False Profits

Investigating a wormhole that may lead to the Alpha Quadrant, Voyager detects replicator technology on Takar, a Bronze Age planet. The cause is two Ferengi, Arridor and Kol, who arrived years earlier after the events of the Next Generation episode “The Price”. Posing as the Great Sages of local prophecy, they have grown rich exploiting the population. Janeway wants them gone, but simply removing them could shatter the culture they have corrupted. Neelix is surgically disguised as a Ferengi Grand Proxy sent to arrest them, a ruse that almost works. Then the crew turns the Takarians' own legend against the Sages, staging a fiery departure to whisk them away just as the angry locals prepare to burn them. But the Ferengi steal a shuttle and fly into the wormhole, destabilising it. They are lost in space once again, and Voyager's shortcut home is lost with them.