I don’t know why but my brain immediately did one of those ‘what if’ things and the ‘what if’ this time was “What if Siskos wife survives and he decides to leave Starfleet to spend more time with his family and then Starfleet puts Barclay in charge of DS9?”
I was going to say he’d be emissary by blood since his mother was a prophet (kinda), but they don’t exactly “get” time, so there’s every chance that with effect preceeding cause, they’d go back and possess barclay’s ma instead.
The Enterprise-C had been presumed lost several years earlier, how many other Ambassador Class beasts were spearheading that battle, along with a flank of Excelsiors.