Garak finds his most willing audience in Bashir, and they discuss everything from philosophy to politics to poetry over their many lunches. But Garak will talk to anyone he can trap. On a long-distance mission with Worf, he inquires at length about joining Starfleet, and almost convinces Worf to help him. Turns out, he’s just messing with the Klingon, partly out of boredom, and partly to keep his lie-telling skills in practice. When the Defiant heads into the Gamma Quadrant to take a disintegrating Odo home, Garak tags along at Sisko’s request to keep the constable company.

“If there’s one thing Cardassians excel at, it’s conversation!” Garak declares, and proceeds to keep Odo mentally distracted from his troubles with “innuendoes, half-truths, and bald-faced lies” for hours.

All this verbal dexterity made Garak one of the top achievers in the Obsidian Order, the Cardassian Union’s feared and notorious intelligence agency. Of course, it also got him tangled up in Cardassian politics, and hated so badly that no one would help him when he was exiled. He can’t even get his father, the best liar in the Order, to admit to his parentage. He blows up his own tailor shop in order to get Odo to investigate because he can’t just tell him he’s in danger. He concocts an assassination plan to prod the Romulans into the war against the Dominion, while convincing Sisko that he’s up to something else the whole time.

And he’s near death before his best friend on DS9 even learns his first name. Before then, he introduces himself to Bashir as, “Garak. Plain, simple Garak.” But nothing is ever simple when Garak is involved.

Auxiliary Function: (Ti) Introverted Thinking, “The Laboratory”

Devious doesn’t even begin to describe Garak. He plots wheels within wheels, lies over lies, just to accomplish the simplest objective. It all makes sense to him, but baffles his enemies.

And his friends, quite frankly.

Garak’s Ti leads him to “never tell the truth when a lie will do.” It’s Te that is concerned with objective fact. Ti works from inner, personal logic. Garak has his own goals and purposes, so he’ll live by whatever truth he needs to succeed.

His stealth and subterfuge may seem twisted to others, but Garak strives for elegance in his plots. When he’s hired by Quark as an assassin (because Quark needs to kill himself; it’s a long story), he tries a number of methods, all meant to do the deed quickly and painlessly. His machinations to provoke the Romulans are really pretty straightforward when you think about it—they just takes some maneuvering to get there. Once, Odo suggests he’s a coward for shooting people in the back, to which Garak replies, “Well, it’s the safest way, isn’t it?”

Garak is intellectually curious and seems to like being the smartest one in the room. Spy work probably appeals to him just for the puzzles it presents, as devising and cracking codes are all part of his skill set. He makes people crack, too—he once broke a subject he was interrogating by pure mental will, simply by staring at him for hours until he confessed.

Garak brings this same focus and precision even to his work as a tailor. He’s detail-oriented and inventive in his designs, and critical of others’ poor fashion choices. It may be a cover for his exile, but there’s no reason to be shoddy about it.

Tertiary Function: (Fe) Extraverted Feeling, “The Garden Fountain”

Garak is a master manipulator, using both subtle threats and outright flattery to get his way. He’s not afraid to put stickier ethical concerns to the side if it means accomplishing a greater good—for instance, assassinating a Romulan senator to ensure that the Romulans will fight the Dominion, or trying to exterminate the entire race of Changelings to save the Alpha Quadrant. He’s generally critical and disdainful of Starfleet’s open-minded, compassionate ideals, and finds Bashir and the others ingratiatingly naïve. It’s almost a victory for him when he can get Sisko to break his moral code during their plot with the Romulans.

At the same time, Garak’s loyalty to the state of Cardassia knows no bounds. Far more than any personal shame he carries from failing in his duty, is his shame at being unaccepted by his homeworld—and by his father, who engineered his exile. He is a patriot to his core, and kills more than once to prove it.

Garak argues often with Dr. Bashir about the superiority of Cardassian culture and ethics. When Cardassia Prime is left devastated and smoldering at the end of the war, he sullenly wonders if Julian sees this as poetic justice for the violence and oppression the Union inflicted upon others. He understands that the whole galaxy thinks they deserve it, but Garak still feel driven to help rebuild, no matter what his people have done.

Inferior Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

Garak doesn’t like being on DS9 (of course, as Odo once drily remarked: “Who does?”). It’s not just the fact of his exile, but also the physical discomfort of the environment. It used to be a Cardassian station, but once the Federation took over, they changed everything. Suddenly, the place is too cold, too bright, and too cheerful. Everywhere he goes, people look at Garak with suspicion and disdain.

As an Obsidian Order operative, Garak is implanted with a pleasure-inducing device in his brain to help him survive in the case of torture. Living on DS9 feels like torture, so he turns the thing on, and never turns it off. He becomes dependent on the implant, and then has to depend on Dr. Bashir to take it out before it kills him.

