Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Klingon Bird-of-Prey

For the Klingonese illiterate: Legacy.

The legacy of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey goes well beyond those four films, nearly 50 episodes, model kits, toys, and Keepsake Magic ornaments, extending into Star Trek's design language to this day.

While Star Trek: The Next Generation's producers commissioned designer Rick Sternbach to create the Vor'cha-class attack cruiser to replace the existing Klingon starship models designed for the motion pictures (i.e. the Bird-of-Prey and K'Tinga-class battlecruiser), the appeal of the ship remained and it continued to see action, making it one of Star Trek's longest-lived ships.

TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise producer Rick Berman was so enamored of the ship, he often pushed the series' various illustrators to incorporate elements from the Bird-of-Prey when designs were otherwise not working. At Berman's request, attributes of the Bird-of-Prey were deliberately incorporated into ships in Star Trek Nemesis, influencing both the Valdore-type warbird and the Reman warbird Scimitar, despite their Romulan, not Klingon origins.

A seeming anachronism, Star Trek: Enterprise featured a new spin on the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, designed by John Eaves after several other 22nd century Klingon vessels were created for the show but failed to meet the producer's approval. Even Star Trek: Discovery featured a Bird-of-Prey in its Klingon-centric first season, a ship that was heavily influenced by Gothic architecture and H.R. Giger's biomechanical style, but still clearly bearing all the hallmarks of that very first Bird-of-Prey.

As of this writing, the most recent episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "wej Duj", centered on the lower decks aboard the Klingon Bird-of-Prey IKS Che'ta', faithfully recreated in animated form.

Fingers crossed for the triumphant return of the Klingon monster dog, give us a Klingon monster dog Short Trek, ptaQs!