by Ben Robinson
2 Anti-Tamper Signal Shields
3 Housing Service Locks
4 Passive Cooling System Radiator
5 Status Indicator
6 Power Level Indicator
7 Conical Penetrator
ESCAPE PODS
Contrary to popular belief, Birds-of-Prey are routinely fitted with escape pods. The Klingons’ willingness to die in battle should not be confused with a death wish. In the words of Kahless, it is better to win a war than to lose a battle gloriously. This is not to say that Klingons use escape pods lightly. In fact, a Bird-of-Prey is equipped with only enough escape pods for 24 people—two-thirds of a standard crew—and there are strict conventions governing their use.
In combat, the ship must already have sustained heavy casualties and there must be no realistic prospect of the ship itself surviving. In the classic scenario envisaged by the Klingon Defense Force, at least ten crewmembers will have been lost and the ship must be in imminent danger of being destroyed or boarded. In this situation, the ideal tactic is to program the computers to ram the nearest enemy vessel while the surviving crewmembers use the escape pods.
The intention behind using the escape pods is for warriors to survive to fight again, not to be taken prisoner, so in order to prevent the pods being retrieved by the enemy, they are fitted with a small matter-antimatter charge that can be activated by the pod’s users if it is tractored or beamed into an enemy ship. The resulting explosion has a far lower yield than a photon torpedo, but is sufficient to severely damage a ship. If the occupants are beamed straight out of the escape pod, their primary duty is to return to the fight so they will allow themselves to be taken prisoner. Suicide is not considered an honorable option as long as there are enemies still to fight or hope of escape.
If the Bird-of-Prey is not in combat and has suffered a catastrophic systems failure such as a warp-core breach, a serious radiation leak or a life-support failure, then it is acceptable for everyone except the engineering staff to use the escape pods. The engineers are expected to stay on board until the last moment, doing everything possible to save their ship. The Klingons reason that a serious malfunction must be the engineers’ fault. If they can remedy it then they deserve to live; if they cannot, it is right for them to die. No engineer who allowed his ship to suffer such a serious malfunction that it was destroyed would ever be allowed to serve on a Klingon ship again, and most Klingon engineers would rather die than suffer the humiliation of abandoning a malfunctioning ship.
Although it is not something they talk about much, Klingon ships are fitted with escape pods that ensure their warriors live to fight another day.
The pods themselves are designed to accommodate two people, and can provide life support for a total of 18 days for two or 36 days for one. They are fitted with a small impulse engine that uses a fusion reaction to propel the escape pod away from the ship. The engine has enough fuel to fire a second time to send the pod into the atmosphere of a nearby planet. The shielding is sufficient for the pod to survive re-entry. The pod is fitted with RCS thrusters that allow for some maneuverability but otherwise it is at the mercy of solar currents.
Every pod is fitted with a subspace transceiver that starts automatically transmitting a short-range distress signal as soon as it is launched. This can be deactivated by the occupants if they are concerned about attracting enemy attention.
The pod also carries a supply pack that consists of emergency rations, a hand disruptor and a d’k tahg. The subspace transmitter can be removed and turned into a portable unit and the thrusters can be converted into heaters.
1 Entry Hatch
2 Hatch Widow
3 Emergency Beacon Light
4 Quick Disconnect Umbilical
5 Subspace Transponder
6 Blast Protection Fences
7 Short Range Sensors
8 Forward Windows
9 Waste Heat Radiators
10 Emergency Shield Subsystem
11 Microfusion Power Reactor
12 Dorsal Attitude Control System
LIFE ON BOARD
There are few places a Klingon warrior would rather be than serving on a Bird-of-Prey and life on board ship reflects all the famous Klingon virtues. As every Klingon will tell you, “a Klingon is his work” so the accommodation is spartan with little room for personal possessions. The only concessions to leisure are training halls where warriors can practice martial arts and weapons drills and a mess hall where the crew consume live food and bloodwine. The vast majority of their time is spent either operating the ship or preparing for battle.
Life on board ship also reflects the complex realities of Klingon society, with the officers acting as a ruling class, who are followed by warriors and servants. But, like everything in Klingon life, this strict social hierarchy is earned with the crew members literally fighting for their place in the pecking order and commanders only maintaining their position by avoiding assassination.
There is no question that it is a hard life, but it is one that Klingon warriors dream of. On a well-run ship under a good captain like Martok, the ship provides a perfect microcosm without any of the complications of society at large. Every man and woman knows his place, virtue is rewarded, cowardice is punished and honor and victory await everyone.
