Dramatis Personae

Captain Albert Braxton

Played by Allan Royal or Bruce McGill (whomever you prefer)

Quite possibly the stupidest timeship captain in the history of the Federation, Albert Braxton is singlehandedly responsible for an incredible number of temporal paradoxes and alternate timelines. It all started when the Earth’s sun exploded; Braxton, finding wreckage from the USS Voyager and assuming it was responsible for the destruction of the Sol System, traveled back to the 24th century to destroy Voyager. To make a long story short, he ended up with an incurable case of temporal psychosis and a major grudge against Captain Janeway (see below). Later, his psychosis led him to try to kill Janeway, and in a convoluted and wacky escapade, he ended up with three temporal clones of himself (that is, different versions of himself from alternative and no-longer-existing timelines) locked up in the Relativity’s brig.

In the early years, Braxton’s temporal psychosis frequently manifested itself while his ship was traveling through time, causing him to involuntarily drool and mumble about shaving fluffy green bunnies, or other similar nonsense. He also had the incredibly annoying habit of repeating everything the people around him said. Both of these character flaws were cured when Seven of Nine forcibly inserted a Borg V-chip implant into Braxton’s brain, which not only stopped him from repeating dialogue, but also alleviated his temporal psychosis. Even when his temporal psychosis is suppressed, though, he’s still a moron.

Braxton finally managed to break out of his paradox when he and his crew found an ancient device called the Plah D’viz, which altered his destiny. Unfortunately, this attracted the unwelcome attention of an equally-ancient race of energy beings called the Progeny, who deemed Braxton’s escaping of his destiny to be abhorrent. Although he’s managed to outwit or escape their attacks so far (through pure luck, as usual), it’s only a matter of time before fate once again catches up with him. In the mean time, Braxton also managed to permanently deactivate his Borg implant, and so he went back to repeating what everyone says again. (No, he’s gone back to repeating what everyone says again.)

Although temporal psychosis was generally considered to be incurable, the crew of the Relativity managed to obtain a complete temporal profile of Braxton thanks to the Progeny. Using this information, Joe (formerly known as The Doctor) created a device that was able to stabilize Braxton’s temporal signature and restore his original intellectual capabilities. One the one hand, this is a good thing because Braxton is no longer a complete idiot. On the other hand, the newly-intelligent captain has decided to run a much tighter ship than before, annoying many of his crew members by eliminating as many running jokes from the Relativity as possible!

Captain Hikaru Sulu

Played by George Takei

Did I mention that Sulu is a Captain? Sulu originally thought that he was going to be the captain of his own series when the Excelsior showed up in Episode 2. He was desperate to get the attention he felt he lost while under Kirk’s command of the Enterprise, and therefore constantly reminded everyone around him that he is a Captain. Unfortunately, it turned out that the Relativity was the main ship of the series, and so rather than have no job at all, Sulu agreed to become the helmsman of the Relativity.

Sulu was the only officer on board the Relativity who knew how to pilot a starship, and therefore had excellent job security. He had the tendency to be drinking tea on the Bridge whenever the ship was rocked by an energy wave or a spatial anomaly or something, thus causing his teacup to fall to the floor and shatter.

When the Excelsior was (supposedly) captured for the last time and returned to the 23rd century, Sulu’s memories were erased and he was sent back with his ship.

Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax

Played by Terry Farrell

When Braxton was seeking new crew members in the first season, he selected Jadzia to be his new science officer. However, when she was beamed to the 29th century, the Dax symbiont had to be left behind to avoid altering the timeline. Although 29th century medicine (practiced by the “Living Witness” Doctor) was up to the task of allowing Jadzia to survive without her symbiont, Braxton failed to take into account the fact that Dax had all the brains, and Jadzia was as dumb as... er, one of those grey things on the ground. What are those called?

Hilarious hijinks ensued for the first few episodes, but eventually Jadzia proved to be too great a danger to herself and others, and she was reunited with the Dax symbiont of the 29th century. As a result, her character was much less amusing, and she got a lot less screen time. Now, we just see her when she’s answering the comm or scanning the space around the Relativity. She tries to spice things up by replacing the boring old beeps with random sci-fi and fantasy theme songs, but it’s not that interesting.

Lieutenant Tasha Yar

Played by Denise Crosby

The Federation’s foremost expert on blowing things up. (We’re pretty sure that she’s not a descendant of Malcom Reed, the galaxy’s previous biggest gun nut.) During the construction of the Relativity-H, she designed a completely new torpedo system, the paradox torpedo. (Paradox torpedoes are cool, because upon impact, the torpedo jumps backward an infinitesimal amount of time into the exact space it occupied then. The result of being in the exact same place at the exact same time makes a really big boom.)

Yar didn’t get her own episode until the fifth season, so there’s not much to tell about her. Except that she seemed to have a lot of pent-up rage towards her crew-mates for some reason. She often vented that rage on Damar, using her mean right hook to fracture his jaw on several occasions. Eventually, Yar’s bullying of Damar got to be too much of a running joke, and the recently-serious Captain Braxton ordered her to join Khan’s therapy group to address her anger management issues.

Damar

Played by Casey Biggs

Damar used to be the lackey of Gul Dukat, back when Dukat was pretending— er, ruling Cardassia with the Dominion. When Damar had to take over after Dukat went crazy, he didn’t do any better. But since going crazy had already been done by his predecessor, Damar started drinking lots of kanar instead. Eventually, he was killed while leading a rebellion against the Dominion.

