I suppose I ought to buy you one when your shift ends - I'd be the one driving you to drink-and-think in the first place, and the least I could do is pay for the 'gas,' as it were.

Perhaps the Prophets accidentally sent the Orb of Star Trek to Earth?

I think Luke cares, and there's a few others who care… and I think it seems like the writers, at least on occasion, get that droids being treated as tools rather than people is cruel and thoughtless and wrong.

At least Sisko collects African art.

'As usual, the 24th century has embraced our own time's culture far more than any other era's, and that bothers me.'
In fairness, it's hard enough making your own stories, let alone making a culture from an alien time and/or society. Like, it'd be neat, and probably more successful in-universe, if Vic's was a…

To be fair… Quark is *not* just in business for the money. Otherwise, he'd be with Gaila, selling arms. Quark is a person who likes community, who likes to be liked, who values friendships - and while the latinum for the holosuites is all well and good, it won't necessarily make up for the lost companionship. And…

'Destiny' briefly had a bit of that - the guy who warns Sisko about the 'three vipers' and such is a defrocked Vedek - and likely defrocked because of his having opposed the peace treaty with Cardassia. But that's not really all that similar.
And they put EFFORT into the Ferengi episodes … but not the ones that grow…

WHY? Why mention it at all?

NuDisqus
Agent of conversational friction

Wait, that came from here?

And aliens can't? I suppose there's always a tension between aliens as worldbuilding and aliens as metaphors.
/I haven't actually watched Babylon Five.

'I'm not afraid.'
'You will be.'

I'd also recommend 'Conundrum' - not for any DS9-completist reasons, but because it's an interesting episode in its own right.

Or even that she's telling herself it's love so that she doesn't think of herself as a victim, so she can think of herself as having a modicum of control over her life.

Looking at it another way… Vic can access the computers, can create holocharacters, can instruct the computers to shut his program off. Can he edit himself and his program? How does he feel about the control end-users can have over his world, especially if he doesn't have that control? What does it mean for him to…

It's about how it's served, isn't it? Especially in an age of replicators - presentation, rather than quality, is probably paramount.

Well, the Enterprise would in theory have more use for a holodeck that can have reduced safety, such as for training - though I don't see why safety protocols should be able to be waived entirely, or at least not fail gracefully (e.g. shutting down the holoprogram if the protocols are failing).

Which is making me think of Plato's cave.

I suppose I'll have something to look forward to, then. And if either of us is just an implanted memory, at least we're pleasant memories, I trust.
To good times, real and created.

Point.