Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series Season 1, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, First Contact, Enterprise, Discovery Seasons 1-2, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Section 31.
It’s Spooktober, the scariest month of the year! And what better way to celebrate than to talk about… Star Trek? That can’t be right!
Star Trek has dipped its toes in the horror genre on a few occasions – including in recent years. But that’s not really what I want to talk about today (though I suppose we’ll touch on some horror-tinged episodes as we progress). Instead, I want to take a look at a few of the franchise’s aliens that could have been terrifying… if their respective storylines had been written that way. In short, these are aliens that have horror potential, but because Star Trek is what it is… they never really managed to scare me!
A horrifying monster.
As usual, I like to give a small caveat. Everything we’re going to talk about is the entirely subjective, not objective opinion of just one old Trekkie. If you hate all of my ideas, think I’ve totally misunderstood something, or I exclude a faction that seems blindingly obvious to you… that’s okay! There’s plenty of room in the Star Trek fan community for polite discussion and respectful differences of opinion, and I share this piece in that spirit.
Now, a bit more detail is necessary on this idea, methinks!
Star Trek can do horror – and it can do horror-themed stories exceptionally well. But Star Trek is not primarily a horror franchise, and we often explore aliens through the lenses of exploration, first contact, diplomacy, friendship, curiosity, or war. There are many stories involving contact with alien races – and alien “monsters,” to use some Halloween-adjacent lingo – but most of them treat aliens as potential new friends rather than terrifying, incomprehensible adversaries. And even in stories where an alien is villainous or powerful, Star Trek tends to go for either some kind of peaceful resolution or more of an action-heavy tone rather than all-out horror.
The Enterprise.
But there are some aliens, introduced throughout the franchise’s fifty-nine-year existence, which could feel genuinely terrifying if they were dropped into a story that really went for a horror tone. A great example of this is the Gorn: The Original Series depicted the Gorn captain as an enemy for Kirk, sure, and Kirk even describes the Gorn as a “monster” in the episode. But Arena (the only episode prior to Enterprise where the Gorn appeared) was a piece about exploration and understanding – with a healthy dose of action thrown in, of course.
But Strange New Worlds took the Gorn in a whole new direction, ramping up their more monstrous qualities, and leaning into a style of storytelling not unlike that seen in the 1979 classic film Alien. This is the kind of thing I mean: if Strange New Worlds can do it for the Gorn… what other alien races could see their more horrifying qualities ramped up? And could some of these be interesting for a future episode or series?
With all of the preamble out of the way, let’s take a look at five alien races that I think could have been terrifying!
Alien #1: The Klingons
A Klingon as seen in Strange New Worlds.
By the time Star Trek had updated the design of the Klingons and delved a bit deeper into their warrior culture, a decision had already been taken to make the Klingons friendly. But if you think about it… a race of incredibly strong, bloodthirsty warriors who are eager to die in battle could be genuinely terrifying with the right script.
However… when Discovery stepped back in time and set up its Klingon war arc in Season 1, we didn’t really get that. There were some tense moments and some neat action sequences, but part of me thinks that there have probably been too many storylines with Klingon heroes and protagonists for long-time Trekkies to take them seriously as a threat in the future.
Wielding a bat’leth.
If The Next Generation hadn’t gone down that route, though… there’s a ton of potential here. Imagine an episode set on a derelict ship where a lone Klingon warrior is slowly hunting down a Starfleet away team. Or a story set aboard a station like DS9 where a handful of Starfleet personnel are desperately trying to protect civilians from an onslaught of warriors who aren’t afraid to die in battle. The Klingons’ single-minded dedication to war and combat makes them frightening, and their physical strength when compared to (most) humans makes them truly dangerous opponents.
Unlike some other aliens we’re going to talk about, I very strongly doubt we’d ever get a Klingon-themed horror episode! It would be difficult to pull off after seeing hundreds of episodes with the likes of Worf, B’Elanna, Martok, Gowron, and so on, and I suspect the fan community wouldn’t really be on board with the idea, either. But I stand by my pick: with the right script, filmed in the right way, this warrior race could be absolutely terrifying.
Alien #2: The Sheliak
A Sheliak on the Enterprise-D viewscreen.
Strange New Worlds took the Gorn – an alien race which had only appeared a couple of times in Star Trek – and turned them into a major antagonist. So… why not do something similar with the non-humanoid Sheliak? The Sheliak appeared in just one episode – and kind of similarly to the Gorn in Arena, they weren’t the only part of that story! In fact, only one individual was seen on screen, and even then, only for a few moments.
However, the Sheliak have a really interesting and unusual design, especially by Star Trek standards, and for a one-off alien race that hasn’t been so much as mentioned in more than thirty-five years… they’re pretty memorable. To me, anyway!
Picard and Troi aboard a Sheliak vessel.
The Sheliak’s inhuman nature and incomprehensible language already make for an intimidating starting point, but their approach to other races – including humans – could really jump-start the fear factor. Viewing other races as inferior, and having no qualms whatsoever about wiping out whole settlements is a frightening idea – and if the Sheliak can back that up with technology, weapons, or perhaps some kind of weird alien goo, I think the stage is set for a genuinely frightening adversary.
Being somewhat of a blank slate, there’s a ton of room to expand on our knowledge of the Sheliak. They’re sentient life-forms, not “monsters,” but there’s still a ton of frightening potential in any intelligent non-human alien.
Alien #3: The Founders/Changelings
The Female Changeling from Deep Space Nine.
A shape-shifting enemy that can – and already has – infiltrated Starfleet and the Federation? That seems like something with a lot of horror potential! Look at the classic horror picture The Thing as a great example of how something like this could work. An impostor living amongst a Starfleet crew, slowly picking them off, and the survivors losing their minds not knowing who to trust. A story like that is textbook horror.
Picard’s third season had a chance to do this, but the story there leaned more on the mystery and action side of things, rather than horror. There were some shocking moments, and the idea that anyone could, in theory, be a changeling did set up some tension for a time. But then the story went in a different direction towards the end, so that terrifying potential didn’t really amount to much, at least not in terms of horror.
Changelings in Picard.
One thing we’ve never really seen in DS9 or Picard is a Founder shape-shifting into some kind of truly monstrous and powerful form. If they can take the shape of birds, humanoids, or even a cloud of gas, there’s nothing stopping them from turning into a three-metre-tall eldritch horror with tentacles and needle-sharp teeth! Again, these abilities have been teased sometimes, but never really taken advantage of in a horror sense.
There are timeline questions, of course. A story set after the Dominion War, in a largely peaceful era, would struggle to justify including the Founders as a major antagonist like this. But, as in Picard, there could be a renegade faction or even an individual. In any case, Star Trek has done some cool things with shape-shifters – but really hasn’t even scratched the surface in terms of their horrifying possibilities!
Alien #4: The Borg
Borg drones i Enterprise.
The Borg are scary. They’re “space zombies,” as I wrote once, and part of what makes them so frightening is that every ally lost to assimilation becomes another enemy to fight. The Borg also embody the idea of a “fate worse than death;” losing one’s mind, being turned against one’s friends and allies, and continuing to exist in a kind of limbo state. But think about it… have any Borg episodes really fallen into the “horror” genre?
For years, I’ve wondered whether Star Trek should try a “Borg Invasion” television series – a show in which the Borg make a real push to assimilate the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant. Such a show, were it to ever exist, would undoubtedly benefit from leaning into a horror tone – at least some of the time. Ramping up the fear factor by showing that no main characters are safe, that the Borg are this unstoppable “force of nature,” only interested in assimilation… I think it could be exceptional if done well.
The first Borg ever seen on screen.
There have been some scary Borg moments over the years, and the faction’s aesthetic really leans into horror tropes. But since the introduction of the Borg Queen in First Contact, I kind of feel like the Borg lost part of what made them so special in the first place. If it were up to me, I’d create a retconned version of the Borg akin to their original appearances in Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds – interested in assimilation and technology, and completely unable to be reasoned with, talked down, or negotiated with. That, in my opinion, is a huge part of what made the Borg unique – and scary!
But even with a Queen, there’s still a lot more Star Trek could do to give us a Borg horror story – even if it was just a one-off episode, not a whole show. An episode with a tone like All Those Who Wander or Shuttle to Kenfori would work exceptionally well with the Borg as antagonists.
Alien #5: The Terrans
Mirror Georgiou and San.
If you know me, you’ll know that the Mirror Universe (and its Terran inhabitants) has never been my favourite part of Star Trek… and that’s putting it mildly! But I won’t deny the horror potential in the setting, which is all about murder, violence, and torture. Imagine an unsuspecting officer being transported there, totally unaware of what was happening, and being hunted down by an entire galaxy full of violent sociopaths!
In past Star Trek stories, the rare moments where a character has actually met their Mirror counterpart have been played humorously, but if you think about it, the idea of discovering that you essentially have an “evil twin” is another horror trope that the Mirror Universe could lean into. Being kidnapped by a Terran because your Terran counterpart is someone high up in the Imperial military would be absolutely terrifying.
Mirror Burnham.
Again, decades’ worth of pretty low-quality Mirror Universe stories – episodes which, intentionally or not, came across as being funny rather than thought-provoking or scary – definitely count against this idea! But a good enough script should be able to see the Terrans and their Mirror Universe as the terrifying antagonists that they could have been!
Plus, it would be nice to get a Mirror Universe story with genuine stakes and a fear factor, instead of hammy over-acting and one-dimensional characters. Maybe the Terrans wouldn’t be my first choice to write a horror story around, but I definitely think the setting could lend itself to something frightening.
So that’s it!
Zombies!
We’ve talked about a handful of Star Trek aliens that aren’t usually all that scary… but *could* have been!
I hope this was a bit of fun, and a little bit of a thought experiment. Star Trek is, as I said earlier, not a franchise that usually delves deeply into horror. That’s not to say it never happens, because it does, and it can work really well! But it’s just not a genre that the franchise’s writers typically like to play around in. At most, we’ll get a one-off horror-tinged story. But a feature film or season-long arc still seems a long way away.
I have a couple of other horror/Halloween ideas that I hope to get around to before the 31st, but I’ve been exceptionally busy over the past couple of weeks, so I’m not sure if I’ll manage to do everything in my writing pile. Might have to save one or two of those ideas for Halloween 2026! Still, I hope you’ll check back, because I daresay I’ll have more to say about Star Trek, sci-fi, horror, and the wide world of geeky entertainment before too long! See you… out there.
The Star Trek franchise can be streamed on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available, and most shows and films are also available on various on-demand platforms, as well as DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including all properties, shows, and films discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance/Paramount. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: Beware of spoilers for the following Star Trek productions: The Next Generation Seasons 1-3, Voyager Seasons 4-7, First Contact, Enterprise Season 2, Prodigy Season 1, and Picard Seasons 1-3.
Let’s talk about everyone’s favourite Star Trek villain: the Borg Collective!
Okay, maybe that’s a tiny bit of an exaggeration! But the Borg are certainly up there as one of the Star Trek franchise’s most iconic and frightening villainous factions, and there’s no shortage of theories and speculation in the Star Trek fan community about how the Borg operate and what their methods and overall goals are. I thought we could touch on one aspect of that today.
I briefly outlined what I’m calling the “Borg Teasing Theory” in a post here on the website a couple of days ago. That piece was all about some of my personal head canon explanations of unseen, unexplained, contradictory, or vague things from across the Star Trek franchise – but I thought this particular theory warranted its own full article! Click or tap here to check out the rest of my head canon, if you’re interested in my take on the likes of warp factors and cloaking devices.
The Borg are coming!
So what’s the tl;dr of this theory? In brief: the two major Borg attacks on Earth during The Next Generation era – as depicted in The Best of Both Worlds and First Contact – weren’t 100% serious attempts to assimilate the entire planet or the Federation. They were, in a word, teases. The Borg Collective hoped to push Starfleet and humanity to develop new weapons, shields, scanners, and medical technology in the years after their incursions – which they would then be able to assimilate when they launched a full-scale invasion at some point in the future. In short: the attacks were not attempts at total conquest and were not intended to fully succeed at assimilating Earth.
We’ll get into detail in just a second, but before we go any further, I have a couple of important caveats. Firstly, all of this is the entirely subjective take of just one old Trekkie. If you hate this theory, think I’ve got it completely wrong, or feel I’ve misunderstood some key part of Star Trek that would invalidate it… that’s okay. None of this is canon or likely to ever be confirmed on screen anyway! Secondly, I’m not claiming to be the sole inventor of this theory. Other Trekkies may very well have come up with similar ideas independently, and I’m not taking credit for anyone else’s work or theories.
A Borg drone.
Finally, a word about fan theories. I like writing and I like Star Trek, so writing about Star Trek is a fun way for me to spend a little more time in this world. But no fan theory – not even one that seems totally plausible – is worth getting upset or worked up over. As I said a moment ago, none of this is canon and may very well be totally debunked in the future. Given the status of the Borg Collective after Picard Season 3 (and Paramount’s shaky finances), we may never get another Borg story anyway. But this is supposed to be a fun exploration of a theory I’ve had kicking around in my mind for decades, not something to take too seriously.
Phew, that was a lot! But with the caveats out of the way, it’s time to jump into the theory!
