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celestialholz · 2 years

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Q-uick Qcard: STP 2.6

Well, fuck - it's week six of mine and the excellent @q-card's drabble event, and, well... the titles lied to me, half of them wasn't here. Still, doesn't mean a bitch can't work her magic, and I have a frankly wonderful subject for it: one I've always wanted to explore, in fact, and something you'll never have seen from me before. Be great practice for a certain little sequel I've got coming up fairly soon, too... ;)

Consider this a spiritual sequel to last week's, with a nice little cross-posting to AO3 here, and welcome, my friends, to:

Galaxies Hath No Fury

It takes Adam Soong a mere moment to realise that he very much isn't in the City of Angels anymore.

... In fact, it isn't even the same planet. He gasps impossible air in the impossible cold of deep space, and whimpers an impossible sob.

"I prefer to think of it as the 'City of Gods'," notes a familiar voice, burning even colder than the void, and chills ratchet up Soong's spine. "Unfortunately for you, you're very much in the wrong neighbourhood."

Adam spins on a click that shouldn't echo, and truly wishes he hadn't; his ears roar in protest, his eyes follow suit, as the veil of blackness lifts.

"That's... that can't be -"

"Ooo, look at you! Not just a biologist!" Q crows, darkly sing-song. "You're the first human to visit one of these, I'll have you know. Feel special, Doctor... I'm so rarely this furious."

Adam is anything but stupid, but faced with the insane - "Q, I - what the fuck is this?! How have you -"

"Oh, you're going to love this," Q drawls, grin unhinged. "Biology, meet your new worst enemy, Temporal Physics."

He snaps sharp fingers and he's professorial, spectacles, waistcoat and all; the wicked cane between his hands does even less to reassure Adam than their location.

"Time, as I mentioned, has abandoned me - down there, anyway." He gestures vaguely with the cane, a hologram of Earth suddenly spinning aimlessly beside him. "Up here, though..."

He doesn't snap this time: the hologram simply shatters, Earth's shards razors slicing through his companion's exposed skin as though he's butter, and Adam feels a thrill of pure horror even as he hisses in pain.

"Well, the balance of power redresses. She remembers her place. And speaking of which..."

The geneticist is flung helplessly backwards, and he shrieks against the bellowing rush of gravity as he hovers, suspended, on the crux of oblivion.

"She isn't the only one that needs to recall such things."

The god's eyes wear madness with a horrific comfort, and his smile sets every individual nerve of the human on a knife-edge.

"Tell me, dear Doctor - is your daughter also allergic to black holes?" Soong pales five distinct shades, and Q chuckles thinly. "What am I saying - you're a scientist, you love a good experiment! Which one shall we test?"

Finally, Adam rediscovers his voice, and it rings high with disgust. "Don't you fucking dare -"

He's thrust ever-closer, and he's not sure which is the more petrifying: the empty ice of the event horizon, or the murderous sear of a gaze he can barely deign to meet.

"Don't you ever presume to tell me what to do, little man," Q snarls, and for a split second, Adam acknowledges every shred of the universe's rage.

It's all he can do to stay sane against it, and he's not sure he manages. Whimpers pull themselves from his throat, and his mouth hangs uselessly in an unuttered scream.

"I d-didn't -" he stammers, terrified. "He got in the w-way, Q - how was I s-supposed to -"

"I don't care for your excuses, Doctor." Adam shuts up, instantly. "All I care about is that he lives - and all you should care about is that I will make you watch your daughter be torn to shreds if he doesn't. Again, and again, and again. Bye now!"

He's gone on a click, and even back in his lab, shivering weakly, the mania of a god burns in his mind's eye. He starts frightfully as words scroll across his screen, the keystrokes heavy and deadening.

I HOPE YOU'VE REMEMBERED YOUR PLACE, DOCTOR. ;)

Adam Soong breaks down, and reaches for the nearest bottle.

#qcard #q-uick qcard #my writing #star trek picard 2.6 #star trek picard spoilers #jean-luc picard #Q of the continuum #adam soong #overprotective immortals #dark!Q is rapidly becoming one of my favourite things to write #you bewitching little bitch you 👁👄👁

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porgthespacepenguin · 2 years

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Thoughts about episode 2.8 (2/3)

Turns out there's way too much to talk about for only two posts, so there'll be a third one later this weekend to cover -- let's face it -- all the non-Q related things. Including, err, the plot. I have PRIORITIES, people, and they're named Q and Picard.

(Spoilers under the cut, as always.)

Note: the first version of this post got eaten by Tumblr, because I'm an idiot who forgot to save her drafts. Don't be like me or Picard, folks. Save what you love, before it's too late.

