A funny bit of trivia I found is that when Michael Dorn read the teleplay for this episode, he sought out Robert O'Reilly and apologized to him for killing his character.
Kurn: So now Gowron no longer suits you? Perhaps you'd like to challenge him for leadership of the council! Worf: Of course not! Kurn: THEN DO NOT SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN!
@@scockery Well that scene is not about them. It's about the event (the executions of innocent people who had no hand in them) and our character's reaction to those events. One may say that not seeing them is kinda the point. It's easy to see a bunch of random people as no great tragedy when you've never seen them, and not really care. People die all the time and sometimes their deaths may be sad, but necessary. But it hit's differently when those random people were actually someone you cared about. That's what opened Dumar's eyes here. That no matter how you try to twist and spin it, his people were no batter than those Dominion butchers he was just condemning.
@@yadt I understand. It was a very interesting though unintentional juxtaposition. I was just mentioning how the clip break-up song and everything was the norm that he uses. But for the weightiness of the scene, he could perhaps have played a copyright-free tune that was more sobering. Or perhaps just the background sound of the Enterprise.
It was actually Erzi speaking out about the Klingon Empire that got me to like her and was kind of a refreshing way to differentiate her from Curzon and Jadzia, who revere Klingon culture.
I agree. It was a really great way to show she had the knowledge and respect for it that came from her previous hosts, but that this perspective was entirely her own.
Gowron was pretty good in the beginning, then he started yo-yo ing with Worf's Honor, the Kitomer Accords, and then he seemed to become jealous of Martok. It was a strange downfall.
@@beav1962 He seems like the kind of guy that was firmly the product of the bad political environment that put him in power. Perhaps he could have been a better person, but as broken as things were in the High Council no one in the running for Chancellor during the TNG era was going to be a great candidate. Better than Duras, easy, but great? That's much harder. The Romulan influences made everyone paranoid, and the Dominion didn't help that either. The Empire had to eventually go to Martok, someone from outside the system who had proven himself _actually_ honorable to get a better leader. We never get to see it, but I suspect this was very contentious for the ruling parties in the Council.
You'd think people would underestimate him less after finding out he's a spy and assassin, but if anything it seems to make them underestimate him even more.
Picard: I don't care if he framed your father to absolve his family, or you prevented the fed Klingon relationship resting back to Kirk's day, nor murdered your side chick! you are a Starfleet officer! Sisko: Mr. Worf, Gowron is F*cking with the war, ergo he is F*cking with me.......Remind him why one dose not F*CK with the Sisko
In an odd way, it isn't dark at all. This is classic Klingon politics, readily accepted by the High Council and the Empire. If it happened during peacetime, then I suspect that there would have been consequences, but war makes many sins forgivable. Besides, Gowron likely wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway. His wars against Cardassia and the Federation were very foolish in hindsight, for instance, and his reluctance to support the Federation fleet retaking DS9 nearly cost them the war. Gowron's decision to take personal command of the Klingon fleet smacks of desperation, a failing politician hoping that military glory will give him political support. Czar Nicholas II tried something similar in WW1, taking personal command of the Russian military despite not being even remotely qualified. You can guess how well that worked.
Eh, challenging your government's leader to a fight to the death is just part of Klingon culture - it's the equivalent of encouraging Worf to go out and vote.
@@MrGranten yeah, Sisko basically gave Worf a blank check to deal with the problem, and gosh it sure would be terrible if that resulted in Gowron's death, *wink*
It certainly helps the Founders that the top races of the Dominion are ones they created. Kinda hard to be independent when you've literally met your maker and know they'll kill you if they're not happy.
Fun fact: The Cardassian that recognized Damar and crew was played by J. Paul Boehmer, who has played a lot other (how should I put this?) authoritarian characters in Star Trek. Particularly, the Kapitan in The Killing Game, one of the members of the same regime in Enterprise's Zero Hour when they capture Archer, and an SS Agent in the following Storm Front. This guy’s casting is cursed.
Gowron’s behavior towards Martok is unjustified. But his hatred for Worf is understandable. In his first appearance Gowron offered K'Ehleyr a seat on the high council even though she was both a woman and a Federation citizen. It was always about politics with him. And from his point of view he gave the House of Mogh enormous power in the empire expecting Worf to be a reliable political ally. Instead he got an unpredictable and naive do-gooder who places friendship, faith, and personal honor above pretty much anything else.