However, Damar was surreptitiously replaced with a lifelike replica microseconds before his death, and he was brought forward to the 29th century, to once again replace Dukat — this time as chief engineer of the USS Relativity-G. The shock of being brought forward in time caused Damar to spontaneously revert back to his addiction to kanar, a habit he’d kicked when he became leader of the Cardassian Rebellion (or can you think of a better reason for the lapse in continuity?). His first major contribution was when he passed out from drinking too much in Engineering: when he woke up, he found the Relativity’s official Technical Manual, hidden behind a console by Gul Dukat and the Mysterious Red Button.

Unfortunately, Damar’s running joke (being constantly drunk or hung-over) had to come to an end after an incident involving six cases of Romulan Ale and the hyperwarp core. After returning from AAA (that’s Astro-Alcoholics Anonymous, not the car-towing service), Damar struggled to come up with a new running joke. Finally, he came up with the idea of pathetically trying to become an interesting enough character to be invited to speak to the ship’s schoolchildren.

Kes

Played by Jennifer Lien

Considered “a bit of a Troi ripoff”, Kes was selected to be the Relativity’s counselor. Fortunately, Braxton insisted on picking the good Kes from “The Gift,” rather than Evil Kes from “Fury.” She still has those cool godlike powers, though, which she most frequently uses to cheat at cards during the crew’s occasional poker games.

Because she’s an Ocampa, Kes’ natural lifespan was originally only nine years; by the third season of Series ? she was already six years old. In order to extend her life, The Doctor devised a Temporal Stretcher that infused Kes’ body with parodions, causing her to be available for more parodies, and thus giving her a Human-normal lifespan. (Yeah yeah, it’s a dumb explanation, but what do you expect? This is a parody!)

Unfortunately, Kes’ godlike powers were exhausted when Kes was plugged into Scorpius’ planetary subspace drive at the end of the fourth season. Although she was able to permanently seal away the Vaadwaur’s subspace domain with her “nearly infinite” energy reserves, come the fifth season, her only cool power is her ability to cheat at cards. Luckily, she’s still under contract.

The Doctor from “Living Witness”

Played by Robert Picardo

The USS Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram from the episode “Living Witness” was inexplicably already a part of the Relativity’s crew at the beginning of Series ?, despite the fact that “Living Witness” took place in the 31st century, and Series ? takes place in the 29th century. It turned out that he had gotten there thanks to a temporal causality loop, in which Future Doctor took the Relativity back in time to give Voyager a special EMH backup module, and then showed the Relativity crew a possible future timeline in which all of the worlds of the Federation were burned to a crisp.

The Doctor hasn’t been in very many episodes since then, however. Starfleet’s Temporal Affairs Bureau quadruple-encrypted the Doctor’s memories of the time loop for some reason. Most of the stuff we know about him are boring tidbits of a fairly useless nature. The only time he gets interesting character moments are when the Relativity encounters evil EMH clones or his original (non-backed-up) self from Voyager. Recently, he’s finally had some medical work to do, first trying to de-hyper-evolve Ducane, and then trying to wake him up from his coma. Except that he’s even managed to botch that job... not only has Ducane not woken up, but one of his medical experiments ran amok and ended up permanently deactivating Braxton’s Borg implant!

Xaronna

Played by Lise Simms

Annorax’s wife was a nameless extra who appeared in just the last thirty seconds of “Year of Hell, Part II”. It turned out that Annorax, the mad Krenim scientist who was erasing entire worlds in an attempt to bring back his lost wife, had never actually lost his wife in the first place. Disgusted with her inattentive husband, Annorax’s wife joined forces with Damar and Sulu to escape from Annorax’s weapon-ship, and in the process got her name, Xaronna. (Yeah yeah, it’s just “Annorax” spelled backwards.) She was then granted a special Starfleet commission and given the post of Token Recurring Character on the Relativity.

Xaronna was called to more important duties during the Series ? miniseries. Because Captain Sulu had returned to the 23rd century, the new admiral of Starbase 47 assigned Wesley Crusher to be the Relativity’s new helm officer. Rather than be stuck with The Boy on board, Braxton gave Xaronna a quickie promotion to main character and made her the helm officer instead.

She quickly discovered that being on the main cast didn’t necessarily get her all that much more attention, but she did discover one perk of the job: built into her custom helm console was a special button that let her zap Captain Braxton any time he got too stupid... or distracted... or annoying... or...

Since no one on the Relativity crew comes from The Original Series, Xaronna also helps out any time they run into something or someone from that show. She keeps her Big Book of TOS ready to whip out at a moment’s notice.

Originally one of the dozens of nameless, faceless extras who help run the Relativity behind the scenes, Lieutenant Peters was first noticed in “Who Mourns for Evil Braxton?” when Captain Braxton needed someone to play “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes like in Star Trek II. Peters, fortunately, was the only musically inclined crew member present. Unfortunately, the only instrument he could play was the kazoo.

Peters was promoted to the rank of Token Recurring Crewmember, to replace Xaronna, who had just been made the new helm officer. Unfortunately, it was a full season before he got to make his actual debut appearance as the Token Recurring Crewmember, only to get tossed against the wall by the evil godlike Ducane. Fortunately, Braxton has remembered to have him included in a few episodes since then.

