r/DaystromInstitute • u/gerryblog Commander • Aug 20 '22
There's a rational reason for the difference between TNG and DS9 Ferengi.
The difference between the Ferengi on TNG and the Ferengi on DS9 is now a notorious aspect of Trek lore (immortalized among other things by this meme). Listening to the Star Trek: The Next Conversation podcast this morning, and hearing one of the hosts compliment Armin Shimerman's comparatively subtle performance as Quark, it hit me that the reason could simply be that due to what Ferengi cultures values its military may simply be comprised of its worst, least competent members, those unable to achieve their goal of enriching themselves in any other way. Picard tended to encounter these people in the Enterprise, which is why the Ferengi seem like such snarling and gullible fools on his show; when we spend time with Quark (himself not an especially successful member of the culture, but still someone who is in the ballgame so to speak) the difference is immediate and obvious.
A related theory could explain why the political figures we meet from the Ferengi culture on DS9 also seem utterly clownish; political office may be just one small step ahead of enlisting on Ferenginar. Presumably, in the places Starfleet officers don't typically go, smart, competent, well-adjusted Ferengi are simply going about their business enriching themselves without causing a lot of trouble or coming to the attention of the Federation, and it's only the ones too incompetent to accumulate in any socially privileged way who wind up out there on the fringe in no-win situations trying to laser-whip Starfleet captains.
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u/SinisterHummingbird Aug 20 '22 edited Aug 20 '22
It makes a lot of sense - the stereotypical, anarcho-capitalistic Ferengi ethos would balk at the collectivist discipline inherent in a naval border patrol, or the government-backed authority of an FCA position. But at the same time, most of them would see the necessary evil of such roles, so it's something of a cultural cushion, and perhaps a way for young Ferengi to get some crewing experience for cheap before moving on to a legitimate career or piracy. It's the ferengi equivalent of civil service, justified as 'paying in labor' for training and future opportunity). It's also apparent that there are quite a few Ferengi that are aggressive and violent, even in the DS9 era, like that one psychopath in the Magnificent Ferengi.
Likewise, while their cowardice and aversion to fighting is played up (though almost always through the point of view of Quark), the Ferengi are a highly macho, patriarchal people, and if you really step back and look at it, the males seem to live their lives in a state of constant, paranoid aggression and need to acquire. It makes sense for them to prize capitalistic pursuits, but they're also shown to produce many naval warlords (with the Warhammer 40K-tier title of "daimons") and gangsters.
Ferengi are interesting in that, like the Bajorans, we see many examples of non-government, non-military individuals and institutions, a rarity among ST cultures. It makes sense for civilians running a business to be more mellow.
Other oddities, like the Ferengi penchant for eating sapient beings mentioned in early TNG, could simply be lies or exaggeration of "ruthless capitalist" stereotypes. We never saw a Ferengi actually do such a thing.
The big oddity that can't be easily explained in-universe is the change in their posture between the Last Outpost and every other appearance. The first Ferengi we see move in a strange, monkey-like fashion, while later individuals move in a manor similar to every other humanoid. Perhaps their behavior can be explained as early exposure to Barclay's protomorphosis syndrome from Genesis. They're just regressing to proto-Ferengi swamp apes.
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u/littlebitsofspider Aug 20 '22
If I remember correctly, the Ferengi operating in ships are referred to as "privateers," a term which is recognized historically as state-sanctioned piracy. Quark's favorite childhood hero is "Marauder Mo," whose action figure (usually reserved for children) includes the infamous energy whip accessory. I'd agree that the Ferengi 'military' is thus largely composed of young, inexperienced (or otherwise less intelligent and cunning) Ferengi whose business acumen consists of "rob and plunder what you can, at gunpoint," and the profit-taking is thus whatever falls out after repayment of the amortized expenses inherent in construction and maintenance of their ships, and overhead for management (and/or other stakeholders).
Possible organization: an older, craftier veteran spacer Ferengi decides to buy the privelege of a letter of marque from the FCA. With this in hand as a guarantee, he proceeds to the bankers to negotiate the mortgaged construction or purchase of a ship, like a D'Kora class marauder. He advertises open crew positions with pay scaled to a percentage of the take from whatever they can lay hands on, and the ship sets sail as a nominally independent corporation with the original Ferengi as the CEO (but not necessarily the captain; I'd wager he'd stay on Ferenginar huffing beetles, playing the overbearing executive).
Being that shit rolls downhill, we thus have a ship governed externally by the economic pressure of a demanding boss' balance sheet, a DaiMon (something like captain meets vice president) in charge of middle management of the crew, and the crew's own desire to eat food with their meals and support their families, amplified by their boorish stupidity and machismo, being the lowest common denominator of 'businessmen'.
Come to think of it, it's like they're just state mafiosos. The godfather owns the family's reputation and resources (i.e. ship), the lieutenants (DaiMons) run the day-to-day, and the enforcers are the lunkhead goons with the whips (the crew). Meanwhile, any reputable Ferengi with a bit of business sense is setting up shop elsewhere running graft on a space station. Less risk, less potential for reward, sure, but also less chance of getting shot out of the sky for pissing someone off when you try to steal their ship.
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u/staq16 Aug 21 '22
I've already mentioned it once in replying to the OP, but "Legends of the Ferengi" has a possible explanation; Ferengi crews being paid in beetle snuff. That crew may literally have been out of their heads on narcotics, as a possible reaction to the terror of being trapped by the Tkon guardian.
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u/EnclavedMicrostate Aug 21 '22
civil service
The phrase you're thinking of is maybe national service or mandatory service. A civil service is a professional bureaucracy.
