Krell is a rare engineering officer in the Blood & Honor crew in Star Trek Fleet Command.
And completely off topic, but while Kang and Kor are particularly menacing sounding Klingon names, Krell, to me, sounds more like a Klingon shampoo, like Prell. Like Worf or Gowron would keep their long locks vibrant and glowing with Krell shampoo.
In case you’ve forgotten A Private Little War, it’s the one where the Klingons are giving flintlock rifles (yep, flintlocks) to a Stone Age society.
It’s the epic struggle between the Hill people and um… well… get this… the Village People. Really.
<insert your own joke here.>
And it’s also the debut of Dr. M’Benga. So there’s that.
Captain’s Maneuver
Retribution – Every time the ship receives shield health damage from a weapon attack, Krell has a 30% chance of dealing a hull breach to the opponent for one round.
Krell’s maneuver can set off a condition that will make other officers’ abilities work. So combining him with officers who need hull breach is a good idea. Unlike most other officers though, it’s only for one round at a time.
Officers that require hull breach are Mara, Qa’ug, Chang, Koth, Captain Tilly, and Lorca.
Also note that weapons that fire more than once per round will only trigger this once per round. And it maxes with synergy at 60%.
Krell Officer Ability
Federation Contacts – Krell increases the damage against Federation ships by (25% 35% 75% 175% 500%) of the crew’s defense.
This is a really simple ability, he increases your damage against Federation ships. And the higher your crew’s defense is, the higher the damage.
If there’s a rare officer who I don’t have maxed, that I’d really like to max, it’s Krell. He wouldn’t be my first choice overall, but he’s the one I’m working on, and seem to have had the toughest time getting shards for.
His officer ability maxes out at 500% of your crew’s defense stats to damage against Federation ships. And in a game where the majority of players have the Federation as their primary faction, this is really, really useful.
It also works against Federation armadas, Federation hostiles, and Federation event bosses.
And by the way, there aren’t many officer abilities in the game that are repeated, but Krell’s officer ability is exactly that of Mirek, save for the terminology. They’ll both give you a massive bonus to damage against Federation ships, and you can use them together.
Ned Romero Trivia
Krell was played by actor Ned Romero. After graduating from Louisiana State University with a master’s degree in music, he started his career in musical theater in 1943. He appeared in Kiss Me, Kate, Kismet, and Oklahoma! He was a stage actor for two decades, before making his television debut on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, in which he performed a medley of opera arias. You can watch the whole episode on YouTube.
Quick aside. I’m pretty sure that 95% of you have never heard of Dobie Gillis… but nearly all of you have heard of the cartoon show that took it’s characters from Dobie Gillis – Scooby-Doo, Where are You? If you’re interested in this connection, you can read more here. If you got nothing else from this article, now you know that Shaggy was based on a character played by Bob Denver. Gilligan.
Okay, back to Ned Romero.
Romero got the part of Krell when associate producer Bob Justman decided that they didn’t want to use John Colicos as Kor in another episode, as they were planning to bring him back for The Trouble with Tribbles. This created a need for a new character, and Krell came to be. When it came time to shoot Tribbles, Colicos was unavailable, and so the character of Koloth was created. What they wanted to avoid was the idea that there was only one Klingon captain out there. Romero made one appearance as Krell. It would be 26 years until he made his return to Star Trek.
In the decades between A Private Little War and his next Trek appearance, Romero, who was of Chitimacha Native American descent (as well as French and Spanish,) made frequent television appearances, usually playing Native American characters. So he showed up on Bonanza, and Death Valley Days, and The High Chaparral, among many others.
Probably the most famous of these was playing Cochise in I Will Fight No More Forever in 1975.
Apart from this, he was Sgt. Joe Rivera on the 1970 police drama Dan August. Dan August was played by Burt Reynolds. And August’s partner was played by Norman Fell, who later played Mr. Roper on Three’s Company. And Norman Fell was in my favorite Gilbert Gottfried joke, ever. I won’t give it away, but “prove to us you’re Norman Fell” gets me every time.)
I think you can be excused if you didn’t make the connection between Ned Romero on TOS, and his appearances on The Next Generation or Voyager, as he looked completely different when he returned to Trek in 1994.
Here he is on The Next Generation Journey’s End.
And he showed up again, playing Chakotay’s grandfather in the Voyager episode, The Fight.
Romero made his last film appearance in the 2006 film, Expiration Date.
Ned Romero passed away in 2017, one month shy of his 90th birthday.