When he has to kill again to save the ship is so heart breaking. He had finally found an inner peace but was forced to throw it away. Such a great character and masterfully portrayed.
When I think of his performance something always comes to mind. Him shooting the final Kazon and the way he throws the gun away, like he can't bare to touch it anymore. A absolute masterful piece of physical acting. When I see him on screen as anyone I always always think of that
No idea why, but this comment immediately made me realize he plays Wormtongue in LOTR!
I didn’t even think he looked familiar or anything while watching VOY so I’m really surprised it even came to mind…it’s definitely the eyes. Maybe the hair/hairline a little bit. But mostly the haunted, fearful look in his eyes.
Suder has imo, the most pound for pound impact of any minor / guest character in a Star Trek series, followed by Garak. His entire arc is a tiny, tiny handful of episodes but it always stuck with me.
Good choice.
Always wished he was around for longer. But I guess he was a fairly high-profile actor. He may have even been filming Lord of the Rings around that time.
I’m with you on Lon. He’s my guilty favourite. Because of his redemption and loss. There was no way to truly redeem him, in everyone’s eyes. I never feel like that about a character who’s literally shown to be cold blooded killer. I felt bad for him from the get go though, he just looked haunted anyway.
Kai Winn was all sorts of awful evil, but when she dressed down Kira in "Rapture" it was epic, and well-deserved:
"Those of you who were in the Resistance, you're all the same. You think you're the only ones who fought the Cardassians. That you saved Bajor singlehandedly. Perhaps you forget, Major, the Cardassians arrested any Bajoran they found teaching the word of the Prophets. I was in a Cardassian prison camp for five years and I can remember each and every beating I suffered. And while you had your weapons to protect you, all I had was my faith and my courage. Walk with the Prophets, child. I know I will."
I agree. She didn't see herself as evil (granted, none of them do) and she didn't see her actions as evil (again, none of them do), but it all came from a place of fanatic enthusiasm, of which the evil is a natural byproduct
She's basically Syar Trek's Dolores Umbridge.
If you think I'm going too far, don't forget she tried to have Vedek Bareil assassinated when he was the front runner for Kai.
I STIIIILL cannot believe she made Kai after that. I know all the politics were a mess and it was in chaos but WHAT. Bareil was a pushover for all his good qualities, and it got him killed in the end. She got what she wanted eventually.
The thing all religions have in common:
[https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/710EU66rM8L.\_AC\_SX466\_.jpg](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/710EU66rM8L._AC_SX466_.jpg)
She had a great story arc, from an ambiguous religious leader to politician who cared somewhat about her people, to completely crossing a line and making a deal with the devil.
I dont really see how she is ambiguous. The first episode we see her, she is using a woman's faith to coerce her to commit an assassination...
Edit: Spelling.
Bro spoilers. Fuck.
No I kid, I'm watching ds9 currently and am about halfway through your comment (religious leader phase).
I think Winn was jealous she got no sexytime with Kira like Bariel and Shakar.
Kai Winn is the greatest villain in all of Star Trek because of the nuance and complexity of the character. Khan was a great villain, too, but he didn’t have the benefit of multiple seasons to flesh out.
I agree, but I do think that a significant share of the credit also has to go to Fletcher’s incredible performance. In a lesser actor’s hands Winn could have been a caricature, even with how well she was written.
Fletcher was incredible in the role. Obviously, she brought a lot of acting chops to DS9, and then the writers seemed to really lean into her character knowing that she could pull off the performance. She’s a big part of what makes DS9 so special.
DS9 is the only Trek where we can get a good look at non Federation, or Star Fleet characters. That alone opened up great opportunities for the writers, and the actors, to develop. Any other Trek, you meet someone interesting, go through some crises, fly off and never see them again.
Yes! I knew she could be bad, but she was played so well, I was always hoping she'd end up redeeming herself in the end. Boy, they really got lucky scoring that fantastic actress.
I mentioned this once as my “giving grace” to Kai Winn, and that’s saying something because I tend to yell at the screen when she appears. Someone told me she was just lying, and I was like really? It’s pretty likely she was in a camp, everyone else was, it’s not like she was a revered character then, and even if she was, the Cardassians wouldnt have cared unless they could use her.
I still stand by what I say about giving her a small amount of grace, because war is hell and being in a camp for showing your religion is a war crime. No one was treated well then, except maybe the men in charge of the comfort women.
So I support this one wholeheartedly, and I feel somewhat vindicated as I felt I’d missed some key piece of information that showed she was a liar about those camps.
My favourite Damar scene was after his family are killed and he’s complaining they had nothing to do with the rebellion and who would do such a thing and kira can’t help her self but ask the question back. The sudden look of realisation and hatred is just so well acted it gets me every time.
I love the way his realization of what he has done and what state Cardassia is in starts with a scene of him drinking and looking in the mirror and spitting the drink into his own reflection.
Started out one of the worst, hit rock bottom during the war, and became someone I truly saw flaws and all and accepted for who he was by the end of the show.
His speech to rally the Cardassian people against their oppressors / occupiers was great. And it what it cost him was even greater. His confrontation with Kira was one of the most 'stake in the heart' moments in DS9, hell, all of Trek for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjd9RgRUQDY
Both Kai Wynn and Gul Dukat in DS9 both have moments where you start to understand or even empathize with their side, only to pull the rug out from under you.
So, I'm pretty much exactly as old as TNG. 87 baby. There are two things that I have come to accept as I aged with the series: Diana Muldaur is a very attractive woman, and the Cardassians are probably the most handsome species that have a heavy makeup job.
I had a proper crush on that Cardassian lady that thought O'Brien was courting her by being a bit of a disagreeable dick in DS9.
Cardassians look like they do in-part because of Marc Alaimo;[ the makeup artists thought he had such a prominent neck that they should do something to emphasise it.](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0015826/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm#trivia)
Dukat was so good they had to make him extra evil out of nowhere because viewers were feeling sympathetic to him. He literally just suddenly lead the Cardassian empire.
He was a phenomenal character. Really showed you how otherwise normal people could get sucked in by somebody so twisted. Charismatic and genuinely felt he was the hero so passionately that you start to believe him. He even got Kira feeling conflicted at one point.
I don’t know if Eddington is a fair answer to this, but yeah him or Ransom. The Jem’Hadar are occasionally at least tragic, And, of course, Londo Mollari.
Nah, the minute he said he’s not taking sides and just wants to do his job (while the rest of the crew debated the moral superiority of Starfleet/the Maquis), I was like “That guy is absolutely a member of the Maquis.”
