Why wasn't Sisko replaced?

I don't quite get the "implication" part when we actually have explication. Sisko was two words short of shirking away from his assigned duty and requesting a different job, as shown in an actual scene in the pilot episode. Then Picard gave one of the words, the Prophets gave another, and lo, Sisko stayed. So the part where Sisko is a loser who gets better isn't in doubt.

The part where Starfleet deliberately sends in a loser is the speculative one. If their intent was for the Bajoran mission to fail, fine; if the loser quit, they'd send in somebody even worse. But if the intent was to force Sisko to stiffen his upper lip and get on with his career, clearly this wasn't working. And if the idea was to give him an easy job, clearly this was backfiring as well, because anything would have been better than isolating him with his son on this godforsaken frontier outpost.

The default assumption would be that Starfleet sent in a man who was just about good enough, the corollary being that Sisko was no good for anything else so sending him here would be an efficient use of overall resources.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I always found it a bit strange that Sisko got his command of DS9, when he wasn't even a captain or an admiral.

Logic dictates that it's an even more important and demanding job than commandeering a starship. Especially if one considers the difficult relations between the Federation, the Bajorans and the Cardassians...

 

If memory serves me, in "HOMEFRONT", Leyton says he was the one who recommended Sisko for command of DS9. He obviously knew the man well enough to know if he was ready for it.

And I don't buy that Sisko was not performing well... I don't think Starfleet would have given him that promotion if he was not doing well at his job. Some people do fail upwards, but I don't see that as being the case with Sisko.

 

Starfleet thought that administering the space station would just be a routine, humdrum assignment that a Commander could take care of just fine, while ambassadors and admirals handled all the heavy negotiating and stuff.

Kor

 

And it's a Bajoran station anyway. Bajor made a lot of the policy decisions - whether to tolerate or prosecute collaborators and Cardassian war criminals for instance. Bajor could say they want the station back at any time. Sisko was just showing the flag for the Federation.

 

Where/ who said he performed poorly?
I don't think I ever saw or heard this.

 

It was a Bajoran station.
The were there to assist the Bajorans.
When I was in the Army I was stationed in a Detachment.
We pretty much never had the "correct" ranks in the positions.
Company commander was a lieutenant, 1st Sergent was a Sergent First class.
Stuff like that.

 

Sisko told Picard he'd been thinking about retiring from Starfleet as he was still suffering from the loss of his wife during Emissary.
After meeting the wormhole aliens and figuring out his feelings, he realized that he had to move on from his grief and live his life - so he stayed in Starfleet and kept his job on DS9.
And for the record, Sisko's mom being a Prophet always struck me as a very stupid plot development.

Yeah, TV wants to make it easier on the audience. "Captain" is the captain; etc.

 

Absolutely. I get the feeling that this was not planned from the beginning.

Kor

 

Once DS9 became a more high profile assignment, Starfleet could have placed a higher ranked officer above Sisko as the new commander, but without reassigning Sisko. Sisko would remain as a senior officer, Kira would stay as first officer. Which would move Sisko under Kira's authority.

I found it interesting, that after (our prospective) meeting Sisko, the Prophets made the decision to create him.

 

Certainly it negates the Prophets never having experience with linear life forms as shown in Emissary.

 

If you don't have linear time, when is before?

 

Why do you think that would have been a good move, let alone necessary? Why?

 

It really doesn't. They "created" Sisko because he was the one who taught them about linear time.

 

/thread

Sisko's mission was to prepare Bajor for Federation membership. If he was replaced, the Bajorans would be offended in the extreme. All talk of joining the Federation would cease.

 

As religious as the Bajorans were, I suspect that their government was more pragmatic and secular, and possibly skeptical about Sisko's role as the actual Emissary of the Prophets.

Kor

 

^ Agreed on the first part, but not the second.

 

Depends on the sect. Winn's faction might have grudgingly called him Emissary but she wouldn't have batted an eye if the Circle had whacked him during their coup, or if he'd been killed in her bombings aimed at Bareil.

 

Winn's "faction" is probably just Winn.

 

Yeah, Winn was a one-person show, very ambitious, manipulative and greedy for power. I always found it very hypocritical that she thought she should be the spiritual leader of the Bajoran people even though she acknowledged that she had never actually had a connection with the Prophets (see "Strange Bedfellows").

Kor