I can't agree on the politics part. True, politics is frequently divisive. But just in American politics, how many leaders can one name who would deliberately send generals on doomed operations, sacrifice the lives of untold soldiers, and risk the security of their civilization to head off a potential challenge? I can only think of a handful of presidents in the nation's entire history who might, and even fewer who ever did anything of the sort. Something's rotten in the state of the Klingon Empire, and I think it's the very officially military and imperial nature with really only a code of honor that we've seen is easy to abuse that helps push it to that way.
I can't think of many who would do/did that. ...But I can think of plenty who engaged in what could generously be called "ruthless realpolitik." A case for impeachment could be made against a lot of Presidents from all parties - and it goes back far enough in US politics that I say "all" and not "both."
@@Talisguy Realpolitik is designed to serve the state though. Gownron's decisions only served himself. I think Putin is a better example of a leader who engages in self-serving wars at the expense of his people.
Small universe syndrome is one of my least favourite aspects of Star Trek. The High Council seems so small - no, the whole Klingon Empire seems so small! Almost everything has to do with Worf and other TNG- and/or DS9 main characters. I understand why this is a thing in a TV series (character recognition, everything we see is related to our protagonists etc.), but still ... it makes it more uninteresting. But Ezri was really right in her assessment of the Klingon Empire, it has become so ridiculously absurd that it makes no sense at all how it is "ruled", organised or acts as an entity. Nothing means anything there, but they act like they own the definition of meaning.
Yeah, I have never liked the monocultural approach of Star Trek. TNG is where that starts. The Klingons are all alcoholic warriors, and...that's it. What about the farmers? The engineers? The sanitation workers? The industrialists? The average labourer? TV pundits? Sportsmen? Merchantmen? Even in the most militarised interstellar empires, warriors will still make up a small fraction of the population, yet we never see diversity. Discovery kept this going, annoyingly. The most frustrating example is the Romulans, though. They left Vulcan because they refused Surak's philosophy of emotional suppression, wanting to exult in their wild emotions. Instead, most Romulans are painfully dull and dreary, as Garak himself notes at one point. They repress their emotions better than most Vulcans. The Rihannsu book series by Diane Duane does a much better job with them, giving them diversity, among other things. Trust me, mate, you're not alone on this hill.
@@Cailus3542 Star Trek is really strange for me. There are so many things I dislike, but also so many things I like and even LOVE ... in the end, I am a fan (whatever that means). I love to watch DS9, TNG and of course TOS (the other shows are not really my thing, although I have seen most of them), but I am constantly engaged in a very critical dialogue with those series that I love to watch!
@@Cailus3542 I get the species of hats when it's a one off thing, but they do it too much with even their staple races that get seen enough to properly flesh out
@@KnightRaymund The issue is that the original races were created by Roddenberry who simply wasn't a good enough writer to think deeply into things, as one of Chuck's somewhat recent videos pointed out (the one for an S1 TNG episode). The Cardassians and Bajorans are much more fleshed out in comparison because they were created later by much better writers. For the older races their caricatured flatness had become defining characteristics of those races, and it becomes very hard to deviate from that otherwise you get accused of betraying the essence of Trek (which is the most common criticism of DS9). Newer races introduced in Voyager reverted to prior form because most of the excellent writing talent accrued during DS9 was lost.
I think you're making a mistake regarding the Klingons. They're Klingons. They're not humans. Yes, politics exist even among them, but they also have a system that allows for honor duels to solve matters... or even change leadership. You can quite literally go up to the head of the Empire and say "You suck and I can do a better job," and if you can kill him then you can get it. Martok may not be a politician, but among Klingons respect is earned in battle... and he has that in spades. It may be that Martok gets challenged after the war if he shows weakness. But we see during the show that he's turning the war and giving the Klingon people what they want: victories.
I mean, yes, but it's not a high bar. After Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, that bar is a few kilometres deep. Rishi Sunak wasn't that bad, relatively speaking, but he was doomed from the start. Not that we're better off in France. Our last election amounted to "anyone but Le Pen", and as a nation, we teamed up to give her the finger. We succeeded. Then we got a legislature that is completely screwed up, making it flat out impossible to form a government. Now we're talking about forming a Sixth Republic. So, you know, yay.
@@Cailus3542 You guys seem to form new governments at a rapid pace, that's for sure. Meanwhile, Belgium can't form a government at all. I feel like there is a happy medium somewhere between forming four governments in a single year and being unable to form a government for over a year.
