What did Klingon's do with children?
- Thread starter Rayleo02
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I think Klingons as a whole race of individuals probably don't have a blanket rule on that. Romulan children? Probably would have killed them. But overall, I'd say Klingons would probably leave children behind rather than kill or capture. There is probably TNG Klingon-style honor in allowing the children of your enemies the chance of avenging their parents deaths, so that they can take extra honor in killing them later. Discovery Klingons would probably kill children. TOS/movie Klingons, I'd say capture but not kill.
What exactly is "honor" to a Klingon?
Glory, respect, distinction, acclaim, & apparently, to a lesser extent, a certain amount of integrity lol
Honor for Klingons is like logic with Vulcans; twisted in whatever way they need to justify their actions.
Glory, I'll give you.
Respect, distinction & acclaim are all rather prominent factors in glory. So is integrity imho, even though a lot of them seem fairly light on that part. There's 2 ways to look at honor. The internal & the external. Internal honor is basically integrity, my worth as I am judged by myself. External honor is what Klingons are more concerned with. My worth as it is judged by others
That being said, they are interlinked "We slew their suckling babies while they slept" Is hardly worthy of raising up in glorified song over lol. So having integrity is very much a major part of the esteem with which people are held, that Klingons are so duty bound to defend/uphold. Someone ought to remind them of it more often hahaha
Historical Klingons, kill them. Modern Klingons, probably let them go.
It's pretty obvious from Worf's holosuite program. "Kill them all".
It's pretty obvious from Worf's holosuite program. "Kill them all".
I think I would have to agree. Your explanation seems to make a lot of sense, at least to me.
We saw too little about "TOS Klingons" to establish anything about them, really. The ones we saw after Kor were either pretending very hard to be nice, or under alien influence. And I could very well see Kor eating worthless kids for breakfast - see how disgusted he was with having to take the sissy Organians prisoner because they didn't put up a proper fight?
That supposedly is the Klingon angle: if you surrender, you forfeit your right to live. You may still have utility value as labor or intel source. But utility as hostage is supposedly no-no (because having hostages might make warriors hunker under cover rather than fight, and honor codes are all about making warriors fight the enemy and not their masters and never think they have self-worth). Hence the Kahlessian fanatics Korris and Konmel gently putting down their "hostage" in "Heart of Glory". (But Kor isn't using Organians for protection - he's just blackmailing the already enslaved population, rather than his enemies. And while he captured Kirk alive, it was before he realized Kirk was his enemy. But I digress.)
So if a kid raised a knife against the invading army, a Klingon of any era might choose between gunning him down or grabbing him by the neck and saying "You have spunk, you get to live, now fetch me a stool and some wine". If not, the Klingon would be more likely to waste ammo in disgust.
This is Klingon warriors of all eras, mind you. Klingon camp followers might be a different matter, collecting leftover children like they would leftover boots or guns. Warriors are just the loud minority, with the loudness varying a bit from time to time as per the lawyer's lament in "Judgment".
Timo Saloniemi
That supposedly is the Klingon angle: if you surrender, you forfeit your right to live. You may still have utility value as labor or intel source. But utility as hostage is supposedly no-no (because having hostages might make warriors hunker under cover rather than fight, and honor codes are all about making warriors fight the enemy and not their masters and never think they have self-worth). Hence the Kahlessian fanatics Korris and Konmel gently putting down their "hostage" in "Heart of Glory". (But Kor isn't using Organians for protection - he's just blackmailing the already enslaved population, rather than his enemies. And while he captured Kirk alive, it was before he realized Kirk was his enemy. But I digress.)
So if a kid raised a knife against the invading army, a Klingon of any era might choose between gunning him down or grabbing him by the neck and saying "You have spunk, you get to live, now fetch me a stool and some wine". If not, the Klingon would be more likely to waste ammo in disgust.
This is Klingon warriors of all eras, mind you. Klingon camp followers might be a different matter, collecting leftover children like they would leftover boots or guns. Warriors are just the loud minority, with the loudness varying a bit from time to time as per the lawyer's lament in "Judgment".
Timo Saloniemi
A child is no longer a child once they can hold a weapon, therefore they are legitimate targets 
A child is no longer a child once they can hold a weapon, therefore they are legitimate targets
True, but we've seen conflicting things about targeting helpless targets. In House of Quark it seems dishonorable to kill something weak and pathetic that can't defend itself, but in Nor The Battle To The Strong the Klingons are said to kill patients in their sickbeds. I guess it depends on the commander of that particular mission.
The Klingons are as brutal as the plot demands 
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