Rewrite the Ferengi as not a joke.

[FaxModem1]

You're in charge of remaking the Ferengi episodes of DS9 into something that isn't always a silly joke.

For example, delete the episode "Profit and Lace" and turn the first 40 seconds into an episode about the Ferengi Alliance getting involved in the war with the Dominion instead of just selling arms to the Klingons and Romulans.

You could devote episodes before that into the Ferengi being the Switzerland of the Alpha Quadrant, with Quark and Rom trying to get the Nagus on the side of the Federation while Brunt is trying to get him on the side of the Dominion and the Cardassians.

That's what I would do, instead of having an entire race of jokes. What would you do?

[Purple]

Honestly, I would have their homeworld bombed to ashes by the Dominion early in the war.

This would serve to cement the reputation of the founders as evil and horrible while at the same time paving the way for a much better character development. Think the last ferengy trader in the galaxy clinging to his own ways, the child warrior motivated by revenge...

In the end, I would have added a small fleet of retrofitted merchant ships appearing at the final battle to help the federation and take revenge. And than a snip about how many lives were lost and noble sacrifice and all that. You know, make them man up and deserve your respect.

Also, I would have gotten rid of the whole stupid "act of god" where the Dominion fleet disappeared in the wormhole and made it into a proper fleet battle.

[Coalition]

Honestly, I would have their homeworld bombed to ashes by the Dominion early in the war.

This would serve to cement the reputation of the founders as evil and horrible while at the same time paving the way for a much better character development. Think the last ferengy trader in the galaxy clinging to his own ways, the child warrior motivated by revenge...

In the end, I would have added a small fleet of retrofitted merchant ships appearing at the final battle to help the federation and take revenge.

Also, I would have gotten rid of the whole stupid "act of god" where the Dominion fleet disappeared in the wormhole and made it into a proper fleet battle.

I'd suggest you combine your ideas. The Ferengi fleet arrives at DS9, not to do battle with the fleets, but to guard the wormhole. Their fleet is the one that stops the Dominion fleet from getting through, at a horrible price. They are able to do a decent job since the Dominion fleet comes out of the wormhole slowly, but they are outnumbered. Ferengi ships die, but they take down Dominion ships as they do so.

You could have a few profit comments in there, but the key point is that with the Federation the Ferengi are merely harassed, while they have no future with the Dominion.

[Temujin]

To be honest, to truly rewrite the Ferengi so that they're not a joke would require going back to STNG Season 1 recreating them from scratch. There were just too many things about them that hurt their credibility as a serious species and culture.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I'd make them scary; the threat they were originally intended to be before they got jokeified. I'd detail the kind of ruthless behavior you might actually see in an over-the-top-greedy culture with sci-fi technology. A few ideas:

Find someone to play Quark who can sound like the Druuge from Star Control II.

Mention that Ferengi or their clients who go into too much debt are disassembled for their organs.

In an episode involving Quark's holosuites, have it discovered that they gain extra-realistic behavior with their holograms by using "organic coprocessors"; harvested humanoid brains. Of which Quark will deny knowledge, and have legal "proof" that he had no way of knowing; but when Odo and the Feds leave he'll comment to another Ferengi "Besides, after the rest of their organs were harvested those debtors hadn't any use for those brains, anyway".

Have it mentioned that they recently blew up an inhabited planet to get at an exotic element in its core.

[Morilore]

How to make them not a joke? Make them ordinary people. Have them believe, matter-of-factly, that a mercantilist, colonialist society is the best for everyone. Give them families and pets, hobbies and interests and individual personalities. Make some of them kind and empathic and others apathetic and ruthless. Make the ones flying starships military and professional, and the ones operating bars and shops quirky and individual.

Then show their society relying on the exploitation and abuse of others to survive.

Honestly, I would have their homeworld bombed to ashes by the Dominion early in the war.

This would serve to cement the reputation of the founders as evil and horrible while at the same time paving the way for a much better character development. Think the last ferengy trader in the galaxy clinging to his own ways, the child warrior motivated by revenge...

In the end, I would have added a small fleet of retrofitted merchant ships appearing at the final battle to help the federation and take revenge. And than a snip about how many lives were lost and noble sacrifice and all that. You know, make them man up and deserve your respect.

Also, I would have gotten rid of the whole stupid "act of god" where the Dominion fleet disappeared in the wormhole and made it into a proper fleet battle.

I don't think this thread is about the Dominion War.

