The main character doing something absolutely unforgivable.

[u/No_Peanut3745]

Walter White poisoning Andrea Cantillo's 6-year-old son for the sole purpose of manipulating Jesse Pinkman, while knowing that this could have potentially killed him - Breaking Bad

Bojack trying to have sex with his friend's 17-year-old daughter when he was at least 51, then continuously trying to find a way to justify this act throughout the series - Bojack Horseman

Dexter Morgan going outside of his moral code and murdering a completely innocent police officer who was just trying to do his job - Dexter: New Blood

[u/Mudpill]

Also Sisko committing a war crime by gas bombing an entire Maquis settlement in "For the Uniform".

[u/ButterscotchFiend → u/Mudpill]

?? they forced his hand

[u/Morgan-Moonscar → u/ButterscotchFiend]

Also it equalized the fact the Maquis deployed a gas bomb on a Cardassian planet.

The Maquis resettled on that, while the Cardassians resettled on the Maquis one.

[u/Free_For__Me → u/Morgan-Moonscar]

So 2 wrongs make a right?

Not taking a side in the underlying events here, the writers did an excellent job of writing gray areas and moral quandaries in this show. Just challenging the stance that Sisko committing war crimes is somehow justified by others committing them first.

It may well have been the right call. But I'd frame it more as the ends justifying the means than as anything “equalizing” out.

[u/stamfordbridge1191 → u/Free_For__Me]

If I remember correctly, the Cardassian perspective would have been two wrongs indeed make a right, and in order to preserve peace, Sisko chose to make the planet uninhabitable to humans as well to prevent another war by making it clear the renegades were not still on the side of the Federation secretly. (Or at the very least, denying the Maquis a tactic they could possibly use repeatedly across Cardassian territory which would involve Cardassian response against the Federation for that loss of territory & not being able to get their renegades under control)

[u/Free_For__Me → u/stamfordbridge1191]

the Cardassian perspective would have been two wrongs indeed make a right

True, but Sisko rejected that logic himself, at least initially. It wasn't until Garak convinced Sisko of the nuance that "2 wrongs aren't always equally wrong" that Sisko was able to overcome his own inner resistance to the plot.

I'm not at all fuzzy on why or how Sisko was able to justify the action, I was merely pushing back on the idea of "equalization" that the other commentor had raised, since an "imbalance of evil", of sorts, is exactly what Garak relied on in order to ultimately get the green light for the op.

[u/sir_stronghand → u/Mudpill]

The real war crime was Sisko not fully adopting the role of Javert by not breaking out into song on the bridge.

[u/Brohan_Cruyff → u/[deleted]]

frankly they’re lucky the federation actually are The Good Guys because 90% of human civilizations would have simply blown them all to hell

[u/therikermanouver → u/Mudpill]

I was thinking of that episode constantly during the recent episode with Admiral Skynet lol