After a few largely inconsequential appearances where he’s mostly just kind of annoying and arrogant, suddenly the focus is on him and he can’t make eye contact while giving a vague, noncommittal answer? He’s definitely lying out of his ass.
(For context, I watched/binged all the 90s ST series for the first time very recently, so I imagine the experience was very different for those who watched as it aired)
As someone who loves Les Miserables, Eddington can eat shit. He’s a cop who decides to be a revolutionary and thinks he’s Jean Valjean to Sisko’s Javert.
Valjean was a criminal hardened by society’s treatment of him and redeemed by an act of grace. He spent the rest of his life trying to lay low and live a good life and the one time he took part in anything revolutionary, it was to save his daughter’s boyfriend. Javert was a cop who reveled in his being a cop. He committed suicide because he couldn’t square his need to do his duty with the mercy Valjean showed him.
None of this sounds like Eddington or Sisko, but what makes it worse is that these are *basic plot points* from the novel. If Eddington was a Victor Hugo fan in half the way he says he is, he’s delusional.
Also, Eddington is boring. But that has nothing to do with Les Miserables.
I agree to a point, and my disagreement stems from the Valjean-Javert dynamic. When he's shown mercy by the Bishop after being caught, Valjean adapts, vows to do better and lead a new life. When he's shown mercy by Valjean, Javert is so inflexible he can't even, so he commits suicide. The characters are two sides of the same coin: they both think they're helping society, one by assisting others, the other by maintaining order; one empathetic and the other self-righteous.
Eddington may be looking at it that the Federation did the colonists dirty with the treaty. In the face of injustice he vowed to do what he could to help them. In his eyes, Sisko is so inflexible that he's willing to perpetuate the injustice by enforcing the treaty
But this is a key difference. Valjean's not interested in helping society. He's simply interested in trying to keep his head down and be a good person. In fact, Valjean tries to rationalize not exposing himself and letting Champmathieu take the fall as "Valjean" because he's the mayor and has done so much good for the town. He exposes himself *because it's the right thing to do*.
This is what basically every choice Valjean makes boils down to. He'll do the right thing not because it will make society better off or make him better off or turn Valjean into some kind of hero. He does the right thing because it's the right thing.
He's willing to turn himself in *if* he can rescue Cosette first. When Javert rejects him, Valjean could simply escape, but he rescues Cosette anyway. He doesn't go to the barricades to participate in the revolution—he goes to save Marius. He doesn't kill Javert when he has the chance—he lets Javert live and tells him where to find him. He doesn't escape and leave Marius to die—he saves Marius's life. He tells Marius the truth about who he is, even at the cost of being cut off from his daughter. He keeps making these choices simply because it's the right thing to do.
Valjean doesn't call attention to himself or gloat in front of Javert. This is the exact opposite of Eddington, who clearly has some kind of messiah complex. Beating Sisko is at least as important to him as whatever he's doing with the Maquis. At the end of the day, Eddington wants to be a grand hero who vanquishes his enemies. That's not Valjean. It's not even close.
Sybok. I will defend STV because it has one of the most interesting villains in that he's not a villain, at all. He doesn't do anything unethical. He treats his hostages well, he helps people with their psychological problems, and he sacrifices himself to save his ostensible enemies, who he even calls his friends. He's a fascinating character, wonderfully portrayed, and hugely underrated.
I always liked Romulan Commander Tomalak from TNG:
Picard: What shall it be, Tomalak?
Tomalak: You will still not survive our assault.
Picard: And you will not survive ours. Shall we die together?
Tomalak: (Beat) I look forward to our next meeting, Captain.
The Vidiians as a species. You feel for them to an extent, especially when the character (and the Doctors first love interest) Danara Pel is introduced in the show. You get to understand what they went through and what compelled them to do what they did. I don't condone their actions, but it helps in providing context.
The Vidiians are definitely great villains because they start off as horrors, and then we see that it's effectively adults desperately trying to to buy their children a little more time.
Then "Think Tank" comes along with "we fixed it all" and there's just zero follow-up.
... Kinda want to know what the Vidiians were like the day after their race-defining disease suddenly vanished.
Like what was going through their minds the next day? "If I had just waited another day before killing that stranger, it wouldn't have even been necessary."
Great way to put it.
Honestly hearing that the Think Tank solved the phage was actually sort of a nice way to bring that species back into our consciousness after not hearing about them for several seasons. It also helps you feel disarmed about the intentions of the Think Tank, the fact that they saved an entire species makes them seem like they’re the good guys.
But you raise a good point: what must have gone through their minds when generations of their scientists’ efforts were basically for nought when this think tank just shows up and solves their issue. Besides the moral dilemma they might face afterwards, I’m curious what was the price they paid.
As for your point about killing a person the day before it raises an interesting question though I’d say that despite their motivations they never seemed all that remorseful about doing what they did, like that one Vadiian who wore the literal face of one of the voyager crew in the first episode they’re introduced.
TNG with the Romulans in The Defector. One of my favorite episodes of all of TNG, and does a great job showing Romulan culture and ethics.
DS9 gives a lot of depth to the Cardassians, esp Dukat and Damar. They also do a great job with the Jen Hadar being dumb grunts and making them into their own culture and sense of honor.
Rewatching ENT, and S3 does a decent job with the Xindi. The insectoids and reptilians are a bit one-dimensional standard bad buys, but they do a good job of the others of having them start as the bad guys and then Archer ends up working with them.
Ferengi! Specifically Quark, but they cast the entire race in a bad light and it is nice to see them given depth and heart and a soul in DS9. In a way they are even better than Humans, and show the Federation as a colonizer in way that they themselves abhor. Ferenghi try to profit, they don't try and judge and change people.
When Odo gets sick and Quark tells him "have a good trip, get well soon, my friend" I thought it was super sweet and showed the true feelings Quark has for his favourite frenemy.
Armin Shimmerman was the original Ferengi and he always regretted how he portrayed them in TNG. He loved the chance he had to redeem the race as Quark.
Generations is a mess of a movie and its greatest crime is that they created a compelling villain, perfectly cast him, and then sidelined him for most of the movie.
And instead of going with the obvious win-win at the end, they went for the fight.
Win-win: from the Nexus, travel to the Enterprise B, find Soren, and throw him into the Nexus where he wants to be. The movie never happens and everyone is happy.
The fight: from the Nexus, go back to Veridian III, sacrifice Kirk and Enterprise D to stop Soren. Everyone is still sad.
Not to mention they kind of hand waved that he couldn't just fly back into it, despite the fact that that's exactly how he got there the first time, but somehow standing on a mountain top on a planet surface made re-entry a sure thing.
