Star Trek has had its fair share of great romances, but not all of them have ended in happily ever after. There are at least one or two big love stories in every Star Trek series, and a host of small one-off romances throughout various episodes. The smaller romances usually last one or two episodes, and while some of them are memorable, the relationships with more time invested in them are the ones that stick in fans’ minds.
Sadly, many of these relationships have ended in tragedy. There are a few notable exceptions to this, such as William Riker and Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation, or Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres on Star Trek: Voyager. Both couples ended up getting married and eventually having children together, but unfortunately, their happy endings are exceptions to the rule.
Many great relationships in Star Trek have ended up being doomed to fail. Endings have often come with either one of the characters dying, a forced separation because of circumstances beyond their control, or the simple dissolution of the romance. As of now, the franchise has had ten major relationships that have all ended in heartbreak, spanning across almost every series.
James T. Kirk And Edith Keeler
Captain Kirk from Star Trek: The Original Series has a reputation for being a philanderer, but there were a few memorable occasions where he actually fell in love. One of these occasions was in the classic Original Series episode, “The City on the Edge of Forever”, where Kirk and his first officer Spock traveled back in time to 1930 to stop Doctor McCoy from drastically altering the timeline. There, Kirk met and fell in love with a woman named Edith Keeler. The two only knew each other for a short time, but the feelings they had developed very quickly.
Sadly, to preserve the timeline, Edith Keeler had to die, preventing her from instigating events that would allow the Nazis to win World War II. Kirk wasn’t sure he would be able to stand by and watch Edith perish, but when the time came he allowed the accident to happen and history to return to its correct course. His grief was palpable, however, and his and Edith’s relationship is part of the reason the episode is still so popular among fans.
Data And Tasha Yar
Commander Data and Lieutenant Tasha Yar served together aboard the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and although their romance was brief, it endures in the memories of many fans. While under the influence of an alien intoxicant called polywater, Yar and Data had a brief sexual encounter. Yar was later embarrassed by the encounter and told Data to forget about it.
Data, however, continued to feel a special connection to Yar even when their relationship resumed a more professional nature. Unfortunately for him, Yar was killed in a later episode by an alien who drained her life force while she was attempting to rescue members of the Enterprise’s crew. After her death, Data carried around a hologram of her as a remembrance and maintained that Yar had been special to him despite the brief nature of their relationship.
Worf and Deanna Troi
Commander Worf and Counselor Troi seemed like an entirely unlikely pair when their romance first began on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but the two did enjoy some sweet moments together throughout TNG’s final season. After encountering an alternate reality where Troi was his wife, Worf became interested in pursuing a relationship with her, and Troi reciprocated. The two had been good friends before, with Troi even becoming godmother to Worf’s son Alexander, so romance seemed like the next logical step.
Despite relatively smooth sailing, Troi was seemingly always destined to rekindle her relationships with Commander Riker, which happened after an amicable split from Worf during the TNG movies. Fans were not privy to what caused Worf and Troi’s romance to end, but Worf seemed to harbor no ill feelings towards Troi or Riker and attended their wedding during Star Trek: Nemesis. Even though Worf and Troi were not meant to be, the end of their relationship was not nearly as tragic as the end of some other Star Trek romances.
Odo And Kira Nerys
Although Odo and Kira only became a couple at the end of the 6th season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, their romance had been building for quite some time. Odo fell in love with Kira early on, although he concealed his true feelings from her for many years and supported her while she entered into other relationships, some of which also ended in tragedy. Finally, with the help of Vic Fontaine, Odo was able to express his true feelings for Kira which she reciprocated, and the two had a romance that lasted the whole of Deep Space Nine’s final season.
Sadly, the romance ended when Odo decided to return to his people, the Changelings, to heal them from a virus that was ravaging their population through the Great Link. Despite his love for Kira, Odo decided to stay with his people after the virus was cured, a decision Kira accepted even though she was clearly heartbroken to lose him. Odo and Kira’s relationship was relatively short-lived, but it endures as one of Deep Space Nine’s pivotal romances.
Benjamin Sisko and Kasidy Yates-Sisko
The relationship between Captain Sisko and Kasidy Yates was arguably Deep Space Nine’s central love story. Sisko and Yates met in season 3 when they were set up by Sisko’s son Jake. Although the romance went through some rough patches – with Kasidy even going to prison at one point – the love between the two endured, culminating in their marriage and Kasidy becoming pregnant in season 7.
In perhaps one of the saddest endings for any Star Trek relationship, however, the Deep Space Nine series finale saw Sisko sacrificing his own life and joining the Bajoran Prophets in their Celestial Temple. Sisko appeared to Kasidy in a vision, promising to return to her one day, although he did not specify when or how. The uncertainty surrounding when or whether he might be back at all put a tragic spin on Sisko and Kasidy’s relationship, one that any Deep Space Nine fan is unlikely to forget as a heartbreaking part of the finale.