Let’s start by explaining what this “tease” is. As I outlined briefly above, I believe that the Borg were not fully serious or committed in their two attacks on Earth. My evidence for this is simple: on both occasions, the Borg sent only one single ship to Earth. A Borg cube can contain, depending on which episode we use as a source, up to 100,000 drones. Given the size of Starfleet, the number of ships at the Federation’s disposal, and even just the population of Earth itself (which could be somewhere in the region of 9-10 billion in the 24th Century) one ship and 100,000 drones doesn’t seem like a large enough invasion force.
A Borg cube hovering over Earth…
Assuming the Borg cube from either Wolf-359 or the Battle of Sector 001 managed to defeat Starfleet’s armada and Earth’s planetary defences, and was able to successfully transport down all of its drones, the logistics of assimilating such a large population don’t track. If Earth’s population is 10 billion and there are 100,000 Borg, that’s a ratio of 100,000-to-one – meaning each Borg drone would need to have a hand in the assimilation of 100,000 humans. With only a single ship, any ground invasion would be vulnerable to Starfleet regrouping and returning; the destruction of the cube would cut off Borg forces on the ground.
Despite jokes I’ve made before about Earth being undefended, it’s still the headquarters of the Federation, with Starfleet Academy and Starfleet HQ on the planet, too. There are going to be thousands of armed Starfleet security personnel, Federation HQ guards, Section 31 operatives, and others on the planet. Even if resistance was scattered at first, and the Borg were able to shut down Starfleet communications, resistance on Earth would be ferocious. To jump over to a different franchise for a point of comparison: look at the Reaper war in the Mass Effect series. The Reaper invasion of Earth was hampered at every turn by resistance fighters from all walks of life, led by the remnants of the Alliance military. There’s no reason to think a Borg attack on Earth wouldn’t lead to a similar resistance movement springing up, with armed civilians led by Starfleet personnel.
Even under extreme pressure, Starfleet tactical personnel would mount a significant resistance to any Borg invasion of Earth.
With the Borg preoccupied with a war of attrition on the ground, their sole vessel in space would be vulnerable. The cube might’ve been able to beat off Starfleet’s initial armada, but that was a hastily thrown together gaggle of whatever ships were on hand when the Federation realised what was coming. Ships were brought out of mothballs and unqualified officers were tapped to take command. With Starfleet being better-prepared and having time to regroup – while also calling on allies like the Klingons – round two against the cube would go a lot better!
So even if the initial attack was successful and the Borg managed to defeat a defence force and land drones on Earth, it would be a matter of time – days or perhaps a couple of weeks – before Starfleet would be back with a much larger fleet. The Borg cube may have beaten the Federation’s hastily-arranged defence ships, but the full might of Starfleet, combined with Klingons and other allies and backed up by tactical data gained from the earlier battle, would – in my opinion – have a strong chance of destroying the Borg’s only vessel in the system. After that, it’s just a case of landing as many troops with modulated phasers (and Klingon bat’leths) and mopping up the remaining drones.
Klingons wielding bat’leths could cut through a Borg army!
To me, this is the most likely outcome for both the Battle of Wolf-359 and the Battle of Sector 001. And the Borg, having studied humanity and the Alpha Quadrant, are undoubtedly aware of this. One ship, even maxed out with as many drones as possible, simply can’t assimilate Earth on its own – let alone expand the fight to the rest of the Federation and its allies.
But why do I think the Borg Collective has the resources to launch a bigger attack? Simple: take a look at the Collective in its Delta Quadrant home in Voyager. The Borg’s Unicomplex alone contained more than a trillion drones, with the entire Collective perhaps comprising quadrillions of Borg. There may be tens or hundreds of thousands of Borg cubes – not to mention other Borg outposts, space structures, and assimilated planets. The sheer scale of the Borg Collective is what makes it so powerful, so frightening, and such a dangerous opponent. So why would the Borg choose to attack Earth in such a small-scale way?
The destruction of the Borg cube in First Contact. Did the Borg plan for this outcome?
Given how powerful a single cube could be, a fleet of perhaps a dozen would make light work of anything Starfleet and its allies could muster. And with two million drones instead of just 100,000, the Borg’s ground offensive would be much quicker and would be more easily able to overcome any resistance. The assimilation of Earth could proceed much more smoothly – with only a minimal amount of extra investment from the Collective. For a faction with 10,000 ships, using twelve on this one task is barely a drop in the ocean. We’ve seen the Borg assimilate other Delta Quadrant races, like Arturis’ species from the episode Hope and Fear, using “overwhelming force.” One single cube is not, I would argue, the kind of overwhelming force needed to conquer Earth and the Federation.
So to be clear: this part of the theory states that the Borg have the means to easily overpower and outgun the Federation and its allies and achieve the task of assimilating Earth. They have no reason not to go all-in and fully commit to this invasion; they aren’t worried about loss of life, there’s no Borg economy to be damaged by building extra ships, and if their target is to fully conquer Earth and the Federation, they could do so with ease. But they don’t do that. Instead, on two separate occasions they’ve sent a single cube. Why?
The Enterprise-D battling a Borg vessel.
To answer that, we first have to consider what the Borg are and how they operate. The Borg are a hive mind, operating as one. They have assimilated – according to their own sources – at least 10,000 species across the thousands of centuries that they’ve existed. But because they’re one hive mind, they lack creativity. They lack inventiveness – and with that, we can infer that they don’t have the ability to create brand-new technologies any more.
The hive mind is adaptable, and having been introduced to something – say, a particular phaser modulation – the Borg can adapt. Adaptations are rolled out at transwarp speeds across the entire Collective, meaning that any Borg encountering that specific phaser modulation in future will be protected. But adapting to something isn’t the same as inventing – and this lack of creativity and inventiveness could be a problem for the Collective.
After being exposed to a new technology or weapon, the Borg can adapt.
So how does the Collective acquire new technology, then? If they don’t develop things themselves they must get them from somewhere, right? I mean, the Borg are more technologically advanced than the Federation and that didn’t happen by accident! The answer is simple: the Borg acquire everything from information to technology through assimilation.
This was their weakness when confronted with Species 8472. They couldn’t assimilate a single member of the species or one of their ships, so they were left blind and helpless. And this, I would posit, is the fundamental reason why they “tease” certain species – like humanity. We probably aren’t a unique case; I believe this is a tactic that the Borg will have deployed on countless other occasions against similarly creative and adaptable species. But it’s a tactic that the Collective knows can work to its advantage.
The Borg were unable to assimilate any member of Species 8472 or their technology – rendering them blind and ineffective against their attacks.
The objective is simple: by making a relatively small demonstration of their power, the Borg incite fear in their targets. This fear leads to huge investments in weapons, shields, starships, and the like… all of which the Borg want. On one hand, the Borg want to see if their target can find a weakness in the Collective and its technology so they can prevent anyone else from exploiting it in the future – basically rolling out a Collective-wide “patch” to fix any weaknesses or vulnerabilities that the target species may have identified. And on the other hand, the Borg want any species they target to have achieved their full potential – giving the Collective the best, newest technologies that the target could create. This is how the Borg – at least in my opinion – are able to acquire new technologies.
And this is what they’re doing to Earth, humanity, and the Federation at large. By launching these attacks, the Borg are pushing the Federation and Starfleet to develop new technologies, whether that’s weapons, ships, medical supplies, transporters, shields… the list goes on. Perhaps the second incursion was intended to see how far Starfleet’s new inventions had come, or maybe it was just a second “tease” to force Starfleet to keep working and keep inventing. Either way… it worked.
A Borg drone being killed by a phaser blast.
Why would the Borg target Earth, though? It’s not like they need Earth specifically for its location or resources, and Earth isn’t even close to the Borg’s native territory. The Borg are mostly in the far-off Delta Quadrant, though they may have colonies or outposts somewhat nearer to the Federation, such as on the El-Aurian homeworld. So the question remains: why Earth? When there are so many other planets and species in between the Borg’s home territory and the Federation, why jump halfway across the galaxy for an invasion?
We already know that the Borg don’t assimilate everyone they come across. In fact, the Borg can be downright picky – opting to ignore the Kazon, for instance, as they were deemed “unworthy” of being assimilated as they’d somehow detract from the Borg concept of perfection. It stands to reason that some species may be of more interest to the Borg – even those in a faraway part of the galaxy. I think the El-Aurians are a prime example: their homeworld, while nowhere near Earth, seems not to have been on the very borders of Borg space, either. Yet the El-Aurians were targeted – perhaps for their telepathic powers, or perhaps because the Borg considered them a threat. This is a species, lest we forget, that has tangled with the Q Continuum and forced them to the negotiating table. The same basic reasoning may apply to humanity.
The Borg deliberately targeted the El-Aurians (Guinan’s people), even though they may not have been anywhere near Borg space.
Humanity has to be one of the most resilient and creative species that the Borg have ever encountered. Humans were able to track a Borg vessel and develop technologies to keep themselves hidden from the Collective while studying them – this is what Seven of Nine’s parents, the Hansens, did in the 2340s. This may have been the Borg’s first encounter with a human… and their curiosity was piqued!
Then, not long after the assimilation of the Hansens, the Borg received a strange message. Originating two centuries ago in a far-flung part of the galaxy, it told the tale of a time-traveling sphere, a planet of spacefaring people, and a climactic battle. The Borg who survived the Battle of Sector 001 had crash-landed on Earth in the past, only to be awakened by humanity in the 22nd Century. Captain Archer and his crew were able to stop them – but not before they sent a message to the Collective in the Delta Quadrant. Between the message from the past and the assimilation of the Hansens, the Borg must’ve realised how significant Earth and humanity could be for the Collective.
A small group of Borg were able to signal the Collective in the 22nd Century.
After receiving this “blast from the past” transmission, assimilating the Hansens, or both, the Borg had humanity and Earth in their sights. But rather than launch a full-scale invasion in 2350 – years before the Enterprise-D’s encounter with a cube – the Borg took a more subtle approach. Firstly, they may not have been entirely certain of Earth’s location, instead sending ships to scout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants for signs of humanity and the Federation. Then, rather than attack straight away, the Collective bided its time, launching small-scale attacks on outlying colonies along the Neutral Zone to see what would happen.
By attacking both Federation and Romulan outposts (as seen in the Season 1 finale of The Next Generation), the Borg may have hoped to trigger a conflict between the two powers – before swooping in later to attack both of them. Or, perhaps more likely, this was the Borg’s first attempt to assimilate humans en masse to see if they were worth bothering with – and picking outlying colonies makes a lot more sense than rushing to Earth straight away. The Romulans may have been collateral damage, in that case.
The Borg destroyed multiple human colonies before attacking Earth.
In any case, the Borg determined that humanity was a worthwhile target – something that was only further confirmed by their encounter with the Enterprise-D a few months later. As an aside: Q may very well have saved humanity by his intervention in Q Who! I have a longer piece on this subject – which you can find by clicking or tapping here – but here’s the short version: the Borg knew about humanity and Earth years before Starfleet knew about them. By hurling the Enterprise-D into the path of a Borg vessel, Q gave Picard and the Federation valuable insight into the Collective, forewarning them of the attacks to come.
With the Borg determined to assimilate humanity, decisions had to be made about how to do so. The hive mind, operating as one, makes such decisions at light-speed, and after confirming humanity was a suitable target for assimilation, the Borg decided to “tease” the Federation, pushing them to design new weapons, shields, starships, medical devices, and so on… all so that the Collective could assimilate it later, adding to their perfection. This is how the Borg operate, and it’s why they chose to launch small-scale attacks against Earth instead of simply arriving en masse with overwhelming force.
Original concept art of the Borg. Image Credit: Frogland Archive/Forgotten Trek
From the Borg’s perspective, this approach is a win-win. Either their attack succeeds in full, with humanity and Earth being assimilated over a period of weeks or months, giving the Borg control of the planet and a staging-post for a larger-scale invasion of the Federation. Or it “fails” to achieve that objective, but in doing so provides the Collective with incredibly valuable tactical data on Starfleet, Earth’s defences, and so on, while also pushing the Federation to develop new technologies. The Borg want these technologies – either to “patch” vulnerabilities and weaknesses they may not be aware of or to add to their perfection.
There are real-world parallels. The Second World War led to the creation of modern-day computer technology, rocketry, and atomic power. The First World War led to huge advancements in flight, artillery, and motor vehicles. These are just a couple of examples from our own history of how war and devastation can lead to technological change. The Borg, I would argue, seek to artificially inflate the pace of technological advancement by baring their teeth and showing their target a tiny fraction of their power. In desperation, Starfleet and the Federation began working at pace to develop everything from phasers to starships – all ripe for assimilation by the Collective.
The first Borg drone ever seen in Star Trek.
So that’s the theory.
The Borg were not fully invested in assimilating Earth either in 2367 or 2373 – their only two direct attacks on Earth. These incursions had a different goal: pushing humanity and the Federation to develop new technologies that the Borg could assimilate later, when the time was right. By revealing themselves and showing Starfleet a glimpse of their power, the Borg believed their new target would, in effect, work for them, designing and building new weapons, ships, and other devices that the Collective no longer had the creativity to invent for itself.
To me, this theory made sense even as far back as when I watched First Contact in the cinema in 1996! Developments in Voyager, Enterprise, and more recently in Picard, too, have only added to this theory, expanding it and deepening my belief that the Borg really weren’t serious about conquering Earth. To them, the attacks served a different purpose. It took almost everything Starfleet had to beat the Borg, but given the sheer size and scale of the Collective, we know they had the resources to commit more ships and more drones to an attempted invasion of Earth. There has to be some reason why they didn’t send two or three cubes instead of just one – and to me at least, this idea makes the most sense and squares that circle.
