Whose mother was helping give the previous Nagus a paradigm shift of his own, by helping him to basically end female slavery and grant them economic freedom/autonomy. That family is wild. I love the Ferengi storyline, more and more as the years go on. Their whole society experiences massive social, economic and political upheaval, all because Quark had the lobes to keep his bar open after the Bajoran liberation.
Highly competitive market based space anarcho-syndacalism time, baby! I loved the semi-reformed Ferengi in Lower Decks and Prodigy. If the Federation doesn't absorb Ferengi experts into the diplomatic corps and trade negotiation office, they're fools.
I love that the bit between Worf and O’Brien ends in the most Irish way possible: with an Englishman getting thrown over a table and three men spending the night in the drunk tank.
I also find it comical that Brunt has nothing better to do than to cross the galaxy to a backwater station and quash a strike involving some people at a bar. That's definitely some hilarious commentary on bureaucrats' priorities.
@Maxxisblitz I saw it as a commentary on how rare striking and unions are in Ferengi run businesses, and the stance the FCA has regarding it. Quarks might not be a big business at the time, but if the strike was successful (as it turns out to be later in the episode), other Ferengi workers in similar situations might hear about it and get similar ideas. Doesnt stop it from being hilarious for Brunt to travel all the way from Fereginar with bodyguards to do whatever to stop the strike.
Look, he gets to pay to watch a couple Nausicaan Pinkertons do their thing AND fuck over his sworn nemesis Quark over some extremely petty bullshit at the same time??? What’s not to love about this!
Corporations really do spend an enormous amount of time and money to bust unions. A company will absolutely spend more money on busting unions and fighting strikes than they would spend to give the workers the money they deserve because they need to have all the power. Giving any amount of power to any workers is unacceptable to them. Because they do very little (if anything) and keep most of the money. Perfectly realistic analogy for actual union-busting efforts.
@@mooncalf191exactly. It's about power and control when it comes to union busting, not money. Honestly, money to companies and to the rich aren't about the money itself anyway, it's about the power and control it affords. Money itself is just a way to trade for goods and services. For workers money is about just that, particularly for necessary goods and services and hopefully for something a bit extra. Money isn't viewed the same way by the rich and companies because they don't have to worry about having enough money for necessary goods and services so they view it as a way to attain and maintain the power and control they have because that's their goal and purpose. Unions existing takes away power and control from companies as that's the point, to give workers bargaining power and workers can't have that if companies have all of the power. Companies are willing to spend the money to bust unions because it's not money that's an issue to them (they have no problem throwing it everywhere except to the workers), it's the fear of losing any amount of power to workers.
The line about Brunt demanding to break the strike "by any means necessary" reminds me of the 1994 Babylon 5 episode "By Any Means Necessary" and not because of the title: that episode is also about a strike, by the station's dockworkers, and after Commander Sinclair gets authorization from the Earth government to end the strike "by any means necessary", he uses that authority to stop the strike by agreeing to give the workers everything they are asking for.
Lol. Never seen it but that's a smart man. What shouldn't workers get everything they ask for? Are they asking for gold-plated Ferraris? I highly doubt it. It's amazing what you can accomplish and how quickly one can move things forward when you don't turn things into an ego battle. Meeting people in the middle or just giving in sometimes when you know the other side is right - amazing what that can actually accomplish. Too bad the privileged barbarians with controlling stakes in big business here in this country still can't get that. They would rather drag the shit out for months and pay ten times as much just to say that they "won". What a pathetic infantile sociopathic mentality, but that is literally the pattern of the last 150 years of Labor history in the US. These fkg animals are so fkg savage they look at it as "if you win I lose". I mean jesus are we all five years old? When workers win everybody wins! If I own a company and my workers felt dissatisfied enough to strike I sure as hell would want to know what they were unhappy about and I would be highly motivated to meet their demands. It's about being one big happy family. We're all on the same side. If it's a private business we all want to make money delivering a certain kind of product or providing a certain kind of service. How selfish and immoral is it of me to act like I deserve all the perks and benefits and pay while they get the relative crumbs?? That's not right. Any business is a group effort. That means everybody deserves a piece of the pie. I mean to me it's such foolishness. Why not just give your workers what they want? They'll be happy, their productivity will go up, they'll stick around, and there will be even more profits on the table for everyone. Madness. Just nutty. Big business sure knows how to cut off its nose to spite its face.
Sinclair is so underrated as a sci-fi hero. How many Star Trek captains have won the day by carefully reading a budget and exploiting a loophole in an act of Congress? ;)
@@arklestudios It does strike (ahem) me as sort of Picardy - see "The Ensigns of Command". That said, it is something a bit more special, you're right. :)
I'm all aboard for the Max Grodénchik fan club. I'm convinced Rom went from an unnamed Ferengi employee of Quark to the character at the center of multiple great episodes thanks to the strength of his performance, Massive kudos to the writers and producers for seeing the talent in their cast and cultivating it. Not many series then or now would have the guts to take a 3rd tier guest character and make him the center of an episode, but DS9 made a habit out of it and never really missed when they did.
The character he first was presented as didn’t have the same level of potential. The almost bumbling but clearly brimming with frustrated potential character we eventually come to know and love was so much better. Max carried both well, but I can never imagine Rom as anything other than what we eventually got: the frustrated talent who cared too much to be a good Ferengi and whose talents went unappreciated until he found the courage and the means to leave behind his own society for one that appreciated who he could be. It was perfect.
@@android_4420 I don't consider those the same really. Those both were more or less Odo or ensemble episodes and she was a guest star (or antagonist) The plot of either episode wasn't really centered on her, not even to the level of the TNG episodes she showed up in.
I love Rom's arc throughout DS9. It's a good illustration of the "infinite diversity" maxim. He's played as kind of a fool at first, but as the series goes on we find he is anything but. He has tremendous aptitude when supported and pointed in the right direction. I'm not the first to notice or suggest Rom as neurodivergent representation, regardless of writer intention. And he even gets the girl! (I'd strike alongside Leeta any day.)
I recently watched the episode “The Assignment” which I think pairs well with this episode. It begins with Quark tempting Rom to come back to work for him, and Rom instead defiantly ordering an Irish working mans breakfast to Quarks disgust… it could be a pretty bog standard O’Brien must suffer episode if it didn’t have so much else going for it. Rom has a nice little B-plot that wraps into the main story especially well. He’s essentially a mirror of O’Brien, acting as a Deus Ex Machina for the main plot. Only O’Brien could do the work needed in the time allotted and the clock is ticking… Rom shows up magically and offers him the perfect way out. He’s relied on for no other reason than his extreme sense of loyalty and solidarity as well as raw technical prowess. We get brief precious moments of character development with Rom even acknowledging his own character retconning throughout the series. Rom is no dummy and HE knows it, he just rarely shows or admits it. Odo is probably the only person who doesn’t underestimate Rom… he’s had him pegged as a stone cold killer from season 1 😁 Also worth noting because the writing in this season was just so on point… Sisko has a nearly completely unseen C-plot crisis cause the seemingly innocuous phase variant modifications O’Brien has been making all episode are actually meant to kill the Prophets. There’s a great moment where you start to think Dax has been possessed too because (off screen) Sisko is so concerned for the Prophets safety he has her running detailed scans at 3AM.
