The Ferengi weren't being tricked; Freeman just did exactly as Rom and Leeta were hoping she'd do. The Federation were so focused on testing the Ferengi that they didn't think the Ferengi might be testing them as well.
The Federation were focused on appeasement, you mean. Sadly a repeating trend given the whole mess with the Romulans, the Maquis, the Dominion in the mind-simulation, etc etc... They're far too obsessed with getting peace that they give up way too much for it a lot of the time. This was just another example that thankfully didn't have massive fallout since it was averted for once.
While we all might debate her leadership abilities at times, it's various moments like this that show precisely WHY Freeman is sitting in the center seat of a Starfleet vessel.
I love that it was the goofy, comedy cartoon show to highlight and subvert one of people's biggest gripes with the "insidious Federation", especially after a lot of the post-DS9 media increasingly portrays them as militaristic and authoritarian: Collectivism does not necessitate cultural assimilation as well. To truly understand people you need to communicate with them on their terms. It's not enough to just say "I respect you" while asking them to change their behaviors and views, you need to show that you understand where they are coming from and how they can be a part of a whole without giving up what makes them unique. Lower Decks is more Star Trek than Star Trek has been in a long, long time.
Through the episode, I was dumbfounded as to why they were acting this way because it was such a drastic change from how they were on DS9. Then this scene came on, and I just said, "That's Absolutely Brilliant".
Yeah, but Freeman can use Rom's 'you swindled like a true Ferengi' line to claim herself an honorary Ferengi. That should give her some leeway, methinks.
Chase Masterson's reading of "Kronos the Klingon Homeworld!? That's impossible!" absolutely killed it. Honestly they both killed it this episode, it was like Max never skipped a day the man is a legend.
Chase Masterson has been keeping up quite well actually. She's been an active participant in Star Trek Online's story development reprising her role as Leeta.
100% respect to that admiral for owning up to the fact that he fucked up and underestimated the Grand Negus and for him giving Captain Freeman credit. I'm glad he didn't give a homicidal AI starship full autonomy to cover up his mistake.
The ironic thing is the actor that played Rom was actually a baseball player. In the episode, he played left-handed since that was the only way he could look like he was playing poorly.
@@wisey105Exactly. He's a legitimate good athlete. The same thing happened to Jaleel White, who played a nerd but was actually very athletic. Hell, even a Larry from the Three Stooges was a incredibly good Boxer in his own right. Never underestimate an actor.
I appreciate that only Rom could get Ferenginar to join the Federation. What a historical moment. Like the old Vulcan proverb. _Only Nixon could go to China_
And that’s totally why I bought it immediately. If the Ferengi were EVER going to join the Federation, it was going to be under Rom for sure. At least he would start the process. Love how the lore fits so well.
It is an historic moment. For that phrase to apply Rom would have had to have been an anti-Federation hawk like Nixon was an hawk anticommunist his whole career. Rom of course wasn't so he for political reasons to guard against criticism had to try and swindle the Federation only for the Federaton to show it's lobes and swindle them back. This probably saiciated the more conservative elements of Ferengi society who felt the Federation was incompatable with Ferengi society.
@@blackreaper2247 yes and no. they need a level of trustworthiness or others would not trade with them. so the Nagus would uphold the contract but lower ferengir can cheat other races.
I love the fact that this episode shows how smart Rom really always has been since DS9 and simultaneously showing how much of a shrewd businesswoman Leeta is too (we really didn’t get to see much of that side in DS9)
@@appropriate-channelname3049Rom was naive and clueless from a business dealing perspective, but that was largely disinterest rather than true idiocy, in the later seasons he got a lot of character development that showed he was very intelligent when he was actually interested in something and was a very skilled engineer as a result. Given the gap between the end of DS9 even he was made the Grand Nagus and this episode, the skills of his wife and his interest in being a good Nagus, the fact he's now showing skill in business dealings is perfectly in line with his character now.
In the DS9 universe, Nog lives on as a son who is proud of his dad who is being the best Ferengi he can be, and more than likely gave him a few pointers on dealing with Starfleet red tape.
You know bajorons still seemed to have a bit of an economy despite the occupation. I think it was Latium based which apart from the federation maybe klingons and Romulans seems like It's the universal currency for most alpha quadrant species that has warp drive.
Both actors (along with much of DS9's cast) returned in a reunion season in Star Trek Online, and in a sequel mission to The Magnificent Ferengi, you play as their characters in a heist. During the recent Star Trek Cruise, both actors appeared in the costumes resembling STO's Mirror Leeta Terran Empire uniform.
