I quote not Gibbon, not Kennan — not even Coulter. No, it’s Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Picard was referring to the villainous Borg (in “Best of Both Worlds, Part I” when ... uh, never mind), but the sentiment, for geeks at least, has particular resonance today. The Visigoths have Nielsen boxes, and they’re watching wrestling. Our empire is about to crumble.

On May 13, the last episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise” will air on television. For the first time in 18 years, no “Star Trek” series will take its place next fall.

A few days later, the last of the “Star Wars” series, “Revenge of the Sith,” will open in theaters. Most of you, I’m sure, are reading this while in line. Dressed as a stormtrooper.

By the end of May, a golden era of geekdom will have drawn to a close. No “Star Trek.” No “Star Wars.” No “Lord of the Rings.” No “Matrix.” No Jedi. No Vulcans.

My God. I’m going to have to start dating.

To everyone who spent high school hung upside down by their Hanes, these are dark times.

It’s the reason those faithful Jedi in Los Angeles lined up two months early — in front of the wrong theater no less — to savor one last collective thrill. They’re sitting Shiva on “Star Wars.”

But it is interesting to see how we got here. The past few years have been a Renaissance of sorts for nerds, a time when our passions were laid bare to the world and no one — well, hardly anyone — laughed.

I can bring up “X-Men” in conversation and not have to distinguish it from the “X-Files.” Thanks to Elijah Wood, women know what a hobbit is (you have no idea how much that helps in bars).

We even have a primetime hero — Seth Cohen, who gets the high score and the girl.

A couple of years ago, at the height of “Lord of the Rings” mania, some friends bought me the roleplaying game “Dungeons and Dragons” as a birthday gift. And they wanted to play it. Weirder still, they enjoyed it.

“It was insight into the inner life of all these boys we knew for all these years,” says Mayrav Saar, one of the women who agreed to spend an afternoon as a half-orc ranger. “It was a surprisingly rich and imaginative inner life. Plus, it was remarkably social. In junior high, they looked like really lame guys clustered together because no one would talk to them. Now I know they were clustered together because they were really into something -- and no one would talk to them.”

But when those junior high outcasts grew up, they suddenly found themselves in positions of influence. They started dot-coms. Became journalists. Ran for president in 2000.

And they made movies.

Through the 1980s and most of the ’90s, Hollywood didn't respect any science fiction or fantasy movie. Spellcasting and laser guns were treated with a wink, as if the director was saying, “yeah, we know this is silly, but we have to make some cash.”

What Peter Jackson did was take the “Lord of the Rings” seriously — creating a trilogy so earnest and epic that it was treated like a classic and not a genre picture. Sam Raimi, meanwhile, who grew up on Spider-Man comic books, lovingly translated the superhero onto the screen, red-and-blue tights and all.

I once spoke with Bruce Timm, who has produced a series of superlative animated series for the Cartoon Network, about what inspired his career choice. He said when he was making “Justice League,” “I wanted to make the show I remember ‘Superfriends’ being.”

Not the actual show. That was an awful, Wonder-Twin-powers-activate disaster. No, he wanted the show he had in his head. The thing he imagined when all the lame guys were talking in junior high.

Unfortunately, I fear the success of these geek filmmakers has backfired.

“X-Men” begat dreck like “Daredevil.” From the trailers, “Fantastic Four” looks like a dreadful hour and forty minutes. I’d say they’re making every comic book into a film now with the exception of Archie — except I’m sure some studio chief is trying to decide if the Simpson sisters would agree to play Betty and Veronica.

With most of the franchises on part three (never a good sequel), it seems like the geek age will end not with a bang, but a Binks.

Yet that’s exactly why some geeks welcome the implosion of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.” Wil Wheaton, who starred as Ensign Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and wrote a memoir called “Just a Geek,” says we’re being put out of our collective misery.

“The end of ‘Star Wars’ is long overdue. The new movies are an absolute abomination,” Wheaton says. “It’s hard to figure out which sequel to ‘The Matrix’ was worse, and ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ had little in common with ‘Star Trek’ beyond the name. There was an explosion of geeky goodness in the last few years, and now it’s time to step back, and ... well, thin the herd, I guess.”

As far back as the final season of “Next Generation,” Wheaton says Paramount was taking the audience for granted — believing Trekkers would watch pretty much anything. (And, based on the high-heeled Borg on “Star Trek: Voyager,” it’s not hard to see why).

“Enterprise” and its catsuited Vulcan was the final straw. The needs of the few were outweighed by the needs of the shareholders and Paramount unceremoniously pulled the plug.

“Star Wars,” meanwhile, has been on a Hoth-like cold streak since George Lucas decided to make a prequel.

Wheaton remembers being at the midnight premiere of part one, “Phantom Menace.” “I saw the crawl, I felt like I was going to cry. Then I started to actually read it — you know, trade federation, blockade ... ‘what the hell is this crap?’ Then the gungans appeared, and all the air went out of my body.”

Despite the promising trailers for “Episode III,” Wheaton doesn’t have his hopes up. “Fool me once, et cetera and so on ...”

That said, Wheaton doesn’t believe geeks will go the way of the manatee. He says excellent series like “Battlestar Galactica” and the continued work of directors like Jackson and Raimi means more years of fine nerd entertainment.

“I actually think rather than witnessing the end of what you might call a ‘geek Renaissance,’ we’re seeing the beginning,” he says. “The sun is only setting on the prologue.”

Still, I can’t help feeling a sharp pain — as if millions of voices have cried out and were suddenly silenced.

Part of being a geek is the seductive joy of anticipation. You see it on Web sites like Ain’t It Cool News, where every trailer, every leaked photograph is overanalyzed and lovingly treasured. I agree with Wheaton — the last two episodes of “Star Wars” were terrible — but as soon as I hear the burst of horns that mark the beginning of “Episode III” (at a midnight showing, no doubt), I may cry, too.

Undoubtedly, there are DVDs. And geeks love to pick apart the catalog. We can name every episode, identify every alien captain. But all evidence to the contrary, there are only so many times you can watch “Wrath of Khan.”

Without new “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” to look forward to, a whole slate of geek holidays have been wiped off the calendar.

The New Hope in all this is there was another time when geeks had “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” all to themselves — during the long years both were off the air.

Ron Moore, a former “Star Trek” writer who now works on “Battlestar Galactica,” blogged that when the original “Trek” was cancelled, the show became the property of the fans. Wheaton agrees with this, saying it’s time for the conventions to keep the torch lit.

Geekdom is a clique like any other, and there were those who felt things have gotten out of hand lately. Like a cult rock band that scored a top 40 hit, geek entertainment got too big, ruining the fun.

Only the truly dedicated will stick with it, Wheaton enthuses.

“There are so many geek poseurs. Putting on Weezer glasses does not make you a geek,” he says. “Until you have tasted the sting of a dodgeball on your face, you are not really a geek.”

Mikki Halpin, author of “The Geek Handbook: User Guide and Documentation for the Geek in Your Life, believes “there will still be comic book conventions and sci-fi movies, but the line won’t be as long.”

Which isn’t to say there won’t be a period of geek mourning. Halpin advises charity — nerd style.

“If you have a geek in your life, give them a project – they love projects,” she says.

To which I say: Anyone need their hard drive formatted?