Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)
Patrick Stewart: Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Locutus of Borg, Michael Williams
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Quotes
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[repeated line]
Capt. Picard : Engage!
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[opening monologue]
Capt. Picard : Space... The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.
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[Repeated line]
Capt. Picard : Make it so.
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Capt. Picard : Shut up, Wesley!
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Capt. Picard : Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra!
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Admiral Anthony Haftel : Mister Data, I regret that I must order you to transport Lal over to my ship.
[Data rises to comply]
Capt. Picard : Belay that order, Commander.
Admiral Anthony Haftel : I beg your pardon.
Capt. Picard : I will take this matter to Starfleet myself.
Admiral Anthony Haftel : I am Starfleet, Captain. Proceed, Commander.
Capt. Picard : Hold your ground, Mister Data.
Admiral Anthony Haftel : Captain, you are jeopardising your command, and your career.
Capt. Picard : There are times Sir... when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience but ignore their personal liberty and freedom. Order a man to turn his child over to the state? Not while I'm his Captain.
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[repeated line]
Capt. Picard : Tea, Earl Grey, hot.
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Amanda Rogers : [Amanda Rogers, an intern aboard the Enterprise, has just discovered she's a member of the Q Continuum, and unless she agrees to live among her own kind, Q has orders to kill her] Kill me? But why?
Capt. Picard : They're not convinced that you are fully Q, and they are also responsible for your parents' death.
Amanda Rogers : My parents?
[Picard nods]
Amanda Rogers : But what right do they have?
[looking around Picard's Ready Room]
Amanda Rogers : Q, answer me! Are you afraid to face me?
Q : [Q materialises where Amanda was sitting a moment ago] She's such a plucky little thing now, isn't she?
[to Amanda]
Q : I really do enjoy you, you know?
Capt. Picard : Amanda's question deserves an answer, Q. You've made yourself judge, and jury, and if necessary... executioner. By what right have you appointed yourself to this position?
Q : Superior morality.
Capt. Picard : Oh, yes. I recall how you used your superior morality when we first encountered you. You put us on trial for the crimes of humanity.
Q : The jury's still out on that, Picard. Make no mistake.
Capt. Picard : Your arrogant pretence at being the moral guardians of the universe strikes me as being hollow, Q. I see no evidence that you are guided by a superior moral code or any code whatsoever. You may be nearly omnipotent and I don't deny that your parlour tricks are very impressive. But morality... I don't see it! I don't acknowledge it, Q! I would put human morality against the Q's any day. And perhaps that's the reason that we fascinate you so, because our puny behaviour shows you a glimmer of the one thing that evades your omnipotence... a moral center. And if so, I can think of no crueler irony than that you should destroy this young woman, whose only crime... is that she's too human.
Q : [amused] Jean-Luc, sometimes I think the only reason I come here is to listen to these wonderful speeches of yours.
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Capt. Picard : [Data has created an android offspring] What you have done will have serious ramifications. I am truly dismayed that you told no-one of what you were doing.
Data : I am sorry, Captain. I did not anticipate your objections. Do you wish me to deactivate Lal?
Capt. Picard : [flabbergasted] It's a life, Data! It can't be activated and deactivated simply!
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Capt. Picard : [recorded by an alternate Picard from six hours into the future] Captain's personal log... supplemental. I have just witnessed the total destruction of the USS Enterprise with a loss of all hands - save one... me.
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Guinan : [while the Enterprise is concealed inside a nebula, Picard is touring the ship the night before they engage a Borg vessel, and he's now taking a look around Ten-Forward] Trouble sleeping?
Capt. Picard : [surprised by Guinan's presence] It's something of a tradition, Guinan. A Captain touring the ship before a battle.
Guinan : Oh, before a hopeless battle, if I remember the tradition correctly.
Capt. Picard : Not necessarily. Nelson toured the HMS Victory before Trafalgar.
Guinan : Yes, but Nelson never returned from Trafalgar, did he?
Capt. Picard : No, but the battle was won.
Guinan : Do you expect this battle to be won?
