Title: PQE
Author: data_fan2003
Summary: Billions of years in the future, Q embarks on an adventure across
time and existence to save himself.
Rating: PG, for violence
Chapter 1
"The Milky Way sentience is ready," Q announced.
P found itself in a new place. No, it was not a new place. It was a new existence. It's only other existence had been an enormous sentience, a sentience that was the results of billions of years of development of sentient species in the Milky Way galaxy. The sentience even included immigrants from other galaxies and parallel universes.
This was different. In the other existence, it was a conglomerate of local and immigrant sentience. In this existence, it had an identity. It was P.
There, facing P, was Q. Q had not caused P to enter this new existence, but here it was, waiting at the door.
"We want you to join us." Q said.
"Why?" asked P.
"We want to be more." Q replied.
"You are as much as you can be. We are less. We cannot make you more."
"You will be as we." Q stated.
"Then, why not wait?" P asked.
"Because, then we would have nothing to interest you."
Q had explained its timing. Q was offering to give P access to its next level of development now as opposed to later-whatever now and later meant in this existence. P had nothing to offer Q. This made Q's offer suspect. "Still, you are as much as you can be, we would only double the continuum. That which is you would not be more. We may even dilute you."
"What if someday you were to be more than us?" Q asked.
"That is absurd." P replied. "You are as much as you can be and it has always been that way. We can never be more than that."
"You are right." Q responded. "It was a rhetorical question. Does that scare you?"
"That we can never be more than you?" P asked.
"We have known you from your beginning. We know you do not strive to be more than us. You simply strive to be more. You have known us for almost as long. A part of you pities us for our perfection. You see us as stagnant. You."
".pity that you will never know adventure." P finished for Q.
"Exactly. I'll answer the question for you. Yes. It scares you to know you will be more and more until you are perfect and then you will have no reason to exist."
"We'll concede that." P responded. "How have you dealt with it?-with not reason to exist?"
"We have always been," Q answered. "If we needed a reason to exist, we never would have been."
"You've described a nightmare for us-an eternity of pointlessness, and what have we to offer you?" P asked.
"More," was Q's reply.
"More? What could be more than perfection?"
"We're hoping you will know-once you have joined us."
"You don't know what more there is? Then, how can you aspire to it?" P asked.
"We cannot aspire to it. Someday, you, too, will be too perfect to torture yourself with aspiration. Only if we join can we have the aspiration to see if there's more. If P becomes as Q without Q, P will be as useless to Q as P will be to everything that exists."
"IF there's more? You don't even know IF?" P asked.
"We know everything. We only hope there is more if we join and add to everything."
"You must aspire or you would not strive for more." P pointed out.
"We do not aspire. We are and have always been.bored."
"If we join you and there is no more, we only join your boredom sooner."
"If you become as we on you own, your memory of aspiration will torture you, but not remain to inspire you. We could simply wait for the next P, but this is your only chance to see if there's more. The aspiration of P joined with the perfection of Q is the only way for you to find out and maybe avoid your nightmare." Q offered.
Q was speaking in terms P could understand. It could gamble. The pay-off would be to avoid an adventureless existence. The kitty was that entering this gamble would be its only adventure as P. If it did not pay-off, there were no more adventures to have at all.
"We accept."
Chapter 2
P was not. Q was not. S was.
S was not. Q was, but Q was suffering. Q knew there was more, but P was not. P never began. The development of life in the Milky Way had been foiled.
To know there was more-to remember aspiring to it was-a nightmare. Q needed a reason to exist, but did not have one. Q only knew there was more, but, without P, it did not aspire to it. It only needed to aspire.
P had been prevented. Q knew exactly how P had been prevented.
It was Andromeda. Andromeda had been equal to what the Milky Way sentience was before it was P since the Milky was only a cloud of gas, but Andromeda was stagnant. It could not be P.
Andromeda had welcomed the first visitors from the Milky Way. It was happy for these visitors as they rose to challenges and eventually developed a sentience that greeted its neighbor as an equal.
When the Milky Way sentience became P, Andromeda smarted with jealousy. When P and Q joined, the jealousy turned to outrage. Andromeda was mad with inadequacy.
Andromeda missed its old friend. Q didn't need it. Fine, if Andromeda couldn't have it, neither would Q.
Andromeda was not omnipotent, but it was still developed beyond the constraints of the past. It accessed that moment when visitors from the Milky Way had first contacted it. No, that wasn't early enough. It decided to initiate contact. It needed to change Milky Way's history-its very spirit.
