No Rom. Does Leyton's takeover succeed?

[USS Fardell]

No Rom. Does Leyton's takeover succeed?
Quark is an only child.
If Keldar and Ishka only have one child, they won't have a grandchild.
If Nog doesn't exist, there is no one to draw Sisko's attention to Red Squad's actions as part of Admiral Leyton's plans...

Thoughts?

 

[Timo]

Hmm. With no Nog, does Jake yield to social pressure and go join Starfleet? Perhaps he becomes Sisko's informant on this matter?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tosk]

If there was no Nog then Quark probably wouldn't be on DS9 to help Odo in Babel, with the crew possibly all dying when Jaheel's ship a'sploded.

 

[Disco]

Too many variables!

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I'm sure the non-existence of one character would not confuse the writers: they would simply invent one for the occasion.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

They probably could have found another way to tail Red Squad had Nog not been there.

 

[Cyke101]

I'm sure the non-existence of one character would not confuse the writers: they would simply invent one for the occasion.

That's not what the writers did for It's A Wonderful Life or Tapestry, because that's no fun.

Sometimes it's fun to have an absence.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I'm sure the non-existence of one character would not confuse the writers: they would simply invent one for the occasion.

That's not what the writers did for It's A Wonderful Life or Tapestry, because that's no fun.

Sometimes it's fun to have an absence.

I'm sure Thomas Halloway had a distinguished career as the captain of Enterprise D ... and E.

 

[jimbotron]

With no Rom, then the events of The Jem'Hadar play out much differently. Quark doesn't go, so Eris' subterfuge is probably never discovered, leaving her to gain enough intel for the Dominion to easily pounce on the Alpha Quadrant.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think they would have been careful enough around Eris to spot if she was snooping around. It wouldn't have gotten the Dominion more intel than they got from their changeling infiltrators, in the long run.

The one thing that may have changed dramatically with no Rom is that they wouldn't have thought of the mines and might not have come up with a better idea.

 

[USS Fardell]

Hmm. With no Nog, does Jake yield to social pressure and go join Starfleet? Perhaps he becomes Sisko's informant on this matter?

Timo Saloniemi

That is a possibility.


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Replies from other places. (Specifically, the PPMB.)

Ranma
Well maybe there's no word in English for that particular concept in ferengi and nephew is the closest approximation, like the Japanese word boketto, when someone is staring off into space but not thinking of anything.

Zetor
But, he's not. If Robert Picard had been an only child things would have been pretty different too. No offense, just saying these are pretty random what ifs. Is there a point?

MartinUK
Have you just taught me the Japanese word for reverie?

Brother Grimace

Nah. If Robert had been an only child, Q would have found another Starfleet officer to annoy & test to divine humanity's worthiness. He'd probably have prodded things to put Janeway in the Enterprise-D's command chair... which could have been kind of cool.

Along those lines, the same with Sisko and Nog. If the Prophets manipulated time and his father to ensure Sisko's birth in order to help stop the pah-wraiths, they would have certainly ensured that the acorn of Nog would have been born to be there to be caught stealing by Sisko, allowing the relationships between him, Quark and Nog to blossom in order for Nog to be a Starfleet cadet and provide Sisko with that intel. (The same with Q and Picard. He actually knew all about Picard and exactly what he'd do over all of those years - but it always had to be Picard's choice to act as he did.)

 

[Cyke101]

I'm sure the non-existence of one character would not confuse the writers: they would simply invent one for the occasion.

That's not what the writers did for It's A Wonderful Life or Tapestry, because that's no fun.

Sometimes it's fun to have an absence.

I'm sure Thomas Halloway had a distinguished career as the captain of Enterprise D ... and E.

Sure, but we never did see him; and there's a pretty good chance that he had vastly different adventures, situations, experiences, and outcomes than Picard did, simply because of difference of character. It certainly did for Lt. Picard.

But you're talking about writers (out of universe), when really the thread's about the flow of events (in-universe), which are two very different things. No one's worried about confused writers since they're the ones who make the flow of events in the first place.

 

[Leviathan]

No Rom. Does Leyton's takeover succeed?
Quark is an only child.
If Keldar and Ishka only have one child, they won't have a grandchild.
If Nog doesn't exist, there is no one to draw Sisko's attention to Red Squad's actions as part of Admiral Leyton's plans...

Thoughts?

In that event Quark's long lost cousin Mor brings his daughter Gon (who has an uncharacteristically strange interest in Starfleet) to visit earth and tips the hint to the Sisko.

'Twas the will of the prophets.

 

[Ithekro]

Naturally Gon would be unused to wearing clothing, but need to due to the human culture's perversions.

 

[Kilana2]

With Mor becoming the next Grant Nagus and the story has become full circle.

 

[nx1701g]

I'm sure the non-existence of one character would not confuse the writers: they would simply invent one for the occasion.

That's not what the writers did for It's A Wonderful Life or Tapestry, because that's no fun.

Sometimes it's fun to have an absence.

I'm sure Thomas Halloway had a distinguished career as the captain of Enterprise D ... and E.

In a novel parallel universe he did...

Here's the truth. Without Rom the Federation lost the Dominion War.

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

With regard to Red Squad's sabotage of the Earth power grid, it was actually Odo who noticed that anomaly in the transport log, which would have still led Sisko to wonder why they were remobilized three hours later anyway. Indeed, the fact that Sisko knew what Red Squad was (from Nog) almost caused Odo to dismiss the anomaly in the log anyway.

This chain of events would have gone pretty much the same way.

I agree, though, that both Rom and Nog played a huge part in saving the Alpha Quadrant.

 

[USS Fardell]

If there was no Nog then Quark probably wouldn't be on DS9 to help Odo in Babel, with the crew possibly all dying when Jaheel's ship a'sploded.

I guess I'll have to actually watch that episode...

---

More comments from elsewhere

Gallifrey Base
DavidXBrunt

If Wally Batty had lived longer would he have become jealous of Compo Simmonite's attentions towards Nora?

SpaceBattles

Christi
Or something else draws his attention.

Sufficient Velocity
Aaron Fox

Rom is sort of important overall actually. He is actually a natural engineer (later in the series he regularly helps O'Brian with keeping the station operational and he knew how to modify the station's deflector dish to prevent the self-replicating mines from being destroyed... the same mines he designed).

 

[Bad Thoughts]

That's not what the writers did for It's A Wonderful Life or Tapestry, because that's no fun.

Sometimes it's fun to have an absence.

I'm sure Thomas Halloway had a distinguished career as the captain of Enterprise D ... and E.

In a novel parallel universe he did...

Here's the truth. Without Rom the Federation lost the Dominion War.

Here's the truth: the wonderful writers quite cleverly wove existing characters into the story they wanted to tell, but without the existence of Nog at Starfleet, they would have found or invented another one. It could have been Nathan, the sous-chef's son. Maybe Nick Locarno, having taken a job washing dishes at the restaurant, helped Sisko understand the Academy's secret societies.

 

[Leviathan]

Naturally Gon would be unused to wearing clothing, but need to due to the human culture's perversions.

Oh not at all, not at all.

You see from the time she was young her starfleet obsession had her dressing in starfleet uniforms and attending meetings with other Ferengi who had a similar obsession. These 'conventions' had her totally prepared....