#i have never played bioshock but my friend said hes so capitalist

[www-girl]

nightmare capitalist blunt rotation

[tessatechaitea]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E4: "The Last Outpost"

"She begrudged her lover nothing and now, finally, it was time to offer him The Last Outpost." For some reason that would be inexplicable if you were living in the actual world of Star Trek: The Next Generation but is entirely understandable when you view it through the lens of a story written by humans about humans, every single Godlike creature in the universe seems to put humans to the test to find out if they're heedless barbarians who care for nothing but their own enrichment. It's one of the reasons I'd rather view Q as tormenting the Enterprise not because he's testing humans but because he loves Jean-Luc (there's additional proof of this in the episode "Hide and Q" when we see Q seems to be acting against the general Q Continuum consensus). I'd rather he be a romantic interest and not just another smart ass alien testing the humans to make sure they're allowed in space. But maybe humans bring it on themselves. It is possible that humans are the most arrogant race (species?) in the entire universe. One species (race?) has to be; why not humans? And every other alien race that has come into contact with other races always discuss how terribly arrogant and ambitious those humans are, with their weird emotions and concept of "love". And since humans write these stories, seemingly with the assumption that humans are somehow unique and special, the "humans must prove themselves" becomes an easy trope to slip into any plot. But before the test begins, this episode starts by introducing audiences to the Ferengi, the boot sale merchants of the universe. They're played as if the sellers at your local dirt mall inexplicably developed the technologies for space travel and teleportation and instantly launched into space to find deals and cheat people. Data explains that their entire cultural belief system is built on the motto, "Caveat Emptor." As a space faring race which interacts with other races, I can see the appeal of introducing this kind of alien characterization. Little House on the Prarie and Grizzly Adams and even Anne with an E relied on the plot of the traveling salesman character. But imagine the Ferengi homeworld before they ever left the atmosphere! Nobody trusting anybody else while everybody trying to profit over everybody else! What a terrible bunch of Boomer pricks! I wonder if there's a whole offshoot of Ferengi flower children and democratic socialists who fucking despise the way the rest of the universe views them? I suppose if there is, I'll see evidence of it in Deep Space Nine when I get around to it. I bet Quark has some family members who are all, "Ugh! Dad is such a capitalist asshat!" Seeing the Ferengi in this episode made me want to dress up as a Ferengi every Halloween for the rest of my life. Not because I love the way they look but I fucking fell in love with how they hopped around like children who just sucked down two pounds of pure cane sugar. I suppose they were supposed to look like monkeys in the zoo, incapable of standing still. But I fucking loved their fidgeting and bouncing around. Why did they drop that aspect of the character?! It's fucking endearing! I wonder what would happen to the Ferengi race if somebody sold them a cargo hold full of fidget spinners? This is yet another episode that culminates in a terrible anti-climax. The Enterprise and the Ferengi ship are locked in a force field around a planet of a long dead space empire. The crew of the Enterprise agree to work with the Ferengi to search the planet while the Ferengi cross their fingers behind their backs and plan on acting as despicable as possible. On the planet (after some minor skirmishes between the two crews), a man named Portal puts them to the test to find out if they're worthy of existing in the universe. Why does he get to decide? I don't know! I guess because he's so fucking powerful. The anti-climax comes because Portal doesn't put them through any trials or rigorous intellectual tests. He just accidentally quotes Sun Tzu and Riker is all, "I know the response to that quote! Boom! I'm interesting, right?!" And Portal is all, "You amuse me. You shall live." Aside: the man who plays Portal also played Mimo on Villa Alegre. While the Ferengi insist that the humans are liars and jerks while taking no responsibility for their own actions, Riker quotes some Sun Tzu because every nerd in the world knows that philosophical thought about strategy and diplomacy has never outdone The Art of War. Portal is suitably impressed like any space nerd would be. He not only decides to spare the humans but becomes best friends with Riker. Only a human mind could be so unique and interesting to a creature of such knowledge and power! We're so awesome! Everybody in space should embrace our quirky ways! Even though the Ferengi behave abominably, Portal lets them live because Riker points out that they'll never learn any other way. Also, I think he just thinks of them as gnats. People might be annoyed by gnats but you don't turn the full force of your intellect and emotional fury on the entirety of their species just because they're bothering you. You swat at a few of them, curse a bit, and then fucking forget all about them. I think every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has a moral but sometimes I can't be bothered to understand it. Especially when I'm several episodes ahead of the one I'm currently writing about. They all kind of get jumbled together. This one probably has something to do with keeping an open mind and not judging too swiftly. I only say that because I think that was the moral of the Farpoint episode and maybe the moral of all the episodes I've written about so far. And what better way to get that moral across than by making the Ferengi as obviously underhanded and treacherous as possible? Maybe they shouldn't have made them so childlike and lovable as well though. Perhaps that's why they stopped making them all bouncy and fidgety. Because it was too adorable. I would have kept that aspect of them but also made them constantly hold open switchblades. Aside: Armin Shimerman who also plays Buffy's high school principle portrays the Ferengi Letek. Oh, he's also Quark in Deep Space Nine. And he's the face of the wedding gift box in Haven. Also he's the voice of Andrew Ryan from the Bioshock games (get it? "Andrew Ryan"? Ayn Rand? It's such a good game about objectivism!). It's possible part of my problem with this show (at least so far) is the pacing of the plot in regards to the theme. I suppose, taken as a whole and being charitable, what happens in many ST:TNG episodes is that the initial introductory story usually isn't the real story and often either gets ignored or is resolved in a boring or anti-climactic way (because it wasn't the meat of the theme and didn't really matter. Like the virus in "The Naked Now"). In this one, the introductory story is that the Ferengi have stolen something from the Federation. The Enterprise is tasked with getting it back. Which they do at some point but that story doesn't matter by the time they're trapped in the forcefield. It's like that thing that famous guy said which I think I mentioned in a previous review (unless it was in a comic book review) about how life happens when you're planning on some other kind of life. Star Trek: The Next Generation made a career out of it. Some people refer to these things as the "A" and "B" plot. But I don't think ST:TNG gives enough time to the initial plot to even consider it a parallel story line to the main plot. Maybe the writers get better at this as the show progresses. But even if they don't, it's not that big a deal. I get it! You need to have the crew doing something when the major shit hits the fan. And that shit doesn't have to come out of the first thing they were doing at all, although it would be nice if, just sometimes, it did. Like maybe Wesley Crusher is studying for exams and he has the replicator make him a copy of the Necronomicon after which he unleashes Hell aboard the Enterprise. Then at the end, he fails his test because, you know, it was about engineering and not raising the dead.