History NightmareFuel / StarTrek

** It's an unsettling reminder that Q, for all his puckish pranks and amusements, is genuinely a threat on his own, and he is so far above the Federation on the food chain that the lives of a handful of Starfleet officers means absolutely nothing to him.

* The "psych test" Wesley undertakes as part of the Star Fleet entrance exam. Everything about the test is terrifying, and it's also notably a rare season 1 instance where the CreatorsPet does not come out on top.

*** Moreover, remember that Kirk's nephew, not a Vulcan, is facing potentially far worse pain, should he awaken from his coma -- and despite the joking around at the end, Kirk still has to tell the kid that his parents[[hottip:and perhaps his brothers too, though we never see them]] died in agony, along with a sizable amount of everyone he knew.

** And later on, they [[EarthShatteringKaboom Blow up a Borg planet]]. If the [[StarWars Alderaan]] scene is scary, imagine this being done by a couple of Voyager-sized ships, with the beams first converging on a central one before hitting a planet - and instead of clear "Hit and Boom" one sees as the planet disintegrates piece by piece!

* The cloud creature in "Obsession". It's capable of space travel, phasers don't do squat against it, it can silently sneak up on its victims pretty much anywhere, and if it catches you it basically sucks out your ''blood'' without even leaving a mark. And we're supposed to believe that a simple bomb would kill it in the end... yeah, right.

* Korob and Sylvia in ''Catspaw'' relied on classic NightmareFuel.

*** Worf pretty much lost his shit on the bridge of the doppelganger ship. "THERE IS ONE BRIDGE. ONE RIKER, ONE BRIDGE GRAAHHH."

* The [[TheVirus Borg]].

** In Parallels you see a [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Riker_gone_mad.jpg desperate and half-mad Riker]] begging for help from the alt-uni ''Enterprise''. In his universe, the entire Federation has been overrun by Borg, and he is the only man shown on the bridge. He is so desperate to prevent himself from returning to his own dimension that he tries to ''kill Worf and by doing so endanger all of the multiverses in the process''.

*** The concept art [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/File:Conspiracy_(Andrew_Probert).jpg is quite terrifying.]]

* In "The Child", Counselor Troi is forcibly impregnated in her sleep by a non-corporeal life form.

* ''Dark Page''. If you never thought ''Lwaxana Troi'' could be scary...
* TNG never got a MirrorUniverse episode, but the book ''Dark Mirror'' gives it a go, and it's ''nasty''. [[TheEmpath Troi]] as [[MindRape Mind Rapist]] and [[TheCaptain Picard]] as a murderous psychopath were bad enough, but then Good!Picard discovers that this universe perverted WilliamShakespeare into a twisted parody of the literature we know. He can't even bring himself to ''look'' at his antique copy of Literature/TheBible (presumably he wants to sleep sometime).

** Ah yes, the Cornucopia of Doom?
*** No, the [[TheShipsCloset Angry Icicle Condom Of Fire.]]
*** A more [[GoMadFromTheRevelation sanity-rending]] [[EldritchAbomination horn]] has yet to be found.
* Don't forget the very first episode, "The Man Trap", with the shapeshifting alien that sucked the salt out of the victim's body.

*** Moreover, remember that Kirk's nephew, not a Vulcan, is facing potentially far worse pain, should he awaken from his coma -- and despite the joking around at the end, Kirk still has to tell the kid that his parents[[hottip:and perhaps his brothers too, though we never see them]] died in agony, along with a sizeable amount of everyone he knew.

* Korob and Sylvia in ''Catspaw'' relied on classic NightmareFuel. Then [[spoiler:Sylvia became [[SpecialEffectsFailure a giant cat]]]].
** And the part where the RedShirt of the week beamed up to the ship, and then dropped dead? And then a SCARY VOICE came out of his DEAD mouth? Yeek.

* And who could forget the Zetarians in "The Lights of Zetar?" Non-corporeal energy beings who zoom around the galaxy so fast the ''Enterprise'' can't outrun them, searching for someone to possess so they can live out their lives. And if they can't possess you, they'll just kill you horrifically while trying. The woman who dies on the station spends several seconds with her face writhing uncontrolably and glowing several different colors, possibly in a very great deal of pain, before she dies. Even with the long-out-of-date and obvious special effects, the shot is still unnerving.
* Charlie X. He can age you, turn you into an iguana or leave your face quite blank, among other disturbing things. But that doesn't really do him justice. EnfantTerrible RealityWarper StalkerWithACrush [[MindRape Mind Rapist]], anyone?
** What about the aliens who [[TouchedByVorlons gave him his powers]] and apparently raised him? They're apparently so creepy that Charlie ''himself'' is frightened of them. You know, the same reality warper who just spent the whole episode swaggering about invincibly, smugly confident in his own superiority, and now he's begging the same people he was just bullying not to let them take him away. Then the way his last plea of "I wanna stay" echoes when they teleport him off the ship...

** It was also a bit bad in "The Mark of Gideon" when Kirk is stuck on an eerily empty ''Enterprise''. Loneliness is a sort of hell, particularly for an extreme extrovert like Kirk. Oh, and ''hello'', right before the first ad break, a bunch of pallid faces fade onto the viewscreen without warning, just staring... (shudder).

