Klingon Biology

1. Overview

Klingons are built for hardship. They are stronger than humans, they endure pain and injury that would stop most humanoids, and their bodies carry backups for almost every system that keeps them alive. A Starfleet medic who treats a Klingon for the first time is likely to be struck by two things: how much damage a Klingon body can take and keep working, and how little the Klingon in it wants a medic’s help.

This article covers what a Starfleet officer, and above all a Starfleet medic, needs to know about Klingon bodies: appearance, the redundant organ systems the Klingons call the brak’lul, strength and endurance, blood, growth and ageing, the virus of 2154 that changed the appearance of part of the Klingon people, Klingon medicine and the Klingon view of it, and what is known of Klingon descent mixed with that of other peoples. The customs that shape Klingon attitudes to injury and death are covered more fully in Honour, Faith and Custom.

The Federation’s knowledge here is better than for most powers outside it. Klingons have served in Starfleet, Starfleet doctors have served aboard Klingon ships under the officer exchange, and the two powers fought side by side through the Dominion War. Even so, Klingon medical knowledge is not freely shared, and some subjects are not discussed with outsiders at all. Where this article gives practice rather than established fact, it says so.

2. Appearance

The most visible mark of a Klingon is the brow. Klingons have prominent cranial ridges running from the forehead back over the skull. The pattern of the ridges differs from person to person and is often similar within a family, which Klingons notice and comment on in the way humans notice a family likeness in the face. Skin tones range widely, from pale to very dark. Klingons are as a rule heavily built, and many are taller than the human average.

Some Klingons met by Federation crews in the twenty-third century had smooth brows and looked nearly human. The cause lies in the virus of 2154, described in section 7. Federation medics who meet a Klingon with an unusual brow, or none, should treat it as a matter of history, not of health, and should not raise it with the patient.

Klingon features are hard to disguise, but it has been done. Starfleet officers have been surgically altered to pass as Klingons, and the Dominion’s Changelings took the places of Klingons, including at least one general, before and during the war. A Klingon’s appearance, like any patient’s, is not proof of who they are.

3. Redundancy and the Brak’lul

3.1 What the brak’lul is

The Klingons call it the brak’lul: the redundancy of the Klingon body. Klingon physiology has backups for nearly every vital bodily function. Federation texts commonly cite two livers and a heart of eight chambers, among other duplicated or reinforced structures, and Klingon nervous and circulatory systems include backup pathways that can take over when the primary ones fail. The exact list of what is doubled, and how far each backup can carry the load, varies between sources, and a medic should scan rather than assume.

The practical result is that a Klingon can survive wounds that would kill a human, and can go on fighting with injuries that would put a human on the floor. Klingons know this about themselves and are proud of it.

3.2 A case from 2368

The best recorded case of the brak’lul at work in Federation medicine dates from 2368. A Klingon officer serving aboard a Federation starship was paralysed when a heavy container fell on him and broke his spine. He refused to live as an invalid and asked for the Hegh’bat, the ritual suicide described in section 8. Instead he agreed to an experimental procedure, genetronic replication, in which a new spinal column was grown and put in place of the damaged one. During the operation his body failed and he died on the table. Then his redundant systems, which the surgical team had not counted on, restarted his body, and he recovered fully.

Two lessons have been drawn from the case. The first is medical: the brak’lul can do things that no Federation monitor will predict, and a Klingon patient should not be given up for dead too soon. The second is about the patient: the Klingon officer chose death over life as an invalid until he was given another choice. Section 8 returns to this.

4. Strength, Endurance and Pain

Klingons are considerably stronger than humans, and their endurance is greater still. A Klingon warrior in hand-to-hand combat with a human of the same size will usually win, and Starfleet security training assumes as much. Klingons recover quickly from exertion and from many injuries, and their resistance to shock is high.

Pain is a matter of culture as much as of nerves. Klingons feel pain, but they are trained from youth to endure it and to show nothing. Some of their rites of passage, such as the Age of Ascension, in which a warrior walks between two lines of warriors armed with painstiks, are built on enduring it (see Honour, Faith and Custom). For a medic this has one practical consequence above all others: a Klingon patient will understate an injury, often grossly, and may refuse to say that anything hurts. Examine the whole patient. Do not rely on what the patient reports.