Soong vs. Q

Now we get to the reason I need a third post at all: there's just so much mirroring, so many parallels between Soong and Q to deserve at least an entire post.

In episode 2.5, the show ostensibly paralleled the two of them as powerful and desperate men willing to do anything to save the ones they love.

Spoiler alert: Q and Soong in fact absolute opposites of each other.

No god of mine

Long ago, I theorized that Soong and Q were meant to highlight the difference between a god complex and an actual omnipotent being.

You can read the post if you like, it still partly holds up, but the jist of it is: Soong's power over his daughters is a grim parody of Q's powers.

Initially, we were led to think that Soong had lost a daughter, and been trying, however darkly, to fix his mistake through multiple iterations of a replacement he could finally save.

But no: there was no original daughter -- just an original sin. Like any would-be god, Soong wants to create life.

No matter the cost.

In fact, he's been trying and failing for years: before Kore, all the other "daughters of Zeus" died before their fourth birthday, sometimes much earlier. Until Kore, who against all odds managed to survive.

Soong even tells Kore outright:

"You exist because I willed it."

Will made manifest: in other words, God.

But Soong, despite his scientific genius and his delusions, is no god. His attempts at creating life are doomed to fail. He is an inverted reflection of Q, who not only has the power to create and destroy, but the wisdom to know how to use it.

It's not a coincidence that Q is the one to cure Kore: only Q can complete what Soong has started, taking the clay of Soong's imperfect work and burning it clean of weakness, firing Soong's flawed creation into living perfection.

Soong is a human pretending to be a god; Q is the real deal.

Through a mirror darkly, indeed.

Tales of a mother

The mirroring continues with the theme of truth.

Unlike Q, who's been unfailingly honest with Picard, Soong's relationship to the truth is flawed, to say the least:

"Reality is a construct of simple-minded fools who can't function in the absence of boundaries!"

In fact, we learn that Soong has been feeding Kore stories about a fake mother:

Yet more mirroring: Q, however, has been trying to get Picard to tell his own story, the real story, to confront what happened to his mother.

Unsurprisingly, Soong doesn't even understand why it matters that he's been lying to Kore, since:

"It made you happy!"

And perhaps it did, for a time, but that's not the issue.

Soong's lies to Kore, and Picard's lies to himself, are both comforting fantasies meant to keep them trapped in their respective basements, unable and unwilling to free themselves:

Soong has been lying to Kore to serve his own selfish purposes: to keep her complicit in her own imprisonment.

Q, on the other hand, wants Picard to stop lying to himself, stop hiding from himself, and finally accept the real Jean-Luc, imperfect yet worthy of love.

Love and sacrifice

In 2.6, Soong calls Kore his "life's work", and in 2.8 it's clear that he doesn't see himself as her father so much as her owner:

"You don't get to walk away from me. You don't exist without me."

If I had more time, there would be beautiful parenthood parallels to draw about Raffi and Elnor, or Picard's relationship to Agnes and Rios:

(Perhaps in the next post. Or two, at this rate.)

Regardless, while Picard may struggle with being a father figure, Soong certainly doesn't. Father, creator, tormentor -- it's all the same to him.

He has no problem justifying everything he's done, all the suffering and death he's wrought upon his dozen of innocent "daughters". He doesn't feel an ounce of guilt. Worse, he expect gratitude in return:

"I did everything, sacrified everything for you."

But he didn't. Everything he's done, he's done for himself and his legacy. Kore doesn't owe him anything. She didn't ask to be created, to be born, not even to survive where her sisters didn't.

As she turns away, Kore tells him, smiling sadly,

"Maybe it's you who doesn't exist without me."

She's right. Soong has built his life around his work, refusing to see the suffering it was causing, all in the name of his legacy.

He loves Kore, but only as a reflection of himself, and the selfishness of his love is what ultimately causes him to lose her.

The contrast with Q is astonishing.

Picard's very existence brings meaning to Q's life, and so Q is risking everything to save him, no matter the cost to himself.

Q is literally ceasing to exist, fading into nothing, out of love.

His love for Picard, selfless and true, is the driving force behind all of his actions. And that's why Q will succeed where Soong failed.

The way they love mirrors their duality: Soong's love, twisted and possessive, seeks to control and imprison; Q's love, redemptive and transcendent, seeks to save and set free.

If you love someone, let them go

Not only has Soong has been lying to Kore her whole life, but his hubris has made her a prisoner of her own sick body, unable to go outside or socialize with others.

