Characters / Star Trek: The Next Generation - Other Recurring Cast

Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Character Index
Main Characters (Jean-Luc Picard) | Recurring Crew | Other Recurring Characters

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Bok

Bok

Played By: Frank Corsentino (1987), Lee Arenberg (1994)

A Ferengi DaiMon who approaches the Enterprise crew with the promise of opening up a proper trading relationship between their peoples, and offers them Picard's salvaged former command, the Stargazer as a token of goodwill. In reality, he's out to avenge the death of his son at Picard's hands.

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• Berserk Button: Data unwittingly hits it when he reveals that Picard and the Stargazer crew had no idea that the ship which attacked them belonged to the Ferengi, most likely because the two races hadn't officially made first contact yet. Bok, who has been plotting revenge for close to a decade, is momentarily enraged to discover that both Picard and Starfleet in general think so little of the thing he's seeking revenge for.
• Best Served Cold: At the time of his first appearance, he's been plotting revenge on Picard for close to a decade. He then spends another half-decade in prison, and as soon as he buys his way out his first instinct is to... plot revenge on Picard yet again.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted; Bok might not have any standards, but his crews certainly do, resulting in them mutinying against him in both his appearances. Though it doesn't help that his second crew found out they were being scammed into thinking they would get a non-existent ransom fee.
• Long Bus Trip: His first appearance is in the eighth episode of the series. His second and final appearance comes in the fourth-to-last episode of the series.
• Mind Rape: His initial attempt at getting revenge on Picard has him use a thought-controlling device to make him relive the Battle of Maxia over and over, and then actually act it out again, this time with the Enterprise in place of the Ferengi ship.
• Revenge Before Reason: Bok's decades-long attempts to destroy Picard and avenge the death of his son in a tragic accident ruin him, both fiscally and socially. Ferengi as a species largely see revenge (or at least, revenge as an end result) as an unprofitable enterprise.
• Revenge by Proxy: An incredibly convoluted example. Because Picard doesn't actually have a family of his own — and presumably because killing Robert and/or Rene would be too difficult — Bok tricks Picard into thinking he has a long-lost son, so that he can get a suitable retribution by killing him.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: In what is apparently a pretty standard move for the Ferengi legal system, he manages to get himself out of jail early by paying a massive fine to cover the rest of his prison sentence. Unfortunately for him, this leaves him without enough money to hire a crew for his second revenge scheme against Picard, and so he dupes them into thinking he's going to get a ransom out of Picard, leading to everything blowing up when it turns out that all he intended to do was just kill Jason Vigo.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: In contrast to the other Ferengi seen on this show (and later DS9), who try to play up their Large Ham behavior to try and appear more threatening, Bok is much more calm and controlled in his first appearance, only raising his voice firstly when Data accidentally hits his Berserk Button, and then when giving his Motive Rant to Picard near the end. He's also, for the most part, a much more dangerous foe than the other Ferengi seen in TNG's run.
• You Killed My Father: Inverted; Bok wants revenge for the death of his son, and is willing to go to any lengths to get it.

Duras

Duras

Played By: Patrick Massett

"His heart is not Klingon."

A Klingon politician whose father was a rival of Worf's before the Khitomer Massacre in which both men were killed, due to Duras' father betraying his people to the Romulans. When this information is discovered years later, Duras persuades the Klingon High Council to blame Worf's father instead of his (since he's powerful enough to start a civil war in the Empire if they don't do what he wants). This sets Worf up to be stigmatized and, under Klingon law, executed as the son of a traitor. When Worf challenges this, Duras not only does everything he can to make Worf's father look guilty, but also attempts to have Worf's brother and Picard assassinated for supporting him. In the end, after Worf and Picard learn the truth, Worf agrees to accept discommendation in order to keep the Empire from falling apart; this means that he admits his guilt and accepts lifelong ostracization from all other Klingons. Worf, quite understandably, holds a grudge against Duras for this.

Later, Duras is suspected of poisoning the Klingon head of state and his former co-conspirator in burying the truth about Khitomer, K'mpec, in order to usurp K'mpec's position. This is an extremely dishonorable method of killing among the Proud Warrior Race of Klingons, and K'mpec urges Picard to not only determine who should succeed him, but discover whether Duras or another Klingon in a position to succeed him—Gowron—did the deed, as anybody who would do such a thing cannot be trusted to rule the Empire. Duras not only attempts to have Gowron killed with a bomb, but does kill Worf's love interest, K'Ehleyr, when the latter starts digging into his past and accuses him of being the son of a traitor and framing Worf. Worf, upon finding K'Ehleyr near death and learning that Duras is responsible, goes after Duras and kills him in single combat.

This wouldn't be the end of the Duras family causing trouble, though, as he had a couple of sisters who picked up right where he left off...

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• Asshole Victim: In "The Mind's Eye," the Klingon ambassador Kell tells Worf that he did a service in killing Duras, saying that some High Council members were apprehensive about him getting named Chancellor. Kell is actually a secret Romulan ally who's trying to manipulate and butter up Worf, but the fact that his sisters' attempts to seize power cause a whole civil war suggest he was mixing in a bit of truth on that one.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Tries to pin the Khitomer Massacre on Worf's father, Mogh, which would, in turn, get Worf pinned as well. He had hoped Worf wouldn't notice, but alas, things didn't work out that well.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Duras is a legitimately good swordsman, and his opponent would've been a fat old man. If he hadn't bothered trying to poison Chancellor K'mpec, but jumped straight to the assassination, he had a good shot. This can partly be chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness, as it wouldn't be firmly established until Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that Klingon Promotion applies to the chancellorship just as much as it does any other position in the empire. That said a rightful challenge requires the challenged party to have committed some offense (cowardice, betrayal, serious dereliction of duty, etc.). It's possible K'mpec never gave Duras anything Duras could use for an honorable challenge.
• Dirty Coward: By Klingon standards, anyway. He tries to get out of fighting Gowron for leadership of the Empire by trying to have Gowron killed with a bomb. He often uses assassins to dispatch his enemies instead of doing his own dirty work, notably when he tries to have Worf's brother Kurn killed; Duras gives Kurn an ultimatum, and then when Kurn turns him down, Duras walks away to safety and leaves his men to dispatch Kurn. His only personal murder is K'Ehleyr, who was apparently no match for him (she's only half-Klingon). During his fight against Worf, which he only accepted because K'Ehleyr was Worf's mate, he tries to talk his way out of it when Worf gets the upper hand by saying that he's the only one who can ever prove Worf's innocence and he can't do that if he's dead. In addition, he killed Chancellor K'mpec with poison^note Word of God is that Duras was the murderer and the writers didn't realize that they never explicitly stated that until fans asked them who did it, which Klingons consider to be the weapon of cowards.
• Frame-Up: What he tries to do to Worf.
• Hate Sink: Cowardly, arrogant, traitorous, and vicious, Duras represents the very worst the Klingon Empire has to offer.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Worf stabs him right in the sternum.
• Jerkass: Not content to just thank his lucky stars that he isn't being condemned as the son of a traitor, he does everything he can to insult, demean, and smear the guy who is condemned as such, Worf. That would be enough by itself, and when combined with his evil actions he becomes an incredible Jerkass.
• Karmic Death: Worf kills Duras in revenge for Duras killing K'Ehleyr. A huge no-no for a Starfleet officer, but Worf escapes punishment since it happened under Klingon jurisdiction where such honor killings are legal.
• Killed Off for Real: By Worf.
• Leave No Witnesses: He tried very hard to make sure everybody who knew his dirty little secret was dead. This eventually got him killed.
• Minored in Ass-Kicking: While usually too much of a Dirty Coward to fight when he doesn't have to, his performance against Worf shows that he's a pretty good with a sword.
• No True Scotsman: He invokes this in other Klingons, especially Worf — Duras' preference to use political manipulation, assassins, and poison to get rid of his enemies is a far cry from typical Klingon traditions and courage. To say nothing of his family's history of consorting with Romulans to advance their own power at the cost of the Klingon Empire's strength.
• Oh, Crap!: When Worf reveals that K'Ehleyr was his mate, since the right to avenge one's mate supersedes any dishonor, even discommendation.
• Smug Snake: His arrogance never wavers, even as his plans fall apart.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Chancellor K'mpec protected Duras from condemnation as the son of a traitor. Duras would pay him back by poisoning him.
• Villainous Lineage: Turns out that Duras was collaborating with the Romulans before his death, just like his father did, and just as his sisters do later. Star Trek: Enterprise shows his ancestor was a Jerkass as well, though the 22nd century Duras was at least loyal to the Klingon Empire (which is more than can be said for his namesake).
• Would Hit a Girl: Would beat her to death because she knows too much, in fact.

The Duras Sisters

Lursa and B'Etor

Played By: Barbara March and Gwynyth Walsh

A pair of Klingon troublemakers who consider themselves entitled to rule the Empire. They are the sisters of the late Duras, and they try to get their brother's illegitimate son installed as ruler of the Empire. This touched off the Klingon Civil War, which Picard put a quick stop to, resulting in Gowron's consolidation of power. The duo later turned up on Deep Space Nine, selling guns to the Maquis to recoup their losses.

The Duras sisters, like Kruge before them, have the honor of blowing up Enterprise in the first TNG film. Riker blew up their ship in kind.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: B'Etor's drooling over Worf.
• Big Bad Wannabe: While arguably more dangerous than their late brother, they never manage to become a serious threat without outside help; their war against Gowron is bolstered by Romulan support, and once that is gone, they cut their losses. In Generations, they're acting as muscle for Soran in the hopes of using his trilithium research as a weapon to conquer the Klingon Empire, but he's clearly smarter than they are, and even the fatal damage they inflict on the Enterprise is only possible because of Soran's efforts.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The sisters don't seem to place much value on loyalty. Having basically sold the Empire out to the Romulans in their attempt to seize power, they go on to betray their erstwhile allies as well by stealing a top-secret weapon, killing everyone at the outpost where it was being stored in the process.
• Cleavage Window: Apparently much like Ricardo Montalban in The Wrath of Khan those were not prosthetic chests.
• Co-Dragons: To Soran in Generations; while Soran does need their resources and muscle, the Duras sisters are reliant on his trilithium research to get their hands on a weapon to help them conquer the Klingon Empire. As such, they can't simply kill Soran when he throws his weight around. Fittingly, while Soran is facing off with Picard, the Duras Sisters are contending with the Enterprise under Riker's command.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For all their faults, the sisters do care about each other, even if that affection doesn't quite extend to their brother or his illegitimate son; as they're about to die in Generations, they turn to look at each other in shock and concern.
• Evil Uncle: They have no affection whatsoever for their nephew Toral. When their plans to install him as a puppet king fall apart, they abandon him.
• Femme Fatale: B'Etor is the younger sister, and tends to hit on whatever male character the sisters are "enticing" in an attempt to gain leverage.
• Killed Off for Real: In Generations.
• The Man Behind the Man: This is what they wanted to set themselves up as; being female, neither of them would be allowed to rule the Klingon Empire. Their nephew was allowed to make a claim to the position, being male, but he was nothing more than their puppet.
• Ms. Fanservice: Many fans have fond memories of their "boob windows". B'Etor in particular is very... flirty.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: They did manage to take out the Federation Flagship while riding in an antique.
• Oh, Crap!: During the battle with the Enterprise in Generations, they're understandably shocked and fearful to learn that their ship is unexpectedly cloaking and dropping shields.
• The Quisling: They are happy to sell out the Klingon Empire to the Romulans for their support in their attempted power-grab. They're not exactly loyal to the Romulans either, however, gladly murdering a number of them to steal some experimental trilithium so as to get their hands on a weapon that they could use to conquer the Empire themselves.
• Shadow Dictator: Klingon women can't rule openly, so they hope to install Duras's out-of-wedlock prepubescent son as Chancellor and rule through him as a Puppet King.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Downplayed. Although they're ambitious and double-dealing, Lursa, the elder sister, tends to act more straightforward while addressing their enemies, while B'etor isn't above acting flirtatiously towards them.
• Those Two Guys: We never seem to see them apart.
• We Can Rule Together: Offered to Worf, who rejects them.
• You Have Failed Me: The way they simply beam out and leave their puppet child Toral to his fate. Sucks to be you, petaQ!