I enjoy how the events of this episode helped kick Rom & Lyta into something resembling an actual relationship. Rom went to bat for all of the bar's workers, and she never forgot that.
I also always liked that episode. There is some good jokes during the entire episode and the message is very well put together. My favorite joke of the episode you didn't mention was when Worf complained about the station having too much crimes and Odo smugly pull off and read a report of the crimes committed on the Enterprise during Worf tenure.
interesting how "government" (sisko) in star trek sided with the WORKERS and told the company to settle the strike, while unfortunately in our real world government often chooses anti-worker legislation.....
What a fine breakdown of not only the episode but the reasoning behind labor unions, and workers rights. Along with this episode your commentary should be used in schools as instructional materials. "Strikes are not the fault of the union..." Thank you!
I love the moment Worf complains to Odo that crimes like petty theft never happened on the Enterprise, and Odo leans back with this mile wide moon faced grin to fetch a list of Enterprise security blunders. He's been waiting for this conversation ever since Worf got to the station. He prepared a pad. He kept it by his desk. This is Odo's birthday.
"In the Ferengi economic system, the people are represented by two separate, yet not equally important, powers: The Grand Nagus, who writes the rules; and the Ferengi Commerce Authority, which enforces those rules. These are their stories." [clunk-CLUNK]
As a lifelong labor honk and former organizer and shop steward myself, I've really been enjoying these labor episodes. I always loved this episode for itself, but also as Rom's first step into a new life away from Quark and Ferengi ways. Rom has one of the greatest character arcs in ST canon. As does his son, Nog. Thanks Steve, this is fun!
This episode has permanent residence on my DVR. I was trying to explain unions and organized labor to my kids. After explaining it conceptually, this episode helped them solidify the concepts in a more practical way. Now, I need to find a copy of Matewan, they're almost old enough.
All you need to know about just how hard this episode goes insofar as being pro-worker is the fact that they have the unequivocal hero of the story unironicly quote Karl Marx.
I was thrilled to see that the Teamster's leader who managed to get nearly every demand met by UPS was, indeed, an O'Brien (Sean O'Brien, to be specific).
This episode is so good. When we did a big "top 55 Star Trek episodes" list in 2021 it was the last episode we rewatched for consideration on the list, and it made the list without any second guessing. It's so funny yet so to the point with its serious message and the kind of episode that would only work on DS9 because of the static location and existing business relations.
"Bar Association" is among one of my favorite DS-9 episodes. I was pleasantly surprised to see such a pro-union episode as I see labor unions as a healthy part of any society and every workplace. This episode, among many others, is why my favorite Star Trek series is Deep Space Nine.
Jeffrey Combs is, as usual, brilliant in this episode, though he's definitely channeling more than a little of Weyoun when he says, "I wasn't thinking of him! Attack the leader of a movement, you risk creating a martyr. No, Rom must not be touched."
Rom became one of my favorite DS9 characters over time and this episode really goes a long ways in developing his character. He's both comic relief and a compelling lead. I have to agree with just about everything said in this video. One of the best DS9 episodes for sure.
I always wondered at the reactions of Federation characters and Ferengi characters...With the Federation not needing or using money and the Ferengi being ruled by it I can't help but think that there should be more cultural tension there with Federation people being like "Oh you still use…money? How droll"
To be fair, the Federation is not Star Fleet, and we still know little about the federation as a whole... I always got the idea that the planets are still mainly independent in large degrees, and while Earth and Vulkan and others dont have money, some may have.
The Federation itself is an alliance of planets that agree to live by certain standards in order to ensure peaceful, orderly, and fair coexistence within the quadrant. That said, planets still have their own governments that rule themselves as well and nothing necessitates that a Federation member can't use money. Hell, we've seen Starfleet personnel gamble and have latinum. The thing is just that the main members of the Federation, such as Earth and Vulcan, don't use money.
The funniest thing about Bar Association, is how despite being REALLY over the top, actual businesses in the real world have made Brunt look downright subdued in comparison.
Odo's position in this episode shows a really interesting angle to Quark & Odo's frenemy-relationship. Odo as a cop doesn't stand for an ideal of justice, he stands for maintaining "order" through the status quo and laws as they are. Not saying that Odo never gets character development on this front, but this episode really reminds us that in our world Odo's ideology doesn't put him in direct opposition to Quark as an exploitative, greedy capitalist, in our world the law and law enforcement so often protects the status quo and the upperclasses rather than seeking to help the people, just as in this episode Odo takes issue with the strike because it disrupts the peace of his station, never mind that that peace was at the expense of Quark's workers being treated terribly.
How does the federation rationalize giving a capitalistic endeavor free rent, power, etc when it’s a Bajoran station? Shouldn’t the Bajoran people be benefitting from Quarks bar being on their station? And how shitty of a business man is Quark to always be in financial woes when he is running a rent free/utility free casino? The end of DS9 should have been Quark buying the wormhole because he was so rich!
It should be noted that the Federation doesn't own the station, so compromises are made right from the start. Guinan ran her bar just as well without any of the problems.
Don't they tho? If this were a real situation wouldn't Quark be paying the bajoran authority some kind of rent? As for power, I'm guessing as part of station operations there is more than enough power generated for everyone. Perhaps the cost of each business's power needs are factored into their rent.
@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOshe was offered free rent/some other perks to stay and encourage traffic to the station as soon as the federation got there.
i think sisko and quark's scene illustrates very clearly one particular rationalization: the leverage the federation has in this situation is kind of absurd, almost oppressive. it goes a long way to explaining the insidious root beer scene; if the federation wants the petite bourgeoisie to dance a labor-loving jig, they can make them dance
@curtismcallister9569 it's a fair point, the Federation comes in top down. However an anarcho syndicalist would argue the bourgeois ownership shouldn't exist any more than government - both are oppressive and Quark and the workers should own equal shares of the means of production as a co-op, and the Federation should be a syndicate.
Would love to give more than one like here. Sure helps I like the ep, but all you said makes me wanna applaud. Friend of mine did their first striking this week and joins a union. ✊
There are more workers than bosses. That's how the system is designed to work. So when all the workers say "fuck that, no more" We tend to be rather persuasive. Especially when we have hammers
an incredible episode. it has a great message and it’s delivered in a fun and clever episode. great character moments all around. o’brien and bashir encouraging rom basically from the start is really cool
I've always been very pro-Union, even as a teenager. I don't fully know where that came from because it wasn't my family. But, I honestly think this episode might be why I'd never cross a picket line.
