Where Nopony Has Gone Before

by Kane Magus

Truth

Chapter 12 - Truth

“Argh,” groaned Human-Q as he placed his fists in the small of his back and leaned backward to try to stretch out the kinks. “ARGH!” he shouted as he both heard and felt something pop. “Great, now my back is hurting again. Pony beds are bliss compared to these terrible Starfleet beds. Augh.”

“Don’t I know it,” muttered Pony-Q groggily from his position on the floor of the quarters he was sharing with his human counterpart. At some point during the night, the earth pony had simply decided that sleeping on the floor was a better idea. “I think they intentionally gave us the absolute worst room on the ship.”

“I have to agree,” said Human-Q. “I think I might have preferred even the brig to this.” He sighed wearily. “Well, anyway, what do we do now? The Borg are gone, so I guess that means we beat Q at her own game, at least for now. What’s next?”

“Be careful,” said Pony-Q. “She might be listening to us. Don’t tempt her to send another planet-eating doomsday machine after us.”

“Oh,” said a disembodied voice within the room, “what I plan to do to you now is so much worse than that.”

“Uh oh,” said the Qs simultaneously. Without warning, they both disappeared in a burst of light and sound.

When they reappeared, they found themselves once again in the court of Canterlot. They soon noticed that all of the ponies on the ship (along with Spike) as well as Captain Picard and Commander Riker had been teleported down as well. As for Picard and Riker, they had both been caught in varying states of dress. Picard was wearing an open nightshirt (which he quickly fastened shut) and a pair of shorts, while Riker was still wearing a Sickbay gown. Neither of them had their combadges with them and thus had no way to contact the ship.

“You cheated!” said the tall female Q, who was seated upon Princess Celestia’s throne. “You shouldn’t have been able to defeat the Borg in your current state!”

“Oh come on, Q,” said Human-Q. “We won, fair and square. You never said we couldn’t teach Pinkie Pie about her latent powers!”

“Yeah,” said Pony-Q. “Don’t be a big baby like Trelane and throw a temper tantrum on us now.”

The female Q stood up and advanced on them. “You watch your tone, both of you. Don’t forget that you have no powers to speak of at the moment, while I do.” She held up a hand and both of the Qs began to writhe around as though in immense pain. A second later, she dropped her hand and they collapsed to the floor.

“Ow!” said Human-Q, trying to catch his breath before rising to his feet again.

“Is that what ponies say as well?” said Pony-Q. “Ow? Close enough. Ow!”

“You leave them alone, right now!” said Pinkie Pie, teleporting herself into a position between the two former Qs and the female Q.

The female Q regarded the pink pony with a highly amused expression on her face. “Oh?” she said haughtily. “So you think to challenge a Q directly? You really believe yourself that powerful?”

“Uh, Pinkie Pie,” said Pony-Q. “You might want to stay out of this.”

“Yeah,” said Human-Q. “You may be good, but you’re not a Q.”

“I’m not scared of this bully!” said Pinkie Pie angrily. She looked the female Q square in the eyes. “It’s because of you that those nasty Borg showed up and tried to wreck everything!” She started advancing on the female Q. Despite her arrogance, the female entity found herself backing away from the pony nonetheless. “It’s because of you that one of their crewmembers was killed!” In a burst of pink light and party cannon sound, the pink pony turned into the pink-haired human she had been the previous day, wearing the same outfit as before. “And it’s because of you that my dear friend Twilight Sparkle got hurt and almost died!” The female Q bumped into the throne and involuntarily sat down again, leaving the human Pinkie Pie to glare down at her. “If you think I’m going to just let that go, you’ve got another think coming!”

“Get away from me!” shouted the female Q and swiftly raised her hand. Pinkie Pie was suddenly blasted clear across the room, where she smashed into the wall, hard enough to leave an indentation in the stone.

“Pinkie Pie!” shouted several voices at once.

The pink-haired human stood up, shook the dust and plaster out of her hair, and glared at the female Q. “Oh, that does it! It’s on, now!” She charged at her opponent, and after a couple of steps, she teleported the rest of the way. The female Q suddenly disappeared from sight as well, completely engulfed in a large cloud of dust. Inexplicably, various small items began to fly out of the cloud before vanishing in the air a second or two later, such as smaller puffs of cloud, blinking stars, lightning bolts, balloons, streamers and confetti, and even, crazily, multi-colored written words like “Blammo!” or “Kapow!” or “Zowie!” Eventually, even the larger dust cloud itself began to ricochet around the room, causing everyone else to have to dodge or duck as it flew by.

