 Quick Facts:
- Occupation:
Owner and bartender/host of Quark's Bar aboard Deep Space Nine
- Full Name: Quark
- Year of birth: c. 2333, Terran equivalent
- Place of birth: Ferenginar
- Parents: Ishka and the late Keldar
- Marital status: Single
- First Seen: "Emissary" (DS9)
Complete Bios:
FROM
STARTREK.COM
Quark, one of the most
influential of modern Ferengi thanks to his location at Deep
Space Nine when the Bajoran wormhole was discovered, owns
Quark's Bar on DS9's Promenade, but hates being called a
"barkeep," preferring "host" instead as he fancies himself an
empathetic dispenser of advice as well as a goodwill ambassador
and legitimate entrepreneur extrordinaire. He also caters formal
affairs for the Starfleet crew and named a new souffle creation
after Kai Winn when the Bajor-Cardassian peace treaty was
signed. In reality, he has the reputation of getting anything
for a price — with the help of a network of sources who also
help him keep a hand in most illegal or illicit trade and deals
going on around the station. He has even tried to force sex by
contract from the unwitting Dabo girls who work for him; an
employee's error is made up from garnished pay. When Odo calls
him "disgusting," he proudly boasts: "Til the day I die!" and
says lying is a gift. But he does sometimes show remorse out of
guilt for even his own actions, and relishes the thrill of
gambling, even in business; otherwise, he has said, the trade
comes off as simple bartering.
His only sibling is younger brother Rom, whom he often teased
and tortured as "lobeless." Quark even stole Rom's naming day
presents from Keldar, replacing the gifts resold at a profit
with old vegetables. His father bought him his first copy of the
Rules of Acquisition, but it was his mother who helped him learn
them — a repeated pattern, the truth of which he ignored until
much later in life, feeling his father had been hounded by his
mother's rebellious independence.
In 2351, upon celebrating his Age of Ascension rites, he left
home as soon as possible despite his father's advice to stay
close; doing so 10 years ahead of Rom, he missed out on Keldar's
ongoing business failures prior to his death. In his 20s, Quark
apprenticed with a District Sub-Nagus until he slept with the
boss's sister and lost his fast-track standing. He later served
on a Ferengi freighter for eight years, where he learned some
engineering and transporter skills while serving as its cook.
 By the 2360s he was running a black market from then-Terok Nor
for the occupied Bajorans and illegally sold food to them at
cost, while earning his exclusive casino franchise by catering
to Gul Dukat and the occupying Cardassians with freebies. One
Cardassian contact in particular was Glinn Boheeka. By this time
Rom and his young son Nog had moved to the station, and Quark
has fondly recalled reading the tyke basic Ferengi stories
Amid the shambles of Cardassian withdrawal from newly renamed
DS9 in 2369, his plans to leave were changed when Starfleet
commander Sisko threatened to jail his nephew Nog for a petty
theft if he left — along with enticements such as free rent,
power and maintenance. It was a fateful change, leading to
contacts with Grand Nagus Zek and the Dominion. He even served a
week as the Nagus and faced death threats when Zek faked his
demise to trick his unfaithful son.
The next year, having led a trade mission to contact the Karemma
of the Dominion, he became the first Ferengi to meet a Jem'Hadar
and Vorta of the Dominion when captured with Sisko on their
Gamma Quadrant vacation eight months later. That led to Zek's
request in 2371 that he be aboard the Defiant's first Dominion
contact mission. Married temporarily to Klingon matriarch Grilka,
he faced down her rival D'Ghor before the Klingon High Council
on Qo'noS to save her house after murdering her husband Kozak in
self-defense in the bar.
Quark knows at least the worst of human history, and while he
speaks out against superior Terran attitudes, he can be as
racist as anyone. Quark saved his much-cherished Ferengi culture
from the Bajoran Prophets' idealism later that year when he
experienced an orb vision and single-handedly restored the Nagus
to his previous state. Future cultural decisions were not so
clear-cut, though: he was secretly forced to allow his employees
to unionize in 2372 despite Ferengi Commerce Authority
intervention. He finally made up with his mother the year after
revisiting the homeworld for the first time in 20 years when
Ishka refused to renounce her feminist ways, endangering Quark's
livelihood of fines and support.
Even Rom finally began to find some backbone as the 2370s
dawned, standing up to Quark regarding their mother, his biased
view of their parents, and finally Nog's application to
Starfleet Academy — the latter a move Quark actually tried to
sabotage. The next year, he nearly stranded all three in 1947
Earth as lab specimens.
Aside from his crushes on Dax and Kira, Quark had a surprising
one-month fling in 2363 with Cardassian journalist Natima Lang,
the love of his life. She didn't turn him in for aiding
Bajorans, but felt betrayed and broke off the affair when he
used her secret access codes to be paid for bogus goods — a
much-regretted act seven years later, when she turned up as a
Cardassian dissident. He also fell for Pel, a feminist like his
mother whom he could not commit to after her revelation as a
female cost Quark a cut of all the Grand Nagus' future Gamma
Quadrant profits. Despite his tough stance, though, he has
always been a sucker for a pretty face of any species. When he
once chided O'Brien over his marriage troubles for not following
the submissive-female way of the Ferengis, he was evasive when
asked why he's still single.
He engages Odo in a running battle of wits, but while it gets
vicious at times, there is mutual respect and even affection
present. Despite his pride at escaping detection, he has been
caught red-handed in crime more than once but served only petty
penalties. He still retains old Cardassian security clearances
through Level 7 — one higher than Odo — and knows enough about
engineering to install a small cloaking device in ships not
normally made for them. Lock-picking of all kinds is another
skill.
In a battle of wits, a rival casino opened by Martus Mazur
across the Promenade almost sunk his bar in 2370 until Quark
planned a Bashir-O'Brien racquetball rematch to get his
customers back. If he didn't know the sport by then, he learned
it quickly enough to call the remote play-by-play. He also
enjoys the Ferengi game of Tongo, of course; Dax says he
scratches his left ear just before Acquiring, a dead giveaway.
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