What was Sisko's worst command decision?

The question of good/bad command decisions also relies on perspective. We as the audience see the before, during, and after of each of them. Starfleet Command doesn't have that benefit.

Maybe we should turn the question around and ask what command decisions did Starfleet think were his worst?

I might say a big mistake was one when he was off duty... when he decided it was a good idea to take Jake on a field trip to the Gamma Quadrant and do a planetary survey.

He could have picked a world near Bajor and gotten the same results in terms of trip and time with his son and all without the loss of a Galaxy class starship.

(Though the plus side is they got a lot of intelligence on the Dominion and what they are capable of, something that may have taken much longer and cost even more lives otherwise.)

 

Sisko et al's trip to the GQ may have caused the conflict with the Jem'hadar to occur earlier than it otherwise would have, but I don't think it's fair to accuse Sisko of being responsible for what occurred. I'm sure he picked a planet that Our Heroes believed to be relatively safe, and The Dominion was on its way to deliver a message in any case.

 

I'm sure he thought it was safe, too. But they were there for at least a full day before Eris popped up at camp. The Dominion probably already had Eris ready to go at some point in the near future anyway, but the Dominion saw Sisko there and upped the timetable of that plan.

Actually, if Quark hadn't tried to be Quark and replicate the collar, her plan would have succeeded.

 

Side note... my wife loved the fact I gave the hero credit to Quark because he is her favorite character, and feels he is the real hero of DS9.

 

He really shone there, didn't he? The speech about how evil humans are in comparison with the Ferengi was pure gold. (And never mind that, like gold, it's cheap.)

I doubt the Dominion infiltration team stumbled onto Sisko. It would have been a well-targeted operation, with Sisko as the chosen mark, and with plenty of advance intel from the five or so Founders who already had visited DS9... Sisko's decisions there would have made no difference. Although what he chose to do was part of the continuum of choices that we might label "bad" even though our heroes and their bosses clearly never do: of treating Gamma as the manifest destiny of the Federation, of applying the UFP moral code and ownership laws to things encountered there.

Agreed that Sisko's bosses apparently agreed with most of his decisions, making them "good" in that respect. He must have gotten explicit clearance for mining shut the wormhole (the maneuver was closely timed with the massive raid on Dominion dockyards, after all), sending disinformation to the Romulans (field commanders would know better than engage in personal disinformation campaigns, as those only ever work as part of a bigger scheme), and bombing the Maquis (he never got any flak from it that we'd know of, and Dax didn't seem to anticipate any in the afterglow scene).

Although it's a bit much to say that nobody died in the Maquis bombing. Sisko gave advance warning, yes, but who would believe it? And he used a rare toxin that kills but wouldn't be obvious to anybody until it did start to kill. Sure, the Maquis would by basic disposition be ready to bolt at a moment's notice, with escape ships warmed up at all times. But still...

Then again, those were "Maquis worlds" by then, apparent free game. It's not a war crime to commit a war crime when one decides it's not a war crime, such as with deliberately targeting Japanese civilians in the 1944-45 bombings...

(Not that the concept of "war crime" would be known to even exist in Star Trek. Our Starfleet heroes never refer to such in any era. Perhaps they consider the concept utterly redundant?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

What Sisko did in "FOR THE UNIFORM"... I don't think it was criminal or a bad call.

The Maquis started off as fighting for their land. I can get behind that and support it. But for quite a while, they were attacking areas and worlds that were NOT THEIRS to begin with, nor were in dispute. They started to move from being freedom fighters to being terrorists.

And when Eddington disabled and attacked the Defiant, and THEN the Malinche after already poisoning a Cardassian world, which they likely didn't give ANY warning... they became a genuine threat to the peace of the region AND the Federation. Who knows how many officers were killed on the Malinche.

Sisko was really backed into a corner, and he balanced things out again... plus he actually WARNED them ahead of time what he was going to do.

I completely agree with Sisko's actions given the circumstances.

 

Then again, land is free in the Trek universe. The Maquis had no excuse for defending their homes at the price of peace, not with limitless new homes free for the taking. But Sisko and the UFP for their part had little excuse for not simply cutting the Maquis loose once the damage was already done and the colonies were declared pure Maquis nests with no redeeming elements.

