10 Star Trek Fan Theories That Became Fact
6. The Ferengi Were Cunning From The Start
The Ferengi of The Next Generation's first season were awful. There, we've said it. They were touted as the next big villain of Star Trek before it turned out they were as intimidating as an old sock, so a serious amount of story shifting and retconning had to quickly be written into effect. Going forward, the Ferengi would become more relaxed, yet intriguing species thanks almost entirely to Armin Shimmerman.
However, a fan theory posited that the initial goofy appearance of the Ferengi was a ruse. This would be a way of getting the measure of Starfleet without attacking them head-on. They made their military seem meaner and their people seem dumber, all in their own version of exploration.
The novel The Buried Age goes a distance to redeeming the early Ferengi. They were putting on an act, albeit a very strange on, as a way to see how the Federation would react to encountering them. While it may not have made the most sense overall, it is good to see that it wasn't something silly like a wildly poor choice when it came to their initial depiction!