List of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters


This is a list of characters from the science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Only characters who played a significant major role in the series are listed.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a science fiction television show of the Star Trek franchise that aired between 1993 and 1999. Many of the characters appear in other programs and films comprising the wider Star Trek science fiction universe.

Main characters

Benjamin Sisko

is the Starfleet officer placed in charge of Deep Space Nine, a formerly Cardassian space station orbiting Bajor. The Bajorans, having liberated themselves from a long, brutal Cardassian occupation of their planet, invite the Federation to jointly administer the station. Sisko and Jadzia Dax accidentally discover nearby the first known stable wormhole, which not only provides two-way quick access to the previously distant, unexplored Gamma Quadrant, but is also considered by the Bajorans to be the home of their gods, the Prophets. These two factors greatly magnify the station's importance.
The Bajorans consider him the Emissary of the Prophets, which gives him enormous prestige and influence with them. At first uncomfortable with his unwanted status, he eventually comes to accept it. In his dual role, he leads the fight against the enemies of Bajor and the Federation.

Odo

The security chief of the station, Odo is a Changeling, a being able to shapeshift. Found by the Bajorans, he was subjected to painful testing by a Bajoran scientist while growing up. During the Cardassian occupation, Odo was a law enforcement officer aboard the station, doing his best to be even-handed and impartial, despite the circumstances.
He is the nemesis of Quark, the Ferengi owner of a bar/nightclub on the station during and after the occupation. Odo gradually falls in love with Kira Nerys, the Bajoran liaison officer and Sisko's second-in-command, and she with him.
He finally discovers that his people are the Founders, the iron-fisted rulers of the Dominion, a very powerful state in the Gamma Quadrant. The Founders distrust all "solids" and have already subjugated many races. They go to war with the Federation and its allies, testing Odo's loyalties.

Julian Bashir

is a Starfleet lieutenant and the station's chief medical officer. When he was a child, his parents had him illegally genetically engineered to enhance him both physically and mentally, as he was falling behind his classmates. He is best friends with engineering officer Miles O'Brien and befriends the enigmatic Garak, the sole Cardassian resident. He is manipulated by and fights against Section 31, a highly secretive group within Starfleet that engages in illegal activities on behalf of the Federation.

Jadzia/Ezri Dax

Dax is a Trill symbiont, who has been "joined" to various humanoid Trills, both male and female, over the course of its long lifetime, sharing their bodies. Prior to Jadzia, the Dax symbiont had been hosted by Lela, Tobin, Emony, Audrid, Torias, Joran, and Curzon.
Jadzia, Sisko's science officer, is Dax's host for the first six seasons. When Terry Farrell, the actress who portrayed her, left the show, Jadzia was killed by the Cardassian Dukat, and the symbiont transferred to Ezri. Jadzia marries Worf shortly before she is murdered, while Ezri is attracted to Dr. Bashir.
Curzon, the roguish male host immediately prior to Jadzia, was Benjamin Sisko's mentor and close friend. Sisko calls Jadzia and Ezri "Old Man", despite neither of them being old or a man, in remembrance of this.

Jake Sisko

Jake is Benjamin Sisko's teenage son. His best friend is the Ferengi Nog. Choosing not to follow his father's footsteps and join Starfleet, he becomes a writer and a war correspondent.

Miles O'Brien

is the station's chief of operations, transferring over from Star Trek: The Next Generations starship Enterprise in the first episode. He becomes best friends with Julian Bashir. He is married to Keiko, a botanist who works as a schoolteacher on the station; they have two children.

Quark

is the longtime Ferengi owner of a bar/casino/holosuite arcade on Deep Space Nine. Sisko persuades him to remain and keep his establishment running after the Cardassians are forced out. Like most Ferengi, he pursues profit by any means, legal or otherwise. This frequently brings him into conflict with Odo. Sisko, on the other hand, occasionally finds his services and information useful.

Kira Nerys

Major, later Colonel, Kira Nerys is the Bajoran liaison officer and Sisko's second-in-command on the station. During the Cardassian occupation, she became an effective guerrilla fighter. At first, she is hostile to Federation involvement, but gradually changes her mind. A devout woman, she initially finds it difficult working for a commander who is also the Emissary of the Prophets, but comes to completely trust and respect Sisko. She has some romantic involvements with fellow Bajorans, but eventually learns of Odo's love for her, and reciprocates.