Stun settings, Jem Hadar don't have them. But what if... Damar stuns Rusot, and then scolds him later. Rusot then secretly defects back to the Dominion and betrays then group (instead of the non-character that the does) Likewise, Worf just puts Gowron in a sleeper hold and calls up Kahless Clone to take over, citing some ancient Klingon bullshat that allows for a handwaving transfer of powers that makes Martok Klingon War Marhsall something-something. All that on the next Wuss Trek Nine Then Gowron escapes, alters his features to look human and tries to seduce Kai Winn...only to discover she's being already being hit on by Dukat in "The Dating Game of Evil"
When the fed destroy the dominions cloning factory, weyoun says hes the last weyoun.......wouldnt there be weyouns genes on file within the dominion cloning bases in the gamma quadrant? After all, the first time we see weyoun, he came from the gamma quadrant to destroy those portal towers with the jemhadar.....and that was before all out war!
I suspect that they need more than genes. They need the body of the original Weyoun, the progenitor, which was transferred to the Alpha Quadrant in case the wormhole became unavailable. I like to think that the Vorta have a thriving civilization far from the wormhole, and they offer their greatest citizens (post-mortem) to the Founders to become the Vorta that we see in the show.
He says he _could_ be the last Weyoun. It sounds like cloning facilities are pretty large and complex operations, so they likely wouldn't dedicate more than one to a particular genome at a time. The Dominion _could_ create another facility for Weyouns, but since the female changeling seems to increasingly despise him, that isn't terribly likely.
These episodes are filler with some amazing performances from the Klingons and Cardassians. Several of them are key players for each race and add so much legitimacy to their roles. Even John Vickery, though he does not have anywhere near the screen time as the others as a Cardassian, he has an instant presence. Several Star Trek roles and Neroon on Babylon 5 make him so comfortable with the makeup.
I think your argument about democracy is fairly irrelevant, because the Klingon Empire is not a democracy. In an an autarchy or oligarchy, a succession of bad leaders _is_ a strong criticism of the system, because the entire argument supporting it is that it ostensibly produces better leaders. The premise of their whole form of government is that certain noble houses naturally produce powerful leaders, and that only the most competent and bravest commanders can ever rise to the top, thus ensuring continual strong leadership. But if these strong leaders are actually weak idiots, then we should of course get rid of them. Democracy, on the other hand, is supported by the principle of choice. That's why most criticisms of flawed democracies focus not on the quality of their leaders but on the antidemocratic method of selecting them. People will talk about suppression of the vote, fraud and corruption in the voting process, campaign funding, graft, lobbying, etc. A true democracy that selects bad leaders might do badly on the world stage, but it's not "in deep denial about itself" if it really is what it purports to be. And historically, the most common reason for any regime to fail has been a succession of bad leaders. Ezri is insightful, but she doesn't have to be a genius to predict something has to give in the Klingon Empire when there is so much open contempt for the leadership at all levels. Similarly, you don't have to be a genius to predict that changes are coming to our government (indeed, already have come). That doesn't mean the Klingon Empire will completely restructure its government, or that we will, but there will be (and already have been) substantial changes in leadership and the political philosophy of people in power.
A funny bit of trivia I found is that when Michael Dorn read the teleplay for this episode, he sought out Robert O'Reilly and apologized to him for killing his character.
Gowron's reign began, was defended and ended by Worf's blade....
They call him the Kingmaker. Or chancellor-maker, I guess.
Kurn: So now Gowron no longer suits you? Perhaps you'd like to challenge him for leadership of the council!
Worf: Of course not!
Kurn: THEN DO NOT SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN!
The exchange between Kira and Damar is one of my favorite scenes, so much is said just in the facial expressions and body language.
I think this scene got me on Dumar train.
Except we are talking about the deaths of unseen non-characters. Cardassian military men just never see their wives and kids.
@@scockery Well that scene is not about them. It's about the event (the executions of innocent people who had no hand in them) and our character's reaction to those events.
One may say that not seeing them is kinda the point. It's easy to see a bunch of random people as no great tragedy when you've never seen them, and not really care. People die all the time and sometimes their deaths may be sad, but necessary.
But it hit's differently when those random people were actually someone you cared about. That's what opened Dumar's eyes here. That no matter how you try to twist and spin it, his people were no batter than those Dominion butchers he was just condemning.
@@scockery Damar kinda sucked at being a proper Cardassian. For all we know, being close to his family was just another of his many faults.
"Let's All Go To The Lobby" was a bit of a tonal shift in the "who gives those orders" clip...
