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DS9 STATION RESIDENCE DATABASE FILE: Quark
Played By: Armin Shimerman
Occupation: Owner and bartender/host, Quark's Place DS9
Full Name: Quark
Year of birth: c. 2333, Terran equivalent
Place of birth: Ferenginar
Parents: Ishka and the late Keldar
Marital status: Single
Starfleet Career Summary Civilian Psychological Profile:
Report of Starfleet Doctor Julian Bashir, M.D.:
Quark, one of the most influential of modern Ferengi thanks
to his location at DS9 when the Bajoran wormhole was discovered,
owns Quark's Place on DS9's Promenade but hates being called a
"barkeep," preferring "host" instead as he fancies himself an
empathetic dispenser of advice as well as a goodwill ambassador
and legitimate entrepreneur extrordinaire. He also caters formal
affairs for the Starfleet crew and named a new souffle creation
after Kai Winn when the Bajor-Cardassian peace treaty was signed.
In reality he has the reputation of getting anything for a price
- with the help of a network of sources who also help him keep
a hand in most illegal or illicit trade and deals going on around
the station. He has even tried to force sex by contract from the
unwitting Dabo girls who work for him; an employee's error is
made up from garnished pay. When Odo calls him "disgusting," he
proudly boasts: "Til the day I die!" and says lying is a gift.
But he does sometime show remorse out of guilt for even his own
actions, and relishes the thrill of gambling, even in business;
otherwise, he has said, the trade comes off as simple bartering.
His only sibling is younger brother Rom, whom he often teased
and tortured as "lobeless": Quark even stole Rom's naming day
presents from Keldar, replacing the gifts resold at a profit with
old vegetables. His father bought him his first copy of the Rules
of Acquisition, but it was his mother who helped him learn them
- a repeated pattern whose truth he ignored until much later in
life, feeling his father had been hounded by his mother's rebellious
independence.
In 2351, upon celebrating his Age of Ascension rites, he left
home as soon as possible despite his father's advice to stay close;
doing so 10 years ahead of Rom, he missed out on Keldar's ongoing
business failures prior to his death. In his 20s, Quark apprenticed
with a District Sub-Nagus until he slept with the boss's sister
and lost his fast-track standing. He later served on a Ferengi
freighter for eight years, where he learned some engineering and
transporter skills while serving as its cook.
By the 2360s he was running a black market from then-Terok Nor
for the occupied Bajorans and illegally sold food to them at cost,
while earning his exclusive casino franchise by catering to Gul
Dukat and the occupying Cardassians with freebies. One Cardassian
contact in particular was Glinn Boheeka. By this time Rom and
his young son Nog had moved to the station, and Quark has fondly
recalled reading the tyke basic Ferengi stories Amid the shambles
of Cardassian withdrawal from newly renamed DS9 in 2369, his plans
to leave were changed when Starfleet commander Sisko threatened
to jail his nephew Nog for a petty theft if he left - along with
enticements such as free rent, power and maintenance. It was a
fateful change, leading to contacts with Grand Nagus Zek and the
Dominion. He even served a week as the Nagus and faced death threats
when Zek faked his demise to trick his unfaithful son.
The next year, after having led a trade mission to contact the
Karemma of the Dominion, he became the first Ferengi to meet a
Jem'Hadar and Vorta of the Dominion when captured with Sisko on
their Gamma Quadrant vacation eight months later. That led to
Zek's request in 2371 that be aboard the Defiant's first Dominion
contact mission. Married temporarily to Klingon matriarch Grilka,
he faces down her rival D'Ghor before the Klingon High Council
on Qo'noS to save her house after murdering her husband Kozak
in self-defense in the bar. Quark knows at least the worst of
human history, and while he speaks out against superior Terran
attitudes he can be as racist as anyone. Quark saved his much-cherished
Ferengi culture from the Bajoran Prophets idealism later that
year when he became only the third known non-Bajoran, after Sisko
and Zek, to experience an orb vision and single-handedly restored
the Nagus to his previous state. Future cultural decisions were
not so clear-cut, though: he was secretly forced to allow his
employees to unionize in 2372 despite Ferengi Commerce Authority
intervention. He finally made up with his mother the year after
revisiting the homeworld for the first time in 20 years when Ishka
refused to renounce her feminist ways, endangering Quark's livelihood
of fines and support.
Even Rom finally began to find some backbone as the 2370s dawned,
standing up to Quark regarding their mother, his biased view of
their parents, and finally Nog's application to Starfleet Academy
- the latter a move Quark actually tried to sabotage. The next
year, he nearly stranded all three in 1947 Earth as lab specimens.