“Oh dear,” muttered Human-Q.

“This… may not end well for Pinkie,” said Pony-Q uncertainly.

“Psst,” said a voice from behind them. The two Qs turned and saw Pony-Q2 standing there with a huge grin on his face. “Don’t worry. I got this. I’m giving your pink friend the teensiest of teensy nudges that she needs to ensure that she comes out on top. Q has had something like this coming to her for a long time now. And believe me I wouldn’t want to miss it for anything.” He conjured himself up a big tub of popcorn as he watched. He held it out to the two Qs.

“Thanks,” said Human-Q, grabbing a handful. “But what about the Continuum? Doesn’t she still have them on her side?”

“Eh, don’t concern yourself with them,” said Pony-Q2. “I’ve convinced them that Q had overstepped herself, especially after you guys legitimately defeated the Borg in a most surprising and unorthodox manner. Brilliant plan that, by the way, teaching Pinkie about her innate powers and all. Some in the Continuum aren’t too awfully happy about that, mind you, but screw ‘em. Anyway, for now, they’ve decided that Q is just being a sore loser now, and they’re no longer going to be a party to any of this. That just leaves us.” The gray pony winced as he watched the dust cloud which was still careening around the room. “Oooh, that one’s going to leave a mark. Right in the face, too.”

The female Q flew head first out of the dust cloud, smashed into the ground, skidded several feet, and then slammed into the wall similarly to how Pinkie had earlier. However, she didn’t regain her feet nearly as quickly as Pinkie had. The dust cloud continued to bang around for several more seconds before Pinkie realized that the fight was actually over. Finally, it came to a rest next to the three other Qs. The cloud faded away, leaving the pink pony behind. Apparently she had transformed back into being a pony again at some point during the fight.

“How?!” said the female Q, getting unsteadily to her feet. Her hair was in disarray and she had a large, puffy black eye. She touched it gingerly, winced, and then held her palm flat over it for a second. When she removed her hand, her face looked normal once more. “How are you able to withstand my power?!” She finally laid eyes upon the gray earth pony. “Oh, I should have known you would be involved in this!” She held out a hand toward him as though about to launch some sort of new attack, but Pony-Q2 held up a hoof.

“Ah ah ah, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said. “You don’t have the backing of the Continuum anymore as I warned would be the case if you overplayed your hand. Even so, you admittedly probably would have defeated Pinkie Pie eventually, had I not leant a hoof, and a fight between you and me has straight fifty-fifty odds and could go either way. However, do you think you could defeat us both together? I can assure you that’s what it would come down to. It’s up to you if you want to try your luck.” He glanced over at Pinkie, who was glaring at the female Q and baring her teeth menacingly.

The female Q considered it for a moment, and then lowered her hand. “Fine,” she said angrily. “Have it your way.” She turned to Human- and Pony-Q and said, “But mark my words: I will be watching you. At the first sign of any more funny business out of you, be it here or anywhere else in the universe, I will be back.” She glared at them for a few moments longer, and then finally disappeared in a burst of light and sound.

“Glad that’s over with,” said Pony-Q2, shaking his head. He turned to face the other two Qs. “Oh, by the way, now that she’s finally gone, I have a little something for you two. Brohoof!” The gray earth pony held forward one of his front hooves.

The two Qs looked at one another, grinned, and held out their own hoof/fist and touched them to Pony-Q2’s. As soon as they did, they felt their powers returned, and with it, their direct combination back into a singular being. The two Qs, now one again, shared a look.

“I think this calls for a celebration, don’t you?” said Human-Q.

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” said Pony-Q, “but I think this requires something much grander than a simple mariachi band this time.”

“Couldn’t possibly agree more,” said Human-Q. He snapped his fingers. From somewhere outside, everyone heard two short drum rolls, followed by what sounded like a hundred bagpipes playing at once, as “The Green Hills of Tyrol” / “The Battle is O’er” floated through the open windows and into the royal court. Looking through the windows, they all saw a large pony band out in the courtyard, each of them looking identical to Pony-Q, except that they were wearing Scottish military parade regalia.