There is nothing unique or special about that. That's what Chuck uses every time to break up a longer clip so the bots don't claim it. 🤔
@danij5055 yes, but the clip in was breaking up was uniquely dark....
@@yadt I understand. It was a very interesting though unintentional juxtaposition. I was just mentioning how the clip break-up song and everything was the norm that he uses. But for the weightiness of the scene, he could perhaps have played a copyright-free tune that was more sobering. Or perhaps just the background sound of the Enterprise.
It was actually Erzi speaking out about the Klingon Empire that got me to like her and was kind of a refreshing way to differentiate her from Curzon and Jadzia, who revere Klingon culture.
Any psychologist would have a lot of issues with Klingon culture.
I agree. It was a really great way to show she had the knowledge and respect for it that came from her previous hosts, but that this perspective was entirely her own.
"You wouldn't kill one of your own would you?"
"Dude, I was Obsidian Order. It was my job to kill other Cardassians!"
I think we can all agree the last Chancellor the Klingons had before Martok that was actually worthy of respect was Gorkon.
Hm? His daughter became chancellor, didn't she? I may be misremembering, as the title isn't hereditary. Regardless, yes, Gorkon was great.
Her name was Azetbur. I believe she did become Chancellor.
Gowron was pretty good in the beginning, then he started yo-yo ing with Worf's Honor, the Kitomer Accords, and then he seemed to become jealous of Martok. It was a strange downfall.
@@beav1962 He seems like the kind of guy that was firmly the product of the bad political environment that put him in power. Perhaps he could have been a better person, but as broken as things were in the High Council no one in the running for Chancellor during the TNG era was going to be a great candidate. Better than Duras, easy, but great? That's much harder. The Romulan influences made everyone paranoid, and the Dominion didn't help that either.
The Empire had to eventually go to Martok, someone from outside the system who had proven himself _actually_ honorable to get a better leader. We never get to see it, but I suspect this was very contentious for the ruling parties in the Council.
Ture he did unite the klingon empire and the fed into killing him
Everybody underestimates Garak.
Yes, so true.
You'd think people would underestimate him less after finding out he's a spy and assassin, but if anything it seems to make them underestimate him even more.
13:26 This. Is. KLINGON!!!
I see Neroon is doing well ...... no wait, he's dead again.
Chuck: "I'd pick Martok over Gowron. At least he's not going to get us all killed tomorrow."
Every Klingon: "Today is a good day to die."
Anyone else think it was crazy that Sisko basically directed Worf to kill the Head of Government of an ally. Way darker than even Pale Moonlight.
Picard: I don't care if he framed your father to absolve his family, or you prevented the fed Klingon relationship resting back to Kirk's day, nor murdered your side chick! you are a Starfleet officer!
Sisko: Mr. Worf, Gowron is F*cking with the war, ergo he is F*cking with me.......Remind him why one dose not F*CK with the Sisko
In an odd way, it isn't dark at all. This is classic Klingon politics, readily accepted by the High Council and the Empire. If it happened during peacetime, then I suspect that there would have been consequences, but war makes many sins forgivable.
Besides, Gowron likely wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway. His wars against Cardassia and the Federation were very foolish in hindsight, for instance, and his reluctance to support the Federation fleet retaking DS9 nearly cost them the war. Gowron's decision to take personal command of the Klingon fleet smacks of desperation, a failing politician hoping that military glory will give him political support.
Czar Nicholas II tried something similar in WW1, taking personal command of the Russian military despite not being even remotely qualified. You can guess how well that worked.
Eh, challenging your government's leader to a fight to the death is just part of Klingon culture - it's the equivalent of encouraging Worf to go out and vote.
Looking at the dialogue, Sisko didn't know what Worf was going to do, only that Worf had some plan that "[would] not be easy".
@@MrGranten yeah, Sisko basically gave Worf a blank check to deal with the problem, and gosh it sure would be terrible if that resulted in Gowron's death, *wink*
Worf may have been a good chancellor but I bet he wouldn’t have consented to being the frontman to Batleths & BicHnucHs.
The title card reads "Tacking into the Wing."
It certainly helps the Founders that the top races of the Dominion are ones they created. Kinda hard to be independent when you've literally met your maker and know they'll kill you if they're not happy.
Douglas Adams' take on politics is sooooo on point.
