10 'What Ifs' That Could Have Changed The Course Of Star Trek

10. ...William Riker Was Replaced With Tom?

TNG's sixth season Second Chances pulls Will Riker's twin out of the shadows of Nervala IV. If we follow the expected cliche, the twin, Tom, should die at the end and the reset button hit. But here it didn't.

Instead, Will AND Tom survive which at least gives us DS9's great Defiant. If things had worked out differently though, we could have seen a very different final season and series of movies. At one point there was serious thought going into killing Will Riker and having his previously marooned twin take his place.

Well, not his exact place because Tom would have been sitting at Ops while Data got a promotion to first officer. For a series about to enter its seventh and final season, this was a bold move - and not the only one at the time. Descent very nearly saw the Enterprise moved to more sedate duties and crash.

The impact on the franchise from this move would have been galactic with no Captain Riker, no USS Titan move and that's just for starters when you consider the impact Will has had on the finales of not one but two of the new era of Star Trek.