Star Trek: Discovery's Klingons Represent the Franchise At Its Best

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the two-part season premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, which debuted Sunday on CBS and CBS All Access.

Star Trek: Discovery had long promised Klingons that looked radically different from any previously depicted in the franchise's five-decade history, but Sunday's series premiere also offered arguably the most complex portrayal of Starfleet's longtime nemesis. Here, more so even than on The Next Generation, they're imbued with a system of religious and political beliefs that lifts them above the level of one-dimensional "proud warrior race," and offers a satisfying explanation for their conflict with the Federation. But what in Kahless' name is going on with that enormous vessel covered in coffins?

It's a sarcophagus ship, a 200-year-old leviathan about three times larger than any of the Starfleet vessels we see in the premiere. Lying cloaked at the edge of Federation space, it plays a significant role in not only the opening volley of Star Trek: Discovery but in the lives (and, more importantly, deaths) of these new Klingons.

And, yes, it's covered in corpses, some dating back 1,000 years or more.

Star Trek had depicted Klingons as largely unconcerned with their fallen until The Next Generation Season 1 episode "The Heart of Glory," which introduced the concept of Sto-vo-kor, the afterlife for the honored dead, guarded by the mytho-historical figure Kahless the Unforgettable. Both of those come into play in Discovery's premiere, which introduces commander T’Kuvma (played by Chris Obi), ruler of a previously unknown 25th Klingon house who prescribes to the old ways, the ways of Kahless.

Styling himself as a messianic figure -- he's hailed by his followers at one point as "T'Kuvma the Unforgettable" -- T'Kuvma restored his father's abandoned vessel, and turned it into the sarcophagus ship, just as he envisions restoring the Klingon Empire to glory by uniting its fractured houses against a common enemy: the encroaching United Federation of Planets, whose repeated claim that "We come in peace" is viewed as little more than sheep's clothing to disguise a wolf intent on devouring the empire. "They will coil around us and take all that we are," T'Kuvma warns in the opening moments of the series before proclaiming his mantra of unity (and, simultaneously, galactic isolationism), "Remain Klingon."

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='What%20You%20Need%20to%20Know%20About%20Discovery%27s%20Klingons']

In Sunday's two-part premiere (the second half streamed exclusively on the CBS All Access digital platform), we're shown the care with which the House of T'Kuvma prepares its dead for the afterlife. It's ancient Egypt meets Ancient Aliens, as a golden coffin rises from the ship's "death chamber" to attach itself to the outer hull. That doesn't serve merely as a neat visual, or an interesting new wrinkle to Klingon culture; it leads T'Kuvma, and ultimately the Klingon Empire, into open war against the Federation.

klingon sarcophagus ship — The Klingon sarcophagus ship decloaks.

Sent to the outskirts of Federation space to investigate a damaged interstellar relays, the USS Shenzhou, commanded by Michelle Yeoh's Captain Philippa Georgiou and Sonequa Martin-Green's First Officer Michael Burnham discover much more in the debris near the binary star: a centuries-old Klingon obelisk manned by a Torchbearer, a warrior whose solemn duty is to light its sacred beacon to call the 24 houses to unite. When Burnham, clad in a environmental space suit, goes to inspect the object, she accidentally kills the Torchbearer, enraging T'Kuvma, whose hulking sarcophagus ship was cloaked nearby, and setting off a chain of events that leads to all-out war.

In the original Star Trek, on which the Klingons were a thinly disguised, and thinly realized, stand-in for the Soviet Union, their beef with the Federation was primarily over territory ... or something. But on Discovery, some 50 years after the first appearance of the Klingons in the Original Series episode "Errand of Mercy," it's a conflict of cultures and ideas. What was once a simple Cold War parable is now something far more complicated, fitting an era in which world powers and "evil empires" aren't quite so easy to identify.

The show's producers have acknowledged that while Discovery began as "as a commentary on our own divided nation" -- they later clarified that Klingons aren't meant to be interpreted as Trump supporters -- the rising tensions between the United States and North Korea also color the story. Sure, there's an embrace of isolationism and a rejection of any sort of intergalactic alliance, and the declaration of "Remain Klingon" may be a bit close to "America First" and "Make America Great Again" ("Make Kronos Great Again?"). But there's more to these "new" Klingons, as religious extremism (both Islamic and Christian, certainly) is brought to the fore in a dangerous intersection of faith and politics within the House of T'Kuvma. Their leader wants to be viewed as a messiah, and by the conclusion of the second episode, he at least achieves martyrdom.

They're not cardboard stand-ins for a single Other, as in the original Star Trek. They're something much more complicated, and utterly fascinating -- more so than any incarnation of the Klingons previously depicted in the franchise. Plus, they have a giant sarcophagus ship.

Starring Sonequa Martin-Green as Lt. Commander Michael Burnham, Star Trek: Discovery airs Sundays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT in the United States on CBS All Access, in Canada on Space and in most other countries on Netflix.