Benjamin Sisko


 * For information on the mirror universe Sisko, see Benjamin Sisko (mirror).

Starfleet Captain Benjamin Lafeyette Sisko is most famous as commanding officer of Deep Space 9 and as the Bajoran Emissary of the Prophets. He left DS9 at the end of the Dominion War to join the Bajoran Prophets, but returned to linear existence just in time for the birth of his daughter, Rebecca Jae Sisko. At last report, he was taking an extended leave of absence from Starfleet.

Early Life
Benjamin Sisko was born in the year 2332 in the city of New Orleans on planet Earth. (DS9 novel Avatar book one)

When Ben was a newborn, his proud father, Joseph Sisko, the owner of the renowned restaurant Sisko's Creole Kitchen, would show off his infant son to diners with one arm, and serve tables with the other, not always successfully. A Sisko's patron named Andreas Nikolas once commented about Ben's crying, "...what I really remember is Sisko's boy - must have been just a few months old when I was there, and already the kid had a pair of lungs on him. I swear he drowned out the horn music from next door." (STA novel : Maker)

Ben had two younger brothers, and a younger sister, Judith.

Starfleet Academy
Sisko entered Starfleet Academy in the year 2350.

Sisko once told Odo that he was nicknamed "Dead-Eye" at Starfleet Academy since he was the best shot there, able to bounce a phaser beam off a mirror and still hit the target. He later admitted however, that this was somewhat of an exaggeration. (DS9 novel: The Siege)

While at the Academy, Ben met and befriended fellow Cadet Cal Hudson.

In the year 2353, Ben had not yet graduated from the Academy yet when he was assigned to Pelios Station as an Ensign. It was there that young Sisko first came under the tutelage of Ambassador Curzon Dax, a joined Trill. Sisko would later consider the "Old Man" Curzon to be both a mentor and a second father figure. (DS9 short story: "The Music Between the Notes")

In 2354 Ben was captain of Starfleet Academy Wrestling Team. (DS9 episode: "Apocalypse Rising").

Starfleet Officer
Shortly after graduation and awaiting his first assignment, Sisko met and quickly married his first wife, Jennifer.

In 2355, while Ben was on paternity leave from his first posting on the USS Livingston, Jennifer gave birth to the couple's only child, Jacob Issac Sisko, at a Starfleet medical facility in San Francisco. (TLE novel: Deny Thy Father)

In 2360, Sisko was serving as a Lieutenant in the Engineering section of the USS Okinawa (NCC-13958) under captain James Leyton when, at Curzon's urging, Sisko accepted a temporary assignment for Starfleet Intelligence under Admiral Uhura.

The assignment saw Sisko in command of an undercover team deep within the space of the Romulan Star Empire. It was after this assignment that Sisko switched from Engineering to Command. Sisko soon found himself as First officer of the Okinawa. (TLE novel: Catalyst of Sorrows)


 * More from Sisko's time on the Okinawa will be revealed in an as yet un-scheduled book in the Lost Era series, focusing on the Federations brief war with the Tzenkethi.

By 2367, Sisko was a Lieutenant Commander and the ships first officer of the USS Saratoga (NCC-31911), when that ship was lost fighting the Borg at the Battle of Wolf 359. Jennifer Sisko was killed in that battle.


 * More info on the Saratoga era of Sisko's life can be found in the aptly named novel, Saratoga.

Sisko spent the next three years assigned to the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards on Mars. During this time, Curzon Dax had died, and the Dax symbiont, with all of Curzon's memories, was transfered to a young female Starfleet lieutenant, Jadzia Dax.

In the year 2369, Sisko, now a full Commander, received new orders placing him in command of Starbase Deep Space 9, a Cardassian-designed space station formerly known as Terok Nor, in orbit of the recently liberated planet Bajor. (DS9 novelization: Emissary).

The Emissary of the Prophets
Shortly after arriving in Bajoran Space, Sisko met with Bajoran Kai Opaka Sulan, who told him the he was the Emissary of the Prophets, foretold in Bajoran scripture, destined to find the Celestial Temple of the Prophets, home of the Bajoran gods.

Sisko was skeptical, but soon after an encounter with the Orb of Prophecy and Change, he and Lieutenant Jadzia Dax discoverd the Bajoran Wormhole, an artificially created passageway to the distant Gamma Quadrant created by the beings that the Bajorans consider to be gods.

