The Klingons are a feudalist, warrior race. In the past, like most species the klingons were a mixture of differant ideas and ways of life. In the distant past, probobly before or round the time when klingons split the atom, The tyrant Morlor dominated the world (Qo'nos). Kahlass had overthrown Morlor in a legendary war. It is speculated that the klingons were fighting a world war similar to earth's first world war. Kahless's faction took over Qo'nos and became Emperor of the Klingon Empire, he founded the High councel which in practice was a feudal-federal political system. The empire through out its existance was a highly decenteralized nation dominated by the military, Jame T Kirk refer to the empire as a miliary dictatorship, possibly comparing it to the shogunate era japan or the 2nd Reich (turn of the century German empire) both of which had similar arrangments. The Klingons broke the warp barrier in the 14th century, as a warp 1 civilization they did not venture outside their solar system exept on religous pilgrimages to holy stars. The Young interstellar klingon civilization was invaded by the Hur'q who destroyed the small klingon fleet and Qo'nos' trading fleet, during their short occupation, the Hur'q quickly relised that they could not keep Qo'nos as a holding due to the extreme resistance. The Hur'q plundered the planet of valuble resources including artifacts such as the sword of Kahlass, The Hur'q were expelled but the damage caused by the Hur'q including destruction of scientific facilitys and manufacting sent Qo'nos in to a dark age. Dispite losing their warp technology, the empire was still known as a flegling civilization and allys of the klingons continued to trade. This Dark age lasted up until the 20th century which was a time of rapid expantion. In the 17th century the Klingons reestablished their presence in interstellar space, after the Hur'q invation they adopted an aggressive protocal. Klingon rule had been compared with the rule of ancient earth's persian empire, planets which willingly swore allegance to the empire were left to govern as they saw fit on the condtition that they gave the empire tribute and tax. the inability to do so or acts of rebelion saw the planet brought under direct rule of the government who appoints a military governor (Dictator). in the 21st century the Klingons began to gradually install Matter/antimatter reactors into ships and broke the Warp 5 barrier a few decades before humanity, unlike earth the Klingons were not under the life or death struggle to do so. the Alpha and Beta Quadents at the time was artificially divided by the Romulan Tal'shiar. As the klingon empire was an unstable feudal society with constant rebelions from planets and houses, the romulans did not check the expantion of the empire, instead they focused on destabalizing the stable Alpha Beta quadrent meridian region. Earth and Qo'nos has very little dealing besides their dealings with captain archer, relations with earth were frosty until the foundation of the Federation. After the earth won there war against the romulans and founded the federation The Federation's human expantion alarmed the Klingons. They Believed that eventually the Federation would attempt to invade the the Klingon and Romulan empires, In the mid 23rd century the 4 Year war broke out. at this time the two powers were evenly matched in all manners, the war saw the development of the Constitution and Aries classes (Federation) and the Klingon D7, The Klingon B'rel and K'vort were in R&D but missed the war. They were delayed when the Romulan-Klingon alliance and tech exchange took place, after which the 'Bird of Pray' types were redesigned as ambush ship. most Klingon ships were equipped with clocking devices.