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These Star Trek villains were so evil the Mirror Universe asked them to tone it down a bit.
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00:00Very few Star Trek foes are out-and-out one-note monsters.
00:04Most antagonists tend to have at least one saving grace.
00:07Sometimes, however, the deeds of a character, organisation, or even an entire species
00:12go so far beyond the pale that they airlock any chance at redemption they may have had,
00:18probably along with a few of their victims.
00:20Well, with that in mind, I'm Ellie for Trek Culture,
00:22and these are the 10 most irredeemable Star Trek villains.
00:26Number 10. The Augments
00:27Very much a product of their time, Kar Noonien Singh and the Augments,
00:32as they later came to be called,
00:33were Star Trek's exploration of the 20th century's most destructive set of beliefs, eugenics.
00:38These particular villains were the result of humanity's experiments with DNA re-sequencing,
00:43the double helix structure of DNA having only been discovered about a decade and a half
00:47before Space Seed was first broadcast.
00:50In the late 20th century, the Augments conquered and enslaved the world,
00:54the resulting eugenics wars between them and the regularly DNA'd had cataclysmic consequences
01:00for Earth. An estimated 35 million people were left dead before the dictatorial supermen were
01:05deposed. All remaining Augment embryos were put on ice, and Khan and about 80 of the other
01:11over-ambitious Clark Kent's were sentenced to death.
01:13They managed to skip town and the solar system, however, aboard the SS Botany Bay before execution day.
01:19The 90s were wild, man. In 2267, Khan and Co. made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to
01:25commandeer the Enterprise, but Kirk let them off with little more than a slapped wrist,
01:29a teeny-tiny terraforming project, and one Marla MacGyver's. Afterwards, neither Kirk nor Starfleet
01:35stopped by for a Seti Alpha high-five, and things went from bad to worse on the planet.
01:40Khan, of course, would return to seek vengeance in the film that sports his name.
01:44In that movie, and not before a lot of ear-eals and Moby Dick, Khan and the other Augments went
01:49the way of the Old Testament. Knowing his death-slash-rebirth as a rock was coming,
01:54Khan solidified his status as irredeemable villain by using his last moments to quote
01:59Melville's relentless captain.
02:01From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
02:06Naturally, a couple of members of the Soong family were also involved in all this along the way,
02:10but more on that later. Number 9, Section 31. Perhaps the reason Section 31 is so beyond
02:16redemption is that they have never really sought it in the first place. More amoral than immoral,
02:22there is a certain unfeeling pragmatism to the organisation that just wants to get the dirty,
02:27but objectively necessary job done. Such cold rationale and dubious use of Cicero can hardly
02:32hold water for long, however. There are rules in war, and especially for peace. Chronologically speaking,
02:38the earliest we see of Section 31 is through Malcolm Reed's involvement in the organisation.
02:43However, the shady group's first on-screen appearance was in Star Trek Deep Space Nine,
02:47to spend time with Bashir on the holodeck. Convinced the Doctor wasn't a Dominion spy,
02:52Director Sloan tried the recruitment pitch. Sure, it's a super dangerous job, you'll have to lie to
02:56everyone you know and love and check your principals at the door, but you get one of those cool black
03:01jackets just for signing up. Section 31 was an open secret once more, and Starfleet Command didn't deny
03:06denying it. After the Inquisition, the group appeared in DS9 on a few more occasions. Oh,
03:11and there was that attempted genocide thing. I bet that'll never come up again.
03:15In Star Trek Discovery, almost everyone seems to have heard of Section 31. Far from operating
03:20autonomously of no fixed abode, as in Sloane's day, in the 23rd century, Starfleet maintained at
03:26least a degree of oversight over Section 31, and the organisation had its own HQ. Starfleet
03:31Admiral submitted reports to Section 31's AI system Control. Its operatives sometimes served openly
03:37aboard Starfleet vessels, and they weren't shy about showing off their fancy advanced technology
03:42either. Ooh, comm badges! Section 31 maintained its cruel streak all the same, hiring a former Terran
03:48Emperor and hunting down Spock just so they could scramble his neurons. Control almost wiped out all
03:54sentient life in the galaxy, but that was probably nothing compared to what was on those pads in Sloane's
03:59slowly exploding Mind Palace. Soon, we'll be getting a long-trek look at all the clandestine
04:03goings-on in a movie with Michelle Yeoh. Who else is excited for that?
