The Klingon Empire

Created by Lieutenant Commander Curzon Bennett on Monday February 7th, 2022 @ 11:51pm

The Klingon Empire has long been the Federation’s staunchest ally. Throughout the twenty-fourth century, both powers have benefited from ever-closer contact and military integration. The highpoint of this cooperation undoubtedly comprised the decade following the Klingon Civil War where the Klingons and Federation stood side-by-side in repelling the Dominion threat to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

As a result of a Starfleet officer being instrumental in installing a Klingon Chancellor in the waning days of the Dominion War, and Worf’s subsequent appointment as Ambassador, the stage was set for a golden era of Klingon-Federation relations.

In the early post-war era, this much was true. Relations between the Alliance powers were the best they had been, perhaps in history. However, as the 2370s wore on, increasing fractures in the Alliance were witnessed. This was most apparent in the treatment of post-war Cardassia. The Klingons wished it that the Cardassians would never threaten the Empire again – they had a long and uneasy history of cold conflict dating back to the early 2300s – and repeatedly threatened to walk away from the Accords as a result.

Time and again, the Federation called their bluff, straining relations between the two powers, though the Federation’s greater industrial and economic might ensured that Chancellor Martok conceded their point. This put untold strain on his Chancellorship, imperilling his rule during an increasingly rocky time for the Empire as it began to feel hemmed in on three sides.

In 2384, a decade after he first acceded the Chancellorship, Martok abruptly resigned. Wearied from years of constant compromise as he sought to rebuild the Empire’s military might, and harried by a younger generation of Klingon warriors hungry for war and glory, he opted to retire to Boreth to see out his days in quiet contemplation. Politics had vanquished the warrior’s heart.

In the generation following the Dominion War, the Klingons chafed and grumbled under the measured rule of Chancellor Martok, a staunch ally of the Federation. As his rule grew longer, and his age greater, rumblings began that he was soft, and preventing the Empire’s young warriors from achieving glory in combat with their natural enemies.

For a few weeks, onlookers across two Quadrants observed as it seemed a second Klingon Civil War was in the offing as no clear successor had emerged. In a move of political canny, if strategically unsound, Chancellor H’pok emerged as the consensus choice by bartering away much of the Chancellorship’s central power. Each Great House would now get more say within their own fiefs, and contributions to the Imperial Defence Forces were curtailed to levels not seen since the mid-2350s.

Even this was not enough as both the Great and Minor Houses found that there was no space for them to expand to – treaties with the Federation still had to be respected, just.

It was H’mpok’s sheer luck that the Hobus star went supernova when it did in 2387. With the collapse of the heart of the Romulan Star Empire, and the turmoil that followed the destruction of Romulus and Remus, H’mpok saw his chance to decrease tensions within the Empire – he used the Romulan Star Empire as a pressure release valve. He unofficially sanctioned the Houses of the Empire to cross into Romulan territory to seek their riches, creating a chaotic maelstrom.

Despite the Federation’s attempted interventions, H’mpok correctly calculated that the strain of supporting both the Cardassian Union and now the remains of Romulan civilisation would push even the Federation’s economic might to the brink. Klingon raiding groups grew bolder, even occasionally harassing Starfleet and Federation vessels crossing Klingon space to the far-flung Beta Quadrant.

Early in 2392, Klingon forces of the Minor House K’hratan ambushed, disabled and accidentally destroyed two Federation starships in a relief convoy heading to D’deridex in the former Romulan Empire. Only intense diplomacy and the handing over of the culprits to the Federation prevented escalation towards a breach in the Khitomer Accords.

H’mpok’s continued insistence that he cannot guarantee the safety of Federation vessels beyond his space, however, had the Federation Council casting about for a solution up to and including ending the Accords.

The Disappearance of Deep Space Three has thrown all these calculations into disarray. Starfleet’s forward operating base in the Beta Quadrant, and the headquarters for the Shackleton Initiative, Deep Space Three was a lynchpin of defence plans for the far-flung Federation colonies beyond the Klingon Empire. With Deep Space Three gone, those plans were thrown into disarray, and for now the Federation and Starfleet have scrambled to keep the Klingon threat from growing exponentially while they rearrange their defensive positions in the expectation the next Federation President will likely pull them from the Accords and a Neutral Zone will quickly be established.

As Starfleet’s premier vessel crossing into that sector of the Beta Quadrant, the intelligence the Oberon gathers whilst she explores the Shackleton Expanse and solves the disappearance of Deep Space Three will be crucial in determining the defensive posture of Starfleet in the Beta Quadrant.