This story is just perfect from start to end. The idea is a great one and the story seems to just flow naturally from its initial premise to it's moving, promising ending. All the characters were spot on. I could just hear Picard or Q (the De Lancie one) in my head when reading your dialogue. And I was really taken with your creation "Quentin". They are some great observations, like Riker's admission that he has missed his relinquished Q power everyday, and really funny passages (Q's snarky remarks). As I said, I think it's perfect as is, but I would be very curious to read about "enseign Quentin"'s adventures in a different story. Again, thanks for writing this and I wished I could "favourite" it more than once !

J'ai bien aimé.

I found the story quite fascinating and I look forward to looking at your other works in the future. I would give this story a 5/5 rating if I could, but all I can give is a favorite sadly.

Needlessly offensive in the first few paragraphs. Nothing after that is worth reading.

awesome

Good

i thought it was well written the end caught me by surprise

A most excellent story! Great writing and nice ending. Well done!

Excellent story. The irregularities in Pecard's actions here that you point out do hold merit, but at the same time I can totally see this from the other side, too, and I feel like their actions are completely understandable. Excellent story.

Someday, I might really love to see an epilogue, of sorts, of five years later when the key expires. How will Pecard have changed? How will Quentin have changed, and how, in that moment, will their relationship irreversibly change from what it was moments before?

great story, and the best part is Q was a lie, that whole being nice thing, he was nice till he got mad, and you see that at time he like I can do what I want.

It would be kind of like your boss working with you, why you could be friend, at any point he could just fire you, or do what he wanted, you are never really equal.

This is fascinating, I'd love to see more!

This was an excellent story, and raised exactly the kind of thoughts about TNG and Q that I've had. Loved reading it, and was sad to see it end

Hello, I just randomly found this piece and wanted to say I found it quite intriguing and well-written. You really captured the characters well, which unfortunately showed that for the most part about hypocritical they could be about how they go on about being so 'evolved' yet Q nailed them about how hypocritically bigoted they are.

I couldn't help but imagine how this would have played out with other crews and ironically how Quentin would have been accepted by them.

I found the title spot on.

Good job, OneHorseShay

Very interesting. And your thoughts about it at the end are true enough... I think when Picard sees Q, he sees his dead crewman and Borg and all sorts of things that make him in specific the wrong person to decide how to rationally deal with the Q as a species. But I think that specific deficit of objectivity is why 'our usual Q' likes to 'poke him with a stick' on some level, too. No fun taunting someone who doesn't know you can follow through, etc. and this human already knows, so it takes any effort out of entraining new ones to fear you in a nice, familiar way.

Picard (and the Enterprise in general, some more than others) have experienced Q related trauma, so they can't be objective about the Q, much less a Q. If ants could understand that sometimes kids burned them with magnifying glasses and thought nothing of it, we'd *all* be avoided by (or killed by, if they could manage - doubtful on most continents) ants, basically, but they can't.

Another similar culture would be an easier bet, probably, if the Q in question didn't love being obnoxious the way our usual Q does. And really, the character was invented as the immovable rock and unstoppable object: we as the viewers like him, usually, because he's funny and he makes the other charters react to him in ways only he has the power to do - but if anything like him looked in our direction, having seen the show, we'd probably also just be like NOPE. He serves as a psychological sounding board for the other characters - Q is designed as a plot device more than a character, a Deus ex machina, even with all the character JDL put into him.

Curiosity would win for a short time, but there would always be those freaky reminders, as you showed well enough. I don't blame Picard, but he's more than a little obsessed with controlling situations, it's the nature of Starfleet captains, probably. The part with Riker was also quite good, and I can see it as an addiction almost, one that ought to fade with time and focus on daily minutiae, like a dream, the way human memory works, but still linger.

I'd love to read 'Steve Quentin's' thoughts when he returns to being Q.

This was well written, good job! :)