Battlecruiser Vengeance

The most popular television program ever produced in the Klingon Empire, may'Duj bortaS - better known, even among Klingons, by its Standard title, Battlecruiser Vengeance - originally ran from 2376 to 2379 on the Imperial Broadcasting Corporation's empire-wide television network. The 2376-2379 program, now known by the informal nickname Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Original Series or "TOS" for short, chronicled the adventures of Commander Koth and the crew of the battlecruiser IKV bortaS (Vengeance), one of the most famed and highly decorated starships of the fictional Imperial Klingon Warfleet.

Every week, Koth, played by the dynamic and charismatic actor Wilaam sutai-Rentash, led his bold crew of Klingon warriors on another glorious adventure among the stars, bringing honor and fame to the Empire. Koth's closest advisors were the cool and cerebral science officer, Sub-Commander SpoQ, and the ship's volatile surgeon, Ma'Qoy. Their constant bickering provided many of the lighter moments of the show's humor, as well. The Vengeance's regular crew also included the beautiful intelligence officer Nikaal, the daredevil helmsman Karu, master battle engineer Du'Han, and eager young navigation officer ZheQov, who became famous for his belief that every great Klingon invention originated in his native northern province of Meskva.

Imaginatively written but filmed on a very low budget, Battlecruiser Vengeance fared poorly in its initial broadcast airing, possibly because IBC promoted it so lightly. It was actually cancelled at the end of the 2378 season, but a massive letter-writing campaign and several duel challenges from fans convinced the surviving producers to bring show back for one more season. All the same, it still never achieved major success until after its production run ended, when it took off in reruns and became a major cult hit throughout the Empire and beyond. (In 2381, IBC produced a single season of the even-lower-budget Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Animated Series, which has since become a much-sought-after curiosity among Vengeance fans.)

By 2387, the show was so popular in syndication that its original creators began planning a new series, Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Second Campaign. Within a couple of years, the series was shelved in favor of a major motion picture, intended to capitalize on the success of Counterattack, the smash-hit dramatization of the Wedge Defense Force's final defeat of GENOM Corporation. The resulting film, while flawed by its rushed production schedule, cemented the Battlecruiser Vengeance franchise's fame and popularity throughout the galaxy, spawning nine sequels and four further television series.

The TV Series

Battlecruiser Vengeance (aka The Original Series, TOS)
2376-2379

A low-budget military action show originally envisioned as a fill-in series between seasons of the wildly popular Expansion Era period drama Disruptorfire, TOS was designed hurriedly and filmed on a shoestring, and it shows. Producers made the best of a bad situation by making the dilapidated appearance of the Vengeance (really the decommissioned battlecruiser tal'Mach) a recurring plot point, part of Koth's clever plan to make his enemies underestimate him. The quality of episodes varies wildly, from the astonishing "Is There in Death No Honor?" to the apocalyptically bad "... And the Children of Kahless Shall Lead". Fan favorite episodes include "Errand of Conquest", "The Baakonite Maneuver", "The Tholians' Folly", and the show's only out-and-out comedy episode, "The Great Tribble Slaughter of Space Station K-7".

Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Animated Series (aka TAS)
2381

Even lower-budget than TOS, TAS featured the voices of most of the original cast, but the animation was terrible and the writing dumbed down for the anticipated younger audience. The show never really caught on, but a couple of its episodes ("How Sharper than a Traitor's Blade", "The Conquest of Time") are considered important to the franchise's overall canon by some fans. Recordings of TAS were never officially made available, making the show sought after by fans for its rarity and curiosity value, if nothing else.

Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Next Generation (aka TNG)
2391-2398

More of a science-fiction program than the original, Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Next Generation was set aboard a Klingon warship of the year 2650, complete with extrapolated weapons technologies and a multicultural crew drawn from the four corners of the now-galaxy-spanning Empire, all under the command of Captain Koth, a descendent of TOS's Commander Koth. Non-Klingons were uneasy about its expansionistic message, hardcore Klingons disturbed by the implication that conquered races were shown to be given citizenship and allowed to serve in the military. At its best ("The Best of Both Empires", "Yesterday's Vengeance") it was a great show; at its worst (pretty much all of seasons 1, 2, and 7) it was clunky, preachy, or both. The crew of the future-Vengeance were only seen in a few guest appearances after the series wrapped.

Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Cardassian War (aka TCW)
2395-2400

Confusing to some viewers because, despite its title, it focused on the exploits of the battlecruiser Defiance and its crew, Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Cardassian War was highly popular anyway because of its pseudo-documentary filming style and the fact that the fictional Imperial Warfleet gave the Cardies a much rougher time than the real KDF did in the real Cardassian War. Historical parallels to the real war, guest appearances by the TOS and TNG Vengeances (including, after the third season, the arrival of the human Sub-Commander Dorn from TNG as a permanent TCW cast member), and the raw intensity of Commander Tzis'Qo added up to a spinoff that's second in popularity to this day.

Battlecruiser Vengeance: Odyssey
2401-2408

The follow-up to The Cardassian War returned the focus to the Vengeance, now with a new crew (Koth became Chancellor of the High Council during TCW and made his command staff his military advisors). In the first episode, the ship, now under the command of the untried Commander Katrin and with a crew infiltrated by Romulan agents, was teleported to the far side of the galaxy by a mysterious, godlike being. So far away that a message will take a hundred years to reach the Homeworld, Katrin has no choice but to cross an almost unimaginable vastness of uncharted territory, fighting every step of the way against a host of bizarre new enemies - and against internal dissention aboard her ship as well. The result is a rich, multilayered Klingon martial drama as well as a series that contains some of the most spectacular space combat action ever filmed. By most modern fans, Odyssey, not TNG, is considered the true successor to the Battlecruiser Vengeance legacy.

Vengeance
2410-present

A brand-new series just launched by IBC, Vengeance steps back hundreds of years into the past, to a time before there was a multistellar Klingon Empire, to chronicle the adventures of the Old Empire's first fully operational starship, named (of course) the Vengeance. Under the command of the valiant Koth (an ancestor of the TOS and TNG Koths, of course), Vengeance explores strange new worlds, seeks out new life and new civilizations, and boldly conquers where no Klingon has conquered before. Though derided by some for its complete disregard of actual history (the first Klingon starship was named, inevitably, the Kahless), the show is loved by others for its freewheeling sense of adventure and the fresh new angles it brings while dramatizing real events like the Klingons' first contact with the Salusians and the colonization of the very first Klingon colony world, Klinzhai Prime.

>>> Continued in File 2: The Movies

This was a fun read, made even more entertaining was parsing everything back to the history of Trek. Although in some cases, I think I'd prefer to watch Battlecruiser Vengeance or its descendants

>Vengeance
>2410-present

I hope Vengeance suffered a better fate than the now-cancelled Enterprise did.

Jeanne

		Jeanne Hedge http://www.jhedge.com http://go.compuserve.com/Comic

Kai the Editor-in-Chief! :)

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Motion Picture (aka TMP)
2389

The first big-screen Vengeance adventure, TMP brought the original cast back together under the leadership of Commander Koth, who gives up a promotion to general in order to lead his old crew back into battle aboard a newly-renovated, cutting-edge version of their faithful battlecruiser. Koth and his crew must race to the edge of the Empire in order to head off a mysterious alien vessel which is on a direct course for Kronos. Time may be running out for the whole Klingon race, and only Koth and the Vengeance can save them! Though marred by some pacing and editing problems caused by its extremely aggressive production schedule, TMP was still a triumph for everyone who had worked and hoped to bring Battlecruiser Vengeance back. Its popularity led directly to the rest of the movie franchise and made possible the production of the subsequent television series, and its beautifully redesigned Vengeance was so well-liked that Kronos Heavy Industries based the next revision of the real-life k't'Inga-class heavy cruiser on its look.

Battlecruiser Vengeance II: The Wrath of Kor
2391

Captain Kor swore revenge against Koth and the Vengeance in the TOS episode "Seed of Destruction". He returns to exact it in The Wrath of Kor, the most popular of all the Vengeance movies. The film features a magnificent performance by actor Kol'Hos, a Klingon national treasure, as Koth's revenge-obsessed rival captain, and the battles between the Vengeance and Kor's Black Death rocked audiences all over the galaxy. The film was truly stunning, though, for the heroic and glorious death of Sub-Commander SpoQ.

Battlecruiser Vengeance III: The Search for SpoQ
2392

General Koth defies the High Council in order to undertake the most daring mission of his entire career: to take the Vengeance to the gates of Sto-Vo-Kor itself and demand the return of his most trusted shipmate, Sub-Commander SpoQ. The effort succeeds, but at a terrible price. The Vengeance is destroyed, and Koth and his crewmates find themselves wanted fugitives, stranded on Romulus. This film marked the directing debut of nI'moy, the actor who played SpoQ.