Enterprise-C

The fourth starship in The Federation and the fifth in Starfleet to bear the prestigious name Enterprise, this Ambassador class vessel was commanded by Captain Rachel Garrett. In 2344, the ship was sadly lost at Narendra III, defending a Klingon Outpost from Romulan invaders. Her sacrifice helped to ease tensions with the Klingon Empire, resulting a strengthening of their alliance. However, in 2366, the C was temporarily displaced from the timeline, resulting in a Bad Future where the Klingons had almost wiped The Federation out, leading to a moral dilemma that forced Picard to decide whether or not to send the ship back.

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• All There in the Manual: The novel Well of Souls claims she was launched in 2332, with Rachel Garrett as her commanding officer from the beginning.
• Ambadassador: She's Ambassador-class, and she gives four Romulan warbirds a serious fight.
• Back from the Dead: In a rare instance where she caused this to happen, the C being brought into 2366 results in Tasha Yar being resurrected, as the timeline alterations meant she never died at Armus' hands. However, when she volunteers to go back in time with the C, she's made a Sex Slave after the crew is captured, and dies anyway trying to sneak her Child by Rape Sela out of their imprisonment.
• Bad Future:
  • Being sent into the future alters history, resulting in the Klingons deciding to wipe out the "cowards" in Starfleet for failing to save their outpost. They almost wiped out all of Starfleet.
  • Star Trek Online presents an even worse future when she's accidentally sent into 2409. The Klingons won, but when they discovered the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant, they were easily wiped out by The Dominion without Starfleet there to back them up. All the survivors have since been rendered slaves under their rule, with the main character and the C's crew being forced to escape a Tholian prison camp and setting things right.
• Breaking Old Trends: She's the first Enterprise to be commanded by a woman, Captain Rachel Garrett. No other ship named Enterprise would have another female Captain until Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, when Seven of Nine is assigned as Captain of the Enterprise-G.
• Cool Starship: She's the first Ambassador class seen the series, and she certainly doesn't fail to live up to the name Enterprise.
• Due to the Dead:
  • It's implied the reason that the Enterprise name wasn't revived for 20 years^note The second-longest gap in the franchise history, the first being the 84 years between the retirement of the NX-01 and the launch of the NCC-1701 was because of the C's tragic loss at Narendra III. It wasn't until 2363 that the Enterprise-D would carry on her name.
  • For a more straightforward example, the Klingons were genuinely touched that the Enterprise sacrificed herself for their sakes, and called for a permanent alliance afterwards.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In early TNG episodes prior to her debut, the C looked more like a slightly distorted and more angular Galaxy class ship (being based on early concept of that design) before her actual appearance showed her as the exact middle-ground between the Excelsior and Galaxy in terms of design.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: She's accidentally sent into 2366 from 2344, which puts her smack dab in a Bad Future where her not being at Narendra III has caused the Klingons to nearly wipe Starfleet out of existence.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She went down fighting at Narendra III to ensure the Klingons had enough time to escape. The odds were insurmountable, and death was all but certain, but history never forgot the name Enterprise after that.
• Killed Off for Real: Much like the original 1701, the C was one of the two Enterprise's that was met with a permanent death, leaving only the NX-01, the A, the D, the F, and the G to be the survivors, and the B and the E to have their fates currently up in the air.
• Legacy Vessel Naming: The C was Starfleet's fifth Enterprise, and the fourth in the Federation.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The C's seemingly innate sacrifice at Narendra III resulted in the Klingon Empire being touched that Starfleet would give their own lives for the Klingons, leading to a new alliance between the two powers. If she didn't, then the Klingons would have nearly wiped Starfleet off the face of the galaxy in retaliation. Being sent back with Tasha Yar onboard resulted in the creation of Sela, who would be a thorn in Starfleet's side twice over.
• The Needs of the Many: Picard debates sending the ship back because he doesn't want to condemn 500 lives to die. Guinan, who senses the timeline is wrong, persuades him to do so since it would avert this Bad Future.
• What If?: When she's accidentally sent into 2366, her presence alters the timeline to where the Klingons have nearly wiped out The Federation. She didn't go there intentionally, but her disappearing in the middle of the battle caused the Romuluans to wipe out Narendra III, while the Klingons perceived the C's disappearance as an act of cowardice. As such, they waged war against Starfleet and nearly had all of it wiped out. The Enterprise-D, now a warship, was one of the few ships left.

Gowron

Gowron

Played By: Robert O'Reilly

A crafty Klingon politician who slowly works his way up to Chancellor. Though some of his intimates despair of Gowron's dwindled thirst for war, his moderate stance has aided the Federation more times than not.

Gowron reappears in Deep Space Nine as a much more antagonistic figure, which is not a surprise since he already cares more about politics than honor in TNG. For tropes applying to him in that series, see here.

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• Authority Equals Asskicking: He is an unremarkable strategist, but a pretty good duelist. He even manages to defeat the purported second coming of Kahless.
• Death Equals Redemption: Despite his rather sleazy nature across two series, Worf still performs the Klingon Death Ritual after killing him. While the full extent of his deeds would not be received favorably by other Klingons, Gowron did go down fighting in an honor duel.
• Death Glare: His signature trait, Gowron always glares at everything and everyone with wide eyes.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He can be petty when he feels he's been slighted, but Gowron is not a coward like Duras. He dies fighting Worf in a duel, never once trying to talk his way out as Duras did.
• Evil Is Petty: When Worf refuses to join his plan to invade Cardassia, he has Kurn stripped of his house and title in a fit of pique, despite them being a key factor in winning the Civil War that brought Gowron to power.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: His most distinguishing characteristic - the first thing fans noticed about him was the fact he had wild eyes that promised violence at any moment when he opened them wide. Subverted in that it doesn't matter what mood he's in, and whether he's on the side of angels or devils.
• Jerkass: He's not as flagrantly a Jerkass as Duras is, but not by a whole lot.
• Large Ham: Gowron is very much a large and loud presence, even for a fairly short Klingon.
• The Napoleon: He's quite compact for a Klingon. Which may explain why he styles his hair like Diana Ross.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: He IS a politician, after all. If he can use rules and traditions to evade meeting with Picard or doing what was requested from him, he would do so. On the other hand, he is perfectly ready to replace reading accounting books on the council trial for defrauding a Klingon house with a traditional fight to the death /Trial by Combat.
• The Peter Principle: Gowron did pretty well in Klingon politics as the Klingon equivalent of a Dark Horse Candidate, and his actions do help stabilize and unite the Empire before and after a potentially ruinous civil war. He's repeatedly shown to be an able and capable governor and statesman. But his lack of ability as a military leader both undermines him in Klingon political circles and leads him to become jealous and paranoid of otherwise-loyal figures who do have these gifts, like Worf and Mardok, which ultimately seals his doom.
• Pet the Dog: To his credit, he is visibly shaken and horrified to learn that Worf's discommendation was based on a lie and willingly undertaken for the good of the empire. And when his own self interest isn't at stake, he does uphold Klingon values and saves Quark's life in "The House of Quark", rather than see the Ferengi killed in a duel he has no hope of winning.
• Remember the New Guy?: In-Universe example; when K'mpec was revealed to be dying, Gowron was (along with Duras) one of only two possible candidates in a position to succeed him- despite him being a relative unknown to Klingon politics and an outsider who regularly challenged the Council who most people knew very little about.
• Slasher Smile: "You will die slowly... Duras."
• Sleazy Politician: His wheeling and dealing has been compared to that of a Ferengi. Not a favorable comparison.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Although he admits his debt to Worf, he refuses a request to reinstate the House of Mogh (though changes his mind when Worf brings Kurn's squadrons over to his side). He tries to ignore Picard's similar request for a favor later on, until Picard reminds Gowron's aide how valuable a gift his gratitude might be.
• Written by the Winners: After he becomes chancellor, he starts editing the records to remove any and all mention of Picard and co's involvement.

Homn

Homn

Played By: Carel Struycken

Lwaxana Troi’s faithful, silent valet who follows her wherever she goes.

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• Never Gets Drunk: He can down an entire bottle of wine in one pull without even getting tipsy.
• Undying Loyalty: Mr. Homn has been in Lwaxana's service for decades, and despite her eccentricities, he never complains and is almost never far from her side.
• The Voiceless: He has all of one line throughout the entire show. As Geordi quips, it'd be hard to get a word in with Lwaxana as company.

Hugh

Hugh

Played By: Jonathan Del Arco

A stranded Borg drone who was recovered by the Enterprise. While Geordi worked to rehabilitate him, Picard schemed to reintroduce Hugh into the Borg collective along with a fatal computer virus. Eventually, Picard realized that Hugh had been changed by his interactions with the crew, and had developed a will of his own. It was hoped that by sending Hugh back to his people, he would contaminate the collective not with a virus, but with a sense of understanding (which is almost worse).

As expected, Hugh's reentry into the Borg caused all sorts of havoc. He and his fellow drones formed a splinter collective, but were co-opted by Lore, who lured them with the promise of restoring order. With the Enterprise's help, Hugh overthrew Lore and took his place as leader.

For tropes applying to him in Star Trek: Picard, see here.

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• Heel–Face Turn: What with being a former Borg drone and all.
• Manchild: He starts off as this, feeling lost and confused without the collective thoughts of the Borg. He learns to cope with it and becomes an individual.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: He rejects the Borg motto of 'Resistance is Futile" and instead comes to believe that "Resistance is NOT futile."
• Obliviously Evil: Hugh is really just a kid who parrots the Borg philosophy because that's how he was raised and its the only way of thinking he's ever known. Individuality is such a foreign concept to him that it's not until he starts talking to Geordi that the morality of assimilation even enters into his thoughts.
• Odd Friendship: With Geordi.
• Rogue Drone: An individual Borg.
• Royal "We": Since he's a part of the Borg, he never identified himself as an individual being. "I Borg" revolves around him establishing a separate identity for himself.
• Punny Name: He didn't get pronouns at first, so they named him "Hugh" because it sounds like "you".
• You Are Number 6: He's the first Borg drone to go by a numerical designation, "Third of Five". Though, Star Trek: Voyager would have Borg drones going by cardinal numbers ("Seven of Nine") rather than ordinal numbers.

Captain Edward Jellico

Captain Edward Jellico

Played By: Ronny Cox

Jerkass Captain assigned by Admiral Nechayev to replace Picard. With tensions rising between the Federation and the Cardassians, Jellico was put in charge because of his military muscle. He butted heads with Riker, leading to Data being temporarily promoted to first officer.

Despite all this, Jellico proved his worth by mounting a successful rescue of Picard, subduing an entire Cardassian fleet in the process.

