The subject says it all...

Every other government we have seen in the Alpha, Beta, and Delta Quadrant is essentially single species.

The Dominion is a hard case. Technically they're multiracial, but all the other races are subjects and only the Founders have a voice.

Actually, I've thought of this for a while. If this is true, then there must be a lot of Klingons and Romulans out there- a lot more than humans, if they can be a worthy adversary.

Yeah- I've always wondered how the Klingons and Romulans could be seen as on the same level with the Federation even though they are just one race each. You would think that with all the races in the Federation no one race would want to mess around with them.

As to other Federation-type governments, it's a big galaxy, there must be others out there. They should have a Voyager episode where they run into one(perhaps one with a single significant difference from our Federation).

Well, don't forget, the Federation is one of the only egalitarian societies depicted in Trek. The Romulans were originally based on the Romans -- and only Romans could be citizens and serve in the senate. As for the Klingons, Errand of Mercy depicts how they amassed a star empire - conquest. Aside from their emphasis on lineal ancestry and pure blood, you don't generally allow conquered people to run your government - or even their own, which is why Kor was Governor of Organia.
Of course, you would expect conquered races to be conscripted into service aboard ships . . .

What about the Son'a? Don't they count?

No, according to the encyclopedia, those other races were conquered by the Son'a and turned into a labor class.

In TOS the Klingon Empire was supposed to be multi-racial but that concept was lost in TNG, except for when that Klingon from "The Chase" offered Data a position in the Empire.

The only Klingons and Romulans we see are on ships in the military. I would imagene klingons reproduce fast because 1. Warriors die fast 2. Alexander went from 3 year old to 20 year old in about 7 seasons. The subjects run the farms. Who was in that Ruth Penn ice planet jail.

Shouldn't all Vulcans be dark skinned? They do live on a hot dry planet. Sargon's people anyone?

The borg are multiracial :-)

The Breen could be too:-)

The only Klingons and Romulans we see are on ships in the military.

No, we see the Klingon government (The High Council) on several occasions (Sins of the Father, House of Quark, etc...), though they all seem to be ex-military.

The Son'a seem somewhat multi-racial. They conqued 2 races and intergrated them as a labor class.

The Dominion could be called multi-racial. We've seen a few of the different races on DS9. the reason you don't see much more of them is that the Jem Hadar are the primary military force and the Vorta are the "chosen" race of the dominion. However, I have often wondered about the quesion at hand. If the kilingons do have other races under their thumb, what does the federation think of it in the NextGen timeframe? After all, the Klingons are allies now, but I saw an episode (can't remember the name) of DS9 where Martok was saying something along the lines of "Klingons don't use diplomacy, they conquer!" Not an exact qoute, but thats the gist of it. If the Klingons conquer other worlds for the empire how does the goody goody federation felel about being allies with them?

Aren't the Kriosians (from "The Mind's Eye") part of the Klingon Empire? (Or at least a race conquered by them)

Here's another question: why is the Federation, which prides itself on being multiracial, sooooooo predominantly human?

Budgets. outfiting lots of your cast (not to mention extras) in alien makeup is expenside. Although it has been done. Babylon 5 anyone.

On the same lines, KevinS, where the heck are all the Andorians?!

Did the Bolians wipe them out or something?! (in the popularity stakes...)

Budgets. outfiting lots of your cast (not to mention extras) in alien makeup is expenside. Although it has been done. Babylon 5 anyone.

Hmm, well something tells me their budget would have been better spent on special effects and backgrounds more convincing than those in South Park.

Peter.

My question is: why exactly are all the nonhuman cultures so 2-dimensional? I mean, you have Vulcans: every single Vulcan is devoted to logic, represses their emotions, etc. Those who don't (i.e., Sybok) are expelled. Almost every single Klingon is bound by the same code of honor (except K'ehlyr and Alexander) and values the same things. All Romulans appear to be shifty and scheming. All Cardassians wear the same gray armor and are cruel and ruthless (at least in TNG; DS9 fixed this a little). All Bajorans believe in The Prophets. All Pakleds are mentally challenged.

What I'm saying is this: you can sum up a given race in a sentence or two. It is simply impossible to do so for humans.

Note that while all the other examples may have other races within their empires/borders/whatever, all the other GOVERNMENTS we have seen have been single race. There are no non-Klingons on the High Council. As far as we've seen, no non-Romulans in the Senate, no non-Founders ruling the Dominion, etc...

Only the Federation Council is multiracial (see STIV, STVI).

Why?

ScottN,

I think I have the answer. Those other races are "subjugated". The races the Klingons conquered would not get a place on the high council because they lost and are not true honorable warriors. In the Dominion, they are solids and clearly inferior. The Romulan Star Empire does not have to state its reasons to you. The Federation, however, is a voluntary grouping. (We can argue about how voluntary it is when the only other option is stay independant and fight off the Klingons and Romulans on your own.)

The true honorable warriors bit is using the Klingon definition of honor.

