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Miss Klingon Empire
by Justin Hall

Below her bosom, this lady carries a sausage wrapped in fur.

Besides the dealer room and the hordes of game players, Dragon*Con hosted a series of conversations, panel discussions and community events on topics important to the sci-fi community. For example, Babylon 5: "Doctor, Ranger, Caretaker," Star Wars: "Arts and Crafts," and Tolkien: "Reconstructing Middle Earth."

On the Star Trek track, the most eye-catching event was the Miss Klingon Empire contest. How do humans manage to host an alien beauty pageant?

Over one hundred and fifty people turned up to find out. Two actors who played Klingon chancellors entered and were seated as the celebrity judges.

Before the proceedings began, we were treated to a number of Klingon filk songs, sung in English by two stout Klingons armed with accoustic guitars, a duo called Warbands, I believe. They played some filks songs, parodies and original music typically composed around science fiction themes. For example, they sung a song that could be called "Klingon Pie:" "that day, that Gowron died..." and "Klingon Blues," which sounded much like any other blues songs except there was a lot of killing involving other races.

A can-can moment during this Klingon exotic dance

Nine women had worked hard to make themselves Klingon-beautiful. Seven had the immense brows and foreheads with long, bushy hair. A few had hand-sewn costumes with all kinds of badges and Klingon accessories, including knives, and one woman brandished a rather large sausage in a custom foxfur-carrying case. As each of them sauntered down the runway, the human narrator read the contestant's personal history - some had extremely extensive backgrounds, involving time travel and the discovery of rare precious metals, as well as Klingon-human miscegenation in American Southwest caves. One had been involved with Klingon-sponsored charities, including a pet shelter.

A few of the contestants worked hard to expose the audience to a faceful of cleavage - breasts restrained and cloth cut so as to show two or more handspans of vertical valley. There was a sense of bawdiness to the proceedings - more than one Klingon lady approached the judge's table blowing kisses or whispering sweet bribes. The audience was loud and largely celebratory, letting out "Yaars!" and other suitable Klingon cries of approval as each successive battle wench walked the aisle.

I learned that Klingons are an exceptionally warlike people and this carries over into their notions of a beauty pageant. The women who were warlike and brazenly violent attracted the greatest reaction from the crowd. One contestant had a difficult Klingon name, and when the host mispronounced it, she stridently threatened him.

The Miss Klingon Empire contest wasn't only about brawny beauty, it was about brains too. There was a talent portion of the contest, and the most surreal moments of Klingon cultural immersion happened during these amazing performances.

Standard betleH Photo: Klingon Imperial Weapons Guild.

One woman had written a brief song, which she taught us: "We are Klingonese / I've got all my warriors with me / We are Klingonese / Get up everybody and fight." She then tried to get a singing competition going between different sections of the audience.

One woman's skit involved two large Klingon men in Hawaiian shirts sitting in the aisle as she gyrated around and on top of them in a Klingon erotic dance performed to a techno song made with Star Trek samples. Her movements were ultimately neither erotic nor ironic, and because she was neither a committed sexy dancer nor a comedian, the performance was too deeply surreal not to be disturbing. It reached a point where I felt as though I was going to explode: I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry or flee for the sake of my sanity. Another gal performed a Klingon comedy routine involving Klingon sex toys and humor about her depressed sex life with her mate - it looked like some things remain the same in deep space.

The final portion of the pageant involved asking each of the women questions. When one woman was asked what she was looking for in a mate, she replied, "Pain!" and the audience erupted in cheers. One woman was asked what she wanted to achieve, and she told the emcee, "Bend over." The woman brandishing the sausage was asked why she should win, and she kissed the sausage.

Your author, and Miss Klingon Empire 2000. Miss Klingon is on the right.

After all this madness, it was the woman with the most straightforward Klingon answers who won. She had cleared up misconceptions about Klingons for the talent portion and swore to kill Warf and Barney the dinosaur for her question. She had been a crowd favorite probably because of her stately demeanor, her pleasantly colored costume and her enormous cleavage. I was told that she uses the same costume for Renaissance fairs - it was a green and leather arrangement, which looked very nice with her auburn wig. It was more colorful and aesthetically pleasing than the warrior grays and blacks of the other contestants. It had been a hard-fought contest by the time the winner was declared, and after all this martial talk, I thought for sure that the victory would be contested. Even after I yelled, "Where's the fight?" the other women took their defeat gracefully.

People take on Klingonism as an outlet for their bawdy, violent tendencies. After an hour or two of Klingon culture, I felt like having some blood wine and passing out in a large bosom myself.