Star Trek: 20 Supporting Characters That Deserved More

Of all the supporting characters that have come and gone, Sito Jaxa is the one who broke hearts in The Next Generation.

Bright, courageous and beautifully imperfect, we hoped beyond hope for a happy ending for Jaxa. Her story started in The First Duty as one of the Nova Squadron cadets facing an inquiry alongside Wesley Crusher and Nicholas Definitely-Not-Tom-Paris Locarno. Jaxa had participated in a forbidden flight formation and went along with a cover-up...until Wesley admitted the truth to the inquiry, and Jaxa barely escaped expulsion.

Picard decided to give her a second chance by requesting her for the Enterprise...but it wasn't an easy journey.

In the gripping episode Lower Decks, Jaxa and her fellow lower deckers grow increasingly intrigued by events unfolding above their paygrade. Jaxa, however, is soon pulled into the drama. After enduring a scathing dressing-down from Picard and an impossible training exercise from Worf, it becomes apparent she's being put through her paces for a particularly dangerous mission.

But despite the immense risks, Jaxa volunteers without hesitation. As Picard waits with bated breath for news of Jaxa, so does the audience, but no matter how much we wanted her to beat the odds, she's reported as killed in action.

Frankly, this remains as difficult to accept now as when it first aired. But science fiction is no stranger to miracles and resurrection, so it's easy to keep a flicker of hope alive that she might get the third chance she sorely deserves.

In our headcanon, it was all part of the covert mission, and she faked her own death to lay low. Or perhaps it was a piece of sly misinformation floated by the Cardassians while Jaxa survived in prison, only to escape later.

Either way, we would not be at all sad if she were to somehow make a reappearance, because there is absolutely no doubt that Sito Jaxa deserved more.