Worse, Kore suspects that even if Soong ever found a way to cure her, he would never let her go:

"No matter what, I was never going to leave this house, was I?"

Q, on the other hand, gives Kore the means to free herself:

(Love that smug little label, by the way. What a legend.)

Importantly, by giving her the cure, Q also gives Kore a choice:

She stands in front of a white door, but the door is open, because the trap is immaterial. All she has to do is step through it.

And she does, facing her fear, choosing to trust Q and ultimately freeing herself from Soong. Take note, Picard.

Q is the key

Soong has been keeping Kore locked up all her life, dependent on him for her survival, until Q gives her the metaphorical key to her freedom.

Remember the intro? Q is symbolized by a keyhole:

While Q's been trying to give Picard the key to his freedom, only Picard can decide to use it, open the door and choose to live -- like Kore.

Q-card mirrors

Yes, I know. Strictly speaking, I was supposed to leave Q-card aside for this post, but I can't resist and you'll soon see why. The parallels between 2.6 and 2.8 are absolutely unhinged.

We've long established that Q is the sun, and a dying sun at that. In a recent meta, I noted that this line in 2.6 implicitely describes Q:

“Sometimes those who shine the brightest (...)"

Well, what do you know, in 2.8 the show makes the comparison explicit, in case we hadn't yet connected the dots:

"Dying stars burn brighter as they spin toward extinction (...)"

Through Guinan, we learn that the rest of the quote also applies to Q:

Q is dying. He's hurt. He is suffering "in ways that others can never understand".

Remember how Picard told Rene that even in the darkness, there is always light?

The choice of words is not a coincidence.

Q is all alone in the darkness: now more than ever, Q desperately needs the light of Picard's love to save him.

Both of them are each other's guiding lights. All they need is to trust each other -- like Kore trusted Q -- and they will find their way home.

Trop mignon!

Let's wrap up this post with a touch of sweetness:

Q and Picard, speaking French! How freaking adorable is that? 😍 And they're mirroring each other, naturally: Q speaks French at the start of the episode, and Picard at the end of it.

Leaving aside the cuteness, Picard rarely speaks French in canon, so the symbolism is pretty obvious: Jean-Luc and Q speak the same language, a language only they understand.

The plot, where's the plot?

Yes, I know! Two posts in, and I've not even written a word about the plot, or team Picard. But can you blame me? There's just so much Q and Picard goodness, I couldn't resist.

Part 3 will be coming sometime this weekend, with on the menu:

Rios/Teresa mirroring Q-card (it's insane, and it's killing me)

Queen Agnes prepares for war

Raffi/Picard mirroring

And maybe more

In the meantime, hope you enjoyed the post, and thank you for reading! ❤️

[Back to part 1] [Forward to part 3]

#star trek #star trek picard #star trek picard season 2 #q of the continuum #q star trek #star trek spoilers #qcard #star trek picard spoilers #star trek theories #star trek speculation #star trek picard episode 2.8 #star trek picard episode 2.6 #jean luc picard x q #jean luc picard #captain picard #porg has qcard thoughts

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tailoring-hearts · 2 years

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I posted 370 times in 2021

102 posts created (28%)

268 posts reblogged (72%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.6 posts.

I added 590 tags in 2021

#star trek - 158 posts

#ds9 - 138 posts

#julian bashir - 68 posts

#elim garak - 67 posts

#garashir - 54 posts

#garak - 31 posts

#meme - 25 posts

#picard - 17 posts

#odo - 17 posts

#kira nerys - 15 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#if it ever happens again ill hypospray your ass and you can forget ever returning to cardassia

My Top Posts in 2021

We all talk about that scene where Garak and Julian are on board the ship...

But why does no one talk about how gay it is that Julian's sleeves are rolled up just enough to show his forearms. And his collar is open and little pit of his clavicle is peaking out. But the forearms. Like we all joke about Julian's terrible fashion, but he knows. He was showing his forearms off for Garak and if that ain't love I don't know what is.

198 notes • Posted 2021-02-15 03:09:42 GMT

250 notes • Posted 2021-06-09 22:42:29 GMT

Falling in love with someone who is dangerous and could kill you but has chosen to use those hands to protect can be such a personal and intimate thing.

280 notes • Posted 2021-08-30 17:39:39 GMT

322 notes • Posted 2021-01-27 00:50:30 GMT

578 notes • Posted 2021-04-21 02:23:32 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #star trek #ds9 #im cackling #wtf is my longest tag #what was i even talking about

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paullev · 2 years

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Star Trek: Picard Season Two: A Roundtable Discussion

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 298, in which Captain Phil, MaryBeth Ritkouski, Michael Rizzo, and I discuss Star Trek: Picard Season 2 on Paramount+ and much more about Star Trek: TOS, Star Trek: TNG, and all things Star Trek and related.