Aside from his crushes on Dax and Kira, Quark had a surprising
one-month fling in 2363 with Cardassian journalist Natima Lang,
the love of his life. She didn't turn him in for aiding Bajorans,
but felt betrayed and broke off the affair when he used her secret
access codes to be paid for bogus goods - a much-regretted act
seven years later, when she turns up as a Cardassian dissident.
Of odder course was his falling for Pel, a feminist like his mother
whom he could not commit to after her revelation as a female cost
Quark a cut of all the Grand Nagus' future Gamma Quadrant profits.
Despite his tough stance, though, he has always been a sucker
for a pretty face of any species. When ho once chided O'Brien
over his marriage troubles for not following the submissive-female
way of the Ferengis, he was evasive when asked why he's still
single. He engages Odo in a running battle of wits, but while
it gets vicious at times there is mutual respect and even affection
present. Despite his pride at escaping detection, he has been
caught red-handed in crime more than once but served only petty
penalties. He still retains old Cardassian security clearances
through Level 7 - one higher than Odo - and knows enough about
engineering to install a small cloaking device in ships not normally
made for them. Lock-picking of all kinds is another skill. In
a battle of wits, a rival casino opened by Martus Mazur across
the Promenade almost sunk his bar in 2370 until Quark planned
a Bashir-O'Brien racquetball rematch to get his customers back.
If he didn't know the sport by then, he learned it quickly enough
to call the remote play-by-play. He also enjoys the Ferengi game
of Tongo, of course; Dax says he scratches his left ear just before
Acquiring, a dead giveaway.
Psycho-Medical File, Dr. Julian Bashir
Quark has seen the true heights and depths of life in the past
few months. He has stared down the cherished precepts of his culture
and come away less conservative after choosing between life and
breaking a Ferengi contract with none other than his old adversary,
FCA Liquidator Brunt. An overpaid Ferengi doctor's misdiagnosis
of fatal Dorek syndrome was bad enough, but to have Brunt demand
that Quark follow through on their signed contract to sell his
own desiccated remains, per Ferengi custom, was even worse. Despite
his onetime decision to hire Garak to kill him -- a fact I have
received through confidential source -- and the subsequent loss
of his Ferengi business license, Quark has survived -- a bit stunned
at the support the station has given him in spite of the many
stunts he's pulled. We must face it: Quark provides a valuable
service and resource on the station -- even if he still takes
30% of his workers' tips and manages their vacation fund himself.
One the other hand, it's a good thing our resident Ferengi barkeep
is a tough little guy as well. Along with his varied injuries
and near-fatal mishaps in just the past four years -- including,
I suspect, his actions which saved he and Odo on a Class-L ice
planet -- are the bruises he picked up upon Grilka's return to
DS9 this year. Actually she came back looking for some romance,
and I still can't believe Worf tutored him to do it and survive,
especially with some virtual reality combat device. I also can't
believe his first trip to Risa came with our group earlier this
year -- though I can believe he owns a first-edition copy of Vulcan
Love Slave.
Security File: Report of Odo, Security Chief SD 49000
Quark, the Ferengi barkeeper, is a self-important con artist
who's nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is. His bar is a
center for scams and illegal dealings. Quark was a co-indicted
in 2362 by the Romulans as the middleman with alien thief Fallit
Kot for hijacking a Romulan ale shipment, but testified against
Kot and got off - barely escaping with his life eight years later
here at DS9 when Kot was released. He allowed thieves of the Dax
symbiont aboard DS9 and became an inadvertent supplier of arms
to the Maquis' first attack. Even my first encounter with Quark,
in 2365 on then-Terok Nor, saw him backing up Kira's alibi in
the Vaatrik murder for a price. That is all.
Security File: Report of Odo, Security Chief SD 50080
This is to note the recent cooperation of the Ferengi barkeeper
in a successful sting operation against the Markalian smuggling
ring. That is all.
Security File: Personal Note: SD ---
Never again will I take someone into custody without announced
charges. I have done so with Quark, of all people, and it nearly
cost he and I both our lives. At least I have learned Quark is
not well-connected and wealthy enough to join the Orion Syndicate.
Civilian commendation by Capt. B. Sisko, CO DS9 SD 50100
I have to hand it to Quark. The Federation's thanks go out
to him once again for acting as a trade rep to the Dominion-fringe
Karemma, and even more so -- if I am to believe these reports
-- for keeping my ship intact when he single-handedly diffused
an unexploded Jem'Hadar torpedo. I just wish he would cut out
that stunt with the station-wide advertisements in the comm systems
and replicators.
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