I don’t know if it’s on your list of labour related episodes (since it’s more of a scene than a whole episode) but the Ds9 episode where the Defiant is attacked while negotiating with the Karremma would be fitting for a mention at least. The part between Worf and the Engineers where O’brian gives him advice on how to get the best out of them.
I loved how though it's 350 years in the future and in a post-money society, the ideas of unions and worker guilds is not totally unknown, and people like O'Brien clearly remember their family history even though it's going back at least ten generations. I just watched DS9 for the first time recently and I was thrilled to see that they did basically a Labor episode. I didn't expect that at all lol. Of course as it's meant to be entertaining there's going to be many opportunities for humor and irony and there was. Only thing I felt was missing was in the final conversation between Rom and Quark, with Rom demanding that Quark put his newfound guarantee in writing. I thought at first they were going to set it up as yet another Quark ploy but then it becomes clear that he did indeed mean it. Still I was surprised they didn't have Rom say he was going to need that in writing lol, knowing ferengi traditions and what his brother is normally like. Other than that a hysterical satisfying episode with a great message and lots of laughs.
Quark, Rom and the handful of other Ferengi are easily some of my favorite DS9 characters, as well as being the focus of some of the best/my favorite episodes. I absolutely love DS9, and I would say the Ferengi are often the best thing about the show -- I think Bar Association is evidence of that.
Max Grodenchik was always hysterical in his roles. He pulled off playing two hysterical hilarious very different ferengi roles very well. I don't know where he is today but if he's still alive I hope he's having a good time and still acting.
Hey Steve, excellent review! You mention no SNW review, but how about a review of season 2 in general, like did they push the envelope properly? how does it compare to season 1? How does it compare to other shows second season? How was the character development? With two seasons to examine, how does SNW fit in to the larger Trek universe? I'd love to see a video on this!
Speaking from experience as a union member and works counsel member (it's a German thing, the works counsel represents the employees' interests towards the employers in many German companies), unions today could be much more efficient and successful if they stopped spending their meetings throwing verbal masturbation at each other but instead worked constructively on issues at hand. Also, the most Trek aspect I find in this episode is the relative ease with which Rom manages to convince the other employees of Quark's to organize. Thanks to decades of neo-liberal indoctrination, this is much harder to do in reality, especially among members of Gen Y and Z. Again, speaking from experience. In this episode, I didn't like the humor in it, becauase it so contradicts my everyday experience. Still I applaud its stance and effort to present issues like this. If anything, an episode like this would be even more relevant today than it was almost thirty years ago. Although they'd probably find a way to make Spock swoon over Chapel or something in the B-plot... ;-).
I work for hospital boiler room, and I can tell you that it is hard to get equal pay. I could work for a factory doing the same work and get paid more. So in an essential service like a medical care, I'd rather the boiler I fire heat the rooms of a sick person getting better, than heat a factory floor. Both are good use of my skills, but only one reaches that vulnerable population.
I loved how though it's 350 years in the future and in a post-money society, the ideas of unions and worker guilds is not totally unknown, and people like O'Brien clearly remember their family history even though it's going back at least ten generations. I just watched DS9 for the first time recently and I was thrilled to see that they did basically a Labor episode. I didn't expect that at all lol. Of course as it's meant to be entertaining there's going to be many opportunities for humor and irony and there was. Only thing I felt was missing was in the final conversation between Rom and Quark, with Rom demanding that Quark put his newfound guarantee in writing. I thought at first they were going to set it up as yet another Quark ploy but then it becomes clear that he did indeed mean it. Still I was surprised they didn't have Rom say he was going to need that in writing lol, knowing ferengi traditions and what his brother is normally like. Other than that a hysterical satisfying episode with a great message and lots of laughs.
I don't think the lessened ability to organize workers has anything to do with "neo-liberal indoctrination", but rather that union busting is quite common and that most states have at-will employment so unless you're a perfect employee and get all important interactions with bosses in writing it's much easier to lose your job and harder to prove wrongful termination. There's also a fundamental lack of sufficient education on how employees can and should handle labor issues.
This is also one of my favorites. It also places front-and-center the character that has become top among my favorites: Rom as a savant. Totally with your viewpoints. This episode also struck a personal note, my being descended from the Molly Maguires in Centralia, PA. While I'm usually on board with your observations of the Star Trek franchises, there are times when I think you could benefit from another viewpoint (as I have from yours), so I hope to engage more fully in the future.
Bar Association: The episode in which Benjamin Sisko gets to play Theodore Roosevelt. (The government's part of the indirect actors is aspirational only these days; in the past, there have been leaders of government who were far more willing to act to broker fair compromises between labor and capital.)
Along with "Bar Association", season three's "Prophet Motive" (one of DS9's most underrated episodes) is a delicious smackdown of the most toxic elements of rampant capitalism--and the final episode act is divine (so to speak). They a great Trek double feature that is a middle finger to Reaganism, Thatcherism, ect.
I’m so glad that this episode didn’t have the traditional b-plot setup. Like the Worf moving thing is there, but doesn’t take a ton of time or energy away from the main union plot
Agree! One of the most well-written episodes of DS9. I am constantly amazed at how the writers and actors on DS9 managed to turn episodes that could become silly or farcical in other hands into a good hour of television.
I like how the idea of the union is first proposed by Bashir, but then the reality of it is explained by O'Brian. The concept is offered by the intellectual, but the practicalities are covered by the working man. Both are in favour of the idea, but one has a far more intrinsic link to it and perspective of it. One read in a book the advantages and usage, the other can actually site real world examples of it.
This episode always makes me think of an (in)famous strike that ended in violence here in my small town in 1929, with the death of Ella May WIggins during the Loray Mill Strike in Gastonia, NC.
This indeed one of my favourite DS9 episodes. Rom quoting Karl Marx is the delicious red flag cherry on a nutritious socialist sundae. 🌹🚩 Thanks for an excellent review and especially your proudly progressive advocacy. Solidarity forever! Especially now.
6:55 "By any means necessary" We all know about the friendly rivalry between Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5, so it's interesting that this exact turn of phrase would show up in this particular DS9 episode. "By Any Means Necessary" is the title of a Season 1 B5 episode centered around a dock worker's strike. In this case, the bosses in question are the EarthForce Military in charge of the space station, and striking carries an extra level of risk for the workers. Due to an earlier war, EarthGov had instituted a law intended to keep the war effort from being held up. This law, named the Rush Act (the showrunners' jab at a popular blowhard conservative talk-radio host from the 90s), empowered military commanders to deal with strikes that impacted military bases or other military operations "by any means necessary". After the war, the law never came off the books. The dock worker's strike goes on, and Station Commander Jeffery Sinclair's higher ups invoke the Rush Act, telling him to deal with it, expecting him to get right into some old fashioned head breaking union busting as the spirit of the Rush Act intended. Instead Jeffery exploits the ambiguously written wording of "any means" to reallocate military readiness budget to meet the dock workers demands. His superiors are fuming mad about this, and he just tells them they shouldn't have handed him a loaded gun unless they were sure they knew how he was going to use it.
