Star Trek: Exploring Worf’s Unusual Relationship With Klingon Culture

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Star Trek has been gracing screens big and small since it’s creation in the late 1960s, and has over the years become a founding figure in the science fiction genre. That’s not to say it was the first of the genre, not by any means, but it did influence a vast majority of visual science fiction, as well as being so ingrained in popular culture even today. The show had changed a lot since its creation, something the creator Gene Roddenberry might not have been too happy about. However, he would undoubtedly have been proud of the legacy he created, breathing life into an expansive franchise of wonderful technologies, alien races, and fantastic characters. One such character became a fan favorite: Worf, son of Mogh, the first Klingon to join Starfleet.

Through his strong, stoic, yet sometimes deeply emotional story, audiences got their first glimpse at the Klingons through a lens not clouded by war. Up until Worf's introduction in TNG, the Federation had been in conflict with the Klingon empire (albeit a fairly different-looking race of Klingon). Thus, the character was the perfect opportunity to show Klingon civilization and culture without them being the enemy. Worf was interesting, however, as his relationship with Klingon culture was far from normal. Instead of growing up in a typical Klingon household and around other people of his culture, Worf was actually brought up by humans.

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At the age of five, Worf's birth parents took him to live on the Khitomer colony, which was unfortunately attacked by the Vulcan counterparts the Romulans, killing almost all of the 4,000 Klingons living there. Among the dead were Worf’s biological parents. When the Federation starship USS Intrepid