10 Most Intense Star Trek Cold Opens

3. Scorpion

Scorpion may be the gold standard when it comes to cold opens in Star Trek. It is certainly among the shortest while also being the most shocking. The Borg, the greatest enemy that the Federation had ever known, float in two enormous cubes towards the screen. Though they implore us not to resist, we needn't have been concerned. 

They're all dead, burning in their vaporised ships. All of this and not even a minute on the clock.

The introduction of Species 8472 could not have been handled better, proving the old adage: the unseen monster is the scariest. It worked for Bruce the Shark back in 1975, and it worked for the tripedal menace in Scorpion.