Worf

is a Starfleet officer transferred to Deep Space Nine after having served aboard the Enterprise under Captain Jean-Luc Picard. He is the station's Strategic Operations Officer. A Klingon raised by human foster parents after being orphaned, he became the first Starfleet officer of his species. He faces difficulties and divided loyalties as a result. After helping Gowron become Chancellor of the Klingon Empire in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Worf later kills him in a duel when Gowron endangers the Empire in the Dominion War for his own personal motives. Worf and Jadzia Dax eventually develop a romantic relationship and get married, though she is soon after murdered by Gul Dukat.

Recurring characters

Bareil Antos

Bareil Antos is a Bajoran Vedek.
He first appears in the episode "In the Hands of the Prophets" in the first season, where he is introduced as a Bajoran religious leader, and the target of an assassination plot. Bareil becomes a recurring character who has a romantic relationship with Major Kira Nerys, a subplot that begins at the start of season 2 and concludes with his death in "Life Support".
He runs against Vedek Winn Adami for the role of Kai, the religious leader of Bajor, but drops out to protect the reputation of the previous Kai, Opaka. Bareil is injured in a shuttle explosion, and Dr. Julian Bashir has to replace his failing organs with cybernetics so that he can continue to advise Winn in vital negotiations with the Cardassians. His continued efforts in this weakened state cause brain damage, and eventually his death.
In the mirror universe episode "Resurrection", the Bareil from that universe is a petty thief who is close to the alternate Kira, the evil commander of the space station. He leaves his universe in an attempt to steal an orb.

Brunt

Brunt is a liquidator with the Ferengi Commerce Authority. He is the nemesis of Quark, whom he perceives as a threat to the Ferengi way of life, and often attempts to either destroy him or to supplant Grand Nagus Zek. By sharp contrast, his mirror universe counterpart is a friendly and congenial person, with unrequited feelings for his universe's Ezri Tigan, who ends up being murdered by the Intendant.

Kimara Cretak

Kimara Cretak is a senator and representative of the Romulan empire for a short time aboard Deep Space Nine. She is accused of treason against the Star Empire and found guilty in the episode "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges." The ending of the episode leaves her fate ambiguous, with it unclear if she will be imprisoned or executed. Cretak was first portrayed by Megan Cole in "Image in the Sand" and "Shadows and Symbols," and Adrienne Barbeau in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges."

Damar

Damar is a Cardassian military officer. He serves under Gul Dukat and later becomes his aide when the Cardassian Union joins the Dominion. Damar discovers a way to disable the Federation's self-replicating mines protecting Deep Space Nine, which had been preventing the Dominion from sending reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant through the wormhole. As the Federation retakes the station, Damar learns that Tora Ziyal, Dukat's half-Bajoran daughter, had been helping Kira and others undermine them, and kills her.
After Dukat's mental breakdown following his daughter's death, Damar is promoted, first to gul and then to legate. As the leader of Cardassia, he gradually comes to resent the Dominion's demotion of Cardassia and sacrifice of Cardassian soldiers during its war to conquer the Alpha Quadrant. He finally switches sides and calls upon his people to fight the Dominion. He accepts Federation aid and advice from an expert on guerrilla warfare, Colonel Kira Nerys. During desperate fighting to capture the Dominion's headquarters on Cardassia Prime, Damar is killed in action.
Damar appeared in 23 episodes, beginning with season 4's "Return to Grace".
Producer Ira Behr hired Biggs, having seen him in the early IMAX film Alamo: The Price of Freedom.

Dukat

is a Cardassian officer and the former commander of Terok Nor, the Cardassian space station that is renamed Deep Space Nine following Cardassia's expulsion from Bajor. Kira Nerys hates him for his actions during the Cardassian occupation, but it is later revealed that Dukat and her mother were lovers.
Dukat becomes a key player in forming a Cardassian alliance with the Dominion and joins them in fighting against the Federation and Bajor. With the Dominion on the verge of losing the war, Dukat allies himself with the Pah-wraiths, the enemies of the Prophets, but is foiled by Sisko in his attempt to release them from their captivity and instead ends up joining them in eternal imprisonment.
In 2009, IGN ranked Dukat as the 15th best character of Star Trek overall, noting the character as a complicated and nuanced "bad guy". They note the character's morality in "Indiscretion", as well as his introduction in the premiere episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Emissary".
In 2016, Screen Rant rated Dukat as the eighth best character in Star Trek overall as presented in television and film. Time rated Gul Dukat the fourth best villain of the Star Trek franchise in 2016.
In 2018, Comic Book Resources ranked Gul Dukat the third best recurring character of all Star Trek.