How come Starfleet knew nothing about the Ferengi?

[Locutus of Bored]

After their first encounter with the NX-01 in 2151, the Ferengi Commerce Authority took the advice of newly elevated Daimon Krem about Captain Archer's warning to avoid them, and placed a no-contact order on Earth (and later Federation) Starfleet ships, stations, and colony worlds, fearing that Earth/Federation Starfleet would curtail freelance piracy, and their official privateering and slave trading operations, and that the Federation's anti-unfettered capitalism and equal rights for all policies would introduce an unwelcome and perhaps revolutionary element into Ferengi society.

Starfleet in the meantime was drawn away from exploration in the Ferengi free commerce zone of operations by wars against the Cardassians, Talarians, and Tzenkethi, and Breen raids to Spinward and wars against the Xindi, Romulans, and Klingons to Trailing / Counterspinward that pushed them into expanding their borders Coreward and Rimward (plus vertically to the Galactic North and South). After two centuries of no contact in the vastness of space the story of the single pirate boarding by nameless aliens from Archer's time was forgotten.

After two hundred years of no contact, with the Federation starting to approach their borders, the Ferengi decided to lift the ban on piracy and privateering toward the Federation zone of operations. and a Ferengi vessel, under the command of Daimon Bok's son, thought they would have an easy time capturing the old and busted USS Stargazer, but Captain Picard defeated them using the Picard Maneuver.

The Ferengi, taken aback, ceased piracy / privateering operations against the Federation again and decided to begin a propaganda campaign among the species they routinely did business with that the Federation was now making contact with. This propaganda included saying that they were extremely aggressive and that they eat their prisoners, and was intended to frighten the Federation from coming near their commerce zone. Starfleet, with other areas to explore, did not test this again for the next decade. The Ferengi were still largely shrouded in myth based on the limited, unidentified encounters with them and the exaggerated stories of their hostility and eating their enemies.

Then we get to the situation of 2365 and formal first contact with the Ferengi Alliance. After a few encounters and Daimon Bok's ruinous vendetta against Picard, they learn that while the Federation is largely moneyless internally, they are open to financial exchanges with outsiders. Newly minted Grand Nagus Zek decides to try a different tack, and ceases freelance piracy, privateering, and slave-trading near Federation space in favor of operating more passive ventures like gambling for profit, real alcohol bars, drug dens, brothels, arms dealing (especially to groups like the Maquis), genetic modifications, and other unapproved but difficult to enforce by the Federation activities along the border regions.

So, where they couldn't seize Starfleet assets by force, they did so by commerce.

 

[Sci]

I tend to assume that Ferenginar (along with Bajor, Cardassia, and Tzenketh) is located in the former Delphic Expanse. The worlds that comprised the core of the Federation avoided the Expanse for decades, and I imagine it took them some time to overcome fear of the Expanse and start exploring that region of space; instead, expansion was focused in the region of space where the UFP came into contact with the Klingons and Romulans. That would explain why the UFP seemingly had so few contacts with the worlds of that region until the 24th Century.

 

[Arpy]

I think it’s Christopher Bennett who also suggested a massive Economic Depression that hit the Ferengi Alliance during the 22nd Century (maybe taking his cue from the Great Monetary Collapse that Quark mentioned befell the Alliance when he was a younger man) that curtailed the Ferengi’s expansion as well.

I Ira Behr also wrote a book called Legends of the Ferengi in which he says that their civilization has been around for twice as long as Earth’s yet they had to buy warp technology from the Breen — in return to rights to their polar ice caps. Maybe spending all their time going boom and bust and only caring about swindling the other guy isn’t conducive to timely broader growth.