Battlecruiser Vengeance IV: The Glorious Return
2393

After months in hiding on Romulus, Koth and his crew attack a naval base, seize an new Romulan Warbird, and use its experimental weaponry to destroy a planet-eating alien machine which threatens to consume Kronos. For saving the Homeworld and securing the Romulan prize, the crew is pardoned, except for Koth; he is busted back to Commander and assigned to command a brand new Vengeance! Also directed by nI'moy, Battlecruiser Vengeance IV featured some of the franchise's lightest, most charming humor, including the unforgettably droll scene in which ma'Qoy challenges SpoQ to a duel in response to SpoQ's assertion that only one who has been to Sto-Vo-Kor can truly understand what it is like.

Battlecruiser Vengeance V: The False God
2395

Koth and his crew are having trouble with the new Vengeance. Though it's the same class as their old ship, it behaves differently, lacking the familiar quirks and idiosyncrasies of the original. They're distracted from their woes by the arrival of Science Officer SpoQ's brother Sy'boQ, a perverse individual who has founded a cult of Klingons who think themselves pacifists. Sy'boQ hijacks the Vengeance through cowardly means and takes it on a journey to the Galactic Core, where he hopes to meet an omnipotent being who created the universe. Instead, he finds there only the fate of all who cross Koth of the Vengeance. Directed by Wilaam sutai-Rentash, who played the original Koth in his every appearance, Battlecruiser Vengeance V was an ambitious production, but it never really caught on with fans, who felt that Rentash had belabored Koth's importance to the Empire somewhat and not featured the other members of the Vengeance's crew prominently enough.

Battlecruiser Vengeance VI: The Unconquered Country
2397

Koth and ma'Qoy are framed for the murder of the Federation President in an attempt by radical members of both the Federation Senate and the Klingon High Council to destabilize the Klingon-Zetan alliance. While the two plot their escape from the Federation prison at Crematoria, it's up to SpoQ and the rest of the Vengeance crew to fight their way to Earth and deliver the evidence that will clear their captain and the doctor. The last Battlecruiser Vengeance movie to feature the entire original cast, The Unconquered Country was seen as a landmark film, affirming the producers' belief in the Empire's controversial alliance with Zeta Cygni and foreseeing the eventual Earth-Zeta Cygni split that has come to dominate Federation politics today.

Battlecruiser Vengeance: Generations
2398

The seventh film in the series dropped the numbering and featured a story that brought together characters from TOS and Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Next Generation. The parts of it featuring the TNG cast were filmed at the same time as principal photography for Battlecruiser Vengeance VI, enabling Generations to come out only six months later. A time anomaly strands Koth, SpoQ, and ma'Qoy in the year 2653, while simultaneously depositing TNG-Koth, Sub-Commander RiH'r, and Lieutenant Dorn aboard the Vengeance of the TOS era. The two Koths must get used to leading each other's crews and working each other's vessels in order to defeat the malicious aliens who caused them to become timelost and return to their own eras.

Battlecruiser Vengeance: First Conflict
2400

Released just before the series finale of Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Cardassian War aired on television, First Conflict featured both the Vengeance and the Defiance in another time-travel story which flung both vessels back to the earliest days of Klingon history. They arrive in the ancient past just in time to witness the first attempt by an alien species to invade pre-spaceflight Kronos. With the evil Romulans plotting to tilt the balance in the aliens' favor and prevent the Klingon people from ever achieving spaceflight, Koth and Tzis'Qo must do all they can to help the early Klingons win without inflicting their own catastrophic changes on history. (First Conflict was the last appearance of Koth as commander of the Vengeance. In his next appearance, in the Cardassian War series finale "The Scars You Leave Behind", he is named Chancellor of the Klingon High Council.)

Battlecruiser Vengeance: Counter-Insurrection
2404

The cast of Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Cardassian War returned after a four-year hiatus for this film, in which General Tzis'Qo must take command of the Defiance once again in order to put down a revolt on occupied Cardassia. The timing of the revolt makes little sense, since Chancellor Koth had announced his intention to end the occupation within the year anyway, and he orders his old friend Tzis'Qo to get to the bottom of the Cardassians' strange behavior. The truth will turn out to be far more sinister than either Klingon could have imagined. Counter-Insurrection was unpopular with fans because of the perfunctory and needless death of Commander Warren Dorn, the popular human officer first introduced in Battlecruiser Vengeance: The Next Generation. Dorn, who became the first non-Klingon to command a Warfleet vessel at the end of The Cardassian War when he succeeded Tzis'Qo as commander of the Defiance, is assassinated by the Cardassian rebels in the first 10 minutes of the film, thus making Tzis'Qo's efforts later in the film a blood revenge. Critics of this manipulative move note that Tzis'Qo had plenty of motivation to deal harshly with the Cardassians anyway, and maintain that a character as well-loved as Dorn should have been given a more honorable exit if killing him off were necessary at all.

