Do the ends justify the means for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “In The Pale Moonlight”?

The events of In the Pale Moonlight continue to be an interesting talking point.

The rules of Starfleet and the officers who uphold these rules are not quite as black and white as they might seem. Quite the contrary. In fact, there happens to be many shades of grey.

So far, in my own personal voyages through the Trek franchise, I have yet to find a series that brings those shades of grey under sharper scrutiny and examination more then Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and one of the best examples of just how deep those hues of grey can get can be found in the season 6 episode In The Pale Moonlight.

During the course of this episode, Elim Garak, knowing what an advantageous position the Federation would be in were they to secure an alliance with the Romulans, will persuade Captain Sisko to falsify evidence to a Romulan senator. This is in order to convince him that the Dominion means to back out of their peace treaty, resulting in a Romulan alliance with the Federation and Klingons during the Dominion war.

The deception is ultimately successful., The Romulans join forces with the Federation, and, in later episodes, the Dominion is defeated and the war is won, but do the ends truly justify the means?

This piece will explore both sides of that question, the pros and cons, and at the end, I will force myself into the boots of Captain Sisko and make a decision that he had to make In the Pale Moonlight.