DS9: Heart of Stone

[Jonathan101]

Priority 1 communications (distress calls or otherwise) are classified as "urgent".

Priority 2 is less urgent; Jellico sent one out in TNG to report that their mission was successful.

So a priority 1 distress call would be like "we crashed and are stranded in enemy territory", while priority 2 would be like "we crashed and are stranded in Disney World- pick us up in, like, 2 weeks?"

[Mickey_Rat15]

Would the gun have had any effect on Sanders? It could not cut through the "crystal" when "Kira" was trapped in it, but the crystal also has to be part of Sander's body. Does all Sander's need to do to become invulnerable is take the form of the crystal?

Possibly. I mean, Changelings can change in a way that makes them virtually indistinguishable from an object they morph into, even when scanned extensively. It seems reasonable, that they actually take on physical properties of the matter they change into (for example, it's clear that their mass changes along their transformation, otherwise Odo would weight as much as a falcon or the falcon as much as Odo, which would be obviously silly and easy to exploit in terms of detection). On the other hand, the Dominion has some quite nifty tech on hand. A hidden personal force-field protecting one of the most valuable assets of the Dominion is hardly out of question.

I like how what Sisko as Nog's competency test is something that should be right in any Ferengi that is worth his salt's wheelhouse, logistics management. Even so, I am still not sure how Nog, who had an indifferent attitude, at best, to scholarship passes an exam that a kid who accidently creates sentient nanites and pocket realities had problems with.

You can be highly intelligent and still completely fail at being a genius in school, precisely because you are so highly intelligent. Nothing in the story really hints at Nog being dumb, he's just bored with school and doesn't take it serious early on, which is something that many a bright people can attest to being the case.

I do not mean to suggest that Nog is stupid, just relatively ignorant at this point, and this is really the first motivation he has shown towards something that seems to require extensive scholarship

[Mickey_Rat15]

I like how what Sisko as Nog's competency test is something that should be right in any Ferengi that is worth his salt's wheelhouse, logistics management. Even so, I am still not sure how Nog, who had an indifferent attitude, at best, to scholarship passes an exam that a kid who accidently creates sentient nanites and pocket realities had problems with.

I really don't think this was supposed to be taken as any sort of official test from Starfleet. I think it was just Sisko trying to guage how serious Nog really was about the whole thing. I.e. is he willing to put in the actual hard work, even when it's boring, or will he half-ass it & cut corners, or even take the opportunity to pocket something? Etc.



Personally, I've always really liked Nog's little speech about not wanting to end up like his father. I think it hilights something DS9 did a lot, which was to deconstruct certain elements from other startrek shows, particularly TNG.

In TNG, the ferengi were a pathetic joke of an antagonist, entirely defined by their 'hat' of being villainous capitalist stereotypes. DS9 then took that idea, and turned it around, showing the problem with that sort one-dimensional monoculture, by showing how much it sucks for individuals who don't fit into the 'hat' (#NotAllFerengi); both for men who didn't have the lobes for business, and for women who do. DS9 would even have ferengi being heroic on occasion, showing that they too had the capacity for self-improvement that startrek was supposed to be all about.

DS9 essentially salvaged the ferengi from being the one-note cretins that TNG introduced them as.

Yes, I believe this was Sisko trying to evaluate Nog's motivation and committment prior to doing anything official for Starfleet. it just seems to me that the inventory assignment may be something that a Ferengi learns early and may consider interesting.

[Mickey_Rat15]

And even if, miraculously, Rom manages to make that stick, the fact is that he is an imbecile when it comes to business. And at the end of the day, the Nagus is the head of a society that is based on the worst that capitalism has to offer. If a phaser doesn't end up doing Rom in, then you can bet that Brunt or someone like Brunt is going to be watching like a hawk.

I'd like any Star Trek series that continues off from the Dominion War to have the Ferengi doing wonderfully, only for it to be revealed that Quark became Rom's Grey Eminence and is the force behind the Alliance's success that has skillfully balanced things to off set the chaos Rom's reforms inevitably unleashed.

That would then blend with the ironic fate of Quark, to be the greatest Ferengi of his age that helped prevent anarchy and civil war, but he fades into history forgotten. In a way I think it would be what he wanted in his desire to be the quintessential Ferengi.

Personally, I've always assumed that the entire reason Rom was selected was to be a puppet nagus, with his mother pulling his strings from behind the throne.

That is possible. Also, I don't think it is a role Rom would be happy in. He does not seem tempermentally suited for political leadership, nor is that where his interests and skill set lie, whatever the perks of office may be. It just seems something Rom is shoehorned into just to have a final thing to frustrate Quark about

[clearspira]

And even if, miraculously, Rom manages to make that stick, the fact is that he is an imbecile when it comes to business. And at the end of the day, the Nagus is the head of a society that is based on the worst that capitalism has to offer. If a phaser doesn't end up doing Rom in, then you can bet that Brunt or someone like Brunt is going to be watching like a hawk.

I'd like any Star Trek series that continues off from the Dominion War to have the Ferengi doing wonderfully, only for it to be revealed that Quark became Rom's Grey Eminence and is the force behind the Alliance's success that has skillfully balanced things to off set the chaos Rom's reforms inevitably unleashed.

