Star Trek: Every Captain Ranked Worst To Best (2023)

We first got to see Saru serving as a captain when Discovery was lost in the mirror universe, and the ship's former captain, Lorca, was exposed as an imposter. Saru successfully returned his crew home after defeating Lorca, then led the mission to Qo'noS where the Klingons were forced into a truce. For his role in this mission, Saru was awarded the Starfleet Medal Of Honor, but afterwards went back to serving as the ship's first officer, now under the temporary command of Captain Pike.

After Discovery's journey into the future, Saru once again became the ship's captain, and was able to make contact with the Federation, help solve what caused The Burn, and negotiate a truce between United Earth's Defence Force and the raiders from Titan.

After the show's third season, Saru returned to Kaminar to look after Su'Kal, the Kelpien who accidentally triggered The Burn, where he remained for five months before returning to Discovery to serve as Burnham's first officer (though, retaining the rank of captain).

Saru was a humble captain. He deferred to the judgement of his experts, like Stamets, Tilly, and Culber, but he always made sure to keep them in check, like when he pulled the plug on the DMA experiment in The Examples to stop Stamets and Tarka from accidentally destroying the ship. Saru is a very by-the-books captain, which can be both a good and a bad thing.