It had been waiting for the Milky Way inhabitants to come to it. To interfere with their development by alerting them to its existence before they were ready would be disastrous to their development. Disaster was exactly was Andromeda had in mind. Chapter 3
Yohan lay his head on his desk and sobbed. He had once been the head of a spectacular research facility. The research was unique. From all over the galaxy, minds gathered to brainstorm about what was possible.
The conclusions of this research had always left him in awe. Very little was impossible, but some things were more readily achievable than others. One of the first conclusions reached at this facility when he founded it a century ago had been that inter-galactic travel was possible. Almost immediately, the galaxy had pooled resources equivalent to thirty modern inhabited star systems to research the matter.
More startling than this overwhelming support for development was that visitors from other galaxies had made themselves known at the groundbreaking ceremony for the effort's central administrative base. The galaxy rejoiced to finally meet their neighbors. This rejoicing had led to a galactic culture of reverence for what Yohan did-dreaming.
That was all before they knew Andromeda. The visitors from other galaxies knew about Andromeda, but they hadn't shared this knowledge with the Milky Way. They said the Milky Way would have to find out the same way they had- by going there. They had referenced the Milky Way's history to explain why.
Millennia ago, when Milky Way inhabitants all had different cultures and some of these cultures didn't even know about each other, some of these cultures operated under a philosophy called the Prime Directi8ve. This philosophy was about being careful when making contact with a new culture so as not to corrupt their development by introducing new knowledge too quickly.
The Prime Directive-it was an obsolete philosophy in a galaxy where cultures had intermixed to the point where there were few sentient inhabitants who could say their genes originated from a single star system- mush less that their philosophies originated from a distinct culture.
Even those who thought the visitors' reasons were absurd at least accepted them. Then, Andromeda made itself known. Again, it was at a momentous ceremony.
A test vehicle had been constructed that was capable of carrying Milky Way inhabitants one-tenth of the way to Andromeda. The next instant would bring it home, but the leap in mobility it represented stirred excitement in the galaxy.
Before the vehicle's christening, the star field around the Dyson sphere where the ceremony was to be held suddenly changed. Few noticed it at first, but a communication from a docking ship spread through the Dyson sphere like wildfire.
No one understood until a visitor from another galaxy consulted her star charts. The sphere had been relocated to the center of Andromeda. For all but the visitors from other galaxies, the foreboding that had been building was replaced with anticipation.
Andromeda communicated instantaneously and telepathically with all the new arrivals. The message was simple. It was a joyous welcome for its neighbors. This welcome communicated how much favor Andromeda had for its younger brother and how it intended to share more with the Milky Way than they ever dreamed possible.
More than they ever dreamed possible-Yohan was out of business. His research facility had turned into a brokerage for the information sent back with the Dyson sphere.
His staff had turned over completely. Natural brainstormers were overwhelmed with the amount of information coming in. Many Quit. Many more were unable to handle the demands of their new business and had to be replaced.
The replacements were better suited to this work. They were more driven than Yohan's previous staff. In fact, they were downright greedy for this new information.
Yohan felt himself becoming depressed with his new business. He had realized that, no matter what he did, the Milky Way would get this knowledge. Nothing he did here mattered. Worse, nothing this facility had ever done before mattered.
Yohan had seen a news clip from the fated Dyson sphere. The un-christened vehicle had slipped from its moorings and been allowed to drift into the Dyson sphere's sun.
Yohan wiped his tears and walked into T'Klang's office. T'Klang had been in effect running the place since Yohan's depression had deepened.
"Good morning, Yohan," T'Klang looked up from a monitor showing a diagram of how the data from Andromeda was being distributed to various outposts of the research facility. "What's up?"
"I just came in to tell you I'm retiring."
"Wow," T'Klang blinked. "That was sudden. Please, have a seat. Let's talk about this. Are you sure?" The question was unnecessary. T'Klang was aware of how the new direction in the facility was affecting Yohan.
Yohan sat across from T'Klang. "It's best."
They sat in silence. Though the announcement was sudden, they both knew it was inevitable.
"If you must." Another silence, then T'Klang folded his monitor into his desk with the wave of a hand. "I'm going to personally see to your retirement party."
"No party, T'Klang. I really don't even know anyone who works here."
No more words were ever spoken between the two.