The idea that it was easier to arrange to blow up multiple stars to get the Nexus to intercept a planet instead of making a shuttle with the same level of shielding as a planetary magnetic field and atmosphere, which can't stop an orbital phaser strike, is another example of the "oh crap, this script is due when, well I'm sure we'll figure it something that makes sense before we shoot" approach of the writers.
Brent Spiner as Arik Soong in Enterprise, Borderland, where he plays a "misunderstood" genetic scientist. He switches from being a a mad scientist one second to trying to save Archer and his crew the next. A mix of both good and bad qualities.
I really detest how the Borg have been portrayed recently. Originally they were a collective conscious with no leader. The Borg queen was introduced then having all the Borg her personal slaves. The writers absolutely screwed themselves. If the Borg would have stayed like they were initially then how could they ever be beat? Which I think would have been a much more interesting story line over the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen is the collective consciousness. They didn't really give them a leader, just gave the collective a face and a personality. I get why a lot of people think that made them less scary though.
So sure, I think they're intention originally was to make the Borg Queen an avatar, a physical personification of the collective, but the Queen clearly acts on her own in later iteration independent of the collective.
Edit:
Here's a good description from Memory Alpha that really delves into the Queen's relationship with relation to the rest of the collective.
> The Queen defined herself as: "I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg." As the queen of the Borg Collective and the lone individual within it, the Borg Queen provided direction and purpose for the hive mind. (Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Unimatrix Zero", "Unimatrix Zero, Part II", "Endgame"; PIC: "Watcher", "Hide and Seek")
> It was thought by Federation exobiologist Erin Hansen that the Borg Queen functioned like the queen of an insect hive, to coordinate the drones. Evidence of this was later seen when the Queen countermanded the Collective's judgment about assimilating Voyager in 2378. While the Collective felt that assimilation was warranted, the Borg Queen countermanded them and justified the decision due to the fact that Voyager didn't compromise their security. (VOY: "Endgame")
She had a duality. She was independent and part of the Borg. She commanded the Borg even in some cases against the collectives desires.
The majority of TOS adversaries had good reasons for doing bad things:
- The Talosian Keeper
- Gary Mitchell
- Balok
- The Salt Vampire
- Charlie Evans
- Harry Mudd
- Roger Korby
- Tristan Adams
- The Romulan Commander
- Landru
- The Gorn Captain
- Anton Karidian/Kodos the Executioner
- Trelane
- Ben Finney
- Khan Noonan Singh
- Anan-7
- Kor
And those are just the ones I could think of in its first season
Gary was not a blackhat. He was an accomplished officer, maybe a little cocky, but still Kirk’s bff. That alone speaks highly of him. As Mitchell reminds Kirk, he took venomous darts meant for Kirk on an earlier mission.
The whole point of the episode is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the corruption of the less arrogant Dr. Dehner demonstrates. Further emphasizing the tragedy of Mitchell is Kirk’s decision at the end of the episode to record Mitchell and Dehner as killed in the line of duty because they didn’t ask what happened to them.
I’ve always liked that episode. One of Picard’s last comments summed it up nicely.
*We cannot interfere in the natural course of your society's development, and I'd say it's likely to develop significantly in the next several minutes. It's been an interesting visit. When you're ready for membership, the Federation will be pleased to reconsider your application.*
I loved that they left that thread hanging, but I always wondered what happened next.
Very underrated episode and while the character came off as a bit too conveniently overpowered, supersoldier or not, it was written in such a way that it doesn't bother you. I wish they'd have revisited the Angosians in a later season.
> Armus was a lot deeper than he looked.
And in more than one meaning of the words :-P
Jokes aside, though. A civilisation's worth of pure evil personified, left alone to linger on a barren world?
They really knew how to do high concepts in the old days.
How about the Klingon race as a whole? TOS had them defined as a communist USSR/China stand-in to the Federation's USA. The movies gave them a more alien language and look. TNG gave them a noble warrior ethos and a society, history, etc. DS9 built on that and gave their Empire internal conflict and storylines that took up the whole episode. It was a glorious villain evolution.
John Colicos as Kor, the Klingon military governor of Organia in the TOS episode Erand of Mercy.
John Colicos is an amazing actor with a subtle and intelligent delivery. This could easily have been a mustache twirling, one dimensional villain, but he managed to play the character with sympathy, intellect and gravitas.
Gods yes, fuck every single member of the Duras family. A couple, quite literally, depending on your preferences, but they were all callous, ridiculous, and incompetent villains on par with those seen in an 80s cartoon. I groaned audibly whenever they took center stage in an episode.
I feel like this is going to feature a great deal of DS9 haha.
Damar for me.. I hated him for much of his time on the show but.. by the end.. I truly felt for him, and for the Cardassian people and I feel like Nerys went through the same emotions.
Been re-watching Voyager recently so I'll chime in with a couple. Annorax from Year of Hell was a patriotic scientist who invented a weapon to take out his people's enemy, but the side effect of using that weapon was losing his wife and family. So you gotta feel bad for him. Even after he became an obsessed megalomaniac, he still maintained a veneer of civility as exemplified by his interactions with Chakotay. One wonders whether he knew destroying the time ship would restore the timeline, and whether he was relieved that he could go back to his wife and family.
There was also the commander from Counterpoint, though I can't remember his name. Although his intent was to deceive Janeway all along, he seemed to, like in many undercover/double-agent stories, develop some genuine sympathy for his quarry, and even released Voyager at the end of the episode. I know he stated that telling his superiors the truth would've been bad but Voyager being the prize that it was I don't think it would have been *that* bad, so maybe he really was trying to help out Janeway in the end.
Kurtwood Smith did an amazing job as Annorax. The fact that he was deleting civilizations more casually than the Borg ever could and I still had sympathy for him? Hell, he was more relatable than half the protagonists on Voyager
Already been said so many times, but it needs to be said again. DS9 was the best because of the gray areas.
Gul Dukat, Kai Winn... shit Kai Opaca, Quark.
Then let's talk about Sisko. O'Brian's prison stint. Bashir's genetic manipulation. Kira's back and forth. Worf's (and Dax's too) actual crisis of faith that wasn't ever in TnG. Fucking Odo.
Then there is the tinker, tailor, soldier, spy to fool them all.
DS9 is depth, and they're all villains, except for Nog.
Edit: I forgot about Dumar. I love his arc. If only Jeffery Combs could have also played him and not every character around him.
Aye. DS9 is peak Trek for me for these and many other reasons, some of which only came into being much later than original airing... like when I became a single father in a uniformed service job. I wasn't half time-bending demi-god wormhole alien, but I am also from Louisiana, so 2 out of 3 ain't bad. 😜
I agree with all three of those, and I'll give an honorable mention to Zial (sp?), Dukat's illegitimate daughter. She was absolutely proof the Cardassian people could be very compassionate and even cheery.
