Kobal/ShutterstockBack in 1987, when Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted, one character represented a bold, new step for the franchise. As Tasha Yar, actress Denise Crosby set the tone for TNG, playing a female chief of security on the USS Enterprise. Inspired by the character of Vasquez from Aliens, Next Generation creator Gene Roddenberry, the early TNG writers, and Crosby herself, infused Tasha with strength, bravado, and a very brutal and tragic backstory. Now nearly four decades after the debut of TNG and the untimely demise of Tasha, Crosby thinks that it might be time to go back and tell the rest of the story.Speaking to Inverse and New York Comic-Con 2026, Crosby, along with Nana Visitor, Brent Spiner, Robert Picardo, and William Shatner, reflected on the legacy and impact of Star Trek, specifically the formation of The Original Series, as chronicled in the new documentary, The Sixty-Year Mission: How Star Trek Changed Television and the World. And although she left The Next Generation after one season, Crosby has never been away from Trek for very long, including numerous guest spots on TNG. She also has experience with Trek documentaries, having hosted the 1999 documentary Trekkies. “The Sixty-Year Mission is so different than the documentary I made,” Crosby told Inverse at Comic-Con. “I thought, oh dear, how many Star Trek documentaries in the world can there be? But I think the experience of doing those early conventions [in the 1990s] made me realize how big the phenomenon is...I think this documentary is a more comprehensive look at the [original] show itself. How it came about, Gene’s [Roddenberry] contributions, and how it blossomed into what it is.”Denise Crosby in NYC for the 2026 debut of The Sixty-Year Mission. | Ron Adar/ShutterstockBecause Tasha Yar is canonically deceased in more than one Trek timeline, it would have been difficult for Crosby to return for Picard Season 3 or any of Lower Decks in recent years. (That said, her hologram did make a brief appearance in Picard Season 3.) And, at this point, it seems unlikely we’ll get another Trek spinoff series focused on the TNG era, which makes it seem very unlikely we’ll get more of Tasha’s story. Though, Crosby does have an idea: In TNG, Tasha’s backstory had her growing up on the crime-ridden planet of Turkana IV, where she had to evade all sorts of horrible and brutal aspects of humanity. Essentially, even in the Trek future, some places are just as barbaric as the 20th and 21st centuries. Could we see that time in Tasha’s life in a novel?“I'm trying to write a book right now. It's not about Star Trek at all. But I think once I can get that, I can birth that baby; I think writing a book about Tasha would be amazing,” Crosby said. “There’s that gap that we know of, but haven't really seen. It would be great to write that. How did she survive Turkana IV, and how did she get to Starfleet? Where is that story?”Hopefully, in a few years, Tasha Yar herself, Denise Crosby, could continue the lore of The Next Generation, and retroactively give us even more of her iconic character than ever before.The Sixty-Year Mission is in limited release in theaters now.