#And then there's latinum being a liquid metal and idk it all fits together in my head

[trenicat]

I know out-of-universe they probably came up with the whole vacuum desiccation thing because "the ferengi sell their ashes" and "the ferengi sell taxidermied body parts" seemed too gruesome or not scifi enough and it's supposed to be a haha funny capitalism parody

BUT it is interesting how a society in an almost-perpetually rainy environment, whose religion contains prominent water imagery, has funerary customs which emphasize dehydrating the body. Of course part of it has to do with the remains being easier to handle/sell, but there are other ways to achieve that. I feel like it has potential, there could be something about how the ferengi view the body and soul. E.g., maybe in some parts of ferenginar they believe/d that the soul is water, and that removing the water from the body helps the soul reach the divine treasury, and the practice caught on regardless of whether the original belief did