"An old bald man was standing, alone, in a white void. He's been here before, he remembered. He turned around on himself, looking if there was anything else than that bright white light coming from everywhere. He frowned as anger and impatience slowly come to fill his normally imperturbable face. He..."
"Q! Show yourself and stop narrating!"
A flash briefly appeared in front of the man and a second one stood in front of him. The new one was wearing a black and red suit decorated with gold piping, announcing him as a fleet admiral. The bald man was wearing a suit of similar design, but instead of red shoulders, they were dark grey with only the neck piece displaying the red of commandment.
"As always, mon capitaine, you're not fun," the new comer said while raising an eyebrow.
"I don't have time for this Q!"
"Oh, do say, what time you don't have, Jean-Luc?"
Jean-Luc's face was now only displaying anger. "For this, your riddle, your test."
Q clapped his hands. "How lucky you are then, no riddle and no test from me today!"
"Then what?" he countered, suspicious of his motive.
"I'm here to cheer you up!" Q said with a huge smile.
"Then truly, I don't have time for this," the captain snapped back.
Q sighed. "Jean-Luc, I never took a single second off your pathetic life. Every time I visited, I put you back exactly the same age you were before. Just the old you... with a bit more knowledge to brighten your days."
"I don't need cheering up," he countered.
"Oh but you do!" Q took a pause. "You should be celebrating and yet you're there, in your corner, looking so sad."
"Celebrating!" Picard snapped while pointing a finger a Q's nose. "Celebrating what? The death of sixty three billion people? Deaths that are your fault!"
Q stepped back and took a deep breath. "Sixty three billion one hundred twelve million four hundred fifty nine and ninety two people. Do you want me to list the number of all living beings killed when those worlds were vitrified? Or their names?"
"I..."
"I saw them all, each and every one of them die. All of them and the two trillion four hundred twenty three billion other that the Borg killed or assimilated." His smile was gone as Picard's anger.
"Why did you do nothing?"
"Did nothing? I did plenty. The Borg are gone!"
Jean-Luc crossed his arms. "What are you talking about?"
"You were talking of what's my fault? Then yes, it's my fault the Borg are truly gone," Q claimed while taking a step forward.
"You could have snapped your fingers and prevented them from existing in the first place! You could have saved all those lives!" Picard screamed.
"What is the law that you uphold, no matter the cost, even if it means taking your own life?"
Jean-Luc took a step back. "You... You mean the prime directive? Why would the Q continuum have anything like that?"
Q shook his head. "Why are you so surprised that other species could have something similar?"
"You mean..."
"That I couldn't just snap my fingers. The lower species created the Borg, they had to get rid of them by themselves." Q looked away. "I had to walk a fine line. I could not help your directly nor change your own evolution. However, it was 'permitted' that I put the right people in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Like me?" The captain asked surprised.
"Like you and dozen others that were unaware of their roles. I'm terribly sorry that you had to be assimilated, but even you should understand that the knowledge you brought back was crucial in the Borg’s defeat." Q stared at Jean-Luc. "I had to make you face them half a century before it should have happened by itself. By meeting them while they were still far away from you, you had decades to prepare yourself, something thousands other species cannot claim."
The captain took a few deep breaths while thinking about Q's claims.
"Thanks."
A huge smile showed up on Q's face.
"What?" Picard asked.
"What what? Are you expecting me to rub it in and waste your precious appreciation of my tremendous efforts?"
The corners of the captain's mouth went down. "You are doing it right now."
"Did I tell you you're no fun?"
"I stopped counting."
"Maybe you should take this advice and consider it?" Picard pouted. Q shrugged. "Who am I kidding? Now back to cheering you up!"
"What?"
"Watching every death and assimilation from the Borg were my burden. Your, mon capitaine, is to be a beacon of hope for numerous species. And I must say, you're not doing a very good job."
Jean-Luc looked skeptical. "And how cheering me up is supposed to help with that task?"
Q put a finger to his mouth. "When was the last time you made a friend? How many do you have onboard your precious ship right now?"
"I got many!" the captain replied without thinking. "I got... I got Wo..."
"Worf?" Q rolled his eyes. "The hull of a torpedo is probably friendlier. But let's say it is a friend. Now, how many are new? Like less than a few years."
Jean-Luc went in his mind and passed the list of all the people assigned onboard his ship. He could see in his head the picture, profile and resume of each of them. While he could claim some were close colleagues, none were close enough for him to call a friend. Since the death of Data, since Riker got his own ship and left with his wife Dianna, since his own wife Beverly went back on Earth to raise his child, he was left with only Worf and Geordi. Since them, he never got close to anybody else.
He was afraid to admit it, but with time he grew cold. Friendship was something that required time and lot of personal investments. He felt he was running out of the first and was never really good at the second. Why make so much effort for something that often ends in tears?
"Friendship isn't always easy. But there's no doubt it's worth fighting for," Q said with weird look on his face. "And you, mon capitaine, are in an impressive deprivation of it."
"Now what? You're reading minds?"
"I should feel insulted that you always underestimate me like that. I can see the past, the future, alternative universe and somehow your tiny mind would be out of my reach?"
"Stay out of it," Picard snapped.
Q rolled his eyes. "Trust me, there's nothing in there worthy writing about."
"What?" He asked confused.
Q shrugged. "Don't bother, he understands." He pointed a finger toward Jean-Luc. "As for you, I know what's wrong with you, why the long face. You keep saying you're an explorer. When was the last time you explored anything?"
"I'm not afraid of my duty. Right now, the alliance of Romulan, Breen and Gorn are testing out defenses. With the lost of so many ships against the Borg, mine can't afford being in deep space exploration."
"You're cute when you do that," Q said with pity.
"Do what?" Picard asked, losing patience once again.
Q sighed. "Acting all grown up and responsible. You can't loosen up and do something unexpected, even if you tried. Do something... Childish." He snapped his fingers and a pink cupcake appeared in his hand. He offered it to the captain. "Take it."
Jean-Luc took the small cake and carefully examined it. "Then what?"
"Do something unexpected. Throw it! Step on it! Smash it between your hands! Or put it on top of your head."
"Q, I don't have t..."
"Time for this. Seriously, you sound like a broken record. I told you, time has no grasp here," Q explained as if the captain was a child. "I will be direct then, since you can't take hints anymore, like you used to." The cupcake disappeared in a flash. "Your mind is getting near the breaking point. Yours is relatively strong for a human, but everyone's mind has a limit. Soon you will become insane, wacko, spider in the roof, gone," Q said while grabbing his own head.
"I..."
"You will try to deny it. Think you're so strong that it cannot happen to you. I've personally known a million times more people who became insane than you've met in your whole life. You've been assimilated, you fought wars and survived the death of billions. Dear captain, trust me, you're losing it. Your mind is breaking apart and you're at the point where you can't even notice it."
"So?"
Q opened his arms. "I'm giving you an opportunity. You fancy yourself an explorer? You will be able to do just that in a place where your ship, could never reach. In a place where rules are different, where magic is science. Where some could teach you to loosen up and keep your mind healthy."
Jean-Luc thought about it for a moment. "Why do you care so much?"
"The big picture, mon capitaine, the big picture. What you will do in a year or a decade from now can have effects in the lives of hundreds of billions in a thousand years."
"And why do you care about them?"
Q smiled. "How do you see humanity in a million years from now?"
"What?"
Q shook his head. "Tss... I promised no riddle! Just forget I said anything."
Picard sighed, giving up. "So, where is that special place that my ship can't reach?"
"Jean-Luc, I think you once said you like horses?"
Just something silly stuck in my head for a while now.
Lol definitely going to read this stoned.
I have read, and I shall Fave!
Even though I know nothing about Star Trek I'm going to follow this and see where it take me.
Several Grammar errors (e.g.: "Why you did nothing", "Your is relatively strong for a human") but so much potential... Write more!
931436 I admit the first one sounds weird. Got any idea? I wasn't hot with "Why did you do nothing?"...
As for the second... I just can't see what's wrong.
"Your (mind) is relatively strong for a human." What am I missing?
931441 Yeah, "Why did you do nothing", or "Why didn't you do anything?" Would sound much better. As for the second, it reads like you forgot a word or misplaced a contraction. Try either "Your mind is relatively strong for a human", or "Your's is relatively strong for a human".
931456 Aaaah! Your's. Thanks. Yes, grammar is a weakness I'm fighting hard against.
931464
931456
Dear Celestia ... both of you are wrong. It's "yours." "YOURS."
This story is full of grammar mistakes and very odd phraseology. That said, it's a very entertaining concept and the dialogue is pretty good. Please ask for an editor, and then godspeed. Second star on the right and straight on 'til morning, and all that.
My level of amusement with this is in direct correlation to how much of a nerd I am.
Update soon.
931491
You're right. That teaches me to try to type too fast in response to a grammar post.
931514
No harm done.
Please tell me Q and Discord get into a discussion in front of Picard!
931491 As someone who don't speak English, I learn new things everyday. Don't be afraid to point me weird stuff, I'm here to learn.
931546
Yes, I suspected you were not a native speaker. There are many grammar rules that you will eventually learn, but I'll give you one example here so that you can at least fix the story description.
WRONG: The Borg has been defeated, but the cost was high. Sixty-three billions lives and tens of thousands of starships lost in the United Federation, Klingon's and Romulan's empires.
Errors: "Has" should be "have," because "The Borg" is a collective plural. The second sentence lacks a predicate. The Federation is not an empire, but the sentence currently reads as if it is. Klingon and Romulan are in the singular possessive, but they should be in either adjective form or in the plural possessive.
CORRECT: The Borg have been defeated, but the cost was high: sixty-three billion lives, and tens of thousands of starships lost in the United Federation, and in the Klingon and Romulan empires.
ALSO CORRECT: The Borg have been defeated, but the cost was high. Sixty-three billion lives and tens of thousands of starships were lost in the United Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire.
