“Profit and Lace” is episode twenty-three of season six of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Quark is actually complementing someone. He’s impressed because he’s never seen an employee performance report that good in all his years running the bar. It’s a dabu girl he’s complimenting. It seems that everyone likes her – the Ferengi waiters, the dabu girls and the customers. She’s nice to everyone – but he thinks she could be nicer. To him. None of the other people she’s being nice to can fire her.
Rom rushes in at this point, disrupting Quark’s interaction with the dabu girl. Rom is concerned because he can’t get hold of their mother. Nor is she at the Tower of Commerce. Rom can’t get hold of anyone on Ferenginar. Rom suggests that the Dominion has invaded Ferenginar. When Major Kira says that several surrounding systems would need to have been invaded first, Rom decides that they must have fallen to the Dominion too. Then Dax informs them that a Ferengi ship is approaching the station and requesting permission to dock. On board are the Grand Nagus – and Rom and Quark’s mother. Rom was perhaps a little overly excitable in his worry.
Rom and Quark are worried that their mother is wearing clothes. In public. Where Quark’s Ferengi waiters could see her (Ferengi do not allow females to wear clothes in public). The Grand Nagus and their mother have good news/bad news. The good news is that the Grand Nagus has just added an amendment to the Ferengi Bill of Opportunities that allows females to wear clothes. Quark doesn’t see how this can be the good news. Grand Nagus believes that it’s time that females start pulling their own weight. When the first females started appearing in public wearing clothes, the entire planetary communication grid went down as a result. The bad news can be guessed – the Grand Nagus has been deposed. Although that’s not the entirety of the bad news – Brunt has been elected Grand Nagus in Zek’s place. Brunt does not like Quark. Brunt has not yet been confirmed as Grand Nagus. he’s simply the acting Nagus for the next three days, so Zek plans to take back the empire. Or die in the attempt.
Zek plans to invite all the FCA Commissioners to the station for a meeting, where Quark’s mother will use her vast financial knowledge to convince them that allowing females to wear clothes will be financially beneficial, and to reinstate him as Grand Nagus. Quark’s mother has plans that go even further – that one day a female will become Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance. Which stuns both Quark and Zek.
The plan falls at the first fence. Only one of the 432 commissioners on the list agrees to attend the list. He is powerful and influential voice, and the chairman of Slug-o-Cola, but he’s a voice for the status quo. Then Brunt himself arrives on the station. After helping Quark and Rom rescue their mother in “The Magnificent Ferengi”, Zek gave Brunt his old job back. Which was the first step to becoming Grand Nagus (Acting Grand Nagus, as is repeatedly pointed out). Quark is not happy with the situation. Which leads to a shouting match between him and his mother, and results in her clutching her chest and collapsing to the floor. Ishka had a heart problem and Bashir gives her a replacement and says she needs a few days rest. And away from Quark.
This leads to a problem. The sole commissioner who agreed to come to the station will now not have a female to prove just how much of a benefit to the economy they will be. They now need a brilliant female Ferengi, and they don’t have one. So, new plan. Zek says they need to make a female. Not a hologram, but Quark dressed in drag. And with a few surgical modifications, compliments of Dr. Bashir. Including hormones.
All in all, not exactly one of the most serious episodes in the series.