American actor (died 2012), a familiar screen villain, who played Arctus Baran, the mercenary captain who controls his crew with pain devices, in the two-part Next Generation story Gambit.
Richard Lynch was an American actor whose scarred features and silky voice made him a favourite heavy in films such as Scarecrow, The Sword and the Sorcerer and Invasion U.S.A., and in a great many television series.
In Gambit, Part I and Part II he plays Baran, leader of a band of mercenaries raiding archaeological sites for Romulan artefacts. He keeps order by means of neural servos fitted to each crew member's neck, triggered from a control he carries.
Picard, undercover as the smuggler Galen, undermines him steadily, and Riker plays along as a turncoat. Baran dies when he tries to punish Galen and finds the device codes have been switched to his own.