Romulans and Borg as seen in the Lower Decks opening titles.
I hope this has been interesting! I doubt that this theory will ever be confirmed – and it may even be actively debunked one day, if we ever get another Borg story. Some of you might think that the Borg’s time travel in First Contact (or some other plot point from a Borg episode) already negates or invalidates this theory… and that’s okay! As I said at the beginning, this is just a fan theory or head canon, and it’s all subjective at the end of the day. I share this theory with the Star Trek fan community in that spirit.
Speaking of Borg stories… will we see another one in Star Trek anytime soon? After Picard did three separate Borg or Borg-adjacent stories in its three seasons, and with the Collective having appeared in Prodigy and Lower Decks in recent years… I think it might be a while before the Collective makes another appearance. I certainly think it should be a while; I can’t be the only one who feels a little burned out on the faction, especially after their omnipresence in Picard. If and when the Borg return, I hope it’s in a big way. I’ve been kicking around the idea of a “Borg invasion” series for a while – and that could be a really interesting way for Star Trek to go one day in the future. If a fourth Kelvin timeline film ever gets off the ground, I don’t think it’s impossible to think we could see the Borg there, too.
But unless and until any of that happens… this is my theory! I hope you enjoyed this write-up and found it interesting.
The Star Trek franchise – including most episodes and films cited above – can be streamed now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the service is available. The Star Trek franchise is the copyright of Paramount Global. Header font/text courtesy of textstudio.com. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series Season 1, The Voyage Home, The Next Generation Season 1, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Picard Season 3, and Strange New Worlds Season 1.
It’s Spooktober – the spookiest month of the year! So I thought we could have a bit of fun and talk about some of the scariest aliens and villains that the Star Trek franchise has brought to screen.
Star Trek isn’t a franchise that’s well-known for being all that frightening. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement at all – in fact, I’d wager that most TV viewers would consider it pretty tame, especially when thinking about the horror genre and alien monsters! But that doesn’t mean Star Trek is never scary. There are some wonderfully atmospheric episodes and stories scattered throughout the franchise’s fifty-eight-year history that have some of those more frightening elements.
Today, rather than talking about individual stories or episodes, what I’d like to do is pick out some of the franchise’s scariest aliens, monsters, and villains – and talk about why they work so well, why they’re so intimidating, and perhaps even just the potential they have to be frightening or scary in future stories.
My usual caveat applies: everything we’re going to talk about is the entirely subjective opinion of one person only. If I miss something you think is blindingly obvious or if I include a “scary” alien that you think isn’t frightening in the least… that’s okay! There’s plenty of room in the Star Trek fan community for disagreement and differences of opinion.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about some of Star Trek’s scariest aliens and villains!
Number 1: Q and the Q Continuum
The Q are on the list less for their out-and-out fear factor and more for their potential. I don’t think there have been many terrifying or bone-chilling Q appearances – though I will entertain the argument that Q’s penchant for randomness can have an unsettling or unnerving quality. Things like conjuring up aliens in Napoleonic uniforms or a post-atomic courtroom would be incredibly frightening in real life, even if they’re portrayed more as chaotic and wacky when we see them unfold on screen.
The Q Continuum’s real fear factor comes from their apparently unlimited power. No other alien race in Star Trek is as powerful as the Q, and they could quite literally wipe out humanity, the Federation, or even the entire galaxy with a wave of the hand. Although we always see Q as humanoid, their true form is a mystery, and their power seems to be without limit – and without a reliance on technology. No war against the Q seems possible, and if they ever chose to move against the Federation (which they could do for reasons beyond our comprehension, or to prevent some kind of conflict in the far future that we have no inkling of right now) they could be far more destructive than even the Borg.
Number 2: The Gorn (As they appear in Strange New Worlds)
The Gorn are one of Star Trek’s oldest alien races, appearing in the first season of The Original Series. But after that initial appearance and a few scattered mentions through The Next Generation era, they didn’t show up on screen again until Enterprise. That depiction wasn’t great, in my view – it relied too heavily on CGI that didn’t look great at the time and hasn’t aged well. But the return of the Gorn in Strange New Worlds has been a triumph.
After several episodes built up the terror of Gorn raids on the Federation, it was the episode All Those Who Wander that really showed us what this new depiction of the Gorn can do. Strange New Worlds’ writers unleashed the Gorn in an episode that, more than any other in the franchise, leans into the horror genre. The Gorn are depicted almost like the Xenomorphs from the Alien film series, possessing strength and stealth abilities that left the away team cornered.
Number 3: The Founders/Changelings
Maybe this one is a little controversial, but after the way Changelings were depicted in Picard’s third season I think we have a pretty good case to include them as a frightening bunch! The idea that shape-shifters could infiltrate Starfleet and the Federation was addressed in a fantastic Deep Space Nine two-parter: Homefront and Paradise Lost. These episodes took more of a political thriller/drama approach to the topic, but the core idea is a deeply unsettling one.
With the Dominion playing a growing role in Deep Space Nine, the idea of Changeling infiltrators was scaled back and only used sparingly – probably because it’s not an easy story to write or pull off successfully. But Picard Season 3 brought the idea back in a creative way, showing how deadly Changelings could be and how a Changeling plot could be an existential threat to the Federation.
Number 4: The M-113 Creature (a.k.a. The Salt Vampire)
The first ever alien to appear on The Original Series remains one of the franchise’s most frightening! The episode The Man Trap kick-started the Star Trek franchise back in 1966, and the Salt Vampire was the first alien that audiences saw Kirk and the crew wrangling with. As discussed above with the Changelings, the alien’s ability to change shape and blend in added to its fear factor – but moreover, its true appearance is pretty unsettling even today. There’s something to be said for those old rubber suits, eh?
The Salt Vampire is a sci-fi take on ancient legends and creatures from folklore, and that gives it a uniquely frightening feel. Preying on some of these old primordial fears lends the creature a genuinely intimidating vibe, and its grotesque appearance just adds to that. The Salt Vampire is, however, a tragic figure, as it appears to be the last of its kind; more akin to an animal acting out of instinct than a truly nefarious villain.
Number 5: The Borg
In my essay The Borg: Space Zombies, I go into a lot more detail on this topic, but the condensed version is this: the Borg fill a similar role to zombies in horror fiction, while also picking up on both Cold War-era fears of brainwashing and concerns about technology getting out of control. The idea of assimilation is incredibly clever, as it turns every ally the heroes lose into a new enemy to fight, making the Borg grow in strength at the exact same rate as Starfleet weakens.
The idea of being assimilated and losing one’s mind and identity is arguably a fate worse than death – and we’ve got several examples in Star Trek of ex-Borg wrangling with the consequences of what the Collective forced them to do. I would note that the Borg’s fear factor has declined over the years, particularly during the latter part of Voyager’s run. Seeing Starfleet triumph over the same adversary again and again – no matter how intimidating it may be on paper – does start to take the shine off things.
Number 6: Armus
Armus has the distinction of being the first alien monster to kill a main character on a Star Trek TV series. There were many ways The Next Generation’s writers could have written out Tasha Yar when Denise Crosby opted to quit the show, but killing her off was a bold move. And doing so in such a brutal way, with Armus not even batting an eye at her death… it was quite something to see.
If you have the DVD or Blu-ray of The Next Generation it’s worth watching the actors and producers talk about working on the episode Skin of Evil, because creating Armus and performing around the inky-black oil slick was incredibly difficult for everyone involved to say the least! Jonathan Frakes in particular had a very tough time with Riker’s scene when he was pulled under the surface. Armus is a scary-looking villain, and also one that had a profound, long-lasting impact on The Next Generation.
Number 7: The “Whale Probe”
Although the tone of The Voyage Home is pretty light-hearted and comedic, the so-called “whale probe” that kicks off the plot is an incredibly terrifying adversary, when you think about it. The probe disables Starfleet vessels with incredible ease, and is resistant to weapons and all attempts at communication. The people of Earth have no idea what it wants, what its purpose is, or how to reason with it.
This monolith simply arrives unannounced, doesn’t declare its intentions, and seems to wreak havoc on Earth and Starfleet. That’s a pretty scary concept, in my view, as it could’ve gone pretty badly for everyone involved if Kirk and the crew hadn’t intervened!
Number 8: The Pah-Wraiths
As with Armus, there’s something distinctly “evil” about the non-corporeal Pah-Wraiths. The way they’re presented in multiple Deep Space Nine episodes, where they’re deeply entwined with Bajoran religion, makes them out to be akin to demons or dark spirits – and we even see them “possess” several different characters. Their banishment to Bajor’s fire caves also ties into this demonic analogy.
In later seasons, Gul Dukat gets involved with the Pah-Wraiths, leading a cult on Empok Nor that’s genuinely unsettling in its depiction. The Pah-Wraiths have magical books, the power to turn people blind, and the desire to conquer the Prophets’ domain in the Wormhole; a truly frightening group!
Number 9: The Conspiracy Parasite-Aliens
The end of The Next Generation’s first season introduced a race of parasitic aliens that infiltrated Starfleet. Allegedly, the parasite-aliens were supposed to be connected to the Borg in some way, but this angle was later dropped. Still, they’re more than frightening enough on their own terms, and the idea that Picard and the crew wouldn’t be able to tell who was infected and who to trust made for an entertaining story.
Here in the UK, one scene toward the end of Conspiracy was cut from the original broadcast because of how gruesome it was! You know the one: where the “mother” parasite is killed and violently explodes. There’s something just unsettling about earwig-like alien parasites… just like the Ceti Alpha eel from The Wrath of Khan. Star Trek hasn’t revisited the parasite idea for a long time – maybe it could make for a fun and horrifying future episode?
Number 10: The Krenim
The Krenim appeared in the Voyager two-parter Year of Hell, using their time-manipulation technology as a weapon. Repeated Krenim attacks against the USS Voyager left the ship in ruins, running on fumes, and many members of the crew dead or maimed. The captain of the Krenim time-ship, Annorax, was Khan-like in his single-minded obsession with restoring the Krenim colony that housed his wife and family, making him a frightening adversary.
Year of Hell is a pretty shocking episode, particularly in its second half. Seeing Voyager badly damaged, with whole parts of the ship uninhabitable, really hammers home how dangerous the Krenim and Annorax are as villains, and for a time their technology really does seem to be more than a match for Janeway and the crew.
So that’s it!
We’ve picked out what I consider to be a selection of Star Trek’s most frightening aliens, monsters, and villains to celebrate the spooky season.
There are plenty of others that we could’ve included – either for their fully-blown fear factor or for their potential to do serious harm to our Starfleet heroes. And there are quite a few Star Trek episodes – a surprising number, really – that either lean fully into the horror genre or that have jump-scares or other frightening or unsettling moments. Last year, I put together a list of a few of them, which you can check out by clicking or tapping here if you’re interested!
So I hope this has been a bit of fun! I hope you’re having a fun and spooky October – and stay tuned, because I have a couple of other Halloween-themed ideas that may (or may not, time depending) make their way onto the website before the 31st. Don’t have nightmares!
Most of the films and episodes discussed above are available to stream on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available. They’re also available for purchase on DVD, Blu-ray, and video-on-demand. The Star Trek franchise – including all films, episodes, and other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for all three seasons of Star Trek: Picard – including the series finale and post-credits scene.
For a series that only ran to thirty episodes across three seasons, Star Trek: Picard spent a lot of time overwriting itself! Across all three seasons of the show there were these weirdly contradictory moments where new storylines would appear from nowhere, completely changing what came before. One or two of these instances might pass by relatively unnoticed, or could feel like little more than nitpicks. But for a relatively short series to have so many… it speaks to something bigger, I feel.
I hope in future we’ll get a Chaos on the Bridge-type of documentary or exploration of what went on behind-the-scenes on Star Trek: Picard, because to say that production was “difficult” feels like an understatement. There were clearly major problems on the production side of the series, and I don’t just mean its pandemic-enforced delays. The evidence for this is the contradictory nature of the series itself, and how at the very least there was clearly no overall plan for how the story should be structured. Consistency is an important element of any good story – and Picard absolutely fails on that measure.
Seasons 2-3 showrunner Terry Matalas with Sir Patrick Stewart and the rest of the cast of The Next Generation.
I have a longer piece in the pipeline about Picard’s abandoned and unfinished storylines, but today I thought it could be interesting to take a short look at ten storylines that ended up being overwritten by some pretty sloppy, messy writing that failed to build on the foundations that had been laid in earlier episodes and seasons.
As always, a few caveats. If you loved all of these stories and felt they were perfectly-executed, or if you hated the original setup and feel that it was right and fitting to overwrite or ignore it, that’s okay! We all have different opinions about what makes for a good Star Trek story, and I’m not trying to claim that I’m somehow objectively right and that’s the end of the affair. In several cases, I’d actually agree that the overwrite or retcon was better than what had been previously established. This is all just the opinion of one old Trekkie, and as I always say, there ought to be room in the Star Trek fan community for polite discussion and disagreement! Although I have my issues with Picard, particularly when it comes to the show’s second season, by and large I’m a fan not a hater.
