How Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Resolves Deep Area 9’s Largest Storyline – SlashFilm – The Imperial Wire Insider

This text incorporates spoilers for “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” episode 5, “Collection Acclimation Mil.”

Within the newest episode of “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” (learn our season 1 evaluation right here). the character of Sam (Kerrice Brooks) reveals that she’s serving as an emissary for her residence planet of Kasq, a planet populated solely by dwelling, clever holograms. Sam was programmed to look, assume, and behave like a 17-year-old, however she was truly solely created a number of months earlier, giving her a worthwhile, childlike naïveté. Her programmers created Sam to be the emissary to her species, despatched to Starfleet Academy to collect details about natural life kinds — one thing Sam’s photonic individuals know little about.

As a result of she is an emissary, Sam is drawn to different well-known emissaries in “Star Trek” historical past, notably, the long-lost Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) from “Star Trek: Deep Area 9.” On “Deep Area 9,” Sisko was the primary individual to return into contact with a species of non-corporeal aliens that lived inside a steady wormhole close to the planet of Bajor. The Bajoran clergy felt that the wormhole aliens had been truly godlike Prophets of their faith, which means Sisko turned an vital Bajoran spiritual determine referred to as the Emissary to the Prophets.

“Deep Area 9” resulted in 1999 after seven seasons, and Sisko, after struggling along with his standing as a spiritual determine, lastly accepted that there’s a religious dimension to the universe. He entered the wormhole and by no means emerged, maybe turning into a non-corporeal deity himself. The destiny of Captain Sisko has been a query mark ever since. 

“Starfleet Academy” nevertheless, lastly reveals what occurred to Sisko — or fairly, what did not occur to him. Over eight centuries after the top of “Deep Area 9” (when “Starfleet Academy” is ready) there may be nonetheless no report that Sisko ever returned.

Lately, “Star Trek” has revisited the characters and settings of “Deep Area 9” a number of occasions. On “Star Trek: Picard,” a brand new era of characters checked out the usS. Defiant, a starship from DS9, on show at a ship museum. The characters from “Star Trek: Decrease Decks” additionally visited DS9 on one event, though that collection was set only some years after the occasions of “Deep Area 9.” There was no point out of Captain Sisko in these cases, nevertheless, as he was, so far as anybody knew, nonetheless contained in the wormhole. Or maybe lifeless. Nobody may say. 

“Starfleet Academy” is ready many centuries after the occasions of “Deep Area 9,” and it appears Sisko’s thriller was by no means solved. After 820 years, one can safely assume that Sisko’s disappearance is formally a chilly case, and other people have lengthy accepted that he won’t return. In a method, that solves the thriller. That is the decision. So far as Trekkies know, his final motion on our airplane of existence was to psychically contact his spouse, Kassidy (Penny Johnson Jerald), after ascending. Sisko introduced that he might return sometime, however remains to be clearly biding his time after almost a millennium. 

Benjamin Sisko has, within the timeline of “Starfleet Academy,” develop into an historical conundrum, one that may by no means be solved. He vanished into the wormhole, by no means to emerge. He is just like the misplaced colonists of Roanoke, or the civilization of Indus Valley. Sisko mysteriously vanished from historical past, leaving historians baffled and Academy college students eternally intrigued. Sam learns so much about Sisko through recovered relics and logs and photos, however the finish of his life stays a query mark. And for a personality who primarily advanced right into a deity, that is wholly becoming. 

Sam by no means involves any strong conclusions about Sisko, however “Starfleet Academy” does form of put a button on the matter. Sam appears to be like by previous books and data, and finds some private essays written by Sisko’s son, Jake (Cirroc Lofton). Sam reads by them, and imagines herself speaking to Jake, studying about Sisko’s precise worth on this universe. Sisko was a very good good friend, an amazing function mannequin, and an amazing father. He might have been the Emissary to the Prophets, however to Jake, he was simply Dad, and Jake missed his dad when he vanished. So far as Trek’s personal historical past is anxious, Sisko’s energy of character stays, even when his precise whereabouts are unknown.

“Starfleet Academy” does not appear to deal with that Sisko was additionally a confessed conflict prison. It appears that evidently Sisko’s private logs, whereby he admitted to committing atrocities, remained deleted in perpetuity. Sisko was, greater than different “Star Trek” captains, a fancy determine with typically doubtful morals. That makes him a way more fascinating character than loads of different “Star Trek” captains.

Sisko did truly emerge from the wormhole after the occasions of “Deep Area 9,” though it is not thought-about canon, because it was a part of a “Star Trek” comedian ebook referred to as “Godshock,” revealed in 2023. The occasions of “Star Trek” comics usually are not historic, nor are parallel timeline tales whereby Sisko emerged and had an extended life. Sam would not concentrate on these timelines anyway. So far as the central timeline is anxious, Sisko vanished and remained gone. 

He may nonetheless return, his life prolonged by being non-corporeal, however till it occurs, that is still mere hypothesis.