Question for you Steve, do you notice any class disparity in how we societally frame labor, especially in a modern sense, where much of labor is less physical than ever?
Definitely one of the best episodes of the series. It also shows how to deliver a message; couched in solid storytelling rather than delivering a sermon.
I've been reading, brother. You can **read?** Listen to this: Workers of the world unite! We have nothing to lose... but our chains. 😆❤🖤 Rom fucking rules... & honestly that's partly *because* he's a doofus. Having an awkward countenance doesn't make him (or anyone!) "stupid" or incompetent.
Great review! I suggest you review a good movie called S1mone One, an early 2000 about a Hollywood director using a cgi character to replace actors. Real relevant now
Of course Quark only stayed on the station because Sisco "encouraged" him because they needed a nucleus of business on the promenade to keep things working. Although at this point Sisco probably doesn't need Quark anymore so Sisco's ultimatum is probably real and justified.
Do you think there is a message here that needs to be shared with management when it comes to workers' rights to form a union? It has always been one of my favorite DS9 episodes because of the character growth of Worf and Rom. Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your insights.
This is one of my favorite “technically sci-fi” episodes of DS9 which has the most of that episode type of any Trek series. What I mean by “technically sci-fi” is that it’s science fiction because it’s on a space station and most of the characters are aliens but the story itself could have been set on a navy base in the South Pacific. The characters on DS9 are strong enough to have grounded conflicts. This episode doesn’t need a temporal clone to be great. Honestly, “technically sci-fi” episodes are almost always DS9’s best.
This episode more than most others gives us a plausible explanation for Federation economics. Note the scene where Sisko confronts Quark with what he might owe the Federation for rent, utilities, and maintenance service over five years IF the Federation had charged him. And he uses this as a bargaining chip to prompt Quark to equitably settle the labor dispute. To me this indicates that the Federation certainly does understand capitalism and trade, and the Federation does track tangible property and resources, and it knows how to convert those things into currency -- just as any capitalist nation on Earth in the real world does. The difference is that the Federation values "peace" over "profit." And by "peace," we mean not just the absence of violence but also the social justice and equity that makes peace worth preserving. So the Federation provides all sorts of things at no charge. Material, labor, energy, defense, scientific advances, etc. And it does this in order to maintain peace overall, to remove as many reasons as possible for individuals to resort to violence. But all along the Federation is tracking that debt, and it maintains the right to take away all that great free stuff when exploitation rears its ugly head. And that's how you get a peaceful, equitable, classless world without money. (or so we hope)
I love this episode so much. It's a strong pro-union story, a strong Quark-and-Rom story, an EXCELLENT Rom story, and a turning point for the ongoing Ferengi plotlines. It's got fantastic character development, Rom at his absolute best, O'Brien and Bashir being the best allies... Perfect DS9.
Later there is also the brilliant bit about Nog who decides just as father that this business thing just isn't for him and joins Star Fleet (while Ron joins the DS9 maintence crew, where he excels btw.). He doesnt see himself as "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" he sees it was it is, that he can do stuff he is good at, but doesnt mean everybody has to be a businessman. Which is usually this hideous counterargument "if you dont like your position, why dont you start a business yourself"
Given that Worf crosses the picket line - I wonder what his father (Sergei, not Mogh) would have thought. Remember that he brushes off being called "sir" because he "worked for a living".
This is a very important Rom episodes. Sent him off on a new path. Rom was one of the best character reclamation projects. first season he was awful, just awful. but slowly he was fixed and after awhile he was one of the most beloved characters on DS9
Robert Beltran may have been in the SAG union, but he was only in it to get acting jobs. Beltran is like water, he seeps to whatever the lowest setting will be, and just stays there causing excessive amounts of damage. Beltran's just an embarrassment.
I was hoping that the first DS9 labor episode was gonna be Civil Defense. It is from an earlier season than Bar Association and also involves a labor dispute of sorts.
I've never been able to get into DS9. Star trek without an actual trek? HARD PASS. But I watched this episode last night and got dang, it's really good.
Rom isnt just a hero, he's a union man.
Cannot like this coment enough
The thing that kinda gets me about Bar Association, is that the leader of a Ferengi union later became Grand Nagus.
Whose mother was helping give the previous Nagus a paradigm shift of his own, by helping him to basically end female slavery and grant them economic freedom/autonomy. That family is wild. I love the Ferengi storyline, more and more as the years go on. Their whole society experiences massive social, economic and political upheaval, all because Quark had the lobes to keep his bar open after the Bajoran liberation.
The CIA has nothing on the Moogie Family
Highly competitive market based space anarcho-syndacalism time, baby! I loved the semi-reformed Ferengi in Lower Decks and Prodigy. If the Federation doesn't absorb Ferengi experts into the diplomatic corps and trade negotiation office, they're fools.
I love that the bit between Worf and O’Brien ends in the most Irish way possible: with an Englishman getting thrown over a table and three men spending the night in the drunk tank.
I thought Bashir was South Asian like Siddiq? I know he has a British accent, but so does Picard and he's French.
@@rickwrites2612South asian british people are still considered British
Alexander Siddiq is half Sudanese and half British.
I also find it comical that Brunt has nothing better to do than to cross the galaxy to a backwater station and quash a strike involving some people at a bar. That's definitely some hilarious commentary on bureaucrats' priorities.
@Maxxisblitz I saw it as a commentary on how rare striking and unions are in Ferengi run businesses, and the stance the FCA has regarding it. Quarks might not be a big business at the time, but if the strike was successful (as it turns out to be later in the episode), other Ferengi workers in similar situations might hear about it and get similar ideas.
Doesnt stop it from being hilarious for Brunt to travel all the way from Fereginar with bodyguards to do whatever to stop the strike.
Look, he gets to pay to watch a couple Nausicaan Pinkertons do their thing AND fuck over his sworn nemesis Quark over some extremely petty bullshit at the same time??? What’s not to love about this!
Corporations really do spend an enormous amount of time and money to bust unions. A company will absolutely spend more money on busting unions and fighting strikes than they would spend to give the workers the money they deserve because they need to have all the power. Giving any amount of power to any workers is unacceptable to them. Because they do very little (if anything) and keep most of the money. Perfectly realistic analogy for actual union-busting efforts.
