#dr. bashir I presume

[sutekinaoneesan]

Just something that recently crossed my mind when thinking about Julian and his relationship with his parents.

Do you remember season 1 all-eager-to-please-puppy-Julian? Just imagine what an argument between Richard and season 1 Julian would have looked like. They did have a lot of differences in the past ever since Julian found out about his enhancements at the age of 15. But somehow I cant‘t really picture season 1 Julian opposing his father in more than a teenager kind of way. He might argue with his father over something but in the end he complies with whatever his parents tell him because he‘s so desperate to measure up to everyone’s expectations because he thinks that it’s the only way to earn their love.

Then take season 5 all-mature-and-grown-up Julian who knows exactly how to step up for himself and defend himself. He’s no longer willing to do as his father tells him. You can see in Sisko‘s office how much he‘s uncomfortable with his parents showing their affection for him. While season 1 Julian would have quietly endured the whole thing, probably feeling even guilty for not being the perfect son, season 5 Julian is ready to defend his newly made home against his parent’s intrusion.

And I just wonder when exactly that change in Julian’s attitude toward his parents might have happened. I mean, of course he grows up a lot during his time on DS9 but I can‘t help but wonder if there was something, a particular event that caused it.

If we take Julian’s statement in Dr. Bashir, I presume? where he says that he hasn‘t been home for three years that would mean that the last time he visited home must have been somewhere around season 2. It’s only my guess but Armageddon Game is set in season 2 where Julian is believed dead and Sisko passes on the news of Julian’s death to his parents. Most likely Julian visited his parents after the events. My guess is that that was the turning point in their relationship.

Like

Richard: We thought you were dead. I’m so glad you’re here. Just imagine, all that talent gone for good. All that knowledge and all those skills.

Julian: We’re talking about my life! I nearly DIED. And all you’re concerned about is that my talent could have been wasted?

Again, it’s only my guess but it would make sense…

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

Summary: Sisko sat back in his chair, a vaguely pained expression on his face. “Most of your health paperwork was adjusted already. However, there are certain forms that need to be refiled, by you. Specifically, forms related to health regulation 67.”  “The health regulation that has to do with interspecies sexual contact? I- oh god, they’re making me resubmit all my fuck forms?!” “Doctor!”

Author: @hingabee

Note from submitter: A very fun fic

[r0larens]

dr. bashir i presume is soooo navigating your relationship with your parents in your mid-late 20s core

[chaos-whatever]

He's a tiny puppy and I am putting him in my pocket

[magpieandpossum]

I have a strong belief that everyone who even comes in contact with Bashir and has any semblance of a gaydar just...knows. Case-in-point:

+ bonus snark after he makes the adjustments:

[walkingstackofbooks]

A version of DBIP where Julian coped with his parents' sudden appearance just a little less well and had a minor panic attack... Which Jadzia and Sisko notice and help him through, assuming, however, that it's another (unfortunately-timed) prison-camp flashback, and so they still don't realise how bothered Julian is by his parents' arrival until much later

[deathpowerphantomjester5110]

So julian is my favorite star trek character now

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Rom

By Ames

Among your A Star to Steer Her By hosts, Rom might be the most polarizing character from all of Star Trek. Some of us (and you all know when I’m talking about Chris) worship the ground this grand nagus walks on. And some of us (oh hello, I’m Ames) would rather throw him out an air lock. His rather offensive depiction as someone who seems to have low intelligence ends up contradicted by his otherworldly engineering skills. His actually very funny scenes get offset by how his whole character becomes a goofy punchline. His Ferengi values are deplorable and yet his character journey and love of his family are commendable. And that voice…

All that to say: this blogpost is going to be our biggest roller coaster ride yet.

