Rivet: Enough, Nefarious! You're tearing reality apart! If you don't stop—
Emperor Nefarious: Oh no! The thankless, uninspiring dimensions are collapsing?! Oh, how could I?! (...) Enough! I will collapse every dimension into nothingness! A vapid, empty void! Say goodbye!
Emperor Nefarious: Oh no! The thankless, uninspiring dimensions are collapsing?! Oh, how could I?! (...) Enough! I will collapse every dimension into nothingness! A vapid, empty void! Say goodbye!
Our titular gun-toting Lombax and robot have come across many tough cookies over the course of their adventures, but their universe's tongue-in-cheek humor and social satire hasn't stopped quite a few ne'er-do-wells from committing crimes beyond the scope of the cosmos.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
- First game: Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek, at first seemingly well-intentioned in finding his species, the Blarg, a new home, is revealed to have been the one who polluted their homeworld in the first place. Drek's real motive is to loot and destroy numerous planets due to the fact that he gets paid for every square inch of the new Blarg homeworld, with plans to begin polluting the new homeworld to start the process over again. Needing a place to put the new planet, Drek attempts to destroy Ratchet's home planet of Veldin, with the implication that he does so just to spite Ratchet for interfering in his plans.
- Up Your Arsenal: Courtney Gears, pop sensation of the Solana Galaxy, doubles as The Dragon to Dr. Nefarious and is the one carrying out his goal of destroying all organic life in the galaxy. Courtney Gears operates Nefarious's Biobliterator—a device that subjects any organic to Unwilling Roboticisation, reducing them to mindless murder-bots—and tests it out on Skidd. Not only intending to use the Biobliterator on a much larger population, Courtney turns her latest hit into a sensation to encourage her loyal fans to kill any "squishies" that Nefarious doesn't convert with the Biobliterator.
- Deadlocked: Gleeman Vox is the greedy owner of Vox Industries who came up with the idea of DreadZone, a game where he kidnaps heroes across the galaxy and forces them to fight for survival in gladiatorial combat. Even before then, Vox was a cruel boss who had fed his weapon design team to a leviathan after they disagreed with a weapon proposal and used the Fusion Rifle on his employees if he was ever interrupted. Vox keeps the heroes imprisoned with Deadlock collars that will shock them or explode if they don't participate or try to escape, and makes them participate in challenges such as putting the entire planet of Stygia in danger by sabotaging the force fields that protect it from meteor storms. When Ratchet declines his deal, Vox personally tries to kill him brutally and reveals he had a self-destruct device that would blow up the station with everyone on it. Finally, when everyone except him and Ratchet manages to escape, Vox gloats to Ratchet on how he will die along with him and get the highest ratings ever on television.
- Size Matters: Emperor Otto Destruct is the supreme leader of the Technomites, using the illusion of gaining respect and prosperity for his people to mask his own selfish agenda. Technology developed by himself and his people having killed the legendary parents of Captain Qwark years ago, Otto takes advantage of this to manipulate the pliable Qwark into his abused stooge, uncaring of the emotional trauma he inflicts upon the man. After performing nightmarish experiments on Ratchet that make even the lighthearted Lombax feel violation and hatred, Otto reveals his final goal: to use an army of Ratchet clones to round up every last intelligent life form in the galaxy and transfer their minds into himself, leaving him as the most knowledgeable being in the universe while uncaring about what becomes of his victims and fellow Technomites, so long as he has all the power.
- Tools of Destruction: Emperor Percival Tachyon, the diminutive, tyrannical dictator of the Polaris Galaxy, is one of the most personal foes Ratchet ever faced. A Cragmite who was found and taken in by the Lombax people, Tachyon repaid their years of compassion and care by tricking them into giving him an arsenal, which he used to carry out a bloody genocide against the very people who raised him. Hundreds of Lombaxes died at Tachyon's hands in his purge, with the survivors forced to flee to another dimension. As he ruthlessly conquered the Polaris Galaxy by staging brutal invasions and enslavements of entire planets, Tachyon instituted Gladiator Games and repurposed Zordoom Prison into his own personal torture and execution station for any rebels. Regularly threatening his minions with death for the slightest of failures, Tachyon schemes to tear open dimensional gateways and recreate the Great Cragmite Empire under his banner so he can conquer all dimensions. Though sometimes amusing in his villainy, Tachyon is a merciless, self-absorbed, and psychopathic despot whose greatest moment of cruelty comes when he sadistically mocks Ratchet over his parents' deaths at Tachyon's hands.
- Secret Agent Clank: Klunk is the Evil Counterpart of Clank, out to replace his heroic foe and become worshipped by the galaxy. After a failed attempt to murder Ratchet and ensure Dr. Nefarious's attempted genocide of organics came to pass, Klunk returns as his own mastermind, framing Ratchet for the theft of the Eye of Infinity and getting him thrown into a Hellhole Prison. Klunk then threatens a scientist into weaponizing the Eye and reveals his plan to threaten the entire Solana Galaxy with it, then "save the day" after murdering Clank to make himself into a hero. When his plans are jeopardized, Klunk spitefully tries to annihilate the Solana Galaxy with the laser out of sheer refusal to be one-upped.
- All 4 One: The Loki Master is the true mastermind of the Collectors. Hailing from a destroyed planet, the Loki Master arrived on planet Magnus and possessed the body of Mr. Dinkles, the eventual pet of Dr. Frumpus Croid. Betraying Croid, the Master took his colleague Nevo as a hostage, threatening his life to have him work for the Loki Master. Stealing dangerous creatures from throughout the galaxy, the Loki Master dumped them on Magnus, altering various habitats to suit them better, devastating the ecosystem while also having its Collectors terrorize the inhabitants of the planet to keep them in line for over a hundred years. Its master plan is to use Croid's technology to force its own and its fellow Lokis beings into more dangerous creatures with the goal of leaving Magnus and ripping the universe apart until there is only dust left.
- 2016 remake & animated film: Dr. Nefarious is a much darker character than in the original series. Starting off as Drek's engineer, Nefarious built the Deplanetizer that allowed Drek to destroy planets and use their land masses to build his new world. After the pair destroy Novalis and five other planets, Nefarious betrays Drek and takes over his operation, intending to destroy Umbris, a volatile planet which could set off a chain reaction and destroy the entire solar system. When he hears that Ratchet and Clank are thwarting the attempt to destroy Umbris, Nefarious goes to stop them himself and ensure Umbris's destruction, despite knowing he'd die too.
- Rift Apart: Emperor Nefarious hails from an alternate dimension where he successfully achieved his goals of conquering the galaxy. Ruling his dimension as a dictatorship by imprisoning anybody for the pettiest of reasons, while robotizing those who dare refuse to serve him, Nefarious also sends Warbots out to depopulate planets to make them easier to conquer. Returning after a conquest trip to find Dr. Nefarious having assumed command, Nefarious chooses to partner with him to wipe out the resistance, before attempting to destroy Rivet's home planet afterwards. Once Nefarious finds victory to be boring, he gets the idea to use his new Dimensionator to instead rule over every single dimension so that he will always win. Tricking Ratchet and friends into helping him locate the Dimensional Map by invading the planet Savali, Nefarious thanks his alternate counterpart for assisting him by setting out to conquer his dimension first against his partner's wishes. When he looks to be losing for the first time in his life, Nefarious tries to overclock the Dimensionator in an attempt to undo all of reality itself.
