BJ's EWTBCD: The Fall and Rise of the Ferengi, by my friend John!

Armin Shimerman as Quark

Tiny Intro: My friend John is the one who nagged me to watch Deep Space 9 till I got fearfully addicted.  I'm so glad he did.  Its odd, but you'd think there would be prescient political parallels with current UK politics and this post about the Ferengi...but I'm not sure there are, and its a politics free post!  So enjoy this examination of the Ferengi, and Quark and Nog - two of the best sci-fi characters I have ever met.  Over to John...
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The Ferengi are perhaps the most simple yet most complex race in Star Trek. The original concept was that they would be the main adversaries for the Next Generation, as the Klingons, now allied, had been in The Original Series. It didn’t work out like that.

The Ferengi were supposed to embody the worst elements of capitalism, they were to be a race that cheated their way across the galaxy. Technologically they were on a level with the Federation, but their only reason for being was profit at all cost.

So what went wrong?

The first mention of the Ferengi was in the TNG pilot ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ where it is hinted that they might eat business partners they fell out with. At this point there had been no formal meeting between the Ferengi and Federation. That was change in ‘The Last Outpost’ the fourth episode of TNG broadcast.

It did not go well.

Actor Armin Shimmerman comments that the director asked him and the other Ferengi actors to “Jump up and down like crazed gerbils.” For most of the episode the Ferengi seem to be doing some sort of bizarre dance. They come over as moronic, comedic and childish. Not a threat to anyone.

However they could have been saved. ‘The Battle’ the eighth episode of the series presents the Ferengi as devious and manipulative. Using cunning to make up for lack of size and strength. Their plot is foiled but only just and the viewer is left with a sense that these Ferengi were a threat. They act more like the Cardassians would later on in the series.

However no one remembers ‘The Battle’ as a good episode. It is a great concept and the Ferengi work as a threat, however it is also the episode where Wesley Crusher crosses over to being a hate figure. The plot against Picard by the Ferengi DaiMon Bok is foiled by Wesley glancing at some scans and solving the mystery and then commenting “Huh Adults”.

After the second season of TNG there was a change in direction on the show. The Romulans returned as the main adversary, while the Ferengi were pushed into more comedic roles. By 1989 with market crashes and recession in the US capitalists were no longer seen as the bad guys they once were. The Tech boom was just starting to take off so the time was right for The Borg.

There are probably a few reasons that the Ferengi were dropped. They had never really caught on with the audience and they were mostly presented as one-dimensional.

Embodying the worst elements of capitalism and holding a mirror up to ourselves, it’s a great idea. However in 1987 greed was good. Plus there was already a character on TV who did just that. J. R. Ewing on Dallas was in his pomp. He was an anti-hero, not an out and out bad guy. 

By the late 80s the greed culture of mid decade was on the way out, after stock market crashes so the win at all cost capitalist was no longer in the real world. Greed was no longer good.

The look of the Ferengi also counted against them. They were short and stocky and had big ears. For most of TNG they walked hunched over. There was always something about them that looked comedic. So they were played for laughs and downgraded.

However in 1993 Deep Space Nine debuted. This was the third Star Trek series and a departure from what had gone before. It was set on a Bajoran space station that Starfleet were to help run. The Bajorans had recently forced the Cardassians to withdraw from their planet after 50 years of brutal rule. This was not the nice Federation; this was the edge of civilisation.

‘DS9’ was populated by civilians and had an area known as The Promenade, basically a shopping mall on which the Ferengi main character Quark ran the bar. To give it is full name ‘Quark's Bar, Grill, Gaming House and Holosuite Arcade’. Quark was played by Armin Shimmerman, the first Ferengi we had seen in ‘The Last Outpost’, who has said he took the role to try and undo the damage of ‘The Last Outpost.’ Well he succeeded.

Through ‘DS9’ the Ferengi become more multidimensional. We learn about ‘The Rules of Acquisition’ these rules govern how any Ferengi business deal is conducted as Quark says “They ensure a fair deal for all parties, well most of them.”

All of the aliens in ‘DS9’ are given more colour than in other series. They are more blurred. The station isn’t going anywhere so there is more time to delve into the background of the people. This is most true of the Ferengi. They are fleshed out as characters and we even learn that they were not always so single minded.  