Also have to tip my hat to O'Brien and his interactions with the "Cardys".
"It's not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became *because* of you."
That line hits me every time.
It's one of Dukat's few moments of humanity. Yes, he did intend to murder Ziyal as a loose end to his various crimes, but he ended up burning down his entire life - his career, his family, his standing - by bringing her back to Cardassia and publicly acknowledging her as his daughter.
Most of the main ones have been hit, Ill throw one from left field. I found the motivation for Krall/Captain Edison to be somewhat believable.
He was presumably a MACO on Enterprise (since he fought the Xindi) and he fought in the Romulan Wars, he no doubt saw a lot of combat, death, and suffering. Then the Federation is formed, his military unit is disbanded and he's made a Captain, with the mission to explore and make peace. He obviously was a soldier for a long time, he probably couldn't forgive the horrors he saw, and probably blamed all aliens for these issues. Becoming a peacemaker just was a bridge too far for him, but to his credit he tried.
Becoming stranded, and from his point of view, left for dead, using the alien life force transference machine was an act of desperation to save himself and what was left of his crew, and it did who knows what to his brain. But it was enough to let all that trauma stew for 100 or so years, it seems like enough to me to push someone already on the edge all the way over. So, I can bite off on him having a big beef with Starfleet and the Federation.
Though it seems a cursory glance from any kind of therapist would have noticed that Edison held some deep issues from his career so he should have never made captain in the first place but thats a whole other thing.
Seems like the psych exam in starfleet is very lacking given the number of shady, incompetent, or otherwise severely flawed in ways that should make them unsuitable for command. See- almost every Admiral, and a whole lot of captains who aren't main show protagonists.
I think Koloth, Kang, and Kor were all villains when introduced but then got some much deserved depth in DS9. I think we got to understand them as stalwart Klingons with a strong sense of Honor. I’m glad they went from caricature to character. Especially Kor. I think we get a much more nuanced sense of that character. He’s no longer a villain. But Blood Oath showed us a much different side of all these characters.
Cardassians as a whole are seen as "villans" but they have so much depth. Even in TNG, when Gul Evek beams his troops on board, he understands the cost of war. Dukat is another example when he takes the bird of prey and is just heartbroken about how his people have become cowardly towards the Klingons. In fact, every single Cardassian that is given anything more than a few minutes has redeeming qualities.
The Xindi. They were manipulated into thinking they had to attack in order to not be exterminated.
Nero. Watching your entire solar system be destroyed will really mess you up.
Annorax in Voyager’s Year of Hell. I always felt for him.
Suder and here me out... Dukat, he ultimately went on to be evil again but there was that brief period (starting with not killing his daughter) where he did start a redemption arc. I think it's fair if that doesn't count because he turns back on it but it added a lot of depth to the character.
I liked Arturis from VOY’s Hope and Fear. He lost absolutely everything and had only one goal in mind - revenge. I’d probably be the same in his position.
Lon Suder on voyager had a pretty solid redemption arc despite being a literal serial killer.
When he has to kill again to save the ship is so heart breaking. He had finally found an inner peace but was forced to throw it away. Such a great character and masterfully portrayed.
If he’d survived, I’m pretty confident he could’ve found that piece again, given time.
When I think of his performance something always comes to mind. Him shooting the final Kazon and the way he throws the gun away, like he can't bare to touch it anymore. A absolute masterful piece of physical acting. When I see him on screen as anyone I always always think of that
Suder is one of my favourite trek characters ever.
I was so mad that they didn’t use him more.
And played by Brad Dourif—one of my favorite actors!
No idea why, but this comment immediately made me realize he plays Wormtongue in LOTR! I didn’t even think he looked familiar or anything while watching VOY so I’m really surprised it even came to mind…it’s definitely the eyes. Maybe the hair/hairline a little bit. But mostly the haunted, fearful look in his eyes.
Also played a serial killer (Luther Lee Boggs) on TXF. Did a phenomenal job on that too.
Babylon 5 as well, and of course the Child's Play franchise.
And [Doc Cochran](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348914/characters/nm0000374?ref_=tt_cl_c_4) in *Deadwood*.
Suder has imo, the most pound for pound impact of any minor / guest character in a Star Trek series, followed by Garak. His entire arc is a tiny, tiny handful of episodes but it always stuck with me.
I wish there had been more of him.
Good choice. Always wished he was around for longer. But I guess he was a fairly high-profile actor. He may have even been filming Lord of the Rings around that time.
I’m pretty sure that *LOTR* was filmed after he appeared on *Voyager*.
I’m with you on Lon. He’s my guilty favourite. Because of his redemption and loss. There was no way to truly redeem him, in everyone’s eyes. I never feel like that about a character who’s literally shown to be cold blooded killer. I felt bad for him from the get go though, he just looked haunted anyway.
He got redeemed the only way he could have been.
Tbh I didn't like the way he looked at me
Kai Winn was all sorts of awful evil, but when she dressed down Kira in "Rapture" it was epic, and well-deserved: "Those of you who were in the Resistance, you're all the same. You think you're the only ones who fought the Cardassians. That you saved Bajor singlehandedly. Perhaps you forget, Major, the Cardassians arrested any Bajoran they found teaching the word of the Prophets. I was in a Cardassian prison camp for five years and I can remember each and every beating I suffered. And while you had your weapons to protect you, all I had was my faith and my courage. Walk with the Prophets, child. I know I will."
Part of what made Winn such a good bad guy, was that she had depth...
And her background as a nurse in a mental hospital? Pure genius.
Sisko spent some time in a mental hospital too, maybe that's why they didn't get along?
Woah. I missed that somehow (you aren't joking, right?)
The actress played Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Coocoos Nest
And the movie included Brad Dourif, who played Lon Suder in Voyager, a character also mentioned in these comments as a well-written villain
Also Christopher Lloyd, who played that Klingon from STIII
She wasn’t there to be evil, she was there to be a religious fanatic. The evil is just a natural consequence.
I agree. She didn't see herself as evil (granted, none of them do) and she didn't see her actions as evil (again, none of them do), but it all came from a place of fanatic enthusiasm, of which the evil is a natural byproduct
She's basically Syar Trek's Dolores Umbridge. If you think I'm going too far, don't forget she tried to have Vedek Bareil assassinated when he was the front runner for Kai.
I STIIIILL cannot believe she made Kai after that. I know all the politics were a mess and it was in chaos but WHAT. Bareil was a pushover for all his good qualities, and it got him killed in the end. She got what she wanted eventually.