More about Mary Beth Ritkouski and Michael Rizzo at SciFi Distilled

More about Captain Phil at Captain Phil's Planet

Boarding the Enterprise (edited by David Gerrold and Robert J. Sawyer), anthology with essay "How Star Trek Liberated Television" by Paul Levinson, which discusses the Star Trek syndication impact

Fringe Science: Parallel Universes, White Tulips, and Mad Scientists (edited by Kevin R. Grazier) anthology with essay by Paul Levinson, "The Return of 1950s Television in Fringe," which discusses Levinson's "First Love Syndrome" in popular culture appreciation.

Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time (2020 LP by Paul Levinson on Old Bear Records and Light in the Attic Records)

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.10

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.9

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.8

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.7

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.6

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.5

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.4

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.3

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.2

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.1

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard season 1

a little time travel story -- free

Check out this episode!

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celestialholz · 2 years

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Celestial Live-Reacts: STP 2.6, 'Two of One'

Ayuuuup lads, it's fucking

PARTY TIME

... Jean-Luc you okay babe 👀

Flashbacks? 'Thirty-four minutes earlier'????? 🤔🤔

He keeps calling her Laris, jesus christ 😆

"No one of importance" - glad you think so dear, glad it's not just me 😘

"What's your status?" #BORGED

"I do miss Locutus" 🙃 Once you've tasted the best am I right 😏😏

Oh fuck, this dynamic's brilliant. Wish they'd done this throughout all assimilations to be honest 😍

Borgnes king ship 😍 aaaaand titles!

Appel and Frakes are back! ❤ I'm expecting fine things

... Jean-Luc darling, are YOU OKAY 😭

Jazz my beloved 😍😍😍

"I'm a ghost. It's the best way to keep her safe." *distant sounds of omnipotent laughter*

"You're in control, dear"???? Fucking hell Queenie 😂 This is so beautifully domestic, I adore it, and fascinating that Agnes can apparently hold her at bay?

Club soda because she's kicked the booze, well done sweetie 😍

'No sign of Q', huh? 😏 *distant sounds of omnipotent stalking*

Raffios friendship is banger as ever ❤ The little head kiss! 😍😍

Today in Stunningly Unsurprising News: Rios wants Theresa. What an astoundingly bad idea, which is coincidentally the only kind Rios has 😂

Everyone looks so hot????? 👁👄👁 *distant sounds of your bisexual reviewer passing out*

It's still not your gay son Raf honey 😭

... She's texting Q. Let that sink in for a second - Q has a fucking phone. Dear sweet lord, this is truly the worst timeline. Man probably has seven million Insta followers and every one of them knows how hot he is for a ninety-four year old 😏

... If he doesn't have a Galaxy I'm calling bullshit 😂

... What am I saying, glorious fucker probably has a nineties Nokia. He's probably playing Snake on the balcony right now. Q with a phone. 😂😂

"What if Q is right - what if she's not ready?" Mmm... 🤔

The Queen's good for Agnes. 😍

Cute little eyebrow thing 😆

He still likes Agnes too?

... Or perhaps not? 🙃😂 I'd like to hope Rios would bring out the same kind of thing that the Queen would, just in a more positive manner, but... can't help but think he and Theresa have more chemistry?

Oh bonjour Adam 😍

Bless Picard here, just seeing his old friend 😭

... He knows it's not THIS Picard, right?

"He's not a friend." "That's what he said about you." O-hoooo 😂 Adam knows who that love speech was about 😏

... Although if we could just take a moment to consider the possibility that Q spent an entire missing scene discussing his love for our resident admiral like last week's Q-uick Qcard, that'd be great. Just that moment of reflection... nice and peaceful and gay... right, back to your regularly scheduled review 😂

... Byyyyye Felicia ✊😂

ARE YOU REALLY OKAY SIR 😭

Hello darkness my old friend

... Your VOICE, ma'am? Is this actually Alison??? 😍 Queenie is VERY good for Agnes, damn

That dual bow is chilling...

"I'm in control." "Not anymore." Oh fuck 👀👀👀

Picard, meet Picard 😍

"Look up" - oh, very good 😆

Lovely little leitmotif of Talking to Data in the back here ❤❤

Picard counsels much younger, mentally struggling youth who's set to go into space - where do I recognise this from? 🤔🤔 *distant staring of The House That Omnipotence Built*

"What are you afraid of?" "I wouldn't know where to begin." Bless him 😭

"She too loved the stars, and she too... struggled." His mother had mental health problems?

