KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

seriously rob, that should be number one. not just the meme, but the sheer loathsomeness of the guy.

besides, DOMINIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, now does it?

Really surprised Khan doesn't take the list. And I also have to say that I am surprised more of the original Trek villains aren't higher up. And how does Q not make the top 5? I mean without Q there is no Borg.

My top 3;
3. Borg
2. Q
1. Khan

Hey I've got an idea: post the results to the GI Joe contest.

We could easily make a list of the most absurd Trek villains too.

Personally, I think Weyoun deserved a space all on his own, but I totally agree that the Dominion rates over Khan. Khan just made life difficult for Kirk. The Dominion tried to take over the entire fucking Alpha Quadrant. If the Borg had more interesting characters in their collective, however, they'd be number 1 in my book. If only for the most awesome catchphrase ever! "You will be assimilated, Resistance is futile."

DS9 is my favorite of all the Treks, but even I think Khan deserves to be #1. His obsession with James T. Kirk is rivaled only by Dukat's obsession with Sisko. #2 is Gul Dukat. As bad as the Dominion is as the polar opposite of the Federation, it's an organization and group of adversaries, but it was the individuals of that group namely the Female Changling and the Vorta Weyoun who really defined villany. DS9 has the best and most complex villains of any Trek series. I think that's what gives it a true good versus evil feel that contributed to its powerful and emotional storytelling. DS9 is truly an epic saga. Every major protagonist had an equally menacing antagonist. Sisko, Kira, and the Prophets had Dukat, Kai Winn, and the Pah-wraiths. The Federation and the Alpha Quadrant had the Dominion and the Gamma Quadrant. The Klingons had the Jem'Hadar. Odo had the Founders and the Female Changling. Quark had Brunt.

I'm just amazed at how many DS:9 villains are on this list. Not that I disagree, none of the other Treks meant much to me after watching the entire DS:9 run. Glad to see other people give the series at least some kind of respect.

How are the Borg not number one!? They are the perfect sci-fi baddies. Hell, they violated Picard! He cries in pure rage when he can't be allowed to destroy them!

The Borg should top this list, and every list of the best Sci-Fi (Star Trek and everything else) villains ever.

Yeah, all due respect to Q, The Borg, and Khan, but The Dominion was essentially the anti-Federation, a whole system of union between aliens who weren't seeking out new life and new civilizations, but to conquer and supress all who would oppose them. And the Founders doing it not necessarily out of a desire to rule, but rather out of fear that if they don't act first, others would do the same to them, made them almost sympathetic, until you remember episodes like "The Quickening" where they infected an entire race with a disease that kept them alive to breed and propogate, but only to die an incredibly painful death that hospitals were set up only to allow them to die pain free. Sure, the Borg assimilate against your will and Q can snap you out of existance with but a thought, but damn, dying a slow painful death for an entire world is just wrong.

Re: Lursa and B'Etor: There's this girl my friends and I refer to as "Klingon Tits", because every shirt she owns shows off the Moons of Kronos. (Sorry for that overly Geeky joke, but sometimes you need to go the extra mile here).

Not sure having both groups and individuals on the list does either justice.

Crazed Captain Ronald Tracey from "The Omega Glory" is an underrated baddie. The Talosians deserved a nod, even if their intentions weren't evil per se.

Also, Nero blows. There hasn't been a decent Trek movie villain since at least Dr. Soran.

There are four lights! Oh man, I can't help myself sometimes. =P

I personally blame Khan for much of my geek-related problems.

Every time I'm at a convention and someone asks me my name, well I tell them. But when they hear my LAST name they always...ALWAYS have to yell it out, and say something stupid like "Oh man! As in 'Wrath Of?' Hor hor hor!!" And I've never watched a single episode of Star Trek in my entire life, so I have to listen to this idiot go on and on about some sci-fi show I'd never watch.

So, with this, I say curse you Khan Noonien Singh. You truly are the worst villain in all of Star Trek.

I'm glad you didn't refer to Kai Winn as an evil Pope-like character, since all Popes are inherently evil.

Wow, the Dominion as #1, did not see that coming. I thought for sure #1 would go to Rick Berman; that man hates Star Trek fans more than anyone…

Geez, somebody likes DS9.

The Dominion at number one? Get the fuck outta here!

Wow... never even heard of #1 before.

As a huge DS9 fan, I thought Dukat was a little too high. Yes, he's the long-running and most multi-faceted villain in Trek, but he never seemed to transition from father to freedom fighter to dictator (etc.) very smoothly. There was kind of a "Dukat of the week" flavor to his many sides, unfortunately. Other than his stint as patriotic insurgent against the Klingons, all of his changes seemed like mirrors of Sisko rather than facets of Dukat.

