Hi, welcome to the Personnel File where we look into the career and personality of Starfleet
characters from the Star Trek Universe. I’m Ric and as usual, we will be drawing on primarily
the shows for content but using some memory beta, that is books and other outside sources
for context. This time, we’ll be looking into the file of Doctor Julian Subatoi Bashir,
from Deep space Nine. Jules Bashir was born on August 29th, 2341
to Richard and Amsha Bashir in London Great Britain Earth.
It became clear in school at the age of 5 that Bashir was struggling to keep up with
the other children. For this reason, his parents made the clandestine decision to take him
to Adigeon Prime and have him undergo accelerated critical neural pathway engineering in 2348.
This was in violation of the Federation’s strict genetic engineering guidelines which
state it should only be used to rectify life-endangering genetic disorders.
He was enrolled in a new school to cover the change in personality where he started to
outperform his peers as the genetic augmentations took effect. Over two weeks, his IQ improved
70 points and he received further treatments to improve his stamina and coordination.
The family moved to Invernia II in 2351 following diplomat Richard Bashir’s assignment. While
there they were caught up in an Ionic Storm and a young girl grew ill while they were
in the shelter. No-one present knew how to cure her and she died. This had a strong impact
on the 10 year old Jules who decided to pursue a career in medicine.
In 2356, he legally changed name to Julian to reflect the distance from his former self.
He also considered a career in tennis but decided against it, instead sticking to his
medical plans. 2359: He enrolled in Starfleet Medical Academy
at the age of 18 and took several of the basic courses including the extension classes in
engineering. Specifically Starship operations. (Note that is unclear if he attended Starfleet
academy first then transferred for further training to Starfleet medical, though this
seems likely.) He was present on Earth during the Borg’s
incursion into Federation space when a Planetary State of Alert was declared.
During his time at Starfleet Medical, he continued his interest in sports by becoming captain
of the racquetball team and proceeded to win the academy championship in 2368.
Later that year, he graduated as salutatorian, second highest in his class.
As a medical academy graduate, he was granted the rank of Lieutenant Jr Grade.
In 2369, he was offered a position at a Medical Institute in Paris, he turned it down instead
choosing to remain in Starfleet. At 27 years old, he was able to select his
own assignment and chose to be stationed on Deep Space Nine to tackle the challenges it
would bring. He was transported to the Bajor sector on the USS Cochrane.
In 2370, he was the first Starfleet officer to cross over to the Terran-Mirror universe
for 103 years. In 2371, he was nominated for the Federation
Medical Council’s Carrington Award for his work on biomolecular replication.
During this year he also compiled research on T-cell anomalies and immuno-therapy.
In 2372 he was promoted to Lieutenant. Towards the end of the year, he discovered
an immunisation to the Teplan blight, a disease that would “quicken” when exposed to electromagnetic
fields, such as those produced by medical equipment. He was awarded a commendation for
the act, despite considering it a failure as he was only able to protect future generations,
not cure those currently afflicted. During the Klingon War of 2372 to 2373, Bashir
was diverted to Ajilon Prime to assist in medical triage.
He was also involved in a temporal event that brought him and fellow officers back to the
year 2268. While attending a medical conference on Meezan
IV in 2373, Bashir was captured and replaced by a changeling for around a month. During
this time, the real Bashir was kept as a prisoner-of-war by the Dominion at Internment camp 371.
Then in 2373, he was considered as the model for the Long-term Medical Hologram, however
the nature of his childhood augmentations came to light and jeopardised his Starfleet
Career. He was allowed to retain Starfleet commission after plea bargain with Rear Admiral
Bennett where his father would serve prison time for the act as the young Bashir had no
say in the procedures. When Deep Space Nine was abandoned by the
Federation at the close of 2373, Bashir, along with many of the senior staff transferred
to the USS Defiant NX-74205 and served as Chief Medical Officer until the station was
recaptured in 2374. Soon after, Supposedly an agent “Sloane”
of some made-up Section 31 contacted him for recruitment. The United Federation of Planets
does not recognize any such organisation. In 2375, he was asked to present a lecture
on Romulus on the Teplan Blight. And involved in [redacted] when chairman Koval [redacted]
with section 31. Bashir fought in the siege of AR-558 and survived.
