Today's Thought Experiment: Plain, Simple Garak's got some pretty hefty lying to do. Let's help him out and give him ideas for explaining what happened to Gul Toran.
There were no witnesses who would bother saying anything. We got no indication that the sensors which sometimes detect weapons fire detected any weapons fire. And the disruptor completely disrupted him. What evidence is there that Plain, Simple Garek even knows anything? He never even spoke to Gul Toran.
On the Quark "Bravery or Greed" thing, definitely bravery. We learn it later, but he did the Ferengi equivalent of giving things away to the Bajoran Resistance
Brunt: "You sold food to the Bajorans, AT COST" Quark: "How dare you! It was at just above cost..." Brunt: "It was still a vile, ho-manitirian gesture. (In disgust) You are a philanthropist!"
@@EvilDMMk3 fundamental, Quark wants so badly to be an ideal Ferengi, greedy, selfish and profitable. But he has too much of a conscience to let people die or kill them for profit, and can't make himself ignore starving people who would be risky and unprofitable to deal with. His clash is between his morals and what his society tells him is right. He later blames this on humans, but Quark was a soft touch with the Bajorans before the federation were around.
@@dm121984Oh ye gods. Quark has that in common with Worf, doesn’t he? Very different cultural ideals, but he romanticizes and idealizes his perceived culture while also regularly clashing with it.
@@danshive4017 I hadn't actually made the connection, but... Yeah! He even gets exiled from his society like Worf and treated like crap for not being enough like them
The thing I like is the Garak bit. This is the first time we see him show his brilliance. He goes along just enough with the assassination to appear as a toady for a bit before putting himself in position to be remembered as competent by a new movement in Cardassian politics and gains the appreciation of Quark, a known and talented smuggler. But if the least likely thing happened and he was told the truth, killing the students would take little effort and he can go home anyways. Either way, Garak wins.
Move Along Home credit was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series. Yes. Those mullets on the "games" aliens.
As well dressed as Quark usually is one would think he and Garak would do business often... especially as they both value information the other may have access to. Seems they might try to pump each other for gossip but possibly that just cancels each other out bc you can't trust either of them not to lie. Thanks for another great review💚🌹💚
I don't mind sitting through the Star Trek so i can watch my second favourite show on telly, The Adventures of Space Dog and Computer! And that only gets beaten by Charlie Hopkinson filming his wierd flatmates.
This must be the episode where Armin Shimmerman drove home still in make up. I think Garak's increased back story and the relationship between Quark and Odo was more interesting. Yes Space Dog! Quests! Honest!
Correction: Quark sold food AND medical supplies to the Bajorans…AT COST. That’s basically giving it away for free to a Ferengi. I’ve always argued that Quark is the only non-O’Brien who’s good in the prime and mirror universe.
I relate so much to that bit at the end with the dogs. I post comics 5-6 times a week, and sometimes a writer with a deadline just has to find a flow and go with it. Also, having things add up that really shouldn’t, and/or look planned all along. “Even when it’s not foreshadowing, it’s foreshadowing.”
"A spy?" "Or maybe you're an outcast." "Or maybe I'm an outcast spy." "How can you be both?" "I never said I was either." While the writing on the romance was pretty poor, the writing for Garak this episode was some of the best for him early in the show's run.
DS9 has a red alert, yes. We've seen it previously (in the last episode in fact) where those vertical pulsing white lights in Ops turn into vertical pulsing red lights. The exact purpose of it is another matter. Being able to do the red alert stuff without red alert makes it somewhat redundant.
@@Unlimited_Lives perhaps it could do with the differences between a space station and a ship. A space station that serves primarily as a port city probably doesn't want to go to it's highest emergency status because a single ship happens to have it's systems all juiced up. Perhaps the commander thought ds9 was unlikely to actually be under direct attack from a single cardassian vessel and didn't want to cause the entire station to panic. Perhaps ds9 was properly armed after having been threatened multiple times. Red alert is a short command that does a lot of things, in this case it seems the commander wanted to do two very specific things and then make a phone call
Why is selling a cloaking device illegal? Quark is not a Federation citizen and this is not a Federation station, the treaty of Algeron isn't in effect here. Odo has shown he doesn't care much about Federation law. So why?
Perhaps the Bajorans consider it a weapons system. Anyway, since Odo brings it up rather than a Starfleet officer, I presume it is matter of Bajoran law.
This has nothing to do with this episode, but I was reminded recently of a friend I used to have. One I had to explain the pointless courtasy of asking how things are going and how people don't really want the truth. Actually thinking about it, this would have been a good reference for a season 7 episode focused on Bashir. ah well I'd forget by then anyways. This episode opens up a side of Quark we don't really see too often and it's a shame we never see these Cardies again. I assume because someone on cardasia had them eliminated.
I think why the episode is well received is just that plain simple Garak has a nice part in it and that him and Quark having that little chat over totally not politics and its dangers. The rest is, at least for me, background noise.
