The cruelest villains of Star Trek

[evangelist6589]

I am sure no one would disagree that Khaun takes the cake, but whom else would be considered cruel? Perhaps the Klingon from Day of the Dove? Perhaps Lord Garth? Perhaps General Greene from a season 3 episode? General Greene pretended to be friendly with Kirk but tricked him, only to have murdered a Vulcan and Abraham Lincoln as well! In history Greene came before Lincoln, but what a cruel character no doubt whom wants victory and advancement at any cost. After I finish season 3 I am gonna re-watch various episodes in the first 2 seasons to become more familiar with them. But there is a Klingon episode from season 1 that featured a cruel Klingon whom may be considered.

Whom else?

 

[Bixby]

KHAN actually killed a total of 0 (zero) enemies during his episode and the cruelest thing he did was to gas the crew into blissful unconsciousness. Not very cruel if you ask me.

The crown, IMO goes to Captain Ronald Tracey of the Exeter, for cold-bloodedly disintegrating a fellow Starfleet officer, starting a war between two peoples on a more primitive planet, and engaging in a death duel with another ship's Captain.

 

[PCz911]

Didn't Tracey also 'drain' a phaser killing lots of natives? That would seem to be a lot of death.

 

[Shawnster]

KHAN actually killed a total of 0 (zero) enemies during his episode and the cruelest thing he did was to gas the crew into blissful unconsciousness. Not very cruel if you ask me.

Must cruelty = amount of people personally killed by villain?

Can we count Kruge in this mix? The killing of Valaris seemed totally cruel and without need.

 

[Bixby]

Must cruelty = amount of people personally killed by villain?

Can we count Kruge in this mix? The killing of Valaris seemed totally cruel and without need.

Well, if gassing many people is cruel, then being a dentist is the cruelest profession of all

 

[Commishsleer]

T'Pring - just divorce the guy
Melakon - Hitler wannabee
Janice Lester - killed her colleagues just to get close to Kirk

 

[MarsWeeps]

I think it was Rojan in "By Any Other Name" when he crushed the cube and then we found out it was the female red shirt that died.

 

[Melakon]

T'Pring - just divorce the guy
Melakon - Hitler wannabee
Janice Lester - killed her colleagues just to get close to Kirk

Now just a minute here. I don't know who this Hitler guy is you're talking about, I only wanted to replace John Gill due to his debilitating illness. Then some Zeon pig shot me.

 

[Shawnster]

I think it was Rojan in "By Any Other Name" when he crushed the cube and then we found out it was the female red shirt that died.

Oh yes. This. For some reason I, likewise, thought it was worse that the female red shirt was the one that died and not the male.

But Rojan has got to count for that. So cold blooded.

 

[Melakon]

I think it was Rojan in "By Any Other Name" when he crushed the cube and then we found out it was the female red shirt that died.

For some reason I, likewise, thought it was worse that the female red shirt was the one that died and not the male.

This sort of reads as if it's saying it's too bad the pretty white girl died and not the black guy.

If you keep track of the styrofoam blocks though, he does crush the girl.

 

[PCz911]

I think it was Rojan in "By Any Other Name" when he crushed the cube and then we found out it was the female red shirt that died.

Oh yes. This. For some reason I, likewise, thought it was worse that the female red shirt was the one that died and not the male.

But Rojan has got to count for that. So cold blooded.

I totally forgot about that. In the 60's at least they didn't try to bring her remains from the "dehydrated porous cuboctahedron solid" (source: memory alpha) back. Ugh. What a mess that would have been. If done today, they might well have gone for the shock effect.

 

[MarsWeeps]

For some reason I, likewise, thought it was worse that the female red shirt was the one that died and not the male.

This sort of reads as if it's saying it's too bad the pretty white girl died and not the black guy.

Color had nothing to do with it. We were used to male red shirts dying all the time. To have the female die instead was a bigger (and unexpected) shock.

 

[BigJake]

Didn't Tracey also 'drain' a phaser killing lots of natives? That would seem to be a lot of death.

Actually it was four phasers. Probably accounting for thousands of deaths. Tracey would be my pick for this alone if the Omega Glory wasn't ultimately so ridiculous.

I agree with the earlier comment that Khan does not in fact come across as particularly cruel. Ruthless, arrogant and barbaric, certainly, but not cruel. (In his mad incarnation in TWOK is a different story, but I'm sticking within TOS parameters.)

My vote would be for Kor (thanks Marsden for providing the correct name), who was just as unflinching about mass death as Tracey was. Granted he didn't genuinely get to kill anyone in the outing we saw... but he didn't know that.

