Personally I really liked the design of starfleet, but man the klingons looked like shit. I actually depart from most fans in that ib think that Into Darkness had an awesome redesign. They were different, but still recognizable as klingons. Their whole vibe was awesome.
If I recall, The Klingon Home world has lots of cave and tunnels that they lived and fought in. How good is this weapon for tunnel fighting. I imagine You could block the average tunnel by holding it horizontal. Also in star trek klingons are like 1.5 to twice as strong as a human and have higher muscle and bone density. So the weight of their weapons might be higher because it has to be to cut through Klingon leather and bone.
@@warrensteel9954 yeah this seems like you could do lots of short swings keeping it close to your body based on the swings skall took. Like you could do some strong swings in a tunnel or ship corridor.
@@mkv2718 Guess they had to make it to the surface sooner or later. Got to the top, saw the stars and went "I bet there's so many other things to kill out there..."
If you consider the Bat'leth's name, loosely translated "Sword of Honor", or perhaps "Blade of Honor" may be more appropriate, it seems to highlight a primary purpose: honor duels. Looked at as a duelling weapon as opposed to a battlefield weapon, it makes much more sense how this weapon would originate, since pure effectiveness in the Klingons' primitive times would have led to use of spears and shields used in formation. Their "Honor" culture would create a specific demand for a weapon like this that can showcase a warrior's strength and skill, is effective in a small duelling circle, is useful offensively and defensively, is good against an armoured opponent, and provides many options of delivering non-critical strikes in a duel where the point of honor is too slight to justify killing or maiming. Context is a huge factor in whether a weapon makes sense.
Yeah, it's not something that they'd use for combat, at least not usually, but would still be effective if you had to board a ship and maul a squishy crew at knife fight range, because at best most other races are going to have a long knife, entrenching tool, or ceremonial saber, if any melee weapon at all. So some big hulking giant of a man twice your weight and strength coming at you with a giant sharpened hood ornament is going to make you wish you wore your brown pants.
The klingons definitely had more traditional spears and swords-Duras uses a saber against Worf when they duel, and worf berates a klingon at the POW camp the Romulans were running for using a spear to tend a field. The Batleth definitely strikes me as a ceremonial/dueling weapon. IRL there have been equally strange and even less practical devices used for such, like the dueling shield. The Bat'leth is just so culturally dominant that it finds its way into the battlefield so often regardless of the presence of more practical melee weapons.
@@catoblepasomega I forgot about the spears...I don't think I ever saw them or heard them mentioned outside that prison camp episode. The shows usually feature the Bat'Leth and that freaky switchblade dagger with wings. I would assume that back in the Klingons' Bronze and Iron Age equivalent, spears would have been the primary battlefield weapon. Spears fell out of use (mostly) as higher technology weapons came into use, but the Bat'Leth kept its cultural significance for duelling, and remained popular as a way for warriors to earn more personal honor than shooting their enemies with Phasers or destroying ships in space. It's an interesting concept that a culture would keep using an ancient, essentially outdated weapon basically because...they want to. But it fits the picture we're given of Klingon culture.
One of the things I really liked when seeing Worf using it is how well it's choreographed to flow from stance to stance, it's really well made for TV/Movies while making you not go "eeerm that looks 100% stupid", it has this feeling of useability and it fits a giant warrior race.
cheers for the Raven Forge mention, we have sparred with ours and i can say from experience it was A- exhausting and B- not great to watch, but C- loads of fun witch it what ist all about !
One thing which is never explicitly stated in Star Trek is that the large middle portion of the Bat'leth is actually blunt. This is made clear several times in TNG and DS9 when we see Worf and others striking the faces of their opponents as a way to knock them back and create distance. These opponents never end up with huge gashes on their face from having this done. It also makes sense as to why users regularly take full force strikes from other weapons in that portion as there is no edge to damage.
Makes sense in that - if we assume armored opponents, which Klingons generally are - having a sharp edge in the middle wouldn't be of much use. The points are for striking gaps in armor. The middle - if it was sharp - couldn't really cut through metal armor, so optimizing it for defense, blunt force and grappling makes more sense.
Can you provide an explicit citation for that? My main comment on Matt Easton's review recently was exactly that. The center portion should be essentially a giant ricasso. I'm curious if there is actually explicit canon support for that idea, rather than just not wanting to show blood on prime time TV. Often we see Jadzia drop the edge and stroke with the handle end, in essence, to avoid a killing blow. She's a weak Star fleet type, though so what would you expect...
Yes, I agree that it makes sense for the center of the blade to be blunt for defensive use. I just wanted to see how useful it could be for slicing and pushing. As it turns out, not very much.
the Discovery's design is a telltale sign of a bad concept art trend... put thousands of griblys and fuckeries on everything so the viewer thinks it is complicated and well designed...
I'm gonna say this up front, I'm gay as hell and I loved that there was a gay couple in discovery, it's nice to see, but that show fucking sucks in most regards. I particularly hate that they ripped off the plot and characters of the first season from an in development indie game lol.
@@braddl9442 The experts/stuntpeople would also need to invent a new fighting style for an exotic weapon like this. Granted stage combat is very different from real combat. Your opponent will cooperate with you rather than stab you when you do something flashy.
What’s funny is the Mek’leth was created at the request of Michael Dorn, the actor who played Worf, for his role in DS9 because he wanted a more practical and easier to wield weapon. To me this just proves that even if Michael Dorn really got into the mindset of his character, there’s even an episode where Worf argues that the Mek’leth is the more practical weapon.
From what I've heard, at least for main characters in big budget movies, it's commonplace to pretty much invent a new fighting style specifically designed for the character or for a species/nation/etc. - stage combat experts are trying to create something that looks awesome on screen, matches the character's/groups personality, and maaaaaybe has a tiny bit of realism mixed into it, just to avoid looking too silly - you know, to keep suspension of disbelief. But that's a minor factor, often omitted. So really, it's hard to expect actors to know it 'intuitively' when they're given the weapon for the first time :P
Glad to see you mentioned the sun and moon/cicada wing sword. From what I recall the original designer of the Bat'leth was Dan Curry who based it on deer horn knives and the cicada wing sword wanting to create both an ergonomic and somewhat practical weapon, because none of the cast had a clue what to do with it he also developed the Klingon Mok’bara martial arts based on his own knowledge of muay thai and tai chi, as well as his wife's expertise in tae kwon do.
@@CubedSausagefromScarparius People have used syringes of blood they claimed were infected with AIDS as a weapon to commit crimes. Does that make syringes of blood good weapons?
Its actually a real weapon that was used/practiced in ancient martial arts. Also Jackie chan used a moose rack as an improvised version in a movie one time. Although the earliest forms actually would have been made from a moose/elk Rack.
Duras is also shown to be, shall we say, less than honorable. So him using a sword vs. a bat'leth is probably supposed to tie into that aspect of his character.
well that sword was apparently romulan, hinting at the fact duras was a traitor siding with the romulans. EDIT: it was Gowron who fought and died to worf, gowron had the romulan sword, sorry, i mix some klingons up sometimes. Having Duras fight with a conventional sword served to separate him from the Klingon average and perhaps indicate that he didn't follow the teachings of Kahless. the sword i mentioned is a tik'leth , a one handed long sword with a long tradition in the Imperial Guards
@@bannedmann4469 I never heard it was Romulan, but regular Klingon swords did exist. Worf has two D-guard swords in his room, though the blades are 'klingon style.'
To be fair to the bat’leth, it continues to exist in a warp-capable, phaser-using Klingon civilization… which means it probably isn’t meant for contemporary combat in Star Trek. I see it as a great duelling and tournament weapon: it’s too cumbersome to carry for self defense and not as versatile for a battlefield, but it would make for a great spectacle in judicial duels and tournaments. Look up HEMA duelling shields if you’re wondering what I have on my mind right now.
My Star Trek is PRETTY rough..haven't dealt with it much over the years since my mom passed as she was the one into Star Trek..and Star Wars, where I took more to Star Wars. BUT that aside if I remember right, isn't the weapon considered more of an honor weapon? Like used in duels of honor and as a symbol of their past?
That's always been my opinion of the bat'leth. It's used as a dueling weapon or in combat as a "sword of honor" so it has a more specific purpose than "ultimate war sword" which it isn't. They have phasers so it's used in close quarters to accompany their ranged weapons. A spear or pike might better in a battlefield but the klingons also had those, Worf had a half bat'leth looking thing on a stick that looked a lot like a pike.
I remember a StarTrek: Enterprise Episode with Klingon Pirates. They all carried Blades when Beaming down to shake down some settlers but discarded them and drew their disruptors once they encountered resistance.
A weapon like the Bat'leth probably should be largely ceremonial, but it isn't. Look up "DS9 Klingon Attack", the Klingons make heavy use of the Bat'leth in actual combat.
I do find it interesting how they managed to find/create a usable weapon design that appears as though it went through its own evolutionary process. I believe I remember reading somewhere that the Bat'leth is 'descended' from agricultural implements- and I can entirely see a back-handled crescent blade (maybe a two-sided sickle with different edge geometries for different crops, or so you don't have to sharpen in the middle of a harvest?) being used for combat and eventually becoming this. And it does, somehow, not look like any Earth weapon while still very much being a 'humanoid combat implement'.
With regard to the grip, the one continuous grip vs the three separate ones, I wonder if this was a change brought about by the props department. A single full length grip would work on a 'real' Bat'leth made out of steel, but a prop version presumably made of a weaker material might have needed the extra structural support between the grip and the front of the weapon. Of course the simpler answer (Occam's Razor & all that) would be the art department thought it looked cooler. Edit: apparently the shunt prop used by Michael Dorn was made of rubber, so would have benefited from the extra structural support, even if that wasn't the reasoning behind it.
That reminds me of the Arch weapon from the PS3 game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. It looks like a big bow, but the "String" is a staff and the "bow" is an energy blade of spikes that move as if the energy blade was part of a big wheel or rotary saw.
Yeah pretty sure you can get something that looks like that in _Skyrim._ Daedric something-or-another bow that talks to your character and tells them to murder town guards or orphans.
The Writers for Discovery are some of the most arrogant and stupid writers I have ever seen. They do zero research and just do whatever they want and push whatever agenda they want. It is why the show sucks.
7:34 Yes!! I noticed even in the original Star Trek scenes, that it seemed that the actors were struggling to keep the blade level. So while the blade looked completely bad-ass, I always felt that maybe some alteration of the grip was called for.
A thought I had, while replying to Shad's thoughts on the bat'leth (and especially keeping the design of the Sword of Kahless in mind, rather than the TNG bat'leth) was; what if, rather than thinking of the bat'leth as a *sword* , instead, thing of it as a *scythe* . Or, even more specifically, a scythe which Kahless *re* forged into a weapon (with excellent defensive capabilities) for his fight against Molor... Something which would enable him to endure Molor's attacks until Molor's strength was spent, and *then* deliver a savage blow, as when Worf fought and killed Duras... As soon as that thought came to me, the bat'leth made sense from an in-universe perspective, and IMHuO, completely changed the perspective, and dismisses the disingenuous comparisons of bat'leths against thrusting/fencing swords - things which it clearly would not be suited for - instead, into consideration of it as something designed entirely to block, and eventually dismember and kill. Many weapons have an origin in agriculture, what it the bat'leth did as well? (from an in-universe perspective) IMHuO, such a change in classification and perspective, completely affects the context and findings, from 'unwieldy and poor fencing sword', into 'excellent blocking and hacking scythe'... Against a knight or a samurai, if I had 'the same sword as them', I would be out-skilled and unable to offer an effective defence: With a bat'leth, while I may not be able to 'strike them down', I would certainly be able to block their attacks for a lot longer, and perhaps get in a few of those off-angle counter-strikes which you mentioned... Thankyou for such an insightful and well-balanced analysis and presentation 👍👍
@@walshmt84 Don’t bother. Discovery rewrote the entire canon of TOS as being secretly caused by Michael Burnham, the messiah-like figure someone wanted to shoehorn into the Trek lore for no reason. On a better note, I heard DS9 was the best Trek series ever, so I highly recommend you watch it. I would if I had time.
No need to worry, Skall, its well established that Bat'leths only loosely follow a specific pattern laid out by Kahless, and each weapon may be different depending on the requirements of the user or the House that commissions them. Worf, for instance, has a rather odd polearm-shaped Bat'leth hanging on the wall in his cabin which is straight like yours, though missing the middle portion of the blade to be more of a double-ended spear. (Its actually a prototype for the weapon they didnt end up using but hey lets go with "Its a different pattern")
I feel like blocking a normal sword attack with the Bat'leth would be the big problem. Looks like it would tilt in your hands after the blow and the sword would make contact with the klingon.
