Qo'noS and the Empire's Worlds

1. Overview

The Klingon Empire is spread across a large part of the Beta Quadrant, but it has one centre, and every Klingon knows it. Qo’noS is the homeworld, the seat of the High Council and the place where Kahless forged the first bat’leth. Around it lie worlds that matter to Klingons for very different reasons: a monastery world where the clerics waited centuries for their prophet, an asteroid fortress where the Empire’s military command sits, a frozen prison that Federation citizens have learned to fear, and two border worlds where the Romulans killed Klingons in numbers no Klingon has forgotten.

This article describes those worlds as far as the Federation knows them in 2393, together with the Empire’s colonies and outer worlds and the borders it shares with the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire. For the Empire as a whole see The Klingon Empire. For its history see History of the Klingon Empire, and for its government see The High Council and the Chancellor.

The Federation’s picture of Klingon space is uneven. The homeworld and the worlds named in treaties and wars are well recorded; the outer colonies much less so. Where this article relies on report rather than record, it says so.

2. Qo’noS

2.1 The world

Qo’noS is the world on which the Klingon people arose. Humans have long called it Kronos, and both names are used in Federation records; Klingons use their own. It has been the centre of Klingon life for as long as there are records, and since Kahless united the Klingon people some fifteen centuries ago it has been the seat of whatever government ruled them.

Federation visitors describe a world of hard weather and rough country, darker and harsher than Earth, and Klingons speak of it with a pride that has nothing to do with comfort. The Empire publishes no precise figures for its climate. What is certain is that the homeworld’s atmosphere was gravely threatened in 2293, when its moon Praxis exploded (see section 3), and that Qo’noS remains in 2393 a living, populous world and the capital of the Empire.

2.2 The First City and the Great Hall

The capital of the Empire is the First City. Its heart is the Great Hall, where the High Council meets under the Chancellor. Klingon government is not carried on behind closed doors. Challenges, accusations and judgments are made in the Hall itself, before the Council and often before witnesses. Martok has led the Council there since 2375. For the Council and its ways see The High Council and the Chancellor.

The great houses keep their own halls and lands, on Qo’noS and elsewhere. A house’s lands are part of its standing, and when a small house dies out its lands commonly pass to the strongest neighbour able to take and hold them. House Vreth, one of the two great houses most often mentioned in Federation reporting on border affairs, holds its ancestral lands in the Varnakh Highlands of Qo’noS. For the houses see The Great Houses.

2.3 Places of legend

Much of Qo’noS is bound up with the story of Kahless the Unforgettable. Klingons tell how Kahless cut a lock of his hair, thrust it into the lava of the volcano Kri’stak, and plunged it into Lake Lusor, where he twisted it into the first bat’leth, the Sword of Kahless. They tell of Qam-Chee, where Kahless and Lukara, who became his wife, stood together against five hundred warriors. To a Klingon these are not idle legends. For Kahless and the stories told of him see Honour, Faith and Custom.

The homeworld has also known invasion. More than a thousand years ago the Hur’q invaded Qo’noS and carried off its treasures, the Sword of Kahless among them.

2.4 The Federation on Qo’noS

The Federation keeps an embassy on Qo’noS, and has done so through most of the alliance. Its first ambassador after the Dominion War was Worf, son of Mogh, named to the post in 2375. Its staff include diplomatic attachés, who are expected to learn the forms set out in Language, Names and Ranks and Honour, Faith and Custom before they arrive. For the alliance itself see The Alliance with the Federation.

3. Praxis and Its Aftermath

Praxis was a moon of Qo’noS and the Empire’s key energy-production facility. In 2293 it exploded. The cause, as the Federation understood it at the time, was overmining and insufficient safety precautions. The explosion destroyed most of the moon and sent a shock wave across space that was detected far beyond Klingon territory.

The damage to the homeworld was the greater blow. Starfleet’s estimate at the time was that the ozone of Qo’noS would be depleted within about fifty years, and that the Empire, which had spent heavily on its military for generations, could not both keep up that spending and save its homeworld. Chancellor Gorkon chose peace. He opened talks with the Federation and was assassinated before they could be held, by conspirators on both sides who wanted the old enmity to go on. His daughter Azetbur took his place and carried his work through. The result was the Khitomer Accords of 2293, the beginning of the formal alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. See History of the Klingon Empire and The Alliance with the Federation.

How Qo’noS was saved is not well recorded in Federation sources. Federation help formed part of the peace, and the Empire’s own efforts were clearly great, but the details were never made public on either side, and Klingons do not care to discuss a time when their homeworld needed rescue. The result is plain enough: Qo’noS survived. Federation visitors report that what remains of Praxis can still be seen in the sky of the homeworld. Klingons do not point it out.

