The Alexander Rozhenko Conundrum

[Ro_Laren]

If you guys remember, Alexander Rozhenko was Worf's son from his "holodeck encounter" with K'Ehleyr in Season 2 of TNG. I am not sure how long the gestation period is for someone that is 1/4 human and 3/4 klingon so we don't know how old he technically is. However, developmentally he always appears to be an elementary school age boy in the latter seasons of TNG. For example, in his last episode Firstborn he is on a planet playing with a lot of other young boys.

Here is a pic of him in Season 7 of TNG:

Worf arrives at DS9 during Season 4, which would correspond to Season 9 of TNG (if such a season had existed). We first see Alexander again in Season 6 of DS9 and he has joined the Klingon military. Alexander is assigned to join the crew on a Klingon ship commanded by General Martok, the IKS Rotarran. He appears to be a young adult in this episode. However, this episode corresponds to Season 11 of TNG (again if such a season had existed). If each season corresponds to a year that means 9 years after Alexander was conceived he was serving aboard a Klingon ship in the middle of a deadly war.

Here is a pic of Alexander serving aboard the Klingon ship:

So, assuming you consider these events to be canon, what is your best theory? How does Alexander seem to grow up overnight? Was Alexander an oddity who literally shot up mentally and physically during puberty? Do Klingons age quicker than humans? Has Worf’s memory been altered making it so that he doesn’t know what his son looks like or when he was born so that he does not realize that his son was replaced by a Changeling duplicate that wanted to infiltrate General Martok’s ship?

Post your best theory!

 

[Romulan_spy]

I'd just chalk it up to his unique human-klingon hybrid physiology.

 

[od0_ital]

TNG 'Ethics' established just how different Klingons are from humans.

Klingons are a warrior race, so it makes sense that they would have mature quickly to kick ass and takeover stuff for the glory of their House.

And since Worf didn't grow up around other Klingons and only had the one, estranged son, its possible he just didn't realize what he was in for, so Alexander's appearance on Martok's ship was a surprise to him in a lot of ways.

If nothin' else, at least they didn't completely ignore the character on DS9, and did give him something to do for a couple of episodes.

 

[Admiral2]

Star Trek was written by people who wouldn't use common sense if you ordered them to at gunpoint. Alexander is serving in the military at nine years old because the writer of the DS9 ep thought that would be cool dramatically. Klingon biology doesn't factor into it cause he wasn't thinking about biology.

 

[Anwar]

A lot about Alexander would make more sense if he was the result of Worf and K'ehylar's first relationship which was before TNG, not their second.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I'd just chalk it up to his unique human-klingon hybrid physiology.

This. I just assume Klingons mature faster than Humans.

 

[Anduril]

A lot about Alexander would make more sense if he was the result of Worf and K'ehylar's first relationship which was before TNG, not their second.

When was that? (other than before TNG)

 

[od0_ital]

A lot about Alexander would make more sense if he was the result of Worf and K'ehylar's first relationship which was before TNG, not their second.

When was that? (other than before TNG)

It was before TNG.

When she was introduced in TNG 'The Emissary', it was established that she & Worf knew each other when he was either at Starfleet Academy, or shortly after he graduated from the academy. K'ehylar's first of two episodes was the first time Worf had seen her since their prior relationship.

 

[Jono]

It adds a new light to Worf's soccer story, if he ages like his son no wonder he killed another player if he was playing with 13 yo humans. He would have seriously out sized most of them. Or he might have played in an older age group.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

TNG 'Ethics' established just how different Klingons are from humans.

Klingons are a warrior race, so it makes sense that they would have mature quickly to kick ass and takeover stuff for the glory of their House.

I agree with this, and in my mind it puts Alexander at around 15 human years. It was common for boys of that age to enlist and go to war during WWI. For Klingon youths I think it would be considered an ideal. What else would they be doing with themselves? Training would be seen as something you get in battle.

I suspect Klingons go through puberty earlier and the ascent into adolescence/early adulthood is rapid.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Klingons are a warrior race, so it makes sense that they would have mature quickly to kick ass and takeover stuff for the glory of their House.

I agree with this, and in my mind it puts Alexander at around 15 human years. It was common for boys of that age to enlist and go to war during WWI. For Klingon youths I think it would be considered an ideal. What else would they be doing with themselves? Training would be seen as something you get in battle.

Agreed. We are after all told that "A Klingon is a man the day he can hold a blade". I'd be amazed if there weren't adolescents/children considerably younger serving the defense force.

 

[Rom's Sehlat]

Perhaps the older Alexander from the future took the 20-year-old Alexander and took him back five years to the time of the War...

 

[datalogan]

I think it was a clear choice very early on by TNG writers to say that Klingons develop faster than humans.

It was clearly stated in "The Emissary" by K'Ehleyr that she and Worf had not "gone all the way" during their first meeting years earlier. (6 years early, according to dialogue, by the way, and you can read more about that first encounter in the trilogy of books written by Peter David called Worf's First Adventure, the first 3 TNG young adult books published in 1993.) (I don't have the episode readily available to watch right now, so my phrasing of the exact line may be off a little)
Immediately after K'Ehleyr and Worf have sex in the holodeck:
K'Ehleyr: Why didn't we do this years ago.
Worf: We were not ready

When the Alexander character was introduced in "Reunion" he certainly couldn't have been more than 2.5 years old (even assuming a very short gestation period) but TNG writers choose to present him as a child that looked about 5 (played by an actor who was 6).

