3 ms·
Who are the Ferengi?
by traverseda 5y ago
Who are the Ferengi?
- morelisp 5y agoRather than the "obvious" answer from unfortunate casting decisions, by the middle of the series they're firmly 20th century Americans.
- coding123 5y agoCorporate greed
- morelisp 5y agoThey're certainly capitalists, but despite lots of references to stock markets, the Nagus's holdings, etc., we don't see them forming, discussing, or dealing with a lot of corporations. Quark and his more distant relatives are firmly petit bourgeoisie, Brunt is middle management at something like a brown-collar job, etc. The fascism of Cardassia and cooperative structure of the Federation both ring more corporate than the Ferengi, most of the time.
- jeramey 5y agoAmericans. The primary social measuring stick used is acquisition of wealth, and they have no real social safety nets to speak of. They have an overriding belief that free markets will ultimately solve any real problems peacefully. Grift is sometimes (ok often) admired and winked at, though generally officially denounced. There are substantial oppressive problems with regards to females fully participating equally in society, and they’re slow to change but there are occasional signs of progress and leaders bucking those trends. Sounds a lot like my American culture to me!
- ben_w 5y agoI would say specifically late 1800s to early 1900s American, when unions were busted with guns and women had zero political power. I can’t remember Brent Spiner’s original lines in the episode the Ferengi were introduced, but I think it was something along the lines of “all the bad bits of the old west and none of the good bits”.
- Stevvo 5y ago“Ferengi are us. That’s the gag, the Ferengis are humans. They’re more human than the humans on Star Trek because they’re so screwed up and they’re so dysfunctional. They’re regular people.” - Steven Behr
- iso1210 5y agoAmerican capitalists, specifically Yankee Traders. Data literally says so in TNG.