3:06 for all the critiquing you do at the end of the episode, it's when you point out basic plot points like this that I realize how good of a job the writers actually did with this show. your quip "this sort of thing will get you shot at" sounds like a statement that applies to real life, not just a fictional sci-fi universe. It really makes it feel like you've been absorbed into the politics of the star trek universe rather than just saying "the writers feel this is a good way to explain things this week"
The think I liked about "this isn't written like normal Quark" for an episode is because this episode has a fully alien frame of view. The POV is Ferengi and Cardassians, so the stand-alone tone works fine for me. Humans see Ferengi as comic relief because humans find greedy Ferengi as irrational people who want stupid things. That's both the hero characters, and the audience. The Ferengi of course see themselves as heroic. And the Cardassian view of Ferengi is interesting. Ferengi find that Cardassians not selling food to Bajorans of offensive because the free hand of the market can reduce suffering from hunger. A Cardassian sees Quark as incredibly brave because his greed allowed him to work non conformally against the interests of the state. So it's in an episode entirely between Cardassian and Ferengi perspectives where Sisko is just kinda... Also there. And for me it 100% works that Quark is Bogart for an episode, The POV shisfts and in future episodes Quark is played as a greedy buffoon because the narrative context changes, not because the character changes.
That Cardi ship looks oddly familiar, me thinks someone's been having a nose at the plans for Siskos Mutha fucken Pimp Hand......or simply the designers of DS9's starships are just lazy buggers and like to recycle old ideas.
The idea that moral alignments exist in archetypes is always an interesting idea on any franchise. I don't know if i would class Odo as Chaotic Good. Chaotic Good is more Garak i mean he did absolutely just murder someone on a whim... a damn good whim i might add. Odo is more Lawful Neutral and Quark is Chaotic Neutral. Sisko i would argue is Lawful Good he isn't exactly as strict as Jellico but he certainly holds himself and others to the star fleet start especially when he has to orser someone to break it. The nuances of morality in a show setting is obviously much different than a game is ofcourse but it does still apply. Lawful doesn't mean they have no character other than the law they follow... its more abput how the rationalise their actions. The only real difference between Lawful Good and Lawful Evil is their ability to disobey orders. Gul Dukat for example is a good example of Lawful Evil. As he stated in many occasions that his approach to handling Bajors Occupation was simply him making the best of a bad situation and just following Orders. If it wasnt him it be someone worse... and that notion is exactly why he is Lawful Evil. He justified his brutality by his flavor of Order... and he honest to God thinks he's a hero for it.
Might be an interesting idea for a video once UL has gone through all the classic Trek series.. where on the moral alignment scale do each of the main characters fall, maybe include some of the recurring guests too.
@@stevewright9779 you know now you mentioned it... it could be quite the gimmick on reviewing TV shows. Each episode not looking at the plot exactly but looking at character actions charting their morality.
I think Odo might be Lawful Good. He likes order and has a heavy moral streak. The person who is more fastened to the rules above moral considerations would be more Lawful Neutral. He might be Neutral Good, but his inborn predilection for order makes me think otherwise. I think Quark is Chaotic Good. He won't do evil for profit, as much as it would be lauded by his society. In the episode where he becomes an arms dealer, he is sincerely *bothered* by hist customers talking about kill ratios and death tolls.
You're correct that meteor probably shouldn't have been used in the context of the story as the definition of a meteor is a meteoroid that has come into contact with Earth's atmosphere (literally). Extrapolating this definition, it would likely mean any rocky body that contacts the atmosphere of a planet. My issue is your suggested use of meteoroid in place of meteor. From what I can find, a meteoroid is an object that can possibly intersect with the orbit of a planet. Using what we know about the Bajor system, DS-9 is outside any planetary orbit, and since the disabled ship was near the station, the "meteors" were as well. I'm thinking the better term would have been asteroids in this case, but maybe the writers were trying to avoid a Star Wars cliché.
My understanding of meteoroid/asteroid is that the distinction is size based (meteoroids being the smaller): "A meteoroid is a small piece of asteroid or a comet, typically pebble-sized, but could be a little smaller or a little larger, and often created from a collision." www.nasa.gov/directorates/smd/whats-the-difference-between-asteroids-comets-and-meteors-we-asked-a-nasa-scientist-episode-16/
This is one of those DS9 episodes that I have definitely seen. Not good enough to be worth remembering but not bad enough to stick out either. If this is Casablanca, then I guess Quark is Rick and Garak is the police chief? It doesn't really work, though, because the Federation aren't the Nazis, so the illicit manouevering under the noses of the authorities doesn't have the same weight and the fact that we know the romance isn't going to work out means that part isn't that compelling either.
I disagree. This is one of the most fun episodes in that season. The writing is ok, it tried an intrigue episode and delivers an acceptable 3/5 on that. It also expands Quark's character. It's called character development.
It's character development in the same way that attaching an inflatable arse onto a church is property development: lacking cohesion in both tone and quality. I'm genuinely delighted for you that you liked this episode though. We should all be able to enjoy things without needing to make snide asides on the internet for validation.
Spelling things out in a story long suspected by viewers is pure fan service and only diminishes the writing, replacing nuance with on the nose factoids. My only gripe with the episode, really.
Spelling things out in a story long suspected by viewers is pure fan service and only diminishes the writing, replacing nuance with on the nose factoids. My only gripe with the episode really...
