Salvaging the Ferengi

[CharlesPhipps]

I always felt like that could be an excellent justification for the Federation. They could come across any number of worlds with advanced technology but barbaric social conditions and justify it as, "We got it from these other dudes."

[FaxModem1]

Howzabout this... The Ferengi aren't bound by the Prime Directive. They can offer technologies to worlds, nation-states on those worlds, or just leaders of those nation-states, in exchange for the natives service as military personnel or sales staff.

Imagine a Damon dropping in on Putin and offering phaser cannon in exchange for a couple thousand Russians "volunteers" to staff Ferengi Marauders. And if Putin used those cannon to subjugate Earth, you now have a planet that really wants to stay on good terms with the Ferengi, and no particular reason to be on friendly terms with the United Federation of Planets.

"The Ferengi helped us take over the world, cured several forms of cancer, gave us clean, cheap fusion in exchange for a base on Earth. What do you offer us, Captain Picard?"

Sounds like what the Klingons did in A Private Little War

[Karha of Honor]

Mind you, the Ferengi are a poor poor work on capitalism.

They're a fun race but how do you do a critique of capitalism with no corporations?

You don't and Trek will be fine.

[CharlesPhipps]

Mind you, the Ferengi are a poor poor work on capitalism.

They're a fun race but how do you do a critique of capitalism with no corporations?

You don't and Trek will be fine.

Trek can critique everything so why not?

[Karha of Honor]

Mind you, the Ferengi are a poor poor work on capitalism.

They're a fun race but how do you do a critique of capitalism with no corporations?

You don't and Trek will be fine.

Trek can critique everything so why not?

When did they do that well ever besides the fact that Trek is a rare legacy brand?

[phantom000]

The Ferengi could have been a good exploration of the duel nature of capitalism. There are many ways you could do it. A simple way would be to have recurring characters who represent the different aspects of capitalism, good and bad.

Have one character is just a step down from a Cortez or a Ghangis Khan; representing how commercial interests can become strategic in nature and that after the merchants and traders, the soldiers are usually next to arrive.

On the other side you have a merchant/explorer, who travels the galaxy doing deals for profit but just uses the capital to go further into space. As a twist you could say that this is actually Zek, destined to become the new grand nages of the alliance and lead his people into a new era.

[Darth Wedgius]

Howzabout this... The Ferengi aren't bound by the Prime Directive. They can offer technologies to worlds, nation-states on those worlds, or just leaders of those nation-states, in exchange for the natives service as military personnel or sales staff.

Imagine a Damon dropping in on Putin and offering phaser cannon in exchange for a couple thousand Russians "volunteers" to staff Ferengi Marauders. And if Putin used those cannon to subjugate Earth, you now have a planet that really wants to stay on good terms with the Ferengi, and no particular reason to be on friendly terms with the United Federation of Planets.

"The Ferengi helped us take over the world, cured several forms of cancer, gave us clean, cheap fusion in exchange for a base on Earth. What do you offer us, Captain Picard?"

Sounds like what the Klingons did in A Private Little War

A lot like that, but without any subterfuge or subtlety. In "A Private Little War," of course, Kirk interferes. Somewhat like the crazy admiral of the week had done in TNG's "Too Short a Season" -- give equally good technology to space-Putin's foes. Then again, that didn't turn out very well for anybody, and I could see Picard washing his hands of the whole thing, giving a quick speech on how the Ferengi machinations will inevitably turn out for the worse, and warping off to next week's new world and new civilization.

Or Starfleet could blockade planets so the Ferengi couldn't come along and offer cures for cancer or clean, practical fusion. For the planets' own good, of course.

You know, I think I might be seeing why the producers didn't go that route...

[CharlesPhipps]

Honestly, if I had to do the Ferengi over and could redesign them (including the ears), I'd probably have based them on the British Empire of all things. The Enterprise crew would encounter big, huge, Star Destroyer sized vessels and then discover they're mass industrial replication centers as well as bazaars that go from planet to planet to bring people into their empire. Except unlike the Klingons, they do it with wealth as well as conquest.

There's automatically quite a few plots you can do with this.

* The Enterprise has the technology to break a planet free from their utter dependence on the Ferengi but doing so is a major Prime Directive violation.
* The Enterprise finds that the Ferengi have basically given the United States or Soviet Union of a planet in the 50s an unlimited tech advantage over their rivals.
* The Enterprise is stunned to find out they've been dealing with not the Ferengi government but a megacorporation East India Company equivalent. The Enterprise finds itself sued by the equivalent and have to go to said nation to defend themselves in court or lose all potential diplomatic ties.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

You know, a really big part of the problem is they were repeatedly presented as a scary threat, but were also presented as bumbling doofuses.

What if they were less Yankee Traders, who honestly weren't the most menacing part of capitalism, and more, well, robber barons and silicon valley industrialists? They can be very villainous if you want, but make them a threat in that way. Claiming rights to a desert planet's only water source and selling it back to the inhabitants. Tricking people into indentured servitude with compound interest. Devious surveillance tech that could get major powers into a bidding war over sensitive information of their enemies and allies.

Capitalism has LOTS of scary, menacing things, and there's lots of ways you can make greedy capitalists into a legitimate threat. Just put a bit more effort into HOW they are threatening and stop having them jump around like angry hamsters.

Heck, remember that one episode where there was a death probe demonstration model that the heroes only got to stop attacking them by offering to buy it? Imagine if the Ferenghi mass-produced those to protect their strip-mining operations.

[CharlesPhipps]

They weren't used as that terrifying a threat for very long.

Mostly because we eventually got the Borg and Cardassians.

I still think of the Cardassians as the best of Star Trek's villains but I also admit they more or less rendered the remade Romulans redundant.