The Ferengi are hyper-capitalist exploiters who enslave women and Star Fleet not only allows this but does business with them
Yes, this is the nerdiest post I've made.
They believe in doing Fully Automated Gay Luxury Space Communism in one Federation instead of doing Permanent Galactic Revolution.
The Federation tends to be relatively pragmatic at a macro level when it comes to dealing with other civilizations. The Ferengi aren’t saints, but they’re not hostile, are open to diplomatic relations, and for the most part will honor contracts and agreements.
The Federation has to deal with openly-hostile forces like the Borg, the Dominion, questionably stable relationships with the likes of Klingons and Romulans, and isolationist/xenophobic groups like the Breen. Compared to the above, the Ferengi are pretty benign.
It’s worth noting that the Star Trek universe isn’t as heavily defined by capitalism as our world. There are cosmic horrors out in the universe that make the differences between the Federation and the Ferengi seem insignificant. There are literal dragons out there, and the Ferengi just aren’t that, despite their obvious flaws.
The Federation seems to follow a strategy of establishing peaceful relations on whatever terms they can get, with the long-term goal of bringing new civilizations into the fold over time. They clearly believe that FALGSC is the natural progression of societies, but they clearly don’t feel that they have the means or mandate to impose it on others, so they use the tools and opportunities they have to grow and maintain their influence to that end.
So yeah, the Federation isn’t going to impose itself onto the Ferengi by force, and refusing to establish ties with them would likely make conflict more likely, so they take the practical step of dealing in good faith with a civilization that, while not ideal, isn’t trying to conquer or exterminate anyone.
And it's not as if the Federation doesn't end up indirectly influencing Ferengi politics. By the end of DS9 the Grand Nagus is a Ferengi who, at the encouragement of Starfleet officers, had unionized and lead a strike against poor working conditions at the local bar in which he worked. He directly quoted Marx right to his brother's face, even. A species that literally started out as a metaphor for capitalism and their leader ends up further to the left than any US president lmao.
Not to mention due his mother's influence, :quark: females were finally allowed to wear clothes and go into business for themselves.
Thats a really neat scene. I love how they actually try and make the interaction seem inhuman.
It's one of the few times you get a view of the Federation from two aliens.
smh star trek can't even make a scene that includes a non human and another non human talking about something other than a human.
I think the first time they show up in TNG, Ryker compares them to "Yankees" so at least we have that.
DATA: A comparison modern scholars have drawn from Earth history likens the Ferengi to the ocean-going Yankee traders of eighteenth and nineteenth century America, sir.
Cause Starfleet are the ultimate in civility worship. They aren't leftist, they're just post scarcity.
I dunno. I couldn't bring myself to do business with those little shits if I had the choice
If O'Brian was allowed to unionize the ones on the ship, why can't they do that with them all? Lol
Nobody has to do business with them. Why would anyone, when you can just replicate whatever junk they're trying to rip you off with? Why would the Ferengi do business with the Ferengi?
See, that would have been a good episode. Infiltrate Ferenganar and deploy replicators, introducing the population to a new way of life and disrupting an oppressed society. But noooo...muh prophets
That's a Star Trek series I'd like to see. Section 31, but as a Special Circumstances agency dedicated to subversion and regime change of reactionary cultures.
There is a book series the culture where there is a civilization called the culture. They have falgsc and they do around doing regime change to make sure everyone else has it to. So long a people are nice they can do whatever they want with it. However they have to have it.
Alot of thr conflict is revolving that. Cultures that don't want falgsc and the culture saying too bad kids need medicine and such. So it is an intresting inversion to have a culture do imperialism openly but actually really be trying to improve things.
The following will be idealism but we're talking about fantasy so don't @ me about it; Could the federation not simply run a :vote: among the actual ferengi, bypassing their established government systems about what they would like the federation to do, including "leave us alone" or "please overthrow our government for us and establish FALGSC"?
This is what I would want communist aliens to do for us :yea:
This is what I would want communist aliens to do for us
lmao you and I both know that 70% of humanity would choose their current status over being liberated by aliens, although maybe the falgsc would beam up the people who want to be beamed up and leave everyone else behind.
That is kind of true, no one actually starves on Fereginar, it's a whole culture that achieved communism while leaving capitalist ideology intact, so everything is so cheap and command economy lead that the only things worth anything are either larpy "entering your house tax" and dowries, "owning" the entirely automated black box you're using to make a treat and paying a few superfluous people to stand about pretending to work the service economy, or "Fancy Space Treats that we need to trade for".