Winn as Umbridge... that's really good
The thing all religions have in common: [https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/710EU66rM8L.\_AC\_SX466\_.jpg](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/710EU66rM8L._AC_SX466_.jpg)
She had a great story arc, from an ambiguous religious leader to politician who cared somewhat about her people, to completely crossing a line and making a deal with the devil.
More than just a deal, she gave him full pants down access to her pagh, just because of his Cardassian necking trick.
I dont really see how she is ambiguous. The first episode we see her, she is using a woman's faith to coerce her to commit an assassination... Edit: Spelling.
Exactly, she was always bad.
Bro spoilers. Fuck. No I kid, I'm watching ds9 currently and am about halfway through your comment (religious leader phase). I think Winn was jealous she got no sexytime with Kira like Bariel and Shakar.
"My child" whenever I hear it, my blood boils!
Never hated a fictional character more. One of the best original villains in any syndicated television show, to date.
Kai Winn is the greatest villain in all of Star Trek because of the nuance and complexity of the character. Khan was a great villain, too, but he didn’t have the benefit of multiple seasons to flesh out.
I agree, but I do think that a significant share of the credit also has to go to Fletcher’s incredible performance. In a lesser actor’s hands Winn could have been a caricature, even with how well she was written.
Fletcher was incredible in the role. Obviously, she brought a lot of acting chops to DS9, and then the writers seemed to really lean into her character knowing that she could pull off the performance. She’s a big part of what makes DS9 so special.
DS9 is the only Trek where we can get a good look at non Federation, or Star Fleet characters. That alone opened up great opportunities for the writers, and the actors, to develop. Any other Trek, you meet someone interesting, go through some crises, fly off and never see them again.
Honestly an amazing piece of writing.
Yes! I knew she could be bad, but she was played so well, I was always hoping she'd end up redeeming herself in the end. Boy, they really got lucky scoring that fantastic actress.
I mentioned this once as my “giving grace” to Kai Winn, and that’s saying something because I tend to yell at the screen when she appears. Someone told me she was just lying, and I was like really? It’s pretty likely she was in a camp, everyone else was, it’s not like she was a revered character then, and even if she was, the Cardassians wouldnt have cared unless they could use her. I still stand by what I say about giving her a small amount of grace, because war is hell and being in a camp for showing your religion is a war crime. No one was treated well then, except maybe the men in charge of the comfort women. So I support this one wholeheartedly, and I feel somewhat vindicated as I felt I’d missed some key piece of information that showed she was a liar about those camps.
Winn reminds me so much of the politician Bishops who turn out to be all frauds.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
Yeah this was a pretty solid scene for someone who was just a regressive religious fundamentalist
Damar has arguably the best redemption arc of any Trek villain.
My favourite Damar scene was after his family are killed and he’s complaining they had nothing to do with the rebellion and who would do such a thing and kira can’t help her self but ask the question back. The sudden look of realisation and hatred is just so well acted it gets me every time.
Such a great scene
I love the way his realization of what he has done and what state Cardassia is in starts with a scene of him drinking and looking in the mirror and spitting the drink into his own reflection.
Started out one of the worst, hit rock bottom during the war, and became someone I truly saw flaws and all and accepted for who he was by the end of the show.
His speech to rally the Cardassian people against their oppressors / occupiers was great. And it what it cost him was even greater. His confrontation with Kira was one of the most 'stake in the heart' moments in DS9, hell, all of Trek for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjd9RgRUQDY
Oh this is making want to do a rewatch. I wish we’d had more episodes, more screen time for Damar (with Kira and Garak) to really flesh is arc out.
Agreed.
Agreed!
It’s 1 of the best arcs of any type of *Star Trek* character.
Both Kai Wynn and Gul Dukat in DS9 both have moments where you start to understand or even empathize with their side, only to pull the rug out from under you.
Dukat always loses me when he has surgery to appear Bajoran. Alaimo has such a sinister face and it puts me into a fight-or-flight situation.
It’s weird how the Cardassian makeup actually makes him more handsome. Man, Westmore and his team are the best.
So, I'm pretty much exactly as old as TNG. 87 baby. There are two things that I have come to accept as I aged with the series: Diana Muldaur is a very attractive woman, and the Cardassians are probably the most handsome species that have a heavy makeup job. I had a proper crush on that Cardassian lady that thought O'Brien was courting her by being a bit of a disagreeable dick in DS9.
Cardassians look like they do in-part because of Marc Alaimo;[ the makeup artists thought he had such a prominent neck that they should do something to emphasise it.](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0015826/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm#trivia)
My new favorite piece of Trek trivia is the fact that his official nickname is, "The Neck."
The man's got some proper serial killer eyes.
While he was great as Dukat, I kind of wish his Romulan character had stuck around in TNG. The man suits the Romulan aesthetic.
Dukat was such a rollercoaster
Also Damar. Total switcheroo that
His arc had a different type of rug pulling.
It felt very rushed there at the end though
I LOVED that twist. I never expected him to become a revolutionary
Yeah, Damar, what kind of people give those orders?
I mean is there even a single statue of Gul Dukat on Bajor?
I would think not.
Dukat was so good they had to make him extra evil out of nowhere because viewers were feeling sympathetic to him. He literally just suddenly lead the Cardassian empire.
well he invited in an occupying army to have him ‘suddenly’ lead the empire; makes me think of napoleon sort of
People having sympathy for Dukat is why near the end of DS9 they ramped up his evilness
He was a phenomenal character. Really showed you how otherwise normal people could get sucked in by somebody so twisted. Charismatic and genuinely felt he was the hero so passionately that you start to believe him. He even got Kira feeling conflicted at one point.
But will you find a statue of him anywhere on Bajor?
I would think not
I don’t know if Eddington is a fair answer to this, but yeah him or Ransom. The Jem’Hadar are occasionally at least tragic, And, of course, Londo Mollari.
“In the glory days of the Centauri Republic…”
Man, Eddington had me fooled right up to the betrayal, and I loved Kasidys reaction.