The exact date of Alexander's birth was later pinned down to "stardate 43205" in the episode "New Ground".
"The Emissary" happen around stardate 42901, so that means Alexander's gestation (which is probably close to "normal" Klingon gestation) is around .3 years, or 3.5 months!
"Reunion" happen around stardate 44246, so Alexander was just over 2 years old at that point

The actor that portrayed Alexander in later parts of TNG ("New Ground" and beyond) was another 2 years older than the actor that portrayed Alexander in "Reunion".
The actor that portrayed Alexander in DS9 was another 6 years older than the actor from the later part of TNG.

It's clear the writers choose to make Klingons grow up more rapidly that humans. Mostly because stories were more interesting (and easier to film) with an older Alexander (and actor).

(VGR writers choose to have the same thing be true about Ktarian biology so that Naomi Wildman could grow up overnight.)
(At least they were true to human developmental rates with Molly O'Brien and didn't make her grow up overnight.)

Because there hasn't been a lot of young Klingon characters this idea that Klingons age rapidly was fairly easy to integrate with known Klingon characters.

In the book Final Reflection, some of the differences between Klingons and humans were discussed, including the fact that Klingons can't see the blue end of the visible spectrum but can see more into the infrared than humans (this is why their ships seem so dark and red to humans).
I don't remember if it was stated that the Klingons have a shorter lifespan, but that's always been my personal belief.
Shorter-lived races tend to have shorter childhoods.

It has definitely been shown that Klingons grow up faster, although not always consistently. References to Worf's childhood (a full Klingon) tend to talk about his growth rate as if it was comparable to humans, but maybe they were just converting to human terms. So when Worf was discovered when he was "4" maybe he was really <1 yr old, but looked 4 to human eyes. And when he accidentally killed that boy in the soccer game when he was "13"? If he aged like Alexander, that would have made him a fully grown young man by 13.

There is reference in Star Trek: Insurrection to Klingon puberty being significant, another nod by the writers about how Klingons grow up really fast.

It's always been my personal opinion/thought on this that Klingons up until quite recently were a very short-lived race. Puberty at 5-7, mature adult by 9; average lifespan of 20-25, or something like that. It would go a long way towards explaining the more militaristic aspects of their society. One has to win significant victory in glorious battle to gain fame and "live forever" through the songs sung about you. And only recently has the Klingon lifespan significantly increased. Kang, Kor, and Koloth being some of the oldest Klingons ever in history. This recent change in lifespan could just be due to medical advancement, but I also think that it would be interesting if the lengthening of lifespan was due to the human Augment DNA that "infested" the Klingon genome (and also made them have smooth foreheads for awhile) (as seen in Enterprise episode "The Augments"). Because Klingons were suddenly living longer, their population sky-rocketed and caused a strain on their resources. Initially they combated that by being even more agressive, partly to fight for more resources, but also partly to "allow" more Klingons to die in battle (since they weren't dying of natural causes as much). Hence the more aggressive Klingons in TOS timeframe. And only later, after the society has 100+ years to adjust to the new longer lifespans, do the Klingons start to experience more social reforms (as seen in the lighter TNG Klingons).

 

[Ro_Laren]

^ While you can argue that Klingons develop quicker in their earlier years I find it a little harder to argue a short lifespan. For instance, look at Kang who appeared in TOS and DS9. If Klingons have a 20-25 year lifespan then how was he still alive? Of course, we know that his body has gone through some crazy changes. He had human like appearance in the TOS episode Day of the Dove:

According to the Enterprise episode Divergence this was caused by a Klingon augment virus. He must have had either cosmetic surgery or some other surgery to reverse the effects of the virus because by the time we see him in the DS9 episode Blood Oath he looks like this:

I don't know if you can argue that whatever surgery he had that reversed his appearance led him to having an "long lifespan." I think it is more likely to assume that it is normal for Klingons to live 100+ years... at least those that aren't "lucky" enough to die in battle!!!

 

[Mary Ann]

One reason it's difficult to work out the natural lifespan of a Klingon is because very few Klingons appear to die naturally of old age. They tend to die in battle or be killed for other reasons, like K'Ehleyr. I agree that Klingon children most likely mature quicker than human children, but I don't think their natural lifespans are much shorter than those of humans if they actually have the chance to die peacefully in their sleep.

 

[T'Girl]

As I recall the novel Final Reflection, Klingons are full adults by their early teens, and had average life spans of about thirty-five year, that life span took into account than most die by violence, not old age.

 

[Timo]

...We might even postulate that there's a correlation between a humanoid species' long "natural" lifespan (Vulcans, Klingons) and a horribly violent lifestyle that keeps the real lifespans manageably short. Quite possibly humanoids who live way past early procreation age tend to deprive their world of resources so quickly and utterly that violence necessarily ensues.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Rarewolf]

For instance, look at Kang who appeared in TOS and DS9.

Kang is the interesting one of the Blood Oath trio, he's the only one we see TOS, Movie and TNG era.

 

[CoveTom]

Okay, am I completely dense here? Because in all the years I have watched TNG, it never even occurred to me that Alexander was the product of Worf and K'Ehleyr's encounter in "The Emissary." I always assumed that he had been born prior to that, and that she had just never told him about it until "Reunion."

 

[Mary Ann]

As I recall the novel Final Reflection, Klingons are full adults by their early teens, and had average life spans of about thirty-five year, that life span took into account than most die by violence, not old age.

Ah, I haven't read that novel, so thanks for that info. Hmm, if thirty-five is the average life span, Worf would be a senior citizen by now, wouldn't he? I can't see the novels killing him off any time soon, though (at least I hope they don't!), so an exception may be made for him.