[Patrick Degan]

The last time a topic like this one came up, I suggested something along these lines: that given that the Ferengi built their empire entirely through trade and, when faced with war, would buy arms from their trading partners to defend themselves, you could go further and posit the notion that the Ferengi got clever enough to actually find the means to buy their enemies out. They'd steadily gain control over the enemy industries either directly or through shadow partners even while the other side is threatening or prosecuting war against Ferengenar until they can shut off the enemy government's finances and materiel. This being a survival tactic which they'd played against dozens of would-be conquerors in the past.

[Jeremy]

To be honest, to truly rewrite the Ferengi so that they're not a joke would require going back to STNG Season 1 recreating them from scratch. There were just too many things about them that hurt their credibility as a serious species and culture.

I actually tried this some time ago, got frustrated and threw everything away. I'm bored now and am kicking myself for having done so and am trying to redo this idea.

I've got them set up like the Orions, basically they are funding division and piracy on the border while running contraband. Encounter at Farpoint turns into Picard clearing out a sex slave operation run by the Ferengi and dealing with one of their "rogue" houses while Deneb IV gets turned into a Fed Base. I was attempting to tie in Natasha to that arc while having the Vulcanized McCoy serve as a Governor for that region dealing with the nearby pull out from the DMZ.

A Galaxy class is doing this mundane stuff as training for voyages further out since the EntD is a newer ship.

[dworkin]

How about just by reading some goddamn history books?

What made the traders, explorers, colonists of colonial Europe such badasses? Show that.

Have the Federation clean up the mess left by a Ferengi Trade ship scooping up a planet's priceless relics for gameboys, or a planet they've happily strip-mined and left radioactive or where the ferengi have decided to settle and a colony ship arrives with 10,000 new ferengi each day. To make it worse have it happen to border federation worlds.

And give them better technology. Give their ships something that says 'machine gun' compared to the 'musket' that is a phaser. Show them using it against some neutrals. Give them body armour that sneers at phaser shots. Have it take 2 or 3 phasers combined to take one guy down.

And lastly let people realise that these are civilians. The Ferengi military is an order of magnitude nastier and will come and spank you with an axe if the civies are troubled too much.

Laugh that one off.

[Gandalf]

I always liked the idea of capitalism as an actual religious movement, where different people act differently to keep themselves profitable, and thus more pious.

Some Ferengi toil and save everything, some are just thugs, and other gamble everything and thus risk going to the Vault of Eternal Destitution. Where money changing hands is a religious act, it could make for an interesting people.

[Eleas]

I like Dworkin's idea, but I think it could be expanded upon. Instead of merely showing the Ferengi as competent and highly capable, I think there would be some merit to looking at what values a hypercapitalistic society would demonstrate, and not in the smug way that TNG did.

Let the Enterprise crew have a beast of a time dealing with a Ferengi trade expedition and their cut-throat tactics. Then, when the whole thing escalates to full-scale battle, show that the Ferengi have an edge in military tech. Then, just as the Enterprise is about to prevail, show a real Ferengi naval force entering the scene. Let Picard & Co realize that they had been facing a heavily armed merchant flotilla, not the true Ferenginar navy.

Now, for the Enterprise, the situation looks dire in the "guess we're fucked" sense... and then the newcomers reveal they were only there to inform inform the trade expedition of the fact that their Military Protection Insurance just ran out. Can't pay your late fee right now? Too fucking bad.

And then the Ferengi battleships just sit there while the damaged trade ships lose reactor containment.

[Temujin]

To be honest, to truly rewrite the Ferengi so that they're not a joke would require going back to STNG Season 1 recreating them from scratch. There were just too many things about them that hurt their credibility as a serious species and culture.

I actually tried this some time ago, got frustrated and threw everything away. I'm bored now and am kicking myself for having done so and am trying to redo this idea.

I've got them set up like the Orions, basically they are funding division and piracy on the border while running contraband. Encounter at Farpoint turns into Picard clearing out a sex slave operation run by the Ferengi and dealing with one of their "rogue" houses while Deneb IV gets turned into a Fed Base. I was attempting to tie in Natasha to that arc while having the Vulcanized McCoy serve as a Governor for that region dealing with the nearby pull out from the DMZ.

A Galaxy class is doing this mundane stuff as training for voyages further out since the EntD is a newer ship.

Growing up on Star Fleet Battles and the FASA RPG (which had some pretty good and original background material), I always felt that the Orions were never fully utilized in the movies and shows. When the Ferengi came along, we were told how bad ass they were, but never shown it. I figured the writers should have used some of that material for the Ferengi to help flesh them out more.

One of the problems though was that Roddenberry had a big hand in the early creation of the Ferengi. They were kind of his pet creation as I recall. One interview I read had the interviewee describing how Gene started going into explicit detail about the Ferengi's sexual organs and habits, to which he replied: "Gene, its a family show".

