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Spy vs. Spy
Sep. 19th, 2008 10:59 amOOC: crossposted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theatrical_muse, today.
Prompt 248: Would you make a good spy? Why or why not?
Briefly? No.
Firstly, among the Q, what one Q knows we all know. This really makes it quite impossible to spy on one another. And the one time I tried it, during the civil war when it was actually possible, I promptly got caught and put up against a tree to be shot. (Well, it wasn't really a tree. It was really a localized hard disruption of Continuum-space such that it would block approach from about half the possible angles. But I digress.) Among my fellow Q, I am... not stealthy. I am loud, vivid, imposing, the center of attention wherever I go, and James Bond fantasies to the contrary, this does not make for a good spy. At *best*, I could be the guy that distracts everyone so the real spy can get in and get the information. (I'd say I could also be the guy who makes the nifty gadgets, but jokes about my name are *so* overdone.)
Besides, my role within the Q, the functions I was born for, don't suit the life of a spy at all. I ask the questions... I don't ferret out the answers, and then keep them secret. I investigate and study mortal species, I explore and bring the bounty of knowledge home to my fellows to analyze, I conduct tests and experiments. I could be, in mortal terms, an explorer, a scientist, a detective, a prosecuting attorney, a judge, an anthropologist, a psychologist... and among my own kind, an activist, a rabble-rouser, an anarchist, a philosopher, an opposition leader... but spy? No.
Outside the Q, among mortals, I know everything, but I can't be bothered to share it with them. I'd really need to take sides in a mortal conflict quite egregiously to be bothered spying for them. I mean, sure, I might tell Picard where the cloaked Dominion warships that are planning to blow up his species' shipyards are... *once*. If he asked nicely. But if I was going to tell him everything he needed to win a war, why wouldn't I just go so far as to blink his enemies out of existence? As fond as I am of him, I would *never* take sides in a mortal conflict to that extent... and part of the reason I'm fond of him is that he'd never ask me to. I'd probably have to pull teeth to get him to ask me about the cloaked Dominion warships.
So no. I'd make an absolutely abysmal spy.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG
theatrical_muse, today.Prompt 248: Would you make a good spy? Why or why not?
Briefly? No.
Firstly, among the Q, what one Q knows we all know. This really makes it quite impossible to spy on one another. And the one time I tried it, during the civil war when it was actually possible, I promptly got caught and put up against a tree to be shot. (Well, it wasn't really a tree. It was really a localized hard disruption of Continuum-space such that it would block approach from about half the possible angles. But I digress.) Among my fellow Q, I am... not stealthy. I am loud, vivid, imposing, the center of attention wherever I go, and James Bond fantasies to the contrary, this does not make for a good spy. At *best*, I could be the guy that distracts everyone so the real spy can get in and get the information. (I'd say I could also be the guy who makes the nifty gadgets, but jokes about my name are *so* overdone.)
Besides, my role within the Q, the functions I was born for, don't suit the life of a spy at all. I ask the questions... I don't ferret out the answers, and then keep them secret. I investigate and study mortal species, I explore and bring the bounty of knowledge home to my fellows to analyze, I conduct tests and experiments. I could be, in mortal terms, an explorer, a scientist, a detective, a prosecuting attorney, a judge, an anthropologist, a psychologist... and among my own kind, an activist, a rabble-rouser, an anarchist, a philosopher, an opposition leader... but spy? No.
Outside the Q, among mortals, I know everything, but I can't be bothered to share it with them. I'd really need to take sides in a mortal conflict quite egregiously to be bothered spying for them. I mean, sure, I might tell Picard where the cloaked Dominion warships that are planning to blow up his species' shipyards are... *once*. If he asked nicely. But if I was going to tell him everything he needed to win a war, why wouldn't I just go so far as to blink his enemies out of existence? As fond as I am of him, I would *never* take sides in a mortal conflict to that extent... and part of the reason I'm fond of him is that he'd never ask me to. I'd probably have to pull teeth to get him to ask me about the cloaked Dominion warships.
So no. I'd make an absolutely abysmal spy.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG