Star Trek: 10 Character Reveals That Didn't Have To Go THAT Hard
2. Hoshi Sato Died So That Kirk Could Live
This one is heartbreaking. Hoshi Sato was introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise's Broken Bow, giving the audience the perspective of someone who didn't really want to be out there trekking the stars. She did it, if not under duress, then out of a sense of loyalty.
Over the four seasons of the show and despite the writers struggling to give her decent storylines, Linda Park brought soul and warmth to the character, allowing her to bloom beyond what was text on a screen.
So, for text on a screen to spell such doom for the character feels hollow. Over in the mirror universe, the USS Defiant (not that one) ends up in the hands of Terrans. They scan the ship's memory banks for information about their counterparts. There, they discover that Hoshi was killed, along with her whole family, in the same act of genocide that Captain Kirk survived.
Michael Sussman tweeted the relevant screenshots that spelled her doom, adding a sad coda to an otherwise hopeful ending to the NX-01's gifted xenolinguist.