While Captain Freeman participates in a historic moment for the Ferengi and the Federation, the Lower Deckers are tasked with guidebook duty. This involves a trip to Ferenginar for Lt. JGs Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), D'Vana Tendi (Noël Wells) and Samanthan Rutherford (Eugene Cordero). While visiting Ferenginar, the Lower Deckers get to experience Rom and Leeta's progressive changes to Ferengi society first hand. It's clear that Rom, one of the best loved of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Ferengi, has vastly changed Ferenginar for the better.

Related

Star Trek’s Quark Actor Apologizes, Accepts Blame For TNG’s Ferengi Mistake

Quark actor Armin Shimerman gives a mea culpa for his performance as a Ferengi in Star Trek: The Next Generation on The Shuttlepod Show.

Posts

10 The Ferengi Are No Longer Arms Dealers

In Star Trek: Lower Decks' season 4, episode 6's cold open, it's revealed that the Ferengi have turned their back on arms dealing. Grand Nagus Rom has decreed that leisure and hospitality reap bigger profits in the long run, and so get-rich-quick schemes like illegal gun running has been outlawed. Not everyone on Ferenginar is happy about this, however. One disgruntled Ferengi has made a deal with Lower Decks' mystery villain to sell them a brand-new Genesis Device. They soon regret their actions, however, when their ship becomes the latest victim of the attacks that are sweeping the galaxy.

9 Lower Decks Honors Quark's Mother's Star Trek Legacy

The Ferengi were a traditionally misogynistic species that believed women were second-class citizens and treated them as objects. Before the changes inspired by the romance between Grand Nagus Zek (Wallace Shawn) and Quark and Rom's mother Ishka (Cecily Adams), it was illegal for Ferengi women to wear clothes or earn profit. All of this was changed toward the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and this can be seen during the scenes on Ferenginar. The clothed Ferengi females in places of commerce during Lower Decks prove that Ishka's progressive equality laws have been upheld by her son Rom.

8 Gambling Dens Are Everywhere On Ferenginar

Planning his trip to Ferenginar, Boimler wants to visit both the Museums of Gambling and Haggling, which highlights these key tenets of Ferengi society. While Boimler ends up getting side-tracked by Ferengi TV, Mariner does get to experience the Ferengi's unique approach to educational establishments. Reunited with her old Ferengi friend Quimp, she pays a visit to a public library, which is basically a huge casino. It appears that nobody on Ferenginar has read a book for thousands of years, so the library has become another gambling den to meet the public demand. Deep Space Nine's Quark (Armin Shimerman) has even opened his own youth casino to teach the kids how to gamble from an early age.

7 Ferengi Television Is Sleazier Than Their Holonovels

Boimler gets sidetracked by Ferengi TV in his hotel room, and delights in the addictive nature of their sleazy shows. Boimler is initially dismissive of the outrageously misleading commercials but soon gets suckered in. One of the most hilarious shows is Landlord Cops in which slum landlords take extreme action to tackle their tenants. However, it's Will They, Won't They, the workplace sitcom where everyone is secretly in love with each other that really captures Boimler's imagination. He promptly spends eight hours in front of the addictive show, until Commander Jack Ransom (Jerry O'Connell) has him forcibly removed from the TV.

6 Ferengi Honeymoon Traditions Explained

As part of guidebook duty, Tendi and Rutherford are required to act like a married couple to experience a Ferengi couple's holiday. Parth, their Ferengi hug-cierge takes it upon himself to give the "newlyweds" an unforgettable experience. Included in their deluxe romance package is a hilariously awkward couple's photoshoot involving fancy costumes and props. After that, they're treated to the "most romantic meal possible" - sexy chocolate statues of one another. Tradition dictates that every time Tendi or Rutherford takes a bite from the chocolate statue they have to say something they find attractive about each other. It becomes an incredibly awkward experience for platonic best friends Tendi and Rutherford, that makes them relieved to return to the Cerritos.

5 Falsely Claimed Discounts Are One Of Ferenginar's Worst Crimes

While Tendi and Rutherford have their awkward romantic meal, another couple are singled out for lying about their relationship status. Lying to get a discount is apparently one of Ferenginar's worst crimes, and the lying couple are sentenced to a lifetime working in the subaquatic sulfur mines. It's obviously an outlandish comedy moment, but it does ring true for a society so heavily focused on profit to harshly punish those that claim discounts they're not entitled to.

4 Quark's Starfleet Bar And Grill

Tendi and Rutherford dine at Quark's Federation Experience, a themed restaurant based on the legendary adventures of some iconic Starfleet officers. The waiters are dressed in a variety of Starfleet uniforms from the Star Trek: The Original Series and Next Generation eras. The restaurant's security staff are appropriately dressed in TNG era yellow uniforms, while customers are greeted by a Ferengi dressed as Lt. Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy). There are also replicas of the USS Voyager, USS Enterprise-D, the Guardian of Forever and a Mugato. It's a gloriously tacky Capitalist tribute to Star Trek's socialist Federation.

3 How Star Trek's Ferengi Honor Their Dead

Mariner and Quimp have a heart-to-heart at the Dominion War Memorial, which takes a suitably Ferengi approach to honoring the dead. The lists of those Ferengi that lost their lives during DS9's Dominion War are included on plaques that are organized around a giant bar of gold-pressed latinum. Dead Ferengi are memorialized by the profits that they'll never make, rather than the personal loss that they may represent. It's a blackly comic joke, but the use of a war memorial as "a sober farewell to lost profits" is very on-brand for the staunchly Capitalist species.

2 Rom Has Become Obsessed With Baseball - Thanks To DS9's Sisko

During the negotiations with Freeman and Vassery, Rom reveals an obsession with baseball. This is thanks to his role in the Niners, the baseball team led by Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks). Although Rom showed no real skill for the game, his accidental hitting of a home run saw him raised as the hero of the baseball game against the Vulcan Logicians. Star Trek: Lower Decks reveals that this left a lasting impression on Rom as he now has an extensive collection of baseballs in his temple on Ferenginar.

1 The Ferengi Will Star Trek's Federation

The biggest update to the Ferengi in Star Trek: Lower Decks is their successful application to the United Federation of Planets. Rom and Leeta's tough negotiations were a means to see if the Federation truly understood Ferengi culture. While iral Vassery was bending over backwards to fulfill their increasingly elaborate demands, Captain Freeman rescued the diplomatic mission from falling apart. Playing to Rom's Ferengi heritage, she placed a clause in the agreement that would entitle Ferenginar to one billion bars of gold pressed latinum if they recruited on planet into the Federation - Qo'noS, the Klingon home world.

Quoting the eighth rule of acquisition, "Small print leads to large risk", Freeman earns Rom's respect by swindling like a true Ferengi. It's enough to convince the Grand Nagus to sign the original contract with the Federation, finally completing the rehabilitation of the Ferengi which began with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Following its trip to Orion earlier in the season, Star Trek: Lower Decks' new Ferengi episode continues to expand the Trek universe while retaining its irreverent sense of humor.

Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.