Picard: Captain's log, stardate 41590.5.
Having dropped off counselor troi
at starbase 6-6 for a shuttle visit home,
we were fortunately close to the sigma lll solar system
when its federation colony transmitted an urgent call
for medical help.
An accidental explosion has devastated a mining operation there.
Include a burn unit with each kit.
Upon arrival, identify the most critically injured
and beam them up to cargo bay 6.
Picard: Dr. Crusher, this is the captain.
Dr. Crusher here.
Additional information.
The number of colonists at the site is 504.
Are you prepared for that many, doctor?
We believe so, sir.
Captain, we are now at warp 9.1, sir.
Which will bring us to the colony in 3.2 hours, sir.
Captain, I have a schematic from the explosion site.
Suggest the cause may be a methane-like gas
seeping in from underground.
Captain, I'm picking up a force field out there of some kind. It's almost...
Q entity, sir.
It is identical to the grid we encountered when...
It reads solid, sir.
Emergency, full stop.
Reversing power, sir.
Not now, damn it, q.
Shields and deflectors up, sir.
Now reading at full stop, sir.
Humans, I thought by now
that you would've scampered back to your own little star system.
If this is q I'm addressing,
we are on a mission of rescue to a group of badly injured...
We of the q have studied our recent contact with you
and are impressed.
We have much to discuss,
including perhaps the realization of your most impossible dream.
However intriguing that may be, q,
we are in the midst of an urgentjourney.
Once that is completed, then perhaps...
You will abandon that mission, captain.
My business with you takes precedence.
If my magnificence blinds you,
then perhaps something more familiar.
Starfleet admiral q at your service.
Picard: Space, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the starship enterprise.
Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds,
to seek out new life and new civilizations,
to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Picard: Captain's log, supplemental.
Our mission to the solar system has been halted by an immense grid
and an untimely visit from q.
You are no starfleet admiral, q.
Neither am I an aldebaran serpent, captain,
but you accepted me as such.
Well, he's got us there, captain.
Ah. The redoubtable commander riker, whom I noticed before.
You seem to find this all very amusing.
I might, if we weren't on our way
to help some suffering and dying humans who...
Oh, your species is always suffering and dying.
Picard: No, lieutenant worf.
You'll make no move against him unless I order it.
Pity.
You might have learned an interesting lesson.
Macro head, ha-ha, with a micro brain.
You said you had the realization
of impossible dreams to offer us?
When this rescue is completed, I am prepared to listen carefully
to whatever proposal you wish to make,
and subject to its being acceptable.
Subject to your own foolish human values?
Oh, come, picard. Why do you distrust me so?
Why?
At our first meeting you seized my vessel.
You condemned all humans as savages.
And on that charge, you tried us
in a post-atomic, let-century court of horrors
where you attacked my people!
You again seized my vessel.
And that angered you, did it? "Seized my vessel, seized my vessel."
You interfered with our farpoint mission.
You threatened to convict us as ignorant savages.
If, while dealing with a powerful and complex life form,
we made the slightest mistake and when that didn't happen...
The q became interested in you.
Does no one here understand your incredible good fortune?
"Seized my vessel."
These are the complaints of a closed mind
too accustomed to military privileges.
But you, riker, and I remember you well,
what do you make of my offer?
We don't have time for these games.
Games? Did someone say "games"?
And perchance for interest's sake, a deadly game?
To the game.
Riker: Where are we?
Obviously, a class-m world.
Gravity and oxygen within our limits.
Twin moons?
Where are we?
Considering the power demonstrated by q the last time,
anywhere.
Assuming this place even exists.
But it won't be boring.
If q is anything, he's imaginative.
Apparently our captain wasn't meant to be here with us.
Security, this is the captain.
Security?
Engineering, this is the bridge.
Turbolift control, do you read?
This is the captain.
Sir, over there.
Join me, riker.
A good game needs rules and planning.
Wasn't it your own hartley who said:
"Nothing reveals humanity so well as the games it plays?"