Good point. But surely they could do something or at least refuse their business?
They do with exception to ds9, wherein the space station is not part of the federation, but is Bajoran
Cause the federation adheres to the non-interventionism of socialism with Chinese characteristics of course :xi-clap:
it's considered rude and morally damaging to conquer other societies. if there's people in starfleet with a really interventionist bent they'd probably opt for supporting dissidents and under the table stuff over outright belligerency
The Federation believes in non-intervention, and the right of a species to evolve on its own, to a frankly religious extent. They won't save a pre-spaceflight species from being wiped out by a plague, or an asteroid, or an internal nuclear war - and they definitely won't save a post-spaceflight species' oppressed masses from the conditions of their oppression. Depending on the writer this is presented as simple pragmatism on the part of the Federation, or the absolute peak of humanitarian ethics/the logical endpoint of believing in Freedom(tm). Personally I think it's a load of crap how far the Federation takes the Prime Directive, though I do admit it does create more interesting TV drama than just having the Enterprise use science magic to solve every problem in the galaxy.
The Federation believes in non-intervention
I guess it's just a coincidence that the new Grand Negus is the father of a starfleet officer?
Smh the Federation just engineered a colour revolution right under our noses
😔
Because the writers were libs and wanted an exaggerated parody of capitalism to dunk on. Really, in a society with free antimatter energy and replicators, capitalism would be finally cast into the dustbin of history. No scarcity = no capitalism.
The reason is that TNG/DS9 isn't science fiction. Space ships and rayguns aren't sci-fi. It's a drama. The original series had some episodes that were pure sci-fi: exploring what science meant in a fictional setting. TNG/DS9/V'Ger is just an excuse to make "interesting" (to libs) situations with latex forehead aliens.
For the same reason they don't declare immediate war on the Fascist Cardassian government and spend the entire TOS waffling about the Klingons. Cowardice.
The only pre borg war they've actually committed to was the Romulan Wars where they rocked up in orbit around a Rihannsu homeworld without so much as saying "can we come in" and then wonder why the Democratic Murder Spy Vulcans are advancing on Pluto's moon. (the semi canon around the Romulan Wars is maybe my favourite part of Star Trek. Romulans (who were pre warp colony ship descendants) stole the warp drive off the starship, reverse engineered it, and then slapped them onto a bunch of nukes with a passenger cabin strapped to it.)
The Culture would have the Ferengi swarming with Contact and SC agents upon meeting.
that's why i consider the Culture to be the Federation without the taint of liberalism. they really believe in total liberation for all sapient beings.
The prime directive is objectively evil and the most perfect encapsulation of liberalism
Watched the episode with Worf's half brother and the planet whose atmosphere is breaking down, this entire civilization is going to die but because they're medieval Picard is like "we absolutely CANNOT interfere in their culture's natural development!" even though they're about to develop into a bunch of skeletons. Really rubbed me the wrong way.
The writers know it is terrible which is why there are a dozen or so episodes about it
Yeah, the episode clearly frames them as wrong and Worf's renegade brother as right but I'm still disappointed in the Federation. Maybe deep down I just want it to be the Culture.
Ironically I did think the 'Prime Directive' episode of The Orville was suprisingly good, where
spoiler
They land on a planet whose orbit moves through some regions where time passes super fast, the first officer saves some bronze age villager using future technology, then after the planet disappears and comes back they find hundreds of years have passed and she's revered as a goddess. They obviously have a moral dilemma because she's fucked up their cultural development, they're waging holy wars in her name, etc etc. They timeskip further ahead to the modern age where there's still religious extremism, eventually they leave their 'notData' behind and the planet disappears and reappears as a hyper advanced spacefaring civilization, who beams up to their ship and is like "Yeah, cultures all go through that religious phase, if it hadn't been you we'd have worshipped some other random thing, don't sweat it. BTW we're more advanced than you now, when you're on our level we'll contact you."
Because FALGSC can still be liberal when written by liberals. Real FALGSC is abolitionist, John Brown style.
PS: first post, reddit refugee who learned very quickly that raddle is anti-civ hell
Glad to be here. Already liking the accessible interface and lack of a "downvote".
