What Happened to the Klingons: the Untold Story
by: Get-Rude
(Who watched the orginal Star Trek series? You, and you, and you, ok hands down. Remember how the Klingons looked then? Dark skinned, bushy eyebrows, and goutees? Then in the third Star Trek movie they had ridges, yet still had facial hair, and were more aggressive. Then, the Klingons show up as they are now in Star Trek: Enterprise, when they should have looked like they did in the orginial series. What the hell happened? That's what the story is about.)
Ker-gon sat by the fire, deeply breathing in the smoke it put off. He had hunted the beast all day without much success, but he could heard it in the under brush. Yet it was too dark to go after it now, so he contented himself by humming a few bars from his favorite opera, whose title was long forgotten. He would have the targ in the morn, and feast upon it's heart while it was still warm.
Then he remembered the stories of old, when the Klingon would do no such thing, when there were no hunts, except for the great Tribble hunts. The days when a Klingon was barely different from Terrans from the Federation, and could pass for one with a minor cosmetic enhancement. But that was a 175 years ago, before the change, that no one in the Klingon Empire ever, ever spoke of.............
The Klingon empire was trying in vain to expand their empire (this was slightly before the time of Capt. Archer on the 1st Enterprise), this was before the cloaking device. Getting the cloaking device was a fluke (which Klingons don't believe), they came across a disabled Romulan ship that had been adrift. The ship had been on a covert mission near the empire, when the ship hit a cosmic filament. When the Klingons found it, the entire crew was dead or dying. Ok, in the end the entire crew was dead, thanks to a little Klingon help. They discovered the cloaking device, luckily the cloaking device hadn't been affected, so they studied it, and then mass reproduced it.
From this, the Klingon Empire grew, most planets in their sector didn't know what hit them, after the cloaking device was used on all of their ships. When they were done with one sector, they moved on to the next. The Empire was growing, it had doubled within a year.They were a force to be reckoned with, and those planets that didn't have phase canons, or any modern defenses, were easy prey. Yet the highest wrap speed at the time was wrap 3, so they weren't taking over everything at once. But they were doing a mathoughtical search, in a circuler pattern, starting from their farthest outpost.
But there was a planet called Corillia, about 15 light years out, who in some ways were more technologically advanced, mostly biomedically, who was to come into the Klingons line of sight within 5 years. They had just came into the warp capibility within the last 10 years, but nothing more than warp 1.5. The Corillians, came up with a plan, in hopes to save their planet. They would need to capture a Klingon, and do a DNA study. With that they would try to find a less aggressive gene, and come up with a retro-virus.
Unfortunately, the one and only Klingon they had managed to capture, was a scientist ( an oxymoron) doing a study of nebula gasses and their effects on the cloaking device, in a shuttle craft. They surrounded the craft in their pitiful 1.5 warp capable ships that LOOKED formitable and captured the scientist. They, of course, didn't realize their mistake, so they assumed all Klingons weren't as agressive as first thought. But this test subject was brillant, especially in Klingon standards, tho the Corillians were not aware of this. Hench, they did their DNA study, not taking in affect that not all Klingons were like this one.
So, after many months, they tested their retro-virus. Within a weeks time there was a noticeable change in the appearance and demeanor. The poor test subject, the scientist, de-evolved, his hair line receeded and he grew ridges on his forehead. The more ridges, the stupider and less aggressive the subject became, but the subject was never very aggressive to begin with. They assumed, the thicker the skull, the smaller the brain, which in their test subject was a huge IQ drop, the Klingons would loose the ability to fly their ships and save themselves from attack. But they never tested for retained knowledge, and that was underlying cause for their demise. So they sent their factories into mass production of the retro-virus, enough for 1 billion people, enough they thought, for the entire Klingon Empire. Then they had to figure out a way to deliver the virus, for maxium effect.
Since the shuttle craft was faster than their fastest space vechile, and less obvious, they decided to use the Klingon's craft. The Corillians packed every free space with the retro-virus canisters and probes to adminster it to planets within the empire. Since it was a Klingon craft, it could travel anywhere, which in, a way was the Klingons downfall, if you want to call it that. They counted on not being noticed by any passing Klingon vessel, but when one was passed and hailed the craft, they managed to send out an automated response. In which saved them in the long run, barely.
The Corillians followed the same path back that the orginial owner had taken, spreading the retro-virus to every settlement, every space station, every planet. All the way to Kronos, thanks to down loads from space stations and settlements, . The only ones not affected were those on ships in deep space, several hundred Klingons, in which it took 85 years before they met up with Capt. Kirk, and they were the only "true" Klingons left.
Much to the Corillians dismay, the Klingons didn't de-evolve as they had in the test subject, not like they waited around to see. They assumed the rest of the Klingons would do just like the test subject did. Boy, were they wrong! The test subject was never ready tested for what ready counted, his retained knowledge! SO...yes, the Klingon's de-evolved into something from about 90 generations ago, but not stupid, and way more aggressive than before with head ridges. The Klingon's became more animal like, but retained all their knowledge, hence within half the time the Corillians had estimated the Klingon attack, the Corillians were wiped out entirely.
Eventually, the last of the "true" Klingon's died out because they refused to mate with the mutants. The Great Kahless looked as the Klingons of old did, but the current species didn't know this. He was affected by the virus even tho he had been dead for centuries. The retro-virus had affected the blood sample left on the dagger, and when the priests clonned Kahless, he looked like Klingons of today that appeared to Lt. Worf. It's an embarassment to them, but in 90 generations, they will look like Terrans again. I think that would be a bigger embarassment than the retro-virus.
Ker-gon sighed. He was thankful, the Klingons of today were stronger, more passionate, and was more feared than any alien race except for the Borg. If he was a Klingon of the past, he wouldn't be on the hunt for the targ, he would be on a tribble hunt. He would have to kill a ton of them to eat, providing he could get past all the fur.......