I don't own Star Trek.
Jean Luc Picard hated the exposure his back had to the wall; he had grown so used to having the support for Worf's console behind his command chair, now he had his back exposed on the more open bridge. He had been in command of the Enterprise E for a good while now, and whilst he was pleased he still had command of a starship (that court martial he'd had after the Stargazer had been a close call, and the mess that had occurred after the destruction of the Enterprise D had not done his career much good), he wasn't pleased by the circumstances. He often had the feeling the only reason he hadn't been really punished for what had happened to the Enterprise D even if he hadn't been on the ship during the course of that battle with the Duras sisters, was because of the rising tensions going on in the galaxy.
Ever since the Dominion war had started Picard had witnessed death and destruction on a scale he hadn't seen unless he counted the violent and brutal conflict the Borg had wrought years ago.
Thinking of the sudden attacks the Borg cube had caused before his own transformation into Locutus made him think about the meeting with Q that had led to the Borg. Q had hinted that Starfleet was moving faster than expected, he'd even said as much to Guinan about what Humanity was doing; Picard sometimes wondered what kind of stance Q had concerning humanity. On one hand the entity was saying the human race was nothing more than a "dangerous, savage, child race" that deserved to be exterminated, and the next he was giving something that was close to respect. It was irritating and Picard wished the entity would make up what passed for his mind.
Q had not taken Picard's blasé replies and had hurled the Enterprise D across the galaxy into the path of a Borg cube. The cube then proceeded to attack the Enterprise, cut up a piece of the hull, killed 18 people and then chased the ship at maximum warp. If it hadn't been for Q after being begged by Picard, the Enterprise wouldn't have gotten away.
Picard had told Guinan after she had told him the Borg would not leave the Federation alone, that they would be coming, that they had needed a "kick to our complacency," and so Starfleet had ordered wargames to be started. Those wargames, pathetic and stupid now he considered them, had not stopped the Borg invasion. Starfleet had spent a year preparing, which was what Elizabeth Shelby and Admiral Hansen were doing, but the Borg were unlike any enemy that the Federation had ever encountered. They weren't the Klingons or the Romulans - hell, the collective made both of them seem like amateurs. The Borg were more powerful and dangerous, and they'd proven it by smashing their way past Wolf 359.
Picard hated thinking about the Borg, Wolf 359, the fact he'd been transformed into Locutus of Borg - the rage and hatred in Benjamin Sisko, one of the few survivors of the battle still haunted him - but he had to admit the battle with the Borg had done some good with the Federation.
Starfleet was a peacekeeping armada essentially, but they had grown complacent in the years since the alliance between Starfleet and the Klingon Empire had been solidified. The cold war between the Federation and the Empire had caused endless grief on both sides, and yet Starfleet was always alert for any Klingon attacks. When the alliance was finalised in the early 24th century, Starfleet had scrapped many of the starbases and the defence plans put in place should the Klingons try to conquer Earth. As a result, peace had set in until Q had hurled the Enterprise D straight to the path of that Borg cube.
Q had done them a favor, as much as he hated to admit that.
Without the meeting with the Borg, Starfleet would never have bothered or even thought of upgrading the fleet. Picard shuddered at the thought of the Starfleet of the pre-Borg days encountering the Dominion; they wouldn't have stood much of a chance, all those new weapons on the front lines- regenerative phasers, pulse phaser cannons, quantum torpedoes, weapons that had saved the day countless times since the war began not existing in practical terms but on some designers' table, knowing they would never be rushed into production with all the peace. There were many more powerful models of starships; faster, with better computer technology, equipped with the latest from Research and development, more heavily armed...
More heavily armed. Picard frowned at that part because he had wanted to be an explorer, not a soldier. He might be a Starfleet officer, trained to fight and be decisive in battle, but he didn't like fighting. He hated death and he always regretted people under his command dying. Ever since the Dominion war had begun, Picard had been forced to fight more and more. He might hate fighting, but at least he had the means to defend himself against them even if he'd had to fight the Jem'Hadar on the ground or in close quarters.
A grimace appeared momentarily on his face, attracting a sideways look from Deanna Troi, but the half Betazoid knew better than to ask questions, as he thought about the Jem'Hadar. Picard had always been wary of genetic engineering - the small messes where a simple virus turned into a disease where people rapidly aged, and where a society of humans determined their destinies by genetic manipulation hadn't changed his mind. The Dominion didn't seem to care about the scruples or the harm that came with genetic engineering. Why should they? It had given them the perfect soldier in the form of the Jem'Hadar, who willingly and unthinkingly went out and caused the deaths of untold millions again and again, and the Vorta, who were the perfect diplomats and administrators.
Picard had seen more than his fair share of messes in the last few years as the Enterprise and the rest of Starfleet lurched from one crisis to the next - the Klingon war, the Borg attack, the Dominion war. It had taken its toll on everyone. Picard had fought in wars before during his time as a Starfleet officer, but the Dominion made the Cardassians, who had betrayed the Alpha Quadrant in the name of their own selfish greed, look like children armed with peashooters compared to their elephant guns.
As he sat on the bridge, Picard had to admit to himself, as much as he hated to, that Starfleet and the Federation had to thank Q. That was not a common event. Q had caused a lot of grief over the years, but with the meeting with the Borg he'd forcibly opened the eyes of the Federation to the threats out in the galaxy. They had been ripped open during the incursion a year later, and now the Dominion were up in arms against the Federation, determined to rip everything people from Jonathan Archer to the present day president had been trying to accomplish, all to push the Alpha Quadrant under the control of the Founders. Picard still hoped that a diplomatic solution be found, and he had been one of the strong voices that called for peace. But now, after all that had happened - the ships that had been destroyed, the worlds reduced to a dark shadow of their former glory, Federation citizens and innocents conquered by the Jem'Hadar, the crews of thousands of starships killed... Picard now saw, reluctantly, peace might only be attained by destroying the Dominion.
He looked at Deanna out of the corner of his eye. She didn't look it, but he saw the shadow lurking in her eyes. Pain and anger, he recognised, but he wasn't going to call her up on it. Deanna, like all Betazoids, had good reason to hate the Dominion for their crimes. They'd conquered Betazed and were doing heaven alone knew what to the people, with their Cardassian allies.
He remembered how, six months ago, the starship Sphinx had captured a group of Cardassians, and members of the crew had been court martialled for beating and torturing the Cardassians to the point of death. The crew's defence was "they're only filthy Cardies. They've slaughtered dozens of us, they betrayed our Quadrant. Why should we slap them on the wrist?"
Picard didn't like what the Federation people were turning into, but it was a psychological disease that was spreading. Some Starfleet captains were being threatened with Court Martial for what their crews were doing to Cardassian prisoners - even Picard, who didn't really like the Cardassians - felt more could be done. Even Vulcans, one of the most controlled races emotionally, were acting like Romulans. They were actively attacking the enemy with savagery barely seen since the Time of Awakening. Then there were the frontline bases; as a person who studied history, Picard had read about the conditions in the trenches in the First World War on Earth, and compared the fatigued and beleaguered troops with the poor souls who'd died, starving and cold on the battlefield, gassed to death by enemy shells.
Q might've given them a kick to their complacency, but Picard didn't like how the war had made them seemingly regress to being a "dangerous, savage, child race."
Maybe the entity had a point when he said humans might never change. But they could try.
What do you think?