Ferengi threat?

[C57D]

Recently rewatching TNG S1 for the first time in twenty years, I felt led to change my mind about the Ferengi in "The Last Outpost". Like many viewers, I originally found them to be comical and lacking in any real threat, to be a real opponent to the Federation, however, looking at them again I can see a potential that was perhaps overlooked.
First all the silly-looking gesturing and jumping. ST in general seems to make the assumption that all alien sentient species have the same body language as us. This surely cannot be, since physiology, psychology and social mores would surely make it so very different? Perhaps in Ferengi culture gesticulation is a sign of superiority and intimidation? Admitedly it all seems out of control, but maybe THAT is the point? The more you gesticulate and jump, the more you show a contempt for, and perceived lack of challenge from, your opponent? And maybe they have learned to to use this behaviour against other sentient species (Human's in particular) precisely because it seems silly and so often results in underestimation?
Maybe it could have been a little bit subtler and so not as silly, but I find it an interesting and story enhancing plot point to further flesh out the intended "new enemy"?
And, secondly, the actual threat. Surely a species, for whom business is all, should have been portrayed with the worst excesses of unchecked and unregulated capitalism?
People trafficking and slavery, the company shop (which is slavery in all but name), resource depletion on a planetry scale, lack of any health and safety concerns or checks, supply of harmful but addictive substances etc etc (I am sure that there are worse things, but I would prefer to leave it there).
To the post scarcity, socialist, UFP (and to any moral person or group) , these actions must surely have been abhorrent and so Star Fleet would have been charged to fight.
But thats my theory.
How would you have done it?

 

[JesterFace]

Maybe it was just the way the Ferengi looked, they could not be taken seriously as a dangerous enemy?

 

[Thomas Elliot]

I just saw the episode with the Stargazer and the whole time I was thinking how lame these perverted, alien Steve Urkels were. If one of them asked, "Got any cheeeeeeese," it wouldn't have surprised me the way they were acting.

With that said, I find your alternative interpretation of them interesting and maybe, from that angle, I might see them differently.
I can see now why the writers or Roddenberry wanted to play them up as the new Klingons for Starfleet.
Socialist, post-scarcity Federation vs. immoral Capitalists.
They're design is very distinctive and pretty strong, and yet, it's hard to take them seriously when they have big noses and big ears. They're like a cartoon caricature of regular humans. I do kind of appreciate watching the early TNG episodes with them though, because later on the series became dominated by Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians. The Ferengi we do get later on are actually kind of lovable and funny. Quark said there was no profit in slavery, which is why the Ferengi didn't deal with it, but the early TNG ones did?

 

[Timo]

What Quark claimed was that the Ferengi didn't enslave each other. Alien scum would probably be an utterly different matter.

If I had ears as big as that, I sure as hell would be jumping up and down, gesticulating, and trying to eat my own head if I were forced to a planet as noisy as the one in "The Last Outpost"! Shipboard, the Ferengi of that episode had no desire to breakdance... So nothing actually changes in that respect as the Ferengi move on to further adventures.

Plenty of potential in the Ferengi. And it was well used in DS9 IMHO. The one false step was never taking a step backward and revisiting the TNG pirates/soldiers. Until VOY and ENT went there for one episode each, that is...

As for ridiculous looks, I'm already watching a show where the heroes dress in pajamas. So it's not as if I could be judgmental about big ears or noses.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lance]

One thing I'll credit them for, TNG didn't entirely drop their being a threat completely, and even in later seasons there are episodes where the Ferengi are depicted as credible threats. Comical, yes, but still a threat if they want to be. So on that level, yeah, they never were 'the new Klingons' they were intended to be, but neither were they ever completely sidelined and forgotten. Episodes like "Peak Performance", "The Price", "Captain's Holiday", "Menage A Troi", "Rascals" and "Bloodlines" continued to show them as viable threats. The idea that they were essentially a bit pathetic as a culture really only got truly rammed home on DS9, and there it was mainly to show what a contrast Quark is....

 

[Dukhat]

Here's the thing about the Ferengi: Roddenberry's original idea for just why they were enemies of the Federation just didn't translate well to the finished product.

The Ferengi as originally envisioned were not actually supposed to be evil or menacing. They were simply capitalists surrounded by a galaxy where the acquisition of money or other material wealth was no longer considered a motivating factor of life. The Federation would find the Ferengi's values abhorrent, and the Ferengi would simply not understand how a society could function without the need to get rich.

