Star Trek loves itself an unsolved mystery to pick up on generations later, but perhaps few are more tantalizing than the godlike fate of Benjamin Sisko. Although materials like books and comics have offered their own interpretation of Sisko’s post-Deep Space Nine future (including IDW’s recent Star Trek ongoing, prior to The Last Starship), for the most part the captain’s evolution and promise to return in “What You Leave Behind” have gone untouched. But could that change next year?
Starfleet Academy‘s first trailer at San Diego Comic-Con this past summer was teeming with nods to Star Trek‘s past luminaries, from a massive wall of former notable officers, to wings named after Trek legends, and more. But perhaps one of the most intriguing shots in that trailer to do a name drop was the reveal of an entire class at the 32nd-century school dedicated to the life and times of Benjamin Sisko. Instead of touching on his role in laying the groundwork for Bajor to join the Federation after the Cardassian occupation or as a major commander during the Dominion War, the class apparently instead asks the question DS9 fans have been asking for decades: what actually happened to Sisko in Deep Space Nine‘s finale?
“What You Leave Behind” concludes with Sisko returning to Bajor after the battle of Cardassia brings about an end to the Dominion conflict for a spiritual confrontation with Gul Dukat, now entirely host to the malevolent entities known as the Pah-wraiths. Duking it out in Fire Caves, Sisko seemingly sacrifices himself to the flames in order to drag Dukat and the Pah-wraiths with him—only for us to see him wake up in the Celestial Temple, the wormhole-reality home of Bajor’s major pantheon, the Prophets, and be told that his work as their emissary was only just beginning.
We’ve never seen that work, however, nor did we ever get to see an on-screen fulfillment of Sisko’s final promise to his wife, Kasidy, wherein a vision he tells her that someday he will return to the physical realm. It seems like that is going to be the question this new class at the future Starfleet Academy, the best part of a millennium later, is going to tackle, with the announcement board asking, “Did he die in the Fire Caves of Bajor? Did he live on in the Celestial Temple?”
But when we first saw that board, it was easy to assume that this was just going to be another name drop among the many we’d already seen in that trailer. Except, according to Starfleet Academy executive producer Noga Landau, there might be something more to it. Emphasis on the might.
“I think we’ve honored everything that’s come before us, the 60 years of legacy that came before us in so many different ways. One is with the people we’ve brought to join these amazing folks,” Landau recently told Screenrant of Starfleet Academy‘s approach to connecting with Star Trek history, even as it’s set in the far, far future of the majority of the series. :We have Robert Picardo, who’s playing The Doctor, the same Doctor from Voyager. We have multiple cast members joining us from Discovery. And you know, when you look at the wall of heroes in our atrium, our giant set, you’ll see us honoring so many of the people who came before us, who showed us what heroism is, and who showed us what the values of Starfleet are.”
Which is when Landau added something interesting. “And there’s also mysteries. Watch out for Benjamin Sisko! We get to do some really cool stuff that hasn’t been done in a long time, that I think really honors the fans who’ve been waiting to see what happens. So we definitely know who we are and the shoulders that we are standing on today.”
Landau certainly makes it seem like the show might actually do more with its Sisko nod, given the way she deliberately separated it from the namedrops seen elsewhere in the show and by specifically highlighting Sisko as a potential “mystery” for the show to pick up on. But on the other hand, what could Starfleet Academy possibly get up to that it needs to ‘solve’ the mystery of Sisko or even prompt his potential return from the Celestial Temple? Could, or would, Avery Brooks—who has long retired from acting—even ponder a return to do so?
Star Trek is a universe where the ordinary day jobs of Starfleet officers are frequently absurdly adventurous, but are a new class of college students really going to be up to things to solve a hundreds-of-years-old religious miracle (and with no Bajoran characters in the main cast, it’d feel kinda weird if they did) or get up to something that requires celestial intervention? We’ll have to wait a little while longer to find out—the series hits Paramount+ on January 15.