** Pssh, the agony booth is kids' stuff compared to the Neural Neutralizer from "Dagger of the Mind", which, in all honesty, the Mirror Universe probably has as well. The device was originally intended to cure the mentally psychotic, but one scientist decided to make a few..."minor adjustments". Not only does it inflict as much pain as the agony booth, but the operator can make changes to a patient's personality and memories. In the off-chance someone taps into his or her true self, they are inflicted with intense pain, as shown by poor Dr. Van Gelder. Probably the worst part is when a person is in the chamber with the device at full blast and no operator present...

* A lot of people consider the scene in "Plato's Step-Children" to be [[CrowningMomentOfFunny hilarious, what with the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum song, tap dancing, self-slapping, and Kirk giving a pony-ride to a very small man in a toga.]] While it's understandable to see it as funny on the surface, consider for a moment a race of people who can [[MindRape force you to do ANYTHING. ANYTHING. On a whim. And not only that, but they can force you to FEEL anything, too -- they have Spock laughing and crying.]] Spock himself says it best: they could seriously injure or even ''kill'' you just because they wanted to or you made them angry. Without even breaking a sweat, with the power of their minds alone. And these people seem to have no moral compass. At all. Imagine the sheer horror of being forced to humiliate yourself and be caused pain just because someone else was selfish, bored, and ''could''.
** This means a YouBastard moment for people who did laugh at that episode.

* While we're on the subject of anthropomorphic drowning hazards, Armus from the episode "Skin of Evil", though some people consider it to be {{Narm}}.
* The Doomsday Machine mentioned for TOS? Another one shows up in the novel ''Vendetta''. It's bigger, it's faster, it's angry, it's ''haunted'' by {{yandere}} ghosts!
* Although it's generally considered a weaker episode, Data's possession in ''Masks'' is pretty frightening. He asks Geordi what it feels like when someone is "losing his mind", then gives a perverse smile and adds, "Masaka is waking!"
* Nagilum. An immortal, nigh-omnipotent Elder Thing who, in the spirit of scientific inquiry and genuine curiosity, decides to study the phenomenon of death. In order to do so, it rips a great big hole in spacetime, traps the Enterprise therein, and makes with the empiricism. Have we mentioned that it manifests as [[http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/1/1e/Nagilum.jpg a giant face floating in the void]]?

** And let us not forget Picard and Riker calmly and matter of factly deciding to self-destruct the ship with all hands aboard rather then have them be killed one by one by Nagilum. The conversation Picard and his Number 1 have over how long to set the count down to the ship's destruction is chilling. [[ItGotWorse It gets worse]] when FridgeHorror sets in and we remember that besides the crew, the Enterprise is populated by a couple hundred civilians, many of them children. One can't fault Picard and Riker for wanting to spare their crew from the horrible screaming death we saw the red shirt subjected to, but the way they just give up without really exploring any other options is unnerving.

*** Worf pretty much lost his shit on the bridge of the doppelganger ship. "THERE IS ONE BRIDGE. ONE RIKER, ONE BRIDGE GRAAHHH." It might be narmful if it wasn't so scary.

** The cake was freaky, but ''much worse'' is watching Data, aka the Nicest of Nice Guys, [[DissonantSerenity calmly]] ''stabbing Troi in the shoulder'' over... and over... and ''over...''

*** The Devidians, the race of aliens in question, were picked up for use in one of the "Weekly Episode" story arcs for ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' recently, in the spirit of Halloween. The Devidians in the actual TV episode are nothing compared to the ones in game - they are in absolutely massive numbers, as opposed to the handful seen on TV, and their base of operations is the poorly-maintained innards of a space station that, until recently, was uninhabited since the days of TOS. It was probably the single creepiest quest ever seen in an MMORPG. Worse still, from that point on, you'll occasionally see the lights flicker in the populated regions of the station, and a ghostly Devidian will run by, apparently unseen by everyone else but you...
* The [[Main/TheVirus Borg]]. 'Nuff said.

** You think the Borg are bad in their current form? [[http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/tng_4.php Here]] is some lovely concept art that shows what they were ''considering'' making the Borg look like, with such lovely little details as ''[[http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/images/TNG/borg_concept-1.png visible intestines behind transparent plating,]] mobile, sea anenome-style hair made out of pipes, and'' '''[[http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/images/TNG/borg_concept-2.png razor-sharp sickles attacthed to the Borg Queen's frigging wrists.]]''' Creepy does not even ''begin'' to cover it.

** In Parallels you see a [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Riker_gone_mad.jpg desperate and half-mad Riker]] begging for help from the alt-uni Enterprise. In his universe, the entire Federation has been overrun by Borg, and he is the only man shown on the bridge. He is so desperate to prevent himself from returning to his own dimension that he tries to ''kill Worf and by doing so endanger all of the multiverses in the process''. Thinking about what the ''rest'' of that universe must be like gives me the heebly-jeeblies.
* Let's not forget Q's behavior when the Borg where first introduced. At first he seemingly sent them into Borg space out of child-like spite. But to just coldly brush off the ''real deaths'' of eighteen innocent people as a BLOODY NOSE!

** Not to mention her [[CreepyChild creepy expression and line delivery]] all the way through.

*** I feel it's worth noting that said parasite was the [[SpecialEffectsFailure saddest sock-puppet alien]] I'd ever seen. The ''concept art'' on the other hand: [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/File:Conspiracy_(Andrew_Probert).jpg Looky man looky!]]
* Don't forget the time everyone on the ship but Data is slowly transformed into prehistoric animals.

