by David Furritus

Created on: February 14, 2008

An interesting thing about the Star Trek programs that preceded Deep Space Nine is that they all had fairly black and white characters. You always knew where the characters stood on any issues. The Captains were tough as nails and would do anything to save their crew but, they always acted with honor. The engineers knew how to fix a ship with anything lying around and could always work miracles because they had the best technology in the Federation at their disposals. The first officers would always give good advice and were like brothers to their captains.

All of this changed with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The characters on this show are anything by ordinary:

Command

Commander (later Captain) Benjamin Sisko
Reluctantly takes on the job of star base commander a year after his wife is killed in a battle against the Borg. Forced to raise his son on his own he's not taking too well to running the station. Shortly after arriving he discovers a stable wormhole near his station and unwittingly becomes an "emissary" to a race of creatures that inhabit it.

Major (later Colonel) Kira Naris
Former Bajoren freedom fighter. Spent years fighting against Cardasian occupation and was decided that she would be the perfect liaison to deal with the Federation when they take over DS9. She's not a big fan of the Federation after spending most of her life fighting against one occupational force only to have to deal with another one.

(Interestingly enough this is the first time that neither the commander nor executive officers are white males)

Operations

Lieutenant (eventually promoted to Lieutenant Commander) Jadzia Dax
Essentially two individuals. Jadzia is a member of a race called the Trill. Dax is a member of the symbiotic race that bonds with Trill hosts. They offer their years of experience to the host and they become one being. Because the symbiotes live longer than their hosts they can many past lives. One of Dax's past lives was working with a young Ben Sisko. As a result, Sisko is always referring to her as "Old Man".

Doctor Julian Bashir
Young and adventurous doctor. Graduated second in his class from Starfleet Medical and immediately volunteered for a job on DS9 so that he could be around "Frontier Medicine". Has an attraction to Dax, but this settles down in later seasons (but resurfaces in the final season when Dax gains a new host).

Master Chief Miles O'Brien
Chief O'Brien is in charge of keeping DS9 intact which is not an easy task after the Cardasians removed virtually anything

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