[Temujin]

How about just by reading some goddamn history books?

What made the traders, explorers, colonists of colonial Europe such badasses? Show that.

Have the Federation clean up the mess left by a Ferengi Trade ship scooping up a planet's priceless relics for gameboys, or a planet they've happily strip-mined and left radioactive or where the ferengi have decided to settle and a colony ship arrives with 10,000 new ferengi each day. To make it worse have it happen to border federation worlds.

And give them better technology. Give their ships something that says 'machine gun' compared to the 'musket' that is a phaser. Show them using it against some neutrals. Give them body armour that sneers at phaser shots. Have it take 2 or 3 phasers combined to take one guy down.

And lastly let people realise that these are civilians. The Ferengi military is an order of magnitude nastier and will come and spank you with an axe if the civies are troubled too much.

Laugh that one off.

Yeah. They started off describing them as Yankee traders (which they didn't even live up to), when they should have been modeled on a cross between Conquistadors and Goldman Sachs or Halliburton.

Instead of simply being despised by the other races, I could see them becoming a valuable and necessary evil, trading anything to anyone, including intelligence. To cut them off completely and not have dealings with them would mean being left out of not just the goods trade, but the intelligence trade.

As for weapons and defenses, they should have the best around. A mix from a number of different races, with each ship equipped differently by her crew so you never know what your going to encounter.

[Crazedwraith]

You know, I don't know why you'd want to. With the exception of Profit and Lace, most of the Ferengi episodes were quite good fun. It's not like DS9 needed more Serious grim darkness drama episodes.

[Jeremy]

TMP, The Naked Now, Code of Honor, The Last Outpost, Justice, The Battle, Angel One, The Neutral Zone, the portrayal of Worf

These tell us a lot about the bigoted and prejudiced mind that was behind this. The person must have been insufferable, a complete arrogant blow hard. I have a hard time thinking it was the same person who was behind TOS.

It must really suck to be a woman in that franchise, you are doomed to a gratuitous nudity shot or some other ham handed way of harping on your sex.


Not at all like Babylon 5 where Talia and Ivanova just had a friendly sleep over, or Lyta, or Delenn... hmm.

[Temujin]

TMP, The Naked Now, Code of Honor, The Last Outpost, Justice, The Battle, Angel One, The Neutral Zone, the portrayal of Worf

These tell us a lot about the bigoted and prejudiced mind that was behind this. The person must have been insufferable, a complete arrogant blow hard. I have a hard time thinking it was the same person who was behind TOS.

It must really suck to be a woman in that franchise, you are doomed to a gratuitous nudity shot or some other ham handed way of harping on your sex.


Not at all like Babylon 5 where Talia and Ivanova just had a friendly sleep over, or Lyta, or Delenn... hmm.

Roddenberry was kind of weird that way. He had some real enlightened ideas but also some rather ignorant ones. He was for gay rights, but from another interview (or the same one, I can't recall) someone called him all talk but no action. Apparently when he still had influence over the show, he had the opportunity to push for some stories, even simple background scenes (i.e., two male crewmen holding hands) concerning gay rights. However, when push came to shove he always said no.

I've reconciled his behavior with the fact that a lot of other good and creative people worked on TOS; and since it was more of a collaborative effort, the good got put in while the bad was filtered out.

[Stofsk]

If we're going to rewrite the Ferengi can we also change their costuming and makeup so that they don't look like the goofiest motherfuckers in the entire history of sci-fi television?

[Jeremy]

I'll keep the cranium, ears, and dentition.

You take the awkward pawing motion, moronic attitude, and purple fingernails.

By the way, belated happy freedom!

[Srelex]

If we're going to rewrite the Ferengi can we also change their costuming and makeup so that they don't look like the goofiest motherfuckers in the entire history of sci-fi television?

Perhaps something like Greys?

[Stofsk]

I'll keep the cranium, ears, and dentition.

You take the awkward pawing motion, moronic attitude, and purple fingernails.

By the way, belated happy freedom!

Heh, thanks.

If we're going to rewrite the Ferengi can we also change their costuming and makeup so that they don't look like the goofiest motherfuckers in the entire history of sci-fi television?

Perhaps something like Greys?

I'm a TOS fanboy so I would rather see something like the Orions fleshed out instead. Their actions in 'Journey to Babel' were the sort of scheme I always expected the Ferengi to do in TNG or DS9, but they never really did. The Orions in that episode went on a suicide mission to try and destroy the diplomatic talks to admit Coridan into the Federation and thus enjoy Federation protection. Since it was implied that raiding of Coridan was a lucrative state of affairs, that kind of action says a lot about the mentality of the Orions - commit suicide so that your mates can get rich.

