S07.E24: The Dogs of War

[John Potts]

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After Dominion forces destroy all Cardassian rebel bases, Kira urges Damar to rally his people. The Federation/Klingon/Romulan Alliance prepares for a final showdown. Rom receives an unexpected promotion.

Definitely something of a Curate's Egg of an episode ("Good in parts") - I liked the Alliance realising that while attacking was going to be costly, it was the right decision: a pause would allow the Alliance to lick its wounds, but it would also allow the Dominion to rebuild too - and its army is comprised of clone troopers that are born ready to fight. Good characterisation, though, to have the Romulan being the advocate of "Wait and see", the Klingon being Gung ho and the Feds being somewhere in between.

For a terrorist, what was Kira thinking in gathering all "her" forces in one place (I know - it's Damar's choice, but she didn't seem to say anything about what a terrible idea it was)? Only a couple of episodes ago, she advised against doing exactly that because it exponentially increases the chance of betrayal/capture - which is exactly what happens. And did nobody look at the script and say, "If that cellar feels small, how big did you THINK it was - you could hold a rave in that place!" It's not as if it's a callback to Garak's claustrophobia, because not even Kira comments on how she'd lived in caves a fraction of the size of that place. I'll admit it does give us the funniest exchange of the episode:

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Garak: "You never told me you had a secret base in the mountains!"

Damar: "I wanted to surprise you!"

 

...which brings me to the supposed "comedy" of the episode. I get that the regulars have to be given something to do each week, but I found the Bashir/Ezri romantic bumblings tiresome in the extreme (he's a 30ish, she's over 300! They shouldn't be acting like a pair of teens!). And as for the Ferengi... I guess Eddington was right, the Federation IS like the Borg: it slowly assimilates all the cultures around it. And you want Rom as the new Nagus? Sure, for the new progressive Federation-clone you're building, Quark is a bad choice. But Rom? The guy's an idiot! Why not Nog? He's proven himself a competent Ferengi and a good Starfleet Officer - you'd think he perfectly embodies the new Ferengi they're trying to build. Maybe Zek really has gone senile.

[legaleagle53]

1 hour ago, John Potts said:

And as for the Ferengi... I guess Eddington was right, the Federation IS like the Borg: it slowly assimilates all the cultures around it. And you want Rom as the new Nagus? Sure, for the new progressive Federation-clone you're building, Quark is a bad choice. But Rom? The guy's an idiot! Why not Nog? He's proven himself a competent Ferengi and a good Starfleet Officer - you'd think he perfectly embodies the new Ferengi they're trying to build. Maybe Zek really has gone senile.

Rom's not an idiot.  He's simply lived under Quark's oppressive shadow (and been constantly put down by him) for so long that he's never had the chance to develop the self-confidence necessary to show the world just what he CAN accomplish.  Nog had grown up watching his father being bullied by his Uncle Quark, which is why Nog refused to join the family business and joined Starfleet instead -- he didn't want to end up having his potential beaten out of him by his uncle the way Rom did.

Edited August 17, 2017 by legaleagle53

[readster]

11 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Rom's not an idiot.  He's simply lived under Quark's oppressive shadow (and been constantly put down by him) for so long that he's never had the chance to develop the self-confidence necessary to show the world just what he CAN accomplish.  Nog had grown up watching his father being bullied by his Uncle Quark, which is why Nog refused to join the family business and joined Starfleet instead -- he didn't want to end up having his potential beaten out of him by his uncle the way Rom did.

Exactly, Rom was never considered an idiot. Even during the first season, they showed the guy was pretty smart and a few other things. However, as Nog said: "He had to be a good Ferengi and go into business!" Because other wise he would have been shunned. Quark even tried to keep Nog from joining Starfleet because: "It wasn't Ferengi." The problem with Eddington's POV, he did except that: "We all have to get along." You have to know when to fight and when to tell others: "Screw you! What you are doing is wrong!" As he learned, the Maquis direction while making sense, in the long wrong, made things worst. Even in the last season of Voyager when one of their former members used mind control to bring the Maquis crew members back to their original ideals and take over Voyager. Janeway said it best: "The Maquis view wasn't wrong, it was they went about it wrong." 

