Plans for Sela

[tim0122]

Just finished Unification II in my massive franchise watch and was informed that it was Sela's final episode. It's rather an anti-climatic end after so much build up and only 3 1/2 appearances. Would've thought she and the Romulans would remain the big bad throughout the rest of season five, but nope.

Were there greater plans for her that were changed during production? If they really didn't plan to use her further, I'd think they'd have made her role in Unification bigger or just not include her at all and had Redemption II be her last appearance.

 

[Dukhat]

I’m sure there were more plans for the character, but nothing came to fruition.

 

[korblborp]

perhaps another missed opportunity for Picard, given all the romulan focus

 

[Turtletrekker]

After her total, complete and utter failures during the Klingon Civil War and the Romulan invasion of Vulcan, I imagine she was probably executed.

 

[CaptChris42]

Novels have her plan to take over the Tal Shiar, and then the empire, of course.

ST: Online also has her fair... a lot more successfully, than in the books, too, considering.

And her story is still unfolding, in IDW comics - including her revolt vs her father.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

As a character, I think Sela would have been better suited to a more arc-focused writing than TNG tended to. If there were some ongoing story, Sela could have factored in more. Especially considering that despite her origin, her use in the show proper never moved out of "generic Romulan commander."

Hell, in Unification, she could have had a bigger focus, paralleling her against Spock, the hybrid in a society that looks down on them for their human heritage. Instead, nothing about her being this specific character mattered.

Personally, I blame Rick Berman - when Denise came to them about the idea of playing Tasha's daughter, she'd wanted to be Tasha and Castillo's daughter. Instead, Rick Berman made Sela into the daughter of Tasha and her Romulan captor, so reducing Tasha, already a victim of her homeworld infamous rape gangs, to being held captive by the Romulans and coerced into sex. Saying nothing of negating her avoiding that "meaningless" death that Yesterday's Enterprise made such a big deal about. So the idea ended up being hijacked, rewritten, and having no particular end goal for what having this specific character would end up meaning.

The character ended up going untapped because, with no intent and no one pushing in the writer's room, or, as would be the case over on DS9, pushing back against Rick Berman's efforts at "creative" decisions, no one was all that invested in trying to explore her further.

 

[Mojochi]

After her total, complete and utter failures during the Klingon Civil War and the Romulan invasion of Vulcan, I imagine she was probably executed.

I'll go even further, & suggest that the Romulan big wigs pulled an "Admiral Jarok" on her, & deliberately gave her the rope to hang herself. Knowing she had more to prove than anyone one else in the empire, they probably tired of her overambitious vendetta against Starfleet, & used it against her... figuring the best case scenario was she'd pull it off or make a mess for the UFP, & at worst she'd destroy herself.

It's feasible (from their perspective) that undermining the Klingon/Starfleet alliance was a decent use to put her to, to rest her loyalties. Her mother did in fact get captured defending Klingons. So brainwashing Geordi, & backing The Khitomer traitor's family, in their rise to power, makes sense for how they'd use her. That she failed miserably at both should've doomed her already

But the Vulcan Invasion? That had no chance of working at all. It may be one of the dumbest strategies ever on Star Trek lol. It's a UFP core world, for God's sake. I think they just wanted to get her killed, & use her to expose some homegrown dissidents, in the process. They had to have just executed her after a 3rd strike.

 

[somebuddyX]

I don't know what they should have exactly done with Sela but I feel like it should have been more. The idea of the actions from a collapsed alternate timeline coming back to haunt the regular timeline is fascinating to me.

 

[E-DUB]

I always thought that Sela should defect, having found out that her "origin story" was fabricated and that she was actually the product of a Romulan attempt to breed a Romulan/Human hybrid who would serve the Empire as a Spock equivalent.