Hab SoSlI' Quch!
Your mother has a smooth forehead!
This is particularly insulting because Klingons take pride in their forehead ridges. We have even seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation that a common tradition among Klingons is to take cast molds of a child's forehead ridges; so to disparage the ridges of a Klingon is a bad insult to be sure.
Recently, I thought of this insult from a new perspective. Has the series Star Trek: Enterprise changed or updated this insult?
The Star Trek: Enterprise episodes "Affliction" and "Divergence" established an explanation for the differences in appearance of the ridgeless Klingons seen in Star Trek: The Original Series and the later films and series in which the Klingons had the familiar forehead ridges: the Klingon augment virus.
In short, Klingons used DNA from embryos of genetically enhanced human "augments" to attempt making their own Klingon augments. Once infused with the augmented DNA, the initial test subjects had their forehead ridges dissolved, their personalities were affected, and ultimately the genetically engineered DNA caused neural system breakdown resulting in death. Klingon scientists continued testing, and ended up using the augment DNA on a Klingon test subject who was unknowingly affected by the Levodian flu. The augment DNA mutated the Levodian flu and the new augment virus spread rapidly, affecting millions in a short time and becoming an epidemic.
It took hundreds of years and several generations for the affects of the Klingon augment virus to be reversed, and it became a sore subject that Klingons do not speak about with outsiders.
So in light of this recent addition to the lore from Star Trek: Enterprise, does this insult now imply that the mother in question is (still) suffering from the Klingon augment virus?
So which would be worse: saying someone's mother is affected by a virus (cooties?) or saying that they just naturally have a smooth forehead (perhaps implying the mother is not even Klingon, such as a non-Klingon alien)?
In any case, using this saying to insult a Klingon warrior is likely to get you a belly full of Daqtagh.