(We can argue about how voluntary it is when the only other option is stay independant and fight off the Klingons and Romulans on your own.) Berry

Actually there is a third alternative, one which all pre-warp civilizations within the Federation borders automatically if unknowingly opt for: independance with an alliance to the Fed. This is the choice Bajor made between the end of the Cardassian Occupation and the beginning of the Dominion War.

In TOS the Klingon Empire was supposed to be multi-racial but that concept was lost in TNG

I wondered if this could explain why TOS Klingons have no brow ridges! Also it could explain why Worf didn't want to talk about it in Trials and Tribblations (sp?). Racial strife in the Empire?

Unfortunately, several TOS Klingons subsequently appeared on later series with brow ridges. So that trashes that idea...

Roland Khorshidianzadeh: In TOS the Klingon Empire was supposed to be multi-racial but that concept was lost in TNG...
Luigi Novi: This is because they were now our friends, and the show didn't want us to focus on the fact that the Klingons were still conquerors who annexed and occupied other worlds. One exception is The Mind's Eye(TNG), which features Kriosian rebels who want independence from the Empire, and Governor Vagh, who runs that planet. Of course, the issue of how Klingons occupy another world is never really an issue in the episode, and we never even see any rebels, nor do any of their actions factor heavily into the story, as they are more of a background element.

To answer the big question, the main reason is that it can become very confusing to the viewers (not to mention the writers) of a sci-fi series if the aliens start looking like something besides their main race. Do you really want each episode to spend precious minutes trying to explain such apparent discrepancies to the audience? Don't answer that! I forgot for a moment that I'm talking to Star Trek fans.

Well, we're going to see how this idea plays later on this season on "Enterprise," as apparently the female Andorians are going to look different from the males.

Someone mentioned an analogy between the Romulans and the Roman Empire. The Romans were a multi-racial empire. They did conquer other peoples, but they left their cultures and religions intact. They did have non-Roman units serving as auxiliaries in their army, and non-Romans could join the army and gain citizenship after their hitch, which passed to their children. I would imagine, if the Romulan-Roman analogy holds up, that there would be non-Romulans serving on their ships and/or having ships of their own design as auxiliary vessels in their fleet. However, the necessities of makeup and SFX butt heads with what would make sense. Another possibility is that the Romulan Empire is an empire of the worlds settled by the Romulan species in the past. The civilization of the planets Romulus and Remus may have conquered a bunch of other planets inhabited by other Romulans or by species very smilar to them in appearance. They may well all have their own cultures and beliefs on their own worlds, but in the fleet, serving the Empire, they have to wear the same uniforms and use a UT.
Now, the Klingons seem to have a similar attitude to the Spartans. They probably have a slave-based economy, with non-Klingon species, and possibly poor or disgraced Klingons also, toiling to support the Klingons, who can use the resources of those worlds to focus on conquest and glory instead of where the next plate of Gagh is coming from. I picture them conquering and enslaving each other on Qo'noS before they got space travel, and Khaless conquering all Klingons so he could free them and raise them all up. Then their descendants took their aggression out on other species, who don't go to Sto'Vo'Kor when they die. They probably keep their slaves ignorant and scared, so they might think they need the Klingons to protect them from the Federation or the Romulans. The Federation's alliance with the Empire probably involved some compromises on the Federation's part, like acknowledging the Klingons' use of slaves as an internal matter. I picture Starfleet trying to free their slaves or train them as guerillas as a tactic during their wars with the Klingons. To see to it they never do it again, the High Council would probably have insisted on that concession and that may be why it took so long to get a treaty signed.

Just an interesting aside here, though completely noncannon. I have been playing the "Star Fleet Battles" game (from the 70s, I believe) and, despite being a board game, it is the most sophisticated combat game I've ever encountered. There is a special rule that applies to all Klingon ships in this game dealing with mutinies. The rule book states that because most of the crew members on a typical Klingon ship are actually non-Klingons from various occupied worlds, the crews will quickly rebel if control is lost. This game, despite being noncannon, tends to reflect the trends and thinking that TPTB had when they were planning "Star Trek: Phase II" (the aborted TV show from the late 70s), so it's likely that someone "official" thought (at one time, at least) that the Klingon Empire would be strongly multiracial.

Agreed many of the nonvcannon materials(especially those written back in the eighties and those by FASA) seem to agree that the Klingon's had sujugated many different worlds in their empire and although the subjugated worlds didnt have a whole lot of say they where at least present.

Maybe the personnel from the Klingon empire are just below-decks minions, or else they collaberators used for special duties like spying.

The TOS novel "Battlestations", which references old TOS source materials, mentions at least four other Klingon "strains" which sound like separate conquered races, apart from the one we all know and love. The most distinctive was the Rumaiy, which also appeared in the (VERY BAD) novel "Enterprise: The First Adventure". The Rumaiy had an Arab-esque culture and had turnip-shaped ships.

Of course none of this is canon but it gives you an idea of what TPTB thought in the TOS period. Also apparently in those days the name of the Klingon Homeworld was thought to be either "Klinzai" or just "Klingon".