I feel like two handed grip would give a lot better defensive use, and single handed would be for offense. Being able to fluidly switch between them is a nice feature.
My favorite fan theory is one suggested by Certifiably Ingame: Kahless was canonically a farmer with little training, so it would make sense to base his weapon on a farming tool he is familiar with. It's basically a weaponized form of a Klingon hand sickle or plow. Its shape also encourages strict training to be effective, and its broad catching arcs make defensive maneuvers almost trivial - meaning those that adopted it almost automatically had a better survival rate than someone who runs in with a less defensive weapon they barely trained with. So even if it was technically less efficient than other weapons, it simply outlived the other options. (His video might be a good follow-up watch because he also has his realistic take on the myth of its creation.)
@@lukedogwalker Pretty common practice around the globe, really. While things like nunchaku or war scythes are the most obvious examples, most of the common weapons have such roots as well. Axes are still in use as tools today, spears and bows started out for hunting use, and if you want to get down to it, swords are really just very large specialized knifes. Even guns and bombs are originally derived from fireworks... Would make sense that fictional weapons have similar roots.
@@lukedogwalker Or just medieval peasants. The Fauchard as a medieval pole arm was common for them in war. It also had hooks and spikes for use against armored opponents. What many people don't know is that it`s actually just a modified farm tool. Namely a type of sickle knife on a pole to use for hedge trimming and keep up. When it came to war, these were just modified by a villages smith and tuned into a Fauchard.
As I recall, there was a book written about the Klingon that invented the weapon. The main reason for it’s purpose, was for narrow corridor combat- especially for indoor stairway combat. It’s short arc swing made it very functional for differences in elevated combat. But that was the book. I would love to watch an episode in stairway and narrow corridor combat.
Makes sense, it’s barely wider than a person, can be gripped nice and widely for pushing/controlling opponents, edged for snap attacks. The only thing better is the trench trowel lol
Yes, and at the time in the book, most Klingons favored large devastating open battlefield weapons that were unwieldly/useless in the corridors protecting the castle.
@@spacedinosaur8733 a spear is a large battlefield weapon and it’s the most ideal thing for hallway battles. All you gotta do is jab to keep them at a distance, if you get 4-5 others braced in a hedgehog formation, nothings getting through without massive casualties. Even for home defense in modern times a short spear in the dark would be better than anything. You should know your home better than an intruder and all you need is for them to make a noise and stab at it.
@@widdershins5383 That is true, however if I remember from the book is at this time in Klingon history, the preferred weapons where similar to great swords or battleaxes, which they found was impractical when fighting against Kahless the Unforgettable in the confines of fortress corridors.
The book is just that, a book, by a writer trying to explain the design choices of another writer who had no expertise in martial arts and weapon design. The best weapons for hallways are thrusting weapons, of any kind. The bat'leth is a horrible weapon for defending against thrusts. It's a bad weapon. It works, just not nearly as well as many other options we have and we are not depicted as nearly as warlike and fighting friendly as the klingons
Experimented with these at LARP/SCA long ago. A lot of us were curious about them in combat (as opppsed to honor duels) and the results were... interesting. What was really neat is how much better it worked if you approached the enemy thinking like a bloodthirsty and fearless klingon. You could catch a blade and attack in a single move, which meant you could potentially dispatch an enemy very quickly. Makes perfect sense for a klingon trying to mow down lots of foes in rapid succession. How did conventional weapons rate against it? Polearms/pikes (though I was able to almost slide all the way into striking range against that too) or a sword/shield were best. It's worth noting that I still forced people into a very defensive posture in those cases. Just about every other melee weapon was screwed. The other weapon that worked really well against it was... another Batleth. I always thought they were cool looking, but actually using them, probably made me feel way more like a badass than twirling around a geeky Star Trek weapon ever should be able to.
This weapon also seems to work well for the purpose of hand to hand combat on ships during boarding situations. In a narrow ship's corridor, a big weapon like a longsword, with a reach advantage would be more likely to get caught up in the environment. Try to swing it and it'll bounce off the walls and you'll have a hard time using it, while the guy using the bat'leth would not have that issue.
@@Axterix13 and creates the getting jammed in a narrow corridor when you need to turn around issue. You can point it in one direction and ONE direction ONLY. One Direction's fine if you like Boy Bands, but not so helpful when a dude's coming up from behind and you can't turn your spear around to point it at them.
@@nwstraith I started watching it but once they introduced way oversized tardigrades as multidimensional(?) alien creatures as the basis for their weird Ftl-drive I could not take the series seriously anymore even with all the effort in the world.
Writers are forgetting the first rule "yes and" instead they keep going " no, actually". Basically you need to keep building the lore and contradict the old lore as little as possible.
Sometimes they contradict the real lore to be different, but most of the time they just never bothered looking it up. And nobody working on this reboot stuff knows anything about Trek.
One possibly justification for the 'ribs' between the three grips is that they reinforce the central section on a shorter shipboard/indoor variant. That might not be correct, it might even be silly, but since the bat'leth was designed by a skilled martial artist, there was probably some justification for them in his mind (as opposed to the STD version, where I think it was designed by an art major who really wasn't thinking about how it would be used in practical terms).
One of the novels addresses the creation of the bat’leth (not the myth, but the real story)… and it was invented partly as a fever dream - and partly as a commando weapon. The warriors in question were going to be fighting close quarters, in tunnels and narrow hallways, against opponents who would be using more traditional heavy swords. The intent was to give up reach… to have a weapon that actually works in narrow hallways. It was never really meant to fight other bat’leth… or out in the open… But it was such a blowout against “normal swords” in close quarters… in a legacy-defining battle… it became a symbol, and replaced the sword.
The novel still addresses a myth, just not the same myth. The real creation of the bat'leth was by a human show writer whose expertise in martial arts and weapon design is non existent.
@@kevg1617 Wow, you must be fun at parties. I'm pretty sure that part was clear and even mentioned in the video. But in the story, there is a myth and a 'real' origin story. Which is not so different from the real real world.
@@AtlantiansGaming based on certain chinese weapons, but very different in use, function and size. He didn't design it with weaponnefficiency and effectiveness in mind, he designed it with aesthetics as a priority to make the weapon alien and intimidating. It is so far out of the realm of what a warrior race would develop that it really serves the image better than the reality
@@kevg1617 nope the function is the same. it is meant to deflect, catch and fling the enemy weapon away. the points are meant to pierce and or cut. it is also like a lot of wushu weapons meant to be flashy and difficult to learn.
With regards to the origin story of the Bat'leth: The story was likely written in such a way as to reflect a mythological legend of some sort. Star Trek is full of many rich cultures, and the Klingons in particular have a very well detailed culture and history. The unrealistic nature of the legend is likely on-purpose to show that the Klingons, advanced as their technology may be, still believe in crazy myths and legends. Their culture is also rife with many customs that, by design, may seem brutal or even primitive to audiences, and it is all by design to create a rich and interesting culture for the Star Trek universe.
if one goes by Star Trek Online/Beta Lore the Batt'Leth was actually designed to deal with Hur'q opponents which are massive creatures so it's design makes sense
@@Gellert1984 This. We have some crazy tales about swords. The only one that's probably actually real is the swords that were supernaturally sharp and could cut your opponents blade. But that's just a lack of context. In all likelihood it actually has a real core from the Bronze Age. There is some indication that there was iron around before iron smelting in the form of meteoric iron. So, if someone got the idea to make a sword out of that, you would have a iron sword in a time everybody else had bronze ones. And an iron sword against a bronze one is a mess. It can hack the bronze weapon up pretty well without much damage to itself.
I immediately thought the the Chinese Deer Knife was a better design with similar features to the Bat’leth. If the Bat’leth had only two points instead of four, or if the smaller points were just closer to the middle so you get a longer single blade length with the larger blades, it would still be recognizable but a little more practical. I’ve always thought there was merit to the design, but I also think there are a couple features that could be reworked to be a bit better
Last time I checked, The Bat'leth is a giant Chinese deer knife. I remember watching a documentary about the Bat'leth and the prop maker used said knife as inspiration.
@@johnsmithfakename8422 the deer knife is pretty similar, but the knife has two prongs that face backwards and two that face forwards, whereas the Bat’leth has all four prongs facing forward. That’s a minor difference sure, but it does affect how each one is used in a pretty significant way. Also the metal portion that protects the hand on the deer knife is curved outward, and creates a sharp angle where it intersects the forward prongs, which creates a pinch point that would allow you to more easily trap and control an opponent blade and also release it, whereas the Bat’leth only has the gaps between the prongs to trap another weapon, which is harder to use as effectively. The original Bat’leth, with the single hand grip and a small spike in the center, is the best design in terms of practicality, with the smaller prongs being closer to the center and having larger gaps to allow better use of the weapon capturing abilities, but it could still be further improved just a bit.
Glad that the video with the mek'leth is still around and remembered. Mostly because that is actually my mek'leth. I still have it. One of my favorite collection pieces! All in all, great video, thanks Skall!
The Bat'leth Jadzia Dax asked for on the holodeck in the scene shown in your video is in fact not the usual size at 116 cm. This "warrior configuration" has been widely adopted, although it's actually a reduced size to be wielded by a human. Klingons are generally quite a bit taller than humans and by far stronger. When researching for my own version of the Bat'leth of Kahless, I stumbled across some dimensions better suited for Klingon size, 154.5 cm from tip to tip, 42.5 cm in higth, 92 cm between the inner tips and 58 cm length of the grip (which is one single hole in Kahless's weapon and is easier to handle). You will find similar dimensions on pages of prop makers and sword smiths who attempted a rebuild. Also, in Deep Space 9, season 4, episode 8, "The Sword of Kahless", you can see Terry Farrell holding the Bat'leth of Kahless, which pretty much defined the dimensions of the later weapons. Since Terry Farrell is 182 cm tall, the way she holds that weapon, her hands are about 50-55 cm apart (I tried that position with a friend of that hight). She covers roughly 1/3 of the over all length of the weapon, which makes the whole thing a size of a bit more than 150 cm. This was a weapon made by and for a Klingon, vs the one "human downsized" she requested for her trial with Kor in that episode. Funny that so many Star Trek nerds miss that point and adopt the wrong dimensions as those of a Klingon weapon. Re wearing the Bat'leth, Enterprise, season 2, Episode 6, "Marauders", 32 minutes into the program you can see Klingons wearing their Bat'leths on a strip of leather slung over their shoulders.
I used to fight with a "boffer" (padded weapons) fighting group in my youth, Someone Made a Bat'leth out of a hell of a lot of PVC pipe and foam. This thing was a monster to fight against. the ability of its user to block and parry then aggressively follow up was amazing. its maker could use it to force our weapons out of position, push us back or off balance, then make the kill strike, and as we were using padded weapons, this was full contact fighting. if the weapons were real, Id be dead a hundred times over. (self taught melee weapon fighting is NOT a good method of learning :) )
@Paul Gauthier that's such an interesting concept to learn about too, for most of our history most people didn't learn how to fight you either got lucky enough, a couple times and picked up a few tricks to stay not dead or you didn't. Most training given was how to follow instructions and work together with some basics thrown in.
One headcanon reason I've seen floating around for the bat'leth's peculiar design is because of Klingon history. Kah'less was said to invent the weapon around the same time that the Klingons overthrew their slave overseers. The weird shape come be because they were original tools for other purposes. Maybe a farming implement, or mining tools, or whatever reason an interstellar empire would find the need to enslave other species instead of using robots.
Mining implement? Farming tool? Yeah I can see it, but don't forget a common trademark of some enslaving cultures throughout history, making slaves fight among themselves for the entertainment of others, that is of course gladiatorial events.
Apparently in scotland there was a similar tradition of giving your opponent an equal weapon theyre inexperianced with to put them at a disadvantage. When dueling a scot using roundshield and broadsword, you were advised to not take a shield if offered one because someone inexperianced with a shield will block high with the shield and blind themself, giving the scot an easy win (at the time most fighters used rapier or saber either without a shield or with a smaller buckler, from what i understand)
I love how now we can still hang out essentially standing in a circle nerding out about klingon weapons and stuff, but now it's online with high production value... Cheers Skall and my fellow 90's before school homies
i think that in the end historical weapons are based on actual human body mechanics, through use and experience, so you can't really go much better than what's already done, apart from materials or brand new techs. in fantasy and sci-fi, deviating from a "standard" design to make exotic weapons, while still using humanoid characters, makes weird and a bit awkward things. it would be interesting to me to imagine weapons used by non humanoids beings, still pretty hard to imagine, but a lot of fun? like an octopus-like guy with several tentacles using a series of small shields chained together to create a flexible shell around it's soft body and using 2 or more of the tentacles to jab nasty pointy blades into the opponent when an opening is available... right i'm writing that down.