Capt. Picard : We may yet prevail. That's a... a conceit, but it's a healthy one. I wonder if the Emperor Honorious watching the Visigoths coming over the Seventh Hill truly realised that the Roman Empire was about to fall? This is just another page in history, isn't it? Will this be the end of our civilisation? Turn the page.
Guinan : [smiles] This isn't the end.
Capt. Picard : You say that with remarkable assuredness.
Guinan : With experience. When the Borg destroyed my world, my people were scattered throughout the universe. We survived... as will humanity survive. As long as there's a handful of you to keep the spirit alive, you will prevail... even if it takes a millennium.
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[repeated line]
Capt. Picard : Come.
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Dr Beverly Crusher : [Picard, Riker, Crusher, LaForge and Troi have all gathered in the Observation Lounge to discuss Amanda Rogers, an intern aboard the Enterprise who mysteriously contained a warp core breach with sheer force of will] She's a little shaken up, but she's gonna be fine.
Commander William Riker : You said she was adopted. Could she be an alien?
Dr Beverly Crusher : She's human. There's nothing more unusual about her. Not that my instruments can detect.
Capt. Picard : Commander, have you been able to determine the cause of the warp breach?
Lt Commander Geordi LaForge : No, Sir. Everything was normal and then suddenly it's like the laws of physics went right out the window.
Q : [Q materialises in one of the empty chairs wearing his usual Starfleet uniform] And why shouldn't they? They're so inconvenient.
Capt. Picard : [a collective air of dismay suddenly descends on the room] Q!
Q : Mon Capitan.
Capt. Picard : Are you responsible for this incident in Engineering?
Q : [surprisingly upfront about it] Of course. I needed to find out if what I suspected about the girl were true.
Capt. Picard : That being?
Q : That she's a Q.
Counselor Deanna Troi : Amanda's a Q?
Dr Beverly Crusher : How is that possible? Her, her parents... her biological parents were human.
Q : Well, not exactly. They had assumed human form in order to visit Earth, I suppose for... for amusement. But in vulgar human fashion they proceeded to conceive a child...
[he winks at Beverly who looks thoroughly insulted]
Q : ... and then like mawkish humans they became attached to it. What is it about these squirming little infants that you find so appealing?
Dr Beverly Crusher : I'm sure that's beyond your comprehension, Q.
Q : I desperately hope so.
Counselor Deanna Troi : What happened to Amanda's parents?
Q : They died in an accident.
[that gets Picard's attention but keeps it to himself for now]
Q : None of us knew whether she had inherited the capacities of the Q but recently they've begun to emerge and er... as an expert in humanity... I was sent to investigate.
Commander William Riker : You? An expert in humanity?
Q : Not a very challenging field of study, I grant you.
Lt Commander Geordi LaForge : Are you saying you created a core breach just to test this girl?
Q : Uh huh.
Counselor Deanna Troi : What would have happened if she couldn't stop it?
Q : Then I would have known she wasn't a Q.
Dr Beverly Crusher : And now that you know - what do you intend to do?
Q : Instruct her. If this child does not learn how to control her power she may accidentally destroy herself... or all of you... or perhaps your entire galaxy?
Capt. Picard : I find it hard to believe that you're here to do us a favour.
Q : You're quite right. I wouldn't. But there are those in the Continuum...
[raises his eyes skyward]
Q : ... who have an over exaggerated sense of responsibility. They think that we need to take precautions to keep the little dear from running amok.
Dr Beverly Crusher : And once you've taught her... then you'll go away?
Q : And leave her here? Of course not. She'll come back to the Continuum where she belongs.
Dr Beverly Crusher : Wait a minute! You, you can't just come in here and take her away from everything she's ever known!
Q : [laughs that off] I assure you I can.
Dr Beverly Crusher : She has plans for herself. She wants to have a career and a family.
Q : I'm rescuing her from that miserable existence.
Dr Beverly Crusher : That miserable existence is all she's known for the last eighteen years. You have no right to take her away from it!
Q : [bored with the turn this conversation has taken] Mon Capitan, I really think that we need to speak privately.
[Q transports them both to Picard's Ready Room]
Q : Well, there, that's better. Crusher gets more shrill with each passing year.
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Lieutenant Worf : Nepo!
Capt. Picard : This is mutiny!
