“I’m not sure I should do this, Beverly, I’m not even sure I can. After all we’ve lost. After all the pain. I thought after the Borg were freed that it would be over. That there could be peace. But the Pact, the loss of Romulus… another Tzenkethi war. I fear that the only peace I will ever know is amongst those vines. But even there I am haunted by the memories of family. Yet more loss, Beverly. And now? Now it seems like every sacrifice we made was for naught. They want to tear everything we fought to preserve down. Every fallen crewmember. Every ship. Every world burned. They want to dishonour them all. And Beverly I am afraid. I’m afraid that the man I became isn’t the man they need to stop this. The man they need to lead. I’m not sure I can be the man I once was. But, I am not sure I have a choice.” Picard walked away as the sun set on La Barre cemetery. He hadn’t visited the place in many years. The names carved into stone were too much for him to bear. Their immutable coldness ate into him with every visit, until it had simply become easier to disappear into his vineyard. Beverly Howard Crusher Picard. 2324 - 2392 Rene Jacques Robert Francois Picard. 2381 - 2392
PT2 Flashback. The crew was gone. Either through the escape pods, or lying slain at his feet. There was no fire. No sign, other than the corpses, that the Enterprise E had been disabled through violence. The only light came from a torch he had salvaged from a fallen officer. Picard didn’t even know the woman’s name, and yet her sacrifice had ensured he had a chance to survive. He memorialised them as he passed. ‘Their families should know they died fighting. They should know they sacrificed for something greater than themselves’ he thought as he logged their comm ID’s in a half-working padd. He’d thought to go to engineering. To see if some systems could be restored. But another urge drove him now. He had no idea where Rene and Beverly were. He found them in their quarters. And as he pounded on the emergency forcefield that kept the corridor pressurised, he watched them die. His every call to the computer unanswered. His tearing at the control panel next to the doors futile. His wife and child died before his eyes and it was his fault. His fault for staying aboard Enterprise. His fault for turning down every ambassadorship. His fault that his family had been here. Every person he had walked past. Everyone he had sworn to protect by oath or by vow. His fault. All of it.
PT3 Hope. “This is not who we are.” He mumbled. The lights glared in his eyes as he looked back up towards the audience. Picard knew that if he failed here, he would fail when the polls opened. The visceral awareness that this might be his last chance to make a difference in the world kept him company as he considered his words. “This is not who we are” he said as he gestured at the figure across from him behind his own podium. “The Federation has never defined itself in opposition to others. The Federation must never define itself that way. Our civilisation has always stood tall with hope in our hearts and peace extended with our hands. It has been our way from the very beginning to wish nothing but the best for all sentient life, whether they live under our aegis, or another. That must never change. It is the foundation upon which all we love is built. A foundation strengthened by the sacrifice of more beings than any of us could count. If what my opponent says is true, then every single person who has sacrificed for us did so in vain. If we allow ourselves to become what he proposes then their courage, their commitment, their valour and their final acts of defiance and bravery mean nothing. But, if it is true then I would ask one simple thing of my opponent. Can we have them back, please? If they mean so little to you… Can we have the countless Starfleet officers who have died back? Can we have the time of those who spent years away from their families and friends helping former enemies rebuild back? Can we have the sixty four billion lives lost to the Borg Invasion back? Can I have my wife and child back?” “I refuse to let those lives be dishonoured in this way. We stand upon the shoulders of giants, and we must never let the flame they carried die out. I will carry that flame into the future for them, and for those yet to come. But I cannot do it alone.”
This is an excellent first chapter. You've captured the background story of an older Picard sometime in 2399/2400 who by then have become saddened and embittered by both his personal losses and the loss of the old Federation he gave much of his life in service. It captures Sir Patrick Stewart's description that "this Picard is not the same person from the TNG series" and is now becoming a more darker and embittered personality. However, his old self who wishes to embark on new adventures, to uphold Federation values, to seek out new lives and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before, is still there somewhere. In order to rekindled them, Picard needs to meet up with new friends and new crew who share these values. Of course, I'm saddened with the loss of Bevelry and perhaps the loss of other beloved TNG characters when the Enterprise-E is destroyed. But Picard's journey to become a dark and embittered Picard might not reached that depth without the loss of the people he loved and care about - after the demise of his brother and nephew earlier. The Tzenkethi as a new baddie? Not sure if that'll work. Perhaps Species 8472 or a resurgent Borg threat as envisoned in the "Destiny" novel series might've worked better. In any case, assuming the new Picard series only involved him from the old TNG crew, I believe your story is a possible background of what happened to him between 2379 and 2399 that led him to become the man portrayed in the upcoming series. Let's hope one of the show writers would pay attention and incorporate it somehow in the new series (fingers crossed you'll get some royalty $$$ too) .
Thanks mate. What I did here was just extrapolate from where things are in the novelverse, with that little 'not the man we used to know' snippet they gave us about this new series. So the Borg are well gone at that point - I've also imagined what might happen to the Typhon Pact when Romulus goes pop. The Tzenkethi and the Breen are really the only threats left from that political alliance, aside from the uppity god botherering Kinshaya bird people. Perhaps it fractures and leaves enough instability in its wake to cause another conflict between our favourite fanatical purifiers(Tzenkethi) and the UFP? That was the idea anyway. I'm not sure the new show will be this dark, and half of me hopes it isn't. Just a fun exercise.
The Breen, plus an insurgent remnants of the Dominion and Cardassians (under a command of a resurrected Gul Dukat, perhaps). Plus whoever Romulans who survived their planet implosion, think of a Nero-like person who did not get pull back into the JJ-verse. Perhaps they band together and become the Federation's latest deadly threat ?? Of course, some of these have been addressed by the novel-verse, but since the Trek show-runners don't consider the novels as canon, I guess you can let your imagination a bit wilder
@Serin117 I've been told I can do a halfway decent Patrick Stewart impersonation, so I decided to record your dialogue with my Picard voice. The video below features both of your speeches, performed by me to the best of my ability to capture the essence of Jean-luc Picard. There's no footage, just audio, and it's far from perfect (I kinda rushed through it, so it is a bit hard to understand what I am saying at times). At any rate, I hope you all get a kick out of this!
OHHHHHHH THAT IS SOOO COOL! Holy sh*t, mate! That is awesome. Thank you! ... I don't suppose you'd mind if I shared your performance with an fb group I'm rather active in? (its star trek shitposting, and yes I know the name doesn't inspire confidence, but we do on occasion do serious stuff. It was where I originally posted these snippets).
Go right ahead dude! Just don't oversell it or anything, I don't want your friends to have built up expectations and be disappointed!
That's the joy of that group! Even if it was awful(its really not), it would still be fine :P You absolutely nailed the first part! The second wasn't quite how I imagined it when writing, but I think it still works perfectly. Angry-Picard could very well be where he is at that stage. I know I'd be cranky if some demagogue was trying to change my civilisation for the worse. You've honoured me, good sir!
Wouldn't be the first time I've misinterpreted disenchantment in a script as being angry, LOL. I was trying to channel the side of Picard we see in First Contact, as well as his dressing down of Wesley in TNG "The First Duty". I'm glad it wasn't quite what you were expecting in a good way, because sometimes writers (and I'm guilty of this as well) don't see all perspectives, and get a pleasant surprise when an actor does something new and different. For that, you have honored me as well!
Mmm! And I definitely recognised that Picard as the one we met in First Contact. You did it well. Was pretty cool comparing the performance with that.