Odo in the episode Profit and Loss - Were there any consequences?

In the episode Profit and Loss, three dissident Cardassians show up on DS9. One of them is one of Quark's old lovers named Natima. Anyways, when the Cardassian government learns that the three dissident Cardassians are on the station they convince the Bajoran provisional government to arrest them. The Cardassian government told the Bajorans that they would exchange six Bajoran prisoners for the three Cardassians.

At the end of the episode, Quark tries to convince Odo to let the dissident Cardassians go free. Odo agrees, but only in the name of justice. Not only that, but Odo let them go knowing they were going to use a "highly illegal" cloaking device to escape on their ship (in the beginning of the episode, Odo pointed out to Quark that the Bajorans consider cloaking devices "highly illegal"). Do you think that there were any consequences to Odo's actions? He literally went against the will of not only the Bajoran government, but Commander Sisko who also had to defer to the Bajoran's will in this matter. Or, do you think the Bajorans and Sisko didn't get mad once they learned that the Cardassians tried to go back on their deal when they tried to kill the three dissidents on DS9?? I know that Sisko wasn't crazy about the idea of turning over the dissidents, but I'm sure he in the very least had to give Odo a good talking to, at least for show.

 

It wasn't even the first time it's happened.

In Vortex, he lets the alien guy with the magic key (and his daughter) escape on the Vulcan ship, even though it might create an incident between the Federation and that planet in the GQ where the guy came from.

Christin

 

Odo? What about the fact that Garek vaporized a Cardassian Gul on the spot and then wishes Quark's friends a bon voyage. Doesn't a phaser set to kill trigger some sort of internal security alarm. To me this episode showed the laziest plot resolution I can think of.

 

Yes, I'm sure that fact never occurred to a highly-trained former spy who has extensive knowledge of the station and its security systems.

 

You say that like Garek knew how it would all play out. In fact, Garek even said "what are you doing here" implying he wasn't expecting to see the Gul. That is quite a leap that he went to all the trouble to rig the internal sensors so that he could vaporize a Cardassian officer that he wasn't expecting to show up. The main point here is that Garek didn't escape with the Cardassian rebels, he remained on the station as if no one would ever know what happend.

 

Perhaps instead of rigging the station's sensors, Garak rigged his personal phaser/disruptor (whatever it is the Cardassians use as sidearms) to not trigger the alarms (if there are, indeed, any such alarms on Cardassian stations).

The simplest explanation would be that Cardassian installations do not have internal security alarms that trigger when phasers are used.

 

Yes, a plausible explanantion but I am not concerned with sensors/station alarms. I am just saying that GAREK JUST WASTED A SENIOR CARDASSIAN OFFICER! He waves goodbye to the Cardassian rebels with a smile aaaaaaaand credits roll. WTF? There is no mention of this incident ever again. Is it not that big of a deal? Did the Cardassian warship just get tired of waiting on their Gul and head on home? Was there absolutely no one accountable for this random dissapearing of a Cardassian Gul. Did anyone care?

 

I haven't seen the episode for some time, but here goes...

Regarding Sisko and Starfleet, we could assume that Cmdr. Sisko filed the incident in his report to Starfleet Command noting that the fugitives escaped. It's doubtful that Sisko would implicate Odo of anything. Furthermore, SFC was already pissed about Odo and it wouldn't be long before they would send Eddington to DS9.

Regarding Bajor, I doubt the provisional government cared too much that a Cardassian Gul was killed. Also, what evidence was there that Garak or Odo had anything to do with the murder? It's not as if either of them would confess, nor would there be any point in trying to interrogate them (a Changeling and a highly trained ex-Obsidian Order agent).

I would imagine the Cardassian government would ask questions through normal channels and even send Obsidian Order agents to investigate, but it's likely nothing was discovered, or if anything was, it would be circumstantial at best. Certainly not worth going to war over.

Really the only thing that Odo could be proved guilty for was negligence for allowing prisoners to escape and for the disappearance of a Cardassian Gul "on his watch".

One other thing, regarding station security and discharging a phaser/disruptor. Odo likely would have disabled station security, at least in the paths that the fugitives would take.

 

Apparently not. I imagine that Obsidian Order agents disappear in the field regularly. In fact, if you don't return at all, you must not have been a good enough agent in the first place, so no loss!

 

I suppose you're right. I just can't imagine Garek having that much latitutde on a Starfleet/Bajoran station that he didn't at least get a talking to from Sisko. It would have been good to have a scene where Sisko finally gets that confirmation that it's official, Garek is much more than he seems. Up until that point there was just speculation about him and random guessing from Bashir. It would have been cool to have an "I'm keeping my eye on you" moment from Sisko. I just think the magnitude of the scene was wasted as an abrupt way to end the episode.

 

...Also, back in "Profit and Loss", the status of Garak was quite ambiguous. Quite plausibly, he could have had the license to kill whomever he pleased - especially mere Central Command goons (Toran was never indicated to be Obsidian Order or anybody else important...).

Later revelations about Garak cast that in doubt. But Garak did come prepared with two guns, one concealed, so we can't really argue he wasn't expecting to shoot people. And it's difficult to argue that when Garak prepares to shoot people, he fails to prepare to shoot them dead!