But two factors ended up completely ruining the Ferengi as a capitalist-allegory-concept for the TNG viewer:

1. How the producers chose to view the Ferengi physically, and

2. The Federation's cashless/wealthless society which was never really seriously pushed as a core idea in the show.

So one really could not come up with something better to make the Ferengi a more believable enemy without completely changing the core of who the Ferengi were supposed to be, in relation to the Federation's supposed values.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The only late series episodes where the Ferengi were threats it was because they took a few conceits like "Getting one phaser one one person is enough to make them surrender the entire ship". Then they got brought down by kids.

I liked Ferengi better the way they were portrayed in DS9. Instead of a caricature of capitalism written by someone with no real understanding of economics, you see a more honest assessment of the issues of its unrestrained excess while also defending it as something that does not need to exist outside of morality.

 

[Qonundrum]

Maybe it was just the way the Ferengi looked, they could not be taken seriously as a dangerous enemy?

Compared to the P'Ting the Ferengi look utterly menacing. But this harks back to the main pointy about looks and mannerisms being potentially deceiving.

 

[at Quark's]

I liked Ferengi better the way they were portrayed in DS9. Instead of a caricature of capitalism written by someone with no real understanding of economics, you see a more honest assessment of the issues of its unrestrained excess while also defending it as something that does not need to exist outside of morality.

The Ferengi protagonists in the show are more rounded characters, yes. However, the Ferengi society (or culture) still feels like a parody. Females aren't allowed to have posessions or even wear clothing? Ferengi don't waste their time learning how to read on schools? (early DS9). High Ferengi leaders appear not as some high-ranking criminals in a dangerous cartel that can put on the charisma and charm at key moments and be ruthless at other moments, but as figures that simply crow and relish in their "evil" greed. Part of the comedy comes from Our Ferengi Heroes challenging those (ridiculous) notions.

And slightly more peripheral characters like Brunt are still very flat and cartoony. He's just there to Hate Quark.

 

[Imaus]

The Ferengi should had been 1) redesigned - not just to alleviate any anti-semitic concerns, but just to make them menacing, such as gray skin and taller features. Hell think Remans, those should had been akin to the Ferengi IMO. And 2) should had been the new 'Orion' syndicate, maybe even drifting into 'Cartel' territory that was starting to make its rounds in the 80s and 90s, at least for TNG with DS9 still doing the same changes or lovable core characters.

The Ferengi would be a threat because they're a collection of disparate planets and producers of drugs and stims and chems and other substances that are flooding into the porous Federation colonial rim and middle worlds. They are violent when accosted, have good ships, maybe a huge backer from a drug-based society on their 'rear' outside of the Federation's reach that they may had grown or encouraged or simply filled a niche for. It would also cast a light on the lattice-structure of the federation forcing them to adapt or just to live with it. A mix of viking traders (maybe with a slice of raiding as well), piracy, mercenaries, the latin American cartels, and the like. Really with how q goaded humanity about their drug-soldiers of the 21st century and Picard and co dealing with a drug episode every other year, it could had fit.

Basically what the orions could/should had been, but since the orions had been sidelined and even pacified long ago, here are the Ferengi.

 

[Orphalesion]

I love the Ferengi as they were in DS9, so I'm happy with how it turned out.

But if they were to be the Antagonists of TNG I agree they would have had to be changed.
However they might not even have to be redesigned, rather they might have worked as 1980's style "evil corporation" version of the Dominion/the Federation.
The Ferengi themselves would have been the CEOs who mostly stay behind the scenes. Then they would have had several Slave Species which they were dominating economically and politically and who could fill various positions in the Ferengi corporate world.
1) A big, burly, species who excels at combat and tactics, but is otherwise pretty dumb who function as the Ferengi's soldiers/security. Maybe they were a Neanderthal-like Paleolithic civilization the Ferengi took over.
2)A very beautiful species that excels at manipulation and has some sort of pheromones (naturally useless against the Ferengi themselves) which the Ferengi employ as their negotiators and overseers.
3)Several poor, oppressed worker species who are kept poor, uneducated and divided by rampant consumerism.
4)And maybe a Speices that is employed in research. Though that could be the Ferengi themselves.

One way the Ferengi could control these species would be that, like the Jem Hadar, the Ferengi managed to make them all dependent on a drug. Which, again would have been pretty much up the alley for the 1980s.