Klingon courtship and mating are physically rough by human standards, and injuries from them are not unknown. A medic treating a Klingon, or the partner of a Klingon, for bites, bruises or even broken bones should not draw conclusions from them without asking, and should ask with tact.

5. Blood

Klingon blood in twenty-fourth century records is red, like human blood. A few older records, from the late twenty-third century, describe Klingon blood of a pinkish or lavender colour. Whether this reflects a difference between Klingon lines, an effect of the conditions under which it was recorded, or a fault in the record, is not known.

Klingon blood chemistry is close enough to human that the two peoples can have children together (see section 9), but not close enough for casual transfusion. Klingon blood for transfusion should come from Klingon donors or a synthetic matched to the patient. Starfleet medical stores on ships likely to meet Klingons carry Klingon plasma substitutes and dosage tables, and medics should use them; drug doses worked out for humans should not be assumed to suit a Klingon.

6. Growth, Ageing and Lifespan

6.1 Childhood

Klingon children grow faster than human children in their early years. A Klingon child of a few years may look and act like a human child several years older, and a Klingon youth may reach adult size well before a human of the same age would. Part-Klingon children have shown the same pattern. In one case known to Starfleet, a child of Klingon and part-human descent born in 2366 was serving aboard a Klingon warship by 2374. Medics should not judge a Klingon child’s age, or the right dose for one, by size alone.

Klingons mark the stages of growing up with rites of their own, including the First Rite of Ascension, by which a young Klingon, traditionally at about the age of thirteen, takes the first step toward becoming a warrior. See Honour, Faith and Custom.

6.2 Adulthood and age

Klingons live long lives. Warriors well past a century of age have served in battle, and Klingons who were young officers in the 2260s were still alive and still fighting in the 2370s. No reliable figure for the usual Klingon lifespan has been published, and this article does not offer one.

Klingons age, of course, and an old Klingon is less strong than a young one. But a Klingon of great age may still hold command, still fight and still expect to die in battle rather than in bed. Many old Klingons would rather die fighting than wait for death, and some go looking for a last battle. A Starfleet medic who tells an old Klingon to rest should not expect to be obeyed.

7. The Augment Virus of 2154

7.1 What happened

In the 2150s Earth was troubled by the Augments, humans genetically engineered for strength and intelligence, some of whom attacked Klingon ships. The Klingon High Command, alarmed by what it had seen of them, set out to create Klingon augments of its own, using genetic material from human Augment embryos.

The experiment went wrong. One of the test subjects was suffering from the Levodian flu, and the flu virus combined with the Augment genetic material to create a new virus, airborne and contagious. It spread from the subjects to Klingon colonies. Its first effects were a loss of the cranial ridges and a change toward a more human appearance; its later effects were a breakdown of the nervous system and death. The threat to the Klingon people as a whole was very real, and Klingon commanders weighed the most drastic measures to contain it.

A cure was found with the help of Phlox, the Denobulan physician of Earth’s starship Enterprise, who was taken to a Klingon colony and made to work on the problem with a Klingon doctor. The cure halted the virus before it could kill. It did not undo the changes already made. Those affected lived, but kept their altered appearance and some human traits, and they passed both to their children.

7.2 The afterwards

This is why many of the Klingons whom Federation crews met in the 2250s and 2260s had smooth brows. By the 2270s and after, the Klingons met by Federation crews were nearly all ridged again, and smooth-browed Klingons are rarely if ever seen in the twenty-fourth century. How the change was reversed in the affected lines has never been explained to the Federation.

Klingons do not discuss the matter with outsiders, and a Federation officer who raises it should expect, at best, to be told so in plain words. It was a time when the Klingon people were changed by their own mistake and saved with a human doctor’s help, and neither part of that is a story Klingons want told.

8. Klingons in the Sickbay

8.1 Klingon medicine

Klingon military medicine is built around battle wounds. Klingon ship’s doctors are skilled at stopping bleeding, closing wounds and getting a warrior back on his feet, and much less concerned with long illness, slow recovery or the treatment of anyone who cannot fight again. Federation physicians have long remarked on this, and Starfleet doctors who have served aboard Klingon ships under the officer exchange have usually found that the crew trusted them for battle wounds and avoided them for everything else.

