SDS9 – S5E9: "The Ascent" (Patreon)

This episode was recorded on February 9, 2025.

We recap "The Ascent," where we discuss found families and alien fatherhood.

SDS9 seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 can be found wherever you stream Southpaw. Season 5 is only available to paid subscribers.

You can also listen to this episode directly from your favorite podcast player by following these instructions: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212055866-Subscribe-to-your-Audio-RSS-link-on-the-Patreon-app

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Transcript

[Note: Transcripts are autogenerated and may contain errors.]

This is Southpaw Deep Space Nine, Season 5. We are your hosts, Scott and Sam. On this Stardate, February 9, 2025, we are discussing The Ascent. Scott, can you tell us about this episode?

Jake and Ben are talking. I don't know, I decided to start singing. Jake and Ben are talking. Jake is moving out. He's working on his book, and he's moving to another quarters in Deep Space Nine with Nog. Nog and Jake are going to be roommates in the cool side of town. A bachelor pad, if you will.

Ben reminisces of when he wasn't even a fan of Nog, and now... Ben really likes Nog. Nog is a Federation cadet. They're going to be roomies. And then there's this really nice conversation where they sort of talk about boundaries for visiting.

Ram is very nervous about his son coming back for a year on the station as part of his Federation field duties. Quark brings him root beer and asks for money and watches in disgust as Ram enjoys human root beer and his family are getting into being part of the world that they exist in and moving past that.

their Ferengunar beliefs. Odo comes to take Quark somewhere, secretive, to deal with crimes, consequences. He's not saying. Odo is just really happy that Quark will finally go to justice. No face, no case, though, you know what I'm saying? So they go on a runabout as they're on their way to trial.

Quark asks Odo to play Fizz Spin, which is a card game. Odo says no, he doesn't want to play cards. Whilst Odo is solid now, he doesn't really partake in a lot of joyous activities. Quark calls Odo a cop and a miserable, self-hating misanthrope, which I thought was a... syntactically delicious insult. They're on a week-long trip,

and we see Odo reading romance novels and says it's for research, much like some of the kids I knew back in the day would get caught reading Playboy and say, oh, I'm just reading the articles. But Odo... won't reveal what the issue is for which they're going to this planet for a trial. Back on Deep Space Nine,

Nog is starting his field study and he's talking to Ben and Ben reminds him to focus and be on point and Nog promises to be a good guy and make sure Jake is okay. Everyone tells Nog not to let anyone down. There's a lot of pressure on Nog's shoulders.

And we go to the Deep Space Nine Bachelor Loft. Reminds me a lot of my first apartment with friends. And Nog has gotten a little bit regimented. With his pseudo-militaristic life, he goes to bed early, he wakes up early, he wants to clean the house every other day,

he has a list of chores he wants to work out, and Jake the artist is just doing his artist thing, he's curious. On the Rio Grande runabout, Odo eats soup and is making smacking sounds that that Quark's ears are very sensitive. It's been a few days on the ship, and he's hearing the noises and the smacking.

If you're annoyed with somebody and you hear them eating, it could be what it is. That's why we don't do ASMR channels, because that's just not for us. He's noticing a buzzing. As Odo can't hear it, and they're bickering and bickering, and Odo makes fun of Quark, and Quark tries to find the buzz.

Quark notifies the buzz is changing a pitch, and Odo finally hears it. They open the hatch, and there's a bomb. Odo and Quark try to beam the explosive off the ship, but it doesn't work. And then there's an explosion explosion. in the ship comms machines are breaking down everything is going bad so they make

an emergency landing on an l-class planet which if you pay attention to the show or know anything it's a marginally habitable planet with lots of angry nature you know there's different types of l planets but they're not like you know prime time As they crash, Odo says that they will get whoever did this,

and Quark mentions the Orion Syndicate, which is like a secretive space mafia. Odo tries to get info out of him. He is playing coy. It seems like he was being manipulative. On the planet, they have no comms. Quark wakes up. The situation is bad. They're freezing. They have no comms. Very little supplies.

There are poisonous plants trying to kill them. They got a couple rations, but Odo points out they can starve to death or freeze to death. I'm thinking of a dirty joke I used to know, but I'm just not going to tell it. On the bachelor pad,

Nog is judging Jake's bohemian lifestyle and tells him he needs to get broliced. They're different, and they've changed a lot. Jake finds not editing his book for grammar, and he gets very upset because that's taking a big part of writing away. On the L planet,

Quark finds a science suit and is going to look for a place to make a distress signal with their transmitter radio thingy, which is still working. The duo walk across the wilderness planet and they are roughing it hard. And you know they're roughing it hard when Odo's hair is going weird and they're hoping to get their communication.

