Star Trek Characters That Must Return (2026)

6. Ilsa Dax

This entry is by far the most likely return on this list. Ilsa Dax, brought to life by Tawny Newsome in Series Acclimation Mil, contains such a wealth of possibilities that it seems impossible for her not to return in the second season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. 

Dax is old, to be clear. The symbiont is over one thousand years old by the time SAM interacts with their latest host in 3195. Ilsa could be the last host to carry this legacy, so exploring the weight of history through the eyes of someone who has seen so much of it seems like a fabulous chance to look back on Trek.

Dax, along with the EMH, has lived through Borg incursions, Temporal Wars, and galaxy-spanning Burns. Countless friends and family have been born, lived, and died through those centuries. The first season of Starfleet Academy touched on this via the Doctor, yet it wasn't the main focus of any of those episodes. The opportunity here, before the show comes to an end, is to take these characters and compare traumas. 

By the 32nd Century, one can only assume that both are more than used to the tragedy that is their existence, yet to see their different approaches to dealing with those tragedies, surviving, and even flourishing despite them seems, to this writer at least, a no-brainer.

Star Trek is at its best when it is telling stories about characters. Dax is now, potentially, the oldest living character (various godlike/Qlike beings notwithstanding) left in the Milky Way Galaxy. Her return should be less a question of if and simply a matter of when.