04:08Number 8. Dukat
04:09We were never going to warm to the guy. He was the last prefect to oversee the brutal occupation
04:14of Bajor before, much to his chagrin, Cardassian withdrawal in 2369. There aren't many ways to spin
04:20it. If it walks like a fascist dictator, talks like a fascist dictator, then it's probably
04:25the mononymous tyrant Dukat. And never forget, he killed Jadzia in cold blood. It was in Deep Space
04:32Nine's waltz that, just in case you hadn't twigged before, Dukat's true depravity was revealed for all
04:37to see. As he descended into the madness of evil, he ceased the slow dance around his feelings for
04:42the Bajorans. In the Season 6 episode, he poured out his vile hatred to Sisko, saying,
04:48From the moment we arrived on Bajor, it was clear that we were the superior race. I hated them. I
04:53should have killed every last one of them. I should have turned their planet into a graveyard,
04:57the likes of which the galaxy had never seen. In spite of this sickening diatribe, the character
05:02retained a surprising level of popularity amongst fans. As related in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine
05:07companion, some fans on the internet went so far as to defend Dukat's actions during the occupation,
05:13and this apologia for genocide shocked the show's writers and producers. They, as well as Mark
05:18Alimo, who played him, had tried to make Dukat a fully rounded character. But there should have
05:23been no room for ambiguity in the fact that he was the despicable despot of the piece.
05:27By DS9's finish, Dukat had disguised himself as a member of the species he so despised in order to
05:32curry favour with the next miscreant on this list. Then, somewhat fittingly, he wound up in Bajoran hell.
05:38Number 7. Wyn Adami
05:40Admittedly, this Ranjan, then Vedic, then Kai wasn't all bad. She had a few things going on
05:45for her. During the occupation, she risked her life and was imprisoned for preaching her faith,
05:50and saved a number of lives, once by bribing a Cardassian officer to divert a transport of
05:55Bajorans headed for execution. Plus, perhaps if the prophets, presumably because they'd already
06:00seen her entire career path, hadn't wanted her to end up siding with the Kosta Mojin,
06:04they might have not let it go to Celestial Temple voicemail every time she tried to call.
06:08Still, in spite of the above, and after carefully considering her turncoat tactics in the fire
06:14caves, switching sides really only because Dukat had gained the upper hand, Wyn Adami remains a
06:19character past the point of redemption. She stabbed poor Solber quite literally in the back for
06:24profit's sake, and did so in the more metaphorical sense to plenty of others who got in her way.
06:29Wyn shunned Sisko from the very beginning, unwilling to accept, until a lot later,
06:33that a non-believer could be designated emissary of the prophets. She fought Keiko O'Brien for
06:38teaching science, which was all just a ruse to try to assassinate Vedic Ryle, further connived her
06:43way to becoming Kai, took credit where none was due, and sent in the militia over a few reclamators.
06:48Later, she interrupted the reckoning, and then nearly set Bajor and the rest of the galaxy on fire
06:53by attempting to release the Parades.
06:55Number 6. The Sphere Builders
06:57This video isn't using kill counts as a measure of everlasting evil, but still. This band of
07:03problematic aliens from another plane were behind an attack on Earth that cost 7 million lives,
07:07including the sister of one chief engineer. That was just their warm-up act, however. The
07:12Sphere Builders had convinced the Zindi to finish the job of humanity's eradication. Depending on how
07:17you think about time, none of this should have ever happened, but it did. One of the fiendish
07:21factions of the Temporal Cold War, the Sphere Builders had spied a future they didn't particularly like,
07:26in which they were sent packing back to their realm by the Federation in an alternate 26th century.