* The episode where Dr. Crusher gets trapped on a deserted Enterprise in the collapsing universe may be far scarier than was intended. There's a particular kind of hopeless terror when the ''borders of reality itself are closing in on all sides''. The recent ''New Scientist'' article predicting that this might be what it would ''actually'' look like when the universe ends ''does not help''.

* How about that "Out of Phase" episode, where Geordi and Ro, who were trapped in the alternate phase of reality, dealt with a guy by ''kicking him out into space through a solid wall''? Or the creepy incarnate when they appeared at their own funeral as ghosts writhing in pain as the AppliedPhlebotinum of the episode revealed them to the rest of the crew?
** Applying FridgeLogic to this episode makes it even worse. It's established that the people who are out of phase aran't able to interact with matter. This means that the out of phase people don't need air, or else it would have been a very short episode. Given that they don't need air, we can surmise they probably aran't affected by changes in temperature or pressure. Now apply all this to the Romulan who got shoved through the hull of the ship, last seen drifting off into space unable to counter the momentum of the push that sent him through the hull. Instead of dying a relatively quick death from exposure to space, the poor bastard will instead drift through space until he finally dies of dehydration.
*** You're being too generous. He might die if he's ''lucky''. It could be possible that you can't die out of phase, and that [[AndIMustScream he'll just fly through space forever, unable to touch anything or communicate with anyone.]] And all he really wanted to do was ''avoid'' such a fate.
*** It can be even worse than that. Apparently people out of phase are still affected by gravity and can feel pain. Add into this potential immortality and, well, he's going to have to drift by a sun or a star eventually...

** That whole episode is made of nightmare fuel. Also noteworthy are Counselor Troi's psychadelic visions: ''Eyes in the dark''

* The entirety of the episode "Schisms," where Enterprise crew are abducted and experimented on while they sleep by creatures from deep subspace. Particularly the scene where the abductees try to reconstruct their nightmares on the holodeck, ending with them standing around a creepy operating table in the dark with strange clicking and buzzing noises in the background. You can even see an abductee's hands climbing toward her face in horror as they get more and more accurate. Or perhaps the scene in sick bay where Riker learns that his arm has been severed and then reattached while he was asleep.
*** Apparently, the aliens from ''Schisms'' were never brought back because Brannon Braga [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Schisms#Background_Information didn't find them "terrifying" enough]] (!) to be worthwhile. I still would have been creeped out had they been giant pink bunnies.
* What about that serious MindScrew in ''Frame of Mind''?

** How about the moment where her grandmother's corpse ''sits up in its coffin'' during a lightening storm ''with demonic, glowing blue eyes!''

* In "The Child", Counselor Troi is forcibly impregnated in her sleep by a non-corporeal life form. Enough said...

* ''Dark Page''. I first saw it when I was around ten or so, and it scared the hell out of me. If you never thought ''Lwaxana Troi'' could be scary... yikes. To make matters worse, it was aired back-to-back with ''Phantasms'' which is ANOTHER deeply unsettling episode.

** [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Ummm...]]
* This may sound a little weird, but Chekov under the effects of the HatePlague in "Day of the Dove." It wasn't...''nightmare-inducing'', per se, but seeing the goofy ComicRelief character with a bad accent suddenly start attacking everyone and attempt to RAPE some poor lady while whispering creepy things to her was really... disturbing.

* Three words: Khan Noonien Singh. Granted, he would get much worse in the second Star Trek film, but even in his introductory episode, "Space Seed", the man was frightening. During his attempt to take over the Enterprise, he makes it clear to Kirk that he isn't screwing around by locking Kirk, Spock, and Uhura in the bridge and shutting off Life Support there in order to get them and the crew to surrender. When ''that'' doesn't work, he forces them to watch each other die, one by one, via suffocation in Sick Bay's decompression chamber.

** Although, watching Janeway wrestle one to the ground and stab it to death [[SoBadItsGood is kind of hilarious.]]

* After enough "special moments" like this, the network (or at least the local affiliate in my area) all but started advertising it as a horror show. "Such-and-such happens on ''Series/TheSentinel'', and then ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' unleashes another hour of terror." They're right!

* ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'': While it may be a hack film, one thing that Shatner put into it that still terrifies this troper: the [[JerkassGod jerkass]] EnergyBeing with near-divine powers that was thrown in as its BigBad. That nearly killed Kirk. Then we have its VillainousBreakdown...

Generally speaking, where British kids had ''Series/DoctorWho'', American kids had ''Franchise/StarTrek''.

** And the part where the {{RedShirt}} of the week beamed up to the ship, and then dropped dead? And then a SCARY VOICE came out of his DEAD mouth? Yeek.

* Three words: Khan Noonien Singh. Granted, he would get much worse in the second Star Trek film, but even in his introductory episode, "Space Seed", the man was frightening. During his attempt to take over the Enterprise, he makes it clear to Kirk that he isn't screwing around by locking Kirk, Spock, and Uhura in the bridge and shutting off Life Support there in order to get them and the crew to surrender. When ''that'' doesn't work, he forces them to watch each other die, one by one, via suffocation in Sick Bay's decompression chamber.

* The ''Constitution''-class ship is kind of bright and cheery with the red doors and uniforms and such, right? Well, when [[GhostShip everyone on it is dead or almost dead]], the emptiness is kind of creepy, creepy like an AbandonedHospital. Specifically, the ''Defiant'' from TOS: "The Tholian Web" and ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly" and the ''Republic'' from {{Star Trek 25th Anniversary}} were messed up real bad. It didn't help that Kirk and his landing party on either ship were stuck there without the ability to transport to the ''Enterprise'' -- that's right, no escape route despite being on ships falling apart at the seams. And in the former case, on a ship that is phasing in and out of reality as you know it.

