The Incessant Rain
For the Saltwater Writers’ Auction Project: Rain
By Romana Annette 05/03/2010
There is constant torrential rain, rotting vegetation, and debris-filled rivers, in the capital of the Ferengi Alliance on the planet Ferenginar. The weather is planet-wide, so forecasts in the news must be pretty much trivial. This is a lot of rain even by the standards of the Pacific Northwest; yet, life and commerce go on, especially in the halls of the Sacred Marketplace in the Tower of Commerce, under the leadership of the Grand Nagus.
Ferenginar is, of course, one of many worlds in the Star Trek universe. The Ferengi were first introduced early in the first season of Star Trek: the Next Generation. The defining of this species was problematical from the start, almost to the point of being reduced to comic relief, possibly even worse than the impossible logical sexuality of Vulcans. Things might get worse, since the next feature of the revised Star Trek universe, Star Trek: Ferenginar Rising, supposedly opens in December, unless, of course, it is a tremendous April Fools joke. The Star Trek timeline has been totally trashed, despite the presence of all powerful 33rd Century Time Police. No plot exposition that previously existed can be expected to be the same as before.
The Ferengi have a business- and commerce-based culture. They are not supposed to be technically gifted. One could question how they might have evolved this way. Like most Star Trek species, they are very humanoid, though squatter than most. Of special note is their preference for food like grubs, and a set of teeth that have to be periodically sharpened. While greed is one of the hallmarks of their personalities, they go out of their way to please and maintain their customer base, so long as they are dealing with males. It was only recently that Ferengi females had any rights whatsoever, including the right to wear clothing and own property.
Ferengi currency is the strange gold-pressed latinum. Their business model is the set of 285 rules called the Rules of Acquisition. All the rules have a certain warped tone, such as:
10. Greed is eternal.
242. More is good...all is
better.
I see two major problems here: the incessant rain and the rise of Ferengi commerce. There is a troubling lack of both geological and cultural diversity. Currently, Ferenginar has one super-continent:
Assuming there is continental-drift on the planet, this was probably not always the case. Super-continents disperse and then reform periodically. Super-continents by nature often have extreme weather patterns. But the constant rains would seemingly create a hindrance to the evolution of culture, so maybe the rains are not permanent. If Ferenginar were to have a precessing axis of rotation, that slowly changed its orbital tilt, such weather might come and go in long-term patterns. An example is the gradual shift of the Sahara on Earth from desert to rain forest and back to desert as the tilt of the Earth’s axis precesses.
Supposedly, Ferengi commerce got a boost with the sale of the poles of their planet to the Breen. The Breen are a creepy species that established an alliance with the Dominion, but it is not clear what monetary value a planet’s polar regions might have.
There is a rumor that the Ferengi were devised as an allegory to the banking industry on Earth. Specifically, Gene Roddenberry may have been expressing anti-Semitic sentiments toward Jewish culture. However, Jewish culture has never shown the very one-sided lack of diversity of the Ferengi culture. In any case, the over-the-top subjective excess of Ferengi culture seems to go hand-in-hand with their weather.
The Ferengi are an interesting species, so one can only hope that their planet and their culture are actually possible. Certainly, they would have to be resourceful to overcome the limitations of their weather. The jury might have to stay out until the revised Star Trek visits them again, at which time the Ferengi might get a more meaningful and respectful depiction. In the meantime, one can expect rain followed by torrential downpour.