“Perfect,” said Pony-Q.

Human-Q sighed and looked down at his pony self. “You know, it’s just not the same now that we both share one mind again. I’m going to kind of miss the company, honestly. Well, I’ll see everyone up on the ship.” With that, he disappeared in a burst of light and sound, leaving Pony-Q and Pony-Q2 behind.

“Yeah,” said Pony-Q, shaking his head a bit ruefully. “It’s more than a bit strange being whole again. Don’t get me wrong, of course, I wouldn’t want to give up my powers for it again… but I think I might just have to work on trying to split my actual consciousness at some point in the future, perhaps into even more than just two separate entities. It’s a rather novel experience.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Pony-Q2 with a shrug. “I’m perfectly content as a single entity, myself.” He looked around one last time and said, “Well, Q, looks like it all turned out well in the end after all. Perhaps now you can finally...” he raised his voice so that everyone in the room could hear him “…get around to telling everypony what you really have planned here.” He lowered his voice to a whisper meant only for Pony-Q and added, “Even though I’m still waiting to learn what that is, myself.” The gray pony grinned and winked at the burgundy pony, and disappeared in a burst of light and sound.

“Well thanks a lot, you ass,” muttered the burgundy pony.

“Don’t mention it,” Q2’s voice whispered in the air. “I’ll be watching.”

Outside, the pony band moved on to “Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie.”

---

Pony-Q sighed and looked around at the eleven pairs of eyes, all of which were staring directly at him. “All right, all right,” he said, with a sigh. “All of you gather around, and I’ll finally let you in on what I was about to tell the Princesses before Q showed up and almost ruined everything. It’s story-time with uncle Q. But first…” He looked at Picard and Riker. “You two really aren’t dressed appropriately for mixed company such as this.” He tapped a hoof on the floor and, with the familiar burst of light and sound, the two humans were wearing Starfleet uniforms.

Picard immediately tapped his combadge and said, “Picard to Enterprise.”

“Captain,” said Data’s voice from the other end. “We have been trying to establish a transporter lock on you and Commander Riker for the past several minutes now, but something has been jamming us. Are you all right, sir? Dr. Crusher was particularly concerned when two of her patients mysteriously disappeared from Sickbay.”

Picard glanced at Riker, who in turn looked at Twilight Sparkle. When she nodded, indicating that she was feeling okay, Riker turned back to Picard and said, “We’re fine, sir, for the moment at least.”

Picard nodded in return and said, “Mr. Data, we’ll be remaining on the surface for the time being, so you have the bridge until we return.”

“Aye sir,” said Data.

“Keep trying to establish a transporter lock but stand by and wait for my signal otherwise,” said the Captain. “Picard out.”

Pony-Q shifted his gaze between Picard and Riker with a somewhat annoyed “Are you done now?” expression on his face, and then said, “So, anyway, here is what you’ve all been waiting for: the absolute, pure, unvarnished truth. Once you’ve heard what I have to say, however, you’ll hopefully realize that I’ve been straight with you from the beginning, just as I’ve been saying all along.”

Riker crossed his arms over his chest and said, “All right, Q. We’re listening, though I find it hard to believe that you’re suddenly willing to just spill the beans, given how coy you’ve otherwise been up to this point.”

Pony-Q rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored him completely. “As I was saying, by now, you’ve all heard of the pony legends about humans having visited this world in the past, I’m sure. Well, I’m here to tell you that all of those stories are true, after a fashion. It involves some temporal and dimensional mechanics that I don’t care to go into at the moment, but there was indeed a direct link between this world and Earth. Well, to be more accurate, it was not this particular world. The link was between the Earth of this universe and a version of this world that exists in an alternate universe.”

“Alternate universe?” asked Princess Celestia. “What do you mean?”

Pony-Q turned to the Enterprise officers and said, “Tell me, are you familiar with the incident at the Halkan homeworld? It occurred a little over a hundred years ago.”

