"For the Uniform" (season five, episode thirteen; 3 February 1997): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: "For the Uniform" is the continuation of the story begun in "For the Cause" (season four, episode twenty-two), Captain Sisko's hunt for Michael Eddington, a Starfleet officer who betrayed the Federation to join the Maquis rebellion. Themes of loyalty, professionalism, & self-concept are woven throughout: Edington insists Starfleet hunts the Maquis for ideological reasons, because no one is allowed to leave "paradise," the Federation's self-conception; Sisko counters that he is hunting Eddington not because Eddington left Starfleet, but because Eddington abused his position as a Starfleet officers to steal & sabotage for the Maquis.
Eddington conceives of himself as Jean Valjean, the protagonist of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables & explicitly addresses Sisko as "Javert." After being repeatedly bested by the better-prepared Eddington in several encounters, Sisko leans into the Javert persona & intentionals acts as the obsessed villain Eddington believes him to be. Eddington's master plan involved creating a biological weapon, which he then used against two Cardassian planets, rendering those planet's atmosphere poisonous to Cardassians, but safe for human habitation. Sisko responds in kind, deploying a biological weapon against a Maquis planet that rendered its atmosphere poisonous to humans, but safe for Cardassians; he induces Eddington to surrender both the bioweapon & himself by threatening to similarly poison every Maquis planet.
Eddington shows his moral bankruptcy by being proud of his own poisoning of Cardassian worlds but horrified by Sisko's poisoning of Maquis worlds. To Eddington, there is no objective morality, no objective right or wrong: anything his side does is inherently moral, & if the opposing side does the exact same thing in response, that is inherently immoral. It's a shame that Michael Eddington doesn't actually understand Jean Valjean & Les Misérables, supposedly his favorite book.
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