Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard is the captain of the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation and it's spin off films: Generations, First Contact, INsurrection, and Nemesis.

Jean-Luc Picard was born to Maurice and Yvette Picard in La Barre, France, in 2305 and dreamed of joining Starfleet. He failed his first Starfleet Academy entrance exam, but was subsequently admitted and became the first freshman to win the Academy marathon. Picard's academic training in archaeology is mentioned in several TNG episodes. Shortly after graduation, he was stabbed in the heart by a Nausicaan, leaving the organ irreparable and requiring replacement with a parthenogenetic implant; this would prove near-fatal later. Picard eventually served as first officer aboard the USS Stargazer, and later commanded the ship. During that time, he invented a starship combat maneuver that would become known as the Picard Maneuver.

Star Trek: The Next Generation depicts Picard's command of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D). The pilot episode shows the crew's mission to investigate Farpoint Station being sidetracked when Q makes Picard humanity's "representative" in a trial charging the species with being a "dangerously savage child race". Picard persuades Q to test humanity, and Q chooses as the test's first stage the crew's performance at Farpoint. The trial "ends" seven years later (when Q reminds Picard that it never does), in the series finale, when humanity is absolved by Picard's demonstration that the species has the capacity to explore the "possibilities of existence".

Picard as Locutus of Borg after assimilation.The third season finale, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I", depicts Picard being assimilated by the Borg to serve as a bridge between humanity and the Borg. Picard is renamed Locutus in the process. Picard's assimilation and recovery are a critical point in the character's development, and provided backstory for the film Star Trek: First Contact and the development of Benjamin Sisko, the protagonist of the Deep Space Nine spin-off. Stewart asked Roddenberry to keep Picard a Borg for a few more episodes beyond the third season finale, as he thought that would be more interesting than simply restoring Picard in Part II. It is later revealed that parts of Borg machinery are still inside him, as well as that he retains traumatic memories of assimilation.

Picard works with Kirk in Star Trek: Generations to fight the film's villain, Dr. Tolian Soran. Commanding the new USS Enterprise-E, Picard again confronts the Borg in the film First Contact. Later, he fights a species' forced relocation in Insurrection, and in Nemesis, he encounters Shinzon, a Romulan-made clone of himself.