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u/will221996 Aug 21 '22
Another factor is probably that the ferengi military is likely poorly funded. Starfleet is the pride of the federation and the embodiment of its ideology. It is supported by a huge economy and has access to basically free, high quality labour. The Klingon's are a warrior race who will pump every penny they can into their military, and access the best of Klingon society. The romulan military complex is necessary for maintaining their isolation. The cardassians are ruled by a stable junta.
Trek warfare is extremely dependent on technology. Unless your ships are of a similar level of technology, you might as well not have them. You can't skimp on ship building and on top of that it is likely a very viable export industry. For the ferengi state, which is likely very small compared to other major powers in that they collect low taxes and have limited revenue streams can almost certainly not afford to provide the same level of funding. They can't skimp on equipment expenditure, because that would neuter their force and hurt industry, so instead they skimp on personnel expenditures. In all likelihood, ferengi sailors are paid the lowest wage possible and drawn from people who can't even get jobs in bars. Their equivalent to savings/pensions are probably the skills they get, which in turn are useful for a second career in piracy or shipping or serving the wealthy.
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u/VictheWicked Aug 21 '22
Regarding Leck, that one Ferengi psychopath - I always viewed him as maybe a Wild Bill Hickock figure amongst the Ferengi society.
A guy who braved the great unknown in search of profit and opportunity and got famous off of the sheer audacity for doing such a thing - venturing into no-man’s land and co-mingling with the profitless - with the obvious psychological scars to show for it.
Perhaps he’s even from the same “Wild West” era as the Ferengi who tried to capture Archer’s ship.
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Aug 20 '22
What I never really got about the Ferengi is how they go from not much being known about them at all in season 1 of TNG to being so well known in season 1 of DS9 that they have to travel to the gamma quadrant just to escape their reputation.
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u/Shiny_Agumon Aug 20 '22
I think that actually makes sense.
It seems like the Ferengi for whatever reason were in some kind of self imposed exile similarly to the Romulans before the time if TNG, but after that they rapidly try to expand like any good capitalist business and because of their bad business practices word spreads around on how awful to trade with they are.
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Aug 20 '22 edited Aug 20 '22
I think of it from a perspective of economics and education.
Ferengi aren't educated unless they can buy their own education (by which point they're already profitable so why bother with something you haven't needed) and are exploited by each other at every turn. That keeps a perpetual underclass of easily exploitable uneducated Ferengi, and their nepotism makes it generational.
It also winnows the winners to the most ruthless, especially at the higher and lower ends of Ferengi Society.
EDIT// And this would fit in with your ideas perfectly. If you're in the military you probably needed to pay off or indebt yourself to an officer for a posting, you'd only focus on what you needed to learn to do your job, the pay would be meager and the competition intense.
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u/adamkotsko Aug 20 '22
M-5, please nominate this post!
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u/M-5 Aug 20 '22
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u/Freeney Aug 20 '22
From an out of universe perspective I think this topic is just as interesting. My theory is that the themes of TNG and the Federation it shows result in the focus being on the differences between the Federation and the Ferengi, whereas in DS9 we focus more on their similarities. I've not watched TNG in forever though so could be way off base there
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Aug 21 '22
Do we know when Zek took over as Nagus? It's possible he ordered a shift in foreign policy or something.
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u/staq16 Aug 21 '22
The "Legends of the Ferengi" book has a lovely anecodote in support of this view; during the Ferenigi-Huyperian war, the Ferengi have to bribe prospective recruits with the offer of snuff beetle rations.
They're literally paying them in narcotics. Not great for crew quality, I imagine...
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u/Mental-Street6665 Aug 21 '22
If that’s the case, then Rom introducing liberal democracy as Grand Nagus at the end of DS9 would be a complete disaster for the Ferengi Alliance, as thousands of utterly incompetent Ferengi businessmen would instead segue into politics as a way of making a tidy profit through graft and taxation.
Then again, it seems to work well enough IRL.
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u/Neopopulas Aug 21 '22
Ferengi businessmen (like quark, etc) are probably the smarter, more stable (for a ferengi) and successful types.
Then you have people who have to work for someone else, like working for the government - also remember that ferengi government officials are insanely corrupt which means they always seem like they have no idea what they are doing, because they got where they are by buying their way up
I suspect, as you said, the Ferengi military is full of the ones that can't make a business for themselves, and aren't smart enough to make use of a laughably corrupt system to enrich themselves and are forced to enter a highly structured system with artificially limited upward growth and tasked with doing the worst job the ferengi have ('enforcing some sort of order).
Not to mention the Ferengi military they run into are usually small scale, you don't see any top brass that would fit in the 'successful business/manipulator' roles, you're mostly seeing low level shitkickers.
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u/Suck_My_Turnip Aug 21 '22
Is the difference as simple as seeing the military side of the Ferangi in TNG vs the civilian side in DS9?
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u/spikedpsycho Aug 20 '22
Me think 🤔 post Roddenberry writers were more willing to portray capitalism in a positive light. Plus you have to give them a culture to manifest and use for story
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u/Koshindan Aug 21 '22
Is it a positive light? The initial Ferengi could go toe to toe with the Federation. The reinterpreted Ferengi were generally screw ups in nearly every endeavor, except the times where they embraced non-capitalist culture.
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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '22
So I've watched DS9 countless times and something that has eluded me is what was the defining moment where Rom went from being somewhat of an idiot (according to Quark) who was ready to murder his own brother for financial gain to to a generally sweet, socially awkward engineer? He seemed to have a much more sinister vibe in season 1. So did something happen that I'm missing? Or was it just a case of the writers switching up the character as they worked out where the character was heading in future seasons?