The most evil individual and most evil regime in Star Trek

[David.Blue]

Most evil regime--The Borg. It engages in serial genocides as a matter of policy and has done for centuries, destroying entire cultures and slaughtering many billions. Those that survive are tortured and mutilated, trapped in their own minds forever while made to commit the same hideous acts upon others.

Most evil individual--Kivas Fajo, a man with no compassion or loyalty of any kind. His ambitions proved fairly petty, fortunately, but he seems to lack ANY redemptive quality at all. Shinzon felt loyalty to his Reman brothers. Khan had a vision of a higher humanity. The Changelings could show gratitude and wanted the Solids controlled out of self-protection. Even the Borg saw themselves as improving the quality of life for others. Members of Section 31 were trying to defend the Federation, as were all those terrible Admirals. Nero wanted revenge from personal loss and to help his people. Fajo showed nothing even remotely like that. He felt greed, a desire to boast, and a fear that someone would take his things so he armed himself with the most vicious personal weapon he could find. He was a sociopath who treated every single person around him as an object, demonstrating not one drop of empathy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't see the Borg as evil, as such, because they have no evil intent. They are driven by what is essentially a computer program. They don't act out of emotion or anything like that. They do what they do because they were made that way. They're no more evil than a tornado or hurricane - they have no choice in what they do.

 

[David.Blue]

The Borg are sentient. At the very least they are a manifestation of the Borg Queen, who has demonstrated (or Borg have) an ability to change, to choose paths other than the straightforward assimilation of everyone and everything. Look at the way they allied to the crew of Voyager, and how Seven was left un-assimilated in the Queen's presence. Look at how she attempted to get Picard and/or Data to join her of their own free will. No, the Borg demonstrate an ability to choose but an unwillingness to change.

This is a valid point, about what makes anyone evil. Is it intention or actual impact. Methinks it is a blend of the two. Hence my choices. The Borg have deliberately done the most evil in the Star Trek universe while Kivas Fajo demonstrated nothing but evil traits.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I would argue that Borg drones, as such, are no longer sentient. They are controlled by the collective. They don't think, they do what they are forced to do.

To rephrase: Would you say that Data, Troi and O'Brien are evil simply because their bodies were possessed by aliens in TNG's "Power Play"? Obviously they are not intrinsically evil, they did what they did in that episode because their bodies were taken over. In essence, the Borg are exactly the same: the drones' bodies are taken over by the collective. So therefore, they can't be seen as evil either. They are controlled - forced to do what they do. That alone precludes any notion of evil intent.

 

[F. King Daniel]

J.J. Abrams!!!!


(I'm sure someone already said it)

 

[Nightdiamond]

One of the types of people who would be classified as evil would be someone that is sociopathic. These are people that are so selfish, you can't reason with them. They feel no guilt except in rare cases.

Kivas defenitly - classic case. He wants what he wants and he doesnt care who he has to hurt or kill to get it. He felt no remorse whatsoever after he was captured.

Dukat fits the description- All he cared about was his image. Even when he reluctantly admitted doing bad things, he was more concerned with people "understanding" what a sacrifice he made in doing them.

He even thought Bajor should have built a statue to him because of his service as pre-fect of Bajor.

He left his daughter to die in what would have been a massive explosion.

I've heard that people who try to trick others into doing their evil deeds are particular evil. Something Dukat was known for.

Kai Winn- but at least, at the last moment she realized what she was doing and turned against Dukat, so I think that kind of disqualifies her.

 

[R. Star]

Kai Winn- but at least, at the last moment she realized what she was doing and turned against Dukat, so I think that kind of disqualifies her.

I disagree. Just because she realized Dukat played her for a fool completely, doesn't mean she suddenly reformed. The only reason she tried to destroy the book and later told Sisko how, was because she realized she wasn't going to be the Emissary of the Pagh-wraiths and was nothing more than a pawn. It was petty vengeance and a move to protect what she had. He hurt her and she wanted to hurt him back.