Picard nodded. “Yes. It’s not common knowledge, but all starship command officers have been briefed on the matter, in case such a thing ever happens again. The incident you refer to involved the original NCC-1701 Enterprise. During an ion storm, Captain James Kirk and his away team attempted to beam back up to their ship. Something happened, however, and they were temporarily transported into another universe entirely, and their counterparts from that universe were transported into ours.”

Pony-Q nodded. “That’s correct. The details of that particular incident aren’t important, however. All I wanted was for you to confirm the existence of alternate universes. So, as I was saying, there was a direct link between Earth and an alternate version of this planet here. Or perhaps I should say alternate versions, plural, though only one such world has, or at least had, the direct link to Earth. Ponies still exist on these worlds even now, though they are somewhat different than what you are here. In some worlds, there exist other types of ponies in addition to the ones you know, such as sea ponies or flutter ponies or breezies. In some worlds, there exists nothing but earth ponies. In most of these worlds, there even exist counterparts to you guys, in fact.” He looked at Rarity. “On one such world, for instance, you are the young Rainbow Princess, but you don’t much care for doing princess-y things and would rather be out playing or adventuring. Shocking, I know. You are advised by Cheerilee, who is a unicorn on this particular world. However, on another very similar world, Cheerilee is an earth pony, just as she is here. And on that world, she is Scootaloo’s elder sister.”

“Scoots is Cheerilee’s sister, huh?” said Rainbow Dash. “Weird.”

“Your own sister is there as well,” Pony-Q said, still speaking to Rarity, “though of course the two of you aren’t actually sisters there. She’s pretty good at baking sweets and such for her friends, or so I hear.”

“Huh. Are they actually edible, these sweets?” asked Rarity. “As good as she may have gotten at dress-making, her cooking still leaves much to be desired.”

“Yes, I’m sure your sister will be glad to learn that at least one version of her is capable of making toast without reducing it to molten sludge,” said Pony-Q. “Maybe you could use it as motivation for her to improve herself. So, let’s see? Who else? Ah yes, Pinkie Pie. You’re on these worlds as well. Your counterparts there actually aren’t all that different from the way you are here. You love parties just the same on all worlds.”

“Well, that’s good to hear!” said Pinkie with a smile.

“They’re a bit less hyper than you are here, of course, but even so… and, hmm, perhaps there’s another similarity between you as well,” said the once again omnipotent entity. “Where you have your Pinkie Sense, one of your doubles has something called her Pinkie Squink. It’s some weird elaborate ritual that allows her to visually manifest what she’s thinking for others to see, which she apparently uses for day-planning and other such mundane things. In any case, it’s evidence that this Pinkie Pie likely possesses powers similar to your own.”

“Wow,” said Pinkie. “You think it’s possible for me to meet her some day?”

“That’s up to you,” said Pony-Q with a shrug. “Now that you seem to have mostly mastered your own powers, pretty much anything is possible. Dimension hopping certainly isn’t a difficult task for a Q, anyway, so I wouldn’t expect you’d find it much harder. Who else… who else… Ah!” He turned to Rainbow Dash, and flashed a wide, toothy grin that made the pegasus feel slightly uncomfortable. “And you are there as well, my dear.”

Dash nodded, still a bit unsettled by the entity’s grin, but trying not to show it. “Of course I am. I bet I’m just as cool there as I am here, right? Sure I am, no doubt!”

Pony-Q’s grin got even wider and he narrowed his eyes. “If by ‘cool’ you mean that you are a prim and proper fashionista earth pony that would almost put even Rarity here to shame, then yes. Yes, you are. How positively dashing you are, darling!”

“What?!” said Dash, her eyes widening in disbelief.

“‘Rainbow Dash always dresses in style’,” sang Pony-Q. “I think that’s how your bit of the song goes, anyway. Anyway, darling, it involves some really dashing technobabble, but there are actually two subtly different versions of you, one of which resides in the universe with the unicorn Cheerilee and one with the earth pony Cheerilee. However, both of them are strikingly similar dashing darlings of rainbows and fashion and… Ugh, yeah, okay, I’ll stop there. Needless to say, neither one of them cares the slightest bit about speed or athletics or winning or anything like that. Well… I guess I’ll be fair. One of your namesakes did win that one foot race at alternate Scootaloo’s sports party, which is about as shockingly impressive as Twilight Sparkle coming in fifth place in the Running of the Leaves marathon.”