Almost right.
Actually, you reveal yourselves best in how you play.
Sir, what he has in mind might provide us with vital information.
Incredible.
I was just thinking about an old-fashioned lemonade.
And so it became that.
An excellent thirst quencher.
It gets rather hot out here on this plain.
What about my people?
Oh, whatever they'd like, of course.
Drink not with thine enemy.
The rigid klingon code.
Explains something of why you defeated them. Hmm.
You're still fascinated with the human past.
Perhaps you're not that original.
Au contraire, it's the human future which intrigues us.
And should concern you the most.
You see, of all the species, yours cannot abide stagnation.
Change is at the heart of what you are.
But change into what? That's the question.
That is what humans call a truism.
You mean hardly original? Heh.
You're the one who said it.
While we're at it,
this isn't part of any human future.
True. I borrowed this from your stodgy captain's mind.
This is the dressing for a game that we will play.
Now, games require rules and rewards and dangers
and familiar settings, that sort of thing.
This isn't that familiar to me. Data?
This is from Europe's napoleonic era, sir.
Late 18th, early 19th centuries.
This is a campaign headquarters tent,
his uniform is that of a French army marshal.
And a marshal outranks even an admiral.
Well, do you think I would go
from a starfleet admiral to anything else?
Of course you wouldn't.
But napoleonic equipment on an alien planet,
one so different, it has twin moons.
Well, as you've said, I'm nothing if not imaginative.
And the game should reflect that.
Should it be a test of strength?
Meaningless, since you have none.
A test of intelligence, then?
Equally as meaningless.
But it needs risk.
Something to win and something to lose.
If we must play a game, what would we win?
The greatest possible future that you can imagine.
Which, of course, requires something totally disastrous if you were to lose.
Now, the point of this game shall be:
Can any of you stay alive?
If your game is fair, we will.
Oh, for shame, worf.
Fairness is such a human concept. Think imaginatively.
This game shall, in fact, be completely unfair.
- You've gone too far. - Game penalty.
Where is she, q?
You could forget your game if...
To use a 20th-century term, she's in a penalty box.
Where she will remain unharmed, unless one of you merits a penalty.
Unfortunately, there's only one penalty box.
If any of you should be sent there,
dear Tasha must give the box up to you.
And where does she go?
Into nothingness.
I entreat you to carefully obey the rules of the game.
The only one who can destroy your Tasha now is you.
Captain's log.
Picard: Captain's log.
Damn it, I can't even make a log entry.
Tasha: I wish I could help you, captain.
Where is everyone else?
Down on some planet.
Some planet? What are you doing here?
Well, I, uh... uh...
It sounds strange,
but I'm in a penalty box.
The penalty box?
Q's penalty box.
It sounds strange, but it definitely isn't.
I know that one more penalty,
by anyone,
and I'm gone.
- Gone? - Yes, I am gone.
It is so frustrating to be controlled like this.
Lieutenant.
Tasha, it's all right.
What in the hell am I doing? Crying?
Don't worry.
There is a new ship standing order on the bridge.
When one is in the penalty box, tears are permitted.
Captain.
Oh, if you weren't a captain...
Consorting with lower-ranked females, captain?
Especially ones in penalty boxes?
Destructive to discipline, they say.
But then again, you're what?
You're only human.
Penalty over.
A marshal of France?
Ridiculous.
Well, one takes the jobs he can get.
For example, starlog entry.
Stardate today.
This is q, speaking for captain Jean-Luc picard,
who we consider to be too bound by starfleet customs and traditions
to be useful to us.
The enterprise is now helpless,
stuck like an earth insect in Amber,
while its bridge crew plays out a game whose real intent is to test
whether the first officer is worthy of the greatest gift the q can offer.
So you're taking on riker this time.
Excellent. He'll defeat you just as I did.
Shall we wager on that, captain?
Your starship command against...
Against your keeping out of humanity's path forever.
- Done? - Done.
You've already lost, picard.
Riker will be offered something impossible to refuse.