Had she survived that encounter, I'm sure she would've clung to her Kai post and told a noble story about how she personally deceived the wicked ones to flush out their followers to destroy them. How she was responsible for sealing the evil ones away and doing away with Dukat, the scourge of Bajor.

 

[Nightdiamond]

It's a tough one with Kai Winn because a lot of things she did points to the idea she is "evil", but not exactly hopeless.


Some would call her a fanatic, or just power hungry.

It's only because every now and then, the show would sometimes show her with moments of sympathy.

She told how while she was thrown in prison she was beaten and tortured because she kept her faith and taught about the Prophets.

She went to Kira (swallowed her pride) when she had a crises of faith. She even called Sisko "Emissary" before she was killed.

On the other hand, she was behind the explosion in Keiko's classroom, and she did manipulate that Bajoran woman to try to assassinate Bareil for her --which according to some researchers, is a trait of real evil thinking.

 

[R. Star]

Oh I agree, she had excellent depth to her. The scene where she describes being beaten by Cardassians with only her faith to protect her was a great one too. Though even that seemed just another weapon to lash out to Kira with.

She wanted power and was willing to do anything for it. The whole pagh-wraith conversion really wasn't a change in that, just another route to get it since the Prophets weren't giving her anything more than what she already had. Kira herself said it rather succinctly, she resented having to share spiritual authority with the Emissary.

She did call Sisko Emissary... though I don't think she "saw the light" just because of that. She either was manipulating Sisko into doing what she wanted, stopping Dukat, or just backpeddalling away from being seen consorting with Dukat being if she survived this she was going to have tons of explaining to do.

It's entirely possible had she survived, she would have seen the error of her ways, confess all and resign. But based on what we've seen, she had this exact same chance earlier, and didn't do it.

 

[David.Blue]

I would argue that Borg drones, as such, are no longer sentient. They are controlled by the collective. They don't think, they do what they are forced to do.

To rephrase: Would you say that Data, Troi and O'Brien are evil simply because their bodies were possessed by aliens in TNG's "Power Play"? Obviously they are not intrinsically evil, they did what they did in that episode because their bodies were taken over. In essence, the Borg are exactly the same: the drones' bodies are taken over by the collective. So therefore, they can't be seen as evil either. They are controlled - forced to do what they do. That alone precludes any notion of evil intent.

I would agree the Borg drones--or the people they were--are indeed innocent. But the Borg, however one defines that, are pretty much evil incarnate. Whether it is some of kind of state of being, or the will of the Borg Queen, or the initializing piece of software that went out of control, doesn't particularly matter. The entity of the Borg Collective is evil in the extreme.

 

[Xhiandra]

"Evil" is a bit of a simplistic notion, I'd rather say that the most despicable, for me were:

Individual: Kai Winn. Fanatical and power-hungry to the last. The upside is that she's easily outsmarted by anyone, so she ends up being more comic relief than villain.

Entity: The Borg. They're not evil per se in that they don't understand morality but they still reserve a fate-worse-than-death to all life they encounter, which is a darker proposition than any other antagonist offers.

 

[Hypaspist]

Most evil and insane individual is Lore. He is willing to kill anyone and anything and thinks the Crystalline Entity is beautiful. He is completely unstable and dangerous, having all of the abilities of Data.

Most evil regime is definitely the Borg. There is nothing redeemable about them.
If they're out because it's in their nature to destroy and ruin everything, then I'd say that the Dominion is the most evil. It's pretty obvious - they are the opposite of Starfleet. They interfere with subjects even down to screwing up their evolutionary traits to keep them in line. They have no regard for anyone but themselves. Even their symbol looks sort of like an inverted Starfleet badge.

 

[Melakon]

Wow. I hadn't posted in this thread in over a year. I thought we were done with it.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Kivas Fajo was the first name I thought of as well.

