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Jake shares a deep love and familial friendship with his father that has greatly buttressed the normal strains of his teenage years; the love is echoed with the bond he has with his grandfather Joseph, although visits spent helping out in the kitchen and garden are not seen as fun. At times the young man has shown more openness and concern for his dad's romantic life than his own, having been uncomfortable initially discussing dating and his career goals but able to introduce his father to freighter captain Kasidy Yates in late 2371. He knew Captain Sisko had finally accepted DS9 as "home" when he took his ancient African art collection out of storage on Earth earlier that year and brought it to the station.
As a young boy Jake loved his nursery's ceiling starfield as a child and wondered why it couldn't go along when the Siskos moved - a tale his father loves to tell. Before Wolf 359, the family had enjoyed their most memorable vacation ever on a camping trip to Itamish III, where his mom had taught Jake to water-ski.
Having settled into life after his mother's death at the Utopia Planetia yards on Mars, just next door to Earth, Jake was not happy with the move to the dilapidated DS9 in 2369. Out of mutual loneliness there he soon met and befriended Nog, a Ferengi boy often in trouble; the two were among only 14 children aged 8 to 16 on the station at the time, mostly Bajoran. Among their interests the two boys enjoyed girl-watching, but the elder Sisko had worried about Nog's too-great influence in everything from staying up too late to girls to a lack of ethics. He need not: Jake had already learned his dad's values of tolerance, kindness and honesty and is responsible with his own priorities between work and play. Jake was bothered when Nog once wanted him to lie for him about stolen homework and then pulled out of school on Rom's order, but the boys decided to ignore their fathers' demands and Jake tutored him to read. If not for Jake's patience, Nog would never have made their Noh-Jay Consortium pay off or perhaps have the confidence, maturity and broader outlook to apply for Starfleet Academy years later. He and Nog were Keiko's last two pupils when she closed the school in 2371, and she tutored them privately after that until she left. They were on the verge of splitting forever, but when Sisko admitted he had been wrong about their friendship the two made amends as Nog left for the Academy - even though he too had thought Nog was joking about his academy application.
Jake recalls his first date was to be in early 2370 with a Bajoran girl, Laira, but it was called off when her father forbid it amid the growing xenophobia fanned by The Circle faction at the time. His next known "date" a few months later was with Mardah, a Dabo girl, then 19; supposedly just tutoring her in entomology, he soon decided she was the love of his life and wanted his dad to have her for dinner. A year later it finally happened; Captain Sisko shocked him by inviting her, but though nervous they hit it off. Mardah's sudden departure weeks later for schooling on Regulus III left him glum, but he was soon caught up by Lwaxana Troi's Zanthi fever - which only acts in case of latent pre-existing emotions - and fell hard for Kira during the Gratitude Festival. A relationship with the human girl Leanne was nearly sabotaged by Nog's Ferengi attitude on a double date; he was still seeing her weeks later at the time he joined his dad in the Bajoran solar sailer.
The depths of his bond with Captain Sisko were borne out again when the young man decided that a Starfleet life was not for him, and was relieved when his surprised father supported his ambitions to be a writer. His interest in poetry had been exposed only months before at the infamous dinner with Sisko and Mardah, and still later he'd been embarrassed about his writing and an early story about the Maquis. Keiko, who had encouraged Jake with his blossoming interest, helped him secure a scholarship to the Pennington School in New Zealand in 2371, though he deferred it a year - again out of concern about leaving before his dad had begun dating. He visited the school again a year later during the Dominion invasion scare and has since not spoken of any plans there.
Jake's actions have also been heroic, helping to save himself, his dad and O'Brien when the station's old counter-insurgency program kicked into gear. Later, while in a reality eventually to be known only to his father, he sacrificed his life as a writer in a discarded timeline to give Sisko a second chance to avoid a fatal accident on the U.S.S. Defiant.
Before Keiko O'Brien's school opened in 2369 he'd learned by home study on computer, but quickly came to like her. Like any teen, Jake didn't see the need in studying esoteric subjects like Klingon opera. Algebra was not a simple school subject for him, but only weeks later he was studying calculus. Although his grades are "great" as of SD 47552, he placed in the lower third on mechanical science and led his dad to ask O'Brien about a tutoring mentorship; he calls himself a "low-tech kind of guy." The training came in handy when he and Nog were trapped in the Gamma Quadrant on a Runabout with the Jem'Hadar in pursuit, having asked for a flying lesson only days before.
