STO Season 20 House Divided
"Unending Klingon: Regulatory Reticle"
The Negh'Tev-class I.K.S. Kragoth wrangled inexplicably through space until coming to a complete stop. It rendezvoused with the Sojourner-class U.S.S. Viracocha.
"Why are you flying through warp like that?" Captain Aeris, a human and Starfleet officer, asked from her ship via viewscreen. "It must be all spindly and dizzying."
Captain Menchez, a Klingon and Klingon Defense Force officer, sat at his command chair aboard his vessel. "Honestly, we've been at this for so long, any maneuver that derives stimuli is more than welcome."
"Sir, to be honest, I have not looked at my console while using it for weeks!" Lieutenant Kinna admitted from the helm in pure unadulterated fear of her own failings.
The elderly man nodded in approval of the Klingon woman’s folly before he was cut off by Aeris again. "Nevermind that! We have the prisoner, J'Ula's bald cousin Dova'ch, of House Mo'Kai. After his attempt to commandeer a Federation starship, he spent some time being mind-erased of any sensitive information by our never-talked-about Romulan branch."
"What do you even have to hide? The secrets of soft pillows and comforting conversation?" Menchez criticized. "Seems like you guys are always trying too hard. Anyway, just send him back to us, so my crew can all take turns snarling at him. Our teeth have been anxious to bare for a month! And doing it to each other is just weird. Like, dating a Talaxian weird.”
---
Later, the Kragoth was back to warp, and Menchez and a few of his crew stood around a seated and wrist-clasped Dova'ch in the ship's Conference room.
"Talk! Who started the first Klingon war at the Battle of the Binaries!" RaeLuna, a half-human/green-alien and the First officer, snapped.
Dova'ch squirmed. "It was Michael Burnham just for the sake of meaningless drama and action when nobody asked! Ahh!"
"Commander, that was 155 years ago. Stop trying to learn our history through word-of-mouth," Menchez diverted his subordinate. "You are being one of those ancient-hipsters, which was revolutionary in their time, but now old."
The bald Klingon in the chair looked up at his captors. "Don't listen to your petaQ of a Captain. Old is still relevant. The House of Mo'Kai will combine old and new, supreme, and you will all fall into shambles!"
"Honestly, what's the difference between you or any other Klingon Great House on the High Council?" Ulkegh, the Operations manager and a Klingon, parsed. "The point is for a functioning government and a stable economy and we already have one?"
Dova'ch spat. "Yes, but none of you have the high-resolution darkness and severe gravitas of our hardcore, flesh-eating multi-coloured Kahleesssshhhhh love."
"Ugh. Just, please stop saying it like that," Vato, the Tactical officer and a Klingon, necessitated. "We already had a thoroughly developed mythos, accent, look and feel, and you guys just ignored that, shaved your heads and tried to reboot out of what I can only surmise was pure ignorance."
The prisoner tried to spit again, but was out. "You killed a franchise with a terrible budget! The Defense Force one, I mean." He continued, "We brought upon new interest and cultivated a heavy subscription base!"
"Uh, yeah, history records there was a subscription to weekly Federation-hate-rationalizing speeches," Kinna clarified. "I agree, the Humans are soft-Targ-jelly in gagh paste, but to immediately jump to deception through their declaring of peace was conclusion-jumping ignorance of the highest order even for a Klingon."
Dova'ch tried to break free from his chair. "You dare counter your own elderly, grandfatherly, ancestor from days gone yore!? J'Ula brought us forward in time and I promise I will use my presence to guilt-trip you all into submission! Mo'Kai is Kahlesssshhh!!"
"Honestly, I'm not sure why I keep inviting my entire crew into interrogations," Menchez questioned before turning back to Dova'ch. "Also, relax. We're handing you back to your house. You see, your over-dramatization of pretty much everything would drive today's Klingons, even the Rura Penthe prison guards, into Riker-Frame-of-Mind-levels of madness."
Barret, the Chief engineer and a Klingon, shuddered in revulsion. "Or, Kahless-forbid, Commodore-Decker-levels."
---
The Kragoth dropped warp and was then met with the Ba'ul sentry vessel Kaleidoscope. A handcuffed Dova'ch was brought to the Bridge, where Menchez's crew took their stations.
"What the Grethor? This is supposed to be a known Mo'Kai meeting spot.” Menchez observed. "They have a book club on Wednesdays and were recently reviewing Klingon Hamlet."
Dova'ch nodded. "taH pagh taHbe'! That means 'To be or not to be'. Look at me, translating Klingon for other Klingons." He chuckled. "What next, discussing our secret shame, the Augment virus? We all know about it."
"Sir, these vessels are from 154 years ago, so they should pose no threat," Ulkegh asserted. "Just like the Kelvin Timeline Constitutions and the Crossfields."
Menchez was taken aback. "Are you kidding me? Those are all T6'd like they matter now! Nothing makes sense anymore!"
"Oh, I assure you, the significance of these is quite relevant," Dova'ch asserted. "For, you see, I've allied with a Ba'ul to further my advantage in this new century! His sentry mode will automate drone vessels patrolling any sector to assist."
