Don’t even ask, of course Benjamin Sisko is a war criminal but who cares?

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Captain Benjamin Sisko is obviously a war criminal

Star Trek does a great job creating unique and interesting storylines for its characters. Sometimes those writers go a bit overboard and push characters past the point of decency. It’s all in the name of serving drama, the only true diety of entertainment.

Is it entertaining? If yes, you’ve succeeded. Just look at Riverdale. It makes zero sense, but it’s entertaining; at least you hope it is, otherwise why keep watching? So when we talk about things like “Is Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine a war criminal?”, there’s no reason to really go into it.

He’s not a real person and to judge him like he is further highlights how much people don’t get these characters aren’t real, and that they have zero actual autonomy.

Yet, if we play the game, and answer the question; like we’re going to, then yes, Benjamin Sisko is a war criminal. He used toxic chemicals to make a planet uninhabitable, and he covered up the assassination of a Romulan diplomat to get the Romulans into a war they wanted very little to do with.

Yes, Sisko committed 21st-century war crimes. Are they still war crimes during the events of Deep Space Nine? Who knows. He did bad things but he wouldn’t be alone, however.

Who cares if the writers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine made him a war criminal

Jean-Luc Picard and James T. Kirk killed innocent aliens through their negligence, Kathryn Janeway helped create a chemical weapon to keep The Borg and Species 8472 at bay, and Michael Burnham committed mutiny that got people killed. These are flawed characters, and to only ever pick at their flaws is simply done to take some holier than thou approach to character criticism.

There’s no reason to have these types of conversations because the characters are in the hand of an ever-changing writers’ room and occasionally-changing showrunners. They are not one person’s creation and execution. To have these conversations, like Screen Rant tried to do, is to engage in an exercise of futility.

There is no one linear line of thought when these shows are made or written, so there is no reason to continually revisit this. Yes, Sisko did bad things. So did every other Starfleet captain. To only ever highlight why one person is worse serves nothing but antagonize a reader base. There is no genuine discourse that can be had here.

No one captain is perfect and no one captain is worse than the other. Why? Because they’re nothing more than extensions of the writer’s room that is steering their actions. Don’t slam Sisko or Janeway, slam their writers.

Anything else is bias, and bias in a discussion of this nature, is not welcomed.