Geordi, can you see worf?
I'd see the freckles on his nose, if he had them, sir.
He's at the third Ridge.
The third Ridge?
Mm-hm. Moving well too. Uh-oh.
Oh. Good. He sees them.
Listen to me, q.
You seem to have some need for humans.
Hmm. Concern regarding them.
Well, whatever it is, why do you demonstrate it
through this confrontation?
Why not a simple direct explanation?
A statement of what you seek?
Why these games?
Why these game?
Well, the play's the thing.
And I'm surprised you have to ask,
when your human Shakespeare explained it all so well.
So he did, but don't depend too much on any one single viewpoint.
It's a pity you don't know the content of your own library.
Hear this, picard, and reflect.
All the galaxy's a stage.
World, not galaxy. All the world's a stage.
Oh, you know that one.
Well, if he were living now, he would have said galaxy.
How about this?
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more: It is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.
I see.
So how we respond to a game
tells you more about us than our real life.
This tale told by an idiot.
- Interesting, q. - Oh, thank you very much.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Perhaps maybe a little Hamlet?
Oh, I know Hamlet.
And what he might say with irony, I say with conviction.
What a piece of work is man!
How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty!
In form, in moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel!
In apprehension how like a god!
Surely you don't see your species like that, do you?
I see us one day becoming that, q.
Is it that which concerns you?
Those soldiers have formed a skirmishing line,
I think you'd call it.
And they're headed this way.
Armed with ancient ball-and-powder muskets?
That's what their weapons look like, sir.
Muskets are appropriate to the 1790 to 1800 French army uniform, sir.
But it is hardly a weapon by our standards.
A lead ball propelled by gunpowder.
One hundred meters at best with any accuracy.
Yeah, but against phasers?
Just one of our hand phasers could finish off an entire regiment.
Except for one thing.
That hardly sounds like q to give us an advantage like that.
Unless...
Drop your weapons.
I'm afraid that was me, worf.
I was checking to see if the phasers still operate.
Incredible, worf. You came out of nowhere.
A warrior's reaction.
Riker: Report. What did you find?
Sir, what they're wearing may be old earth uniforms,
but what's inside of them isn't human at all.
More like vicious animal things.
Those soldiers are moving in fast, sir.
Data, if you've got a theory about what's happening...
Think fast, commander riker, and move fast.
Those aren't muskets.
You have only one chance to save them now.
Send them back to the ship.
You'll let me beam them?
Send them the same way I do.
I've given you the power.
Do you understand? I have given you the power of the q.
Use your power.
Lieutenant, take the conn position.
Engineering, this is the bridge.
Eng I n eer: Engineering here, sir.
Engineering, are all systems back online?
Back online, sir? They were never off.
Captain, you better look at this.
There's been no interruption in course or speed.
Both have remained constant.
It's as though we've never stopped.
We never did, lieutenant.
Q suspended time.
Where's commander riker?
He was with us.
La forge: He must still be on the planet.
We were under attack by these animal things.
Animal things?
Well, maybe data could explain it better, sir.
You may find it aesthetically displeasing, sir.
I could just file a computer report on that.
- Data...? - Sir, the important thing right now
is why is commander riker missing?
Understood, lieutenant.
But I suspect that commander riker is probably perfectly safe,
at least in a physical sense.
Q has an interest in him.
In fact, q's entire visit
has something to do with our first officer.
- And the reason for that, sir? - Picard: I wish I knew.
Q first became interested in him at farpoint.
I have no idea what it means.
Meanwhile, we must proceed with our rescue mission.
Something amuses you?
Perhaps you'll share the joke with me?
The joke is you.
Strange gratitude
from one who has been granted a gift beyond any human dream.
How can you not appreciate being able to send your friends back to their ship,
or send the soldiers back
to the nothingness from which they came?
Certainly you must understand that, at this moment,
you can send yourself back to the ship,
or to earth, or change your shape
and become anything you want to be.
What do you need, q?
- Need? - You want something from us.