With a chest so perfectly waxed, how could Khan not be #1?

And yeah, I just think it's sad anything from DS9 ended up as #1, just cause it's from DS9. If it's not a Stuart or Shatner antagonist, I don't care.

I wonder how much Spock prime is going to tell these people about the future. I mean, it's not his universe, so he's technically not creating paradoxes. We have to assume that, despite the fact that Nero was an ass, Spock's probably still going to make sure that Romulus isn't destroyed. But what else?

"Guys, in about a hundred or so years you're going to run into some cybernetic monster creatures. They're gonna be a bitch. Captain Archer should've already met some. You're definitely going to want to be prepared for that. Also, speaking of cybernetic creatures, when V'Ger shows up, it just wants to bond with it's "maker". We can save a lot of time and energy, not to mention unnecessary death, by nipping that in the bud"

I can following the reasoning for #1, but I do feel that Khan still deserves that spot, since, if he had not been so wonderfully badass in that movie, that would have been the end of the Star Trek revival right there, and almost none of the villains on this list would have happened at all. (Seriously, people expected Wrath of Khan to tank after the lukewarm reception that the Motion Picture got, but they were more than pleasantly surprised, and Khan himself had a lot to do with that.)

Disregard any entries about Dee Space 9. That series was an awful rip-off of Babylon 5. The fact is that JMS shopped the series at Paramount and they got to see the writer's bible. They turn the show down and then Deep Space 9 starts stinking up the air. Thankfully Babylon 5 got made.

The borg used to be cool, but then it's tough to write unstoppable, faceless, emotionless villains in reoccurring rolls. So they were downgraded and given a face. A queen? Fuck, that completely undermines the whole premise.

First two or so episodes of the Borg? Unbelievably cool. Every appearance afterward? Fuck the borg.

FYI, The Dominion were written to be the foil of the Federation. Federation = freedom, working together and exploration. Dominion = slavery, manipulation and conquest. The Dominion = Soviet Union Federation = Western Block Come to think of it DS9 was a "What If" of WW3.

Dude no Romulans, seriously? Other than that, awesome list. A lot of memories brought back. And I learned a whole lot too. And there I thought I was like the ultimate Star Trek nerd.

... KIVAS. FREAKING. FAJO. How could Rob have missed him? Anyone who makes DATA think "Yup, this motherf*cker's gotta die" deserves a ranking over the Klingon zit...

F*** that J.J. Abrams bull****!That ostensible reboot was as weak as a preemie mouse with diarrhea.

The Dominion deserves #1.

A great list, missing a few but still awesome. However Dukat should be #1.

couldn't help but notice more villains from TNG then TOS. But I guess that's fair. TOS had by FAR the best crew. I guess it's fair that TNG had some better villains, despite being an inferior show to the original.

I know that the tranyaholic Balock wasn't a villian, but his "avatar" bust scared the crap out of me as a kid. Couldn't look at it when "The Corbomite Maneuver" was on or even in the end credits when it would pop up.

You completely ignored Annorax from the Voyager episodes "Year of Hell" - the jerk built a timeship and spent 200 years wiping whole civilizations out of existence to try to bring his wife back. And technically, killed Janeway in an alternate timeline (OK - maybe that wasn't bad).

So glad to see other people who like DS9. No other series has so fully embraced the issues of morality, religion and war. Glad to see Dukat and The Dominion ranks so high.

The DS9 episode Waltz is one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek. Watching Dukat's madness crystalize like that was great.

Shinzon should have made the list.
Say what you want about TNG movies, Nemesis was the only good one. And it was the only good one largely because the main villain actually had some form of character development/personality.
First Contact would have worked just fine without the Borg Queen. Really. Imagine she wasn't in the movie. Not so hard huh?
Insurrection... wrinkly old guy right? Yeah, useless. Take him out, movie still works perfectly.
Sauron from Generations was an 'ok' villain. The movie would not have worked without him, but he was totally devoid of any depth or thought other than "Holy shit, I have to get into the Nexus. Fuck."

Shinzon gave Nemesis a villain that was not only unique and interesting, but one which grew and changed. He was a pivotal part of the story, and he also added an internal struggle for Picard. Could Picard really become as evil as his clone? What would it take to push him over the edge? Not to mention the "Oh snap, this is what it's like to have a son" angle they played.

tl;dr: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Wait, was that a fan clip or was there really plans for a DS9 movie at one point?