Commander T’Lenol

This holomatrix character was part of an elaborate simulation created by the Progeny to contain Captain Braxton and Admiral Janeway, in order to observe their interactions and record a more detailed temporal profile. T’Lenol was the apparently-newly-promoted Admiral Braxton’s adjutant. Ironically, she was uniquely suited to the job, because she also happened to be Vulcan. When Braxton and Janeway escaped from the holomatrix, the Progeny program was shut down, and T’Lenol along with it.

However, Janeway had secretly made a copy of T’Lenol’s program and stored it away, just in case there came a day when Braxton was running around wreaking havoc without Ducane to clean up his messes. When Ducane was left in a deep coma after the Relativity’s little jaunt outside the galaxy, Janeway sent Braxton to retrieve T’Lenol, so she could be his new first officer. She has assumed that role remarkably well, although Braxton insists on referring to her as “Ducane” almost constantly. It’s been enough to try even her (programmed) Vulcan patience.

Since Braxton’s temporal psychosis was cured, T’Lenol has had a much better working relationship with her captain. She also underwent a thorough security review of her program... and it turns out that when Janeway copied T’Lenol’s program, she didn’t leave any hidden malware or other unpleasant surprises behind. That surely won’t come back to haunt Janeway in the future...

Evil Braxton

Played by Allan Royal or Bruce McGill (whomever you prefer)

In the beginning, there was just one Braxton. Then “Relativity” happened, and there were three evil temporal clones of Braxton. Not knowing what to do with imprisoned clones of his senior officer, Lieutenant Ducane sent them all back in time to before he’d arrested Braxton, so he wouldn’t have to deal with them. Thus it happened that Old Captain Braxton, Old Psycho Braxton, and Young Psycho Braxton (also referred to as the Braxton Bunch) were stuffed into the Relativity’s brig.

Then they escaped, a whole lot of stuff happened, and Old Psycho Braxton made a bunch of regular clones of himself. Because so many people were having trouble keeping all the clones straight (though it’s really easy: just remember, “If A leads to B, and B leads to C...”, and “VOYAGER GO BOOM!”, and “No, [just repeat what someone just said]”), all of these clones were integrated into one being: Evil Braxton!

Evil Braxton and the evil crew of the evil Excelsior were blown into the Babylon 5 universe when their linked temporal weapons of mass destruction exploded while still on board ship (who’d have thought that would be a problem?). They finally made it back to the Star Trek universe, and Evil Braxton got an opportunity to get ultimate revenge against Captain Braxton: in the same way that he’d had ultimate revenge against himself back when he was Captain Braxton! (If that didn’t make sense, you’re not alone. Just go back and read the two-parter episode, “Fortyseventhspace”. If you still can’t figure it out... well, too bad!)

Evil Braxton is now not only dead, he’s really most sincerely dead!

Admiral Kathryn Janeway

Played by Kate Mulgrew

When the future version of Kathryn Janeway decided to bring Voyager back home sixteen years early, she had no idea how horrible an episode her actions would spawn. When Voyager got back to the Alpha Quadrant, Admiral Janeway was arrested by Starfleet Command and handed over to the Relativity — ostensibly because she had violated the Temporal Prime Directive, but really because the episode sucked so much.

Because Braxton stupidly had such a big grudge against Voyager, Janeway developed an equally intense hatred for Braxton. When she and the evil crew of the evil Excelsior were freed by the Vaadwaur from the Federation Maximum Security Prison, Admiral Janeway became the new commander of the Excelsior, since her command codes overrode Captain Sulu’s command codes. (Somebody should’ve told Sulu that being a Captain wasn’t good enough anymore!) She agreed to join forces with the Vaadwaur, in exchange for being allowed to get her revenge against Braxton. But because she’s a really pathetic villain with a really pathetic crew, she never quite succeeded.

Following the final Excelsior battle (but not really), Janeway and Zo’or were sent to prison on Rura Penthe. However, Janeway managed to escape, because Rura Penthe’s reputation is overhyped. She then managed to reassemble most of her evil crew, and they’re once again making Braxton’s life miserable. After a few months, she needed to join forces with Braxton and the Relativity to fight the evil Progeny, who want to undo the undoing of Braxton’s time loop—an act which would leave Janeway and the Excelsior crew stuck in prison. Ironically, though, she’s already back in prison, having gotten the Excelsior blown up trying to cover the Relativity’s escape from the Progeny in the fifth season finale. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Commander Janice Rand and Lt. Commander Dmitri Valtane

Played by Grace Lee Whitney and Jeremy Roberts

In the fine tradition of such dynamic duos as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Rand and Valtane are seldom far from one another, and have very little character other than their incredibly lame theme song. (If you’re fortunate enough to have to ask what the theme song is, trust me: you don’t want to know!)

Valtane technically shouldn’t be alive, though. Sure, he was seen alive in the background at the end of Star Trek VI, but he was also killed by the memory-virus-thingy that transferred to Tuvok during the same time period. It’s a temporal paradox that has yet to be resolved, but it’s probably not worth investigating.

When the evil Excelsior was recaptured for the last time (but not really), Rand and Valtane’s memories were wiped and they were sent back to their original time frame. After Admiral Janeway escaped from prison and reassembled her evil crew, she decided to create clones of Rand and Valtane using conveniently-saved DNA and memory records. These clones are just as annoying as their originals, and they’re still not allowed to listen to their theme song, either.

