As Luna’s curve passed from the viewscreen to reveal Earth, Picard felt a cold chill down his spine. In place of the lush blue world he thought of as home, there loomed a dark sphere aglow with vast webs of green light: an Earth long ago assimilated by the Borg Collective. This, Picard realized, was a manifestation of all his darkest fears. Not just the specter of his own death, but the prospect of something greater and more tragic. The loss of humanity’s shared identity, its collective heritage, was a crueler fate than mere extinction. To have every trace of human civilization wiped away—art,
...more