So get ready to dig into a bowl of tube grubs and keep your tooth sharpener handy as we dig into the moments we adore about Quark’s lesser brother and the moments we detest about him. Read on below and listen to this week’s podcast episode (jump to 1:01:34) for all the Ferengi gossip. And don’t forget to call your moogie.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

You saved your brother’s life Let’s start off with the good stuff. In “Necessary Evil” when Trazko is pillow smothering Quark, Rom screams and screams for help, foiling the assassination plot and saving his brother’s life. And you know what, it’s actually a pretty funny button when Rom screams again when he realizes that, with Quark still alive, he won’t be inheriting the bar any time soon.

I would be proud to have a son in Starfleet Even I, a bonafide Rom hater, can admit that his relationship with his son is one of the best things about his character. We see him stand up to Quark (a rarity!) and support Nog’s desire to join Starfleet in “Heart of Stone” and we’ve got to give the guy credit for wanting Nog to pursue his dreams of becoming better than his father, low bar as that may seem.

The Ferengi not-so-Benevolent Association When the Nagus’s personality has gotten rewritten in “Prophet Motive,” he somehow ends up making Rom the senior administrator of his new Ferengi Benevolent Association. And you’ve got to give Rom credit for seeing a chance to scheme that even Quark didn’t notice, as he embezzles money from the foundation before Zek turns back to normal. He’s got the lobes!

Moogie’s got the lobes for business In addition to the lovely father-son relationship with Nog, Rom’s relationship with his moogie is also extremely sweet. He eventually supports her profit-making scheme in “Family Business” even though it’s illegal for females to make money, tricks Quark into coming to terms with Ishka, and by the end of the episode is in on the plan to hide some of her profits from Brunt, FCA!

My son’s happiness is more important to me than anything, even latinum It’s worth mentioning how supportive Rom is of Nog again because in “Facets” he foils Quark’s nefarious plan to sabotage his Starfleet Academy exam, even threatening to burn the bar to the ground because he places his son’s personal journey so highly. He also goes to Garak to have Nog’s cadet uniform made personally, which is just about the cutest moment in the show.

Our union, united, will never be divided Rom proves to be a champion of the laborer in “Bar Association” when he starts up a union for Quark’s bar to fight for better pay and working conditions. Again, it’s another practice that’s illegal under Ferengi law, but that doesn’t stop Rom (even when it gets Quark attacked), who rallies his band of waiters and Dabo girls together with confidence we’ve never seen before.

Number one dads! We don’t get a lot of scenes between Sisko and Rom, the two best dads of the station (sorry Miles, but neither of these proud papas left their child to die in the woods). When Jake and Nog are quarreling over their odd-couple habits in “The Ascent”, the two fathers concoct a scheme to get them to talk out their problems and be friends again by pretending there are no other quarters available.

Do I have a reason to stay? Maybe it’s because Lewis Zimmerman comes across as such a cretin, but it feels like a victory when Rom asks Leeta out at the end of “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” and she decides to stay at the station instead of leaving to become Dr. Z’s sex object. Even though everyone already knew she’d say yes, it takes him the whole episode to muster the courage, but let’s take the win.

Self-replication. That’s the only answer. Rom’s contradictory character traits are nothing if not fascinating. Sure, he couldn’t find a cup of water if you dropped him in a lake, but he still comes up with the ingenious idea to have the cloaked minefield also be self-replicating to take on the Dominion in “Call to Arms.” Moments of sheer brilliance like this make Rom a character of simultaneous simplicity and complexity.

I walk through minefields Rom’s profound bravery is on display during season six when he works with the resistance to undermine the Dominion occupation. And it all caps off with “Sacrifice of Angels.” Rom may not have had time to prevent Damar from taking down the minefield, but he still sabotages their weapons array, giving the prophets the time they needed to save the day.

We’re not commandos, we’re negotiators What could have simply been a farcical play on The Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven gets a fresh take when Rom has a rare epiphany in “The Magnificent Ferengi”. The Ferengi don’t have the chops for fighting (except for Leck, whom we love), and Rom points out that they should treat the release of Moogie as a business deal, something more in their wheelhouse.

