Civilizations of Star Trek

In my first post of the week, I started out by listing a few different species that are found in Star Trek. There are many species in the Star Trek universe, some humanoid, some not so humanoid. While I’m not about to go through all of them, I am going to touch on a few key races that are often seen and referenced throughout the various shows and movies. Most (okay pretty much all) of this information is pulled from the Star Trek wiki, Memory Alpha.

Vulcans

Ok, first of all, I love the Vulcans, even though their constant logic gets old and annoying after a while. The Vulcans are known for their logic and stoic nature. The Vulcans were once an extremely violent and emotional people (even by Earth standards) who waged almost constant warfare on one another. Paranoia and homicidal rage were common. They believed in a variety of gods, such as war, peace and death. As their level of technology improved, the Vulcans eventually reached a point where their violent nature threatened species extinction. In an effort to avoid this fate, a Vulcan named Surak developed a new philosophy. Surak maintained that the root cause of all the problems on Vulcan lay in the uncontrolled outpouring of the people's emotions. His followers swore to live their lives by an ethical system devised by Surak and based purely on logical principles. Emotions were to be controlled and repressed. Although this new philosophy spread rapidly across Vulcan, a minority, many of whom were known as "those who march beneath the Raptor's wings", rejected Surak's ideals. A destructive war began including the use of atomic bombs and among the victims was Surak himself. . Eventually, however, those who opposed logic left Vulcan and founded colonies elsewhere – most notably on the planet Romulus, where they founded what eventually became the Romulan Star Empire.

While the Vulcans do come across as cold and unfeeling. They do have emotions, very strong intense emotions. Unchecked Vulcan emotions are far more intense, violent, and passionate than the emotions of many other species, including humans. The Vulcans blamed their explosive emotions for the cycle of wars that nearly destroyed them. Instead, they focused their mental energy on mastering their emotions. Vulcans are honest, they are known for their high degree of honesty, and don’t like to lie, but if they have a logical enough reason, they will lie but don’t actually consider it to be “lying.” The essence of their logical society is in arriving at the truth through logical process.

Klingons

The Klingons are a humanoid warrior species that originated from the planet Qo’noS (Kronos). The Klinongs are one of the major powers of the galaxy and are a proud, tradition-bound society that values honor and combat. Their aggressive culture makes them an interstellar military power to be both respected and feared. The Klingon Empire was founded some time in the 9th century by Kahless the Unforgettable, who performed many heroic feats including the unification of the Klingon people when he killed the tyrant Molor. Kahless came to be revered in Klingon society to the point of near-deification, and many aspects of Klingon culture came to revolve around an emulation of Kahless' life. The warrior ethos had been an important aspect of Klingon society since the time of Kahless, but the warrior aspects became much more dominant beginning in the early 22nd century. Previously, Klingon society was regarded as socially balanced, but over time, the warrior caste gained greater prominence, to the point where the Klingons widely came to be regarded as a "warrior race." Because of their aggressive outlook, the Klingons generally had poor relations with other races after they began to move out into space. Because the worlds of the Klingon Empire were resource-poor, the Klingons developed an intense belief in the need for expansion and conquest in order to survive. The Klingons' relationship with Humans and the Federation was rocky at best.

Klingon society was extremely complex. Before its decline in the mid 22nd century and again in the late 23rd century, Klingon society was based on a feudal system organized around traditional Great Houses of noble lineage, to which various parts of the population owed fealty. The Great Houses are traditionally represented in the Klingon High Council, which is led by a Chancellor. Ritual was a very important element in Klingon society. While the Klingons were not a religious people as such, they did believe that deities existed at one time. However, Klingon warriors supposedly slew their gods, as they were considered to be more trouble than they were worth. Klingons did not believe in fate; however, they did appear to believe in some form of luck. Once a Klingon died, the spirit was considered to have exited the body, leaving behind a worthless shell to be disposed of. In the Klingon death ritual, it was traditional for those on hand to howl into the sky, as a warning to the afterlife that a Klingon warrior was about to arrive.

