This was a casual side conversation between Bashir and Sisko about a fellow crew member, completely unrelated to the episode’s plot, and its just so sweet.
It’s nice to know that if you’re a pregnant father-to-be on DS9, your buddies Julian and Miles will build you a hatchling pond, buy you baby clothes, and throw you a shower eagerly attended by the station’s commanding officer (who was practically beaming with joy when he found out that you were expecting).
How wonderful.
And they speak of it so casually with no judgement! Love this!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OH MY GOD. I DID NOT KNOW THIS.
Vilix’pran gets mentioned a couple more times on the show, and we find out that:
A) he buds twice more, and had quadruplets during his second budding and an unspecified number for his third, bringing the total number of babies to between eight and 18
B) Kira says she’ll have to assign him bigger quarters after the third budding
C) and the babies have wings that can get tangled up with each other when they play together
D) AND ALSO that Vilix’pran gets promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant (so clearly Starfleet has some rockin’ maternity/paternity policies and thus parenthood is not an obstacle to career advancement)
watching regular starfleet people try to adjust to how things work on ds9 is so funny. worf shows up and nearly has a conniption because yOU GUYS KNOW THIS GUY IS ENGAGING IN CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES, WHY ARE YOU JUST LETTING IT HAPPEN. and literally everyone, security chief included, is like “lol that’s just quark”
i'll apple your turnover 