Trekipedia

Bashir, Julian

Julian Subatoi Bashir was born in 2341^{[11, 12]} to Richard and Amsha Bashir,^[21] and his family was reportedly descended from the fifteenth-century Earth poet Singh el Bashir. His father was a minor Federation diplomat,^[21] while his great-grandmother, Watley, also served in Starfleet.^[17]

According to Bashir, his interest in medicine began at the tender age of five when he stitched the leg of his beloved teddy bear, Kukalaka, back on.^[15] At six years of age, however, “Jules,” as his parents called him, was small for his age, physically awkward, and not very bright; in the first grade he was still struggling to tell a dog from a cat, while other pupils were learning how to read, write and use a computer. The young boy did not fully understand what was happening, although he did realize that he was steadily falling behind his classmates, and he sensed he was a disappointment to his parents.^[21]

Just before Bashir’s seventh birthday, his parents took him to Adigeon Prime to undergo genetic resequencing. For the next two months, his genetic structure was manipulated to accelerate the growth of neural networks in his cerebral cortex, a process called accelerated critical neural pathway formation. His IQ jumped five points every day for two weeks and his hand-eye coordination, reflexes, vision, stamina, height, and weight were all altered “for the better.” After the illegal treatment, the now-genetically-enhanced Julian became a star pupil and “never looked back.” He excelled in everything he tried, but secretly felt like a fraud.^[21]

When Julian was ten years old, he was on Invernia II with his father when a massive ionic storm hit. They came across a sick Invernian girl of about Julian’s age while waiting out the storm. As soon as the weather cleared, Richard went in search of help, but by this time it was too late. Julian sat there, watching helplessly as the girl died. When his father returned the next day with a local, the guide informed them that they could have treated the girl with a simple herb that grew everywhere. The fact that he could have saved the girl’s life if he had only known about this had a profound impact on the boy that would, in later years, influence his choice of career.^[5]

For a time, though, Bashir’s passion was tennis; indeed, he felt he was good enough to make a career out of it until his first major competition when his opponent served first, and he heard the ball bounce past him. The computer announced it was good, and he knew he was in trouble; his talent, as it turned out, lay more with medicine than with tennis.

In 2361, Bashir entered Starfleet Academy. There he was captain of the racquetball team—a sport he enjoyed for many years afterward. Among the regular classes Bashir took at Starfleet Medical was pediatric medicine, where he was first in his class.^[16] He also took engineering extension classes, focusing mainly on starship operations.

At medical school, Bashir fell in love with a ballerina named Delon Palis. He watched her performances and was amazed by her grace, and thought she had “exquisite feet.” They were crazy about each other, but the relationship was not to last. When Julian graduated from school, Palis’ father, the top administrator for a medical complex in Paris, offered him a job and promised the young doctor he would be chief of surgery within five years. Bashir came very close to giving up his career in Starfleet before it had even began, but he turned down the offer.^[6]

Bashir nearly graduated first in his class in 2367, but finished second to Elizabeth Lense^[13] after he mistook a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve—something any first-year medical student should be able to tell apart. In fact, the error seemed so unlikely it was later suggested that at some subconscious level it was a deliberate mistake. Despite placing second, Bashir’s high qualifications still gave him the choice of any job in Starfleet, and in search of adventure he chose to practice frontier medicine on station Deep Space Nine.^[1]

When Bashir arrived at the station in 2369, he was so enthusiastic and talkative that the more seasoned personnel, such as Chief of Operations Miles O’Brien, found him irritating. When they were ordered to go to a Bajoran village as part of the Dal-Rok mission, O’Brien unsuccessfully tried to convince Commander Benjamin Sisko that someone else should pilot the doctor to Bajor.^[2]

Jadzia Dax also found Bashir to be over-eager. The fact that she hailed from a joined species fascinated the doctor, and he pursued her with some vigor from the moment they met. Over the following months, he became so infatuated with her that he claimed he could not concentrate on his work, and he even fantasized about the two of them going on a mission and becoming stranded together. It became clear just how much Jadzia occupied his thoughts when aliens from the Gamma Quadrant conjured prominent images from the psyches of station personnel, resulting in an amorous Dax doppelganger pouncing on him.^[3]

