Klingons

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Everyone here is probably familiar with John M. Ford's The Final Reflection (and if you're not, go read it). However, fewer people are likely familiar with its connection to the Star Trek role-playing game published by FASA. This was the second such authorized game (the first was a forgettable job published by Heritage Models) and was quite popular for some years.

The Klingons supplement was published as a boxed set in 1983, with a second edition consisting of two books published in 1987. The first edition credits "Designers: John M. Ford, Guy W. McLimore, Jr., Greg K. Poehlein, David F. Tepool." The second edition credits design to Fantasimulations Associates (i.e., everyone in the previous credit except JMF), and writing is separately credited to "Fantasimulations Associates (based on original material by John M. Ford)."

Exactly what relation the game supplement and novel have to each other is best explained by Guy W. McLimore, Jr., in his introduction to the first edition and designers' notes in the second edition (they're similar, but not enough that I wanted to post just one). They are reproduced here with his permission.

( First edition introduction (well, half of it) )

( Second edition designers' notes )

Here's one of those excerpts from An Informal Guide to the Klingon Empire that McLimore mentions. These actually appeared in both editions, despite only being mentioned in the second piece above:

Students of Klingon trivia will recall that, at first contact, the Klingons referred to the Federation as an Empire, i.e., they used the same word for both.

The word komerex means "the structure that grows". Its counterpart/antonym is khesterex. All societies are described by one of these two words. Khesterex cultures are, by definition, kuve (servitor races). There is no Klingon concept of an equilibrium culture, "Zero Population Growth", etc. If a society is not growing, it must be dead.

Khex (or kh'ex) is a slang term for "corpse", analogous to the human "stiff" or "flatliner", and is used in general for anything non-functional.

[NOTE: The authors are seeking funding for a sociolinguistic study of the enormous array of terms for things that do not work: the Rigellian/Orion "discount goods", the Tellarite quat (literally, "tastes lousy" or "inedible"), the Andorian bouf ("pink"), and so on. Only the Vulcans have no such word - apparently on Vulcan everything always works. We disallow the famed "illogical", because something may be illogical and still work. This study, when completed, will be entitled A Bushel of Lemons.]

For those who will be at Boskone, it may be of interest to note that a copy of the first edition of The Klingons will be in the auction.