Agreed, the DS9 Ferengi grew on me, too
Actually, in one episode Quark explained to Sisko why Ferengi are nicer people than humans!
Redesign the Ferengi
- Thread starter Cromwell
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Actually, in one episode Quark explained to Sisko why Ferengi are nicer people than humans!
Actually, in one episode Quark explained to Sisko why Ferengi are nicer people than humans!
Eh....that explanation was rather hokey. Basically he claimed Ferengi never had things like genocide and slavery.
I admit we don't know about the genocide, though it would be remarkable indeed if in all their history no group of Ferengi decided to kill another.
Slavery....might I remind people how they treat their women? It might not be called "slavery" but that's pretty much was it is.
To me it was just Quark bullshitting and Sisko didn't call him ot on it because when it comes down to it, Sisko didn't know much about the Ferengi (which was exactly the point Quark tried to make during the whole episode)
Of course it can also be that Quark was not introspective enough to link the fate of Ferengi women to slavery but then the same could be true for genocide. It has happened on Ferenginar at some point but the historians managed to rationalize it away in some form.
Yeah it would be inevitable that the space mob Ferengi would gain a bad reputation, but so did the canonical Ferengi. The concept would be that the Ferengi would be so beautiful, eloquent and welcoming that many people would have trouble believing what they have heard of them. Any bad reputation would just be dismissed by the Ferengi as people either trying to undermine them or not understanding the finer point of business.
"We admit there was the occasional....unpleasantness when some of our clients tried to swindle out of contracts, but you know the Federation, they always blow things out of proportion and what they don't understand they demonize. And besides that as long as you hold up your side of the bargain you will have nothing to worry about. The Ferengi will be your best friends."
Kind of like Discworld Elves; everybody knows they are monsters and yet with their glamour they can still convince you that you are the villain for daring to stand against them.
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Indentured servants. That would be the run around "slavery".
Not sure if it the case with the women. Quark's mom seemed to be able to command just about anything out of her boys. Cultural division is not always slavery in the strickest of terms. Sometimes it is cultural because that is just how things are always done. Someone in that culture would not see it as slavery, but as normal.
Not sure if it the case with the women. Quark's mom seemed to be able to command just about anything out of her boys. Cultural division is not always slavery in the strickest of terms. Sometimes it is cultural because that is just how things are always done. Someone in that culture would not see it as slavery, but as normal.
Slavery is much worse than the life of a Ferengi woman, pause for a second and recall Rom's first wife. There is a social order that does seem to mandate adult females in a second class role, but Orphalesion when did we hear of beatings, intense labor or being force to live like animals?
Read up on the antebellum south for what actual slavery is. Ferengi women are hardly slaves, they don't even come remotely close..
So the Ferengi can stand above Humans in that regard, no slavery.
Quark's mother had four advantages; 1) She was an incredibly headstrong woman 2) Her husband is implied to have been a pushover 30 Her husband was dead 4) She romanced the great Nagus. If I remember correctly she gained her profit using her sons' names and when it was all revealed she was in a world of trouble.
Other Ferengi women are said to be bound to the house, forbidden to wear clothing, forbidden to speak unless spoken to and have to chew the food for ther husbands/sons.
As to the "normal" part. Well people in Ancient Greece/Rome/the Vikings etc all found their slaves to be perfectly normal as well as did the Southerners in the US before the Civil War.
Yet none of these people would claim "we are better than this other group because we've never had slaves."
Doctor Who did the Ferengi. They were the Thoros Betan race. And a nice take on extreme capitalism in sci-fi, IMO. Physically small (barely more than slugs), but cunning and treacherous while using other races to do the grunt work.
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sil
Mark
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sil
Mark
I have read enough about the Antebellum South, thank you very much, it's actually one of the periods of history I am especially interested in. However being beaten doesn't define being a slave, a lack of freedom defines being a slave.Read up on the antebellum south for what actual slavery is. Ferengi women are hardly slaves, they don't even come remotely close..
So the Ferengi can stand above Humans in that regard, no slavery.
I agree that we never hear about Moogie being beaten, but again, Quark's and Rom's dad was implied to be a unusually nice Ferengi (just like Rom) but who says eery Ferengi woman had such a kind husband? Even today enough people get abused by their partner and we're living in a society where everyone is allowed to wear clothes and leave the house whenever they feel like it.
Rom and his wife...the way I understood it his wife was able to act because Rom is also a pushover and unable to garner his own profit, especially the last part seemed to enable her to do so.
Also different kinds of slaves, different kinds of masters. Ferengi women presumably have more in common with harem women than enslaved field workers.
I however still don't want to know what happens to a Ferengi woman who's married to a less moral Ferengi than Rom, Quark or their father.
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I actually think the extent to which the Ferengi have become downplayed over the years by the fandom in terms of their villainy is ridiculous.
One thing TNG was consistent about over seven seasons was the Ferengi being credible enemies of the Federation. Only on DS9 did they turn into them into this 'caricature culture', where everything had a profit motive and the idea of a Ferengi ever being any good as a soldier was laughed at (although ultimately proven).
Witness:
* The Last Outpost (season one): Okay, so first impressions aren't good.But these Ferengi make a credible go at fighting the away team in hand-to-hand combat. They've got some kind of energy weapons that can stun (and maybe even kill), they're devious manipulators (in theory), and they all have tattoos.