I think body mechanic understanding and, more importantly, freedom of material usage has expanded much since the era where melee weapons were employed. The cost to create these weapons was much greater in times past. The spread of world knowledge and use is also far greater. Yes, the reward if finding a good design and technique was also greater in times past, but using the advantages of today may still provide innovation and insight not commonly seen, previously.
On the subject of materials, I've been thinking. You know what would be interesting? Take a Viking sword, Oakeshott type X. which is like a long horse shoe on a deep fuller. Excellent cutter but a tad heavy because it's wide at the end. Make the horseshoe of an edge from your usual high carbon steel. 0.5-5.0 cm in from the edge, just like the originals. For the center beyond the edge.... aluminum. Or even polymer. See if you can get it to feel like an epee, but cut like a type x.
@@greyvr4336 i guess alluminium doesn't weld properly with steel? to put both materials together with steel edges you'd need a pretty tough glue, or dunno, some scifi tech like nanomachines and stuff...? also thinking, steel wouldn't be great for an early ocean environment, with all that salt and stuff.. and even in a slightly acidic atmosphere. so, how would a civilization go through an earth like middleage in those conditions? nah. metalwork would be at stakes for a long long time, until they discover some particular alloy or something. darn rust man lol
@@hic_tus There are indeed complex interactions of steel with aluminum. I don't know all of them, but I do know they can work, as AR barrels are steel and the reciver is aluminum. It's held togeather with a nut and threading, and you paint grease between to prevent interaction of the metals. So while it would be a complex idea, it's doable. As to salt water, that's not a change from an all steel sword as was used at the time of the vikings and their type x, so....
One point to remember is that most races in Star Trek do not use any melee weapons. Having a hard-to-use melee weapon also prevents your enemy from simply picking it up from someone's dead body and using it against you.
Especially if it’s heavy and designed for a klingon’s physique. Not to mention the shock effect of a few dudes coming at you with these or seeing a buddy get cut down by one
@@gideonmele1556 yup, in a battle where you mostly fire ranged weapons from cover, getting into Bayonet range is a great way to break your enemy's morale.
If you think about it. This weapon is kind of like a double bearded bill with curved instead of straight spikes. Meaning that it has all the benefits of a bill, but more defense and the shorter poler size means you can use it in small spaces as well as a large ones.
As mentioned quite a bit below, the Batleth is a weapon intended for use in close quarters, to give the powerful defense of a polearm without the risk of catching on things . . . . . . which actually applies to it's IRL design process as well. Klingons swinging swords and the like around could be dangerous to the expensive set pieces, so instead, they designed a tight weapon which doesn't have as much risk of damaging the set thanks to it's smaller 'footprint'.
The bat'leth was also a tool, it was used for tilling the ground, used as a sickle in agriculture and for hunting large game long before it became a ceremonial weapon of choice. The mec'leth was better at combat as warf showed in first contact movie and in DS9. The different types of bat'leth also show fighting style and family allegiance.
Regarding carrying a bat'leth, something similar to a bow case would probably work well. While those are better for cavalry, some infantry who carried both bows and spears also used them. It seems like it would still be a bit on the cumbersome side and like it might be difficult to draw quickly, but as a marching case it would make sense.
Carrying it on your back can be plausible. Its not like a sword, its sheath doesn't have to be conventional. You can use a sheath which has its opening on its side, rather than on its top. So you put it inside form the side of the sheath on your back, so there is also nothing to stop you when you draw it. It will also wont fall since it will stay on your back on an angle.
Carrying on the back seems to me to be the best bet. Especially when you have access to say a small coathook to hook one of the loops onto or as silly as it may sound, just space velcro it to yourself.
A simple back hook like a coat hanger on a bandolier would work I think, it would also make it very easy to retrieve. Honestly carrying a bat'leth is the least perplexing part of their use unless you're referring to the godawful and stupid Discovery version.
One thing that we are all circling about in the discussion, and it boils down to being a really well thought ought design is the fact, that Bat'leth is a combination of a sword, that can be used with (almost) full weapon reach effectively, and a great trench weapon that works really well in confined space of a spaceship boarding action. All it takes to change the use case is a change of a grip of your front hand, and you are adapted to the situation at hand. Also, if used in grappling, it would probably be really bloody hard to grasp or wrench the sword out of the users hand, since the handles would be really hard to grasp from the front of the weapon, and you have to contest with the blade part protecting it. Oh, and it would have probably be a pretty decent defence against any crazy wildlife trying to eat your face, like rabid Targs and whatnot.
@@thekaxmax halfswording is stab only, this thing is an axe, sword and staff in one with hooks for grappling on top of it, its a very versatile design specific for very close combat in tight corridors of ships/caves
@@Asghaad It doesn't thrust well at all and thrusting us the single best use of a weapon in tight quarters. It may look like a good weapon, but it's design does not fit a warrior society hellbent on waging war to the best of their abilities. It looks like a ceremonial or ritualistic type weapon used perhaps in honor duels or the like, not as a weapon for war
@@thekaxmax Yes, but the space taken up by the half sword isn't as large as with the Bat'leth. If you imagine the bat'leth as an item much like the half sword, but extended sideways to provide more leverage and to allow a line to be closed with more economy of motion.... Bat'leth as a wrestling shield with points on the end, like taking a Talhoffer dueling shield and cutting it down to the minimum. Really captured my imagination, this idea that the bat'leth isn't a sword.... but a shield.
Now the thing about certain Chinese weapons was that they weren't meant for war, they were developed from a number of tools or ritual objects according to some, that someone could pull out if they had nothing else on hand. This is what some have speculated to be the origins of the wind and fire wheels. This isn't so far fetched as the monks spade began as a sort of combination tool carried around by monks, but over time became more stylized and lost it's general tool traits.
I really enjoyed this review Skal, I’m sure the designer would as well. From what I understand they tried very hard to make it an effective weapon to fit in with the ideology of Klingon fighting. 👍
I remember watching a video Shad did on the subject a few years ago, and I recall that he was particularly harsh on this weapon. It is interesting to hear you explaining that it does have some positive, practical qualities ( as well as some drwabacks).
I mean ship's cutlasses weren't often carried or worn either, they were kept in racks or barrels in the armory and distributed as needed, so I can definitely see Klingon ships doing the same. Maybe some in security lockers distributed around the ship as well?
Even in the shows, we never see Klingons carrying them around, they only get them when they need them. They probably carry their disruptors and small blades all the time, but only carry the big blades when they know a fight is coming.
Klingons seem to just keep them on the walls of certain rooms, even aboard ships at war. I guess they don't think a security locker is really worth the trouble
@@Fawkes42 Makes sense given that Klingon society expects duels, including duels to the death, on a regular basis. They'd be far less concerned about securing weapons when you're encouraged to fight over things all the time anyway.
I'm pretty sure they do just keep them on a weapon rake. But wear their disruptors and dagger around the ship. I think it was somewhat shown in the episode where Riker spent time on a Klingon ship.
This Bat'leth video ( among others) is absolutely and irrevocable why I thoroughly enjoy this channel. The Badass Bat'leth test montage (vignette?) Is perfect example of why I pull up.
Having learned Chinese martial techniques since 1973, and since the creator of the Bat'Leth also knew such techniques, I find that my own Bat'Leth lends itself very well to being used with Chinese techniques. And like the series itself it's from, the ST:Discovery Bat'Leth sux gagh.
@@braddl9442 bra. Have you seen star trek the next generation? Sure, they don't hit the mark with every episode, but most of the are widely regarded as written well.
@@abicol6010 Are they though? LOL from a young kids point of view maybe. If you critique most episodes using an adult mind, most of them fall apart pretty quickly. They're often quite terrible. They're nostalgic though, and there wasn't much else on at the time for people with imaginations so we hold onto their memory as being greater than the actual sum of their parts. I'm not sure why.
I want to see someone use this in a HEMA tournament. It might actually do well considering how much tackling and grappling goes on. Yes I’m aware it’s not a historical euro weapon, but it would still be interesting!
Awesome review, Skallagrim. Thanks for doing it. You covered many of the points (no pun intended) that I have sensed playing around with the mild steel batleths I have gotten my hands on. While not the best thing every (obviously), it is a fictional weapon that has gotten a really bad rap in my opinion. It seems like a weapon balanced between a sword, an axe, and a battle pick. It could thrust and stab surprisingly well, slice and chop, and penetrate with the blade tips. Practicing with the angle of the blow and distance meant you could decide what function you wanted to deliver. I sensed from the beginning that there were certain situations you needed to train yourself out of. I first played around with a shorted, lighter version of the Sword of Kahless - much lighter at 32.13 inches. That also meant that when you do an overhead blow, the blade closest to you, wound up aimed at your crouch, so I played with avoiding directly overhead blows and practiced angled blows, which worked very well. Even that mild steel light version penetrated well. I agree, I much prefer the Sword of Kahless design for the grip mechanics. Tight spaces were exactly where I thought they'd shine as well. The biggest disadvantage I have found is the weight for the reach. But as you pointed out, that can be addressed some by the thickness, etc. Thanks for doing this! :)
The "extra" durability might be much less optional if 2 Klingons are hammering them into each other. Of course that 5.3kg variant is probably just the historically accurate one. Modern ones are likely lighter.
Given the tone of that scene I see it as something of a flex on Dax's part, picking a heavier more traditional style weapon that would be difficult for someone of her stature and build in order to make a point.
Well, it wasn't invented in medieval/Renaissance Europe... So Shad would consider it crap. His prejudice is hardly hidden. I'm almost positive he fantasizes about a falchion being more lethal than an M4...
As an odd aside: within certain Chinese martial arts there is the chan zi dao, or cicada wing spear, which bears a superficial resemblence to the bat'leth. Not sure if this was something that was known by the original Trek prop designers or not.
I like to think of the Kahless story in the same way that we often think about our own mythology, as a metaphor. If that story's taken as a metaphorical reference to an event in Klingon history I think that at that volcano he taught the klingons to use iron and the carbon extracted from their hair to make steel weaponry.
22:33 i want to say one thing about this: the disjointed grips DOES provide ONE thing: if you _want_ your hand to be at a very specific grip position, and you put your hand there, it's pretty much going nowhere, but with the singlegrip design your hand could potentially slip because there's nothing to catch and lock your hand in place and you'll lose your grip position and potentially not be able to do whatever specific thing you wanted to do with it. i think that's a distinct advantage the disjointed multiple grips have over a continuous singular grip and in the show, we do actually still see a pretty even amount of both at various points which to me does suggest that they are actually two different schools of thought in bat'leth design and usage.
Not really, while your hand can technically slip I highly doubt anyone would consider a greater variety of grip positions a detriment, and if you are concerned about your hand slipping there are better solutions than that, like textured grips or high friction gloves. Leather gloves with a leather wrapped handle gives a very good grip.
ive come to exppect some nerdyness from you over the years, but that scifi speal at the bginning floored me. loved iit. especiically since i traveled through that same stargate.
I think the triple grip was an accommodation for material limitations. Star Trek Online retconned the Sword of Khales, the original bat'leth, so it was made out of chitin shell of the insect like Hurk, who Star Trek lore says ancient Klingons stole warp tech from, and later Klingon blade smiths probably couldn't replicate the tensile strength, making the separations between the grips needed support columns to keep the blunt side of the weapon's center blade from collapsing and crushing the user's fingers. As for the Discovery bat'leths, they look like they'd devolved into ceremonial weapons based on all the engravings and gemstones encrusting the weapons' outer surfaces and awkwardly positioned points. It's kind of like how Shadiversity, and Even Skallagrim himself have commented about on blades like the morgul weapons from the Lord of the Rings.
This feels like it would be better suited as a weapon used for dueling. Something neither side should be practically skilled with. A scifi version of the Talhoffer dueling shield.