So with all of that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of Picard’s weirdly contradictory storylines.
Contradictory story #1: Seven of Nine is a captain! Oh wait, no she isn’t…
Seven in the captain’s chair at the end of Season 2.
At the end of Season 2, Seven of Nine was breveted into Starfleet by Picard as Captain of the Stargazer. This story point was already a bit… odd. Firstly, it raises the question of why, if offering a brevet position to someone outside of Starfleet is so simple, Admiral Janeway didn’t do that for Seven years ago. It also seemed unnecessary, as with Picard on the bridge, the Stargazer already had a senior officer present who could give orders.
But this already flimsy setup ended up being overwritten by the very next episode – when Seven was bumped down to the rank of commander and found herself serving as first officer of the Titan. There are a lot of contradictions in Picard, but this one feels even more peculiar because it’s something that literally changes from one episode to the next – episodes that, in spite of being one season apart, were produced and filmed at the same time.
Contradictory story #2: Data’s dead. Deader than dead. Lol jk, he’s alive again!
Data awaits his final shutdown.
One of the few redeeming features of the two-part Season 1 finale was the laying to rest of Data, and giving him the emotional send-off that Nemesis didn’t have time to do justice to. It went a long way to making up for other deficiencies in the rushed and muddled end to Season 1, and the sequences with Picard and Data in the “digital afterlife” were powerful and deeply emotional.
But despite Data being as dead as it’s possible to be in Star Trek, with both his physical body and the surviving part of his consciousness having been destroyed and shut down respectively, Season 3 resurrected Data. We’ll have to go into this storyline in more detail in the future, because there’s a lot more to say. But for me, Data’s resurrection never really found a narrative justification, and it felt like the showrunner and writers wanted desperately to reunite the cast of The Next Generation – at any cost.
Contradictory story #3: Welcome aboard the Stargazer! Wait, I mean the Titan…
The USS Titan.
In Season 2, the ship that Picard and co. didn’t spend enough time aboard was the USS Stargazer. In Season 3, they jumped over to the Titan – even though the sets were all the same (with a few minor tweaks here and there). I don’t really understand why this happened. What was the point of setting Season 3 aboard a nominally different starship? The exact same setup could have brought Riker and Picard to the Stargazer as it did to the Titan.
If the two ships had significant aesthetic differences, maybe it would be okay. And compared with some of the other points on this list, I admit it’s relatively minor. But it still feels odd to introduce the new Stargazer, build CGI models for it, and only use it in one-and-a-bit episodes.
Contradictory story #4: Q’s dying… oh wait, no he isn’t.
Q at the end of Season 3.
I know what you’re thinking: Q already explained his “return” by telling Jack Crusher not to think about time in a linear fashion. While that’s a perfectly rational in-universe explanation for Q’s return at the end of Season 3, it doesn’t get around the fact that Q, whose death was such a vital part of the entire plot of Season 2, is a profoundly odd choice of character to use for that one epilogue scene.
Picard’s writers pinned the convoluted and disappointing story of Season 2 on Q, and Q’s entire motivation was his imminent death. To undo that – even if there’s a technical explanation for it – only a few episodes later feels wrong. It undermines the already-weak story of Season 2 and makes me wonder what the point of it all was.
Contradictory story #5: The Borg are back! The Borg are back! The Borg are back!
A Borg Cube.
However you look at it, and whatever nitpicky excuses there may be about who are and aren’t the “real” Borg, there’s no getting away from the fact that across its three seasons, Picard re-introduced the Borg three times. All three of the stories rely, either in whole or in part, on the Borg, and while Picard himself has a connection with the Borg after the events of The Best of Both Worlds and First Contact… there’s a whole galaxy out there filled with alien races that the show’s writers and producers could have used.
While Season 3’s Dominion/changeling rug-pull is probably the worst example of this, it really speaks to a broader problem with the show’s production. Picard’s writers, especially in Season 3, were unwilling to abide by what the show had already set up. The Borg are great fun, don’t get me wrong, but by the time we got to yet another Borg story in Season 3, I was feeling burned out.
Contradictory story #6: The mysterious anomaly has set up a fascinating story! Let’s never mention it again.
Led by the Borg, a Federation fleet stops the anomaly.
The story of Season 2 was bookended by a mysterious anomaly that the Jurati-led Borg faction believed could be an attack against the Alpha Quadrant. Once the anomaly had been stopped, the Jurati-Queen promised to take her Borg faction and stand watch over the anomaly as a “guardian at the gates.” Her Borg faction were even granted provisional membership in the Federation as they did so.
This story felt like it had huge potential. Who could have been powerful enough to create a weapon on that scale? How would Picard and his friends be able to defeat them? What would it be like to see a Federation-Borg alliance? But alas, this storyline was dumped, orphaned, and never mentioned again. Was no explanation ever written? Why end Season 2 on this cliffhanger if it was never going to be resolved?
Contradictory story #7: Soji’s a massively important character… let’s dump her.
Promo photo of Isa Briones as Soji.
Soji played a huge role in Season 1, serving as both the reason for Picard’s mission and later as someone who needed to be talked down from making a mistake. We spent a lot of time with her in the show’s first season, watching as she was manipulated by Narek, as she learned the truth of her own origin and who her people were, and as she came to work with and respect Picard.
It was disappointing that Soji was essentially forgotten after the end of Season 1, with a barebones cameo appearance and nothing more. Isa Briones got to play a minor role in Season 2 as the daughter of antagonist Adam Soong, but this storyline was samey and boring. As a new, young character – and a synthetic life-form – Soji had huge potential. It’s such a shame that a role couldn’t be written for her after Season 1.
Contradictory story #8: Picard has a new relationship with Laris! No wait, Laris has fucked off and now he has a kid with Dr Crusher.
Laris and Picard at the end of Season 2.
The entire story of Season 2 – its raison d’être, at least according to Q – was that Picard was alone, prevented by his childhood trauma from being able to find love. At the end of the season, after ten episodes of shenanigans in the 21st Century, Picard finally returned to his vineyard – and to Laris. The two seemed ready to embark upon a new relationship together.
But nope! Laris made a small cameo appearance at the beginning of Season 3, and was never mentioned again. Picard’s story in Season 3 focused on his past relationship with Dr Crusher, a relationship that led to him having a son he’d never met. The season’s epilogue even showed Picard and Dr Crusher jointly escorting their son to his first Starfleet assignment – with Laris nowhere to be found. As I said above: Season 2 was already a weak, flimsy story. Undermining its ending like this was a poor decision.
Although I wasn’t thrilled to see Elnor killed off in the first half of Season 2, as time went on, it seemed to be working. Raffi’s story of coming to terms with loss and grief was one of Season 2’s stronger elements, and while I would’ve still said I was disappointed in Elnor’s wasted potential, at least his loss had mattered. Until it was all undone with seconds to spare.
If Elnor had a major role to play in Season 3 – and there was absolutely space for him – then I could at least have understood this reversal. But after Elnor was resurrected, he got one very brief scene in which he looked confused on a viewscreen, and another in which his dislike of a beverage made him the butt of a joke. After that, Elnor disappeared from Picard never to be seen or mentioned again. What was the point? Why undo a powerful story for the sake of an overdone sight gag?
Contradictory story #10: Riker and Troi are happy and settled on Nepenthe. Just kidding, they hate it there.
Picard approaches Riker’s outdoor kitchen.
Nepenthe might be my favourite episode of Season 1. It slowed things down, stepped away from some of the drama, and reintroduced us to Riker and Troi – now happily married and living peacefully outside of Starfleet. In spite of the loss of their son, Riker and Troi seemed settled on Nepenthe with their daughter in a home that was important to their son and their family. It was a surprise, to say the least, when Season 3 tried to undo all of that.
In the episode Surrender, Riker and Troi were reunited as captives aboard Vadic’s ship. And while imprisoned, they both spoke about how they hated the “creaky old cabin” that had been their home. The end of the season implied that one or both of them may be back in Starfleet, and all the emotional storytelling present in Nepenthe was taken away.
So that’s it!
Dr Jurati on stage in Season 2.
Although there were some interesting stories – and some complete ones – overall, it’s not unfair to call Star Trek: Picard a contradictory series, one that either intentionally or unintentionally overwrote or ignored key characters and storylines. We’ll talk about some of these in more detail on another occasion, but for now I think we’ve covered the basics.
Picard was clearly a troubled production, one that jumped from one writing and production team to another, and that’s part of why the series as a whole feels so contradictory. I think I could overlook one or two of these things – and I might even support the decision to drop a character or change a storyline that wasn’t working or that failed to resonate with audiences. But for a series that ran to a mere thirty episodes across three seasons… we shouldn’t be able to pull out ten large contradictions like this.
Stay tuned, because I have a lot more to say about Picard even though the series has concluded! A longer retrospective is in the pipeline, and I’ll also be taking a look at abandoned and unfinished storylines, too.
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and other countries and territories where the service is available, and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and around the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Wrath of Khan, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Discovery.
It only really hit me when I was sitting at my desk, creating the header image for this review: this is the final episode of Star Trek: Picard. This will be the last time I crop still frames, the last time I have to warn you about spoilers… the last time I review a brand-new episode of this series. There will be plenty of opportunities in the weeks, months, and years ahead to look back at Picard – and I have no doubt we’ll do just that. But for now, suffice to say that I already feel a swirling mass of emotions as the series comes to an end.
I’d waited more than eighteen years for Remembrance– the premiere episode of Season 1. In all of that time, Star Trek had looked backwards. Prequels, spin-offs, and and alternate timeline had all told some fun stories and kept the franchise going, but my Star Trek era – the late 24th Century – had been sidelined. Picard was the show that brought it back, and that brought back Jean-Luc Picard and other incredible characters. I was so passionately excited when I sat down to watch Remembrance a little over three years ago… and it’s been a journey, to say the least!
The Last Generation got its own poster.
If you read my review of Võx last time, you can probably skip this one! I’m going to say more or less the same thing about The Last Generation as I did about Võx: this was a flawed episode, hamstrung by clichés, contrivances, and a badly-paced second half of the season… but I liked it anyway because of the deeply emotional storytelling that it managed to get right.
For a good hour or more after I’d first watched The Last Generation, I found myself sitting around wearing a big stupid grin – because despite the obvious flaws and issues with the episode that we’ll get into in a moment, by far my biggest takeaway was how it made me feel. That’s the success of The Last Generation – and, in a broader sense, of the final chapter of Picard’s third season as a whole. I didn’t expect to feel this way, and if you write out on paper the elements that were dumped into the story at this late stage, how they came together, how rushed much of it felt, and more, I’d have expected to come away from The Last Generation feeling disappointed. But… I don’t.
Showrunner/director Terry Matalas with the main cast.
And that’s in spite of The Last Generation being a deeply flawed outing from multiple angles. I’d go so far as to say that the episode doesn’t even feel like a finale or an ending… let alone a definitive one for a crew who should be ready to enter retirement. Think about where everyone ended up at the end of the story: Dr Crusher has been reinstated in Starfleet, Seven, Raffi, and Jack are about to head off on a new adventure, Riker and Troi appear ready to leave Nepenthe behind and find a new home, Data is just beginning to get used to his new body and newfound humanity, and the only characters who might be ready to return to their pre-Season 3 lives are Worf, Geordi, and Picard… though we didn’t see much of an indication of that in the episode itself.
And that’s before we get into the strange implications of the mid-credits scene.
You did stick around for the mid-credits scene, right? After the credits roll over the lingering overhead shot of Picard and the crew playing poker – a callback to All Good Things at the end of The Next Generation – we got one final scene. Go back and watch it if you haven’t! I’ll wait here.
You stuck around after this, right?
I guess we’ll start with what The Last Generation got wrong, as well as talk about the decisions that led to the story reaching this particular ending.
This was a rushed episode, one in which the main villain of the entire season was outsmarted and defeated in a matter of minutes. There were gripping moments of explosive action and tense drama along the way – but practically all of them would’ve benefitted from a few extra minutes. I stand by what I said last week: the decision to change track from the changelings to the Borg came too late, and there wasn’t enough time remaining to have the kind of climactic final battle that the writers wanted.
If this exact pacing problem hadn’t also afflicted Seasons 1 and 2 of Picard, it would still be deeply disappointing to see it here. But given the criticisms that both of the previous seasons of this series received for precisely this issue… quite frankly it’s unforgivable. This isn’t strictly a problem with The Last Generation, but rather with the pacing and structuring of the season as a whole. If showrunner Terry Matalas is to be trusted with a spin-off – as he and some fans are pushing hard for at the moment – then lessons have to be learned. Matalas helmed Seasons 2 and 3 of Picard, and both seasons came to a close in a mad rush, without enough time to fully explain everything.
The Enterprise-D in action.
As the dust settles, it isn’t even clear whether Vadic and her rogue changelings actually knew who they were working with, or the extent of the damage done to the Borg Collective. That side of the story evaporated with Vadic’s death a couple of weeks ago, and was barely touched in the epilogue after the Borg’s defeat. For a story that supposedly brought together two of Star Trek’s most powerful villainous factions – the Founders and the Borg – to come to an end without any on-screen interaction between them… again, it’s very odd. Something is missing here.
Realistically, if both the rogue changelings and the Borg were to be included, we needed this revelation to have come earlier. There would still have been secrets to keep – such as the inclusion of the Enterprise-D – but had the Borg reveal come sooner, and been explained better, other story elements that came to a head in The Last Generation would have flowed better and more naturally.