Desperately. What is it?
Want something from you foolish, fragile non-entities?
Oh, come, riker.
You're beginning to sound like your captain.
Now that's a compliment, q, but that's not an answer.
Riker, we have offered you a gift beyond all other gifts.
Out of the goodness of your heart.
After farpoint, I returned to where we exist, the q continuum.
Which means exactly what?
The limitless dimensions of the galaxy in which we exist.
I don't understand.
Of course, you don't. And you never will.
- Until you become one of us. - Until?
Would you mind going over that again?
Well, if you'd stop interrupting me.
I mean, this is hardly a time
to be teaching you the true nature of the universe.
However,
at farpoint, we saw you as savages only.
We discovered instead that you are unusual creatures
in your own limited ways,
ways which, in time, will not be so limited.
We're growing.
Something about us compels us to learn, explore.
Yes, the human compulsion.
And unfortunately for us,
it is a power which will grow stronger century after century, eon after eon.
Eons.
Have you any idea how far we'll advance?
Perhaps in a future that you cannot yet conceive,
even beyond us.
So you see, we must know more about this human compulsion.
That's why we selected you, riker, to become part of the q,
so that you can bring to us this human need and hunger,
that we may better understand it.
I suppose that's meant as a compliment, q.
Or maybe it's my limited mind.
But to become a part of you?
I don't even like you.
You're gonna miss me.
Come on, not again.
Commander riker, what's going on?
I was sitting in school and...
Worf, my phaser's gone. Are you armed?
Where is q?
If you have an answer to any of this...
Worf!
Worf! Picard: Look out!
- Wesley! No! Wesley! - Tasha: Wes!
Picard: Wesley.
Riker: No, damn it!
Damn it to hell!
You did that.
And that's not all.
That grid. Their wounds.
Only the q can do that.
Picard: Captain's log, stardate 415914.
Twelve minutes out from quadra sigma lll
where the survivors of an underground disaster
desperately need our help.
Aboard the enterprise, first officer William t. Riker
needs help nearly as badly.
But this is a subject far out of my experience,
out of any human's experience.
Will.
How the hell do I advise you?
You know the implications as well as I.
No one has ever offered to turn me into a god before.
What the q has offered you has got to be close to immortality, will.
They're not lying about controlling time and space.
We've seen it in what they can do.
You've also seen it in what I can do.
If you're gonna refuse his offer,
you must not allow yourself to use this power again.
It's too great a temptation for us at our present stage of development.
Are you worried that I won't be able to say no to it?
You tell me.
Are you strong enough to refuse to use that power?
Certainly.
No matter how tempted?
No matter how difficult q makes it for you?
You have my word.
Good. I know what your word means.
Data: In orbit of quadra sigma ill, sir.
Ready to beam down rescue team to underground emergency area.
This way, sir.
Are there any others?
Gone. It's just us.
Commander.
There's somebody under here.
La forge: You're getting close, data.
Crusher: It's too late.
She's dead.
If only we'd gotten here a little sooner.
Sir, if indeed you have the power of q...
I don't understand.
Certainly you can't bring her back to life.
Riker: I can't.
I'm prevented from that by a promise.
I should have never made that agreement with you.
I could have saved that child.
You were right not to try.
Once you became accustomed to that power, number one...
When I used it before, what happened?
I saved most of our bridge crew.
And when you grow to like it too much?
As soon as it's convenient, captain,
I want a meeting with you and your bridge staff.
As soon as we are secure with this rescue operation,
I'll discuss all that this new power...
We can confer here on the bridge if no one has any objec...
The bridge will be fine, since I've called the entire staff.
Correction, number one.
Knowing the decision you face, I have permitted you this gathering.
Of course, Jean-Luc.
Wesley, this meeting is not for you.
Why not, sir?
You helped make me a bridge officer.
Acting ensign.
All right, he stays.
Because I've been given unusual powers,
I'm not suddenly a monster.
Except for these abilities,
and I don't yet know how far they go,
I'm the same William t. Riker you've always known.