DS9 I think in particular made the Ferengi obsession out to be a joke (as opposed to TNG where it was an unintentional joke). 'Haha look at those capitalists, they're funny with their quaint ways' - except it's not really funny in real life when people die and kill for money.

[Temujin]

I'm a TOS fanboy so I would rather see something like the Orions fleshed out instead. Their actions in 'Journey to Babel' were the sort of scheme I always expected the Ferengi to do in TNG or DS9, but they never really did. The Orions in that episode went on a suicide mission to try and destroy the diplomatic talks to admit Coridan into the Federation and thus enjoy Federation protection. Since it was implied that raiding of Coridan was a lucrative state of affairs, that kind of action says a lot about the mentality of the Orions - commit suicide so that your mates can get rich.

Seconded. The Orions just begged for more development. Sadly, as I alluded to above, it was done more in games, and a lot better, than anything we saw on film.

DS9 I think in particular made the Ferengi obsession out to be a joke (as opposed to TNG where it was an unintentional joke). 'Haha look at those capitalists, they're funny with their quaint ways' - except it's not really funny in real life when people die and kill for money.

I think part of the problem there was taking Quark and company, who were partially* written for comic relief, and applying it to the whole race.

*At least initially. Later on comedy was pretty much all Quark and Co. was written for.

[Gramzamber]

Roddenberry was kind of weird that way. He had some real enlightened ideas but also some rather ignorant ones. He was for gay rights, but from another interview (or the same one, I can't recall) someone called him all talk but no action. Apparently when he still had influence over the show, he had the opportunity to push for some stories, even simple background scenes (i.e., two male crewmen holding hands) concerning gay rights. However, when push came to shove he always said no.

I've reconciled his behavior with the fact that a lot of other good and creative people worked on TOS; and since it was more of a collaborative effort, the good got put in while the bad was filtered out.

Well Roddenberry probably got overruled a lot, or he just couldn't tone down his ego.
Like the whole female first officer in "The Cage" thing, which the studio liked, but he had to insist it be played by his lover and wouldn't back down. There went that.

[Jeremy]

I thought DS9's take on the Ferengi did a lot to improve the species' image.

[Gramzamber]

I thought DS9's take on the Ferengi did a lot to improve the species' image.

It was kind of hit and miss for me.
Yeah Quark was a great character and Nog did good going against type but Rom... I wanted to *kill* Rom with a rusty ice pick.
Most of the time Ferengi were involved only for komedy, not for any great development except for Quark and Nog on occasion.

Plus I could never get over the ridiculous way they treated females. Okay fine, they're sexist. But no clothing? What? Seriously? An ultra capitalist society is going to just eliminate a potential demographic for clothing and cosmetics sales? Bullshit!

[Big Orange]

The Ferengi as they were in DS9 were just OK; most of Quark's exploits were rather goofy and cheesy but entertaining enough (like Data tapdancing and painting, the EMH singing, Kirk having dramatic pauses, Dr. Phlox playing basketball, etc). The actual Ferengi worked better than the Pakleds and Kazon as a race, but when introduced as would be villains in TNG from S2 onwards they were phased out fairly quickly, with more focus on the Romulans, Klingons, and Cardassians as antagonists.

Make the Ferengi Alliance a true anti-Federation and a not a homogenous species, but an amalgamation of many humanoid species, though they're much less like the Borg Collective (Fascist/Soviet cyborgs) and the Dominion (rigid caste system), and more similar to the Xindi Council, though on a much bigger scale; Byzantine and decadent. The Ferengi define themselves by their culture rather than their race/species, and humans from the Federation can join the Ferengi Alliance. Have their economic and social policies on the general populace be depicted as widely detrimental, yet somehow working after all these centries, with thousands of palaces of bronze and silver and gold surrounded by miles upon miles of shanty towns.

The Ferengi Alliance is supposed to have technology that is comparable or slightly superior to the United Federation of Planets' tech, yet replication devices are banned and highly illegal to the vast majority of Ferengi citizens, with the use of unauthorised replicators punished by death (replicators were a factor in the Federation virtually abolishing currency). The Ferengi see mercenaries/soldiers/security guards as too unpredictable and costly, so to cut some corners most of their ground forces and fleets are automated machines (not unlike the Trade Federation's droid armies, though much less anthropomorphic). The Ferengi Alliance's military is similar in power to the Dominion's military, though they're not interesting in outright military conquest but guarding their trade routes, and in general they're nowhere near as territorial as the Romulans, Cardassians, and Klingons (so long as they don't steal/break shit, a Starfleet vessel can go clean through Ferengi territory unmolested).