Beetle Fight!

Posted on 05/01/2023 @ 7:01am by
Edited on 05/02/2023 @ 2:16am

1,176 words; about a 6 minute read

I had the most curious evening. The day had gone as usual, meetings, reports, situations to sort out because Ferengi merchants are good at pretending to be mighty ignoramus who don’t know that they can’t just export anything they like. There are rules to follow. You can't, for instance, send invasive plant or insect species to Poseidon.

It turned out that one particularly moronic trader tried to smuggle a full crate of the biggest beetles you can find on Ferenginar. I was told that in comparison, the famous Japanese rhinoceros beetle from Earth looks like a paltry stink bug.

To be honest, at first I wasn’t much concerned by this new problem. Mostly because I thought I would deal with it tomorrow. It was already 1630, and I wanted to go back to my quarters and spend a lovely evening with Kreca. How wrong I was! Kreca was in the midst of creating the most important painting of her whole life, she said and she wouldn’t suffer to be disturbed. Not for another 3 solid hours anyway. You can’t just disregard your muse, because the GPR has decided to have an early meal, with Kohlenese stew, which I know is her favorite.

There is something very sad about having a meal alone so the stew was postponed, plus I can understand that to create a new painting is demanding. So I went back to the Embassy, and I directed my frustration at those giant beetles. I was telling my cultural attaché about them, stressing how fed up I was with the liberties that those Ferengi merchants always took. Razir, however, took a great interest in this sorry affair. He then explained to me that on Ferenginar, beetle fighting is like a national sport. Huge teams are formed and there's a lot of money to be made in betting. The team that makes it to the international championship are treated like heroes.

“How can you have not heard of it?” Razir asked me, puzzled. “Have you never had a beetle team when you were a kid? I had one,” he had the nerve to announce proudly. “Twas called ‘Gone with the Win’. I made loads of latinum with those beetles. And I had many fine meals too, since back then it was a tradition to eat the beetle that lost the fight. In certain towns now, teams are obliged to give more care to their beetles. So, no more free meals. New stupid rule, if you ask me.”

Sometimes, you look dumb without knowing it. Here I was fully aware of my shortcomings. I was born on Ferenginar, but the 18 years I spent there were so sheltered, there are many things about my own culture that I don’t even suspect. So when Razir asked me what sort of games I played when I was a youngling, I only shrugged and kept to myself that the only game we had involved mud and sticks, and rules that changed every week.

I suspect that Razir was feeling sorry for me, because he suggested we should go to a holodeck and he would show me how a real beetle fight is organized, done and won. Any other night, I would have rejected the offer, but here I was faced with hours all by myself. A company I’m not overly keen on.

So I followed Razir, and thanks to the holodeck he was able to set everything up, with huge holo-beetles, a long tree branch where the fight would take place, and all around a public of eager Ferengi, betting and shouting and drinking like mad. There was a little kitchen at the back, because this game he was showing me was the most traditional one. No nonsense about love and care. The loser gets its head chopped off and ends up in the frying pan.

I made a faux pas here, saying that I found this tradition rather crude. Razir gave me an odd look. I have an idea he thinks I'm weak. I mingle too much with other species and look down on my own heritage. Because this is not a lie, I decided to enjoy the evening, and forget, for those few hours, who I am. So I chose a Beetle, and I called him Brutus, only to be told this specimen was a female. So, in the spirit of the game (more gambling than sport, if you ask me. Not that there is anything wrong with that) I changed the name to Charisma.

Razir then proceeded to explain that those beetles need great care and it was important that they don’t mate. And when they behave well, you treat them accordingly and give them better food.

It’s a bit weird to eat a creature, (a pet really if you care for it), to which you have given a name... Still, who am I to reject such ancestral traditions?

So it was then that Charisma fought against Razir’s beetle: Shenom. Two huge black and red beetles (as big as my hand), which, unlike their Terran counterparts, have both a head horn and a pronotal one, plus massive claws that could easily cut a man’s finger. No need to say, they have to be handled with extreme care, and protective gloves.

The fight was lethargic at first. Charisma looked like she was more interested in making a friend of Shenom. We both had a brush to encourage (torment?) the beetle to attack their opponent. I guess that the more you annoy them with the brush, pushing them towards each other, the more they get annoyed, and like any sentient creature, they lose their mind and become aggressive.

Anyway, the fight had its moments, as the two beetles locked horns, and did their best to push each other, often using their impressive claws to get away from their opponent. But on several occasions the fight reached a standstill. The poor critters. I could tell their heart wasn’t into it. So we used the brush to sort of wake them up. It went like that for close to ten minutes and then in a burst of energy Charisma got hold of Shenom and literally threw her adversary behind her. Shenom landed among the crowd and we never saw her again. She disappeared, in the pan, I believe.

I can see the appeal. To have your own team of beetles, to train and care for them and then to make good latinum when you win. Just imagine the money you can pile up when an average fight lasts between 5 and 10 minutes! Makes me wish I had such a team. I said so to Razir, and the way he looked at me, almost feverish, I’m convinced that his Ferengi historical display will have a detailed panel on beetle fighting. Why not? It is entertaining, and those beetles, surely they must be among the most magnificent in the whole universe. Well, what’s known of it. Something to be really proud of anyway.

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