There are positives being Ferengi — no massive interstellar wars and genocides in their past…at least, not initiated by them…if Quark’s assessment of Ferengi history can be trusted. But at the same time, it’s a ruthless existence…of juvenile illiteracy, indentured servitude for females, and maybe a silent holocaust for the poor…hmmm…I’d like to get a look at Quark’s numbers for how many died in human wars vs how many in Ferengi gutters.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I tend to assume that Ferenginar (along with Bajor, Cardassia, and Tzenketh) is located in the former Delphic Expanse. The worlds that comprised the core of the Federation avoided the Expanse for decades, and I imagine it took them some time to overcome fear of the Expanse and start exploring that region of space; instead, expansion was focused in the region of space where the UFP came into contact with the Klingons and Romulans. That would explain why the UFP seemingly had so few contacts with the worlds of that region until the 24th Century.

That's the theory I always used to go with, but then the Stellar Cartography book located the Delphic Expanse on the opposite side of the Federation from Ferenginar. So I guess it all depends on how much credence you give to the peripheral materials.

Personally, I always liked the idea of Ferengi Space being in or near or "behind" the Delphic Expanse because of the Ferengi encounter with the Stargazer at the Xendi Sabu System, and the nearby Xendi Starbase 9, which I like to think of as bastardizations of "Xindi" after 200 years, much like "V'Draysh" is the Emerald Chain and Alcorian name for the Federation. So by the time of TNG the Xindi are members of the Federation with their own Federation starbases as was mentioned by Daniels in the 25th century scenes aboard the Enterprise-J.

There's also a Xendi Kabu System from TNG Bloodline, but since that was intended to be Xendi Sabu again and they just messed up, that's up to the person whether they want to include that as well.

Of course, I also like to say that the Aurelians and Skorr from TAS are both long lost Xindi Avian colony worlds from back during the first Xindi Diaspora who cut off contact with the homeworld (because they were being hunted down in the wars with their fellow Xindi) and suppressed the history of their origins, which is why the other Xindi thought they had gone completely extinct.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Space is really, really big.

 

[XCV330]

If the federation profess to having no money, what the hell to the Ferengi want to do with those heathens?

 

[Orphalesion]

I had originally envisioned Ferengi space as being closer to Cardassian territory, based on how frequently travel occurs between Ferenginar and Deep Space Nine.

Deep Space 9 was particularly bad in that aspect, though. It kinda seemed like everything and everybody in the Alpha/Beta quadrants was just in the neighbourhood of Bajor and the Space Station, be it Ferenginar, Earth, Betazed, Earth and even the Klingon Empire that now, apparently, has a border with the Cardassians and can easily annex Cardassian space...
(of course the way territory is marked on those expanded universe maps is always a problem)

But yeah, I think the idea in early TNG was that the Federation had just begun expanding into an area where they were close enough to encounter the Ferengi. Enterprise with its clumsy attempts to shoehorn 24th century aspects into the prequel show has little effect on that, imo.

 

[Arpy]

Yeah, the distance thing always bothered me. Writers know nothing about science or, at times, politics.

To the former point, it would have been cool if DEEP SPACE 9 felt more like it took a while to get to and Cardassian territory was further away from Romulus and Kronos. And the core Federation.

To the latter point, the idea that Cardassia is ONE star system over from Bajor…and that the Cardassians then abandoned it to be administrated by their former wartime enemies and the biggest power in half the galaxy…is looney tunes.

 

[XCV330]

Yeah, the distance thing always bothered me. Writers know nothing about science or, at times, politics.

To the former point, it would have been cool if DEEP SPACE 9 felt more like it took a while to get to and Cardassian territory was further away from Romulus and Kronos. And the core Federation.

To the latter point, the idea that Cardassia is ONE star system over from Bajor…and that the Cardassians then abandoned it to be administrated by their former wartime enemies and the biggest power in half the galaxy…is looney tunes.

In the same way Sol/Earth system is right on Kronos' doorstep, yet the Vulcan's didn't tell humanity about the Klingon Empire for 80 years, the Earth Cargo Service heard nothing about it, and the Klingons themselves had no interest in subjugating a new upstart power.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Yeah, the distance thing always bothered me. Writers know nothing about science or, at times, politics.

