For nearly 60 years, Star Trek has been a franchise about movement. No resting, no inertia, no complacency, just seizing the horns of history and riding headlong into the future. The tagline of the first Trek film was literally, “the human adventure is just beginning.” By the 24th century, though, the universe — and indeed, the Star Trek franchise — was arguably coasting on sheer momentum of human progress.
Many major galactic conflicts had been resolved, some enemies had become tacit allies, and the Federation flagship was built like a luxury hotel, exploring the galaxy with families and children living onboard. The USS Enterprise-D even had its own school system. And yet, if there was one moment in Star Trek history that upended the sci-fi franchise's universal truths — hurling it toward a new postmodern era — it was the Battle of Wolf 359.
On stardate 44002.3 in the year 2367, a single Borg cube made an incursion into Federation space. As the Federation hastily scrambled its fleet, the Enterprise-D intercepted the cube and tried to hold the line until reinforcements could arrive. The Enterprise was immediately outmatched, but instead of destroying it, the Borg merely snatched Captain Picard off the bridge of his ship and departed for planet Earth.
The Borg used all of Picard's knowledge as a weapon against the Federation fleet. By the time they mobilized a blockade along the cube’s path in the Wolf system, it was too late; they would be mere sheep to the slaughter. In total, 39 ships were destroyed by the Borg, and 11,000 victims were assimilated or killed.
In a sense, the Battle of Wolf 359 was Star Trek’s 9/11, and like its real world counterpart, the emotional toll of the attack would remain long after the infrastructure itself had been rebuilt and repaired. Several fan-favorite captains, including Benjamin Sisko and Liam Shaw, would be profoundly shaped by their experiences serving — and paying with their dearest blood — at Wolf 359.
Engineer Ensign Shaw was ordered to abandon his friends in the last of the USS Constance's escape pods. Lt. Commander Sisko lost his wife in the battle after she was trapped under one of the USS Saratoga's bulkheads while evacuating the ship, a tragedy which would haunt him for the rest of his life. However, Sisko's son, Jake, survived the nightmare.
Both Shaw and Sisko eventually confronted Picard to his face, each revealing the grief he had caused them as Locutus of Borg.
But perhaps no one suffered more from the Battle of Wolf 359 than Picard himself. For a man who prided himself on intelligence and quiet dignity, to have his very identity forcibly violated by a feelingless hivemind would be bad enough. But to have his soul mined for information that would destroy 11,000 innocents, all while he had to stand and watch from behind the Borg implants drilled into his face, would rightly be more than any man could bear.
But no matter how devastating Wolf 359 was to any one individual, its impact on the Star Trek universe cannot be ignored. On its own, it arguably marked the end of innocence for the Star Trek universe. The whole Trek universe was catching fire like a string of kindling. In the following years, the Federation faced the Cardassian menace, the insurgent Maquis from within their own ranks, a Changeling infiltration across their territory, a second mass casualty Borg attack, and then, to top it off, the outbreak of full blown war with the Dominion.
However, the extent of a new postmodern seed that had been planted at Wolf 359 would not come to blossom until over a decade after the Dominion war, during the evacuation of the Romulan homeworld. For the Federation, saving its oldest enemy from an impending supernova was a noble endeavor on paper, but with no help from the Klingons and the entire quadrant still rebuilding from the war, it was always going to be a bureaucrat’s nightmare.
When the Federation’s entire rescue fleet was obliterated in drydock at the Attack on Mars, by a mass malfunction of synthetic construction workers, the camel’s back was not just broken, it was well and truly crushed — opening the door for a new postmodern era.
After having lost so many lives, Starfleet and the Federation’s value system had finally crumbled under the weight of its own indecision; it had finally forgotten how to answer the simple question: “what are we out here for?” In doubling their military efforts in the face of adversity, they forgot their original goals along the way. The frontier had pushed back, and a new era emerged.
The words of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, which were spoken during the Star Trek: Picard season 1 episode "Remembrance," remind all Trekkies what happened after the Attack on Mars, the Romulan evacuation, and those words also reveal why he quit Starfleet. Picard said:
"We withdrew. The galaxy was mourning, burying its dead, and Starfleet had slunk from its duties! The decision to call off the rescue and abandon those people we had sworn to save was not just dishonorable, it was downright criminal! And I was not prepared to stand by and be a spectator!"
So what comes next? It’s impossible to know for sure, and I’m not a betting man. Fortunately, the TNG era of Star Trek isn't the only guide for our present moment. For instance, what will the rebuilding of the Federation take shape as beyond Star Trek: Discovery and into the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy?
Do you agree with the idea that Star Trek entered a new postmodern era? Perhaps, there has never been a better time for Star Trek: Legacy. Make it... pretty please? Share your thoughts and comments with us on the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages. Until then, as Spock would say, there are always possibilities. But as always, I choose to defer to a wise tagline and simply say: the human adventure is just beginning.