* [=McCoy=]'s injuries during "The Empath". What's worse is that we don't see exactly ''what'' happened to him during that time.

* A lot of people consider the scene in "Plato's Step-Children" to be [[CrowningMomentOfFunny hilarious, what with the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum song, tap dancing, self-slapping, and Kirk giving a pony-ride to a very small man in a toga.]] While it's understandable to see it as funny on the surface, consider for a moment a race of people who can [[MindRape force you to do ANYTHING. ANYTHING. On a whim. And not only that, but they can force you to FEEL anything, too -- they have Spock laughing and crying.]] Spock himself says it best: they could seriously injure or even ''kill'' you just because they wanted to or you made them angry. Without even breaking a sweat, with the power of their minds alone. And these people seem to have no moral compass. At all. Imagine the sheer horror of being forced to humiliate yourself and be caused pain just because someone else was selfish, bored, and ''could''.

** Not helped that those assholes (the psychics) more or less [[ForcedToWatch make Dr. [=McCoy=] watch the whole thing]] in an attempt to make him stay on the planet as their physician, not long after he saved their leader from dying.

** ...Which immediately leads to a redshirt being killed by a forced heart attack.

*** Worf pretty much lost his shit on the bridge of the doppelganger ship. "THERE IS ONE BRIDGE. ONE RIKER, ONE BRIDGE GRAAHHH." It might be narmful if it wasn't so scary.

* The first revealing of [[LosingYourHead Data's head]], in a cavern in San Fransisco.
** Later on, time starts to go screwy and we get a glimpse of the energy-draining ghost things.

* The [[Main/{{TheVirus}} Borg]]. 'Nuff said.

* The first season was quite full of fuel. Watching [[spoiler:Dexter Remmick's]] neck squirm and throb at the end of ''Conspiracy'' is still truly squick.

** Applying FridgeLogic to this episode makes it even worse. It's established that the people who are out of phase aran't able to interact with matter. This means that the out of phase people don't need air, or else it would have been a very short episode. Given that they don't need air, we can surmise they probably aran't affected by changes in temperature or pressure. Now apply all this to the Romulan who got shoved through the hull of the ship, last seen drifting off into space unable to counter the momentum of the push that sent him through the hull. Instead of dying a relatively quick death from exposure to space, the poor bastard will instead drift through space until he finally dies of dehydration.

* The entirety of the episode "Schisms," where Enterprise crew are abducted and experimented on while they sleep by creatures from deep subspace. Particularly the scene where the abductees try to reconstruct their nightmares on the holodeck, ending with them standing around a creepy operating table in the dark with strange clicking and buzzing noises in the background. You can even see an abductee's hands climbing toward her face in horror as they get more and more accurate. Or perhaps the scene in sick bay where Riker learns that his arm has been severed and then reattached while he was asleep.

* ''[[EvilTwin Lore.]]'' When he first appears in "Datalore," he's vaguely creepy. Then you find out that he's a ruthless sociopath, and that's creepier. But it's during the scene when he kicks his deactivated brother in the head, twice, for no practical reason, that he becomes truly terrifying. He isn't merely pragmatically self-centered; [[CompleteMonster he ENJOYS hurting people.]] And he's strong and fast enough to tear out your femur and stab you with it before you could scream.

* The episode ''Violations'' is terrifying enough to watch as a child, but understanding the literal MindRape implications of the telepathic attacks pulls it squarely into AdultFear territory.
* "The Game", especially when Wesley goes to talk to Picard about starting an investigation. You see him putting something down as Wesley enters, and then after he leaves, Picard turns around and picks up a copy of the game without a word.

* TNG never got a MirrorUniverse episode, but the book ''Dark Mirror'' gives it a go, and it's ''nasty''. [[TheEmpath Troi]] as [[MindRape Mind Rapist]] and [[TheCaptain Picard]] as a murderous psychopath were bad enough, but then Good!Picard discovers that this universe perverted WilliamShakespeare into a twisted parody of the literature we know. He can't even bring himself to ''look'' at his antique copy of TheBible (presumably he wants to sleep sometime).

* Odo's physical decay in "The Die is Cast."

[[folder: Voyager]]

** And later on, they [[EarthShatteringKaboom Blow up a Borg planet]]. If the [[StarWars Alderaan]] scene is scary, imagine this being done by a couple of Voyager-sized ships, with the beams first converging on a central one before hitting a planet - and instead of clear "Hit and Boom" one sees as the planet disintegrates piece by piece!

* "The Thaw" in which members of the crew are trapped in a dream-like computer program where they are held captive by, ridiculed and almost killed by, not a {{Monster Clown}} but a whole bloody [[CircusofFear ''monster circus'']]. The clown was the ringleader, played by Micheal [=McKean=] as a {{large ham}}. The part that I remember the most is when the whole circus sings out "A VI-RUS! A VI-RUS! HE THINKS WE ARE A VI-RUS!" in a chillingly demented way.