"I found that even in the darkest circumstances, there is always a light... sometimes only a glimmer." Lovely Picard Speech #579664 😍😍

... His mother was dragged away? Mental institution?????? Kidnapped?

... Poor, poor Soong. 😭 He's so fucking traumatised...

Oh Adam honey, no 🙁 Q you absolute bastard, look what you've done to him 😭

"Perhaps another time" ... Wow 😆

#NOTMYPICARD 😭😭😭 Stupid, noble, self-sacrificing idiot 😍

"He's had some transplants", fuck's sake 😂

Cardiac event? Tapestry????? 🤔

Oh Adam, you've not only gotten the wrong Picard, you've nearly fucking killed him. You'd better hope Q's actually lost his omnipotence, fuck... 🙃

He's so fucking done, I weep 😭

"I put my heart into you... I let myself believe that you were the one." 'The one'? 🤔

I really like Theresa, just putting that out there ❤

Kore, what are you doing?

'Eugenics'? 'Mad scientist'? 👀

Persephone? Artemis? Klaudia?

... She's a fucking clone, oh my god 👀👀👀 Shoutout to my boyfriend who called that immediately, but damn

... No wonder he's fucking unhinged, jesus... and the whole funding cut and 'I'm a god' thing from last week... hold on though...

"We're all hostages to what we love", yeah? So, he's been fighting to right the wrong of her death all this time... and how many times has Q saved Picard's life, now? That's Q Who, an attempt in Deja, Tapestry, All Good Things, the beginning of this series... and that's just the non-negotiable ones. *distant sounds of Celestial holding up this week's mirror*

... Fuck, as though it needed to be any more gay 😂 Shit hits different this week, damn. Niiiice way to use your back-to-back episodes there, Ma'am Appel 😍

... So, wait - he's physically fine, but mentally fucked? 🤔 And he's got heart issues? Is this about to be Tapestry 2 😂

Estonia dear, please stop 🙄

She called Q a god! Finally, someone acknowledges it! And it's Estonia of all bloody people! 😒

"How much worse could it possibly get?" Oh for fuck's sake Raffi 😂

... This parting shot, though... 👁👄👁

... Well, shit...

Celestial Rating: 7/10.

Slower than before this week, but the Borgnes dynamic is wondrously dark, and there's some truly spectacular pay-off for those of us who were paying attention last week.

(P.S. if the titles lie to me again about John being in an episode I'm going to throw my shoes at the Paramount headquarters, thank you for coming to my TED Talk)

#star trek picard 2.6 #star trek picard spoilers #jean-luc picard #(sadly no) q of the continuum #cristobal rios #seven of nine #raffi musiker #agnes jurati #the borg queen #estonia is also here I guess 😒#borgnes supremacy 😍#next week on picard: tapestry 2 electric boogaloo?????? 👁👄👁#qcard hits fucking different this week lads #celestial live reacts #celestial reviews

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porgthespacepenguin · 2 years

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Thoughts about episode 2.9 (1/2)

Just finished the episode. I’m still shaking. What a gut punch.

Anyway, by now you know me: first post will focus on Qcard, and let me tell you, there’s a lot to talk about. Next post will cover the rest (hopefully).

I must warn you in advance, however. This episode killed me just to watch me die, so don’t expect my usual level of semi-coherence. This post consists mostly of me screaming into the void about the episode, with occasional flashes of analysis sprinkled throughout.

If that’s not scared you off: bravo, and onwards!

(Major spoilers under the cut: you’ve been warned.)

[Trigger warning: this post contains mention of suicide, including an image you may find disturbing.

The image, and the main discussion, are in the next section, so you can skip ahead to “End trigger warning” if needed.]

Where to even start? Oh, yeah: to borrow words from a great man,

"Boy, do I hate being right all the time."

I know, I know. So I’m definitely not right all the time. But I did nail a few of the twists, so let me enjoy my agony success in peace, all right?

[Start trigger warning]

* * * * *

Come find me

Wish I had been wrong

In a previous meta, I had called it: Jean-Luc had opened the door once before, but it resulted in his mother’s death. Hello, childhood trauma.

So, turns out I was right. Wish I wasn’t, though. Sorry about that.

Look, I’ll be honest: this topic is too personal, too triggering for me to dwell too long on it. So this section will be short.

Suffice to say, Maman hung herself in the winter garden, and Jean-Luc has been blaming himself for it since he was a child,

"I let her out, you see. If only I had left that door closed, she might have become an old woman."