A kinder, gentler Nagus Rom’s entirely hyperbolized character arc concludes with him becoming Grand Nagus in “The Dogs of War.” Sure, it’s definitely entirely out of nepotism because his mother had put him there, and she’s also definitely going to be the one ostensibly in charge because she can pull his strings, but what a journey! And he’s so magnanimous about it that he even gives the bar back to Quark!

—

Worst moments

Not next to that human boy. I don’t want you to have anything to do with him. Onto the bad stuff! In “A Man Alone,” Rom doesn’t even have the caricatured voice yet, but does start the series with all the typical toxic Ferengi values. It takes a battle for him to agree to let Nog attend Keiko’s classroom, and even when he does, his anti-hooman racism shows when he won’t let Nog sit with Jake, just as Sisko didn’t want his son hanging out with that Ferengi trash either.

Now go to your room. And no studying. A few episodes later, Rom pulls Nog from Keiko’s school in “The Nagus” after getting criticized by Zek for allowing his son to learn from a hooman female. It’s one of Rom’s biggest faults (and Quark’s too): his preoccupation with displaying as a typical, profitable Ferengi even among people for whom their value system is hot garbage. Rom at least eventually overcomes it.

Rom’s. Nice name for a bar, don’t you think? Another case to make that point: Rom becomes the lackey of Zek’s son Krax and helps in the attempt to kill off Quark in “The Nagus.” It’s not until later that we see more brotherly love, one-sided though it may seem. But this early in the show, Rom is much more of a typical Ferengi, obsessed with amassing power, fame, and fortune above all else.

Ferengi, Romans, Countrymen: Lend me your ears We here at the podcast really rooted for Pel in “Rules of Acquisition,” a female who really has the lobes to break free of the government’s oppression of her gender. So when Rom outs her to Quark as a female (after a scene way too comically goofy of him literally looking through Pel’s socks to find incriminating evidence), we can’t help but start siding against him, the dirty rat.

You know, come to think of it, my ear’s bothering me too Like I did with the Quark post, I will call out all the uncomfortable uses of oo-mox whenever the show sinks to such a level. We see Rom trying to trick Faith Garland into giving him oo-mox in “Little Green Men” – while his son is actively getting it! – and I just find it so gross. For how much oo-mox is played up to be a sexual act in this show, this is sexual assault, plain and simple.

Too. Much. Oo-mox. And to make things grosser, we get even more oo-mox references a couple episodes later in “Bar Association” when we learn that Rom has given himself an ear infection from too much oo-mox. And it’s self-inflicted. So basically what we’ve learned from this scene is that Rom masturbates so much that he gives himself an infection, a detail I wish I never had to learn.

Even. More. Oo-mox. I’ve got one more oo-mox mention to get out of my system because I’m just so angry every time it comes up. Literally right after Rom has admitted to rubbing his ears raw to Leeta in “Bar Association” and she shows some sympathy for him, his response is to request oo-mox from her! They’re not even dating at this point! It’s disgusting. I hate it. Minus a hundred points.

The better to hear you with Speaking of Leeta, it’s exactly a season after this that Rom finally asks her out in “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” (as we mentioned above!). But! This is a) after we learn that his first wife Prinadora swindled him on their wedding extension contract like a chump, and b) after we watch him literally tuning his ear to eavesdrop on Leeta and Zimmerman’s conversation. And somehow he still never gets the hint she’s into him. Like a chump!

If you liked it then you shoulda put a Bajoran earring on it I’m just gonna lump what a shitty partner Rom is to Leeta into one screed. In “Ferengi Love Songs,” he tries to make her sign a Waiver of Property and Profit just because Jadzia and Miles were teasing him about not being very Ferengi like. This after he started wearing a Bajoran-style earring, which strikes me as on the questionable side of cultural appropriation.

