Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Tasha Yar

"Death is that state in which one exists only in the memory of others…" and sometimes, if you're lucky, in alternate timelines too. As Ronald D. Moore pointed out in the TNG season four DVD extra Chronicles from the Final Frontier, after Yar's summary exit via the wave of the arm of Armus, Yesterday's Enterprise was the chance to bring Yar back, in order to "kill her right."

Yesterday's Enterprise began life as a spec. script (i.e. a non-commissioned one), submitted to Paramount in 1989 by writer (and later Klingon judge trying to avoid the sparks from the other Klingon judge to his right in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), Trent Christopher Ganino. Ganino's original idea had a past Enterprise travelling to the future, but no alternate universe and no return of Tasha Yar.

As detailed in Mission Overview, the TNG season three DVD extra, then script coordinator Eric Stillwell had been working on his own "alternate history story," which involved both Sarek and The Guardian of Forever. Writer/producer Michael Piller suggested he drop the Sarek and Guardian bit and team up with Ganino to merge their ideas.

Around the same time, Stillwell had bumped into Denise Crosby at a convention. Crosby mentioned her interest in returning to TNG, apparently telling Stillwell, "You should write a story for me." That's exactly what Stillwell and Ganino then did, reworking the alternate universe idea to bring Yar back.

The season one troubles for Crosby and character might have been a distant memory, but for the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, they had only just begun.