Star Trek: Picard season 3's promotion of Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) to the iral in charge of Starfleet Medical raises questions about whether Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) was ever offered the position. There's no doubt that Beverly Crusher earned her promotion during the grueling struggle against the Borg and Changeling alliance, and their attack on Starfleet and the Federation. It was thanks to the work of Dr. Crusher that every assimilated Starfleet officer had the Borg DNA removed from their genetic code. She also pioneered new techniques to unmask the remaining of the rogue Changeling schism led by Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer).
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Beverly Crusher's Star Trek: Picard promotion came after she spent over 20 years caring for those on the fringes of Frontier space while she raised her son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers). But was Dr. Julian Bashir ever offered the Head of Starfleet Medical position during this time thanks to his own impressive career? It was Bashir who did pioneering work to cure the effects of the Quickening, a devastating disease engineered by the Dominion. He also did considerable research into the Jem'Hadar and their reliance on ketracel white, making him an ideal candidate for the position at the top of Starfleet Medical. However, despite Julian's successes, there are also some potential barriers to his promotion.
Dr. Bashir Always Preferred DS9’s Frontier Medicine
Prior to arriving aboard Deep Space Nine, Julian Bashir was offered his pick of any job in the fleet, as well as a job at a prestigious French medical complex. He turned all of these offers down because he wanted to experience frontier medicine in the furthest reaches of Federation space. Julian's greatest medical achievements during Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came from his exploration of the uncharted Gamma Quadrant, and it's unlikely that his ion for frontier medicine would have dwindled. What's more likely is that Starfleet Medical did indeed offer Julian a prestigious position, but he turned it down, believing that there was more work to be done in the Gamma Quadrant or beyond.
Star Trek: Picard season 3 proved that the scars of the 24th century's Dominion War continue into the 25th. The aftermath of the war would have provided Dr. Bashir with numerous possibilities for further expanding his medical knowledge in the Gamma Quadrant. The construction of the USS Protostar in Star Trek: Prodigy and the possibilities of Starfleet charting the Delta Quadrant could have also enticed Julian to explore further medical frontiers. With so many regions of space still to explore, it's unlikely that Dr. Bashir would have given all that up for a role as Head of Starfleet Medical.
Dr. Bashir Being Genetically Engineered May Have Disqualified Him
Julian Bashir could only reject Starfleet Medical in favor of frontier medicine if he had first been offered the role. It's possible that Starfleet's distrust of Augments may have prevented Dr. Bashir from ever being offered that promotion. The story of Dal R'El (Brett Gray) in Star Trek: Prodigy has shown that genetically engineered humanoids were still barred from entering Starfleet in the 24th century. After his genetic enhancements were discovered, Bashir was allowed to remain in Starfleet when his father Richard Bashir (Brian George) agreed to go to prison for illegally enhancing Julian when he was a child.
Just because Dr. Bashir was allowed to remain in Starfleet, it doesn't mean that everyone in the organization was happy about it. The long-standing fear of another Eugenics War or the next Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalban) has led to overwhelming prejudice against Augments in Star Trek. This prejudice may have stood in the way of Bashir's career progression after the end of the Dominion War. Anti-Augment sentiment led to the arrest of the 23rd century's Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and the rejection of Dal from Starfleet Academy. It would be no surprise if it also barred Julian from leading Starfleet Medical.
Dr. Bashir’s Involvement With Section 31
It's also possible that Dr. Bashir is pursuing career progression in other, more covert, departments within Starfleet. After he was headhunted by Section 31 in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 6, episode 18, "Inquisition", Bashir became obsessed with the shadowy organization. In a hypothetical pilot for season 8 created for the feature-length documentary What We Left Behind, the DS9 writers' room planned to reveal Bashir as the new Head of Section 31. Presumably, in a fully realized reunion season of DS9, Julian would be revealed to be working in deep cover, intent on bringing Section 31 down.
This could be the exact reason that Bashir either refused or was ed over for, promotion to Head of Starfleet Medical. In pursuing his white whale, Bashir may have instead begun working his way to the top of the black ops group, gathering all their darkest secrets in the process. Knowing a prominent journalist like Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) would allow Bashir to leak these secrets to the Federation's press. With Michelle Yeoh's Star Trek: Section 31 movie and Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4's potential Section 31 storyline both on the way, viewers may finally find out where Dr. Julian Bashir ended up after the events of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.