4. Boreth

Boreth is the holy world of the Klingon people. Before he left them, Kahless pointed to a star and told his followers to look for him there, on that point of light. Boreth is a world of that star, and on it a monastery was founded whose clerics waited, generation after generation, for Kahless to return.

The clerics of Boreth study the teachings of Kahless and keep the traditions that grew up around them. Klingons come to Boreth to seek visions and to understand the teachings.

In 2369 the clerics of Boreth produced a man who appeared to be Kahless returned. He was found to be a clone, made from genetic material preserved from the original Kahless, and given the memories of the stories the clerics had kept. He was nevertheless installed as Emperor, a title revived after centuries without one, with a spiritual and ceremonial role while the Chancellor and the High Council kept the power of government. For the clone emperor and what Klingons make of him see Honour, Faith and Custom and The High Council and the Chancellor.

5. Ty’Gokor

Ty’Gokor is the headquarters of the Klingon Defense Force. It lies within an asteroid field and is counted among the most heavily defended places in the Empire. The great ceremonies of the Defense Force are held there, including the induction of warriors into the Order of the Bat’leth, the Empire’s highest company of honoured warriors.

In 2373 a Changeling who had taken the place of a Klingon general was unmasked at Ty’Gokor during such a ceremony, an event that showed how far the Dominion had reached into the Empire before the war. Federation officers are rarely invited to Ty’Gokor and should not expect to be. The Defense Force’s organisation and its commands are described in The Klingon Defense Force.

6. Rura Penthe

Rura Penthe is a penal world: an ice-bound planetoid where prisoners labour in dilithium mines under the surface. Klingons and others call it the aliens’ graveyard, and the name is earned. The cold on the surface kills anyone who tries to escape across it, and a magnetic shield prevents transport beaming within its bounds, so that a prisoner who gets out of the mines still has to cross the ice to get beyond the shield.

Federation citizens have been sent there more than once. In 2152 a Starfleet captain was sentenced to Rura Penthe after a Klingon trial, and in 2293 two senior Starfleet officers were sentenced there for the assassination of Chancellor Gorkon, a crime they had not committed. Both cases ended in escape. Federation sources believe the prison is still in use in 2393.

7. Khitomer

Khitomer lies near the Romulan border, close to the point where the Federation, Klingon and Romulan borders meet. Its name is attached to two of the most important events in Klingon history.

The first is the peace. In 2293 the Federation and the Klingon Empire met at Khitomer for the conference that produced the Khitomer Accords. The conference was nearly destroyed by the same conspiracy that had killed Gorkon, which included Klingon and Federation officers and a Romulan ambassador, Nanclus. It was saved, and the Accords were signed. Every Klingon-Federation agreement since rests on them.

The second is the massacre. In 2346 a Romulan attack on the Klingon outpost at Khitomer killed about four thousand Klingons. The Romulans were helped by a Klingon traitor who gave them the colony’s defence codes. The traitor’s identity was hidden for many years, and the blame fell for a time on an innocent house; that story belongs to the history of the great houses (see The Great Houses). For the Empire as a whole, Khitomer is a wound that has not closed. See Klingons and Romulans.

Khitomer remains a Klingon world. Across the border from it, about five light years inside Romulan space, lies Ad Pontes, a world the Romulan Star Empire declared uninhabited. In 2390 a pirate band was found to be operating there; Klingon raids had always passed Ad Pontes by, which is part of why the pirates went unnoticed. See The USS Ragnarok and the Romulans.

8. Narendra III and the Narendra Command

8.1 The battle of 2344

In 2344 Romulan warbirds attacked the Klingon outpost on Narendra III. The USS Enterprise-C answered the outpost’s distress call and was destroyed defending it. The outpost was lost, but the Federation ship’s sacrifice was seen by the Klingons as an act of great honour, and it did more than any treaty to convince the Empire that the Federation could be an ally worth having. Klingons still honour it. They have never forgiven the Romulans for the attack.

8.2 The fortress-memorial

Where the outpost once stood, the Empire has built a fortress-memorial. It is both a working military base and a place of remembrance. Klingon warriors come to Narendra III to honour the dead of 2344, Klingon and human alike, and the Enterprise-C is remembered there as a ship that died well. At the heart of the memorial stands the Enterprise Stone, a monument raised to the Federation crew, which Klingon visitors salute as they would the grave of a fallen warrior. Federation visitors are expected to know what happened there.

8.3 The Narendra Command

Narendra III is also the base of the Narendra Command, the Klingon Defense Force’s border command facing the Romulan Neutral Zone along the Nevrha stretch. This is the part of the Romulan border, spinward of the Romulans’ Chaltok Sector, where the Zone runs nearest to Klingon space and Narendra III lies within reach of it. On the Romulan side lies the Nevrha Sector, whose garrisons, in the Romulans’ own phrase, look two ways. See The Romulan Side of the Zone.