That's exactly what the Klingons use the Bat'leth for most of the time, in duels where their HONOR is at stake... In Klingon, "Bat'leth" translates to "sword of honor"
In Star Trek Online, the Sword of Kahless was fashioned from the germanium-based carapace of a Hur'q. And your custom Bat'leth isn't exactly the most unrealistic, given that the various Houses would have their own Bat'leth variants, with the ones seen in TNG and DS9 likely being the KDF standard, which is also the model used in competition, so everyone is on a level playing field in that manner. And the deerhorn knife immediately reminded me of the Andorian Ushaan, which was developed as an icepicking tool.
7:38 - "When I relax my grip it immediately turns," YES, I've played around with a lightweight aluminum one owned by a friend and agree, this makes it feel really weird and unwieldy despite the relatively light weight.
Great video. Loved it. The Mekleth was intended to work against a Bartlett to catch the large blade and get inside the swing and to work in a more confined space. Qapla' reH thlingan wo' taHjaj !
I also feel like the handles of the weapon should have a bend, similar to a hunting shotgun. That way you can have better control over how it rotates due to weight.
I think that a sword or some close variant of it would be a more appropriate standard weapon for Klingons. Much like the katana for WWII Japanese. I imagine in the evolution of Klingon weaponry, at some point they are going to develop guns and make melee weapons obsolete. At that point, still being a warrior culture into close combat, their soldiers will likely carry sidearms that can be easily drawn and act as secondary weapons after their guns. This weapon has to be something that isn’t too big, because the gun is the main weapon and it can’t interfere with gun combat, and it must be easily drawn. Something like a saber, falchion, or cutlass seems most likely to me. Klingons have all of these redundant organs and are resistant to pain - so a small sword or rapier for piercing likely won’t incapacitate them, but a hacking and slashing sword would be more likely to disable them. This sword would be worn by Klingon military even in combat vehicles or star ships, becoming a symbol of warriors even if it’s obsolete. A batleth won’t be that because it’s something that most effective Klingon warriors can’t carry around regularly - but a hacking side sword is and it would become the symbol of being a warrior and become the dueling weapon too. This could be the mek’leth.
That green jacket thing and falx specifically look good together for reasons not entirely clear to me. Like some sort of dueling ensemble from a world that never was.
As for the story of how it came to be at the beginning: What if the story was changed over the years by way of oral tradition? What if say hair was used as a source of carbon? What if they had managed to find a way to use lava as a heat source to work the metal? Early Klingon may have not developed an efficient enough furnace with non molten materials.
The bat'leth looks to me like a combination of deer-horn-knives and a falx. Kinda surprised Skall didn't make more comparisons between the bat'leth and a falx because when one holds it like a sword, it really made me think of a flax with a handguard all the way along the blade, and that can be held at either end.
He only made a few small comparisons between the falx and bat'leth, specifically how it's a functional weapon that doesn't have a guard or isn't the best at stabbing, making it strange but still a weapon. The two historical weapons he made stronger comparisons with the bat'leth were two Chinese weapons. It just really surprised me he didn't see the bat'leth as a combination between a falx, a forward curving blade, and deer-horn-knives, weird blades with hand protection, which was a connection I made from watching Skall's videos
I really appreciate this video. I have always felt that the true strength of the Bat'leth is it's versatility. Also I feel that some houses might have their own variation.
Seeing this video reminded me of Zen-Aku, the duke org. I've never seen a weapon analysis on, seems impractical at a glance weight-wise, but I absolutely love the design.
His sword thing looks cool, but it'd be near unusable due to how much the blade extends beneath the handle, half of ones swings would run a serious risk of stabbing oneself in the gut/kidneys. :P
Personally, I use mine with a middle-far grip. The agility is a good balance to the honestly awkward weight of a bat'leth, and you can use it more or less exactly like an axe like that. Edge alignment is a bit easier to handle if you keep the grip between the heel of the palm and your middle knuckles, but I do personally recommend you invest in good padding, because striking too hard can hurt you as well(though it could just be because mine is slightly warped due to being an 80 dollar flea market item that was clearly plasma cut from sheet steel). The weapon itself is good for mixing feints and quick chops from a defensive stance, but any longsword use worth his salt can pretty easily keep you at range and bat you over the head from binds without too much risk to himself. So always defensively rush into bat'leth range and make mincemeat of your foe as fast as possible(which is likely the whole idea anyways)
Re: Jadzia Dax ordering up a 5.3 kilogram Batleth: that's in the holodeck. I figure that's like a batter in baseball swinging his bat with weights on it to warm up before batting. Working with a heavier sword in practice to build surplus muscle mass and force vs the actual blade to be used in combat.
The klingon she's about to fight calls it a "warrior's configuration", approvingly. It's not clear of that means battlefield configuration or "badass showoff" configuration. With the Klingons it could be either. It also means that, yes, there are multiple "configurations" (designs) of bat'leth.
21:56 in Star Trek Enterprise they actually do show how Klingon would carry it and they do infact wear it. It’s attached to a loop on their belt. Edit: if anyone is interested Purple Heart Armory does sell Synthetic Bat’leth Trainers
I think the weight of the weapon is attributed mostly due to the fact the center isn't sharpened and acts as a blunt edge with which to block or smack around your aponent without slicing them up.
I agree the blunt middle section I think is to block and absorb the blows of your opponent’s weapon almost like it’s a built in shield leaving u open to use your upper body to push opponents back or kick them
fact check me here, but i think that the length also makes a lot of sense, because in star trek there is no more longswords and others, and inside spaceship this length and ability to use it from longsword up to wrestling distance can work really well
Yeah, and kilingons home world was a volcanic world with lots of caves and tunnels the clans fought over. What is its functionality possibilities in caves and tunnels and for using it to hold a tunnel passage blocked.
Check the Memory Alpha article on "Klingon Blade Weapons" and scroll about two-thirds of the way down to "Sword". In TOS we saw displayed on a wall aboard a Klingon ship two similar relatively conventional swords (blade, crossguard, grip) but with extra pointy bits on the blades rather similar to "modern" fantasy swords taken from videogames, which didn't exist at the time of TOS. IIRC the idea was to have some Klingons use them onscreen but it got nixed (and of course the bat'leth hadn't been even imagined back then).
I've always been struck by how the *Bat'leth* is primarily a defensive weapon, which is seriously uncharacteristic of the Klingon psyche, having evolved from pack hunters. It does go a great deal towards the developing mystique of Kahless - his intellect, creativity & wisdom in disciplining the natural urge towards . (I haven't read many of the canon novels about *Kahless,* but that he conquered most of the *Klingon* homeworld, *Q'onoS,* during their late Iron age period has been mentioned several times.) The Bat'leth, with it's pair of protruding spikes at each end, seems perfectly suited for blade, & perhaps wrist, capture. Coupled with the right techniques, I could see it being used to smoothly catch & disarm your enemy, before quickly disemboweling them & following it all with a decapitating back stroke. It is worth noting that despite it's overall length, it is a very close infighting weapon, which I suspect would be highly effective in formation combat. I does seem like an excellent counter to pike/staff weapons, but I'd need to see it in action. It also would be fascinating to compare it with both straight & curved single-edged longswords. If there was any weapon in history that I'd compare it to - both in design & in technique of use - it'd be the shorter (4 foot haft) *Lochaber Axe.* I'm sure I've seen a version with a forked tip, which does resemble the *Bat'leth.* (Though it may also have been a *Berdiche,* or just a fantasy design...)
The "single grip" version is clearly superior. More versatility, better control, and less likely to mistakenly miss a grip during combat. Odd that it evolved to be worse.
"Too much texture; too much random stuff."
This perfectly describes everything about the redesign of the Klingon aesthetic in Discovery.
Personally I really liked the design of starfleet, but man the klingons looked like shit.
I actually depart from most fans in that ib think that Into Darkness had an awesome redesign. They were different, but still recognizable as klingons. Their whole vibe was awesome.
Id say modern sci-fi in genersl. Look at bungie halo vs 343 halo art design.
@@robertharris6092 Indeed. Definitely seems to be a current "style".
@@robertharris6092 halo infinite looks pretty simple.
Perfectly describes everything about the aesthetic in Disco generally.
If I recall, The Klingon Home world has lots of cave and tunnels that they lived and fought in. How good is this weapon for tunnel fighting. I imagine You could block the average tunnel by holding it horizontal. Also in star trek klingons are like 1.5 to twice as strong as a human and have higher muscle and bone density. So the weight of their weapons might be higher because it has to be to cut through Klingon leather and bone.
They know the lore, just agree klingons are not really klingons, they have shown recently they know the lor thou (if butchered th klingon one)
Yeah, a lot of hand to hand fighting is done in close quarters so a long swinging weapon would be at a disadvantage.
@@warrensteel9954 yeah this seems like you could do lots of short swings keeping it close to your body based on the swings skall took. Like you could do some strong swings in a tunnel or ship corridor.
now this raises the question of how a tunnel dwelling people came upon space travel.... brain hurt....
@@mkv2718 Guess they had to make it to the surface sooner or later. Got to the top, saw the stars and went "I bet there's so many other things to kill out there..."
If you consider the Bat'leth's name, loosely translated "Sword of Honor", or perhaps "Blade of Honor" may be more appropriate, it seems to highlight a primary purpose: honor duels. Looked at as a duelling weapon as opposed to a battlefield weapon, it makes much more sense how this weapon would originate, since pure effectiveness in the Klingons' primitive times would have led to use of spears and shields used in formation. Their "Honor" culture would create a specific demand for a weapon like this that can showcase a warrior's strength and skill, is effective in a small duelling circle, is useful offensively and defensively, is good against an armoured opponent, and provides many options of delivering non-critical strikes in a duel where the point of honor is too slight to justify killing or maiming.
Context is a huge factor in whether a weapon makes sense.
Yeah, it's not something that they'd use for combat, at least not usually, but would still be effective if you had to board a ship and maul a squishy crew at knife fight range, because at best most other races are going to have a long knife, entrenching tool, or ceremonial saber, if any melee weapon at all. So some big hulking giant of a man twice your weight and strength coming at you with a giant sharpened hood ornament is going to make you wish you wore your brown pants.
The klingons definitely had more traditional spears and swords-Duras uses a saber against Worf when they duel, and worf berates a klingon at the POW camp the Romulans were running for using a spear to tend a field. The Batleth definitely strikes me as a ceremonial/dueling weapon. IRL there have been equally strange and even less practical devices used for such, like the dueling shield. The Bat'leth is just so culturally dominant that it finds its way into the battlefield so often regardless of the presence of more practical melee weapons.
@@catoblepasomega I forgot about the spears...I don't think I ever saw them or heard them mentioned outside that prison camp episode. The shows usually feature the Bat'Leth and that freaky switchblade dagger with wings.
I would assume that back in the Klingons' Bronze and Iron Age equivalent, spears would have been the primary battlefield weapon. Spears fell out of use (mostly) as higher technology weapons came into use, but the Bat'Leth kept its cultural significance for duelling, and remained popular as a way for warriors to earn more personal honor than shooting their enemies with Phasers or destroying ships in space.
It's an interesting concept that a culture would keep using an ancient, essentially outdated weapon basically because...they want to. But it fits the picture we're given of Klingon culture.
@@catoblepasomega kind of like how WW2 Japanese officers were given katana regardless of how practical it was for that soldiers position or role.
@John Everyman pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?
One of the things I really liked when seeing Worf using it is how well it's choreographed to flow from stance to stance, it's really well made for TV/Movies while making you not go "eeerm that looks 100% stupid", it has this feeling of useability and it fits a giant warrior race.
I think that came from somebody handing Michael Dorn a Bat'leth on day one of filming and he started to basicaly dance with it.
Up against even a mediocre skilled rapier swordsman, and tell us how useful it is in combat.
@@JFrazer4303 Looks like a might fine throwing weapon...
@@JFrazer4303 Tell me how useful a rapier is against an alien that will rip your limbs off if you piss it off.
@@inwit594 if you perforate its vital organs from a couple of meters away, just fine.
cheers for the Raven Forge mention, we have sparred with ours and i can say from experience it was A- exhausting and B- not great to watch, but C- loads of fun witch it what ist all about !
Nice! I can imagine how tiring it would be to spar with such a hefty weapon.
@@Skallagrim all that training would make you as strong as Klingon warrior.
One thing which is never explicitly stated in Star Trek is that the large middle portion of the Bat'leth is actually blunt. This is made clear several times in TNG and DS9 when we see Worf and others striking the faces of their opponents as a way to knock them back and create distance. These opponents never end up with huge gashes on their face from having this done. It also makes sense as to why users regularly take full force strikes from other weapons in that portion as there is no edge to damage.
A blunt edge also means it's more resistant to chipping and less likely to catch/lock.
