According to Gene Roddenberry, there are no enlisted ranks in Starfleet. However, in "Family", Sergei Rozhenko (Worf's foster father) mentions something about meeting another Chief Petty Officer. Later on, in the same episode, Sergei mentions that he, an enlisted man, managed to raise an officer. Also, in "The Drumhead", the part-Romulan, part-Human medical technician said that he was so anxious to get into space, he decided to forgo the Academy and, instead, become enlisted. This will indeed contradict what Gene has said.

The Ferengi were originally introduced with the intention of making them the main, re-occurring adversaries in the series (very much as the Klingons were in the original series). However, audiences found the Ferengi too comical to take seriously as potential foes, and the race were gradually refined into the more (usually intentional) comical characters as later typified by Quark in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” The Borg would eventually become infamous as the ultimate menace.