If the producers kept the concept of the Ferengi eating their busines partners...

[Unimatrix Q]

From a dialogue in "Encounter at Farpoint":

"ZORN: Captain, the Ferengi would be very interested in a base like this.

PICARD: Fine. I hope they find you as tasty
as they did their past associates."

If it wasn't simply meant to be an allegory for ruthless business people and the Ferengi were really meant to eat their business partners, i wonder how this could actually work.

How would they get the people who trade with them to actually offer themselves as a meal?

And would anyone actually do business with them, if they really eat the people who traded with them?

How could a Ferengi enforce something like that, especially in Federation space, as most people aren't suicidal? Life is the most precious thing for many people.

 

[ALF]

Picard was winding Zorn up. It worked, too. I never thought of it as a straight-up allegory... just Picard's hyperbole.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think it was supposed to mean that eating their business partners was an overt and formalized part of the agreement -- more that you dealt with them at your own risk because they might eat you instead of honoring their deals, or might get violent if a deal goes sour.

Picard was winding Zorn up. It worked, too. I never thought of it as a straight-up allegory... just Picard's hyperbole.

Remember, the Federation never actually met the Ferengi directly until "The Last Outpost" a few episodes later. As of "Farpoint," all Picard knew were rumors about the Ferengi, including rumors of cannibalistic (or technically sophontophagous) behavior.

IIRC, I posited in my novel The Buried Age that the Grand Nagus had intentionally spread those rumors to make the Ferengi seem more intimidating. I think that may have been the actual intent; recall that in "The Last Outpost," the DaiMon's image was oversized on the viewscreen, making him appear big and scary, so it was a surprise when these diminutive, gnomish figures beamed down to the planet. The idea was that they were pulling a Great and Powerful Oz sort of thing, trying to make themselves seem scarier than they were. So I don't think the producers ever intended the Ferengi to be genuinely cannibalistic.

 

[at Quark's]

I don't know, but where we talk about an "unfriendly takeover" in business, the Ferengi would probably call it an "unfriendly takeout" in that case.

 

[BillJ]

From a dialogue in "Encounter at Farpoint":

"ZORN: Captain, the Ferengi would be very interested in a base like this.

PICARD: Fine. I hope they find you as tasty
as they did their past associates."

If it wasn't simply meant to be an allegory for ruthless business people and the Ferengi were really meant to eat their business partners, i wonder how this could actually work.

I always figured Picard was simply communicating what rumors about the Ferengi were currently making their rounds.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I don't think it was supposed to mean that eating their business partners was an overt and formalized part of the agreement -- more that you dealt with them at your own risk because they might eat you instead of honoring their deals, or might get violent if a deal goes sour.




Remember, the Federation never actually met the Ferengi directly until "The Last Outpost" a few episodes later. As of "Farpoint," all Picard knew were rumors about the Ferengi, including rumors of cannibalistic (or technically sophontophagous) behavior.

IIRC, I posited in my novel The Buried Age that the Grand Nagus had intentionally spread those rumors to make the Ferengi seem more intimidating. I think that may have been the actual intent; recall that in "The Last Outpost," the DaiMon's image was oversized on the viewscreen, making him appear big and scary, so it was a surprise when these diminutive, gnomish figures beamed down to the planet. The idea was that they were pulling a Great and Powerful Oz sort of thing, trying to make themselves seem scarier than they were. So I don't think the producers ever intended the Ferengi to be genuinely cannibalistic.

But wouldn't spreading such rumors be contraproductive to their business goals?
Especially if they really did something like this, from time to time.

And if they really ate other sophonts, how could they actually get their prey? It's not like all the people they were dealing with, were unarmed and the Ferengi in many cases don't arrive in big numbers.

To come back to the other issue, Picard doesn't strike me as the kind of person which uses unfounded rumors to reach his goals.

I know this concept was silently retconned away, but i wonder about how different Ferengi culture, and the interactions with them, would have been if that concept didn't went away.