Battlecruiser Vengeance: Nemesis
2407

The first (and so far only) Battlecruiser Vengeance: Odyssey movie, Nemesis pits Commander Katrin and her by-now-battle-hardened crew (the film is set between the sixth and seventh seasons of Odyssey) against none other than Commander Kor, the arch-foe of the Vengeance's original commander, Koth. Kor's ship, last seen being blown to smithereens by the Nemesis Device at the end of Battlecruiser Vengeance II: The Wrath of Kor, is revealed to have been hurled halfway across the galaxy by the ill-understood weapon's blast instead. Now, more deranged than ever and so deluded he thinks Katrin is Koth, he believes he is exacting his final revenge against his lifelong enemy. Where Counter-Insurrection is disliked by Cardassian Wars fans for the killing off of Commander Dorn, Nemesis is held in high esteem by Odyssey fans for the glorious and noble death of Battle Engineer Xaana, the half-human technical wizard of the Odyssey cast - even if she was hokily brought back in the first episode of Odyssey's seventh season. Interestingly, Nemesis also featured a marked relaxing of the franchise's usually unsympathetic attitude toward Romulans: A Romulan cruiser, stranded the same way as the Vengeance was to set up the series, helps the Vengeance defeat Kor.

The Future of Battlecruiser Vengeance

As noted in the first file, the current show, Vengeance, is still in production despite the ongoing Klingon Civil War. The show is produced on Klinzhai Prime, interim capital of the Krojaar government, and so far has been able to avoid having to take any kind of position on the Civil War thanks to its distant-past setting.

Rumors abound regarding the next Battlecruiser Vengeance feature film. Some believe it will be another Odyssey movie, showing the continuing adventures of General Katrin and her crew now that the Vengeance has returned to the Empire. Others think it will be a Vengeance film, possibly featuring a time-travel plot that will allow the use of some characters from Odyssey or The Cardassian War. A few diehards are calling for a Next Generation revival on the big screen. Some even believe that the show's producers are in talks with Kanzaki Studios of Ishiyama and the International Police Organization about a Battlecruiser Vengeance co-production guest-starring the IPO starship Valiant and her famous crew, with Chancellor Koth, General Katrin, and Captain Tenjou fighting to wrest the empire away from the traitorous and dishonorable Klayvor vestai-Klavaar.

If anyone knows for sure, they're not talking. There has been no official announcement from anyone regarding the cast, concept, or even era of the next Battlecruiser Vengeance movie. All anyone knows for certain is that there will be one.

The UF universe's Klingon culture takes much from Ford's pre-TNG vision of them, in addition to the obvious material drawn from the TNG era's "canonical" Klingons. For example, the game klin zha, mentioned by Captain Krontep in S1M7: Reflections in Transition, is the Klingon national game in The Final Reflection, and the phrase kai kassai as a salute is from Ford's Klingon language.

In Ford's novels, Battlecruiser Vengeance is mentioned as a favorite program of some of the characters, including Captain Krenn in The Final Reflection. The theme song is sung by a group of characters at one point in that novel, by way of saluting/inspiring Krenn.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

I gotta know -- did they actually cast a human, or was he played by a Klingon wearing a rubber lack-of-forehead prosthetic?

-- Bob
-------------------
Then the horns kicked in...
And my shoes started to squeak.

The comments about how fans view the different series are interesting, because they differ in places from my experience of real Star Trek fandom. In my university Star Trek society and among other people I know who like Trek, Voyager and Enterprise are almost universally derided (particularly Voyager's later seasons and Enterprise's earlier ones). Personally, I like DS9 best, don't mind most of Voyager, only like bits of TNG, and wince at all the pointless nudity/sexuality in Enterprise (though I like Season 3 and have a thing for Hoshi). Do the comments on the popularity of Battlecruiser Venegeance's different series reflect the opinions of the author(s), or are they intentionally different?

Also, did the human Star Trek exist in the UFverse pre-Core (obviously the series and seasons that appeared after 1991 wouldn't have)? If it did, Battlecruiser Venegeance would presumably have drawn comparisons with it.

-Joe-