I put together a compare/contrast on UFP/KE from a couple shows.
The Feds in Fed words:KIRK: He called my bluff.
MARA: You're not going
KIRK: The Federation doesn't kill or mistreat its prisoners. You've been listening to propaganda, fables.
KIRK: There's another way to survive. Mutual trust and help.
KIRK: Gentlemen, I must get you to reconsider. We can be of immense help to you. In addition to military aid, we can send you specialists, technicians. We can show you how to feed a thousand people where one was fed before. We can help you build schools, educate the young in the latest technological and scientific skills. Your public facilities are almost non-existent. We can help you remake your world, end disease, hunger, hardship. All we ask in return is that you let us help you. Now.
I think we can each reach for another dozen examples of Kirk, Spock McCoy and other scenes extolling respect for life, helping the weak, raising living standards for all, etc. Best exemplified in three words that will be put even above "I love you." "Left me help."
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The Klingons in Fed words
KIRK: No, sir. With the Federation, you have a choice. You have none with the Klingons. The Klingons are a military dictatorship. War is their way of life. Life under the Klingon rule would be very unpleasant. We offer you protection.
KIRK: Gentlemen, I have seen what the Klingons do to planets like yours. They are organised into vast slave labour camps. No freedoms whatsoever. Your goods will be confiscated. Hostages taken and killed, your leaders confined. You'd be far better off on a penal planet. Infinitely better off.
KIRK: We have legitimate grievances against the Klingons. They've invaded our territory, killed our citizens. They're openly aggressive. They've boasted that they'll take over half the galaxy.
KIRK: The Earth Federation offers one other thing, Akaar. Our laws. And the highest of all our laws states that your world is yours and will always remain yours. This differs us from the Klingons. Their empire is made up of conquered worlds. They take what they want by arms and force.
MCCOY: Truce? Are you serious? I've got men in Sickbay, some of them dying. Atrocities committed on their persons, and you talk about making peace with these fiends? If our backs were turned, they'd jump us in a minute. And you know what Klingons do to prisoners. Slave labour, death planets, experiments!
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Turning to the Feds in Klingon words
KRAS: And different from those of my people, too, Teer. The sight of death frightens them.
KRAS: What do Earth men offer you? What have you obtained from them in the past? Powders and liquids for the sick? We Klingons believe as you do. The sick should die. Only the strong should live. Earthmen have promised to teach the youth of your tribes many things. What? What things? Cleverness against enemies? The use of weapons?
MARA: What will they do to us? I've heard of their atrocities, their death camps. They will torture us for our scientific and military information.
MARA: They will kill us before we can act.
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Klingons in Klingon words
On Poverty
KRAS: A small scout ship, Captain. We need the mineral, too. I was sent to negotiate.
MARA: We have always fought. We must. We are hunters, Captain, tracking and taking what we need. There are poor planets in the Klingon systems, we must push outward if we are to survive.
On Practicality
KANG: She is a victim of war, Captain. She understands.
KANG: Klingons kill for their own purposes.
KLINGON: Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man.
KRELL: Give her to the man who killed the most of her people. The others will see the profit in bravery. I'll make a Klingon of you yet.
KOR: (going into his office) Fools! Will I have to kill them all?
KOR: Why not? We're the stronger! You've tried to hem us in, cut off vital supplies, strangle our trade! You've been asking for war!
On Empathic responses, notions of peace, friendship
KOR: Never!
KOR: We Klingons have a reputation for ruthlessness. You will find that it is deserved.
KOR: I hope you will continue to savour the sweetness of your life. You disgust me.
KIRK: I don't intend to kill you unless I have to.
KOR: Sentimentality, mercy. The emotions of peace. Your weakness, Captain Kirk. The Klingon Empire shall win.
KLINGON: I cannot understand these people.
KOR: They know what death is, don't they?
KLINGON: They do not seem to be worried about anything.
KANG: We have no devil, Kirk. But we understand the habits of yours. I shall torture you to death one by one until your noble captain cries enough. Who will be first?