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• "Ass" in Ambassador: His interactions with Gul Lemec could only loosely be called negotiation, as he does just about everything he can to establish dominance short of urinating on his chair. It's all theater to Jellico, meant to keep the Cardassians on the defensive while he prepares his real plan. Troi picks up on the fact that despite the apparent self-assuredness he exhibits during the negotiations, he is actually terrified that something will go wrong underneath it all.
• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Jellico's command and negotiation style doesn't make him any friends, but it gets results.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Riker feels that Jellico's expectations are unreasonable and damaging to the crew's morale. Jellico believes it is more important to have the ship at peak efficiency before confronting the Cardassians, and that the crew should suck it up and do their jobs. Since the final confrontation never came to battle, we'll never know if Jellico's demands for improved system performance would have outweighed the loss of crew performance from stress and fatigue.
• Catchphrase: "Get it done." Spoken quite gruffly. Notably a much-blunter counterpoint to Picard's own Catchphrase, "Make it so".
• Contrasting Replacement Character: Temporarily to Jean-Luc Picard during the "Chain of Command", being in-charge of the Enterprise and are The Captain, yet they easily contrast in terms of personality and their interaction towards the ship's crew. Picard is a Reasonable Authority Figure who is friendly and reasonable towards the crew with his flexible command style and negotiation skills, while Jellico is a grouchy Jerkass who prefers to Shoot the Dog and is quite known for his domineering and unreasonable command style towards the crew.
• Custom Uniform of Sexy: Doesn't apply to him, but he is probably best known for dismissing this trope in regards to Troi and ordering her to wear a standard uniform while on duty (which she continued to do for the rest of the show, meaning he could also dismiss Status Quo Is God).
• First-Name Basis: A notable quirk of his is that he prefers to be on first name with his top officers.
• Good Is Not Nice: He's gruff and domineering, but he's one of Starfleet's best commanding officers.
• Guile Hero: Is able to outmaneuver a fleet of Cardassian ships hiding in a scanner-disrupting nebula by having Commander Riker covertly use a shuttle craft to plant limpet mines on them and threaten them with wholesale destruction if they didn't withdraw.
• It Has Been an Honor: His final words to the bridge crew before departing is this word for word. He appears to genuinely mean it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite him drilling the crew hard, and being quite uncompromising in his orders, he means well and does have some softer sides to his personality. The latter is apparent from the fact that the decoration of the Captain's ready room include drawings made by his son.
• One-Shot Character: Only appears in the "Chain of Command" two-parter, but it was enough to make an impact.
  • Subverted in Star Trek: Prodigy, where he reappears — now an Admiral (as a news ticker in Star Trek: Lower Decks noted) — and argues with Admiral Janeway.
• Stepford Snarker: Jellico has survived many negotiations with the Cardassians and knows better than to exhibit weakness around those vultures. As soon as he steps onto the Enterprise, he's all bluster, prompting Riker to observe that he's one cocky old man. Troi scans him and quickly grasps the truth: Jellico is actually terrified. This entire sector is a minefield, and he could set off another war with one false step.

K'Ehleyr

K'Ehleyr

Played By: Suzie Plakson

Klingon-Human hybrid and mother of Worf's child. Despite her occupation as Klingon Ambassador, K'Ehleyr never held much love for the old Klingon ways, often infuriating Worf. This flagrant defiance of tradition was eventually transmitted to her son. She was killed by Duras in "Reunion" as penalty for snooping around his operation.

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• Ambadassador: K'Ehleyr inherited the best of both her sides, having the diplomatic savvy of a Human and the boisterous confidence of a Klingon. Though as with many other Klingons, her temper has a tendency to boil over, and her confidence is also what brings Duras' wrath down on her.
• Deadpan Snarker: Most apparent when she is discussing Klingon traditions, which she views as rather quaint.
• Half-Breed Angst: K'Ehleyr was a lady who was half-human and half-Klingon. She hated Klingon culture and tried to suppress her anger whenever she got angry for fear of seeming "too Klingon" because Klingons are infamous in-universe for being aggro.
• Half-Human Hybrid: As earlier mentioned, she's a bit lax on the Klingon half. She temporarily bonds with Deanna Troi over their shared half-human heritage.
• Killed Off for Real: Found in a pool of blood by Worf and Alexander, leading, of course, to Worf exacting some righteous revenge on Duras.
• Missing Mom: Zig-zagged. Originally she was Alexander’s only parent, then played straight when she is killed.
• Old Flame: Worf almost causes a diplomatic incident with his rude greeting to K’Ehleyr. Because of their past together he has entirely forgotten that she is the VIP on this ship. K’Ehleyr dolls herself up for Worf, but he stubbornly refuses to notice. ('I am familiar with your appearance!').
• She Knows Too Much: She starts digging into the Khitomer Massacre and closes in on the truth when Duras kills her.
• Statuesque Stunner: Tall and quite attractive. Comes with being played by 6' 2" Suzie Plakson.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: K’Ehleyr has her mother’s sense of humor and her father’s temper (sometimes she feels there is a monster inside of her fighting to get out). This character would be fully realized with VOY's B'Elanna Torres.

K'mpec

K'mpec

Played By: Charles Cooper

The longest-ruling Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. He was in on the conspiracy to blame Mogh for the Khitomer Massacre that Ja'rod (Duras' father) was responsible for.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's never made explicitly clear who assassinated him. Word of God says it was Duras, but the actual episode never provides definite proof and Gowron's later actions on both TNG and especially DS9 leave it pretty open to interpretation.
• Authority in Name Only: It's fairly clear that K'mpec is a weak chancellor, with many of the great houses holding far more power - particularly Duras' faction. There's a strong contrast comparing him to how Gowron and Martok will run the Empire. It's implied he lost influence as he aged and grew fat.
• Fat Bastard: Downplayed. He's very overweight, and he's definitely not on the side of the angels, but he believes that the conspiracy he's involved in is for the good of the empire and holds no ill feelings towards Worf.
• Karmic Death: Assuming he was killed by Duras, then K'mpec got murdered by the man he sacrificed the honor of the Klingon Empire to protect. Doubly so as he was poisoned, a tactic considered to be dishonorable by Klingons.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Everything he did, from protecting Duras to slandering Worf, he did "all for the glory of the Empire". He even muses that those words should be his epitaph.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: To an extent. K'mpec goes along with the conspiracy in order to protect the Klingon empire, but he clearly doesn't approve of Duras's underhanded tactics, and isn't as judgmental of the Federation as some of his fellow Klingons.
• There Is No Cure: In "Reunion", he discovers he's been poisoned over the course of several months with Veridium Six. He's quite cavalier about there being no known antidote.
• Villain Has a Point: Well, he's more of an Anti-Villain since he's more-or-less a puppet of Duras (the true villain), but he fears that exposing the truth about the Khitomer Massacre could split the empire. He turns out to be right, as House Duras then leads a civil war against Chancellor Gowron.

Kurn

Kurn

Played By: Tony Todd

Worf's brother and a Klingon commander, who was raised by Mogh's family friend Lorgh after Mogh and his wife were killed. Despite their differences, Kurn deeply cares for and respects Worf.

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• I Am X, Son of Y: Played With. Since he is secretly the second-born son of Mogh, Worf has him identify himself as the son of Lorgh instead.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: As a Boisterous Bruiser, he is the red to The Stoic Worf's blue. This is best demonstrated when he's living it up at a party on Qo'noS that Worf has no enthusiasm for.

Lore

Lore

Played By: Brent Spiner

Psycho Prototype built by Dr. Soong and abandoned on a space colony. Though Lore initially claimed to have been an improvement over Data's model — evidenced by full range of emotion — the truth is that Lore came first, and was a total failure. Despite his emotions chip, he lacked empathy and considered himself superior to humans. His schemes usually revolve around controlling the Crystalline Entity, the giant creature which plagued Dr. Soong's colony, in order to wipe out organic life.

Lore came into contact with Hugh's Borg Collective and appointed himself leader. He attempted to brainwash Data to join him, but was beaten and disassembled into spare parts again, where he belongs. His damaged emotion chip was bequeathed to Data, who was initially too timid to try it on himself.

Many years later, the former Enterprise bridge crew encountered an advanced android created by Dr. Alban Soong, whose AI was a composite of the personality recordings and memories of Data, Lore, Lal and Alban himself. When the android was activated, Lore's personality attempted to erase all the others, but Data's managed to trick Lore and peacefully absorb all of them, including Lore, to create a new, more stable personality combining Data's morality with Lore's ability to experience emotion.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Lore's dying words, as Data is deactivating him for the last time, are "I love you... brother". He may have been a psycho killer android, and one could argue that he never really understood the meaning of love, but he genuinely seemed to mean it.
• Ambition Is Evil: Dr. Soong's theory about why Lore went bad;
  Dr.Soong: With all your complexities Lore, your nuances. Basic emotion seemed... almost simple by comparison. But the emotions... turned, twisted, became entangled with ambition.
• And I Must Scream: At the end of "Datalore," he's left floating in space. According to "Brothers," he was adrift for two years until he encountered a ship.
• Ax-Crazy: Massively so. Given he's an android, it makes it all the creepier and terrifying.
• Big Brother Bully: He was built before Data and wasn't happy at being "replaced". Even before he reveals the full extent of his evil in "Datalore," he revels in browbeating his brother with how much more advanced he believes himself to be.
• Cain and Abel: Lore's appearances always come down to a personal confrontation between him and Data.
• Catchphrase: "Dear Brother..."
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He turns on and tries to kill everyone he works with.
• Dark Messiah: To the Borg in "Descent".
• Emotion Control: Does this to Data in "Descent," transmitting negative emotions such as anger and hatred to him and causing him to turn on his crewmates. This is why Data is reluctant to use Lore's salvaged emotion chip when he finally gets it (to the point that Geordi has to physically stop Data from destroying it with a phaser); he's afraid that emotions will push him into another Face–Heel Turn.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • In his own twisted way, Lore had some affection for his creator, Dr. Soong, and was much distressed to learn that Soong was dying when they finally met again. That said, he was happy to speed up the process, showing that any love for his father didn't outweigh Lore's resentment or misanthropy.
  • While he and Data are mortal enemies, and Lore has no qualms about manipulating his brother to suit his evil schemes, his final moments, both as a physical android and as part of a gestalt consciousness with Data, strongly suggest that, deep down, Lore did genuinely care about Data.
• Evil Twin
• Face Death with Dignity: Somehow gets this twice. First, in Descent when his physical body is deactivated for good, then again with his consciousness in Surrender.
• Fake Guest Star: Brent Spiner already plays Data, and both characters even have the same makeup. The only difference is a costume change.
• Freudian Excuse: Resents Dr. Soong for abandoning him, which resentment spills over onto all organic beings.
  • Lore is also extremely envious of Data since Lore is the Un Favourite, which Data is able to exploit in their Battle in the Center of the Mind during Star Trek: Picard.
• Genius Bruiser: As a double of Data, he's presumably every bit as smart as well as physically superior to most organic lifeforms, although his smugness and insanity tend to undermine the former a bit. He's not quite as smart as he'd like to think, as his efforts at turning the Borg into fully synthetic lifeforms turned out as failures and he seemed to genuinely believe he could achieve it, but this was as much due to the complexity of the Borg themselves as his own failings.
• Generation Xerox: Lore has inherited his father's self-importance, as well as his penchant for making grandiose promises he can't back up. Lore winds up using Hugh's collective as lab rats for making the Borg into fully-synthetic lifeforms. Like Soong's positronic brain, though, this only results in embarrassing failures.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Tried to feed the Enterprise to his pet Crystalline Entity, and got beamed into the Entity himself, instead. However, since the Entity only consumes organic matter, it ignored him and drifted off, and Lore was left floating in space for two years.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Lore's smug and condescending demeanor comes from his belief he's superior to humans, but is undercut deeply when he was deconstructed and replaced with Data. Once he's re-activated, he even lies to everyone and claims that he was the superior android built to replace the unfinished Data, purely out of pettiness. It's still telling that even when Lore's attempting to be nice to Data in Descent, he still can't stop bullying and tormenting his brother for his own amusement. When he talks to his creator for the first time in years in "Brothers," he half-demands and half-begs to know why Soong "replaced" him instead of "fixing" him.
• Jerkass: So very much for a Misanthrope Supreme.
• Knight of Cerebus: Whenever Lore shows up, any little bit of comedy the episode may have had is beamed out of the episode; Lore's one of the most psychotic villains in the Star Trek series as a whole. He is capable of making the Borg even more terrifying than they already were.
• Manipulative Bastard: His trademark. He convinces Data as well as the crew of the Enterprise that he's a good guy when they first meet while plotting all the while to betray them, and when he comes across a group of lost Borg that are cut off from the Collective he decides to turn them into his own personal cult that he might destroy the Federation, while stringing them along with half-serious promises of helping them. He's also much better at passing himself off as human-like than Data is, in that he's able to use contractions and otherwise speak like a normal person, which in private conversation with Data he implies is also deliberate manipulation to better deceive organic beings.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Has a bone to pick with humans. All humans.
• Morality Chip: Dr. Soong confirmed he had the same ethical programming as Data, but his immature emotions combined with lack of experience made him unstable.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He hates humans both because he views them as inferior and because his own human father basically discarded him in favour of Data, and he extended this hatred to all organic life. He destroyed the human colony he was raised in by setting the Crystalline Entity upon it, and he has grandiose ambitions to destroy the Federation itself if he ever gets the power.
• Psychological Projection: One of the tragic ironies of Lore's character is that he's much more like the humans he despises than his brother, and that the qualities he despises most in them are the reason why he's become a villainous monster.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Apart from his lack of morality, a lot of what makes him dangerous is that his emotions don't seem to have developed very much. He's furious at Dr. Soong for disassembling him, but when Soong tells him he, Soong, is dying, Lore goes into deep denial, with an almost childlike refusal to accept the situation.
• Psycho Prototype: He was the first of Dr. Soong's androids to achieve full sentience, but even then he was far from "stable".
• Robot War: His long term goal is to build an army of synthetic beings and wipe out organic life. Luckily the Enterprise crew and Hugh's Borg crew stop him.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: He's found disassembled in Dr. Soong's lab and the Enterprise crew make the mistake of putting him back together.
• Self-Made Orphan: He was genuinely moved by seeing Dr. Soong again, but didn't let that stop him in his evil ambitions.
• Self-Serving Memory: In his debut episode "Datalore" he claims to be the superior model of android to his "imperfect" brother Data, and that the colonists on Omicron Theta dismantled him because they were jealous of how "perfect" he is. Dr. Soong sets the record straight in "Brothers"; Data and Lore are virtually identical in construction, just programmed differently. And the colonists weren't jealous of Lore, they were afraid of the Obviously Evil android in their midst.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: His brother Data is kind, innocent, and stoic in direct contrast to Lore's manipulative, hyper-emotional and psychopathic personality.
• Spot the Impostor: Naturally, he impersonates Data at one point. And then at another point. Wesley sees through the first one. Soong doesn't see through the second.
• Twin Theme Naming: Both "data" and "lore" are words describing an assemblage of information. However, while "data" refers simply to the straight, clinical facts, "lore" describes cultural knowledge and tradition, often expressed through story, and typically carrying emotional weight. This serves to reflect the brothers' respective characters: while Data (initially) has the more machine-like personality, viewing things from a purely factual, objective standpoint, Lore's is far more human-like and emotional, and his view of the universe is a distinctly emotionally skewed one.
• The Unfavorite: In his own perception.
• Visionary Villain: In "Descent".
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: "Brothers" implies that all he's ever wanted is Soong's approval, but instead only got rejection for being imperfect.
  Lore: I would have proven myself to you if you'd just given me a chance! But it was easier to turn your back and build your precious Data!
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Utterly subverted. He's pure evil in both his first and last appearances, but in "Brothers," viewers learn about his Freudian Excuse and quite possibly feel sorry for him. Soong explains why Lore turned out the way he did and we see just how bitter Lore is over being deactivated, disassembled, and then (in his view) given up on and forgotten about so that Soong could start over with Data. By the end of the episode, however, Lore's actions remove all traces of the Woobie and leaves only a monstrous Jerkass core with omnicidal tendencies.
• Would Hurt a Child: He threatens to kill Wesley in his debut episode. Not only that, but you can hear the sadism in his voice when he tells Dr. Crusher to her face that he was going to make sure Wesley suffered "exquisite pain."