Jadzia enjoyed Bashir’s flirting, but she could not take him seriously because he came on too strong. He never gave her a chance to get to know him, and so his romantic feelings for her remained unrequited. One person Bashir did make an instant hit with was Elim Garak, the Cardassian tailor and former Obsidian Order spy who lived in exile aboard Deep Space Nine. When the doctor first encountered Garak, he was fascinated by the Cardassian’s shadowy past, and Garak played along with the doctor’s questions, neither fully answering nor discouraging him from asking.^[4]

Bashir’s career flourished aboard Deep Space Nine, and his work was published and read widely throughout Starfleet. His rival from his student days, Dr. Lense, was particularly impressed by his immunization project on Bajor,^[13] and one of his most significant achievements involved the completion of Nathaniel Teros’ work on neuromuscular adaptation,^[5] which occurred after Bashir met Melora Pazlar, an Elaysian Starfleet officer who required the use of a special wheelchair while away from her low-gravity homeworld. The doctor became close to the feisty ensign as he pioneered a procedure to help Elaysians move normally in standard Class-M gravity without the assistance of servo controls. They remained involved for the duration of Melora’s assignment to the station and parted friends, even though the ensign decided not to proceed with the treatment Bashir had devised.^[5]

Bashir’s relationship with O’Brien took a turn for the better a short while later when both men spent a week helping two recently reconciled enemies on T’Lani III eliminate the harvesters, a deadly nanobiogenic weapon. O’Brien was ready to finish the project and go home, but Bashir looked forward to the celebration party. Instead, both men were forced to flee for their lives when the local population tried to kill them in an effort to eradicate anyone with the knowledge to potentially recreate the harvesters. As they faced a Kellerun firing squad, O’Brien told Bashir that it had been an honor serving with him. After they were rescued and the doctor returned the compliment, O’Brien was visibly uncomfortable. It was too late, though, as their traumatic experience had produced a bond that would only grow stronger.^[6]

Bashir also got a little closer to Garak when the Cardassian suffered a seizure. The doctor soon discovered it was a result of an endorphin implant in his brain that he had received rom the Obsidian Order. Bashir managed to save Garak’s life by visiting Enabran Tain, the Cardassian responsible for Garak’s exile, and he secured the information about Cardassian biochemistry he needed to stabilize his friend’s condition.^[7]

By 2370, toward the end of Bashir’s second year on the station, he was aboard the Danube-class runabout U.S.S. Orinoco NCC-72905 when it was dispatched to evaluate the threat posed by the newly-encountered Dominion. He and Kira Nerys piloted the runabout in battle against Jem’Hadar vessels, as they witnessed the destruction of the U.S.S. Odyssey NCC-71832, even though the ship was in retreat at the time.^[8]

As a result of this hostility, a few months later in 2371, Bashir was aboard the newly-commissioned U.S.S. Defiant NX-74205 on a mission to venture into the Gamma Quadrant in search of the homeworld of the Founders.^[9] However, the doctor was captured, along with much of the bridge crew, and subjected to an illusory scenario designed to gauge how Starfleet would respond to a Dominion attempt to gain a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. Fortunately, Odo found them and the Founders allowed the constable to take his friends back to the Alpha Quadrant.^[10]

Bashir’s mind was briefly diverted from the Dominion threat when his groundbreaking work in biomolecular replication won him a nomination for the prestigious Carrington Award. At thirty, Bashir was the youngest person ever nominated for the award, which is normally given to acknowledge a lifetime of achievement.^[11]