Of course, it wasn’t his fault. Maman was sick, and in her sickness had made Baby!Picard a parentified child (which, by the way, explains a lot about him as an adult).

So when Maman begged him to help, he did what she asked. Of course he did.

He opened the door, and it cost him everything:

"I loved her. Desperately."

It wasn’t anybody’s faut, really. But it still broke him. And so Picard locked the door again, shattered the painted windows, and closed his heart to love.

Darker still

By the way, if you thought the foreshadowing surrounding Q’s fate was loud in 2.7 and 2.8... it’s deafening now.

Maman and Q have been mirrors of each other since 2.7, both explicitely through the sun symbolism they share, and implicitely, like in the conversation with Renee in episode 2.6.

And now we learn that, lost in the darkness, Maman has killed herself. In her death, she’s even shown to be wearing a white robe, much like Q was in Tapestry when Picard died:

As always: this isn’t a coincidence. There are no coincidences in big productions like Star Trek Picard. This is a choice.

And so Q’s fate grows ever darker.

(Also ... isn’t that line from earlier -- “I loved her. Desperately.” -- rather loud? If they bring it back in some form next episode, we’re in trouble, folks.)

* * * * *

[End trigger warning]

The key, at last

Having unlocked the memory of what truly happened to his mother, Picard can now finally start to come to terms with it, to heal from it, and move on.

Although, there’s still a significant element of mystery left. As Picard finally sees the dungeon from his dreams, he realizes that the wood of the platform is intact: his foot didn’t get caught in it like he had imagined.

But then what happened? How did he get stuck?

EDIT: @theboardwalkbody pointed out that they’re in the past, so nothing has happened yet. Doh! Wonder why the show made such a fuss about it then.

Did he turn around and try to escape, leaving her mother to her sickness? Did his mother, although lost in darkness, prevent him from following her after all?

And yet. I can’t help but notice that in Jean-Luc’s dream, he stepped into the light when he got stuck.

Is it possible Q intervened, saving his life yet again?

(Which would bring the current tally to 6 saves, and a nice round 7 if he does it again next week...)

Regardless, whatever or whoever held him back did save his life. And we’ll most likely find out next week, since, you know. Only one episode left!

Anyway, moving on.

Picard now holds the key to his own heart. Literally, even:

Q has given him this key, like he gave Kore the cure in episode 2.8. And now, also like her, all Jean-Luc has to do is choose to open the door and step through it.

Yet it may be too late to stop the sun from setting. Forever.

A lonely star

Before we continue, it’s imperative that you read @celestialwarzone‘s Q-sun meta if you haven’t already.

It establishes how and why Q is symbolized as the sun, and that information is critically important to understanding the importance of the next section.

With that out of the way, let’s jump in.

Episode 2.7 essentially threw the Q-sun model at our faces with the subtlety of a brick. Episode 2.8, meanwhile, drove the point home like a knife with Q’s dying star monologue.

Well, friends, episode 2.9 looked at them both and went, “hold my glass of Chateau Picard”.

The dark before the dawn

I predicted that this episode would be the despair event horizon, and in a way it was. But I was a tad pessimistic, as it turns out. This is Star Trek, after all, as @celestialwarzone often reminds me: a utopia.

So, overall everything went badly, but it could have been so much worse.

Regardless, this episode functions essentially as team Picard’s dark night of the soul.

Literally.

The sun goes out, the storm rises, and everything falls apart. They are separated, outnumbered, outgunned and trapped like rats in the dark chateau. Though they are fighting hard for their lives, and the future, all hope seems lost. The night is winning.

And then the sun rises.

Right away, their luck starts to turn: Agnes wakes up and forges a new destiny for the Borg, but not before healing Seven, Picard finally faces his mother’s true fate, Rios manages to beam back just in tie to save them...

The light symbolism in this episode, I swear!

Incidentally, there are plenty of other darkness and light references scattered throughout the episode:

The green lasers of the soldiers;

“Wars have been fought on lovely days”;

Picard, having a flashback from a flash of light;

"Why don’t we continue somewhere less bright", right before the game takes a turn for the worse;

The darkness of the chateau and dungeon;

"You're my light Jean-Luc”;

Picard and Estonia lighting a torch in the dungeon;

Baby!Picard stepping into a light patch;

Elnor coming back as a hologram to save them;

The red light when the key flies out;

Maman killing herself at night;

The gentle sunrise bathing Seven as she accepts herself;

Agnes literally flying into the same sunrise;

And others I’m most likely forgetting right now.

Oh, and, by the way: Maman’s fairy tale winter garden? Is actually a solarium.