Dark Helmet

Played by Rick Moranis

Formerly a leader of the evil Spaceballs, Dark Helmet was recruited to be the first officer of the evil Excelsior, because the Excelsior didn’t have enough money to pay the high salaries of the famous Trek villains. His most useful talent is his ability to make the ship go really fast (though not quite as fast as the Relativity), simply by shouting “Ludicrous Speed, GO!!!”. Thankfully, because of Star Trek’s inertial dampeners, the Excelsior crew doesn’t have to buckle up every time they go to plaid.

Dark Helmet’s other ability, his talent for using the Down Side of the Schwartz, has been pathetic by comparison. The only time it was actually useful was when Dark Helmet helped Yoda take over Captain Braxton’s mind way back in the first season.

Elmo Dukat

Played by Marc Alaimo

An unemployed megalomaniacal dictator from Deep Space Nine, Elmo Dukat was (rather stupidly) recruited to be the chief engineer of the Relativity. But he quickly lost that post when he was tricked into pushing the Mysterious Red Button. Dukat thought that because the Button was red, it was possessed by a Pah-Wraith, and he agreed to become the Button’s lackey. However, that job didn’t work out, because the Button enjoyed verbally abusing Dukat. Once he was detained at the Federation Maximum Security Prison, Dukat joined the Excelsior crew as the new chief engineer, replacing Inspector Gadget.

After the Excelsior was finally captured for the last time (but not really), Dukat was sentenced to be returned to the flaming bottomless pit, mere meters away from the Mysterious Red Button. He would have been cloned like Rand and Valtane, but Dark Helmet accidentally dropped the box containing his DNA and memory records, so Janeway decided to hire Apophis as her new chief engineer instead.

According to an interview with Ronald D. Moore, one of the creators of Deep Space Nine, Gul Dukat’s first name really is Elmo! But then, the textual medium has never been a great conveyor of sarcasm...

Hawk

Played by Avery Brooks

He’s Hawk, not Sisko! Hawk’s zeal for blowing stuff up is even greater than Yar’s, but because he’s evil, he doesn’t count. I’d try to write more stuff in here, but we don’t actually know anything about him. He wasn’t even in the episode carrying his name, for goodness’ sake!

Yoda

Voice by Frank Oz

Since he hadn’t gotten any work for fifteen years, Yoda was quite amenable to becoming evil and joining the Excelsior crew as ship’s counselor. (But just what does an evil crew need with a counselor, anyway?) His Force abilities have come in handy a few times, and after nine hundred years of using the green lightsaber, he finally got to switch to red. But other than providing the occasional amusing grammatically-inverted line of dialogue, he hasn’t really done much.

Doctor Victor Frankenstein

Played by Colin Clive

The evil Excelsior’s evil doctor is the famous misguided scientist, played by Colin Clive. But he’s from the book, not the movie? I’d write something more here, but because he’s from the 19th century, he’s usually so out of touch that he’s just playing catchup (like the time he invented the pet rock, only to discover he was nine hundred years too late).

According to “A Recruiting We Will Go, Part III”, Frankenstein is the character from the book, not from the movie. However, according to “Out Like a Lamb”, the character is played by Colin Clive, who was the actor from the titular movie. But I’m not complaining, because Series ? has had far worse paradoxes...

Harvey the Wonder Hamster

Played by Himself

The former sidekick of Weird Al joined the Excelsior crew as the helmshamster after graduating from the Deanna Troi School of Piloting. The most interesting thing to happen to him was the time he had a neural clone of Scorpius, who was coincidentally also named Harvey, take control of his body. Other than that, he enjoys running in his hamster wheel and drinking from his water bottle.

Inspector Gadget

Voice by Don Adams or Played by Matthew Broderick (whomever you prefer)

Recruited to be the first chief engineer of the Excelsior, Old Captain Braxton originally hoped that Inspector Gadget’s implants would grab the male 18-49 demographic from Seven of Nine. It turned out he was thinking of the wrong kind of implants. When the Excelsior was captured in the first season, Starfleet mistook Inspector Gadget for a Borg, and stuffed him into an escape pod to be sent back to Borg space, where he was assimilated. Wowsers!

Zathras and the Apocalypse Box

Played by Tim Choate, Voice by Gary Cole

Zathras was one of the grunt workers (literally, actually — he grunts) who helped maintain the Great Machine on Epsilon 3 in the Babylon 5 universe. He joined the Excelsior crew when it was blown out of the Star Trek universe out of sheer boredom, and served as a guide in the B5 universe.

The Apocalypse Box was given to Evil Braxton as a special prize when he had the Excelsior outfitted with Shadow armor. The Apocalypse Box was able to provide a list of places that might offer ways to return to the Star Trek universe, including the planet Brig’ha’dun, a Technomage colony, and the abandoned Vorlon gate to Fortyseventhspace.

Following the Excelsior’s return and Evil Braxton’s death, the rest of the crew had very little use for Zathras or the Apocalypse Box. Janeway started a little tradition called “using the Apocalypse Box for target practice”, and used Zathras for various menial tasks. Ultimately, the two got so fed up that they returned with Morden to the B5 universe, where they helped Morden open up his House of Waffles... AND CHAOS!!!.