Later in “Call to Arms,” we see Rom trying to suggest Leeta’s wedding dress literally be a couple handkerchiefs and a loincloth (gross) and then once they’re married, he decides she’s leaving the station before the Dominion rolls in, without her getting a single say in her own life (more gross!). Why are all the men in this show so shit at relationships!?!?

You said the reward was twenty Shockingly, Rom’s incompetence hasn’t come up as much as I expected, but his ability to ruin things through miscommunication and shenanigans is on special display in “The Magnificent Ferengi.” He blurts out that Quark is cheating the other Ferengi out of reward money, riles up the rest of the team, and thus gets Keevan killed because he can’t keep big mouth shut.

Foul ball! I’m not alone in hating on the campy mess that is “Take Me out to the Holosuite” but Rom is so disruptively, dangerously bad at playing baseball that it warrants being on this list. How he makes it as far as he does in the tryouts only speaks to how terrible Sisko is at coaching. The guy breaks Quark’s damn head. That’s how bad he is. It goes past being funny to just being idiotic.

That’s why the lady is a scamp We have space for one more bad “Rom is a nincompoop” joke that doesn’t land. In “The Siege of AR-558,” we’re tortured with Rom’s deliberately atrocious cover of “The Lady Is A Tramp” just because Ira Behr really needed to shoehorn Vic Fontaine into as many of the final episodes as possible, and it shows because it’s just another lowbrow, asinine, bottom-feeding gag. Check that off the list.

—

Well, that may have gone off the rails but whenever I have to sit through oo-mox jokes, I get testy. And sadly I already know there’s going to be more of that next week with our final Ferengi spotlight on Nog! So make sure you’re following along to catch that, join us as we continue our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, engage in negotiations with us on Facebook and Twitter, and stop making oo-mox jokes!

[bubbles-floating]

Richard Bashir's A+ parenting truly is astonishing

[simptasia]

fun fact: the first time i read julian’s memory alpha page, i cried

[cucumbermoon]

My HC for this episode revolves around my more general Garak HC which is that he already knew about Bashir's secret. I think he's very good at digging up dirt on people and he put the pieces together years ago. He also knew that it would ruin Bashir's life if anyone found out, so when Zimmerman showed up he made himself scarce in a hurry to keep Bashir from looking too suspicious.

While i understand some of the doylist reasons for why garak was not in Doctor Bashir, I Presume (Andrew Robinson being too expensive to have on the show for three episodes in a row, the season already having exceeded its Gayness Quota, etc) from a Watsonian perspective his absence is outrageously out of character. You’re telling me  that Plain Simple Garak, who singled out Bashir as the most manipulatable Star fleet officer and went to the replicomat to hit on him aggressively by the second episode WHILE HIGH OUT OF HIS MIND wouldn’t AT THE LEAST break into Julian’s quarters (again) to see what was up???? You’re saying that Garak “literally just found out that bashir had been replaced by a changeling for a month” wasn’t paying close enough attention to Julian to realise anything was happening????? Garak “my estranged dad just died” wouldn’t care about Julian’s estranged parents being in town?????????? THAT Garak????????????????????? The only possible reason i can think of for him not being there is that he was at Tain’s funeral, which is never implied in the episode. Why wasn’t he there Star Trek creators explain yourselves 

[idonotbitemythumbatyou]

Dr Bashir I Presume is sort of the quintessential DS9 episode in how it casually drops a world shattering character reveal as just one element of the A plot. It’s like

Bashir has been chosen to be the model for a holodoctor!

They need to interview people who know him well to create a psychological profile for the program but - uh oh - he doesn’t get along with his parents because

They had him genetically engineered when he was six to “fix” the perceived flaws in their perfectly healthy child in his natural state which is highly illegal and stigmatized and he’s lived in fear of being found out since he was 15

he considers himself a fraud and a monster and in all the years we have known him he has been stifling his abilities to appear more normal. he has carried this secret for so long it is almost a relief to be free of it and when he walks to his captain’s office to tender his resignation it is not with anger or sadness but rather a weary resignation.

