How Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Pulled Off Those Amazing Deep Space Nine Returns [Exclusive]

Spoilers for "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" episode 5 to follow.

"Starfleet Academy" takes "Star Trek" to the classroom, and the latest episode uses a stock school program plot: the life-changing school project. The episode spotlights SAM (Kerrice Brooks), a Kasqian or species of holographic intelligences, also called "Photonics". (The episode's title, "Series Acclimation Mil," is what SAM's name stands for.)

Sent by her people to learn about organic races, SAM is not just a student, she's an emissary. So, she decides to research the most famous emissary in Starfleet history: Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Assigned to the eponymous space station orbiting the planet Bajor, Sisko was chosen by the Prophets, which were noncorporeal aliens that inhabited a wormhole near Bajor and were revered by the Bajorans as gods. At the end of "Deep Space Nine," Sisko ascended to join the Prophets in their Celestial Temple ... but history recorded his fate as a question mark.

SAM's quest to uncover Sisko's fate feels almost like "Star Trek" riffing on "Citizen Kane," a film about a journalist trying to find the key to a departed man's life story. The only problem for SAM is that "Starfleet Academy" is set 800 years after "Deep Space Nine," so there's no one left who personally knew Sisko she can interview. Or is there?

Visiting the Sisko museum, SAM sees a holographic recording of Sisko's son, Jake (Cirroc Lofton reprising his "DS9" role). Later, she gets to meet another hologram of Jake, stored in his unpublished manuscript "Anslem." Who gives SAM this book? Her teacher, who's none other than the latest incarnation of Sisko's old friend, Dax ("Star Trek: Lower Decks" star Tawny Newsome, who also co-wrote the episode).

/Film's Jacob Hall spoke with "Starfleet Academy" showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau about how these cameos came about.

Cirroc Lofton was hands-on in crafting Jake's return. "He talked a lot about the look of Jake when Jake was young versus when Jake is now an older person, a parent himself," Noga Landau explained.

Previously, Lofton had said he'd love to play Jake again for a "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" reunion. So, unsurprisingly, he returned to play Jake now, specifically for an episode all about honoring Sisko's legacy (and, by extension, Avery Brooks'). Sisko is the only "Star Trek" lead who's a widowed father, and his relationship with Jake gave "Deep Space Nine" a unique heart other "Trek" shows didn't have. 

When SAM watches the museum recording of Jake, he says he didn't know his father as an emissary. So, he discusses what made Ben a good man, including being the exact role model Jake needed to become a father himself.

"It was very important to both Cirroc and to us that we really focused the conversation on fatherhood, because, in many ways, I think Avery [Brooks] was another father for Cirroc and still is to this day," Landau added.

As Jake grew up during "Deep Space Nine," he became a writer, something his father supported. One of their most pivotal scenes together was in the "DS9" season 2 episode "Shadowplay," when Jake admitted to his dad he didn't want to join Starfleet. Ben accepted his son's decision without hesitation, asking only that Jake put his all into whatever path he took.

Lofton's participation hinged on the episode's other guest star; Landau and Alex Kurtzman confirmed to /Film that Tawny Newsome is friends with Lofton, so she reached out to secure him for the episode. If you're going to commemorate Ben Sisko, you need Jake.

Tawny Newsome is a noted "Deep Space Nine" fan. So, per Alex Kurtzman, she pitched the idea of her playing one of the show's main characters.

"It was like, yes, of course you're going to do it, you know? She had to. I mean, first of all, I adore watching her in anything, and she's a fantastic writer, too, but it was just poetically perfect that she would play Dax," Kurtzman noted, saying Newsome felt a "huge" responsibility playing Dax.

Dax is a Trill, which is two species in one: humanoids who can join with a sentient slug-like symbiont. Trill symbionts are extremely long-lived and so tend to cycle through different hosts. However, the joined Trill is a combination of the two personalities, so when the symbiont joins with a new host, they aren't quite the same person as before.

The seventh Dax iteration, Curzon Dax, was a close friend and mentor of Ben Sisko. Their friendship carried over to Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), who was part of the main cast on "Deep Space Nine." Sisko affectionately called Jadzia "old man," while Jadzia was one of the few to call him Benjamin. Even if Jadzia was only in her late 20s at first, she had 300+ years of memories and wisdom, and so Sisko often went to her as his confidant.

Jadzia was tragically murdered by Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) in the "DS9" season 6 finale "Tears of the Prophets," but the ninth Dax iteration — Ezri Dax (Nicole de Boer) — joined "DS9" for its seventh and final season. By "Starfleet Academy," the Dax symbiont (born in 2018 AD) has now been around for over 1100 years. Jake trusted her with "Anslem" because she'd live long enough to safeguard it.

"Series Acclimation Mil" is a bittersweet coda. The "Deep Space Nine" series finale "What You Leave Behind" suggested that Sisko might be able to return to his loved ones eventually. This episode confirms he didn't.

But Jake made peace with that, and he was able to carry on with only the memory of his father. When the Jake hologram stored in "Anslem" talks with SAM, he tells her that he believes his dad "never really left us." It's reassuring because we've already seen Jake lose his father once, in the "DS9" episode "The Visitor" (starring Tony Todd as an older Jake). There, it destroyed him.

In "The Visitor," Ben Sisko disappears during an accident on the USS Defiant. If he'd merely died, perhaps Jake could've moved on, but no, his father became "unstuck" in time. Ben appears at random moments to Jake, years apart. He encourages his son to live his life, but Jake devotes that life to saving his dad.

Eventually, an elderly Jake concludes he and his father are "tethered" together. So, he poisons himself. That sends Ben back to the moment of his disappearance, to be there for the boy who still needs his dad.

During one of Ben's random appearances to Jake, he gently pushed him to move on, telling him, "Don't think because I'm not around much that I don't want grandchildren." In the "second chance" Jake gave himself and his dad, Jake was able to become a dad while his father was away with the Prophets. "The Visitor" also originally suggested that Jake would write a book titled "Anslem." "Starfleet Academy" now gives that title new context — it's the Bajoran word for "father."

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" is streaming on Paramount+.