For characters who debuted in Star Trek: The Original Series, see Characters.Star Trek The Original Series
For characters who debuted in Star Trek: The Next Generation, see Characters.Star Trek The Next Generation
Dr. Tolian Soran
Dr. Tolian Soran
"They say time is the fire in which we burn."
Played By: Malcolm McDowell
Dubbed in French by: Alain Choquet
An El-Aurian scientist hell bent on returning to Nexus even if it means destroying entire planets and their inhabitants in process.
- Badass Longcoat: Wears a black longcoat over a black uniform, which by sheer coincidence makes his outfit look remarkably similar to the villain of Star Trek Into Darkness.
- The Bad Guy Wins: A strange, arguable, temporal case. Soran manages to defeat Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D, destroy the Veridian system and make it inside the Nexus, completing his Evil Plan, and is somewhere in which time and space have no meaning and no outside changes would effect him. As such, the original version of Soran is possibly still inside the Nexus even after Picard and Kirk go back in time to Veridian III to stop him and alter the timeline in the primary universe.
- Big Bad: He is the head villain for this particular film.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: He smugly orders around bloodthirsty Klingons because he knows Lursa and B'Etor want his trilithium research in order to conquer the Klingon Empire.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He knows that Picard considers him a madman, but he doesn't care. He also chuckles at the thought of Picard trying to stop his "horrific plan".
- Cynicism Catalyst: He tells Picard he was once as peaceful as can be, but his experience with the Borg taught him that death is the only constant in the universe.
- Evil Plan: His objective is to destroy the entire Veridian system in order to safely enter the Nexus and be reunited with his family, millions of innocents be damned.
- Hero Killer: The man who causes the death of the legendary Captain James Tiberius Kirk.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Gets blown up by his own rocket when it tries to launch with the locking clamps engaged.
- Human Alien: Soran is an El-Aurian, the same race as Guinan. Aside from a much longer lifespan they are identical to humans.
- Immortality Immorality and It's All About Me: Soran is willing to sacrifice up to the entire population of Veridian IV- a pre-industrial society of approximately two hundred and thirty million, according to Data- just to get back into the Nexus himself.
- Mad Scientist: He's developed a weapon capable of blowing up stars, simply for the purpose of returning to the Nexus.
- Manipulative Bastard: Convinces Picard to let him back onto the space station, seemingly by using his El-Aurian abilities to sense and exploit Picard's grief over the death of his brother's family.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Soran has developed the means of destroying star, and has offered it to the Duras sisters as a weapon.
- Noodle Incident: When Picard says there has to be some other way to enter the Nexus, Soran simply states he spent 80 years trying to no avail.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Soran is entirely unswayed by Captain Picard's usual attempted moral speech to talk him out of what he is doing, easily defeats him in a fist fight and succeeds in his Evil Plan to enter the Nexus. In the process, his machinations are responsible for the destruction of the Enterprise-D and the death of Captain James T. Kirk.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Soran is so desperate to return to his family and the peace of the Nexus that he doesn't care if he has to kill all life in the Veridian system to do so.
- Shadow Archetype:
- To Guinan. Being the same race, both experiencing the Nexus, they essentially share a backstory. Soran is what happens when those mystical powers are used for evil instead, as well as what happens when someone fails to move on after a tragedy as Guinan did.
- And with Picard. They are both scarred by encounters with the Borg, and have lost their families. Soran is willing to let others die to get what he wants, Picard isn't.
- Straw Nihilist: After his homeworld's destruction, he's haunted by the inevitability of death, to the point that he no longer cares who suffers from his plan to return to the Nexus.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The Enterprise crew rescue him after the attack on the Amargosa station, and he repays them by nearly getting them killed. Twice.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: If what he said to Picard was true, he claims he wouldn't have hurt a fly before his world was destroyed.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He lost his homeworld and family to the Borg, and then he lost his ideal fantasy in the Nexus when he was beamed aboard the Enterprise-B. He's now willing to destroy entire solar systems as part of The Plan to return to the Nexus.
- Would Hit a Girl: He hits B'Etor in the face for the Klingon crew not covering their tracks and causing the Romulans to come looking for their missing trilithium.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: His brief time in the Nexus reunited him with his beloved family. After being ripped back out by the Enterprise-B's transporters, he's begging to go back and gets sedated.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Defied. He has a tenuous alliance with Lursa and B'Etor; they get him what materials he needs in exchange for learning how to make their own trilithium weapons, but he doesn't trust them for a second. Soran gives them a chip with all the information, but it's coded, and he won't tell them how to unlock it until he's safely on Veridian III's surface.
John Harriman
Captain John Harriman
Played By: Alan Ruck
Dubbed in French by: Charles Borg
The Captain of the Enterprise-B.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When it's clear that he's in way over his head, he asks Kirk for advice.
- Ascended Fanboy: He makes it quite clear that he is a huge fan of Kirk.
- Ensign Newbie: How this dweeb got command of the Enterprise-B is anyone's guess. He gets better in the novels and comics though.
- Hero of Another Story: He and the Enterprise-B crew would have expanded universe stories of their own, which help improve his reputation.
- Innocently Insensitive: Doesn't seem to realize how mentioning he studied Kirk at the academy is making the man feel old.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Harriman is likely a captain with a considerable reputation to have received command of the latest Enterprise, but he feels overwhelmed by the situation he finds himself in and swiftly asks Kirk for advice.
Demora Sulu
Ensign Demora Sulu
Played By: Jacqueline Kim
Dubbed in French by: Hélène Chanson
The helmsman of the Enterprise-B and the daughter of Captain Hikaru Sulu.
- The Captain's Daughter
- Character Development: She moves her way up to become captain of the Enterprise in the expanded universe just like her dad who also commands an Excelsior-class starship.
- Generation Xerox: "It wouldn't be the Enterprise without a Sulu at the helm."
- Remember the New Guy?: At no point in any of the preceding movies or series had Sulu ever mentioned her, or that he had a family in the first place. Kirk speaks for all of us.Kirk: When did Sulu find time to start a family?Scotty: If something's important, you make the time.
Enterprise-B
U.S.S. Enterprise-B
NCC-1701-B
The third Federation starship to bear the name.
- The Alleged Starship: Most of the ship's critical systems aren't actually installed for the shakedown cruise.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Her first "appearance" was actually decades after she was removed from service as a wall model adorning the Enterprise-D's observation lounge. This model appeared on TNG years before Generations was made.
- Hero of Another Story: Despite a disastrous test flight, the Enterprise-B would have a distinguished service.
- Irony: According to novels B has the longest service life of any of the Enterprise ships, lasting at least 50 years before her ultimate fate becomes unknown. She also has the shortest onscreen time of all of them, she only features in the prologue sequence of Generations, only about 15 minutes. Her successor the Enterprise-C also makes a single appearance of one episode of TNG but is at least the major focus of that episode. In contrast, Enterprise-D has the longest screentime of all of them (7 seasons of a TV show, one film, and two episodes of another show) but the shortest service life.
- The Only One: Perhaps the most egregious example in the franchise. The Big E-B departs Earth for a routine shakedown cruise and picks up a distress call. Despite being close to the capital of the Federation and headquarters of Starfleet, the Enterprise is the only one that can respond.
- Running Gag: The system that Kirk needs right now to save the refugees? It won't be installed until Tuesday.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: This is the only past Enterprise we don't know the canonical fate of. Generations is her only appearance and she's last seen limping back to port after being damaged by the Nexus.
- Expanded media, in the form of the reference book USS Enterprise Owners' Workshop Manual, states that the ship was lost in deep space after the crew contracted some unknown infection in 2329.
