The Deadliest Character In Star Trek History

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Survivors" (October 9, 1989), an underrated episode, the U.S.S. Enterprise arrives at a remote colony on the planet Delta Rana IV, responding to a distress call. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) finds that the entire planet is dead, an uninhabitable desert wasteland. Mysteriously, however, there is a single house left standing, located in a small, inhabitable bubble. Several Enterprise crew members beam down to investigate and find a well-maintained lawn surrounding a completely untouched manse. The officers are greeted by Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge (John Anderson and Anne Haney), a kindly elderly couple who welcome them inside for tea. 

The Uxbridge's do not seem to fully acknowledge that the rest of their planet has been completely wasted. They said they witnessed an attack by aggressive aliens called the Husnock but were unaware they were the only survivors. The longer the Enterprise says, the stranger things become. Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) begins hearing tinkling music box music, and it slowly starts to drive her mad. A massive, unidentified warship keeps approaching Delta Rana IV, attacking the Enterprise just enough to chase it away. When the warship explodes the Uxbridge's house, it miraculously grows back. 

The truth is eventually revealed. It seems that Kevin Uxbridge is behind it all. He reveals that he is a Douwd, a powerful energy being with godlike abilities. Years before, he fell in love with a woman named Rishon and decided to live as a human, taking the form of Kevin. The Husnock, however, were very real, and they did indeed lay waste to Delta Rana IV many years ago ... and killed Rishon in the process. 

Kevin, distraught over Rishon's death, did the unthinkable. As revenge, he used his godlike powers to kill the Husnock. And not just the battalion attacking his planet. Every Husnock, anywhere in the galaxy. In the wink of an eye, he took 50 billion lives. 

It's the single greatest massacre in "Star Trek" history.

Kevin explains that Douwds have been pacifists for eons, knowing that their godlike might could unwittingly do a great deal of damage if left unchecked. When the Husnock attacked Rana IV, he decided to stay out of the fight, living by his personal ethical code. Rishon, however, chose to fight back and was murdered in the fracas. Seeing Rishon's corpse was too much for Kevin to bear, and he killed all the Husnock everywhere. When Kevin tells the story, he is horrified, hurt, and guilty. He knows he committed one of the most unimaginable of crimes. On a whim, and in an instant, he committed a full-fledged genocide. The mysterious Husnock are no more, and we knew so little about them.

Kevin was so horrified by his own behavior that he chose to live in complete exile. He created a little illusory pocket of unreality for himself. The house, the lawn, and even Rishon were all illusions. The big battleship that chased the Enterprise was also his doing, employed to scare them away and leave him alone. The music in Troi's head was a distraction so she, an empath, wouldn't be able to intuit that he wasn't human. Picard leaves Kevin alone. There is no way, Picard explains, for him to apprehend Kevin. There is no law against a crime so great, nor is there a prison that can hold him. Kevin is left to stew in his misery. 

Sure, "Star Trek" has its share of killers and mad military generals. There are many characters in the franchise that live for killing, conquest, or the subjugation of others. But those villains usually operate within understandable parameters. There are mass murderers, for instance, who killed many others in battle, or tyrants who imprisoned a whole planet. But none were as swift and as deadly as Kevin Uxbridge. 

The mass murderers of "Star Trek" are few and far between, but meeting them allows viewers to confront their horrid ethos. One might immediately think of Kodos the Executioner (Arnold Moss), a mass murderer from the original series episode "The Conscience of the King" (December 8, 1966). Kodos was the governor of an ailing colony, struck by a fungus that wiped out half of its food supply. Rather than let the whole colony starve, Kodos murdered half of them. 

 In the episode "The Changeling" (September 29, 1967), the Enterprise encountered a robot called Nomad (voice of Vic Perrin) that was programmed to wipe out anything it deemed to be imperfect. Since undergoing its directive, Nomad has taken four billion lives across the galaxy. On "Star Trek: Discovery," one of the recurring characters is the evil Empress Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) a mass murdering tyrant and cannibal who killed so many people she lost track. Of course, fans of the 2009 "Star Trek" film likely recall the regrettable Nero (Eric Bana) the vengeful Romulan who exploded the Vulcan homeworld — and its billions of inhabitants — all because his wife died.

None of them can match the 50 billion victims that Kevin Uxbridge took in a single day. 

There is one even deadlier foe in "Star Trek," but not only is he from a non-canonical "Star Trek" video game, but his alternate timeline was undone by Captain Kirk. In the 1992 CD-ROM game "Star Trek: Judgment Rites," a villain named Dr. Ies Bredell (Mike Reynolds) is said to have, in an alternate timeline, killed just under one trillion people with a super-weapon. Luckily, a time travel gimmick allowed Kirk (William Shatner) to undo the damage and apprehend the villain. 

In "Star Trek," justice wins out, killers are remorseful, and peace is attainable. Kevin Uxbridge lives on in shame.