However, these characters were also flawed, perhaps none more so than Captain Benjamin Sisko. This raises the question: why did Starfleet not only give him command of the Deep Space 9 station, but also have him commanding the defense fleet during the Dominion war?
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At the start of the show, the morally turbulent Sisko is made out to be something of a loose cannon, someone who Starfleet does not think too highly of. It’s important to that when he was put in charge of DS9, it was before the wormhole to the gamma quadrant opened up. When he took command, the space station had no real significance or importance. Instead, it was a run down old Cardassian station in the middle of nowhere. Starfleet effectively tried to sweep Sisko under the rug, banishing him to the other side of the quadrant. When the wormhole opened up, however, this all changed. Now the station was at the forefront of a new and unexplored quadrant of space, and became one of the most tactically advantageous positions for the Federation.
If it were up to Starfleet at this point, with Sisko’s track record, they would most likely have replaced him. However, there was that little issue of him becoming the Emissary for the Bajorans. This position was thrust onto Sisko, but meant Starfleet had their hands tied. Replacing him and taking him away from the wormhole would have caused massive upheaval in the brokered peace of the area, putting the station and thus access to the wormhole at great risk. Starfleet are obviously not too happy about this, and send security officers Michael Eddington and the fan favorite Worf to keep an eye on him, and report back and shenanigans the man might get up to.
Things start to change, however, as Sisko sinks into his role, and manages to bear the enormous weight that now lies on his shoulders. There is a strange sense of political unease during the first few seasons. The Federation are walking a dangerous line between war with multiple parties, the Cardassians most of all, but also the looming threat of the Dominion. This comes to a head in season four when the Klingons have had enough, and try to invade the station to launch an attack on the Cardassians. Sisko masterfully deals with the situation, practically staving off the threat and stopping the invasion single-handedly. Sisko and his rag-tag crew save the day multiple times, stop invasions left right and center, and are constantly keeping the peace between various parties under their care. Eventually, these actions lead to Starfleet gaining a lot of respect for the man.
When looking at the timeline of DS9, it’s also important to remember that this was a troubling time for Starfleet, only 10 years after the disastrous events of Wolf-359. They had lost many of their more experienced captains, wiped out by the single Borg cube, leaving much fewer officers with proper wartime experience. This combined with the sense of complacency that had spread across the Federation, left a hole where strong and capable military/wartime leaders should have been. Now, Sisko was proving himself to be able to fill it.
Sisko remained in a unique position, one that audiences had never truly seen a captain in. He had personal relationships with Cardassians, the Bajorans, the Klingon empire, the Romulans, and even the Dominion, giving him far more diplomatic power than Federation official, or previously seen captian. When war breaks out between individual parties, he has the prime knowledge and personal connection to know each leader involved, and why they are doing it. This made him one of the best-connected officers in the Federation, able to not only help, but understand the situation from a personal level.
The captain may have started out as a poorly perceived, authority-disobeying officer, who seemed to only be in Starfleet now because he didn’t know what else to do. But over the course of his series, this quickly changed. Through one lucky break with the wormhole and Bajorans, Sisko slowly worked his way up the ladder, cultivating relationships with all the major players in the Star Trek franchise. He became one of the most influential and pivotal captains in all of Starfleet. It’s no wonder why Starfleet felt him capable for commanding the defense efforts during the Dominion war, recognizing him for the great captain he was, warts and all.
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