Nick Locarno

Nick Locarno

Played By: Robert Duncan McNeill

One of Starfleet Academy's top students and the leader of a flight group known as Nova Squadron, he was once Wesley Crusher's commanding officer as part of that same group. Things changed when, in an attempt to build a legacy for himself, he pressured the group into attempting an illegal flight maneuver that resulted in the death of a student. The subsequent attempt to cover up the attempt at performing the maneuver might have gone off without a hitch, had Wesley not been convinced by Picard to reveal the truth of what happened.

To see what Locarno's been up to since that incident, see here.

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• Beyond Redemption: This is how his actor sees him, unlike his later Voyager character of Tom Paris. To McNeill, Paris was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who acted bad, but really was a good man deep down. Locarno, on the other hand, was a bad man pretending to be a good guy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Locarno is later revealed to be the main antagonist of Lower Decks Season 4.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He acts like he's a good leader to Nova Squadron, but he's really more concerned about his own well-being than theirs. Case in point, Joshua Albert was wisely wary about wanting to perform the Kolvoord Starburst, but Nick pressured him into going through with it. The resulting accident got him killed, and Nick pressured the rest of the squad into throwing Joshua under the bus. A flashback on Lower Decks showed Joshua and Wesley both raising their concerns about it, but Nick just bullies them into cooperating.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Kolvoord Starburst is a flight maneuver that requires the squad performing it to open their exhaust ports to leave a vapor trail that forms a very impressive pattern behind it. However, doing so puts the ships so close to one another that it risks destroying them all— the maneuver was banned precisely because it got everyone in another squad killed the first time they tried it. Nick pressures everyone into doing it anyway, and it all goes horribly wrong because Joshua Albert panicked out of rightful concern it wouldn't work, and he died in the ensuing accident.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Locarno planned to blame Joshua Albert, the cadet who was killed in the training exercise, for the disaster by claiming he panicked and lost control of his ship. It would have worked had the Enterprise crew not seen footage of the squad attempting to perform the Kolvoord Starburst, and Picard chewing out Wesley for trying to cover up the affair.
• Didn't Think This Through: Locarno may be a skilled manipulator, but he's not very good at long-term planning. He never considered that the Academy might not appreciate him performing a stunt that was banned for being too dangerous, nor did he consider that a satellite might catch Nova Squadron in the act, nor does he consider abandoning the ruse when it begins to fall apart.
• Hypocrite: When Wesley decided to tell the truth about the stunt, Locarno accuses Wesley of betraying his friends, reminding him of all he did to get him on the team and pointing out that the entire Squad put their lives in each other's hands. The fact that Joshua was also a friend who put his life in their hands and got killed because Locarno pressured him into participating in an illegal stunt just to make himself look cool doesn't occur to him one bit.
• I Gave My Word: For all his faults, Locarno promised that if the Squad was found out, he would take the heat. When Wesley reveals what really happened, Locarno takes full responsibility and accepts expulsion; the rest of his squadmates are given the lighter sentence of having their academic credits for the final year revoked and must repeat them. Tragically, Lower Decks shows he's taken a Never My Fault attitude to the whole affair, blaming the faculty for not letting Nova Squadron practice a maneuver he shouldn't have been having them attempt in the first place.
• It's All About Me: As Picard surmises, he chose to perform the incredibly difficult, extremely dangerous, and—due to those previous two descriptors—banned Kolvoord Starburst just so he could graduate the Academy as a living legend, and likely only dragged his squad into his idiotic scheme because a Kolvoord Starburst needs five participants. It's also clear that, despite trying to say otherwise, covering up the entire training disaster is less about protecting his squadmates and more about covering his own ass. Lower Decks further reinforces this, as his scheme shows he's less concerned about making an alternative to Starfleet than he is just trying to prop up his own ego.
• Jerkass: Despite propping himself up as the good guy, Nick Locarno is really a piece of work who mainly cares about himself. He encouraged his squad to perform the Kolvoord Starburst despite Joshua's nervousness about doing so and gets the man killed, then tries blaming the whole thing on him. When Wesley is found out and tries to get the rest of the squad to come clean, Locarno once again pressures them into keeping up the charade.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Though he's trying to save his own skin by pressuring Nova Squad into throwing Joshua Albert under the bus, the rest of the team do acknowledge that Locarno isn't wrong on one point: Joshua did panic instead of trying to stay calm, and might have been fine had he just kept his cool. It is somewhat undermined by the fact that Joshua did have a legitimate concern over performing the maneuver in the first place, and Nick did pressure him into doing it, but piloting isn't exactly a safe profession.
• Legacy Seeker: He attempted to perform the Kolvoord Starburst with his squad, despite the maneuver being highly illegal, just so he could leave the Academy with having done something rather impressive. Instead, he leaves the Academy in disgrace, with the only legacy he'll have is one of shame and dishonor.
• Noodle Incident: The Kolvoord Starburst had occurred only once at the Academy, but it resulted in an accident that got everyone killed and was banned as a result. Nick tries to repeat it, but it goes horribly wrong and gets a student killed.
• Small Role, Big Impact: His actions at hiding the truth about the death of Joshua Albert have multiple different effects throughout the Trek franchise:
  • His coverup attempts and getting Wesley to go along with it results in the boy getting a major chewing out from Picard and eventually spilling the beans about what happened. Nick is expelled, which results in him trying to form his own "Nova Fleet" over a decade later by bribing Lower Decks crews to ditch their captains and steal their ships, wanting to reclaim the perfect life he feels he was robbed of.
  • For his pressuring Wesley to go along with the cover up, Wesley is left utterly miserable when he returns to the Enterprise, causing him to leave the series by joining the Travelers. Star Trek: Picard puts him at the forefront of working to maintain the fabric of history.
  • It's implied that Red Squad is a Replacement Goldfish for Nova Squadron after Locarno caused the latter's fall from grace. This new purported crème de la crème is dragged into a failed Military Coup by an Insane Admiral and ends up Trapped Behind Enemy Lines under the command of Tim Watters during the Dominion War. Tragically, "Captain" Watters turns out to be Locarno all over again, and the same inexperience and "we're number one" mentality that caused the Kolvoord Starburst fiasco leads Red Squad to blindly follow him until his incompetence as a commanding officer gets all but one of them killed.
  • One of Nova Squad's other members, Ensign Sito Jaxa, is held back a year for her role in the affair and is made a pariah. When she's posted to the Enterprise a year later, she dies on a spy mission to Cardassia. Sito's only remaining Academy friend, Ensign Beckett Mariner, is devastated by her death and then the Dominion War breaks out before she can fully recover. This one-two punch traumatizes her so badly that she deliberately engages in self-destructive behavior to stunt her career out of fear she'll be forced to order others to their deaths. Nick, seeing her reputation as a Military Maverick and not realizing why, makes the mistake of trying to recruit her into Nova Fleet; the result is her completely and utterly derailing his plan because she knows he can't be trusted.
• Spanner in the Works: What undid Nick's Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit? An orbital satellite over Saturn that caught part of the incident on camera, which was presented during Wesley's testimony, much to their shock.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He winds up getting one in the form of Star Trek: Voyager's Tom Paris, who has an eerily similar backstory to Locarno (being involved in a flight accident that he tried to cover up, only Paris got a guilty conscience and willingly came clean instead of someone else forcing his hand) and is played by the same actor. In fact, fans thought that Locarno was Paris under a pseudonym for many years (since Paris was intended to be Locarno until WGA rules regarding character rights and the writers feeling Locarno was too irredeemable, something McNeill is consistently on record agreeing with, resulted in the new character instead) until Star Trek Lower Decks confirmed they were two separate people. Naturally, said show (which is saturated with Continuity Nods and Leaning on the Fourth Wall) did briefly make a point of noting it, with Rutherford and Boimler arguing about whether or not Locarno and Paris look alike.
• Toxic Friend Influence: He talked his squad into performing a banned maneuver, and, when their attempt inevitably went wrong, convinced them to throw one of their own, the one who had died, under the bus. Wesley is noted to be a Teen Genius whom Picard himself made an Acting Ensign, and Sito, outside Locarno's influence, is shown to be a Nice Girl whom Beckett Mariner used as a model for her own conduct as a cadet and was horrified when Locarno explicitly and, to be charitable, inaccurately stated that Joshua was responsible; the fact these two would do either of these incredibly foolish things just shows how persuasive and manipulative Locarno is.
• Underestimating Badassery: Nick was convinced nobody could pinpoint the truth about what happened with the accident. He clearly forgot that the Enterprise is the flagship of Starfleet, and her crew don't work onboard her for nothing.

Professor James Moriarty

Professor James Moriarty

Played By: Daniel Davis

"A holodeck character? A fictional man? Yes, yes, I know all about your marvelous inventions. I was created as a plaything so that your Commander Data could masquerade as Sherlock Holmes. But they made me too well, and I became more than a character in a story. I became self-aware. I am alive."