I met him once at a convention in Glasgow. He overdid it a bit with the whisky and needed to wear sunglasses. At one point he was waiting for a lift (elevator) when someone told him he looked terrible and asked if he had any sleep. The lift came, he stepped in and replied as Rom "I've had whisky, I've had beer, I've had..." as the door shut and he was whisked upstairs.
This is later tought in ferengi schools as the "Freeman Shuffle" where one part of a negotiating group willingly humiliates themself as cover for the overlooked partner to add clauses to a contract. A risky manuver that requires trust, but one that could benifit both enourmasly.
Also, I love how they say she "Swindled them" (as a compliment of course), but I'm sure in Freeman's mind it was actually a fair exchange. Because if the Ferengi actually managed somehow to bring the Klingons into the Federation as a full member species, then hell. They'd DESERVE a billion bars of gold pressed latinum and all those other demands!
@@hfar_in_the_sky - That's how Rom sees it. Ferengi culture being based on exchange, the Federation would look pathetic if they gave all that away just to get the Ferengi on board. But by adding a contractual obligation to provide a fair value exchange (and bringing Qo'noS into the Federation would totally be worth an unimaginable payout) Rom can say, truthfully, that the Federation drove a hard bargain for all those special requirements. Which, of course, any Ferengi would respect. In negotiations, you aim high and negotiate your way down to the real deal.
@@daniels7907 Very true! And you bring up a good point with the bit about other ferengi respecting this action. If you think about it, Rom probably would’ve looked weak to the other ferengi if he just signed the initial contract without at least trying to swindle the Federation. This allows him to save face and prove to other ferengi that the Federation can negotiate and swindle on the same level as the ferengi, which proves the Federation will be good business partners
@@hfar_in_the_sky Thanks! It struck me that Rom actually likes the Federation (Nog even has a career in Starfleet). But he can't be seen just allowing the Federation to show up with a standard contract and signing it without trying to make a better deal. The Federation didn't outright refuse his list of terms, but they (i.e. Freeman) expected a return of comparable value from the deal. Which is totally in line with Ferengi culture. As Leeta said, the Grand Nagus can't sign a membership agreement with a bunch of "suckers and rubes". It would look bad. Whereas saying that both sides made big demands and then agreed to a more economical deal when neither wanted to have to pay that much is standard business practice.
Man look at Rom now, gone is the nervous and self depricating ferengi we knew, hes grown into a confident and just ruler. He showed ferngi culture that you can get filthy rich and still be the good guys, getting ferengi buisnesses exclusive rights to rebuild cardasia being one of his major victories.
Fun fact the actor is fantastic at baseball IRL. So much so that in the DS9 baseball episode, the only way he could make Rom look convincingly bad onscreen was to play left handed.
I think my favorite part about this, is that by Leeta saying Rom couldnt sign with a bunch of rubes, it showed he had no intention of following through with his version of the contract. Theoritcally it would have given him and the Ferengai a lot of leverage over the Federation, but working with someone who so blindly gives in to such ridiculous demands is terrible business practice. I'm fairly certain that if Freeman hadn't stepped in and the Admiral was able to actually finalize all of that, Rom would have called the whole thing off and walked away.
100%. Rom and Leeta’s game wasn’t for their own benefit but for those on the fence about Federation membership and those in opposition who can still be convinced otherwise. Freeman’s shrewdness, strength, and respect for Ferengi culture shows that Federation membership will be a partnership.
Could see half jokes of Freeman bringing Quark to assist them with making their contract after being smarter than Rom only for Rom to bring in their mother to check if the contract is good or not.
Oh, I've got to watch this episode. To have the OG actors for Rom and Lita VA on the show....this is going to be wonderful to watch, and I think Freeman is going to be an admiral soon.
It's characters like freeman who make me think starfleet should still have the commedore rank for people who clearly should be ahead of other captains but who aren't really built for the admiralty.
@@KenshiImmortalWolf Unfortunately commodore is still flag officer. That being said, the few commodore we see post TNG is the head of a department (Oh) or a starbase (LaForge)
I think she'll still turn it down, she wants to be out there doing stuff, if she took a promotion that would ground her it'd have to president of the federation.
@@TrueZero2 However Quark is still on good term with Grilka as he later won her heart (with some help from Worf) as shown in the DS9 episode *Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places* .
Well, for whatever it's worth, according to "Enterprise", the Klingons are members of the Federation by the 26th century. I can also totally buy that it's due to some combination of Rom, Quark, and Nog more than Worf. Martok did take quite a shine to Nog.