Playing with model starships was a boyhood pastime, and he's also
inherited some of the Sisko men's cooking flair; A favorite drink is
lemonade; he also enjoys I'danian spice pudding, and orange juice and
oatmeal for breakfast. Though he still has the instrument, he took
keyboard lessons for a while but it never caught on. Within a few months
after arriving at DS9 his other hobbies, often shared with Nog, included
school projects, playing cards, dom-jot, and even baseball, with Jake
inheriting the passion from his dad and playing on his program in the
holosuites. By early 2370 he was batting against Bob Gibson's curve ball
in the holo-program; by midyear he could strike out his dad with a
curve ball, and a year later when he had grown as tall as Sisko he could
pitch inside to back off even his dad from the plate.
Jake Sisko has continued to find a life for himself on the station as he
develops his writing aptitude amid the latest news from the Dominion,
Borg, Bajorans, Cardassians and Klingons. His artistic muse almost
killed him when an alien female, still unidentified as to species,
literally drew sustenance form his own speeded-up creativity; the
near-fatal incident did yield the first chapter of a book named "."
This doctor was witness to a personal landmark in his life when Jake faced both fear and courage during my side trip to Ajilon Prime to aid their overrun field hospital amid the height of fighting there during the UFP-Klingon Archanis sector border wars. The trip started out as a chance for young Sisko to pen an article over the outcry one of this doctor's articles caused at a medical conference, but to his credit he wrote a much more exciting and personal expose of his own personal highs and lows at Ajilon and then shared them.
An unexpected twist came when his old buddy Nog returned to do sophomore-year field study at DS9. Their euphoria at moving out and in together turned sour quickly when Nog's neatness streak collided with Jake's less than strict housecleaning. After a spat and a talk by their fathers the boys patched things up. At the time, he was working on a story entitled "Past Prologue."
Almost as emotionally draining was the weight that rested solely on his shoulders when Jake made the decision to save his father, rather than allow his continued "visions" to fatally degrade his neural system. While all of us knew that the captain's life had to come before the promise of any elusive messages from the Prophet aliens, it was still hard for Jake to run counter to his father's heartfelt wishes.
On a side note, I continue to hear of young Sisko's casual ease in
gourmet cooking with such dishes as chicken a la Sisko and lingta roast
-- an almost genetic trait shared by the men of his family. With Nog
gone, he had also taken to playing computer dom-jot as a break in
writing.
Keiko O'Brien:
Keiko met and married Miles O'Brien while the both were stationed on board the Enterprise under the
command of Jean-Luc Picard. Their relationship has always been troubled. At one point, Keiko actually
called off the wedding, frustrating both O'Brien and the observing android, Data.
However, they loved each other deeply, as they do to this day, and soon had a child. Their daughter
Molly was born during a disaster that left Keiko stranded in Ten Forward. She gave birth aided by a very
unlikely midwife: the Klingon Worf!. (Worf had actually studied this procedure in a computer simulation,
but found the real life experience to be somewhat more challenging.)
Trials and tribulations continued to assail their relationship. A strange alien influence that deprived the
Enterprise crew of sleep drove Miles to paranoid delusions that Keiko was cheating on him. Later, when
Miles was taken over by a malicious alien entity, he actually threatened his own wife and child with
violence. Turnabout may be fair play, but Miles O'Brien was in for a strange experience when Keiko was
temporarily transformed, as the result of a very strange accident, into a little girl of about twelve. Small
wonder they wanted to get off the Enterprise.
Unfortunately, the challenging assignment O'Brien chose was as the Chief of Operations in the forbidding
metal corridors of Deep Space Nine, where Keiko reluctantly joined him. She did not feel that the
shadowy station is the place to raise a child, but agreed because she wants the family to stay together.
This is yet another source of friction in their marriage. There is not much use for a botanist on a station
where most, if not all, of the plant life is found in simulations in Quark Holosuites. But Keiko was
determined to make a place for herself on the station.
Seeing that the handful of children on the station lacked anything to do, Keiko decided to create a school.
She met with some opposition from some locals, notably Quark, who felt that his nephew Nog should
learn only Ferengi teachings and the Rules of Acquisition. Fortunately, she was able to convince him that
knowledge of alien ways would only be more profitable for the boy in the long run. Even though Nog was
pulled out of the school when the Ferengi Grand Nagus, Zek, paid a visit to the station, Keiko kept her
commitment to the school.
