Humanity is deemed Not Guilty by the Continuum after Data's decision, and Q returns Picard and crew to the AQ. The ending is somber but hopeful,
Wow, I especially like this part.
Thanks
I’ll go ahead and post the fuller version here --- it’s what this thread is about and….why not? I’ll eventually probably post the real, full versions of all three “films” in the Fan Fiction Forum. Skip now if you don't wanna read it!
Star Trek: Immortality
The “film” begins with our heroes at Quark’s on DS9. In a captain’s log, JLP explains the crew has been enjoying their downtime after the furious fight with the Romulans. The E-E is receiving much-needed repairs, and Geordi has made significant progress working on Data after the Romulan Emperor delivered near-fatal electrical wounds to the android in a fight on Romulus.
After the E-E leaves DS9, Q arrives and whisks them away to an unknown place; a completely different galaxy. The E-E reappears in orbit above a class-M planet, but it’s lost all communication, scanning, weapons, and transporter ability. Q explains the planet below is teeming with wondrous life-forms unlike any they’ve ever encountered. The most advanced of them is a kind-hearted, hunting-and-gathering race that is thousands of years behind Humanity. However, Q explains that while this race has vast potential, they're split between two clans that are odds --- alike in every way except fur color, one with blue fur and the other with orange.
Q transports the main crew (besides JLP) to the surface. He splits them up, sending Data, Geordi, and Crusher to the Blue clan’s territory and Worf, Troi, and Riker to the Orange clan’s territory. Both away teams are amazed at the sights they see, but each group soon encounters their designated furry clan. Immediately, the primitive beings believe them to be “gods” and identify our heroes as the mystical "Star Children of the Prophecy.”
The fuzzy creatures believe their arrival is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy handed down to their ages ago to their ancestors by the all-powerful “Sky Father.” Both Starfleet groups soon deduce this Sky Father was actually Q, and they’re disgusted by his actions. Nevertheless, they can’t explain the true events to this primitive race, and they realize they are indeed, in a weird way, fulfilling the ancient “prophecy” by simply being pawns there, pawns in Q’s game.
The furry beings explain the Prophecy to our heroes: they, the Star Children, will bring eternal peace between the Orange and Blue clans. This will happen only after the Star Children sacrifice their magical brother, and the Sky Father will then shed a Tear of Fire down from the heavens to show His approval. But the Prophecy has a dark twist; if the Star Children refuse to make this sacrifice, the Orange and Blue clans will never unite and their world will be haunted by discord forever, and eventually war and destruction will destroy both clans. In essence, they believe the Star Children –our heroes –are their only hope.
A young Orange male and a young Blue female, sharing a forbidden and secret love affair, bring the two clans and both away teams together and make communication possible after the both clans "realize" the Prophecy is at hand. The two young lovers' fathers are the chiefs of each clan.
Meanwhile, Q takes JLP to several alternate versions of his own future -- all set ten years later. In the first, Picard is still the captain of the Enterprise, but he quickly realizes something is wrong. In ten-forward, Guinan explains that he still has his Chair, but he’s now all alone, except for Data, who refuses to ever leave him. Everyone else (including Bev) has moved on. Guinan explains he’s alone and unhappy, with nothing but the rigors of command to keep him company.
In the second future, Q takes him to San Francisco, where he's a high-ranking admiral at Starfleet Command. Here, here's extremely well respected and influential, but in a lunch with Dr. LaForge and Ambassador Worf, he learns that Beverly isn't in his life at all, Riker/Troi are on the Titan, and Data died ten years earlier. He’s in command of the entire Federation fleet, but nights are lonely, and his final years will ultimately be spent in solitude.
In the third reality, Picard finds himself in the familiar French vineyard fields again. He walks into a nearby home and sees pictures of he and Beverly together. He looks down and notices a wedding band on his left hand, and almost bursts out laughing. Here, he and Crusher are happily married, quietly living out their twilight years in comfort and seclusion. But after a visit by Riker and Troi (and their 9-year old daughter), JLP learns that Data is dead in this reality also, and he himself resigned from SF a decade ago after being publicly reprimanded for an egregious violation of the Prime Directive. He has company, but now he is discredited and inconsequential.
