Meanwhile, the Bajoran moon of Jeraddo is about to have its core tapped, turning it into a moon-sized power plant that will provide power to several hundred thousand homes on Bajor. The relatively few residents of the moon have been evacuated because the process will render the moon uninhabitable. But when Dax and Kira take a runabout on a routine check, they discover three lifeforms still present on the surface.
Beaming down to the surface, Kira is confronted by two mute Bajorans brandishing farm tools at her. They are called off by a third Bajoran, a cranky old farmer named Mullibok.
Back on DS9, Nog and Jake attempt to sell their stock of Yamok sauce to an alien freighter captain who deals with Cardassians. He turns down the purchase but offers an exchange: 14,400 self-sealing stem bolts that were set to be purchased by a Bajoran who was short on cash. Nog isn't too thrilled about not getting any latinum, but Jake convinces him to agree. He promptly acquires Quark's allegedly worthless supply of Yamok sauce for the trade, Quark being content that someone else is doing the legwork disposing of it for him.
Back on Jeraddo, Mullibok is doing all he can to stall Kira, making a dinner that will take several hours to prepare and trying to alienate Kira badly enough that she'll leave. This has the opposite effect: Kira finds herself taking a shine to the old man. Mullibok knows Jeraddo's core is set to be tapped, but he doesn't care. He's staying on his farm to the bitter end.
Mullibok starts telling tall tales about how he came to start farming on Jeraddo, such as digging with his bare hands, and crushing mineralized dirt with his teeth. Kira decides to share her stories of the resistance in turn. When Mullibok makes light of the occupation, Kira is indignant, explaining that the only reason they weren't wiped out was that they were "hanging on like fanatics." Much to her dismay, she realizes her resistance cell's attitude is much like Mulllibok's, and he's still not moving.
Nog and Jake inspect their supply of self-sealing stem bolts, only to realize they have no idea what they do. Even O'Brien has never heard of these things before. Stuck with a huge crate of mysterious parts, Jake and Nog (under the alias of the "Noh-Jay Consortium") contact the intended recipient. He still doesn't have the cash but offers yet another exchange: seven tessipates of land on Bajor. Nog isn't thrilled about getting dirt and no money, but Jake once again convinces him the land is a worthwhile acquisition.
Returning to DS9, Kira tries convincing the government to stall or use slower methods, but they're having none of it. Three people aren't worth depriving several hundred thousands of power. Kira is informed that the project is happening, whether or not Mullibok leaves.
Returning to his cottage with security, Kira again tries convincing him to leave. But the situation goes FUBAR when Mullibok's mute associates attack the security team. Mullibok loses it and tries strangling the security member, forcing the other to shoot him. He survives, but still won't move. After Bashir treats his injuries, Kira stays behind to look after him and talk him into leaving.
Sisko visits her on Jerrado and manages to uncover why Kira is so adamant about helping him: She's been in his position before: a much-trampled underdog at the mercy of powerful government forces. He assures her she's on the right side, that Bajor needs her, and leaves her to come up with a solution to the impasse.
While brooding in their usual corner, Jake and Nog overhear their big break: The Bajoran Government is trying to build on a strip of land owned by four different interests. They've been able to close the deal with three of the owners, but the mysterious "Noh-Jay Consortium" is impossible to reach. Nog reveals he and Jake are that consortium and offers his uncle a very lucrative business opportunity, for a mere 5 bars of gold-pressed latinum, of course.
Returning again to Mullibok, Kira helps him finish a kiln he's been working on and then says, now that it's done, it's time to leave. She's bringing this episode to a conclusion whether Mullibok he likes it or not.
The old man tells her for the thousandth time that as long as his home is there, that's where he's staying. In response, Kira phasers the newly-built kiln and torches his house, leaving him nowhere to return. He asks her to kill him too, but she refuses, saying she won't let him. The episode ends with her preparing to beam Mullibok and herself off the moon.
"Progress" provides examples of:
- Chain of Deals: Jake and Nog's subplot.
- Cool Old Guy: Mullibok is a nice, if supernaturally stubborn, old man.
- Death Seeker: Mullibok asks Kira to kill him at the end of the episodes, saying he will die if he leaves his home. Kira refuses to kill him.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Why is Jake the one having to convince Nog to work through a Chain of Deals to make a profit when Nog is disgruntled at not being able to get Latinum upfront? Later episodes (particularly "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River") would establish Ferengi (especially Nog) as expert traders, not just aliens with a Money Fetish.
- Fantastic Measurement System: Jake and Nog at one point acquire seven "tessipates" of land. Even in-universe they have no idea how big a plot that is, but since the buyer is the only person who knows what the stembolts they have to trade even are they roll with it.
- Insult Backfire:Sisko: You know, you're causing a lot of trouble.Mullibok: I can't tell you how delighted I am to hear that.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: This episode highlights just how belligerent Quark can be with his brother... and several times shows just how kind he often is to his nephew, at one point calming himself down purely so he can tell Nog "You're a good boy."
- Kavorka Man: Dax mentions that Morn tried to ask her out. This is the first mention that he's more than just a permanent fixture at Quark's.
- Made of Incendium: Kira barely has to touch Mullibok's house with a lit torch to set it to burning merrily.
- The Münchausen: Mullibok, on occasion. He likes to tell fantastic stories about how he overpowered the entire crew of a Cardassian ship while escaping to Jeraddo (well, there were only six of them...) and how he plowed the fields of what became his farm using only his fingernails. Of course, Kira doesn't buy a word of it, but she finds it entertaining.Mullibok: So once again starvation and I were staring each other in the face. I'm not boring you?
Kira: No, no. I want to hear who won. - The Needs of the Many: In full effect here. Three stubborn farmers aren't going to stop progress. Unfortunately the social commentary on eminent domain is turned into a
Broken Aesop because of massive scale issues. - Not Me This Time: Odo is slightly taken aback when Quark says that he's completely ignorant of what this "Noh-Jay Consortium" is, despite having knowledge of, and often a hand in, every shady deal on the station.
- Reverse Psychology: Mullibok has a habit of driving off people by annoying them with long-winded anecdotes. When Sisko expresses interest in one of Mullibok's stories, however, Mullibok chooses not to bother with it.
- Running Gag: The crew's epic quest to discover what the hell self-sealing stem bolts are begins.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale:
- Nowadays, powering a few hundred thousand homes wouldn't require tapping the core of the planet, there are several alternatives offered by late 20th/early 21st century technology. Imagine how much the technology would improve between now and 2370.
- Geothermal power plants would work just fine without causing any ecological desolation. Icelandnote already gets most of its power this way. There's also the added bonus of essentially free heat for many homes, as well.
- Solar power can be used for heatingreally! and power. In 300 years there would probably be the technology to put huge solar satellites in orbit that would transmit the power to the surface.
- Hydroelectric power doesn't always require big dams on a river. Alternatives can best be described as "windmills under water," whether that water is a river or the ocean. Speaking of windmills...
- Wind power. If there's an atmosphere, there's wind.
- Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. Familiar to players of Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire as the Thermocline Transducer, these devices abuse the sharp temperature differential in water on either sides of a layer called the thermocline. Combine that with the thermoelectric effect
and you've got instant power anywhere the ocean is deep enough. - Not to mention fusion energy which is firmly established as being in Bajor and the Federation's technote and is clean as well.
- On another note, the notion that an habitable, albeit inhospitable, moon orbiting a heavily-populated, warp-capable planet would only have fifty people living on it is pretty difficult to swallow. If The Moon had a biosphere and Earth-like gravity, we'd probably have colonized it back in the sixties. Even if you assume that the Cardassians drove most of the population away, one has to wonder why the Cardassians didn't colonize it themselves.
- Nowadays, powering a few hundred thousand homes wouldn't require tapping the core of the planet, there are several alternatives offered by late 20th/early 21st century technology. Imagine how much the technology would improve between now and 2370.
- Series Continuity Error: Only four episodes ago, in "The Nagus", it was stated that Bajor has three moons, but in this episode they are drilling one of its five moons.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Though he wasn't in the military, Mullibok has some pretty obvious PTSD from his time in Cardassian imprisonment.
- Sherlock Can Read: At first, it seems that O'Brien knows about self-sealing stembolts. But then O'Brien admits that he has never heard of them, and the only reason he even knew what the cargo was is because he read it on a manifest pad.
- So Proud of You: Implied with Quark toward Nog when he realizes that his nephew and Jake are the "Noh-Jay Consortium" in possession of a parcel of land wanted by the Bajoran government.
- Trash the Set: The episode ends with Kira destroying Mullibok's kiln and torching his house.
- The Voiceless: Mullibok's two farmer friends. All we know is "The Cardassians saw to that."