In 2393 the Narendra Command is led by General Kortaq, of the House of Vreth. House Vreth is an old house, border-minded, and many of its sons are ship captains; on the High Council it wants a harder line with the Romulans. For the Command’s place in the Defense Force see The Klingon Defense Force, and for the frontier in 2393 see The Klingon Frontier in 2393.

9. The Colonies and Outer Worlds

9.1 Colonies and subject worlds

Beyond the homeworld the Empire holds many colonies, outposts and subject worlds. Some are settled by Klingons. Others are inhabited by peoples the Empire conquered, who are governed by Klingon governors and have little say in the Empire’s affairs. Krios is one such world. In 2367 an independence movement was active there, and Romulan agents tried to break the Federation-Klingon alliance by programming a Starfleet officer to kill the Klingon governor of Krios and making it seem that the Federation was arming the rebels. The plot failed.

Klingon systems have also seen war at home. In the civil war of 2367 to 2368 the Mempa sector fell for a time to the forces of the House of Duras, which the Romulans secretly supplied. See History of the Klingon Empire.

9.2 The Outer Marches

Federation reports use the name the Outer Marches for the Empire’s far colonies, the worlds farthest from Qo’noS, where Klingon settlement is thin and the great houses hold mining and industrial interests. Life there is hard even by Klingon standards.

House Tarkesh is the house most often named in connection with the Outer Marches. It is rich, and its wealth rests on shipbuilding and mining. Two of its holdings appear in Federation reporting. Qelvoth is a mining colony whose ore and dilithium go to the Empire’s yards. The Dharvok yards are a shipbuilding complex in which House Tarkesh has a controlling interest, building and refitting ships for the Defense Force. On the High Council, House Tarkesh wants the alliance with the Federation kept steady; trade and quiet borders serve its interests. For the ships themselves see Klingon Ships, and for the house see The Great Houses.

9.3 The border colonies

The colonies nearest the Romulan border have a character of their own. Gelmarq, a colony on the Klingon side of the Nevrha stretch, supplies the Narendra Command with food, stores and recruits, and is the nearest Klingon settlement of any size to Narendra III.

It was from colonies and outposts on this side of the border that many of the Klingon raids into Romulan space were launched between about 2382 and 2390. Young warriors of lesser houses, the sons of House Gharvel prominent among them, struck at Romulan border holdings while the Romulan Star Empire was turned inward after 2379. The High Council neither sanctioned the raids nor stopped them, and they tapered off after 2390, once Romulan patrols had returned in strength. For the raids and their causes see Klingons and Romulans.

10. The Empire’s Borders

10.1 With the Federation

The Federation and the Klingon Empire are allies, but a Federation-Klingon Neutral Zone still lies between them. A buffer separated the two powers long before they were friends, and the Khitomer Accords of 2293 redrew its line. In 2393 neither side treats it as a front.

10.2 With the Romulans

The Klingon border with the Romulan Star Empire is another matter. Federation officers need to know of two Klingon-facing stretches of the Romulan border, which are not the same place.

The tri-border. Near Starbase 24, the Federation, Klingon and Romulan borders meet, close to Khitomer. In 2390 a makeshift freighter outpost called the Hub stood there, where many transport lanes met, some running into Federation space and the rest into Romulan and Klingon territory. When raiders struck shipping there, each empire blamed the other. A Klingon general, T’Sok, came to talks with the Romulan ambassador V’rel aboard a Federation ship; by Federation accounts he was a good diplomat, for a Klingon. He accused the Federation of violating Klingon borders with its sensor sweeps, said that the Klingon Empire can protect its own borders, and left saying that the Federation has no honour. Starbase 24, which was being rebuilt in 2390, has since been completed. See The USS Ragnarok and the Romulans.

The Nevrha stretch. Spinward of the Romulans’ Chaltok Sector, the Romulan Neutral Zone runs nearest to Klingon space. Narendra III lies within reach of it, and the Narendra Command watches it. On the Romulan side the Nevrha Sector garrisons are positioned with Klingon ships as much in mind as Federation ones. This is the stretch where Klingon, Romulan and Federation interests press hardest against one another in 2393. See The Klingon Frontier in 2393 and The Neutral Zone (2393).

11. See Also

The Klingon Empire · History of the Klingon Empire · The High Council and the Chancellor · The Great Houses · The Klingon Defense Force · The Klingon Frontier in 2393 · Klingons and Romulans · The Alliance with the Federation · Honour, Faith and Custom · The Romulan Side of the Zone · The Neutral Zone (2393)