Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise have been to the brightest stars and darkest corners of the Star Trek universe. One of their most iconic adventures is depicted across two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled "The Best of Both Worlds." The crew has a run-in with the Borg, a race of hive-mind-controlled aliens hellbent on assimilating the universe into their collective. In the special, Picard is captured by the Borg and forced to become Locutus, a sort of living command center. Fortunately for Picard and the people of Earth, the crew of the Enterprise is able to free Picard and stop the Borg before it wipes out the entire Federation and assimilates the entire human race.

However, things didn't end so cleanly in one of Star Trek's many divergent timelines.  Writer Michael Jan Friedman and artist Peter Krause explore the answers to these daunting questions in their 1993 Star Trek: The Next Generation storyline "The Worst of Both Worlds," which ran from Star Trek: TNG #47-50. The story begins on the Enterprise years after the events of "The Best of Both Worlds." Picard and crew are on a fairly routine mission to Mardion Three, which is uncomfortably close to Wolf 359, where they once fought the Borg.

Suddenly, they are pulled into an "anomaly" which pulls them into an alternate dimension. Before Picard and Riker can begin to understand what's happened, they encounter a second Enterprise which quickly beams them aboard. Worf's warrior instincts immediately kick in and he lunges at the mysterious people who have taken them onto their ship without permission only to find himself face to face with a version of himself. In fact, everyone on this ship is a doppelganger of an Enterprise crew member.

Related: Star Trek: How the Borg Assimilated the Universe's Most Dangerous Aliens

Star Trek Worst of Both Worlds

After their initial fracas, the captain of the alternative Enterprise introduces himself in an effort to make sense of the situation. Where readers might expect to find an alternative Picard, they instead find a haggard, eye-patch-wearing William T. Riker in his place. Riker explains that in this universe, the Enterprise and humanity lost the battle of the Borg. They were unable to free Picard, who is still the Locutus to this day. Sadly, Picard wasn't the only crew member they lost. Data, Counselor Troi, Guinan and Keiko all died tragically at the hands of the Borg. Later, Wesley reveals that his mother, Doctor Beverly Crusher, was most likely assimilated when the Borg got to earth. In fact, in this timeline - 90% of humanity is under the control of the Borg.

Related: Star Trek: How Doctor Who Crashed Into the Next Generation

The tragic results of their confrontation with the Borg has changed the crew, who are far more bitter and angry than their counterparts. Their sole purpose is to fight the Borg empire. Worf blames himself for not being able to rescue his captain; Geordi La Forge can't even look at the main universe's Data because he is too painful of a reminder of the friend he lost and Comms officer Miles O'Brien still grieves the loss of his wife Keiko. There is a particularly heartbreaking moment when O'Brien meets the other Keiko and her daughter. This glimpse of the family he might have had, the family another version of him has is clearly too difficult for him to handle.

Another significant difference between the two universes can be found in the presence of Commander Shelby. In the "Best of Both Worlds" timeline, Shelby leaves the Enterprise after a short stint to help rebuild the parts of the Federation that the Borg destroyed. But in this timeline, she is still aboard the Enterprise and full of bitter resentment for Captain Riker for not following her lead years ago.

After seeing the plight of the crew and the universe, Picard and his crew agree to help rescue Locutus and defeat the Borg. After all, they've done it once already, and this time they have two ships. Both crews journey to Earth where Locutus is being held. They fight a horde of Borg soldiers and manage to beam back onto the Enterprise with Locutus in tow, but they aren't unscathed, as this universe's Worf died in the battle. Data establishes a neural link to the Locutus and commands all of the Borg soldiers to "Eat" at once. This causes them to drain all of their power sources, thus defeating the Borg empire and freeing Picard.

Related: Star Trek: The Next Generation's Original Villains Were SUPPOSED to Be the Ferengi

Once Picard has recovered from his time as Locutus, he reveals that he channeled all of humanity's subconscious desire to defeat the Borg to open up a rift between dimensions and summon the other Enterprise. The original crew heads back home through the same dimensional rift, leaving behind a newly freed, but still wounded universe.

While Star Trek: The Next Generation featured plenty of timelines where events played out differently, this stands as one of the darkest turns of events in this iteration of the sci-fi franchise. The Borg were arguably this era's definitive villains, and plenty of Picard's adventures involved trying to stop the Borg from assimilating Earth. While those timelines were only ever glimpsed on the show, this storyline highlighted the immense personal costs of defeat in agonizing detail.

Keep Reading: Star Trek: The Next Generation - Why the Beloved Series Ended

0 Links