Well?
Everyone still looks uncomfortable.
Perhaps they're all remembering that old saying, "power corrupts."
And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Do you believe I haven't thought of that, Jean-Luc?
And have you noticed how you and I are now on a first name basis?
Number one.
Will.
Something has happened already.
In what way?
Haven't you seen how much I regretted not saving that child?
Using the power of q to save her may not have been wrong.
No more than it was wrong to save the rest of you
from those soldier things.
Let's keep in mind that that particular danger was invented by q.
What we represent to the q, commander, are lowly animals
tormented into performing for their amusement.
Actually, they think very highly of us, Tasha.
We have a quality of growth which they admire.
Or fear.
We've learned the q do not admire us.
The q has muddled your mind.
Don't you understand his incredible gift to me?
Are these truly your friends, brother?
Let us pray for understanding and for compassion.
Let us do no such damned thing.
What is this need of yours for costumes, q?
Have you no identity of your own?
I come in search of the truth.
You come in search of what humanity is.
I forgive your blasphemy!
Can't you see, riker?
He's nothing but a flimflam man.
He's been that ever since we met him at farpoint.
Flimflam?
You offer riker jealousy.
What I offer him is clearly beyond your comprehension.
How can you claim friendship for riker while obstructing his way
to the greatest adventure ever offered a human?
Obstructing him?
Then it's not yet certain. He's not yet committed.
The truly evil part of all this, captain, is yourjealousy.
You love each one of your people.
Demonstrate it.
You have the power to leave each one of them
with a gift proving your affection.
There'd be no harm, would there?
If I gave them something I know they'd like?
Ah. How touching.
A plea to his former captain.
May I please give happiness to my friends, sir? Please, sir?
In fact, I authorize and support your idea, riker.
Please, feel free to cooperate with him, if you wish.
- Are you certain, sir? - Picard: Quite certain, data.
By all means, demonstrate your gifts of affection.
Don't be frightened.
There is no way I could harm any of you.
Shall I guess your dreams?
Leave now, Wesley.
No. Wesley I may know best of all.
Our friendship, our long talks.
No, please.
Have your favorite wish, my young friend.
You're 10 years older. A man.
Hey. Wes. Not bad.
No, sir.
But it's what you've always wanted, data. To become human.
Data: Yes, sir. That is true.
But I never wanted to compound one illusion with another.
It might be real to q,
perhaps even you, sir,
but it would never be so to me.
Was it not one of the captain's favorite authors who wrote:
"This above all, to thine own self be true."
Sorry, commander, I must decline.
And you, my friend, I know what you want.
You're as beautiful as I imagined.
And more.
Then we can throw away the visor?
I don't think so, sir.
The price is a little too high for me.
And I don't like who I'd have to thank.
Make me the way I was.
Please.
Riker: Proud warrior worf.
Without a single tie to his own kind.
She is from a world now alien to me.
Worf, is this your idea of sex?
This is sex.
But I have no place for it in my life now.
No place, microbrain? What possesses you?
Commander riker, it's too soon for this.
If this is because your mother objects...
Wesley: No.
I just wanna get there on my own.
Honest.
But it's easier, boy. Listen to riker.
How did you know, sir?
I feel like such an idiot.
Quite right, so you should.
It's all over, q. You have no further business here.
Human, you have just destroyed yourself.
- Pay off your wager. - I recall no wager.
I'm sure your fellow q remember that you agreed
never to trouble our species again, just as they're aware
that you've failed to tempt a human to join you.
No, no, if I could just do one more thing.
Q, I strongly suspect, there's some explaining you have to do now.
Extraordinary.
Captain, we are showing that same hole in time again.
Our instruments say, we just now beamed back from our rescue mission.
Sir, how is it that the q can handle time and space so well
and us so badly?
Perhaps someday we will discover
that space and time are simpler than the human equation.
No coordinates laid in, number one?
Yes, sir.
You have my coordinates, la forge.
Aye, sir. On the board.
Engage.