The reason is not ignorance. It is a view of what life is for. To a traditional Klingon a warrior who cannot stand and fight has lost what makes his life worth living, and medicine that keeps such a warrior alive is no kindness. The Klingon body’s redundancy, and the Klingon habit of enduring pain in silence, have reinforced the view: Klingons have always survived what would kill others, and have seen little need for doctors who fuss.

8.2 The Hegh’bat

When a Klingon warrior can no longer stand and face his enemies, tradition offers him the Hegh’bat, the ceremony of ritual suicide. In it the warrior takes his own life with a ceremonial knife. Tradition holds that it is the duty of the eldest son, or failing him a member of the family, to present the knife, and after the warrior has struck, to draw the knife out and wipe it on his own sleeve. Where there is no family member able to do it, a warrior may ask a trusted friend.

The Hegh’bat is a matter of honour, not of despair. A Klingon who asks for it is not, in his own eyes, ill. He is choosing the honourable course. Starfleet medics will find this hard. The guidance Starfleet gives is this. First, make sure the patient knows every treatment that might restore him to his feet, and how likely each is to succeed; the officer in the 2368 case chose treatment when it was offered as a real chance. Second, involve his family, his house or a senior Klingon officer if any are available. Third, respect the patient’s right to refuse treatment, as Federation medicine does for anyone. The Federation does not take part in the Hegh’bat, and no Starfleet officer may be ordered to.

8.3 Practical guidance

Expect refusal. Many Klingons will refuse treatment for anything short of a wound that stops them fighting, and some will refuse that. Persuade, do not order, unless the patient is under Starfleet command and his duty requires it.

Expect understatement. A Klingon will not say that it hurts. Scan everything.

Expect strength. A delirious or angry Klingon can injure sickbay staff. Restraints rated for human patients may not hold.

Expect the redundancy. A Klingon whose primary systems have failed may not be dead. Keep working.

Respect the body after death. Klingons regard the body after death as an empty shell, of no further importance once the spirit has gone. Families usually do not want it kept, and will not be offended by its disposal; they will be offended by any suggestion that the dead warrior is still in it. See Honour, Faith and Custom.

9. Compatibility with Other Species

9.1 Klingons and humans

Klingons and humans can have children together, and many have. Part-Klingon officers have served in Starfleet for most of the alliance, and some have reached high rank. Children of Klingon and human parents usually show Klingon ridges, often in a softer form, and Klingon strength to some degree. Pregnancy across the two peoples is possible without medical help but is best watched closely. One condition worth knowing: a curvature of the spine is common in Klingon families, and can show in a part-Klingon fetus; it can be found early and corrected. Many part-Klingon officers feel the pull of two peoples, and some feel it hard. That is a matter for a counsellor, not a medic, but a medic should know it.

9.2 Klingons and Romulans

Klingons and Romulans can also have children together. The best known case came from a secret Romulan prison camp, uncovered in 2369, where Klingon prisoners taken at Khitomer in 2346 had lived for decades alongside their Romulan guards, and where a daughter had been born to a Klingon mother and a Romulan father. Neither people welcomes such unions. To most Klingons the idea is shameful, and the child of one is likely to meet hostility from both sides. See Klingons and Romulans.

9.3 Tissue and transfusion between enemies

Blood and tissue from one people can sometimes help another, but only with careful matching. The willingness to give is another matter. In one recorded case, a Klingon officer in Starfleet was the only crew member whose tissue could supply ribosomes to save a wounded Romulan. He refused, and the Romulan, told where the tissue would come from, said that he would rather die than take it. He died. The case is told in both the Klingon and the Romulan sections of this reference because it shows, in one sickbay, how deep the hatred between the two peoples runs. See Romulan Biology and Mind.

9.4 Other species

Klingons have had children with other humanoid peoples, though less is recorded. A medic treating a patient of mixed Klingon descent should ask about the patient’s ancestry, and expect the patient to answer with pride, or not at all.

10. See Also

The Klingon Empire · Honour, Faith and Custom · The Klingon Defense Force · History of the Klingon Empire · Klingons and Romulans · The Alliance with the Federation · Language, Names and Ranks · Romulan Biology and Mind