"Rules of Engagement" (season four, episode seventeen; 8 April 1996): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: "Rules of Engagement" presents the Klingons as they truly are: brutal, underhanded, & thoroughly dishonorable. To gain sympathy from galactic public sentiment, sympathy they would press to gain further advantage against the Federation, the Klingons set up the crew of the Defiant to destroy an empty starliner & claim that hundreds of innocent Klingon civilians were massacred. The plot is undone when Constable Odo uncovers that the Klingon civilians had actually died three months earlier in a crash landing on a remote planet, but only after the Klingon lawyer, Ch'Pok, had expertly manipulated the Starfleet extradition hearing, his "battlefield." Ch'Pok openly states that Klingons take pride in slaughtering unarmed children—any & all victories are honorable—but would happily denounced the Federation for a "massacre" of children & other civilians. This is who the Klingons truly are: bloodthirsty & despicable.
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