At the heart of Star Trek fandom is a great love of its characters. Protagonists such as Captain Kirk and Captain Picard show us the heights of what humanity can achieve. At the same time, characters such as Spock and Data provide a nice outsider perspective that allows us to look at humanity in a whole new way. However, everyone knows that our heroes are only as compelling and interesting as their villains. There must be someone who pushes back against the heroes’ idea as well as their ideals and someone to offer us a different vision of what the future should be.
This is clear in other fandoms as well. We couldn’t really appreciate the controlled order offered by Batman if we didn’t have the chaotic madness of the Joker for comparison. So, how does Star Trek stack up when it comes to showing us really awesome villains? If we’re being honest, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, Star Trek has some of the most interesting and compelling characters in franchise history, but there are some that are so forgettable that even the biggest fans might have trouble picking them out of a lineup. So, how can you tell which villains are powerful hits and which villains are forgettable misses? Don’t worry: we’ve replicated you a solid guide to some of the biggest villains in Trek history. Get ready for a deep dive, but don’t blame us if your console explodes while you read which Trek villains are the most powerful and which ones we wish we can forget.
20 MOST POWERFUL: KHAN
Here at the top of the list is one of the most powerful Trek baddies of all in Khan. Part of what makes him such an awesome villain is that there are many layers to his personality and power so that he never feels one-dimensional.
For instance, we already knew that he had superhuman strength and speed from The Original Series, which is where his history with Kirk comes in. But his genius-level intellect lets him turn the small Starship Reliant into a major threat to the mighty Starship Enterprise. We can only imagine what he could do with more time and more ships at his command!
19 WANT TO FORGET: REBOOT KHAN
As memorable as the original Khan is, the rebooted Khan is definitely a foe most fans want to forget. He is played with suitable menace by Benedict Cumberbatch, but everything about this villain seems lacking when compared to the original.
For example, he no longer has any history with Kirk, so the revelation of who he is becomes meaningless. While he gets a powerful ship to use, his “genius” plans seem downright silly (including loading up his precious crew into torpedoes and then acting surprised when they nearly get launched). Despite his weird magic blood, this is one performance that is never coming back to life.
18 MOST POWERFUL: BORG QUEEN
The Borg Queen is a really controversial Trek figure. Some fans dislike how she disrupted the single-minded and collective nature of the Borg. However, whether you love her or hate her, it’s impossible to deny how powerful she really is.
First, she commands the Borg fleet, which is arguably Trek’s greatest threat -- the power of assimilation means that she can turn her greatest foes into her greatest allies. Finally, she is seemingly capable of cheating her demise, surviving multiple fatal events to threaten the galaxy once more. That’s why we’re pretty confident that Janeway did not truly end the Borg threat like she thought she had.
17 WANT TO FORGET: SHINZON
If we’re being honest, the big problem with Star Trek movies is that they peaked too early. For many fans and most of the writers and directors, it never got better than Wrath of Khan. Many movies tried to copy its magic, including Star Trek: Nemesis.
That’s where we get the forgettable villain Shinzon. This evil clone of Picard was meant to evoke a kind of Kirk and Khan charisma. However, even Tom Hardy couldn’t breathe charm into this role, so the performance was like watching Mini Me starring in a parody of a Star Trek movie. Fans then said to these movies what Kirk said about the Klingons: “let them die.”
16 MOST POWERFUL: V’GER
There are many different ways for a Trek villain to show power. Some have raw strength, others have intellect, and a handful just have cool technology. This next villain, though, has a bit of all three. Who are we talking about? V’Ger, of course!
While this villain didn’t have evil motivations, it was capable of vaporizing ships with a single thought, and as near as Starfleet could figure out, it presented a huge threat to Earth and the rest of the galaxy. Throw in its ability to scan ships and clone their inhabitants and you have a truly scary threat to contend with.
15 WANT TO FORGET: RU’AFO
Star Trek: Insurrection isn’t as bad as you remember. Sure, it’s not as exciting as First Contact, but it’s the closest thing you’ll get to a super-long Next Generation episode. You know who is as bad as you remember, though? The villain Ru’afo.
