Red Path

Red Path
Allegiance:	Klingon Empire, Kahless, Lore
Service type:	atheist revanchist movement, militant cult
Dates active:	until 2378
Headquarters:	Qo'noS, Quv vo'Kahless

The Red Path, also known as the cult of Kahless, was a militant pan-species fascist revanchist group and cult that followed the renegade Emperor Kahless II and his extremist perspective on the Klingon identity.

Description

Harboring a religious worship for their leader, the followers of Kahless venerated him as their messiah with a zealous reverence that adhered to violent atheist sentiments inspired from the legendary exploits of the original founder of the Klingon Empire — the genetic template that their leader had been cloned from — who was credited for slaughtering their gods. Driven with an agenda that had been inspired from such accomplishments, the Path rejected the concepts of godhood and launched a crusade to eliminate all that laid claim to it. Although based on the capital planet Qo'noS, the reach of the Red Path extended past the boundaries of their state and by the time the movement emerged to assist Kahless, it had amassed a significant fleet of warships and hundreds — if not thousands — of members. While their leader and the largest body of his followers were Klingons, the faction recruited individuals from a number of different species, including Humans, Cardassians, Orions and Romulans that had deserted their own governments and been converted to the religion. Regardless of their background, however, individuals that had pledged fealty to Kahless by choosing to "walk the Red Path" were equipped with various weapons and clothing connected to Klingon traditions, including bat'leth, and most were capable of speaking Klingonese. The name of the organization itself was derived from a passage in the Sutras of Kahless Reborn, 'Iw Devwol' HartaHghach, which translated to "Faith of the Blood Guide". However, a number of the terrorists were victims to a sacrament that was made from a mixture of potent epinephrine and yridium bicantizine, which triggered heightened negative emotions and a violent physiological response that had qualities resembling drug addiction.

With encryption tactics that the Maquis had utilised until their destruction at the hands of the Cardassian Empire, Kahless and his movement hijacked the former supply lines and communications network of the separatist organisation, which they used to form ties with Captain Nazzak, the leader of an Orion pirate crew. With these connections to the black market, the Path further increased their arsenal with salvaged Dominion equipment and spacecrafts, recruiting several members of the scavenger crew to their extremist cause with the offers of salvation. Meanwhile, the presence of sleeper agents of the Path within the Romulan Star Empire enabled the cult to appropriate classified material for their own use, including three experimental bloodwing cleave ships, while two other proselytes from the military command journeyed to the colony of Korvat under the pretense of making investigations about the recent shifts in Klingon religion.

When the Red Path made their existence known to the United Federation of Planets after its forces embarked on their campaign to eradicate godlike beings across the Milky Way Galaxy in 2378, its forces had come into possession of the Bajoran Orb of Destruction, which had come into their possession after being stolen from the Tong Beak Nor space station thanks to Cardassian acolytes that had been converted to the religion of hate from the aftermath of the war with the Dominion, which had decimated their capital planet in the final hours of battle. Having used the instability to build a foothold for themselves on Cardassia Prime, the cult proceeded to staff the hidden nuremburg with a garrison of converts that had been addicted to the Red Path's sacrament under the command of a Romulan paladin to defend the Orb of Creation, which Kahless understood could threaten his ambitions as meanwhile, his servants weaponized its counterpart to serve their purpose as a means to execute 'gods'. Using the orb to force the shapers on Sarkadesh into constructing the Quv vo'Kahless — a starship capable of utilising the artifact to fuel a weapon invented by the scientist Korath that could harvest the powers of those it destroyed — which broke the centuries-old treaty between the planet's residents and the Klingon state, under the directives of their emperor, the cult of Kahless launched separate attacks on Gary Mitchell and the Branchers at the Hephaestus Nebula to annihilate them and claim their respective powers for Kahless. The latter of these two strikes occurred simultaneously with an interaction between the race of crystalline entities and the USS Theseus, which witnessed the genocide while the perpetrators escaped without conflict. Meanwhile, on Qo'noS, Kahless utilised the powers of his office to further spread his influence, swamping the High Council and Chancellor Martok with bureaucratic duties while showing his shameless disregard for their own authority. Later, the crew of the Theseus — beneath the command of the recently returned Captain Benjamin Sisko, Emissary of the Prophets — approached the Emperor to petition his assistance with their investigation into the godkiller array, unaware of that he had been guiding this deicide, but were rejected by Kahless, who sought to derail the mission and denied them access to Sarkadesh. Undeterred, Kahless led the vo'Kahless to target yet another entity, this time the God City of T'Kon, but found themselves blocked by the USS Theseus, revealing he was the leader of the Red Path movement and boasting that his intention to remind the universe that the Klingon people had executed their own pantheon. In the ensuing conflict, the Theseus was boarded by Klingon raiders, including Alexander Rozhenko, son of Ambassador Worf, who fought his father, thought the invaders were nonetheless repelled. After dealing considerable damage to the God City, the cult retreated on the command of their leader, leaving the Federation Starfleet to face the rage of the being. In addition, the cult used the powers that had been assimilated from the Branchers to harvest Kazis IX and eradicate life on it in the process, then later struck Korvat, attacking the Kot'baval Festival being hosted there and executing numerous priests.

Meanwhile, the Red Path nonetheless found itself challenged by another opponent in the form of the renegade crew that Worf — having split ties with Sisko after the attack on the God City — had assembled after his theft of the USS Defiant. Gathered from a motley collection of different individuals, this team sought to hunt down Kahless and his followers, bringing the insane emperor to face justice for his various crimes before the Red Path cult could threaten the hard-won peace of the galaxy. To accomplish this directive, the Defiant crew sought to secure transponder codes from the OSS Scarab, which had links to the cult that the initial hijackers had discovered and traced to the Orion sector. There, the ensuing bargaining resulted in a violent firefight between them and the allies of the Red Path, which left Worf severely injured, forcing the rouges to accept help from a nameless defector that was able to save their commander by injecting him with the 'holy sacrament' the Red Path utilised to keep him from succumbing to his wounds. After escaping from the Orion sector, the individuals that served onboard the Defiant were able to backtrack the development of the Quv vo'Kahless to discover the ties that linked the followers of Kahless to the Klingon scientist Korath, who had also been the mastermind that manufactured their sacrament. As the leading designer behind the godkiller cannon that the Red Path had forced the Shapers to construct, the weapon that Korath had created was built with a power system that the crew theorised to have reached a level of omnipresence, which added to their discovery about the converts Kahless had gathered from species beyond just his own, including Romulans and Orions. Having joined forces with Commander Sela after she met with them while launching own investigation into the crossroads that Kahless had made into the Romulan Star Empire, the rogues aboard the Defiant learnt that their enemies had massacred the festivities at Kazis and were intending to reignite the expansionist policies of the Klingon Empire in a violent coup d'état to be launched on Qo'noS: the Day of Blood.

History

The Unforgettable reborn

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Kahless the Unforgettable, who founded the modern Klingon creed on honor.