In 2371, Bashir’s medical skills were put to the test when he and O’Brien landed on Bopak III. There they found Jem’Hadar soldiers who were trying to break free of their addiction to ketracel-white. At first Bashir was forced to help them overcome their dependence, but after seeing that their leader Goran’Agar had advanced beyond a simple killing machine, Bashir willingly set his mind to the task. O’Brien was totally against the doctor’s efforts, feeling that a freed Jem’Hadar would be even more dangerous than those controlled by the Vorta. In the end, to save their lives, O’Brien had to physically force Bashir to leave the planet. The doctor was disappointed and frustrated by the chief’s actions, but also understood that they could have been killed attempting to rid the Jem’Hadar of their addiction.^[14]

In 2372, Bashir was confronted by another medical crisis caused by the Dominion. He committed himself to finding a cure for the Teplan Blight, a plague that afflicted an entire race on a planet in the Teplan system. This disease, which caused excruciating pain and certain death—often at a young age—was introduced by the Dominion as an example to other races of how resistance was punished. Bashir was unable to find a cure for the blight, but his research did reveal a way to inoculate babies in the womb, ensuring the survival of future generations.^[15]

Back on Deep Space Nine, Bashir liked to unwind with the recreation offered in Quark’s, and he and O’Brien became regulars, drinking synthale and playing darts. They also made full use of the holosuites, reenacting historical conflicts such as the Battle of Britain, the Battle of Clontarf, and later the Battle of the Alamo. One of Bashir’s favorite programs was where he played a British spy on Earth of 1964.

Bashir also spent much of his leisure time dating the dabo girl Leeta. However, they parted in late 2372 when they visited the pleasure world of Risa to perform the Rite of Separation, a Bajoran custom that involved celebrating the good times of a relationship and seeking out new romantic opportunities.^[18]

This vacation proved to be the last period of relaxation Bashir would get for some time, as shortly afterward he was kidnapped by the Dominion while at a medical conference on Meezan IV and replaced by a Changeling. The time he spent in Barracks Six of Dominion Internment Camp 371 in 2372 was one of the greatest tests of Bashir’s character. He was badly mistreated by his Jem’Hadar captors, and at one point spent five days in solitary confinement for complaining about a cut in rations.^[19]

He joined forces with other prisoners from the Alpha Quadrant—including the Cardassian Enabran Tain and the Klingon General Martok—to rig a distress signal. He later engineered his group’s escape by remotely activating the transporter aboard an orbiting runabout that had been left there by Lieutenant Commander Worf before he, too, was captured. Bashir returned to Deep Space Nine just in time to prevent the Founder who was posing as him from destroying the Bajoran sun. The resulting explosion would have destroyed Deep Space Nine, the fleet of Federation vessels massed to meet the apparent Dominion invasion, as well as the entire Bajoran system.^[20]

By 2373, Bashir’s reputation as a skilled physician was so great that Starfleet Medical chose him as the model for the Long-term Medical Holographic Program. Dr. Lewis Zimmerman was in charge of the project, and he interviewed Bashir’s friends and family as part of the process of building a psychological profile for the LMH. It was during these interviews that Bashir’s parents accidentally revealed that their son’s extraordinary abilities were a result of the genetic engineering he underwent as a child. Amsha Bashir made it clear that it was love, not disappointment, that motivated the DNA resequencing, and Richard Bashir took responsibility for the crime of having his son “enhanced” by serving two years in a minimum security prison. In return, Starfleet Command accepted that Julian had no choice in the matter, due to his age and mental state at the time, and allowed him to continue his duties as a Starfleet doctor.^[21]

