Best of Star Trek DS9---Little Green Men

"Little Green Men" is the 8th episode of the 4th season and was written by Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.

Quark gets a spaceship from his cousin in exchange for payment of a debt. So Quark, his brother Rom, and nephew Nog head toward Earth to deliver Nog to Starfleet Academy. Quark has ulterior plans---sell a banned substance to a planet on route.

The ship goes into warp and can't get out, indicating to them that the ship has been sabotaged by Quark's unscrupulous cousin. Rom figures out a way to use the smuggled cargo in the warp engines to slow the ship down. It crash lands on Earth (in New Mexico in 1947) and the three ferengi's are held up on a military base.

At first their universal translators, which are implanted in their lobes, are malfunctioning, making for a hilarious moment when the hapless humans are trying to figure out what their "Martian" friends are trying to convey.

 

Later, when they get their universal translators working, Quark tells them he has a business proposition for them, he can sell weapons to them in exchange for precious gold (because humans don't deal in latinum). He plans on staying on Earth and building an Empire. But unbeknownst to him, he had a stowaway on his ship--Odo, who was spying on Quark to find out what he planned on doing with the smuggled cargo.

Odo is having none of Quark's shit and tells him under no uncertain terms they are not staying and that their top priority is getting back to the ship, which is being held in a hanger nearby. Fortunately for them, two military brass, an army nurse and her scientist boyfriend, aid them in their escape.

Rom heads the ship toward an atomic bomb testing site and uses the energy from that, along with the kemocite that Quark smuggled,  to recreate the warp accident and send them back to present day star date.

This episode was a welcomed addition to the rather serious nature the series has taken since the encounter with the Dominion. It was funny and also showed us how primitive we are and/or have been with the scientific discoveries our species has made. In one highlight, Quark is alarmed to learn from Nog that we humans have used atomic energy as weapons.

It was also clever how the writers fit in the famous Roswell UFO crash landing incident in this story, making our Ferengi heroes the mystery behind the mystery.