Anyway, Garak claims he personally bartered the prisoner exchange, while Toran claims he personally un-bartered it. With things so personal, and Garak's approach persevering in the end, it doesn't strike me as implausible that Toran would retroactively be declared as having had to pay for his miserable failure (and the disrupting of Garak's more workable scheme) with his life.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The alarm arguement is moot being Garak was planning on killing Quark, Natima and her students. If there was such a thing on DS9(which is debatable, we've seen sensors that go off if you carry weapons through them, but no alarms if you fire one like in STVI), it's reasonable to assume Garak disabled it.

Now to Gul Danar(guess he was Damar's cousin), that's iffy to say the least. That he was there alone with none of his men suggests that this was a hush hush kind of mission for the Cardassians. Sisko can always claim plausible deniability. He didn't let Natima go, and therefore has no clue what happened when Danar went aboard to try and kill her.

I can't imagine Garak or Quark saying anything at all about the issue and Natima and company are gone. So it would be easy to blame Danar's assassination on Natima since they're already "terrorists." The biggest loophole in this comes back to Odo for letting Natima go. I'd imagine he would be in for an angry Sisko rant to say the least.

 

To nitpick, "Danar" would be the Gul from "Past Prologue". The foe in "Profit and Loss" was one of the multiple Torans seen in modern Trek, including this Gul, another Gul from "Defiant", and a Bajoran Minister from "Progress". Perhaps they were all cousins? (The Bajoran was remarkably stiff-necked...)

For an officer of the law, Odo has never respected law much. He's more the justice kind of man. Has Sisko ever successfully dressed down the Constable? The Changeling witnessed half a century of occupation and came out on top in terms of authority; he probably has "making superiors feel inferior" down pat by now, and would simply show he has lost all respect of Sisko if the Commander came up with an interpretation of the law that Odo didn't like.

Timo Saloniemi

 

You're right about Toran/Danar, can't believe I forgot that. Must be getting old. Not like either character had even two minutes of screen time anyways.

Odo definitely does his own thing. I remember a discussion on another message board about Odo's alignment in D&D terms. Most wanted to term him Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral, but that really didn't fit for the reasons you provide. I always figured him more of a True Neutral, he'll do his own thing with his innate need for order, and no one around him is going to convince him otherwise.

This is the guy who grew up in a labrotary then spent is maturing years around Dukat, Quark and the rest of the Occupation. Even when he was "settling disputes" with the Bajorians, he maintained a distance. Working for the Cardassians were probably the best thing he knew to do to keep the Occupation in check and somewhat orderly. It wasn't until Kira and the Federation came into the game he was really introduced to any sort of moralities.

 

I forgot about that!

There were indeed many loose ends & what seemed like mistakes in this episode. I was just to lazy to write about them in my first post. You guys mentioned how alarms didn't go off when Garak fired his weapon. Sure I guess it is possible that Garak disabled the alarms. Or perhaps, though IMO less plausible, Odo disabled the alarms. But, don't forget that Natima fired a phaser at Quark earlier in the episode and no alarms went off!!! I doubt that a correspondent turned professor had the expertise to disable the internal sensors, but what do I know. Perhaps she really is a super sneaky terrorist. Or perhaps DS9 was experiencing technical difficulties with the sensors at that time (but why wouldn't they mention it in the episode). Therefore, I think we have to chalk this one to an oversight on the part of the episode writer and the producers.

 

At least it's consistent, as DS9 never featured a weapons fire alarm as far as I know.

Perhaps Odo was too confident that his supposedly strict measures against bringing weapons aboard were working and rendering the point moot? He might have neglected to install or repair the sensors for that reason.

It does seem as if a Cardassian station would have internal sensors tuned to alert of unauthorized weapons fire. And before we argue that the weapons fire in this episode and others was with Cardassian guns and potentially authorized (since impromptu executions of Bajoran scum and other such fun might be frequent on Terok Nor), we have to remember how comprehensive the verification routines were in "Civil Defense" and the like...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Being a philologist, I am kind of pedantic, but this is a pet peeve of mine: please spell the names of the characters correctly. His name is "Garak", not "Garek". If unsure, there are search engines and people here who would be happy to help.

 

This thread has been dead for over a day and out of all that has been said you are going to jump in now because I mispelled GARAK's name? You didn't even participate in the discussion. I find it somewhat rude to go running through the message boards calling people out for grammar. Your pet peeves are not my concern. You come across as very condescending.

 

...What?

Since when has there been a "requirement" for daily posting? Some people only post on weekends, some never on weekends, and DS9 posters are an elite squad of sorts among us nerds - very few of us around here, in comparison with even ENT fans. But our threads tend to stay interesting fairly long (perhaps it's all the Terry Farrell content) and the ideas keep bubbling up...

You most certainly do.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Eh, sorry to burst your bubble, but to quote Shakesphere, "The lady doth protest too much." Raytas politely asked for an effort to be given and cited her reasons as to why. She even said please.

You're the one who personally attacked her by calling her rude and condecending. I'd be more worried about your own actions and less about others.

And really, someone bumps a thread that's been active for a day and you jump them for that? This isn't a face to face conversation, that's the wonderful thing about message boards. You can revive threads and coversations that have been "over" for days or weeks.