Not every Vulcan in Star Trek is as heroic and virtuous as Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and there are a half dozen of the pointy-eared aliens who can be called downright evil. Vulcans are normally the staunchest allies of humans in the United Federation of Planets. It was with the help of the Vulcans that Mankind rose from the 21st-century ashes of World War III and built an intergalactic alliance of planets within the next two hundred years. In Star Trek: Discovery's 32nd century, Vulcans and Romulans share the planet Ni'Var and remain loyal friends with the humans of the Federation.
Some of Star Trek's Vulcan heroes include Spock, T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) in Star Trek: Enterprise, and Tuvok (Tim Russ) in Star Trek: Voyager. Vulcans traditionally embrace logic and reject emotion, but the truth is that some Vulcans can also be power kegs after a lifetime of repression. In other cases, Vulcan logic leads them to take a course of action that is disastrous. And yes, some Vulcans have resorted to murder. Vulcans never forget that thousands of years ago, they were as violent and filled with rage as the worst humans or Klingons, and it was the Vulcan commitment to logic that tempered their cauldrons of emotions. However, Star Trek has also introduced a number of villainous Vulcans across the various series and films. Here are six of the most nefarious Vulcans who broke bad throughout Star Trek.
6 Sybok - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Sybok (Lawrence Luckinbill) was the first major Vulcan adversary introduced in the Star Trek: The Original Series movies. Created as the big bad of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Sybok was a Vulcan heretic who was revealed as the older half-brother of Spock. Sybok's destiny, or so he believed, was to penetrate the Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy to find God in the fabled world of Sha Ka Ree. To accomplish this, Sybok invaded Paradise City on Nimbus III to lure the USS Enterprise to the rescue. Sybok then hijacked the starship to take him and his followers to Sha Ka Ree.
Sybok presented himself as a holy man doing God's work, but he was exceedingly dangerous. Sybok used his Vulcan telepathy to force people to "face their pain," in order to convert them into his minions. To Sybok's credit, he realized his folly when he realized he was being manipulated by "God," who was a malevolent alien entity. Sybok sacrificed his life to protect Spock, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). However, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds reintroduced the younger Sybok, who is a Vulcan extremist and married to the space pirate Captain Angel (Jesse James Keitel). Strange New Worlds is poised to make Sybok even more deadly than he was in Star Trek V.
5 Lt. Valeris - Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Introduced in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Lt. Valeris (Kim Cattrall) was the protégé of Captain Spock, and she was the first Vulcan to graduate at the top of her class at Starfleet Academy. Valeris seemed to be on track to be the same kind of female Vulcan hero Lt. Saavik (Kirstie Alley/Robin Curtis) was in the prior Star Trek movies, but it was not to be. Valeris was revealed to be Starfleet's first Vulcan traitor when she joined a conspiracy of Klingons, Romulans, and Starfleet Admiral Cartwright (Brock Peters) to prevent galactic peace by assassinating Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner).
Valeris orchestrated key events of the assassination from her perch aboard the USS Enterprise, including sending Starfleet Officers to Gorkon's ship to kill him, which led to Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy being framed for the murder. Later, when Spock's investigation revealed the true assassins, Valeris moved to kill the Starfleet Officers herself before she was exposed by Spock, Kirk, and McCoy. Valeris feared peace with the Klingons so much, she was willing to murder and jeopardize the fate of the galaxy to prevent it.
4 Lt. Chu'lak - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 7 episode, "Field of Fire," a mysterious assassin murdered Starfleet Officers aboard the station. By tapping into her prior host for help, Joran Dax (Leigh J. McCloskey), Lt. Ezri Dax's (Nicole de Boer) investigation uncovered the killer to be a Vulcan, Lt. Chu'lak (Marty Rackham) of the USS Grissom, which was destroyed during the Dominion War.
The emotional trauma of losing his ship caused a psychotic break that turned Chu'lak into a murderer who anonymously killed using a TR-116 rifle equipped with a micro-transporter. When Chu'lak was finally captured, the unrepentant Vulcan claimed he murdered his victims, who all had photos showing emotion in their quarters, because "logic demanded it."
3 Administrator V'Las - Star Trek: Enterprise
In Star Trek: Enterprise's 22nd century, Administrator V'Las (Robert Foxworth) was the leader of the Vulcan High Command. As such, V'Las embodied everything that was devious and sinister about Vulcans in Star Trek: Enterprise's era. While espousing Vulcan logic, V'Las secretly joined a conspiracy with Talok (Todd Stashwick), a Romulan deep cover operative who posed as a Vulcan for years.
V'Las's alliance with the Romulans was intended to enable the Vulcan invasion of Andoria, while Vulcan itself would be subjugated by the Romulan Star Empire. V'Las and his associates were eventually brought down by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), T'Pol, and T'Pau (Kara Zediker), who helped rebuild Vulcan society and reinstituted the teachings of Surak.
2 Vulcan Logic Extremists - Star Trek: Discovery
In Star Trek: Discovery, Vulcan logic extremists nearly killed Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) before she ever became Captain of the USS Discovery. Orphaned at age 10, Michael Burnham (Arista Arhin) was adopted by Ambassador Sarek (James Frain) and raised on Vulcan. Burnham excelled in Vulcan logic but, as a human, she and her half-human adoptive brother, Spock (Liam Hughes) were targeted by xenophobic Vulcan logic extremists.
A bomb the logic extremists detonated at the Vulcan learning center left Michael dead for three minutes until she was revived by Sarek sharing his katra with her. In Star Trek: Discovery season 1, the logic extremist V'Latak (Luke Humprey) tried to kill Sarek, and Starfleet Admiral Patar (Tara Nicodemo) was exposed as a fanatical Vulcan logic extremist after she was murdered by Section 31's rogue A.I., Control in Discovery season 2.
1 Krinn - Star Trek: Picard
Star Trek: Picard season 3 introduced a Vulcan gangster named Krinn (Kirk Acevedo), one of the most feared underworld figures in the crime-ridden world of M'Talas Prime. As a known associate of the Ferengi crime lord Sneed (Aaron Stanford), Krinn was sought out by Captain Worf (Michael Dorn) and Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd) in connection with the theft of experimental weapons from Daystrom Station.
Krinn got the drop on the Starfleet Officers and forced them to fight to the death, but Worf fooled the Vulcan criminal and forced him to reveal what he knows: Krinn supplied rogue Changelings from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with a "key" he developed that could override Daystrom Station's sophisticated A.I. security system. Unlike Krinn's Ferengi buddy Sneed, Worf let Star Trek's latest evil Vulcan keep his pointy-eared head.