Nog

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Although a first-year Starfleet cadet, Nog occupies a special place in history as the first Ferengi ever to enter the Academy, and to date he has shouldered that potentially awkward stigma well. Reportedly, Nog credits his remarkably open multi-culturalism to his friendship with Jake Sisko, son of the commander of his longtime home at Deep Space Nine and Nog's own sponsor as a non-Federation applicant. However, Nog has also worked hard to mature beyond his former panicky reaction to a crisis, his occasional bout of Ferengi racism, his petty criminal record and his disdain for scholarship. His earlier school record was mediocre to poor, but that stemmed in part from his longtime illiteracy and his father's early reluctance to allow his attending the "hew-man" school taught by a woman, a threat repeated when the visiting Grand Nagus was aghast. In the end, he and Jake Sisko were Keiko O'Brien's last two pupils when she was forced to close the DS9 school.

Aside from a spat or two, especially involving dating when their cultures clashed as young teens, Nog prided himself on he and Jake's cross-cultural friendship and their survival of their fathers' initial opposition to each other. Sisko especially took a dim view of his influence on Jake with the traditional Ferengi view of women, and first met both Nog and his Uncle Quark after the boy was caught stealing with a Markalian thief from DS9's damaged assay office. The two boys met out of mutual loneliness and eventually did everything together, from joint science projects to girl-watching, playing cards and Dom-jot, and avoiding Constable Odo's rounds. Baseball, though, was not a passion he shared with the human.

Like his father Rom, Nog is good with his hands and worked for years for his Uncle Quark's bar and casino on DS9. Although he was saddened and angered by Quark's longtime humiliation of Rom, the teen was happy to see his father's rise to assertiveness by the time of his Academy admission. In fact, when pushed by his would-be sponsor Sisko, Nog admitted his application stemmed from his vow not to repeat his father's mistake of not pursuing his aptitudes, trying instead to be a "good Ferengi" in business without really having the lobes for it. It was he who kept his messy father's quarters cleaned up as well.

Nog marked his native rite of reaching adulthood in 2371, on the day before stardate 48521.5, and selected Sisko as his role model and purchased apprenticeship mentor in order to be sponsored for Starfleet, offering him his life savings per Ferengi tradition and leaving it anyway when it's not required. He passed all four days of tests to make the Starfleet Academy Preparatory Program that year — despite his uncle's sabotage of one test, uncovered and reported by his father.

Cadet Nog reported that he arrived for his first academy term in 2371 after an accidental time-travel trip back to Earth's 1947, thanks to a sabotaged ship repaid to Quark by his Cousin Gaila and a contraband kemacite cargo load. After Nog's traditional Ferengi sale of personal possessions on DS9 to finance his future, O'Brien and Bashir gave him a guidebook to Earth, where he realized Gabriel Bell looks a lot like Sisko; his knowledge of Earth and its history helped win the trapped Ferengi their escape and a trip back to their correct time. In 2374 Nog became an acting Starfleet ensign following a battlefield commission during the Dominion war. Nog was hurt in battle at station AR-558 during a conflict with the Jem'Hadar and lost the use of one of his legs. Although his leg was replaced with a bionic one, his emotional scars were deep. Nog was later recommended for promotion to lieutenant by Captain Sisko following his actions in the Dominion war.

Nog enjoys Trixian bubble juice and fresh tube grubs, often beaming in to Sisko's restaurant in New Orleans to enjoy them.

1st appeared in Star Trek on Stardate 46421.0, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Emissary.