@@cvasirocket1401 I get that you're trying to inject nuance, but I don't see the nuance mentioned. Not saying it's not there, just not seeing it as you've described it
Well, if this isn't just a joke then I'd say that the borg don't want everything. In fact they'll outright ignore any species or technology they deem inferior, anything they think won't improve their collective. Fundamentally the borg's drive isn't to amass wealth or material. It's to achieve their idea of perfection. They would likely ignore anything considered rare or valuable by other species if they had no practical use for it.
Ferengis are one of the best parts of DS9 hands down. How often do we get to witness the cultural evolution of a species throughout any of the Star Trek series.
I'm surprised you overlooked this due to the comprehensive and quality nature of your content, however the Ferengi have totally been to the Delta Quadrant! It was 24th Century, so perhaps not the first contact that gave them such a low designation, but they definitely have! Two Ferengi featured in a Next Gen episode get trapped there after a wormhole collapses, and years later the crew of Voyager encounters them on a planet they've taken over by convincing the locals they are gods :)
"the crew of Voyager encounters them", you mean "a rogue federation captain attempting to enforce federation law on non federation members well outside of federation territory against the best interest of her crew". I know Voyager gets a bad rep, but I actually think it gets too much hate. However this episode just boils my piss!
@@sabin97 Islam is the worship of the Sumerian Moon God NANNAR SIN who was a son of ENLIL, the tyrannical individual who became known as Yahweh that the jews specifically worshipped after they moved on from their worship of the child sacrifice god Baal.
@@sabin97 Sorry, when you went immediately racial on me I lost interest in the rest of what you had to say. I have no patience with racists and detest them. However I did read what you wrote but you have a lot of it wrong. I can see you are writing from an elitist muslim/arabist point of view but your immediate racism has put me off discussing things further with you. I’ll leave it there.
Froget where i read it but Quark's actor was one of the original Ferrangi and felt he had to redeem the race from the rather laughable portrayal he'd set them up with. And swapping from furs to waistcoats and patterned clothe helped with the character design (bring to mind that gilded age Capitalist that the ferrangi are trying to invoke) but quark as a character went a long way to giving us a portrayal now that the ferrangi had some interactions under its belt with the federation and other powers. Then Rom and Nog. Rom showing what someone who is clearly gifted but culturally inept is like, and then grows when given another path, and Nog.... taking the best aspects of Ferrangi culture and applying them to the federation, showing just what you can get from a culture of tenacious horse traders when you expand the concept of 'profit' past latinum. Seriously Nog was amazing and I am sad the actor is gone from us.
Nog was great. You're right about the expansion of the definition of profit for him. Very smart, very tenacious, great hearing, great combination. Be made a lot of early Jake scenes much better, I think that's why they expanded his role.
I did find the Ferengi to be very well done as a species, DS9 was so well written and Directed it flush out all the interesting things about them ALL the different actors brought such life to them. Thanks for sharing your research on this race.
People keep saying TNG did the Ferengi dirty, but I disagree. In TNG it was how the Ferengi were seen, in DS9 it was how they really were. Had TNG done a better job with them DS9 would have been slightly more constricted in what they could do. The Ferengi was almost a blank slate, which was great.
@@Oonagh72 There are some cringe moments especially in episodes with Quark's mom. Overall though the Ferengi on DS9 were handled expectionally well. Brunt was always fun. Quark & Odo were fantastic. Rom & Nog has great character arcs. And getting Wallace Shawn as Zek is a treat.
His work was far better than anything we’ve gotten after enterprise. The series was slowly shifting after his death, and the result is where we are now. The “sex positions” stuff literally was used as well in ds9 with the ear rubbing stuff. You’re one of those fans huh?
"... wasn't really sure what I had to add..." *proceeds with the most interesting and informative discussion on Ferengi I have ever heard* 🤔 Noting I can never get enough Star Trek discussions and enjoy hearing each new view so just cos people have talked about a topic before shouldn't put you off adding your perspective (exception to the enjoyment are the channels that just incoherently rage scream about canon without thoughtful analysis)
After Deep Space 9, I wished there was a series called Ferengi Trek, where Quark, Rom, and a few others would explore space in search of great profits. In each episode Quark would try to generate a deal that would expand their profits, but everything would go south on them and in the end they'd be lucky to escape with their lives and a very minor profit if any. I could picture Quark's opening words at the start of every episode, "Space, the final exploitation. These are the voyages of the starship Greed, its mission to maximize income from deals between easily swindled races, to seek out new wealth, and maximize profits!!!
