Having lived a full and incredible life, it’s hard to say that the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart is tragic. Instead, the world is grieving, because Stewart felt immortal, and his death reminds us that somehow isn’t true. At 86, the incredible performer left his mark on the world with an array of incredible roles. But it’s nearly undebatable that his greatest role was that of Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the Star Trek franchise. Starting in 1987, in the spin-off series Star Trek: The Next Generation , Stewart wasn’t sure a new version of Trek on TV would last, and faced a lot of skepticism from the fans and the industry that his character could follow in the footsteps of William Shatner’s Captain Kirk.

Of course, today, the character of Jean-Luc Picard is considered not only one of the greatest Star Trek characters of all time, but one of the best heroic leaders in all of fiction. To be sure, Picard was extremely well written, thanks to creator Gene Roddenberry, and writers like Ronald D.…