October 10th, 1993, "The Siege"
Fiver by Kira
The Episode
SISKO: Governments can break off relations with an edict. It's not so easy when it comes down to our level. Lieutenant Bilecki here is engaged to a young man from Bajor. Ensign Kelly. Ensign Kelly's daughter and a Bajoran girl worked together on a prize-winning science fair project. All of us who have served on the station for the past year have made Bajoran friends. We've come to care about what happens to these people. I know I do. So I've decided to stay.
Yeah, it doesn't work like that. Sisko is disobeying orders. Furthermore, does anyone really think that if the Federation leaves now it'll never be back? Even assuming that Gul Dukat isn't here with a fleet tomorrow to reconquer the planet, any new government will be just as unstable as the provisional one that they just overthrew.
SISKO: Non-Bajorans won't be safe here. Our families, children have to be evacuated.
Evacuated where? It occurs to me that the location of the closest proper Starfleet Starbase should've been established by now, along with a standard time interval of when the closest starship could arrive.
QUARK: Hundreds of people to evacuate and only three tiny runabouts available.
Seriously? Even putting aside the distinct possibility of hiring nonaligned ships to carry people back to the Federation (surely Morn has room in his cargo ship), there should've been a proper passenger ship here by now to evacuate the Starfleet crew.
And to be frank, the idea that Quark wouldn't maintain his own Ferengi shuttle for a quick getaway is patently ridiculous.
ROM: You can't make me. I won't sell my seat.
QUARK: Rom
ROM: No, I won't stay and be killed just to fill your pockets.
I repeat-what would be achieved by the Circle killing the civilians indiscriminately? As I've said many times, even if an anti-Ferengi government is established on Bajor, they'd evict Quark, not execute him.
O'BRIEN: I don't have any choice.
KEIKO: Don't you?
O'BRIEN: He needs me.
KEIKO: We don't?
O'BRIEN: We can't just let the Cardies have the wormhole.
O'Brien has his priorities a bit skewed. The Cardassians' priority is Bajor itself, not the wormhole. And frankly they have a lot of work to do to reestablish their control on Bajoran space before they even think of sending anyone to conquer the Gamma Quadrant.
Dukat would be busy for the next year at least sending the Bajorans to labor camps and executing members of the Resistance, O'Brien should be worries about that!
DAX: I've scanned every subspace communication window to find a frequency to Bajor. They've got them completely jammed.
I would hope that the Cardassians would set up the station to maintain contact with Bajor no matter what sabotage the Resistance attempted.
LI: The Lunar Five base?
KIRA: You think there's still a ship there?
LI: We managed to get a few sub-impulse raiders underground before the Cardassians hit us, but that was ten years ago.
Our heroes haven't scanned the entire Bajoran system by now? I shudder to think how slow a "sub-impulse raider" goes, and the idea of crossing half a star system on thrusters alone gives me the willies.
ODO: He's been brokering seats on the evacuation vessels.
SISKO: Where did you get more seats?
QUARK: Everybody always asks the brokers where they get their extra seats, and all I can say is, it's my business to find preferred seating for a select list of clients
SISKO: I have got more than two hundred people who want to get off this station. Where did you get more seats?
QUARK: A few trades. A person here or there who changed his mind about leaving at the sight of a reasonable stipend.
I'm still confused about how this is supposed to work. Quark spends an exorbitant amount of money to buy tickets from civilians hoping to get an obscene amount of money selling them? To be frank, how many people on DS9 can afford to spend an obscene amount of money? Furthermore, the Ferengi code must have a standard risk/reward formula that this situation would not meet. Quark should've concentrated on getting enough seats to get his most prized possessions off the station ASAP. Don't forget the 125th Rule of Acquisition: You can't make a deal if you're dead!
BASHIR: We're having a bit of a panic at the airlocks, sir. Far more passengers than we can handle have shown up and they all claim to have made arrangements to leave.
QUARK: I might have overbooked slightly.
SISKO: On my way.
QUARK: It's an accepted Ferengi transit practice.
Yeah, that's stupid. It makes you wonder if there's any sort of fraud protection in the Ferengi Alliance, because if there isn't the money would become too concentrated and cause mass poverty very quickly. You can't base a society on profit alone, is what I'm saying.
(Morn and Kira board.)
I guess the idea that Morn runs a cargo ship and only uses DS9 as a home base hasn't been invented yet.
ARO: Leaders like us.
WINN: If I am so favoured by the Vedek Assembly.
JARO: You don't have to worry about that. Twenty six hours after I'm sworn into office, I'll direct the Vedek Assembly to elect you Kai. Together, we will rebuild Bajor.
The very idea that the Vedek Assembly is susceptible to political pressure is absurd. I could've sworn that church and state are kept fairly separate on Bajor (aside from that time Winn tried to become First Minister, of course).
DAX: How did you ever win a war in these things?
KIRA: We were the insects, Lieutenant. The Cardassians were just as allergic as Trills. Is the proximity system working?
Technically it wasn't a war, and technically the Resistance were just insects, the Federation "won" the war. And technically nobody "won" the war, they just declared a ceasefire while they licked their wounds.
O'BRIEN: Eat hearty. The replicators crash in sixteen minutes. This'll have to last awhile.
SISKO: Combat rations, Chief? Couldn't you replicate something a little more palatable?
Under these circumstances there has to be a step up from combat rations.
O'BRIEN: Miracle of science, these little combat rations. Timed release formula of all the nutrients the body needs for three days. I love 'em. Only thing I miss about the Cardassian front.
Yeah, that's absurd. Military rations were never meant to taste good. My dad was military-adjacent for decades, I've had my share of rations. And truth be told, while I might enjoy certain parts of them as a once-in-awhile novelty, I would never want to have to live on these things.
O'BRIEN: Well, I would have expected you of all people to appreciate the nutritional value of combat rations.
BASHIR: Actually, when I was in Med school, I designed an incredible candy bar which was far superior in food value.
The thing about chocolate is that it actually is healthy in certain ways (from a military standpoint, at least). I seem to recall that after its discovery there were militaries that used it. As hot chocolate, of course, solid chocolate bars weren't perfected for hundreds of years after European discovery.