[[folder: Enterprise]]

* Worst of all, though, is the ''much'' more graphic portrayal of what happens to victims of [[ExplosiveInstrumentation Explosive Instrumentation]]. When the ship gets attacked, other Treks have the StarTrekShake and the occasional sooty HesDeadJim person. ''Enterprise'' has things like people on fire and screaming, or crewmen blown out into space when the hull is breached, twitching for a bit, and then stopping.

* "Blood and Fire" is about Regulan bloodworms. The ones the Klingons were joking about in "The Trouble with Tribbles". Regulan bloodworms are not funny. Or cute. Or harmless and useful, like the ones in ''Enterprise''. Point of fact, [[spoiler: they travel in gigantic swarms, and they eat people alive, and we get to see it.]]

[[quoteright:287:[[StarTrekVoyager http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SulanDurstsFace_8843.jpg]]]]

Generally speaking, where British kids had ''Series/DoctorWho'', American kids had ''StarTrek''.

*** The Devidians, the race of aliens in question, were picked up for use in one of the "Weekly Episode" story arcs for StarTrekOnline recently, in the spirit of Halloween. The Devidians in the actual TV episode are nothing compared to the ones in game - they are in absolutely massive numbers, as opposed to the handful seen on TV, and their base of operations is the poorly-maintained innards of a space station that, until recently, was uninhabited since the days of TOS. It was probably the single creepiest quest ever seen in an MMORPG. Worse still, from that point on, you'll occasionally see the lights flicker in the populated regions of the station, and a ghostly Devidian will run by, apparently unseen by everyone else but you...

* After enough "special moments" like this, the network (or at least the local affiliate in my area) all but started advertising it as a horror show. "Such-and-such happens on ''Series/TheSentinel'', and then ''StarTrekVoyager'' unleashes another hour of terror." They're right!

* ''StarTrekInsurrection''. The flesh stretching process of the Son'a. Only somewhat Nightmare Fuel until head baddie Ru'afo [[spoiler:betrays Admiral Dougherty, killing him by subjecting him to a flesh stretching machine. Ow.]]
* ''StarTrekGenerations''. When Data's newly-installed emotion chip overloads and he goes LaughingMad, it's ''creepy as hell.''

** Then there's the early scene where [[ThrownOutOfTheAirlock a crewmember gets sucked out of a hull breach, their screaming silenced when they end up in the vacuum...]]

** Q in general could be seen as HighOctaneNightmareFuel. Though he does have humanity's best interest in mind, for the most part, he is still a [[JerkAssGod jerkish reality-warping alien]] who will gladly toy with you (mentally and physically) for his own amusement. Not only will he wipe out entire civilizations out of pure boredom, but he can also alter the laws of physics with little-to-no effort. And that's not even getting into how '''dangerous''' he can be when he's angry.

** The thought that whatever happened on Omicron Ceti V since Kirk marooned the ''Botany Bay'' survivors there was sufficient enough to drive ''Khan'' of all people to the point of utter madness is pretty nightmare-inducing. In ''Space Seed'', Khan was himself a case of NightmareFuel; in the movie, he's utterly psychotic.

* ''HighOctaneNightmareFuel/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' The whole damn, [[LeaveTheCameraRunning interminable]] thing! THAT is terrifying!

* ''HighOctaneNightmareFuel/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''
* ''HighOctaneNightmareFuel/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock''

'''Note:''' please avoid personal examples, anecdotes and natter. Feel free to tell us about how scary the Borg are, but we don't need to know how they made you hide under the bed.

Generally speaking, where British kids had ''Series/DoctorWho'', American kids had ''StarTrek''. Let's take it by series:

* ''HighOctaneNightmareFuel/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' The whole damn thing! I thought it was never gonna end! THAT terrified me!

** The ''Narada'' is about twenty miles long, hideously overweaponed, and covered in blades and tentacles caused by uncontrollable Borg ''growths''. There is nothing Accidental about the ''Narada'''s [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel Nightmare Fuel]].

** Any time Odo is strung out and needs to turn back into his true form to rest, but he can't. The makeup effects impressively {{Squick}}.
* In an episode in which someone is killing Kira's resistance cellmates, they send her messages saying "That's one", etc. as each person is killed in a deeply creepy Saw-type distorted voice. Even creepier? [[spoiler:They use Kira's voice.]]

** I got really creeped out at the part [[spoiler:where Ezri is using the gun that can see through walls (which our villain uses as well) and ''they find themselves aiming at each other, at the exact same time, from all the way across the freaking station]].''
* TheReveal that the [[ShapeShifter Changelings]] had infiltrated the Federation. "It's too late; [[WeAreEverywhere we're everywhere]]." Creeped me out ''[[ParanoiaFuel severely.]]''
** While Sisko is dealing with dissension within Starfleet that's led to martial law, a Changeling (in the form of nice, fun O'Brien no less) stops by just to taunt him. "What if I told you that at this moment there are only four Changelings on this planet? And look at the havok we have wrought."
* No mention of that scene when the Bajoran woman ''hangs herself'' on the crowded Promenade?
* The Dominion has "Houdini" anti-personnel mines, which hide in [[SubspaceOrHyperspace subspace]] and make you "disappear"--at a randomly chosen instance, not by predictable rules. So basically, if you have no way to detect them, nowhere is safe anywhere they've been laid; even places you've passed hundreds of times.

