In almost 30 years since Deep Space Nine finished, Star Trek Fans have had plenty of time to demystify what makes the show work in a kind of fandom canon, part of a longer process of re-litigating the wider reputation of the show in the years from the first controversial beginning to mature and defiant iconoclast in the franchise. Part of this is the canonization of Captain Sisko and what he represents Star Trek as he took his place among the legacy of various captains in the series.

For the most part, that canonization shows Deep Space NineThe wider, rebuilt reputation. If the show itself is the exploration of the dark heart of Star Trekthen so is Sisko: he is the man who is willing to sacrifice his soul to save trillions of lives; he’s the deal-maker in the shadows at odds with the lofty ideals of someone like Jean-Luc Picard. What makes Sisko so great, always these episodes like “In the Pale Moonlight” or “Far Beyond the Stars,” or moments like him thinking about the ease of being a saint in paradise in episodes like “The Maquis.”

Starfleet Academyset another 800 years after Sisko and DS9 came out of the picture, it would have been easy to get a similar track to repeat it by Sisko and Deep Space Nineit’s over. It is, after all, in some ways, the Deep Space Nine in his own time of Star Treknot in its dark tone but in its relationship Finding reflection Deep Space Ninerelationship with The Next Generation. This is a show about challenging what is Star Trek is and what are its institutions in the face of an existential crisis similar to that represented by the Dominion War. The symbol of a person who is willing to challenge the status quo and make many sacrifices in the name of the people who follow him deserves DS9the legacy as it is Starfleet Academycharting of Star Trekof current furthest future.

but Starfleet Academy so-same Deep Space Nine is—a show about juking when it’s expected to jive and march to its own beat. So it’s only fitting that this exploration of Sisko’s impact on Star Trek universe in this week’s episode, “Series Acclimation Mil,” did the same and remembered what Sisko’s true legacy will always be: the bonds he made with his friends and family.

This is something that Deep Space Nine interested in from just at the beginningas this is what Sisko will be most remembered by fans. What caused Sisko’s anger towards Picard DS9The pilot is not necessarily a difference in characteristics and methods – it is that he holds Picard responsible for the death of his wife during the battle of Wolf 359, without stopping Sisko’s life more than the representational shock of one of the bloodiest Starfleet battles that could represent for the wider franchise. The reason for his rise and acceptance of the Prophets of the Bajoran Wormhole in the beginning is not the destined destiny that we know makes Sisko a spiritual icon, but his attempt to explain the incredible feeling of man who has lost a bond like he has with his wife to godlike aliens.

Sisko’s connection with his family and friends is very full Deep Space Nine—his relationship with Dax and Jake, two things that became the core of Starfleet AcademyRemembering him through Dax’s latest host, Professor Illa, and Sam’s exploration of Jake’s life after Sisko transcended the physical realm following the events of DS9it’s over. His relationship with his father and their connection through food, which Starfleet Academy touched when Sam tried to make Sisko understand better by imitating gumbo for his own friends to try.

But the thrill of that other, more accepted memory of Sisko’s legacy sits on the edges of the Starfleet Academytribute to It wasn’t respected, but the show made it clear that it wasn’t interested in bringing back its often-remembered qualities. When Sam visits a recreation of a museum dedicated to Sisko’s life, the hologram of Jake he calls out, taken from an interview several decades after the events of DS9vividly remembered the qualities about the man that mattered most to him—if people wanted to know about him as a captain, they had to consult Starfleet records; if they want to know about him as a messenger, ask the prophets. This is his papaand that is the legacy Jake is concerned with preserving.

That comes up again when Illa gives Sam a copy of the Anslem—the upcoming book that Jake plans to write about his life and his dad in one of the Deep Space Nineof most extraordinary explorations in their relationship, “The Visitor”—eventually reveals that the Dax hosts have been sharing it with people “who understand how to use it” since Jake gave it to them hundreds of years ago. Anslem is, as Sam reads, not a book that gives the definitive answer to who Ben Sisko is or what happened to him at the end of Deep Space Nine; this is a book about Jake’s memory of his father, about what he represented and embodied to his friends and family for generations after he was gone.

“You know, all the things you thought he missed… he didn’t,” Sam’s bad memory of Jake told him as he gave a thumbs up. Anslem. “He’s always been there. He’s never left us—I can’t prove it, but I know it’s true. Ben Sisko has been preserved from generation to generation, not as a war hero or an unsung emissary to the prophets of Bajor, but as the spirit Jake and his own descendants keep alive about his paternity. In sharing that with Sam—who ends the episode, inspired by his legacy, sends a grateful credit to Sisko for sharing his life with the universe and for being the father he is to Jake—that spirit is primed to be reinforced by his own connections and family that he cultivates at the academy.

Perhaps there is no better way Starfleet Academy to praise Sisko than this, to take a leaf from the pages of Deep Space Ninebook and do it in an unexpected way. We have been counting Sisko the warrior and Sisko the emissary for nearly 30 years. Reminding us that Sisko is the father, above all else, allows us to remember what he was, and Deep Space Ninereally abandoned.

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