His people are presented as sympathetic: rebels who gave up the fountain of youth and don’t quite know how to return. However, Ru’afo himself mostly just sneers in-between sessions of plastic surgery. It’s more scary than it is gross, leaving most fans to feel very “meh” about this character’s fiery demise at the end.
14 MOST POWERFUL: GENERAL CHANG
When people hear about a cloaking device, they usually wonder why the Klingons who use it aren’t rulers of the galaxy. Isn’t this the ultimate weapon? However, the traditional cloak has a major vulnerability: ships cannot fire while cloaked. Until General Chang came along, that is.
His special ship could fire while cloaked. He used this ability to frame Kirk, put the Enterprise out of commission, and very nearly assassinate the head of the Federation. And while Spock and McCoy eventually found a way around the super-cloak, Chang remains one of the most powerful villains we ever saw in the franchise (or will ever see again).
13 WANT TO FORGET: KRALL
In the rebooted Trek movies, there has been an annoying tendency to build mystery around the villain. While this is meant to lead to exciting reveals, it usually means we don’t learn enough about a villain to really care. It happened with “John Harrison” who turned out to be Khan and again with the villain Krall.
At first, Krall looks like a powerful and freakish alien. However, it turns out he was a Starfleet captain who crashed on a planet that warped his appearance and extended his life. This is actually a pretty cool backstory, but it’s all crammed into the very last bit of the movie, meaning what we get for most of the film is a forgettable monster man.
12 MOST POWERFUL: NERO
We love a good exception that proves the rule and in this case, it’s the villainous Romulan Nero. Out of all the Trek reboot bad guys, this guy isn’t just the most powerful but he’s also the most memorable, with a performance that enhances every scene he is in.
Nero is nice and straightforward -- he has seen the destruction of his homeworld and blames both the Vulcans and the Federation. When his super-powerful ship is thrown back in time over a hundred years, he proceeds to get his revenge quickly and directly. Without some “red matter” and a lot of good guy luck, he may have become the ruler of the galaxy.
11 WANT TO FORGET: THE KAZON
The Star Trek: Voyager writers faced a unique dilemma. On one hand, the show taking place in the Delta Quadrant meant they could feature characters, aliens, and plots never before seen. On the other hand, it’s tough to be original after hundreds of previous franchise adventures.
That’s how we ended up with the Kazon. They were meant to be the show’s first big bad guys, but they ended up coming across more like bargain basement Cardassians. In our opinion, it’s no coincidence that Voyager started getting better right around the time we stopped regularly seeing these guys and may we say, good riddance!
10 MOST POWERFUL: THE FOUNDERS
In many ways, The Founders were the scariest villains Starfleet ever encountered. Sure, the Borg are more menacing in terms of destruction, and characters like Q are scarier in terms of power. However, the Founders nearly reshaped multiple quadrants of space into their own image.
As rulers of The Dominion, these shapeshifters have enough raw firepower to threaten anyone. And as infiltrators, they can influence galactic politics in both overt and covert ways. Finally, their ability to change shape makes them absolutely lethal if it comes down to a direct fight, and who knows? Maybe some shapeshifters will pop up in Picard’s new show to threaten the Federation once more.
9 WANT TO FORGET: “GOD”
Remember that time Kirk fought God? It sounds like the setup to a terrible joke, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s the setup to a terrible movie called Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. In this film, an insane religious quest ends in a showdown between Kirk and a creature claiming to be God.
At first, “God” is pretty scary. With his larger than life persona and crackling power, he seems like a major force but he needs a ride off of the planet, prompting Kirk to infamously ask what “God” needs with a starship. He’s a weak deity and a weaker villain, though the true bad guy is whoever let Shatner direct this movie.
8 MOST POWERFUL: GUL DUKAT
The best bad guys are adaptable, and they don’t get more adaptable than Gul Dukat. This Cardassian is threatening as a military leader, and he maintains his power even after a citizen’s revolt. Later, he allies his world with the Dominion and becomes one of the biggest threats to the Alpha quadrant.