Fun fact: The Cardassian that recognized Damar and crew was played by J. Paul Boehmer, who has played a lot other (how should I put this?) authoritarian characters in Star Trek. Particularly, the Kapitan in The Killing Game, one of the members of the same regime in Enterprise's Zero Hour when they capture Archer, and an SS Agent in the following Storm Front. This guy’s casting is cursed.
I bet he did nazi getting cast in those roles so many times...
I'm with Ezri on this one.
Gowron’s behavior towards Martok is unjustified. But his hatred for Worf is understandable. In his first appearance Gowron offered K'Ehleyr a seat on the high council even though she was both a woman and a Federation citizen. It was always about politics with him. And from his point of view he gave the House of Mogh enormous power in the empire expecting Worf to be a reliable political ally. Instead he got an unpredictable and naive do-gooder who places friendship, faith, and personal honor above pretty much anything else.
Teching Into the Wind
I can't agree on the politics part. True, politics is frequently divisive. But just in American politics, how many leaders can one name who would deliberately send generals on doomed operations, sacrifice the lives of untold soldiers, and risk the security of their civilization to head off a potential challenge? I can only think of a handful of presidents in the nation's entire history who might, and even fewer who ever did anything of the sort.
Something's rotten in the state of the Klingon Empire, and I think it's the very officially military and imperial nature with really only a code of honor that we've seen is easy to abuse that helps push it to that way.
I can't think of many who would do/did that. ...But I can think of plenty who engaged in what could generously be called "ruthless realpolitik." A case for impeachment could be made against a lot of Presidents from all parties - and it goes back far enough in US politics that I say "all" and not "both."
@@Talisguy Realpolitik is designed to serve the state though. Gownron's decisions only served himself. I think Putin is a better example of a leader who engages in self-serving wars at the expense of his people.
Small universe syndrome is one of my least favourite aspects of Star Trek. The High Council seems so small - no, the whole Klingon Empire seems so small! Almost everything has to do with Worf and other TNG- and/or DS9 main characters. I understand why this is a thing in a TV series (character recognition, everything we see is related to our protagonists etc.), but still ... it makes it more uninteresting.
But Ezri was really right in her assessment of the Klingon Empire, it has become so ridiculously absurd that it makes no sense at all how it is "ruled", organised or acts as an entity. Nothing means anything there, but they act like they own the definition of meaning.
Yeah, I have never liked the monocultural approach of Star Trek. TNG is where that starts. The Klingons are all alcoholic warriors, and...that's it. What about the farmers? The engineers? The sanitation workers? The industrialists? The average labourer? TV pundits? Sportsmen? Merchantmen? Even in the most militarised interstellar empires, warriors will still make up a small fraction of the population, yet we never see diversity. Discovery kept this going, annoyingly.
The most frustrating example is the Romulans, though. They left Vulcan because they refused Surak's philosophy of emotional suppression, wanting to exult in their wild emotions. Instead, most Romulans are painfully dull and dreary, as Garak himself notes at one point. They repress their emotions better than most Vulcans. The Rihannsu book series by Diane Duane does a much better job with them, giving them diversity, among other things.
Trust me, mate, you're not alone on this hill.
@@Cailus3542 Star Trek is really strange for me. There are so many things I dislike, but also so many things I like and even LOVE ... in the end, I am a fan (whatever that means). I love to watch DS9, TNG and of course TOS (the other shows are not really my thing, although I have seen most of them), but I am constantly engaged in a very critical dialogue with those series that I love to watch!
@@Cailus3542 I get the species of hats when it's a one off thing, but they do it too much with even their staple races that get seen enough to properly flesh out
@@KnightRaymund The issue is that the original races were created by Roddenberry who simply wasn't a good enough writer to think deeply into things, as one of Chuck's somewhat recent videos pointed out (the one for an S1 TNG episode). The Cardassians and Bajorans are much more fleshed out in comparison because they were created later by much better writers. For the older races their caricatured flatness had become defining characteristics of those races, and it becomes very hard to deviate from that otherwise you get accused of betraying the essence of Trek (which is the most common criticism of DS9). Newer races introduced in Voyager reverted to prior form because most of the excellent writing talent accrued during DS9 was lost.
@@noblehelium3794 Are you suggesting the Kazon weren't the most fleshed-out society in sci-fi?
At the beginning or says tacking into the wing
Fuck, that Russian hacking joke kills me.
I think you're making a mistake regarding the Klingons. They're Klingons. They're not humans. Yes, politics exist even among them, but they also have a system that allows for honor duels to solve matters... or even change leadership. You can quite literally go up to the head of the Empire and say "You suck and I can do a better job," and if you can kill him then you can get it. Martok may not be a politician, but among Klingons respect is earned in battle... and he has that in spades.
