Star Trek: 10 Greatest Captain Sisko Speeches

This entry serves as a full circle moment for this list as it connects so strongly to Sisko's speech in The Maquis Part 2. There, he described Earth as a paradise from which a wave of well-meaning, ignorant humans spring forth. Here, when faced with the alternative, Sisko stands up for the paradise as it should be - even as frightened as some of those inhabitants now are.

While Sisko struggles to get some of the locals - including his own father - to understand the threat of the Changelings, Admiral Leyton understands it perfectly. His approach to preparing Earth leaves a lot to be desired, even if there is a sort of Machiavellian logic to it. With the power grid sabotaged and Earth under martial law, Leyton looks set to keep the planet safe, even if that safety comes at the cost of personal liberty.

If the Changelings want to destroy what we've built here, they're going to have to do it themselves. We will not do it for them.

He does not make Leyton agree with him as much as he forces the man to see that his method failed. As we know, Earth would find itself both in a state of war, then under direct attack by the Breen, in the years to come. The question, then, is not if Leyton was right or wrong in his overall hopes, but rather was it time for that idea of paradise to adapt to a new, darker age of exploration - and at what cost?

Sisko, for one, is resolute. There may be outside forces that would seek to destroy it - but that destruction was not be helped by internal strife. As Earth was still standing in the 32nd Century, rejoining the Federation, with Starfleet Academy set to reopen on the planet's surface - its safe to say that this captain's perhaps naive belief in humanity truly did pay off.