Admiral Valeris said:
He starts out in Emissary as an angry, bitter man who has internalized a lot of his feelings. As the series went on he started to change.
He let things get too personal. He poisoned an entire planet to get back at one man who wronged him somewhat. His character became like a combination of Ahab and Inspector Javert at that point. (The episode where he poisons the planet is For The Uniform)
No.
For The Uniform and most of the Maquis episodes took great pains to demonstrate that the Maquis had, by and large, become an incredibly destructive, careless, vainglorious and spiteful group whose constant attempts at vainglory and nonsensical attacks on Cardassian territory had become too much of a liability to all in the Alpha Quadrant. Even Kira, the quintessential freedom fighter, said as much.
What For the Uniform does, as with so many of the best DS9 episodes is show that even politically and militarily "good" decisions can be a mixture of "black and white", that a human who's philosophically right can also have, mixed within his rightness, very human emotions, sometimes to the point of being blinded. Think Kirk in The Search for Spock, for instance. Like FTU, it shows that one normally noble individual can become so blinded by that personal sense of being wronged, that his actions, while technically right and "acceptable", can become less than completely pure.
Make no mistake, though, the verdict of the entirety of the DS9 Maquis eps. - as well as to a lesser extent TNG and VOY - was that the Maquis were a decent idea gone wrong, and thus ultimately had to be stopped - ESPECIALLY during the middle of increasing tensions/threat from the much more organized, shrewd, and ultimately more threatening confederation (note the sad, dark means by which the Maquis were defeated -
by the Dominion).
For comparison, imagine if members of the Irish Republican Army were, for some reason, to decide to organize kamikaze attacks against the elected Iraqi civilian government right after the initial vote, as a clumsy strike against Britain for its involvement in Northern Ireland, or if members of the IRA started to infiltrate the British army as soldiers right after the train attacks; or even if Bulgarian "freedom fighters" decided to infiltrate the Russian army during the early days of World War II.
Imagine if it were demonstrated that these respective resistance movements were, time and again, shown to be a loose, somewhat undisciplined confederations of disaffected college kids and/or unemployed middle-aged guys, who were angry because their local factories closed, leaving them unemployed (or even more relevant, because all these "law-breaking illegal immigrants" were taking their job) and looking for some kind of martyrdom. I imagine that Britain, the US and the Nato powers in the first example, and the Allied powers in the second would want them stopped, by any means necessary, and that an experienced, normally noble officer with an awareness of the larger global stakes might employ some very hard-nosed tactics in order to "cut off the legs" of these groups.
Sisko did NOT poison the Maquis planet just out of anger for being betrayed. It was a hard-nosed, drop the gauntlet, this-madness-stops-here action taken to basically cripple them, to make sure they felt some measure of the pain they were causing others, including innocent Cardassians. What the ep. does, however, is show that Sisko's motivations were not without grey areas, which is one of the things DS9 did well. Perhaps, too, Sisko was made a stand-in for what the entirety of Starfleet's anger at the Maquis (remember the end of the TNG episode wherein Ro Laren disobeys Picard to join the Maquis? That scene yelled rage), which is why the "you violated your uniform" speech has extra resonance.
And I imagine that anger for personal betrayal would not be an uncommon emotion for persosn who live and function by military code, or any profession that lives by
esprit de corps (police officers, firefighters, etc).
Sisko's actions in In The Pale Moonlight are unacceptable. The reason behind them (the "end") is laudable enough, to a degree, but the way he accomplished it (the "means") are abhorrent. A "fundamentally honest man" and a "man of integrity" most likely would not have gone down the path Sisko did. The fact that he says he can live with it, and that the actions are not referenced again, seems suspicious.
The episode doesn't suggest that his actions are acceptable, for one. The entirety of the episode is set up with a "road to hell is paved with good intentions" subtext, wherein one good man gets caught up in a path that he never thought he'd see himself in,
but is not without guilt in that process. It's one good man "Dancing with the Devil In The Pale Moonlight". Entirely within the realm of possibility for normally good people, IMO. Plus you need to watch the beginning of the ep., and really, understand much of the context of Season 6 as a whole - of Sisko as a man who is personally bearing the weight of a great deal of the threat to the AQ, and the Federation response to it, has to be a good warrior and such - but also the very real, visceral pain of human loss and sacrifice. Plus, there is absolutely no QUESTION as to what kind of rule the Dominion would impose on the AQ if they were able to win - we'd already gotten plenty of glimpses into just how vicious and oppressive they could be by the time of ITPM.
So, verdict: Sisko's actions were not motivated a vicious "Need to win at all costs" instinct or extreme ideological certainty, like the neoconservatives in the US. They were the actions of a man who cared deeply for those who served under him and ordinary soldiers with families, as well as a hard-won realism about what Dominion victory would cost, in blood and treasure. Hardly the characteristics of a man lacking decency.
"That's why you came to me, isn't it Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing. Well, it worked. And you'll get what you wanted: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant, and all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal... and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain."
I think that, as DS9 frequently showed, Garak, while he may have incisive commentary as to humanoid nature, also almost always saw things in the most cynical and darkest of manners, motivated in part by his own history, personal regrets and unresolved conflicts. His words reveal an element of the entirety of Sisko in ITPM - they are not the entirety of the story. In short, Garak is a commenter on the story. He's not the all-knowing narrator.
"So... I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all... I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would. Garak was right about one thing, a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it... Computer, erase that entire personal log."
Another thing I find suspicious is that he deleted the only evidence there really is in regards to his actions. If he were honest and had integrity, he would have let it be known what he did and take whatever punishment there may have been.
Good drama, that shows a good man coming to rationalize his less than noble actions,
and trying to convince himself. Notice how he has to convince that "I CAN live with it". Notice that he's quite uncomfortable in his seat. And notice that the series only validates Sisko's awareness of the greater stakes, by showing the Dominion as increasingly cold and murderous.
Still, some father/son conflict would have been more realistic.
First off, I think Jake was smart enough not to push the old man too much. If nothing else, Kira, Jadzia or O'Brien (or even Odo) would've probably set him straight real quick. The thought of any of those three disciplining me would have gotten my attention REAL quick.
More to the point, though, one only has to look at episodes like
Emissary and
Through The Looking Glass o understand why the two doted on each other so much. Besides, Jake gave Sisko plenty of pause/stress with some of actions during the first six years of the series.
And speaking of
Emissary:I think itsmore correct to say that Sisko was
embittered, not bitter in general. There is a difference.
