Quark is a Ferengi. The Ferengi are a civilization that is entirely based on the gospel of

commerce and free enterprise and greed and inquisitiveness for its own sake. They are, you know,

space neoliberals. They don't take kindly to unionization. And this episode involves Quark's

brother, Rom, unionizing the bar. Something I'd say about this episode, and I think

I'd also say about the episode of Babylon 5 we watched, which was called Any Means Necessary,

is that it's a little weird watching stuff like this now for two reasons. One, just that,

sadly, this kind of mid-budget to low-budget, sci-fi show that's kind of weird and

niche, then it builds its own whole universe and stuff.

I don't think they really make shows like this anymore.

I mean, the closest thing I can think of that's on TV today, you know, that's science

fiction would be something like The Expans, which is a show that I enjoy, though I haven't

seen all of it.

But that's got a huge budget.

So in many ways, I don't think it's analogous.

But you're talking about something that's sort of outside of the cultural mainstream

while also being adjacent to the cultural mainstream.

Yeah, just, you know, it's, I mean, this is a show, you know, people watch these shows.

They were hugely popular. But I mean, I'm pretty sure in the 90s, if you, I mean, you know, you've seen the movie Trekkies, right? It's like, it is genuinely like a weird subculture. And I mean, some of the people involved in it are like actually like very, very strange people. Well, nowadays, Star Trek feels like it's part of the same ecosystem. We just have its monoculture. Like,

right.

Subcultures still exist today, but they are genuinely cloistered sort of online niches.

So that's mostly what they are.

The middle has collapsed.

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