I liked DS9, an was sad that my local stations moved it so often I only got to see bits and pieces of the last 3 seasons.

dude... fuck Nero... if we were going off the comics maybe he could be there but via the flick... fuck him and fuck Eric Bana cause that role could have been given to anyone

What, no Trelayne?

First Contact, which was kind of Star Trek meets Cronenberg, is the best of TNG films and should have been the Borg's last appearance. After that they were overused, diluted, made sexy, and turned into a punching bag. Since then it's hard to recall how startlingly un-cheesy for TV sci-fi and novel their design was, like a space cenobite designed by H.R. Giger. And instead of prattling on in some stereotypical robotic voice the Borg stated their demands with ruthless simplicity. As mentioned, the Borg Queen, with her verbosity and individuality, did contradict what we knew of the Borg, but First Contact should have been a final reveal that the Borg drones were manipulated and exploited pawns rather than an egalitarian collective.

The destruction of the parasites and their host in #18 was one of the most hardcore things shown on television up to that time. People sometimes forget that before CSI and its clones it was unheard of to graphically depict a human character's head being blown off and the exposure of their eviscerated trunk, much less show a foul worm-like parasite emerging from their remains.

Notable missing villains:

1) The Crystaline Entity from TNG;

2) Species 8472 from Voyager.

They were cool.

You people are all overlooking a villainy far greater than anything the Borg could produce after assimilating the Dominion at the command of the Pah-Wraiths.

Tribbles.

Kind of off-topic, but if DS9 was more prevalent today, would that mean we'd be getting some kind of parody of the crap that MTV chooses to show and have a video entitled "Keeping Up With the Cardassians"?

I really don't get the love for Khan. He talks a good game, but the worst thing he really did was stick a bug in Chekhov's ear. He didn't even have a real showdown with Kirk in the end. He just quoted Moby Dick until he blew up unceremoniously.

The Borg, yeah. They were cool and scary up until cuddly Hugh came along, and were made worse by the addition of a Queen (the Borg are a virus, not bees!), even further worse by the sheer number of Cubes Voyager could take down (when one had destroyed most of the Federation at one point), and the final nail in their coffin was Species 8472.

Fuck Nero. What a poorly acted, irrational, lame villain, who was a complete knock-off of Khan, who, as I said, wasn't that great of a villain to begin with. He was only effective because all the characters in Nu-Trek were morons.

Other than that, the list was pretty good, though I would have liked to see Tomalok make the list, even if he and Picard never had a proper reckoning.

The Dominion struck me as a great idea (a sort of evil, anti-Federation), but utterly flawed in execution.

That said, this isn't a list of "most powerful Trek villains," it's greatest, and frankly, I still think Khan reigns supreme. The only one I'd place above Khan are the Borg, in fact.

Also, the Klingons are very underrepresented. Sure, you have Chang and Kruge, but what about Lursa and B'etor (pre-Generations, which does in fact deserve its maligning), Kang, and Kor?

And count me among the Nero dislikers. Changing the timeline and destroying Vulcan doesn't make a villain compelling.

Uh, "Armus" and the candle from "Sub Rosa", but no Species 8472? WTF, mate? :)

WOAH! Wasn't Peter Weller ROBOCOP!!!

Star Treks greatest villains were the Pakleds.

Think about it. You've never met anyone like any of the villains on this list, but you meet Pakleds every day. They have infiltrated the Earth just to make you daily life a living hell.

They get your order wrong. They can't make change. They bag your ice cream on top of your cereal box. They drive thirty in the left lane. They want the government to keep its hands off their Medicare. They are why Firefly got one season while Two and a Half Men is still on your TV.

Pakleds!

While this is list is good.. There are glaring wretched flaws that shame me for coming to this site and that should shame the writer of this list for composing it.
The fucking Dominion as number 1?
Where's Mudd's Women?
How about the Crystalline Entity?
What about the Planet Destroyer from Classic Star Trek or V-Ger?
How about Species 8472 or the Hirugen?
Perhaps Annorax one of those deep villian but not villian characters?

It's a good list but things like Worf's Zit wasn't a necessity nor was the Holodeck... Perhaps a bit more work and less failed attempts at humor or ridiculous by Cummings would have made this a truly grand list.

Wait a sec, what about Kavok?!?!?

Experience Bij!

I enjoyed the comments as much as the list of villains.

Personally i think Gul dukat was the best, certainly over the cyborg zombies of the borg. He was a character given just as much development as his antithetical heroic counterpart.
He didnt just show up in season finale's to be a threat. sometimes he was an ally, sometimes funny, just as much as he was an angry, closeminded dictator.
The performance was superb and there are few sci-fi villains who, when they made there final bad decision actually made you feel for them for falling even further from grace, so to speak..