He later discovered the cure for Founder’s Morphogenic Virus which was then used as part
of a peace treaty to negotiate an end to the Dominion War.
Doctor Bashir is one of the few characters where we don’t have much of a history to
his Starfleet career, having been fresh out of training and our first episode of DS9 being
his first day on the job. As such, as viewers, we are present for the majority of his growth
as a character and watch as he develops over time.
He originally joined Deep Space Nine as a more naive individual seeking to challenge
himself with notions of frontier medicine. His high academic record and inner knowledge
of his skillset, augmented or not, created a sort of romanticised view of the posting
where he would be tested everyday with new unexpected problems. Fortunately for the people
in his care he was able to rise to the challenge, but he was nonetheless infused with a growing
sense of pessimism, especially with the eruption of the Dominion War.
He has always had a wry wit, but often was more optimistic in his approach to things
before his experiences on Deep Space Nine. Ironically, this initial brighter, chipper
attitude often rubbed people the wrong way who found his boyishness annoying, especially
when he pushed harder to make friends. This lighter-side to him was eroded with time
but that isn’t to say that he lost his morality. On the contrary, if anything, his harsh experiences
served to hone his sense of right and wrong which led him to never be able to commit to
organisations such as Section 31, nor condone their actions. For Bashir, the ends don’t
always justify the means. Tales post DS9 often has Bashir flirting with
entering section 31 in various iterations while balancing his ethics and medical career
however. Looking at his career, we can see that his
life was forever altered by his augmentation. Not only did it improve his capabilities,
but it drove a wedge between him and his parents as he grew older and began to think that they
had been ashamed of him as a child and were only proud now because of his “gifts”.
He never came forwards with his status as a human augment and actively avoided standing
out at times to allay suspicion. It is heavily suggested that he only graduated second on
purpose to avoid getting a flawless record and drawing too much attention as he was still
able to attain his choice of posting with the results he got. This could also be a reason
he declined to pursue a career in sports, a field in which his genetics would have been
an undeniable benefit, but a benefit that comes with a lot of limelight and personally,
he may consider himself to have an unfair advantage.
Instead he chose to place himself in a position where he can help others and make a difference,
turning down a prestigious position on Earth to work the frontlines of Federation space.
He forms strong friendships among the crew of the Station, most notably in Miles O’Brien
with whom he can indulge his hobbies of sports, holodeck battles and let’s face it, geeking
out over models sets. He also was drawn to the enigmatic Garak which is no surprise as
Bashir has always been a strong fan of mysteries and a puzzle, so trying to figure out Garak
was one such challenge. Soon this developed into friendship, fuelled by compassion. He
also pursued multiple relationships while on Deep Space Nine, but none worked out in
the long run save Ezri Dax with whom he initially felt very awkward around considering his prior
attraction to Jadzia, despite the two becoming firm friends.
Julian has shown a desire to continually learn, since leaving the Medical Academy, he has
attended many talks and conferences in a variety of medical fields and often had multiple research
side projects on the go. He also continued to show an active interest in examining the
works of other cultures, such as Bajoran music and Cardassian literature. This again, is
likely driven by an innate desire to seek out more challenges for a mind capable of
more than it was often exposed to. He did have an arrogance and self-assuredness in
his youth, fuelled by his accomplishments, and the revelation of his augmented nature
led him to be able to finally express himself in full, without holding back. While it took
some time for his friends to get used to this, they stuck by him, a testament to the general
goodness within him that sticks even throughout his development. Bashir shows that superior
ambition need not be a character flaw. So as usual, I’m going to point to three
episodes of DS9 that show a good grounding of the character and I’ll start with “The
Quickening” where we get to see him faced with a real medical challenge and his more
optimistic view early in the episode. “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?” has the revelation of
his genetic modifications and his background relationship with his family as well as some
opinions from his colleagues. “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” has him clash with Section
31 and the kind of struggles that forced him into a more cynical view of Starfleet, while
retaining his morality. Thanks for listening to this file, I have
to say, Bashir was probably my favourite character in DS9, so I enjoyed looking into his past.
There’s about as much again on his future, but unfortunately it’s not concrete as to
if these events will be folded into canon. What did you think of Bashir? I know a lot
of people found his early character to be rather annoying but his development was undeniable.
Until the next video, thanks for watching, and goodbye.