Alfred Bester

Played by Walter Koenig

The quintessential evil Psi-Cop from the Babylon 5 universe, Bester was frequently referred to as “that guy who looks like Chekov”. He joined up with the Excelsior crew briefly, creating an opening for himself by giving Hawk a stroke. However, Evil Braxton wouldn’t put up with him trying to take over the ship, so he was locked away in the brig. Then, his mind was taken over by the Fortyseventhspace aliens, and he was finally vaporized.

Zo’or

Played by Anita La Selva

No, he’s not dead. No, he’s not an Atavus or whatever. Zo’or, the leader of the Taelon Synod from Earth: Final Conflict, served as an observer for the Vaadwaur aboard the Excelsior, ensuring that the Excelsior was pursuing the Vaadwaur’s interests. His justification for his survival is simply this: the season of E:FC that came after season four, which was so awful that it remains nameless, simply didn’t happen. (Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt!) He’s got this annoying habit of making weird hand gestures, and he’s also incredibly lame.

When the Excelsior was finally defeated (but not really) at the end of the fourth season, Zo’or was sentenced to life in prison on Rura Penthe, because it was decided that returning him to season five of his own show would be cruel and unusual punishment. He escaped with Admiral Janeway shortly thereafter. However, Janeway wouldn’t let him become the new chief engineer of the Excelsior, because he’s just that lame.

Apophis

Played by Peter Williams

Rescued from the Stargate SG-1 universe just before his Replicator-infested ship was blown to smithereens, the Goa’uld leader Apophis still has delusions of godhood. (“KNEEL BEFORE APOPHIS!”) This was because he and other Goa’uld like him ruled ancient Egypt on Earth many millennia ago. They also controlled a giant galactic empire using devices called Stargates— ring-shaped machines that were remarkably similar to the Iconian gateways. (History does not record whether the Iconians ever tried to sue for patent infringement.) Fortunately, his Goa’uld hand-zappy-thingie was destroyed by Janeway the first time he tried zapping her, and he doesn’t have any brainless Jaffa lackeys to do his evil bidding. He’s now the replacement chief engineer aboard the Excelsior, although Zo’or ends up doing most of the work for him. So far, he’s had a difficult time assimilating into the crew dynamic.

Admiral Jean-Luc Picard

Played by Patrick Stewart

One of the most respected senior officers in the Federation Starfleet, Jean-Luc Picard never retired, but instead had his head preserved in a life support canister so he could continue to guide generations of new officers. He first appeared in the second scene of the pilot episode, where he warned Captain Braxton that the Braxton Bunch were about to escape from the Relativity’s brig. (Apparently, he didn’t read his aide’s report closely enough... He was supposed to NOT call Braxton, because his transmission caused the easily-confused Braxton to check in on his evil temporal clones and stupidly allow them to escape.)

Picard didn’t make another appearance until the second season, when he hired himself a new agent who got him a regular recurring gig on Series ?. As the commander of Starbase 47, Picard was the direct superior officer in charge of the Relativity’s operations.

Braxton was the target of a rather intense grudge by Picard, who constantly was conniving to get Braxton either fired, or killed. Unfortunately, Braxton always either managed to inadvertently save the day (by doing crazy things like crashing his ship into the Earth’s ocean), or improbably surviving (by doing crazy things like defeating a massive Vaadwaur fleet with a chain letter). This grudge began when Picard was finally assigned a flagship of his own. He wanted to name the ship after his old famous command, the Enterprise, but Braxton had used up the last available use of the name, the Enterprise-Z, by assigning it to a tiny shuttlecraft. Picard had to name his flagship Admiral Picard’s Flagship instead.

When Braxton disappeared at the end of the fourth season and the end of the Vaad War, Picard assumed he was dead, and retired to enjoy some peace and quiet without Braxton. He now resides at the Retirement Home for Cranky Old Disembodied Starfleet Admirals, along with other notable retirees such as the disembodied head of Admiral Delfune.

The Mysterious Red Button

Previously installed on the Bridge of the Relativity-G, the Mysterious Red Button has the evil and awful ability to send the ship of anyone who pushes it into the non-canon Star Trek: The Animated Series universe! The Button first managed to cause havoc on the Relativity when it tricked Elmo Dukat into pushing it, thus making Dukat his lackey. It managed to escape, along with Elmo, by masquerading as a ghost and threatening to haunt the ship unless it was released. The Button then decided to go to Bajor and release the Pah-Wraiths by downloading the e-book of the Kosst Amojan from the internet. However, that plan didn’t work out — the laptop containing the e-book was tossed down the bottomless pit, and the Button had Dukat push it over the edge to make it appear as if it was trying to grab the book...

The Button briefly escaped a couple of times, however; first, while helping an alternate version of Kai Winn free the Pah-Wraiths, and later while helping the Excelsior crew destroy the Orb of Ultimate Evil. However, each time it was tossed back into the bottomless pit, console and all. Fortunately, the Button is at least kept company by his evil lackey, Elmo.

Galvatron

Voice by Leonard Nimoy or Frank Welker (whomever you prefer)

Once the leader of the Decepticons (the evil Transformers), Galvatron volunteered to join the evil crew of the evil Excelsior as the guy standing in the background and laughing maniacally at random intervals. However, he was quickly annoyed by the fact that the crew would frequently start laughing maniacally on their own, instead of leaving the job to him. Evil Braxton left Galvatron behind at the Federation Maximum Security Prison, so he could do his own maniacal laughing.

