10 Star Trek Characters Who Need To Be Redeemed

Captain of the USS Phoenix, Benjamin Maxwell almost brought the Alpha Quadrant to war several years before Ben Sisko managed that achievement. Like O'Brien, with whom he served on the USS Rutledge, Maxwell was a veteran of the Cardassian wars that preceded the events of the Next Generation. In the fourth season episode The Wounded, he becomes an example of PTSD.

He lost his family to the Cardassians in the massacre on Setlik III, never truly recovering. Unable to face the future without making those responsible pay, he took his vessel into Cardassian territory and began destroying targets that he felt were either enemy vessels or staging grounds for an all-out assault. This dragged the Enterprise-D into the conflict when they were attacked by a Cardassian Galor Class warship.

Starfleet were not willing to support Maxwell in this endeavour, desperate to hold on to the peace that had been agreed at the end of the war. As Maxwell saw it, that peace was meaningless when only one side was honouring it. Time would prove him correct, with no mention of him being reinstated during the Dominion War. Although his actions were preemptive and dangerous, the man was correct in his assertions.