In late 2373, Bashir’s status as a genetically resequenced human led him to work with four other individuals who had been genetically altered, but with far less impressive results than his own. These self-labeled “mutants”—Jack, Lauren, Patrick and Sarina Douglas—had lived most of their lives at a Starfleet psychiatric institute because, despite their enormous intelligence, they had dysfunctional personalities. Bashir was frustrated that they had not been given a chance to become productive members of society, and wanted to help them prove their worth to the outside world. He was rewarded when they showed a remarkably quick grasp of the Federation’s conflict with the Dominion as they made analytical projections for the war. Working with the quartet was a revalation for Bashir. For the first time in his life, he collaborated with people who could keep up with his own genetically enhanced brain. After decades of keeping his own abilities secret, he found their company simultaneously stimulating and relaxing. Unfortunately, the group proved to be too smart for their own good. Based on countless scenarios, they concluded that Starfleet had to surrender to the Dominion, or risk losing 900 billion lives in a fruitless attempt to halt the Dominion. Needless to say, Starfleet was not about to submit to the Founders, so the genetically enhanced group decided to divulge all of Starfleet’s battle plans to the Dominion. Fortunately, Bashir and his colleagues were able to thwart this well-intentioned but treasonous plan. The quartet were returned to the institute, and Bashir was left with the frustrating knowledge that although their mental abilities were prodigious, their behavioral problems were greater still. Despite this disappointment, Bashir acted as if a huge burden had been removed from his shoulders now that the truth was out about his enhancements. In fact, Garak even accused his friend of taking every opportunity he could to “show off”.^[22]

Bashir’s abilities did, however, attract the attention of Agent Luther Sloan, who belonged to the secret and sinister intelligence agency known as Section 31. Sloan severely tested Bashir’s loyalty to the Federation, and when he passed the test Sloan made a concerted effort to recruit the doctor into the organization, but Bashir refused, amazed at the lack of accountability.^[23]

Not everyone treated Bashir differently after his secret had come out, and his friends on the station gave him their full support. They also continued to indulge in his holosuite eccentricities, accepting invitations to join him in a program he introduced to the station, featuring the holographic crooner Vic Fontaine.^[24] In late 2374, the doctor’s friends rallied behind him to help him save his favorite holocharacter from Frankie Eyes, an evil new addition to the program.^[26]

Also in late 2374, Bashir tried to help the genetically altered Sarina Douglas, with the aid of her fellow patients. They seemingly found a cure for her condition, and the doctor soon discovered himself treating a shy and enchanting young woman whose intellect matched his own. Bashir had always felt somewhat isolated by his genetic resequencing, and had long dreamed of meeting a woman who could keep up with his brilliant mind. The doctor was excited by the possibility of a relationship with Sarina, but his hasty romantic overtures confused and frightened her. Bashir realized that he needed to let Sarina go, so that she could discover the universe on her terms, not his. It proved to be a painful parting for the young doctor. He found returning Jack, Lauren and Patrick to the institute equally painful, and by removing Sarina from their midst, he had altered their lives too.^[25]

Bashir did find love again, and sooner than he anticipated. He was initially not interested in Ezri, the host chosen for the Dax symbiont after Jadzia’s death, and she simply thought Bashir knew how to have a good time. A friendship between them developed quickly, but romance evolved a little more slowly. Bashir realized the extent of his feelings when Ezri was held prisoner by the Dominion in 2375. They tiptoed around each other on Ezri’s safe return, and Bashir eventually plucked up the courage to ask Ezri if she felt they could be more than friends. They talked openly about their feelings, and shortly after became romantically involved.^[29]

In 2375, Bashir found himself used by Section 31 to discredit Cretak, a Romulan senator. In effect, this left the way clear for Koval, who was more sympathetic toward Starfleet’s aims, to take a seat on the powerful Romulan Continuing Committee.^[27]

However, Bashir had his revenge on Section 31 when later in the year he discovered that the secret organization was responsible for the deadly virus that targeted Changelings. Outraged by their attempts at genocide, Bashir tried to find a treatment for the virus. When he was unsuccessful, the doctor and O’Brien lured Section 31 operative Luther Sloan into a trap to retrieve the formula from his mind. Using this information Bashir was able to formulate a cure that proved instrumental in helping to end the Dominion War. The cost of Sloan’s life was a price Bashir was perfectly willing to pay to right the wrongs perpetrated by Section 31.^[28]

After the conclusion of hostilities, Bashir chose to remain on Deep Space Nine. He was sad to see his frind O’Brien leave to accept a teaching post at Starfleet Academy on Earth, but after years of being unlucky in love he finally looked like he had found the right woman in Ezri.^[30]

Portrayed by Alexander Siddig.