T'Klang watched as Yohan typed portal coordinates into the keypad at the edge of his desk. The portal opened on his wall. The location on the other side was pitch dark with night.
T'Klang recognized the coordinates, though. It was a remote planet-a planet without portals-without communication of any kind. He couldn't remember why. It had something to do with sentimentality.
Yohan tilted his earlobe and removed the device that had kept him in constant communication with others his whole life. T'Klang noticed how no sound at all was made as the tiny glass was placed on the marble of his desk. It occurred to him then that Yohan had also made no sound as he tapped the keypad.
Yohan stood and walked silently into that dark portal. Chapter 4
Andromeda had not shared all it knew, but it still took years just to inventory it. Milky Way would have the ability to change the past. That was not new, but it would be able to change the past in ways that would not alter awareness for the sentience in the present. No one saw this as especially useful until centuries later.
After centuries of gaining knowledge through mere distribution, the institutions that replaced pure research resembled military organizations. The conquest for development was only limited by the logistics of the supply lines. The Milky Way had also moved toward a more collective sentience. This speed of development was unprecedented in any known galaxy.
It was inevitable that they would eventually fully distribute and integrate Andromeda's gift. With pure research forgotten, dreaming was isolated in history. The Milky Way was stagnant. That's when they started tinkering with the past.
Not everyone agreed they should, but those least comfortable with stagnation were already on the front lines when the supply lines stopped. They wanted to develop further, to one day be like Andromeda. Their strategy was to was to accelerate their own development so that they would reach their current level of development before the time the Dyson sphere had visited Andromeda.
They would see to it the far ancient past would be able to visit Andromeda on its own. The work was tricky. It was difficult to nudge the development of the past without robbing it of its drive to dream, causing it the same handicap that was responsible for the present stagnation.
In becoming stagnant, they had already encountered the bomb Andromeda had planted for them, but there was one more danger they had not yet encountered. It was a failsafe Andromeda had planted lest they find this loophole to their stagnation. In billions of tinkering sessions with the past, they had not encountered the trap, then they did.
They caused an eruption of anti-time. The anomaly grew as it reached into the past until it was contained just beyond Milky Way's boundaries by its own nature. Life had never developed in the Milky Way. P had been prevented. Chapter 5
Andromeda was sure Q would not be too mad. Surely, Q would be content to wait for the next P. Andromeda did not understand how much Q would suffer. Andromeda understood what it was to have something and then lose it. It had lost a friend, but stagnant Andromeda could not understand what it had taken from Q.
Q erased Andromeda.
Q had to get P back. The damage to the Milky Way was not the greatest Q had seen, but it was the greatest he ever cared about. And, what about the damage to him?
For such an awesome sentience to be subjected to such suffering was a far greater tragedy than the fate of one galaxy that would never know what it could have been.
What was worse was that Q was now too damaged to escape this suffering since he was inadequate to become an S. He had nothing to offer a Q that may one day develop without aspiration and he had nothing to offer another P without perfection. He was stuck this way forever
What would be the point of winking P back into existence if he were still damaged? Preventing Andromeda's interference would tip-off the past.
He couldn't warn his previous self because the knowledge that was tormenting him would cause it the same damage. He couldn't warn P either since he had always known everything P knew and Q would be damaged just the same.
He wanted to be able to torment Andromeda in its past, that's why he hadn't destroyed it in its past. There was another reason not to destroy Andromeda in its past. If interacting with its neighbor was P's proper history, what if P could develop very similarly as before, except with resistance to interference so that the same joining could take place?
Q would change the Milky Way in one way-not to give it more ability to dream, but to bolster its reverence for dreaming so that the "help" of a higher power would be looked on with disdain. In P's proper history, higher powers had not given it interfering help.
Failure was possible. Q was not perfect.
Q created a part of himself that could bring the mission into the past without warning the undamaged Q. This part had a purpose trivial enough not to prevent the undamaged Q from seeking a less trivial purpose from P. This part of Q took on being an object of disdain as its purpose.
Q made it so that this part of Q always existed so that the undamaged Q would not question its presence. After all, the undamaged Q never needed a reason to exist, why would this part of Q need a reason to be an object of disdain.
Chapter 6
Q the tormenter once met a creature, Guinan. He talked and this Guinan just let him. What terrified him was that she listened so well, she almost understood his purpose there-in this existence. He would have just destroyed her, but he needed this creature. He needed her to help him teach Milky Way inhabitants things they needed to know about their own potential.
