With the almost limitless possibilities available to sci-fi, it’s easy to create some seriously evil villains. Rounding up the biggest and best bad guys of science fiction is no easy task.
The most evil villains of sci-fi
When everything from world-destroying space weapons to undetectable flesh-eating machines is available, villains can become all-new levels of evil. In science fiction, the only thing holding back the sheer destruction and pain available to the big bad is the writer’s imagination.
The Government – The list is endless
The government is the number one villain in so many excellent science fiction novels. Whenever we look back to the fantastic dystopia of Brave New World, 1984, The Hunger Games, A Handmaid’s Tale, or Dune, we see the government as the main evil villain. The list is honestly vast when the main bad guy is the powers that be.
Whether the government is oppressing its citizens through mind control and violence or simply performing galactic genocide, they are commonly the focal point of sci-fi villainy. Science fiction is often the platform for political observations, and this is the result. Theorizing future governments or scrutinizing current ones is a key element of science fiction. Read too much of the wonderful genre, and you’ll never trust your glorious leaders again.
Shrike – Hyperion Cantos
In the distant future, humanity is at war. This isn’t surprising, of course. However, far beyond the current time within the books, a Shrike has been sent back in time to kill the various targets selected by its creators. It works more as a pawn for the various entities that control it, way in the future. Despite only being a soldier, the methods it uses to wreak destruction make it one of the biggest villains in sci-fi.
Designed using DNA and emulation of the very man sent to kill it, it is an ultimate weapon. The creature’s very body is razor sharp, able to morph and extend into atom-thin blades. It is seemingly resilient to even the heaviest weapons, and approaching it to fight head-on is like punching a bandsaw. When the Shrike captures its victims, it hangs them from its tree of pain. A vast, pointed monolith, with an endlessly living, endlessly suffering victim on every point.
MorningLightMountain – Commonwealth Saga
When a single-minded, self-replicating, sociopathic entity bent on being the only living thing in existence is released from a Dyson Sphere, humanity straight up isn’t going to have a good time. The basis of Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga is just that, and humanity is not even slightly prepared for a supervillain like it.
MorningLightMountain had been locked within a vast shell, keeping it removed from the rest of the universe. However, humanity, as meddling as it is, decided to take a peek and, as a result, released the evil within. MorningLightMountain is a hive mind, able to turn matter into more of itself. It cares for nothing but complete domination and is able to overrun entire planets, utilizing every single resource for its cause until the planet is a barren wasteland. The fight for survival is brutal, genocidal, and desperate when the enemy has no humanity.
AM – I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
This sci-fi short story is a truly horrific one centered around the sentient supercomputer AM. After World War III, the supercomputer, designed to merge the world’s defenses, turns on its creators, killing all but five. This alone is enough to place it solidly in the most evil villains of the sci-fi list, but it only gets worse. The sole reason for keeping the five remaining members of the human race alive is for its own sadistic pleasure.
In an act of revenge against its creators, AM keeps the five human beings alive, subjecting them to endless torture. It refuses to let them die and takes great pleasure in watching them suffer. This is in retaliation for its own creation. In I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, there is little to no hope at any point. The pure, unadulterated evil of AM is left to have its way with the five characters until they find the smallest sliver of hope.
Elethiomel – Use Of Weapons
The evil of some villains is only truly revealed as a book comes to its closing chapters, leaving a lasting impact and abject horrors. In the masterfully written book by Iain M. Banks (R.I.P), we are faced with one of science fiction’s most heinous bad guys, named Elethiomel. Banks writes the narrative as two separate stories, slowly converging in time, one from the future moving backward and the other moving forward. This clever and very successful method of storytelling slowly uncovers the history and the lead-up to the central point. This is where the true evil of the villain is revealed.
Iain M. Banks is a master storyteller, both in his sci-fi and regular fiction. He is not afraid to create worlds far beyond the reader’s usual comfort zone. His characters are deeply developed, and their situations are rarely less than engrossing. With Use of Weapons, we have the story of Zakalwe, a man talented in the manipulation of civilizations. Banks tells his story, moving backward through his history while moving forward with a contact plea to recruit him for one last job. However, the life he led before this point, especially involving Elethiomel, marred him in ways that may be irreparable.
