The Black Fleet was a concept related to the Klingon afterlife.
This fleet was mentioned in The Warrior's Anthem, in which it was said the departed honored Klingon warriors would join their fathers and fight an eternal battle. (DS9: "Soldiers of the Empire")
After Rejac was killed, T'Kuvma expressed his hope that the ancestors, whose bodies formed the symbolic armor of his ship, would welcome Rejac into the Black Fleet. (DIS: "The Vulcan Hello")
The Black Fleet was first introduced in the 1984 TOS novel The Final Reflection. References to the Black Fleet were also present in several early Star Trek: The Next Generation Pocket Books novels, such as Strike Zone. The first live action reference to the Black Fleet was in the video game Star Trek: Klingon.
The concept of the Black Fleet relates to Klingon warriors who die an honorable death going on in the afterlife to serve in the Black Fleet. A warrior's rank in the Black Fleet is determined by how successful they were as a warrior in life, with the ultimate achievement being command of a Black Ship. Regardless of rank, warriors in the Black Fleet spend eternity fighting and killing worthy foes who also have entered the ranks of the dead.
The idea of the Black Fleet predates the introduction of the concept of Sto-vo-kor, and presented the Black Fleet as an alternative afterlife concept. However, since Sto-vo-kor was mentioned by T'Kuvma in "Battle at the Binary Stars", in canon the two concepts must be part of the same belief system.
See also[]
External link[]
- Black Fleet at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works