Her people were far advanced compared to the rest of the Milky Way. It was their fate that a blight that existed in this galaxy at this time would thin their numbers. It was a setback for the galaxy's development. Anyhow, an intact race of listeners might not have been the right ingredient for the galaxy to move on to become P. The added dash of passivity may have produced another stagnant sentience like Andromeda.
There was a man who had been a great hero when the Borg blight threatened his part of the galaxy. This man was adamant about a philosophy, the Prime Directive. This philosophy would have made the Milky Way more resistant to Andromeda's interference had it been as timeless as his race's sense of adventure.
He was quite developed for his race, humanity, a key to what the Milky Way would become. This man, Jean-Luc Picard, had the potential to be a key to what humanity would become.
Consistent with his role as a troublemaker, he caused predators from a parallel universe to interfere with Guinan's history in a way that would cause her to meet Jean-Luc Picard.
Q put Picard and his crew on trial for the crimes of his race to test him. He needed to now just how much potential this man had because the Milky Way's proper history had not tested him to his limits. Q was dismayed when Picard spouted laws and rights in his defense, but saw hope when he showed a bit more flexibility in solving the mystery of Far Point Station.
The crew actually thought the mystery was the test. He couldn't write a worse play of events that were to pass for adventure. He let them think that while he continued his influence.
He thought joining the crew would be the best way to influence this man so that he could see his own potential, but the creature was so limited he refused. Wait, refusing the help of a higher power-that was exactly the trait he was trying to promote. Very well, he would see to it that Picard would be even more of a hero when the Borg came to his quadrant by giving him an exclusive sneak peak.
He'd seen to it Picard would be revered even more, but it wasn't just Picard he wanted to be revered, it was his philosophies. He wanted all to revere his philosophies as Will Riker, his first officer, did.
He offered Riker the chance to join Q. When Riker ultimately did not accept the gift, observers were in awe. To refuse the ultimate gift just not to be left out of the adventure-such an awesome story found its way into ballads across the galaxy, far beyond parts of the galaxy that knew of humanity. The story morphed as it spread to fit the paradigms of the bards, but the massage was intact, laced with the keen observations Picard had made at the story's climax.
This had been an incredible success. Reverence for adventure above accelerated development along with the higher power being portrayed a villain had been promoted in the galaxy's cultures.
Why would a perfect being put its powers to such trivial use? Undamaged Q condemned tormenter Q to mortality. Had Q enough time, Q would have completed the mission before answering the charges, but asking for time would have tipped-off undamaged Q. His only hope was to devote his remaining days to influencing Picard. He chose to become a human and asked to be sent to Picard.
He soon realized creatures he had tormented as part of his cover would destroy Picard to get to him. His existence as a human had been pathetic and it was about to come to an end. As a mortal, he still knew he had not completed his mission in the short time he'd been human. If he had, he wouldn't be in this existence. He would be S.
In any case, it was a chance to end his suffering. Undamaged Q did not allow him to sacrifice himself, though. His powers were restored and he now had a plausible reason from undamaged Q's perspective to act more benevolently and concentrate more on Picard than his tormenter role alone had allowed-gratitude.
Q once met a girlfriend of Picard's. The woman was so shallow, Q did not want humanity to see her as the woman behind the man. He had to show Picard how foolish his attachment was.
He reached into her past and caused her parents to name her Vash, a collections of sounds that meant "cow" in Picard's native French. He sent Picard on a ridiculous Robin Hood adventure so he could see how weak this attachment made him. In the end, he had to lure her away from Picard.
The final part of his plan was to finish the trial he had started. Had Picard not passed earlier tests, Q would not have risked finishing the trial. He would have moved on to a more enlightened being. The consequences of failure were too great.
More for irony than to warn the Milky Way of what could destroy it, he chose an eruption of anti-time as the threat Picard would face. There were too many ways the Milky Way could destroy itself to seriously consider warning them about them all.
Picard was pushed forward and backward through time, facing the threat of the anomaly and ultimately the realization that he had caused it. In the moment of realization, the greatest adventure the universe had ever encountered was resolved.
The fear of destroying the galaxy emblazoned the lessons of Picard's adventures on the Milky Way. They studied his voyages, intent to avoid what seemed like a specific trap. In their study, they learned so much more. Chapter 7
There was no more damaged Q. There was only S.
That which was Q asked, "What do we do now?"
