"He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him. I'll chase him 'round the Moons of Nibia, and 'round the Antares Maelstrom, and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up."
Examples of Arch-Enemy in Star Trek.Live-Action TV
- Star Trek: The Original Series:
- The Klingons to Kirk and his crew. Or, at least, between Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (it lacks that personal umph until a Klingon kills Kirk's son, and the events in The Undiscovered Country leads to Kirk getting over his hatred).
- While Khan's role in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan elevated him to the status of Kirk and Spock's nemesis, in the series the only individual enemy they encounter twice is Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Harry Mudd. He and Kirk definitely possess a talent for getting under each other's skin and both seem keen to humiliate the other.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- The Borg to both Picard and his crew.
- Q definitely started out as this, using the Enterprise crew as his subjects in testing humanity, although his relationship with Picard became more complex as time went on, with him turning into more of an Evil Mentor figure.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- Gul Dukat and the Dominion to Benjamin Sisko and his crew. And on a more personal level, Dukat to Garak. The hatred becomes equally personal between Dukat and Sisko by the end of the series. And then Dukat becomes the Emissary of the Pah-Wraiths to match Sisko's role as the Emissary of the Prophets.
- Kang, Koloth, and Kor have The Albino, the main villain of "Blood Oath". These three were responsible for breaking The Albino's power base in the late 23rd century, and he retaliated by poisoning their sons. The three Klingons (plus Curzon Dax as the godfather of Kang's son) swore a Blood Oath to kill The Albino, which lasted for nearly a century before The Albino offered them an opportunity to engage him, an encounter that claimed the lives of Kang and Koloth, though not before Kang was able to kill him.
- Star Trek: Voyager:
- The Borg, especially the Borg Queen, to Janeway and her crew.
- Seska initially filled this role, specifically to Chakotay. As his former lover and a former member of his crew, he took her betraying Voyager to the Kazon hard and saw it as his personal responsibility to bring her down. For her part, Seska had a Stalker with a Crush attachment to Chakotay, even stealing his DNA and attempting to impregnate herself with it in order to create a connection between them.
- Star Trek: Enterprise: Silik to Captain Archer and his crew. He's the leader of the Suliban Cabal and the local representative of a faction in the Temporal Cold War, in much the same way that Archer often ends up working for the Time Agents trying to preserve the timeline. He comes to view Archer as a Worthy Opponent with their encounters taking on an increasingly personal tone.
- Star Trek: Picard: The Qowat Milat has been the thorn in the sides of the Tal Shiar and the Zhat Vash for so long that it's traditional for a Zhat Vash and a Qowat Milat to engage in a one-on-one, unarmed duel, as Narissa and Elnor do in "Nepenthe." In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", Elnor is willing to kill an unarmed Narek simply because of the latter's affiliation with the Zhat Vash.
- The final season reinforces the Borg as the greatest enemy of Picard and the Federation, emerging from the shadows two decades after being decimated by Janeway's virus and collaborating with the Changeling insurgents to launch one final desperate plot to assimilate Earth and wipe out the Federation.
Live-Action Films
- James T. Kirk and Spock have Khan Noonien Singh. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, seeks revenge of Kirk for stranding him on Ceti Alpha V. Kirk manages to defeat Khan, only for Khan to self-destruct his ship in a last-ditch effort to take Kirk with him, forcing Spock to sacrifice his life to save the Enterprise. Spock Prime would later break his vow not to reveal any potential timeline-altering information by warning his Kelvin timeline counterpart about the danger Khan poses. In Into Darkness, The Kelvin timeline version Khan becomes a personal enemy for Kirk by killing Admiral Pike. After Kirk sacrifices himself to save the Enterprise, a vengeful Spock delivers Khan a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- In the 2009 film, Spock (both Spock Prime and the Kelvin timeline's Spock) have Nero, a Romulan who blames Spock Prime for the destruction of his homeworld. After both Nero and Spock Prime end up in the Kelvin timeline, Nero captures Spock Pime, he destroys the planet Vulcan, and forces Spock Prime to watch. The mother of the Spock from the Kelvin timeline perishes during the aforementioned destruction of Vulcan.
Comic Books
- Star Trek: Early Voyages:
- In "The Fires of Pharos", Commander Kaaj swears a blood debt against Captain Pike for destroying the Pharos siteworld. In "The Flat, Gold Forever", he lures Captain Pike away from the Enterprise with a Forged Message and attempts to kill him so that honor can be satisfied. When he later sees Pike on the Temazi homeworld in "Thanatos", he cannot contain himself. He attacks Pike in the Temazi shrine, thereby blowing both of their covers.
- In the Alternate Timeline story arc "Futures", General Chang has seemingly taken Kaaj's place as Captain Pike's Klingon adversary. In "Now and Then, Part Four", he even compares his conflicts with Chang to "the bad old days with Kaaj."
Video Games
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek Judgment Rites give us Dr. Ies Breddell, a Mad Scientist, who has declared Kirk his own personal enemy ever since Kirk thwarted his attempt to take over his planet's government more than a decade ago. At the end of the first game, Bredell creates a replica of the Enterprise and begins attacking Federation ships, partly as a move against the Federation but partly just to get Kirk blamed for the attacks. The real Enterprise eventually blows his ship up, but this only serves to make him angrier; In the second game it is revealed that he'd survived and decided to destroy the entire Federation using a doomsday weapon of his own design. In that mission, we see he even has a Dart Board Of Hate with Kirk's face on it in his quarters. It should be noted that Breddell is only an arch-villain from his own perspective, due to his overwhelming personal resentment towards Kirk; in the grand scheme of things, Breddell is just a minor villain - he only appears in two out of the total 15 episodes in those two games.
- In Star Trek Online, Colonel Hakeev and the Romulan Player Character are this to each other. The player despises Hakeev for destroying their colony. Eventually, the player becomes such a pain in Hakeev’s side that he sends an entire ‘’fleet’’ to take them out (it doesn’t work).
Western Animation
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: The Gelrakians (a crystal-based society) consider the inhabitants of Mavok Prime (a wood-based society) to be their sworn enemies.
