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 Kroem wrote:
Gul Dukat. Tenatious, resourceful, erudite; there was a lot to love about the character. Of course as a 'baddie' he was never destined to win, but the writers really seemed to take pleasure in torturing him.
Multiple major career setbacks, disowned by his family and Cardassian society, daughter murdered by his closet friend, driven to madness by the last minute frustration of his plans by space magic and to top it off he wasn't even allowed to die in the service of his beloved Cardassia, being trapped for all eternity with Bajoran space ghosts! Now that's a bad day at the office...

Dunno, he’s a bit of a capricious arse, and the author of his own demise.

Very cool character though!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
Gul Dukat. Tenatious, resourceful, erudite; there was a lot to love about the character. Of course as a 'baddie' he was never destined to win, but the writers really seemed to take pleasure in torturing him.
Multiple major career setbacks, disowned by his family and Cardassian society, daughter murdered by his closet friend, driven to madness by the last minute frustration of his plans by space magic and to top it off he wasn't even allowed to die in the service of his beloved Cardassia, being trapped for all eternity with Bajoran space ghosts! Now that's a bad day at the office...

Dunno, he’s a bit of a capricious arse, and the author of his own demise.

Very cool character though!

What was great was that whilst he was a "bad guy" he wasn't your childrens hour bad guy who was evil through and through (at least not really until the very very end of things). So you never knew if he was going to help or hinder any situation. He was capable of being dark without being mindlessly slaved to being evil.

Worf's brother, Kern (?). Stuck growing up with the stigma of his fathers dishonor, then has to deal with his fortunes changing wildly every time he turns around as Worf brings glory or absolute shame to the House as he repeatedly falls out of favor. No personal agency, no hope of reprieve.

Ends up getting mind wiped and pawned off on someone else iirc.

Voss wrote:
Worf's brother, Kern (?). Stuck growing up with the stigma of his fathers dishonor, then has to deal with his fortunes changing wildly every time he turns around as Worf brings glory or absolute shame to the House as he repeatedly falls out of favor. No personal agency, no hope of reprieve.

Ends up getting mind wiped and pawned off on someone else iirc.

It's less of a pawning off than it is Worf's only option to fulfill Kern's request for Mouk-to'vor (a ritual killing to regain one's honor) without killing his brother (which he admits he cannot do a second time in that episode). Worf calls in a favor from a friend of Mogh who takes in Kern as his son so he can live with honor as the Klingon he was supposed to be.

The (admittedly non-canonical) MMO STO has an arc of him regaining his memories and re-uniting with Worf decades later. Its pretty good all things considered.

Right, right. Another example of Worf idolizing his culture while being completely unwilling to live up to any of its actual tenets.

Worf always exemplifies the Root Beer conversation between Quark and Garak. Federation culture really did a mindjob on the guy.

To be fair the Federation did that to the Klingons in general. By the time we are at TNG and DS9 the Klingons are not the powerhouse they once were. They are still powerful warriors, but its clear that they've softened from their past, even as recent as the Original Series past.

They are going through slow social changes which is taking them partly away from their history and closer to the Federation. Dax is possibly what they'd end up as after a while. Pacifist at the core, but with a respect and understanding of their history, yet not living by it so strictly as they once did.

 Overread wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
Gul Dukat. Tenatious, resourceful, erudite; there was a lot to love about the character. Of course as a 'baddie' he was never destined to win, but the writers really seemed to take pleasure in torturing him.
Multiple major career setbacks, disowned by his family and Cardassian society, daughter murdered by his closet friend, driven to madness by the last minute frustration of his plans by space magic and to top it off he wasn't even allowed to die in the service of his beloved Cardassia, being trapped for all eternity with Bajoran space ghosts! Now that's a bad day at the office...

Dunno, he’s a bit of a capricious arse, and the author of his own demise.

Very cool character though!

What was great was that whilst he was a "bad guy" he wasn't your childrens hour bad guy who was evil through and through (at least not really until the very very end of things). So you never knew if he was going to help or hinder any situation. He was capable of being dark without being mindlessly slaved to being evil.

Yeah, but he was a very evil person. He was just one of the few absolute villains to receive enough character develop to become sympathetic.

 Overread wrote:
To be fair the Federation did that to the Klingons in general. By the time we are at TNG and DS9 the Klingons are not the powerhouse they once were. They are still powerful warriors, but its clear that they've softened from their past, even as recent as the Original Series past.

They are going through slow social changes which is taking them partly away from their history and closer to the Federation. Dax is possibly what they'd end up as after a while. Pacifist at the core, but with a respect and understanding of their history, yet not living by it so strictly as they once did.

The traditionalist/reformist pendulum is a never ending cycle for Klingons. There will always be those who want to hew to the fundamentalist warrior ideal, while others realize its not sustainable.

 Overread wrote:
To be fair the Federation did that to the Klingons in general. By the time we are at TNG and DS9 the Klingons are not the powerhouse they once were. They are still powerful warriors, but its clear that they've softened from their past, even as recent as the Original Series past.

They are going through slow social changes which is taking them partly away from their history and closer to the Federation. Dax is possibly what they'd end up as after a while. Pacifist at the core, but with a respect and understanding of their history, yet not living by it so strictly as they once did.

Its a bit broader than that. Partly because its filtered through the studio and American network television, but an awful lot of ST is undercut by a sense of 'diversity is nice and all, but these are our values, and other values are stupid and wrong' as the moral message at the end of the episode. So they often present this sense that they're legally obliged to tolerate other points of view because Prime Directive, they often also see those points of view as inferior. (Which leads to Picard hardnosing on some issues, and Janeway's rep for flip-flopping each episode).