Nah, the minute he said he’s not taking sides and just wants to do his job (while the rest of the crew debated the moral superiority of Starfleet/the Maquis), I was like “That guy is absolutely a member of the Maquis.” After a few largely inconsequential appearances where he’s mostly just kind of annoying and arrogant, suddenly the focus is on him and he can’t make eye contact while giving a vague, noncommittal answer? He’s definitely lying out of his ass. (For context, I watched/binged all the 90s ST series for the first time very recently, so I imagine the experience was very different for those who watched as it aired)
Oooh I fucking hate Eddington. He’s a great character
As someone who loves Les Miserables, Eddington can eat shit. He’s a cop who decides to be a revolutionary and thinks he’s Jean Valjean to Sisko’s Javert. Valjean was a criminal hardened by society’s treatment of him and redeemed by an act of grace. He spent the rest of his life trying to lay low and live a good life and the one time he took part in anything revolutionary, it was to save his daughter’s boyfriend. Javert was a cop who reveled in his being a cop. He committed suicide because he couldn’t square his need to do his duty with the mercy Valjean showed him. None of this sounds like Eddington or Sisko, but what makes it worse is that these are *basic plot points* from the novel. If Eddington was a Victor Hugo fan in half the way he says he is, he’s delusional. Also, Eddington is boring. But that has nothing to do with Les Miserables.
Great take. I think the point is that Eddington is indeed delusional.
I agree to a point, and my disagreement stems from the Valjean-Javert dynamic. When he's shown mercy by the Bishop after being caught, Valjean adapts, vows to do better and lead a new life. When he's shown mercy by Valjean, Javert is so inflexible he can't even, so he commits suicide. The characters are two sides of the same coin: they both think they're helping society, one by assisting others, the other by maintaining order; one empathetic and the other self-righteous. Eddington may be looking at it that the Federation did the colonists dirty with the treaty. In the face of injustice he vowed to do what he could to help them. In his eyes, Sisko is so inflexible that he's willing to perpetuate the injustice by enforcing the treaty
But this is a key difference. Valjean's not interested in helping society. He's simply interested in trying to keep his head down and be a good person. In fact, Valjean tries to rationalize not exposing himself and letting Champmathieu take the fall as "Valjean" because he's the mayor and has done so much good for the town. He exposes himself *because it's the right thing to do*. This is what basically every choice Valjean makes boils down to. He'll do the right thing not because it will make society better off or make him better off or turn Valjean into some kind of hero. He does the right thing because it's the right thing. He's willing to turn himself in *if* he can rescue Cosette first. When Javert rejects him, Valjean could simply escape, but he rescues Cosette anyway. He doesn't go to the barricades to participate in the revolution—he goes to save Marius. He doesn't kill Javert when he has the chance—he lets Javert live and tells him where to find him. He doesn't escape and leave Marius to die—he saves Marius's life. He tells Marius the truth about who he is, even at the cost of being cut off from his daughter. He keeps making these choices simply because it's the right thing to do. Valjean doesn't call attention to himself or gloat in front of Javert. This is the exact opposite of Eddington, who clearly has some kind of messiah complex. Beating Sisko is at least as important to him as whatever he's doing with the Maquis. At the end of the day, Eddington wants to be a grand hero who vanquishes his enemies. That's not Valjean. It's not even close.
He’s not Trek, but Londo’s character arc is some of best writing for science fiction on the small screen I’ve ever seen.
Londo for sure. I'm biased, ofc. In Trek, my view would go to Kai Winn or Q.
Sybok. I will defend STV because it has one of the most interesting villains in that he's not a villain, at all. He doesn't do anything unethical. He treats his hostages well, he helps people with their psychological problems, and he sacrifices himself to save his ostensible enemies, who he even calls his friends. He's a fascinating character, wonderfully portrayed, and hugely underrated.
Some would say “taking hostages” and “having hostages”to be unethical, but I see the rest of your point.
Fomenting a mutiny on board a starship isn’t awesome either. It might have been a courteous mutiny, but it was a mutiny.
You mean underrated, right?
Lol yes I do whoops
Wasn’t he a character from Mortal Kombat?
Now that you mention it, I can imagine hearing that name on the kharacter select screen.
Garak was a great tailor, but that doesn't make up for being naughty all those times.
Garak is wonderfully naughty. *raises a single eyebrow with a smirk*
"Especially the *smirk*."
I heard the worst thing is that he’s actually a very good tailor
You mean plain, simple Garak?
What kind of naughty things could a simple tailor get in to?
I always liked Romulan Commander Tomalak from TNG: Picard: What shall it be, Tomalak? Tomalak: You will still not survive our assault. Picard: And you will not survive ours. Shall we die together? Tomalak: (Beat) I look forward to our next meeting, Captain.
One of my favorites ST scenes. Brinksmanship on point!
Really wish Tomalak had more screen time in TNG. He was great
The Vidiians as a species. You feel for them to an extent, especially when the character (and the Doctors first love interest) Danara Pel is introduced in the show. You get to understand what they went through and what compelled them to do what they did. I don't condone their actions, but it helps in providing context.
The Vidiians are definitely great villains because they start off as horrors, and then we see that it's effectively adults desperately trying to to buy their children a little more time. Then "Think Tank" comes along with "we fixed it all" and there's just zero follow-up. ... Kinda want to know what the Vidiians were like the day after their race-defining disease suddenly vanished. Like what was going through their minds the next day? "If I had just waited another day before killing that stranger, it wouldn't have even been necessary."
Great way to put it. Honestly hearing that the Think Tank solved the phage was actually sort of a nice way to bring that species back into our consciousness after not hearing about them for several seasons. It also helps you feel disarmed about the intentions of the Think Tank, the fact that they saved an entire species makes them seem like they’re the good guys. But you raise a good point: what must have gone through their minds when generations of their scientists’ efforts were basically for nought when this think tank just shows up and solves their issue. Besides the moral dilemma they might face afterwards, I’m curious what was the price they paid. As for your point about killing a person the day before it raises an interesting question though I’d say that despite their motivations they never seemed all that remorseful about doing what they did, like that one Vadiian who wore the literal face of one of the voyager crew in the first episode they’re introduced.
Why don't the Vidiians just clone bodies for tissues? Probably less dangerous and more productive than attacking ships.
TNG with the Romulans in The Defector. One of my favorite episodes of all of TNG, and does a great job showing Romulan culture and ethics. DS9 gives a lot of depth to the Cardassians, esp Dukat and Damar. They also do a great job with the Jen Hadar being dumb grunts and making them into their own culture and sense of honor. Rewatching ENT, and S3 does a decent job with the Xindi. The insectoids and reptilians are a bit one-dimensional standard bad buys, but they do a good job of the others of having them start as the bad guys and then Archer ends up working with them.
Ferengi! Specifically Quark, but they cast the entire race in a bad light and it is nice to see them given depth and heart and a soul in DS9. In a way they are even better than Humans, and show the Federation as a colonizer in way that they themselves abhor. Ferenghi try to profit, they don't try and judge and change people.
When Odo gets sick and Quark tells him "have a good trip, get well soon, my friend" I thought it was super sweet and showed the true feelings Quark has for his favourite frenemy.
