In Memory of a Man Who Hasn’t Been Born Yet

Jean-Luc Picard will be born in 2305 in La Barre, a village in French wine country. He will defy a father who distrusts machines, leave Earth for Starfleet, and spend his life commanding starships. He

Jean-Luc Picard will be born in 2305 in La Barre, a village in French wine country. He will defy a father who distrusts machines, leave Earth for Starfleet, and spend his life commanding starships. He will never exist. I want to mourn him anyway. Few real people taught me as much as he did. I was not yet ten when Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987. I didn’t yet know what moral philosophy was. I came to know a bald man in the captain's chair who solved problems by talking, who liste