 

[Marsden]

I think for "cruelty" champion, I pick Trelane. He seem to delight in it, for no reason but his own pleasure.

Dr. Adams is in the running.

Captain Tracey and Kor were certainly ruthless, but I didn't get the impression they enjoyed it, but I guess that doesn't make them less cruel.

I wouldn't pick Space Seed Khan, but Wrathful Khan, yes.

I think the Salt Sucker was a cruel beast.

Actually, one of my favorite things about Star Trek is the lack of "villainous" villains. A lot conflict is because of cultural differences and misunderstandings rather than what things devolve to in the time of the Star Trek movies.

 

[BigJake]

Actually, one of my favorite things about Star Trek is the lack of "villainous" villains. A lot conflict is because of cultural differences and misunderstandings rather than what things devolve to in the time of the Star Trek movies.

I agree with this.

Although there is a great example of well-realized and truly, personally sadistic villainy in Trek, but he doesn't come from TOS.

 

[Commishsleer]

Actually, one of my favorite things about Star Trek is the lack of "villainous" villains. A lot conflict is because of cultural differences and misunderstandings rather than what things devolve to in the time of the Star Trek movies.

I agree with this.

Although there is a great example of well-realized and truly, personally sadistic villainy in Trek, but he doesn't come from TOS.

I also agree.
Even Kodos the Executioner got his say in TOS.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And Kodos had the good sense to regret what he'd done and try to make up for it. It was Lenore who was the real villain in that ep.

 

[Wingsley]

Lest we forget:

In "Space Seed", Khan and his merry band of followers took over the Starship Enterprise by sealing off the Bridge and attempting to asphyxiate the Bridge personnel. He then tortured Captain Kirk in the pressure chamber.

We should also keep in mind that the non-corporeal creatures from Tycho IV ("Obsession") and Zetar ("The Lights of Zetar") proved to be at least among the deadliest threats to the Federation. Spock said of the Farragut Cloud Creature "Obviously, Captain, if it is an intelligent creature, if it is the same one, if it therefore is capable of space travel, it could pose a grave threat to inhabited planets." And since the Tycho IV creature could stand up to phaser and photon torpedo fire, it would rate as extremely deadly.

If you exclude the Borg and the Dominion from the picture and focus in on just TOS, the deadliest speaking adversary Kirk ever faced was probably Nomad ("The Changeling"), which may not have been technically "alive" but appeared to have evolved into a sentient artificial lifeform of sorts. (Spock seemed to think so.) And lest we forget that Nomad wiped out all "imperfect" life forms in the entire Malurian star system.

 

[Wingsley]

Actually, one of my favorite things about Star Trek is the lack of "villainous" villains. A lot conflict is because of cultural differences and misunderstandings rather than what things devolve to in the time of the Star Trek movies.

I partially agree.

It's true that many of Kirk's adversaries had a James Bond movie-like flair to them (Anan 7 of "A Taste of Armageddon" comes to mind) that made them stand out as simultaneously dangerous and gentlemanly.

This made them somewhat nasty, and immoral from the audience's point-of-view, but not necessarily guilty of "cruel" villainy. In a sense, Anan was standing up for the (questionable) values of the system he spent his entire life being a part of, so that confrontation was more of a cultural clash.

By contrast, Proconsul Claudius Markus ("Bread and Circuses"), who personally murdered Flight Officer William B. Harrison of the S.S. Beagle, comes across as a brutal aggressor. Yet again, Markus was also a natural product of his "Roman" culture, and simply behaved as one might expect the leader of a corrupt industrial-age empire to behave. (Putin, anyone?)

So yes, many of the adversaries Kirk encounters are just aliens trying to confront what they may see as a potential threat to their "way of life". (Krola's words in the excellent TNG "First Contact" episode from 1991)

Still, not all of TOS' "bad guys" fall into this category. Nomad may have been a machine, but its ruthless quest to purge every world it encountered made it, in a strange TREKkian sense, the "cruelest villain".

 

[bbailey861]

It's true that many of Kirk's adversaries had a James Bond movie-like flair to them...

You know what??....I LOVE this line. It sums up, to a very large degree, exactly how I feel. I also very much think that it is a sign of the times that this wonderful program was filmed in. I don't really see (and this is probably using standards that I envision today) that there were really 'cruel villians' as much as I do see the villians that your great line brings to mind. Garth of Izor and even Khan come immediately to mind as Bondesque type villians with many more out there. Nothing wrong with that either. Those characters, while not absurdly 'cruel' were nonetheless 'bad guys' that needed to be vanquished. Nicely said.