Fans of the early TNG Ferengi?

[Legate Duhmar]

After a fashion, but where The Last Outpost featured physically comedic Ferengi, the Ferengi of Rascals were manifestly stupid to the point of hilarity after their brief initial display of competence at commandeering the Enterprise.

The Ferengi did become comic relief a bit too much, even in DS9, although they did try to balance out that with cunning and wit somewhat. But the reality is there would need to be a significant amount of rough and effective Ferengi for them to be a middle power of the Alpha Quadrant as they are generally portrayed. I think it might have been based on a desire to not just make the Ferengi discount Klingon pirates of the week but in reality dealing with the Ferengi would be a formidable affair and their complete lack of scruples would be a huge factor in their success.

 

[gweeps]

I like the Ferengi enough. Not a huge fan of them being used as comic foils. But DS9 found a decent balance.

DS9 usually did well fleshing out minor races.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

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If Ferengi PIRATES can be that skilled with a Ferengi Energy Whip, I wonder what level of skill a dedicated Ferengi warrior could possess.

I think in this scenatio Ferengi pirates are Ferengi warriors.

I could see the entire Ferengi military being comprised of privateers.

 

[Ragitsu]

I think in this scenatio Ferengi pirates are Ferengi warriors.

I could see the entire Ferengi military being comprised of privateers.

I wanted to see a Ferengi warrior played entirely seriously, if only for one episode.

 

[gweeps]

I wanted to see a Ferengi warrior played entirely seriously, if only for one episode.

Their armour is made of gold-pressed latinum.

 

[Ghrakh]

They were fine until they just got turned into space clowns on DS9

 

[DonIago]

^TNG did it first.

 

[Orphalesion]

They were fine until they just got turned into space clowns on DS9

Have you even seen the Last Outpost and Menage a Troi?
If anything DS9 saved them.

 

[Ghrakh]

^TNG did it first.

Did what, create the Ferengi (along with the the Cardassians, Bajorans, and Trills) ? TNG never portrayed them as cute, and the characters never regarded them as such despite their "funny" look.

Have you even seen the Last Outpost and Menage a Troi?

The Last Outpost: It's well known their introduction wasn't great, but you think that was intentional?
Menage a Troi: The one where they kindnap 3 people and perform painful brain scans on one of them? Those "clowns"?

If anything DS9 saved them.

Yeah, I can't stop laughing. Perhaps people shouldn't look at TNG Ferengi through DS9 bozo goggles.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

TNG never portrayed (the Ferengi) as cute, and the characters never regarded them as such despite their "funny" look.

Sure they did. The Ferengi are an absolute joke in "The Price". Our Crew treats them as an annoyance more than a serious threat.

And in "Captain's Holiday" Max Grodenchik is laughed at when he tries to be threatening. Both Picard and Vash roll their eyes at him.

DS9 only fleshed them out, based on what TNG had already done.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

They were terrible villains who were not threatening, were annoying and absurdly misrepresented the thing they were villainizing.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

DS9 only fleshed them out, based on what TNG had already done.

DS9 did much more than that. Sure, in some episodes they seemed just like fleshed out versions of TNG Ferengi. Exaggerated mercantile stereotypes. Rom and Nog both adopt Federation values and show their rebellion, but even Quark calls the Federation on its hypocrisy, projecting its insecurity about its past onto them.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I feel like they should have made room for Ferengi pirates in their revised version of the Ferengi in DS9.

My headcanon for them is that Daimons and the Ferengi merchantile fleet is a place where traditionally nonconformist Ferengi go. Not that they don't like profit but Ferengi that just don't like playing money games go. The ones who love things OTHER than wealth like exploration, violence, and meeting other races rather than cheating them. They tend to be also people who are as close to the complete opposite of Quark in confrontationalism too.

People who look at a Galaxy-class starship and go to themselves, "Yeah, I can take em."

 

[at Quark's]

While I liked the Ferengi as comedic relief, I agree they were downgraded perhaps a bit too much.

When we first meet them, their technology is estimated to be generally equal-to-but-different-from Starfleet's, and Picard comments on the 'very impressive design' of the Marauder.

Later on, it seems they fly around in old rustbuckets, they completely suck in military and combat endeavours, and they had to buy most of their technology.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

Do we know that they didn't need to buy that Marauder design?

I think the Ferengi ended up filling an important narrative function. They're a distinctly different kind of adversary than the Klingons or Romulans or Cardassians, who tend to overlap and blend into each other after a while.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

My headcanon for them is that Daimons and the Ferengi merchantile fleet is a place where traditionally nonconformist Ferengi go. Not that they don't like profit but Ferengi that just don't like playing money games go. The ones who love things OTHER than wealth like exploration, violence, and meeting other races rather than cheating them.

That's an interesting notion.

But most of the Daimons we've seen are quite happy to cheat other races in their pursuit of profit. We could probably say that they like those other things in addition to wealth. Kind of how like Quark chose his customer-service career over the lucrative but chitchat-free life of a weapons dealer.

 

[Ghrakh]

Sure they did. The Ferengi are an absolute joke in "The Price".

The one where they poison the federation negotiator? Absolute joke.

And in "Captain's Holiday" Max Grodenchik is laughed at when he tries to be threatening. Both Picard and Vash roll their eyes at him.

Or "Rascals", when they beam the crew down to do manual labor or be killed. Hilarious.

They were terrible villains who were not threatening, were annoying and absurdly misrepresented the thing they were villainizing.

Never said they were good villains. I'll just file "They were always clowns" in the "Pulaski hates Data" drawer.

 

[at Quark's]

Do we know that they didn't need to buy that Marauder design?

No, that's entirely possible. Another excuse could be that at the time Picard made that observation, they knew next to nothing about the Ferengi, whose exaggerated reputation proceeded them - perhaps exaggerated on purpose by the Ferengi themselves.

I think the Ferengi ended up filling an important narrative function. They're a distinctly different kind of adversary than the Klingons or Romulans or Cardassians, who tend to overlap and blend into each other after a while.

They were to be introduced as the next great adversary of the Federation, and they could have been a great and different kind of enemy, as I wrote earlier in this post in the thread.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

Yeah, I read that.

I'm just not sure it's any more compelling than what we got.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

The one where they poison the federation negotiator? Absolute joke.

You mean the poison that was announced ahead of time to be only inconvenient and not actually life-threatening? Yeah, real scary danger there. Almost scary enough to overcome the whole "chairs, chairs, won't somebody bring us chairs!" jokes.