It may be that Martok gets challenged after the war if he shows weakness. But we see during the show that he's turning the war and giving the Klingon people what they want: victories.
7:28 - 7:37 Three letters
I
D
F
To be fair, I'd take a lizard over all the past Tory PMs.
I mean, yes, but it's not a high bar. After Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, that bar is a few kilometres deep. Rishi Sunak wasn't that bad, relatively speaking, but he was doomed from the start.
Not that we're better off in France. Our last election amounted to "anyone but Le Pen", and as a nation, we teamed up to give her the finger. We succeeded. Then we got a legislature that is completely screwed up, making it flat out impossible to form a government. Now we're talking about forming a Sixth Republic. So, you know, yay.
You are mixed, up, it's the Royal Family that are the reptilians.
@@Cailus3542 You guys seem to form new governments at a rapid pace, that's for sure. Meanwhile, Belgium can't form a government at all. I feel like there is a happy medium somewhere between forming four governments in a single year and being unable to form a government for over a year.
Stun settings, Jem Hadar don't have them. But what if...
Damar stuns Rusot, and then scolds him later. Rusot then secretly defects back to the Dominion and betrays then group (instead of the non-character that the does)
Likewise, Worf just puts Gowron in a sleeper hold and calls up Kahless Clone to take over, citing some ancient Klingon bullshat that allows for a handwaving transfer of powers that makes Martok Klingon War Marhsall something-something.
All that on the next Wuss Trek Nine
Then Gowron escapes, alters his features to look human and tries to seduce Kai Winn...only to discover she's being already being hit on by Dukat in "The Dating Game of Evil"
When the fed destroy the dominions cloning factory, weyoun says hes the last weyoun.......wouldnt there be weyouns genes on file within the dominion cloning bases in the gamma quadrant? After all, the first time we see weyoun, he came from the gamma quadrant to destroy those portal towers with the jemhadar.....and that was before all out war!
*destroyed
It's not Canon but Weyoun does appear in ST novels set after his "death" in the series. And yes he's a clone made in the gamma quadrant.
Damar destroyed the cloning factory.
I suspect that they need more than genes. They need the body of the original Weyoun, the progenitor, which was transferred to the Alpha Quadrant in case the wormhole became unavailable. I like to think that the Vorta have a thriving civilization far from the wormhole, and they offer their greatest citizens (post-mortem) to the Founders to become the Vorta that we see in the show.
He says he _could_ be the last Weyoun. It sounds like cloning facilities are pretty large and complex operations, so they likely wouldn't dedicate more than one to a particular genome at a time. The Dominion _could_ create another facility for Weyouns, but since the female changeling seems to increasingly despise him, that isn't terribly likely.
These episodes are filler with some amazing performances from the Klingons and Cardassians. Several of them are key players for each race and add so much legitimacy to their roles. Even John Vickery, though he does not have anywhere near the screen time as the others as a Cardassian, he has an instant presence. Several Star Trek roles and Neroon on Babylon 5 make him so comfortable with the makeup.
I think your argument about democracy is fairly irrelevant, because the Klingon Empire is not a democracy. In an an autarchy or oligarchy, a succession of bad leaders _is_ a strong criticism of the system, because the entire argument supporting it is that it ostensibly produces better leaders. The premise of their whole form of government is that certain noble houses naturally produce powerful leaders, and that only the most competent and bravest commanders can ever rise to the top, thus ensuring continual strong leadership. But if these strong leaders are actually weak idiots, then we should of course get rid of them.
Democracy, on the other hand, is supported by the principle of choice. That's why most criticisms of flawed democracies focus not on the quality of their leaders but on the antidemocratic method of selecting them. People will talk about suppression of the vote, fraud and corruption in the voting process, campaign funding, graft, lobbying, etc. A true democracy that selects bad leaders might do badly on the world stage, but it's not "in deep denial about itself" if it really is what it purports to be.
And historically, the most common reason for any regime to fail has been a succession of bad leaders. Ezri is insightful, but she doesn't have to be a genius to predict something has to give in the Klingon Empire when there is so much open contempt for the leadership at all levels. Similarly, you don't have to be a genius to predict that changes are coming to our government (indeed, already have come). That doesn't mean the Klingon Empire will completely restructure its government, or that we will, but there will be (and already have been) substantial changes in leadership and the political philosophy of people in power.