We also see the journey of Quark’s Nephew Nog. In the pilot he is caught stealing yet during the run of the show he joins Starfleet, graduates from the academy and is promoted to Lieutenant JG at the end of the series. In the episode ‘Treachery, Faith and the Great River’ Nog gets things done the Ferengi way, playing by his rules not Starfleet protocols.

It is through ‘DS9’ that the Ferengi become more than just the comic asides they were in TNG. While they are not a threat to the federation they are not a joke either. They are more complex than that. As with the Bajorans, Cardassians and Klingons ‘DS9’ gives us the most in depth look at aliens and how they are different.

The last canonical appearance of the Ferengi is the ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ episode ‘Inside Man’. These Ferengi are a mix of the Ferengi of ‘The Battle’ and the ‘DS9’ Ferengi. Devious and scheming willing to sacrifice the 150 lives of the Voyager crew to make a profit from the Borg technology the ship contains.

But it is a mark of how far the Ferengi have come, that before they know who is behind the plot Starfleet Command think it could be the Romulans.

‘Enterprise’ did feature the Ferengi in one episode, but as comic bumblers. ‘Enterprise’ couldn’t even manage to treat Vulcans with dignity.

Overall given their starting point it is amazing that the Ferengi were used as much as they were. The cost of the ship designed for ‘TNG’ meant they had to appear three times to at least recoup their original investment. But they managed to become great characters.

Five Ferengi Must See Episodes.

1)   The Battle TNG

2)   Suspicions TNG

3)   Body Parts DS9

4)   Treachery, Faith and the Great River DS9

5)   The Magnificent Ferengi DS9

Special mention to the DS9 episodes ‘The Siege of AR-558’ and ‘It’s only a Paper Moon’ not Ferengi episodes but showing the reality of war through the experience of Nog, a Ferengi character.

                                                                                      Aron Eisenberg as Nog

Thinking While Worried, Walking With Blisters In The Rain

I walked for 2 hours this morning. All the way into East Croydon and almost through it, halfway to what used to be Mayday Hospital.  It drizzled and persisted with being that strange slightly off white the sky can be when it chooses to. Supplying enough light to be almost over bright, but at the same time: dull.  I was struggling to think to myself – ‘gosh, what a lovely day!’, because that was what I wanted to think. It wasn’t too cold, which was a good thing.  I ended covered in sweat on my top half despite being dressed quite lightly.  I got blisters on my feet as I didn’t have the right socks on.  The right shoes, but not the right socks.  People never remind you about getting the right socks, it’s always about the shoes.

The odd thing was, I didn’t think I’d been paying massive attention as I walked, but on the bus on the way back (by the time I realized had walked off my stressy unable to sit still feeling and had now entered the exhausted feeling), I kept seeing shops or signs of fields I had passed, and realizing they were incredibly familiar, that I had memorized them exactly.  A large purpley mauve sign on a flower shop; a huge green (but dull, that light) playing field next to a primary school, just screened from the road by hedges.

I missed having Fluffhead with me. We have been having lots of walks lately. He was ill with one thing after another all December, and off school even before the holidays. Today was my first day without him for a long while. School started again.  There had been a huge loud and heartbreaking crying fit before school about not wanting to go.  Forced dressing after cajoling and bribery and reason failed to work.  Crying down the street. And then meeting two of his friends and instant cheering up.  But still.  There’s been other problems at school recently. I was worried they would recur. So I did that thing I do that I seem unable to not do: where I just can’t stop thinking about the person I am worried about.  As if, should I hold them in my head constantly, it will somehow enable them to be ok. It’s not magical thinking.  Party because I don’t think it works; partly because that’s not how magic works (holding worry in your head is almost the antithesis to doing good magic!). It’s just me being obsessive and overly responsible for another.  If Fluffhead was bigger, we’d say co-dependent.  But he’s still a child and still reliant on me in many ways, so we don’t say that. We just say I worry dramatically, overly; that I’m over protective.  I try not to show it too much in front of him, don’t want him growing up terrified just because I am (and fear is a plague, it spreads easier than a cold).