07:31As the crew of the NX-01 found out in the 22nd century, the species' goal was to transform space
07:37in our universe into their own trans-dimensional playground, by using the gravimetric energy
07:42generated by a vast network of humongous spheres. Had they not been stopped, the spatial transformations
07:47in the Expanse would have grown to encompass hundreds of systems, with disastrous consequences
07:52for any inhabited worlds in their path. You can't really get more irredeemable than an attempt at
07:58galaxy-level genocide just so you can move into the neighbourhood.
08:01Number 5. A Selection of Soongs
08:03So far in Star Trek, essentially all we've seen of the Soong dynasty is a succession of scientists,
08:09one more zany than the last. In amongst the often endearing and inventive oddity lies the
08:13family's darker side. A couple of Soongs whose dastardly deeds are greater than Noonians' penchant for puns.
08:20The first of the long lineage we've met is Dr. Adam Soong in the early 21st century. In an
08:25alternate timeline where René Picard never brought back some clever bacteria from Europa,
08:30it was Adam who saved humanity from the effects of climate change with his flying force field
08:34contraption. Nevertheless, he became a part of the sinister Confederation of Earth,
08:39and even invented its racist slogan, a safe galaxy is a human galaxy. In the variant 25th century,
08:45this Soong had statues erected in his honour. After the La Sirena gang arrived in 2024 to fix the mess,
08:52Adam Soong teamed up with the still very resistance's futile Borg Queen Jurati, sent off some soldiers for
08:58assimilation, and then went to try to murder René, killing Tallinn the Traveller instead. Plus,
09:03he had been holding on to a little something called Project Khan. Just over a century later,
09:07the Soong family produced another Doctor of Genetics of dubious ethics, Arik Soong. Taking up his
09:13ancestors' interest in augments, Arik stole some of the embryos that had been on ice since the 90s
09:18from Cold Station 12 to make some modifications of his own, and raise the result as his children.
09:23As adults, these augments went on a murderous rampage to free the rest of their fellow Enhanced,
09:28and Arik caught up with them to lend a hand.
09:30Number 4. The Bluegills
09:32They only ever appeared in one episode of Star Trek, aside from a mention by those butt-bug conspiracy
09:37theorists in Lower Decks, but they've had us checking the backs of our necks ever since.
09:41These terrifying, nightmare-inducing, parasitic creatures wormed their way into the highest
09:46ranks of Starfleet Command and turned dinner time into a horror show. An infected Admiral Quinn did
09:51get in some impressive high kicks, though, for his years, so perhaps it's worth giving them a try.
09:56And, uh, Admiral? A bit embarrassing, but your stunt double is showing. Thoroughly alien,
10:00it is the manner in which the Bluegills go about their villainy that makes them so irredeemable.
10:05They enter through the mouth, and take complete control of a victim's mind and body,
10:09yet still claim, we mean you no harm, we seek peaceful coexistence. Yeah, yeah,
10:14and Worf's a pacifist now. They also didn't hesitate to blow up an entire starship and crew
10:19once its captain was onto them. And let's spare a thought for poor old Commander Remick. He had
10:23to have their mother inside him, only for his head and chest to be phased off. Picard and Riker
10:28must have been in therapy for months. It's tough to see these little and one large Bluebuggers ever
10:33changing their ways. Number three, Maxwell and other Berks. Towards the end of the Star Trek
10:38Voyager two-parter Equinox, Captain Janeway walks down the line of remaining reprobates from the now
10:43destroyed ship of the episode title, citing their names as she strips them of rank.
10:48This time, you'll have to earn our trust, she says. Dismissed.
