Star Trek has spent almost 60 years delivering the ins and outs of Starfleet and the Federation, detailing the history of its greatest triumphs and greatest crises. But one of its most enduring factions has had its structure shrouded in mystery and myth for almost that entire period too… and no, it’s not the Romulans. It’s the Klingon Empire.

The Klingons have been one of Star Trek‘s most fleshed-out alien species—charting their evolution from sworn enemy to stalwart but begrudging ally—and in that time we’ve had plenty of stories about the political machinations at play within their borders. But just how the Klingon Empire has existed and operated for thousands of years has long been obfuscated. Much of what we know surrounding Klingon society as it would be codified for most of Star Trek history—after Next Generation radically overhauled the Klingons into an honor-bound warrior caste and away from their roots in the original Star Trek—was ideated in memos written by Ronald D. Moore during production of the TNG season three episode “Sins of the Father,” which depicted the first time Star Trek visited the Klingon homeworld.

But even though since then we’ve learned a great deal of Klingon culture and history, just how the Empire formed and how it works and sustains itself has only been detailed in the broadest sense, and sometimes even wrapped up in the mythos of Klingon spirituality, compared to our historical understandings and explorations of the Federation’s founding. But, from myth to society, we at least do have a picture of how the Klingon Empire operates.

The Founding of an Empire

Much of the earliest eras of Klingon history are rooted in the mythopoetic legends of its “modern” society by the time of the 24th century. But although there have been some inconsistencies on the whens, we do know that sometime in the 10th century the Klingon Empire as we would come to know it would begin to take shape.

During the reign of a tyrannical leader named Molor, the Klingon people began to rise up in support of a warrior named Kahless, who stood in defiance of Molor’s rule. After routing an army of 500 of Molor’s troops alongside his future wife, Lukara, Kahless began a campaign against Molor that climaxed at the river Srkal, where Kahless slew Molor with his sword, the first bat’leth. Although a lowborn—it’s unclear how much before Molor’s rule if the Great Houses that would eventually play a fundamental role in the organizational structure of Klingon society held any kind of political sway—Kahless declared himself the first Emperor of a new Klingon Empire, ushering in a new age of unity and expansion for the Klingon people.

The Reign of the Emperor

Kahless would eventually pass into myth as Kahless the Unforgettable, but his rule helped shape foundational elements of Klingon society and structure that would endure for a millennium. It was Kahless who helped establish the Klingons’ ritualized codes of honor and encouraged their martial prowess, and his rule would both see the disparate Klingon people united and establish the underpinnings of Klingon spirituality when his reign ended with Kahless leaving his people and planet behind to ascend to Sto-vo-kor, the Klingon afterlife.

What followed for the Klingons was almost a thousand years of dynastic monarchy, with the royal line of emperors overseeing Qo’noS’ development as the heart of a burgeoning interstellar empire, conquering other worlds and subjugating species—and in turn occasionally being laid low themselves. Four hundred years after Kahless’ rise, Qo’noS itself was invaded by a mysterious race hailing from the Gamma Quadrant known only as the Hur’q (Klingonese for “Outsider”), who looted the Klingon homeworld of many valuable cultural artifacts, leaving much of early Klingon history lost to myth and fables.

Dark Times and the High Councils

Although the power of the Emperor endured for a thousand years, it was not without periods of doubt. Sometime during a period of the Empire’s first millennium, the bloodline of the Emperor that had existed since the time of Kahless the Unforgettable was brought to an end by a coup d’etat. Led by the general K’Trelan, the coup saw Emperor Reclaw assassinated and the entire Klingon imperial family put to the sword. What followed would be retroactively known in Klingon society as “The Dark Time”: a decade where Klingon society would be ruled by a democratically elected council of representatives.

Although the Klingons’ flirtation with democracy was brief, the Dark Time established key political reforms in the maintenance of the Empire. The rule of the Emperor was re-established in an attempt to consign the council to memory, with a new dynasty given the names and titles of the former slaughtered royals to try and portray an unbroken line carrying back to the days of Kahless. But despite this attempt at maintaining continuity, the rule of the emperor would not last forever: sometime in the 21st century, the final emperor of the third dynasty passed away, with no successor. The power of the Klingon Empire transitioned to a chancellorship… and a High Council not entirely unlike the one from the Dark Time.

The Power of the Great Houses

The Klingon High Council operated not on democracy, but on noble rite: the Chancellor oversaw a council that represented 24 of the most powerful and influential families on Qo’noS, established as the Great Houses, with each Great House nominally in charge of specific administrative systems and departments of government. The familial houses themselves likely preceded the existence of the High Council as a political structure, but it was only really after the diminishment of the imperial line that they began having a major role in stewardship of Klingon society.

Each Great House was patriarchal and feudalistic in nature, ruled by the eldest male of its primary family, with their wife typically designated as House Mistress, in charge of overseeing marriages and other holdings of the family, while the leader of the House would oversee military forces and be responsible for contributions to the High Council. In most cases, leadership of a Great House would pass on to the eldest son of the ruling family, but in some circumstances, leadership could change hands through other means.

If the leader of a Great House was killed in honorable combat without a male heir, a House Mistress could either petition the High Council for dispensation to rule the House herself (although women could only serve on the High Council in extremely rare circumstances) or invoke the brek’tal ritual, which allowed a Klingon widow to marry the warrior who slew her husband. Across the centuries that the Chancellory and High Council ruled the Empire, some Great Houses fell from grace, either through political machination or the act of discommendation, which could see either an individual Klingon or even their entire house stripped of privilege and honor for multiple generations, shunned out of society, and their holdings picked apart by rival houses.

Likewise, the office of the Chancellor itself was a similarly fraught position, despite its status as the primary seat of power in the Empire. Klingon Chancellors could be deposed through challenges of combat, or, if they passed peacefully (or by other means), a successor would be chosen through the similarly martial rite of succession, climaxing with a fight to the death.

But even though Klingon society ultimately transitioned power to its noble houses, the role of the emperor was not lost forever. In 2369, clerics on the moon of Boreth, a key seat of power in Klingon faith, successfully managed to clone Kahless and imprint the body with the teachings of Klingon faith and society, attempting to herald in a new dynasty. However, the clone’s origins were uncovered through the efforts of Worf and Chancellor Gowron—but instead of being discarded, Kahless II was established as emperor once more, although now as a moral guide and religious figurehead for the Klingon Empire, rather than wielding direct power as the High Council did.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.