Keiko does leave the station temporarily, however, traveling to Earth to visit her one-hundred-year old
mother. When she returns, her relationship with Miles seems more relaxed. The episode "If Wishes Were
Horses" opens with the Miles and Keiko spending a pleasant evening at home after tucking in their
daughter Molly, who has just greatly enjoyed a reading of the classic fairy tale of Rumplestiltskin.
However, the bizarre troubles that have beset this marriage do not let up. When little Molly O'Brien
claims to have seen the famous storybook dwarf, the happy parents are amused--until it turns out that
Rumplestiltskin, or something appearing and acting just like him, has actually appeared in their daughter's
room. Similar events plague the station. At first it appeared that a highly destructive rift in space, the
Hanoli rift, is linked to all these goings-on. Actually, Rumplestiltskin and the other beings on the station
created the illusion of a planet-threatening rift. These beings are from beyond the Gamma Quadrant and
were exploring in their own fashion. Having this "imaginary" Rumplestiltskin trying to claim their daughter
was just another bizarre space stress for Keiko O'Brien!
Keiko soon faces a much more concrete adversary when the fundamentalist Bajoran religious leader
Vedek Winn comes to the Deep Space Nine school room and politely but firmly asserts that Keiko's
teaching of alien viewpoints is blasphemous to Bajoran eyes, at least to Bajoran eyes as narrow in their
views as those of Vedek Winn. Keiko faces a battle of wills and philosophies. All she wants to teach is
pure science, but even Kira Nerys thinks that two schools--one for Bajorans, another for the rest of the
races on Deep Space Nine--would be more appropriate.
Vedek Winn even makes veiled threats against the school to Sisko indicating that Keiko, "has dishonored
the celestial temple." Soon, most of the Bajorans on the station are giving Keiko and Miles O'Brien the
cold shoulder, refusing even to sell them vegetables. Spurred on by Vedek Winn, who assumes a very
rational mode of discourse but who is clearly a reactionary bigot, the Bajoran parents on Deep Space
Nine form a crowd at the school and remove their children. It is obvious, however, that some are bowing
to the pressure of Winn and her followers among their peers.
As if this was not enough, an explosion rocks the empty school room the next day. Keiko's little project is
far more controversial than she could ever imagined. Determined to see it through, she puts things back
together and proceeds to teach to the few students who can and will still come. It later becomes apparent
that the school issue was really a ploy to lure another, more moderate Bajoran cleric to the station and
attempt to assassinate him. However, Keiko is now, more than ever, dedicated to the school.
Keiko's marriage is clearly subjected to a remarkably unusual amount of stress on Deep Space Nine.
When Miles leaves on a dangerous mission to rescue a Bajoran prisoner of war from the Cardassians,
Keiko was not even consulted. But she is a strong-willed and resourceful woman who will do everything
she can do to keep her family and marriage together. With a little help from Miles O'Brien, she should be
able to pull it off without a hitch.
Life for the pair get even more strange when Miles is kidnapped and replaced by a replicant and Keiko is
instructed not to say or do anything to indicate that she knows the truth. The twist is that the replicant
believes that it is real, that it is actually Miles, and thinks that something is wrong with Keiko. It even
professes its love for Keiko as it lays dying.
Between replicants and racquetball games which tax Miles' skills, Keiko remains the supportive wife and
mother; she is certainly a very different from take-charge career women like Major Kira and Jadzia Dax.
Although Keiko's life is less colorful than that of Dax and Kira, she is no less important. She is a wife and
mother, roles that neither Dax nor Kira have at this time. Clearly Keiko wants to be more than wife and
mother and it seems that, for now, being a teacher fulfills her need to feel that she has a useful role at the
station.
When the Dominion threat came, many of the children left for Bajor, or for safety. Keiko was forced to close the school down. Keiko was depressed for a short period of time, but Miles O'Brien cheered her up by finding her a job on Bajor as a botanist. Keiko made brief appearances here and there, and she got pregnant with a second baby who would be named Kirayoshi. When Keiko got into a runabout accident, she could not carry the child and Bashir was forced to plant the child in Kira.
When Keiko returned from her final stint on Bajor, she was possessed by an anti-Prophet alien entity who wanted Chief O'Brien to destroy the wormhole, or the entity would destroy Keiko's body. O'Brien thwarted the entity's plans just in time.
Keiko, Molly and Kirayoshi were sent down to Bajor when the Dominion came, and have not returned to the station since the Federation took back the station.
