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I've been thinking about Tapestry, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation/
This is the episode in which Picard, on the point of death, is taken to meet Q, who offers Picard the opportunity to relive a few critical days in his youth. Picard decides to amend the hell-raising behavior of his college days and take a sensible path. He admits his affection for his classmate Marta, he avoids a meaningless romantic encounter with another woman, and keeps his best friend Corey from cheating at a game and getting into a serious brawl.
When Picard is returned to the "present" he finds he is a lowly Junior Lieutenant in the Astrophysics Department of the Enterprise. He asks Riker and Troi of the alternate timeline about his prospects for obtaining a command, and is told that he lacks the drive and discipline for it. He is appalled by his lack of progress and position, and begs Q to release him from this alternate timeline. He describes himself, in this alternate timeline, as a man without "passion" and "imagination."
Q makes some pointed commentary:
”The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did not fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death. Never came face to face with his own mortality. Never realized how fragile life is or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away-team on Milika III to save the ambassador, or take charge of the Stargazer's bridge, when its captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe – and he never, ever, got noticed by anyone!"
Picard is returned to the real world, grateful for his lesson.
Now, we are not actually shown anything about the alternate Picard's life. All we know is that he's a low-ranking officer, albeit on the Federation Flagship. I’ve always wondered about the perspective of the "other" Picard, the one who did all the sensible things in his youth. So, here what I think could have happened.
After the awkward "morning after" with Marta he threw himself into academics, and discovered his love of exploration and astronomy suited him for a career in pure science. After graduation he moved into work as a civilian astronomer. In his early 30s he took passage on a Federation cruiser en route to investigate some odd stellar phenomenon. The ship was commanded by Marta, who was pursuing a lonely career.
The two fell in love, married, and started a family. Picard in this universe is a genteel and laid-back intellectual, a man of compassion as well as disciple and culture. He is a quirky genius who undertakes vital research into spatial anomalies.
Their children grow and leave home. Picard's talent is enough that he is even offered a commission on the Federal Flagship, where Marta has been assigned (perhaps as Captain). The Enterprise D is the universe's greatest moving observatory, and he jumps at the position to spend more time with his wife, and among the stars.
In this story, he is facing a more personal crisis when Q comes calling. He has discovered that life on the Enterprise-D is not as romantic or exciting as he hoped. He, as Q put it, spends all his time “running tests, making analyses, and carrying reports to your superiors."
Marta is constantly busy with the burdens of command, and he is much older than anyone else in his department. The final straw? His best and only friend aboard ship, the shy and diffident Lt. Barclay, has recently undergone a change of personality. Previously, the two of them spent hours building complicated and beautiful astronomical simulations on the Holodeck. In this alternative timeline, Picard is a sort of extroverted anchor who gives the naturally introverted Barclay something to focus on aside from romantic/revenge fantasies on the Holodeck. Now, Barclay is suddenly spending much more time among the officers, and becomes much more career driven. Picard, feeling lonely, useless, and angry, stalks off somewhere to brood.
Q appears to offer him the chance to do things differently as a youth. To sleep with older women he meets in bars, to pick fights with aliens, to treat his best female friend as just one of the guys. To live a little, not always be the sober and serious Picard, and see what sort of man he could be. He relives those days in the way the “real” Picard did, and then is advanced to the “present,” where is at first thrilled… then horrified. This Picard is a dry military man with no real friends, no wife, and no family. His only friends are his books and music.
He is a respected captain, but does not even have enough rapport with his officers to join them on poker nights. And worst of all, his expansive state room is empty. Marta is gone, his pictures and mementos are gone, all replaced with dry archeological curiosities and ornaments. He tries to renounce his position, and realizes his command is a trap.
Despairing, he begs Q to be returned to the real world. Eventually Q relents, with a parting admonishment along the lines of:
”The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who fought the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard ended up nearly dead, and came away from the experience with an artificial heart. His survived his brush with death, but it killed something in his soul. He realized how fragile life is, yes. But it made him afraid to stop, even for a moment. His life was a focused pursuit of ever greater responsibility, ever greater discipline. Every step in his career followed a tight agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never failing to seize the opportunities that presented themselves. He never fell in love, never experienced the birth of his own child, never learned to care about the complex stellar splendor around him. And he never sought a life beyond his command, not really. He learned to play it safe – and all he was left with was himself, and some faded memories of what might have been!