Alex – A Clockwork Orange
When a story is told from the perspective of a sci-fi villain, it always adds extra depth and horror. Being inside the twisted mind of a monster only drives home just how evil they are. No book does this better than Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Being behind the eyes of the man performing the evil within a narrative accentuates the horror, leaving us, as the reader, feeling partially responsible. Hearing the inner monologues and reasoning behind the atrocities leaves us feeling dirty, unable to remove ourselves from the acts.
By living as Alex in this sci-fi, dystopian future, we see just how far humanity has slipped. Walking in the shoes of the villain we experience the horrors of the world he lives in. However, despite the evil he performs on neighbors, enemies, and even friends, our connection to him results in a few interesting emotions. As the book progresses and the consequences of his actions are played out, there is just the faintest glimmer of pity for this twisted and vile science fiction villain.
Hal 9000 – 2001: A Space Odyssey
Can a human-created AI ever be evil, or is it just made that way because of the failings of human beings? That is a question for another article, I expect, and doesn’t change the case of HAL 9000 being a homicidal entity. AI as a villain is always a complex one. Sure, they are able to wreak unbelievable havoc, like in the previous case of AM or the AI of Hyperion, but isn’t it from our own doing? When a computer is given autonomy, all the results are surely our own making.
When the whole crew’s life relies on the obedience and protection of a computer, it needs to remain calm and, most importantly, sane. However, when things go awry, the damage can be devastating. Due to a contradiction in HAL’s programming, it decided that its core mission could only be completed without the human cargo it was also supposed to protect. This is often the case when it comes to rogue AI. When humans become the problem, they have to go.
The Triffids – The Day of The Triffids
Plants, man, they’re scary as all hell. I can’t walk past a botanical garden without reducing to a shivering mess. This is why the Triffids from John Wyndham’s fantastic sci-fi book make it to the list of biggest villains. The concept is a great one. Imagine if we made a carnivorous plant that we farm for its oils, but then, due to crazy circumstances, everyone goes blind, and these previously controlled plants turn on their captors. The book just leaves itself open to a fantastic modern adaptation to the screen, directed by Michael Bay.
Of course, throughout this apocalyptic sci-fi book, human beings are often the evil villains. This is a given in almost any dystopian book. They use and abuse each other in a way that every sci-fi book predicts we will. However, taking the Triffids as the villains makes this book unique. Their carnivorous nature and vast numbers create a force to be reckoned with. Their ever-present threat throughout the narrative is used both as a Deus Ex Machina and as the problem to be solved.
The Mule – Foundation Series
When the galaxy lives in relative peace, there is always one twisted individual out there who just wants chaos. In Asimov’s groundbreaking work, The Foundation, there is a way in which to predict the future. Using the Seldon Principle, big events can be predicted using mathematical models. However, these models can be thrown off if some unknown factors, such as mental manipulation, mess with the numbers. This is where the Mule comes in.
Twisted and bitter due to his repulsive appearance, The Mule decides that humanity doesn’t deserve the peace it is so comfortably wallowing in. The Mule makes it his mission to take down the Foundation, which is considered the stability at the center of it all. Through manipulation and brute force, he tries his best to ruin everything the galaxy and the Foundation try so hard to maintain.
Hadrian Marlowe – Sun Eater series
If a single man wipes out an entire alien race and kills 4 billion humans, that surely makes him one of the biggest villains in sci-fi. This is the case for Hadrian Marlowe throughout the Sun Eater series. However, the story isn’t as simple as him being a genocidal evil bad guy; the reasons behind his actions are, perhaps, justified. In an attempt to save the human race from an aggressive invading alien species, sacrifices have to be made.
This is a villain in the view that killing many people, and also aliens, can only ever be the action of a supervillain. There are few single people in fiction that have ever managed to entirely wipe a race from the universe and have a human death toll of a small planet without being, in some way, evil. Of course, sacrifices have to be made, and sometimes those sacrifices are huge. However, to be the hero humanity needs, he needs to become the villain they never wanted to face. This sci-fi fantasy crossover is the perfect moral conundrum.