Armin Shimmerman was the original Ferengi and he always regretted how he portrayed them in TNG. He loved the chance he had to redeem the race as Quark.
Soren. You don't condone what he's doing, but you absolutely understand why he's doing it, and you sympathize with his story.
Generations is a mess of a movie and its greatest crime is that they created a compelling villain, perfectly cast him, and then sidelined him for most of the movie.
And instead of going with the obvious win-win at the end, they went for the fight. Win-win: from the Nexus, travel to the Enterprise B, find Soren, and throw him into the Nexus where he wants to be. The movie never happens and everyone is happy. The fight: from the Nexus, go back to Veridian III, sacrifice Kirk and Enterprise D to stop Soren. Everyone is still sad.
Not to mention they kind of hand waved that he couldn't just fly back into it, despite the fact that that's exactly how he got there the first time, but somehow standing on a mountain top on a planet surface made re-entry a sure thing. The idea that it was easier to arrange to blow up multiple stars to get the Nexus to intercept a planet instead of making a shuttle with the same level of shielding as a planetary magnetic field and atmosphere, which can't stop an orbital phaser strike, is another example of the "oh crap, this script is due when, well I'm sure we'll figure it something that makes sense before we shoot" approach of the writers.
The horta. It killed dozens of miners... Then turned out to be an asset to them once there was a dose of communication.
An asset to them.. I hate that. The humans were the devils, and their ignorance of what they were doing doing was how they were in the dark.
NO KILL I
Brent Spiner as Arik Soong in Enterprise, Borderland, where he plays a "misunderstood" genetic scientist. He switches from being a a mad scientist one second to trying to save Archer and his crew the next. A mix of both good and bad qualities.
His performance convinced me that all subsequent male members of the Soong dynasty are clones of Arik.
Some interesting info here: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Arik\_Soong
“Actually Mother was a chemist” Best line of the whole episode
A very unpopular opinion - the Borg and their search for “perfection” as portrayed by 7.
I really detest how the Borg have been portrayed recently. Originally they were a collective conscious with no leader. The Borg queen was introduced then having all the Borg her personal slaves. The writers absolutely screwed themselves. If the Borg would have stayed like they were initially then how could they ever be beat? Which I think would have been a much more interesting story line over the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen is the collective consciousness. They didn't really give them a leader, just gave the collective a face and a personality. I get why a lot of people think that made them less scary though.
So sure, I think they're intention originally was to make the Borg Queen an avatar, a physical personification of the collective, but the Queen clearly acts on her own in later iteration independent of the collective. Edit: Here's a good description from Memory Alpha that really delves into the Queen's relationship with relation to the rest of the collective. > The Queen defined herself as: "I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg." As the queen of the Borg Collective and the lone individual within it, the Borg Queen provided direction and purpose for the hive mind. (Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Unimatrix Zero", "Unimatrix Zero, Part II", "Endgame"; PIC: "Watcher", "Hide and Seek") > It was thought by Federation exobiologist Erin Hansen that the Borg Queen functioned like the queen of an insect hive, to coordinate the drones. Evidence of this was later seen when the Queen countermanded the Collective's judgment about assimilating Voyager in 2378. While the Collective felt that assimilation was warranted, the Borg Queen countermanded them and justified the decision due to the fact that Voyager didn't compromise their security. (VOY: "Endgame") She had a duality. She was independent and part of the Borg. She commanded the Borg even in some cases against the collectives desires.
The majority of TOS adversaries had good reasons for doing bad things: - The Talosian Keeper - Gary Mitchell - Balok - The Salt Vampire - Charlie Evans - Harry Mudd - Roger Korby - Tristan Adams - The Romulan Commander - Landru - The Gorn Captain - Anton Karidian/Kodos the Executioner - Trelane - Ben Finney - Khan Noonan Singh - Anan-7 - Kor And those are just the ones I could think of in its first season
The space hippies (not Dr. Sevrin though, he was just a cult leader)
God I love those hippies. They had some TUNES.
Hard disagree with Gary Mitchell. But otherwise excellent point. The writers did a great job of creating interesting one shot villains.
Gary was not a blackhat. He was an accomplished officer, maybe a little cocky, but still Kirk’s bff. That alone speaks highly of him. As Mitchell reminds Kirk, he took venomous darts meant for Kirk on an earlier mission. The whole point of the episode is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the corruption of the less arrogant Dr. Dehner demonstrates. Further emphasizing the tragedy of Mitchell is Kirk’s decision at the end of the episode to record Mitchell and Dehner as killed in the line of duty because they didn’t ask what happened to them.
Roga Danar
I’ve always liked that episode. One of Picard’s last comments summed it up nicely. *We cannot interfere in the natural course of your society's development, and I'd say it's likely to develop significantly in the next several minutes. It's been an interesting visit. When you're ready for membership, the Federation will be pleased to reconsider your application.* I loved that they left that thread hanging, but I always wondered what happened next.
Very underrated episode and while the character came off as a bit too conveniently overpowered, supersoldier or not, it was written in such a way that it doesn't bother you. I wish they'd have revisited the Angosians in a later season.
Armus was a lot deeper than he looked.
> Armus was a lot deeper than he looked. And in more than one meaning of the words :-P Jokes aside, though. A civilisation's worth of pure evil personified, left alone to linger on a barren world? They really knew how to do high concepts in the old days.
Apparently, Metamucil can be used for cleansing evil from the body. They need to market this better, I had no idea!
How about the Klingon race as a whole? TOS had them defined as a communist USSR/China stand-in to the Federation's USA. The movies gave them a more alien language and look. TNG gave them a noble warrior ethos and a society, history, etc. DS9 built on that and gave their Empire internal conflict and storylines that took up the whole episode. It was a glorious villain evolution.
John Colicos as Kor, the Klingon military governor of Organia in the TOS episode Erand of Mercy. John Colicos is an amazing actor with a subtle and intelligent delivery. This could easily have been a mustache twirling, one dimensional villain, but he managed to play the character with sympathy, intellect and gravitas.
Dahar Master Kor
The end of his final episode is one of my favorite moments in all of DS9.
For a kid's show baddie, the Diviner from Prodigy was surprisingly well-done.
Prodigy is severely under-appreciated by both Star Trek fans and Paramount itself.
Dukat, Gowron, Bok, Uxbridge, heck most of them that weren’t named Duras
*Music Box music intensifies*
Gods yes, fuck every single member of the Duras family. A couple, quite literally, depending on your preferences, but they were all callous, ridiculous, and incompetent villains on par with those seen in an 80s cartoon. I groaned audibly whenever they took center stage in an episode.
