Of course, I know the out-of-universe reason is that they wanted to mirror the introduction of the Romulans because the Ferengi were originally intended to be the main enemy of TNG. But in-universe, how did Starfleet have basically no knowledge of the Ferengi outside of rumours at the time of what was essentially first contact with them? I can understand how, a century prior, they knew almost nothing about the Romulans. After all, the Romulan government is essentially space North Korea and so it would be exceptionally difficult for a Romulan to reach the Federation. But the Ferengi government is nothing like that. The Ferengi seek out profit wherever they go. I know that isn't how they were originally characterised, but in-universe during early TNG there were surely Quark-types within the Alliance. (In fact, it's likely Zek was the Grand Nagus at the time.) Even if you accept that the Federation is a moneyless society (which I'm not 100% convinced of, but that's a topic for another thread) and thus not an attractive destination for Ferengi, there are other species in contact with the Federation that do use money. Were there no Ferengi doing business with the Klingons at the time? Did no non-Federation planet visited by Starfleet have Ferengi visitors? The only explanation I can think of is that a Grand Nagus other than Zek was in power at the time, one who was isolationist like the Romulans, but I don't see that lasting very long before the Nagus was removed from power by a horde of angry Ferengi whose profits had been destroyed by the lack of trade. There's definitely not enough time for the Ferengi to undergo a complete societal and political change from space pirates to space capitalists, either. Or is it really as simple as the Ferengi just keeping their distance from the Federation for whatever reason?
How come Starfleet knew nothing about the Ferengi?
- Thread starter herofhyrule
- Start date
Wow. Ok.
First of all, welcome to the board,
Secondly, Starfleet hadn't had any formal contact with the Ferengi, at least not officially as far as Picard and Data knew. They along with the D's computer didn't have all of the Federation's knowlege.
Chances are some Starfleet ships or Federation folks already had direct contact prior to TNG (history is full of stuff like that). But as far as Picard, Data and the D's computer could tell, it was mostly rumors and all that...due to....reasons.
Thirdly....it's just was a plot
First of all, welcome to the board,
Secondly, Starfleet hadn't had any formal contact with the Ferengi, at least not officially as far as Picard and Data knew. They along with the D's computer didn't have all of the Federation's knowlege.
Chances are some Starfleet ships or Federation folks already had direct contact prior to TNG (history is full of stuff like that). But as far as Picard, Data and the D's computer could tell, it was mostly rumors and all that...due to....reasons.
Thirdly....it's just was a plot
And fourth, space is a very big place.
Something Star Trek, and many things portray very poorly, suggesting one can crash-land a planet realistically from random engine failure.
Space is cosmologically empty; it is hard for a human to conceive how empty it is and how much of it is simple void compared to the few star systems in it.
https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html
The only two previous contacts we know of between Starfleet and the Ferengi were when the Ferengi took over the NX Enterprise during which only Archer saw them, and wen the Stargazer fought a Ferengi ship that never identified itself. Most Star Trek star charts have the Ferengi Alliance quite far away from early Federation space ("up" past Cardassian space), and the Ferengi wouldn't be super interested in the moneyless Federation.
Mutual disinterest.
I would prefer it if Star Trek would more accurately portray the emptiness of Space in a accurate fashion in terms of scale of planetry relative to the size of the StarShip and how empty everything is.
The Expanse does a great job in portraying space accurately in that aspect.
Same with size of a planet relative to the vessel. I always knew Star Trek had issues portraying planet's sizes inaccurately for the sake of a gorgeous shot.
On top of that, some things I learned about space by watching Star Trek:
- There is friction is space, and ships come to a still simply by powering off the engines.
- Ships need to bank to turn in space.
- There is a clear up and down in space, and ships always meet each other and fight each other with the same side up.
- Space battles are largely two-dimensional, and can be tactically displayed on a two-dimensional display.
- Conventional sub-light travel has a concept of “maximum speed” in space.
-_-
In Dread Empire's Fall, the only method of faster than light travel are naturally occurring wormholes; sublight travel there actually follows the principle that ships take months to accelerate to close to the speed of light, and then decelerate again for months, complete with the effects of time dilation.
OK, I suppose space is quite large. I had originally envisioned Ferengi space as being closer to Cardassian territory, based on how frequently travel occurs between Ferenginar and Deep Space Nine. But I can accept that it's actually a bit further away from Federation space than that. I still don't think it's that far away though, because Gamma Tauri IV, the planet robbed by the Ferengi in 'The Last Outpost', is shown on a map from DS9 (from Memory Alpha: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/m...ision/latest?cb=20070206054204&path-prefix=en) as being near Andoria. Obviously the Ferengi wouldn't travel so deep into Federation territory if they weren't from a nearby piece of space. I can accept the explanation of 'mutual disinterest'. The Federation does seem to more or less leave other species alone unless provoked. Although I'm not entirely convinced the Federation is completely moneyless, it would make sense that they don't have enough to attract the Ferengi.
One might as well ask why didn't Europeans know about native Americans before 1492.
But to be fair, Star Trek sometimes has a habit of at first, an alien race like the Romulans or Ferengi is suppoed to be far away from the center of the Federation but then when they are encountered again and again, the region of space they're all in shrinks into a very small community like a cul-de-sac. At which point, someone will ask 'Why didn't the Federation know about the Ferengi since they live only one house down across the street?'