Centuries before the cult that called itself the Red Path came into existence, the figure that was central to their beliefs was born: Kahless the Unforgettable, who carved his name into the bloodstained pages of Klingon history with the first bat'leth. Around the 8th century on Earth, Kahless arose to challenge the leaders of his people, who crushed the warrior spirits of their subjects, but were without honor themselves. The worst of these reigning warlords was Molor, the sworn enemy of Kahless and a demonic figure of future mythology. According to legends, Molor had encountered spacefaring beings that he had struck a deal with, using their technology to force his rule onto the Klingon people, who worshipped Molor and his chosen as gods, even though the tyrants only ruled because of the support from their patrons. Kahless challenged this reign and later decapitated Molor in a famed duel, teaching the Klingons to never kneel before others, although, by contrast, legend also claimed that the unforgettable one continued his crusade of death until the entire planet bowed to him. After his victory over his nemesis, Kahless became the founding father of the Klingon Empire, uniting the factions across the planet Qo'noS to forge the baseline for a powerful state that expanded to conquer multiple star systems. Since the first creation of their empire, all Klingons would live by a code of honor and tradition that Kahless had established, which prevented them from falling into the self-destructive wars experienced by the Pa'uyk. Although their founder would later die, before his death, Kahless promised he would return one day and lead the Empire again, while his teachings to shape as the basis for their tradition and culture. Other elements of myth stated that a millennia before the Dominion War, ancient members of the Klingon race — including Kortar and his mate, who were the first of their kind — slew their pantheon for reasons that included the gods being "more trouble than they were worth." Kahless himself was also credited for the elimination of the deities that Klingons had once worshipped, believing that honor and strength were all his people needed to forge their destinies.

T'Kuvma — who was said to be Kahless reborn — sought to unite the tattered Klingon Empire, encouraging the leaders of the Great Houses to join together to fight their shared foe: the Federation.

Over the course of the Empire's history, the idea that Kahless would return remained a prominent part of the Klingon perspective and helped to shape the path forwards in numerous matters, including interaction with other interstellar entities like the United Federation of Planets. The monks who belonged to the Followers of Kahless erected a monastery on Boreth to await his return. In another instance, the prophet T'Kuvma sought to restore his people to their traditions, leading to his followers hailing him as the reborn incarnation of Kahless himself. At that time, the Klingon people were torn from civil wars and internal squabbles between different members of the twenty-four Great House that formed the High Council, which T'Kuvma and his supporters opposed, seeking to unite their feuding leaders against their most consistent neighbour: the Federation. Suspecting that the union was a threat to their cultural identity, T'Kuvma — using a version of the Beacon of Kahless that his long-time friend Khel had carved — succeeded in rallying members of the Council against the Federation Starfleet as the first to unite the Empire since Kahless himself. Below the creed "remain Klingon", an aggressive standoff between the two galactic powers at a binary star system devolved into open battle, triggering all-out war. Although Lord T'Kuvma was killed in that same battle by a Starfleet officer named Michael Burnham, his death only martyred him as a fallen messiah, but the later shifts in leadership brought the different Great Houses back into strife with one another as well as the Federation until L'Rell — a kinswoman and follower of T'Kuvma who had remained faithful to her liege after his death — was elevated to the office of Chancellor, using a hydro bomb that, if detonated inside the volcanic system of Qo'noS, would render the planet uninhabitable, to bring the other houses under her rule after Burnham — who was now a specialist onboard the USS Discovery — convinced Starfleet Command to accept this alternative to mass genocide. With her ascension to office, L'Rell and the Federation drafted an armistice and relations between their two people temporarily stabilised, despite the opposition that such matters received from figures like Kol-Sha of the House Kor — who attempted an ill-fated move to usurp power — and a resistance group that called itself the Shadows of Kahless, as well as war profiteers from both sides that wanted to reignite the violence for their own benefit. Later, however, conflict between the Empire and the United Federation reemerged until the signing of the Khitomer Accords, which became a turning point in their relations.

The clone of Kahless the Unforgivable, who was proclaimed the spiritual leader of the Klingon Empire.

In the year 2369, the clerics that attended to the Boreth Monastery feared that corruption and dishonor was driving the Empire into its grave. To combat this and restore strong leadership to their people, the monks utilised blood samples taken from the sacred Knife of Kirom to create a genetic duplicate of Kahless the Unforgettable that had been imprinted with memories generated from the sacred texts. This clone, unaware that it was not the true Kahless, claimed that he had returned from Sto-vo-kor and word of this miracle sent ripples through the empire. Despite this, not all were willing to welcome such change and Chancellor Gowron, son of M'Rel, fearing the loss of his own power, challenged the legitimacy of the return of Kahless, bringing the Empire dangerously close to civil war, even when Commander Worf — the first Klingon to serve within Starfleet — exposed the conspiracy. To avert conflict, Worf proposed that the clone of Kahless be made Emperor of the Klingon Empire, a position that had been vacant for centuries. As Emperor, Kahless would be the ceremonial head-of-state, but his authority would be generally restricted to spiritual matters as a valuable reminder of what had once made the Klingon Empire great and encourage his people to remember their ways of honor. On the other hand, political matters related to affairs of the state would remain under the jurisdiction of Gowron and the High Council, who consented to this arrangement, especially when Worf threatened to have his brother Kurn lead the House of Mogh and its allies in withdrawing their support for the chancellor, which had been pivotal to his previous triumph in the struggle with the House of Duras.

The initial stages of the war between the Klingon and Cardassian states, which Emperor Kahless II opposed, to no avail.

With the mantle of Emperor, Kahless II was a moral leader to the Klingon people that was intended to serve as a figurehead to remind them of the founding tenants of their creed, though some, like the Dahar Master Kor, considered him a "toothless figurehead" that ruled as merely a pretender to the throne. Over the next few years of his reign, however, the new Emperor made several decisions that were controversial and in direct opposition to the High Council but made little strategic sense. When Gowron led the Klingon Defense Force in staging an unprovoked invasion of the Cardassian Union, believing that the recently instated Detapa Council had been put into power by the Changeling Founders of the Dominion, a hostile power from the Gamma Quadrant, Kahless condemned the action, but lacked the political push to mount any true opposition. Ultimately, a team from Deep Space 9 revealed that the Klingon-Cardassian conflict had been manipulated by spies from the Great Link, but that the ghoqwI' in question had in fact impersonated the famed General Martok, which eased the enmities between the United Federation and the tlhIngan wo', although the war between the latter and Cardassia continued until Gul Skrain Dukat took power and allied his people with the Dominion, who reinforced their new member worlds with Jem'Hadar soldiers, which later enabled them to conquer Deep Space 9, a space station that had until then been under the joint protection of Starfleet and the Klingon Imperial Fleet. After DS9 was liberated from the Dominion in Operation Return, however, Kahless was a public denouncement of his government's involvement with the war against the Dominion. This unexpected action by their emperor was met with different reactions from Gowron, the real General Martok and Worf. While the chancellor and general greeted it with outrage and amusement respectively, Worf — now a member of the House of Martok — was left worried about how Kahless was apparently made such an action for no real reason other than to determine the number of his allies on the High Council, which further lessened because of this statement. By that time, Kahless had that found his opinion mattered less and less to those within the government, reinforcing the harsh reality that the emperor was not in fact the real figure of Klingon legend.

In front of the Empire and the other powers of the Alpha Quadrant, the Female Changeling signed terms of surrender for the Dominion.