If that’s not scary enough, he eventually becomes powered up by some evil alien gods that have major beef with the wormhole aliens. This gives abilities such as telekinesis and a kind of fatal “zap” power that was enough to take out Jadzia Dax. Eventually, he even infiltrated Bajor looking like one of them!
7 WANT TO FORGET: SYBOK
Want to know which two words can make a Trek fan instantly wince? Try these: “Spock’s brother.” There were many things about Final Frontier that were pretty terrible. However, the character of Sybok, Spock’s brother, is near the top of the list.
He is a rogue Vulcan, which is neat enough as a concept. However, his main weapon appears to be a kind of mind control triggered by weird flashbacks. That, and his weird religious fanaticism are about all Sybok has going for him. It’s no coincidence that the franchise has steadfastly ignored this character since he was first introduced!
6 MOST POWERFUL: Q
We’ve seen Kirk grapple with multiple beings who claimed to be gods. However, Jean-Luc Picard had to deal with the closest thing Starfleet ever encountered. Who are we talking about? It’s Q, of course! This character can seemingly do anything with a snap of his fingers -- and even the snap is just for show.
He can stop starships in their tracks, transport people through space and time, and even bring the deceased back to life. It seems like there is nothing this character can do. Fortunately for Picard and all of Starfleet, Q mellowed out over time and became more of an ally than an enemy.
5 WANT TO FORGET: SORAN
Star Trek: Generations had a lot going for it. The film was going to be the big screen debut for Picard and crew, and it also gave us a historic meeting of two generations of captains. While that was cool and all, the villain -- Dr. Tolian Soran -- was pretty damn forgettable.
He was obsessed with getting back into a Heaven-like cosmic anomaly known as The Nexus. In practice, though, he’s just a thug, and the Klingons he works with do most of the productive work while he sits around giving supervillain speeches. No matter how pretty the speech, it doesn’t make this guy a scary villain.
4 MOST POWERFUL: JEM’HADAR
In the heirarchy of The Dominion, the Jem’hadar are basically the foot soldiers of the Founders. However, these guys are scary in their own right and they are tough enough to fight Klingons in hand-to-hand combat, and they have a built-in ability to make themselves invisible.
Honestly, there are only two things that keep these guys from taking over the galaxy. First, they are genetically bred to be loyal to the Founders. Second, they are bred addicted to a special drug called Ketracel White. However, if enough of them can ever kick the habit, entire planets will tremble under their heels!
3 WANT TO FORGET: XINDI
Like it says in the title, most of these bad villains are villains that fans simply want to forget. However, there are a few cases where the villains have already been more or less forgotten and that’s the case with these next villains -- the Xindi.
On paper, these guys are powerful and scary as they attack Earth and wipe out a mass amount of once living things. However, they are ultimately just a collection of forgettable races that are tied in with the yawn-inducing Temporal Cold War business. To this day, many fans can’t tell you what was going on with that plot, which is just a product of bad writing.
2 MOST POWERFUL: ARMUS
Armus isn’t necessarily the most powerful villain on this list. However, he gets major props for a few things. First, he’s unpredictable. He will end anything on a whim without any real provocation or dialogue. Second, he has a wild backstory, as he is the accumulation of evil thoughts and intents for an entire global population.
This was the creature who managed to take out Tasha Yar with a single blow. Again, not the most impressive show of force but the ability to take out a highly-trained security officer in a way where she can’t simply be revived means that this creature is packing some serious power.
1 WANT TO FORGET: ADMIRAL MARCUS
Admiral Marcus was basically the villain behind the villain in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Sure, Khan was the big reveal but it was Admiral Marcus manipulating the entire bizarre plot into motion as part of the secret organization known as Section 31.
It all sounds pretty cool in theory -- a traitor within Starfleet, a Federation spy organization, and so on. However, nothing Marcus does makes any sense. Why subcontract a sociopath like Khan and not expect betrayal? Why try to start war with the Klingons? Why openly attack the Enterprise so close to Earth if your organization and ship are huge secrets?