:) Very good. Quite an Impact yes, Rom, Nog like many others were never intended to be consistent characters and more like recurring or even temporary. It was the great writing and DS9's ability to make every character shine that elevated those two to be necessary characters each with their own unique qualities. "178 words for rain on Ferenginar and not even one for crisp" :).
I literally just got done watching a TNG episode of freelancer Ferengi who stole two Klingon Birds of Prey , and stole a Galaxy Class Starship. Sometimes freelancer Ferengi are more interesting then Ferengi Alliance Ferengi as they are real pirates that are entertaining to watch.
those were the true antagonist that Gene hoped for, the ones with the cool looking ships(i love them more than Klingon and Romulan ships). and they weren’t easy to beat, they went toe to toe with the Federation’s best ship and damn near won!
8:42 despite their long practice of capitalism the Ferengi notably avoided slavery. Despite? You can't have slavery in capitalism because you are free to chose any type of work. Slavery is against capitalism. I think the person that came up with the Ferengi knew that. And the grand nagus is based on Warren Buffet.
Are you implying that the sugar plantations founded in the Caribbean during the 17th Century were not Capitalist? Or that Antebellum America was not? If so, I'd love to hear your theory on how they were not. As it stands, your argument echoes Marxists waxing on about how "THAT wasn't Communism!"
Some of those initial ideas about the Ferengi are just pure Roddenberry fanfic. I think you overlooked the size of their...codpieces that GR wanted too 😂
I can totally see how Ferengis were originally gonna be Bat like and went from that to a bird and then the Phoenix eventually as their symbol. That is so cool! Now we just gotta figure out if they could fly!
You must remember.. although omnivores.. for most of human development out protein intake was insects. If we came across a kill and scavenged it. .. that was great.. but for the first million Years, 99% of our animal protein intake was insects.. which actually have 5 times the protein per pound. It's most likely what supercharged brain growth until we mastered fire and were able to pre digest the meat through cooking and get more.out of it. Bats are actually the most successful mammals in the world as far as diversity, locations, population
always viewed the Ferengi to have been much less centralized and ordered than they would like have us believe in their stories... My thought was that the Grand-Nagus system, and organized banking, were fairly recent things to permeate the Ferengi society with a sort of monolithic patriarchal structure... they have "written" a history for themselves, but my feeling it was more a myth than any real thing... my own feeling was, that whilst Ferenginar was maybe under the Nagus, the main home of the species was a nomadic existence, traversing on ships of other's designs through space, gypsy/nomadic merchant men, with occasional dips into piracy, and much secretive trade & contraband-running between the galactic empires... they were not violent like the Orion's alliance... more caravanners of the desert, a species of space nomads... indeed, to me, Ferenginar made more sense then as a kind of Barbuda in the depths of space, rich, and opulent, but also small and harsh of a planet in climate....
Do you think the Ferengi will become one of the dominant players in the galaxy in coming millennia, after the waning of the Federation's influence, or will the Federation always be the top dog in the long run? Gimme your thoughts below! P.S. If you have just signed up to become a patron or member and your name wasn't in the credits, you'll be featured in the next video!
Hey have you ever made a video about the Binars or the planet Binus? I'd be interested in knowing more about the history of progression of that planet. How they became symbiotic with their supercomputer 🔭
@@matthew944 The Bynars have always interested me as well! Lots of people have wanted me to talk about some of the other cybernetic species in Star Trek besides the Borg--I'll have to do some more research on that.
I imagine that the Ferengi will be like the US after WW2. After WW2, most of the world was digging out of the ashes of the war. But American farms and factories were untouched. As a result, for a good long time, America exported product to the rest of the world which made America rich and an economic superpower. The same can be said of the Ferengi. They stayed out of the Dominion War. After such a draining war, the Alpha Quadrant has to rebuild. Which puts the Ferengi in a unique position to exploit the situation. Like America, they can become an economic superpower.
I stumbled across crude asshats on the Internet commenting that the Ferengi seem to utilize the racist tropes and stereotypes of the Jewish. Never thought of it like that, but after it was pointed out, I kind of hate that I enjoyed the antics so much and I was hoping you could dispel any suspicion that it was an intentional choice.
