![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Star-Trek-Bar-Association.jpg\")
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Bar Association (DS9)<\/p>\n
Season 4 Episode 16<\/p>\n
In most cases, Star Trek addresses real world threats via allegory. Not so with \u201cBar Association,\u201d in which Rom must deal with one of the greatest threats in the world today: a greedy boss who wants to exploit his workers. In this case, the boss is Rom\u2019s brother Quark, who runs his bar according to the hyper-capitalist Rules of Acquisition that drive his people. Inspired by Miles O\u2019Brien\u2019s ancestor\u2014\u201dHe was more than a hero; he was a union man\u201d\u2014Rom organizes his co-workers to strike against Quark.<\/p>\n
Like most Ferengi-focused episodes of Deep Space Nine<\/a>, \u201cBar Association\u201d has plenty of comedy to lighten the mood. And, to be sure, Quark\u2019s unfair labor practices don\u2019t fill the viewer with dread like the Jem\u2019Hadar. But while few of us viewers will ever have to do battle with warriors pumped up on ketracel-white, most of us will have to stand up to those who would exploit us, making Rom\u2019s rebellion one of the most immediately hopeful moments in the entire franchise.<\/p>\n In the Cards (DS9)<\/p>\n Season 5 Episode 25<\/p>\n With the exception of maybe the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard<\/a> and (ugh) the Section 31<\/a> movie, Deep Space Nine is easily the series most skeptical of Federation ideals. As they face the annihilating force of the Dominion, Sisko and his crew make some morally questionable decisions (to their credit, though, they do actually debate and question those decisions, something missing from more recent attempts to darken the franchise).<\/p>\n And yet, the series never forgets the humanity at the center of the war, a point illustrated by the extremely low-stakes episode, \u201cIn the Cards.\u201d It may occur on the cusp of the Dominion War, but instead of taking us back to the front lines, it follows Jake and Nog as they try to get a rare baseball card to give as a gift to Sisko. As we\u2019ll talk about next, Jake and especially Nog will be forever changed by the Dominion War, so there\u2019s something wonderful about seeing kids being kids, doing something silly and sweet without (yet) being tainted by war.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Only a Paper Moon (DS9)<\/p>\n Season 7 Episode 10<\/p>\n On first glance, it\u2019s hard to see how \u201cIt\u2019s Only a Paper Moon\u201d fits on a list of most hopeful Star Trek episodes, especially coming after \u201cIn the Cards.\u201d After all, \u201cIt\u2019s Only a Paper Moon\u201d finds Nog crippled and traumatized from the Dominion War, having lost his leg in battle. One of the series\u2019 most inspiring moments came when Nog joined Starfleet; this episode sees Nog at his lowest point.<\/p>\n Nog\u2019s only comfort comes from listening to the song \u201cI\u2019ll Be Seeing You,\u201d as performed by hologram Vic Fontaine, and that desire for comfort drives him to live in Vic\u2019s lounge and pad in a holosuite. But when Vic, Jake, and counselor Ezri Dax realize that Nog\u2019s delaying his healing by escaping into a safe fantasy, they must work to help him face the difficult truth. Nog\u2019s journey, brilliantly depicted by the late Aron Eisenberg, is a difficult one and isn\u2019t always pretty. But the mere fact that he finds healing earns the episode\u2019s place on this list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bar Association (DS9) Season 4 Episode 16 In most cases, Star Trek addresses real world threats via allegory.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-465296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115297962632952048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Star-Trek-In-the-Cards.jpg\")
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