The Littlest Hobo Has a Time Machine

Summary: Quark is sold some salvage containing a baby Jem'Hadar that Odo attempts to raise. The Sisko invites Jake's girlfriend to dinner.

Rionoj (the purple-haired Boslic Captain) returns to cause problems! Love that for her. Mardah is four years older than Jake (and looks much older than Cirroc Lofton, that's for darned sure) and works at Quark's, distracting marks with her décolletage. It really is disconcerting how mature she looks in that first scene (Darci said she looks 30. I can't disagree, but also the styling of young women in the 90s is sure something... there's a reason almost every women's wrestler from the attitude era looked as good or better twenty years later... the eyebrows, the liner...)

I'm with O'Brien on this one. Godspeed, Jake Sisko.

It's a great contrast when she comes for dinner though. As I'm sure any Bajoran would tell you (evidence under: Ro Laren, Kira Nerys, etc) there's a difference between having to grow up and being grown up, and Mardah does indeed show the Commander that she does indeed have a puppy love for Jake, at least for the moment, gushing about his poetry to his dad, who is delighted by this development.

Meanwhile, Odo has a fancy new cabin, a housewarming gift from Kira and a real point to try and prove about 'his people' and their genetically engineered super soldiers.

Odo demonstrates the uh, ease with which one may smile.

The message being sent about The Dominion here, and the genetic encoding in their designer servitors, is that they are indeed an immovable object. Insofar as they can be understood, they can be understood to be just as implacable as the Borg but vastly more wily. And uh, not solved by some kind intentions and Odo's version of tutelage (precepts and principles he finds easy to internalize.)