Nah, they didn't know anything about that during the 4th thru the 7th seasons. The 1st 3 seasons of DS9 had the distances appropriate because the series at the time wasn't centered as the hub for their own "Star Wars" seasons beginning with the Klingons, "The Way of the Warrior". If many of you would simply re-watch the so-called boring version of the seasons 1, 2, & 3 you'll see the station and the Bajoran system were many lightyears away from everything around them; as the advertisements were back then, its alone and it waits.

As for the politics, the work done in the beginning of DS9 was IMO some compelling television; probably too good for the viewer who had to see things blow up every 10 minutes. My heroes had to deal with a race of people who were conflicted by their tragic history and moving forward with an enemy who's within their orbit and had the intellect to be as dangerous as any foe the Federation has ever encountered.

To the former point, it would have been cool if DEEP SPACE 9 felt more like it took a while to get to and Cardassian territory was further away from Romulus and Kronos. And the core Federation.

It was farther away, something which was obvious in the beginning of the show's run.

To the latter point, the idea that Cardassia is ONE star system over from Bajor…and that the Cardassians then abandoned it to be administrated by their former wartime enemies and the biggest power in half the galaxy…is looney tunes.

The Federation is now present and the Bajorans made a pact, I appreciated the background to what could create conflict for my heroes for years to come. Yet, to be completely abandoned and later the villains were castrated just to have space wars with Odo's people who didn't have an ounce of intrigue like the Cardassians. Yawn!

 

[Sci]

Nothing about DS9 implied that Qo'noS or Romulus were close to the Bajor system. The show was very clear that the areas of conflict during the Dominion War covered vast distances, and that both the Klingons and the Romulans maintained large expeditionary fleets near Cardassian/Dominion space as a result of the Dominion conflict. Even Ferenginar was depicted as being some distance from the Bajor system -- episodes set on Ferenginar routinely featured time jumps that skipped the journeys between the station and Ferengi space.

 

[Arpy]

Nah, they didn't know anything about that during the 4th thru the 7th seasons. The 1st 3 seasons of DS9 had the distances appropriate because the series at the time wasn't centered as the hub for their own "Star Wars" seasons beginning with the Klingons, "The Way of the Warrior". If many of you would simply re-watch the so-called boring version of the seasons 1, 2, & 3 you'll see the station and the Bajoran system were many lightyears away from everything around them; as the advertisements were back then, its alone and it waits.

As for the politics, the work done in the beginning of DS9 was IMO some compelling television; probably too good for the viewer who had to see things blow up every 10 minutes. My heroes had to deal with a race of people who were conflicted by their tragic history and moving forward with an enemy who's within their orbit and had the intellect to be as dangerous as any foe the Federation has ever encountered.


It was farther away, something which was obvious in the beginning of the show's run.


The Federation is now present and the Bajorans made a pact, I appreciated the background to what could create conflict for my heroes for years to come. Yet, to be completely abandoned and later the villains were castrated just to have space wars with Odo's people who didn't have an ounce of intrigue like the Cardassians. Yawn!

The show did a better job of it in the beginning, barely, but never really sold it. And the same writers did the opposite in the mid and later series. Just what it is. We’re not meant to focus to closely on it because now we get Klingons in our back yard! And Sisko sailing to Cardassia in a few hours. Ooooo aaaahhhh.

Nothing about DS9 implied that Qo'noS or Romulus were close to the Bajor system. The show was very clear that the areas of conflict during the Dominion War covered vast distances, and that both the Klingons and the Romulans maintained large expeditionary fleets near Cardassian/Dominion space as a result of the Dominion conflict. Even Ferenginar was depicted as being some distance from the Bajor system -- episodes set on Ferenginar routinely featured time jumps that skipped the journeys between the station and Ferengi space.

