Look, we all know that Janeway is a cream-filled nutcake who spends her evenings chewing on the skulls of babies and when she's not attempting genocide or murdering Tuvix, she's petulantly sulking because Chakotay stopped her from killing Lessing but...
What, in the name of buggery, did she think she was doing in False Profits? The Ferenghi are not part of the Federation and she has absolutely no right telling Arridor and Kol that they must return with her to the Alpha quadrant. Hell, she doesn't even have the right to tell them to wipe their arses.
No Federation jurisdiction, no prime directive issue, none of her God damn business.
What if, instead of the Ferenghi, it had been the Grumparians (a native Delta quadrant species) fleecing the Ga'Nah province with advanced technology. Would she still stick her oar in? Is it the Federation's responsibility to police the entire galaxy?
Oh and if captain Insaneway hadn't pissed about attempting to force the Ferenghi to do things she had absolutely no right forcing them to do, she could have used the frikkin Barzan wormhole to get home.
Idiot!
First, IMO this is one of the worst episodes of the series. Feckless portrayal of a race that the writer thought we'd care about more than another new DQ one being introduced, simply because we know about them and their backstory, as well as how this pair specifically wound up in the quadrant. Then tiresome machinations by our stalwarts in removing them. Notwithstanding , it's worth discussion, just like any other episode of whatever quality.
I'm not sure how much of your pitch it just a put-on. If you really have such animus towards Janeway, fine, but you're laying the gratuitous barbs on so facetiously I think it's hard to take what follows that seriously. By the way, I don't think I'm mistaken in recaling, that you supported her decision about Tuvix, but no matter.
You go into further silliness later, but the crux of the argument, as regards to violating the PD by taking the course of action that was portrayed, is explicitly not supported in Memory Alpha. I won't claim that their aren't other sources that are more authoritative on the subject, but since you haven't cited any, it doesn't put your rant on firm ground, exactly.
Further, that Janeway wouldn't have done the same thing if she had been dealing in an exactly analogous situation, but involving two DQ cultures, is pure supposition backed up by, well, nothing. If I'm blanking on such an instance, not impossible, please remind me of the episode. .
Exceptions
"
There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions." -
Captain Jean-Luc Picard (
TNG: "
Justice") There were many exceptions to the applicability of the Prime Directive that were accepted by the Federation. Each was driven by the context of the situation, the society, and the circumstances at the moment. These were typically not full exceptions that voided the Prime Directive entirely; it was only suspended to the extent minimally necessary to address the matter at hand (e.g., answer a hail, provide rescue assistance). Also, actions were to be handled in a way that attempted to minimize the interference resulting from the limited suspension. For example, the attempted "repair" of prior cultural interference was not, itself, to be done in a way that would lead to even greater interference. (
TOS: "
A Piece of the Action") These exceptions generally fell into the following categories:
- The society was previously interfered with by non-Federation citizens (e.g., Klingons) in a manner that would have violated the Prime Directive had it been done by Starfleet personnel (TOS: "A Private Little War"; VOY: "False Profits")
The Ferengi are an inherently untrustworthy race, so I can't blame Janeway for trying to protect unsuspecting innocent people from them.
All well and good but Janeway has absolutely no legal influence here.
Perhaps not, but neither do the Ferengi.
She's basically just embracing might is right. The Ferenghi should have just told her to piss off.
And why should she have listened to them?
Janeway knew what the Ferengi were capable of. No other race in the Delta Quadrant did. She was entirely justified in warning others of the Ferengi nature and trying to protect innocent people from their predatory and exploitative tactics. And there is no Starfleet Command in that quadrant to keep her from doing so, not that they would have tried.
Besides, since the Ferengi themselves are already interfering with a pre-warp civilization, how can it be a violation of the Prime Directive for Janeway to try and
correct such interference? You are claiming that the Ferengi have the right to do whatever they want in this instance, so why does Janeway have
less of a right to try and fight against what they're doing?
Exactly correct.
Gene wrote cowboy stories for cop shows.
Old dinosaur, casting couch letch.
The planet looked like it didn't have a global government. Medieval. Childlike. It requires restraint from advanced species not to think about tattooing barcodes onto the foreheads of slaves, or strip mining on a planetary scale. Also how many villages were these "businessmen" preying on? It can't just have been the single village square, and the 40 people living near by. Yes, it's rude, to con these people, but these were the same rubes who were lighting a bonfire to BBQ our friendly neighbourhood Ferengi on. Seriously, 7 years to milk one village poorly? Not a threat, leave the alone.
They had indeed spread their con to other areas, as thier native flunky was described as being in charge of collections from the Ga'nah Province. No real reason to think that they didn't have operations going on elsewhere as well, even if unstated.
She's basically just embracing might is right. The Ferenghi should have just told her to piss off.
And why should she have listened to them?
You do remember that the Ferengi used the correct legal arguments, and Janeway backed down because she was acting like a dick.