Of course, it's bad command decisions on both sides. In "Blaze of Glory", we learn the Maquis never had the guts to actually strive for freedom and independence: they fought under the umbrella of the Federation all along, expecting to get government protection despite being its enemies. It would probably have made better sense for Eddington's folks to actually denounce the UFP and seek for allies elsewhere; UFP foes would have been lining up to exploit the situation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Shattered Mirror. I mean, come on. Prime Directive much? Also he had sex with mirror Jadzia the season before. Not a command decision, but yowee....that always seemed super over the line.

 

Oddly enough, I can justify Sisko's actions in both episodes.

With mirror Jadzia, he really had his back to the wall and had to play the part.

With "SHATTERED MIRROR", he was supposed to beam there with Kira and O'Brien, but it only allowed him. His son was taken over there. And besides that, ALL the events of both episodes were a direct result of actions by officers under his command, which puts it under his responsibility in some eyes.

And honestly, Starfleet is responsible for the entire situation. The events of "MIRROR, MIRROR"...

 

Not arguing this was his worst command decision by any stretch, but let's say "the Sisko" did have a bit of luck when the Prophets decided to interfere when Sisko made his last stand with only the Defiant, up against 2700 Dominion ships ....

(Actually, I don't think there would have been a much better alternative. From a purely tactical point of view, the move was useless, but considering that the fate that would have awaited them after capture was probably worse than that of being incinerated in battle, I still thought it made sense)

 

On the Prophets interfering, maybe his worse decision is not having asked sooner. He knows that they can shut up the wormhole, they did it the first time they met and he arranged for them to allow transit through it. He should have probably asked them before trying to destroy it from DS9 or after it failed he should have tried to see if the Prophets could close it even though they now thought they could destroy it externally. He could have ended the threat of invasion when it was an actual risk, or stopped half a dozen convoys of reinforcements arriving to bolster the Dominion in the AQ.

 

In "Shattered Mirror", Smiley actually let him leave after he upgraded the Defiant. But Sisko chose to stay of his own volition so he could captain the mirror Defiant himself. Yeah, I think that was not a great decision, especially as they were only saved by the last minute intervention of Bashir and Dax.

Starfleet wasn't too pleased when he scuttled the treaty to have Bajor join the Federation in "Rapture".

 

How exactly? I mean, the Prophets probably only would listen to Sisko, and no one else. Which would probably mean that he would have to go into the wormhole physically himself sooner, rather than as a last-ditch option. As I recall, Empok Nor could have destroyed the Defiant, but they choose not to because their fleet was coming from both the lines of battle and from the GQ. Had he arrived any sooner, they would have taken a shot with the Empok Nor and the ships there. And that's even assuming that Sisko would have been able to traverse the not-as-of-yet deactivated minefield using some secret (local) deactivation code or some such thing.

So the only possible conclusion (in my view) would be that it was a mistake to mine the wormhole in the first place. Instead, the Sisko should have gone to the Prophets at that point in time and ask them to shut it (temporarily).

 

It's arguably also the one decision where he didn't kowtow with his bosses beforehand. In more or less every other controversy, there would have been opportunities for communication. But stumbling out of the infirmary seemingly drunk as a skunk and putting one's weight as a religious idol in the scales opposite official Starfleet policy leaves no room for arguments.

Timo Saloniemi

 

From Starfleet's perspective, that was likely his one major bad command decision.

It did work out, though... if Bajor did join at that point, they would be the Dominion's first target. And the war would likely have ended sooner and in their favor, since the Dominion would have that entire system to use for cloning and repair facilities, ketracel white production, full forces guarding the wormhole, which would have been opened eventually.

The Sisko did a good thing.

 

Which is exactly what I'm suggesting. I'm referring to events in the In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light two parter when the Dominion first sent their fleet into the AQ rather than around the Bold/Sacrifice two parter.

Edit: Added In Purg Shad name, which I couldn't remember initially.

 

I would have to agree.

 

Again, I'd ask how it's different from Kirk's actions in "Private Little War".

 

Curious as to what the Prophets would have had to say about that, the Sisko ending the game like that. Does their knowledge of events extend into the Mirror Universe?

 

You would think with the get of jail free card he had in "Sacrifice of Angels" Sisko could ask the Prophets to simply make the Dominion disappear anytime they made an attempt to travel into the Wormhole; it would take a matter of time for the liquid people to realize they're not welcome in the Alpha Quadrant.

As for worst command decisions, I thought Sisko made a huge error in attempting to make peace with the Dominion or with the founders with a heavily armed warship. Not a very good sign of faith for peace in "The Search".