fairly strong.
Either that or the loss in prestige and esteem has left Klingons looking for anything to restore their power as a race or individuals and the honour system gives them that opportunity.
In TOS, the Klingons don’t have brow ridges. In one of the feature films – Generations, I think – the NG crew travel back in time and meet a group of smooth-browed Klingons. Picard looks sidelong at Worf, who curtly states, “We do not talk about it.” Never did figure out what was the backstory there. Something to do with a subject race rebelling?
That was the Deep Space Nine episode, Trials and Tribulations.
A perfect excuse for the fan wank ridges, it was egregiously explained in a time wasting Enterprise episode.
Quark also marries into a Klingon house at one point and is able to inherit their lands and whatever, and while the other Klingons aren’t thrilled, it does appear that other species can legally assimilate themselves into Klingon cultural institutions (assuming they can survive all the numerous fights to the death such an assimilation involves).
Also, didn’t the Klingons conquer a bunch of Cardassian planets during DS9? I think it was a plot-arch that got abandoned after a half season in favor of the Dominion invasion.
Although that was temporary as I recall, after he whacked a very inebriated Klingon in his bar, quite by accident, you make a valid point. Your second point though concerning “numerous fights to the death” is also well taken, and I rest mine with it. I don’t believe most aliens would survive assimilation.
Assimilation in the social sense, not the Borgian.
They did indeed, but the Klingon/Cardassian (and indeed Klingon/Federation) war was part of the Dominion invasion plot arc, it wasn’t “abandoned”.
The Klingons attacked the Cardassians because a) they thought the Cardassians had be overtaken by founders (due to the government coup that occurred) and b) because one of the top generals in the Klingon government WAS a founder and was trying to destabilise relations between the main Alpha quadrant powers. The war went extremely badly for the Cardassians and eventually the Dominion gained a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant by allowing the Cardassians to join them as a client state. As a result of this the Klingons were summarily expelled from Cardassian space and forced to make peace with the Federation and rebuild their alliance to resist further attacks by the Dominion. This happened over the course of series 4 and most of series 5. The Dominion/Federation war didn’t occur until the very end of series 5 (the finale).
God I’m such a geek…
“Whacked?” Is that what they’re calling it these days?
<hand waving>
I suspect the the UT technology is sophisticated enough to distinguish when the speaker is speaking to you, and when he/she is not. If you’re the person being addressed, it translates for you; if you’re not, it doesn’t. It’s been a while since I’ve watched an episode, but I seem to recall any number of times when the shipboard UT functioned as long as the alien on the main viewer was facing the screen and obviously speaking to the Enterprise bridge crew, but stopped working if the alien turned to to speak to one of his own crew members.
Alternatively, perhaps there were universally accepted and understood gestures that would instruct the UT to stop/resume translating.
</hand waving>
What I’ve never understood is why the UT couldn’t make Ferengi pronounce “human” correctly. No other race consistently mispronounced it. The only explanation I’ve been able to devise is that the Ferengi were actually using the English word “human”, so the UT simply let it through as spoken, mispronunciation and all, whereas most of the other races used their own word for “human”, which the UT duly translated into the correctly-pronounced English word.
I believe Al Capone used the term, but he was of course from Chicago, so if you object we can use “snuffed”, “terminated” or perhaps the more appropriate Ferengi term, “Paid His Debt In Full”.
One would think that even with the limited military aspect of Star Fleet :rolleyes: that one would want the UT to tell you what the Other Guy was saying to his crew.
There may be some belief in SF, however that “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail” or some such thing, although I would think Scotty, Riker and Sisko at least would have altered some circuitry in that case.
Ah, I thought you were using “whacked” as a euphemism for some other activity with a drunk Klingon that might result in a forced marriage.
They like it rough, I hear.
412 Rule of Acquisition: “There is no profit in sex with someone who will kill you when they are sober.”
Actually, Worf recounts that the male reads poetry to the female Klingon while she throws furniture at him.
On the other hand, K’Lar does tease Worf, “What, no bite for old times sake?”
You forget: The male also ducks often. 
It’s also possible that the Klingons are maybe using two languages: Conversational Klingon and Military Klingon, the latter being something specifically intended not to be translated by the UT.
I mean, I can talk to a few of my friends in English, using the mix of Air Force and Army jargon we’ve picked up since enlisting (much of it seemingly random combinations of letters and numbers), and sound like we’re speaking greek to another group of my friends. And I understand that many organizations have actual codes that they use to conceal what they are saying from listeners, ranging from Germany’s Ultra Code to the various weird pig-latin-esque stuff that kids do from time to time.
I think any further attempts to explain the, how shall we say, haphazard performance of the universal translator will simply dissolve into greater and greater instances of fanwaking which I respectfully decline to do.
Yup. In a rare-for-TOS example of continuity, Klingon opportunities for direct conquest were restricted following the events in Errand of Mercy, when the Organians made them clean up their act; further shenanigans had to be discreet.