Everyone watched as ten more obelisk shaped Ba'ul ships dropped warp and positioned themselves in an upright stance, surrounding the Kaleidoscope so it could harness their power.
"So, what you're saying is, there are Ba'ul ships in every sector of space, just waiting to be called upon at a moment's notice?" Vato asked, genuinely curious. "And their only way to fare old tech vs new tech competitiveness is to stack their power?"
Dova'ch stood up from his seat in triumph. "Exactly! If one isn’t enough, you pile ten more on and see if that works! Hahaha!"
"Please do not perform a Demi Lovato victory dance," begged RaeLuna.
Before her request could be unilaterally denied by the ambitiously bald Kling-orc, the House Mo'Kai Qugh-class battlecruiser Descent dropped warp to everyone’s collective chagrin.
"This is Hin'jagh of the House everybody loves to hate! Just because some of us like killing without honour, suddenly we're ‘the bad Klingons’," Hin'jagh generously air-quoted from the view screen.
Menchez stepped forward. "We are literally here to hand this Sa'Hut right back to you guys in an effort to avoid having any more to do with you."
"Enough of this white noise contention! You will indulge in Mo'Kai out-group debauchery because we have just the same right to exist as any of the many, many versions of Klingon!" And then, “Many.”
The Captain rolled his eyes. "That's just apologist justification and backward reboot bias."
"You're splitting hairs, Menchez!" countered Dova'ch. "In this case, non-hairs. You see, I cannot wait to further our maddening, high-rage velocity, now with blood wine barrels, head-butting appreciation, and songs of victories in battle!"
Hin'Jagh blinked on screen. "What are you talking about, Dova'ch? We don't do any of that. It's holo-communications, corpse bedazzling hulls or bust!"
"It would not harm us to try the pain stick ceremony, or a Federation exchange program, or perhaps a Dominion war camp where we take down Jem'Hadar after Jem'Hadar," Dova'ch interjected. "There is much hardcore edge to us, that we can afford to facilitate what I believe would be adaptation into this century."
The other bald Klingon regurgitated. "Like colossal piles of Ba'ul towers and starship holo conversions into giant targs?? You did those. You!"
"The Federation did have a go at Wiki-editing this Kling-orc's mind of late," Menchez evoked. "Perhaps the nullifying effect has now decayed extravagance into generic 25th century Klingon conducts?"
Hin'Jagh spat from a heavy reserve. "The absorption into the future is the extravagance! It's just another form of it. What's next? A slew of half-Klingon, half-Human hybrids with attitudes?? Mo'Kai will have no more to do with this man or any of his out-of-lock box thinking!"
"Competition is nothing if we do not evolve into Klingon one-liners and terrible single-fathering stacked with custom hyperbole-infused monologues and multi-cloned offspring!" Dova'ch announced before the Kaleidoscope powered up its Ba'ul ship-dressed antiproton beam at both the Kragoth and a heavier one at the Descent.
Everyone, on each ship, were thrown down in momentary chaos and Dova'ch was transported off the Kragoth and onto the Ba'ul vessel.
"Captain! Forward shields went down for 10 seconds," Vato reported from his console. "The Descent has sustained severe damage and the Kaleidoscope is going to warp."
The screen split to show the Ba'ul vessel and its friends popcorn out of normal space on one side, and on the other, a roughed up Hin'Jagh climbing his upper body onto a console.
"That Yintagh is going to tell J'Ula on us! This is just like the time he make-shifted a barrel of petrified Suliban into a monkey rope!"
Menchez widened his eyes to near-Gowron levels. "I did not know you could do that."
"This is a single Klingon with ideas against a brute-force species with massively wrinkled fore and back heads like never seen before. We are not here to be thinkers or tell good stories. He could destroy our entire house if he spreads a habit of musing and layered characterization," Hin'jagh argued.
The elder Klingon shook his head. "Everyone evolves. We change to adapt. It doesn't matter what that change entails, so long as it ensures survivability. Dova'ch's actions here today are not to destroy your house, but rather strengthen it."
"You dare philosophize us!" the Mo'Kai commander yelled. "Engineering! Get the Jiffy Pop Drive back online and prepare to go full pop!"
The Descent buckled down on repairs, leaving the Kragoth to stew in its House Mo'Kai engagement.
"Fascinating," Menchez surmised. "I believe we are witnessing the amendment of the old-type of Klingon to the new. Indeed, it was an Augment Virus that changed them physically and then back again, but something must have changed them mentally. Perhaps all they needed was inspiration."
RaeLuna perked. "So, they're Canon after all?" And then, to explain, "Canon is the name of a commercial brand of Earth photography equipment that I am serving as an analogy for differing versions of things requiring validation."
"I like it!" the old Captain snapped as he made his way to the back of the Bridge. "Everything we do is Canon. To that, I am off to take a dip in the bloodwine pool on Deck 7 that every Klingon ship has. Qapla'!"
The Bridge crew replied in solidarity, "Qapla'!"