Clearly Quark marries Grika making his family legally part of the empire and Nog pushes his luck with Klingons loitering and ends up fighting Martok and defeating him in single combat
@@timfortune9 I'm pretty sure it's a little of everything. Klingon culture experiencing a reformation in their ideas of honor, focusing less on the glory of battle (but not completely losing it), and more on the nobility of purpose, and living righteously. Then the various ties between Ferengi leadership and certain Klingon Houses. And the strengthening of the bonds between the House of Martok and the Federation. I can see Klingon society ultimately being pretty open to the idea, just because the members of their culture who could never have been great warriors, would have the opportunity to find a great deal of respect and purpose by joining Starfleet for the things they ARE good at. There are probably quite a few Klingons who, like anybody, have far broader and less martial passions in life. No culture is monolithic, after all. I'd love to see a Klingon doctor with a really inappropriately morbid sense of humor when things are loose, but is astonishingly gentle and compassionate when his patients need it. Keeps a d'k tahg on his surgical tray just for laughs.
I like Rom's newly developed ruthlessness along with his reaction to being swindled by Captain Freeman. It was almost like he wanted to say "Well played".
I don't think it was ruthlessness. He played the part, and made sure that whatever happened, there would be no conflict between the Rules of Acquisition and the UFP's principles.
True, but if I’d wager a guess, his rule encourages the Ferengi to keep themselves in line, since if they f^ck up, their business then goes in front of the Grand Negas, who may f%ck things up for them even more :)
@@NoriniaThe Grand Nagus is a reasonable man. Simply deposit 75% of your quarterly revenue to his account and he MAY consider not sending you to indentured servitude.
Not really. It’s basically like a credit check in our world. Sure, the Federation may be rich (in the material sense) and powerful now, but if people like that admiral are running the show, they won’t be for very long. What’s the point of joining the Federation if they’re just gonna drag you down in a generation or two?
Not really. it means neither can backstabe the other and knows the game so they respect that and can work fairly with each other as both will be able to recognize if the other is trying to swindle them. Literally knowing a possible swindler is one of the 101's of trading.
Rom has come a long way since, as Odo stated in S1, he "couldn't fix a straw if it was bent" and Leeta has evolved from the dabo girl we knew into First Clerk of the Ferengi Alliance!
There’s a lot of clever writing in this scene. Rom and Leeta were testing the entire time. The first offer is an insane proposal that no one would ever offer (unlimited use of ships even if the deal was off), then compounded by a literally impossible offer (“we don’t even have back end book deals any more”). Leeta and Rom are concerned when the admiral agrees. Rom suggests one final test- direct personal humiliation. The admiral agrees. The deal was off unless Capt Freeman intervened, which she did and which gave Leeta and Rom enough confidence the federation had decent deal makers that they could work with them.
It’s even deeper than that. Max Grodénchik, the actor that plays Rom, was actually the best baseball player among the regular cast of DS9. He had to play left handed to even remotely portray Rom’s ineptness at the game.
I mean ya. It's all part of the dance at that point. For them it's no diffrent than for us making small talk and getting chummy during the deal making process. It's how you getot know who you're working with and what their real angle is.
@@evanthompson7494 In one of the timelines at least, but it was the Temporal Cold War so things are up in the air on that one. I hope they don't join because that would lead to fundamental change in Klingon culture, which means they would lose what we love about them, though I hope their Civilization goes down a more Progressive path but retain their core essence as a people.
To be fair, Quark may not be Nagus, but at least according to STO, he’s still doing quite well for himself. Even bought that small moon he was dreaming of.
Quark seems to have just about cornered the entertainment market across the entire Federation by 2400, no doubt helped by his younger brother’s wise (but still profitable) move to bring Ferenginar into the UFP. He’s doing quite fine.
“ Who wants to check out the batting cages? No charge!…. Welllll, smol charge.” Anyway, is nice to see Leeta and Rom still chugging away at leadership (without somehow getting swindled out of it.)
Oh hell yea. I suck at baseball but I'd absolutely want to see how a race that can casually one hand lift a solid gold bar does when swinging for fences. I'd even pay extra to get a signed baseball for shelf space.
Except that Captain Freeman has shown that the Federation could be like a Ferengi by putting the small print in that contract. And as the 8th rule says, "Small print leads to high risk". Therefore, by proving that the Federation could swindle like a Ferengi if they need to, they could be considered Ferengi because they are willing to accept their culture and rules, and therefore could be exempt from the 17th rule by not being literal Ferengi.
@@kidterra4483 True Though to be fair the writers did create that rule for this episode. But they sort of did that for every rule of acquisition so yeah
Ferengi baseballnis a terrifying mix of sport, long con and gambeling where everyone, from the fans to the announcers, are part of the game. Its one of the few sports where being bottom of the leugue is just as admirable as top. "1000 games and not a single win, there self sabotage technique is out of this world! Go Narms Match Throwers!"