Despite the opposition from their spiritual leader, however, the Klingon Empire continued to fight alongside the Federation Alliance for the remainder of the war, but during the final months, Gowron was killed in a ritualistic duel to the death after his continued efforts to discredit Martok and diminished the supposed threat that the renowned general posed to his chancellorship became counterproductive to the war effort. Although Worf was responsible for challenging the son of M'Rel, he instead named Martok as the rightful leader of the Empire, which later took part in the final battle of the Dominion War and witnessed the subsequent treaty that representatives from the other side — including the female changeling that had been their overall leader — signed before an audience that included multiple Klingons, including the Chancellor and Worf, who was subsequently appointed the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire.

Formation of the Path

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The lines of the 'Iw Devwl' HartaHghach, which inspired the name of the Red Path.

In the years that followed the Treaty of Bajor, the position that Kahless II held inside the Klingon Empire enabled it to remain stable, even with fifteen seats on the Great Houses pledged in political opposition to Chancellor Martok, who was considered a Federation sympathiser for his service alongside Starfleet and his approach to cooperation with their allies, which were fairly peaceful, compared to previous relations. Though the agreement made when Kahless was first declared Emperor stipulated that affairs related to the state would continue to remain under the preview of the Klingon High Council, the division that had broken within the Great Hall left the Chancellor and Ambassador Worf consumed with bureaucratic duties while the clone accumulated more influence with the population on Qo'noS, hosting various festivities and presiding over bloodwine-soaked tournaments without the consent of the government. Despite the previous encounters he had faced that confronted his nature as an imitation of Kahless, the emperor came to discover the influence that came with being a living legend, which enabled him to claim the respect of the masses. Eventually, a cult of personality that called itself the Red Path took shape in the streets of the First City and grew to become a radical movement that was built upon an overzealous reverence for their ruler and an extreme atheist approach founded from the exploits of the original Kahless, growing determined to eliminate all that called themselves "gods", just as their forebearers had done to the Klingons' own pantheon. Adopting their name from a scripture known as the 'Iw Devwl' HartaHghach — which the standard tongue translates to "Faith of the Blood Guide" — that was derived from the Sutras of Kahless Reborn, parts of this text included references to "our path" that had been "paved with glorious dead" and concluded with the declaration, "our path is red", which served as inspiration for the name of the organisation that took it as their battle mantra. The Tal Shiar — the intelligence bureau of the Romulan Star Empire — was aware that the Path existed.

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Alexander Rozhenko, dev'vol of Kahless and son of the "Red Path".

Under the leadership of Kahless, the Red Path developed a drug substance that members called their supposed "holy sacrament" or, alternatively, the 'blood of Kahless, which utilised Klingon adrenaline and isogenic enzyme as the two main ingredients. With the former triggering a number of negative emotional responses from the people that ingested it, including fear, anger and lust, although tests would later indicate that the sacrament lacked any properties that would make consumers dependant on it, Klingons that took the drug found it to be addictive. Nonetheless, when conducting research into the substance, the Orion combat medic Nymira Vondect theorised that the Red Path sacrament induced a psychological addiction which invoked a fear response, at least with Klingons, though other species exhibited signs of addiction as well. In her records, Vondect speculated that Kahless intended for the sacrament to induce perpetual fear as a means of keeping his followers in line. As the movement took form, one of the Klingons that decided to join it was Alexander Rozhenko, son of Worf, who Kahless recruited as his dev'vol. Manipulating the insecurities and loneliness that the Klingon-human hybrid felt, the older of the two stoked the mixed emotions that Alexander held towards his absent father and molded them into resentment. For Alexander's part, the young warrior considered the cult of Kahless to be the one place where he had truly felt he was welcomed and mattered. Building itself inside the Klingon society, the Red Path was able to forge itself into a well-trained and equipped militia with contacts established planetwide, but hid themselves behind a smokescreen, which the cult maintained through various hooligan acts of fearmongering and arson that sleeper operatives recruited from the populace conducted across the planet, making them appear to be the deeds of a mismatched collection of rabble-rousers that were limited to the streets inside settlements like the First City. In actuality, however, the Path maintained contacts that inhabited seats within the military and onboard the bridges of starships. Despite the influx of support that Kahless now enjoyed from the population, the High Council denied the cult posed a credible threat when it emerged, although several members would later voice their support for the Red Path, which Doctor Beverly Crusher theorised had presumably infiltrated the highest circles of power. While his connection to the organisation remained obscure, the Emperor was able to embezzle resources, personnel and other military assets from the Klingon Defense Force, even though such matters were meant to be outside the boundaries of his office.

Cardassians that had been swayed to the Red Path standing guard over the contents of Tong Beak Nor.

Though the majority of the Red Path were Klingons, membership was not exclusive to their race and the reach of their operation extended beyond the defined boundaries of their state. Just as T'Kuvma had once accepted Klingons from all walks of life into his house in accordance with the teachings of the original Kahless, the Red Path allowed those who decided to "walk the Path" his clone had set to join, regardless of their species, gathering converts from various other interstellar powers. B'Elanna Torres — a half-Klingon hybrid and Starfleet officer — speculated that the subsequent expansion of the cult was fertilised with promises to empower the weak, exploiting vulnerabilities and a sense of powerlessness to recruit members into their hateful ideology with offers to provide "strength through slaughter". One of the grounds that the Klingon sect had recruited from was the desolate ruins of Cardassia. Scoured by the order of the Female Changeling when the Cardassian Liberation Front triggered a widespread uprising against the Dominion, the Cardassia system had been the site of the concluding battle between the Dominion and the Alliance, and its capital planet had been the last world made to suffer. Although Constable Odo had been able to convince the Founder to call of her attack before the entire population could be annihilated, millions of Cardassian lives and a significant portion of the infrastructure had been lost before the order was given. Decimated and divided by different faction that had begun to wage minor wars with one another, the confusion enabled the Red Path to recruit a number of Cardassians to their cabal, forming a breakaway coterie. Though Barada Damar and his Cardassian Reclamation were aware that some of their people had formed a "splinter group of dangerous religious extremists", the ensuing government made no known effort to retaliate when the Red Path seized Tong Beak Nor — a space station that held various Bajoran artifacts appropriated from their original owners during the occupation of their planet — killing the crew and replacing them with a garrison of their cultists, who inflicted considerable damage to several items contained there. The cult equipped its soldiers — who were capable of speaking Klingonese — with hooded crimson robes, blades, blasters and bat'leths, as well as doses of the so-called holy sacrament. When Tong Beak Nor was overtaken, the Red Path found the stolen Orbs of Creation and Destruction and Kahless took possession of the latter to use in his new objective: to purge the galaxy of the beings that the cult judged to be undeserving of their power, namely those that were equated to abilities that were unique to gods.

The Quv vo'Kahless, flagship of Kahless.