* ShowWithinAShow version: There's a sequence in a child's holodeck program in which a massive fire monster hops out of nowhere and burns the main character to [[NotQuiteDead what looks like death if the kid's not bright enough to figure out how to help him.]] Worse happens in some children's stories, but the Holodeck is '''virtual reality''' - 3D, immersive, in your face, and by the 24th century, as realistic-looking as reality. The idea of any programmer making such entertainment for a child seriously stretches WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.
** Methinks the above troper has never actually ''read'' any of the NightmareFuel articles, which are primarily comprised of examples that were ''[[TruthInTelevision explicitly made for children]]''.
** The above troper said "worse happens in some children's stories". The comment explicitly says that what's hard to believe is NOT that such stories would be made for children, but that such HOLODECK PROGRAMS would be made for chidren, the difference being that holodeck programs feel like they're happening in real time. I reccomend you read the comment more carefully next time before responding.

** I wasn't terrified by what they can do to you, but by the fact that ''they can defeat the Borg''.
*** Not just defeat the Borg but do it ''[[CurbStompBattle easily]]''. To put this into perspective, whenever a Borg cube appears in Federation space there's usually a dozen or more ships mobilized to fight it and even then there's heavy casualties. At one point an 8472 ship was drifting, unharmed, among a bunch of Borg cubes, lazily taking pot shots at them and blowing each one away with one or two hits.
**** Just remember their introduction. Two Borg cubes float towards the camera and the 'We are the Borg...' speech is heard. BEFORE THEY FINISH, 8472 weapons fire and both cubes go BOOM without a chance to fire a single shot. It's that infamous speech trailing off as the cubes turn into nothing but debris that catapults it into High Octane.

* Kes screaming in "Persistence of Vision" and "Cold Fire." Major spoilers for the former - one of the best episodes ever - follows.

*** That alien creepily whispering "But you see, I'm not really here" and then disappearing in Persistence of Vision didn't bother me at 6. However it nearly gave me a heart attack at 16.
* Those hallucinations and creepy whispers in "One." Also, the pure terror in Seven's voice when the Doctor goes permanently offline gave, and still gives, me chills.

* ''Singularity'',. [[spoiler: in the episode it seems like a Naked Time-ish episode, where everyone gets obsessed with tiny tasks and get extremely agitated. T'Pol is unaffected, so she goes to check if Doctor Phlox is also alright. He isn't. He has become so obsessed with Mayweather's headache that he's going to vivisect his brain, seeming ''identical'' to the MirrorUniverse Phlox, and threatens to kill T'Pol for getting in the way of his experiments.]]

* While we're on the subject of anthropomorphic drowning hazards, Armus from the episode "Skin of Evil".
** {{YMMV}} on this one. I always thought it was {{Narm}}.

* Although it's generally considered a weaker episode, ''Masks'' scared me so much when I saw it one night as a kid (with the lights out, no less) that I couldn't even finish it. I made it up to the point when the possessed Data put the mask on his forehead, escaped from his quarters, and beat up the security guards watching him. (Frankly, though, I have NO idea how I didn't run away screaming earlier on when Data asked Geordi what it felt like when someone was "losing his mind", followed by the perverse smile on his face as he said "Masaka is waking!!!!!")
* Motherfucking Nagilum. An immortal, nigh-omnipotent Elder Thing who, in the spirit of scientific inquiry and genuine curiosity, decides to study the phenomenon of death. In order to do so, it rips a great big hole in spacetime, traps the Enterprise therein, and makes with the empiricism. Have we mentioned that it manifests as [[http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/1/1e/Nagilum.jpg a giant face floating in the void]]?

** Which immediately leads to a redshirt being killed by a forced heart attack. The whole episode is responsible for my terror at the prospect of death and oblivion.

** How did you forget the part where they go to a ship that is the ''exact'' double of the enterprise, only there's nobody aboard at all, and there are strange inhuman screams echoing throughout the ship? Then Riker finds Worf, who is freaking out a little, and they ask each other if they were making the screams. Both did not. Then they find the bridge, and every door leads to one of the other doors on the bridge, so they're stuck and are visibly shaken when they return to Enterprise.
*** Or how about Worf pretty much losing his shit on the bridge of the doppelganger ship. "THERE IS ONE BRIDGE. ONE RIKER, ONE BRIDGE GRAAHHH." It might be narmful if it wasn't so scary.

* The first revealing of [[LosingYourHead Data's head]], in a cavern in San Fransisco. I screamed.
** That part did not bother me, but later on when time starts to go screwy and we get a glimpse at the energy draining ghost things, well...
** The Devidians, the race of aliens in question, were picked up for use in one of the "Weekly Episode" story arcs for StarTrekOnline recently, in the spirit of Halloween. The Devidians in the actual TV episode are nothing compared to the ones in game - they are in absolutely massive numbers, as opposed to the handful seen on TV, and their base of operations is the poorly-maintained innards of a space station that, until recently, was uninhabited since the days of TOS. It was probably the single creepiest quest ever seen in an MMORPG. Worse still, from that point on, you'll occasionally see the lights flicker in the populated regions of the station, and a ghostly Devidian will run by, apparently unseen by everyone else but you...

