Major Kira's life of conflict makes her a compelling character to this day

Much of Star Trek's appeal has always been its hopeful vision of a future, where we have all sorted out our differences and learned how to solve problems peacefully so that we may explore the universe. With Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Kira Nerys, as portrayed by Nana Visitor, we find a character who is not only combative in personality but whose life has been defined by conflict, both internally and externally. Despite this, she is perhaps one of the most quintessentially "Star Trek"-type characters we have.

Over the course of Deep Space Nine, we learn more and more about Kira's history and how she began fighting in the resistance as a young adolescent with the overriding goal of freeing Bajor from Cardassian occupation. What we also see, however, is that the end of that conflict was not the end of Kira's conflicts. In fact, the liberation of Bajor was arguably just the beginning.

There are a myriad of external conflicts throughout the course of Deep Space Nine that Kira is necessarily involved in. Beyond that, Kira experiences internal conflicts as she tries to understand herself and her place in the universe. This struggle to define herself beyond the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor reflects the struggles of Bajor as a whole over the course of the series.

One such struggle for Kira is with authority. During the Occupation, it was easy to oppose authority. Even if there was a leadership structure in the Resistance, the true authorities were the Cardassians, and they were pretty clearly bad in almost every conceivable way. After the Occupation ends, however, Kira joins the Bajoran militia and finds discomfort at times with the authority that being Major (and later Colonel) Kira brings. If it was wrong for the Cardassians to force people from their homes, why must Kira do so?

This issue with authority also relates to Kira's relationship to her religious beliefs. Kira is regularly shown in the series to be a devout practicer of Bajoran religion. Despite this, she frequently finds herself at odds with Kai Winn, the leader of her religion. This is an external conflict in some ways, but it is also an internal conflict as Kira wrestles with a desire to be a part of her culture while also feeling alienated from it.

This sense of alienation is probably exacerbated, then, by the fact that she spends every day dealing with Starfleet and the Federation. Even though Kira grows to respect Captain Sisko and the other Starfleet personnel serving on DS9, and even considers many of them friends, she is also at odds with them. Part of this could be a fear that the Federation will ultimately do to Bajor what the Cardassians did, but part of it could also be a need to define herself in some way other than contrast.

If most of her coworkers are members of Starfleet, then a defining characteristic of Kira Nerys is that she is not Starfleet. This is not a wildly helpful definition, however, because it doesn't really say who Kira is, and yet, it also fits for Kira, whose entire life has been built around conflict and opposition. This is also why she often defines herself as a soldier or a fighter, when in reality, she is something more than that.

Although conflict has been a significant part of Kira Nerys's entire life, who she is transcends that conflict. Even if Kira has been been a life-long soldier, she has also been exploring and seeking to understand the universe and her place in it. Even if she interfaces with the world confrontationally, Kira is also testing and gauging the world. Her life may have made her a soldier, but she has the soul (or pagh, if you will) of an explorer. Even in a life defined by conflict, what could be more quintessentially "Star Trek" than to explore?