@@mooncalf191exactly. It's about power and control when it comes to union busting, not money. Honestly, money to companies and to the rich aren't about the money itself anyway, it's about the power and control it affords. Money itself is just a way to trade for goods and services. For workers money is about just that, particularly for necessary goods and services and hopefully for something a bit extra. Money isn't viewed the same way by the rich and companies because they don't have to worry about having enough money for necessary goods and services so they view it as a way to attain and maintain the power and control they have because that's their goal and purpose.
Unions existing takes away power and control from companies as that's the point, to give workers bargaining power and workers can't have that if companies have all of the power. Companies are willing to spend the money to bust unions because it's not money that's an issue to them (they have no problem throwing it everywhere except to the workers), it's the fear of losing any amount of power to workers.
The line about Brunt demanding to break the strike "by any means necessary" reminds me of the 1994 Babylon 5 episode "By Any Means Necessary" and not because of the title: that episode is also about a strike, by the station's dockworkers, and after Commander Sinclair gets authorization from the Earth government to end the strike "by any means necessary", he uses that authority to stop the strike by agreeing to give the workers everything they are asking for.
Lol. Never seen it but that's a smart man. What shouldn't workers get everything they ask for? Are they asking for gold-plated Ferraris? I highly doubt it.
It's amazing what you can accomplish and how quickly one can move things forward when you don't turn things into an ego battle. Meeting people in the middle or just giving in sometimes when you know the other side is right - amazing what that can actually accomplish.
Too bad the privileged barbarians with controlling stakes in big business here in this country still can't get that. They would rather drag the shit out for months and pay ten times as much just to say that they "won". What a pathetic infantile sociopathic mentality, but that is literally the pattern of the last 150 years of Labor history in the US.
These fkg animals are so fkg savage they look at it as "if you win I lose". I mean jesus are we all five years old? When workers win everybody wins! If I own a company and my workers felt dissatisfied enough to strike I sure as hell would want to know what they were unhappy about and I would be highly motivated to meet their demands.
It's about being one big happy family. We're all on the same side. If it's a private business we all want to make money delivering a certain kind of product or providing a certain kind of service. How selfish and immoral is it of me to act like I deserve all the perks and benefits and pay while they get the relative crumbs?? That's not right. Any business is a group effort. That means everybody deserves a piece of the pie.
I mean to me it's such foolishness. Why not just give your workers what they want? They'll be happy, their productivity will go up, they'll stick around, and there will be even more profits on the table for everyone. Madness. Just nutty.
Big business sure knows how to cut off its nose to spite its face.
If a future government still thinks killing strikers is okay then we're in trouble lol
Sinclair is so underrated as a sci-fi hero. How many Star Trek captains have won the day by carefully reading a budget and exploiting a loophole in an act of Congress? ;)
The best episode of season 1 of B5.
@@arklestudios It does strike (ahem) me as sort of Picardy - see "The Ensigns of Command". That said, it is something a bit more special, you're right. :)
I'm all aboard for the Max Grodénchik fan club. I'm convinced Rom went from an unnamed Ferengi employee of Quark to the character at the center of multiple great episodes thanks to the strength of his performance, Massive kudos to the writers and producers for seeing the talent in their cast and cultivating it. Not many series then or now would have the guts to take a 3rd tier guest character and make him the center of an episode, but DS9 made a habit out of it and never really missed when they did.
Added- I'll go to my grave covinced Rom saved the Federation with his self replicating mines idea. Prove me wrong.
You forget the 2(!) Magel Barrett episodes, lol. But otherwise I agree
And then they took his son Nog, a 4th tier character to greatness as well.
The character he first was presented as didn’t have the same level of potential. The almost bumbling but clearly brimming with frustrated potential character we eventually come to know and love was so much better. Max carried both well, but I can never imagine Rom as anything other than what we eventually got: the frustrated talent who cared too much to be a good Ferengi and whose talents went unappreciated until he found the courage and the means to leave behind his own society for one that appreciated who he could be. It was perfect.
@@android_4420 I don't consider those the same really. Those both were more or less Odo or ensemble episodes and she was a guest star (or antagonist) The plot of either episode wasn't really centered on her, not even to the level of the TNG episodes she showed up in.
I love Rom's arc throughout DS9. It's a good illustration of the "infinite diversity" maxim. He's played as kind of a fool at first, but as the series goes on we find he is anything but. He has tremendous aptitude when supported and pointed in the right direction. I'm not the first to notice or suggest Rom as neurodivergent representation, regardless of writer intention. And he even gets the girl! (I'd strike alongside Leeta any day.)
I recently watched the episode “The Assignment” which I think pairs well with this episode. It begins with Quark tempting Rom to come back to work for him, and Rom instead defiantly ordering an Irish working mans breakfast to Quarks disgust… it could be a pretty bog standard O’Brien must suffer episode if it didn’t have so much else going for it.
Rom has a nice little B-plot that wraps into the main story especially well. He’s essentially a mirror of O’Brien, acting as a Deus Ex Machina for the main plot. Only O’Brien could do the work needed in the time allotted and the clock is ticking… Rom shows up magically and offers him the perfect way out. He’s relied on for no other reason than his extreme sense of loyalty and solidarity as well as raw technical prowess. We get brief precious moments of character development with Rom even acknowledging his own character retconning throughout the series. Rom is no dummy and HE knows it, he just rarely shows or admits it. Odo is probably the only person who doesn’t underestimate Rom… he’s had him pegged as a stone cold killer from season 1 😁
Also worth noting because the writing in this season was just so on point… Sisko has a nearly completely unseen C-plot crisis cause the seemingly innocuous phase variant modifications O’Brien has been making all episode are actually meant to kill the Prophets. There’s a great moment where you start to think Dax has been possessed too because (off screen) Sisko is so concerned for the Prophets safety he has her running detailed scans at 3AM.
I enjoy how the events of this episode helped kick Rom & Lyta into something resembling an actual relationship. Rom went to bat for all of the bar's workers, and she never forgot that.
I also always liked that episode. There is some good jokes during the entire episode and the message is very well put together.
My favorite joke of the episode you didn't mention was when Worf complained about the station having too much crimes and Odo smugly pull off and read a report of the crimes committed on the Enterprise during Worf tenure.
😄😄😄
interesting how "government" (sisko) in star trek sided with the WORKERS and told the company to settle the strike, while unfortunately in our real world government often chooses anti-worker legislation.....
What a fine breakdown of not only the episode but the reasoning behind labor unions, and workers rights. Along with this episode your commentary should be used in schools as instructional materials. "Strikes are not the fault of the union..." Thank you!
The scene with Bashir, O'Brien and Rom will always remain one of my favorite DS9 scenes. Bar none.