Ferengi

The Ferengi are a warp-capable humanoid species from the planet Ferenginar. Ferengi civilization was built on a caricature of free enterprise, where earning profit was the sole meaningful goal in life, superseding all other endeavors. The Ferengi governing body, known as the Ferengi Alliance, was formed over a period of ten thousand years, beginning with the establishment of a system of currency, to their purchase of warp technology, and finally to its state in the 24th century. The Ferengi culture was centralized around the concept of greed and profit earning. As Quark once put it, "There is nothing beyond greed. Greed is the purest, most noble of emotions." Finally, the 10th Rule of Acquisition states that "greed is eternal." However, the Ferengi managed to avoid many of the worst aspects of an evolving culture and their social history was notable for the absence of atrocities such as slavery or genocide, a distinction the Ferengi felt made them morally superior (though their definition of "slavery" clearly did not extend to their treatment of women). Ferengi culture slowly grew out of its early stages by introducing a remarkable economic system that developed from early bartering systems to become one of the leading cultures in interstellar commerce. Unlike most other cultures who frequently idolize warriors or politicians, businessmen were the pillars of Ferengi society for millennia. This tendency led to the slow merging of business and political fields in Ferengi culture and that influence was evident in the near-universal application of the Rules of Acquisition, as both a personal and financial code of ethics. The Rules of Acquisition provided advice that all good Ferengi followed, in order to lead a profitable life. For example, the first Rule of Acquisition was "Once you have their money, you never give it back." In addition to the Rules, the Ferengi also recognized the Five Stages of Acquisition: infatuation, justification, appropriation, obsession, and resale. They also recognized these traits in other species; Earth's Wall Street was regarded with near-religious reverence by Ferengi. Despite their profit-based culture, the Ferengi were also known to love and care for their family to the extent that these sentiments could even take precedence over pursuit of profit.

Ferengi society and culture was highly misogynistic and patriarchal. As such, laws and cultural norms reflected and deeply institutionalized such misogyny and discrimination. Ferengi women were referred to as "females." They were barred from most aspects of society, such as not being allowed to earn profit or to travel. They were not even allowed to wear clothes and were expected to be undressed at all times. "Thinking about things", as Quark once put it, was not something neither expected nor desired by females. Neither was having opinions or political views. They further were not allowed to have any claim to the estate of a husband should the marriage end, as all females were generally required to sign a waiver of property and profit, giving up any such claim. Marriage, like everything else in Ferengi culture, was a business contract, signed between the prospective groom and the bride's father, in which the father leased his daughter to the groom for a set period (usually five years) for an agreed fee, paid on the birth of a son. Pregnancies were considered rentals under Ferengi law. Ferengi females were not allowed to wear clothes, leave their homes without male escort, or speak to males they were not related to. Their role as caregiver to the male children of a family was strictly defined. Mothers were expected to teach their children the Rules of Acquisition, and to soften their male children's food by chewing it for them. Because of this, Ferengi males were often very protective and loving of their mothers, and this was even reflected in the Rules of Acquisition; Rule 31 was "Never make fun of a Ferengi's Mother." By the late 24th century, females made up 53.5% of the Ferengi population and some Ferengi began to realize that exclusion of females from business represented a significant loss of profit opportunities. In the latter half of the century, Ishka – Quark's mother – and Grand Nagus Zek led a movement aimed at reforming cultural traditions that had excluded women, starting by giving females the right to wear clothing. The idea was that giving females that right allowed them to have pockets. Once they had pockets, they would likely want to fill them with latinum, so they were going to need jobs. After they started earning latinum, they were going to want to spend it, which meant Ferenginar would expand its workforce and consumer base at the same time. Initial progress toward this goal seemed less than promising, but by 2375, with the ascension of the progressive Rom to the position of Grand Nagus, the likelihood of further reforms seemed inevitable.

There are many other aspects to these three cultures as well as many other species that have cultures just as intricate as the ones I chose for this post. I am planning to do a post on Q and the Q Continuum (mostly about Q) and I might through the Borg in there as well. Live long and prosper. Sanders out.