Committed themselves to this objective, the Red Path was given the task of devising a weapon that was capable of channeling the powers of the Orb of Destruction, which Kahless saw as key to restarting the deicide that his genetic template had begun first with Molor, centuries before. Incorporating a modified Klingon bird-of-prey named the Quv vo'Kahless as his flagship, the Emperor and his followers ventured to Sarkadesh — a rogue planet that was the homeworld to a highly advanced species known as the Shapers, who were reputed as fantastic engineers — which the Red Path invaded. Breaking the covenant forged between their empire and the Shapers where the latter were given safe harbour within Imperial space, with the Orb at his disposal, Kahless cowed the population into submission, threatening to obliterate Sarkadesh unless its residents submitted to his demands for them to outfit the vo'Kahless with a weapons system capable of executing a god-like lifeform. His demands fulfilled, the resultant "godkiller array" that the Shapers created for Kahless was also incorporated with technology that enabled the weapon to assimilate the power of its victims, adding them to its arsenal. Having enlisted the talents of Korath — the scientist responsible for this development of such technology and one of the innermost circle — to their crusade, in accordance with his schematics, the Red Path constructed a sophisticated power source for the Quv vo'Kahless that allowed the bird-of-prey to draw biochemical energy as fuel for its arsenal. Utilising this biochemic propellant — which had the properties to reach its own degree of omnipresent sentience — the weapon that Kahless utilised subsequently drew its power from the mere presence of physical entities like the ship's crew. Korath, who had been the mind behind the development of the combat stimulant that the Red Path had taken as their holy sacrament, later abandoned his private laboratory on Maranga IV, though not before rigging the interior with an explosive device built with a miniaturised version of the same biochemic source of energy that had been installed onboard the vo'Kahless, which was also equipped with stolen Tal Shair programs that allow it to encrypt it's identification code. Later into their crusade, Korath relocated to another research complex built inside the parameters of the First City, where his intellectual gifts were tasked with conducting further exploration into the Orb of Destruction to suborn its capabilities to the will of his master, though the facility itself was suspected to have contained knowledge that was kept secret from even Kahless himself. The reason for this obscurity was theorised to be an indication that Korath, being a man of science rather than religion, had chosen to align with the revolution because it suited his own self-interests.

A fleet of warships that cultists of Klingon atheism had seized to defend Tong Beak Nor.

The influence of the cult also made silent encroachments into the Romulan Star Empire and was able to create ties with several individuals that had positions in the military command structure, who acted as sleeper agents for the Red Path, advancing their interests while awaiting the right time to reveal themselves. The presence of Klingon loyalists inside the Romulan shipyards allowed the growing organisation to orchestrate the clandestine appropriation of three experimental bloodwings — prototype "cleave ships" that were armed with a modulated phaser array capable of operating while the ship cloaked — in 2378 and add them to a growing fleet that also included D'deridex-class battlecruisers and Galor-class starships, all crewed with converts from the Romulan and Cardassian people that had pledged themselves in shared bloodlust. Several from this mixed coalition of battleships were allocated to defend the Tong Beak Nebula from intruders with the Cardassian garrison that had captured Tong Beak Nor and proceeded to staff the station alongside a Romulan paladin that had been given the task of defending the room where the Orb of Creation was kept, though what the Red Path did not know or else did not concern itself with, however, was that the station also housed a Changeling that had been hidden there before the Dominion War Accords were signed. At the same time, two Romulan command officers who functioned as clandestine agents of the Red Path ventured to the Korvat colony under the pretense of being there to observe the Kot'baval Festival. With the bloodwings bolstering an already substantial naval force built off vessels from the various cultures that the Red Path had recruited from, the followers of Kahless were further equipped with warships from the Dominion forces that had been purchased from scavengers on the black market.

The Red Path engaged in dealings with the OSS Scarab, despite the contempt that some crewmembers felt for Klingons.

These sources included the OSS Scarab, a pirate ship belonging to the Orion Syndicate that traded with merchandise salvaged from the wreckages of Dominion hardware. Operating within the pirate sector, despite documented cases of the wariness that Orions had exhibited towards Klingon vessels that operated across their territorial boundaries, the Scarab traded with the Red Path, which utilised the supply lines and communications networks of the defunct Maquis resistance outfit to conduct business with the privateers, who scraped command codes from their clients to ensure the secrecy of the black-market network that the crew of the Orchid class ship ran. Despite their alliance, however, Captain Nazzak and subordinates like Tekan voiced their contemptuous opinions of the cult, believing the holy sacrament was merely an excuse for Klingons to act with savagery and derided the members as "ridgeheaded freaks". In contrast, however, several of the freebooters that had served beneath him would find themselves enticed from the offers of salvation, which led to more than two Orions abandoned their operations to follow Kahless, risking the penalties that came with desertion. Other fundamentalists of Klingon religion embraced the cause that Kahless led on a spiritual level, settling on Korvat, where the cultists sought to preserve their ideas among the different clergies prevalent there. As members of the Red Path, these individuals appeared to the public wearing hooded robes and with the sacrament in hand, claiming the substances as the basis for the ancient and simple path that these Klingons sought to walk, which acknowledged the emperor as their guiding light through the darkness of everything else. Other raiders that owed their allegiance to the Red Path committed further acts of desecration, robbing ancient tombs and hidden bunkers to add their contents to the arsenal that the cult of Kahless was amassing.

Initial targets

Kahless makes his first murder.

With their intent to eradicate all godlike entities in existence formed, the Red Path set on to fulfil this quest on 2378 — approximately three years after the conclusion of the Dominion War — and piloted the Quv vo'Kahless into the wider galaxy, armed to hunt down those who had abilities that were associated with godhood. Despite claims that he sought to purge the galaxy of these beings, with the Orb of Destruction powering a weapon that was able to absorb and harness the powers of his victims, several individuals later speculated that by eliminating the gods and taking on their power, Kahless sought to assume the mantle of a deity, making him a hypocrite to his own dogma. The first that the Red Path targeted was Gary Mitchell, a human that had been merged with Proteus, a powerful being from another universe, who the cult found at the edges of the Milky Way Galaxy while the resurrected being was completing the new star system that Mitchell had fashioned for an enlightened humanity to someday inhabit. Caught within a beam of red light, the weapon of the Red Path triggered a reaction in the former Starfleet officer that caused his skin and clothes to dissolve from his bone in a matter of seconds, which the dying man observed until his skeleton was left drifting through the vacuum of space. The Red Path proceeded to depart, unperturbed by the last words of their victim, who had noted with his final breath that within the vast expanse of the galaxy, there was no place for only one group: those that would want everything to mean nothing.

A race of crystalline beings dies before the horrified gaze of the USS Theseus, their remains bathed with crimson light.