“That’s… that’s not true!” shouted Dash. “You’re just making all of this up, right? Right?! Quit horsing around!”

“Oh, c’mon, sugar cube,” said Applejack, trying to suppress a snicker. “Don’t get so bent out of shape. It ain’t like it’s actually you he’s talkin’ about, ya know.”

“Ahaha, and that brings me to you, dear Applejack,” said Pony-Q, turning his toothy grin upon the orange earth pony. “You exist on some of these worlds as well, one of which is the one that has the direct connection to Earth that I speak of. And such a silly pony you are on that world.”

Applejack lost her grin and turned to face Pony-Q. “What did you just say?”

“Oh no, I’m not singing your song,” said the burgundy pony. “Let’s just say that your counterpart is… er, not known for using her horse sense.” This time, it was Rainbow’s turn to laugh at her friend, and she didn’t even make the slightest effort to suppress it.

Pony-Q let the pegasus get it out of her system, and then continued, “All of you have counterparts on these other worlds, in spirit at least, if not in name. To be charitable, Rainbow Dash, you’re much more akin to a pegasus named Firefly, from the same world that the version of Applejack I mentioned comes from, than you are your actual namesakes on the other worlds. Fluttershy, though you do have a namesake on some of the other worlds, you’re most similar in nature to an earth pony name Posey, again from the same world as Applejack and Firefly, though there is another pony named Sweetheart who lives in the earth pony-only universe with whom you also share many similarities. Pinkie Pie, though your namesake is already fairly similar, you share even more similarities with a pegasus named, appropriately enough, Surprise, who is from the portal world as well. And there are, of course, more than a few ponies named Twilight in the various worlds, some of whom are unicorns. And as for Spike…” Pony-Q regarded the dragon. “You’re special in that there is a version of you on almost all of the worlds, and all of them are dragons, just like you.”

“Really?” said Spike, looking at Pony-Q in awe.

“Indeed,” said the burgundy pony. “For one, there is Master Kenbroath Gillspotten Heathspike, a dragon of over a thousand years in age who was awakened into the world of Princess Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Darling… oops, I mean Dash. And, of course, you all know the story of baby Spike, who was rescued by Megan from the Dark Lord Tirek, along with the transformed monster Scorpan, and the ponies that had been captured by Tirek, one of whom was the Applejack I mentioned before.”

“Discord,” said Princess Luna, more than a bit impatiently, “all of this is very interesting, I’m sure, but what does this idle trivia have to do with your purpose here?”

Pony-Q sighed and said, “You always were a kill-joy, Luna, you know that? I bet you’re just jealous that there isn’t a direct analogue to you on any of these other worlds.” He lowered his voice and muttered, “Unless you count Tirek himself, of course.”

“Care to repeat that?” said Luna, narrowing her eyes and flaring her nostrils.

“Nothing,” said Pony-Q, bestowing his wide toothy grin on the Night Princess. “Nothing at all. But… you’re right, I suppose. I’m getting distracted with having a bit of fun with your little ponies. Anyway, my general, overall point is that there are indeed alternate universes in which exist worlds similar to this one. And, again, on one such world there was a direct link to the planet Earth of this very universe.”

“And what about on our end?” said Riker. “Aside from the legends, there is no actual proof that what you are saying has any basis in truth.”

“Oh, the proof is there, Riker. You’re just not looking in the right places,” said Pony-Q. “Besides, in the particular instance I’m talking about here, the link was only active for a short time during your late 20th Century, and only a very small number of people on Earth ever knew about it then, and they never told anyone else about it. Also, the humans spent much more time in Ponyland than the ponies did on Earth. So, as I mentioned just moments ago, you all know the legends of the great warrior named Megan, and how she came to Ponyland on multiple occasions and performed heroic feats such as helping to defeat Tirek, Grogar, Arabus and such. Well, the truth of the matter is that Megan Williams was a simple, thirteen year old farm girl who lived on Earth, in a place called Iowa. In fact, here’s a bit of trivia that you natives of Earth might find interesting. The ranch on which she lived is on the very same land that eventually became the birthplace of your famed James Tiberius Kirk.”

“Hold on just a minute,” said Twilight. “I’m confused here. You say that our legends all happened in alternate universes, right? If that’s the case, then how is it that we have those legends here, on this world?”