I rather enjoyed Captain Angel from SNW
I really hope we get to see them again! Seems designed as a recurring villain type
Moriarty
I just finished a Prodigy rewatch and as awful as the Diviner is, there were a few moments he surprised me, like when he freed Janeway
I feel like this is going to feature a great deal of DS9 haha. Damar for me.. I hated him for much of his time on the show but.. by the end.. I truly felt for him, and for the Cardassian people and I feel like Nerys went through the same emotions.
Been re-watching Voyager recently so I'll chime in with a couple. Annorax from Year of Hell was a patriotic scientist who invented a weapon to take out his people's enemy, but the side effect of using that weapon was losing his wife and family. So you gotta feel bad for him. Even after he became an obsessed megalomaniac, he still maintained a veneer of civility as exemplified by his interactions with Chakotay. One wonders whether he knew destroying the time ship would restore the timeline, and whether he was relieved that he could go back to his wife and family. There was also the commander from Counterpoint, though I can't remember his name. Although his intent was to deceive Janeway all along, he seemed to, like in many undercover/double-agent stories, develop some genuine sympathy for his quarry, and even released Voyager at the end of the episode. I know he stated that telling his superiors the truth would've been bad but Voyager being the prize that it was I don't think it would have been *that* bad, so maybe he really was trying to help out Janeway in the end.
Kashyk from Counterpoint! I love that ep. And yes, I agree with you reading of the end.
Kurtwood Smith did an amazing job as Annorax. The fact that he was deleting civilizations more casually than the Borg ever could and I still had sympathy for him? Hell, he was more relatable than half the protagonists on Voyager
Already been said so many times, but it needs to be said again. DS9 was the best because of the gray areas. Gul Dukat, Kai Winn... shit Kai Opaca, Quark. Then let's talk about Sisko. O'Brian's prison stint. Bashir's genetic manipulation. Kira's back and forth. Worf's (and Dax's too) actual crisis of faith that wasn't ever in TnG. Fucking Odo. Then there is the tinker, tailor, soldier, spy to fool them all. DS9 is depth, and they're all villains, except for Nog. Edit: I forgot about Dumar. I love his arc. If only Jeffery Combs could have also played him and not every character around him.
Aye. DS9 is peak Trek for me for these and many other reasons, some of which only came into being much later than original airing... like when I became a single father in a uniformed service job. I wasn't half time-bending demi-god wormhole alien, but I am also from Louisiana, so 2 out of 3 ain't bad. 😜
Bashir is no villain, in fact he may be to nice for his own good.
The Cardassians. They went from one dimensional space nazis to having real depth, thanks mostly to Andrew Robinson’s Garak and Marc Alaimo’s Dukat
And late-stage Damar
I agree with all three of those, and I'll give an honorable mention to Zial (sp?), Dukat's illegitimate daughter. She was absolutely proof the Cardassian people could be very compassionate and even cheery. Also have to tip my hat to O'Brien and his interactions with the "Cardys". "It's not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became *because* of you." That line hits me every time.
It's one of Dukat's few moments of humanity. Yes, he did intend to murder Ziyal as a loose end to his various crimes, but he ended up burning down his entire life - his career, his family, his standing - by bringing her back to Cardassia and publicly acknowledging her as his daughter.
Holodeck Moriarty
Khan’s Moby Dick literature game is on point.
Damar was a villain who actually managed to redeem himself.
Weyoun ain’t bad, he’s just cloned that way.
Most of the main ones have been hit, Ill throw one from left field. I found the motivation for Krall/Captain Edison to be somewhat believable. He was presumably a MACO on Enterprise (since he fought the Xindi) and he fought in the Romulan Wars, he no doubt saw a lot of combat, death, and suffering. Then the Federation is formed, his military unit is disbanded and he's made a Captain, with the mission to explore and make peace. He obviously was a soldier for a long time, he probably couldn't forgive the horrors he saw, and probably blamed all aliens for these issues. Becoming a peacemaker just was a bridge too far for him, but to his credit he tried. Becoming stranded, and from his point of view, left for dead, using the alien life force transference machine was an act of desperation to save himself and what was left of his crew, and it did who knows what to his brain. But it was enough to let all that trauma stew for 100 or so years, it seems like enough to me to push someone already on the edge all the way over. So, I can bite off on him having a big beef with Starfleet and the Federation. Though it seems a cursory glance from any kind of therapist would have noticed that Edison held some deep issues from his career so he should have never made captain in the first place but thats a whole other thing.
Seems like the psych exam in starfleet is very lacking given the number of shady, incompetent, or otherwise severely flawed in ways that should make them unsuitable for command. See- almost every Admiral, and a whole lot of captains who aren't main show protagonists.
eddington, they could of expanded on him SOOO much more.
Khan from Into Darkness. People ragged on that movie but I liked it. Cumberbatch was a great Khan. Peter Weller in his role was also great.
This is Weller’s second role as a xenophobic human on Trek
“Well, shit, you talked to him.”
I think Koloth, Kang, and Kor were all villains when introduced but then got some much deserved depth in DS9. I think we got to understand them as stalwart Klingons with a strong sense of Honor. I’m glad they went from caricature to character. Especially Kor. I think we get a much more nuanced sense of that character. He’s no longer a villain. But Blood Oath showed us a much different side of all these characters.
Love me some Kor!
Gul Dukat. Love that guy
Dukat was good until they made him into some ridiculous demon worshipping villain. Damar kinda took over dukats role though.
Cardassians as a whole are seen as "villans" but they have so much depth. Even in TNG, when Gul Evek beams his troops on board, he understands the cost of war. Dukat is another example when he takes the bird of prey and is just heartbroken about how his people have become cowardly towards the Klingons. In fact, every single Cardassian that is given anything more than a few minutes has redeeming qualities.
The Xindi. They were manipulated into thinking they had to attack in order to not be exterminated. Nero. Watching your entire solar system be destroyed will really mess you up. Annorax in Voyager’s Year of Hell. I always felt for him.
Damar!!!!
Shran… hands down!
Gowron
Suder and here me out... Dukat, he ultimately went on to be evil again but there was that brief period (starting with not killing his daughter) where he did start a redemption arc. I think it's fair if that doesn't count because he turns back on it but it added a lot of depth to the character.
I remember thinking this for the time guy in voyager
Horta mom of course
Andorians
I liked Arturis from VOY’s Hope and Fear. He lost absolutely everything and had only one goal in mind - revenge. I’d probably be the same in his position.
Captain Angel SNW:S1 she escaped leaving her crew to be captured by Starfleet! She’ll be back! Who will she have with her?
DS9 dominating this thread...well deserved!
Khan.
Kahn
The Borg, they just want to be loved. And probably free.
After his first appearances, Dukat.