10 Star Trek Fan Theories That Became Fact

Benny Russell was a fascinating creation. He was both the dreamer and the dream, created by the Prophets as an attempt to help Sisko course correct and stay where he was on Deep Space Nine. However, the ending of Far Beyond The Stars suggests that Benny goes even deeper than that. Staring out of one of the station's windows, Sisko wonders if he, in fact, is the dream and Russell is the reality.

According to Ira Stephen Behr, that was the original ending of Deep Space Nine. Everything would come to a close, Sisko would go to live with the Prophets and it would all be revealed as a dream that Benny had been having this whole time. The sole reason that this was not included in the final episode was that the rest of the producers on the franchise were uncomfortable with the implications of this.

Deep Space Nine was so deeply interwoven with the rest of the series that for it to have all been a dream, so too would The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation and Voyager. It would also retroactively have included Enterprise and the CBS shows as well. While this would have been a next-to-perfect ending for Sisko, it remains one of those 'true but secret' moments.