Pony-Q sighed. “As I said, this all involves complex temporal and spatial technobabble that I really don’t want to get into right now. Suffice it to say that in the past there has been some… bleed through, for lack of a better term, between the various universes, including this one, and similar to what happened with Captain Kirk at the Halkan homeworld. This is how the legends transferred from world to world. For that matter, they also have vague myths of a draconequus called Discord on their worlds as well as legends of Night Mare Moon, though these don’t have quite as… immediate an impact on them as they do on you, of course. It’s much the same as how, on this world, the stories of Lavan or the Smooze are just that: simple stories. In any case, the portal has been opened at other times in the ancient past of Earth, which is how their own myths about the Pegasus and unicorns and dragons and such came to be.

“Anyway,” said Pony-Q, slowly turning in a circle so as to look at each of the members of his audience, “to cut an already too long story as short as possible, my goal here and now is for that wormhole to be opened anew. I want a direct link to be established between your world here and the homeworld of the humans. Of course, you can see why I temporarily abandoned these plans once the Borg started poking around in the vicinity, I’m sure.”

Picard and Riker shared a look. “Let me get this straight,” said Picard. “You’re saying that it is possible to open a wormhole of some sort that will directly link Earth and this planet? And you’re saying that this is why you brought us here?”

“That is correct, Jean-Luc,” said Pony-Q. “As I’ve been saying all along, all I wanted was to establish a connection between you and the ponies.”

Picard shook his head. “And why, pray tell, would you expect us to want to allow this to happen? No offense intended against you ponies, mind you, but having a direct link between Earth and an almost entirely unexplored sector of the galaxy is madness. Not even counting the Borg, who knows what sort of threats lay out here? If we open this portal of yours, they would have an open door into the very heart of the Federation.”

Pony-Q raised an eyebrow. “Who knows what sort of threats are here, you ask? I know. And I can assure you that there are none. This is a remote star system on the very edge of the galaxy. The next nearest star system is dozens of light years away from here. The next nearest inhabited star system is farther away than that. The next nearest inhabited system with a civilization actually capable of space travel is even farther still. There are no big threats in this neck of the galaxy.”

“What about the Borg?” asked Riker. “They know of the existence of this world now. It’s certain that they will be back someday.”

Pony-Q shook his head and waved a hoof dismissively. “I’ve already taken care of that. As soon as I got my powers back, one of the very first things I did was to erase all knowledge of this world as well as that of their lost ship from the memories of the Collective. The nearest Borg vessel is thousands of light years away from here. The possibility of them stumbling upon this world on their own accord again by chance is very remote. As such, you don’t have to worry about a Borg cube suddenly arriving at Earth through the portal either. In fact, I’ll do you one better. I will personally deter any Borg ships that wander too close to here.”

Picard raised an eyebrow and said, “Well, that’s… very generous of you, Q. Still, what about threats to this world from our end? There may not be any threats on this end, or so you claim, but there are plenty of hostile powers on our end. You would risk this world being exposed to that?”

“You have so little confidence in your own abilities, Jean-Luc?” said Pony-Q mockingly. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. If this portal is opened, and then afterward you manage to foul things up so horribly that Earth is conquered by the Romulans or the Cardassians or the Dominion or, heavens forbid, another Borg invasion or whatever else, then I give you my solemn word that I will close down the portal myself before anything gets through to here. Mind you, I won’t help you prevent Earth from being conquered to begin with, should such a thing ever occur. I’m not that generous.”

“Wait… the Dominion?” asked Riker. “What’s that?”

Pony-Q raised an eyebrow and a mysterious little smile played across his face. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t know about the Dominion yet, do you? Curse me and my non-temporally linear thinking, I suppose. Well, I don’t want to spoil anything as you’ll find out about them soon enough. You don’t have to worry about them interfering with this world, however, since they’re clear on the other side of the galaxy from here. Well, that’s assuming you don’t end up getting conquered by them, of course, but I’ve already said I’ll take care of things if it comes to that. Hopefully I won’t need to. I’ll just give you a little hint about the Dominion: keep an eye on the planet Bajor.”

Picard decided to file away these cryptic comments for now and to instead focus on the issue at hand. “I still don’t know about this, Q” he said hesitantly.