Makes sense in that - if we assume armored opponents, which Klingons generally are - having a sharp edge in the middle wouldn't be of much use. The points are for striking gaps in armor. The middle - if it was sharp - couldn't really cut through metal armor, so optimizing it for defense, blunt force and grappling makes more sense.
Can you provide an explicit citation for that? My main comment on Matt Easton's review recently was exactly that. The center portion should be essentially a giant ricasso. I'm curious if there is actually explicit canon support for that idea, rather than just not wanting to show blood on prime time TV.
Often we see Jadzia drop the edge and stroke with the handle end, in essence, to avoid a killing blow. She's a weak Star fleet type, though so what would you expect...
Yes, I agree that it makes sense for the center of the blade to be blunt for defensive use. I just wanted to see how useful it could be for slicing and pushing. As it turns out, not very much.
I imagine the center being sharp would be helpful to prevent grabbing/disarming. See Chinese crescent moon knives for a similar idea.
the Discovery's design is a telltale sign of a bad concept art trend... put thousands of griblys and fuckeries on everything so the viewer thinks it is complicated and well designed...
I'm gonna say this up front, I'm gay as hell and I loved that there was a gay couple in discovery, it's nice to see, but that show fucking sucks in most regards. I particularly hate that they ripped off the plot and characters of the first season from an in development indie game lol.
Literally the opposite of ST's original design philosophy.
I love the reaction the actors had to this weapon. They had no idea how you were supposed to fight with it
Most actors have no clue how to use weapons. That is why you hire experts to teach them. Stage plays have to have experts in stage combat as well.
@@braddl9442 The experts/stuntpeople would also need to invent a new fighting style for an exotic weapon like this. Granted stage combat is very different from real combat. Your opponent will cooperate with you rather than stab you when you do something flashy.
@@Nerdnumberone I think the guy that made it based it on existing Chinese weapons and styles.
What’s funny is the Mek’leth was created at the request of Michael Dorn, the actor who played Worf, for his role in DS9 because he wanted a more practical and easier to wield weapon. To me this just proves that even if Michael Dorn really got into the mindset of his character, there’s even an episode where Worf argues that the Mek’leth is the more practical weapon.
From what I've heard, at least for main characters in big budget movies, it's commonplace to pretty much invent a new fighting style specifically designed for the character or for a species/nation/etc. - stage combat experts are trying to create something that looks awesome on screen, matches the character's/groups personality, and maaaaaybe has a tiny bit of realism mixed into it, just to avoid looking too silly - you know, to keep suspension of disbelief. But that's a minor factor, often omitted.
So really, it's hard to expect actors to know it 'intuitively' when they're given the weapon for the first time :P
Glad to see you mentioned the sun and moon/cicada wing sword. From what I recall the original designer of the Bat'leth was Dan Curry who based it on deer horn knives and the cicada wing sword wanting to create both an ergonomic and somewhat practical weapon, because none of the cast had a clue what to do with it he also developed the Klingon Mok’bara martial arts based on his own knowledge of muay thai and tai chi, as well as his wife's expertise in tae kwon do.
I had heard similar things, that the stunt honcho used his own martial arts experience.
I would handwave the silliness by saying "If a Klingon can beat you with a bad weapon that just makes him an even better warrior doesn't it?"
@@CubedSausagefromScarparius People have used syringes of blood they claimed were infected with AIDS as a weapon to commit crimes. Does that make syringes of blood good weapons?
@@AngelusNielson Well, were they the superior warrior with the syringe compared to their opponent? :]
A guy using one successfully used one to rob a bank, so I'm going with yes.
@@AngelusNielson yes
It is very hard to make a weapon that's very unique and not entirely useless.
Kudos to them for that.
Its actually a real weapon that was used/practiced in ancient martial arts. Also Jackie chan used a moose rack as an improvised version in a movie one time. Although the earliest forms actually would have been made from a moose/elk
Rack.
In the episode Reunion, Duras fought Worf with a more conventional sword against his Bat'Leth. So the Klingons do have typical swords as well.
Duras is also shown to be, shall we say, less than honorable. So him using a sword vs. a bat'leth is probably supposed to tie into that aspect of his character.
well that sword was apparently romulan, hinting at the fact duras was a traitor siding with the romulans. EDIT: it was Gowron who fought and died to worf, gowron had the romulan sword, sorry, i mix some klingons up sometimes. Having Duras fight with a conventional sword served to separate him from the Klingon average and perhaps indicate that he didn't follow the teachings of Kahless. the sword i mentioned is a tik'leth , a one handed long sword with a long tradition in the Imperial Guards
@@TheSpeedyCola When did they say that? Why would he openly carry that? Was it a trophy? I know they take trophies.
@@bannedmann4469 I never heard it was Romulan, but regular Klingon swords did exist. Worf has two D-guard swords in his room, though the blades are 'klingon style.'
That always felt out of place to me and more like an artifact of the fact that the writers hadn't really figured things out yet.
To be fair to the bat’leth, it continues to exist in a warp-capable, phaser-using Klingon civilization… which means it probably isn’t meant for contemporary combat in Star Trek. I see it as a great duelling and tournament weapon: it’s too cumbersome to carry for self defense and not as versatile for a battlefield, but it would make for a great spectacle in judicial duels and tournaments. Look up HEMA duelling shields if you’re wondering what I have on my mind right now.
My Star Trek is PRETTY rough..haven't dealt with it much over the years since my mom passed as she was the one into Star Trek..and Star Wars, where I took more to Star Wars. BUT that aside if I remember right, isn't the weapon considered more of an honor weapon? Like used in duels of honor and as a symbol of their past?
That's always been my opinion of the bat'leth. It's used as a dueling weapon or in combat as a "sword of honor" so it has a more specific purpose than "ultimate war sword" which it isn't. They have phasers so it's used in close quarters to accompany their ranged weapons. A spear or pike might better in a battlefield but the klingons also had those, Worf had a half bat'leth looking thing on a stick that looked a lot like a pike.
@Jo Jo I want to bring back dueling shields for HEMA tournaments. That would be so cool.
I remember a StarTrek: Enterprise Episode with Klingon Pirates. They all carried Blades when Beaming down to shake down some settlers but discarded them and drew their disruptors once they encountered resistance.
A weapon like the Bat'leth probably should be largely ceremonial, but it isn't. Look up "DS9 Klingon Attack", the Klingons make heavy use of the Bat'leth in actual combat.
I do find it interesting how they managed to find/create a usable weapon design that appears as though it went through its own evolutionary process. I believe I remember reading somewhere that the Bat'leth is 'descended' from agricultural implements- and I can entirely see a back-handled crescent blade (maybe a two-sided sickle with different edge geometries for different crops, or so you don't have to sharpen in the middle of a harvest?) being used for combat and eventually becoming this. And it does, somehow, not look like any Earth weapon while still very much being a 'humanoid combat implement'.
With regard to the grip, the one continuous grip vs the three separate ones, I wonder if this was a change brought about by the props department. A single full length grip would work on a 'real' Bat'leth made out of steel, but a prop version presumably made of a weaker material might have needed the extra structural support between the grip and the front of the weapon.
Of course the simpler answer (Occam's Razor & all that) would be the art department thought it looked cooler.
Edit: apparently the shunt prop used by Michael Dorn was made of rubber, so would have benefited from the extra structural support, even if that wasn't the reasoning behind it.
The new design legitimately looks like a fantasy bow with some sort of like invisible/intangible string that somehow still keeps it tight.
That reminds me of the Arch weapon from the PS3 game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. It looks like a big bow, but the "String" is a staff and the "bow" is an energy blade of spikes that move as if the energy blade was part of a big wheel or rotary saw.
it's stupid
just like everything in star trek discovery
Nice one Skall, so funny how you and Matt did videos on the weapon at the same time!
Funny thing, Skall had already shot the film when Matt's came out. He was kinda concerned about it on Discord.
@@scottmacgregor3444 Maybe Matt's spies in the skies crossed the pond to let him know the Bat'leth video race had begun.
Now we wait for Shad to make a response video =)
@@LuxisAlukardI'll make a prediction, Shad will continue to think it's stupid.
@@scottmacgregor3444 discord ? is there like weapons youtubers council on discord ?!
The Discovery version looks more like a bow than anything else.
a bow that shoots the user rather then the enemy
@@toomanyaccounts The nunchaku version of a bat'leth!
Yeah pretty sure you can get something that looks like that in _Skyrim._ Daedric something-or-another bow that talks to your character and tells them to murder town guards or orphans.
The Writers for Discovery are some of the most arrogant and stupid writers I have ever seen. They do zero research and just do whatever they want and push whatever agenda they want. It is why the show sucks.
I did actually make a working version of that: effectively a batleth strapped to a horsebow.
7:34 Yes!! I noticed even in the original Star Trek scenes, that it seemed that the actors were struggling to keep the blade level. So while the blade looked completely bad-ass, I always felt that maybe some alteration of the grip was called for.
A thought I had, while replying to Shad's thoughts on the bat'leth (and especially keeping the design of the Sword of Kahless in mind, rather than the TNG bat'leth) was; what if, rather than thinking of the bat'leth as a *sword* , instead, thing of it as a *scythe* . Or, even more specifically, a scythe which Kahless *re* forged into a weapon (with excellent defensive capabilities) for his fight against Molor... Something which would enable him to endure Molor's attacks until Molor's strength was spent, and *then* deliver a savage blow, as when Worf fought and killed Duras...
As soon as that thought came to me, the bat'leth made sense from an in-universe perspective, and IMHuO, completely changed the perspective, and dismisses the disingenuous comparisons of bat'leths against thrusting/fencing swords - things which it clearly would not be suited for - instead, into consideration of it as something designed entirely to block, and eventually dismember and kill. Many weapons have an origin in agriculture, what it the bat'leth did as well? (from an in-universe perspective)
IMHuO, such a change in classification and perspective, completely affects the context and findings, from 'unwieldy and poor fencing sword', into 'excellent blocking and hacking scythe'... Against a knight or a samurai, if I had 'the same sword as them', I would be out-skilled and unable to offer an effective defence: With a bat'leth, while I may not be able to 'strike them down', I would certainly be able to block their attacks for a lot longer, and perhaps get in a few of those off-angle counter-strikes which you mentioned...
Thankyou for such an insightful and well-balanced analysis and presentation 👍👍
That *thing* from discovery looks like a ceremonial piece more than a useable weapon.
That entire show pisses on continuity on purpose.
@@llamapi3 have not watched a single episode and have no intention of doing so
@@walshmt84 I have watched a decent chunk of it and can confirm.
There are SOME decent ideas going on but it's like... UUGH...
@@walshmt84 Don’t bother. Discovery rewrote the entire canon of TOS as being secretly caused by Michael Burnham, the messiah-like figure someone wanted to shoehorn into the Trek lore for no reason. On a better note, I heard DS9 was the best Trek series ever, so I highly recommend you watch it. I would if I had time.
@@TrueMentorGuidingMoonlight DS9 is the best Trek series. I can confirm.
I say smart because it looks like it has 500% increased critical damage and 25% stun chance.
No need to worry, Skall, its well established that Bat'leths only loosely follow a specific pattern laid out by Kahless, and each weapon may be different depending on the requirements of the user or the House that commissions them.
Worf, for instance, has a rather odd polearm-shaped Bat'leth hanging on the wall in his cabin which is straight like yours, though missing the middle portion of the blade to be more of a double-ended spear.
(Its actually a prototype for the weapon they didnt end up using but hey lets go with "Its a different pattern")
I feel like blocking a normal sword attack with the Bat'leth would be the big problem. Looks like it would tilt in your hands after the blow and the sword would make contact with the klingon.
I feel like two handed grip would give a lot better defensive use, and single handed would be for offense. Being able to fluidly switch between them is a nice feature.
My favorite fan theory is one suggested by Certifiably Ingame: Kahless was canonically a farmer with little training, so it would make sense to base his weapon on a farming tool he is familiar with. It's basically a weaponized form of a Klingon hand sickle or plow. Its shape also encourages strict training to be effective, and its broad catching arcs make defensive maneuvers almost trivial - meaning those that adopted it almost automatically had a better survival rate than someone who runs in with a less defensive weapon they barely trained with. So even if it was technically less efficient than other weapons, it simply outlived the other options.
(His video might be a good follow-up watch because he also has his realistic take on the myth of its creation.)
Shades of the Okinawans developing their farm tools into weapons to resist the Japanese.
