Star Trek is a broad franchise that has swept across film and TV for almost sixty years now. With complex shows which focus on emotional storytelling and building characters that fans can really get behind, it’s no wonder that there have been a lot of incredibly sad losses over that time.
Star Trek has killed off characters a number of times. From minor deaths over the course of various shows to the major moments that helped define some of the very best Star Trek movies, death has always held an important and significant place in the franchise.
8 David Marcus
Over the course of The Wrath of Khan, Captain Kirk managed to slowly grow closer to his son, David Marcus. The hatred he felt at the beginning of the film for his dad slowly turned to a love that had truly deepened by The Search For Spock.
The fact that they managed to grow that much closer made this death all the more depressing. And David went out in the only way the son of James T Kirk could, sacrificing himself to save crew members when his landing party was taken by Klingons. Marcus may not have had as much screen time as other major characters who died in the franchise, but the impact was devastating coming just as Kirk was getting Spock back again.
7 George Kirk
The somewhat rebooted modern Star Trek films managed to find a lot of success very quickly. And the first of those movies began with Chris Hemsworth, prior to the majority of his success as an actor, in the role of James T Kirk’s father.
A fellow Starfleet officer, George Kirk took control as Captain of the USS Kelvin during an attack by the Romulan vessel Narada. Saving over 800 lives with his own sacrifice, Kirk only got to hear the birth of his son before dying. This emotional journey began James’ own journey to becoming a Starfleet officer and was a fascinating, sad way to begin the new movies.
6 Edith Keeler
Considered one of the greatest individual episodes of a Star Trek show ever, “The City On The Edge Of Forever” was an episode in the first season of the original Star Trek series. Involving Kirk and Spock going back in time to save McCoy, it also featured Edith Keeler.
This character was a woman from Earth in the year 1930 who fell in love with Captain Kirk during the months they searched for McCoy in this new time period. While their whole love affair was contained in one episode, the emotional sacrifice Kirk had to make in allowing Edith to die at the end made it feel to the audience like she’d always been a part of the show. Preserving the timeline and saving many lives by letting her die was one of the toughest choices Kirk ever had to make.
5 James T Kirk
Captain Kirk has died himself, on multiple occasions in fact. While Chris Pine’s rendition of the character died for a short time due to radiation poisoning, it was Shatner’s Admiral version of the character who had the more permanent death.
No matter how much fans have disputed this moment, Star Trek: Generations had a powerfully emotional ending as a final goodbye to this version of James T Kirk, who died from wounds suffered at the hands of the battle he fought alongside Jean-Luc Picard.
4 Tasha Yar
Most fans of the Star Trek franchise can agree that Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of the greatest products of the entire universe. They almost all agree again that the first season of the show had a fair share of problems, as it slowly developed into the ingenious show it would later become.
However, the death of Tasha Yar, a beloved character by fans who feel more could have been done with her, was a huge moment. This presented the show with the first chance to broaden its horizons and become more serious. Her holographic final message to the crew remains one of the strongest moments in the series.
3 Benjamin Sisko
Another huge character death, but one which didn’t hold as much emotional weight as it could have, given the fact that it came in a series finale and wasn’t a proper death in some ways. Benjamin Sisko joined with the Prophets to fight against Gul Dukat and the Pah Wraiths. In the final battle with Dukat, his physical form was destroyed.
This was not a true death though, as Sisko was revealed to have become a prophet himself when his body was destroyed. Still, he had to vanish after his wife held him one last time. The entire Deep Space Nine show finished forever with Sisko’s son looking out the window of the space station, providing one of the saddest moments in Star Trek history.
2 Data
Data’s original death in Star Trek: Nemesis was a devastating one, which laid the groundwork for the guilt Picard is left with when fans finally catch up with him in Star Trek: Picard. However, it is his second, final death in Picard which hit fans in their emotional cores.
Bruce Maddox kept Data’s memories alive all these years following Nemesis, but when Picard goes into the simulation at the end of Picard’s first season and meets Data again, he gets to have a real ending. Fans were forced to say goodbye to Data all over again, and the loss was incredibly powerful, as much as it was a quiet final send-off.
1 Spock
Spock has always been one of, if not the most recognizable character in Star Trek history. Leonard Nimoy is a name that will always be synonymous with the franchise. His death in Wrath of Khan was not permanent, but the sacrifice he made and the final goodbye between him and Kirk was the greatest moment of loss the franchise has ever had.
The two friends, after having been on countless adventures together, Kirk had to watch as the radiation killed Spock, only getting a final few words with him. Spock reminded him that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, a quote turned infamous by this scene.