Nice list, but it was done in more depth in Star Trek Magazine #22, cover date December 2009. Though they only had the top 10 villains.
Maybe that's where the idea for this list came from. ;)

I also take issue with the idea that Insurrection was the worst movie. It was supposed to be light in tone, compared to the previous movie, First Contact. And let's face it, if it had made as little money as Nemesis, maybe there wouldn't have been Nemesis!

For all the arguments that Berman killed Star Trek, the bottom line is that Nemesis didn't make enough money for Paramount (or didn't make it's money back or whatever) so the studio stopped making the movies.
It finally took J.J. Abrams to convince the studio that he could bring Star Trek back to life.

even though Khan got beat out by the dominion on this list glad to see he took his spot in the top five for if Khan can not be number one then he should have been number two. and glad Dukat made the top five for that guy was one of the nastiest bs in all of star trek. but would have had the borg number one for nothing scarier then a villain that adapts to every thing thrown at it and comes back like a mechanical cock roach that can not be killed plus resistance is futile is still scary to hear .

Too much DS9 favoritism in this list. There's no way Khan should have been anything but #1. Also, Nemesis was an even worse movie than Insurrection.

How can anything from deep space nine come out as number one in any category of anything?

just as much as he was an angry, closeminded dictator.
The performance was superb and there are few sci-fi villains who, when they made there final bad decision actually made you feel for them for falling even further from grace, so to speak..
www.gucciusaoutlet.com

Robocop wanted Earth to be free from non-human life forms? WTF did he think he was going to eat? Irish babies?

I was a kid when Kirk fought that Dinasaur looking thing, I had nightmares for months after that. Still creeps me out when I see it.

A big question is how you evaluate your villains--for entertainment and/or dramatic purposes, or by the destructive potential? They're really two different lists. I'm also really surprised to see neither Squire Trelane or the Borg Queen made the list. The Talosians were awfully memorable, too.

...for that matter, if you rank Nero high for changing Trek history, doesn't it follow that the #1 position should be held by the truck that ran over Edith Keeler?

No love for Commander Tamalak? He threatened to display the hull of the Enterprise in the Romulan Senate as a war trophy. You just don't find that kind of bad guy bravado anymore.

That Darth Vader was pretty cool too

Watch DS9, the villains were much better written on that show. I disagree that Q was a villain, sure he wasn't nice but imagine if the Borg had found the Federation before Q flung them into the path of a cube. The Feds would have been completely caught off guard and probably had their asses handed to them in no time flat. But he flung the big E into the path of a cube and then flung them back after Picard admitted he was in over his head. When starfleet hears that a single ship kicked the ass of their flagship, I would imagine someone started putting some plans into motion on how to deal with this. His other antics, while annoying for the crew weren't really bad.

L'hursa daughter of Duras actually called Beverly Crusher ugly on the 'Generations' movie. They were such fun villains!

Jeffrey Combs also played 'Shran' on Star Trek: Enterprise. He made Enterprise watchable. I loved to hate his oily 'Weyoun' character.

Fuck you, the Gorn in Enterprise was far superior. It actually made those rubber suit fuckers scary. Who cares if the CGI was network tv level....it was on a freaking network tv show.

I also second Jeffery Combs as Shran, even though he became a good guy.

Bold move, but understandable.

If one wants to mention some more memorable TOS villains (beyond Captain Tracy, Trelane, and Balok, who were already mentioned), here's a partial list, in no particular order:

Kodos the Executioner (aka Karidian).

Dr. Tristan Adams (the guy with the memory machine in "Dagger of the Mind").

Kor (our first Klingon, from "Errand of Mercy", and still the best of the TOS Klingons).

The political leaders of Eminiar and Vendikar, who used a computer to wage their interplanetary war for 500 years and forced their population to step into disintegration chambers to satisfy the simulations.

The Vampire Cloud.

The Giant Amoeba.

The race that built the Doomsday Machine.

Those sadistic quasi-Grecians in "Plato's Stepchildren".

There are others, but it's late and I've got to get some sleep. But here's one more villain to throw out there... T'Pring.

Yes, T'Pring - who was perfectly willing to have Spock kill Kirk in "Amok Time" in order to keep Stonn.

Star Trek villains from 1-3

1) Q

2) Trellane

3) Borg

Now I feel really bad, I never noticed it until someone mentioned it before (and I went back to re-watch the movies) but Jeffrey Combs is freaking amazing. I love the Re-Animator movies and Weyoun was a great character...even after they brought in the whole I am a clone defecting to the Fed fighting against myself because I die all the time story.