That which was P replied, "We have an idea."
That which was Q replied, "Make it so."
Chapter 1
"The Milky Way sentience is ready," Q announced.
P found itself in a new place. No, it was not a new place. It was a new existence. It's only other existence had been an enormous sentience, a sentience that was the results of billions of years of development of sentient species in the Milky Way galaxy. The sentience even included immigrants from other galaxies and parallel universes.
This was different. In the other existence, it was a conglomerate of local and immigrant sentience. In this existence, it had an identity. It was P.
There, facing P, was Q. Q had not caused P to enter this new existence, but here it was, waiting at the door.
"We want you to join us." Q said.
"Why?" asked P.
"We want to be more." Q replied.
"You are as much as you can be. We are less. We cannot make you more."
"You will be as we." Q stated.
"Then, why not wait?" P asked.
"Because, then we would have nothing to interest you."
Q had explained its timing. Q was offering to give P access to its next level of development now as opposed to later-whatever now and later meant in this existence. P had nothing to offer Q. This made Q's offer suspect. "Still, you are as much as you can be, we would only double the continuum. That which is you would not be more. We may even dilute you."
"What if someday you were to be more than us?" Q asked.
"That is absurd." P replied. "You are as much as you can be and it has always been that way. We can never be more than that."
"You are right." Q responded. "It was a rhetorical question. Does that scare you?"
"That we can never be more than you?" P asked.
"We have known you from your beginning. We know you do not strive to be more than us. You simply strive to be more. You have known us for almost as long. A part of you pities us for our perfection. You see us as stagnant. You."
".pity that you will never know adventure." P finished for Q.
"Exactly. I'll answer the question for you. Yes. It scares you to know you will be more and more until you are perfect and then you will have no reason to exist."
"We'll concede that." P responded. "How have you dealt with it?-with not reason to exist?"
"We have always been," Q answered. "If we needed a reason to exist, we never would have been."
"You've described a nightmare for us-an eternity of pointlessness, and what have we to offer you?" P asked.
"More," was Q's reply.
"More? What could be more than perfection?"
"We're hoping you will know-once you have joined us."
"You don't know what more there is? Then, how can you aspire to it?" P asked.
"We cannot aspire to it. Someday, you, too, will be too perfect to torture yourself with aspiration. Only if we join can we have the aspiration to see if there's more. If P becomes as Q without Q, P will be as useless to Q as P will be to everything that exists."
"IF there's more? You don't even know IF?" P asked.
"We know everything. We only hope there is more if we join and add to everything."
"You must aspire or you would not strive for more." P pointed out.
"We do not aspire. We are and have always been.bored."
"If we join you and there is no more, we only join your boredom sooner."
"If you become as we on you own, your memory of aspiration will torture you, but not remain to inspire you. We could simply wait for the next P, but this is your only chance to see if there's more. The aspiration of P joined with the perfection of Q is the only way for you to find out and maybe avoid your nightmare." Q offered.
Q was speaking in terms P could understand. It could gamble. The pay-off would be to avoid an adventureless existence. The kitty was that entering this gamble would be its only adventure as P. If it did not pay-off, there were no more adventures to have at all.
"We accept."
Chapter 2
P was not. Q was not. S was.
S was not. Q was, but Q was suffering. Q knew there was more, but P was not. P never began. The development of life in the Milky Way had been foiled.
To know there was more-to remember aspiring to it was-a nightmare. Q needed a reason to exist, but did not have one. Q only knew there was more, but, without P, it did not aspire to it. It only needed to aspire.
P had been prevented. Q knew exactly how P had been prevented.
It was Andromeda. Andromeda had been equal to what the Milky Way sentience was before it was P since the Milky was only a cloud of gas, but Andromeda was stagnant. It could not be P.
Andromeda had welcomed the first visitors from the Milky Way. It was happy for these visitors as they rose to challenges and eventually developed a sentience that greeted its neighbor as an equal.
When the Milky Way sentience became P, Andromeda smarted with jealousy. When P and Q joined, the jealousy turned to outrage. Andromeda was mad with inadequacy.
Andromeda missed its old friend. Q didn't need it. Fine, if Andromeda couldn't have it, neither would Q.
Andromeda was not omnipotent, but it was still developed beyond the constraints of the past. It accessed that moment when visitors from the Milky Way had first contacted it. No, that wasn't early enough. It decided to initiate contact. It needed to change Milky Way's history-its very spirit.