It's not stated at the time of Arridor's flim-flam speech or afterwards when the command staff is breaking down the situation in the briefing room, that the reason for Janeway sending them back was because Arridor's argument referenced or represented a breach in the PD. The sense seemed to be that his maintaining the harm that would be done to the Tarkarians' spiritual beliefs by removing them from the planet, was taken at face value as a constraining rationale by Janeway et al. This line of reasoning was kind of specious, because, at some point, if it wasn't already the case, the Ferengi would have polluted the belief system however they attempted to shoehorn their business practices as somehow being warranted by those beliefs. Essentially, as was often the case, Janeway was practicing undue restraint in trying to construct unnecessary and superfluous tactics to justify righteous decisions to the nth degree. In this instance, the effort wasn't worthwhile, as the Ferengi made no legal argument that had Janeway by the short hairs, correct or otherwise.
Monetizing religion is not slavery.
I could say something horrible about the Catholics, or I could just say "Scientology".
Unfortunately, IMO, this is the way of thinking about the latter that causes so much controversy about it here and elsewhere. The understanding of Scientology should clearly be that it isn't a religion at all , nor a cult. It's strictly a business, invented by an inveterate huckster, all of whose endeavors, from his crap literature to his various "spiritual" inventions, were meant to move as much product on foolish suckers, as possible. If the action could be legally countenanced, Scientology should treated as the fake endeavor that it is, taxed the hell out of and then shut down for its patently ludicrous health inducing claims.
And why should she have listened to them?
Janeway knew what the Ferengi were capable of. No other race in the Delta Quadrant did. She was entirely justified in warning others of the Ferengi nature and trying to protect innocent people from their predatory and exploitative tactics. And there is no Starfleet Command in that quadrant to keep her from doing so, not that they would have tried.
Besides, since the Ferengi themselves are already interfering with a pre-warp civilization, how can it be a violation of the Prime Directive for Janeway to try and correct such interference? You are claiming that the Ferengi have the right to do whatever they want in this instance, so why does Janeway have less of a right to try and fight against what they're doing?
Because she's interfering in another cultures business. The whole point of the prime directive is that she shouldn't. The fact that she thinks she can because they're Ferenghi just highlights the way humans view Ferenghi.
Instead of the Ferenghi making a profit, had it been an advanced Delta quadrant power killing and eating the natives, would Janeway have got involved?
No. Prime directive.
Just a repetition of what's stated above. In this case, the business you speak of is one of an advanced civilization, bastardizing a pre-industrial culture's core beliefs, exploiting the population with promises of material improvement while furthering their impoverishment, and basically retarding whatever organic development that the Tarkians might eventually achieve otherwise. You got the last line right. No PD because it clearly can be rightfully circumvented here, not even dependent on an individual command officer's interpretation, which is also allowed in certain cases.
Racism is shown to be entirely present amongst humans in the 24th century. It's just no longer internal and is directed at the funny aliens.
Janeway is a Ferenghi racist.
If racism exists for Johnny alien then maybe sexism and homophobia do too. Gays on Earth are treated equally but as soon as humans arrive on Dunarbia IV, they instantly start mocking the Dunarbian gays because they walk funny.
Uh, what the hell are you going on about now? I don't think I require needing to ask for verification that would show that Janeway likely never said word one about them prior to this episode (or after for that matter) and certainly nothing that was racist, by any realistic understanding of the term. If you're seriously contending otherwise, strictly because of her totally justifiable position of shutting down their con game, as it had no legitimate standing to be allowed to continue, then you're adding a whole new and different level of context and understanding to the concept and practice of racism.
So, I guess satisfied that you've made the case for this issue, you spin off to a flight of fancy about two other negative behaviors that aren't related to this episode, but just to be thrown out there as if there's an a priori connection and proven validation, flowing from the original false premise. Where, by the way, is Dunarbia IV? I'll take it for granted that it's a mock construction, the likes of which never actually happened in a 24th century series, but which is being trotted out as a conceit, again, if being done seriously, providing you another rhetorical victory.
So what's homophobia when it's directed at species that are not homo-sapiens?
Was there a Federation contest to find a new word?
Who won?
Why isn't there a novel covering this for Christ's sake!
Why is this "concern" even being brought up? Why not opt to talk instead about the
real and obvious lack of gay relationship representation in the Starfleet realm itself? Perhaps you have done so before, but at least that's a subject that can be discussed as an actually worthwhile issue, not an inane riff.
I'm not exactly a whimsical teller of tall tales, so if I've only managed to needlessly harangue a sincere effort of yours at satire or comedy, I genuinely apologize. But if you're really of a mind that you're telling it like it is, it might help the persuasiveness of the presentation to stay on point and not play so fast and loose with the reality of the situation as it actually was portrayed.
And if you're suggesting that TOS and TNG always followed the prime directive, I have to wonder if we were watching the same show. How is Janeway getting rid of the Ferengi any different than Kirk rescuing the thralls from the brains, or destroying the mechanical gods of multiple different planets?
I'm not even sure the Federation taking sides in a war where one nation is attacking or enslaving another defenseless nation violates the prime directive. If it were a planet officially recognized as part of the Ferengi Alliance it would be internal matters of the Ferengi, but it was not. Just like if Romulus were to invade a prewarp planet on the outskirts of Federation space, it would not violate the PD to interfere.
Once again, you've nailed it! Bravo!!!!
