The leaders of Trek’s two previous incarnations were mostly Thinkers. Both shows could be campy and fun, but also intensely cerebral. So it figures that for the “dark, moody” version of Star Trek, we’d get a pair of commanding officers who are driven by Introverted Feeling.
Sisko and Kira don’t start off as best friends. Their Fi needs time to check the other out and make sure they measure up to their deeply held values and goals. In time, they see the same thing in each other—a very passionate, individualistic, sometimes emotionally broken leader with fierce inner moral codes fighting against a universe that wants to control them.
Dominant Function: (Fi) Introverted Feeling, “The Deep Well”
To say that Major Kira Nerys is uncompromising in her values would be like saying Superman is kinda good at lifting heavy stuff. Kira leads with a strong inner moral compass, forged from her years fighting for the Resistance against the Cardassian Occupation of her homeworld. Everything she does, every choice, every step, is to fight for the cause of her people. She acts only on what she believes is right.
While Sisko goes through his emotional healing in the first episode, Kira’s takes the entire series. She’s broken and raw after a childhood spent fighting as a terrorist to free her people, and her only reaction to most situations is anger. She’s quite certain that the Bajoran government only assigned her to DS9 to get her off the planet and out of their hair.
Her first big breakthrough is pouring her heart out to Kai Opaka. She’s desperate that the wise, spiritual woman see her as something other than an angry fighter, and Opaka lets her grieve her violent past. When she’s kidnapped by a Cardassian intent on exacting revenge for the deaths of the family he served, Kira is brutally unapologetic. She has no sympathy for any Cardassians, young or old, who died as a result of her crusade. None of them belonged on her planet, and all of them were guilty of the atrocities committed there.
Over the years, Kira learns that Sisko and the other Starfleet officers are authentically committed to her cause, and accepts them as friends and family. She finds love and romance in unexpected places. She sympathizes with Cardassians who are fighting for their own freedom, and joins their resistance to show them how it’s done. She never, ever believes that Dukat or Winn are anything less than pure evil (a position she shares with fellow Fi-dom Sisko).
Kira experiences great loss in her life—she sees a lot of death and pain during the Occupation, and continues to lose the ones she loves throughout the run of the show, culminating in Odo’s departure for the Great Link in the finale. She often has to retreat to meditate or process what she’s gone through. After she gives birth to the O’Briens’ baby, she also feels a sense of loss, more bittersweet than tragic, and rather than join the birthday celebration, asks Odo to go on a walk with her.
In the final moment of the final episode, she joins young Jake Sisko in staring silently out at the stars, pondering the fate and the whereabouts of the ones they’ve lost.
Auxiliary Function: (Se) Extraverted Sensing, “The Kitchens”
Because she’s emotionally on-edge when her story begins, Kira acts out much more often than the typical ISFP or other Introvert.
She doesn’t wait. She takes action. She confronts. She challenges. She fights.
Initially, she’s unreceptive to her Starfleet comrades’ scientific curiosity and zeal for discovery. It’s impractical, and distracts from the real work that needs to be done. Even later, when they’re more of a team, she’s the first to break down laughing at the idea that Dax and the others are about to get shrunk down to less than an inch high—for science!
Contrary to the ISFP stereotype of the “Artisan,” Kira claims no artistic skills or creativity. Her Extraverted Sensing is of the pragmatic kind, interested in real-world actions. She complains to her friend Jadzia that she has no imagination, and can’t enjoy their trips to the holosuite because it isn’t real. As her youthful rage cools off and heals, though, Kira learns to enjoy life and its pleasures, and even shows off a lovely fashion sense in her off-duty attire.
As Kira matures, she never loses her fiery nature, but she focuses her passion. As O’Brien comments in the first episode, after she bluffs a fleet of well-armed Cardassians, “Remind me never to get into a game of Roladan Wild Draw with you.” Seven years later, she’s staring down a Romulan armada and a Starfleet admiral and still coming out on top, all because she believes in her purpose.
Tertiary Function: (Ni) Introverted Intuition, “The Labyrinth”
Kira trusts her instincts, and paired with her strong Fi, her Intuition delivers instant judgments about most people she meets.
Though she regularly practices meditation, Kira has great difficulty with patience, with slowing down and considering options and outcomes when she’s decided it’s time to take action. She tries taking some R&R at a monastery, and the tranquility makes her crazy. Vedek Bariel encourages her to “Be useless, Nerys,” in an attempt to get her out of the moment and see the big picture of her life.
It takes a while, but her patience and foresight grows, as does her appreciation for the future that the Federation is helping Bajor build.
Kira enjoys a close platonic friendship with Odo, almost intimate in its own way, but she misses a lot of the cues that he’s in love with her. Once he reveals his feelings, she’s not sure what to do, as she’d never considered him any other way but a friend. Suddenly, she tells Dax that she’s had a moment of clarity, a once-in-a-lifetime insight, that changes her feelings and begins a new relationship.
Meanwhile, Kira holds her spirituality and religious beliefs close. It’s part of what got her through the Occupation, and sustains her afterwards. Even though faith in the Prophets is her people’s tradition, Kira’s faith remains personal, often inexplicable. She understands that Starfleet sees the Prophets only as wormhole aliens, but it doesn’t matter to her. She tells Odo that if you don’t have faith you can’t explain it, and if you do, no explanation is necessary.
Inferior Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”
Kira’s prone to going off to do her own thing without permission, and without much of a plan. She hates authority structures, whether it’s the Cardassian Union, the Dominion, Starfleet, or her own people’s petty and bureaucratic Provisional Government. She hates that she has to become part of the establishment just to help Bajor rebuild. She’s constantly fighting within herself to be her own person while doing her job as First Officer of Deep Space Nine.
In only the second episode of the series, she has to stop a fellow former Resistance fighter from destroying the progress Bajor is building with the Federation, and she surprises herself by explaining to him that the Starfleet people are doing some good. Years later, she’s disgusted with herself for passively acting as a collaborator when the Cardassian/Dominon alliance takes over the station, so she starts a new Resistance to fight back. Once the Cardassians begin rising up against the Dominion, Kira takes the ironic position of helping her former oppressors organize for their own freedom.
She’s commanding and assertive in her role, and insists on proper organization to make the resistance work. It’s obvious that her years of growth have allowed her to lead with a cooler confidence and less impulsive anger. She’s promoted to Colonel in the Bajoran Militia, and takes command of Deep Space Nine when Sisko departs. She becomes even more formidable as a grown woman with a uniform than she was as an angry girl with a gun.
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