Behind-the-scenes on The Last Generation.
The Last Generation relies heavily on a story from two decades ago that wasn’t explained and only got the most oblique of references earlier in the season. In the Voyager finale, a time-travelling Admiral Janeway infected the Borg Collective with a “neurolytic pathogen,” devastating it. It was this event that the Borg Queen said was the cause of the decrepit state of the Collective – but for such an important story point, this needed far more explanation than it received.
Although the latter part of Picard’s third season has the feel of a production that was “made for fans,” it isn’t just hard-core Trekkies who watch the show. I have friends who aren’t immersed in the world of Star Trek who have enjoyed Picard for the sci-fi series it is on its own merit – and I suspect that a lot of more casual viewers, those who either don’t recall or didn’t watch Voyager, would have been left baffled by the Borg Queen and the Collective in general being in such a state. That this presentation of a different Borg Queen is now the third distinct version of the character to appear in Picard just adds to the confusion.
The Borg Queen.
Again, this isn’t a problem with The Last Generation on its own, nor even just of Season 3. Picard’s showrunner and writers chose to bring the Borg into focus in each of the show’s three seasons, offering different and contradictory presentations of the Collective and its leader each time. Given that the changeling storyline had worked so well for the first three-quarters of this season… perhaps a different ending could have been written, one that kept the Borg out of things. Or, alternatively, given that Seasons 2 and 3 went into production together with the same team at the helm, Season 2 could’ve been changed if this Borg ending to the series had already been decided upon.
Though we can argue it’s fitting, in a way, for Picard to be present at what appears to be the final demise of the Borg, given that he was present when the faction was introduced and was assimilated by them, the way this story unfolded doesn’t actually have that much to do with Picard. The Borg’s defeat came at the hands of Janeway, who was mentioned by name several times but didn’t even make a cameo all season long. Picard himself was just sort of… there. As has been the case more or less all season long, Picard – the show’s title character and main protagonist, lest we forget – was swept along by a narrative current that was almost entirely out of his control.
Picard in the Borg Queen’s chamber.
Because the reveal of the Borg’s involvement came so late in the story – partway into the ninth episode of a ten-episode season – Jack’s “defection” to the Collective already felt like it was built on shaky ground. There was the kernel of a good idea here, but again I feel the pacing issue causing a stumbling block. Jack’s powers manifested slowly earlier in the season, and in fact it wasn’t until several episodes in that we saw any indication that he was anything other than human at all. His decision to run away last week was blitzed through in a matter of seconds, and his reconciliation in The Last Generation was likewise rushed.
Reaching out to someone and using “love” to bring them back from a dark place is a bit of a cliché, but it’s hardly the worst that Season 3 has offered up. The way it was handled worked well enough in the moment – though I would argue that Dr Crusher, rather than Picard, would surely have been better-placed to try to convince Jack to stand down. Although we’ve seen a developing relationship between Picard and his son, the events of Season 3 have taken place over a few days at most, meaning the connection between Jack and Dr Crusher is going to be far stronger.
Picard and Jack embrace inside the Borg Collective.
Given the remarkably similar premise between Jack’s story here at the end of Season 3 and Dr Jurati’s toward the end of Season 2, it’s a shame that she and her Borg faction couldn’t appear. In fact, the whole end of Season 2, with the mysterious, unexplained anomaly attacking the Federation, has now passed its last chance to get any kind of resolution. At this late stage I wasn’t expecting that to happen – but it’s again indicative of Picard as a whole being a deeply troubled and poorly-managed production. Lessons need to be learned going forward so that future Star Trek projects don’t suffer similar shortcomings.
As I said last week when discussing the Borg, Jack’s story would feel stronger – and certainly more original – were it not basically a re-hashing of Dr Jurati’s story from last season. Dr Jurati felt lonely, isolated, and without friends – and found those things in the Borg. Jack felt lonely, isolated, and without friends… and also sought out those things from the Borg. Jack’s defection feels weaker, in some respects, because of the way it was set up, and the fact that it’s no longer an original idea further diminishes it.
Jack was able to break free of the Borg Collective thanks to Picard.
Several characters displayed skills in The Last Generation that are either perfectly aligned with things we’ve seen them do in the past, or that felt like natural evolutions based on the story the season has told. Dr Crusher manning the Enterprise-D’s weapons is a case in point: after two decades away from Starfleet, operating outside of the Federation under dangerous conditions, she knows her way around a phaser bank and torpedo launcher!
But Deanna Troi exhibited a telepathic skill that we’ve never seen her use before, being able to pinpoint Riker’s location as if by magic. There were opportunities earlier in the season to set this up, such as the conversation Troi and Riker had while imprisoned aboard the Shrike. As it is, this newfound ability felt like a magical solution to a story that had rather written itself into a corner – a cheap way to allow the Enterprise-D to swoop in and save everyone at the last second.
Deanna Troi on the bridge.
Unlike some of the other points I’ve raised, this one isn’t even a question of timing or pacing. It would’ve required an extra handful of lines of dialogue in an earlier episode, explaining that Troi had been honing her abilities or that when she used her “pain removal” skill on Riker she’d done so at a distance. That small amount of setup would’ve allowed this moment to flow far more naturally, and wouldn’t have led to me rolling my eyes quite so much!
A clever and well-executed misdirect can add a lot to a story, particularly if the stakes are high. But even with that caveat, I have to say that the excessive “foreshadowing” of the deaths of Riker and Picard in particular fell very flat for me in The Last Generation. The episode dedicated an inordinate amount of time to setting up that the away team wouldn’t be returning from the sojourn to the Borg Cube… only for everyone to survive. Stripping some of this out would’ve still allowed The Last Generation to keep the tension high, but would’ve blunted the impression that it was deliberately deceitful. Not only that, taking a few of these scenes away would’ve opened up other possibilities, such as spending a bit more time with the Borg Queen.
There was a lot of foreshadowing that wasn’t paid off.
There’s nothing wrong with an episode feeling like a throwback to an earlier style of storytelling – especially in a story with such a strong nostalgic component. But even with that in mind, the fact that all of the main characters survived the story was a bit of a surprise. Television storytelling has changed a lot since The Next Generation premiered in 1987, and main characters should no longer consider themselves to be safe just because of their status. To the episode’s credit, it genuinely felt like Picard, Riker, and Worf were all in danger during their mission… but nothing substantial came of that, and we even got a deus ex machina rescue right at the end.
Killing off a legacy character was always going to be controversial, and I’m sure that if someone hadn’t survived, there’d have been criticism from some quarters. But a well-timed character death can feel right, conveying how high the stakes are, paying off a character arc, or making an heroic sacrifice. Star Trek has done all of these things before in different ways, and I feel it would have strengthened not only The Last Generation but Season 3 as a whole if a well-written end could’ve come for one of our main characters.
Jack and Picard were both saved at the last second.
Part of the reason for that is that, for all the buildup, The Last Generation doesn’t really feel like an ending. It feels more like All Good Things than The Undiscovered Country, with a new chapter for some or even all of these characters seemingly ready to be written. I’m all for leaving the door ajar, with possibilities on the table… but this season was supposed to be the “final” outing for this crew. Only Picard seems ready to enter retirement – and even that feels questionable as he reunited with Dr Crusher to escort Jack to his first ever Starfleet posting.
All Good Things was clearly part of the inspiration for the epilogue at the end of the episode, particularly the poker sequence. But All Good Things was written and produced at a time when the cast and crew knew that Generations was literally days away from entering production. It didn’t need to be a definitive end… because it was never meant to be. Season 3 as a whole, and The Last Generation in particular, was billed as the final voyage of this crew. And yet it ended in such a way as to suggest that practically everyone has at least one more adventure yet to come.
Riker, Picard, and La Forge on the Enterprise-D.
The final fight against the Borg Queen brought with it a lot of tropes. The Enterprise-D blasted its way along the surface of the Queen’s oversized vessel almost like an X-Wing running the Death Star trench in Star Wars, and though this sequence was visually exciting – and technically perfect from an animation point of view – it was again something that was rushed. The buildup to this sequence was blitzed through, thanks in part to the decision to spend so much time setting up character deaths that ultimately didn’t come.
Starships and the way they operate have always been vague; adaptable to different kinds of stories. Given the size discrepancy between the Enterprise-D and the Borg Queen’s mega-cube, I don’t think it’s any kind of “problem” to see the Enterprise-D move as quickly as it does and with such fluidity – and this sequence felt like an updated, modernised version of the starship’s clashes with Borg vessels in episodes like Q Who and The Best of Both Worlds.
The “Death Star trench run!”
I think my biggest eye-roll in The Last Generation came as the Enterprise-D swooped down for a last-second rescue, literally appearing in the “sky” above the Borg Queen’s chamber. Both in terms of narrative and visual presentation, this was just such an overdone trope. Across the sci-fi genre and into action, adventure, and more… we’ve seen this kind of ending so many times.
Part of the reason why this moment fell so flat for me was, I suspect, because The Last Generation hadn’t made good on any of its foreshadowed character deaths. The rescue of the survivors might’ve been more impactful had one or two of these characters lost their lives along the way. But a combination of the trope itself, its previously-unseen telepathic “magic” setup, and the fact that it rescued all of the main characters from a supposedly impossible situation… it all came together to feel like a clichéd ending.
The Enterprise-D saves the day!
I stand by what I said last time: the presentation of the Borg Queen feels quite diminished in light of what we saw in Season 2. The idea of a decrepit, weakened Borg Queen was an interesting one – but not one that The Last Generation found much time to explore. She leaned very heavily into the “I’m evil for the sake of it” villain trope, far more so than earlier presentations of the Borg Queen, who seemed to have an overarching goal in mind for the Collective. However, I can forgive that trope in light of the collapse of the Borg Collective; the idea that she’d use the last of her power to seek revenge on Starfleet makes sense.
As Jack was liberated from the Collective, and particularly as the Enterprise-D came racing in to save the day, though, the characterisation of the Borg Queen fell apart. Another huge part of why this sequence felt so clichéd was the Borg Queen’s screams of “noooo!” as her plan unravelled. This is the kind of thing that you expect to see from the supervillains of children’s comic books, or the bad guys in a Saturday morning cartoon, as their evil scheme is defeated. Again, this whole sequence was so much less interesting than it could’ve been.
“Nooooooo!” screams the defeated villain.
But now we have to contend with a question that I asked last week: does any of that matter? The clichés, the overused tropes, the basic, formulaic story, the cookie-cutter plot, the poor pacing, the underused yet also played-out villain… none of it really feels like it gets in the way of a fantastic, thoroughly enjoyable romp with Picard and the crew.
Even though The Last Generation absolutely fails to feel like an ending in any sense of the word for basically any of its characters, it’s still a more enjoyable send-off and final mission than the crew of the Enterprise-D got in Nemesis. If this is to be their final outing (and I wouldn’t bet against Paramount considering some kind of Picard TV movie or even theatrical release, given the strong reception to Season 3) then we can finally say that this crew went out on a high.
All safe and sound on the bridge.
And it’s a high because of the emotional storytelling that manages to play the nostalgia card in a way that works. This was another “made for fans” outing, one that leaned heavily into The Next Generation, Voyager, and really all of Star Trek’s past. If you’d told me at the start that the season finale would be like this, I’d have been sceptical – fearing that it would come across as a nostalgia overload. And frankly that’s what The Last Generation is: an episode that sacrifices narrative integrity for the sake of nostalgia.
Maybe it’s the blinkers of nostalgia speaking, as The Next Generation was my way into the Star Trek fandom more than thirty years ago, but I can’t hold that against Picard. It worked for me – and if that’s because I’m a basic bitch, blinded by nostalgia to the obvious flaws and gaping holes of a mediocre story… then so be it! I’ll be a basic bitch all day long.
The Enterprise-D arrives at Earth.
There’s more to storytelling than canon, consistency, and even logic. These things all matter, don’t get me wrong – but in a story like The Last Generation, it’s just that they matter far less than how the episode makes us feel. And for me at least, though I recognise with a critical (some might say cynical or jaded) eye that the episode and its narrative have flaws, almost the entire time I was on the edge of my seat, truly going through all of the emotions with Picard, Riker, and the rest of the crew as their mission unfolded.
As happened last week, that’s my real takeaway from The Last Generation. The fact that I was roped in, entertained, and went through a rollercoaster of emotions with Jean-Luc Picard and the crew more than makes up for any logical inconsistencies or narrative missteps that the episode made.
Picard toward the end of the episode.
The idea that Picard, Riker, Worf, or anyone else might actually be killed – as was extensively foreshadowed and hinted at – was gripping, and more than a little upsetting. Death felt like it was stalking the members of the away team – and those on the bridge of the Enterprise-D or trying to remain in control of the Titan scarcely felt much safer, either. This feeling persisted for much of the episode, and though the way in which it ended was ultimately a little unsatisfying because of everyone surviving, in another way that’s very “Star Trek.” Heroes like Captain Kirk famously didn’t believe in no-win scenarios – and Picard managed to pull off the impossible task of saving everyone.
Animation brought these stories to life in spectacular form – and thinking back to the finale of Picard’s first season just three years ago, it’s amazing how far Paramount and Star Trek have come. The fleets and ships seen in The Last Generation were beautiful and diverse, and seeing Spacedock as Earth’s last line of defence against a massive, imposing armada was a truly stunning sight.
