Called on the carpet.
Mar. 19th, 2009 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qcontinuumOOC: crossposted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theatrical_muse today.
Prompt 274: What question do you most dread?
Pretty much anything the Continuum is asking me.
Whether it's, "Q, why did you think making a mortal into a member of the Continuum was a good idea?", "Q, are you aware that your intervention on the Ceulan ethnic group of the Jinarii species has resulted in the Ceulans being nearly destroyed, and as a result they have become warlike and genocidal themselves?", "Q, when we asked you to remove yourself from this body so we could debate the best way to deal with your constant law-breaking, you attempted to form an unauthorized liaison with a mortal species, and when they refused you exposed them to the Borg. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???"... or, well, anything like that... let's just say that I generally don't like what comes after that question, regardless of what I actually come up with as an answer.
Sometimes I dread some of the questions that come up here as well, mostly because they are so incredibly stupid when applied to my form of life. (3 AM? What do you wish you had a camera for? Come on.)
Prompt 273: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who watches the watchers?)
That depends. The watchers of who?
I watch over many species (or used to, at least; they bumped me upstairs), in particular my most recent obsession, humanity. The Continuum watches me. Does that mean the Continuum watches the watchers? Well, then who watches the Continuum? Actually, I do. One of my roles within the Continuum -- and one I still try to play, even with my changed status -- is to be the guy who tells the rest of the Continuum when they are being morons. When they wanted to execute a child of our species who had been raised among humans, I was the one who checked them and demanded that we test the kid first before bringing the hammer down. When I feared that they might actually be planning to do something destructive and permanent to my favorite species, the humans, I begged, wheedled, called in favors, fought duels, and performed some rather degrading sexual favors (don't ask) to get enough Q to agree to allow me to test them for sentience.
So the Continuum watches me, and I (and other Q) watch the Continuum, which makes sense, because the Continuum is merely the overmind/unity composed of all the Q. This is the sort of feedback mechanism that is needed to keep power from going unchecked; *all* "watchers" should have someone they are answerable to who is relatively antagonistic toward them and their goals, and therefore not inclined to cut them slack. (Which... sort of relates to why I kept getting asked those questions I dread. See above.)
Prompt 130: Loyalty.
On Earth they have a concept in the government of the nation-state of England, where the party that is out of power is referred to as "His Majesty's Loyal Opposition". Of course, for most of the time that they've had parties, His Majesty (or Her Majesty) has been a figurehead unaffiliated with the party system, so that makes rather less sense than it should.
In the Continuum we have a concept that best translates as "anadvocate". If the advocate for something supports it, the anadvocate argues against it. When I was much, much younger, the role of the anadvocate was highly respected in the Continuum, and taking it on was considered an act of loyalty to the Continuum. Being the part of the Continuum overmind that says "Wait a minute, put the brakes on, is this really such a good idea?" is *vital* to keep the Continuum from making really stupid mistakes, such as the ones they made for the past billion years or so that led to us having a civil war.
The person who is truly loyal to you will tell you when you're being an idiot. They will check your power, warn when you are misusing it, argue with you when you're doing something foolish... or even when you're not, because how can you know that what you're doing is the right thing to do if no one presents the arguments against doing it and makes you debate them down? But nearly everyone, sooner or later, starts conflating "loyalty" with "agreement", and the loyal opposition is branded a traitor for doing the very job you most need them to do.
I was an anadvocate from very early on, and I continued to do the job even after many, many other anadvocates in the Continuum gave up. When status in the Continuum became incumbent, not on the strength of your arguments but how well you toed the party line and played nice with others, the status of the anadvocates plummeted, and the only ones who continued to do the job were the ones like me, the ones who were willing to accept being somewhat ostracized in order to speak truth to power. And over time, we were pushed aside and marginalized even more, some of us even killed for various trumped up reasons (or thrown out of the Continuum and made mortal, which amounts to the same thing), our loyalty and integrity questioned and finally assumed to be virtually nonexistent. Which is how it got so bad that we fought a war.
Now that my side has won the war, I have demanded the reinstatement of the role of the anadvocate as a respected, loyal and necessary part of Continuum governance. This is difficult, because now that I'm the guy in charge, of course I don't like it when these young turks who wouldn't put themselves on the line when it counted now want to disagree with me about everything. But, you know, okay. I can be a screwup too. I need someone to make me justify my beliefs and my actions as much as any other member of the Continuum does. I don't have to like it, I just have to respect the role, or no one else will. Which... is very hard to do, because I've spent a billion years or so ostentatiously disrespecting and mouthing off at anyone who disagreed with me because being funny and over the top in my critiques was the only way to get enough other Q to even *listen* that I could ever have an impact at all, and old habits die hard. But I'm working on it.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG and VOY
theatrical_muse today.Prompt 274: What question do you most dread?