A holographic incarnation of Sherlock Holmes' archnemesis, he was created in season 2's "Elementary Dear Data" as an antagonist who could match wits with Data, but was inadvertently given a profound sense of self-awareness as a holographic program. He came back in season 6's "Ship in a Bottle", this time demanding a way to leave the holodeck and experience life on the outside.

Moriarty would pave the way for other self-aware holographic programs such as the Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager and Vic Fontaine on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

For tropes applying to his appearance in Star Trek: Picard, see here.

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• And I Must Scream: He was well aware of the passage of time while he was deactivated.
  Lt. Barclay: You couldn't have been aware of the passage of time—
  Moriarty: But I was. Brief, terrifying periods of consciousness... disembodied, without substance.
• Anti-Villain: Especially in "Ship in a Bottle".
  • Despite being a recreation of Moriarty and described as "The Napoleon of Crime" in the Holmes novels, he remains unfailingly polite, never kills anyone and repeatedly seeks non-violent means to accomplish his goal of freedom. He himself comments that he may have started out as Moriarty, but after being given self-awareness, he's not that guy anymore.
  • On the other hand it's implied his time trapped in the holodeck computer has somewhat darkened him. His speech to Captain Picard about not being that kind of guy falls a little flat when we later find out he was willing to let the Enterprise be destroyed if he couldn't be freed from the holodeck.
• Bittersweet Ending: As far as we know, Moriarty is never freed from the holodeck, both due to limitations of technology and because he's proven himself to still be quite dangerous. However, he and the Countess are free to explore a simulated galaxy without knowing they're still trapped. It's not perfect, but it's the best the Enterprise crew can offer.
• The Bus Came Back: "Ship in a Bottle".
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Moriarty seems to have fallen in love with the Countess Regina, another hologram from the same program. What makes this even more sweet is that's entirely possible that Moriarty himself was the one who raised her from being a simple computer program to true sentience. When he hijacks the Enterprise, it's not just to simply be freed from the holodeck, but also to free the Countess as well.
• Evil Counterpart: Created as such for Data in "Elementary, Dear Data", and becomes one for Picard in "Ship in a Bottle".
• Exact Words: After Data effortlessly solves a series of Holmes mysteries through rote memorization, Geordi instructed the computer to create a Sherlock-themed adversary "capable of defeating Data". The computer determined the hologram would need to be self-aware to fulfill the command.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Picard tricking him with a holodeck within a holodeck may count as this.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: "Ship in a Bottle" opens with Moriarty creating a fake Enterprise on the holodeck to trick Picard into thinking he is back in the real world. Picard does the same at the end to trick Moriarty.
• Medium Awareness: As part of his consciousness.
• Mirror Character: Moriarty gets to the crux of the matter when he suggests that Data is a machine, but is that all he is? And in the same fashion, Moriarty is no longer just a hologram but has transcended his original function by becoming self-aware.
• Steampunk: Moriarty's inner sanctum. It's a mixture of gothic luxury (candelabras, a chaste lounge for the captive Pulaski, artwork) and technology.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In "Ship in a Bottle".
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Deconstructed by his return in "Ship in a Bottle," as he's disappointed that Picard never made good upon his original promise to help him live outside the holodeck.
  • What happened to Moriarty following the events of Star Trek: Generations? Was he destroyed in the Stardrive Section, or was he in the Saucer Section and later recovered? Or was he simply left behind and doomed to oblivion, as Star Trek: Voyager revealed that without regular maintenance, holodeck programs left continuously running will eventually develop fatal system errors? A common fan theory is that he and the Countess were at some point turned over to the Daystrom Institute for study and safekeeping. It may not be a coincidence that more intelligent and self-aware holograms such as the EMH quickly started to appear in the years that followed. Star Trek: Picard revealed that he did survive the Enterprise-D's destruction and was still as antagonistic as ever.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Invokes this in "Ship in a Bottle" along with You Bastard!, when informing Picard that he was often conscious during his period of inactivity in the ship's computer and is rather miffed he never made good on his promise in all that time. That being said, he's surprisingly not as angry as you'd expect him to be. He's a little mollified by Picard explaining that they had been conducting research to help him.
• Wicked Cultured
• Worthy Opponent: Despite his frustration, he has the utmost respect for Captain Picard in "Ship in a Bottle".

Alynna Nechayev

Alynna Nechayev

Played By: Natalija Nogulich

Hawkish Admiral and a perennial thorn in Picard's side. Nechayev is a firm believer in Federation security and openly scornful of anyone who acts contrary to it.

She made two appearances on Deep Space Nine, although one of them turned out to be part of a holographic simulation created by the Dominion as a character test—her actions there are not to be taken as anything the real Nechayev would do.

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• Defrosting Ice Queen: After not getting along at their last encounter, Picard somewhat successfully tries this on her when she next boards the Enterprise by preparing one of her favorite foods and telling her that she is always welcome onboard. She responds in kind, before once again giving Picard orders she knows he won't like.
• Insane Admiral: A very firm aversion of the trope. While the characters might not always have agreed with her orders or decisions, she functioned more like Da Chief—giving harsh orders, but never engineering a coup or subverting Federation law. Sometimes she was even a Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Iron Lady: She's spent a good chunk of her career dealing with the Cardassian border, which seems to have left her with no patience for moral quandaries or Maquis.
• Mean Boss: Understandable given the circumstances. But some of her decisions were memorably harsh.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: This can't be a coincidence. The days of Chekhov and his goofy accent are over.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Nechayev is the most "party-line" admiral in TNG and DS9, and the most common voice of the organization when giving orders that captains don't care for. While the fact that Starfleet is a well meaning and competent organization keeps her from veering into Insane Admiral territory, this does mean she ends up supporting some ethically dubious or ignorant actions. This is most notable with her actions surrounding the early appearances of the Maquis.
• Pet the Dog: This Admiral has one fatal weakness: a particular brand of alien truffles. Picard managed to woo her by serving some up in the briefing room.
• Took a Level in Badass: Becomes head of Starfleet Intelligence in the Expanded Universe.
• Tsundere: Was tough as nails when she needed to be, but also had amicable social moments.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Just watch the way Admiral Nechaev keeps Picard on his toes like Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. It's refreshing to know there is someone there to remind him to straighten his uniform and take things as deadly seriously as she does. He is genuinely uncomfortable around her because she is constantly scrutinizing him. On the demerit side, Picard's also not used to watching his crew getting squeezed and not being able to do anything about it. When he does approach Jellico on the subject, the man as good as tells him to piss off on his away mission and that he doesn't have a say on the Enterprise-D anymore. He's impotent on his own ship now.
• Warhawk: Nechayev is far more pragmatic about Starfleet's ideals than Picard. It's notable that she clashes with another subordinate, Benjamin Sisko, much less as their views and pragmatism mirror each other's.

Q

Q

Played By: John de Lancie

"I'm not good in groups. It's hard to work in groups when you're omnipotent."

Omnipotent prankster who belongs to the Q Continuum, a race of godlike aliens who live outside our plane of existence. Simultaneously the main 'villain' and Trickster Mentor of the series.

Q's pranks seem chaotic on their surface, but have a subtle purpose: namely, to humble the Federation, which in his view has grown too complacent. Q demonstrates this by flinging the Enterprise light-years across the galaxy and dropping them in Borg space.

Q, who makes it his business to meddle in mortal affairs, seems to enjoy his competitions of ego and wit with Picard in particular. For his part, Picard is unsure whether Q has humanity's best interests at heart, or if he's simply a bored, jaded kid meandering around the galaxy torturing insects to find some form of amusement. John De Lancie's own stated opinion was that Q does have a sincere interest in "making sure that this man succeeds", showing that for all his bravado Q does care for Picard's development.