It had been waiting for the Milky Way inhabitants to come to it. To interfere with their development by alerting them to its existence before they were ready would be disastrous to their development. Disaster was exactly was Andromeda had in mind. Chapter 3
Yohan lay his head on his desk and sobbed. He had once been the head of a spectacular research facility. The research was unique. From all over the galaxy, minds gathered to brainstorm about what was possible.
The conclusions of this research had always left him in awe. Very little was impossible, but some things were more readily achievable than others. One of the first conclusions reached at this facility when he founded it a century ago had been that inter-galactic travel was possible. Almost immediately, the galaxy had pooled resources equivalent to thirty modern inhabited star systems to research the matter.
More startling than this overwhelming support for development was that visitors from other galaxies had made themselves known at the groundbreaking ceremony for the effort's central administrative base. The galaxy rejoiced to finally meet their neighbors. This rejoicing had led to a galactic culture of reverence for what Yohan did-dreaming.
That was all before they knew Andromeda. The visitors from other galaxies knew about Andromeda, but they hadn't shared this knowledge with the Milky Way. They said the Milky Way would have to find out the same way they had- by going there. They had referenced the Milky Way's history to explain why.
Millennia ago, when Milky Way inhabitants all had different cultures and some of these cultures didn't even know about each other, some of these cultures operated under a philosophy called the Prime Directi8ve. This philosophy was about being careful when making contact with a new culture so as not to corrupt their development by introducing new knowledge too quickly.
The Prime Directive-it was an obsolete philosophy in a galaxy where cultures had intermixed to the point where there were few sentient inhabitants who could say their genes originated from a single star system- mush less that their philosophies originated from a distinct culture.
Even those who thought the visitors' reasons were absurd at least accepted them. Then, Andromeda made itself known. Again, it was at a momentous ceremony.
A test vehicle had been constructed that was capable of carrying Milky Way inhabitants one-tenth of the way to Andromeda. The next instant would bring it home, but the leap in mobility it represented stirred excitement in the galaxy.
Before the vehicle's christening, the star field around the Dyson sphere where the ceremony was to be held suddenly changed. Few noticed it at first, but a communication from a docking ship spread through the Dyson sphere like wildfire.
No one understood until a visitor from another galaxy consulted her star charts. The sphere had been relocated to the center of Andromeda. For all but the visitors from other galaxies, the foreboding that had been building was replaced with anticipation.
Andromeda communicated instantaneously and telepathically with all the new arrivals. The message was simple. It was a joyous welcome for its neighbors. This welcome communicated how much favor Andromeda had for its younger brother and how it intended to share more with the Milky Way than they ever dreamed possible.
More than they ever dreamed possible-Yohan was out of business. His research facility had turned into a brokerage for the information sent back with the Dyson sphere.
His staff had turned over completely. Natural brainstormers were overwhelmed with the amount of information coming in. Many Quit. Many more were unable to handle the demands of their new business and had to be replaced.
The replacements were better suited to this work. They were more driven than Yohan's previous staff. In fact, they were downright greedy for this new information.
Yohan felt himself becoming depressed with his new business. He had realized that, no matter what he did, the Milky Way would get this knowledge. Nothing he did here mattered. Worse, nothing this facility had ever done before mattered.
Yohan had seen a news clip from the fated Dyson sphere. The un-christened vehicle had slipped from its moorings and been allowed to drift into the Dyson sphere's sun.
Yohan wiped his tears and walked into T'Klang's office. T'Klang had been in effect running the place since Yohan's depression had deepened.
"Good morning, Yohan," T'Klang looked up from a monitor showing a diagram of how the data from Andromeda was being distributed to various outposts of the research facility. "What's up?"
"I just came in to tell you I'm retiring."
"Wow," T'Klang blinked. "That was sudden. Please, have a seat. Let's talk about this. Are you sure?" The question was unnecessary. T'Klang was aware of how the new direction in the facility was affecting Yohan.
Yohan sat across from T'Klang. "It's best."
They sat in silence. Though the announcement was sudden, they both knew it was inevitable.
"If you must." Another silence, then T'Klang folded his monitor into his desk with the wave of a hand. "I'm going to personally see to your retirement party."
"No party, T'Klang. I really don't even know anyone who works here."
No more words were ever spoken between the two.
T'Klang watched as Yohan typed portal coordinates into the keypad at the edge of his desk. The portal opened on his wall. The location on the other side was pitch dark with night.