In response, the Prophets of the Bajoran religion restored their emissary Captain Benjamin Sisko — who had been missing in action since thwarting the attempt to free the Pah-wraiths from the Fire Caves that followed the Battle of Cardassia — to corporal form, tasking him with halting the galactic deicide and retrieving the stolen Orb. With assistance from Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, Sisko arranged to take charge of the USS Theseus and her crew for his endeavour, ventured to the Hephaestus Nebula, where the Prophets had directed their chosen emissary to, although Starfleet remained ignorant to the involvement of Klingons when the expedition was launched. Arriving to find that the nebula was populated with sizable numbers of Branchers — a race of cosmozoan, crystalline lifeforms — seconds after dropping out of subspace, the Theseus was able to detect the presence of the Quv vo'Kahless, although the other starship remained concealed behind a flickering cloak, which coincided with a sudden vision that "the Sisko" had experienced from the Prophets. Having been caught off-guard, the Starfleet crew were unable to interfere when their still-anonymous opponents fired the killing shot, causing the hundreds of Branchers to splinter into shattered fragments that reflected the crimson glow of the fire that killed them, while the Red Path promptly escaped. To recharge his superweapon — which had absorbed the entities' abilities to feed off worlds — after the genocide, Kahless ordered the Red Path to fire at Kazis IX, decimating the planet, which was reduced to desolate ashes. The Red Path also included the Organians among their earliest victims, seeking vengeance for their involvement in forcing the Organian Peace Treaty onto the Klingon Empire and eradicating all but one survivor, who was left the sole member of their species. However, because the godkiller array could function in a non-linear fashion, the massacre itself occurred in 2356, twenty-one years before the present timeframe, this lone Organian decided to permanently incorporate their non-binary self onto an unborn Vulcan that assumed the name T'Lir after their deliverance and later served onboard the USS Theseus when it set out to track down the "killer of gods" in 2378, which departed from the site of the massacre it had watched to ultimately charted a course for Qo'noS to seek an audience with the Emperor of the Klingons, unaware that the clone of Kahless was the perpetrator behind the atrocities. For the clone's part, Kahless saw the failure to protect his unfortunate victims as proof that none could stand against his followers.

Benjamin Sisko and his officers, having gained an audience with Kahless, petitioned for him to assist their investigation into the murder spree.

Having analysed the unique behaviour of the warp signature that had been found in the wake of the Quv vo'Kahless when it departed from the Hephaestus Nebula and contacted the High Council, the Klingon Empire informed their allies that the killer spacecraft had left a particle trace that was unique to Sarkadesh, prompting the USS Theseus to charter a course for Qo'noS, seeking an audience with the cloned Emperor to seek his assistance before the population of the still recovering galaxy had to be drawn into another interstellar struggle for dominance. Escorted by Worf — a longtime friend of Sisko — Benjamin Sisko was taken to where Kahless resided at the new heart of the Empire, the Imperial Spire, which had been constructed over the Qo'loq Crator. Above where his template had fought Molor and his forces, Kahless met with Sisko and his two companions at his throne room, listening to Lily Sato when the communications officer informed him of their situation in the Klingon language, but refused to grant Starfleet access to Sarkadesh and dismissed them from his presence after a matter of minutes. Despite this, however, Sisko was unwilling to allow another genocide to occur and ventured to the rogue planet regardless, accepting Worf onboard the Theseus at the request of the ambassador. Arriving to bargain with the Shapers, despite initial hostilities that this intrusion from the Emissary of the Prophets received from the legendary engineers and the Klingon defenses that was under the command of the political animal Marshall Uqtoq, the Discovery-class experimental cruiser was able to depart after the ground team were able to retrieve a bloodstained d'k tahg that the Red Path had discarded when their forces invaded Sarkadesh.

Attack on a God-City

The USS Theseus chased its Klingon counterpart through the city of T'Kon, racing to reach the centre of the sleeping entity.

While the USS Theseus continued on their investigation into the massacre of the crystalline entities, the perpetrator continued to operate with impunity. Armed with the knowledge that there were those on the hunt for the Quv vo'Kahless, Kahless nonetheless resumed his crusade and discovered the location of the God City of the T'Kon, a living organism that existed in a perfect symbiosis with the construction built on top it, which became the next target for the Red Path. Venturing to the location of this, the last relic of the Tkon Empire, the cult would find that their victim was not unbarred: with directions from Q, Benjamin Sisko and his crew stood to block the murderous starship and its crew, who had then recruited Alexander Rozhenko to serve onboard their bridge. Dropping out of warp, the sudden arrival of the Klingon bird-of-prey and its subsequent entry into the superstructure of the 'God-City' caused the sleeping creature that hosted the complex to stir, infiltrating major damage to the Starfleet cruiser, although the vo'Kahless demonstrated no such hindrances and answered when its opponent radioed them with the demand that the new arrival cease its hostile actions, broadcasting a response from the bridge where Kahless sat, revealing to Starfleet that his hand had guided the previous murders. Directing his answer to Worf, the Emperor condemned the son of Mogh to be a traitor and mocked his failure to interfere with his previous attacks, boasting how these actions had increased the Klingon heart. Redirecting his attention to discourage "the Sisko" from further interference with his divine slaughter, the clone warned that he would otherwise decide to eliminate the Emissary of the Bajoran gods as well before cutting the line. Having delivered their warning, the Red Path then proceeded to steer the Quv vo'Kahless towards the center of the god-city, which housed an organism vital to the life of the entity, with the Theseus in hot pursuit, an action that Kahless derided, noting that his enemies had thus chosen their fate. Firing quantum torpedoes at the other interloper, as the chase continued, the Klingons resumed communications with the Federation starship and Kahless shared an exchange of words with Sisko, condemning him and Worf as lapdogs for entities, just like Molor had been centuries before. Continuing to rant as the godkiller weapon was charged, Kahless announced that his followers sought to remind the universe that the Klingons had executed their pantheon and intended to do the same with others across the galaxy.

Pitted on opposite sides, Worf and Alexander fought in a duel that set father against son.

As Theseus and the Quv vo'Kahless raced towards the heart of the God-City, the latter continued to shrug off the cascade of fire, which Kahless boasted about to Sisko, mocking him for thinking that the "ship of righteous vengeance" could have been defeat with ease, given that its arsenal had been constructed from the mind of a species that had been reputed for their various doomsday weapons, though the captain remained confident in the capabilities of the experimental cruiser. In reply, the monarch warned his rival that had failed to estimate his true power, proclaiming that when "he" had torn down the palace of Molor, he had done so from the inside, which the Red Path repeated by beaming warriors from the vo'Kahless over to various sections of the Theseus, including her bridge, which found itself under sudden attack from soldiers armed with bat'leth, including one that tried to strike out at Doctor Beverly Crusher, shouting in Klingonese that their action was for the benefit of "the Path", though his blow was intercepted by Worf, who condemned the intruder for having followed a course that lacked honor. Although the warrior was nonetheless able to inflict insubstantial damage to Commander Data by bringing his blade in a slashing movement that cut into the android's shoulder, this impairment was mitigated by the fact that the victim had previously deactivated his pain receivers, and the attacker was swiftly taken out of action thanks to Sisko. Claiming that bat'leth that the fallen raider had used, Worf then led the effort to counter the Klingon boarding parties that were targeting engineering, where he sought to defend the unarmed crewmembers from a rain of blaster fire, only be challenged by a member of the attackers: his own son, Alexander. Engaging in a brief duel with his child, as the two locked their blades, Worf questioned his son's place amongst the ranks of the emperor that he now denounced as a charlatan, but this provoked Rozhenko, who accused him of heresy and declared that, before Kahless had brought to the Red Path, he had been an outcast. Alluding to the idea of scouring the galaxy of all that did not conform to the beliefs of his sect, although Alexander came near to overcoming his father, almost cutting his throat at one point, he and the other boarders were ultimately repelled, while their flagship prepared to fire on the restless 'God-City' creature, which it did so.

Despite resistance from Starfleet, the Quv vo'Kahless fired down towards the centre of the God-City of T'Kon, seeking to add yet another entity to their growing list of victims.