A literal place of sunlight. And the exit from the dungeon.

(*pterodactyl screeches*)

The star gazer

Once Maman’s dark episode starts, she drags Baby!Picard down with her into the dungeon, where the sunlight cannot reach them.

Baby!Picard just wants them to go back up, and study the stars together, but Maman is already too far gone,

"Stars... Did you know that space is so vast, so infinite, it takes billions of years for that tiny pinprick of light to make that lonely journey from its star to our eyes?"

So. This... this is Q. A lonely star, whose light and love took billions of years to reach Picard across time and space.

Picard, who’s been living in the stars his entire adult life, looking up at them as a child and starting his career as a captain on a ship called the USS Stargazer.

Picard, the literal star gazer.

Let’s make a detour back to 2.1 for a second. When Picard blows up the new Stargazer, there’s a bright flash of white light, and then a shot of a starry sky which eventually resolves into...

... Picard’s eye.

Yeah. There are no coincidences here. The subtext is almost text at this point.

A lonely star

Maman continues her desperately sad speech,

“The brilliance you see in the night sky, Jean-Luc, that exquisite light, it’s just an echo, really...”

... like me.”

Oh, but it gets worse. Infinitely worse. Exquisitely worse:

"When you remember me, promise me you'll ignore the coldness of a dying star, and remember instead her light and the infinite love she so very much had for you."

Make no mistake, this is Q. We’re not even mirroring here, we’re channeling.

The coldness of a dying star? Q, the sun, disappearing into nothing, colder and harder than we have ever seen him... Begging Picard to instead remember the warm, infinite love he holds for him.

Q, like Maman, is going to die. He has essentially doomed himself for Picard. But where Maman killed herself in spite of her love for Jean-Luc, Q is killing himself out of love for him.

It makes all the difference in the world, but I fear it may be a very cold consolation for Jean-Luc.

(I’m speechless honestly. This episode is killing me. If you need me, I’ll be huddled in the corner. Sobbing.)

The Q-bayashi Maru

I had planned to include this section as part of my retrospective on 2.1, but considering all the foreshadowing, we might as well get it over with.

So, remember how @celestialwarzone and I theorize that Picard will likely have to make a terrible choice: save the timeline and kill Q, or save Q and kill the timeline?

In other words, a no-win scenario. Remind you of anything?

That’s right, the Kobayashi Maru.

If you’ve been living under a rock, here’s the basic outline of the test: a civilian ship, the Kobayashi Maru, is in danger. The cadet can attempt to rescue them, or leave them to die. But the test is rigged, and they’ll die regardless.

(Say, friends, did you know that Starfleet’s most infamous training exercise was first depicted in Wrath of Khan?

The movie in which Spock dies, sacrificing himself for Kirk and the crew?

The movie which was then followed by Search for Spock? In which Kirk and his crew mutiny, steal a ship and go save Spock?

Well, did you?)

Anyway, I’ve long thought that this impossible choice would be a direct call back to the Kobayashi Maru every Starfleet captain has to face as a cadet.

And would you look at this scene from episode 2.1:

(Oh, you are, Jean-Luc. You certainly are. And mark my words, you’ll rue the day you ever even thought about it.)

Anyway, if the above wasn’t clear enough, at the end of episode 2.9 Picard tells us outright,

"I refuse to accept an outcome that has not yet occured."

Sounds like "I don't believe in the no-win scenario" to me, but what do I know. I just write metas and screech incoherently into the void.

Don’t leave me behind

There’s more Q-bayashi Maru foreshadowing scattered throughout the episode, but one moment stands out in particular, and no surprise, it’s a Trios scene.

As we established in 2.8, Teresa and Rios are Qcard mirrors. This trend absolutely continues in 2.9, and it’s beautiful.

(Also excruciating. But mostly beautiful.)

As the Borg board the ship, Q-Rios regrets putting Teresa-Picard in danger:

(Oh look, another AGT reference. I’ve lost count by now.)

They escape to the chateau, and Rios is wounded. Picard orders him to go with Teresa, then prevents him from coming back, for his own safety.

So. We have a wounded Q-Rios, locked out and powerless, unable to help Picard. And things abruptly go from bad to worse.

(Need I remind you that the sun is out, and they’re all in darkness? We’ll come back to that.)

Teresa takes care of Rios (take note Picard!), and objects strongly when he decides to go back, dropping this little gem of a line,

”I’d like to rewire your brain.”

Fair enough, Teresa-Picard, fair enough. Lord knows Q has been doing it to Picard all season, so. His turn.