Again, there's just so many... angry bitter arguments this episode with quark and odo which makes sense they hate each other they're foils for each other they also kind of love each other but in not like a romantic way at all and he talks about odo being an imposter and that

his solid life sucks and he makes fun of odo's unrequited love for kira back on deep space nine and Nog and Jake's friendship is deteriorating over their lifestyles. The artist versus the soldier, if you will. Jake is found not writing, but playing computer domjot. And It's like a space billiards kind of game. Looks like Pool meets Crossfire,

which is an 80s board game, which I'm sure we've lost some of the people listening. But Google Crossfire commercial. It's amazing. We did an insert of it in the past.

Crossfire! Crossfire!

So obviously, you know, great minds think alike. So imagine Sonaga's just kind of upset because Jake says he's trying to write, but he's actually just playing Minecraft or something. Back in the wilderness, Odo and Quark have been walking for three days. Quark is hungry for beetles. That's one of his favorite things to eat.

He really hopes that the walking is over, but they see a mountain. It's going to be a trek. But not necessarily a Star Trek. Oh, Odo keeps on needling and trying to get info out of Cork about the Orion Syndicate. However, Cork points out that he was almost killed by them. Probably it was them.

And he is being summoned not to be a criminal. He's a witness, a turncoat. However, that makes Odo even more mean and says that Quark is broke, and that's why he isn't in the syndicate, because there's a high cost to be initiated in the syndicate. But Quark points out, what's worse?

If I'm a nobody, you've been trying to arrest a nobody for 10 years, loser. Ram and Ben meet and talk about their sons. They are two ends of a spectrum, a yin and yang, and Nag is so rigid that Ram even tested to see if he was a changeling. Jake is so messy that...

Ben is super annoyed that he tried to put a dish in a replicator tray. The father thinks that the sons could actually really learn a lot from each other, that a little bit of the flavors of both of them would make a delicious dish. As friendship, of course. And they hatch a plan to get them back together.

Back on the L planet, Quark's body is shutting down. And as they walk, they bicker and blame each other. And they bicker so much, they fall down a hill. Odo breaks his leg. Quark makes a makeshift splint and makes a sort of thing to pick him up.

And he's going to try to lift Odo up into the mountain. And as they're hurting each other's feelings... Odo asks Quark to leave him down the hill while Quark can get the transceiver of the mountain, and we learn that one of the reasons why Quark won't leave him B is that he plans

on eating Odo if it comes to it. Yep. Then there's a montage. Quirk gets pretty far, but then he breaks down again. He wants to do the transmitter, but they're still too low. They're giving up. Odo is disappointed, points out the other crew, Jadzia, Worf, the other guys and girls and everyone in between,

and all people wouldn't give up. Odo starts crawling with the transmitter. Quark says they need to have a dignified death. Although he's sad, he realizes that his brother will get the bar and Nog will become a Federation nothing and decides, screw it, he'll muster up the mountain.

On Deep Space Nine, Ben tells Jake he has to move back with him unless they find a roommate. Nog shows up and Ben orders Nog to move in with them. They both realize that they've been kind of silly to each other and really have more in common than not. At this point, we're on season five.

They've known each other for five years. That's a complicated friendship that has many dimensions to it. They realize that that's a good idea and I think they go lift weights or something. On the L planet, Odo thinks Quark is dead, and Odo starts recording his will and testament before he beamed up.

Quark saves the day, and Odo is annoyed of that happening. Quark and Odo, they warm up and heal, and they sort of, by way of insulting each other, they sort of apologize. Dudes, am I right? Yeah.

So both A and B plots had odd couple storylines. In my opinion, the Odo and Cork relationship might be the most nuanced and textured relationship so far in the series. Their relationship is not any one thing. It doesn't come off to me as two people who like each other pretending to hate each other. Instead,

it comes off as they legitimately do not like each other, but also do legitimately like each other. The only parallel to this in our real lives is how we often feel about family. It's complicated, right? Family. And family is not any one thing. And people have different relationships with families.

But if someone told me they were giving one of their organs to a sibling they do not get along with, that wouldn't shock any of us because that's all within the realm of possibilities when it comes to families. Quark and Odo hate each other, but are willing to push themselves beyond limits, go through personal sacrifice.

They're willing to die all for each other. And it's not just death, but it's like pain and struggle and exhaustion and just that willingness to keep pushing and pushing. But family also knows when it hurts and how to hurt you. They know our secrets, which is why when Quark called Odo, a fascist,

he's probably the only one on the ship who will actually say that to him, who will call him out. Everyone else is probably in denial. Odo, on the other hand, knows Quark's biggest fear, which is failure. They also, for a long time, were the only ones of their kinds aboard DS9.

