DS9: "The Dogs of War"

[CrypticMirror]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/d574.php

Ugh, this is the dumbest Ferengi storyline yet. I usually try and find the hopeful outcome amongst DS9's darker shade of grey storytelling, the upbeat, and the optimistic, the Star Trek part of the show. I cannot with this. Even with these supposed reforms, and reforms are always at their weakest when first brought in (that is why people campaign so hard against them at first, if you do not get it overturned in the first year or so then chances are it will stick), so Rom will be facing a huge and wide ranging coalition of people seeking to overturn his reforms or possibly even his death. Plus he has no experience in working a huge system of people. It is a total disaster in the making, with Rom's only consolation being that he probably will not live to see the full extent of it.

The only way it can work, and this is not very Star Trek either, is if Rom is to be Moogie's puppet just like Zek has been. We know Zek has Ferengi Alzheimers (hey, now making Rom Nagus makes sense) and that Moogie has been pull strings from behind the scene. We can only suppose that Zek is now at the point where even that pretense cannot work and with Ferenginar not ready for an outright woman leader, she turns to poor dumb Harr...Rom for her patsy. Quark certainly would not do if that is the case.

I actually think this is a lucky escape for Quark. Despite his fantasies, he would not be happy being Nagus (although he is better qualified than Rom is), and the episode where he ended up being a weapon salesman showed that. Quark, for all that he wants to be the last of the old Ferengi, just has too many scruples for the job and too much of a conscience.

As for the Star Trek part of the show. This episode is the bit where the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant were saved from the Dominion. Bashir came clean to Odo about everything, and expressed genuine sorrow and disappointment in the way the Federation behaved. We're left with no doubt that Bashir is going to try and make things better. While Section 31 and the Federation Council were busy proving every fear that the Founders had about solids right, Bashir did the right and moral thing instead. He proved the Founders wrong and in that humility, ultimately gave Odo the positive vision of humanity to take back to the Link. Now that is Star Trek.

[lsgreg]

Upon seeing this review, I remember the Ferengi storyline in the final season tagged on and kinda unrealistic. I think the Quark character was so good, he kinda forced the writers to create storylines for him, much like with Garak. I guess it is a resolution, but the execution was hasty and forced. Crypticmirror, you actually echo my thoughts exactly on this plotline. Too bad we will probably never get a show to explore what happened to the Ferengi after DS9.

[Mickey_Rat15]

Which may be why Zek instituted tax deductions for bribes. We have very little indication that the average Ferengi does not like how their society works. Who is the constituency Zek and Moogie are serving with these reforms? We have seen top down changes in political culture are very difficult to implement since DS9 went off the air. Manipulating a tax code to punish your enemies and reward your friends is a whole new progressive form of corruption for elite Ferengi to explore.

The new Defiant seems a bit convenient, though it does have precedent. I believe all of the USN carriers sunk in the early parts of WWII had new carriers named for them serving before the war's end.

[Madner Kami]

We have very little indication that the average Ferengi does not like how their society works.

The Ferengi are a lot like US-America. Of course no American is willing to admit, that the "American Dream" is complete and utter bullshit, because everyone thinks he's going to be that one dish-washer who makes it to being a billionaire. Same is true for the "Ferengie Dream". Their may be one or two who actually made it from dish-washer to Nagus, which is enough to make the Ferengie believe they can be Nagus too.

Also, how many people were agitating against Obamacare? How many are still agitating against it, because it's so unferengie, I mean unamerican? God damn, even most Republicans do not want to get rid of Obamacare anymore. Sometimes a step "too far" turns out to be the one step that was needed.

[GandALF]

We have very little indication that the average Ferengi does not like how their society works.

The Ferengi are a lot like US-America. Of course no American is willing to admit, that the "American Dream" is complete and utter bullshit, because everyone thinks he's going to be that one dish-washer who makes it to being a billionaire. Same is true for the "Ferengie Dream". Their may be one or two who actually made it from dish-washer to Nagus, which is enough to make the Ferengie believe they can be Nagus too.

Also, how many people were agitating against Obamacare? How many are still agitating against it, because it's so unferengie, I mean unamerican? God damn, even most Republicans do not want to get rid of Obamacare anymore. Sometimes a step "too far" turns out to be the one step that was needed.

Don't forget their HUGE American ears.

[Robovski]

We have very little indication that the average Ferengi does not like how their society works.

Also, how many people were agitating against Obamacare? How many are still agitating against it, because it's so unferengie, I mean unamerican? God damn, even most Republicans do not want to get rid of Obamacare anymore. Sometimes a step "too far" turns out to be the one step that was needed.

Yeah, no one would complain and campaign against a ''reform'' that was worse than what it replaced. Certainly not because better options were abandoned because the insurance lobby spends on more influencing government than the defense industry and oil industries combined.

[G-Man]

Was that a TNG title drop?

"This bar will be THE LAST OUTPOST..."

Another reason why the Federation/Klingon/Romulan alliance may be so impatient to stop the Dominion - we really don't know what will happen if the Founders die - will the Vorta and Jem'Ha'Dar simply decide to wipe out the Alpha Quadrant in retaliation?

