Synopsis: Captain Sisko is confronted by his former Starfleet Security Chief Eddington, who is now a leader of the Maquis.
While again there is much depth psychological content to this episode, I am going to explore it for the perspective of how it can be seen as an illustration of what happens when the myth that one lives by is identified.
“For the Uniform” begins with Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew aboard the U.S.S. Defiant going after Michael Eddington, who for eighteen months served as Deep Space Nine’s Starfleet Security Chief until his betrayal to the station and his status as a member of the Maquis were revealed. Eddington’s forces disable Defiant, causing Starfleet to replace Sisko and his crew with the starship U.S.S. Malinche, commanded by Captain Sanders. Eddington’s forces then defeat the Malinche, and Sisko goes against orders returns to his quest to arrest Eddington. Eventually going against Starfleet protocol to bring him in.
The way that Sisko goes after Eddington could be seen as similar to how Captain Jean-Luc Picard went after the Borg Collective in Star Trek: First Contact, in which he is compared to Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. But instead, Eddington names the myth that he is living by to Sisko when he tells him to read Les Misérables. In comparing Sisko to the character of Inspector Javert, he is revealing that he sees himself as embodying the character of Jean Valjean. When Sisko realizes this and remembers that the novel ended with Valjean sacrificing himself, he then knowns how to bring Eddington to justice. He creates a similar situation, and Eddington, seeing himself as the Valjean character, does in fact sacrifice himself to further his cause. Eddington’s myth played out as he imagined it would. This can be a case study, or a cautionary tale about how we should be careful in choosing which myth we live by.
mydailysoultrek 