Season 3, Episode 14 - "Heart of Stone," or "Using Your Noggin"
What I love about DS9 is its endless capacity to surprise me. I never paid much attention to Nog, but when I did, I barely considered him a character. I'm prejudiced against Ferengi. I've never considered any Ferengi a real character until Quark showed up. Like his namesake, Quark is a theoretical concept that I'm never quite sure really exists. The Ferengi are comical to an extreme, a holdover from Star Trek's campiest roots. Their culture is self-parody and their appearance is designed for comic relief. Quark is therefore the exception that proves the rule: the one well-developed, believable Ferengi with a personality I can relate to.
And as usual, DS9 proves me wrong.
I don't think I've ever cheered harder for any character in Star Trek than I did for Nog in this episode, and I don't think I ever imagined I'd say those words in that order. Ferengi rites of passage into adulthood involve a period of apprenticeship whereby a "newly minted" Ferengi adult bribes his way into working for a mentor. Nog, beaming with pride upon recently becoming a man, designates Sisko has his mentor.
Nog wants to join Starfleet. Sisko doesn't believe it, and frankly neither do I. But I found Nog's enthusiasm so infectious that I couldn't help but smile.
This is neither here nor there, but Nog's rite of passage reminds me a little of the act of taking a spiritual guru in Hinduism. Being accepted by a guru is a form of apprenticeship; in order to formalize the agreement, a young novice traditionally goes around a congregation of friends and family, hands holding out the long hem of his or her shirt, to collect money and coins. This money pays the tithe of the guru's service and formalizes the beginning of their spiritual relationship.
The Ferengi Attainment Ceremony has absolutely nothing to do with the aforementioned Hindu ritual, but the similarities were coincidental enough that they bear mention.
Anyway, Nog really wants to be in Starfleet, and no one seems to believe him. He's willing to put in the work, though. Sisko sends him through a trial run organizing a storage facility, and Nog passes with flying colors. He's got some real talent, but at the same time, Starfleet has never recognized a Ferengi cadet before.
I can't help but respect Nog's determination in this episode. He's determined to be the first Ferengi officer in Starfleet, and it doesn't matter at all that he'd have to break with Starfleet tradition and prove his worth to a group of people eager to discredit him. Why? Because Nog doesn't want to be like his father.
This is one of the most humanizing moments I've ever experienced in DS9. Nog describes his father, Rom, as a talented engineer resigned to a lifetime of menial service to his elder brother, in a dead end job with no prospects, no opportunities for self-expression, no chance to live his best life. Nog's dilemma is the dilemma of any young person trying to be the first in their family to do anything. The first to go to college. The first to buy a house. The first to run their own business.
I sympathized hard with Nog. I think many of us are afraid of becoming like our fathers. Our fathers are usually the first figures of authority we ever know. Growing up, they seem indomitable and powerful. It's only when we become adults that we begin to see them for the flawed human beings they often are. Some of us live in our parents' shadow, wondering if we'll ever live up to their expectations or outshine their example. Some of us spend our adult lives trying to convince our parents that we're worthy of their love. And some of us, like Nog, see our parents as tragic figures; we are motivated to surpass them, and in surpassing them, we redeem them.
The way Nog describes his father is a lot like the way we describe artists, writers, musicians, creative and intellectual people in a society that values the concrete over the abstract, money over art, and trade over vocation. Rom could have been an engineer the way our mothers and fathers could have been artists and writers and musicians, but the rigors of his society and the expectations levied on him by enormous social pressure robbed him of that chance.
I have a complicated relationship with my dad, not unlike the relationship Nog has with Rom. I don't watch Star Trek (or consume any fiction) in order to see myself in that fiction; but the ability to relate to a character on a personal level, the inevitable moment where I understand what Nog and Rom are going through because I've gone through the same experience, creates empathy and attachment--and ultimately, pleasure.
This is a deeply satisfying episode. It's so satisfying that I'm going to save my reader the eyerolling-inducing nonsense of the A-Plot, which involves Odo confessing his love like a teenager with a crush, and an illusory Kira trapped in a rock like a bad metaphor for a captive audience.
I hope Nog has a long and fulfilling career in Starfleet. I wish him the best.
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