 

[Timo]

I really don't think the concept ever existed. Instead, the concept that Picard tells mischievous or malicious lies is the one that the writers soon ditched...

Eating your enemies is a Klingon custom, on occasion. It doesn't seem to hinder their road to galactic success much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

Ever heard of the phrase “they’ll eat you alive?” It doesn’t mean you’ll literally get eaten. It means they’re going to take you for all you’re worth. That’s how I interpret the line.

Plus, this was “Encounter at Farpoint.” Everyone said stupid things in that episode.

 

[Christopher]

But wouldn't spreading such rumors be contraproductive to their business goals?

No more than it's counterproductive for mobsters to get people to give them what they want by threatening violence if they refuse. "This is a nice planet you have here. Be a shame if anything... happened to it."

And if your species is relatively small and weak, it's not surprising that you'd want to convey an impression that you were big, scary, and dangerous, to protect yourselves from being preyed on. Balok did the same thing in "The Corbomite Maneuver." It's protective camouflage.

Especially if they really did something like this, from time to time.

As I said, I profoundly doubt that was ever on the table as a possibility. We know that Roddenberry always intended the Ferengi to be a satire of capitalists, small, grasping, and rodentlike in appearance. (The Usurians in Doctor Who: "The Sunmakers" are along the same lines, as are the banker goblins in Harry Potter. It's a common trope in Western culture; unfortunately it's probably rooted in old anti-Semitic stereotypes, but it's become detached enough from that origin that most people who use it in SF/fantasy are probably unaware of its basis.) That was the case before "Farpoint" was written, so the "find you as tasty" line was probably never meant to represent anything more than a rumor.

And if they really ate other sophonts, how could they actually get their prey? It's not like all the people they were dealing with, were unarmed and the Ferengi in many cases don't arrive in big numbers.

Best not to confuse how the Ferengi were originally conceived with how they were portrayed in later seasons under different showrunners. Remember, whenever we saw the Ferengi in the first two seasons of TNG, they were always in their Marauder-type warships, which were massive vessels not much smaller than the Enterprise-D. Initially, they were portrayed as a powerful military force. It was only later, when the attempt to build them up as TNG's answer to the Klingons failed, that they were repurposed as comic adversaries and started to show up as individual merchants and businessmen instead of warship commanders and crews.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

On the other hand, given how weird the start of season 1 is when it comes to cannibalism (Selay delegate, anyone - lol) I would not put it past them (the writers) to actually have MEANT for the Ferengi to be cannibals, or at least to be rumored as such. They WERE meant to be the new super scary villains, after all.

However, I tend to think Jean-Luc wasn't being literal. It's the way he says it, it's too sassy. I mean he doesn't say "Be careful, Zorn, the Ferengi are going to have you for dinner." He says, "I hope they find you as tasty as they did their past associates." Zzzzzzzzzing. Typical Jean-Luc sass. It sounds more like something that's based on an "omg did you hear, the Ferengi eat their business partners" rumor that's been going around but not an actual fact. And it's more meant as a "I'm calling your bluff before you can play it out, dude" remark towards Zorn because he's mentioning the Ferengi as potential new business partners.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

https://forgottentrek.com/creating-the-ferengi/

According to this article the producers originally really had the idea in mind to make the Ferengi vicious sophontophages at the beginning.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

https://forgottentrek.com/creating-the-ferengi/

According to this article the producers originally really had the idea in mind to make the Ferengi vicious sophontophages at the beginning.

OMG I was right... and here I was, sitting here like "the writers wouldn't, would they... hmm... it was season 1's weird beginning... AND they had the Anticans eat the Selay... okay, they probably WOULD, I'm just gonna go ahead and type this..."

Man, TNG's season 1 was wild.

 

[Christopher]

https://forgottentrek.com/creating-the-ferengi/

According to this article the producers originally really had the idea in mind to make the Ferengi vicious sophontophages at the beginning.

Uhh, that is not at all what the article says.

