Should Sisko Have Been Promoted Earlier?

I know that Sisko was a Lt. Commander and XO on the Saratoga, so it made sense to me that he was a full commander when he took command of DS9. However, it bothered me when watching during first-run and bothers me now on rewatches that Sisko wasn't promoted earlier. I know that an officer doesn't have to hold the rank of captain to have the office of captain, but I still think Sisko's promotion would made perfect sense after the events of "The Jem'Hadar." Sisko returns not only with a new starship to counter a potential Dominion threat, he's also now a full captain. This shows the Alpha Quadrant powers that the Federation takes the DS9 post seriously.

Thoughts?

 

The Defiant is a smaller ship. A captain rank is not required.

 

I could see this logic if we were only talking about a starship, but we're talking about a joint outpost/starship command. Given all that happened to DS9 and the Bajor sector in a short two year span, it makes sense that Sisko would be given a rank commensurate with a command that, by that point, included a great deal more responsibility, authority, and influence than a less significant station or ship.

 

I agree, except that in the Trek universe, starships always seem to have a captain-by-rank as commanding officer, large or small. Picard was a Captain (by rank) of a Galaxy class vessel (1000+ crew on board, possibly a lot more civilians), Ransom was a captain (by rank) of a Nova class vessel (crew complement 78).

In the case of the Defiant, that was not Sisko's primary command I suppose, that still would have been the station. Don't know if that would make a difference.

 

If you had asked the topic question to me when I was young while it aired, I would have said, "Yes, he should have been captain from the start."

But as I have gotten older, I think him being given that rank was a physical representation of Sisko fully embracing his current life and growing to a point he is (mostly) past the pain of his wife's death.

Also, when someone is promoted to a rank of that importance, you'd want that officer to actually want to be there. When he arrived, Sisko did not want to be there at all, and was reasy to resign his commission and go to civilian life.

I look at him getting the promotion as yet another piece of the character's growth.

 

That's an interesting thought.

Did, for example, early TNG Commander Riker really want to be there or did he just see the XO role as a necessary stepping stone to a captaincy, and was his original objective to leave as soon as he could get one? (After all, he had a lightning fast career up until that point, and he only started rejecting promotions later)

More in general, I believe someone said everyone wanted to be a captain. Eddington perhaps? I wouldn't believe that to be true, I'd think some would be perfectly content staying a Lt., others not being satisfied before they made full admiral rank. How is this in actual navies? Is being commander of a vessel a particularly coveted position? (I mean, more than positions lower or higher than that?)

 

Depends on what the primary expectation of his job was.

 

I would have done so in early Season 6 - either Fleet Captain (but also field comms for people like Dax who is now captaining the Defiant) or even Commodore when made Ross' Adjutant

 

In "The Arsenal of Freedom", TNG season 1, Riker said he was offered but turned down command of the Drake. He thought it was better to do a tour on the Enterprise, so yes, he wanted to be there, whether it was just a stepping stone or just because he admired Picard and Troi was there.

And Eddington did say newly promoted Sisko that the captain's chair was what everyone was eyeing, including him. I'm sure that's true for a lot of Starfleet officers... Kirk, Picard, Sulu, Riker, Sisko , and more. It's obvious a hyberbole to say everyone, but it's probably far more common than, say, being in Starfleet just to be a Lt.

 

I think the lionizing of starship captains is a detriment to Starfleet as an organization.

 

I probably would have done it at the beginning of season 3 and not at the end. It makes sense. They give him a ship and they know DS9 is now a important posting because of the Dominion threat. Almost forgot. TNG just went off the air. Voyager wouldn't start for a few more months. You had a chance here to maybe bring in some new fans and many of them might feel the lead of a Trek show should be a captain. Maybe it would have helped in the ratings.

 

^ Ah, thank you, I had forgotten about that.

His exact words were

"At the time, I thought it was more advantageous for me to do a tour on the Enterprise."

leaving open the possibility that he later came to regret that decision

 

Probably more so in past centuries when, once the ship was out of sight of their home base, the captain was lord of all he surveyed.

 

I see your point, but I think his promotion at the beginning of season three instead of the end would have been more fitting given the events of "The Jem'Hadar" and that Sisko seemed to want to be on DS9 by the end of season two.

I hadn't thought about the ratings but that's a great point. From my reading, it seems like Paramount was determined to try and change DS9 to be more "accessible" up to the fifth season. A newly-promoted Sisko seems like something they'd have encouraged.

 

Sisko should have been a commodore from the day he was put in charge of DS9.

 

A backwater where all he was expected to do was show the flag so Cardassia doesn't get the idea that they could reoccupy Bajor?

 

I might be wrong, but I could swear I remember Ron Moore and Ira Steven Behr saying it was thrown around in the writer's room back in the day that they toyed with the idea of making Sisko an admiral during the later seasons.

Also, beyond being the Emissary of the Prophets and the commanding officer of Deep Space Nine, I would assume Sisko also has a title as the Federation liaison to Bajor. For example, is Sisko considered the Federation ambassador to Bajor, since he seems to represent the Federation's position with numerous Bajoran officials and we never see a civilian ambassador from the Federation in that role?

 

I would have been surprised if the writers did NOT consider making Sisko an admiral. I mean, he's a 4-star admiral's chief of staff and doing battle plans for a huge part of the front. Either of those roles should justify at least a 2-star admiral's rank. A better question is why they didn't do it. Perhaps they didn't want Sisko outranking Kirk or Picard in their TV series days?

He pretty much has to be the Federation liason to Bajor. I agree, if anyone else had been in that role, we should have seen them. Kira in the 1st season would have tried to go over Sisko's head to that person rather than to an admiral in San Francisco. Kai Winn would have tried to go over Sisko's head to that person when she was asking for Federation help arresting Shakaar. Sisko probably wasn't ambassador because that title comes with a lot of ceremonial baggage, and would traditionally be appointed directly by the Federation President. Looking at Wikipedia under "Diplomatic Rank" perhaps Sisko is a chargé d'affaires - the representative from one country to another when they have not yet agreed to exchange embassadors. And a minor enough diplomatic post that it would be reasonable for Sisko to omit it when introducing himself.

 

I think there are two reasons Sisko was not promoted to admiral once he became Ross' adjutant.

1. By that time, he had been a captain for only about 2 and 1/4 years. That's an extremely short time to move up to that level.

2. In "RAPTURE", he was directly responsible for Bajor not joining the Federation. The admiral told him, "I could have your commission for this." But he knew the Bajorans might be really pissed at that, so Sisko didn't even get a reprimand. That we know of... his record could have a notation there, and that may very well have stopped his moving up to a higher rank cold.

 

If their ship cruises up to an unknown planet and starts first contact, some one with the diplomatic rank of Captain needs to be there, or there is going to be a royal fuck up.

A crew of 58, but trying not to piss off 7 billion Kilingon wannabees.

Janeway called the Kazon "ridiculous" a minute after meeting them, and an hour after Neelix started a gun fight with all of them, under her flag.

She was not ready.