Nice pun
I love the moment Worf complains to Odo that crimes like petty theft never happened on the Enterprise, and Odo leans back with this mile wide moon faced grin to fetch a list of Enterprise security blunders. He's been waiting for this conversation ever since Worf got to the station. He prepared a pad. He kept it by his desk. This is Odo's birthday.
In this and all future videos, you should use his full name: "Brunt, FCA"
I’d watch that show!
"In the Ferengi economic system, the people are represented by two separate, yet not equally important, powers: The Grand Nagus, who writes the rules; and the Ferengi Commerce Authority, which enforces those rules. These are their stories."
[clunk-CLUNK]
It's "Liquidator Brunt, FCA".
Wouldn't you just love, just once, to barge into a crowded bar and yell "Brunt! FCA!"
As a lifelong labor honk and former organizer and shop steward myself, I've really been enjoying these labor episodes. I always loved this episode for itself, but also as Rom's first step into a new life away from Quark and Ferengi ways. Rom has one of the greatest character arcs in ST canon. As does his son, Nog. Thanks Steve, this is fun!
Ship’s legal officer should’ve reviewed this.
He was going to... but Steve is Bridge Crew, and so sidelined him despite the lawyer's years of studying Labour Law.
This episode has permanent residence on my DVR.
I was trying to explain unions and organized labor to my kids. After explaining it conceptually, this episode helped them solidify the concepts in a more practical way.
Now, I need to find a copy of Matewan, they're almost old enough.
"Workers of the world unite!"
All you need to know about just how hard this episode goes insofar as being pro-worker is the fact that they have the unequivocal hero of the story unironicly quote Karl Marx.
Don't forget TNG S2E1 : The Child where Troi is pro going into labor but the Capt talks of throwing cold water on that
The origin of Rommunism
Deeply underrated comment!
I was thrilled to see that the Teamster's leader who managed to get nearly every demand met by UPS was, indeed, an O'Brien (Sean O'Brien, to be specific).
"Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains"
-Rom
This episode is so good. When we did a big "top 55 Star Trek episodes" list in 2021 it was the last episode we rewatched for consideration on the list, and it made the list without any second guessing. It's so funny yet so to the point with its serious message and the kind of episode that would only work on DS9 because of the static location and existing business relations.
Love it! Having Marx quoted in Star Trek. Epicly "unamerican"!
"Bar Association" is among one of my favorite DS-9 episodes. I was pleasantly surprised to see such a pro-union episode as I see labor unions as a healthy part of any society and every workplace. This episode, among many others, is why my favorite Star Trek series is Deep Space Nine.
Jeffrey Combs is, as usual, brilliant in this episode, though he's definitely channeling more than a little of Weyoun when he says, "I wasn't thinking of him! Attack the leader of a movement, you risk creating a martyr. No, Rom must not be touched."
Rom became one of my favorite DS9 characters over time and this episode really goes a long ways in developing his character. He's both comic relief and a compelling lead. I have to agree with just about everything said in this video. One of the best DS9 episodes for sure.
Thanks Steve! You are truly a prince among men for curating such a fantastic and thought provoking series!
I always wondered at the reactions of Federation characters and Ferengi characters...With the Federation not needing or using money and the Ferengi being ruled by it I can't help but think that there should be more cultural tension there with Federation people being like "Oh you still use…money? How droll"
To be fair, the Federation is not Star Fleet, and we still know little about the federation as a whole... I always got the idea that the planets are still mainly independent in large degrees, and while Earth and Vulkan and others dont have money, some may have.
The Federation itself is an alliance of planets that agree to live by certain standards in order to ensure peaceful, orderly, and fair coexistence within the quadrant. That said, planets still have their own governments that rule themselves as well and nothing necessitates that a Federation member can't use money. Hell, we've seen Starfleet personnel gamble and have latinum. The thing is just that the main members of the Federation, such as Earth and Vulcan, don't use money.
The funniest thing about Bar Association, is how despite being REALLY over the top, actual businesses in the real world have made Brunt look downright subdued in comparison.
"There's Murder Inside Him." God damn it. I need to replace that beer.
Odo's position in this episode shows a really interesting angle to Quark & Odo's frenemy-relationship. Odo as a cop doesn't stand for an ideal of justice, he stands for maintaining "order" through the status quo and laws as they are. Not saying that Odo never gets character development on this front, but this episode really reminds us that in our world Odo's ideology doesn't put him in direct opposition to Quark as an exploitative, greedy capitalist, in our world the law and law enforcement so often protects the status quo and the upperclasses rather than seeking to help the people, just as in this episode Odo takes issue with the strike because it disrupts the peace of his station, never mind that that peace was at the expense of Quark's workers being treated terribly.
I think they actually stand on the 'left side', not the 'right side' on this episode.
How does the federation rationalize giving a capitalistic endeavor free rent, power, etc when it’s a Bajoran station? Shouldn’t the Bajoran people be benefitting from Quarks bar being on their station? And how shitty of a business man is Quark to always be in financial woes when he is running a rent free/utility free casino? The end of DS9 should have been Quark buying the wormhole because he was so rich!
It should be noted that the Federation doesn't own the station, so compromises are made right from the start. Guinan ran her bar just as well without any of the problems.
Don't they tho? If this were a real situation wouldn't Quark be paying the bajoran authority some kind of rent? As for power, I'm guessing as part of station operations there is more than enough power generated for everyone. Perhaps the cost of each business's power needs are factored into their rent.
@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOshe was offered free rent/some other perks to stay and encourage traffic to the station as soon as the federation got there.
i think sisko and quark's scene illustrates very clearly one particular rationalization: the leverage the federation has in this situation is kind of absurd, almost oppressive. it goes a long way to explaining the insidious root beer scene; if the federation wants the petite bourgeoisie to dance a labor-loving jig, they can make them dance
@curtismcallister9569 it's a fair point, the Federation comes in top down. However an anarcho syndicalist would argue the bourgeois ownership shouldn't exist any more than government - both are oppressive and Quark and the workers should own equal shares of the means of production as a co-op, and the Federation should be a syndicate.
Would love to give more than one like here.
Sure helps I like the ep, but all you said makes me wanna applaud.
Friend of mine did their first striking this week and joins a union.
✊
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught the thing with the Pakleds.
There are more workers than bosses. That's how the system is designed to work.
So when all the workers say "fuck that, no more"
We tend to be rather persuasive.
Especially when we have hammers
an incredible episode. it has a great message and it’s delivered in a fun and clever episode. great character moments all around. o’brien and bashir encouraging rom basically from the start is really cool
I've always been very pro-Union, even as a teenager. I don't fully know where that came from because it wasn't my family. But, I honestly think this episode might be why I'd never cross a picket line.
