The Star Trek: DS9 Character Who Only Spoke Once (And Only In Germany)

Over the years there have been a number of incredible side characters in the "Star Trek" franchise, from across a wide range of alien races. Each series in the franchise has had its own background characters who helped make the starships (and space stations) feel more inhabited and alive, and most of them got to say a line now and then, bringing background noise to the common areas. 

Every side character, of course, except for one particular patron of everyone's favorite Ferengi bar, Quark's. Despite appearing in 93 episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," the alien bar customer Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd) never utters a single line of dialogue ... except in Germany. 

It turns out that in the German cut of the season 2 finale "The Jem'Hadar," Morn actually got to mutter a line of dialogue after Quark (Armin Shimerman) totally blew him off. It's hard to imagine what Morn would sound like, and while the character's silence is pretty funny, it would have been neat to hear him speak at least once in English. After all, he's based on Norm (George Wendt) from "Cheers," and Norm had plenty to say! 

Oh well, at least we'll always have German Morn and his one little line.

In the "DS9" season 2 finale, bartender/bar owner Quark (arguably the greatest "Star Trek" character of them all) tells Morn that he's listening to his needs as a friend and not just a bartender when the station's Chief of Security, Odo (René Auberjonois), walks through the bar and Quark is immediately distracted, running away to pester Odo about a way to get the station's commander to like him better. Morn has apparently been nursing the same drink all day, which isn't like him, and he's looking rather glum (though it's all body language; Morn's frown is perpetual, even when he's happy). Instead of coming back and listening to Morn's troubles, Quark ends up going on a camping trip with his nephew, the commander, and his son. In the American version of the episode, Morn just sort of sadly shrugs in the background as Quark leaves for the camping trip, but in the German version, he actually voiced his frustration.

In the German cut of the episode (on YouTube), after Quark leaves Morn shrugs and mutters "dann nicht," which literally translates to "then not" or "then don't," which is the rough equivalent to our "well fine then" or "so much for that." It's played for humor because Morn pretty regularly gets the short end of the stick around Quark's, since Quark knows his most loyal customer will put up with a bit of neglect. It's only when Morn's gone that Quark realizes his value, so maybe his silence helps the audience feel more like Quark? Whatever the reasoning, it turns out Morn wasn't always supposed to be the strong, silent type.

In an interview with StarTrek.com, Shepherd revealed that while he got to speak in a behind-the-scenes bit on-camera, there had been plans at more than one point for him to speak onscreen as Morn:

"That was the only time I got to say anything while the cameras were rolling, but's not the only time that they considered Morn for a speaking part. There have been numerous scripts where they originally had Morn speaking. One such script had to do with the alternate universe. Unfortunately, they always got written out."

While it makes sense to stick with Morn being silent in the main universe, having a speaking Morn in the mirror universe would be absolutely amazing since things are usually flipped on their head there. For example, the mirror version of Quark is a do-gooder who uses his position as bartender to help Terrans (humans) enslaved by the Klingons, Bajorans, and Cardassians, and even ends up giving his life to save them. A speaking Morn would have made sense there and wouldn't have ruined the joke otherwise, but maybe it was one of the more serious mirror episodes and it simply didn't work tonally. 

Whether or not he speaks one line or none at all, Morn is one of the best background characters in all of "Star Trek," and he deserves some love.