@@lukedogwalker Pretty common practice around the globe, really. While things like nunchaku or war scythes are the most obvious examples, most of the common weapons have such roots as well. Axes are still in use as tools today, spears and bows started out for hunting use, and if you want to get down to it, swords are really just very large specialized knifes. Even guns and bombs are originally derived from fireworks... Would make sense that fictional weapons have similar roots.
@@lukedogwalker Or just medieval peasants. The Fauchard as a medieval pole arm was common for them in war. It also had hooks and spikes for use against armored opponents. What many people don't know is that it`s actually just a modified farm tool. Namely a type of sickle knife on a pole to use for hedge trimming and keep up. When it came to war, these were just modified by a villages smith and tuned into a Fauchard.
I've seen that video. It's good.
That goes along with what was said about Kahless's bat'leth when it turned up in DS9: He also used it to harvest crops and carve a statue.
The divided grip is by far the worse design element; with that removed, it’s SO much more effective!
The divided grip makes sense, because the original Bat'leths where made out of iron. But you are not going to break space materials like duranium.
@@schwarzerritter5724 they are also known to use their third leg to grip the middle handle for extra stability
@@imjustaguy8232 Thank you for that mental image… 😂
@@imjustaguy8232 Lol funny. But violent species actually tend to have the smallest schmeat.
@@schwarzerritter5724 or Baakonite😉
As I recall, there was a book written about the Klingon that invented the weapon. The main reason for it’s purpose, was for narrow corridor combat- especially for indoor stairway combat. It’s short arc swing made it very functional for differences in elevated combat. But that was the book. I would love to watch an episode in stairway and narrow corridor combat.
Makes sense, it’s barely wider than a person, can be gripped nice and widely for pushing/controlling opponents, edged for snap attacks. The only thing better is the trench trowel lol
Yes, and at the time in the book, most Klingons favored large devastating open battlefield weapons that were unwieldly/useless in the corridors protecting the castle.
@@spacedinosaur8733 a spear is a large battlefield weapon and it’s the most ideal thing for hallway battles. All you gotta do is jab to keep them at a distance, if you get 4-5 others braced in a hedgehog formation, nothings getting through without massive casualties. Even for home defense in modern times a short spear in the dark would be better than anything. You should know your home better than an intruder and all you need is for them to make a noise and stab at it.
@@widdershins5383 That is true, however if I remember from the book is at this time in Klingon history, the preferred weapons where similar to great swords or battleaxes, which they found was impractical when fighting against Kahless the Unforgettable in the confines of fortress corridors.
The book is just that, a book, by a writer trying to explain the design choices of another writer who had no expertise in martial arts and weapon design. The best weapons for hallways are thrusting weapons, of any kind. The bat'leth is a horrible weapon for defending against thrusts. It's a bad weapon. It works, just not nearly as well as many other options we have and we are not depicted as nearly as warlike and fighting friendly as the klingons
Experimented with these at LARP/SCA long ago. A lot of us were curious about them in combat (as opppsed to honor duels) and the results were... interesting. What was really neat is how much better it worked if you approached the enemy thinking like a bloodthirsty and fearless klingon. You could catch a blade and attack in a single move, which meant you could potentially dispatch an enemy very quickly. Makes perfect sense for a klingon trying to mow down lots of foes in rapid succession. How did conventional weapons rate against it? Polearms/pikes (though I was able to almost slide all the way into striking range against that too) or a sword/shield were best. It's worth noting that I still forced people into a very defensive posture in those cases. Just about every other melee weapon was screwed. The other weapon that worked really well against it was... another Batleth. I always thought they were cool looking, but actually using them, probably made me feel way more like a badass than twirling around a geeky Star Trek weapon ever should be able to.
This weapon also seems to work well for the purpose of hand to hand combat on ships during boarding situations. In a narrow ship's corridor, a big weapon like a longsword, with a reach advantage would be more likely to get caught up in the environment. Try to swing it and it'll bounce off the walls and you'll have a hard time using it, while the guy using the bat'leth would not have that issue.
Which is why you'd use a spear instead. More reach, faster, and avoids the swing issue.
@@Axterix13 and creates the getting jammed in a narrow corridor when you need to turn around issue. You can point it in one direction and ONE direction ONLY. One Direction's fine if you like Boy Bands, but not so helpful when a dude's coming up from behind and you can't turn your spear around to point it at them.
Star Trek: Discovery doing something blatantly stupid that flies in the face of the franchise? Perish the thought!
I'm glad I've not wasted my time on that show. Sounds like they have no regard for what has come before.
@@nwstraith I started watching it but once they introduced way oversized tardigrades as multidimensional(?) alien creatures as the basis for their weird Ftl-drive I could not take the series seriously anymore even with all the effort in the world.
Its about what looks good on the screen (in Kurtzman's mind) and not what actually could work.
Writers are forgetting the first rule "yes and" instead they keep going " no, actually". Basically you need to keep building the lore and contradict the old lore as little as possible.
Sometimes they contradict the real lore to be different, but most of the time they just never bothered looking it up. And nobody working on this reboot stuff knows anything about Trek.
One possibly justification for the 'ribs' between the three grips is that they reinforce the central section on a shorter shipboard/indoor variant. That might not be correct, it might even be silly, but since the bat'leth was designed by a skilled martial artist, there was probably some justification for them in his mind (as opposed to the STD version, where I think it was designed by an art major who really wasn't thinking about how it would be used in practical terms).
art majors are a plague. They ruin everything.
ahaha STD version 😁
@@AtlantiansGaming As an ex-art major, I can confirm this. XD
One of the novels addresses the creation of the bat’leth (not the myth, but the real story)… and it was invented partly as a fever dream - and partly as a commando weapon.
The warriors in question were going to be fighting close quarters, in tunnels and narrow hallways, against opponents who would be using more traditional heavy swords.
The intent was to give up reach… to have a weapon that actually works in narrow hallways. It was never really meant to fight other bat’leth… or out in the open…
But it was such a blowout against “normal swords” in close quarters… in a legacy-defining battle… it became a symbol, and replaced the sword.
The novel still addresses a myth, just not the same myth. The real creation of the bat'leth was by a human show writer whose expertise in martial arts and weapon design is non existent.
@@kevg1617 Dan Curry was a martial artist outside his work on Star Trek and based the Bat'leth on Chinese weapons.
@@kevg1617 Wow, you must be fun at parties. I'm pretty sure that part was clear and even mentioned in the video. But in the story, there is a myth and a 'real' origin story. Which is not so different from the real real world.
@@AtlantiansGaming based on certain chinese weapons, but very different in use, function and size. He didn't design it with weaponnefficiency and effectiveness in mind, he designed it with aesthetics as a priority to make the weapon alien and intimidating. It is so far out of the realm of what a warrior race would develop that it really serves the image better than the reality
@@kevg1617 nope the function is the same. it is meant to deflect, catch and fling the enemy weapon away. the points are meant to pierce and or cut. it is also like a lot of wushu weapons meant to be flashy and difficult to learn.
Qapla thanks for using my clip of Mr Wang. liked you idea about halfing the bathleth.. I have one that folds in half.so fit in suitcase..
The pumpkin cutting part was strangely satisfying.
With regards to the origin story of the Bat'leth:
The story was likely written in such a way as to reflect a mythological legend of some sort. Star Trek is full of many rich cultures, and the Klingons in particular have a very well detailed culture and history. The unrealistic nature of the legend is likely on-purpose to show that the Klingons, advanced as their technology may be, still believe in crazy myths and legends. Their culture is also rife with many customs that, by design, may seem brutal or even primitive to audiences, and it is all by design to create a rich and interesting culture for the Star Trek universe.
if one goes by Star Trek Online/Beta Lore the Batt'Leth was actually designed to deal with Hur'q opponents which are massive creatures so it's design makes sense
Right? Its no different to Excalibur being pulled from a stone or Grass Cutter controlling the wind.
@@Gellert1984 This. We have some crazy tales about swords. The only one that's probably actually real is the swords that were supernaturally sharp and could cut your opponents blade. But that's just a lack of context. In all likelihood it actually has a real core from the Bronze Age. There is some indication that there was iron around before iron smelting in the form of meteoric iron. So, if someone got the idea to make a sword out of that, you would have a iron sword in a time everybody else had bronze ones. And an iron sword against a bronze one is a mess. It can hack the bronze weapon up pretty well without much damage to itself.
@@theexchipmunk Yeah, iron vs bronze is a major plot point in The Pharaoh, th-cam.com/video/5y1ovnPT6wI/w-d-xo.html
If you remove the middle spike, Kahless's version is pretty much a halberd blade that can be handled like a quarterstaff.
I immediately thought the the Chinese Deer Knife was a better design with similar features to the Bat’leth. If the Bat’leth had only two points instead of four, or if the smaller points were just closer to the middle so you get a longer single blade length with the larger blades, it would still be recognizable but a little more practical. I’ve always thought there was merit to the design, but I also think there are a couple features that could be reworked to be a bit better
Last time I checked, The Bat'leth is a giant Chinese deer knife.
I remember watching a documentary about the Bat'leth and the prop maker used said knife as inspiration.
@@johnsmithfakename8422 the deer knife is pretty similar, but the knife has two prongs that face backwards and two that face forwards, whereas the Bat’leth has all four prongs facing forward. That’s a minor difference sure, but it does affect how each one is used in a pretty significant way. Also the metal portion that protects the hand on the deer knife is curved outward, and creates a sharp angle where it intersects the forward prongs, which creates a pinch point that would allow you to more easily trap and control an opponent blade and also release it, whereas the Bat’leth only has the gaps between the prongs to trap another weapon, which is harder to use as effectively. The original Bat’leth, with the single hand grip and a small spike in the center, is the best design in terms of practicality, with the smaller prongs being closer to the center and having larger gaps to allow better use of the weapon capturing abilities, but it could still be further improved just a bit.
Glad that the video with the mek'leth is still around and remembered. Mostly because that is actually my mek'leth. I still have it. One of my favorite collection pieces! All in all, great video, thanks Skall!
The Bat'leth Jadzia Dax asked for on the holodeck in the scene shown in your video is in fact not the usual size at 116 cm. This "warrior configuration" has been widely adopted, although it's actually a reduced size to be wielded by a human. Klingons are generally quite a bit taller than humans and by far stronger. When researching for my own version of the Bat'leth of Kahless, I stumbled across some dimensions better suited for Klingon size, 154.5 cm from tip to tip, 42.5 cm in higth, 92 cm between the inner tips and 58 cm length of the grip (which is one single hole in Kahless's weapon and is easier to handle). You will find similar dimensions on pages of prop makers and sword smiths who attempted a rebuild. Also, in Deep Space 9, season 4, episode 8, "The Sword of Kahless", you can see Terry Farrell holding the Bat'leth of Kahless, which pretty much defined the dimensions of the later weapons. Since Terry Farrell is 182 cm tall, the way she holds that weapon, her hands are about 50-55 cm apart (I tried that position with a friend of that hight). She covers roughly 1/3 of the over all length of the weapon, which makes the whole thing a size of a bit more than 150 cm. This was a weapon made by and for a Klingon, vs the one "human downsized" she requested for her trial with Kor in that episode.
Funny that so many Star Trek nerds miss that point and adopt the wrong dimensions as those of a Klingon weapon.
Re wearing the Bat'leth, Enterprise, season 2, Episode 6, "Marauders", 32 minutes into the program you can see Klingons wearing their Bat'leths on a strip of leather slung over their shoulders.
I used to fight with a "boffer" (padded weapons) fighting group in my youth, Someone Made a Bat'leth out of a hell of a lot of PVC pipe and foam. This thing was a monster to fight against. the ability of its user to block and parry then aggressively follow up was amazing. its maker could use it to force our weapons out of position, push us back or off balance, then make the kill strike, and as we were using padded weapons, this was full contact fighting. if the weapons were real, Id be dead a hundred times over. (self taught melee weapon fighting is NOT a good method of learning :) )
Happens also a lot with butterfly swords and similar twin weapons
@Paul Gauthier Im REALLY good with a pole arm spear and staff, decient with Axes and shields. suck hard at every thing else.
@Paul Gauthier that's such an interesting concept to learn about too, for most of our history most people didn't learn how to fight you either got lucky enough, a couple times and picked up a few tricks to stay not dead or you didn't. Most training given was how to follow instructions and work together with some basics thrown in.
F*cking LARPers...
@@jasonlauritsen5587 ☝️ secretly wishing he could join in.
