Star Trek: Picard · Season 1
When I first came to work here, I saw you as a man who chose the stars. And after all this time, I've come to wonder, have you been seeking or running? Am I being too personal?
No. Please, go on.
Why have you chosen to be alone?
I'm hardly alone.
You know what I mean.
As you say, I've spent my life in the stars.
And is that what you really want? All you really want?
The part of me that really wants is the part that has to wait in line.
Behind what?
Duty, I suppose. The need to keep on moving.
The problem isn't time — it's you. You always talk about love as if you ever took it seriously. And you know the only things you’ve ever put out there to break were your bones, and the only thing you ever risked losing was your life.
That's not an insignificant loss.
There are worse things than being dead. You know that better than anybody.
[To Picard] There you are. I've been looking everywhere for you with a cup of what is now, definitely, Earl Grey, cold.
Jean-Luc Picard (giving an address at Starfleet Academy): We often refer to space as the final frontier. But the older I get, the more I come to believe that the true final frontier is time. In command, as in life, what we do in crisis often weighs upon us less heavily than what we wish we had done, what could have been. Time offers many opportunities, but it rarely offers second chances. And as steps forward go I would like to acknowledge your classmate the first fully Romulan cadet at Starfleet Academy: Elnor. May you all go boldly into a future freed from the shackles of the past. I stand before you the last Picard. My ancestor captained the second ship, behind Jacques Cartier. A great-great cousin Renee Picard was instrumental in early exploration of this solar system. Yet I choose to leave you with the words of my mother, who was no explorer at all. When I was a boy she would point to the night sky and say, "Look up, Jean-Luc, and let's see what's out there".
What is happening here?
An excellent question, Jean-Luc. Mon Capitaine, how I've missed you...
No. No, no, no, no, no...
[Picard turns to face Q]
Oh, dear. You're a bit older than I imagined. Let me catch up. [Q snaps his fingers and he becomes older in appearance] There. Now, we're even.
Q... Goddamn Q!
Do you recall what I said to you when last we parted ways? "The trial never ends."
What the hell are you doing here?
Q You've been talking a lot about second chances. Well, my friend, welcome to the very end... of the road not taken.
What is this?
This? This is home.
And where are the crew of the Stargazer?
Oh, how quaint. How provincial. How Yesterday's Enterprise of you. There is no Stargazer.
What do you mean? What have you done?
Show them a world of their own making and they ask you what you've done. So human of you.
Q, have you had enough of playing games with other people's lives? I am no longer your pawn!
Oh, you undersell yourself, Jean-Luc. You are more than just a piece. You're the very board upon which this game is played.
And I am too old for your bullshit!
[angrily] Old, yes! How unfair time is. So many wrinkles. So many disappointments.
What do you want, Q? Will you come to the point?
You want me to cut to the chase?
Yes!
Well, the chase is cut, Picard! The chase is bleeding! The chase is dying in your arms, and I am but a suture in the wound. [Q backs away from Picard, appearing confused as to what he had just said]
Are you...? Q, you are not well.
Q, I ask you once more. And for the last time. Where is the Stargazer and her crew?
I intervened. You see, I thought to myself, I thought, "I really must see Jean-Luc." So I simply sought out the nearest explosion.
What do you want, Q?!
Oh, I could tell you, but you're far too clever to listen. [sighs] That said, we're never too old to be students of our own behaviors, Jean-Luc.
I have had enough of your stupid patronizing.
[Q slaps Picard]
And I've had enough of your obstinance, your stubbornness, your insistence on changing in all ways but the one that matters. This is not a lesson. It's a penance.
Do you like the skies here? In your history, humanity discovered a way to spare the planet they were in the process of murdering. Here they just... keep the corpse on life-support.
Well, paradise has to have staff. Come on, who's gonna mow the grass? Fertilize the apple tree? And why pay for help when you can have alien slaves?
I would never, ever...
[Q laughs]
"I would never." Such moral convictions are the luxury of the victors. Come. "Through A Mirror, Darkly". And here, the man who holds the glass is darker still. Let me show you!
Now, you're welcome to remain here in the body of a madman, in the world of a madman, to attempt, like Macbeth, to wash the blood from your hands. But I assure you, Jean-Luc... it's un-washable. Or...
Or?
Atonement. Maybe even... forgiveness?
Forgiveness for what?
I think you know. But don't worry. I won't let you do this alone.
You...
You. Are Locutus. And you are not.
I know you can see the divergence in time. What did Q do in the past, when he turned our world into a polluted, totalitarian nightmare?
Friend and foe, and now.
Answer the question! What did Q do?
A temporal precision. A single change.
What was it? When was it?
Calculating... 2024. That is the when. Where is the where? Calculating... Earth. The change in the timeline originates there. In Los Angeles. Calculating... There is someone there to help. A watcher. Seek the watcher.
Calculating temporal trajectory. Initiating tachyon radiation splinter bursts. Neutralising threats.
[Noticing his controls going haywire] Whoa... [The La Sirena fires torpedoes at two Confederation ships, destroying them] What the... [Rois looks again at the controls] Admiral? [Picard looks at Rios] I'm no longer in command of this ship.
Move backward to go forward. Shatter to mend. The past is now.
Now is the only moment.
What exactly is the information you hold?
The location of the Watcher, and when the temporal divergence occurs.
Hmm... Are you sure about that?
[checks her memory banks, realises the information is missing] What did you do? Where is it? You...
Stole it. Computer, dictate the file log "shit I stole from the Borg Queen".
[The computer recites co-ordinates]
No-one takes from me, my dear!
Co-ordinates!
To find the Watcher.
Well done!
I suppose even higher cybernetic life forms can get sloppy with where they leave secrets lying around. But there's more, isn't there? "When" it happened. I can alm... I can almost feel it. [The Borg Queen glares at Agnes] It'll come to me.
What you have just done here is more difficult, and vastly more dangerous than you realise.
And what is that?
You've impressed me.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Star Trek: Picard pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