Galvatron was later taken before the Federation Council to face justice, but since he hadn’t done anything other than laugh maniacally (a misdemeanor offense in the Federation), he was sentenced to time served and released. He then was hired as the spokesman for an internet startup, Bwahahaha.com. With the money made from his endorsement job, Galvatron bought his own custom starship, the Nemesis-A.

Since then, Galvatron has shown up to make token appearances every once in a while; he loaned his ship to Khan so that Khan could restore his altered past, he helped stop the evil Excelsior crew from escaping, and helped defend Earth from the Vaadwaur during the Vaad War. He’s also joined forces with Optimus Prime, making commercials to raise money for disaster relief on Cybertron.

Galvatron had a chance encounter with a deactivated robot, who turned out to be the nearly-destroyed shell of Robo-Nechayev. Galvatron was instantly smitten with the fearsome robot, and the two were married by Captain Braxton on Risa. Galvatron now lives on the Federation’s Master Temporal Observatory, although he’s still prone to dashing off anytime someone steals his bit about laughing maniacally.

Khan Noonien Singh

Played by Ricardo Montalban or Benedict Cumberbatch (depending on the timeline)

This is Ceti Alpha Five!!! By the 29th century, everyone’s favorite obsessed villain had mysteriously returned from the dead (if it’s good enough for Spock...) and opened his own small shop, Crazy Khan’s House of Shields. Unfortunately, because he chose to open his shop inside the Federation, he did lousy business, since the Federation doesn’t use money. He sold a highly advanced shielding system to the Excelsior crew for $1.60 (the list price was one trillion bars of gold-pressed latinum).

Khan became the victim of a massive case of retro-continuity, when he discovered that his entire bid for power on Earth during the Eugenics Wars had been erased by the Voyager episode “Future’s End”. He borrowed Galvatron’s ship and traveled back in time to 1967, where he killed Henry Starling and used the Aeon’s advanced technology to take over most of the planet. However, he was foiled by the crew of the Relativity, the timeline was restored by replacing Henry Starling with Bill Gates, and the temporal clone known as Old Khan was sentenced to imprisonment at a little resort called Fantasy Island.

Khan was later brought for formal judgment before the Federation Council, and he was sentenced to be returned to Ceti Alpha V. When he dropped in on his followers (literally), he found that they had rebuilt the Botany Bay, so they took off to take over Risa by mesmerizing all the vacationers with Khan’s buff chest. He then started handing out plaid shirts and grunge music, reverting Risa to the 1990’s. However, since Series ? is a futuristic show, Braxton had to send Khan to the one place where it’s okay to be retro: Sigma Iota II.

A few years later, Khan decided that he’d finally had it with the major changes to his personal timeline over the years. He launched a campaign to become Federation President, running on a pro-continuity platform. Surprisingly, he ran a clean campaign, and ended up winning the election. Now he just has to deal with all the people wondering why he suddenly looks so different than he did in previous episodes...

Borg Queen #1, Borg Queen #2, and Borg Queen #3

Played by Alice Krige or Susanna Thompson

Are they the same character? Are they different characters? Who knows, and who cares! They’re all incredibly dumb. After getting humiliated by Voyager for four years, Series ? has continued the tradition. Whether it’s getting blown up by Admiral Picard’s fleet in the Typhon sector or being forced to self-destruct in order to purge the song “It’s a Small World After All” from their memory banks, the Borg have been the laughing stock of the galaxy. And that was before they got beaten by the ever-lame Kazon.

The only times the Borg have been a threat are in alternate timelines, where they’ve managed to take over the universe and achieved their ultimate goal: becoming Avon salesmen!

Q

Played by John de Lancie

Never before in the history of the universe has one single letter of the alphabet brought so much havoc. The nearly-omnipotent being apparently decided to start amusing himself with Humanity once again (after taking a 500-year break, for some reason or another). But no matter what else he may have done, he’ll always be okay by Captain Braxton. After all, Q was the one who made it possible for Braxton to break his paradoxical time loop.

On his first visit to the Relativity crew (who were at the time aboard the temporarily-formerly-evil Excelsior), Q decided to amuse himself by playing pranks on everyone. (Let’s just say tutus, fake mustaches, and a telephone were involved, and leave it at that.) In a gesture of gratitude, Q then told Braxton and the crew about a powerful machine capable of changing a person’s destiny, called the Plah D’viz.

On his second visit, Q made the holographic army of the evil (but also holographic) Doctor Chaotica into real beings, thus jeopardizing the entire Federation, just for kicks. But at least some good came out of this visit, too; he briefly gave The Doctor taste buds so he’d realize just how awful asparagus tasted.

The leader of the Vaadwaur and the primary commander in the Vaad War, Gorei is your typical evil villain. He gloats, he postures, and he laughs maniacally. He’s now stuck in subspace along with the rest of his people, permanently. The only thing interesting about him is that he’s not based on a previously-created Star Trek character.

Sela XIV

Played by Denise Crosby

No, it’s not really Sela, the klutzy half-Romulan daughter of an alternate Tasha Yar from TNG. It’s actually her great-something-granddaughter, Sela, who just so happens to look exactly like the original Sela. (Hey, it was good enough for Andromeda and that whole thing with Rhade, remember?) Fortunately for the Relativity crew, Sela XIV isn’t any smarter than her ancestor was. The first time we met her, she was tricked into letting the formerly-evil Excelsior into the Neutral Zone during Braxton’s search for the Plah D’viz.