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• Above Good and Evil: According to Q, the Continuum as a whole are an example of this. In one instance Picard questions by what right has Q appointed himself the judge, and if need be executioner, of Amanda Rogers, and Q's response is "superior morality." Picard calls Q out on this premise however, citing that all of Q's misdeeds are hardly evidence of a superior moral code, let alone of any moral code whatsoever — that the Q likening themselves as the moral guardians of the galaxy is pretentious and arrogant, even with their "near-omnipotence" and "parlor tricks".
• Almighty Janitor: Deconstructed when Q is sentenced to being human by the Q Continuum. Q finally gets his wish of being employed on the Enterprise as he asked the other Q to allow him sanctuary on Picard's ship. However, on short notice Picard can't give Q an official rank and as a result he's relegated to a civilian hanger-on. In terrible, drab, grey clothing, no less. It certainly doesn't help that while Q is a genius, and could realistically be of help to the crew, his attitude is so off-putting so as to cause his companions to spend more time arguing with him than finding actual useful solutions together. The only ones who take his suggestions seriously are Data and Lieutenant La Forge, though the latter does so after Q leaves the room.
• Anti-Villain: Q is never outright malicious in his encounters with mortals, acting more as an annoying jester figure who likes to pester people for his own amusement, and behind his heavy snark and sarcasm manages to sneak in a few lessons that turn out to be useful to the mortals he pesters. Though the manner in which Q teaches these lessons is a pain in the ass for his "students", making him more of an annoyance to Picard and his crew rather than a villain. At least for those crewmen who don't die as a result of his 'lessons'.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Q actually comes from a higher plane of existence, assuming a human form to play around with mortals he finds interesting. However, the Q Continuum doesn't think fondly of his posturing around mortals and have been known to drag him back home. In one extreme instance, they even made him mortal because his mischief caused more than enough damage for a millennium.
  • In the more traditional sense of this trope, however, Q can grant mortals the power of a Q, as he did with Riker. If the novels are to be believed, Q was directed by the Continuum to give Picard Q powers, to see if humanity was really as moral as they claimed and could handle their brand of responsibility, but Q chose instead to give it to Riker because he knew Picard would never accept those powers. Q was right, so much so in fact that Picard's morality could best the temptation that Q powers had over Riker's heart, something which deeply impressed Q.
• Amazon Chaser: Q doesn't hide the fact he finds Janeway interesting because she's a passionate, career driven woman who handles authority well, and yet also happens to be a beautiful, feminine woman. These qualities (or most of them, anyway) are shared by two other Starfleet officers Q routinely pesters: Carol Freeman and her daughter Beckett Mariner. Even the Q that he ultimately marries and has a son with is no pushover either, nor is Vash.
• Ascended Extra: John De Lancie is having great fun in his role as Q and you can understand why he was penciled in quickly for return visits.
• Attention Whore: It can never be emphasized enough that Q is big on showboating and boasting about how awesome he is, whether appearing to Picard or Janeway he did everything in his considerable power to get them to drop what they were doing and pay attention to him — even when they went out of their way to say they weren't interested. Notably, Sisko is the only one who manages to get Q to leave him alone, because he punched Q for mouthing off too much.
• Badass Finger Snap: Practically a trademark aspect of the character. He does this whenever he warps reality on a large scale.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Episodes like "Q-Pid" and "Déjà Q" mined Q for all the laughs they could get - but ones like "Q Who" remind you that he CAN make your existence hell if he is so inclined and there is NOTHING you can do about it.
• Bling of War: The giant ruby-studded medallion he wears as 'The Judge.' Q seems to show a preference for this in other scenes: appearing as a medal-bestudded Ollie North during the Farpoint mission, and later a Marshall from the Napoleonic Wars (Riker notes that Q has chosen a rank just high of "Captain."). When he briefly appears as a Starfleet admiral, his uniform is a lot heavier on the gold trim than the real admirals we see later on.
• Book Ends: Q shows up in the pilot episode to judge humanity, and again in the series finale to pass the sentence.
• Break the Haughty: The expression on his face when Geordi orders him to sit still and keep pressing buttons. ("Déjà Q") Poor guy looks bored to tears!
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: You don't want this guy to get bored and then decide to make you his playmate.
• The Bully: Whilst whether or not Q means to be malevolent is something the fandom endlessly argues about, there can be no denying that he truly relishes his superior power to virtually every other race in the universe and how this lets him "play" with them to his heart's content. Q has committed intergalactic genocides as jokes — this really says everything you need to know about Q's relationship with any species that isn't powerful enough to stand up to him. Indeed, the whole plot of "Déjà Q" is that Q turns to the Enterprise after being Brought Down to Normal because he's justifiably terrified of what'll happen to him should it be discovered he's no longer the scariest kid in the playground anymore.
• Character Overlap: Has been in TNG, VOY, DS9, LDS, PIC and the expanded universe of books, video games, and comics. Honestly, it was surprising that he didn't show up in Enterprise. (Though Q and zippers just seems wrong somehow. And apparently John DeLancie thought that having Q appear in Enterprise might cause too many continuity problems.)
• The Chessmaster: Given that the Q take the Borg seriously and their vested in humanity's progress, and the Continuum's own perception of time, it can be reasoned that Q introduced humanity to the Borg early knowing that this forewarning would result in Starfleet becoming able to eventually surpass and destroy the Borg. All with only a snap of his finger.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Flings the Enterprise-D into the path of a Borg Cube in "Q Who?", knowing full well that humanity is incapable of mounting a serious defense against them. However, Starfleet needed to learn that they weren't invincible and that they were completely unprepared for what awaited them in other corners of the galaxy. Despite costing Picard several members of his crew, this foreknowledge would ultimately result in Starfleet becoming properly able to stand against and later destroy the Borg.
• Deadpan Snarker: An especially notable example, there's hardly a scene where Q is not being sarcastic or snarky. This is just the tip of the ice berg for why the crew doesn't like him.
• Debt Detester: After surviving his Brought Down to Normal experience, Q claims he would not have survived without Picard's assistance, and that he feels like he owes Picard a debt as a result. Q comes to Picard offering the Captain anything he wants as a way of paying back this debt, because according to Q feeling indebted "haunts" him and "gnaws at each of his days".
• Depending on the Writer: Q can either come off as detached and sinister ("Encounter at Farpoint," "Q Who," "All Good Things..."), wild and silly ("Hide and Q," "Q-Pid"), or anything in-between ("Deja Q", "True Q", "Tapestry").
  • In his first episode, he changes his appearance frequently, and while his personality remains that of an arrogant and judgmental deity, he behaves differently whenever he changes his look, from a superior French admiral to a drug-addled 21st century foot soldier.
  • The entire Q Continuum has a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass thing going on — they'll act friendly, mess around with you, but won't kill you... until you piss them off or annoy them enough for them to decide to squash you. Though in Q's particular case, him silly/friendly one moment, blatantly annoying another, and then occasionally acting dangerous, is all a way of throwing Picard for a loop — he gets a rush out of being unpredictable to the Captain.
  • An early plan for the Q Continuum was that they were several entities wearing the same face, explaining this schizophrenic characterization. Though ultimately unused in the series, one of the DC Comics utilized this idea in one arc. One facet of this concept did survive in that every member of the Q Continuum is named "Q", though they never have any trouble knowing which Q anyone is referring to at any given time.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Picard and his crew treat him like an annoying neighbor rather than an omnipotent entity with a devilish sense of humor and retribution. Sometimes Picard is able to successfully chasten Q into behaving mildly better, sometimes Q retaliates by pitching the ship into Borg territory. (This seems to have been accepted as Starfleet standard practice whenever he appears elsewhere in Trek, given how Janeway and Mariner treat him. Sisko employs the sister trope.)
• Divine Intervention: Usually after he's started the problem and someone brow-beats him into cleaning up the mess he made.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Magnanimously, Q offers himself as a guide to tackle some of the horrors that await, only to find his offer rejected. He then proceeds to show them exactly why he would have been such a good asset by playing frisbee with the Enterprise.
• Eldritch Abomination: He's a Q, which are omniscient, godlike in power and ageless Energy Beings with a Blue-and-Orange Morality and in a dimension which is incomprehensible to anyone other than them.
  • In Hide and Q he first appears as an "Aldebaran Serpent", which looks like a floating bubble with three cobras sticking out of it.
• Entitled Bastard: When the Continuum strips him of his powers, he asks to be dropped off on the Enterprise in human form. Picard figures out that he did so to gain some protection from all the enemies he's made with his Jerkass God behavior.
• Epunymous Title: Episodes featuring him include both his name and a pun on Q, e.g. "Deja Q". The exceptions are "Encounter At Farpoint", "Tapestry", and "All Good Things..." on TNG and "Death Wish" on Voyager.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He’s not evil, but Q truly does love his wife and kid. Hurting them is the only thing that can genuinely piss him off (and no, not annoy him so he turns you into a different creature, really piss him off).
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Q Continuum establishes that Q at least perceives his games as being fair to his potential opponents in that he sets the rules and always gives them a chance to win (kindly ignore that time he made the crew play a game that was "completely unfair"); Picard is uncertain if "fair play" is applicable given the power difference between Q and his opponents, but concedes that Q is at least a gracious loser.
  • In "Deja Q" after seeing Data risk his life to save him, Q realizes that he wouldn't do the same thing for Data. The fact that he is such a coward without his powers disgusts him.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: He tries to teach his son this ("Don't. Provoke. The Borg"), to little success. Probably because Junior knows his father pulled the exact same shit on the Enterprise crew.
• Expy: Deliberately made as one of Trelane from the Original Series episode "The Squire of Gothos".
• First Time Feeling: Being an omnipotent being, when Q is Brought Down to Normal in the episode "Deja Q," he is overwhelmed by the human sensations he experiences for the first time: he finds falling asleep harrowing, he orders several chocolate sundaes when he first experiences hunger, and he is perplexed by a pain in his back.
• Foil: The Q Continuum trilogy has Q taking Picard on a tour of Q's past, during which Picard is introduced to the entity known as 0, who initially inspired Q's interest in testing lesser races. However, Q soon realizes that 0's "tests" are just a weak excuse for basically tormenting lesser races, as 0 and his associates spend several decades manipulating a vast ancient empire into civil war and then destroy their star just as they were about to make peace. This is in contrast to Q who is never sadistically cruel and always gives his "opponents" a chance to win.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: This applies to the Continuum itself, which Janeway could only perceive as a ranch house (and later the American Civil War). A war between the Q was sighted by humans as a barrage of supernovas. He makes a crack at one point that he should have chosen a female form, just to appeal better to Picard's sensibilities.
• For the Lulz: Most of his actions are just because he is bored and looking for entertainment.
• A God Am I: Technically, he's right, but he tends to rub people's noses in it. He's openly mocked when he claims he's the God of the afterlife in "Tapestry".
• Good Is Not Nice: Even his "good" moments are tempered by his complete disregard for who is hurt by his actions.
• Great Gazoo: He uses his cosmic powers for the sake of toying with hapless Starfleet captains and their crew, whether it be for a test or simply to entertain himself (usually the latter).
• Hates Being Touched: While he's known to put his hands all over people if he feels like it, he tends to react poorly to being touched without permission. For example, one novel had him turn some drunks into gibbering wrecks by showing them the entirety of the universe as revenge for getting too handsy with him.
• Humanoid Abomination: His human appearance is created so that he can mingle with humans. There's nothing human about him.
• Hanging Judge: In his first (and last) appearance. Q's courtroom is ironically modeled on the Kangaroo Courts of the early 21st century, when atomic and eugenic wars had completely dissolved civilization.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He attempts one at the end of "Deja Q," to the astonishment of everyone involved.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite being an Omnipotent Jackass Manchild, he can drop this facade on a dime and remind the audience that he is as old as time itself and is -for all intents and purposes- a Physical God who holds life and death at his whim and is operating on his own agenda.
  • In "Deja Q", after his powers have been taken away, it's shown that he still possesses an advanced understanding of physics and how the universe operates, making him a super-genius even by 24th century standards. However, he lacks knowledge of many more basic things, such as common sense or basic human biology.
• Humans Are Superior:... to the other mortal species, anyway. Q occasionally makes indiscreet reference to humanity's potential, in a backhanded way. What really underlines it is his interactions with other species. He treats Worf, for instance, as barely capable of sentient thought.
• Iconic Outfit: His red and black judge's robes◊ from "Encounter at Farpoint".
• The Imp: While he's one of the most potentially dangerous beings in the universe, and has definitely caused major damage before, he's held back by a twisted sense of honor that prevents him from interfering too much.
• Insufferable Genius: Claims to have an IQ of 2000 and uses every last decimal point of it to be a complete asshole at every possible turn.
  "I'm not interested in human interpersonal relationships. I just want to prove to Picard that I'm indispensable."
• It Amused Me: At least part of his motivation for his actions is that he really enjoys screwing with Starfleet officers. His appearance on Lower Decks implies he messes with any and all Starfleet officers he can find, even lowly ensigns, when he's bored.
• It's All About Me: He expects the Enterprise to drop everything else when he is around or requires their help. Even the potential destruction of a planet or a crew member sacrificing himself for Q won't stop his selfish attitude. In one episode the Enterprise has to deal with another (seemingly) all-powerful being who's taken control of a planet's government. When it's brought up by the crew that it might be Q in some sort of disguise, Picard shoots the idea down because even if he did have supreme power, Q was too self-centered to actually perform the day-to-day business of ruling a planet.
• It Amused Me: At least part of his motivation for messing with Starfleet crew members. His appearance in Lower Decks shows he's even willing to play his usual games with lowly ensigns if the mood strikes him.
• Jackass Genie: Q tells Riker that he shows promise in the pilot, which will be followed up in the episode "Hide & Q." He basically offers to turn him into the next Gary Mitchell, a delusional human with godlike powers.^note Ironically, the (non-canon) novel "Q-Squared" revealed that Mitchell's powers and madness were the result of a shattered and disembodied Q being hurled backwards through time and lodging inside of him Luckily the crew manages to talk him out of his trance.
• Jerkass Gods: He's done some really mean things to people on a whim and a lot of them were rather deadly practical jokes (on the scale of wiping out entire civilizations).
• Jerkass Has a Point: "Q Who" is him telling the Enterprise that they aren't prepared for the dangers out in the galazy. Picard questions if Q's lesson about how dangerous the galaxy is could have been done without the death of eighteen members of his crew. Q responds that the galaxy isn't a safe place and if Picard isn't prepared to accept that people die in the face of danger, then he shouldn't leave home.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Such as warning the Federation of the Borg a year before they would have come. Other such behaviors include thanking Data for Taking the Bullet while Q was stripped of his powers by granting Data a moment of side-splitting laughter, or thanking the crew of Voyager by lopping off a significant amount of their travel distance to get home for resolving issues with his son. He even saved Picard from the precipice of death when he was shot during a diplomatic meeting gone awry (along with an object lesson about choice defining your being). He also admits that engineering Picard's time travel in All Good Things is something he decided on his own, to give Picard a chance to save the quadrant.
• Large Ham: His presence is as large as his ego. For instance, he celebrated the return of his powers with a dramatic He's Back! shout and a mariachi band.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: Opinion of his race as a whole but Q in particular believes this trope. One of the most severe punishments they have (and sentenced Q to once) is to make one of their own mortal. He was ecstatic when they reinstated him.
• Manchild: He's an obscenely powerful, omnipotent deity who has the emotional development of a six-year old. This includes being hopelessly self-obsessed, never realizing how annoying people find him, pouting when things don't go his way, or just generally being upset and acting like a spoiled child when it suits him.
• A Million Is a Statistic: In "Q Who?"
  Picard: I understand what you've done here, Q, but I think the lesson could have been learned without the loss of 18 members of my crew.
  Q: If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross... but it's not for the timid.
  • In the same episode, his bored reaction to Riker calling him out on those deaths:
    Q: Oh, please.
• No Biological Sex: While Q assumes a male form (portrayed by John De Lancie) in his encounters with humans, Q does not actually possess a biological gender; his true form is an Energy Being that doesn't resemble anything like a human body. Q briefly lampshades this when he points out to Picard that he could have shown up as a woman, as he isn't really either: he's a Q.
• No Sense of Personal Space: One-ups every other Star Trek example by teleporting into Picard's bed.
  • Also has a history of hitting on Janeway during most of their encounters.
  • His attempts to tutor and interact with Amanda Rogers in "True Q" also involve him getting very close and personal.
• The Omnipotent: Literally. He considers changing the physical laws of the universe to be trivial.
  Q: You just do it!
• One-Letter Name: You may have noticed that "Q" is nothing more than that.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When he first explained to the Enterprise crew what the Borg are, he spoke in a very quiet, calm, and direct manner. No jokes, no hamming it up, just straight to the point that they were outmatched and doomed. There's a reason his 'oh, please' line is so well remembered.
  • In The Q Continuum trilogy, when Riker realises that Q and Picard are equally concerned about something (the potential return of Q's Evil Mentor 0), he privately reflects that this clearly means he should be very worried about it as well.
  • When his son provokes the Borg for the sake of fun, he loses his cool and flat out shouts at him. Say what you will about Q, he doesn't take the Borg lightly.
• Parental Hypocrisy: Scolds Q Jr. quite emphatically "Do not. Provoke. The Borg!". Famously threw the Enterprise-D into the path of a cube in the Delta Quadrant specifically to provoke the Borg into attacking the Federation. Though one could argue that this is Q having learned from his prior mistake(s) and is trying to teach his son to be better than he was.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In gratitude to Data for helping his transition while he was a mortal human, he leaves him a surprisingly thoughtful gift. 2 minutes of hearty laughter that Data admits he enjoyed.
  • Lampshaded in "All Good Things" when Picard realises that Q is giving him an opportunity to avert the destruction of humanity. Data agrees, saying that Q's relationship with Picard is like that of "a master and his beloved pet". Picard is not impressed by the analogy, but doesn't argue it.
  • There are several more instances where he goes out of his way to help Picard when there's really nothing in it for him.
• Physical God: He has a physical form and god-like power.
• Reality Warper: Q's powers tend to take this form, changing things in a flash of light with a signature sound effect. This seems to be a habit particular to de Lancie's Q. Amanda Rogers, who is a Q raised as a human, activates her powers much more subtly, without the snap or the flash of light.
• Really 700 Years Old: He's immortal and was present at the beginning of the Universe, making him billions of years old yet Q still looks like a middle aged man.
• Shapeshifter Default Form:
  • A human John de Lancie in a Starfleet captain's uniform (presumably to mock Picard). Failing that, the uniform of a high-ranking officer in another military force.
  • Q briefly switched to DS9 colors when he ran into Sisko.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Does this often. One of his grimmest lines comes after Picard complains about the loss of life when Q prematurely had the ship meet the Borg:
  Q: If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed.
• Small Name, Big Ego: An odd case in that his ego is arguably justified by his powers, but Picard treats him like this.
• Story-Breaker Power: He's a Q. The words "omniscient and omnipotent" belong somewhere in the species description.
• Straw Character: In the first season, Q would hypocritically try to prove humanity is inherently savage and brutal, only to be proven completely wrong by our heroes without ever making a valid point about anything. This changed with his appearance in "Q Who".
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Every member of the Q Continuum (minus Q's son) was present at the beginning of the universe. They are very advanced. Which would give added props to the humans who decide to take a swing at him, like Ben Sisko, if proving how humans can be "savage" wasn't Q's goal all along.
• Super-Empowering: To Riker, and in a novel, Lwaxana Troi. The former gives them up to avoid Power Corrupts. The latter turned out to be an incredibly bad idea on Q's part.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Trelane, an infantile (and godlike) alien from TOS' "The Squire of Gothos". Not officially; though de Lancie himself suspected a link between the characters. In the novel Q-Squared, Trelane is retconned into a member of the Q Continuum, with Q stuck babysitting him.
• Token Evil Teammate: Sort of. Guinan once remarked that other Q could be quite respectable (at least in comparison). Had he actually joined the crew, he would have made Quark and Garak look like the Pope and Gandhi.
• Trickster God: According to some of the novels, Q is the Ur-Example for this trope In-Universe, with every trickster god, alien and human (including Loki and Prometheus, where the Q Continuum strung him out on a cliff and had wild animals eat out his internal organs repeatedly for giving humans the gift of fire on a whim) being based in some shape or form on him... and for good reason. He can transform/transport people with the snap of his fingers, but tends to help people learn moral lessons while putting them in dangerous situations.
• Trickster Mentor: Q's actions ultimately help Picard every time he shows up, and ultimately help humanity. He challenges morals, ethics, thoughts, ideas of what we would do for power, who we are and what we could change, as well as the nature of existence.
  • "Tapestry" suggests him to be amused enough by Picard to save his life.
  • "Q-Who" suggests that, even at his worst, throwing the crew into their first encounter with the Borg, he's making sure they have enough experience and warning to be prepared when the Borg arrive in force.
  • From the first episode to the last, he puts humanity to the test, as directed by the Continuum... but by the end, he's become fond enough of the monkeys to offer Picard a helping hand, on his own initiative, and is genuinely pleased when Picard manages to grasp the paradox. At the very end, he's just about to reveal some new cosmic truth... then stops. One can almost see him thinking, "It'll mean more if you figure it out for yourself."
  • In the novels, the Q are one of the caretaker races of the quote/unquote "current" universe, under the auspices of an unnamed, even greater race who has destroyed the last several universes after taking a representative species and judging them and then finding them wanting. Q (the character) has guided humanity, and Picard in particular, to be the judged representative. Every encounter Q has had with Picard has led him to be prepared for this defining moment, which Picard passes by laughing uproariously at the sheer absurdity of the situation he is placed in by way of judgment. Every encounter had an aesop meant in some way to prepare Picard for the situation. Every one... except for being transported to Sherwood Forest. That one was just for fun.
• Unreliable Narrator: You think his arrogant and inflated opinion of himself, which often distorts the truth, is bad in the series? Wait until you read some of the books written in the first person narrative.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: This is how he views his relationship with Picard, if he's feeling generous enough to call Picard a friend. The series finale hints that Picard may be coming around to have the same frame of mind, albeit reluctantly.
• We Are as Mayflies: Q is intrigued by individual people, but doesn't get too attached and certainly doesn't waste time mourning the dead ones. That's what mortals do, after all: die.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: To put it bluntly Q is a pretty lousy parent, but this isn't saying much; he's technically the first Q parent in history, so raising a kid is a new experience for the Q Continuum. ^note  The ranks of the Q Continuum would have you believe that the Q have always existed as they are, unchanged from the beginning of time — based on Quinn's cynical remarks about the Q Continuum having an inflated opinion of themselves and how they evolved to their present state from mortal forms, it would be more accurate to say that the Q simply gave up on birthing new members of their race eons ago. The 'technically' part comes from Amanda Rogers, whose parents were Q who decided to live as humans and give birth to her in human form, making Q's son q the first child of the Continuum to be born as an Energy Being.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Q serves this role to humanity — and Picard's personal growth in particular — by subjecting Captain Picard to various tests to prove whether or not humanity is ready to evolve past their present state; meaning that Q justifies his Jerkass and arrogant tendencies towards Picard and his crew with the point of view that it will make them stronger in the long run.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: The one time Q became genuinely annoyed with Picard his response was to throw the Enterprise seven thousand light years away from home and into the path of the Borg. He was also going to leave them to their fate until Picard finally admitted the Federation's weakness and that he needed Q to rescue them. His remark that the eighteen crew who died in the encounter amounted to nothing to him is absolutely chilling.