One headcanon reason I've seen floating around for the bat'leth's peculiar design is because of Klingon history. Kah'less was said to invent the weapon around the same time that the Klingons overthrew their slave overseers. The weird shape come be because they were original tools for other purposes. Maybe a farming implement, or mining tools, or whatever reason an interstellar empire would find the need to enslave other species instead of using robots.
Or instead of holograms heh
Mining implement? Farming tool? Yeah I can see it, but don't forget a common trademark of some enslaving cultures throughout history, making slaves fight among themselves for the entertainment of others, that is of course gladiatorial events.
Apparently in scotland there was a similar tradition of giving your opponent an equal weapon theyre inexperianced with to put them at a disadvantage.
When dueling a scot using roundshield and broadsword, you were advised to not take a shield if offered one because someone inexperianced with a shield will block high with the shield and blind themself, giving the scot an easy win (at the time most fighters used rapier or saber either without a shield or with a smaller buckler, from what i understand)
I really enjoyed this - an amazing professional perspective! Also, brilliantly edited and composed video!
I love how now we can still hang out essentially standing in a circle nerding out about klingon weapons and stuff, but now it's online with high production value...
Cheers Skall and my fellow 90's before school homies
i think that in the end historical weapons are based on actual human body mechanics, through use and experience, so you can't really go much better than what's already done, apart from materials or brand new techs. in fantasy and sci-fi, deviating from a "standard" design to make exotic weapons, while still using humanoid characters, makes weird and a bit awkward things. it would be interesting to me to imagine weapons used by non humanoids beings, still pretty hard to imagine, but a lot of fun? like an octopus-like guy with several tentacles using a series of small shields chained together to create a flexible shell around it's soft body and using 2 or more of the tentacles to jab nasty pointy blades into the opponent when an opening is available... right i'm writing that down.
I think body mechanic understanding and, more importantly, freedom of material usage has expanded much since the era where melee weapons were employed.
The cost to create these weapons was much greater in times past. The spread of world knowledge and use is also far greater.
Yes, the reward if finding a good design and technique was also greater in times past, but using the advantages of today may still provide innovation and insight not commonly seen, previously.
im imagining an octopus doing a one "man" phalanx and i would like to see it myself
On the subject of materials, I've been thinking.
You know what would be interesting? Take a Viking sword, Oakeshott type X. which is like a long horse shoe on a deep fuller. Excellent cutter but a tad heavy because it's wide at the end.
Make the horseshoe of an edge from your usual high carbon steel. 0.5-5.0 cm in from the edge, just like the originals.
For the center beyond the edge.... aluminum. Or even polymer.
See if you can get it to feel like an epee, but cut like a type x.
@@greyvr4336 i guess alluminium doesn't weld properly with steel? to put both materials together with steel edges you'd need a pretty tough glue, or dunno, some scifi tech like nanomachines and stuff...?
also thinking, steel wouldn't be great for an early ocean environment, with all that salt and stuff.. and even in a slightly acidic atmosphere. so, how would a civilization go through an earth like middleage in those conditions? nah. metalwork would be at stakes for a long long time, until they discover some particular alloy or something. darn rust man lol
@@hic_tus There are indeed complex interactions of steel with aluminum. I don't know all of them, but I do know they can work, as AR barrels are steel and the reciver is aluminum. It's held togeather with a nut and threading, and you paint grease between to prevent interaction of the metals. So while it would be a complex idea, it's doable.
As to salt water, that's not a change from an all steel sword as was used at the time of the vikings and their type x, so....
One point to remember is that most races in Star Trek do not use any melee weapons. Having a hard-to-use melee weapon also prevents your enemy from simply picking it up from someone's dead body and using it against you.
Especially if it’s heavy and designed for a klingon’s physique. Not to mention the shock effect of a few dudes coming at you with these or seeing a buddy get cut down by one
@@gideonmele1556 yup, in a battle where you mostly fire ranged weapons from cover, getting into Bayonet range is a great way to break your enemy's morale.
Only the tough/warriors races use melee alot *cough* Jem Hadar
@@Ocker3 Set phasers to wide angle, sweep the hallway, head back to the rec for drinks and games ;)
@@TheAgent0060 amusingly, the Borg also technically melee a lot. It's hard to assimilate someone you just disintegrated, after all
If you think about it. This weapon is kind of like a double bearded bill with curved instead of straight spikes.
Meaning that it has all the benefits of a bill, but more defense and the shorter poler size means you can use it in small spaces as well as a large ones.
As mentioned quite a bit below, the Batleth is a weapon intended for use in close quarters, to give the powerful defense of a polearm without the risk of catching on things . . .
. . . which actually applies to it's IRL design process as well. Klingons swinging swords and the like around could be dangerous to the expensive set pieces, so instead, they designed a tight weapon which doesn't have as much risk of damaging the set thanks to it's smaller 'footprint'.
The bat'leth was also a tool, it was used for tilling the ground, used as a sickle in agriculture and for hunting large game long before it became a ceremonial weapon of choice. The mec'leth was better at combat as warf showed in first contact movie and in DS9. The different types of bat'leth also show fighting style and family allegiance.
To be honest, the Klingons seeing no difference between their swords and their plowshares as it were works quite well for their race.
Regarding carrying a bat'leth, something similar to a bow case would probably work well. While those are better for cavalry, some infantry who carried both bows and spears also used them. It seems like it would still be a bit on the cumbersome side and like it might be difficult to draw quickly, but as a marching case it would make sense.
Seems carrying the weapon would be a problem. At least swords have a sheath to protect the blade and the wearer.
@@brodriguez11000 You don't think like a true klingon. It's the enemy who needs protection.
Carrying it on your back can be plausible. Its not like a sword, its sheath doesn't have to be conventional. You can use a sheath which has its opening on its side, rather than on its top. So you put it inside form the side of the sheath on your back, so there is also nothing to stop you when you draw it. It will also wont fall since it will stay on your back on an angle.
Carrying on the back seems to me to be the best bet. Especially when you have access to say a small coathook to hook one of the loops onto or as silly as it may sound, just space velcro it to yourself.
A simple back hook like a coat hanger on a bandolier would work I think, it would also make it very easy to retrieve.
Honestly carrying a bat'leth is the least perplexing part of their use unless you're referring to the godawful and stupid Discovery version.
One thing that we are all circling about in the discussion, and it boils down to being a really well thought ought design is the fact, that Bat'leth is a combination of a sword, that can be used with (almost) full weapon reach effectively, and a great trench weapon that works really well in confined space of a spaceship boarding action. All it takes to change the use case is a change of a grip of your front hand, and you are adapted to the situation at hand.
Also, if used in grappling, it would probably be really bloody hard to grasp or wrench the sword out of the users hand, since the handles would be really hard to grasp from the front of the weapon, and you have to contest with the blade part protecting it.
Oh, and it would have probably be a pretty decent defence against any crazy wildlife trying to eat your face, like rabid Targs and whatnot.
halfswording allows that with swords too.
@@thekaxmax halfswording is stab only, this thing is an axe, sword and staff in one with hooks for grappling on top of it, its a very versatile design specific for very close combat in tight corridors of ships/caves
@@Asghaad It doesn't thrust well at all and thrusting us the single best use of a weapon in tight quarters. It may look like a good weapon, but it's design does not fit a warrior society hellbent on waging war to the best of their abilities. It looks like a ceremonial or ritualistic type weapon used perhaps in honor duels or the like, not as a weapon for war
@@thekaxmax Yes, but the space taken up by the half sword isn't as large as with the Bat'leth. If you imagine the bat'leth as an item much like the half sword, but extended sideways to provide more leverage and to allow a line to be closed with more economy of motion....
Bat'leth as a wrestling shield with points on the end, like taking a Talhoffer dueling shield and cutting it down to the minimum.
Really captured my imagination, this idea that the bat'leth isn't a sword.... but a shield.
Now the thing about certain Chinese weapons was that they weren't meant for war, they were developed from a number of tools or ritual objects according to some, that someone could pull out if they had nothing else on hand. This is what some have speculated to be the origins of the wind and fire wheels. This isn't so far fetched as the monks spade began as a sort of combination tool carried around by monks, but over time became more stylized and lost it's general tool traits.
Also for most Chinese history weapons were illegal for civilians to own, so they'd come up with creative weapon-like objects.
You see this with Okinawan weapons. Tools became weapons.
I really enjoyed this review Skal, I’m sure the designer would as well. From what I understand they tried very hard to make it an effective weapon to fit in with the ideology of Klingon fighting. 👍
I don't even watch Star Trek and I just watched a half hour video on a Klingon weapon. Great delivery and engagement!
I remember watching a video Shad did on the subject a few years ago, and I recall that he was particularly harsh on this weapon. It is interesting to hear you explaining that it does have some positive, practical qualities ( as well as some drwabacks).
Shadiversity is a bit too reactionary and into hot takes for my tastes...
@@planescaped All shadiversity ever does is get angry at everything. Never seen him say anything positive about anything
I mean ship's cutlasses weren't often carried or worn either, they were kept in racks or barrels in the armory and distributed as needed, so I can definitely see Klingon ships doing the same. Maybe some in security lockers distributed around the ship as well?
Even in the shows, we never see Klingons carrying them around, they only get them when they need them. They probably carry their disruptors and small blades all the time, but only carry the big blades when they know a fight is coming.
Klingons seem to just keep them on the walls of certain rooms, even aboard ships at war. I guess they don't think a security locker is really worth the trouble
Good point!
@@Fawkes42 Makes sense given that Klingon society expects duels, including duels to the death, on a regular basis. They'd be far less concerned about securing weapons when you're encouraged to fight over things all the time anyway.
I'm pretty sure they do just keep them on a weapon rake. But wear their disruptors and dagger around the ship. I think it was somewhat shown in the episode where Riker spent time on a Klingon ship.
Nearly 8 years later we finally get this video. Yay.
I have always considered this a trench warfare weapon. A defined preference for in-your-face combat is inherent
This Bat'leth video ( among others) is absolutely and irrevocable why I thoroughly enjoy this channel. The Badass Bat'leth test montage (vignette?) Is perfect example of why I pull up.
I was very much expecting you to tear this thing to shreds, you actually make it seem even more badass. K'plah!
Entertaining! both you and Matt Easton finally getting around to talking about the bat'leth within a week or so of each other! cheers from Vancouver!
Having learned Chinese martial techniques since 1973, and since the creator of the Bat'Leth also knew such techniques, I find that my own Bat'Leth lends itself very well to being used with Chinese techniques. And like the series itself it's from, the ST:Discovery Bat'Leth sux gagh.
The discovery stuff is idiotic cause the writers have no clue what they are doing. The show is so terrible.
The discovery bat'leth along with the klingons that made it are 'appearance over substance.'
Give me the space biker russian viking samurai.
@@braddl9442 bra. Have you seen star trek the next generation? Sure, they don't hit the mark with every episode, but most of the are widely regarded as written well.
@@abicol6010 But we are talking about discovery.
@@abicol6010 Are they though? LOL from a young kids point of view maybe. If you critique most episodes using an adult mind, most of them fall apart pretty quickly. They're often quite terrible. They're nostalgic though, and there wasn't much else on at the time for people with imaginations so we hold onto their memory as being greater than the actual sum of their parts. I'm not sure why.
I want to see someone use this in a HEMA tournament. It might actually do well considering how much tackling and grappling goes on. Yes I’m aware it’s not a historical euro weapon, but it would still be interesting!
@@CubedSausagefromScarparius SciFMA?
Awesome review, Skallagrim. Thanks for doing it. You covered many of the points (no pun intended) that I have sensed playing around with the mild steel batleths I have gotten my hands on. While not the best thing every (obviously), it is a fictional weapon that has gotten a really bad rap in my opinion. It seems like a weapon balanced between a sword, an axe, and a battle pick. It could thrust and stab surprisingly well, slice and chop, and penetrate with the blade tips. Practicing with the angle of the blow and distance meant you could decide what function you wanted to deliver. I sensed from the beginning that there were certain situations you needed to train yourself out of. I first played around with a shorted, lighter version of the Sword of Kahless - much lighter at 32.13 inches. That also meant that when you do an overhead blow, the blade closest to you, wound up aimed at your crouch, so I played with avoiding directly overhead blows and practiced angled blows, which worked very well. Even that mild steel light version penetrated well. I agree, I much prefer the Sword of Kahless design for the grip mechanics. Tight spaces were exactly where I thought they'd shine as well. The biggest disadvantage I have found is the weight for the reach. But as you pointed out, that can be addressed some by the thickness, etc. Thanks for doing this! :)
The "extra" durability might be much less optional if 2 Klingons are hammering them into each other.