Frustrated and angry, Picard tells Q he is unhappy with each of these futures and he won’t accept any of them as they’ve been presented. Q laughs and says that it’s not his choice --- these things have already happened; which reality he actually experiences depends on his own choices back at the mystery planet, and whether or not Humanity is found Guilty.
To make a long story short, Data --identified as the magical brother ---eventually agrees to the self-sacrifice, despite Picard's vehement objections. All other crew members, who have fallen in love with the little beings, agree to let Data make his own decision. Data feels the self-sacrifice will complete his path toward humanity. Picard is extremely angry with Q for making them all play this game. Still critically wounded from his fight with the Rommie Emperor, and needing a "plug-in" to survive, Data rejects that opportunity and his own immortality. Despite Picard’s objections, Data allows the little beings to watch as he slowly slips away into death as his systems permanently shut down.
Resolute, Q immediately transports the crew back to the E-E and restores all power to the ship. The senior crew gathers together and they give Data a Spock-like funeral, firing his lifeless body off in a torpedo, down toward the planet. Below, the Orange and Blue clans stand together on the banks of an ocean, and they watch the Star Father's Tear of Fire streak down across the horizon. The little beings hug and cheer, and the two secret lovers openly kiss as both their fathers look on in approval. The Prophecy has been fulfilled. As the torpedo plunges into the ocean, Q stands on a cliff above watching the entire scene, with his long white robes flowing in the wind.
Back on the E-E, Q reveals the little race will now unite in Peace, advance their technology steadily, and eventually go on to forge galactic peace thousands of years later in their own galaxy. Data’s quest for Humanity, and the subsequent sacrifice it produced, will allow an entire galaxy to experience Peace for thousands of years.
Q then whisks JLP away into the cosmos, and he offers the captain a chance at immortality and total knowledge. He tells him all those alternate futures will eventually end with his own death, of course. Instead, Q wants JLP to travel around with him across the universe. He offers Picard a chance to be immortal. But JLP, like Data, refuses immortality and echoes his "time is a friend, not a stalker" philosophy that we saw in
Generations. Q is disappointed, but he tells JLP that Humanity has passed the Trial for good -- there will be no more tests – and he returns JLP to the E-E. Q wishes him well, saying “I’ll see you….out there,” before he transports them all back to the AQ and departs for good.
Back in the AQ, Geordi reveals the existence of a Tasha Yar-like holoprogram that Data told him about before he died. The crew meets in a holodeck and the program begins. Like Yar's simulation, a small pad rests on a green hillside, with blue skies and golden sunlight above. Data’s life-size image appears on the pad, and he tells them how much his time with them has meant, and that although he wasn't human, he thinks he knows what love means because he's always cared for all of them. He thanks them all, wishes them well, and says farewell before his projection slowly disappears.
Still on the green hillside, our heroes smile and sniffle; they embrace one another and wipe away a few tears. JLP tells them all how proud he always was to be their captain. But, he says that Q was very wrong about one thing: the future isn't written in stone; it belongs to them --- it will be whatever they make of it. They all nod in agreement, turn and walk back down the green hillside toward the holodeck exit. Worf follows Geordi, Riker and Troi exit arm-in-arm behind them, and Bev and JLP grasp hands and share a warm look before she walks out alone. Picard turns and looks back up at the hillside; he smiles and slightly nods in approval – and then turns his back and walks through the door, back into one of the hallways of the Enterprise.
The audience is left without a true answer regarding Picard's future, although we know Reality #1 is off the table. The future is, as he has said, whatever they make it to be.
The ending scene is the E-E gliding away with Picard voicing a classic "These are the voyages..." log entry….and then the theme music plays as the screen fades to black.
ha! If you actually read all that…hope you liked it!