931587 Borg, in Star Trek, is seen as singular. Sorry, had to double check on that one.
There is only one Borg collective.
But I see what you mean with the empires.
(Grrr... Can fix it at work, stupid security)
931600
Nope. Please refer to the transcript of "The Best of Both Worlds Part One," or any other episode featuring the Borg. The word is always treated as a collective plural noun.
Examples from the episode transcript:
PICARD: If this is the Borg, it would indicate they have a source of power far superior to our own.
WORF: Captain, the Borg are attempting to lock on to us with their tractor beam.
WESLEY: Commander, if the Borg stay at warp nine point six, we'll be forced to discontinue pursuit and power down in less than three hours.
931600 That's debatable, to put it mildly. "Borg" is a species designation; the TV episodes, movies and novels always use plural pronouns (for example, see the sentence that starts the standard Borg 'greeting': We are the Borg.). It might not be wrong exactly to use the singular, especially after what we learned in "Destiny," but it is a break with established usage.
Also, if you use the combination "United Federation," you need to follow it with "of Planets"; it's never used by itself. If you want it shorter, just go with "Federation" - there's only one that really matters in the Star Trek universe.
931619 Weird. I guess I need to re-read some novels. But I do remember some going singular and me wondering about it. I will go over the text when I get home, since I used it as singular all over the place. Wikipedia goes for plurial, and so shall I.
Great start, but I suggest getting a pre-reader for the niggling grammar mistakes.
TNG + MLP = Win. Always.
Now be a good little captain and go and enjoy yourself for once.
fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/255/e/e/discord_and_picard_by_willdrawforfood1-d49ok1k.png
I wonder if Q and Discord are the same being. Since they are played by the same man. But then again the elemants defeated Discord. Q would just clap his hands and the elements would turn to grape jelly.
Discord is nothing like Q...though he might be a renegade version of one.
After everything Picard has been through, he really does need to see a therapist and a long vacation.
I'll most likely skip this story, but for "where magic is science" I applaud you.
931491 SECOND star to the right. g'ah! You complain about grammar and then can't get a quote right.
Now, the BIG question is: will Picard visit Equestria as a human or as a pony?
Finally, another new TNG crossover!
Keep going!
931826
Uff da! Grammar I know, literature and pop culture I try my best to remember. Thanks for pointing that out.
Always love it when my two favorite shows are combined, looking forward to the next chapter.
Very well done. The character, Q, and Picard are very well written in this story. Even when your making Q serious and revealing what his whole intention would be, it is extremely well written and in depth. Looking forward to the next chapters.
Really good story, can't wait to see more!
this.....this is gonna be goooooooooood
Well, there's the inevitable comparison of Discord to Q. Which doesn't work.
Discord doesn't have any reason for his hijinks... where Q ALWAYS has a reason (as seen here). Q, I firmly believe, would heartily disapprove of Discord, to the extent he might actually do something. Or at least stand in front of a certain piece of rock in the Royal Garden and make faces at it.
"Jean Luc. You call me... a meddler. Well, fine. But THIS bozo... Well. He's better off being a bad piece of statuary. And frankly so are we."
Oh, this has potential...
948861
My thoughts exactly. That said, unless I forgot something (read this when it first came out, so it's been awhile), I don't think Discord and Q are the same being in this story.
I hope it updates soon, because this looks like it'll be pretty good.
I love how Q parroted
I eagerly anticipate bright things for this fic.
Is this still being worked on? Inquiring minds want to know
1062622 It is. Just lack of time. One week of vacation now should give me that.
Hmmm, the potential does exist. I haven't read the novels involving the Borg War or even watched Insurrection (The thought of watching Data die... no... just...no) But yeah, I always saw Q as the 'benevolent' trickster. Sure he acts brash and arrogent, but he does seem to always be trying to test Picard, even from the first moment. (Putting the Enterprise on Trial for the crimes of humanity, oh fun.)
Like that teacher you hate in high school, and then realize in College how much he was preparing you for the 'real' challenge rather than being your buddy.
1238011 Insurrection is fine; it's Nemesis where Data gets decompiled! Don't worry, they can't just kill Data without bringing him back somehow. Remember Time's Arrow?
Q may be benevolent at times, but he's damn good at hiding it. I always saw him as fickle and self-centered, doing everything for funsies. He plays mortals for their reactions, especially Picard, whose butthurt he feeds upon like a changeling. Q likes this link and keeps it going, looking out for his toy when Picard is in trouble (ex. heart failure episode, and even then he messed around with Picard). That's the best comparison I could come up with.
OH YOU DID NOT JUST IMPLY WHAT I BELIEVE YOU DID... Could it be... But... LOGIC... AH, TO HELL WITH LOGIC! This story has potential, it certainly does... I'll be watching.
1020121 Indeed. Makes you wonder just which was teaching who the lesson on that particular day.
This story really needs some beta-ing on the details which an automatic grammar checker can't help with.
For example:
This is not how Jean Luc-Picard speaks.
I'd offer to help, but not only do I not have the time to spare, I'm having trouble getting my own projects done.