And that is my fan fic idea!
This is the episode in which Picard, on the point of death, is taken to meet Q, who offers Picard the opportunity to relive a few critical days in his youth. Picard decides to amend the hell-raising behavior of his college days and take a sensible path. He admits his affection for his classmate Marta, he avoids a meaningless romantic encounter with another woman, and keeps his best friend Corey from cheating at a game and getting into a serious brawl.
When Picard is returned to the "present" he finds he is a lowly Junior Lieutenant in the Astrophysics Department of the Enterprise. He asks Riker and Troi of the alternate timeline about his prospects for obtaining a command, and is told that he lacks the drive and discipline for it. He is appalled by his lack of progress and position, and begs Q to release him from this alternate timeline. He describes himself, in this alternate timeline, as a man without "passion" and "imagination."
Q makes some pointed commentary:
”The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did not fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death. Never came face to face with his own mortality. Never realized how fragile life is or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away-team on Milika III to save the ambassador, or take charge of the Stargazer's bridge, when its captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe – and he never, ever, got noticed by anyone!"
Picard is returned to the real world, grateful for his lesson.
Now, we are not actually shown anything about the alternate Picard's life. All we know is that he's a low-ranking officer, albeit on the Federation Flagship. I’ve always wondered about the perspective of the "other" Picard, the one who did all the sensible things in his youth. So, here what I think could have happened.
After the awkward "morning after" with Marta he threw himself into academics, and discovered his love of exploration and astronomy suited him for a career in pure science. After graduation he moved into work as a civilian astronomer. In his early 30s he took passage on a Federation cruiser en route to investigate some odd stellar phenomenon. The ship was commanded by Marta, who was pursuing a lonely career.
The two fell in love, married, and started a family. Picard in this universe is a genteel and laid-back intellectual, a man of compassion as well as disciple and culture. He is a quirky genius who undertakes vital research into spatial anomalies.
Their children grow and leave home. Picard's talent is enough that he is even offered a commission on the Federal Flagship, where Marta has been assigned (perhaps as Captain). The Enterprise D is the universe's greatest moving observatory, and he jumps at the position to spend more time with his wife, and among the stars.
In this story, he is facing a more personal crisis when Q comes calling. He has discovered that life on the Enterprise-D is not as romantic or exciting as he hoped. He, as Q put it, spends all his time “running tests, making analyses, and carrying reports to your superiors."
Marta is constantly busy with the burdens of command, and he is much older than anyone else in his department. The final straw? His best and only friend aboard ship, the shy and diffident Lt. Barclay, has recently undergone a change of personality. Previously, the two of them spent hours building complicated and beautiful astronomical simulations on the Holodeck. In this alternative timeline, Picard is a sort of extroverted anchor who gives the naturally introverted Barclay something to focus on aside from romantic/revenge fantasies on the Holodeck. Now, Barclay is suddenly spending much more time among the officers, and becomes much more career driven. Picard, feeling lonely, useless, and angry, stalks off somewhere to brood.
Q appears to offer him the chance to do things differently as a youth. To sleep with older women he meets in bars, to pick fights with aliens, to treat his best female friend as just one of the guys. To live a little, not always be the sober and serious Picard, and see what sort of man he could be. He relives those days in the way the “real” Picard did, and then is advanced to the “present,” where is at first thrilled… then horrified. This Picard is a dry military man with no real friends, no wife, and no family. His only friends are his books and music.
He is a respected captain, but does not even have enough rapport with his officers to join them on poker nights. And worst of all, his expansive state room is empty. Marta is gone, his pictures and mementos are gone, all replaced with dry archeological curiosities and ornaments. He tries to renounce his position, and realizes his command is a trap.
Despairing, he begs Q to be returned to the real world. Eventually Q relents, with a parting admonishment along the lines of:
”The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who fought the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard ended up nearly dead, and came away from the experience with an artificial heart. His survived his brush with death, but it killed something in his soul. He realized how fragile life is, yes. But it made him afraid to stop, even for a moment. His life was a focused pursuit of ever greater responsibility, ever greater discipline. Every step in his career followed a tight agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never failing to seize the opportunities that presented themselves. He never fell in love, never experienced the birth of his own child, never learned to care about the complex stellar splendor around him. And he never sought a life beyond his command, not really. He learned to play it safe – and all he was left with was himself, and some faded memories of what might have been!
And that is my fan fic idea!
