Nog

Nog was a Ferengi male born on the planet Ferenginar in the year 2353 (DS9 episodes Heart of Stone and Shadowplay). He was the only son of future Grand Nagus Rom, and Prinadora, the daughter of a successful Ferengi businessman named Dav (DS9 episodes Emissary, The Dogs of War and Doctor Bashir, I Presume?).

Nog was the first Ferengi to serve in Starfleet, and one of the only cadets to ever to beat the Kobayashi Maru scenario*. (Strange New Worlds VI, short story Best Tools Available). He served as Lieutenant and Chief engineer aboard the USS Defiant and Chief of Operations aboard starbase Deep Space 9.


 * *The short story Best Tools Available indicates that Nog is the first cadet since James T. Kirk to beat the Kobayashi Maru scenario. This is in contradiction with A Rock and a Hard Place and the No Limits short story Performance Appraisal'', which establish that cadet Quentin Stone also beat the "no-win scenario".

Early Life
Nog spent much of his time in his early years at the home of his grandfather, Dav, whom Nog remembered as being menacing and abusive. One of Dav's servants knew of a tunnel built by a previous owner (in case creditors came knocking on his door) of the house that Nog used frequently to get away from his grandfather.

When Nog was only five, his father's marriage contract to Prinadora expired. Dav, fooling Rom into believing that he was re-newing his marriage contract, swindled Rom out of everything he owned, leaving him with nothing but his son. Prinadora, like a good Ferengi female, simply did as her father told her.(DS9 novel: Worlds of Deep Space Nine volume three, "Ferenginar: Satisfaction is Not Guaranteed")

Terok Nor
With nowhere else to turn, Rom and Nog moved to the Cardassian space station Terok Nor in Cardassian occupied Bajoran space, where Nog's uncle Quark owned a bar.

Quark gave both Rom and Nog jobs at the bar, but paid them just enough to survive.

In early 2366, Nog and his family members were exposed to a variation of the Double Helix virus while on the station. They were quarantined aboard Terok Nor until a cure for the virus was found. (TNG novel Double Helix: Vectors)

Deep Space Nine
In 2369, the Cardassians withdrew from the Bajoran sector, and the Bajoran Provisional Government petitioned the United Federation of Planets for relief efforts. Command of the station was given to Starfleet, who re-christened the station Deep Space 9.

Nog quickly befriended Jake Sisko, son of the station's commander, Benjamin Sisko. When Nog was forbidden to attend the school run by Keiko O'Brien, Jake taught Nog how to read and write.

As Nog grew older, he realized that he had inherited his father knack for Engineering, a gift that the timid Rom was never able to make profitable.

In 2371, Nog was hired by Kai Winn Adami as a 'mission specialist' (safecracker) on a mission with the Bajoran militia and Starfleet to recover the Orb of Wisdom from the Maquis. Nog was able to observe Starfleet officers in action, and he found that he admired what they did and how they did it. Soon after, he convinced Captain Sisko to sponsor his application to Starfleet Academy. (DS9: Prophecy and Change short story: "The Orb of Opportunity")

Omega Squad
Upon arriving at the Academy in early 2372, Nog was placed in Omega Squad, under the training supervision of Commander Kyethn Zund. Nog's original teammates were cadets Pava Ek'Noor sh'Aqabaa of Andor, T'Priell of Vulcan, Matt Decker (Son of an Admiral and the latest in a very long line of Deckers in Starfleet), and the teams leader, Kamilah Goldstein of Earth.

Being the first Ferengi in Starfleet, Nog's presense at the Academy was met with resistance by his fellow cadets. In order to become more popular (and perhaps turn a profit) Nog installed an expander program in the Academy holodecks ramdomizer, in order to make the simulations more real.

Nog deleted the expander after unsuccessful test runs, but the expander had an effect on the computer nevertheless, granting it sentience.

Omega Squad was having its first team drill on the holodeck when the self-aware computer, beliving the cadets to be some sort of virus, tried to eliminate them. After the cadets convinced the computer that they were sentient beings as well, the newly formed sentience vacated the holodeck computer, departing for parts unknown. Starfleet was unable to duplicate the experiment that granted the computer sentience.(SA comic: #1 Prime Directives). Nog and Cadet Decker were becoming friends (much to the displeasure of Matt's other friends at the Academy), when Decker was approached to join Red Squad, a group of elite cadets who were often given special assignments.

