Not just humanized them, Federationized them. I recognize that even in the 90's, it was inevitable that some measure of female equality was going to be imposed. But with Zeke's final wave of reforms, they seemed awfully similar to the UFP.
Fans of the early TNG Ferengi?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
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Not just humanized them, Federationized them. I recognize that even in the 90's, it was inevitable that some measure of female equality was going to be imposed. But with Zeke's final wave of reforms, they seemed awfully similar to the UFP.
I like the DS9 Ferengi, but i'm also a fan of the "Last Outpost Ferengi", especially Daimon Tarr. The Ferengi, beside their way too goofy behavior on the Tkon Planet, seemed to be a really alien culture in this episode, especially from the way Daimon Tarr talked and behaved.
Wish the Ferengi Away Team was more like him.
Wish the Ferengi Away Team was more like him.
Absolutely, I thought Daimon Tarr was really good and was suitably menacing with that huge scowling face and sharp teeth up on the viewscreen.
For years I'd always wondered why Armin Shimerman was credited as the first Ferengi when Daimon Tarr appears first, but it seems the planet scenes were filmed first even though it came chronologically after the Daimon Tarr reveal in the episode. Given how much better Tarr was I do wonder if they were already trying to course correct after seeing how comical and unthreatening the Ferengi away team was? (None of this is meant to be a knock on Armin, I loved his portrayal of Quark)
Yeah, i also wondered about why Armin Shimerman was always credited as the first Ferengi on screen. Especially as Daimon Tarr was the first one we ever saw and he wasn't the only member of the away team.
To come back to Daimon Tarr, it's funny if the scenes on the planet were filmed before the bridge scene. Because they got a really great version of the Ferengi with him, only to not use the potential of the species in later TNG and in DS9 to reduce them to a comedic element most of the time.
Whether you're writing elves, dwarves, Vulcans or Ferengi, this is a common problem with inhuman races/species that make a regular appearance: keeping them distinct from humanity while still reasonably understandable.
Agreed. It's disappointing, too, because real-world history is full of examples of how capitalism can drive horrific human rights abuses -- the Belgians in the Congo, the British in India, the entire career of Cecil Rhodes, etc. Two books that really go into that are King Leopold's Ghost and Late Victorian Holocausts.
Had the Ferengi been more patterned on that, they would have been far scarier and a far more searing indictment of capitalism.
I dunno. Post-Zek Ferenginar is still ultimately practicing a form of capitalism -- it's just capitalism with a welfare state, some downwards redistribution, some worker protections, and gender equality. There's no indication that Zek has abolished private ownership of the means of production, that the Ferengi class system has ceased to exist, or that the Ferengi Alliance has moved to a post-scarcity economy. It looks more like the Ferengi became Scandinavian-ized than Federation-ized to me.
True. And a common TOS trope was that the Enterprise would show up at some world or other and essentially impose Federation norms on it before jetting away: making the men and women live together in "Spock's Brain", requiring that Vaal's followers take care of themselves in "The Apple", and making the two worlds fight their war for real in an episode I don't recall the title of, complete with gore, fire, and destruction. TNG moved away from that early on, perhaps realizing that reform was a little more complicated than that.
What made the Ferengi unique was their extreme sexism and their unbridled capitalism. With one apparently gone overnight and the other diluted nearly beyond recognition, they're really not that different from the Federation now.
Each series has had an issue that I really didn't like much. With DS9, it was women's rights on Ferenginar. On Earth, it took over 50 years of relentless effort by Susan B. Anthony and thousands of other suffragettes just to get women the vote. On Ferenginar, total equality was supposedly done by one woman, seducing the right man.
I think a capitalist society operating on the basis of economic scarcity is still pretty damn different from the Federation. The Ferengi Treasury Guard isn't likely to send ships of exploration into unknown space, for instance.
I agree that that amount of change in such a short span is unrealistic. But there again, the Ferengi subplot is a comedy, not a realistic drama.
It was a subplot on a TV show. They didn't have 50 years to show a gradual process.
