Star Trek: 11 Greatest Unfinished Story Ideas

3. Sela (TNG: The Mind's Eye, Redemption, Unification) The season-four finale Redemption Part 1 blew the minds of fans across the globe with a revelation yet to be surpassed in all of Star Trek: security chief Tasha Yar, struck dead towards the end of the first season, was alive and well and evidently a Romulan! It marked the start to a summer full of speculation as to what exactly was going on here. It did not take long, however, for observant fans to make the connection between Sela's appearance in Redemption and the plot of the third-season episode Yesterday's Enterprise. The ramifications of time travel have been a part of Star Trek as long as it has been in existence, of course. Yesterday's Enterprise centers around the fate of the Enterprise-C, the immediate predecessor of Picard's Enterprise-D. A temporal rift plucks the Enterprise-C from a battle with the Romulans and displaces it decades into the future. In this timeline, the Federation is locked in a bitter and grueling war against the Klingons and Tasha Yar is still alive. It is determined that in order to set things right, the Enterprise-C must be sent back through the temporal rift, a mission that will most assuredly lead to its destruction. With Tasha onboard, the ship is sent through, the timeline is restored, and the Enterprise-D continues on, unaware of what exactly has just taken place. In Redemption, Sela tells Picard that Tahsa had survived the battle and was in fact her mother. Sela was born as the result of a relationship between Tasha and a Romulan general. While Picard professes disbelief to all this, the audience can see that the specter of doubt has been raised within him. The stage has then been set for the Enterprise crew to determine once and for all what really happened to the previous ship named Enterprise. Yet, when Sela does reappear in the episode Unification, no mention is made of her questionable (though the audience knows genuine) heritage. The door had been opened for a deep and thorough exploration of whether or not it is ethical to alter the timeline, even with the best of intentions. These types of cause and effect, time travel-loop stories are one of the things that Star Trek has accomplished magnificently throughout its fifty years. Why the audience was never treated to this potential epic storyline is a loss that is still felt by fans to this day.

Contributor

I've been a huge sci-fi fan ever since going to see "Star Wars" at the tender age of 3 (and yes I actually do remember it! I love pretty much any intelligent and entertaining film and television series (some of my all time favorites are 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, Battlestar Galactica [SyFy], and The West Wing). Must thank the stars above for such things as HBOGO and Netflix (Am thoroughly enjoying Ripper Street btw). I've also been an avid comic book collector since childhood. I earned a bachelor's degree in creative writing with a second emphasis in film studies from Florida State University (Go Noles!) and definitely enjoy sitting back and watching pretty much any sports. I wish I had a joke to end with, but I don't so I'll simply say "The End."