When Red Squad was ordered to sabotage Earth's power grid, a act of treason, as a part of Admiral James Leyton's attempted military coup of the Federation, Decker refused to go along, and secretly passed along a warning to Nog. Nog and the rest of Omega managed to rescue Matt from the treasonous cadets. (SA comic: #3 Loyalty Test)

A few weeks later, a confrontation with the Klingon cadet squad First Cadre resulted in the death of squad leader, Kamillah Goldstein. Leadership of Omega Squad was given to Cadet Decker. (SA comic: #4 War and Peace, and #5 Love and Death

The Telepathy War
The opening in Omega Squads ranks was soon filled by Betazoid cadet, Edam Astrun, a telepath with the highest Psi-Q in his planets history. Astrun's presense was part of a Starfleet effort to root out shape-shifting Founders who may be hiding within Starfleets ranks.

Soon after Astrun's arrival, an attempt was made on his life and blame fell on Nog, who dreamed about the attack before he even knew about it. It was soon discovered that Astrun had actually been attacked by a Founder, and Nog's "dream" had actually been a telepathic warning from Astrun. Soon afterwards Omega Squad, with the recovered Astrun, tracked down and defeated the Changeling infiltrator. Before the Changeling died, however, Astrun got a glimpse into it's mind, including hints as to a major Dominion plot.(SA comic: #6 Passages, and #7 Hide and Seek)

Soon after, Astrun recieved a compulsive telepathic distress call from the Keepers of the forbidden world of Talos IV, a capital offense. At first unable to resist, Astrun stole a shuttlecraft, and set course for the forbidden world with his squadmates, including Nog, as passengers. He later shook off the compulsion to travel to Talos IV, but declared that he was going to go anyway, as Talosian lives were at stake. The rest of Omega squad agreed to accompany him despite the threat of the death penalty.

After arriving at Talos, the cadets found the world under siege by the Jem'Hadar, the brutal ground soldiers of the Dominion. The Dominion was using Talos as a testbed for a telepathic meme virus that was designed to incapacitate the telepathic species of the Alpha Quadrant. (SA comic: #9 Return to the Forbidden Planet, and #10 A Prelude To War)

The Cadets returned to Earth to warn the Federation of the threat, and were instead put on trial for the crime of visiting Talos IV. Despite the best efforts of their defence council, the legendary Ambassador Spock, the cadets were sentenced to death.

Nog's death sentence was immediately repealed because Starfleet was politically unwilling to execute it's first Ferengi recruit. Instead, the Academy shipped Nog back to DS9, for sophomore field studies. (SA comic: #11 Judgment, and #12 Renegades)

When Omega Squad escaped imprisonment a few weeks later, Nog helped them sneak aboard DS9 where they made an appeal to Captain Sisko.

While the rest of Omega met with Sisko, Nog found himself part of a skeleton crew aboard the USS Defiant that was fending off an attack by the Jem'Hadar and the Cardassians. (DS9 Marvel comic: #12 Command Decisions, and #13 Day of Honor)

By this time, T'Priell had begun to succumb to the Dominion's meme virus. Nog was assisting Doctor Julian Bashir in DS9's infirmary as he treated T'Priell. While helping in the infirmary, Nog was inadvertently a key player in Dr. Bashir and Cadet Astrun's (Astrun picked up an immunity to the virus when he brushed minds with Founder that tried to kill him) efforts to find the cure to the Dominion's virus.

The rest of Omega Squad was soon exonerated for their crimes, and their death sentences repealed.(Star Trek Marvel comic: The Telepathy War Special)

T'Priell
Later that year, Omega Squad and Commander Zund were declared dead while on a training exercise. Neither Nog nor Matt Decker's best friend, Cadet Yoshi Mishima, accepted that Omega Squad was truly gone, so they took leaves of absences from their studies, and went on a rescue mission.

When they finally found Omega Squad on an unnamed world on the edge of known space, they discovered that the cadets were being held by the Romulan Tal Shiar, and that the cadet they had known as T'Priell was actually a Romulan named Selke.

Selke had possesed the Katra of the real T'Priell for several years, ever since the real T'Priell's death keeping advanced technololgy out of the hands of the Tal Shiar. Selke and T'Priell had become friends in the short time that they had known each other, and T'Priell trusted her to return her katra to Vulcan.