** I had nightmares for several months after first seeing Picard as Locutus.

** Does anybody remember the first episode introducing the borg? A drone beams into main engineering and proceeds to scan the ship's computer. It takes two phaser blasts to kill it, but is immediately replaced by another drone. Worf fires again and is blocked by the borg shields. The drone then starts seriously messing with the Enterprise systems while staring very creepily at Picard and crew.
** One of the creepier Borg moments for me is in Parallels, when you see a [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Riker_gone_mad.jpg desperate and half-mad Riker]] begging for help from the alt-uni Enterprise. In his universe, the entire Federation has been overrun by Borg, and he is the only man shown on the bridge. He is so desperate to prevent himself from returning to his own dimension that he tries to ''kill Worf and by doing so endanger all of the multiverses in the process''. Thinking about what the ''rest'' of that universe must be like gives me the heebly-jeeblies.
** Let's not forget Q's behavior when the Borg where first introduced. At first he seemingly sent them into Borg space out of child-like spite. But to just coldly brush off the ''real deaths'' of eighteen innocent people as a BLOODY NOSE!

* [[{{Psyonif}} I]] always found the episode where Dr. Crusher gets trapped on a deserted Enterprise in the collapsing universe far scarier than was probably intended. There's a particular kind of hopeless terror when the ''borders of reality itself are closing in on all sides''. He has not been helped in overcoming this fear by a recent ''New Scientist'' article which predicts that this might be what it would ''actually'' look like when the universe does end.
** I thought the scarier part of that episode is when people start vanishing and no one [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness except Dr. Crusher]] believes they were ever there, including the ship computer. At least when the pocket universe started collapsing you knew what was going on.
** Agreed, to the extent that the collapsing universe part almost came as a relief. What would have been far worse was if Crusher had just been left there, completely alone on the Enterprise, with everyone she knew gone, no way of possibly running the ship by herself, and still having ''no idea what happened''.

** One of the more subtly creepy moments is when Picard is sitting in his office, and the door chime starts sounding...over and over and over....and you don't know or see what's causing it. Keep in mind, this is before you really start to realize what's going on in the episode, so the fact that ''no one'' is activating the door chime is [[NothingIsScarier freaky as hell.]]
** The first time I saw this episode all the way through was on syndicated TV at 3:00 A.M. Oh, and the lights just happened to be out. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

** I went to bed the night I first saw this episode and heard '''the same''' strange click noise Riker did just seconds before he was abducted in his quarters. Creepy!

** I first saw that episode when I was about six or seven years old, and it scared the ''crap'' out of me. I didn't sleep properly for days. Even now, looking at pictures of the creature in question frightens me beyond all reason.
** The worst part of this episode, for me, is the scene in the holodeck where Geordi is de-constructing the video footage shot on the original away mission, gradually removing all of the crew members that were present until there's one remaining shadow, and nothing causing it. For some reason, the computer's formless, faceless blob of a shape that "caused" the shadow freaks the bejeezuz out of me.

** Also, the scene where the ghost first appears [[MirrorScare behind Beverly in her mirror]] almost gave my 8 year old self a heart attack.

* Hey guys, how about those... ''creatures''... from "Realm of Fear"? For reference, most of what TV has to offer -- at least what I watch -- doesn't really scare me, ''StarTrek'' included. The most you can usually hope for is "Wow, that's a really well-done piece of scary." Those... worm-things, slowly coming into view in the middle of the transporter haze, made me afraid to look at the screen.

* The episode ''Violations'' was terrifying enough when I saw it as a child, and I didn't even understand the {{Squick}}y implications of the telepathic attacks. Seeing them as ''literal'' MindRape pulls it squarely into AdultFear territory.
* I was thoroughly creeped out in "The Game", especially when Wesley goes to talk to Picard about starting an investigation. You see him putting something down as Wesley enters, and then after he leaves, Picard turns around and picks up a copy of the game without a word.
* ''Dark Page''. I first saw it when I was around ten or so, and it scared the hell out of me. If you never thought ''Lwaxana Troi'' could be scary...yikes. To make matters worse, it was aired back-to-back with ''Phantasms'' which is ANOTHER deeply unsettling episode.
* Back to 'Q Who,' the episode that introduces the Borg for a moment. The Borg have taken out a section of the saucer section, killing eighteen crewmen. Q appears and Riker yells at him for how his actions caused their deaths. Q's response is a chilling "oh, '''please.'''" It's an unsettling reminder that Q, for all his puckish pranks and amusements, is genuinely a threat on his own, and he is so far above the Federation on the food chain that the lives of a handful of Starfleet officers means absolutely nothing to him.
** Heck, Q in general could be seen as HighOctaneNightmareFuel. Though he does have humanity's best interest in mind, for the most part, he is still a [[JerkAssGod jerkish reality-warping alien]] who will gladly toy with you (mentally and physically) for his own amusement. Not only will he wipe out entire civilizations out of pure boredom, but he can also alter the laws of physics with little-to-no effort. And, that's not even getting into how '''dangrous''' he can be when he's angry.

* There's the classic "The Doomsday Machine" where a giant, bluish-green horn of plenty like machine is consuming everything in its path and the mighty USS Enterprise can't seem to stop it, not to mention its massacre of the crew of another ship, identical to the Enterprise, whose captain the experience had driven completely mad.

* Don't forget the shapeshifting alien from the episode "The Man Trap" that sucked the salt out of the victim's body.
** That was ''the very first episode aired'', and with such an auspicious beginning, it wound up being the only one I (not quite three at the time) saw in its original airing. "Mommy! Mommy! Don't let the Salt Monster get us!"
*** I saw that at age nine and couldn't watch {{Star Trek}} for years.

*** Moreover, remember that Kirk's nephew, not a Vulcan, is facing potentially far worse pain, should he awaken from his coma--not to mention that, despite the joking around at the end, Kirk still has to tell the kid that his parents-and maybe his brothers, though we never see them, died in agony, along with likely a sizable amount of the people he knew.

