Warning: Spoilers for Star Trek #5!Star Trek has had many godlike beings in the long run of the franchise, but perhaps the most well explored are the ones known as the Bajoran Prophets. These beings claim to be all knowing, but the most recent issue of IDW Publishing's comic run is putting that into serious doubt.

The Bajoran Prophets are the omniscient beings who live in the gamma quadrant wormhole adjacent to the planet Bajor. Their existence was revealed when the wormhole was discovered, which also very quickly made the planet and the space station orbiting it, Deep Space Nine, an important galactic crossroads. The prophets chose Benjamin Sisko, Starfleet commander of the station, to be their emissary, and regularly interacted with him through visions. They have been shown to be non-linear creatures, meaning they do not experience time in the same way as more regular temporally conventual beings. To them the past and the future are all happening at once. It's because of that ability, they were able to know they needed Sisko in order to defeat their enemies the evil Pa-Wraiths, which is what prompted them to arrange his conception. However, their god powers have limits.

The Bajoran Prophets May Not Be All Knowing

In Star Trek #5, by Collin Kelly and Ramon Rosanas, they push Sisko to attack the Klingon Kahless' fanatical Red Path Cult, phrasing it as if it's a guaranteed event within time: "There is only one future. You must kill the heretic." Except Sisko doesn't attack, showing that the Bajoran Prophets' knowledge of the future is at least partly a confidence trick to make him do what they want. This is incredibly significant, both for their Emissary and the IDW series as a whole.

When Benjamin Sisko started his tenure as commander of DS9, he took the existence of the wormhole aliens, not as a matter of spirituality but as a matter of science. They were not gods to him, just being beyond the normal understanding of human physics. However, as his career progressed, and Sisko came to embrace the title of Emissary more and more and learn more about his own past, his spiritual belief in who the prophets were grew more serious. This culminated in his decision to them in the wormhole and leave his family and friends behind. This was a huge sacrifice for Sisko, but when he did because of his experience and spiritual evolution during his time on DS9.

Yet now, readers see that the prophets may not be as all-knowing as they often claim to be. This makes them no better than some of the other god-like entities that Starfleet captains have encountered over the years, most notably the entity Q. Though they still have significant power and knowledge, it is possible even the prophets tend to overplay those powers in hopes of manipulating people to do as they want. After all they did have an entire religion and caste system form around them on the ancient planet of Bajor. This kind of fact could very well shake the faith of almost anyone who believes in them, let alone a naturally skeptical Starfleet officer like Benjamin Sisko.

In the end, this conflict plays very well into the themes of IDW's Star Trek series. The series has evaluated what it means to be a god, and what sort of possibilities and consequences come from taking on the title of godhead. Now, it's revealed that even the Bajoran Prophets, the most sacred and infallible of Star Trek's omniscient entities, could very well be just as deceiving and self-important as any of their past peers have been in the franchise's history.

Star Trek #5 is on sale now from IDW Publishing.