The man, like many other evil people before him, is all about himself, and murder for him is like turning another page. From what we know: he saw life as expendible, as long as it resulted in him getting his way; he saw people kind of like property and his play things. And he was without remorse for it all.



Another name that sprung to mind was Khan. Like other evil men before him, he believed himself superior and with his genetic engineering it only cemented it in his mind. Like Chekov said, he repaid Kirk's kindness by trying to murder them and steal the ship.
The man, as I recall, lead a way that killed billions of people on Earth and he seems rather unmoved by it all. In fact, rather than face up to the consequences, he hoped a ship out to appearently one day lead and conqure again.

And in stead of learning from his mistakes and bettering himself, he stewed in his own mental juices until a shot at revenge came. And he grasped it firmly and could care less who had to die (or how many) to get it.



As for the most evil regime, I'd have to go with the Cardassians. What ever they once where, we do know that they were now sort of the equivalent of the National Socilist part in World War II Germany (AKA: the Nazi's). And apparently the only thing that might have put a hault to their ways, was loosing the war at the end of Deep Space Nine. And the length of time the criems have been going on can't help but affect a civilization.

 

[MacLeod]

What about The Terran Empire, or The Alliance that replaced it.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Kai Winn was certainly evil but she wasn't evil to the same extent as some of the other villains. She had no intention of destroying Bajor, she was just stupid enough to think that wasn't exactly what the Pagh Wraiths would do.

Having sympathetic motives doesn't make somebody's actions any less evil. The Dominion turned into what they did because the changelings were persecuted and hunted, that doesn't make it okay when they turn around and do it to other races. And moral relativism ends at the point of harm. The Borg may think it's morally righteous to assimilate somebody, but if you're taking away somebody's right life and liberty without their consent, you're doing something evil.

I would compare Cardassia more to ancient Rome or the British Empire than the National Socialist Party. Going around colonizing less technologically advanced planets and ruling over their people under a sense of entitlement and cultural superiority. Cardassia's occupation of Bajor isn't all that different from England's occupation of India or France's of Algeria.

 

[Mojochi]

I was surprised to see Tolian Soran so much in this thread. His primary characteristic was obsession, not malevolence. Not caring that people will suffer and wanting people to suffer are wholly different levels of evil

I can sort of see the argument made for Kivas Fajo, but he's small change really

I'm going to throw Lore's name out there. Everything he did, including destroying all life on Omicron Theta, was to make others suffer at his hands, for vengeance sake alone, basically because daddy didn't love him enough. His ultimate goal for all time was to make people pay, to the point where he could nearly have overtaken the Borg & destroyed the entire Federation with them

 

[erastus25]

I'm going to throw the Kzinti from the Slaver Weapon into the conversation. Part of the problem is we only saw them for one episode, but they sure come off as pure evil.

 

[Hypaspist]

The Kzinti in the Known Space (where Trek borrowed them from) books are basically what the Klingons would become in TNG. They are obsessed with honor and can't understand why humans would want to make scientific voyages for scientific purposes alone. The only thing they have that Klingons don't are telepaths.
I think that the original Klingons are pretty much exactly what the Cardassians would become. They conquer planets, extort them for resources, and conscript their population for whatever they need of them.

 

[erastus25]

The Kzinti in the Known Space (where Trek borrowed them from) books are basically what the Klingons would become in TNG. They are obsessed with honor and can't understand why humans would want to make scientific voyages for scientific purposes alone. The only thing they have that Klingons don't are telepaths.
I think that the original Klingons are pretty much exactly what the Cardassians would become. They conquer planets, extort them for resources, and conscript their population for whatever they need of them.

Yeah, the Kzinti similarities to the 24th C Klingons really stand out - even after only 24 minutes. It makes me wonder if some of the writers looked to Niven for inspiration when they were forming Klingon culture in TNG.

And I never made the TOS Klingon:Cardassian connection. That's a great analysis!