The polygon and texture-map budgets were too low in the original holodeck sims to support full details. Have to maintain maximum compatibility with all the colonies, you know. Eventually the next-gen holodecks were widespread enough that they could update the character models. Wait till you see the latest sims with full “pore” support!
Remember the TNG episodethat stated that many humanoid races were seeded by an ancestor race, and thus have compatible DNA.
The ancestor race eventually evolved to become the Founders of the Dominion.
When was that established? The ancient gene-seeder and the most-often-seen Founder were played by the same actress, but I’m not aware of any established in-universe connection.
Heck, by that standard, every species in the galaxy has a Jeffrey Combs phenotype.
No, it’s only fanon, not canon. But there’s nothing in canon to contradict it either (although it does seem like the sort of thing the Founders would’ve endless brought up to justify their actions).
The only ‘basis’ for that notion is that Salome Jens played both the (holographic) Ancient Humanoid, and the Female Changeling. So, pretty dumb.
Apart from the fact that the AHs and their progeny are, you know, “solid” humanoids, and the Changelings are liquid beings from a completely different part of the galaxy.
Kind of like there’s nothing in canon to contradict the idea that tribbles are the ancestors of whales.
It’s established (as of the finishing of the sentence that I am now writing) that Vulcans originated on a planet called Middle Earth, but they weren’t Elves, which would be too obvious - they are descended from Dwarves!
Can’t prove me wrong!
Wow!
It all makes sense now!
Having your moon explode kind of does that to an empire.
Bryan Eckers wrote:“Heck, by that standard, every species in the galaxy has a Jeffrey Combs phenotype.”
And a Vaughn Armstrong one as well.
Must have missed that ep – when did the Klingon homeworld’s moon explode?
Star Trek VI (The Undiscovered Country)
Brian
Yup. STVI opens with the explosion of the Klingon moon, the collapse of their economy, and severe damage to their ecosystem. It’s implied that it’s essentially destabilized the Empire to a tremendous degree, and is the main reason they suddenly want peace with the Federation.
…and also a handy stand-in/allegory for the Fall of Communism, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Which, considering the Klingons were intended to be Space Commies all along…
Klingons always seemed to be angry and uncooperative even among themselves. How could they coordinate an empire like that? i always thought that was the least convincing thing on star trek.
Hell, give Klingons someone to FIGHT, and they’ll cooperate just fine. But I do remember an old CD ROM game where you play a Klingon, and you are sent to take a station on the bridge of a ship.
When you get there, there are no open bridge stations. What do you do?
The correct answer: Find someone who’s not doing his job properly, knock the crap out of him, and take over…
They may have some untermenschen to run stuff for them. Pretty effective when you can execute the Secretary of Agriculture or the Secretary of the Treasury. 
In the Star Fleet Battles tabletop game, Klingon ships had “security stations” onboard their ships. In that game, the majority of the ships crews were conscripted lesser species (from worlds conquered by the Empire) performing the non-glorious tasks of keeping the ship working. The Klingons themselves were all officers (in command roles).
Mm-hm. And one of the Klingons’ perennial problems was that if you lost your security stations, the untermenschen would rebel, and possibly cripple the ship… which is totally a thing you don’t want happening in the middle of a ship battle.
It’s worth noting that the Star Fleet Battles universe has kind of spun off into its own non-canon thing, now.
That is a circumstance which many empires in history somehow managed to survive for centuries.