10 Reasons Benjamin Sisko Is Star Trek's Greatest Ever Captain
8. But Not Too Starfleet
Benjamin Sisko the builder is a very easy-to-like character who exemplifies all of the idealized versions of Starfleet. They discover new technologies, they make peace with new races, they push humanity into new and exciting areas of the galaxy, and, above all else, they're the good guys.
But space, and indeed life itself, isn't as simple as that. Governing yourself and your empire by a series of stringent codes designed to support the greater good sounds like a lovely future for humanity, but it leaves them tone-deaf to the harsh realities faced by a lot of their further-flung endeavors. Sisko, at times, is the idealized version of a Starfleet Captain but he, himself, is a realist.
In The Pale Moonlight is, easily, the best character study in Star Trek history, and details his plan to alter the course of the war by allying with a former Cardassian spy to con a Romulan senator. When his plan's exposed Garak has the subject and his own accomplice killed in order to pull off the deception and cover their tracks, all while Sisko realises that, in the end, he's fine with that.
Picard is famously quoted as saying "the first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth" but, in Sisko's own words, he lied, he cheated, he bribed men to cover the crimes of other men and he is an accessory to murder, but, he can live with that because the Federation needs him to.