Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's Avery Brooks Tribute Explained

In the "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" episode "Series Acclimation Mil," Trekkies get a more in-depth introduction to the character of Sam (Kerrice Brooks), the only holographic cadet at the Academy. Sam comes from a colony of living holograms — called photonic life forms — that had been isolating itself on a planet called Kasq for many years. As has already been established, Sam is only a few months old, but has been programmed to look, act, think like a 17-year-old human. 

"Series Acclimation Mil" (which is Sam's full name) reveals that Sam is also on a mission. Her holographic creators have constructed Sam specifically to infiltrate the world of "organics" (that's us ordinary folk that aren't made of light and force fields) and take biological field notes. Sam's photonic overlords want to know more about the way people operate. She is the emissary for her people.

As an emissary, Sam feels she can learn about the organic world by studying (and solving the mysteries of) another famed emissary from the "Star Trek" universe. Specifically, she wants to discover what happened to Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), the main character from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Sisko was, as DS9 fans can tell you, the Emissary to the Prophets, an important holy figure on the planet of Bajor. He was the first person to make contact with a species of noncorporeal aliens inside a stable Bajoran wormhole, which the local Bajoran clergy interpreted as a divine experience. 

At the end of "Series Acclimation Mil," Brooks' voice even intones some dialogue about spiritual discovery, taken from a spoken-word album that Brooks recorded years before. The episode is then dedicated to him.

Some Trekkies of the 1990s era may get a little misty when seeing Avery Brooks' tribute. Back when "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was still on the air, it wasn't as widely accepted as its big brother "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Nor was it as talked-about as the new kid on the block, "Star Trek: Voyager." "Deep Space Nine" was a headier, more complex Trek, featuring a quagmire of politics and religious issues, and tangling with the morality of war. Avery Brooks' character, Commander Sisko, commanded the titular space station, and had to regularly deal with the Bajoran clergy, the encroaching Cardassian fascists who wanted to re-occupy Bajor, and a threatening empire from the Gamma Quadrant called the Dominion. 

This was on top of his role as Emissary to the Prophets, as well as being a strong dad for his son, Jake (Cirroc Lofton). Avery Brooks was an intense actor whose performance went a long way to dictating the tone and the pace of the series. He had a temper, but was far more permissive with his crew, regularly bending rules. He could also be intensely warm, opening up to his family and close friends.

Because "Deep Space Nine" was a less popular series, though, Sisko — and Brooks — were rarely held up in the same regard as Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart). For many years, conversations about the "best captain" in "Star Trek" rarely included Sisko. "Starfleet Academy" has now dedicated an episode to Brooks, acknowledging that, yes, the actor's presence in the franchise is significant and impressive. And the mysteries of Benjamin Sisko are still being talked about eight centuries later, when "Starfleet Academy" takes place. 

It may also be worth noting that Sisko was notable in that he was the first Black captain to lead a "Star Trek" series. Avery Brooks won two NAACP Image Awards for his performance as Sisko, and several episodes of the series dealt with the racial discrimination faced by Black people. The fact that Sam, a Black character, is drawn to the history of the first Black captain in "Star Trek" spells out an inspiring meta-narrative as well. 

In recent years, "Deep Space Nine" has been embraced by a new generation of fans, but that wasn't always the case back in the 1990s. Now, as seen by Sam's exploration of Sisko and his history on "Starfleet Academy," "Deep Space Nine" is just as much a nostalgia object as the shows around it. Trekkies know the series as well as "The Original Series" or "The Next Generation." And this tribute to Brooks is proof that the current holders of the "Star Trek" torch are just as fond of him as they are of other notable Trek captains. 

While Brooks was on "Deep Space Nine," he continued to act in movies and on other TV shows, turning up in studio films like "The Big Hit" and "15 Minutes," as well as voicing characters in "Gargoyles" and the animated anthology "Happily Ever After." Brooks has been retired from screen acting for about 25 years, and has since become a music and theater professor at Oberlin College. This episode of "Starfleet Academy" is the first time that Brooks has been heard on "Star Trek" (albeit in recorded form) since the end of "Deep Space Nine" in 1999.