I disagree. We sparingly got the impression that DS9 was that far away. Time jumps matter. If you’re cutting out a three month journey between scenes, that’s an artistic choice that has an effect. If you’re not talking about the Klingons having supply line issues or a vulnerable expeditionary fleet so far from its borders, that too has an effect.

I think the studio told them that being alone and far from the action didn’t test well, and with viewership dropping, they abandoned earlier ideas to bring Worf in and go big with WWII: In Space!

 

[Sci]

I disagree. We sparingly got the impression that DS9 was that far away.

It was established to be a distant outpost in the early seasons and nothing in later seasons said or implied that anything was any closer.

Time jumps matter. If you’re cutting out a three month journey between scenes, that’s an artistic choice that has an effect.

Trips to and from DS9 were routeinly depicted as taking days to complete without specifying how many days. That was true throughout the series.

I think the studio told them that being alone and far from the action didn’t test well, and with viewership dropping, they abandoned earlier ideas to bring Worf in and go big with WWII: In Space!

Studio pressure did prompt them to bring on Worf. The DS9 producers have always been very open about that.

But Behr, Moore, Wolfe, and the others have also always been very clear that introducing the Dominion, setting up a Federation/Dominion cold war, and then having it erupt into all-out war, was their creative choice, and that in point of fact Behr had to fight against Rick Berman to have the war at all.

 

[Arpy]

It was established to be a distant outpost in the early seasons and nothing in later seasons said or implied that anything was any closer.

If you set a TV show in Antarctica and have visitors from everywhere stopping by all the time, yeah, the show’s set in Antarctica, but it’s just not a realistic TV show. You forgive it if it’s a good one, but you take it for what it is.

Trips to and from DS9 were routeinly depicted as taking days to complete without specifying how many days. That was true throughout the series.

2 days or 19 or 64 or 234 days matters.

It’s the same problem in the JJ-verse. The Enterprise seems to get from Earth to Vulcan in a matter of moments due to a “time jump.” But the energy, background characters, and everyone’s hair for that matter, is precisely the same. These things have an effect.

But Behr, Moore, Wolfe, and the others have also always been very clear that introducing the Dominion, setting up a Federation/Dominion cold war, and then having it erupt into all-out war, was their creative choice, and that in point of fact Behr had to fight against Rick Berman to have the war at all.

Was it their creative choice in reaction to studio pressure due to plummeting ratings? They introduced the Dominion early enough, but so did TOS the Romulans and TNG the Borg, yet no multi-year war resulted from those introductions. They were just baddies.

 

[Lord Garth]

The Federation heard of the Ferengi as early as "Encounter at Farpoint", since they're mentioned there on Deneb IV. But they probably just didn't have direct contact. Why would the Ferengi want to have anything to do with an organization that doesn't like profit and couldn't be manipulated? So all the Federation had was second-hand, third-hand, passed down, distorted, exaggerated, rumored, made up, and overall incorrect information: like the Ferengi eat their associates.

 

[Sci]

If you set a TV show in Antarctica and have visitors from everywhere stopping by all the time, yeah, the show’s set in Antarctica, but it’s just not a realistic TV show.

It is if that base in Antarctica is strategically important and numerous nations start stationing large expeditionary forces near the base. Which is what happened in DS9.

2 days or 19 or 64 or 234 days matters.

It’s the same problem in the JJ-verse. The Enterprise seems to get from Earth to Vulcan in a matter of moments due to a “time jump.” But the energy, background characters, and everyone’s hair for that matter, is precisely the same. These things have an effect.

It matters if the amount of time it takes to get from one location to another is part of your story. If it's not, then a time jump is fine and not that important.

Was it their creative choice in reaction to studio pressure due to plummeting ratings?

No. In fact, they had to fight to get to depict the war. The studio pressured them against all forms of serialized storytelling, including the war. It was their creative decision.

They introduced the Dominion early enough, but so did TOS the Romulans and TNG the Borg, yet no multi-year war resulted from those introductions. They were just baddies.

