> Quark is seen to tear bars of gold-pressed Latinum into powder after the Latinum has been removed.
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> So, Ferengi are capable of tearing solid gold bricks in half with their bear hands. And yet you never get to see them beat up on Klingons. Why is that?
>
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> Bah. I don't know. I suppose I think that with this massive physical strength, and this great trading acumen, they should have conquered the entire quadrant by now.

I asked my dad on this one. He gave a rather long answer which I'll attempt to paraphrase:

When you work with something for a while, you tend to develop special skills involving that particular object. In this case, Quark, being a trader, deals with a lot of gold. Gold is known for being soft; even in brick form you can still depress it. So there's a good chance that this is just a particular skill that doesn't transfer to other areas.

As for fighting and physical strength in general, the Ferengi developed their trading skills over their strength. They don't need to have physical power. Their technology, in fact, is created by other "stronger" (physically) species. Then the Ferengis use their bargaining strength to acheive their technological needs. It takes a lot of strength (I suppose this is veering into the "willpower" as apposed to "brute force" area?) to build a rocket ship and go up in it; the Ferengis would rather have someone do that for them, and then use that technology.

Lesi"sounds smart to me"Sputnik