The sons of Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) are the perfect protagonists for a potential Star Trek: Deep Space Nine sequel series. The relationship between Ben and his son Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) stands out as one of the best-realized father-son relationship in Star Trek, and it was devastating to see Jake waiting for his father’s return in the final shot of the DS9 finale. As Star Trek: Picard season 3 has become both a sequel to DS9 and a story about the next generation of the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew, it feels like the time is right to return to Jake Sisko and his younger brother.
When Sisko was recalled to the Celestial Temple by the Prophets in the DS9 finale, his wife Kassidy Yates-Sisko (Penny Johnson Jerald) was expecting their child. This led actor Avery Brooks to change Sisko’s DS9 ending because of discomfort around the implications of a black father leaving his wife and unborn child behind. Given how groundbreaking Ben and Jake Sisko’s father-son relationship was on DS9, a change was made in which Sisko promised that he’d be back in “maybe a year, maybe yesterday. But I will be back“. Sisko has yet to return to Star Trek, but a sequel series that focuses on his grown-up children and how they dealt with his absence could provide a fresh take on the franchise.
Sisko’s Sons Should Be Star Trek DS9’s Sequel Show
In DS9 season 4, episode 3, “The Visitor”, an aging Jake Sisko (Tony Todd) recounted how he lost his father in a freak accident aboard DS9‘s USS Defiant. Plagued by visions of his father, and obsessed with rescuing him from subspace, Jake made numerous sacrifices, including turning his back on his writing career. A Jake Sisko show shouldn’t remake this story, but flipping this classic DS9 episode could make for a fascinating sequel show. Rather than Jake, it could be Kassidy and Ben’s son who is obsessed with returning Sisko from the Celestial Temple.
Perhaps Sisko and Kassidy’s son joined Starfleet with the hope of understanding Bajoran religion as a means to make contact with the Prophets. This storyline would allow Star Trek to revisit key DS9 locations like Bajor and the wormhole. It could even provide a means to bring back Star Trek‘s Cardassians given their history with both Bajor and Captain Sisko. Perhaps Jake Sisko, working for the Federation News Network, could be asked by Kassidy Yates to track down his half-brother after they went missing on Bajor, requiring him to call in favors from legacy DS9 characters.
Star Trek: Picard Set Up A Kasidy Yates Return
A Star Trek: Picard Easter egg revealed that Kasidy Yates’ Interstellar Freights is still operational in the 25th century, as it’s advertised in the futuristic Boston seen in the Picard season 1 premiere. This means that Kasidy Yates-Sisko could easily appear in a DS9 sequel show revolving around Sisko’s grown-up kids. Kasidy was a Maquis sympathizer, and it would be interesting to see if her politics have influenced the outlook of her and Ben’s child as they were growing up.
Now that Star Trek: Picard season 3 is exploring a potential second Dominion War in Star Trek, the time feels right to revisit the DS9 cast. Focusing on Captain Sisko’s family would be a fitting way to follow on from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finale “What You Leave Behind”. Further, the apocryphal DS9 season 8 in the documentary “What We Left Behind” established Sisko and Kasidy’s son is in Starfleet. In exploring how Jake, Kasidy, and her child dealt with the absence of Sisko, Star Trek could return to the show’s themes of family, religion, and politics.