Captain Sisko had a deep connection to the USS Defiant in DS9 which was unique to those between his Star Trek predecessors and their starships.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) had a bond with the USS Defiant that no other Star Trek captain can match. Although DS9 was never meant to have a starship, its creation was necessitated by the Dominion War arc. In Star Trek: DS9 season 2, episode 26, the Jem’Hadar destroyed an Odyssey-class starship, the USS Odyssey, and it was deemed that the audience would not accept Deep Space Nine being able to protect itself purely with a fleet of Runabouts. And so, in season 3, the USS Defiant was introduced, the tough little ship that played a key role in protecting DS9, and the Alpha Quadrant, from the Dominion.

The USS Defiant was a rarity in Starfleet history, as it was specifically built with military intentions. Following the Battle of Wolf-359, Starfleet decided they had to build a more combat-ready starship, something that was at odds with their more peaceful focus on scientific exploration. However, as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Dominion War proved, sometimes Starfleet has to fight wars to protect the utopian ideals that the Federation was founded upon. Nobody knew this more than Captain Sisko, who had a personal stake in the Defiant and its role during the Dominion War.

DS9’s Defiant Broke Big Star Trek Rules By Having A Cloaking Device

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s USS Defiant came equipped with a Romulan cloaking device, which broke a few in-universe and real-life Star Trek rules.

Captain Sisko Uniquely Helped Design & Build His USS Defiant Starship

After he lost his wife Jennifer Sisko (Felecia M. Bell) at the Battle of Wolf 359, Commander Sisko accepted a posting at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards. Sisko wouldn’t have been the only Starfleet officer at Utopia Planitia who’d lost someone at Wolf 359, given that one Borg cube ship destroyed 40 ships and killed 11,000 people. While there, Sisko played a hugely important role in the USS Defiant project, the first battleship to be conceived by Starfleet in decades. The Defiant was originally conceived as a means of defense against the Borg, and Sisko’s grief and anger likely drove his work on the prototype.

As Captain Sisko helped design and build the USS Defiant, he had a connection to the ship that was unique to his Star Trek predecessors. Both Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) were handed command of their respective Enterprises, and never played a role in their creation. Interestingly, Derek Tyler Attico’s book The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko reveals that Sisko and the name Defiant have a connection going back to his Academy days. The first full-size craft that Cadet Sisko helped to build was a replica Egyptian Khofu solar ship, which he and his fellow students dubbed “Defiant.”

What Happened To Sisko’s Defiant After Star Trek: DS9

Sisko’s role in building the Defiant got him recruited by the Mirror Universe’s Miles “Smiley” O’Brien (Colm Meaney) to build its counterpart in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Shattered Mirror.” Later, during the battle for the Chin’toka system, the original Defiant was destroyed by the Breen’s energy weapon. For the remainder of the Dominion War, Captain Sisko commanded the USS Sao Paolo, which had been renamed the Defiant in honor of its predecessor.

This second USS Defiant appeared in Star Trek: Prodigy season 1, when Starfleet attempted to recapture the USS Protostar. This almost led to the destruction of the entire Starfleet armada thanks to the Vau N’Kat’s living construct. It survived this skirmish thanks to the young crew of the USS Protostar, led by Dal R’El (Brett Gray) and the noble sacrifice of Hologram Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). Sometime after this, the USS Defiant was installed in Star Trek: Picard‘s Fleet Museum, in honor of its creator, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Emissary, Captain Benjamin Sisko.