Pretty much anything the Continuum is asking me.
Whether it's, "Q, why did you think making a mortal into a member of the Continuum was a good idea?", "Q, are you aware that your intervention on the Ceulan ethnic group of the Jinarii species has resulted in the Ceulans being nearly destroyed, and as a result they have become warlike and genocidal themselves?", "Q, when we asked you to remove yourself from this body so we could debate the best way to deal with your constant law-breaking, you attempted to form an unauthorized liaison with a mortal species, and when they refused you exposed them to the Borg. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???"... or, well, anything like that... let's just say that I generally don't like what comes after that question, regardless of what I actually come up with as an answer.
Sometimes I dread some of the questions that come up here as well, mostly because they are so incredibly stupid when applied to my form of life. (3 AM? What do you wish you had a camera for? Come on.)
Prompt 273: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who watches the watchers?)
That depends. The watchers of who?
I watch over many species (or used to, at least; they bumped me upstairs), in particular my most recent obsession, humanity. The Continuum watches me. Does that mean the Continuum watches the watchers? Well, then who watches the Continuum? Actually, I do. One of my roles within the Continuum -- and one I still try to play, even with my changed status -- is to be the guy who tells the rest of the Continuum when they are being morons. When they wanted to execute a child of our species who had been raised among humans, I was the one who checked them and demanded that we test the kid first before bringing the hammer down. When I feared that they might actually be planning to do something destructive and permanent to my favorite species, the humans, I begged, wheedled, called in favors, fought duels, and performed some rather degrading sexual favors (don't ask) to get enough Q to agree to allow me to test them for sentience.
So the Continuum watches me, and I (and other Q) watch the Continuum, which makes sense, because the Continuum is merely the overmind/unity composed of all the Q. This is the sort of feedback mechanism that is needed to keep power from going unchecked; *all* "watchers" should have someone they are answerable to who is relatively antagonistic toward them and their goals, and therefore not inclined to cut them slack. (Which... sort of relates to why I kept getting asked those questions I dread. See above.)
Prompt 130: Loyalty.
On Earth they have a concept in the government of the nation-state of England, where the party that is out of power is referred to as "His Majesty's Loyal Opposition". Of course, for most of the time that they've had parties, His Majesty (or Her Majesty) has been a figurehead unaffiliated with the party system, so that makes rather less sense than it should.
In the Continuum we have a concept that best translates as "anadvocate". If the advocate for something supports it, the anadvocate argues against it. When I was much, much younger, the role of the anadvocate was highly respected in the Continuum, and taking it on was considered an act of loyalty to the Continuum. Being the part of the Continuum overmind that says "Wait a minute, put the brakes on, is this really such a good idea?" is *vital* to keep the Continuum from making really stupid mistakes, such as the ones they made for the past billion years or so that led to us having a civil war.
The person who is truly loyal to you will tell you when you're being an idiot. They will check your power, warn when you are misusing it, argue with you when you're doing something foolish... or even when you're not, because how can you know that what you're doing is the right thing to do if no one presents the arguments against doing it and makes you debate them down? But nearly everyone, sooner or later, starts conflating "loyalty" with "agreement", and the loyal opposition is branded a traitor for doing the very job you most need them to do.
I was an anadvocate from very early on, and I continued to do the job even after many, many other anadvocates in the Continuum gave up. When status in the Continuum became incumbent, not on the strength of your arguments but how well you toed the party line and played nice with others, the status of the anadvocates plummeted, and the only ones who continued to do the job were the ones like me, the ones who were willing to accept being somewhat ostracized in order to speak truth to power. And over time, we were pushed aside and marginalized even more, some of us even killed for various trumped up reasons (or thrown out of the Continuum and made mortal, which amounts to the same thing), our loyalty and integrity questioned and finally assumed to be virtually nonexistent. Which is how it got so bad that we fought a war.
Now that my side has won the war, I have demanded the reinstatement of the role of the anadvocate as a respected, loyal and necessary part of Continuum governance. This is difficult, because now that I'm the guy in charge, of course I don't like it when these young turks who wouldn't put themselves on the line when it counted now want to disagree with me about everything. But, you know, okay. I can be a screwup too. I need someone to make me justify my beliefs and my actions as much as any other member of the Continuum does. I don't have to like it, I just have to respect the role, or no one else will. Which... is very hard to do, because I've spent a billion years or so ostentatiously disrespecting and mouthing off at anyone who disagreed with me because being funny and over the top in my critiques was the only way to get enough other Q to even *listen* that I could ever have an impact at all, and old habits die hard. But I'm working on it.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG and VOY