Sisko requested a Bajoran national for the position of first officer, and the post was given to former Bajoran freedom fighter Kira Nerys, who was staunchly against the Federations presence on Bajor, believing the Federation to be little different from her former Cardassian oppressors.

It wasn't until Kira discovered that Sisko was supposedly the Emissary, that she gave the Federation a chance. (DS9 novelization: Emissary; short story: "Ha'mara")

In late 2370, Sisko discovered the existence of the Dominion, a dictatorial power based in the Gamma Quadrant. Sisko led a mission into the Gamma Quadrant commanding the USS Defiant in search of the Dominions leaders, the Founders. The Founders turned out to be of the same same race as DS9's shape-shifting Chief of security, Odo. (DS9 novelization: The Search)

In 2371, the mirror universe counterpart of $𝜇$ kidnapped Sisko to his own universe. There, Sisko posed as his own mirror counterpart, in an attempt to convince the mirror version of his wife, $𝜇$, to join the Terran Rebellion. Sisko's experience from the regular universe proved invaluable in this mission, and Jennifer joined the Rebellion. Although Sisko and O'Brien were careful not to disclose Sisko's true identity, the truth later became common knowledge to the members of the Rebellion. (DS9 episode: "Through the Looking Glass"; VOY novel: "The Mirror-Scaled Serpent")

The Dominion War
In late 2373, when war broke out with the Dominion (and their new Cardassian allies), Sisko and Starfleet were forced to temporarily abandon the Bajoran sector. Sisko led the combined fleet that retook DS9 and the Bajoran sector, but it was only the intervention of the Prophets, acting at the behest of their Emissary, that truly defeated the Dominion. (DS9 novelization: Call to Arms..., ...Sacrifice of Angels; short story, "Three Sides to Every Story")

In 2374, Sisko was responsible for bringing the forces of the Romulan Empire into the war against the Dominion. Although Sisko violated several Starfleet regulations in this endeavor, the Admiralty was reluctant to punish Sisko, fearing reprisals from the Romulans. (DS9 novel: Hollow Men)

When the Dominion War ended in late 2375, Sisko led the charge into Cardassian space for the final battle. Shortly thereafter, the peace treaty was signed on DS9. Sisko averted an assassination attempt on the female Changeling, who commanded the Dominion war effort in the Alpha Quadrant.

Shortly thereafter, Sisko ascended to the plane of the Prophets, but not before promising his pregnant second wife, Kasidy Yates, that he would return. (DS9 novelization: What You Leave Behind; short story: "Requital")

The Prophets
The first lesson Sisko has to teach the Prophets involves the nature of linear existence. He teld them a tale of an alternate future that was erased by the actions of his crew, negating the events as if they never happened, and yet the crew still remembered the events. (DS9 novels: The Fall of Terok Nor, The War of the Prophets, Inferno)

In the linear timeline, while still residing with the Prophets, in April of 2376, Sisko appeared to Kira Nerys in a dream and to Elias Vaughn in an orb expereince. (DS9 novel: Avatar)

Later Sisko encountered Elias Vaughn, who was having another orb experience courtesy of the Orb of Unity. Sisko and Vaughn helped each other return to linear existence in time to save Bajor from the threat of the alien Parasites infecting Bajor. (DS9 novel: Unity)

Return
Sisko returned just in time for the birth of his daughter, Rebecca Jae Sisko, called the Avatar of Peace in the ancient writings of the Bajoran heretic Ohalu.

After his return, Sisko turned down a promotion to Admiral, and enjoyed an extended leave of absence from Starfleet.

Sisko later spent time with his wife and daughter in his home on Bajor preparing for the return to Bajoran space of the mysterious Ascendants. (DS9 novels: Unity, "Bajor: Fragments and Omens")

Sisko returned to DS9 in early 2377, following the brutal attack on Captain Kira by the Jem'Hadar observer, Taran'atar. He stayed with Kira, and upon her emergence from a coma broke the news that Bashir had been forced to replace her heart. (DS9 novel: Warpath)

Sisko, an avid baseball fan, attended opening day for the Pike City Pioneers of the Cestus Baseball League on Cestus III in 2378. There, he met then-governor, future Federation President, Nanietta Bacco. (novel Articles of the Federation)

Hobbies and interests
Sisko was a skilled wrestler. He and Jadzia Dax often wrested at the weekend and her invariably won, taking most of Dax's Tongo winnings in the process. (DS9 novel: Avatar)