[John Potts]

9 hours ago, readster said:

Exactly, Rom was never considered an idiot. Even during the first season, they showed the guy was pretty smart

Rom may not be exactly the idiot Quark thinks he is (though Odo and Rom himself have expressed similar sentiments), but he is definitely not a leader. This is a guy who chooses what he eats for breakfast on the basis of what everyone else is having (The Assignment) and whose response to problems is generally, "Duuh - what do we do now?" (eg. Magnificent Ferengi) - that's not a leader, particularly not one you'd want for time of major social change. The only way I figure he makes sense as Nagus is if it was Moogie's way of secretly running Ferenginar through him. Assuming (for narrative reasons) they had to make the new Nagus a character we'd met, Nog was the better choice - he had proactively  chosen his path (applying to Starfleet a Season before his father - 3.14 Heart of Stone against Rom's 4.16 Bar Association) AND was a good Ferengi (eg. Treachery, Faith and the Great River).

Though having said all that, the Ezri/Bashir plot still annoys me more. If it were up to me (amazingly, nobody asked!) I'd've cut one of those plots entirely to show what was going on with Dukat & Winn (I would have had Dukat's seduction take longer - I don't buy Winn jumping into bed with some "random peasant" so quickly - I wouldn't necessarily change anything substantially).

[legaleagle53]

On 8/18/2017 at 3:40 AM, John Potts said:

Assuming (for narrative reasons) they had to make the new Nagus a character we'd met, Nog was the better choice - he had proactively  chosen his path (applying to Starfleet a Season before his father - 3.14 Heart of Stone against Rom's 4.16 Bar Association) AND was a good Ferengi (eg. Treachery, Faith and the Great River).

Oh, you mean the Nog who was so easily brainwashed by Red Squad in Valiant that he nearly got himself and Jake killed on an unauthorized, unsupervised mission that his Starfleet training alone (never mind his experiences in working with and being trained by DS9's senior staff) should have told him was dangerous and stupid and would not end well? That Nog?

Edited August 19, 2017 by legaleagle53

[Melgaypet]

I don't think Nog had any desire to leave Starfleet.

On 8/18/2017 at 4:40 AM, John Potts said:

Though having said all that, the Ezri/Bashir plot still annoys me more.

Oy. I never bought the relationship in the first place and the painfully absurd way it played out helped not one whit.  They had no chemistry, and I really didn't like that Bashir was being "rewarded" for, IMO, being kind of a creep with his pining over Jadzia. If Ezri had to be hooked up with someone before the end - which she didn't - I would have preferred Jake.

[John Potts]

6 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

you mean the Nog who was so easily brainwashed by Red Squad in Valiant that he nearly got himself and Jake killed on an unauthorized, unsupervised mission that his Starfleet training alone... should have told him was dangerous and stupid and would not end well?

Yes! "The worst sin in war is not making the wrong choice, it's making no choice at all" (von Clausewitz) - both Rom and Nog are swayed by others, but at least Nog has some initiative of his own (hell, in Valiant he does find a weakness in the enemy ship - it just wasn't enough to make a difference). I don't think either of them are a good choice, but Rom is a natural follower being pushed into a role that demands leadership: with Rom as Nagus, Ferenginar would drift, because he has no clear idea of what he wants. Quark would be a better choice than either, but TPTB clearly wanted everyone to become like the Federation, whereas Quark is, in Ferengi terms, a traditionalist.

[Melgaypet]

I pretty much figured that Ishka would continue to be the power behind the throne on Ferenginar.

[readster]

17 hours ago, Melgaypet said:

I pretty much figured that Ishka would continue to be the power behind the throne on Ferenginar.

Same here. Leading to more equal rights for females and then when the change happened for the next Negus they would be: "Well, that Rom, he really steered us in the right direction." 

[iMonrey]

It sounds like the changes that were instituted on Ferenginar were similar to the Magna Carta, in that the Nagus was becoming more of a figure head than anything else and had to have all his decisions ratified by a council. In that sense it probably matters little who the next Nagus is.  

And yes, the whole thing with Julian and Ezri was ridiculously childish - I don't even know why that romance was shoe-horned into the last season. It was completely unearned and came out of nowhere. I guess the producers/writers felt that poor Julian had to end up with someone after seven seasons of bachelorhood. 

I find myself wondering why, once they came up with the cure to the disease, the Federation didn't immediately consider trying to negotiate a surrender from the Dominion in exchange for the cure. What choices do The Founders have at this point? They are dying. Does the female Founder think some of them will survive, or that someone else will figure out a cure? Once the Founders are dead, the war is over, presumably. I don't even know what the Vorta and the Jem Hadar would do if all the Founders die. The Federation could afford to sit back and wait this out, but the Founders cannot.