Ferengi is the Ethiopian word for foreigner. The Ethiopian word for king is Negus. Dabo is a type of Ethiopian bread. I’m pretty sure that is the language they were borrowing from.
This all sounds very interesting but for the life of me, I have no way of verifying if it's remotely true...starting with the fact that "Ethiopian" isn't a language :/
@@OrangeRiver Amharic is the most common one in the country, as it is used by the government and spoken as first or second language by virtually all Ethiopians.
I seem to remember hearing that the Ferengis bought warp technology from another race. Don't remember what episode said that, but it had to be part of DS9.
Some humans eat some bugs as well. But one wouldn't eat a random strange bug. Only specific ones. Like crickets in garlic oil are quite tasty. A delicacy in certain parts of Europe. They kinda taste like nuts. Not that different from certain seafoods. Frogs are also awesome. As is blood sausage. These food creep a lot of people out but they don't realize what they're missing These are considered delicacies in Western and Southern Europa. Frog is quite popular in France and Belgium
Forgive me if someone has already made this point, but "Ferengi" is a derogatory term in the Pashto and Urdu languages for a western white person; equivalent epithets would be "Honky" or "Whitey." I guess the Star Trek writers were having an inside joke.
Great review. Thanks. I always felt we got flashes of Ferengi greatness, like when we see Nog get the supplies Chief O'Brien needed for repairs. Unfortunately, the Ferengi spent so much time being the butt of comedy relief and suffering from writer's anti-capitalist prejudice that it doesn't shine through much. I would expect the Ferengi to be very effective at defending themselves and their territory as they are experts at marshalling resources and judging probabilities in ways the Federation, Star Fleet and other surrounding powers could not hope to match. I prefer to see the shift in policies we see at the end of DS9 reflects an ongoing balance in Ferengi society between a fixation on personal wealth at all costs and a need for functional public institutions to increase wealth for all. Which is not to say things like welfare, but rather along the lines of, if you don't have functioning courts, you can't have contracts, no contracts and everyone is poorer. BTW, don't forget the reference to Ferengi in ST: Enterprise.
I always got confused when I saw Ferrengi from Star Trek, because I was more familiar with the Ferrengi of a BBS game known as Tradewars 2002. The similarities of both Ferrengi are uncanny. However, the Ferrengi of Tradewars was violent and scary and to be avoided. Ferrengi of Star Trek acted more like regular profit based traders of Tradewars.
I wish someone would do a RU-vid series specifically on the climate and geography of the planets in trek. I had a book in 1990 that was great.. worlds of the federation. It's allies. Neutral planets and enemies. It's the only thing I've see that gives detailed descriptions.of the topography of the planets themselves and how it effected the races from there.. for instance.. the klingon home world was very rocky with small forests scrabble forests.. but had very little fresh water.. just a few very salty seas. Because of lack of potable water, very few plants grew which meant almost no herbivores.. so every animal in the planet , including klinhons,, were derived from carnivorous hunters.. everything there hunted each other.. and this is why the klingons have such a warrior bearing naturally.
If you think about it,the Ferengi are actually one of the most moral people on Trek. We see that they have a (literally) religious dedication to profit,thereby equating profit with moral good. This is even more admirable when Ferengi like Quark are immersed in cultures that despise his values while he still upholds them. The fact that they avoided slavery and willngly pay to enter another's home proves that they respect other Ferengi (males) as profit earners,and willingly do above board business with them. The fact that they don't steal outright (except for the 1st appearance) and instead negotiate for what they want also goes to show their commitment, not necessarily to profit itself, but business and the Great Material Continuum. EDIT: Their moral and respectful treatment doesn't extend to other species,only within the Ferengi: 'A contract is a contract is a contract, but only between Ferengi!'
The Ferengi didn't avoid slavery. They enslaved their females. When this started is unknown but it's definitely the case up until Ishka convinced Zek to start phasing it out and was probably completely abolished when Rom became Grand Nagus.
The Ferengi were my favorite alien species on DS9. I’ve wondered if some of the Ferengi “alphabet” does not represent consonants or vowels, but economic terms.
Thank you for this well researched and presented video. Looking forward to see more like this! What about a video about lesser known species? Background species resident at DS9 we know little about. Surely not enough to fill one episode for each of them. But a nice compilation to highlight them and the wide variety of species in Star Trek.
i do wish they had gone more toward a more batlike appearance, but that may have made them too monstrous. DISCO seems to lean more toward this depiction.