Yes, it could have been done a lot better (centred around Pel's efforts rather than Moogie) but well, it's a nice change of pace from many other things in Trek and TV shows in general that are a lot more static than they should be.
Though sometimes I wonder whether it came about because the way Ferengi women were treated really didn't fit the way they were revamped for DS9 and looked very, very unfortunate for their comic relief species.
Really, it didn't even fit the original concept of the Ferengi, in a hyper-capitalist cut-throat nightmare society both sexes would likely be expected to earn profit.
Then again, the original concept of the Ferengi was uneven and muddled as all hell
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Given how little we saw of events on Ferenginar itself, and how little exposure we really had to Ferengi culture, I think it's entirely possible that Rom's ascension to Nagus and the reformation of Ferengi culture was a lot more convoluted than it appeared from our limited DS9-centric perspective.
Passing laws and changing cultures are two very different things.
Passing laws and changing cultures are two very different things.
No. But, they could have revealed that there was widespread discontent among Ferengi females planetwide. That would have made them getting the right to wear clothes and do business a watershed moment in their evolution toward equality, something that had been developing for years. Something like MLK's "I have a dream" speech.
It should have been centered around both of them, and others as well. Take "Profit and Lace"... they made it out like Ishka was the only Ferengi female in existence with an inclination for business.
Most aspects of Ferengi attitudes toward women weren't established until DS9. Before then, it was just a throwaway line: "they force their females to wear clothes". The extent and magnitude of female oppression was revealed in "Rules of Aquisition".
It does make more sense. The Ferengi are not a particular strong or violent species. Their specialty is commerce, not destruction. So, if they wanted destruction, why not achieve it through commerce? A few well placed bricks of latinum, and some big nasty Klingons or Nausicans will be happy to serve you.
In their first appearance they were quite strong, as Data tried to warn the others.
Spoilers for "Lower Decks" season 2:
The Ferengi shown in LDS "Mugato, Gumato" wielded the energy whips similar to those seen in TNG "The Last Outpost" and ENT "Acquisition". The context especially made them seem quite plausible and believable. Also [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Mugato,_Gumato_(episode)]:
I think it totally worked, also with a resolution involving ethical capitalism. YMMV.
Mariner calls Kynk and his associates "some creepy throwback Last Outpost-style Ferengi", referring to the first appearance of the Ferengi, and their fur bearing uniforms, as seen the Star Trek: The Next Generation first season episode "The Last Outpost".
I think it totally worked, also with a resolution involving ethical capitalism. YMMV.
Of course that would have been a lot better. And I really like your ideas in this regard.
I think a big problem with the whole "arc" (if you can even call it that) was that it wasn't planned out from the start and the Ferengi were more regarded as comic relief.
Thanks for the clarification, though the whole no clothes for females already paints a glum picture.
I still think it didn't really make sense for the Ferengi, neither for the DS9 nor for the TNG "Yankee Trader" ones.
I suppose they had 1980s stock brokers in mind, the kind who held their meetings in Strip Clubs (if that Whoopi Goldberg movie is correct about that, and I honestly don't doubt it)
It's unfortunate that they didn't expand on this type of Ferengi instead of turning them into little more than comic relief later in TNG and then furthering that in DS9. Wasted potential
That would really have made a lot more sense, and would have shown us the other members of the Ferengi Alliance.
It would also have been interesting if they had been more like the Dominion. It would have been a lot easier to buy the Ferengi, small and unimposing as they were, as a capable threat if they had some big, burly subject species as hired muscle and such.
Have them be the corporate executives/brains of the operation who work behind closed doors and instead all their subject species are the ones encountered/fought, each in positions that play to their natural talents, like the Jem'Hadar and Vorta, but without the biological engineering. Or maybe with the biological engineering; why not have the Ferengi as an evil space corporation that bio-engineers their "assets"?
Thanks. Ironically, much of it was inspired by one of TNG's least palatable episodes: "Angel One". Riker explains to Mistress Beatta that her society is evolving toward gender equality, and that killing a few revolutionaries won't change that fact.