Firing a vertical blast down onto the surface of their target, the fatal consequences of this blast were diminished because of Sisko's intervention, as the Starfleet captain had been able to transport a network of mobile shield arrays down onto the surface, enabling the creature that housed the God-City to avoid death, but causing it to suffer unimaginable pain. Watching the outcome of his attack with scorn, Emperor Kahless voiced his derision towards the efforts that Sisko had made to protect a being with such power, then ordered his followers to have the Quv vo'Kahless withdraw from the battle scene and depart for the Klingon homeworld, believing that it was only right to leave the USS Theseus to suffer the supposed "thanks" that her crew had earned for themselves. Subject to extreme agony, as the Klingon forces vanished from the scene, the being that wore the God-City on its skin, awakened and consumed with pain and rage, was driven to enact its vengeance on Earth, though the people that had sought to protect it were able to placate the creature before such an attack could be unleashed. Meanwhile, Worf, having been dismissed from the bridge after he prevented Benjamin Sisko from opening fire on the Klingon bird-of-prey and subsequently challenged his long-time friend for showing such willingness to dismiss the religious-driven retribution that would come, were Starfleet to eliminate the Emperor of the Klingons, decided to hijack a shuttlecraft and left the Theseus, pursuing the Klingon vessel alone to continue the hunt for Kahless without the interference of one the former ambassador now worried had been reduced to a puppet for dubious entities. Having tried to follow the Quv vo'Kahless to warp, Worf was forced to make a crash-landing on Chaltok IV, where he was taken as a brief prisoner of Romulan underground movement before Ambassador Spock, leader to the ongoing reunification effort between Vulcan and Romulus, authorised his release.

Conflict with Cardassia

Cardassia Prime faces attack from enemies with the ships of their former conquerors.

Sometime after the realisation that Kahless was leader to the Red Path zealots and had embarked on a crusade to eliminate godlike beings across the cosmos, the USS Theseus travelled to Cardassia Prime to discover where the mad ethnarch had procured the Orb of Destruction. Upon arriving, however, the Discovery-class cruiser found the capital planet of the Cardassian Union in the midst of a siege as the naval craft mustered from the rebuilt defence forces fought against an invasion comprising of fifteen Dominion vessels that were fighting with renegade Cardassians at their helms. However, although the Red Path had the manpower to mount such an engagement and were implied to have been involved with this attack, the exact motives for mounting such an offensive are unconfirmed. Furthermore, the cult was far from the sole splinter faction to assume form with Cardassians among their ranks after the Jem'Hadar subjected the homeworld to near-extermination, which had offered new recruits to a swell of fresh ideologies, which included not only Kahless, but also other groups like the True Way Alliance and the Cult of the Pah-wraiths, which had been reformed beneath Cerin Teresa, daughter of Gul Dukat. Regardless of the assailants' allegiance, the Theseus was able to turn tide of the battle against the Dominion war relics, forcing those that had survived the initial strike to withdraw from the field of battle, which the crew of the new arrival celebrated, Ensign Lily Sato in particular identifying the defeated attackers as "space fascists".

Cultists at Tong Beak Nor chant the 'Iw Devwl' HartaHghach while challenging the Starfleet boarding team.

The next confirmed instance of battle between Starfleet forces and the followers of the Red Path soon occurred when the USS Theseus — under the temporary command of Data after Sisko was detained for trail before the Cardassian Reclamation to be judged for his crimes on their society — was able to discern the location of Tong Beak Nor after hacking the databanks of the Science Ministry, which had no mention about its capture by the Red Path. After arriving to the site of the vault, the crew dispatched a boarding party comprising that comprised of Lily Sato, T'Lir, Beverly Crusher and Lieutenant Shaxs Drazon to investigate, but found that the storage area had been raided and subject to light vandalism before stumbling across the corpses of the original staff. Seconds after this realisation that the first crew had been massacred, however, the team was confronted by a cadre of Cardassians that were dressed in crimson robes and armed with bat'leth. Led by one devout, this individual assured the interlopers that the original crew force had been eradicated, leaving only those that had decided to walk the Red Path while declaring that the Federation apostates would be buried alongside their heretic past. As the struggle between the different intruders commenced, the second collection of visitants was able to fall back, while the members of the Red Path used hypospray devices to inject themselves with the cult's sacrament, chanting 'Iw Devwl' HartaHghach in the process. Charging forwards while wielding an assortment of weapons, the number of acolytes and their addiction to the drug substance enabled them to almost overwhelm the Starfleet officers, despite losing a number of their own, although the tides of the battle turned when the Theseus was able to beam over additional reinforcements under the command of Descheeni. Interpreting that the continued presence of the Red Path meant Tong Beak Nor still housed an item of significance to Kahless, as the boarding party pressed forwards, the halls would begin to ring with the sound of Klingon war songs that the red-garbed Cardassians chanted, which T'Lir interpreted as evidence that the followers of the mad emperor included members beyond his own race.

The Romulan paladin stands to defend the Orb of Creation.

Fighting with what Shaxs considered strength comparable to Jem'Hadar, the Cardassians continued to exhibit signs of drug addiction (i.e. foaming mouths and erratic behaviour), which was commented on by Doctor Crusher. Through T'Lir, however, the Federation personnel were able to pinpoint the location that their opponents were protecting and the original away team set out to investigate, cutting their path through the reserve forces as Descheeni continued to hold the tide of soldiers back, despite the death of at least one of her officers, who was brought down with a blaster shot. Although the newcomers were almost swamped, the time that Shaxs and T'Lir bought allowed Lily Sato to bypass the lock sealing the chamber that was holding the Orb of Creation, where the arrivals were received by a Romulan paladin that emerged from the surrounding shadows to confront them. Declaring that their master walked "the Path" for every species, yet the Starfleet interlopers still chose to resist him, the guard demanded that his opponent arm themselves, since Klingon legends declared that those who perished without a weapon were doomed to damnation in Gre'thor. Shaxs proceeded to reject these demands and engage in battle with his bare hands, holding back the sabre that his foe was wielding with his bare hands, while Sato and T'Lir proceeded to extract the Bajoran Orb. Although the Romulan mocked Shaxs for his decision to engage in battle with a paladin of Kahless Returned, the lieutenant revealed that their duel had simply been to buy time until the phaser rifle that he had thrown aside to overload, triggering an explosion that incapacitated the Red Path cultist. Meanwhile, in the surrounding nebula, the USS Theseus and her crew found themselves confronted with a mixed collection of starships from Cardassian, Romulan and Klingon designs that suddenly decloaked, surrounding the cruiser with a force that outnumbered the Starfleet vessel, pitting one against a dozen.

The final moments of the battle on Tong Beak Nor, where old friends and enemies alike united to liberate the station from Kahless.