They both had gray roles during the Occupation. They, to me, are like found family. And with Jake and Nog, they were the odd couple because they flipped roles. Jake, despite being Ben Sisko's son, in this episode was more like how Nog used to be. And Nog was more like Ben Sisko.

And then you see the two fathers come together to resolve it. When I came to DS9, I thought I was supposed to be all about the Ben and Jake father-son relationship. because that's what people told me about. But really, what stands out for me is the Rom and Nog relationship. Because it's like a hidden gem.

It's like only for, if you know, you know, the people who watch every episode.

Oh, well, the secret is that the show is as much about Rom and Nog as it is about Jake and Ben. And there's... three that I can think of off the top of my head very obvious parent situations on the show and because of the age of the kids you have different dynamics so you have

Miles and Keiko with Molly and you know One on the Way, their relationship is that of younger children. And they sort of have a gentle parenting style. And then you have these two bachelors who are sort of mavericks in their own world that are raising teenagers on a post-war ship.

And because of their contexts, they have very different kids. But where Ben is... not ultra subversive. He's just like, I will go against authority. Ram is like, wait, the culture I grew up with really doesn't vibe with me. If you remember from a couple episodes ago,

even the Davo girl Lita has a big crush on him because of his development. And his son, again, is going against type. He's like, He's to the Ferengi as Worf is to Klingons, except he's even more connected to the Ferengi traditions. He grew up in that tradition. He wasn't raised by non-Ferengis, you know what I'm saying?

So I think it's very smart of you to notice this because I think it really shows very, very great, strong... examples of parenthood and particularly single fatherhood, which was, if you remember in the 90s, a huge moral panic that particularly, unfortunately, against Black families was this idea of non-present fathers. So

I think this show did a very good job subverting that stereotype while also just being very honest about the characters. The characters are just them.

So two things based off of what you said. The first is that this really reinforces how on DS9, even side characters matter. And so even with side characters like Ram and Nog, they matter and they give them time to develop them. The second thing I was thinking about is how you think about the casting, right?

It's a black captain and a black son. And you have that surface level visual. But then the more you watch the show, you realize that's just the casting. But oftentimes it's like Ram and Nog are the ones who are like coded, right? Like they're racially coded. You're like, yeah, but in the future, it's not.

Ben and Jake who are black or like racially coded it's Ram and Nog who are often the foreigner the other right so that's another layer that's interesting is like oftentimes those type of like storylines are featured through Ram and Nog and especially Ram when you see more of his stories mm-hmm

Especially like expectations of Rom based on racial stereotypes. And then he breaks those molds. So, yeah. Got me thinking about all those things.

That's what we try to do here.

And then in this situation, Rom wants his son to enjoy life. Cisco, on the other hand, wants his son to be more serious. Like Nog, right? What a change of place. Now, Rom isn't a main cast member, but his character is really unique on a show full of misfits. So I really like that.

There's also a cautionary tale here. Just because you get along with someone well and like their company doesn't mean you can live together. Sharing interests and sharing space are not the same thing. Even hanging out versus doing a project together are not the same. They all have their own context. Now,

I know we've previously spoken about how in this watch, for you, because this is my first watch, but for you, you've had multiple. Since we're analyzing every episode, lots of the characters became more nuanced, gray, and interesting for you. How you remember them and how they appear to you in this watch has changed.

This episode added more dimensions to Quark and Odo in particular and gave them more depth and humanity. While not being cheesy about it, in my opinion. So, Scott, what did you think of this episode?

So, I give the Jake Nog storyline. four stars and that's from a mythological point of view and I give the Quark Odo three and a half stars because it's not as mythologically sound and I just didn't really enjoy both of them being mean to each other for 40 minutes very mean so it

just doesn't do it for me but I really only do .5s. I would probably call this a 3.8, but I'm going to say it's a 3.5, almost a 4. It's almost a 4.

I think if they added more mythology to this, where you knew this would actually matter, then it could have easily been a 4. But just watching it, I don't know what happens in future episodes, but I just get a sense that this didn't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things.

It was just kind of like a what-if episode. Hey, let's put these four people in a situation and you get to see what they're like.

Yeah, but again, all these characters, as we're heading into... When you go deeper into a show, smaller characters get more stuff. So we're getting... we're getting to sit with these characters and get to know them.

So getting to spend more time with Quark, getting to spend more time with Nog, getting to spend more time with Rom, even though he was more minor in this, I think that's also all investing into something.

Yeah. It is. Trust. I mean, again, I'm not going to say exactly, but you know,

I feel like this kind of conversation is going to blend well with the next episode because I feel like that one might be more mythological. So can you tell us about the next episode?

Lost cities are pretty chill.

Until then...