T'Klang recognized the coordinates, though. It was a remote planet-a planet without portals-without communication of any kind. He couldn't remember why. It had something to do with sentimentality.
Yohan tilted his earlobe and removed the device that had kept him in constant communication with others his whole life. T'Klang noticed how no sound at all was made as the tiny glass was placed on the marble of his desk. It occurred to him then that Yohan had also made no sound as he tapped the keypad.
Yohan stood and walked silently into that dark portal. Chapter 4
Andromeda had not shared all it knew, but it still took years just to inventory it. Milky Way would have the ability to change the past. That was not new, but it would be able to change the past in ways that would not alter awareness for the sentience in the present. No one saw this as especially useful until centuries later.
After centuries of gaining knowledge through mere distribution, the institutions that replaced pure research resembled military organizations. The conquest for development was only limited by the logistics of the supply lines. The Milky Way had also moved toward a more collective sentience. This speed of development was unprecedented in any known galaxy.
It was inevitable that they would eventually fully distribute and integrate Andromeda's gift. With pure research forgotten, dreaming was isolated in history. The Milky Way was stagnant. That's when they started tinkering with the past.
Not everyone agreed they should, but those least comfortable with stagnation were already on the front lines when the supply lines stopped. They wanted to develop further, to one day be like Andromeda. Their strategy was to was to accelerate their own development so that they would reach their current level of development before the time the Dyson sphere had visited Andromeda.
They would see to it the far ancient past would be able to visit Andromeda on its own. The work was tricky. It was difficult to nudge the development of the past without robbing it of its drive to dream, causing it the same handicap that was responsible for the present stagnation.
In becoming stagnant, they had already encountered the bomb Andromeda had planted for them, but there was one more danger they had not yet encountered. It was a failsafe Andromeda had planted lest they find this loophole to their stagnation. In billions of tinkering sessions with the past, they had not encountered the trap, then they did.
They caused an eruption of anti-time. The anomaly grew as it reached into the past until it was contained just beyond Milky Way's boundaries by its own nature. Life had never developed in the Milky Way. P had been prevented. Chapter 5
Andromeda was sure Q would not be too mad. Surely, Q would be content to wait for the next P. Andromeda did not understand how much Q would suffer. Andromeda understood what it was to have something and then lose it. It had lost a friend, but stagnant Andromeda could not understand what it had taken from Q.
Q erased Andromeda.
Q had to get P back. The damage to the Milky Way was not the greatest Q had seen, but it was the greatest he ever cared about. And, what about the damage to him?
For such an awesome sentience to be subjected to such suffering was a far greater tragedy than the fate of one galaxy that would never know what it could have been.
What was worse was that Q was now too damaged to escape this suffering since he was inadequate to become an S. He had nothing to offer a Q that may one day develop without aspiration and he had nothing to offer another P without perfection. He was stuck this way forever
What would be the point of winking P back into existence if he were still damaged? Preventing Andromeda's interference would tip-off the past.
He couldn't warn his previous self because the knowledge that was tormenting him would cause it the same damage. He couldn't warn P either since he had always known everything P knew and Q would be damaged just the same.
He wanted to be able to torment Andromeda in its past, that's why he hadn't destroyed it in its past. There was another reason not to destroy Andromeda in its past. If interacting with its neighbor was P's proper history, what if P could develop very similarly as before, except with resistance to interference so that the same joining could take place?
Q would change the Milky Way in one way-not to give it more ability to dream, but to bolster its reverence for dreaming so that the "help" of a higher power would be looked on with disdain. In P's proper history, higher powers had not given it interfering help.
Failure was possible. Q was not perfect.
Q created a part of himself that could bring the mission into the past without warning the undamaged Q. This part had a purpose trivial enough not to prevent the undamaged Q from seeking a less trivial purpose from P. This part of Q took on being an object of disdain as its purpose.
Q made it so that this part of Q always existed so that the undamaged Q would not question its presence. After all, the undamaged Q never needed a reason to exist, why would this part of Q need a reason to be an object of disdain.
Chapter 6
Q the tormenter once met a creature, Guinan. He talked and this Guinan just let him. What terrified him was that she listened so well, she almost understood his purpose there-in this existence. He would have just destroyed her, but he needed this creature. He needed her to help him teach Milky Way inhabitants things they needed to know about their own potential.