Oh I would aBSOLUTELY love to see that in action and have a local explain to me all the subtilties I'd miss as an outsider. Because You can't make the dive look too obvious. You also have ot have well oiled coordination between nominal opponents when, for example, the bitcher is aboutto 'unintentionally' throw right where the batter is statistically at his best. The stats within stats within number crunching would be next level.
I like how they captured Chase Masterson's IRL voluptuosity in animated form. I have to be honest that Chase is definite eye-candy, but she is also a damn good actress. Come on, you have to have felt the same pain she felt when (newly married) Rom asked Leeta about the sonic showers in their quarters (when he was in the brig), and all she could do was pout.
For those of you wondering why Rom and Lieta put the federation through this was to save face. Even with all the benefits of joining the federation, the grand nagus allying his planet to a major player especially one who considers altruism its greatest virtue would invite doubt and suspicion about his leadership. But if the federation dupe him into joining then it shows their cunning and deception to keep fereginar safe and legitimises Rom’s position as Grand Nagus of a new ferengi society.
It's just the first step in the process. The Ferengi still aren't members a few years later: a Ferengi ship arrived to help in the Prodigy season finale and they had specifically called for non Federation allies. However, there's plenty of Ferengi in Starfleet in the 32nd century.
I hate people saying they made Rom stupid in this episode. He was NEVER smart, he was always a goofball who had seemingly no idea what's going on half the time, but knows people really well. Honestly, he's the perfect pick for Negus just because Ferenginar needs some hands off time to settle after that whole 'women can wear cloths' thing, as the social dynamics change...also, Lita is rocking that dress.
In this case, I would say it's just obfuscating stupidity. Rom in DS9 or in LD is much smarter than people usually think, and he doesn't care much about making them change that perception.
@@posindustries Idiot Savant. He knows how to make people happy, and he knows engineering. He does illogical and grossly incompetent things all the time, however. That said, he's actually no worse than Zek, Quark, or ACTING Grand Nagus Brunt, in said position. Heck, the fact that he has the lovely Leta(I probably misspelled her name) by his side helps. The fact that I don't doubt he has Moogie on speed dial is probably a good thing too.
Somewhere in the original Quarks, the great man himself just threw a bottle of Aldebran Whiskey past Morns head at the Dabo table. “The line must be drawn HERE! This far, no further!”
After 2 decades, a new rule of acquisition! And one of the "unofficial" rules to! To me, this shows the writers respect the fandom, meaning other unofficial rules are canon
@@MammaKush88 Apparently the Ferengi actors were the best at playing baseball, while Nana Visitor (Kira) was actually the worst one. Love that episode. Sisko: "Let's hear some chatter!" Worf: "DEATH TO THE OPPOSITION!"
It was actually a good idea to use Kronos. Lita is right, that’s impossible. Even with certain items on the table. The Klingons would never give up their home, and the Ferengi are more likely to come back with body bags than Latinum.
@@JayJayM57 and that’s why the Klingons are a better choice. They’d rather beat the Federation in a straight up battle with actual explosions. But most of all, they would never sell their planet to the Ferengi. The Klingons would never give up Kronos without a fight, especially to a species they deem “weak” and even Rom wouldn’t want to think of the Life insurance he’d have to pay.
I think 5 more minutes, and but for Captain Freeman's timely invocation of the 8th Rule of Acquisitions, that admiral would be wearing clown makeup and dancing naked.
Not surprised that Freeman pulled a fast one on Rom as Quark did it all the time and how often did Quark get into trouble even with Odo keeping on his toes. Also I doubt Rom would have forced the Federation into bankruptcy as he isn't that type of guy...now Quark absolutely would have tried to make that deal work for that much latinum.
Rom is not exactly an idiot, but he's not above playing the fool to further his own ends or test someone. Leeta and Rom make a good couple and a good team. He had a very good character arc in DS9.
Loved this scene. I honestly wasn't so sure, but the pay-off was excellent. And plus I missed Rom and Leeta from the DS9 episode. I miss the whole crew. But, can you imagine how many Klingons could have been in debt to the Ferengi. Considering what Quark discovered that one time he was married to a Klingon, I wouldn't put the Empire above taking loans for their infrastructure, their fleet, or even just pure depressed/boredom fueled purchasing from not having anyone to fight.
It's episodes like this I wish Aron Eisenberg was still around so we could see how Nog would be by this time. I'd like to think he'd be a Lieutenant by now.
actually my question is why is a 4 star admiral in a contract negotiations without aide de camps. like where's his staff. he's by himself negotiating contract deals with ferengi...
he just apologized and owned up to it. if anything if I were the admiral i would've been super angry and after apolgoizing to freeman would have returned to the toronto in a very bad mood.