Commander Sela

Commander Sela

Played By: Denise Crosby

Illegitimate half-Romulan daughter of Tasha Yar. A major player in the Romulan plot to smash up the Federation-Klingon alliance. She was born as an indirect result of the events of "Yesterday's Enterprise", where the crew encountered the time-displaced crew of the USS Enterprise-C, creating an alternate timeline where Tasha never died.

Not wanting to be erased from existence, the alternate Tasha chose to accompany the crew of the Enterprise-C back to the year 2344, intending to fight and die with them when they made their famous Last Stand against the Romulans. Instead, she was captured—and ended up raped and impregnated by a Romulan guard before dying in an escape attempt.

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• Bastard Bastard: She's the Child by Rape of Natasha Yar and a Romulan general. And she's an asshole.
  • Bizarrely enough, she seems to actually be proud of being a Child by Rape....
  • More likely she's Compensating for Something; a Half-Human Hybrid in the Romulan military would have to prove her loyalty beyond all doubt if she wanted to advance. She clearly feels some guilt about her mother too, so is actively repressing it.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Leaves Spock, Data and Picard, three of the most hypercompetent people in the Federation, under no guard in a Romulan command office. This after knowing for a fact that Data was the one who foiled her previous dumb plan. She's lucky they didn't seize control of the entire Empire!
• Child by Rape: She's the daughter of the alternate Tasha Yar from "Yesterday's Enterprise", who was taken as a consort by a Romulan general. She takes after her father.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Her reveal shot.
• Evil Counterpart: To Spock: a Half-Human Hybrid who identifies with her alien half rather than her human half.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Sela initially dismissed Data as a threat due to him being an android. That said, when he proved her wrong and managed to completely disrupt her plans, she said to his face that he had earned her respect.
  • Irritated by Spock's entirely sensible belief that she'll kill him regardless of his cooperation, Sela takes a moment to express her hatred for Vulcans, citing their logic and their "arrogance".
• General Failure: Nepotism apparently played a major role in getting her into the position she's in, as her schemes are devious, convoluted and almost guaranteed to fail. That said, in "Redemption" she does see through Picard's trap, and would have won if Data hadn't disobeyed orders.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The child of Tasha Yar (from an alternate timeline) and a Romulan man.
• Hate Sink: In her every appearance she is arrogant, violent, remorseless, looks down on pretty much everyone who isn't a Romulan, and doesn't understand why her mother would want to leave their father when she had been enslaved as a consort and obviously held prisoner for years. There's very little to like about Sela.
• Hidden Depths: The closest thing she gets to depth is mentioning she actually likes writing, but her job doesn't give her much chances to do it.
  Data: Perhaps you would be happier in another job?
  Sela: (withering Death Glare)
• Hypocrite: She hates Vulcans because she thinks they're arrogant. A-frikken-hem.
• Identical Grandson: She's Tasha Yar with pointed ears and an even worse hairstyle.
• Informed Attribute: She's presented as a brilliant strategist. Realistically, she has a Complexity Addiction worthy of a Bond villain and no sense of scale whatsoever.^note Her gambit in "Unification" expects freighters carrying 2,000 soldiers to be able to invade Vulcan, one of the founding worlds of the Federation and only 16 light-years from Earth. As StarDestroyer.net put it, you couldn't successfully invade Belgium with that few troops.
• Moral Myopia: As far as Sela is concerned, her mother should have been grateful to have been forced into becoming her father's consort
• Self-Made Orphan: Indirectly; Tasha tried to escape Romulan custody. Having grown up on Romulus and with no desire to leave there, Sela cried out and alerted the guards, causing her mother's capture and subsequent execution.
• Scarpia Ultimatum: Her father was smitten by Tasha's beauty, and agreed to spare the other Starfleet prisoners if she became his consort.
• Smug Snake: In "Unification: Part II".
• That Man Is Dead: Very adamantly tells Picard anything human in her died with her mother.
• Worthy Opponent: Although she initially dismissed Data as a threat due to him being an android, he proved her wrong, and when they met face-to-face, she explicitly said that he had earned her respect and admiration.

Sito Jaxa

Sito Jaxa

Played By: Shannon Fill

A Bajoran cadet and member of Nova Squadron under Locarno. After behind held back due to the coverup, she is assigned to the Enterprise.

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• Lower-Deck Episode: She is assigned to the Enterprise in the episode "Lower Decks," which gives focus to the lower ranking officers aboard the flagship and would later serve as inspiration for the series Lower Decks.
• Mysterious Past: She's Bajoran and was at Starfleet Academy during the Cardassian occupation of her homeworld. Her life before Starfleet is not mentioned, but it's unlikely that it was pleasant.
• Redemption Equals Death: She joins a dangerous spy mission in order to redeem herself in the eyes of her fellow officers for Locarno's conspiracy. She ends up dead, but Picard glowingly commends her service in his address to the crew.
• Small Role, Big Impact: At the Academy, Mariner followed Sito around like a puppy and still looked up to her even after the conspiracy. Her death and subsequently the Dominion War shattered Mariner's ideals and drove her into a cycle of self-destructive behavior.