Having either broken through the lines or emerged from elsewhere on the station, although the Red Path tried to incept their enemies after the officers removed the Orb of Creation from its vault, the leading cultists found themselves cut down from behind with the sudden arrival of reinforcements from the Cardassian Reclamation, which hit the splinter faction in a sudden cavalry raid. With First Speaker Barada Damar, Sisko and the Jem'Hadar "Zero" at their front, the new soldiers and their battered allies was able to switch the flow of battle, roaring the motto that victory was life. Within a matter of minutes after their arrival, the united forces of the Cardassian Union and Starfleet were able to overcome their enemies, allowing Zero and the Vorta Councillor Yeor to find the Changeling that had been hidden onboard, untouched when the Red Path captured the Nor class station, who the latter then executed in a denouncement of the Founders for the centuries of unrewarded fealty that their servant races had endured. With the elimination of the presence that the Red Path had on Cardassia Prime, survivors from the breakaway faction presumably fled the local space to instead join their messiah in earnest, while the Orb of Creation was relocated to Deep Space 9, which was met with mixed reactions.

A new challenge to the Path

To fight the Red Path, Worf (pictured) hijacked the USS Defiant (see above), intending to utilise it to track down and arrest Kahless for crimes against the galactic peace.

While this was occurring, a new opponent rose to challenge the Red Path and derail their intentions. Having been brought into contact with Spock, Commander Worf proceeded to brief the Vulcan diplomat about the ongoing situation, which could bring the Klingon Empire collapsing onto itself, triggering a potential war with the United Federation of Planets and, if Kahless succeeded in expunging the universe of his targets, the disintegration of cosmic order. Having resolved to prevent this outcome, Spock and Worf formed an alliance and were able to steal the USS Defiant from Deep Space 9 using the latter's command codes, selecting the starship for multiple reasons, including its firepower and minimal crew requirements. Unbeknownst to them, the first meeting between the two conspirators on Chaltok IV had been bugged with a listening device belonging to Commander Sela, a disgraced officer within the Tal Shair, who relayed this information to her overseers in a report that covered an overview of the Red Path and their atheist doctrine, noting that the cult was operating as a rogue outfit beneath the control of Kahless alone. Seeking to jumpstart her diminished career, Sela took leave from her duties and implemented her own investigation into the movement, dispatching an operative named Utiro on a mission to observe the planet Korvat — a hotbed for Klingon religious activities — and determine whether the Red Path or its supporters had made seditious incursions into the colony. There, Utiro was brought into contact with a pair of command officers from the Romulan state that had been converted to the Red Path without his knowledge, which later led to his death in a second encounter with the two defectors, where Sela's agent was able to send his superior a garbled message about the situation that was punctured with static before giving into static for the last two minutes of the transmission.

Spock and Worf investigate the decimated ruins of Korvat to clues about the Red Path.

As their first move, the USS Defiant was taken into the orbit of Kazis IX — or to be more precise, what was left of it — where it waited while Worf and the ambassador beamed down to the surface to investigate the consequences that the Red Path's godkiller weapon had on a world. Discovering that Kazis had been reduced to a barren wasteland, scattered with the bones of the innocent that had been executed with a single shot, Spock observed that the weapon had left behind an antiproton signature on the topsoil that was characteristic of a crystalline entity feeding, though the environment was laced with traces of graviton pulse particles that marked the beam as artificial in nature. Taking the facts into account, Spock deduced that the Quv vo'Kahless had been outfitted with a cannon that harvested the cosmic energies of her victims and speculated that — despite statements to the contrary — the Red Path sought to reap the powers of their targets to put them at the disposal of Kahless, who would therefore become a god in all intents and purposes, though Worf expressed the opinion that this ambition would make the emperor a traitor to his own ideology. After making his deduction, however, Spock further theorised that if the clone reflected the character of his progenitor, the original Kahless had not been the hero that myths painted him as, though Worf cut short such questions about the fundamental origins of Klingon culture.

Several members of the crew that had been recruited to the Defiant (left to right: Ro Laren, Worf, Spock and Lore) when it set out to stop the Red Path.

Realising that their efforts required input from one that was familiar with the Branchers, Worf and Spock proceeded to enlist the first recruit to their team and broke into Dead Moon 1, an outpost that Section 31 maintained, where the two stole the severed head of Lore, a Soong-type android that had been captured after his attempt to a Borg assault on the Federation, which Worf had helped to prevent while serving as a crewman onboard the USS Enterprise-D. In addition to Lore, Worf also recruited two other controversial individuals to serve onboard the USS Defiant for its campaign against the Red Path: B'Elanna Torres — who was the wife of Tom Paris and former Maquis rebel — and Ro Laren, a Bajoran woman that had worked on the Enterprise until she deserted to become a high-ranking operative of the Maquis. Whereas Torres had been recruited by her own volition out of the desire to prevent the destruction of Klingon culture, she and Worf were somehow able to secure custody of the imprisoned Laren, who had been a target for enlistment because of her knowledge about the separatist support and intelligence apparatuses that Kahless now utilised to conduct his affairs within the Orion sector. With B'Elanna assigned to the post of Chief engineer and Laren at the helm, the Defiant was set to charter a course for the Orion Nebula. Meanwhile, on Qo'noS, the continued absence of their emperor triggered a fresh wave of rumours, including wild claims that stated Kahless had departed with the intent of challenging his archnemesis Molor to a final battle. As the High Council denied the obvious crisis, the activities of the Red Path became bolder, with the cult taking to the streets of the capital city with fiercer demonstrations. Despite his popularity, support for Kahless was not universal with the entire Klingon people and there remained those who saw through his lies. Worf coordinated his efforts to battle the Red Path with information supplied through his attaché D'Enok, who remained loyal to the ambassador and became his envoy on their homeworld, reporting to the instability that had emerged.

Attack on Korvat

"Hear me. Hear me, Martok, son of Urthog! Hear me, Worf, son of Mogh! Hear me, United Federation of Planets! Romulus! Cardassia! Hear me in every quadrant! It is time now. Time to return to Qo'noS and breathe life into our empire once more. To make this galaxy our empire! You once referred to me as fungus from a glass tube. Now witness what I am about to become. This battle cry shall soon burn in fire. Should you somehow piece together its embers... I'll be waiting."

—Kahless.

A member of the Red Path murders his hostage, an unarmed priest, before David Meyerson.

As the crewmembers onboard both the USS Theseus and the commandeered Defiant launched their different investigations to thwart Kahless, the Red Path set its sights on Korvat, which was scheduled to host the Kot'baval Festival that celebrated the Unforgettable and his triumph over Molor. There, various warriors from the cult infiltrated the audience while Alexander Rozhenko ambushed an unarmed priest named Valkor and cut his throat, telling the astonishment clergyman that Sto-vo-kor awaited him. Having assumed the name of his murdered victim, Rozhenko donned a hooded black cloak to conceal the crimson robes that he wore beneath and was dispatched to meet with David Meyerson, the commanding officer of the USS Santa Cruz that Emperor Kahless had "invited" to witness the ceremonies, acting under the pretence that he was an official liaison from the Klingon government. Returning to the planet surface with the captain, who struck up a conversation with the young hybrid, debating the concept of honor as the pair exited their shuttle to the sight of countless Klingons assembled before a mock duel between actors that represented Kahless and Molor while various acolytes praised the different teachings of their religion from four separate structures, naming both the Emperor and T'Kuvma in their declarations, which concluded with the statement that their people had slaughtered those gods that had brought shame upon them. During these proceedings, Meyerson continued his debate about the concepts of honor with the so-called 'Valkor', who told the captain that while the United Federation housed billions of different opinions, the Klingon Empire beat with one single heart. As the two entered the crowd and began to discuss the legend of Kahless' duel with Molor, the pair were passed by a trio of hooded cultists that belonged to the Red Path, who reinforced the statement that Alexander had made about how some of his people worshipped their ruler with a more accurate perspective than others. Soon after this encounter, however, the Red Path began their attack, which was sparked when the airspace about the festival was invaded by the three bloodwings that the cult had stolen. As the grounds were bathed beneath the shadows of these three cleave ships, members of the Red Path seized on of the temple platforms and held a Klingon priest at dagger point while the intruder addressed the audience, boasting that his cult had showed itself to them, even though they were considered "followers of half-truth". Concluding his statement with the rhetorical question about whether the Klingons before him would kneel with honor and die in disgrace, the Klingon cultist proceeded to stab his victim through the chest with his bat'leth, dedicating his murder to the Red Path, while the dying priest took this event as a sign that the "time of renewal" was at hand.

