Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series)
True Q (1992)
Patrick Stewart: Captain Jean-Luc Picard
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Quotes
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Your... arrogant pretense at being the moral guardians of the universe strikes me as being hollow, Q. I see no evidence that you're guided by a superior moral code or any code whatsoever. You may be nearly omnipotent, and I don't deny that your... parlor tricks are very impressive. But morality, I don't see it. I don't acknowledge it, Q! I would put human morality against the Q's any day. And perhaps that's the reason that we fascinate you so - because our puny behavior shows you a glimmer of the one thing that evades your omnipotence: a moral center. And if so, I can think of no crueler irony than that you should destroy this young woman, whose only crime is that she's too human.
Q : Jean-Luc... Sometimes I think the only reason I come here is to listen to these wonderful speeches of yours.
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard : You've made yourself judge and jury - and if necessary, executioner. By what right have you appointed yourself to this position?
Q : Superior morality.
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Q : She was being impetuous. She'll just have to start behaving like a Q.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : If I'm not mistaken, she just did.
[after Amanda has smashed Q against a wall]
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Commander, have you been able to determine the cause of the warp breach?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : No, sir. Everything was normal, and then suddenly it's like the laws of physics went right out the window.
[characteristic flash of Q appearing]
Q : And why shouldn't they? They're so inconvenient.
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [on Amanda's parents] The circumstance of their death's quite odd. A tornado somehow escaped the weather modification net and touched down in only one spot - Amanda's home.
Q : Well - you can never predict the weather.
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Doctor Beverly Crusher : [Picard, Riker, Crusher, LaForge and Troi have assembled in the Observation Lounge to discuss Amanda Rogers, a new intern aboard the Enterprise, who mysteriously contained a warp core breach by sheer force of will alone] She's a little shaken up, but she's gonna be fine.
Commander William T. Riker : You said she was adopted. Could she be an alien?
Doctor Beverly Crusher : She's human. There's nothing more unusual about her. Not that my instruments can detect.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Commander, have you been able to determine the cause of the warp breach?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : No, Sir. Everything was normal and then suddenly it's like the laws of physics went right out the window.
Q : [Q materialises in one of the empty chairs wearing his usual Starfleet uniform] And why shouldn't they? They're so inconvenient.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [a collective air of dismay suddenly descends on the room] Q!
Q : Mon Capitan.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Are you responsible for this incident in Engineering?
Q : [surprisingly upfront about it] Of course. I needed to find out if what I suspected about the girl were true.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : That being?
Q : That she's a Q.
Counselor Deanna Troi : Amanda's a Q?
Doctor Beverly Crusher : How is that possible? Her, her parents... her biological parents were human.
Q : Well, not exactly. They had assumed human form in order to visit Earth, I suppose for... for amusement. But in vulgar human fashion they proceeded to conceive a child...
[he winks at Beverly who looks thoroughly insulted]
Q : ... and then like mawkish humans they became attached to it. What is it about these squirming little infants that you find so appealing?
Doctor Beverly Crusher : I'm sure that's beyond your comprehension, Q.
Q : I desperately hope so.
Counselor Deanna Troi : What happened to Amanda's parents?
Q : They died in an accident.
[that gets Picard's attention but keeps it to himself for now]
Q : None of us knew whether she had inherited the capacities of the Q but recently they've begun to emerge and er... as an expert in humanity... I was sent to investigate.
Commander William T. Riker : You... an expert in humanity?
Q : Not a very challenging field of study, I grant you.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge : Are you saying that you created a core breach just to test this girl?
Q : Uh huh.
Counselor Deanna Troi : What would have happened if she couldn't stop it?
Q : Then I would have known she wasn't a Q.
Doctor Beverly Crusher : And now that you know - what do you intend to do?
Q : Instruct her. If this child does not learn how to control her power she may accidentally destroy herself... or all of you... or perhaps your entire galaxy?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : I find it hard to believe that you're here to do us a favour.
Q : You're quite right. I wouldn't. But there are those in the Continuum...
[raises his eyes skyward]
Q : ... who have an over exaggerated sense of responsibility. They think that we need to take precautions to keep the little dear from running amok.
Doctor Beverly Crusher : And once you've taught her... then you'll go away?
Q : And leave her here? Of course not. She'll come back to the Continuum where she belongs.
Doctor Beverly Crusher : Wait a minute! You, you can't just come in here and take her away from everything she's ever known.
Q : [laughs that off] I assure you I can.
Doctor Beverly Crusher : She has plans for herself. She wants to have a career and a family.
Q : I'm rescuing her from that miserable existence.
Doctor Beverly Crusher : That miserable existence is all she's known for the last eighteen years. You have no right to take her away from it!
Q : [bored with the direction this conversation has taken] Mon Capitan, I really think that we need to speak privately.
[Q transports them both to Picard's Ready Room]
Q : Well, there, that's better. Crusher gets more shrill with each passing year.
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Very well, I will introduce you; but... we cannot argue like this in front of her. We must at least appear to be...
Q : [putting an arm around Picard's shoulder] Pals?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Civil.
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Amanda, er... Allow me to introduce... er... Q... Er, he's, erm... he's an acquaintance of ours. We've, er, we've known him... for years...
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard : I have no reason to believe that Q is lying. He claims he has orders from the Continuum. If Amanda cannot prove that she is fully Q, then he must kill her.
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[first lines]
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [voiceover] Captain's log, stardate 46192.3. We have arrived at Starbase 112 and are loading relief supplies destined for Tagra 4, an ecologically devastated planet in the Argolis Cluster. We have also taken on a rather unusual passenger.