A year later, she conspired with Evil Doctor and the Fredians to take over the Romulan government. However, that plot didn’t work, because she’s really just that pathetic. A while after that, she tried to alter history using a new weapon called the Comically Large Magic Eraser. But that plot didn’t work either. Why? You know the reason.

Female Changeling

Played by Salome Jens

After Linking with Odo at the end of the Dominion War, the Female Changeling, previously a psychotic xenophobe who had no fun whatsoever, had a drastic change of heart. After presumably being released from prison for her apparent war crimes against the Federation (she was arrested at the end of Deep Space Nine, remember?), she returned to the Great Link and began one of the most remarkable transformations in the history of the galaxy: remaking the plain old Dominion into the Happy Fun Dominion!

As one of the leaders of the Happy Fun Dominion, the Female Changeling gets to have the most fun. She greatly enjoys ordering her happy fun Jem’Hadar (in their happy fun flowery pink uniforms) to launch happy fun attacks in their happy fun (and hot pink) warships. She also likes to send prisoners to her happy fun detention centers for happy fun executions.

Only once has the Female Changeling been known to not be happy or fun. That was when she discovered that Mini-Weyoun had mislabeled the Plah D’Viz as “a big rock in the middle of nowhere,” and found out that the Excelsior was about to destroy the device before she could make it all her own.

Despite having centuries of experience interacting with Solids now, she still can’t tell them apart. The Federation discovered this when the Relativity crew successfully disguised themselves from her by wearing false mustaches.

Future Guy

Played by James Horan

The mysterious villain from Enterprise got so fed up being annoyed by Archer and Daniels that he decided to start a new front in the Temporal Cold War, by inciting the Vaadwaur to attack the Federation. (This conflict came to be known as the Vaad War.) However, although he went by the name “Future Guy”, it turned out that he’s actually from the past... specifically, the 28th century. (The name “Future Guy” still sounds a whole lot cooler than “Past Guy”, though.)

Unfortunately, Future Guy got sidelined in his own series after the Sphere Builders decided to get the Xindi all riled up in the 22nd century. Supposedly, the whole operation was intended to prevent the defeat of the Sphere Builders by the Federation in the 26th century, but it was really just so that the Sphere Builder Woman could wipe Daniels and Future Guy from existence so she wouldn’t lose her life savings in the weekly Temporal Cold War poker games. Disgusted by the lack of attention, Future Guy went on vacation to Hawaii until the Temporal Hot War (well, what else would you suggest we call it?) broke out.

Daniels

Played by Matt Winston

One of the most boring agents involved in the Temporal Cold War, Daniels was originally assigned to keep watch over the 22nd century, and specifically the Earth starship Enterprise. The Relativity crew first ran afoul of him in “Enter: Enterprise” in the third season, when Braxton mistakenly believed that the NX-01 was responsible for changes to the timeline. It turned out that the Suliban were responsible instead, and that they were acting as agents for Future Guy.

After a short stand-off, Braxton and Daniels came to an agreement, where Daniels would continue to monitor the 22nd century, and Braxton would keep an eye on the 29th century (as much as the mentally-challenged timeship captain was able, anyway). Unfortunately, Daniels continually has to step in to fix Braxton’s various screw-ups, such as the time that Braxton got tricked into helping the NASCAR—er, that is, the Na’kuhl. He also has to put up with Braxton’s continuous comments about his stupid haircut.

One of Daniels’ ancestors is little Suzy, a young Vulcan/Andorian girl who attends the Relativity’s school.

When the Braxton Bunch escaped from the Relativity in the very first episode, Captain Braxton briefly thought that they’d taken his pet cat. After that brief mention, he completely forgot that he had a cat for the next two and a half years. Fortunately, Helix hadn’t starved to death—he’d somehow learned to use the food replicator on his own. Braxton made a noble attempt to be a more attentive owner after that, reading with Helix, and even occasionally playing chess. (Perhaps unsurprisingly given his owner’s intelligence, Helix usually won.)

After he was cured of his temporal psychosis, Braxton made a shocking discovery about Helix... Helix was actually female! —No wait, the shocking discovery was that Helix was actually a shapeshifting humanoid female who worked for Gary Seven, the galaxy’s most boring secret agent. She had been spying on Braxton for years on behalf of unnamed beings who were concerned about his possible threat to the timeline. Once Braxton’s rejuvenated intelligence removed that threat, Helix (if that was actually her real name) kindly said goodbye to Braxton and returned home.

Silik

Played by John Fleck

He’s supposed to be a sinister leader, but in reality he’s just a whiny flunky for Future Guy. Silik, the leader of the Suliban (the Suli-who?), he first came to the attention of Braxton when Daniels revealed his involvement in the Temporal Cold War. Sure, he looks creepy with his gooey, algae-colored skin, but he’s just another ineffective villain at heart.

After the Xindi took all the attention away from the Suliban, Silik resorted to playing Solitaire to pass the time. He finally got a chance to stop being a whiny loser when Future Guy sent him to help Braxton and Daniels stop Vosk and the Na’kuhl. It almost makes up for the fact that he helped make the lousy episode “Storm Front” possible.

Scorpius

Played by Wayne Pygram

The infamous half-Sebacean (an advanced Human, sort of), half-Scarran warrior-scientist, Scorpius is best known for his incredibly bad taste in black leather. Oh yeah, and his intense hatred of Scarrans, too. In the Farscape universe, he wasn’t quite the bad guy, and he was a sort-of-good guy, but he was too bad to be good, and a bit too good to be bad. (Did that make any sense?)

