Take a trip with me back to the mid-90s. Star Trek is still relevant as a TV franchise and a handful of other popular sci-fi and fantasy shows dominate prime time. Well, semi-dominate. Two of the best long-running shows on are Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5. These two shows are very similar. They both take place on mostly-human-run space stations. They both take place in the middle of major wars. And they both star literally messianic badasses. Ben Sisko. Captain of Deep Space Nine and the USS Defiant. Emissary of the Prophets of Bajor. Fighter of the Dominion. John Sheridan. Captain of Babylon 5 and the White Star Fleet. Co-head of the Rangers. Fighter of the Shadows. These captains are badass heroes who saved their galaxies, but who was better? Let’s find out.
Military Service
John Sheridan: Commander of the U.S.S. Lexington during the Earth-Minbari War, where he became the only Earth captain to take down a Minbari warship. Became captain of the U.S.S. Agamemnon afterward.
Ben Sisko: Commander of the U.S.S. Saratoga at Wolf 359, where it was promptly blown the fuck up.
Winner: John Sherian, no question.
Messianic Cred
John Sheridan: Was buddies with the mysterious Vorlonn Kossh, and later was brought back to life by the oldest of the Old Ones. Brought together the remaining Old Ones to fight the Shadows.
Ben Sisko:Prophesized to be the Emissary of the Prophets of Bajor, and became just that by meeting the Prophets and guiding them about the ways of corporeal life. Worshipped by the people of Bajor. Got visions of the future.
Winner:Ben Sisko. Sheridan got the Old Ones together and was friends with them, but he was outshined in terms of worship by both Sisko and Sheridan’s own predecessor, Jeffrey Sinclair, who went back in time and became a Minbari to fight the Shadows the first time and become their religious figure (it makes sense in context). Sinclair would win this category if he was in the running, but he doesn’t have enough badass credit to be part of it.
Wartime Heroics
John Sheridan: Led the alliance of Babylon 5 and alien races against the Shadows and kicked them out of the galaxy, along with the Vorlonns. Then liberated Earth from its tyrannical dictator.
Ben Sisko: Led Starfleet, the Klingons, and the Romulans against the Dominion.
Winner: John Sheridan. The Dominion had more advanced military hardware. The Shadows and the Vorlonn were more advanced species, and the Earth government started using Shadow technology in its ships. Fortunately, John Sheridan had some help with Vorlonn and Minbari technology, but it was still a win. Which brings us to…
Badass Ship
John Sheridan: The White Star, a frigate that combines Minbari and Vorlonn technology and puts it in a ship that’s faster than anything its size and that can make its own jump points. Oh, did I say a frigate? I meant a fleet of them. The Rangers built hundreds, and gave Sheridan the first. Then gave him the rest of them.
Ben Sisko: The Defiant, or Ben Sisko’s Motherfucking Pimp Hand. The ship is an actual warship, something the pansies in Starfleet didn’t consider until Sisko himself said, “Look, douchebags, we need this ship to fight the Borg. Then we need this ship to fight the Dominion.” It’s the only Starfleet ship with a legitimate cloaking device, and it’s blown the crap out of a lot of other ships. The first Defiant was destroyed, but Starfleet gave him another.
Winner:Ben Sisko. In a fleet of pacifists, he made them make the biggest gun, then he made them get the Romulans to lend them a cloaking device (the banning of which in Starfleet still makes no sense, especially after Gowron dissolved the Khitomer Accords). Sheridan would win if we judged the entire fleet of White Stars as his badass ship, but one-on-one the Defiant is better.
Badass Space Station
John Sheridan: Babylon 5, a five-mile-long floating dildo filled with aliens of all races trying to keep the peace between their people and armed with dozens of Starfury fighters. Has dozens of stores, restaurants, and casinos, plus countless vendors in the Zocolo.
Ben Sisko: Deep Space Nine, a one-mile-diameter gyroscope ball filled with humans and Bajorans trying to protect the wormhole and Bajor. Armed with loads of weapons and surrounded by a fleet during the war. Has one casino, two other restaurants, and a holo-brothel.
Winner:John Sheridan. The station’s bigger, it has more stuff to do, and it has a squadron of starfighters to protect it. Starfleet hasn’t quite figured out the whole “fighter” concept yet, and Deep Space Nine’s fleet was more absent than present.
God Punchingness
John Sheridan: Didn’t punch any gods, but yelled at them. Also, dragged his planet-sized balls to the dark gods’ home planet of Z’ha’dum to look them in the eye, tell them to go fuck themselves, and then nuke their capital city. Then out-jumped the nuke and was saved by the one Old One both the dark gods and the Vorlonns look up to.
Ben Sisko: Punched out Q and made him never return to the Alpha Quadrant ever again. Played a surprisingly soft hand with the Prophets of Bajor, despite their screwing with his life on a fairly regular basis. Fought the Founders, seen as gods to their vat-cloned servants, to a standstill until they managed to cut off their main forces.
Winner: John Sheridan. If Q never returned to mess with anyone except a handful of brightly colored ponies, Ben Sisko would have won for actually punching him out. Unfortunately, he ran to harass Voyager and, through the power of bad writing, utterly destroy any credibility or real power the Q Continuum had, retroactively making the punch less badass than it could have been.
Help From Above
John Sheridan: Got the assistance of various Old Ones, including the first Old One, to fight the Shadows and eventually kick them out (and all the other Old Ones) out of the galaxy. Got control over the Great Machine in Epsilon 3, a combination time machine, astral projector, weapons base, and intercom.
Ben Sisko: Convinced the Prophets of Bajor to destroy an entire Dominion fleet and prevent any others from coming into the alpha quadrant.
Winner: Ben Sisko. Sheridan had to beg and plead to get every bit of help he could from the Old Ones. Ben Sisko said, “Look, you know how awesome I am. Do this shit.” And shit got done.
Winner: John Sheridan, by 4-3
It came close, but John Sheridan pushed it over the top with this attack on Z’Ha’Dum. Ben Sisko did a lot of crazy shit, but he didn’t stare at the Founders and say, “You’re not going to stop? Okay. Then we’re all going to get nuked right now, and I’m still going to live through it.”