That would then blend with the ironic fate of Quark, to be the greatest Ferengi of his age that helped prevent anarchy and civil war, but he fades into history forgotten. In a way I think it would be what he wanted in his desire to be the quintessential Ferengi.

Personally, I've always assumed that the entire reason Rom was selected was to be a puppet nagus, with his mother pulling his strings from behind the throne.

That is possible. Also, I don't think it is a role Rom would be happy in. He does not seem tempermentally suited for political leadership, nor is that where his interests and skill set lie, whatever the perks of office may be. It just seems something Rom is shoehorned into just to have a final thing to frustrate Quark about

I also smell an element of ''screw you'' to the audience here, who were lukewarm towards him at best. Rom can't just end up with a hot big-boobed wife and be a top engineer on board DS9; he has to become the Nagus as well and usher in a new era for his people. They did the same thing with Troi - wasn't enough to have her get promoted over Data AKA the most competent and smartest man on the crew who has saved the crew and the Federation multiple times; she had to beat him at chess as well, which would make her a chess prodigy beyond that of Gary Kasparov as he couldn't defeat a computer a thousand times less sophisticated.

[Madner Kami]

And even if, miraculously, Rom manages to make that stick, the fact is that he is an imbecile when it comes to business. And at the end of the day, the Nagus is the head of a society that is based on the worst that capitalism has to offer. If a phaser doesn't end up doing Rom in, then you can bet that Brunt or someone like Brunt is going to be watching like a hawk.

I'd like any Star Trek series that continues off from the Dominion War to have the Ferengi doing wonderfully, only for it to be revealed that Quark became Rom's Grey Eminence and is the force behind the Alliance's success that has skillfully balanced things to off set the chaos Rom's reforms inevitably unleashed.

That would then blend with the ironic fate of Quark, to be the greatest Ferengi of his age that helped prevent anarchy and civil war, but he fades into history forgotten. In a way I think it would be what he wanted in his desire to be the quintessential Ferengi.

Personally, I've always assumed that the entire reason Rom was selected was to be a puppet nagus, with his mother pulling his strings from behind the throne.

That is possible. Also, I don't think it is a role Rom would be happy in. He does not seem tempermentally suited for political leadership, nor is that where his interests and skill set lie, whatever the perks of office may be. It just seems something Rom is shoehorned into just to have a final thing to frustrate Quark about

I also smell an element of ''screw you'' to the audience here, who were lukewarm towards him at best. Rom can't just end up with a hot big-boobed wife and be a top engineer on board DS9; he has to become the Nagus as well and usher in a new era for his people. They did the same thing with Troi - wasn't enough to have her get promoted over Data AKA the most competent and smartest man on the crew who has saved the crew and the Federation multiple times; she had to beat him at chess as well, which would make her a chess prodigy beyond that of Gary Kasparov as he couldn't defeat a computer a thousand times less sophisticated.

Counterpoint: Donald Trump became President of the US of A.

[Rocketboy1313]

I think you all are giving Rom too little credit.
Both he and Quark have faced the possibility of death on multiple occasions and come out on top.
Rom left Quark's employ by creating a union of the staff (in an episode that is under appreciated as I think it sort of foreshadows some of the more progressive mindset that could be taking place).

You also have to look at how entwined the Ferengi Alliance has become with the other powers in the Alpha Quadrant, I know that Star Trek is not great at illustrating cultural bleed and appropriation, and only showed tiny facets of Ferengi culture, but it is possible the 4-7 characters we see are not reflective of an entire trade empire and that there was a push for reforms for a while and this is just the damn breaking.

The show really is not about the Ferengi, so the intricate shifts and cultural reforms seem sudden to the audience, because we are on the fringe of their empire talking to a bartender.

Look, I studied abroad in Turkey, and one of the places we stayed at was a hostile run by an Australian guy. Imagine if all the Turkish people judged the politics of Australia by what they knew of 1 former surfer in Anatolia.

[Yukaphile]

Could you see Ferengi drunkenly stumbling through blasted streets slurring the words, "Come here, woman? Come here, woman?" Or when they finally find their prey to put glass shards, iron rods, or tree branches up their... you know? To knowingly mate over and over in droves with intent to conceive life in pain, to pollute a conquered woman's body with your seed so she'd give birth to a foreign rape baby? Out of sheer vindictive pleasure and sadomasochistic arousal? To take women and girls as young as ten or even younger as simple raw booty and the spoils of conquest in organized trains? I can't. Don't get me wrong. They are an excessively patriarchal and very backward, very primitive society on women's rights. But I agree with Chuck. I don't think they've ever sunk as low as humans have, even with regards to mistreating women. Hell, in their society, I see it more as state-enforced gender roles, to the Nth degree. Women belong in the home, they shouldn't leave the home, and if you want a wife, you bargain with the father or otherwise other male head of a household, but that's it. Men have their place in the business world, and women don't. All of which is wrong and needs serious reform. But again, the point I must stress is that it still feels like at their worst, they are better than us at our worst.

[Madner Kami]

Yuka, seriously. Get professional help.

[Yukaphile]

How can I get help? Two million people got away with that. The help I need is in knowing at least in their miserable deaths, they faced some kind of karmic punishment. But no one knows.