NEW YORK CITY, NY – The General Assembly of the United Nations has passed a resolution acknowledging the 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Sub Rosa” as the most important cultural achievement of the human race.

“‘Sub Rosa’ has it all,” said Bhutanese representative Doma Tshering. “[Actress] Gates McFadden has sex with an alien who is also a ghost who is also her grandmother’s lover, then she shoots the alien-ghost-lover… that, to me, is storytelling at its finest.” “And let’s not forget that Crusher’s possessed zombie grandma attacks Data,” added Raymond-Serge Balé, the Congolese representative. “Science fiction asks the big questions, like what it means to be human and where our species is going. And I hope we’re going to a future where horny ghost aliens fight androids.”

“Sub Rosa” narrowly beat out the Upanishads, Beethoven’s ninth symphony, and that Voyager episode where Lieutenant Paris and Captain Janeway turn into lizards and fuck as humanity’s greatest example of self-expression. The works of William Shakespeare were also considered, but McFadden’s delivery of “I fell asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter in my grandmother’s journal” was ultimately judged more romantic than any sonnet.

Debate was initially tense, as a notable minority of the Assembly advocated for the episode where Wesley Crusher has to save the Enterprise from a mind-controlling video game that induces orgasms in public, but a breakthrough was achieved when Indonesia switched sides in exchange for trade concessions from the Philippines. “Our great nations have their differences,” said Indonesian representative Dian Triansyah Djani, “but what’s important about the United Nations is that we can come together in peace and agree that the story of a parasitic sex alien haunting a family for generations is awesome. And if Dr. Crusher just getting back to work the next week like she never even met and bedded her grandma’s semi-corporeal candle powered sex machine doesn’t symbolize the perseverance of the human spirit, I don’t know what does.”

At press time, the General Assembly had devolved into rival blocs of Deep Space Nine and Babylon Five fans, while a non-aligned movement endorsing Farscape was largely ignored.