Worf in particular gets the sharp end of that moral relativism, because Klingon values are (on paper) grossly incompatible with Federation values (The 'We come in peace, shoot to kill' message of Star Trekkin' not withstanding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la6VSh_TxoU)


I'm amused by the idea of any Dax as any kind of pacifist, though. That was one bloodthirsty slug, in every incarnation (one was a straight up serial killer!), except possibly Ezri. Curzon and Jadzia were largely perfectly happy with Klingons and their culture as it was, and willing participants in even some of the more bloody obligations and ritualistic aspects.

Voss wrote:
Right, right. Another example of Worf idolizing his culture while being completely unwilling to live up to any of its actual tenets.

Worf always exemplifies the Root Beer conversation between Quark and Garak. Federation culture really did a mindjob on the guy.

In fairness he was willing to do that to his brother and was stopped. apparently Sisko took the view that "culture or no, this is a murder and murder's illegal on my station"

thing I found about Worf was he was, both the best and the worst Klingon out there, he wasn't raised among Klingons so he learned about his culture himself. this means his views on his culture at times can be a little simplisitc black and white. missing some of the subtlties exceptions and "ignored ideals" among Klingons. You see Jadzeia call him out on it a few times.

It'd be a bit like an American kid raised outside of America, he knows Americans love Hamburgers, apple pie and baseball, so he insists on eating Hamburgers, Apple Pie and playing baseball. etc,

Indeed.

Worf is almost a caricature of a Klingon, because it’s all from books.

Klingons Do Not Laugh is the first instance I can think of?

Don't forget Worf was around 5 when his parents were killed by Romulans and he was adopted by his human parents. So he'd already spend a good number of formative years within his Klingon family and ways. However young enough that its likely many of the rituals and concepts were only explained to him at a basic level.


So he carries that with him to his new home, which then thrusts a totally new way of life upon him. He ends up more Federation than Klingon, but he's also somewhat stuck between the two with almost a sense of duty that he must uphold his Klingon ways. Which I think is part why Dax calls him out as Dax was always a very free spirit in the way she lived; whilst Worf binds himself to concepts of two cultures that can often times clash.

I'm gonna go with Worf's son, Alexander....

Whiny little brat Alexander, or grown up ‘not really feeling Klingon’ Alexander?

Lwaxana Troi has been wearing a facade since the deaths of her husband and first child broke her. She pretends not to know what’s happening around her, how others perceive her, retreating farther into her demented persona to protect herself from the pain, trapping herself in the expectations of her position, but she knows. She knows.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Whiny little brat Alexander, or grown up ‘not really feeling Klingon’ Alexander?

He gets done even dirtier if you've played STO XD

Well, Barkely's own crewmembers don't even like to be around him, even as he desperately tries to make friends. For most of the time Riker outright hates him and thinks he's a wuss.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, Barkely's own crewmembers don't even like to be around him, even as he desperately tries to make friends. For most of the time Riker outright hates him and thinks he's a wuss.

Did they ever establish how Barkely even got assigned to the Enterprise? It was supposed to be the flagship with even higher standards to get a posting, and as pathetic as they made him out to be, they also firmly established that he just wasn't particularly competent by Starfleet standards. Him being there and even having his episodes was a puzzler to me, the writers just wanted some nerd mockery episodes and screw the background logic.

Voss wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, Barkely's own crewmembers don't even like to be around him, even as he desperately tries to make friends. For most of the time Riker outright hates him and thinks he's a wuss.

Did they ever establish how Barkely even got assigned to the Enterprise? It was supposed to be the flagship with even higher standards to get a posting, and as pathetic as they made him out to be, they also firmly established that he just wasn't particularly competent by Starfleet standards. Him being there and even having his episodes was a puzzler to me, the writers just wanted some nerd mockery episodes and screw the background logic.

I suspect he came 'highly recommended' by other Captains just to offload him, so much for Federation values

Also don't forget the Enterprise had families and a lot more casual roles on it. So chances are there were more than enough "non critical roles" which wouldn't require Starfleets best. At which point being offloaded or just having the right contacts or being in the right moment might have moved him into a position on the ship.

The Federation has high ideals, but it's not perfect. Or perhaps someone higher up felt that he'd do well if he was simply exposed to the best of the best to inspire and educate him.


It wasn't until the Enterprise E that we really saw a slightly more military take on the ship; which makes sense considering that at that point the Dominion War and encounters with the Borg had resulted in major loss of life. The Enterprise D was still more an exploratory and training ship than a warship

Heck don't forget they had children on board as well, which means families and thus non-skilled crew members

and of course if you let the Crusher offspring on the Bridge you cant really exclude anyone (whilst I'm not a big Wheaton fan, his benching about the character being contrivance of the week are totally valid)

Thoughts on Worf.

We’re all familiar with the Worf trope. If something turns up, and looks a bit fighty, it’s inevitable that Worf is gonna get thrown into/through something.

Now, consider that Worf, a Klingon (and a pretty effing Rock one, note the capital letter) had grown up among Puny Humans. Indeed in DS9, we find him understandably shy about his strength, having accidentally nutted someone to death during a game of Footie.

Given his pride in his heritage, his lack of genuine challenge to that point? How do you handle the humiliation of getting your buttkicked? I mean, nothing and no-one has ever been able to best you. And because of your blinkered, romanticised view of your heritage, strength is to be respected?

That has to be harsh, no?

"I cannot beat him, I can only kill him" pretty much sums up his sheer bloody mindedness perfectly