Bargain with a Fallen God
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard confronts Q in the detention cell, demanding answers about the moon's deteriorating orbit and the ship's probing with Berthold radiation.
Q plays the victim, describing his terrifying experience of human frailty, while Picard responds with sarcasm and disbelief.
Picard refuses to engage with Q's theatrics, turning to leave, but Q makes a desperate offer of his cosmic expertise to help with the moon crisis.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Reluctant and resolute — outwardly composed but inwardly conflicted between disgust for Q and the imperative to save millions.
Picard enters the cell, presses Q for facts about the moon and Berthold radiation, stifles personal discomfort, keys his insignia, orders the forcefield removed, and assigns Data to shadow Q for the remainder of his stay.
- • Obtain any usable knowledge to stop the moon and mitigate Berthold radiation.
- • Protect ship and civilian lives by minimizing risk while leveraging Q's information.
- • Maintain command discipline and ensure continuous supervision of a dangerous detainee.
- • Q is inherently dangerous and untrustworthy, even when vulnerable.
- • Starfleet duty to protect lives supersedes personal feelings toward Q.
- • Knowledge—even from a tormentor—can be operationally valuable and must be exploited.
Clinically curious with an undercurrent of wonder — contemplative about what Q's alleged mortality reveals about humanity and himself.
Data enters at Picard's summons, is formally assigned as Q's constant minder, stands observing and studying Q with clinical curiosity, and offers an analytical comment about the possibility of Q's humanity.
- • Carry out Picard's orders and ensure Q is continuously supervised.
- • Observe Q to determine whether he truly experiences human vulnerabilities.
- • Gather data and test hypotheses about emotion and mortality in sentient beings.
- • Systematic observation yields truth; empirical study is the correct approach.
- • If Q is truly human, his condition may offer insights into emotion and fallibility.
- • Following Starfleet command structure and orders is essential to mission success.
Afraid and cagey — performing helplessness while anxiously bargaining to secure shelter and relevance.
Q lies on the bunk, alternates theatrical whining with urgent bargaining, claims loss of his powers and mortality, offers up his knowledge as currency, and tentatively crosses the cleared forcefield to test his new physical limits.
- • Gain release from confinement and sanctuary aboard the Enterprise.
- • Convert remaining value (knowledge) into protection and leverage.
- • Re-establish a role and preserve survival despite newfound mortality.
- • He is biologically weakened and less formidable without Continuum powers.
- • His knowledge is the only remaining currency he possesses and will be respected as such.
- • Picard will accept pragmatic trade-offs when lives are at stake.
Neutral and transactional — functions purely to execute authorized commands.
The Shipboard Computer receives Picard's vocal authorization and immediately executes protocol to lower the detention rim forcefield, validating Picard's command and changing the cell's security state.
- • Accurately and promptly execute the captain's authenticated commands.
- • Maintain ship security protocols while altering forcefield states as ordered.
- • Authorized commands from proper credentials should be executed without delay.
- • Ship safety is maintained through adherence to protocol and authenticated actions.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Berthold radiation is invoked as a diagnostic clue and part of the immediate crisis; Picard mentions the ship has been probed with it, which raises the stakes and justifies accepting Q's offer of knowledge despite moral reservations.
The ferrous crystalline Bre'el Moon is the external macguffin referenced to justify Picard's willingness to trade freedom for Q's knowledge; it is the distant but urgent threat whose millions of lives provide moral weight to the negotiation.
The detention cell bunk serves as Q's immediate platform of confinement and vulnerability: he lies on it while pleading and demonstrating weakness. It frames his physical fall from godlike posture to human frailty and anchors the visual of his exposure.
The detention cell rim forcefield functions as the physical and symbolic barrier between Q and the crew. Picard orders its removal via command to the computer; its deactivation permits Q's tentative physical crossing and initiates the negotiated exchange of service for liberty.
Picard keys his Starfleet insignia to authenticate an order, a tangible gesture that transforms personal moral hesitation into institutional authority; the keyed emblem triggers ship systems to accept and execute his forcefield removal command.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Main Engineering is named as the immediate destination where Q's asserted knowledge will be operationalized; Picard instructs Data to escort Q to Mister La Forge there, linking the brig exchange directly to pragmatic technical response and problem‑solving.
The USS Enterprise (Federation Flagship) serves as the institutional and physical container for the moral exchange: a moving stronghold where technological crisis meets ethical command decisions. The brig cell, though spatially small, becomes the ship's moral crucible where duty, mercy, and strategy intersect.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Key Dialogue
"Q: "I have no power... But I still have the knowledge... locked in this puny brain. You cannot afford to dismiss that advantage, can you?""
"PICARD: "Mister Data, please report to Detention Cell Three. Computer, remove the forcefield. If this is what I must do to save those lives, I will.""
"DATA: "It would mean you have achieved in disgrace what I have always aspired to be.""