Life on board a Klingon ship is famously full-blooded. Discipline is fierce and no species works harder than the Klingons. They drill themselves almost constantly, practice hand-to-hand combat in their ‘leisure’ time, and devote themselves to studying their enemies and considering new tactics. But life on a successful Bird-of-Prey is also joyous. When a crew is happy the bridge rings out with the sound of opera as officers sing while they work. In the mess hall, mighty warriors hold court telling tales of their great deeds and laughing with one another. Victories are celebrated with bloodwine and more song. There is no place a Klingon warrior would rather be than on a Bird-of-Prey heading into battle.
To outsiders life on a Klingon ship sounds brutal, brawling is common with warriors stiking each other to impose discipline and fighting to establish dominance. Each member of the crew may challenge his superior and even kill him. However, life on board ship is strictly hierarchical: a crew member may only strike his subordinates and injuries are rarely serious (though the Klingon definition of minor injuries includes broken bones). If a crew member strikes an equal or a superior, this will commonly result in a challenge to the death. But far from being chaotic, these challenges are one of the key methods used to maintain discipline on board ship.
Officers are prevented from abusing their power because each crewman literally has the duty to challenge his superior if he sees any signs of weakness, cowardice, failure to perform their duty or dishonorable behavior. Each member of the crew can only challenge his direct superior and there are strict rules for how a challenge can be made and under what circumstances. If a challenge is successful and the crew member kills his superior, he takes his place and advances in rank, but challenges are not undertaken lightly. If a warrior succeeds in killing his former superior, but does not have the support of the crew, it is inevitable that he himself will be challenged and this would almost certainly lead to his death.
There are also limits to how far a Klingon can advance by challenging his superior. A servant cannot become a warrior as the result of a challenge, and a warrior cannot become an officer.
Klingon society is dominated by the Great Houses, which have something close to a monopoly on the training of officers. However, one of the great strengths of the Klingon Empire is its willingness to promote men through the ranks. No less a person than Chancellor Martok started his career as a servant before being given a battlefield commission and rising through the ranks to become a captain, then a general, supreme commander of the Ninth Fleet, and then eventually Chancellor.
It remains true that this kind of promotion only happens on a large scale in wartime when a warrior can distinguish himself, and access to the officers’ academy is sti
ll largely restricted to the nobility. It has been argued that Klingon society is structurally unsuitable for peace and becomes corrupted if good men don’t have the opportunity to advance. Many Klingon historians regard K’mpec’s long peace (2348–2367) as a disastrous period that led to the corruption of the upper echelons of society, because relatively few men were promoted through the ranks.
In fact, when a Klingon is assigned to a Bird-of-Prey he or she fervently hopes that their posting will lead to an honorable death in the service of the Empire. It is a commonplace in Klingon society that ‘there are no old warriors’ and Klingons who are unfortunate to survive into old age are regarded with equal measures of scorn and pity. As a consequence the ship’s crew is almost always young and vigorous. There are some exceptions and particularly honored old warriors are able to find service on a Bird-of-Prey, but they are far from common. Although Klingon warriors aspire to a death in combat, they have no desire for an unnecessary demise and are often wary of older commanders who may have something of a deathwish.
That vigor often finds an outlet in leisure time, when the crew drink heavily, sing and joke with one another. Since crews consist of both men and women, it is not uncommon for crew members to take a mate, or par’Mach’kai, from amongst their comrades. Klingon commanders do not consider this to cause any conflicts of interests since a Klingon’s sense of duty and honor should overcome any personal attachments they might have.
In their more serious moments, some—though by no means all—Klingons devote themselves to meditation and prayer, hoping to be granted visions of their semi-mythical leader, Kahless the Unforgettable. Like many Klingon ceremonies this involves the burning of candles and small furnaces, making parts of the ship even hotter and smokier than normal.
However, above all a Bird-of-Prey is a place of work, with every warrior and servant devoted to the service of the ship, and their captain.
BRIDGE
The bridge is the operational nerve center of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. It is located in the head section, in one of the most heavily armored and shielded sections of the ship, and therefore stands a small chance of surviving a catastrophic failure of the warp engines at the rear of the ship.
Its position on Deck 5 means that it is on the direct centerline of the ship, and the corridor that leads to it runs the entire length of the ship allowing personnel direct access to the engine rooms in the rear section of the ship’s hull.
It is tied in to all the major ship’s systems with a large data trunk running to the main computer core in the two decks below.
The command stations on the bridge can be configured to serve a variety of functions. This serves two purposes: first it allows commanders to configure the bridge in any manner they see fit (for example, some captains prefer to have the tactical officer on the right, while others prefer to have him or her on the left); second, it allows stations to be reassigned if the ship is damaged in battle.
Each station employs touch-sensitive combined data and display panels that automatically reconfigure themselves as data is input and conditions change. The design of Klingon interfaces has been refined over the years to improve the crew’s response times. Priority is given to accessing the weapons and defensive systems. The crew are rigorously drilled on their use on a daily basis. During these drills the stations are locked into simulation mode, which is almost indistinguishable from normal flight operations.
