| The Next Generation | |
| 132 | |
| True Q | |
| 46192.3 | |
You've won first prize in a beauty contest - collect work experience from all the other players. Congratulations Amanda, welcome to your internment on the Enterprise! Riker leads her to her quarters, and since she's warm and female, the grin is plastered on his face. Despite the honour of being able to serve on the flag-ship of the Federation, Amanda feels lonely - if only her puppies were here...
She turns around and they are! That's a neat trick. She hugs them and says "you can't be here" and they magically disappear. That is a much neater trick! Later, while touring a shuttle bay she sees a barrel about to drop onto Commander Beard and with a wiggle of her nose, deflects it safely away. Could she be... bewitched?
It's said that things come in threes, so it's no surprise that while she's standing in main engineering the reactor overloads. "A warp core breach is imminent" screams Geordi. Before he has a chance to dump the warp core, it explodes! Rather than having to invoke both Geordi and Data's ContractShields™, Amanda holds up her hands and blocks the explosion, returning everything to normal.
Is she an alien? Not according to Dr Social Conscience, all the tests show that she's human. The lights go down, the curtain draws back, the announcer yells out "Here's Q!". He created the warp core breach just to test her, and she passed with flying colours. You see, Amanda has just reached Quberty - that odd age when your omnipotent powers first start to show. He's here to instruct her in the ways of the Q, and then return her to the continuum.
Picard wants to know about Amanda's parents, and why they chose to live as humans. More importantly he wants to know how they died. Morbid, isn't he. Her parents were killed in a freak tornado accident in Kansas. Somehow the weather management systems didn't abate it. Curiouser and Curiouser...
Subtle is a good way to start any lesson. "Right" says Q "we're leaving." "I don't wanna' go" moans Amanda and with a flick of her wrist slams him into the wall. He was just testing of course. Amanda wants a career and a family, and all those other middle-class American stereotypical desires. She even wants to join Starfleet, though why we'll never know.
Have you ever had a conversation with your shadow? Q has, and it asks him about his progress. "Problems," he says, "but we may not have to terminate her after all." Oooh, this must be the dramatic bit! It's time for a game of twenty questions: Who are the Q? "We're just your average omnipotent beings," quips Q, "and we can do whatever we want."
But enough of the sentiment, it's time to study. Lesson one: evoke the memory. With only a mere thought Amanda reconstructs the image of her parents. Lesson two: creation. Why spend hours in the lab doing boring work when you can whip it up with a thought? Bev is less impressed, and seems to enjoy the drudgery. She yaps on so much, that Q turns her into a Red Setter. So, she's a dog! Amanda turns her back, and strangely Bev didn't seem to notice.
Lesson three: teleportation. Let's play hide and seek around the ship. First Q is a barrel, then he hides in the warp core, and finally he goes for a little stroll on the outside of the ship. What can humans offer that even compares to this. Good question.
For a start, humans can have Laughing Boy! "You're actually attracted to him" groans Q, "How do you cope with all that hair on his face?" She's jealous of Riker spending time with another woman, so she transports just the two of them to an idyllic garden setting in the moonlight. How nice. In an odd case of role-reversal it's Riker who's being sleezed onto. "You can't snatch people and put them into your fantasies, and expect them to respond" he asserts. Holding the Q card means never having to ask...
Picard is still morbidly fascinated with Amanda's parents deaths. The tornado that killed them strangely materialised over their home, destroyed it, and then vanished without a trace. Their bodies were found in the rubble. Were they executed? Let's put it to our panel: in a word, yes! Q's real job is to find out if Amanda is really a Q or some sort of weird hybrid. The outcome of that decides whether she is to live or die. Oh Amanda, have I got some news for you...
It's now down to the final round, for ten points, no conferring: do you want to return to the continuum or refrain from using your powers? Her parents were given the choice and they failed.
Meanwhile, Riker has been sent down to a polluted planet to help restore the reactor in an air purifier. It's not a good day for reactors, as it starts to overload too. He can't beam out, and doesn't have enough time for a shuttle. It's all up to Amanda - will she save her beloved Laughing Boy, but then be forced to rejoin the continuum; or let him die and remain human? No choice really - she saves him, and as an afterthought cleans the atmosphere too.
She stands forcefully on the bridge. "I've been fighting it," she says, "denying the truth". The music comes up, and she starts to sing:
I am Q, hear me roar, I think Doc Crusher is a bore, and I could vaporise her if I try...