Kes:
Kes is a female alien from the Ocampa species, a type of alien never before seen in the Star Trek universe. She is the delicate,
beautiful young lover of Neelix, and although she appears as a 20 year-old in human years, Kes is actually a one-year-old
Ocampa (a species with a life span of only nine years). To compensate for this short life span, evolution has given the Ocampa
the ability to quickly learn and comprehend. The Ocampa also have telepathic skills, as well as other mental abilities that have
long been repressed. Kes adores Neelix and helps him with the cooking aboard the U.S.S. Voyager, but she much prefers her
time exploring the Starship and making new friends. Kes's thirst for
knowledge led her to volunteer as an assistant for the holographic Doctor.
Kes' repressed abilities were further explored, and Kes reached an evolutionary step up, where she is evolving into a state of pure energy.
Leeta:
A charming, attractive young woman, Leeta has indicated that there is more to her than a smile and her supple wrist at the
Dabo tables. Beginning her employment at
Quark's on Deep Space Nine in 2371, she
quickly gained popularity as a particular
attraction in the establishment.
Leeta was involved in 2372 in the brief
labor dispute on the station, as she was
instrumental to the first labor union in
Ferengi culture, the Guild of Restaurant
and Casino Employees.
An amateur sociologist, Leeta is schooled in
the customs of a number of cultures,
including the Trill, humans, and Ferengi. She
has particularly befriended Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia
Dax, and was also romantically involved with
Dr. Julian Bashir until 2373. She has since
dated Rom, a Ferengi engineering technician
on the station, and now has married him.
Molly O'Brien:
Molly was born by Keiko and Miles O'Brien, and Worf delivered her while the Enterprise was in danger. Molly has been through her fair share of hardships, such as the apparition that called itself Rumplestiltskin, her mother being turned into a child, and having to spend time on a transport with Lwaxana Troi (the horror).
Morn:
Morn is a regular (in other words, he never leaves) at Quark's bar, and enjoys frequent naps on the Promenade. He never talks. He acted as an informant for the Resistance during the 2nd Occupation.
But before he became the bar fly he have learned to love, he was a thief. He has involved in a group of five people named Larell, Nahsk, Krit and Hain. Together, they robbed a bank years ago. Morn ran off with the money, and he never saw them again. When the convinction time ran out, Morn staged his death so that he could get those four off of his back. The money he stored in the bank was not the real money he stole, but just plain gold. The real money has always been in his second stomach.
Neelix:
Neelix is a jovial male Talaxian, a major species of this far side of
the Delta Quadrant, whose wit and instincts have enabled him to survive
as a scavenger and merchant. Now he aids our cause admirably after
coming aboard with his Ocampa mate, Kes, from her home system. Although
he takes his good-natured abuse at times for it, he has been invaluable
in preparing fresh meals from the flora and fauna of this region in
order to ration food replicator power; for the human "'37S," he even
researched and came up with 20th century foods comfort foods for all -
with none of his usual custom twists added. In addition, his past
dealings and travels have yielded invaluable information as well for our
command decisions and strategy. he has begun taking a more active role
in senior staff affairs and even held off the Kazon-Ogla when myself and
Commander Chakotay were absent.
Neelix's chores as self-appointed "chief morale officer" have run the gamut from personal counseling, such as with Lt. Ayala deal his separation from his children, to a daily intership video program for the crew, "A Briefing with Neelix," begun ca. SD 49483. The latter led to his single-handedly tracking down the Paris ruse to flush out Crewman Jonas as our Kazon informant, risking his life but emerging intact after killing Jonas in a raw plasma stream in Main Engineering after a brawl there.
Neelix has already confronted his past devils coming aboard, admitting he avoided military service before the 2366 conquest of his home planet Talax by the Haakonian Order, who forced surrender after it irradiated his family and the rest of the population of the Talax moon Rinax with the Metreon Cascade weapon. The weapon's inventor, Dr. Ma'Bor Jetrel, died of his own metreon radiation poisoning after tracking us to help find a way to yet retrieve those who perished, and the difficult process was a big step for him. Our first encounter with the Vidiians included the theft of Neelix's lungs, but they were eventually returned when I showed our prisoners mercy while the Doctor's holographic substitutes kept Neelix alive.
Neelix is completely in love with Kes, whom he calls by the endearment "sweeting" and was ready to father a child when her premature elogium seemed to loom. His jealous nature of Kes was an ugly monster until he finally settled with its main target, Tom Paris, after the two helped birth an sentient reptilloid infant in an abrasive atmosphere.
His long-running feud with the less-than-patient Doctor is not helped by
Kes' early elogium, which finds him pondering the responsibilities of
parenthood and deciding to embrace it, only to be nixed by Kes herself
and other events. Later he assisted with the birth of Ensign Wildman's
baby.
I have grown concerned in recent weeks about our morale's officer's
morale, and now I understand why. Despite Neelix's cheerful and upbeat
demeanor even he has a down side, and now I understand some of it stems
from his pessimistic self-view as worthless to this crew now that we
have exceeded the region of his scouting knowledge. Aside from my
regular assurances, I note in this record that I acknowledge Neelix's
past "very" basic combat training on Rinax, per his description, and
intend to merge him more usefully into entry-level defense training,
including the monthly tactical exercises.
This is not to register any displeasure with his natural diplomatic skills, his ongoing "Briefing with Neelix" comcasts, and even the cooking. Indeed his quick-thinking as a fax Nagus during our Ferengi encounter helped save the mission, even if I personally do without his people;s custom of delivering a history of each meal while it is served, as his mother perfected. I still wonder if his greatest diplomatic challenge, though, is his constant attempts to "buddy up" to our most unbuddylike officer, Tuvok. Even his Talax Resort holoprogram, with modifications by Paris, Kim, Torres, et.al., has proved to be a morale-boosting hit.
All this is to help explain why, shortly after my initial entry here, I made the decision to try to regain both he and Tuvok's lives as separate entities after a freak transporter merging of the two, despite the "death" of the resulting sentient lifeform dubbed Tuvix.
On yet another personal note: I note with concerned the separation of he
and Kes' continued realtionship, and I wish them both the best in
whatever path they take.
Rom:
Bumbling, inept, doltish and altogether useless--these are probably some of the kinder words that
the Ferengi Quark might use to describe his own brother, Rom. Quark is usually exasperated with
his sibling; Rom cannot complete any task to Quark's satisfaction. He has the essential greed that makes a
Ferengi a Ferengi, but he obviously lacks the basic skills to carry any schemes to a successful end, much
less fulfill the simplest functions as Quark's subordinate. Quark really makes a mistake when he explains
the sudden recovery of his rundown replicators as the result of Rom's repairs. It is no wonder Odo
investigates and learns that Quark is sneaking off and using the replicators in empty crew quarters.
Nobody would believe for a minute that Rom could fix anything--only that he could break it easily.
Quark tolerates his brother, it would seem, because the Ferengi value their families; or perhaps this
tolerance is some sentimental peculiarity of Quarles. Quark definitely suave compared to Rom and Rom
secretly resents his brother's knack for success. He will take the opportunity to plot against Quark, but
only when Quark is at an extreme disadvantage. Nog lacks the courage to take chances. When the Grand
Nagus apparently dies after appointing Quark as the new Nagus, the gullible and jealous Rom is easily
drawn into the plans of the Nagus' son Krax, who feels that the title should have been his.
Perhaps Rom was a poor choice for a co-conspirator, since all of their attempts to assassinate Quark fail
miserably. Even so, once the real Grand Nagus returns and lets Quark get his life back to normal, and
Rom's role in the assassination attempts is revealed, Quark is so impressed that he promotes his brother to
assistant manager of Quark's. "I didn't think you had the lobes," he tells Rom. Unfortunately, this may
have inspired Rom to further attempts to oust his brother, in the misguided belief that he will be more
successful without Quark. In fact, Rom would probably be lost without his smarter brother, so it is just as
well that he is too incompetent to get rid of Quark. For the most part, he serves merely as Quark's
underling, where Quark can keep an eye on him.
Rom's only glimmers of intelligence were revealed when he confessed to Quark that he knew ways of
opening locked doors and suspected that something wasn't right about the Ferengi
named Pel. Rom's attempts on Quark's life were balanced out when he saved his
brother's life. An assassin attacked Quark in sickbay and Rom's helpless screams brought security on the
double. Only after Rom realized that he had saved his brother from the assassin that
he started screaming all over again: he had blown his one big chance to fill Quark's shoes!
Over the years, Rom developed intelligence and a backbone. He allowed his son to enter Starfleet despite the arguments of his brother Quark and when he found a way to get back to the present when they were trapped in the past.Rom also lead a union against Quark for fairer treatment, and created the mine field that kept the Dominion out of the Alpha Quadrant. Rom is now a junior engineer.