Teresa-Picard then drops another bit of Q-bayashi Maru foreshadowing:

"Knowing that win or lose, I'll have to let them go."

Ostensibly, she’s talking about the tricorder here, but that’s not at all what she means. She’s talking about her miracle: Q-Rios. She doesn’t want to lose him. But she has no choice in the matter.

And still the countdown climbs up, as implacable as fate in a greek tragedy.

Teresa is getting desperate,

“What if I don't want you to go? What if I want to see your face again, or something crazy like that?“

And Q-Rios tells her the truth: he’s thought about it, and he wants nothing more than to stay. But there’s no other way,

"This isn't my timeline. The future is yours (...). I'm just trying to protect it."

If you’ve read my time meta, you know that I speculate that Q may not be able to join the new timeline at all. So that’s not ominous or anything...

Regardless, Teresa-Picard isn’t convinced. She doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios either:

"What if your future is here and it was always supposed to be?"

What she’s really saying, of course, is: what if your future is with me?

And then Rios kisses her.

(Damned if I can’t picture Picard saying the exact same thing, and Q silencing him with a kiss, hating what’s coming but knowing he can’t change it.)

Q-Rios almost manages to tell her that he loves her, but is interrupted again as the transporter activates, and he disappears in front of her eyes.

He reappears right where he’s needed, placing himself squarely between Picard and danger -- nearly getting killed for his troubles.

How delightfully Q-like of him.

The search for Q

Speaking of which...

If you’re at all familiar with my posts, you know that @celestialwarzone and I have long thought that season 2 may end with Q’s death, leading us into a Search of Spock scenario in season 3.

(We’re entering galaxy brain territory, folks. Hold on to your seats.)

The wound

His mother’s death is Jean-Luc’s original trauma, a trauma he can’t get over,

"This moment I am so powerless to reverse."

Leaving aside the guilt of a parentified child unable to save their sick parent, loving and losing his mother in such a tragic fashion nearly broke Jean-Luc.

Another loss of this magnitude would have destroyed him completely. And so he protected himself, walled off his mechnical heart from love. To survive.

As Estonia points out,

“Love can be a source of great grief and immense pain. Of tremendous guilt.”

No wonder he’s been running from Q’s love.

But fear hasn’t held back Q. And however much love may hurt us, shackle us...

“... it's a gift."

For all these years, Q’s love has been a gift to Jean-Luc, whether he was able to accept it or not.

And for a very long time, he wasn’t. But now, as Jean-Luc embraces his feelings once more, he may well find himself opening up and facing another such soul-destroying moment when Q dies.

Because if Q and Maman are mirrors -- the show certainly seems insistent about it -- then their fates are likely to be similar to a degree: both of them lonely suns, both of them loving Jean-Luc infinitely...

Both of them eventually killing themselves.

And so Picard has kept himself away from Q, not letting himself know him, because to know him would be to love him.

And therefore to lose him.

The prince wins

When Baby!Picard wins the game of hide-and-seek, finding his mother sitting despondently in the dark, she says:

Just like in Maman’s story, the prince wins the game, and the Sorcerer dies. Picard will figure out the escape and save the timeline, but in all likelihood, it will be at the cost of Q’s life.

This time is different

(Jean-Luc’s subconscious is certainly worried about the idea, and who can blame him?)

So, is Jean-Luc doomed to love again, and have his heart broken a second time? Maybe. But only temporarily.

Ultimately, Q is not Maman. And her fate need not be his.

Jean-Luc isn’t a child anymore, powerless and small: he is an adult, a Starfleet admiral, tempered by time and loss.

He could not prevent his mother’s death, but he will undo Q’s dark fate,

“In those moments, tragic endings might rewind into joyful beginnings. Moments of loss into those of gains."

From death will come rebirth, from despair happiness, and from loss...

Love.

After closing such a terrible chapter of his life, Jean-Luc will be able to move on, freed, and take his first steps toward his true final frontier: ascension.

Exploring and travelling the stars, with Q at his side, for...

(It would be the perfect ending for both Jean-Luc and Q, now, wouldn’t it?)

Next, on Porg the space penguin:

So, one post down, one to go (or perhaps two). Next up:

All hail Queen Agnes

Integrating the self

More Raffi and Picard mirroring

New time shenanigans?

And maybe more...

As always, I hope you enjoyed, and I want to thank you for reading. ❤️

#star trek #star trek spoilers #qcard #star trek picard #star trek picard spoilers #star trek theories #star trek speculation #star trek: picard #star trek picard season 2 #season 2 episode 9 #porg has qcard thoughts #q of the continuum #star trek q #jean luc picard #tw: suicide

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