The fearsome progeny of forbidden technology, the Genesis Wave swept across the Alpha Quadrant, creating new life at the expense of everything that lay in its path. Only through the valiant efforts of Captain Picard and his crew was the Wave halted, and the cataclysmic threat to the Federation averted. Or so it seemed. In the harrowing aftermath of the crisis, the Genesis Device falls into the hands of a dangerous religious zealot. But that disaster may pale beside an even more dire emergency, as Data develops a disturbing theory regarding the full cosmic consequences of the Genesis Effect: Can life truly be created from nothing, or must the entire galaxy pay a terrible price for what Genesis has wrought?