Seven of Nine:
Seven of Nine was assimilated as a little girl from her ship, the Raven, in the Delta Quadrant. He lived her whole life as a Borg until she was chosen as a representative for the alliance between the Borg and the starship Voyager. When their ties were broken, 7 of 9 was released from the collective. Now, she adapts to life as a human.
Quark:
Quark, one of the most influential of modern Ferengi thanks to his
location at DS9 when the Bajoran wormhole was discovered, owns Quark's
Place on DS9's Promenade but hates being called a "barkeep," preferring
"host" instead as he fancies himself an empathetic dispenser of advice
as well as a goodwill ambassador and legitimate entrepreneur
extrordinaire. He also caters formal affairs for the Starfleet crew and
named a new souffl� creation after Kai Winn when the Bajor-Cardassian
peace treaty was signed. In reality he has the reputation of getting
anything for a price - with the help of a network of sources who also
help him keep a hand in most illegal or illicit trade and deals going on
around the station. He has even tried to force sex by contract from the
unwitting Dabo girls who work for him; an employee's error is made up
from garnished pay. When Odo calls him "disgusting," he proudly boasts:
"Til the day I die!" and says lying is a gift. But he does sometime show
remorse out of guilt for even his own actions, and relishes the thrill
of gambling, even in business; otherwise, he has said, the trade comes
off as simple bartering.
His only sibling is younger brother Rom, whom he often teased and tortured as "lobeless": Quark even stole Rom's naming day presents from Keldar, replacing the gifts resold at a profit with old vegetables. His father bought him his first copy of the Rules of Acquisition, but it was his mother who helped him learn them - a repeated pattern whose truth he ignored until much later in life, feeling his father had been hounded by his mother's rebellious independence.
In 2351, upon celebrating his Age of Ascension rites, he left home as soon as possible despite his father's advice to stay close; doing so 10 years ahead of Rom, he missed out on Keldar's ongoing business failures prior to his death. In his 20s, Quark apprenticed with a District Sub-Nagus until he slept with the boss's sister and lost his fast-track standing. He later served on a Ferengi freighter for eight years, where he learned some engineering and transporter skills while serving as its cook.
By the 2360s he was running a black market from then-Terok Nor for the occupied Bajorans and illegally sold food to them at cost, while earning his exclusive casino franchise by catering to Gul Dukat and the occupying Cardassians with freebies. One Cardassian contact in particular was Glinn Boheeka. By this time Rom and his young son Nog had moved to the station, and Quark has fondly recalled reading the tyke basic Ferengi stories
Amid the shambles of Cardassian withdrawal from newly renamed DS9 in 2369, his plans to leave were changed when Starfleet commander Sisko threatened to jail his nephew Nog for a petty theft if he left - along with enticements such as free rent, power and maintenance. It was a fateful change, leading to contacts with Grand Nagus Zek and the Dominion. He even served a week as the Nagus and faced death threats when Zek faked his demise to trick his unfaithful son.
The next year, after having led a trade mission to contact the Karemma of the Dominion, he became the first Ferengi to meet a Jem'Hadar and Vorta of the Dominion when captured with Sisko on their Gamma Quadrant vacation eight months later. That led to Zek's request in 2371 that be aboard the Defiant's first Dominion contact mission. Married temporarily to Klingon matriarch Grilka, he faces down her rival D'Ghor before the Klingon High Council on Qo'noS to save her house after murdering her husband Kozak in self-defense in the bar.
Quark knows at least the worst of human history, and while he speaks out against superior Terran attitudes he can be as racist as anyone. Quark saved his much-cherished Ferengi culture from the Bajoran Prophets idealism later that year when he became only the third known non-Bajoran, after Sisko and Zek, to experience an orb vision and single-handedly restored the Nagus to his previous state. Future cultural decisions were not so clear-cut, though: he was secretly forced to allow his employees to unionize in 2372 despite Ferengi Commerce Authority intervention, and finally made up with his mother the year before after revisiting the homeworld for the first time in 20 years when Ishka refused to renounce her feminist ways, endangering Quark's livelihood in fines and support.