[John Potts]

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

It sounds like the changes that were instituted on Ferenginar were similar to the Magna Carta, in that the Nagus was becoming more of a figure head than anything else and had to have all his decisions ratified by a council.

More like the Bill of Rights (1689) than the Magna Carta (1215), which was a dead letter pretty much as soon as it was introduced. You certainly wouldn't describe, say, Edward I (Longshanks) (1273-1307) or Henry IV (1399-1413) as "mere figure heads", in the same way you would describe George IV (1820-30) - who had to beg Parliament for money - or Elizabeth II (1952-present) as the titular Head of State while power resides with their Prime Ministers. The idea that Ferengi might gain a new Nagus who is merely a front for his mother is scarcely encouraging either - "We've introduced a new Constitution on Ferengi, but despite what's officially stated, power ACTUALLY resides back on Risa with somebody who is accountable to nobody!"

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Does the female Founder think some of them will survive, or that someone else will figure out a cure? Once the Founders are dead, the war is over, presumably. I don't even know what the Vorta and the Jem Hadar would do if all the Founders die. The Federation could afford to sit back and wait this out, but the Founders cannot.

It could go either way. We've seen the Jem'Hadar suicide when their Founder dies - OTOH, they might go into a frenzy, which could be even more bloody. But from what the Founder said, it looks like their distrust of "Solids" is so profound that death is better than submission (Better Grit than Submit?).

[readster]

On 9/5/2017 at 5:06 PM, John Potts said:

More like the Bill of Rights (1689) than the Magna Carta (1215), which was a dead letter pretty much as soon as it was introduced. You certainly wouldn't describe, say, Edward I (Longshanks) (1273-1307) or Henry IV (1399-1413) as "mere figure heads", in the same way you would describe George IV (1820-30) - who had to beg Parliament for money - or Elizabeth II (1952-present) as the titular Head of State while power resides with their Prime Ministers. The idea that Ferengi might gain a new Nagus who is merely a front for his mother is scarcely encouraging either - "We've introduced a new Constitution on Ferengi, but despite what's officially stated, power ACTUALLY resides back on Risa with somebody who is accountable to nobody!"

It could go either way. We've seen the Jem'Hadar suicide when their Founder dies - OTOH, they might go into a frenzy, which could be even more bloody. But from what the Founder said, it looks like their distrust of "Solids" is so profound that death is better than submission (Better Grit than Submit?).

I agree on the female Changling, they were to the point, better death than surrender. Honestly, I think the Jem'Hadar would have gone one of three ways. Several would have killed themselves, several would have fought to the death and others would have done as we saw in past episodes and tried to just make it on their own. They would have killed their Vorta keepers and took all the white they could have and went from there. While others, like the Alpha Jem'Hadar would have fought to the last breath and many of the Gammas would have killed themselves. The Vorta would have been pretty much screwed because they wouldn't know what to do without the Changlings. 

[rmontro]

On 8/19/2017 at 6:06 PM, Melgaypet said:

Oy. I never bought the relationship in the first place and the painfully absurd way it played out helped not one whit.  They had no chemistry, and I really didn't like that Bashir was being "rewarded" for, IMO, being kind of a creep with his pining over Jadzia. If Ezri had to be hooked up with someone before the end - which she didn't - I would have preferred Jake.

I was going to wait until next episode to say this, but since you bring it up:  I agree, I see no chemistry at all between Julian and Ezri.  It's logical to think that they would be attracted to each other, but onscreen I'm just not feeling it.  Oh well, at this stage in the game it's a minor quibble.

Jake is a suggestion that had never occurred to me.  Seems like it would be kind of odd that she would end up with her best friend's son, especially considering Dax is older than that best friend (Sisko), let alone the son.  I'm also not sure how old Jake is supposed to be, he's never seen quite grown up to me, even though he's done some journalistic work and written a novel.  I suppose it's because he's cast in the role of Sisko's son so often.

I have to say that I didn't expect this to be a Ferengi episode, especially by the episode description on Netflix.  I thought we had seen the last of the Nagus.  They kind of snuck it in on us.   But it's always good to see Wallace Shawn.  I agree Rom is kind of an odd choice for Nagus.  While I think he's smarter and more capable than he appears, it feels a lot like the writers are just trying to find closure for everybody so they gave him this.  But it does make sense in that his mother has always liked him, and she vouched for him.

Edited June 23, 2018 by rmontro