Yes, and the writers of DS9 made a conscious decision to break from the Trek formula and do something different because they found that choice more creatively fulfilling.

 

[Arpy]

It is if that base in Antarctica is strategically important and numerous nations start stationing large expeditionary forces near the base. Which is what happened in DS9.

Except that if that we’re the case there’s be a lot more talk about the difficulty of getting there and the limits of those nations in accomplishing what they might want. None of that.

It matters if the amount of time it takes to get from one location to another is part of your story. If it's not, then a time jump is fine and not that important.

The show is called DEEP SPACE 9.

No. In fact, they had to fight to get to depict the war. The studio pressured them against all forms of serialized storytelling, including the war. It was their creative decision.

Again, it was their creative decision to do something on their show to accomplish their goals as writers/producers, among which are keeping the ratings up. Maybe they went about it in a way the studio wasn’t keen on on one way but the sexiness of a big ol’ war, one modeled after “the last good war” even, couldn’t have hurt either.

 

[Sci]

Except that if that we’re the case there’s be a lot more talk about the difficulty of getting there and the limits of those nations in accomplishing what they might want. None of that.

Star Trek has never spent time talking about the difficulty of operating a starship long distances from the civilizational center, and has no obligation to do so for DS9 to be far away from the core worlds of the UFP, Klingons, or Romulans.

The show is called DEEP SPACE 9.

Yes. And if the episode is about Quark going back to Ferenginar because he's depressed, then the six days he spent in transit from DS9 to Ferenginar are not relevant to the episode.

Again, it was their creative decision to do something on their show to accomplish their goals as writers/producers, among which are keeping the ratings up. Maybe they went about it in a way the studio wasn’t keen on on one way but the sexiness of a big ol’ war, one modeled after “the last good war” even, couldn’t have hurt either.

You are just dedicated to trying to insinuate that their decision was somehow their own legitimate artistic choice in spite of all evidence to the contrary, aren't you?

 

[Arpy]

Star Trek has never spent time talking about the difficulty of operating a starship long distances from the civilizational center, and has no obligation to do so for DS9 to be far away from the core worlds of the UFP, Klingons, or Romulans.

The series was specifically created to be about a distant outpost away from help and the status quo. I’m sorry you didn’t appreciate its initial concept. Wherever else it went, however much we like it — yeah, hi, I did too — that’s the concept.

Yes. And if the episode is about Quark going back to Ferenginar because he's depressed, then the six days he spent in transit from DS9 to Ferenginar are not relevant to the episode.

Actually they are in telling the story of how far away he went to get away from that household he hated. And how hard it might be for him now to maintain the new relationship he has with his mother this late in the game. And, again, how far away DS9 is from it all. “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to Ferenginar” could have been a great episode.

You are just dedicated to trying to insinuate that their decision was somehow their own legitimate artistic choice in spite of all evidence to the contrary, aren't you?

You know @Sci, I don’t appreciate that you often seem to be reliving previous discussions that either we’ve or that you’ve had with others whenever you and I interact here. You seem take things personally with me, and I don’t appreciate it. That said, if you can carry on this discussion politely, please explain what you mean here so that I can clarify, if my point isn’t clear from my posts above.

 

[Sci]

You know @Sci, I don’t appreciate that you often seem to be reliving previous discussions that either we’ve or that you’ve had with others whenever you and I interact here. You seem take things personally with me, and I don’t appreciate it.

This is not a continuation of prior interactions; I couldn't really name one off the top of my head.

That said, if you can carry on this discussion politely, please explain what you mean here so that I can clarify, if my point isn’t clear from my posts above.

You first tried to claim that the writers did the war as a result of studio pressure; I pointed out that that was false and that the writers did the war of their own volition. You then tried to claim that they did the war because of commercial pressure, with no evidence. You do come across as weirdly attached to the idea that they did the war because of some outside pressure, instead of just acknowledging they did the war because they wanted to do the war.