10:52There are a few faces missing from this perp parade, however. Most notably absent for the purpose of this
10:57list is a certain Commander with Lieutenant Pips. I stalk my exes halfway across the galaxy,
11:02Maxwell Meatball Burrito Burke. He was slimy and sly from the start, getting arsey with Janeway when
11:09she wanted to make a stand on Voyager and giving us full-on facepalm cringe during his reunion with
11:14Bellana. There was something just not quite right with this first officer. When his captain,
11:19Rudolph Rudy Ransom, finally decided to stop committing murder to rev up the warp engines and
11:24surrender to Voyager, Maxwell mutinied and took a gaggle of fellow Barclays with him to the
11:29slaughter. In the end, the four-bridge insurrectionists try to escape to the Equinox's one remaining
11:34shuttle, but the aliens catch up with them. The last we see of Burke is his rapid desiccation death
11:40as the wronged interspatial lifeforms take their nucleogenic vengeance.
11:44Number two, the Orion Syndicate. To be clear, and so as not to let Tendi down, we're not saying all
11:50Orions are wrong-uns, just the ones who are. There are certainly a lot of femme fatale stereotypes
11:55out there about the species dating back to the first Star Trek pilot, and which have only recently
11:59begun to be deconstructed. It's really the Orion Syndicate and future rebrand that gives the rest
12:05the bad space pirate name. The Orion Syndicate was one of the worst, or at least the most organised,
12:10criminal gangs in the galaxy. By the 22nd century, when the NX-01 had a run-in with them near Klingon
12:16Space, thanks to the handiwork of two of the other entries on this list, several members of
12:21Archer's crew were captured and auctioned into slavery before being rescued. If you'd like to
12:26poll, though, you can always kick the Syndicate in the Brussels sprouts. In the 24th century,
12:31the Orion Syndicate had expanded its membership to include a smorgasbord of criminals of different
12:36species. Notably, Chief O'Brien was once sent undercover by Starfleet Intelligence into a section
12:41of the Syndicate on Fabius Prime to root out an informant. The consequences of this
12:46mission would follow the Chief, leading him a year later to investigate the family of Esri Dax,
12:51who had become embroiled with the nefarious organisation. In the post-Burn world of the
12:5632nd century, the Syndicate got a makeover and a nodding name change to become the Emerald
13:01Chain. Much like their forebears of the 24th century, the Chain was a multi-species enterprise,
13:07with a green lady at its helm, the Orion Osyra. Thorn in the side of the Federation and the Discovery,
13:12Osyra and the Chain relied on the most brutal methods of control. Slave labour was enforced by
13:18explosive implants, and anyone who tried to oppose or simply got in the way was either left without
13:23antennae or fed to an oversized worm. Osyra did get her comeuppance, however, at the end of Michael
13:28Burnham's phaser rifle, and never insult a man's cat. She's a queen.
13:33Number one, the Borg Queen. Given the events of the final season of Star Trek Picard, we've already
13:38discussed the Borg Queen quite a lot, but it would be difficult to do a list about irredeemable
13:43villains without including Her Majesty on it. In Season 2 of Picard, we got a semblance of a hint
13:49that the, or rather a, queen could mend her ways. Even then, it was only with the persuasive skills
13:54of Dr Agnes Jurati that this alternate timeline queen could be convinced a kinder collective was
13:59the future. Moreover, in that queen's home universe, humanity was arguably the far greater
14:04villain. Back in our regular reality, and as the role requires, the Borg Queen has always been quite
14:09open in expressing just how awesome she thinks assimilation is. What makes the Borg and the queen
14:14so terrifying, after all, is that psychopathic absence of empathy as they make you one of their
14:19own. We did catch a glimmer of light for one incarnation of the prime Borg Queen in the Star Trek
14:24Voyager feature-length episode Dark Frontier. When Her Royal Highness Rumble's Seven of Nines attempt
14:29to help a group of Species 10026 escape assimilation, she at first tries to recapture
14:35the fleeing vessel. Strangely, Seven's subsequent pleas for mercy don't fall on deaf ears as the
14:41queen lets the ship go. This may simply have been a scheme to win over her would-be protégé,
14:45or perhaps the spark of something a little deeper. Either way, for her return in Season 3 of Picard,
14:50the queen is all Borg business, seething with anger towards Starfleet and the Federation,
14:55and ready to get some high-end revenge. And that concludes our list. Now, we are so close
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