Klingon warriors
growled; Federation officers grumbled, all impatient for the beauteous and
fearsome Klingon lovelies to take the stage for the 2002 Miss Klingon Empire
Beauty Pageant. Something had
to be done. A valiant Klingon
warrior sprang to action. Harassing
and terrorizing the audience, he grabbed random people and dragged them
forward in order to tease and humiliate them for the restless crowd's
entertainment. It was the honorable thing to do.
But finally, emcee
Eric Watts took
the stage and introduced the ten contestants.
There was strutting, there was threatening, there was posturing.
But Watts was able to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.
During the talent
portion of the competition, contestants displayed their prowess in feats as
varied as Miss K'val K'ree (Jacqueline Gustafson) spinning a pair of
"flaming" Klingon fireballs in a dizzying pattern of flashing red to
Miss Kay'Lan (Adena Benton) stalking off the stage after announcing "I'm
in no mood to perform." There
was Klingon opera, Klingon poetry---a masterful display of double entendre
as Captain KheTara Sutai Lorenssith (Christine Arriaga) listed the virtues
of her "blade"---and a demonstration of command capability as Lady
K'dessa (Jo-jo) conducted the audience in rounds of "Steer Steer Steer
Your Ship"---sung to the tune of "Row Row Row Your Boat."
For the
"Personality" segment, contestants had to answer such thorny questions
as:
"Is Klingon cleavage a weapon? Support
your answer."
"Raktagino or
blood wine?"
"And how would you eliminate
world peace?"
Showing that
Klingons do indeed come in blonde, to the question "of what is the Klingon
heart forged?" Miss K'ten of Q'onos (Veronica Dwayne) in her Hooters
waitress uniform replied "Anybody want some hot wings?"
Truly, the judges---Robert
Picardo (the emergency medical holograph doctor on Voyager),
Ethan Phillips (Neelix
on Voyager, a Ferengi on Enterprise), Armin
Shimerman (Quark on DS9), and Miss
USA Galaxy---were faced with a daunting task.
But they persevered, despite, as Armin Shimerman quipped, having
"two ferengi sitting behind the table and it's the humahn who's adding up
the numbers."
Announcing the 2002
Miss Klingon Empire winner:
Ruthar Sutai-Lorenssith
(Meg Costabile)
Runner up:
K'val K'ree
(Jacqueline Gustafson)
And finally, parting
words of wisdom from the 2001 Miss Klingon Empire winner (Sherry Williams)
to the 2002 winner: "Don't let me behind your back."