Other ways were explored to make the Ferengi seem more dangerous. “Encounter at Farpoint” mentions a rumor they ate people.

I was worried about that, because I thought it would allow people to turn around and step away from the larger issues that these villains were about because they could just say, “Oh well, they’re just a bunch of cannibals,” as opposed to saying, “Yeah, they seem silly but you find yourselves agreeing with them. They get things done, they’re wearing the hot clothes and they’re the ones living life with all the stuff.”

The result was that the Ferengi ended up being taken less seriously than Wright had hoped.

All that says is that the Ferengi's developer Herb Wright opposed the idea of rumors that they were cannibalistic, for fear that the audience would believe those rumors and misinterpret the Ferengi as mere cannibals rather than the nuanced take on capitalists that he had in mind. The article only mentions the rumor; it never says whether it was intended to be true or not, but Wright certainly didn't want it to be.

It was [Roddenberry's] idea that it was by law that no female Ferengi could even own clothing, let alone wear it.

Why am I not surprised...?

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Uhh, that is not at all what the article says.


All that says is that the Ferengi's developer Herb Wright opposed the idea of rumors that they were cannibalistic, for fear that the audience would believe those rumors and misinterpret the Ferengi as mere cannibals rather than the nuanced take on capitalists that he had in mind. The article only mentions the rumor; it never says whether it was intended to be true or not, but Wright certainly didn't want it to be.




Why am I not surprised...?

Maybe i interpreted it wrong, but it seemed to me from reading the article that they were brainstorming ideas to make the Ferengi the new main adversary of the Federation and came up with sophontophagy as one possible trait for them. But they decided very quickly that this would have been a bad idea.

 

[Herbert]

To come back to the other issue, Picard doesn't strike me as the kind of person which uses unfounded rumors to reach his goals.
.

It's literally the first episode of the series and the characters weren't fleshed out then. You're overanalyzing.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

It's literally the first episode of the series and the characters weren't fleshed out then. You're overanalyzing.

Maybe, but according to what members of the production team have said, it could be that it wasn't just Picard's character that was retconned but (also) the nature of the Ferengi.

 

[Vger23]

Silliness.......

 

[Dukhat]

The problem here is that the Ferengi as originally envisioned were not actually evil. They were just capitalists in a universe where the acquisition of money and material possessions were supposedly frowned upon by ‘enlightened’ humans. But someone decided to give them fearsome attributes such as the aforementioned hint of sophontophagism (which is actually just a made-up word) which culminated in their disastrous first appearance on screen.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe i interpreted it wrong, but it seemed to me from reading the article that they were brainstorming ideas to make the Ferengi the new main adversary of the Federation and came up with sophontophagy as one possible trait for them. But they decided very quickly that this would have been a bad idea.

Again: The only thing that article confirms is that "Farpoint" established rumors of their cannibalism. As I read it, Wright is saying that he was concerned that viewers would mistake the rumor for a fact and thus misunderstand the Ferengi's real nature.

sophontophagism (which is actually just a made-up word)

Every word is a made-up word. In this case, it's logically derived from Greek roots, which is something that's been routinely done for centuries to create scientific and technical terms and other neologisms. "Sophont," granted, is a word that was coined in the 1960s by Karen Anderson (wife of SF author Poul Anderson), but it's derived from Greek roots meaning "intelligent being," and it's become accepted in science fiction as a species-neutral alternative for "human" or "person." "Anthropophagy" is the formal term for the consumption of humans (it's only "cannibalism" when it's eating one's own species, so a more general term is needed), so it's a simple matter of substituting "sophont."

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Again: The only thing that article confirms is that "Farpoint" established rumors of their cannibalism. As I read it, Wright is saying that he was concerned that viewers would mistake the rumor for a fact and thus misunderstand the Ferengi's real nature.

Yeah, but the rumors were already there since EoF. And if they further went this way, sooner or later there would have been an episode with either a confirmation or a denial if the rumors were true or not...