This also makes the military strategizing by Sanders seem somewhat tragic and pointless - planning on hunkering down and rebuilding - what's the point when you are under a ticking clock?

[CrypticMirror]

This also makes the military strategizing by Sanders seem somewhat tragic and pointless - planning on hunkering down and rebuilding - what's the point when you are under a ticking clock?

Well she thinks she is a god, she fully believes that the disease will be cured by her loyal Vorta scientists (because they wouldn't dare be so disloyal as to not cure her), and even in the very worst case there are still the other changeling babies that they launched into space. The Vorta and Jem'hadar have a duty to keep the Dominion going until those new Changelings come and take over (and brutally avenge the deaths of the old guard). The Dominion prevails! It took Odo finally agreeing to go back to the Gamma Quadrant to change her mind, because only another Changeling could contradict her as an equal.

[Naldiin]

This also makes the military strategizing by Sanders seem somewhat tragic and pointless - planning on hunkering down and rebuilding - what's the point when you are under a ticking clock?

I was going to wait until the end to make this point, but this has always struck me as a real problem in DS9's finale: we never really see Sanders react to losing. She remains haughty and arrogant to the end, which honestly makes very little sense. Uh- spoilers incoming, I guess? I don't know how to spoiler-code on these forums...so, uh, fair warning?

It's worth contemplating the awesome totality with which Sanders has lost. Keep in mind - Sanders doesn't care about the Dominion, she cares about the Great Link and the other founders. The entire purpose of the war was to remove a potential threat to the Link, no matter how many Jem'Hadar had to die to do it. The cure and Odo's delivery of it later is a complete deux ex machina. Sanders has no way of knowing that there is a cure, or that Odo has the cure, or that she might reasonably hope to get the cure. That's important to keep in mind.

So, in the moments before Odo eventually beams down, Sanders has lost *everything* she valued. In the previous episodes, her arrogance was shown to be based on the fact that she didn't very much care about anything at stake. It didn't matter how many Cardassians or Vorta died doing something, because their lives had literally no meaning for her. But at the end of the war, Sanders has lost it all. She's going to die, the Great Link is going to collapse, and take with it every Founder she knows in existence. The remaining changelings will become like Odo - isolated and alone. Sanders clearly views this as a pitiable and terrible state. The dominion will probably collapse.

She's also facing immediate defeat. Even her plan to make victory as bitter as defeat has already failed when the Cardassians turn on her. *Everything* has gone wrong.

I don't know if it's a failure from the writers, the directors or the actor herself, but we never see a moment where this sinks in - we never see that moment of fatalistic clarity and the shocking realization that she has gambled everything and lost with crushing totality. Instead she is defiant to the last. She fails, but never falls. And I think that's part of why the finale feels at times like it kind of falls flat.

Moreover, we get no great epiphany after she links with Odo, and that's a real problem. Because, in order for the resolution of this arc to work, we have to buy that the knowledge Odo transmits is enough to fundamentally change her and change the link. Chuck mentioned Buffy - Buffy does this better: vampires that are ensouled (Spike and Angel) end up with *crushing* guilt. We never see that from Sanders. She remains arrogant and haughty - she won't even give Kira the time of day. And if there is no great change, then letting Odo return to the Link is just catastrophically stupid on the Federation's part.

I suppose it probably won't be popular - but I think the finale actually bungles all of these key story beats. If we had seen Sanders collapse into despair, or into guilt, then Odo's ability to change the Link would make sense. The audience would at least get the satisfaction of watching such a tremendous villain truly humbled. Instead, so far as we know, she survives the series and Sanders and the Link never truly pay for the tremendous magnitude of their crimes.

Honestly, what I had always wished was that Garak had taken the moment to parrot back at Sanders the line she gave him when they first met, only this time about the Founders: "They're dead. You're dead. The Link is dead. Your people were doomed the moment they attacked us." Have the savage truth and weight of that observation finally crush her.

[bronnt]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/d574.php

Ugh, this is the dumbest Ferengi storyline yet. I usually try and find the hopeful outcome amongst DS9's darker shade of grey storytelling, the upbeat, and the optimistic, the Star Trek part of the show. I cannot with this. Even with these supposed reforms, and reforms are always at their weakest when first brought in (that is why people campaign so hard against them at first, if you do not get it overturned in the first year or so then chances are it will stick), so Rom will be facing a huge and wide ranging coalition of people seeking to overturn his reforms or possibly even his death. Plus he has no experience in working a huge system of people. It is a total disaster in the making, with Rom's only consolation being that he probably will not live to see the full extent of it.

It is completely insane given that we've never seen any sign that the Nagus is seen as being infallible. It's always been a shark's tank, with people politicking in an attempt to bring him down and become the next Nagus. The first plot involving Zek was mostly about Quark trying not to get assassinated. And this was a society that just 1 year earlier had to go to ridiculous lengths to convince society that females made valid consumers

The implication we're supposed to get, I think, is that Quark hasn't realized that every Ferengi has changed and developed a new perspective, since he hasn't been on Ferenginar. But it's hard to imagine that since people like Brunt are obviously still around and resent the changes. I don't know how we're supposed to this as convincing. And if it's meant to be funny somehow, it's not an effective joke.