Of course that 5.3kg variant is probably just the historically accurate one. Modern ones are likely lighter.
Actually it's the weight of a D'har master's specs, or the Klingon sword martial arts master's sword.
@@ThePhillyDz Which may be for sparing or judicial combat, not what you'd take into combat against a serious enemy.
Given the tone of that scene I see it as something of a flex on Dax's part, picking a heavier more traditional style weapon that would be difficult for someone of her stature and build in order to make a point.
Can’t wait for Shad to see this and think, “Hm, I wonder what Skall has to say.”
Scholagladitoria put out one of his own just reciently
Shad already declared the Bat'Leth was stupid four years ago.
@@winterburden Shad lord of the pointy stick. But shad will change his views if you give him a good debate with tangible points.
Well, it wasn't invented in medieval/Renaissance Europe... So Shad would consider it crap. His prejudice is hardly hidden. I'm almost positive he fantasizes about a falchion being more lethal than an M4...
@@winterburden, yes. I’m aware.
As an odd aside: within certain Chinese martial arts there is the chan zi dao, or cicada wing spear, which bears a superficial resemblence to the bat'leth. Not sure if this was something that was known by the original Trek prop designers or not.
He shows one in the video, though he mentions it by another name.
The OG Bat'leth is a weapon I would genuinely buy, even practice using. It's functional and simple yet cool looking. The new one is doing too much.
It's January 4, and I got 6 inches of snow at my house in northern Alabama yesterday. Time for a Skal video!
I like to think of the Kahless story in the same way that we often think about our own mythology, as a metaphor. If that story's taken as a metaphorical reference to an event in Klingon history I think that at that volcano he taught the klingons to use iron and the carbon extracted from their hair to make steel weaponry.
Tod and Matt Easton have a series on weird weapons. Now I would really like to see them do Bat'leth - sword fight.
22:33 i want to say one thing about this: the disjointed grips DOES provide ONE thing: if you _want_ your hand to be at a very specific grip position, and you put your hand there, it's pretty much going nowhere, but with the singlegrip design your hand could potentially slip because there's nothing to catch and lock your hand in place and you'll lose your grip position and potentially not be able to do whatever specific thing you wanted to do with it.
i think that's a distinct advantage the disjointed multiple grips have over a continuous singular grip and in the show, we do actually still see a pretty even amount of both at various points which to me does suggest that they are actually two different schools of thought in bat'leth design and usage.
Not really, while your hand can technically slip I highly doubt anyone would consider a greater variety of grip positions a detriment, and if you are concerned about your hand slipping there are better solutions than that, like textured grips or high friction gloves. Leather gloves with a leather wrapped handle gives a very good grip.
ive come to exppect some nerdyness from you over the years, but that scifi speal at the bginning floored me. loved iit.
especiically since i traveled through that same stargate.
Well looks like Shad just did a pretty brutal reply to this. Im excited now!
Matt Easton replied to the reply already. Shad's missing the most important thing, again, context.
I think the triple grip was an accommodation for material limitations. Star Trek Online retconned the Sword of Khales, the original bat'leth, so it was made out of chitin shell of the insect like Hurk, who Star Trek lore says ancient Klingons stole warp tech from, and later Klingon blade smiths probably couldn't replicate the tensile strength, making the separations between the grips needed support columns to keep the blunt side of the weapon's center blade from collapsing and crushing the user's fingers. As for the Discovery bat'leths, they look like they'd devolved into ceremonial weapons based on all the engravings and gemstones encrusting the weapons' outer surfaces and awkwardly positioned points. It's kind of like how Shadiversity, and Even Skallagrim himself have commented about on blades like the morgul weapons from the Lord of the Rings.
This feels like it would be better suited as a weapon used for dueling. Something neither side should be practically skilled with.
A scifi version of the Talhoffer dueling shield.
That's exactly what the Klingons use the Bat'leth for most of the time, in duels where their HONOR is at stake...
In Klingon, "Bat'leth" translates to "sword of honor"
@@ProcyonDei They also full on go into combat and boarding actions with these it is a weapon of war it's just for dueling as well
In Star Trek Online, the Sword of Kahless was fashioned from the germanium-based carapace of a Hur'q.
And your custom Bat'leth isn't exactly the most unrealistic, given that the various Houses would have their own Bat'leth variants, with the ones seen in TNG and DS9 likely being the KDF standard, which is also the model used in competition, so everyone is on a level playing field in that manner.
And the deerhorn knife immediately reminded me of the Andorian Ushaan, which was developed as an icepicking tool.
so, melty at room temperature?
kahless should have predated the hur'q. startrek online is wrong if they made it that way.
Ah, Fellow STO Enjoyer.
@@TentaclePentacle they should have existed at the same time, given that they used Hur'q technology.
@@cmdrtianyilin8107 when the hur'q came the kahless was already a myth. They even took his sword as an antique.
7:38 - "When I relax my grip it immediately turns," YES, I've played around with a lightweight aluminum one owned by a friend and agree, this makes it feel really weird and unwieldy despite the relatively light weight.
Great video. Loved it. The Mekleth was intended to work against a Bartlett to catch the large blade and get inside the swing and to work in a more confined space. Qapla' reH thlingan wo' taHjaj !
Good of Matt to allow you to follow up your 2014 video.
I also feel like the handles of the weapon should have a bend, similar to a hunting shotgun. That way you can have better control over how it rotates due to weight.
I think that a sword or some close variant of it would be a more appropriate standard weapon for Klingons. Much like the katana for WWII Japanese.
I imagine in the evolution of Klingon weaponry, at some point they are going to develop guns and make melee weapons obsolete. At that point, still being a warrior culture into close combat, their soldiers will likely carry sidearms that can be easily drawn and act as secondary weapons after their guns.
This weapon has to be something that isn’t too big, because the gun is the main weapon and it can’t interfere with gun combat, and it must be easily drawn. Something like a saber, falchion, or cutlass seems most likely to me. Klingons have all of these redundant organs and are resistant to pain - so a small sword or rapier for piercing likely won’t incapacitate them, but a hacking and slashing sword would be more likely to disable them.
This sword would be worn by Klingon military even in combat vehicles or star ships, becoming a symbol of warriors even if it’s obsolete. A batleth won’t be that because it’s something that most effective Klingon warriors can’t carry around regularly - but a hacking side sword is and it would become the symbol of being a warrior and become the dueling weapon too.
This could be the mek’leth.
Mek'leth ftw.
I think it´s funny that a "brawling" type weapon translates so well into sci-fi, as many encounters are fought in cramped corridors.
The Bat'leth design is actually based on the configuration of the Sun and Moon knife and the shape of the Deer Horn knife.
That green jacket thing and falx specifically look good together for reasons not entirely clear to me. Like some sort of dueling ensemble from a world that never was.
Reminds me of some clothing and weapon combos in Greedfall that have a similar feel to it
As for the story of how it came to be at the beginning: What if the story was changed over the years by way of oral tradition? What if say hair was used as a source of carbon? What if they had managed to find a way to use lava as a heat source to work the metal? Early Klingon may have not developed an efficient enough furnace with non molten materials.
The bat'leth looks to me like a combination of deer-horn-knives and a falx. Kinda surprised Skall didn't make more comparisons between the bat'leth and a falx because when one holds it like a sword, it really made me think of a flax with a handguard all the way along the blade, and that can be held at either end.
...he did
17:00 homie
He only made a few small comparisons between the falx and bat'leth, specifically how it's a functional weapon that doesn't have a guard or isn't the best at stabbing, making it strange but still a weapon. The two historical weapons he made stronger comparisons with the bat'leth were two Chinese weapons. It just really surprised me he didn't see the bat'leth as a combination between a falx, a forward curving blade, and deer-horn-knives, weird blades with hand protection, which was a connection I made from watching Skall's videos
I really appreciate this video. I have always felt that the true strength of the Bat'leth is it's versatility. Also I feel that some houses might have their own variation.
Seeing this video reminded me of Zen-Aku, the duke org. I've never seen a weapon analysis on, seems impractical at a glance weight-wise, but I absolutely love the design.
His sword thing looks cool, but it'd be near unusable due to how much the blade extends beneath the handle, half of ones swings would run a serious risk of stabbing oneself in the gut/kidneys. :P
Personally, I use mine with a middle-far grip. The agility is a good balance to the honestly awkward weight of a bat'leth, and you can use it more or less exactly like an axe like that. Edge alignment is a bit easier to handle if you keep the grip between the heel of the palm and your middle knuckles, but I do personally recommend you invest in good padding, because striking too hard can hurt you as well(though it could just be because mine is slightly warped due to being an 80 dollar flea market item that was clearly plasma cut from sheet steel).
The weapon itself is good for mixing feints and quick chops from a defensive stance, but any longsword use worth his salt can pretty easily keep you at range and bat you over the head from binds without too much risk to himself. So always defensively rush into bat'leth range and make mincemeat of your foe as fast as possible(which is likely the whole idea anyways)
Re: Jadzia Dax ordering up a 5.3 kilogram Batleth: that's in the holodeck. I figure that's like a batter in baseball swinging his bat with weights on it to warm up before batting. Working with a heavier sword in practice to build surplus muscle mass and force vs the actual blade to be used in combat.
Nah, she actually duels that Klingon with it right away to prove herself so there wasnt any practice.
The klingon she's about to fight calls it a "warrior's configuration", approvingly. It's not clear of that means battlefield configuration or "badass showoff" configuration. With the Klingons it could be either.
It also means that, yes, there are multiple "configurations" (designs) of bat'leth.
21:56 in Star Trek Enterprise they actually do show how Klingon would carry it and they do infact wear it. It’s attached to a loop on their belt.
Edit: if anyone is interested Purple Heart Armory does sell Synthetic Bat’leth Trainers
What a great and really balanced video with sooo many very well talked about topics!
Very good, mate!
6:54 This is why the real-life testing is so useful! We learn those things that aren't obvious at first!
I think the weight of the weapon is attributed mostly due to the fact the center isn't sharpened and acts as a blunt edge with which to block or smack around your aponent without slicing them up.
I agree the blunt middle section I think is to block and absorb the blows of your opponent’s weapon almost like it’s a built in shield leaving u open to use your upper body to push opponents back or kick them
fact check me here, but i think that the length also makes a lot of sense, because in star trek there is no more longswords and others, and inside spaceship this length and ability to use it from longsword up to wrestling distance can work really well
Yeah, and kilingons home world was a volcanic world with lots of caves and tunnels the clans fought over. What is its functionality possibilities in caves and tunnels and for using it to hold a tunnel passage blocked.
Check the Memory Alpha article on "Klingon Blade Weapons" and scroll about two-thirds of the way down to "Sword". In TOS we saw displayed on a wall aboard a Klingon ship two similar relatively conventional swords (blade, crossguard, grip) but with extra pointy bits on the blades rather similar to "modern" fantasy swords taken from videogames, which didn't exist at the time of TOS. IIRC the idea was to have some Klingons use them onscreen but it got nixed (and of course the bat'leth hadn't been even imagined back then).
@@markfergerson2145 the valcansed used swords
I've always been struck by how the *Bat'leth* is primarily a defensive weapon, which is seriously uncharacteristic of the Klingon psyche, having evolved from pack hunters. It does go a great deal towards the developing mystique of Kahless - his intellect, creativity & wisdom in disciplining the natural urge towards . (I haven't read many of the canon novels about *Kahless,* but that he conquered most of the *Klingon* homeworld, *Q'onoS,* during their late Iron age period has been mentioned several times.)
The Bat'leth, with it's pair of protruding spikes at each end, seems perfectly suited for blade, & perhaps wrist, capture. Coupled with the right techniques, I could see it being used to smoothly catch & disarm your enemy, before quickly disemboweling them & following it all with a decapitating back stroke.
It is worth noting that despite it's overall length, it is a very close infighting weapon, which I suspect would be highly effective in formation combat.
I does seem like an excellent counter to pike/staff weapons, but I'd need to see it in action. It also would be fascinating to compare it with both straight & curved single-edged longswords.
If there was any weapon in history that I'd compare it to - both in design & in technique of use - it'd be the shorter (4 foot haft) *Lochaber Axe.* I'm sure I've seen a version with a forked tip, which does resemble the *Bat'leth.* (Though it may also have been a *Berdiche,* or just a fantasy design...)
The "single grip" version is clearly superior. More versatility, better control, and less likely to mistakenly miss a grip during combat. Odd that it evolved to be worse.
This was a great deep dive into the design of the Bat'leth. Thanks for sharing :)