Spacedock and the assimilated fleet.
Both the Titan and Enterprise-D were beautiful, too, and both ships performed incredible feats as they battled their foes. Seeing the Titan in action, taking on the entire assembled fleet, was spectacular to see – and it found another narrative justification for the cloaking device that Jack and Sidney “borrowed” a few episodes ago!
Seven and Raffi hadn’t had as much to do this season as I’d hoped – but the moments they got in The Last Generation showed both characters at their best. Part of the reason fans are so hyped up for a potential spin-off is to see more from Seven of Nine, and The Last Generation added to and rounded out her arc across all three seasons of Picard by placing her, once again, in the captain’s chair. This time, we got to see her people skills – being able to inspire and protect the motley crew of survivors on the bridge was pitch-perfect.
This was a good episode for Seven of Nine.
Again, my only real criticism of this part of the story is that I could’ve happily spent more time with Seven of Nine and the crew of the Titan! As Picard and his crew worked to stop the Borg Queen, Seven and hers provided essential covering fire – and the way that this came across was outstanding. Seven, Raffi, and their assembled survivors felt in danger practically the entire time, especially as the Titan’s cloak was destroyed and its assimilated youngsters made their way back to the bridge.
As unsold as I’ve been on Data’s resurrection this season, the character dynamic between Data and Geordi has been cute – and this trend continued in The Last Generation. Geordi sat beside Data on the bridge of the Enterprise-D – as he had in The Next Generation’s first season – and they had some fun and exciting moments together.
Data.
Likewise Riker and Worf! These two characters had a great relationship during The Next Generation era, serving together and often taking part in away missions. It was a treat to see them teamed up once again, and the dynamic they had aboard the Borg vessel added a lot of comedy to what was an otherwise serious story. Jonathan Frakes and Michael Dorn have great chemistry and comedic timing together, and the moments of lightheartedness through what was a dangerous mission really elevated the sequences aboard the Borg vessel.
Picard’s act of sacrifice required him to “jack in” to the Borg Collective – voluntarily assimilating himself. As the culmination of Picard’s arc with the Borg, this was a fascinating idea. Picard had already come to terms with aspects of his Borg experience in First Contact and in Seasons 1 and 2 of this series, so it wasn’t totally original or new – and that might’ve improved it, perhaps. But making this sacrificial move was clever, and fits right in with themes that the entire series has touched upon in different ways.
Picard jacks in.
I’m glad that Tuvok survived his ordeal with the changelings – though I would’ve liked to have seen how he and others may have been rescued. Again, this is something a longer season might’ve been able to include. But his scene with Seven, in which she was promoted to captain, was a very sweet part of the epilogue.
I’m not sure how I feel about the return of Q. As I said last year after Q had been “killed” in Season 2, bringing him back to life – especially with the kind of hand-wavey explanation of “don’t think in such linear terms” – undermines one of the few remaining narrative points propping up the entirety of Picard’s disappointing second season. For the sake of such a brief cameo… I wouldn’t have included Q here, I think.
Q is back.
One cameo that I adored was Walter Koenig – who sadly only appeared in audio form – as Anton Chekov, the son (or grandson) of Pavel Chekov. I jokingly said a few weeks ago in one of my theory updates that Chekov would be an unlikely inclusion this season… but it turns out I’m rather prophetic!
The name Anton was presumably chosen in memory of Anton Yelchin, who portrayed the character of Chekov in the Kelvin timeline films. This was a sweet way to memorialize him. Bringing Walter Koenig in for a cameo really brings together all of Star Trek. This finale began last week with a callback to Enterprise, Koenig represents The Original Series, and we have main characters from across The Next Generation era. It really was a celebration of all things Trek!
Data and Geordi listening to President Chekov.
There’s more to say – but we’ll have to return to The Last Generation and Season 3 on another occasion.
This review took me a long time to finish, having started it on the day the episode premiered. I had an original draft ready by last weekend, but I wasn’t happy with it so I ended up deleting and re-writing large parts of it. Keeping up with Picard this season has been a struggle, and I think I’m ready for a bit of a break from these reviews! Thankfully, the Star Trek franchise seems to be better-paced this year, and there’s a break before Strange New Worlds Season 2 arrives in June.
I enjoyed The Last Generation – in spite of its shortcomings. It was a great way to end the season, and it potentially sets up a spin-off set in this same time period, which is something I truly hope can happen.
So long, Captain Picard!
So we come to the end of Season 3… and of Star Trek: Picard. In the weeks and months ahead we’ll return to The Last Generation and to Season 3, perhaps taking a deeper look at some of the individual characters, narrative points, and themes – and dissecting them! But for now, I’m about ready to put this review to bed and move on to other topics!
I’ll round up my theory list sometime soon, too. But for now, I hope you enjoyed following along with my Picard reviews this season. Season 3 was an improvement on Season 2, without a doubt, and for the most part I had a good time with it.
Stick around, because the website isn’t going anywhere! There’s Strange New Worlds to come this summer, the video game Star Trek: Resurgence, and Discovery’s final season in early 2024. In between I’ll be re-watching older films and episodes, crafting theories, previewing upcoming projects, and talking about other franchises, too. Thanks for bearing with me while I was writing this review, and I hope to see you soon!
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and other countries and territories where the service is available, and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and around the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the entire Star Trek franchise, including the most recent seasons of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds.
I’ve seen a lot of posts on social media where fans try to construct their “ultimate” Star Trek crews with characters from across the franchise, including one that popped up a few weeks ago. For whatever reason, this latest one – which was put out by the official Star Trek Twitter account – captured my imagination. So today I thought it could be fun to show off the characters that I’d pick to be in my “ultimate” Star Trek crew!
Let’s start by laying down some ground rules…
The social media post which inspired this article.
First of all, I don’t want to pick more than a couple of characters from a single series. If you’re just going to pick the entire crew of the Enterprise-D, what’s the point? We might as well just go and watch The Next Generation!
Secondly, the fact that characters come from different eras or timelines is entirely irrelevant. This is pure fantasy – though who knows, maybe one day Star Trek will do some kind of massive crossover event featuring characters from all over the place!
Third, characters have to occupy a role that we saw them fill on screen; i.e. Captain Picard can’t be a tactical officer, nor could Michael Burnham be assigned as the ship’s Chief Medical Officer!
Fourth, I want to include all of the major roles that we’ve seen main characters occupy on Star Trek – something that the Twitter post that inspired this piece didn’t do!
Finally (and most importantly), I want this to be taken light-heartedly and in the spirit of fun!
So let’s get started building the USS Trekking with Dennis!
Starship Class: Excelsior
The USS Excelsior in The Search for Spock.
One thing that a lot of these lists miss is the ship that the crew will be serving aboard. As many Trekkies have pointed out over the years, a starship is akin to a member of the crew; not merely a setting but a living, breathing entity in its own right. Many starship designs have become iconic parts not just of the Star Trek franchise, but of sci-fi and popular culture in general, and many Star Trek starships are instantly recognisable even to folks who aren’t fans.
The Excelsior-class has been one of my favourites ever since I first saw it. It’s a beautiful design that took the classic look of the Constitution-class and updated it, becoming an iconic piece of ’80s sci-fi in the process. It’s clearly a Starfleet ship – the design retains the saucer, neck, body, and nacelles on pylons that continue to define Federation starships, but it mixed things up for a new era. Excelsior-class ships became workhorses for Starfleet, remaining in use for decades. Picard Season 2 recently debuted an updated design, showing that the ships were still being used at the dawn of the 25th Century!
Admiral/Mission Commander: Jean-Luc Picard
Admiral Picard.
In overall control of our mission at Starfleet Command is Admiral Picard! He’s level-headed, diplomatic, and willing to try to negotiate even with the fiercest adversaries. He’s also a skilled tactician in his own right, and someone who I’d trust to plan operations that involve entire fleets of starships.
Admiral Picard was initially chosen by Starfleet to spearhead the Federation’s efforts to evacuate the Romulan homeworld. While that plan ultimately fell apart due to events beyond his control, the fact that he was the right man to take charge of such a massive assignment shouldn’t be in dispute. Admiral Picard – with support from his team – will be co-ordinating our mission back at headquarters!
Captain: Benjamin Sisko
Sisko in Deep Space Nine Season 7.
Although the question of “absolute favourite captain” is an incredibly difficult one, if I were placed under duress Benjamin Sisko is probably the individual I’d name! A battle-hardened commander who transformed a minor, obscure posting into one of the most significant strategic locations in the entire Alpha Quadrant, Captain Sisko led the charge against the Dominion during one of the Federation’s darkest hours.
As a commanding officer, Sisko inspired his crew to follow him, but he was also well-versed in dealing with alien cultures and could be both a diplomat and a deal-maker. I also feel that Captain Sisko would work well with Admiral Picard; he would command the ship while Picard was in control of the overall mission, but could also offer advice and input as we saw him do for Admiral Ross during the Dominion War.
First Officer: Jack Ransom
Commander Jack Ransom.
At the top we have two very serious people – so we need someone like Commander Ransom to balance things out! Although he can be laid-back and make jokes, when the chips are down we’ve seen Commander Ransom absolutely excel, putting the needs of his shipmates first and stepping up to tackle whatever the cosmos throws at him.
The role of a first officer in Star Trek has varied from show to show, with some taking on more away missions and others serving as advisors and confidantes. The best first officers are a mix of both, and Jack Ransom seems like someone his commanding officer can rely on to give honest, sound advice – and then lead a dangerous mission independently.
Helm: Tom Paris
Promo photo of Tom Paris.
The role of helm officer has been part of Star Trek since The Original Series. But it wasn’t until Tom Paris took over at the helm of the USS Voyager that I felt there was someone in the driving seat who was a bona fide pilot. Paris truly loves piloting Voyager – and any other ship or shuttle that he can get his hands on, too. That’s an impression that I never really got from Sulu, Wesley Crusher, or really anyone else who had sat in the chair before him; they seemed to see the role as a job or duty, where Paris revels in his work.
Not only does Tom Paris enjoy what he does, but he guided the USS Voyager safely home across an impossible distance. Whether it was wormholes, slipstream drives, spatial catapults, the Borg transwarp network, or a warp 10 shuttle that accidentally mutated him into a salamander, Paris navigated them all – and found redemption for his past misdeeds in the process.
Chief Engineer: Hemmer
It’s Hemmer Time!
As the first Aenar to be a major character, Hemmer had a lot of potential. The no-nonsense attitude he had stands in stark contrast to some other engineers we could think of, but when he was off-duty he was personable and friendly with his shipmates – and a guiding light to young cadets who found themselves under his wing. Hemmer’s love of science was cute, too, and he was able to take in his stride all kinds of different events that befell the USS Enterprise.
As Hemmer once told Uhura, he believed that his purpose was to fix what is broken – and he did that in more ways than one while serving as the Enterprise’s chief engineer. Hemmer helped the Enterprise survive major damage during battles against dangerous enemies, and he’s the person I’d want to rely on to keep my starship flying!
Chief Medical Officer: Dr T’Ana
Dr T’Ana.
Dr T’Ana is unapologetically my favourite Lower Decks character. Her gruff and grumpy bedside manner conceals genuine medical skill, and we’ve seen her treat patients with all kinds of horrible sci-fi ailments without so much as batting an eyelid. Despite her acerbic attitude, though, Dr T’Ana manages to strike up friendships with her shipmates – and has proven herself to be someone they can rely on.
We’ve also seen how Dr T’Ana is unflappable and doesn’t crack when put under pressure – something that could be important depending on how badly our mission goes! She may not be the politest doctor in the fleet, but no matter what was wrong – disease, injury, or random sci-fi shenanigans – I’d trust Dr T’Ana to patch me up. Plus she’s a Caitian, something that I appreciate as a cat-fanatic!
Nurse/Sickbay Assistant: Kes
Promo photo of Kes.
While Dr T’Ana can be grumpy and even abrasive, Kes has a wonderful bedside manner that has a way of putting patients at ease. Although she didn’t have much by way of formal medical training when she joined the crew of the USS Voyager, she soon grew into her role as the Doctor’s assistant in sickbay. I still think it’s a shame that Kes had to leave Voyager after the show’s third season, just as she was hitting her stride and learning more about her telepathic abilities.
Kes provides a sharp contrast to Dr T’Ana, and for that reason I think the dynamic in sickbay would be a lot of fun. But Kes has also demonstrated a willingness to learn and a keen medical intuition of her own, so if Dr T’Ana (and the rest of the medical staff) were busy or indisposed, Kes is more than capable of treating patients on her own.
Counsellor: Dr Hugh Culber
Dr Culber in Discovery Season 4.
Although Dr Culber is the USS Discovery’s chief medical officer, in recent seasons we’ve also seen him take on the role of ship’s counsellor to a greater degree. Not all doctors would make for good counsellors, but Dr Culber has grown into the role, taking on the extra burden of caring for his shipmates’ mental health in addition to his duties in sickbay.
In The Next Generation, Counsellor Troi had a pretty big advantage when it came to reading her patients and understanding them! Dr Culber doesn’t have that same empathic ability, meaning he has to do things the old-fashioned way! But his advice has proven invaluable to Captain Burnham, Saru, and even Book. Dr Culber throws himself into his work, prioritising his patients ahead of himself on occasion.