What Garak really hates about his life on DS9 is that he’s actually a very good tailor. He admits to finding a certain simplicity in the task that alleviates his mental hyperactivity, but this was never supposed to be his life’s work. When he blows up his own shop, it’s partly to attract Odo’s assistance, and partly out of disgust at the place he can’t escape.

Cardassians in general have a xenophobic streak that fuels their militant fascism. On a mission to DS9’s abandoned sister station Empok Nor, Garak gets infected with a drug meant to enhance this trait. He goes on a killing spree against the Starfleet team, trying to wipe out the outsiders invading Cardassian territory.

Garak also suffers from claustrophobia, brought upon by memories of being locked in a closet for punishment by his father as a boy. It flairs up in times of extreme stress, even when he’s not actually enclosed in a small space. Despite this, Garak desires to return home and rejoin his father in the Obsidian Order, just like old times. He joins a dangerous mission and tortures Odo to prove he’s still got it, but all he gets out of Odo is the admission that the lonely Changeling really wants to return to his people no matter how evil they are.

Jake makes a promising engineering apprentice with Chief O’Brien, but he decides early on that he wants to pursue writing. Sometimes he leaves PADDs with half-started ideas lying around, while sometimes he has to be reminded to pull away from his work for a spell. He’s offered a prestigious writing fellowship early on, but decides he needs to experience more of life to have something to write about, and so stays on DS9. He works as a reporter for the Federation News Service, and entertains grand visions of dramatic war stories before being plunged into a real-life combat situation that challenges his idealistic expectations.

Auxiliary Function: (Fi) Introverted Feeling, “The Deep Well”

Considering the tragedy he went through at an early age by losing his mom, Jake’s a generally upbeat person. He retreats inside himself to write and seek inspiration, but his dad can always draw him out. They share a warm and trusting bond that never cracks despite everything life on DS9 brings to them.

When Ben’s life is threatened by the effects of his prophetic visions, his medical status becomes Jake’s responsibility. Although the visions are supposed to help the Bajoran people, Jake needs his father—he doesn’t want to lose another parent. So he makes the choice to have Dr. Bashir save Ben by wiping out the brain activity that causes the visions.

Jake always wants to do the right thing. Even when he’s with a young, troublemaking Nog, he’s a good influence. He makes secret appointments with Nog to teach him how to read when Nog’s father won’t let him go to school. Years later, Jake resists the cult-like influence of the elite Red Squad, while Nog aims to please and join them. Since their two cultures are so different, Jake is often surprised and sometimes appalled at Nog’s value system (and vice-versa), but their friendship is important enough that they try to understand each other whenever possible.

As the son of a Starfleet captain, Jake knows he’s expected to join Starfleet, but he feels the need to do what’s right for him. He pursues writing opportunities on his own before having a heart-to-heart with Ben. When he gets the job as a reporter, Jake stays behind on DS9 during the Dominion invasion to be in the thick of things. His father and grandfather are infuriated with him, but Jake must stick by his sense of journalistic duty.

That duty pits him against the new leadership on DS9. Weyoun in particular chuckles at the young Sisko’s idealistic notions of freedom of the press. The Dominion won’t let him publish his stories, so Jake goes and joins Kira’s resistance.

On his most harrowing adventure, Jake gets trapped on the front lines of a ground battle between Starfleet and Klingon forces. He becomes deeply introspective about the experience, examining his feelings in reaction to everything he sees. He ends up saving the day, but he knows that what he did was motivated as much by fear as by courage. His honesty with himself turns into one of his best pieces of journalism, and earns great respect from Captain Sisko.

Tertiary Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”

Jake’s driven, but not always organized. As roommates, Jake and Nog clash when the carefree writer’s life does not meet the young cadet’s strict scheduling expectations. In their childhood, Jake would follow the Te-driven Nog into misadventures. As young men, however, Jake leads the charge to get the baseball card for Captain Sisko, badgering his friend into the scheme, and as a side effect bringing moments of joy to the whole crew. During one of their other arguments, Jake arranges for them both to be arrested so that they can have time together to talk things out.

Jake also arranges the love match between Ben and Kasidy. His Ne wants Ben to take a chance, and sees great potential in the relationship, and his Te schemes and plans to get the two together. He won’t let up until Ben accepts a first date—and his instincts turn out to be right on.

In an alternate future, an older Jake Sisko, bereft after the loss of his father, gives up his writing career, pursues advanced scientific studies, and pulls his old DS9 friends together for a mission to save Captain Sisko.