Robert
But to be fair, Star Trek sometimes has a habit of at first, an alien race like the Romulans or Ferengi is suppoed to be far away from the center of the Federation but then when they are encountered again and again, the region of space they're all in shrinks into a very small community like a cul-de-sac. At which point, someone will ask 'Why didn't the Federation know about the Ferengi since they live only one house down across the street?'
Robert
From what I got from the show, Ferengi space is far from the Federation core explored from TOS-TUC. By TNG’s time they’re farther out exploring new territory and they hear rumors of these new Ferengi. Either the Ferengi are new on the galactic stage or they’re new to us. Given their technological sophistication, I’d guess they’re new to us.
Their reputation is mostly PR. Though not all. Marauders do have weapons comparable to Galaxy Class starships and they do maraud, per the very first time we saw them. Plus, Ferengi can be killers and ruthless to aliens and their own people alike. They’re not all barkeeps because of the handful we got to know best on DS9, especially in specifically comedic episodes.
(EDIT: a good book for a more serious look at the Ferengi, politics, and their ruthlessness is Quark actor Armin Shimmerman’s The 34th Rule. It’s got a bit of an anti-everybody else perspective that one can understand coming from the actor who played Quark, but it’s really good.)
But by TNG’s time, aliens further out there are the Ferengi, Jarada, Talarians, Cardassians, Breen, and by DS9’s, maybe the Tzenkethi and Miradorn.
(Though my let theory about the Breen is that they’re neighbors of the Romulans who betrayed them when they turned their backs on them during the Earth/Romulan War, and that’s how the ancient Romulans lost to the upstart Earthlings.)
A lone ship of Ferengi appearing on ENT doesn’t have to mean much. They were simply far from home. Sailors on Earth could take years to get to distant parts of the planet and never come back. Or do.
I love any Trek map I can find and own a couple books of charts, but they don’t make much sense. They’re 2-D representations and kind of hastily put together, or at least without enough consideration to important factors. Also, the show is inconsistent showing ships speeding all over the place and they really can’t be fully accurate. You just have to let it be fluid in your brain, and/or even accept different universes for different series/episodes within the same series.
Their reputation is mostly PR. Though not all. Marauders do have weapons comparable to Galaxy Class starships and they do maraud, per the very first time we saw them. Plus, Ferengi can be killers and ruthless to aliens and their own people alike. They’re not all barkeeps because of the handful we got to know best on DS9, especially in specifically comedic episodes.
(EDIT: a good book for a more serious look at the Ferengi, politics, and their ruthlessness is Quark actor Armin Shimmerman’s The 34th Rule. It’s got a bit of an anti-everybody else perspective that one can understand coming from the actor who played Quark, but it’s really good.)
But by TNG’s time, aliens further out there are the Ferengi, Jarada, Talarians, Cardassians, Breen, and by DS9’s, maybe the Tzenkethi and Miradorn.
(Though my let theory about the Breen is that they’re neighbors of the Romulans who betrayed them when they turned their backs on them during the Earth/Romulan War, and that’s how the ancient Romulans lost to the upstart Earthlings.)
A lone ship of Ferengi appearing on ENT doesn’t have to mean much. They were simply far from home. Sailors on Earth could take years to get to distant parts of the planet and never come back. Or do.
I love any Trek map I can find and own a couple books of charts, but they don’t make much sense. They’re 2-D representations and kind of hastily put together, or at least without enough consideration to important factors. Also, the show is inconsistent showing ships speeding all over the place and they really can’t be fully accurate. You just have to let it be fluid in your brain, and/or even accept different universes for different series/episodes within the same series.
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Getting informatin about "Galactography" from the maps used in Star Trek productions is a bad idea.
I don't know where Andoria is supposed to be, but Gamma Tauri is a real star, which got that designtion over 400 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Tauri
I tend to think there's a difference between first contact and first official contact. 2063 was established as Humanity's first official contact with extraterrestrials, but there were extraterrestrials on Earth and secretly interacting with Humans long before that. A similar situation could have played out with the Ferengi in that there were earlier off-the-record or even classified contacts between them and the Federation, but it wasn't until after the Enterprise-D's encounter that they started keeping score or something like that...
Andoria is supposed to be a moon of a planet that orbits Procyon. According to Wolfram Alpha the two stars are around 147 light years apart. I'm not too sure on their relative positions, but as space is 3D it's possible that on a 2D map they appear to only be a short distance apart. But you are of course right that it's, generally speaking, a bad idea to rely on in-universe maps in Star Trek.
It is always possible to make a line between two points in 3 D space, such as two different stars. If you look at the stars along the line between them, they will appear like nex door neighbors no mo matter how many tens, or hundreds, or tousnd of light years apart they are. If you look at them from a direction at right angles to the line between them they will appear to be the full distance appart.
As seen from Earth, Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) appears to be in the Hyades Star Cluster like Gamma Tauri, but is actually about 65 lightyers from Earth, less than half the distance to the Hyades Star Cluster. From Earth, the Pleiades Star Cluster appears to be right next to Aldebaran and the Hyades, but it over twice as far away as the Hyades.
So it is always better to have a set of maps which show the stars from several different directions, so foreshortening of distances between stars as seen from one direction will be revealed to be false when viewed from another direction.
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