One thing that bothered me about the Ferengi homeworld is it is impossible for a biosphere to rain everywhere all the time. (Star Wars is even more guilty of this)
I agree that the Ferengi were awful in the beginning of TNG. Then they were made "Funny" as in "Menage a Troi". Then DS9 took them a step further. I have to actually say that Quark is my favorite character for the entire Star Trek series and I mean ALL of them.
As somebody who hasn’t watched DS9, I didn’t know they were insectivores lol! Does that pop up in any of their other appearances? DS9 is the only old Trek series I’ve not gotten to yet. I do enjoy the Ferengi and will look forward to getting to know them better. Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends. :)
Does anyone know where the word Ferengi came from, it came from India, the word Ferengi ( فِرَنگی ), literally means those who profit or those who are here only for profit. This word was used in India ( Urdu speaking ) for British. This word became the far cry for the freedom moment of 1857. In a way, East India company was here for Profit, like any other company whose performance is judged by returns to the stakeholders.
Ah man, I love the Ferengi! I think they're one of the whole points of Star Trek, especially in DS9; being able to accept people for who they are and understand that their culture is not our culture. What might be abhorrent to us is revered and special to another culture(I.e. Digging up the dead every year, eating certain types of animals, certain societal practices)
As a guess how many systems do they control? Or do they just have multiple outpost/trading hubs? I can see this and maybe controlling their home system. Only speculating.
I don't under how people can think the federation didn't have money or were socialists. Picard owned a vinyard. In Genesis, Kirk had a house that he sold. There are other transactions that occur throughout the universe. Yes, im aware there are mentions of not needing money but like with most socialist ideas, it doesn't seem very well thought out all things considered.
The secret of course, is just because they don't use money, doesn't make everything free. Having your own spacecraft for example was really, really rare. You had to be some sort of super scientist to convince the federation to give you a warp-2 shuttlecraft.
A NEW IDEA FOR THE FERENGI & HOPE GETS PUT IN WHEN THEY APPEAR IN (STAR TREK: DISCOVERY) I imagine in the far future a separate faction of the (Ferengi) had developed, I hope this idea of mine can be introduced, in a few episodes of the next season, of (STAR TREK: DISCOVERY) show series. I imagine the separate faction of (Ferengi) have developed pasted their very greedy nature, and they have become close to the same as humans are of the planet:Earth. But despite that I imagine that this separate faction of FERENGI, still do have some flaws that still cause problems for them, when it comes to trying to develop a friendship with other alien races, and I imagine this separate faction lives on a different planet. I also imagine that this faction of FERENGI have decided to do honorable work, exercise to get their bodies in healthy shape, and I imagine that they have learned to treat females with the same respect as they would like to be treated by them. In addition I imagine they have a completely different book of rules aka (THE RULES OF ACQUISITION) this faction lives their lives by.
13:10 another possibility is they were a Ferengi pre-wrap colony. I am 99% sure they had achieved spaceflight before encountering the Breen. Perhaps an STL fleet using an equivalent to The Expanse's Epstein Drive, a Ferengi group settled a world 2k years ago. Without warp drive or FTL communication, they diverged.
0:17 - I have to disagree that the Federation is by any means similar to the ideologies of our Earth's Socialism. I mean, the Federation promotes personal freedom, has a reasonably benevolent government, and private enterprise is allowed. If anything, it's something we can't even comprehend with today's mindset.
True Socialism according to many Marxists indeed "promotes personal freedom, has a reasonably benevolent government (yes includes democracy), and private enterprise is allowed." Just as Capitalism according to Adam Smith, Greenspan and the Wolf of Wall Street is great and all that jazz, even though the way we do Capitalism it is basically Socialism for the rich, and Communism for the military.
@@OrangeRiver Hey homie, I happen to love hearing you say it! You have the excited glee of someone who never let their inner five year old die. I relate!
We've seen a few Ferengi businessmen surround themselves with attractive non-Ferengi women. In an obvious way - they even give these women expensive clothes and accessories - pleasant decorations meant to display wealth and power. Yet we haven't seen any with Orion slave women. To me this suggests these women are employees with some sort of contract, not slaves or property.