On personal retribution
KRAS: The next man who raises a weapon destroys all of you. You and your primitive knives and your weapons, I'll teach you what killing really means.
KANG: When I take this ship, I'll have Kirk's head stuffed and hung on his cabin wall.
KLINGON 2: Out of the way, Organian.
KLINGON 2: Next time, keep your eyes open, or I'll shut them permanently.
On Standard Operating Procedures
KANG: Don't plan any tricks, Kirk. I will kill one hundred hostages at the first sign of treachery.
KOR: Should one Klingon soldier be killed, a thousand Organians will die. I will have order.
KOR: You are now subjects of the Klingon Empire. You'll find there are many rules and regulations. They will be posted. Violation of the smallest of them will be punished by death.
KOR: From this day on, no public assemblages of more than three people. All publications to be cleared through this office. Neighbourhood controls will be established, hostages selected. A somewhat lengthy list of crimes against the state.
KOR: What is always done with spies and saboteurs. He will be killed, after he has had first-hand experience of our mind scanner.
KOR: You have a poor choice of friends. He will be examined. If he is lying, he will die. If he is telling the truth, he will find that business has taken a turn for the worse
KLINGON: ...Then when they opened it to give them food, they simply weren't there, and there was no way out.
KOR: If you're lying to me.
KOR [OC]: Attention. Attention all Organians. Attention. This is Commander Kor. The two Federation prisoners have escaped, obviously with outside aid.
KOR: They will be returned immediately. So that you will know we mean what we say, listen.
KOR [OC]: Two hundred Organians have just been killed.
KOR [OC]: In two hours, two hundred more will die, and two hundred more after that until the two Federation spies are turned over to us. This is the order of Kor.
Underlying Philosophy
KOR: Then it shall be a matter of testing each other's wills. Of power. Survival must be earned, Captain.
KOR: Come now. I'm not referring to minor ideological differences. I mean that we are similar as a species. Here we are on a planet of sheep. Two tigers, predators, hunters, killers, and it is precisely that which makes us great. And there is a universe to be taken. (Counter: KIRK: All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. )
KOR: Today we conquer. If some day we are defeated, well, war has its fortunes good and bad. Do you know why we are so strong? Because we are a unit. Each of us is part of the greater whole, always under surveillance. Even a commander like myself, always under surveillance, Captain. If you will note.
And the fallacy that undoes it
KIRK: How to handle their interstellar relations! We have the right
AYELBORNE: To wage war, Captain? To kill millions of innocent people? To destroy life on a planetary scale? Is that what you're defending?
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The Federation constantly strives to show they are shepards, not the wolves Kor claims the Klingons are.
While the inherent terms are now understood to be sociopathy/empathy, traditionally these mental states have been termed "good" and "evil". Good and evil is how TV was written in the 1960's, good guy vs bad guy, choose your flavor from cops and robbers to others over millenia of time.
We can expect McCoy's rant on death planets and prisoner experiments to likely be true enough. We can expect Mara's claim of Fed torture being as propaganda feedback at the Klingon populace in general. This also suggests either Mara as Science Officer is unaware of such experimentations, or sees conquered people as not-people, so is oblivious. Can one be blind to one's use of torture but fear it done to them by others? I guess if the sociopathy is there.
I do not see any examples of Klingons as misunderstood, lacking self-awareness or anything other than Lawful Evil in their overall pursuits -for whatever particular AD&D alignment any given Klingon may be. There are likely good Klingons doing their best to fight the system they are in. Blake's 7, but Klingon-style.
Money and power as the height of achievement has historically been categorized as evil. At least since that Jesus fellow way back in our own world history. That was one of this thesis anyways.
KRELL: You will be rich one day, Apella, beyond your dreams. The leader of a whole world. A governor in the Klingon Empire.
"All right, Spock. Whatever your game is, I'll play it. You want credits, I'll give them to you. You'll be a rich man. A command of your own? I can swing that, too. Spock. What is it that will buy you? Power? Power, Spock? I can get that for you!"