A Tal Shiar Sub-Commander named Thokol had a different idea, molding Selke into an undercover Romulan agent, who didn't even know who she really was. When the Selke persona became dominant, she turned on Omega Squad, and brought them to Thokol.

Nog provided the distraction needed to escape by causing his Ferengi vessel to self-destruct. In all of this confusion, the real battle ws being fought inside the mind of Selke. A Vulcan Katra was never meant to held for long periods of time by untrained minds and T'Priell was fighting back, gaining dominance. Eventually, the two personas stopped fighting each other, and merged, forming a new distinct, third personality. The merged being (who chose the name "T'Priell" as that's what her friends best knew her by) chose to leave with Omega Squad.

Nog and the cadets escaped with a little help from the Romulan Underground and were soon bound for DS9 by way of the USS Sagan. (SA comic: #14 Betrayals, #15 Origins, and #16 The Fall'')

2374-2375
When war broke out with the Dominion in late 2373 and Starfleet was forced to abandon Bajor and DS9, Nog spent several months attached to the USS Defiant during major combat operations.

In six months time, Nog saw as much or more combat duty as many seasoned veterans. Starfleet acknowledged this by granting Nog a field promotion to the rank of Ensign, just prior to the successful battle to retake the Bajoran system from the Dominion. (DS9 episode novelization: Call to Arms..., ...Sacrifice of Angels)

Over the next two years, Nog saw a great deal of combat duty. In a groundbattle on a barren planetoid designated AR-558, Nog lost his leg to Jem Hadar phaser fire, and needed a bio-synthetic replacement.

After the war, in one of his last official acts before his ascension from the linear plane, Captain Sisko put Nog up for a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant, which was granted. (DS9 episode novelization: What You Leave Behind)

Just before Lieutenant Commander Worf departed Deep Space 9 to begin serving as Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire, as a going away present Nog gave him a Ferengi phaser which he swore was immune to most forms of tampering. He was right and Worf was able to use the phaser even under a dampening field and was able to stop a group of Klingon rebels from taking over the Federation Embassy on Qo'noS. (TNG novel: A Time for War, A Time for Peace)

2376
Nog briefly served as station Chief of security aboard DS9 until a permanent replacement for Odo could be found. (DS9 comic: "N-Vector")

In April, Nog was part of a maintainance team on-board the Defiant that was forced to do battle with three rogue Jem'Hadar vessels that sought to erase the shame of losing the previous war by starting a new one.

Also arriving at the station at this time was the Jem'Hadar observer Taran'atar, sent by Odo to observe the people and culture of the Alpha Quadrant. Due to his experience at AR-558, Nog was unable to accept Taran'atar as anything but a Jem'Hadar killer. (DS9 novel: Avatar books one and two)

When DS9 needed a new fusion core, Nog was the one who came up with the solution. Working with the SCE crew from the USS da Vinci, Nog managed to have the derelect Cardassian station Empok Nor towed from the Trivas system to the Bajoran system, to serve as spareparts (including a fusion core) for DS9. (SCE eBook: Cold Fusion; DS9 novel: Section 31: Abyss)

In May, Nog and station Science officer Thirishar ch'Thane discovered a way to briefly disrupt a network of Iconian Gateways during the "Gateways Crisis". (DS9 novel: Gateways: Demons of Air and Darkness) In August, while on an exploratory mission of the Gamma Quadrant onboard the Defiant, Nog encountered an extremely alien artifact called both cathedral and anethema by local species.

Contact with the object briefly connected Nog with an alternate reality version of himsef that had never lost a leg. The result was a physiological 're-set' of Nog's physical being, causing his leg to regenerate. However, keeping the leg meant becoming that alternate Nog, and never join Starfleet.

Nog decided to return to the cathedral to have the 're-set' reversed. After coming to terms with his injury and realizing that Taran'atar was not the Jem'Hadar that shot his leg off, Nog was restored to his original physical state. (DS9 novel: Mission Gamma: Cathedral)

In November, Nog spent a week on Ferenginar to attend the birth of his half-sister Bena, daughter of Grand Nagus Rom and his Bajoran wife Leeta. While he was on Ferenginar he visted his mother for the first ime since he was a small child, and helped his father stave off an attempt by Congressman Brunt to have Rom removed as Grand Nagus. (DS9 novel Worlds of Deep Space Nine volume three: "Ferenginar: Satisfaction is Not Guaranteed")