Even Rom finally began to find some backbone as the 2370s dawned, standing up to Quark regarding their mother, his biased view of their parents, and finally Nog's application to Starfleet Academy - the latter a move Quark actually tried to sabotage. The next year, he nearly stranded all three in 1947 Earth as lab specimens with illicit cargo in a suspect ship Cousin Gaila finally repaid him, and later watched as a self-confident Rom resigns to work on the station maintenance crew after launching his union.
Aside from his crushes on Dax and Kira, Quark had a surprising one-month fling in 2363 with Cardassian journalist Natima Lang, the love of his life. She didn't turn him in for aiding Bajorans, but felt betrayed and broke off the affair when he used her secret access codes to be paid for bogus goods - a much-regretted act seven years later, when she turns up as a Cardassian dissident. Of odder course was his falling for Pel, a feminist like his mother whom he could not commit to after her revelation as a female cost Quark a cut of all the Grand Nagus' future Gamma Quadrant profits. Despite his tough stance, though, he has always been a sucker for a pretty face of any species. When ho once chided O'Brien over his marriage troubles for not following the submissive-female way of the Ferengis, he was evasive when asked why he's still single.
He engages Odo in a running battle of wits, but while it gets vicious at times there is mutual respect and even affection present. Despite his pride at escaping detection, he has been caught red-handed in crime more than once but served only petty penalties. He still retains old Cardassian security clearances through Level 7 - one higher than Odo - and knows enough about engineering to install a small cloaking device in ships not normally made for them. Lock-picking of all kinds is another skill.
In a battle of wits, a rival casino opened by Martus Mazur across the
Promenade almost sunk his bar in 2370 until Quark planned a
Bashir-O'Brien racquetball rematch to get his customers back. If he
didn't know the sport by then, he learned it quickly enough to call the
remote play-by-play. He also enjoys the Ferengi game of Tongo, of
course; Dax says he scratches his left ear just before Acquiring, a dead
giveaway.
Quark, the Ferengi barkeeper, is a self-important con artist who's
nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is. His bar is a center for scams
and illegal dealings.
Quark was a co-indicted in 2362 by the Romulans as the middleman with alien thief Fallit Kot for hijacking a Romulan ale shipment, but testified against Kot and got off - barely escaping with his life eight years later here at DS9 when Kot was released.
He allowed thieves of the Dax symbiont aboard DS9 and became an inadvertent supplier of arms to the Maquis' first attack. Even my first encounter with Quark, in 2365 on then-Terok Nor, saw him backing up Kira's alibi in the Vaatrik murder for a price. That is all.
I have to hand it to Quark. The Federation's thanks go out to him once again for acting as a trade rep to the Dominion-fringe Karemma, and even more so -- if I am to believe these reports -- for keeping my ship intact when he single-handedly diffused an unexploded Jem'Hadar torpedo.
I just he would cut out that stunt with the station-wide advertisements in the comm systems and replicators.
This is to note the recent cooperation of the Ferengi barkeeper in a successful sting operation against the Markalian smuggling ring. That is all.
Never again will I take someone into custody without announced charges. I have done so with Quark, of all people, and it nearly cost he and I both our lives. At least I have learned Quark is not well-connected and wealthy enough to join the Orion Syndicate.
Quark has seen the true highs and depths of life in the past few months. He has stared down the cherished precepts of his culture and come away less conservative after choosing between life and breaking a Ferengi contract with none other than his old adversary, FCA Liquidator Brunt. An overpaid Ferengi doctor's misdiagnosis of fatal Dorek syndrome was bad enough, but to have Brunt demand that Quark follow through on their signed contract to sell his own desiccated remains, per Ferengi custom, was even worse. Despite his onetime decision to hire Garak to kill him -- a fact I have received through confidential source -- and the subsequent loss of his Ferengi business license, Quark has survived -- a bit stunned at the support the station has given him in spite of the many stunts he's pulled. We must face it: Quark provides a valuable service and resource on the station -- even if he still takes 30% of his workers' tips and manages their vacation fund himself.
One the other hand, it;s a good thing our resident Ferengi barkeep is a
tough little guy as well. Along with his varied injuries and near-fatal
mishaps in just the past four years -- including, I suspect, his actions
which saved he and Odo on a Class-L ice planet -- are the bruises he
picked up upon Grilka's return to DS9 this year. Actually she came back
looking for some romance, and I still can't believe Worf tutored him to
do it and survive, especially with some virtual reality combat device. I
also can't believe his first trip to Risa came with our group earlier
this year -- though I can believe he owns a first-edition copy of Vulcan
Love Slave.