Tactical: Tuvok
Tuvok in Voyager’s first season.
Tactical has often overlapped with security on Star Trek, but if you think about it, they’re really two distinct roles that require different approaches. As fun as it might be to see Worf getting angry as the Enterprise races into battle, if my back’s against the wall and I’m facing defeat, I want the cool-headed, logical Tuvok aiming the phasers and firing the photon torpedoes.
Tuvok’s temperament makes him incredibly well-suited to a position at tactical – and not only in the heat of battle, either. As a strategist who has mastered the difficult Vulcan game of kal-toh – a strategy game he’s been playing for well over a century – Tuvok is also someone I’d trust to draw up plans for everything from small away missions to large battles.
Security Chief: Odo
Constable Odo.
As above, we’re separating the roles of tactical officer and security chief. For the latter, there’s no one I can think of who’s better-suited to the role than Odo! Odo is Star Trek’s first real “policeman;” a dedicated officer of the law who was trusted by the Cardassians, Bajorans, and the Federation to be impartial when it comes to justice.
That impartiality – ensuring that no one is above the law – is exactly what our crew needs. Odo will maintain order, but he’ll do so fairly. He’ll also be able to strike up friendships with the crew while retaining that impartiality. Everyone aboard our ship – Starfleet, non-Starfleet, guests, diplomats, or anyone else we meet along the way – will know that Odo will treat them fairly. And I gotta be honest about this last point: having a changeling on the crew could come in handy in a lot of situations!
Communications: Hoshi Sato
Ensign Hoshi Sato.
Hoshi Sato had not only mastered forty languages – including some very alien ones – in the days before universal translators existed, but she contributed in a major way to making the universal translator itself work in the way we’ve come to expect in Star Trek. Real-time, instant translation of previously-unheard alien languages wouldn’t have been possible without Hoshi’s work.
Hoshi Sato also showed an incredible aptitude for picking up languages very quickly – notably translating languages like Romulan and both Xindi-Insectoid and Xindi-Aquatic. If there was ever a problem with the universal translator – or our mission encountered an alien race whose language and form of communication was difficult to understand – Hoshi Sato is the linguist I’d want on our crew to handle things!
Science Officer: Spock
Spock at his post in The Original Series Season 1.
Could it really be anyone else in this role? Although Spock would go on to be a captain, an ambassador, and a diplomat, it’s his role as the Enterprise’s science officer where he’s best-remembered and most iconic. Spock has a genuine interest in uncovering the secrets of space and the universe, and his raised eyebrow and proclamation that something is “fascinating” have become legendary parts of the Star Trek franchise!
Spock’s logical analysis of sensor readings helped out – and saved – the Enterprise on multiple occasions. Taking his time to analyse unknown phenomena, Spock would present his findings based on the available evidence, and was instrumental in missions as diverse as discovering new forms of life and shutting down ancient super-weapons. On a mission of exploration – or any mission that needs good, solid scanning and sensor work, I want Spock manning that post!
Operations: Data
Data in Tin Man.
Although the role of operations or ops officer isn’t always well-defined in Star Trek, the role can involve things like power management, sensor control, deflector control, and oversight of the internal workings of the ship. We’ve seen senior officers like Data and junior officers like Harry Kim and Nog assigned to operations roles, and I’m choosing to bring Data along on this mission.
Data is an android, and he has super-human abilities and reflexes as a result. When it comes to things like systems maintenance and keeping the ship in good working order, someone like Data is ideally-suited to the role, and he’s also proven himself to be more than capable of overseeing departments and even entire crews. Data can also provide valuable insight into unfolding situations almost entirely free from bias, making him incredibly useful to have on the bridge as an advisor.
Transporter Chief: Montgomery Scott
Scotty shortly before his first retirement.
Although Scotty is best-remembered as the Enterprise’s chief engineer, I’m assigning him the role of transporter chief this time. One of the most iconic (and misquoted) lines from The Original Series is “beam me up, Scotty,” so I think we’re on safe ground here! Scotty is nothing short of an engineering genius, and when things go wrong – as they often do with Starfleet transporters – he’s the man I’d want to fix things and keep them running smoothly.
Transporter chief is a role that can be overlooked, especially considering that transporting is a fairly quick process when everything runs smoothly. But everything doesn’t always run smoothly, and the right transporter chief with the right technical know-how can mean the difference between beaming up and having your molecules scattered across half a sector of space. Or worse!
Cadet: Rok-Tahk
Rok-Tahk.
It’s not unusual for a starship to have several cadets assigned as they complete their courses at Starfleet Academy, so I’m picking Prodigy’s Rok-Tahk for that role (even though she isn’t formally a Starfleet cadet!) Across the first ten episodes of Prodigy, I felt we got to see some genuine character growth from Rok-Tahk that I hadn’t really expected, and I think she’ll continue to develop into a truly excellent Starfleet officer one day.
We’ve seen cadets like Uhura in Strange New Worlds and Tilly in Discovery moving between departments to try their hand at basically everything aboard a starship. Perhaps Rok-Tahk will do something similar during the course of our mission, giving her a range of new experiences, and potentially bringing a different point of view to all of the departments aboard our ship.
Bartender: Guinan
Guinan in Picard Season 2.
Although Quark is a worthy contender to bring along, I think it’s not unfair to say he’s a bit of a troublemaker! Guinan can be relied upon to create a welcoming environment in her bar for when our crew need some time to relax, but she’s also far less likely to cause problems during our mission!
Guinan can draw upon the experiences of her centuries-long life to offer advice and support to all members of the crew, and we’ve seen moments where her words to Captain Picard ended up completely transforming the outcome of a story. As someone who not only tends the bar but also listens and occasionally has something of value to add, Guinan is the perfect complement to any Starfleet crew.
Non-Starfleet Crewmate: Garak
In The Pale Moonlight was one of Garak’s best episodes.
Since The Next Generation premiered, most Star Trek crews have included at least one non-Starfleet or non-Federation crewmate. When I think back over these characters, few stand out more than Deep Space Nine’s Garak. Garak also brings a lot to the table for our crew! His previous life as a spy saw him develop a completely unique set of skills ranging from technical to combat and beyond – and in a pinch, he could be very useful.
However, Garak will need to be carefully monitored during our mission, as he can be rather slippery and self-serving. Although his service toward the end of the Dominion War saw him firmly allied with the crew of DS9 and the Federation, Garak has gone off-script on a number of occasions. He doesn’t always willingly share everything that he knows, so having someone else on board who knows how to handle him and how to get the best out of him could be important! But when a crisis looms, I think Garak can be counted on to find unconventional – and often un-Starfleet – ways to solve problems.
Villain: The Borg
The first Borg drone seen in Star Trek.
There have been some wonderfully iconic villains in Star Trek, like Khan or Gul Dukat, and it can be hard to pick an absolute favourite. Purely in terms of the scale of the threat they pose, though, few Star Trek adversaries can compare to the Borg Collective. A vast army of billions or perhaps trillions of assimilated drones, a fleet of thousands of identical cube-shaped ships… the Borg are a faction that could wipe out the Federation in a matter of days without seriously overtaxing themselves.
We’ve seen Starfleet ingenuity and individuality overcome the Borg on a handful of occasions, but I’ve always wondered what it would look like if the Borg ever tried to invade en masse. Would a one-sided rout be inevitable… or will our cobbled-together crew find a way to save the day?
So that’s it!
Star Trek’s first crew.
Those are the characters that I’m choosing for my “ultimate” Star Trek crew.
There are no right answers to the question of which characters make for the “best” crew, and in addition to individual characteristics it’s worth considering how different characters would interact with one another and how well they’d work together. For my two cents, practically every Star Trek show has managed to get a good balance of characters and deployed them successfully. There are a handful of characters who didn’t really get enough time in the spotlight to truly shine, but even so, the franchise as a whole has done a fantastic job – and there are plenty of wonderful characters to choose from when making a list like this one!
I hope this was a bit of fun – and not something to take too seriously or get upset over! I was inspired a few weeks ago by that post from the official Star Trek social media team, and this is my (lengthy) response. It took a while to put this list together and really think about which characters I’d want to include – and which I’d have to exclude. For practically every position on the list above, there was at least one and often two other characters that I strongly considered including. I hope that the final list feels balanced between different shows and different eras, and was, if nothing else, a bit of fun to read!
Until next time!
The Star Trek franchise – including all characters, television series, and films mentioned above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Picard Season 1, Lower Decks Season 2, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
While Star Trek: Discovery’s second season was running I wasn’t writing about the show; it wasn’t until November 2019 that I founded this website. Because of that I have a number of theories and ideas kicking around from the first two seasons of Discovery that I haven’t found time to talk about yet! On this occasion we’re going to look into one idea I had during Season 2 that has both in-universe and production-side elements to it – the “Borg origin story.”
I know for a fact that I’m not alone in having speculated that Discovery Season 2 was setting up an origin story for the Borg. Shortly after the season ended a friend of mine from way back was in the area for a visit, and we got talking about precisely this subject – yes, we’re both huge geeks! I’m also well aware that other fans have posited some variant or other of this theory online both during and after the season’s run, so please don’t interpret this article as me claiming to have independently and uniquely come up with this idea!
We’re revisiting Season 2 on this occasion!
Here’s the theory in brief: the Control AI, which was the main adversary during the story of Season 2, was originally intended to be the progenitor of the Borg. Its use of nano-technology, its ability to “assimilate” organic beings, and its murderous quest for true sentience that, if left unchecked, would have wiped out all sentient life in the galaxy are all indicators of this. In addition, the inclusion of time travel and the Red Angel suits in the story could have teed up a situation where Control was able to travel backwards through time and far across the galaxy in order to become the originator of the Borg Collective.
Because of Control’s similarities to the Borg in terms of its use of nanites, its single-mindedness, and its lack of care for the survival of organic individuals, this felt like a very real prospect right up until the final moments of the season finale. I really do wonder whether a Borg origin story was included in the original draft of Season 2, perhaps being modified later on once production had already commenced. What we saw on screen would thus contain the residual elements of that story, but with a different ending written – one which sent Burnham and the USS Discovery into the far future.
Captain Leland being “assimilated” by Control.
It’s this decision which I believe would be responsible for changing the story – if indeed such a change were mandated. Discovery had received criticism in Season 1 for its real or perceived “violations” of Star Trek’s internal canon, and it’s this reaction which surely contributed to sending the ship and crew far into the future. It could be that Season 2 was hastily re-written to include the time travel ending, dropping the Borg origin story in the process.
As a narrative concept, the idea that it was the Federation, through out-of-control technological and AI research, who inadvertently created the biggest threat to themselves and to the wider galaxy would be an incredibly impactful one, and something ripe for exploration in detail. The cyclical nature of such a story, with the Federation creating the Borg, then the Borg one day coming for the Federation, could be absolutely phenomenal if done well, and would highlight the morally questionable actions of senior Federation leaders and Starfleet admirals.
Admiral Patar – one of the senior figures involved in the Control AI project.
It would also be profoundly ironic that the Borg – almost universally acknowledged as the Federation’s biggest adversary – were ultimately a Federation creation. This revelation would have a huge impact on the Federation as a whole – and on our crew of Starfleet heroes when they discovered it – and could form the basis for a new Borg story that would surpass even the likes of The Best of Both Worlds and First Contact in its scope.
Had Discovery gone down this road in Season 2, it may not have fallen to Michael Burnham and the crew to be the ones to learn of the consequences of their battle to defeat Control. Picard Season 1 could have picked up this storyline, with information stored aboard the Artifact (the abandoned Borg Cube) finally revealing the Borg’s origins to the Federation more than a century later. This would have tied the two shows together in a very real and significant way – something I’ve argued on a number of occasions that Star Trek needs to be more adept at doing.
The Artifact in Picard Season 1.
In canon, we don’t know much about the Borg’s early history. The Control AI could have been slotted into the bits and pieces that we do know in a way that didn’t overwrite anything we’ve seen or been told on screen, with every past Borg story being allowed to unfold exactly as we know they did.
In-universe, the Borg originated in the Delta Quadrant “thousands of centuries” before the 24th Century. There was an original Borg race – a race of purely organic beings – but they began using nanotechnology and augmenting themselves, and eventually hooked up every facet of themselves to the Hive Mind. As of the late 15th Century, the Borg had assimilated a number of neighbouring star systems, but weren’t anywhere near as large as they would come to be in the 24th Century. Nothing in the early history of the Borg precludes the involvement of an outside force – the Control AI. It could have been the Control AI’s arrival on the world populated by the Borg’s organic ancestors that led them down a path of assimilation and augmentation.
Borg assimilation in the 24th Century.
The Red Angel suits and time crystals present in Season 2 would have provided Control with a method of travelling backwards through time. And as Dr Gabrielle Burnham found to her cost, the Red Angel suits are imperfect and prone to malfunctioning. Based on these pieces of evidence, it would’ve been possible for Control to have seized a Red Angel suit with the intention of travelling either backwards or forwards in time to defeat Captain Pike and Discovery, only for something to go wrong – emerging on the far side of the galaxy millennia in the past.
We are now firmly in the realm of speculation! But had such a scenario come to pass, Control may have found itself alone in the vicinity of a planet populated by humanoids: the Borg’s organic ancestors. Control may have begun the process of assimilating them, injecting its nanotechnology into more and more individuals and bending them to its will.