I don’t know if it’s on your list of labour related episodes (since it’s more of a scene than a whole episode) but the Ds9 episode where the Defiant is attacked while negotiating with the Karremma would be fitting for a mention at least.
The part between Worf and the Engineers where O’brian gives him advice on how to get the best out of them.
I loved how though it's 350 years in the future and in a post-money society, the ideas of unions and worker guilds is not totally unknown, and people like O'Brien clearly remember their family history even though it's going back at least ten generations.
I just watched DS9 for the first time recently and I was thrilled to see that they did basically a Labor episode. I didn't expect that at all lol. Of course as it's meant to be entertaining there's going to be many opportunities for humor and irony and there was.
Only thing I felt was missing was in the final conversation between Rom and Quark, with Rom demanding that Quark put his newfound guarantee in writing. I thought at first they were going to set it up as yet another Quark ploy but then it becomes clear that he did indeed mean it. Still I was surprised they didn't have Rom say he was going to need that in writing lol, knowing ferengi traditions and what his brother is normally like.
Other than that a hysterical satisfying episode with a great message and lots of laughs.
well in true exploiter fasion i was a handshake deal. plus if they put it in writng there's always the chance the FCA finds out .
I love the back and forth between O'Brien and Bashir about the cyst on Miles' neck.
Quark, Rom and the handful of other Ferengi are easily some of my favorite DS9 characters, as well as being the focus of some of the best/my favorite episodes. I absolutely love DS9, and I would say the Ferengi are often the best thing about the show -- I think Bar Association is evidence of that.
Max Grodenchik was always hysterical in his roles. He pulled off playing two hysterical hilarious very different ferengi roles very well.
I don't know where he is today but if he's still alive I hope he's having a good time and still acting.
Wikipedia says he’s 70 and still working (as of August 18, 2023). :)
5:20 oh dang lol, didn't expect that zinger, but glad to hear it
Hey Steve, excellent review! You mention no SNW review, but how about a review of season 2 in general, like did they push the envelope properly? how does it compare to season 1? How does it compare to other shows second season? How was the character development? With two seasons to examine, how does SNW fit in to the larger Trek universe? I'd love to see a video on this!
Speaking from experience as a union member and works counsel member (it's a German thing, the works counsel represents the employees' interests towards the employers in many German companies), unions today could be much more efficient and successful if they stopped spending their meetings throwing verbal masturbation at each other but instead worked constructively on issues at hand. Also, the most Trek aspect I find in this episode is the relative ease with which Rom manages to convince the other employees of Quark's to organize. Thanks to decades of neo-liberal indoctrination, this is much harder to do in reality, especially among members of Gen Y and Z. Again, speaking from experience.
In this episode, I didn't like the humor in it, becauase it so contradicts my everyday experience. Still I applaud its stance and effort to present issues like this. If anything, an episode like this would be even more relevant today than it was almost thirty years ago. Although they'd probably find a way to make Spock swoon over Chapel or something in the B-plot... ;-).
I work for hospital boiler room, and I can tell you that it is hard to get equal pay. I could work for a factory doing the same work and get paid more. So in an essential service like a medical care, I'd rather the boiler I fire heat the rooms of a sick person getting better, than heat a factory floor. Both are good use of my skills, but only one reaches that vulnerable population.
The fact we don't have anything like a works or internal workers council in the US just amazes me.
I loved how though it's 350 years in the future and in a post-money society, the ideas of unions and worker guilds is not totally unknown, and people like O'Brien clearly remember their family history even though it's going back at least ten generations.
I just watched DS9 for the first time recently and I was thrilled to see that they did basically a Labor episode. I didn't expect that at all lol. Of course as it's meant to be entertaining there's going to be many opportunities for humor and irony and there was.
Only thing I felt was missing was in the final conversation between Rom and Quark, with Rom demanding that Quark put his newfound guarantee in writing. I thought at first they were going to set it up as yet another Quark ploy but then it becomes clear that he did indeed mean it. Still I was surprised they didn't have Rom say he was going to need that in writing lol, knowing ferengi traditions and what his brother is normally like.
Other than that a hysterical satisfying episode with a great message and lots of laughs.
I don't think the lessened ability to organize workers has anything to do with "neo-liberal indoctrination", but rather that union busting is quite common and that most states have at-will employment so unless you're a perfect employee and get all important interactions with bosses in writing it's much easier to lose your job and harder to prove wrongful termination. There's also a fundamental lack of sufficient education on how employees can and should handle labor issues.
I love this episode. Seeing this as a kid is probably a big part of me learning whose side you should be in in life.
The Robert Beltran shade
I remember this episode mentioned in an earlier video.
This is also one of my favorites. It also places front-and-center the character that has become top among my favorites: Rom as a savant. Totally with your viewpoints. This episode also struck a personal note, my being descended from the Molly Maguires in Centralia, PA. While I'm usually on board with your observations of the Star Trek franchises, there are times when I think you could benefit from another viewpoint (as I have from yours), so I hope to engage more fully in the future.
This is really well laid out. I might use this video in my Econ lesson on labor and organization.
Union! Union! Union!
It's about as subtle as a brick to the face and I love it.
That damn parasitic O'Brien twin...Always getting in the way when he and Keiko want to be...intimate. Good thing he got that taken care of.
Bar Association: The episode in which Benjamin Sisko gets to play Theodore Roosevelt. (The government's part of the indirect actors is aspirational only these days; in the past, there have been leaders of government who were far more willing to act to broker fair compromises between labor and capital.)
Thanks!
One of my favorite Ferengi episodes. Love the story and theme. Great video, Steve! More DS9 content please :)
Along with "Bar Association", season three's "Prophet Motive" (one of DS9's most underrated episodes) is a delicious smackdown of the most toxic elements of rampant capitalism--and the final episode act is divine (so to speak). They a great Trek double feature that is a middle finger to Reaganism, Thatcherism, ect.
I’m so glad that this episode didn’t have the traditional b-plot setup. Like the Worf moving thing is there, but doesn’t take a ton of time or energy away from the main union plot
Agree! One of the most well-written episodes of DS9. I am constantly amazed at how the writers and actors on DS9 managed to turn episodes that could become silly or farcical in other hands into a good hour of television.
Great episode, Steve.
Don't see the promised link to the playlist in the description, though. I know how to find it, but lots of folks don't.
This is such a classic , this is the episode I went from liking O'brien to loving O'brien
I like how the idea of the union is first proposed by Bashir, but then the reality of it is explained by O'Brian.
The concept is offered by the intellectual, but the practicalities are covered by the working man. Both are in favour of the idea, but one has a far more intrinsic link to it and perspective of it.
One read in a book the advantages and usage, the other can actually site real world examples of it.
This episode always makes me think of an (in)famous strike that ended in violence here in my small town in 1929, with the death of Ella May WIggins during the Loray Mill Strike in Gastonia, NC.