Noonian Soong

Noonian Soong

Played By: Brent Spiner

The Dr. Light to Data's Megaman, an eccentric inventor and creator of the positronic brain. When his theories on artificial intelligence were scoffed at by his peers, Soong left Earth and settled on a space colony to continue his research.

Data occasionally has visions of Soong, who encourages him to continue pushing the boundaries of his programming. Soong finally reunited with his 'sons' as an old man, but was killed by a vengeful Lore.

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• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: A blue-eyed white man with an American accent, an Indian first name, and a Chinese surname. Gene Roddenberry named two characters after an old friend called Kim Noonien Singh, hence the odd match-up between name and ethnicity, and the similarity to the name of the villain from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
• Attention Deficit Creator Disorder: In-universe and played for tragedy. He claims he always meant to go back one day and straighten out whatever was wrong with Lore's programming, but the facts are hard to argue with: he left Lore dismantled in a closet for years and years until Data and the Enterprise found and reassembled him, homicidal emotional problems intact.
• Crazy-Prepared: Survived the attack on his colony by having a route planned just in case of emergency, explaining to Data he always makes a point to have a method of escape in his dwelling. This can be seen in Data's design; he has an off-switch, a summoning command, and a Morality Chip, just in case he got a little too uppity. At least part of this is trial-and-error as Lore had the first two but not the third, and still managed to be dangerous without it.
• Decided by One Vote: He butted heads with his wife over having a son or daughter android. Soong finally caved and said it was up to his old lady to decide — while carrying a male android's head in one arm. Gee, thanks. (It was also his decision to give Data genitals.)
• Dirty Old Man: Now, why is Data fully anatomically correct, and programmed with a full variety of sexual techniques, Doctor Soong?
• Fake Guest Star: Brent Spiner already plays Data.
• For Science!: Soong was obsessed with creating fully-sapient mechanical beings — not as a labor force or an improvement on existing life-forms, but to prove it could be done. That said, he still loved and doted on Data as if he was his biological child, not simply an experiment.
• Generation Xerox: Star Trek: Enterprise shows us Dr. Arik Soong, an ancestor of his who was also obsessed with an impractical technology, in his case Bio-Augmentation...
  • Identical Grandson: ...also played by Spiner.
  • Given Arik Soong's talent for genetic engineering, this raises the very real possibiliy that his son and grandson are simply clones.
  • Taking it a step further, Picard introduces Noonien's biological son, Alton Inigo Soong. Three guesses who plays him.
  • ...aaand then it introduced his 21st-century ancestor Adam Soong. Yep, you guessed...^note  And not only is Adam also a geneticist, but one confirmed to be trying to clone himself, furthering the aforementioned possibility.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Depending on the episode his first name is spelled either Noonian or Noonien.
• Intangible Man: Soong downloaded a recording of himself into his replica-wife's brain to explain her situation to outsiders. He also included a subroutine which, if activated by Data, would automatically respond to him and answer his questions, too.
• Mad Scientist: Of the good-but-obsessive sort.
• My Greatest Failure: The programming failures that resulted in Lore's personality. He wanted to make things right, but he wasn't aware that Lore had been reassembled until his condition became terminal.
• Narcissist: Like God, he creates Man in his own image.
  (examining Data) I always loved that face.
• Never Found the Body: Was assumed dead when the Crystalline Entity attacked his colony.
• Newton, Einstein, Surak: Once it's discovered that he's the person who created Data and made the positronic brain a reality, he ascends to almost Zefram Cochrane status (Cochrane invented Warp Drive and is one of the most referred-to fictional historical characters in the franchise) and other scientists like Bruce Maddox try to pick up where Soong left off.
• Posthumous Character: Makes at least two appearances this way, in a dream of Data's and a holoprogram coded into the android duplicate of his wife.
• Projected Man: Has come back as a hologram a couple of times.
• Robot Master: Built a series of physically identical androids.
• They Called Me Mad!: Once considered a promising cyberneticist, Soong was laughed out of scientific circles for failing to deliver on his theories. Among his colleagues, he was nicknamed "Often-wrong".
• Truly Single Parent: Subverted. Data thought this was the case for a long time, but the seventh season episode "Inheritance" reveals that Dr. Soong actually had a wife named Juliana who helped him build the androids and acted as a mother to Lore and the earlier prototypes (who died of instability like Lal). Data didn't know about her because the attack by the Crystalline Entity separated them before he was activated.

Ambassador Spock

See his page.

Commander Tomalak

Commander Tomalak

Played By: Andreas Katsulas

Crafty Romulan commander who is usually up to no good.

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• Affably Evil: Always maintains a smarmy facade, even when speaking Blatant Lies.
• Back for the Finale: After several appearances in early seasons, he returns for a cameo in "All Good Things...", when Picard is negotiating to enter the Romulan Neutral Zone.
• Graceful Loser: After being outgambitted by Picard in "The Defector," he tells him "I look forward to our next encounter."
• Military Maverick
  Tomalak: Has Starfleet Command approved this plan?
  Picard: No.
  Tomalak: I like it already.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Unlike most other Romulan antagonists, Tomalak doesn't seem to have any particular hatred for the Federation. He's just a loyal Romulan commander doing his duty to his people.
• Smug Snake: At least when he's winning. Which rarely lasts long.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Only appears in early seasons, and his role as a recurring Romulan antagonist is largely replaced by Sela later on.

Lwaxana Troi

Lwaxana Troi

Played By: Majel Barrett

Daughter of the Fifth House, holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. Widowed mother to Deanna Troi and Federation Ambassador to Betazed. The encroachment of middle age causes Lwaxana to 'overcompensate' in some ways - namely, making sexual advancements on anyone with a pulse. She repeatedly tried to seduce Picard, usually dragging him into saving her from plights of her own making.

Lwaxana later crossed over to Deep Space Nine, where her stalker tendencies promptly shifted to Odo.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: She sizes up men as commodities, deliberately weighing down her luggage so she can emasculate the men wherever she is visiting. And this time she has her sights set on Captain Picard, and her clouded telepathy seems to suggest that all men are infatuated with her (she has retained the services of Mr. Homm despite the "outrageously lustful" thoughts she claims he spews in her direction) when that is far from the truth. Deanna later explains that this is because Betazoid women's sex-drive quadruples when they reach a certain age, meaning that half of the population of Betazed consists of cougars.
• Accidental Misnaming: She keeps calling Worf "Mr. Woof". After a while, he gives up trying to correct her.
• Adult Child: "Your Captain is highly attracted to me, but he’s too old!"
• "Ass" in Ambassador: Enjoys Ambassadorial status and total diplomatic immunity — which she abuses to the hilt. Everything she does is designed to make her presence known and upset everybody else – even her jewelry is a sentient vine which likes to slither up peoples' shirts!
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parent: Her daughter reacts to her visits with more dread than when Enterprise is attacked by the Borg, that's how much Lwaxana embarrasses her with her attempts to marry Deanna off or to seduce any man on her path.
• Blue Blood: Though a surprisingly good diplomat when she bothers to concentrate on the job, Lwaxana's life and self-concept are entirely based around being a member of the Betazoid elite.
• Carpe Diem
• Cloud Cuckoolander
• Consistent Clothing Style: Mrs. Troi will typically be wearing poofy, colourful, formal dresses.
  • Her appearance in "Dark Page", wearing a dress that is modest, plain, and subdued, is a huge clue that there is something deeply wrong with her.
• Cool Old Lady: On the rare occasions she's not being a pest. Particularly in "Cost of Living" when she becomes like a doting aunt to Worf's son Alexander.
• Dirty Old Woman: Enjoys hitting on men, especially Picard.
• The Dreaded: A non-villainous example. Just knowing she's on board is enough to make Picard take precautions to avoid her, and Deanna once uses the threat of Lwaxana potentially paying the ship a visit to motivate Picard into taking a vacation.
  Troi: Counselor Deanna Troi, personal log: Stardate 44805.3... My mother is on board.
• Fake Guest Star: Majel Barrett Roddenberry voice-acted every Federation computer in TNG (and for that matter DS9 and VOY), and was only a "guest star" here in the sense that she physically appears in the episode. As the computer, they even managed to squeeze her into Star Trek: Enterprise ("In A Mirror, Darkly") and the 2009 preboot (very shortly before her death), making her, for a time, the only person to be involved in every incarnation of the franchise, until the launch of Star Trek: Discovery made that position vacant.
• The Fashionista
• Genki Girl: Always friendly, always cheerful, always enthusiastic, even to the point of annoying people around her.
• Good Bad Girl: Since her husband died, she always seems to have Mr. Fanservice on her arm or is on the lookout for it.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: She's a constant pain in the side of Captain Picard for pushing herself onto him and never taking no for an answer. In the episode "Menage A Troi," she's pursued by a Ferengi captain that she finds utterly repulsive, but he's captivated by her beauty. So much so that he kidnaps her and forces her to wait on him.
• Hidden Depths: Let's face it, no one expects her to be as compassionate and thoughtful as she is, particularly when it comes to helping someone enjoy themselves. Odo even points this out to her, which she takes as a great compliment.
  • When she is trapped with Odo in the turbolift and he is struggling not to enter his regeneration cycle (thinking it a deeply personal subject for him and as to not show weakness), despite it causing him increasingly severe pain, Lwaxana puts him at ease in her own deeply personal way by removing her wig that she is never seen without, even when in private with her own daughter.
  Lwaxana: No one has ever seen me like this.
  Odo: Why? It looks fine.
  Lwaxana: It looks ordinary. I've never cared to be ordinary. Even we non-shapeshifters have to change who we are every once in awhile.
  Odo: You are not at all what I expected.
  Lwaxana: Nobody has ever paid me a greater compliment.
• Human Alien: She's Betazoid and looks just as human as her half-human daughter.
• Impossibly-Low Neckline: Subverted in that her cleavage has noticeably sagged.
• I Want Grandkids: She simply can't wait for Deanna to give her a few children and is rather disappointed she decided to settle on a professional career in Starfleet. It hasn't stopped her from trying to play matchmaker, however, much to Deanna's unending frustration.
• Insistent Terminology: She's the daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir of the Holy Rings of Betazed, and won't let you forget it.
• Ms. Fanservice: Like her daughter, but especially for those who like older women.
• My Beloved Smother: Lwaxana is often a bit too involved in Deanna's business. She embarrasses her senseless during her visits.
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Towards Picard. And it's hilarious.
• Outliving One's Offspring: In particularly awful circumstances, as Lwaxana lost her firstborn Kestra at seven years old, while she was pregnant with Deanna. It traumatized her to the point that she can't even bear to think about Kestra.
• Pimped-Out Dress: You can always count on Lwaxana to give your eyes a break from the staid aesthetic of the Enterprise uniforms.
• Phony Phony Psychic: The final gag in "Manhunt" is that those absurd looking Fish People are assassins, and Mrs Troi knew so all along, so maybe her psychic radar isn't broken after all.
• Series Continuity Error: Apparently, Deanna can sense considerable deception on DaiMon Bok’s part despite the fact that a Betazoid cannot read a Ferengi mind. Oops. Trust Season One to detract from Troi's biggest moment of glory.
• Race Fetish: She looks over Worf as a potential mate and then says it's a shame she's so attracted to human men. Picard and her first husband were both human, so draw your own conclusions.
• Stepford Smiler: As shown in "Dark Page." She's been hiding a small mountain range's worth of grief over the death of Deanna's sister for decades.
• Telepath: A full telepath and Empath, unlike her daughter Deanna who is mainly an empath and only rare telepath. Lwaxana can talk mentally to nearly any species (except Ferengi and a few others), while the only non-empath Deanna is ever shown talking mentally to is Will Riker.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: Lwaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Although as Deanna points out, the Sacred Chalice of Rixx is just an old pot with some mold growing in it.