Klingons, Intended to be Offshoots of Humans?

 

Commander Kor [Errand of Mercy]

Many assume the way the Klingons appeared in Star Trek The Original Series, because of makeup budgets. I however strongly suspect that there is a reason why they were almost Mongolian-like in appearance, was a purposeful choice on the part of Gene L. Coon, when writing the screenplay for Errand of Mercy.

 From James Blish's adaption of the episode:

The Klingons were hard-faced, hard-muscled men, originally of Oriental stock. They were indeed heavily armed and wore what looked like vests of mail. ...

James Blish was working from scripts for his adaptions, and not the completed aired episodes. I suspect this line might have been born out of possibly a production notation within the script intended for the makeup department.

The Original Series, certainly had no problem coming up with visual makeup effects when it desired to do so. We got everything from big brained aliens, to pig-people, and even horned white apes. If they wanted to give Klingons head ridges they would have done so. I know it has been asserted they didn't do this for cost/and or technical reasons, but I tend to believe that is retroactive idea that was pushed as a means to smooth over the less than PC notion that Klingons were some renegade Asian people who went to the stars and began making war with Earth.

I also believe the Orions were intended to be related to humans as well, and find it interesting that both Klingons and Orions keep getting entangled in on screen fiction.

There is an appeal, at least to me, that not only was the USS Enterprise crossing paths with aliens of varied sorts, but also human offshoots which literally began to 'Go their own way' over time. This idea has a number of storytelling levels, which would have been worth exploring, and in fact were hinted at, but never really followed through on, such as the idea of the Preservers - And the Native Americans, which does help support the idea that Klingons began somewhere as humans.