Kahless holds Captain David Meyerson at bat'leth point onboard the USS Santa Cruz.

Having watched this murder with horror, Captain David Meyerson tried to evacuate himself and 'Valkor', but his young guide revealed his true allegiance to the Starfleet officer, denouncing his father and cutting open his own palm in order to draw blood, which he used to paint a pair of slash marks over his face. Allowing his cloak to fall aside and reveal his crimes garments, as Alexander declared that he walked the Red Path, Meyerson was able to beam back to the USS Santa Cruz, which was swiftly the victim of assault from Kahless, who invaded the bridge as a one-man army. Overcoming and slaughtering the other crewmembers in a matter of seconds as he listed his various titles, the immortal Emperor pinned the captain to his chair with a d'k tahg thrust to his shoulder and told Meyerson that death from his hand would bring him honor at the last minutes of his life. When his victim protested that relations between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire had been peaceful since the events at Khitomer, his attacker retorted that Molor had thought the same until his progenitor had beheaded the tyrant. Declaring that there could be neither peace nor freedom until the so-called gods had been executed alongside others that did not chose to follow the Red Path, Kahless told Meyerson that the people who followed his crusade were those that embraced the truth, pressing the point of the bat'leth that he wielded into the neck of his foe. In response, the captain told Kahless to act, voicing the popular Klingon phrase that this day was a good one to die, which Meyerson addressed in the tongue of his attackers, who proceeded to convert him to their ranks, appointing the fallen commander to assume leadership over one of their bloodwings, while another was assigned to an individual named Vrandu.

Kahless addresses the populations of the galaxy from amidst the ruins of Korvat.

From the surface of Korvat, Kahless stood amidst the colony — which had been reduced to burning ruins — that the Red Path had decimated while he addressed the Milky Way Galaxy, demanding that he be heard across all the quadrants. Naming his various enemies - including the son of Mogh, Chancellor Martok, the United Federation and the governments on Romulus and Cardassia - the Emperor declared his intent to return to Qo'noS with the Red Path and use them to restore the Klingon Empire to its past as an aggressive expansionist that would take the entire Milky Way as its domain, bragging about what he intended to become while those who dismissed the clone as little more than sentient fungus that had been born from a test tube could do little but watch. Having named those that he expected to challenge him, Kahless invited them to face him, warning that he would be lying in wait for them on Qo'noS, where his fleet was relocating to assembled at. While Federation and independent observers were led to believe that David Meyerson had been killed and remained unaware of his conversion to the Red Path, his wife Tanda was the recipient of a physical letter that included a handprint drawn in the blood of her husband and the words "no victory without combat" written in rough Klingonese below, the unknown author writing with the same gruesome substance that outlined the impression above. Seconds later, Kahless ordered the Red Path to raze the surface of Korvat, repeating the process on Kazis IX to recharge their godkiller weapon, which one of his Romulan supporters affirmed from the bridge of a bloodwing, addressing their leader as being the "guide who is Kahless". Watching the genocide from the same cleave ship, Kahless spoke with Alexander about the concept of honor as the young dev'vol reflected on his conversation with Captain Meyerson. Although Emperor agreed with his follower that this question was a foolish one, he noted that turmoil bred degrees of doubt and asserted that honor was what those who followed the Red Path decided to make it, claiming that their path was ultimately traced back to him. As the planet before them was scoured of its life, the ruler of the Red Path assured Alexander that this event marked the beginning of their efforts to teach their kind what honor truly meant, declaring his intent to trigger a day of blood. The Red Path then departed from the site of their latest massacre, leaving the scattered wreckage of the Santa Cruz — which had also been caught in the fire of their cannon — floating in close proximity to the Pi Canis Majoris, broadcasting a subspace identification signal to the Federation that left Starfleet oblivious to her fate. Other visual logs that had been taken the away team on the USS Santa Cruz also captured images of Alexander Rozhenko and several Klingons that had been addicted to the sacrament.

Hunt of the Defiant

Orions affiliated with the Red Path take Worf and his allies' hostage in a faux trade meeting.

Meanwhile, Worf and his mottled team were greeted with a less-then-heartfelt welcome to the pirate sector, dodging past four photon torpedoes and through a blockade of mines that the OSS Scarab had deployed to answer their arrival before answering the continued aggressions with an attack of their own, inflicting damage to their starboard gull wing, then cloaking themselves. As the allies of the Red Path scrambled to recover, Ro Laren opened communications with the Orions under the pretence that she was captain of the stolen Defiant and found her call received by Captain Nazzak, who inquired for details about the deal that Laren was proposing. When the Bajoran answered that she was in the market for the transponder codes that the Scarab had scraped from their clients with the Red Path, Nazzak was at first in denial, claiming that his business was a mere salvage operation, though he made no such attempts to denounce his possible ties with the terrorist cult and cast his pretences aside when his bluff was called. Falsely claiming that the Defiant was carrying trilithium to trade for the desired code, Ro was able to secure a supposed exchange of the two desirables and her crewmates were able to forge readings that would enable the band to deceive Nazzak and his henchmen into believing that the crates that they were offering held genuine samples of the weaponizable substance.

Philosophy and beliefs

"The Red Path promises the powerless strength through slaughter. It threatens all civilisations."

—B'Elanna Torres

Kahless, eternal emperor of the Klingon people and leader of the Red Path.

For a time that spanned its formation and reaching until the aftermath of the Day of Blood, the force that assembled beneath Kahless to follow his red path were spun from a mixed combination of fanatical devotion to their leader and radical atheist sentiments that refused to accept the existence of deities and sought to cleanse the galaxy of such beings. These ideas stemmed from the legends about how the Klingon Empire was formed after tyrants like Molor — the puppet to extraterrestrial masters that the first Kahless had liberated his species from — were slain centuries before the modern era. The emperor himself declared that the beings who he sought to exterminate were heretics, although, by contrast, various characters that stood to oppose the genocide — including Spock, Sela and Lore — suggested that Kahless sought to attain a semblance of godhood with his weapon, which assimilated the powers of those with unquantifiable abilities that, for various reasons, were considered natural to divine entities.

Notable members

• Kahless II
• Alexander Rozhenko
• Korath
• David Meyerson
• Vrandu
• Dev'vowl
• "Paladin of Kahless"
• Nazzak (associate)
• Tekan (associate)
• Nymira Vondect (associate; formerly)
• Vivo (associate)