Control used nanites to “assimilate” Captain Leland.
Control had a forceful personality, but we don’t know what effect mass assimilations of individuals would have had on it. Would it have retained its own personality in the face of potentially thousands or millions of new “drones” – or would its own personality have begun to change, impacted by the personalities and desires of those it assimilated? Perhaps this is where the Borg’s quest for perfection comes from.
This could also explain why the Borg seemed not to recognise humanity or the Federation upon re-encountering them millennia later: Control had simply forgotten its origins, or whatever remained of Control within the Borg Collective was so small and insignificant that the knowledge of its creators had been lost. As the Borg continued to evolve and assimilated more and more beings, perhaps Control’s personality didn’t survive intact.
Perhaps the Borg had forgotten their origins by the time they encountered the Enterprise-D.
Alternatively, we could have learned that the Borg did retain all of Control’s memories and knowledge – but simply chose not to make the Federation aware of the connection during their encounters. This could be the Borg’s equivalent of “forbidden knowledge,” something kept secret and known only to the Borg Queen – who may be an embodiment of the evolved Control AI.
It would make sense from the Borg’s point of view not to allow Starfleet to find out about the connection to Control – perhaps out of fear that the Federation could use that information to find a weakness in the Borg’s core synthetic programming. It would only be when Starfleet had access to a derelict but intact Borg vessel – like the Artifact from Picard Season 1 – that they’d be able to hack into the Borg’s systems deeply enough to learn the truth.
The Borg Queen could be a new avatar for the evolved Control AI.
So that’s the theory, along with a couple of different ways it could have panned out.
I wouldn’t say I was “100% convinced” that this was going to happen as Season 2 rolled on, but it certainly felt like a distinct possibility. When I later saw the Artifact featured in the trailers for Picard Season 1 I wondered if the reason this story didn’t come to pass was because Picard actually had a Borg origin story of its own in the works!
Had this theory made it to screen I think we could’ve seen one of the most interesting connections between Discovery and the wider Star Trek franchise. Borg stories could be seen through a wholly new lens, and the themes of rogue artificial intelligence that both Discovery and Picard examined in their respective storylines could have been elevated by this “creation wants to destroy its creator” angle. That isn’t something original in science fiction, but it would have been a uniquely “Star Trek” take on the concept.
Borg drones from First Contact.
Whether a Borg origin story was actually present in the original Season 2 pitch or not is something we may never know. However, the team behind Season 2 must have been aware of the similarities between the way Control operated and the way the Borg have always been depicted, and I can’t believe that it was a coincidence. Someone involved in the production of Season 2 must have at least raised the point that the story was going down a very Borg-esque road!
To me it feels like any attempt to tell a story of this nature was superseded by the decision to take Discovery out of the 23rd Century altogether. If there was only room for one time travel ending to the season, the one that was chosen was to send the ship and crew into the far future. Control was left behind in the 23rd Century and seemingly defeated by Captain Pike, so any chance of it having a role in the creation of the Borg now seems to be entirely off the table.
Perhaps all of this was simply misdirection; the writers and producers of the season putting out deliberate red herrings so that fans wouldn’t figure out the ultimate direction of the story! If that’s the case, they definitely got me! Even if that’s what happened, though, as a concept the idea that the Federation accidentally created the Borg is one that could have led to some absolutely fascinating stories. Perhaps we’ll see something like it one day!
Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix in the United Kingdom and internationally. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 and for other iterations of the franchise.
When we think about which Star Trek show is the best fit for some wacky, out-of-left-field storylines, Lower Decks almost certainly springs to mind! But rather than silly or outlandish stories, what I’m thinking of today are five storylines that could take us by surprise in Discovery’s fourth season, in large part due to the huge time jump.
Star Trek: Picard showed us a little of the state of the galaxy in the years after Nemesis and Voyager, but that’s really as far along as the timeline has gone, and even then there’s a lot we don’t know. The galaxy as we knew it could have changed massively in the 800 years since; just think about how completely different our own world is today compared to even just a century or two ago. Factions and races we might not expect to see working together could come together, and likewise the passage of time could have seen friends drift apart.
Ni’Var had left the Federation by the 32nd Century.
Discovery’s third season already showed us a very different galaxy in the aftermath of the Burn. The idea that Vulcan and even Earth would have quit the Federation seemed unfathomable, yet that was the galaxy that Burnham and the crew found themselves in. So perhaps the entries on this list aren’t quite so wacky after all! Will they come to pass, though? Only time will tell…
My usual caveat applies: I have no “insider information.” This list is just for fun, to speculate about some strange possible future scenarios that could, under some circumstances, possibly come to pass in the Star Trek galaxy. I’m not even trying to say that any of these would necessarily be good stories! I just think these concepts are interesting, and would – if nothing else – shake up the Star Trek galaxy and Discovery’s 32nd Century in completely different and unexpected ways. With all that out of the way, let’s jump into the list.
Number 1: The Dominion has joined the Federation.
Weyoun was one of the Dominion’s leaders during the Dominion War.
Discovery’s third season focused a lot on which planets and factions had left the Federation, but aside from the Barzan we didn’t really learn of any existing Star Trek factions that had joined the Federation in the centuries since Nemesis and Picard. Prior to the Burn, there were at least 350 Federation members, so that means an awful lot of planets and factions had joined. Could the Dominion, once the foremost power of the Gamma Quadrant, be among them?
I don’t mean a Federation-Dominion peace treaty or alliance. I mean the Dominion became a full-blown Federation member like any other. It’s possible that faster warp speeds cut travel time between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, making such a proposal feasible without relying wholly on the Bajoran wormhole. But would the Dominion ever want to make such a move?
Odo returns to the Founders.
In What You Leave Behind, the finale of Deep Space Nine, Odo travelled to the Founders’ homeworld. He did so not only to cure them of a disease that threatened their lives, but also to share his knowledge of life among “solids,” hoping to convince them to abandon their desire for conquest and subjugation. If Odo had succeeded in that objective, it’s possible to envision a future in which the Federation and Dominion opened a dialogue, one which eventually led to friendship, alliance, and the Dominion’s accession as a member.
With actor René Auberjonois having sadly passed away in 2019, I can hardly think of a more fitting legacy for the character of Odo than for Star Trek to say he successfully brought the Federation and Dominion together. There are a lot of questions that such a story would bring up, like whether only the Founders joined, whether the Vorta and Jem’Hadar did too, and what became of the planets and races the Dominion had conquered. But if the Dominion are to return in a future Star Trek production, this could be a really interesting twist on their expected status as adversaries, as well as Star Trek once again using its sci-fi setting to comment on real-world issues, in this case the prospect of peace even between bitter enemies.
Number 2: The Kelvan Empire is attacking the Milky Way galaxy.
Rojan, the leader of a Kelvan expedition to the Milky Way.
By Any Other Name, from the second season of The Original Series, introduced the Kelvan Empire. The Kelvans were native to the Andromeda galaxy, but feared that rising levels of radiation would wipe them out. They sent out generation ships to seek out other galaxies to conquer; Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise encountered several members of their expedition to the Milky Way.
The Kelvans were initially set on conquering the Milky Way by force, but were eventually convinced by Captain Kirk to seek a peaceful solution to their problem, dispatching an unmanned starship back to Andromeda with a proposal from the Federation to help the Kelvans find a new homeworld in the Milky Way. The story ends shortly after, without a proper conclusion.
The Kelvan Empire is native to the Andromeda galaxy. Picture Credit: NASA
Given that the Kelvans initially seemed to view humans and the Federation in the way we might view ants, and that Kirk was only able to change the Kelvan leader’s mind by essentially tempting him to remain in humanoid form and enjoy the new feelings and sensations that brought him, it’s at least possible that the Federation’s offer to the Kelvans in Andromeda would be dismissed out of hand. Even if the Kelvan Empire accepted, if they arrived at the Milky Way in the aftermath of the Burn, they may have seen an opportunity to conquer.
Perhaps the “gravitational anomaly” glimpsed in the Discovery Season 4 trailer is a Kelvan weapon! Their technology was very powerful, far outclassing the 23rd Century Federation’s, so it isn’t impossible to think they could have such a weapon. Discovery has looked at obscure parts of canon on several occasions in the past, including bringing back factions and races from The Original Series era. So perhaps this one isn’t quite as wacky as it may seem!
Number 3: The Federation and Klingons are at war again.
A Klingon commander seen in Lower Decks.
When Star Trek: The Next Generation featured a Klingon main character as a Starfleet officer it really was a big change in the way the two factions interacted. Over the course of the first few seasons of the show we’d learn more about how the Federation and Klingons were at peace, and finally in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country we got to see how that peace was won. Considering that the Klingons had been the main adversary faced by Kirk and co. in The Original Series, this was a significant change for the Star Trek galaxy.
When discussing the Dominion, I noted that the passage of time can make friends out of longstanding enemies. But unfortunately the same is true in reverse; factions that had once been close allies can drift apart and even revert to being adversaries. It’s possible that this happened slowly over time, but there’s one event more than any other that could lead the Klingons – and many other factions, come to that – to hate the Federation: the Burn.
Discovery Season 1 featured a Federation-Klingon conflict.
Su’Kal, a Kelpien, caused the Burn, as we learned in Season 3 of Discovery. At that time, the Kelpiens were Federation members, and the ship Su’Kal was on when it crashed in the Verubin Nebula was undertaking a mission for the Federation. From the point of view of the Klingons, then, the Federation are responsible for the Burn, and presumably for thousands if not millions of Klingon deaths.
It’s hard to see how the Federation could keep the Burn’s origin a secret, and once it’s out there, it’s up to the denizens of the galaxy to apportion blame and decide how to respond. I hope that Season 4 doesn’t just ignore this aspect of the story, because I think there’s a lot of potential here to really shake things up. Whether the Klingons had ever been Federation members is kind of a moot point, because surely once the Burn’s true origin is known they would be out for revenge!
Number 4: A classic character is still alive… somehow!
The cast of The Next Generation Season 4.
This time I’m not talking about a backup copy of Voyager’s Doctor or any of the other few characters who could potentially have survived this long. Instead I’m thinking of a character who has absolutely no right to still be alive in the 32nd Century, yet somehow is! Whether it’s Will Riker, Kira Nerys, Harry Kim, or someone else doesn’t matter – I just like the idea that a random character has somehow been kept alive this long.
Discovery’s far future setting should mean that no one from the 23rd or 24th Centuries is still alive. But Star Trek has done funny things with stasis fields and sleeper ships in the past, even allowing Montgomery Scott to emerge from a transporter beam into the 24th Century and meet Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D.
Scotty aboard the Enterprise-D in Relics.
Technobabble basically means Star Trek can get away with bringing back practically any character, and as stasis, suspended animation, and other similar technologies are all known to exist, it would be quite achievable! In the past I did consider a handful of characters whose survival this long seemed more likely, but practically any character could come back via this method.
Dead characters could even return thanks to cloning, holographic technology, or even straight-up medical miracles that are tantamount to necromancy! So don’t count out any character from a past iteration of Star Trek, because who knows who we might encounter in the 32nd Century.
Number 5: The Borg have disappeared.
A battle between Borg and Romulans as seen in the Lower Decks title sequence.
In this storyline the Borg weren’t defeated militarily by the Federation. One day, they simply went silent – as if they had completely disappeared from existence. Perhaps the Federation sent probes or starships to visit what had once been Borg space, only to find no trace of the cybernetic beings who were once considered the galaxy’s biggest threat.
I like this kind of storyline for one simple reason: it’s incredibly unnerving. What could have caused the Borg to vanish? Did they do it themselves, or were they attacked? If they were attacked that raises perhaps an even bigger and more important question: who could possibly have the power to defeat the entire Borg Collective in one fell swoop?
A Borg Cube over Earth in The Best of Both Worlds.
It’s not unfair to say that a lot of Trekkies are sitting on our hands waiting to see how and when the Borg will return to Star Trek. This would be a complete twist on their expected return, triggering a mystery to solve in the process. One of the Star Trek shows I’d love to see most of all would be an all-out Borg war, but such a show could only have one possible ending: the Borg’s ultimate defeat. This storyline, in which the Borg have simply vanished, could be a lot more open-ended.
The danger in this kind of story is getting a suitably satisfying ending. The question of how and why the Borg disappeared would have to be paid off in a big way, somehow – and I’m not really sure how such a story could and should end. There are many different possibilities, but getting it to work and not feel unsatisfying or like a deus ex machina would be the key challenge.
So that’s it. Five wacky stories that Discovery Season 4 almost certainly won’t touch!
What kind of stories will Season 4 tell?
It’s been a lot of fun thinking up some very different Star Trek stories for the 32nd Century. I can see why the writers and producers wanted to take the ship and crew so far into the future – doing so has really opened up the kind of stories they’re able to tell within the Star Trek galaxy in a way that isn’t possible in other productions, even Picard.
Discovery’s fourth season is still on the schedule for 2021, and it’s possible we could see it as early as October – or as late as the end of December! Whenever it arrives, be sure to check back as I’ll be reviewing each episode as they’re broadcast as well as indulging in some theory-crafting. I hope these wacky ideas were a bit of fun!
Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix internationally. The Star Trek franchise, including Discovery and all other properties mentioned above, is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 