The thing with Rom is he is presented as the hero of the story because he adopted human values. He's a terrible Ferengi, he's a great human. I like Rom just fine and I seem to recall that in a long past "who would you marry on DS9" thread I actually said Rom because even though Quark is 1000 X hotter at the end of the day I am a human and long term I would have to invest in someone with human-friendly values. And yes Ferengi having a micro-penis would bother me but I have absolutely no doubt that Rom got the operation for that to please Leeta because he is just that kind of guy. But anyway, it pains me to watch how patronizing Sisko is to Ferengi, how they will respect other cultures that are exotic and cool but not grubby and messy in their eyes. They definitely see the Ferengi as primitives, recoiling at their food etc.. (people recoiling at food always annoys me, it is one thing to not like a food but it's another to express disgust at another culture's food). And really it's all prepped for a patronizing relationship because the Federation didn't just come up with a better system than money they evolved away from the need for materialism and greed. So ya know, if you still have that in your culture you are obviously not as evolved. It's quite a little set up they have going there with that evolved crap. Yes I know Picard doesn't strictly say the evolve word about the greed, but he says it to Lily about other things "We have a more evolved sensibility" as well as telling her how fab the feds are because they have moved beyond money. Uh huh.
Humans will not stop seeing Ferengi as lesser beings until the Ferengi give up profit as their driving force. "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
And what pains me about Rom is they make him a hero because he has human values. This is of course a very Star Trek thing to do, it just seemed like Rom was a more fleshed out character than your usual alien of the week who goes against his culture to do human thing and save the day. I can hack the search for humanity in Spock, Data, 7 of 9 but I can't hack the imposition of humanity upon other cultures being always about the good guys winning and the bad guys seeing the error of their ways.
Anyway. The Ferengi are cool. I wish someone had given Janeway this speech she was an utter snob about the Ferengi as well. I suspect it's hard to rise up in Starfleet without that, "we were warned about the Ferengi at the academy". Really you'd have to shelve your massive, planet wide, propaganda rich superiority complex and work and live with Ferengi every day to see them as people with their own value systems and differences and similarities to yourself. Leeta did it. Can imagine Janeway ever doing so.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5J_qn93Nkc[/yt]
Humans will not stop seeing Ferengi as lesser beings until the Ferengi give up profit as their driving force. "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
And what pains me about Rom is they make him a hero because he has human values. This is of course a very Star Trek thing to do, it just seemed like Rom was a more fleshed out character than your usual alien of the week who goes against his culture to do human thing and save the day. I can hack the search for humanity in Spock, Data, 7 of 9 but I can't hack the imposition of humanity upon other cultures being always about the good guys winning and the bad guys seeing the error of their ways.
Anyway. The Ferengi are cool. I wish someone had given Janeway this speech she was an utter snob about the Ferengi as well. I suspect it's hard to rise up in Starfleet without that, "we were warned about the Ferengi at the academy". Really you'd have to shelve your massive, planet wide, propaganda rich superiority complex and work and live with Ferengi every day to see them as people with their own value systems and differences and similarities to yourself. Leeta did it. Can imagine Janeway ever doing so.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5J_qn93Nkc[/yt]
