DEATH WISH
Episode 34
Part D

 

Reference to "Q2" should not be confused with the "Q2" who appears in the Season 7 episode [Q2]. Click on any image that shows a link to see it larger.

Q senses victory

Riker: "Q! What the hell is going on?" Quickly Janeway approaches the witnesses to reassure them. Janeway: "My apologies, Commander, to you all. My name is Kathryn Janeway-" Riker: "Captain Janeway, USS Voyager?" Riker and Janeway shake hands warmly." Janeway: "That's correct, Commander. You're aboard Voyager. We're lost in the Delta Quadrant. And as much as I wish you could tell them that when you get home your memories will be wiped before you get back." Ginsberg, believing himself to be stoned: "God, if you let me live through this, I promise I'll clean up my act, I swear." Newton: "I demand an explanation!" To Ginsberg: "Why are you dressed like this, young man?" Ginsberg to Newton: "Man, have you looked in a mirror lately?" Janeway: "Allow me to explain, Mr-?" Ginsberg: "Ginsberg. Maury Ginsberg." Newton: "Sir Isaac Newton." Riker to Ginsberg and Newton: "William Riker. Nice to meet you." Janeway hesitates as she tries to work out how to explain the situation to Ginsberg and Newton, both of whom are here well before their time periods and have not experienced space travel, let alone warp travel, and certainly know nothing about the Q Continuum. "Consider for a moment that it might be possible to travel forward in time, say to the 24th century, onto a starship, 75,000 light-years from Earth-" She realises that Ginsberg and Newton are completely at a loss. She tries again: "You're having a very strange dream, and in this dream you're seeing this man whom you've all met before-" Janeway indicates Q2 who waves to them. Newton recognises him! Newton to Q2: "But I have seen you before. You were sitting under the tree the day-" Q: "The day the apple fell on your head?" Newton: "Yes, that's right." Q: "Quite a day, wasn't it? As a matter of fact, this man jostled the tree when he got up to leave-" Newton: "Just before the apple fell, yes." Q: "And a new era in human science was born." Now Ginsberg seems to recognise Q2 and says to him: "Wait a minute, weren't you the guy in the jeep?" Q2 nods. Q: "The 'guy in the jeep', who picked you up after your own vehicle broke down that summer afternoon, isn't that so?" Ginsberg: "Oh man, he was a lifesaver. My van died and they dragged it off the road because of all the traffic. It was backed up for miles." Q prompts him: "You were on your way to a job, weren't you?" Ginsberg: "Yeah, I was supposed to be the on the follow-spot up in tower 3. I never would've made it in time if it weren't for him." To Q2: "Hey, whatever happened with that groovy chick with the long red beads in the back seat? I've been looking for her ever since you dropped me off." Q2: "You'll see her again, don't worry." Q: "To sum up: you were a spotlight operator at an outdoor concert of some sort, a concert that was put in jepardy moments before it was to begin, because the entire sound system failed. Ginsberg: "It was no big deal. Somebody must've snagged an extension cord with one of the trucks, that's all. I'm just lucky I noticed it." Q: "Yes, lucky you were at the right place at the right time, or it would have taken days to track down the problem, and there would have been no concert." Riker: "Well, I'm sorry to say I have met him," gesturing towards Q, "but I've never seen this man before." Q: "Are you sure?" Tuvok: "Has it not been established that my client was in captivity during all of Commander Riker's lifetime?" Q snaps into existence an easel on which is a large black and white poorly preserved picture. "Have you ever seen this photograph before?" Riker looks, smiles and goes over to it. "Sure I have. That is Colonel Thaddius Riker after he was wounded at Pine Mountain. They use to call him Iron Boots. He was in command of the 102nd New York during General Sherman's march on Atlanta. This picture was taken in 1864, just after they let him out of the army hospital." Q: "And the soldier beside him?" The soldier next to Iron Boots is Q2! Riker: "I'll be damned! It's him." Q: "As a matter of fact, he carried your wounded ancestor two miles from the front line." To Q2: "Didn't you?" Q2 shrugs modestly, agreeing. Q moves from witness to witness to draw attention to them as he sums up: "My point is, Captain, that Q has had a profound influence on these three lives. Without Q Isaac Newton," coming to stand by him to indicate him, "would have died forgotten in a Liverpool debtor's prison, a suspect in several prostitute murders." He moves to Ginsberg. "Without Q there would have been no concert at er-" Q2: "Woodstock." Q: "-wherever. More importantly Mr Ginsberg here would never have met his future wife, the 'groovy chick with the long red beads', and he would never have become a successful orthodontist settled in Scarsdale with four kids." Ginsberg: "Far out." Q: "Yes. Without Q there would have been no William T. Riker at all. And I would have lost at least a dozen really good opportunities to insult him over the years. Oh, and lest I forget, without Q the Borg would have assimilated the Federation." To the witnesses: "Thank you. Thank you." Ginsberg raises his fingers in a 'cool' farewell to Q2, who with good humour responds the same way. With a flash the witnesses vanish. "This is the life Q treats without respect." To Janeway: "This is the life that he would give up so easily." Tuvok: "May I remind this hearing and my learned colleague that for the last three centuries my client has not been allowed contact with anyone. At this time, we would like to reproduce the environment in which he's been confined." Q: "I object!" Janeway: "No, I'll allow this." With a hand gesture from Q2 and a corresponding brilliant flash of white light, everyone is crammed together most uncomfortably in a tiny freezing space inside the comet. Tuvok: "These are the conditions my client would be forced to live in for eternity if you deny asylum, Captain." Q: "We just want him to have time to reconsider his position." Q2: "I will never change my mind." Q to Q2: "This is your own doing. You could live a perfectly normal life if you were simply willing to live a perfectly normal life." Janeway: "I've seen enough. Please return us to the hearing room." Q2 gestures with his hand and with a flash they are all back in the hearing room, at their respective tables. Tuvok: "I would submit that the quality of life my client will have to endure should be considered in this proceeding." Janeway: "I don't like those conditions any more than you do, Mr Tuvok." To Q2: "And I wouldn't want to spend another day there if I were you, Q. But I'm here to rule on a request for asylum, not to judge the penal system of the Q Continuum. And he," gesturing at Q, "does have a point: you were confined only to prevent you from doing harm to yourself." She picks up and reads from a PADD: "I've been doing a great deal of research, studying a variety of cultural attitudes on suicide to help me frame the basis of a decision. Mr Tuvok, are you familiar with the 'double effect' principle on assisted suicide that dates back to the Bolian Middle Ages?" Tuvok: "I believe it relates to the relief of suffering, does it not, Captain?" Janeway: "It states: An action that has the principal effect of relieving suffering may be ethically justified even though the same action has the secondary effect of possibly causing death." To Q2: "This principle is the only thing I can find that could possibly convince me to decide in your favour, Q. And yet, as I look at you, you don't seem by our standards aged, infirm or in any pain. Can you show this hearing that you suffer in any manner other than that caused by the conditions of your incarceration? any suffering that would justified a decision to grant you asylum?" As Q2 and Tuvok look uncertain Q senses victory for the Q Continuum is near. Tuvok: "May I request a recess to consider our response, Captain?" Janeway: "Granted."