What if the Ferengi had joined the war?

[hyzmarca]

i understood the ferengis didn't believe in taxes? so, how would the 'state' pay for a military? unlike the feds, romulans, klingons etc ferenginar doesn't seem to be an empire, but a single muddy planet. according to an st encyclopedia, the d'kora class was roughly a match for the galaxy ships, but the ferengi had no more than some 200 of them. their whole fleet was less than 1/10 the size of starfleet.

Ferenginar does have taxes. The Ferengi Alliance apparently taxes every single interaction with the government. These taxes, however, aren't called taxes. They're generally thought of as bribes. The Ferengi government runs on a complex system of mandatory bribes, which trickle upward towards the Grand Nagus, with everyone along the way taking their personal cut. From the Nagus, the money flows down again.

Maintaining one's rank requires keeping all the necessary fees paid in full and advancing in rank requires even greater payment. Someone who wishes to be Daimon of a Ferengi starship, for example, must be able to afford the cost of both purchasing the rank and leasing the ship from the Ferengi government. This way, only the most able of traders can afford to be D'kora captains for very long.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Which is one of the reasons why Ferenginar is about as good an indictment of capitalism a still life of a bowl of fruit.

 

[MikeS]

Wonder why those Ferengi whips never showed up in DS9, by the way. Those were awesome, lol.

One did. On a "Maurauder Mo" action figure owned by Quark.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

The death blow to the idea is The Magnificent Ferengi. The love of Zek's life is kidnapped by the Dominion (?!?) and rather than dispatching the fleet, he asks Quark to rescue her.

Perhaps the rationale is that Zek would appear weak in the eyes of other Ferengi if they discovered he so valued a female's life.

 

[Myasishchev]

Plus, Zek was apparently anti-war, and, besides, throwing a thousand Marauders at a hostage situation probably isn't the best way to resolve it.

 

[Jono]

According to Quark war isn't the Ferengi way, at least fighting it...supplying one is a lot different. Negotiating, dealing and bribery are how the Ferengi go about things.

 

[Lt.Cmdr.LaForge]

I think it would have been so awesome to see how a ferengi army would funtion, it would have been hilarious, adding much needed comedy relief to the war. But at the same time it would have been something we could take seriously. After all, the Ferengi were clearly more allied to the federation than the dominion, though this was never said ofc.

So ye, they should have done it!

 

[Jono]

^ The Nagus was getting reports from Starfleet Intelligence so they had some sort of deal going on.

 

[Timo]

But the Alpha fighting nations would have been wise not to make it public that the Ferengi were on their side. Much better to remain in the grey zone, so the Ferengi would still be trusted by their Gamma contacts, and not be actively targeted.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

The Ferengi wouldn't need a powerful military because they are too smart for that. They know they wouldn't stand much chance if the Klingons or the Cardassians or whoever decided to invade, so they don't even bother to fight on those terms.

They avoid all conflicts in the first place by either projecting an image of power and mystery to those who don't know them (as in early TNG), or by making themselves everyone's vital trading partner. I'm sure they were doing business with the Dominion and the Cardassians during the War as much as they were with the Federation. I'd say they probably had pro-Allied leanings (the Dominion kidnapping the Grand Nagus' girlfriend can't have helped), but they would have kept a careful balance to keep Ferenginar safe.

They had their own domestic problems around the same time anyway.

 

[MikeS]

I suppose we could liken the Ferengi to the Swiss in World War II.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Of course, their silly makeup design made it impossible for anyone to take them seriously as villains, and they got some great character development as a result.

I'd say it was more the silly body language the actors were required to use that made them into a joke. I can easily see Shimerman's Quark as a threatening character with just a quarter turn: more of the roguish self-assurance, less of the cringing cowardice.

 

[Myasishchev]

^A salient point. The direction in "The Last Outpost" for the Ferengi was atrocious, and it just seemed to persist for another twenty years. Their appearance is even actually pretty good, but their monkey-stances undermined them.

And I agree that Armin Shimerman given half a chance could have easily created a vicious Ferengi villain, if that's what they'd wanted from him.

Anyway, I forget if I said this earlier, but even if the Ferengi Alliance never joined the war itself, I wonder why the Feds or Roms didn't at least hire individual daimons with their badass ships to fight.

 

[Tomalak]

Because one or two shiploads of Ferengi mercenaries wouldn't have made a tiny bit of difference, and would have cost a bomb probably.

I suppose we could liken the Ferengi to the Swiss in World War II.

Hoarding Nazi latinum?

 

[Admiral Shran]

I think it would have worked better for the Dominion and Cardassians to hire individual Ferengi daimons as mercenaries.

The Romulans would never truly trust them if they were simply hired guns. The Klingons probably would find the idea dishonorable. And the Federation would never stoop to hiring mercenaries, they would just trick the Ferengi into the war.

The Dominion/Cardassians, on the other hand, seem like the kinds of people who would trust someone whose loyalty can be bought for hard cash.

 

[Snaploud]

I suppose the Federation could have paid the Ferengi to fight, but they hardly would have been motivated to fight to the death. You could also never be sure whether the Dominion was going to give one or more of the ships a better offer.