Worf and Jadzia Dax
Worf joined the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in its 4th season, and he and the character of Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax had a connection from the start. Jadzia was very knowledgable about Klingon history and culture, something that made her and Worf become fast friends. The two realized that had developed feelings for each other in season 5, and began a relationship soon thereafter. They were married in the season 6 episode “You Are Cordially Invited”.
Tragically, Jadzia was killed when she was attacked by Gul Dukat while visiting Deep Space Nine’s Bajoran temple. Since Jadzia was a joined Trill, Doctor Bashir was able to save her symbiont, but he could do nothing about her injuries. Jadzia died with a heartbroken Worf by her side. Worf and Jadzia had been planning to have children, a fact which made her sudden death even more painful. The Dax symbiont was subsequently joined with Ezri Teegan, who became Ezri Dax. Despite developing a friendship with Ezri, Worf did not pursue a romance with his late wife’s successor.
Neelix And Kes
From their introduction, Neelix and Kes were very much the odd couple on Star Trek: Voyager. Although it was clear that they loved each other, Neelix sometimes struggled with jealousy and often treated Kes in a more paternalistic way than what she deserved as his romantic partner. The pair were introduced in Voyager’s pilot episode “Caretaker” and were in a relationship throughout much of the first 3 seasons, although they broke off their relationship midway through season 3 after Kes was possessed by an evil alien warlord.
During her time on Voyager, Kes had been expanding her latent telepathic abilities. At the beginning of season 4, a sudden increase in her abilities caused her to transcend to another plane of existence, leaving Voyager and Neelix behind. By that time, Kes and Neelix were merely good friends, but her leaving ended any possibility of their relationship being rekindled in the future.
Chakotay And Seven Of Nine
The romantic relationship between Chakotay and Seven of Nine evolved rather quickly during the second half of Star Trek: Voyager’s final season. When Seven began further exploring the idea of dating on the holodeck, she developed romantic feelings for a hologram of Chakotay she had created. From there, the relationship began to evolve in real life, and by “Endgame”, Seven and Chakotay had been on several dates. The two even expressed a more serious commitment to each other, despite Seven’s fears about the future brought on by the knowledge of her death in an alternate timeline.
Up until recently, fans would have presumed that Seven and Chakotay’s relationship continued after Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant. However, when Seven joined the cast of Star Trek: Picard in 2020, the show revealed that since Voyager’s return she had left the Federation and joined a vigilante group in the Beta Quadrant. This in itself would not have been enough evidence of the end of her relationship with Chakotay, but the season 1 finale of Picard also showed evidence that Seven and Raffi Musiker were considering a romantic relationship with each other, a decision which added a completely new dimension to Seven’s sexuality and effectively put any chance that she might still be with Chakotay to bed.
Trip Tucker and T’Pol
Trip Tucker and T’Pol’s romance on Star Trek: Enterprise was fraught with complications from the start. The two started as colleagues and reluctant friends, but after T’Pol aided Trip with his PTSD and grief over the death of his sister, Trip began to develop romantic feelings for her. Their relationship was extremely one-sided for most of its course, and at one point Trip even attempted to transfer away from Enterprise because of his feelings for T’Pol, but T’Pol convinced him to stay by stating that she reciprocated his feelings.
When their DNA was used to make a child, it seemed as though Trip and T’Pol would cement their romance by becoming parents, but genetic issues caused the baby’s death, leaving the two of them heartbroken. After their daughter’s death, the two broke things off for good, and any possibility of things resuming was cut short by Trip’s death in the Star Trek: Enterprise series finale, “These Are the Voyages…”
Michael Burnham And Ash Tyler
Michael Burnham and Ash Tyler’s romance happened mostly over the course of season 1 of Star Trek: Discovery. The two met when Ash joined Discovery’s crew, and the attraction was almost immediate. When Discovery became stuck in the Mirror Universe, Michael and Ash relied on each other to keep sane while pretending to be their Mirror counterparts. The relationship hit a major snag when Ash was revealed to be a Klingon sleeper agent who had been implanted with the personality of Voq.
Voq asserted himself and attempted to kill Michael, and even after he was suppressed, Michael had become too distrusting of her former lover. The two never fully rekindled their relationship after the incident, and although both of them still had complicated feelings for one another, any possibility of them getting back together was ended when Michael and Discovery’s crew time-traveled 930 years into the future, leaving Ash behind in the 22nd century.
Star Trek has a trend of romance between main characters often coming to a tragic end. Despite this, most relationships in Star Trek have made the franchise better, and endure in fans’ hearts even after they have ended. Love in all its forms is a big part of Star Trek’s message, and fans have enjoyed watching their favorite characters fall in love, even if sometimes it doesn’t end the way they want it to.
