Looking at Starfleet’s biggest threats from across the franchise’s biggest shows.
Star Trek is a franchise that spans years, decades, and even generations. It’s a franchise that has captured the hearts and minds of so many fans and continues to do so to this day. Many get hooked on the captains of the show or the ship. Others, the stories being told. Some, however, are interested in the conflicts that are shown.
Each show is defined by the one major conflict that makes the series it’s own. Sure, some shows will have multiple high-end conflicts with rival powers, but usually, there’s one that stands out among the rest, and that’s what we’re looking at.
Now, some shows won’t be listed. Shows like Lower Decks, Picard, and Discovery aren’t truly known for any central rival, as each season is often times very different from seasons prior. They’re far more serial in that regard, and serial shows are driven by a continuing narrative and not so much different situations. So they won’t be included as they are more character-driven than conflict-driven.
As for Prodigy, it’s simply too soon into the show’s life to say for sure that the Diviner and the Vau N’Akat are going to be the lasting image of the show’s central focus.
Looking at the biggest Starfleet threats from series to series
The Original Series – Klingons
We’re including the films in these lists, clearly, you can understand how the Klingons got top-billing. They had one of the best episodes in franchise history, Trouble With Tribbles, and two films with great Klingon antagonists. Considering the time period and where we were in the Trek timeline, the Klingons were the biggest threats, well biggest known threats, to the Federation. Sure, the Romulans had better episodes, and they were included, but the Starfleet-Klingon wars were a big point in the show’s timeline, as shown in the episode Errand of Mercy.
The Next Generation – Romulans
The Borg got their start on the show, yes but the Romulans popped up 21 times over the course of the franchise. In fact, while Best of Both Worlds is one of the best two-parter in franchise history, it does have some stiff competition from Redemption. In fact, the Redemption two-parter arguably gave Jean-Luc Picard his greatest adversaries outside of Q, in the half-Romulan Sela. Sela was the daughter of Picard’s former security officer, Tasha Yar. Further amplifying the tension.
Deep Space Nine – The Dominion
The Klingons could’ve taken a second seat at the table, as could the Cardassians but the answer was obviously The Dominion. For nearly four years, the Dominion became a threat to the stability of Starfleet space. Their involvement gave the Klingons and Cardassiasn more reach than they’d otherwise have. Had the Cardassian Empire had more Guls on the level of Dukat, maybe they would’ve of been supplanted by the Dominion on this list as well as in the storyline.
Voyager – The Borg
There were a lot of species that could’ve been Voyager’s biggest threat. The Kazon are obvious ones, as are the phage-suffering Vidiians. Yet, we’re going with The Borg for the same reason we went with the Dominion, their impact on the greater story was more significant. After all, the Borg gifted Voyager one of their most well-known characters; Seven of Nine. Clearly, their involvement was felt every day for four seasons.
Enterprise – The Xindi
As with Deep Space Nine, the Enterprise crew had a huge conflict with a rival outfit that sought to take over Federation space. They were made up of multiple different species but all resided on one planet. The group made it their mission to take down the Federation and nearly succeeded. The only real rival they had was the Suliban but as they often associated with the not-so-popular parts of the show, it was easy to pass on them.