Will Leeta and Rom get together?

[libraflyter]

I want a post Dr. Bashir I Presume fic where after the reveal, Garak is angry. Not because of the lying, but because Julian had a secret that was a blackmailer’s dream and yet he still befriended Garak. Garak the exiled spy. Someone who not only could have uncovered the secret but had incentive to use it against Julian. He is incandescently angry that Julian Bashir has such terrible self preservation.

I want a whole feelings fic about this. Garak trying to figure out why he’s angry and not impressed. He should be impressed! Julian is a better liar than he knew and that should please him, not anger him.

Garak has never had the anger you get when you find out after the fact someone you love did something that could have hurt/killed them and yes it’s okay now but you need them to know how unacceptable it was, how they need to understand they can’t hold themselves so cheaply and promise to never do it again.

Where there’s a confrontation (because of course Garak is avoiding Julian and that only works until Julian is fed up with him) and it turns into a big fight which is ultimately about how much Garak cares about his dear doctor. Garak finally understands why he’s so upset. That the augment reveal was the last straw in his tangled feelings about how much danger his doctor was in that he didn’t see. He didn’t see the changeling and he didn’t see this (and he didn’t save his father) and safety is both an illusion and something Garak is supposed to provide to His People.

If Julian is going to be so reckless, if Garak can’t stop him he must have enough information to protect him.

(Odds of Garak planting hidden trackers on Julian: very high. Julian is going to feel both violated and relieved when section 31’s kidnapping is uncovered so quickly.)

[strangenewgirls]

i also presume this

The No Homo Clause™️ robbed us of Garak being in Dr. Bashir I Presume

[walkingstackofbooks]

I was just looking at the Dr Bashir, I Presume on Memory Alpha and damn, I would love to have seen the original plot and have several episodes where Julian is hiding his enhancements and then have a reveal after the build-up.

"Originally, this episode ended very differently to its finished form. In the original story, O'Brien finds out that there are problems with the LMH which have been caused deliberately by Zimmerman because he doesn't want it to replace the EMH. Bashir then informs O'Brien that Zimmerman is planning to reveal his genetic engineering secret, so O'Brien goes to see Zimmerman and tells him that if he exposes Bashir, his deliberate errors with the LMH will also be exposed. As such, there is a trade-off, and neither secret is revealed. "The reason this story was altered was actually Alexander Siddig. He didn't want to play the character as having a secret that only he, O'Brien and the audience knew about. He thought the long-term implications of this on his performance could be detrimental, having to portray the character every week as being in possession of this secret, and allowing it to inform everything he does, but in such a way that none of the other characters notice anything unusual. As such, Siddig managed to convince the writers to alter the end of the story so that the truth is revealed to all."

I get why they changed it and I'm glad they did - but I wonder if the fall-out from being exposed would have been explored more had it been an arc starting from this episode rather than all done at once.

Also O'Brien being the best bro is always 👌👌👌

Anyway, it is a delicious angst mine for my brain to chew on for a bit :P

[vaguely-concerned]

Concept: After the one two punch of Tain’s death scene and the official augment reveal, Garak and Julian Do Not talk about it directly for a long long time, but Julian does pointedly assign Frankenstein for their homoerotic book club lunch after Dr. Bashir I Presume. Garak is…Untroubled. 

(“Monstrous fathers create monstrous sons all the time without ever resorting to anything so dramatic or crude as lightning rods and graverobbing, my dear Doctor. Why, in some families it’s practically a tradition. A family trade, honed to perfection over the span of generations.”

“Yeah?” 

“Could anything but such an iterative process explain the existence of Skrain Dukat, do you think?”

“Hah! You know what, you may have a point.”) 

It’s about. The mutual ‘We may both have been made into different kinds of monsters at the hands of our fathers and yeah I guess that kind of sucks. But at least at the end of the day neither of us is Gul Dukat’ emotional security of it all