* The Battle (season one): Daimon Bok is an evil, devious, manipulative bastard out for revenge. A Ferengi battleship previously entered battle with the USS Stargazer and managed to take them on strongly enough that, although they didn't win the battle, the Starfleet ship was beyond repair and had to be abandoned.
* Peak Performance (season two): A Ferengi battleship interrupts the war games exercise, and everybody on both the Enterprise and the Hathaway treat it like it's a serious threat.
* Menage A Troi (season three): The Ferengi manage to kidnap one of the Federation's ambassadors right from her own home planet, as well as two trained Starfleet officers.
* Rascals (season six): A Ferengi boarding party manages to take over the Federation flagship with only a couple stolen birds-of-prey.
I could go on. But it's fair to say that, as far as TNG was concerned, they never completely forgot the idea that the Ferengi were supposed to be dangerous, nor did they ever stop making them a credible threat time and time again. As I say, only on DS9 was their culture... "explored in more detail", yes, but they got dumbed down also.
Yeah, but look closely and in most situations this argument lacks serious merit.
The Last Outpost, We never see how the ships match up. As firefighting scenes, while its certainly possible that they are equals to humans, data is no problem and Worf is fighting multiple. And none of them seem to be trying to strike the Ferengi, just get them off of them. Later Tasha has no problem causing pain to a Ferengi.
In The Battle, we find out the Stargazer was ambushed without shields and damaged severely. Well many ships could seriously damage another ship when caught in a surprise attack without shields. the fact that an aggressive Ferengi attacking ship is taken out by the Picard Maneuver is pretty sad. What did they not have shields either? I mean seriously who enters and attacks another without having shields? We don't see any other race in modern Trek doing that except ships that lack real shielding, like how in season 5 it takes simply one phaser shot to destroy a ship that is roughly (in their words a hundred years behind them in technology).
in The Battle, Dai Mon Bok is acting in a way very unlike normal behavior, enough to have it cost him his ship.
In peak Performance neither ship attacked (and again when the Enterprise that it was a computer trick) had active weapons, one didn't have fully functional warp drive (a one second burst isn't going to let you flee another ship under normal situations). Nor did ships have shields active. I mean we are shown that a ship without shields is a much easier to take out target. We have seen this in several different episodes.
As for Menage A Troi, any ship with a transporter could kidnap someone on vacation. clearly once the Enterprise caught up to the Marauder, that captain didn't think his ship any match for the Enterprise. it's not ever treated as even a possibility. The only issue with that episode is how long it would take to track someone down who did the kidnapping.
When the Ferengi take over the Enterprise it is because they were taking in a surprise attack using another races ships and technology (an ally of the Federations).
I can't find a single example of Starfleet and Ferengi forces facing each other openly where the Ferengi are shown to be any threat at all.
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I have read enough about the Antebellum South, thank you very much, it's actually one of the periods of history I am especially interested in. However being beaten doesn't define being a slave, a lack of freedom defines being a slave.Read up on the antebellum south for what actual slavery is. Ferengi women are hardly slaves, they don't even come remotely close..
So the Ferengi can stand above Humans in that regard, no slavery.
I agree that we never hear about Moogie being beaten, but again, Quark's and Rom's dad was implied to be a unusually nice Ferengi (just like Rom) but who says eery Ferengi woman had such a kind husband? Even today enough people get abused by their partner and we're living in a society where everyone is allowed to wear clothes and leave the house whenever they feel like it.
Rom and his wife...the way I understood it his wife was able to act because Rom is also a pushover and unable to garner his own profit, especially the last part seemed to enable her to do so.
Also different kinds of slaves, different kinds of masters. Ferengi women presumably have more in common with harem women than enslaved field workers.
I however still don't want to know what happens to a Ferengi woman who's married to a less moral Ferengi than Rom, Quark or their father.
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It isn't all that different that how women were treated in past centuries. Basically property of the head male of the household (father, then later husbands after being married off). The extremes for the Ferengi women are basically just inverted to be different (chewing the food instead of preparing the food, and total lack of clothing as oppose to being totally covered from head to tow).
Yet the treatment of women by their families in centuries past is generally not called slavery.
To a Ferengi a naked woman is normal. Not very sexual. A clothed woman? Now that is perverted. Totally hot.
The way the Ferengi treat their females is appalling and negates any "good" they may have over the Federation, or humans, in terms of politics or their stance and actions. Keep in mind the Ferengi, in Earth's 24th Century, are treating their females -in an advanced, warp-capable, interstellar society- the way humans treated women before we developed a sense of civilization. Sure, when we built civilization women were hardly treated as "great" but hardly the way we hear that women are treated on Ferenginar. Women not being allowed to vote or being treated as "speak when spoken too, can't hold a job and be considered as someone abandoning their duties in the home" is a lot different than, "Don't wear clothes, stay home, can't own anything at all and your only use to society is to feed and sexually please your husband."
And it's amazing it took Quark -dressed as a female- to tell political figures in Ferengi Society that by disalllowing females from owning anything cuts their potential consumer base in half.
And it's amazing it took Quark -dressed as a female- to tell political figures in Ferengi Society that by disalllowing females from owning anything cuts their potential consumer base in half.
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