What makes Star Trek in all its manifestations appealing is not only its heroes, but its villains. In Gene Roddenberry's world the antagonists are not just bad guys in black hats; they tend to be very complex characters who are as interesting to watch as our main characters, because their motivations and justifications for their deeds are often very complex and even thought-provoking. But evil is as evil does, and here we take a look at some of the standout doers of evil.

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ANTON KARIDIAN

The Conscience of the King
This thespian gave a bit of himself away by performing the title role of "MacBeth" — a brutal murderer — in the Enterprise theatre. Anton Karidian was really "Kodos the Executioner," the notorious governor of Tarsus IV who, 20 years earlier, addressed a severe food shortage by selectively executing half his colony — 4,000 people sentenced to die according to one man's theories of eugenics. Kodos was thought dead himself, but he actually fled and assumed a new identity as an actor in the hope that he could escape his past. But there were eyewitnesses who survived the incident. When those witnesses were being methodically killed, it turned out the culprit was Karidian's vixen daughter, Lenore, trying to protect her father. But in an ironic twist of Shakespearean proportions, it was by Lenore's own hand that Karidian died.

KHAN

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
What other villain in Star Trek history can beat the juicy theatricality of Ricardo Montalban's Khan Noonien Singh? No one, that's who! His performance in the classic episode "Space Seed" was so enduring it led to an encore 15 years later in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," considered by many to be the best of the Star Trek films. Khan made a great villain not only because of his genetically superior strength and intellect, but because of his passionate enmity toward Kirk. "For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"

GENERAL CHANG

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Another nemesis of Kirk's with Shakespearean inclinations was a Klingon involved in a conspiracy with humans and Vulcans to prevent galactic peace. Played by another great actor, Christopher Plummer, General Chang — sporting an eyepatch bolted to his face — considered Kirk to be a fellow "warrior" and put him to the test as such. "To be, or not to be." Well, according to Kirk ... not to be.

SELA

Redemption, Part II
The progeny of an alternate-timeline Tasha Yar and a Romulan general came to be a venomous threat to galactic peace and to Picard's Enterprise. As a Romulan operative, Commander Sela first tried to turn Geordi La Forge into an assassin, then she supported the Duras Sisters in their attempt to overthrow Gowron. Then she spearheaded a plan to invade Vulcan. When Sela was four, her mother tried to take her away from her father, but she was caught and executed. Everything in Sela that was human died with her mother that day, and all that was left was Romulan.

GUL DUKAT

Cardassians
Probably the most complex and fully developed bad guy in Star Trek history, Gul Dukat had his thumbprint on all seven years of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, from the first episode to last. Volumes could be written about this Cardassian — loyal officer, tyrant, family man, philanderer, outcast, political sellout, cult leader, conspirator with evil spirits — but perhaps the most telling revelations of his character came in the episodes "Cadassians," where we learn the lengths he will go to humiliate a political rival and "Waltz," where Sisko learns the true depth of his racism.

DR. SORAN

Star Trek Generations
Continuing the tradition of movie villains played by prominent actors, Malcolm McDowell took on the role of Dr. Tolian Soran, an El-Aurian scientist on a horrific quest to return to the Nexus. His obsession was so powerful he was not beyond destroying entire stars and entire civilizations to fulfill his pursuit of euphoria. And just as dangerous, he was willing to share his trilithium technology with the ambitious Klingon rogues Lursa and B'Etor. But Dr. Soran's main qualification for making this list is that he was, after all, the man who killed Kirk.

FEMALE SHAPESHIFTER

Broken Link
One of the most insidiously evil tyrants in the galaxy, the Dominion Founder who is referred to in the credits as "Female Shapeshifter" epitomizes one of the great dualities of Star Trek villainy. On the one hand she is deeply spiritual, valuing the experience of the Great Link and communion with her fellow changelings. On the other hand, she won't hesitate to exterminate an entire species with a casual command to her Vorta underlings. The Founders are, in fact, megalomaniacs of the highest order, a mindset produced by centuries of persecution by "Solids" and a resolve to turn the tables on them. It took one of their own, Odo, to teach them how to trust again, but not before the Female Shapeshifter gave herself up to stand trial for massive war crimes.

SESKA

Maneuvers
One of the prickliest thorns in the U.S.S. Voyager's side was a Maquis crewmember who turned out to be a Cardassian spy. Seska earned the trust and friendship of her crewmates only to betray them ruthlessly. After a covert campaign to sell Voyager out to the Kazon, she joined their ranks. But she wouldn't stay gone — she manipulated Chakotay with news that he was the father of her child, and then led a Kazon takeover of the starship. Thanks to an incarcerated Betazoid and a hologram, though, she finally got her comeuppance.

BORG QUEEN

Star Trek: First Contact
Even though the Borg are a collective consciousness, there is one voice that brings order to the legions of drones. The Borg Queen, in her several incarnations, battled captains Picard and Janeway in her quest to assimilate humanity and spread the Borg ideal of perfection throughout the galaxy and beyond. Played by both Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson with panache, the Borg Queen is the most creepily seductive character in the annals of Star Trek.

SHINZON

Star Trek Nemesis
What would you be like if your life had been different? How much have the circumstances of your life created who you are? How would you turn out if you were born on another planet and raised in a hostile environment? Captain Jean-Luc Picard confronts the answers to these questions when he encounters Shinzon. A clone created for an aborted Romulan plot, Shinzon has all of Picard's intelligence, determination and ambition, but none of his compassion, empathy and wisdom.

SPHERE-BUILDERS / COMMANDER DOLIM

There was an insidious collusion between the divine and the devoted. The transdimensional beings who built the Spheres that created the Delphic Expanse knew that someday a force called the Federation would foil their plans to alter the space in our galaxy and colonize it. So they needed a pre-emptive strike against the planet that would be at the center of that Federation. After the Xindi blew up their own homeworld, the Sphere-Builders appeared to the survivors and guided them to survival, and to peace and unity. Thus they gained the unconditional trust and reverence of a people who could do their dirty work for them. "The Guardians" led the Xindi to believe that destroying Earth would ensure their survival — making it a religious imperative — when all along the exact opposite was true. Enterprise had the evidence, but entrenched dogma is a very difficult thing to overcome. Bit by bit, though, the Xindi Council came to understand they had been manipulated, but the Sphere-Builders had a card that would keep the balance in their favor: Reptilian Commander Dolim. Not only was he stubbornly dogmatic, he was aggressive and power-hungry. Thus he was the perfect tool in the Sphere-Builders' plans to wipe out humanity. And he nearly did, but the humans had their own trump card: Captain Jonathan Archer.