Inferior Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

As mentioned before, Jake’s living conditions can be a bit haphazard. He argues to Nog that this is just the creative process at work, and cleaning up would ruin the flow. Jake learns to curb this behavior for the sake of his friend.

Jake misses his mother, but being younger when he lost her makes it a little easier for him to get past it. Meeting her duplicate from the mirror universe throws him off, though, and he’s easily attracted to the idea of reuniting with her. It messes him up when he loses her again.

As much as he loves his grandpa and the old restaurant, Jake isn’t as bound to his Earthly origins as Ben, and gripes about having to do chores when he’s there. He seems to have picked up on the Sisko cooking gene, but we rarely see him using it. In the alternate future, the older Jake becomes obsessed with the loss of his father, and loses sight of his entire future, abandoning his writing, and eventually his wife to the pursuit of bringing Ben back. He finally figures out that he has to kill himself to make it happen, and willingly dies to regain the life he once had.

Once she is joined, though, her Ne-dom goes haywire. Ezri never intended to be joined, and now she has all these new ideas interrupting her train of thought. She gets lost and distracted and scatterbrained. Pronouns are particularly difficult for her, and she finds herself engaging in new and random activities—like standing on her head or drinking raktajino—that she isn’t completely conscious of doing.

Still, Ezri rolls with it. She’s the only Trill around when the Dax symbiont takes a turn for the worse, but she could have said no. Instead, she jumps in. She takes leave of her original assignment, meets Sisko just as he’s about to head out on a quest, and joins. Then she ends up on DS9, and decides to make a go of things there. She gets promoted, counsels the dysfunctional crew on the station, and follows the new paths her unexpected change of life has brought her.

Auxiliary Function: (Fi) Introverted Feeling, “The Deep Well”

Ezri has a hard hill to climb convincing everyone she’s not just a copy of Jadzia. She is her own person, but it’s difficult to know who that person is with eight other personalities speaking up inside her. She’s deeply insecure and uncertain of herself, and sensitive to criticism, especially the fiery tongue-lashing Garak unleashes on her. She’s repeatedly offended that no one believes she’s a counselor.

She takes a while to confess her feelings for Julian, because it’s a complicated situation, and her own feelings may be mixed up with others’.

While investigating a serial killer, Ezri summons one of her previous hosts, Joran—also a serial killer. He helps her track the suspect down, but he also tempts her with nihilism and violence. Ezri resists, keeping true to her own sense of self. When she un-summons Joran at the end of the investigation, she recites a chant to reintegrate him into the symbiont, ending with one confident word: “Ezri.”

Tertiary Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”

When Worf goes missing and no search mission is ordered, Ezri takes matters into her own hands and strikes out to find him herself. Her methods are still a little messy—as an Ne-dom, she literally goes with the flow, letting her runabout float through the Badlands in hopes of replicating Worf’s trajectory—but she persists until she succeeds. As Sisko says, “She’s a Dax. Sometimes they don’t think, they just do.”

As Ezri gains more confidence, she’s able to speak with greater authority, both as a counselor and as her own person. She talks back to the smug Vulcan baseball team captain, plays a vital role in the crew’s holosuite caper, and takes the initiative in her relationship with Julian. And she gives one convicting speech to Worf about what he needs to do with the Klingon Empire.

Inferior Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

After her sudden joining, Ezri finds herself out of place in her own body. She gets space-sick now, and she switches from right-handed to left-handed. Even her tastes change—she drinks raktajino all of a sudden, which she used to hate.

And still does. Maybe. She’s not sure.

Ezri struggles to sort out her new memories and discern what belongs where and to whom. She visits the temple where Jadzia was killed, and remarks that you never get used to the feeling of dying. She visits home, a place she escaped from years ago, and realizes that she is even less a part of her family now as a Dax than she was before as a Tigan.

Ezri doesn’t share Worf’s nostalgia or Jadiza’s affinity for Klingon culture. When Worf asks her advice for how to deal with the corruption in the Empire’s leadership, Ezri’s blunt. Maybe the Empire is too old and broken to continue, and it just needs to die. This judgment hits the Si-dom Worf hard, but he’s galvanized by Ezri’s perspective to give the Empire a dramatic new start.

Ezri tries to set healthy boundaries between herself and Worf, but she feels compelled to go rescue him when he disappears. They end up sleeping together, a violation of Trill ethics that puts her in danger of slipping back into the life of a previous host. Afterwards, when she understands Worf is trying to restart his relationship with Jadzia, she politely puts up the boundaries again.

Besides, she’s realized she has feelings for someone new. Again, Ezri has to be careful that she’s not just rekindling a romance from Jadzia’s old life. This includes Quark, whom she also has to let down gently. But for Julian, her attraction is genuine.