The stations can also be locked into a diagnostic mode and when this happens their functions are transferred to one of the free-standing consoles in the center of the bridge.
The bridge is located in the head of the ship and has direct access to all her critical systems.
1 Captain’s Chair
2 Science Station
3 Tactical Station
4 Access to main corridor
5 Engineering Station
6 Helm
7 Main Viewer
8 Optronic sensors
9 Co-pilot
10 First Officer’s Station
11 User-definable Station
12 Communications Station
13 Access to Optical Data Trunk
14 Maintenance access
BRIDGE STATIONS
CAPTAIN’S CHAIR
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The captain’s chair is located in the middle of the room placing the captain in the center of the action. It has very few controls, but a small panel built into the armrest allows the captain to access the communications system. In emergencies he can fire the disruptors and torpedoes, but this depends on targeting information being displayed on the main viewer or simply firing blind based on visual input from the viewer. This small console also allows the captain to activate the ship’s autodestruct system.
MAIN VIEWER
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At the front of the bridge is the main viewer—a large display panel that is used to provide a variety of data to the bridge crew. Under normal operating conditions it is configured to show the heading immediately in front of the ship, almost as if it were a window, but it can draw on the sensors to provide a view of any angle around the ship at a variety of magnifications. During combat, the tactical officer can transfer his readouts to the viewer, providing a data overlay that records the condition of any enemy vessels, and shows input from the targeting scanners.
When a communication channel is opened, the main computer automatically switches the main viewer to show the incoming signal. Optronic scanners above the viewer record the images and audio that are then transmitted back to the other party.
The captain’s chair is positioned in the middle of the bridge, making it absolutely clear that it is the seat of power.
HELM
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The two stations at the front of the bridge are almost always configured as helm and navigation. They are tied into one another, with all the functions of one station duplicated on the other. In normal operational mode, one station takes responsibility for piloting the ship and data from the immediate vicinity, while the other deals with long-range navigational data and monitoring the condition of the subspace field in cooperation with the engineering officer. During combat mode, they can be reconfigured to act as the pilot’s and co-pilot’s stations with one officer standing by to take control if the other is injured.
The helm is pre-programmed with a series of tactical maneuvers—divided into attack and defensive patterns—that have been agreed and practised with the commanding officer. These are determined individually on each ship, and are designed to the exact specifications of the particular Bird-of-Prey’s weapons and defenses. However, they are based on the standard maneuvers laid out in the famous 23rd century text, The Book of Kang.
Long-range headings are input by the navigation officer but are calculated by the navigational computer, which uses long-range sensors to determine the best possible route. At faster-than-light (FTL) velocities the course corrections are performed at such high speed that the helm and navigation officer can do little more than monitor the situation. He or she is provided with a constant stream of data about the condition of the ship, the actual velocities achieved, identified hazards on the course and the recommended actions needed to avoid them. At FTL speeds, the helm officer can input a new course but cannot take direct manual control of the ship.
At sublight speeds and in atmospheric operations the helm can take direct control of the ship’s systems and fly the ship manually. He or she has access to the RCS (Reaction Control System) thrusters and the landing gear.
The main viewer is normally set to display immediately in front of the ship, but can display a wide range of information.
The twin helm and navigation consoles are used to input and monitor the ship’s heading
ENGINEERING STATION
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The engineering station provides information about all the ship’s systems, not just the engines. The station is directly tied into the engineering computer systems and allows for direct control of t
he warp and impulse engines, plasma flow and the warp wings. These functions are duplicated in the engineering section, but actually controlled from the bridge. An open communication channel is always maintained between the bridge and main engineering.
The displays at this station provide a constant update on the condition of the ship’s systems, and during battle this is the primary station used for damage control. The engineering officer also has direct control of the emergency bulkheads used to seal off any badly damaged or uninhabitable areas of the ship.
The engineering officer works in close concert with both the helm and science officers.
SCIENCE STATION
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The science station provides a constant stream of information from the ship’s sensors, with a particular emphasis on the condition of any nearby vessels, which Klingons always consider to pose a threat. During battle, the science officer has primary responsibility for monitoring the condition of enemy vessels, including the nature of an enemy’s weapons and the condition of their engines. The science officer provides recommendations to the captain and tactical officer. This data is automatically shared with the tactical station, but is accessed at a lower menu level. The dedicated computers also provide analysis of stellar phenomena that may pose a threat to the ship, for the control of long- and short-range probes and the ship’s transporter systems.
The science and tactical stations are normally positioned on the captain’s left.
TACTICAL STATION
