Khitomer
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Khitomer ought to be a Galactic crossroads; it is a hospitable world located at a point where the Klingon Empire meets the Romulan Star Empire and the United Federation of Planets. Because those three empires have spent so much time fighting each other, it became a planet that was too strategically important to occupy, since doing so would only provoke the others. When the Klingons tried to do so, the Romulans promptly massacred their settlers. On the other hand, Khitomer is also famous as the place where the UFP and the Klingon Empire signed their first peace treaty, the historic Khitomer Accords.
Khitomer is the third planet in the Beta Guarada system, which occupies a strategic position just on the Klingon side of the border between the Klingon and Romulan Empires in the Beta Quadrant. It is also relatively close to Federation space, which made it a convenient location for the historic conference that marked the end of the cold war between the UFP and the Klingon Empire.
Climate
Khitomer has a mild, Earth-like climate that is eminently suitable for the development of life. The planet has many flourishing native species of flora and fauna. When Klingon colonists settled on Khitomer, they brought with them their own food crops and domestic animals, specimens of which later survived the Romulan massacre. These have integrated seamlessly into the ecosystem surrounding the settlement site.
Geography
Khitomer has nine large land masses, none of which are connected to each other. The Klingons named the largest Garah and have largely disregarded the others. Garah lies in the planet’s northern hemisphere, with its southern tip just touching the equator. They chose a lush mountain valley near the western coast of the continent as the site of the conference center where the Klingon Empire and the UFP would meet to hammer out the Khitomer Accords.
Civilization
As hard as it may be to believe, Khitomer had no native intelligent life when the Klingons discovered it. A Federation survey team sent to the planet before the Khitomer Conference detected some fossil evidence that creatures similar to higher primates had once lived there, but the Klingons never followed up on these findings.
When the Klingon Empire chose Khitomer as the site for their historic meeting with the UFP, they hurriedly constructed a facility especially for the purpose. It was abandoned after the conference, as ongoing hostilities with the Romulans made that sector too dangerous for any permanent presence. When the Klingons finally ventured to set up an outpost on Khitomer in 2344, it refurbished and made use of what was left of the old conference center and the colossal monument erected to the Khitomer Accord after the conference became its central landmark. However, the Romulan troops who destroyed the settlement in 2346 damaged the entire complex beyond repair.
History
Khitomer has borne witness to both the fondest hopes of peace and the worst depravities of war, both brought there by races not native to the planet. The Klingon Empire discovered Khitomer in 2038 and was pleasantly surprised to find a hospitable Class M planet with no native advanced life forms to contest their claim to it. Before the Klingons could colonize it, however, war with the expanding Romulan Empire made that entire sector too dangerous to settle.
Khitomer remained a tantalizing prize for both the Klingons and the Romulans for the next 250 years; the best the Romulans could do was threaten to take it, but as long as they threatened the Klingons dared not make full use of it. The planet was still uninhabited when Klingon Chancellor Azetbur chose it as the site of the conference at which she would pursue a lasting peace with the UFP in 2293. The Khitomer Conference saw more than its share of drama when Starfleet captain James Kirk foiled a plot by rogue Klingon and Federation officers to derail the peace process by assassinating UFP President Eteon tar-Chereos. But it produced the Khitomer Accord, one of the watershed developments in the overlapping histories of the Klingon Empire and the UFP. (STVI: The Undiscovered Country)
The Klingon Empire finally attempted to establish a permanent presence on Khitomer in 2344, in spite of continuing hostilities with the Romulans. It was believed at the time that the colony’s defense shield would provide adequate defense against attack. Unfortunately, a Klingon traitor provided the Romulans with access codes that allowed them to neutralize the shield. The attackers put an estimated 4,000 colonists to the sword. Only a handful of Klingons survived the notorious Khitomer Massacre; one of them was a child named Worf, who grew up to become the first Klingon to serve as a Starfleet officer and later served as ambassador between the UFP and the Klingon Empire.
After the massacre, the Klingon Empire made no immediate plans to resettle Khitomer. Continuing hostility with the Romulans made it too dangerous. Later, civil war, and then the resource sink of the Dominion War, provided too many distractions. Even after the Dominion War, during which the Klingons allied with their longtime foes from Romulus, they had little energy left for colonization, focusing instead in rebuilding their depleted military. Khitomer remained an attractive piece of real estate for any private parties (land speculators, mining or agricultural interests, religious orders, etc.) willing to take on the risks involved in developing a planet that is synonymous with an important moment in history.
Places of Interest
After the Khitomer Conference successfully concluded, the UFP and the Klingon Empire erected an enormous obelisk to commemorate the treaty. Made of obsidian and titanium sheeting, the Peace Monument rises 100 meters into the air and can be seen by the naked eye for miles in any direction. At its base is a large plaque engraved with the signatures of UFP President Eteon tar-Chereos and Klingon Chancellor Azetbur and the words: “For the future of our peoples, we will explore this undiscovered country together.” The Romulan troops who destroyed the Klingon colony in 2346 tried to deface the monument, but never put enough effort into it to cause substantial damage. Afterward, the Klingons (over the objections of some in the UFP diplomatic corps) decided not to repair the dings and bits of graffiti that the Romulans had inflicted, leaving it instead as a memorial to their dead.
Alternate Universe
In the mid-2200s, Khitomer became a strategic battleground between the Romulans and Klingons. See the History - AU for more information.
Reference(s)
- Burns, Eric, Kenneth A. Hite & Doug Sun. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 7: Worlds, Decipher, 2005. ISBN: 1582369097.