“Oh?” said the entity. “Well, how about I sweeten the pot for you a bit more? I’ll let you in on a little secret: I never planned to send you back to Federation space using my own power. Is that enough of an incentive for you, Jean-Luc? You have three choices to you now. One, you can stay here from now on. I’m sure you’d eventually be able to make lives for yourselves on this world, and I’d bet the ponies would be glad to have you as neighbors. Two, you can travel back to Federation space under your own power, which we already know will take you almost thirty years. How old are you now, Jean-Luc? Mid-sixties? You’ll be almost a hundred years old by the time you make it back home, assuming you even live that long. Or three, you can open this portal and fly your ship through it. You’ll arrive at Earth within seconds. While the portal will be low enough in the atmosphere for pegasi to fly through it with no problem, as in the old stories, it also extends high enough above the planet to allow easy passage for starships.”

Picard and Riker shared another look, and then simply stared at Q in silence.

“Think of the opportunities, Jean-Luc,” said Pony-Q. “You could send a fleet of science vessels through, or even build a starbase or three in the area. This whole sector of the galaxy would be open to you for exploration.”

“Ahem,” said Princess Celestia. “Excuse me, but do we get to have any say in this matter?”

“Well, of course you do, dear Princess Celestia,” said Pony-Q. He ignored her obvious irritation at his use of that pet name for her. “Especially given that the portal won’t be opened at all without your cooperation. I’m certainly not going to open it for you, after all, even though it would be child’s play for me to do so. If I were going to open it myself, I wouldn’t have bothered with bringing the Enterprise here at all.”

“Wait, you want us to open this portal?” asked Twilight.

“You six there are the only ones who can open it,” said Pony-Q. “Well, aside from me, obviously. You and your Elements of Harmony, or more importantly the Rainbow of Light generated by them, are the key to unlocking the door.”

“But how do we know where this thing even is?” asked Applejack. “You want us to just shoot the Elements off into the sky at random and hope we hit somethin’?”

“Of course not,” said Pony-Q. “That would be ridiculous. You have no way of finding this portal on your own, and I’m not going to tell you where it is either. That is where the good people of the Enterprise come in. They can find it for you.”

“How so?” said Riker.

“A simple search for verteron and chroniton particles in the atmosphere above the planet should suffice,” said Pony-Q. “Find the highest concentration and combination of those, and you’ve found the wormhole. And then, Twilight and her friends can use the Elements of Harmony to open it up. Anyway, like I said, I’m just the catalyst. I brought you together, and now it’s up to you. I hope the time that you’ve spent together over the past few days has shown that you both have much you can learn from one another. Anyway, I’ll be leaving you for now to decide what you want to do. I’ll be back when you’ve made your decision. I hope I won’t be disappointed. Ciao, for now.”

“Q, wait!” said Pinkie Pie, but the entity had already disappeared. “Aw, I had something else I needed to ask him about. Darn it. Oh well… I guess it can wait.”

Picard turned to face the ponies, Celestia and Luna in particular. “Well, it looks like we have a lot to discuss once more.”

Celestia nodded. “Indeed it does,” she said. “What do we do now? Do we open this portal or not? Whatever we decide to do here will have lasting implications for both of our worlds.”

Twilight’s eyes flicked over to Riker for the briefest moment as she said, “Well, this is admittedly a bit selfish, but… I’d really like to see what their world is like.”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “You’ve gotten to see ours after all, so it’s only fair that we also get to see yours.”

“I don’t know,” said Applejack. “I’m mean, I’m curious as the next pony and all, but this’ll mean a major change in our way of life if there’s a sudden rush of humans and others from their side of the galaxy. I ain’t necessarily sayin’ that’s a bad thing or nothin’, but… you know. This is a big deal, and we should give it the appropriate weight. It ain’t like it’s just gonna be a quick peek and that’s all.”

“You have a point, Applejack,” said Rarity. “But even so, just think about it. You could be the first pony to sell zap apple jam to an entirely new market. And this would open a whole new world for me and Carousel Boutique.”

“This is about more than just our profit margins, Rarity,” said the orange pony.

“I am well aware of that, Applejack,” said Rarity. “I’m just stating some possibilities. That’s all. Still, like I said, you do have a good point as well.”

