Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Best Character Was Nearly Tortured By Khan’s Favorite Weapon

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 20 seconds ago

Who do you think the most beloved character in Star Trek is? Some would go with famous figures like Kirk or Spock, while others might say Picard or Janeway. Younger fans might even go with Mariner, the firebrand lead character on Lower Decks. For many of us older fans, though, the most beloved character is Quark, the affable Ferengi bartender on Deep Space Nine.

Quark is an ultracapitalist surrounded by socialist Federation types, and his banter with characters completely different from himself is a big part of what makes DS9 so popular. This bartender rarely goes into battle, but he still finds himself in all kinds of painful trouble. Of course, things could always have been worse. One unfilmed scene from the episode “Melora” would have had Quark tortured by the same alien eels used to torture people by Khan Noonien Singh, the greatest villain in all of Star Trek!

All Quarked Up

How the heck did Quark nearly end up on the receiving end of an alien eel attack? It all goes back to “Melora,” a Season 2 DS9 episode involving Dr. Bashir falling in love with a woman who can’t easily navigate the Earth-like gravity of the station. Meanwhile, the episode’s B plot involves a menacing alien shaking Quark down over past debts.

The first draft of “Melora” was written by Evan Carlos Somers, a former intern who pitched the episode. Since Somers uses a wheelchair, he hoped to bring some authenticity to the titular Melora, someone who must navigate DS9 using a wheelchair. While the writer turned in a solid draft, the script ultimately needed retuning. Several writers (including then-showrunner Michael Piller) tweaked the script, resulting in the episode you see onscreen. Among other things, they removed a plot point from Somers where Quark’s nemesis (a man named Fallit Kot) would have tortured the Ferengi using eels from Ceti Alpha V.

Hear No Evil

According to The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine, Somers wanted to portray the villain “psychologically toying with Quark, terrifying him” and eventually killing Quark “by using the Ceti eels introduced in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but this variety didn’t cause mental vulnerability for mind control.” After making all these elaborate plans for the Ferengi’s torture, he was disappointed that “Fallit Kot just strangles Quark” in the aired episode, a threat which was “not quite titanic enough.” 

In retrospect, I’d have to agree. Certainly, an elaborate torture sequence is going to be more tense and exciting than a plain, old strangulation. If nothing else, this scene would have cemented what a creepy threat those Ceti Alpha V eels really were. Sadly, the last time they were mentioned in canon was in Star Trek: Discovery, where an Orion outpost was selling them as a tasty treat on the Klingon homeworld!

As a huge fan of Deep Space Nine, I would have loved to see a major homage to The Wrath of Khan so early in the show’s run. Instead, we’d have to wait several more years until “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” revealed that the titular physician had received Khan-like genetic augmentation. As for Quark, he completed the show’s run without getting threatened by any more creepy eels. That might be for the best, though. Knowing the opportunistic Ferengi, he’d probably just end up serving them to his customers with a healthy heaping of yamok sauce!