* The cloud creature in "Obsession". It's capable of space travel, phasers don't do squat against it, it can silently sneak up on its victims pretty much anywhere, and if it catches you it basically sucks out your ''blood'' without even leaving a mark. And we're supposed to believe that a simple bomb would kill it in the end...yeah, right.
** That would be an interesting Fanfiction if done right: the Cloud Monster of Death returns and terrorizes Kirk.
*** That very plot was the premise of a DC Star Trek Graphic Novel written, IIRC, by Chris Claremont.
** O saw that episode as a rerun when I was only five. I was scared for days.

** Did you forget about the part where the {{RedShirt}} of the week beamed up to the ship, and then dropped dead? And then a SCARY VOICE came out of his DEAD mouth? I saw this for the first time as an adult and nearly freaked.
* The Kelvans, who reduced a young yeoman to a polyehdral cube and then crushed her to dust! I still have trouble watching that episode, 'By Any Other Name'.
* And who could forget the Zetarians in "The Lights of Zetar?" Non-corporeal energy beings who zoom around the galaxy so fast the ''Enterprise'' can't outrun them, searching for someone to possess so they can live out their lives. And if they can't possess you, they'll just kill you horrifically trying. The woman who dies on the station spends several seconds with her face writhing uncontrolably and glowing several different colors, possibly in a very great deal of pain before she dies. Even with the long-out-of-date and obvious special effects, the shot is still unnerving.
* Charlie X. He can make your face blank and other disturbing things.
** That really doesn't do him justice. EnfantTerrible RealityWarper StalkerWithACrush [[MindRape Mind Rapist]], anyone?
*** What about the aliens who [[TouchedByVorlons gave him his powers]] and apparently raised him? They're apparently so creepy that Charlie ''himself'' is frightened of them. You know, the same reality warper who just spent the whole episode swaggering about invincibly, smugly confident in his own superiority, and now he's begging the same people he was just bullying not to let them take him away. Then the way his last plea of "I wanna stay" echoes when they teleport him off the ship...
* The episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles' is mostly a lighthearted comedy, but the scene at the end where dead tribbles fall on Kirk until he's standing nearly waist-deep in them is very...disturbing. It's the equivalent of opening the door to the attic and being bombarded with dead kittens.

* This may sound a little weird, but Chekov under the effects of the HatePlague in "Day of the Dove." It wasn't...''nightmare-inducing'', per se, but seeing the goofy ComicRelief character with a bad accent suddenly start attacking everyone and attempt to RAPE some poor lady while whispering creepy things to her was really...disturbing. I can't watch that episode.
* Balok in ''The Corbomite Maneuver''. Both as young Clint Howard with that adult voice and the alien dummy he pretended to be were scary. The latter even more so because they put that image at the end of every closing credits you had to see it if you watched every episode from the second season on!

* The ''Constitution''-class ship is kind of bright and cheery with the red doors and uniforms and such, right? Well, when [[GhostShip everyone on it is dead or almost dead]], the emptiness is kind of creepy, creepy like an AbandonedHospital. Specifically, the ''Defiant'' from TOS: "The Tholian Web" and ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly" and the ''Republic'' from {{Star Trek 25th Anniversary}} were messed up real bad. It didn't help that Kirk and his landing party on either ship were stuck there without the ability to transport to the ''Enterprise''--that's right, no escape route despite being on ships falling apart at the seams. And in the former case, on a ship that is phasing in and out of reality as you know it.

** Pssh, the agony booth is kids' stuff compared to the Neural Neutralizer from "Dagger of the Mind", which, in all honesty, the Mirror Universe probably has as well. The device was originally intended to cure the mentally psychotic, but one scientist decided to make a few..."minor adjustments". Not only does it inflict as much pain as the agony booth, but the operator can make changes to a patient's personality and memories. In the off chance someone taps into his or her true self, they are inflicted with intense pain, as shown by poor Dr. Van Gelder. Probably the worst part is when a person is in the chamber with the device at full blast and no operator present...

* A lot of people consider the scene in the episode Plato's Step childern to be [[CrowningMomentOfFunny hilarious, what with the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum song, tap dancing, self-slapping, and Kirk giving a pony-ride to a very small man in a toga.]] While it's understandable to see it as funny on the surface, I always found that entire episode to be horrific. Consider for a moment a race of people who can [[MindRape force you to do ANYTHING. ANYTHING. On a whim. And not only that, but they can force you to FEEL anything, too- they has Spock laughing and crying.]] Spock himself says it best; they could seriously injure or even ''kill'' you just because they wanted to or you made them angry. Without even breaking a sweat, with the power of their minds alone. And these people seem to have no moral compass. At all. The whole scene that people laughed at had me flinching and recoiling in sheer horror at the thought of being forced to do those things, humiliate myself and be caused pain just because someone else was selfish, bored, and ''could''.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:New Voyages]]
* "Blood and Fire" is about Regulan bloodworms. The ones the Klingons were joking about in "The Trouble with Tribbles". Regulan bloodworms are not funny. Or cute. Or harmless and useful, like the ones in ''Enterprise''. Point of fact, [[spoiler: they travel in gigantic swarms, and they eat people alive, and we get to see it.]]

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''[[AC:[[StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]]]'':

''[[AC:[[StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]]]'':

''[[AC:[[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]]]'':

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