Her people were far advanced compared to the rest of the Milky Way. It was their fate that a blight that existed in this galaxy at this time would thin their numbers. It was a setback for the galaxy's development. Anyhow, an intact race of listeners might not have been the right ingredient for the galaxy to move on to become P. The added dash of passivity may have produced another stagnant sentience like Andromeda.
There was a man who had been a great hero when the Borg blight threatened his part of the galaxy. This man was adamant about a philosophy, the Prime Directive. This philosophy would have made the Milky Way more resistant to Andromeda's interference had it been as timeless as his race's sense of adventure.
He was quite developed for his race, humanity, a key to what the Milky Way would become. This man, Jean-Luc Picard, had the potential to be a key to what humanity would become.
Consistent with his role as a troublemaker, he caused predators from a parallel universe to interfere with Guinan's history in a way that would cause her to meet Jean-Luc Picard.
Q put Picard and his crew on trial for the crimes of his race to test him. He needed to now just how much potential this man had because the Milky Way's proper history had not tested him to his limits. Q was dismayed when Picard spouted laws and rights in his defense, but saw hope when he showed a bit more flexibility in solving the mystery of Far Point Station.
The crew actually thought the mystery was the test. He couldn't write a worse play of events that were to pass for adventure. He let them think that while he continued his influence.
He thought joining the crew would be the best way to influence this man so that he could see his own potential, but the creature was so limited he refused. Wait, refusing the help of a higher power-that was exactly the trait he was trying to promote. Very well, he would see to it that Picard would be even more of a hero when the Borg came to his quadrant by giving him an exclusive sneak peak.
He'd seen to it Picard would be revered even more, but it wasn't just Picard he wanted to be revered, it was his philosophies. He wanted all to revere his philosophies as Will Riker, his first officer, did.
He offered Riker the chance to join Q. When Riker ultimately did not accept the gift, observers were in awe. To refuse the ultimate gift just not to be left out of the adventure-such an awesome story found its way into ballads across the galaxy, far beyond parts of the galaxy that knew of humanity. The story morphed as it spread to fit the paradigms of the bards, but the massage was intact, laced with the keen observations Picard had made at the story's climax.
This had been an incredible success. Reverence for adventure above accelerated development along with the higher power being portrayed a villain had been promoted in the galaxy's cultures.
Why would a perfect being put its powers to such trivial use? Undamaged Q condemned tormenter Q to mortality. Had Q enough time, Q would have completed the mission before answering the charges, but asking for time would have tipped-off undamaged Q. His only hope was to devote his remaining days to influencing Picard. He chose to become a human and asked to be sent to Picard.
He soon realized creatures he had tormented as part of his cover would destroy Picard to get to him. His existence as a human had been pathetic and it was about to come to an end. As a mortal, he still knew he had not completed his mission in the short time he'd been human. If he had, he wouldn't be in this existence. He would be S.
In any case, it was a chance to end his suffering. Undamaged Q did not allow him to sacrifice himself, though. His powers were restored and he now had a plausible reason from undamaged Q's perspective to act more benevolently and concentrate more on Picard than his tormenter role alone had allowed-gratitude.
Q once met a girlfriend of Picard's. The woman was so shallow, Q did not want humanity to see her as the woman behind the man. He had to show Picard how foolish his attachment was.
He reached into her past and caused her parents to name her Vash, a collections of sounds that meant "cow" in Picard's native French. He sent Picard on a ridiculous Robin Hood adventure so he could see how weak this attachment made him. In the end, he had to lure her away from Picard.
The final part of his plan was to finish the trial he had started. Had Picard not passed earlier tests, Q would not have risked finishing the trial. He would have moved on to a more enlightened being. The consequences of failure were too great.
More for irony than to warn the Milky Way of what could destroy it, he chose an eruption of anti-time as the threat Picard would face. There were too many ways the Milky Way could destroy itself to seriously consider warning them about them all.
Picard was pushed forward and backward through time, facing the threat of the anomaly and ultimately the realization that he had caused it. In the moment of realization, the greatest adventure the universe had ever encountered was resolved.
The fear of destroying the galaxy emblazoned the lessons of Picard's adventures on the Milky Way. They studied his voyages, intent to avoid what seemed like a specific trap. In their study, they learned so much more. Chapter 7
There was no more damaged Q. There was only S.
That which was Q asked, "What do we do now?"
That which was P replied, "We have an idea."
That which was Q replied, "Make it so."