But I missed him.  I missed watching his small feet in their cute Bobox Velcro do-up shoes pacing beside me. I missed his warm hand with the cold fingers in mine.  His red Thomas jacket, hood up against the wind.  I missed him telling me about the bus schedules and the trains coming, and wanting to go to Purley, or East Croydon.  In his funny high voice, with his novel word order he does sometimes (“where him will go?”).  Even though he seemed quite fine when he eventually got to school, I had that incredibly twitchy utterly stressed out feeling.  I wanted to come home and do a thousand things with my sudden time, but knew I’d never be able to settle; that the best thing to do was to let my body walk it off.

Due to an earlier conversation with Hystery, I was half in mind to trek until I found a Catholic Church and then go and find a Virgin Mary and look at her for a bit, quietly.  But I didn’t see one Catholic Church the whole walk.  Which was weird, I seem to remember them being everywhere.  Instead, I DID see 4 protestant churches, 2 united/free churches and 2 pentecostal churches above shops, the way those often are – any space available.  I saw signs inviting me to creches, prayer meetings, bible study classes, the Alpha Course.  I wandered on, a bit bemused by the sudden lack of Virgin Mary’s.

For the first ever time, I went into the Whitgift Centre and didn’t get lost looking for the shop I was going to.  (I had decided that since I had come this far, I might as well be useful before I went back, go to Holland and Barrett and get sausages for Stanley. So I did.  Unable to not go past the Toy Barnhaus next door without going in, and worriedly buy some wooden track for Fluffhead with money I really couldn’t spare. Who am I cheering up with the track? Him, or me? I don’t want it.  But I want to have something nice to give him in the future as a reward for something. Always a good idea to keep rewards around the place; you never know when you might need a 5 year old to do something big – and you can’t run a barter economy entirely on chocolate.  And I was still, of course, thinking about him.)

While I was in there, there was a strangely emotive mainstream slightly country but not song on. Feeling emotional, it caught me immediately and I started listening.  Though it was a whole other world: someone had left someone, someone was sad, someone wanted them to come back and was being very mournful and very lyrical about it.  See how it was sort of country? I asked who it was at the desk. Taylor Swift. When I got home, I looked her up. She has nice hair. I might download the song and sit here pensively enjoying the mood whilst not sharing the precise problem.  The song had some nice key changes.  She can’t even be 30 yet.  Oww. 

When I got back, Mum was still here. Which is a bit difficult, as when I am this stressed, company tends to stress me further.  And mum is great, but she is also a very stressed person (only she’s one of those weirdly interesting stressed people who think they aren’t stressed and keep telling you how happy they are despite a vast amount of negative things and negative interpretations and slants on things coming up in conversation from them).  So I tried to be very polite and minimal and hid in my room.  Typing this.  When all I want is to go in the living room, sit under a blanket and watch Deep Space 9 (come to me, Odo) till it’s time to go and get Fluffhead, and see if he had an ok day, or whether the troubles have started again.  I wish it wasn’t so hard to be with people. But it just is. Not all people, granted. And not all the time. But enough of them; enough of the time.

So today is not mine.  But I suppose, being me, that is to be expected.  This day is another of those endless days of change, between, neither one thing nor another. It’s very clever of Hekate to be the goddess of between things and changes, because it makes her the goddess of just about everything, when you think about it.  All things are either in a state of change or they are about to be, or they just were.  Or they really should be. If I was a goddess, and I had to pick an area of expertise, I could probably not have done better than to pick that.  Plus the whole illuminating darkness thing. Who isn’t in the dark? Some of us are just more aware of it in a tortured or otherwise kind of way. Clever Hekate.

It’s raining again.  My hair has just dried from this morning, and my feet are still throbbing.  I dream of my sofa and my blanket and the TV.  And, to an extent, of not being quite as me as I am. Possibly I shall be someone else for a while?!  I think I might go and make some cookies. It’s something to do and I have flour and sugar and chocolate I can cut up.  How about dark chocolate ginger cookies? That sounds wintery.  Sensual things hold the attention, usually, for me.  The wind does that low hum in the background.  

 Stanley wants snow. I wonder if it will come?