"Death Wish" Line-by-Line

[JanewayRulz!]

RIKER: I'll be damned. It's him.

 

[Leandar]

Q: As a matter of fact, he carried your wounded ancestor back from the front line. Didn't you? (Quinn nods) My point is, Captain, that Q has had a profound influence on these three lives. Without Q, Isaac Newton would have died forgotten in a Liverpool debtor's prison, a suspect in several prostitute murders. Without Q, there would have been no concert at, er.....

 

[hux]

QUINN: Woodstock.

 

[LeadHead]

Q: Whatever. More importantly, Mister Ginsburg would never have met his future wife, the "groovy chick with the long red beads," and he would never have become a successful orthodontist, settled in Scarsdale with 4 kids.

 

[Orac]

Ginsberg: Far out.

 

[LeadHead]

Q: Yes. Without Q, there would have been no William T. Riker at all and I would have lost at least a dozen really good opportunities to insult him over the years. Oh, and lest I forget, The Borg would have assimilated the Federation. Thank you. (To the witnesses) Thank you.

Q snaps his fingers, Riker, Newton and Ginsburg all vanish.

Q: This is the life Q treats without respect. This is the life he would give up so easily.

 

[Orac]

Tuvok: May I remind this hearing, and my learned colleague, that for three centuries, my client has not been allowed contact with anyone. At this time, we would like to reproduce the environment in which he has been confined.

 

[LeadHead]

Q: I object.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

JANEWAY: No, I'll allow this.

(Quinn does the transporting.)

 

[LeadHead]

In the comet, we find ourselves in a very small chamber. The quarters are close enough that Janeway, Tuvok, Q and Quinn are pressed up against each other.

Tuvok: These are the conditions my client would be forced to live in for eternity if you deny him asylum, Captain.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Q: We just want to give him time to reconsider his position.

 

[LeadHead]

Quinn: I will never change my mind.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Q: This is your own doing. You could live a perfectly normal life if you were simply willing to live a perfectly normal life.

 

[Orac]

Janeway: I've seen enough. Please return us to the hearing room.

 

[hux]

[Hearing room]

TUVOK: I would submit that the quality of life that my client will have to endure should be considered in this proceeding.

 

[CoffeeAddict]

JANEWAY: I don't like those conditions any more than you do, Mister Tuvok, and I wouldn't want to spend another day there if I were you, Q, but I'm here to rule on a request for asylum, not to judge the penal system of the Q Continuum. And he does have a point. You were confined only to prevent you from doing harm to yourself. I've been doing a great deal of research, studying a variety of cultural attitudes on suicide, to help me frame the basis of a decision. Mister Tuvok, are you familiar with the double effect principle on assisted suicide that dates back to the Bolian Middle Ages?

 

[LeadHead]

Tuvok. I believe it relates to the relief of suffering. Does it not, Captain?

 

[JanewayRulz!]

JANEWAY: It states, an action that has the principal effect of relieving suffering may be ethically justified even though the same action has the secondary effect of possibly causing death. This principle is the only thing I can find that could possibly convince me to decide in your favour, Q. And yet, as I look at you, you don't seem by our standards, aged, infirm, or in any pain. Can you show this hearing that you suffer in any manner other than that caused by the conditions of your incarceration? Any suffering that would justify a decision to grant you asylum.

 

[LeadHead]

Tuvok: May I request a recess to consider our response, Captain?

 

[CoffeeAddict]

JANEWAY: Granted.