When Farscape was cancelled (thanks to the SciFi Channel’s use of the Orb of Ultimate Evil), Scorpius resolved not to be cancelled too. He sought refuge in the Star Trek universe, because despite its reputation for awful continuity and lame characterization, it at least managed to go on and on. He continued his research into developing wormholes into weapons (that he could use against the Scarrans), and also lent his considerable intellect to developing a subspace drive to help rescue the Earth from the depths of subspace, where the Vaadwaur had sent it. This effort was ultimately successful, and Scorpius finally unlocked the secrets of wormholes. However, he wasn’t quite sure how to make them profitable...

The most fearsome admiral from the 24th century never died! Instead, Admiral Alynna Nechayev had her brain implanted into an even scarier robot body so she could terrorize Starfleet officers for centuries to come. She was briefly in command of Starbase 47 after Admiral Picard finally retired, but she abandoned her post to get revenge against Braxton when he disobeyed orders and departed without Wesley Crusher, his new helmsman. Unfortunately, it turned out that the Klingons she had chased after Braxton with were working for Future Guy. She attacked all seven Klingons, but was defeated, and her deactivated robot body was thrown out an airlock in the vicinity of the Tkon star, which was about to go nova.

Improbably, that was not the end of her story. Robo-Nechayev’s inert corpse floated through space for 600,000 years before it ran into Galvatron’s ship, the Nemesis-A. Galvatron convinced Optimus Prime to revive her, and Robo-Nechayev quickly fell in love with Galvatron. The two got married, and now live in Starfleet’s Master Temporal Observatory, the command of which Robo-Nechayev intimidated Starfleet Command into giving her.

Wesley Crusher

Played by Wil Wheaton

An occasional joke of Series ? involved Admiral Picard offering a choice of two previous Star Trek characters to fill a vacancy on the Relativity’s crew: either Wesley Crusher, or some other generally comedic individual (like Damar, or Adam from “The Way to Eden”). Of course, no sane person would ever choose Wesley Crusher! Unfortunately, the new admiral of Starbase 47, Robo-Nechayev, didn’t understand this policy, and simply assigned Wesley Crusher to be the new helmsman of the Relativity. Braxton and his crew had to make a very quick getaway to avoid being stuck with The Boy.

However, Starfleet Command had to stick Crusher somewhere, so after the disappearance of Robo-Nechayev, he was promoted to become the new admiral of Starbase 47. His first act as the new commander was to invoke Clause 47 of the Relativity crew’s Starfleet contracts, and initiated the dreaded crime against sanity known as Series ?: Season 5.

Like a certain member of the Relativity crew, Crusher also had godlike powers, courtesy of the Traveler. Usually, he just used them to angrily fling Braxton around his office after enduring a bout of stupidity (which was often). However, when the Progeny came for Braxton at the end of the fifth season, the Relativity was forced into a fate worse than death: being saved by The Boy! Crusher used his Traveler powers to hurl the Relativity millions of light-years away from the Federation in the hopes that the Progeny would not be able to pursue. But even sending the ship into the intergalactic void wasn’t enough to permanently rid him of Braxton and his crew.

Crusher developed a much better working relationship with Braxton after the latter’s temporal psychosis was cured. However, after having endured years of stupidity, he still feels the need to test Braxton’s intelligence each time he calls.

Joe

Played by Robert Picardo

Everyone forgot that the Relativity’s Doctor was the backup version from “Living Witness.” So did you ever wonder what happened to Voyager’s original Doctor?

For whatever reason, after Voyager got home, the Doctor took the name of Joe. (Don’t worry, “Endgame” still happened in an alternate timeline.) By the 29th century, Joe had been promoted to lead all of Starfleet Medical. In the course of his duties, he was called in to help try to resuscitate Commander Ducane from his mysterious coma. He ended up getting into a major competition with the Relativity’s Doctor... because he’d encountered the one being who had an ego as big as his own. However, the two EMHs came to an understanding, and agreed to collaborate to try to find a way to revive Ducane.

After that encounter, Joe became obsessed. Using the information provided by his counterpart on the Relativity, Joe started an immense project that brought in specialists from dozens of scientific fields throughout the Federation. Thanks to months of work, Project Tiberinus managed to achieve what had been considered impossible: curing Braxton’s temporal psychosis. (Yes, he’d completely forgotten about curing Ducane.)

Charles “Trip” Tucker III

Played by Connor Trinneer

You must be as happy as a clam to find out that Trip didn’t really die in the awful, awful episode “These Are the Voyages...”! Distraught after hearing about Tucker’s pointless death, Yar had him beamed into the 29th century, replacing him in his own time with a sock puppet. (There were no lifelike replicas available.) Considering how he had actual engineering experience, he was quickly recruited to be the new chief engineer of the Relativity.

Unfortunately, Trip had become even less mentally stable than Braxton. (Scary, huh?) If you paid attention, you’d notice he peppered his sentences with DEATHTOTHEXINDI random sinister proclamations. He tried to take over the VENGEANCEISMINE Relativity in order to destroy New Xindus, the new Xindi homeworld. Fortunately, he was stopped in time by Damar. Unfortunately, he was abducted by parties unknown while he was being transported to the Federation Maximum Security Prison.

If Admiral Janeway were here, she’d doubt we’ve seen the last of him...