Two great videos on the same episode, Steve. Well done!
I really needed this today Steve. Thanks as always for the great Trek content.
i didn't really get this one as a kid... i certainly get it now.
Lol nice chakotay callout! 😂😂😂
This indeed one of my favourite DS9 episodes. Rom quoting Karl Marx is the delicious red flag cherry on a nutritious socialist sundae. 🌹🚩 Thanks for an excellent review and especially your proudly progressive advocacy. Solidarity forever! Especially now.
haven't even clicked yet. already mad... only 20 minutes? on THIS episode?
(all power to the people✊️)
6:55 "By any means necessary" We all know about the friendly rivalry between Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5, so it's interesting that this exact turn of phrase would show up in this particular DS9 episode. "By Any Means Necessary" is the title of a Season 1 B5 episode centered around a dock worker's strike.
In this case, the bosses in question are the EarthForce Military in charge of the space station, and striking carries an extra level of risk for the workers. Due to an earlier war, EarthGov had instituted a law intended to keep the war effort from being held up. This law, named the Rush Act (the showrunners' jab at a popular blowhard conservative talk-radio host from the 90s), empowered military commanders to deal with strikes that impacted military bases or other military operations "by any means necessary". After the war, the law never came off the books.
The dock worker's strike goes on, and Station Commander Jeffery Sinclair's higher ups invoke the Rush Act, telling him to deal with it, expecting him to get right into some old fashioned head breaking union busting as the spirit of the Rush Act intended. Instead Jeffery exploits the ambiguously written wording of "any means" to reallocate military readiness budget to meet the dock workers demands.
His superiors are fuming mad about this, and he just tells them they shouldn't have handed him a loaded gun unless they were sure they knew how he was going to use it.
Great narrative. I'll watch the episode now! 😁
Question for you Steve, do you notice any class disparity in how we societally frame labor, especially in a modern sense, where much of labor is less physical than ever?
Definitely one of the best episodes of the series. It also shows how to deliver a message; couched in solid storytelling rather than delivering a sermon.
Very timely review 🖖🏽👍🏽
I've been reading, brother.
You can **read?**
Listen to this: Workers of the world unite! We have nothing to lose... but our chains.
😆❤🖤
Rom fucking rules... & honestly that's partly *because* he's a doofus. Having an awkward countenance doesn't make him (or anyone!) "stupid" or incompetent.
Great review!
I suggest you review a good movie called S1mone One, an early 2000 about a Hollywood director using a cgi character to replace actors.
Real relevant now
Of course Quark only stayed on the station because Sisco "encouraged" him because they needed a nucleus of business on the promenade to keep things working. Although at this point Sisco probably doesn't need Quark anymore so Sisco's ultimatum is probably real and justified.
Do you think there is a message here that needs to be shared with management when it comes to workers' rights to form a union? It has always been one of my favorite DS9 episodes because of the character growth of Worf and Rom. Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your insights.
This is one of my favorite “technically sci-fi” episodes of DS9 which has the most of that episode type of any Trek series. What I mean by “technically sci-fi” is that it’s science fiction because it’s on a space station and most of the characters are aliens but the story itself could have been set on a navy base in the South Pacific. The characters on DS9 are strong enough to have grounded conflicts. This episode doesn’t need a temporal clone to be great. Honestly, “technically sci-fi” episodes are almost always DS9’s best.
This episode more than most others gives us a plausible explanation for Federation economics. Note the scene where Sisko confronts Quark with what he might owe the Federation for rent, utilities, and maintenance service over five years IF the Federation had charged him. And he uses this as a bargaining chip to prompt Quark to equitably settle the labor dispute. To me this indicates that the Federation certainly does understand capitalism and trade, and the Federation does track tangible property and resources, and it knows how to convert those things into currency -- just as any capitalist nation on Earth in the real world does. The difference is that the Federation values "peace" over "profit." And by "peace," we mean not just the absence of violence but also the social justice and equity that makes peace worth preserving. So the Federation provides all sorts of things at no charge. Material, labor, energy, defense, scientific advances, etc. And it does this in order to maintain peace overall, to remove as many reasons as possible for individuals to resort to violence. But all along the Federation is tracking that debt, and it maintains the right to take away all that great free stuff when exploitation rears its ugly head. And that's how you get a peaceful, equitable, classless world without money. (or so we hope)
I love this episode so much. It's a strong pro-union story, a strong Quark-and-Rom story, an EXCELLENT Rom story, and a turning point for the ongoing Ferengi plotlines. It's got fantastic character development, Rom at his absolute best, O'Brien and Bashir being the best allies... Perfect DS9.
Hi have a nice day folks
Sisko's borderline extortion is perfectly delivered
Later there is also the brilliant bit about Nog who decides just as father that this business thing just isn't for him and joins Star Fleet (while Ron joins the DS9 maintence crew, where he excels btw.). He doesnt see himself as "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" he sees it was it is, that he can do stuff he is good at, but doesnt mean everybody has to be a businessman. Which is usually this hideous counterargument "if you dont like your position, why dont you start a business yourself"
Given that Worf crosses the picket line - I wonder what his father (Sergei, not Mogh) would have thought. Remember that he brushes off being called "sir" because he "worked for a living".
Any of the Ferengi episodes are all best. …especially when Quark became Mugi 😂😂😂
Ah, a Rom com
This is a very important Rom episodes. Sent him off on a new path. Rom was one of the best character reclamation projects. first season he was awful, just awful. but slowly he was fixed and after awhile he was one of the most beloved characters on DS9
Steve "It is not the union's fault there is a strike, it is the job of industry to make work conditions equitable." union YES!
Damn, this was such a well written episode. TNG never had something like this
Robert Beltran may have been in the SAG union, but he was only in it to get acting jobs. Beltran is like water, he seeps to whatever the lowest setting will be, and just stays there causing excessive amounts of damage. Beltran's just an embarrassment.
Literally the only ferengi centered episode I like & I LOVE it
I was hoping that the first DS9 labor episode was gonna be Civil Defense. It is from an earlier season than Bar Association and also involves a labor dispute of sorts.
I mean, aren't most of Civil Defense's labor-related themes more environmental storytelling than actual plot?
This one is the most blatant, though. And Steve really needed to get in that dig at Beltran. 😂
just now realizing Brunt is played by Jeffrey Combs. It's nuts that Weyoun and Brunt are the same guy.
this Episode could have been a lot more violent think the West Virginia coal wars from 1912 to 1921 but with ferengi and Nausicaans
I've never been able to get into DS9. Star trek without an actual trek? HARD PASS. But I watched this episode last night and got dang, it's really good.
This video cinches it. I need to rewatch DS9.
I'd forgotten how much fun this episode was.
Thanks!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 💯🖖🏾
great review! hit all the points i would have!