“I think the most important thing,” said Fluttershy, “is that opening this portal will allow our friends to go home. I can’t even imagine what it would be like if I were trapped in their world with no way to ever get back to Ponyville and see my friends ever again. It’s so sad.”

“Fluttershy,” said Picard, not unkindly, “you mustn’t let our plight unduly influence your decision. This is much bigger than just us.”

“But it’s not just our decision,” said the yellow pegasus. “It’s yours as well. Even if we do decide that we want to open this door, we won’t be able to without you.”

Picard shook his head and said, “There’s also our Prime Directive to consider.”

Twilight cleared her throat and said, “No disrespect intended, Captain, but I believe that train has already long since left the station. As I understand it, your Prime Directive is intended to prevent undue contamination of a culture with advanced technology and concepts from your own before it is ready to handle it. Now, I will admit that what I’ve seen of your ship is indeed very impressive, it really is. However, given my own studies, I know that some of the things that drive your technology are things that magical scholars on this world have also been studying for centuries now. Take antimatter, for example. As I was telling Geordi and Data yesterday, magical scholars have been studying the theory behind this for a long while now.”

“This is true,” said Princess Luna with a nod. “It was one of the many side projects of Starswirl the Bearded. Just think, if Starswirl had focused his studies on that subject, instead of amniomorphism, it’s entirely possible that we could have achieved space travel ourselves thousands of years ago. For want of a nail…”

“Also,” said Twilight, “my study of your phasers and photon torpedoes was rather extensive, even in the short time I had to do so, and there have been concepts and ideas percolating in the back of my mind ever since, and I’m not just talking about weapons either. So… I’d have to say that it’s a bit late to be worrying about ‘contaminating’ us with your technology, unless you intend to wipe my memories of what I have learned, which I know is well within your abilities.” Both Picard and Riker looked horrified by this suggestion, which made Twilight feel a bit more confident as she continued, “And while our own technology may not be quite as advanced as yours, I think you’ll find that our magic more than makes up for that in many ways. And, lastly, who is to say that we haven’t ‘contaminated’ you with your newfound knowledge of magic and magically enhanced technology?”

Riker flashed Twilight a grin and turned to Picard. “Well, she’s got us there, sir.” Glancing back at Twilight, he said, “You’re not planning to build a bunch of torpedoes, are you?” Twilight simply smirked, rolled her eyes, and shook her head in response.

Picard nodded. “Very well, then. I still have reservations about this, and in any other case, I would forward this to Starfleet Command and the Federation Council to let them make a final decision, but that’s obviously not in my power to do now, at least not unless we’re prepared to wait half a century for a response, anyway. As such, I suppose the decision shall have to fall to me. Starfleet and the Federation may very well disagree with any decision that I make here, of course, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And my decision is that, on the whole, the positives to be gained by opening the wormhole would indeed far outweigh any negatives. Would you agree with this assessment, Princess Celestia?”

The Sun Princess nodded. “Yes, I would. However, Equestria is only one of several nations on this world. I would need to consult with the leaders of the other countries before making such a monumental decision. I will send missives via dragon fire to their leaders to inform them of this. With that said, however, they do generally tend to follow my lead in matters of great importance such as this. It shouldn’t take too long to get a response back from them, one way or the other.”

“In the meantime, I will have the Enterprise begin searching for the location of the portal,” said Picard. “It may take a while to scan the entire planet, so that will give you time to send your correspondence to the other nations. Oh, by the way, Princess, I would like to take this opportunity to formally request that my people be allowed to take some long overdue shore leave here in your lovely nation.”

Celestia smiled gracefully and said, “After everything you have done for us, we would be delighted to host your people here. Feel free to have them visit at their earliest convenience. They shall receive only the best that Equestria has to offer.”

“I thank you on behalf of my crew,” said the Captain, nodding and reaching for his combadge. “I will inform them immediately.”

Comments

[paladinwolf]

Twilight’s eyes flicked over to Riker for the briefest moment as she said, “Well, this is admittedly a bit selfish, but… I’d really like to see what their world is like.”

rainbowdash.net/file/fluttershyismywaifu-20110701T233752-9cagkb3.jpeg

[Kevin Lee]

6031691 That is---disturbingly---NOT OOC