Q

So this is his latest obsession. He stages a revolution in the Continuum, wins it, has a child, and he's *still* completely besotted with ridiculous mortals, to the point where he's got nothing better to do than send them letters. Using this ludicrously primitive network, no less.

If you're going to play at being a mortal, do it. Immerse yourself in it. Don't take to yourself the privileges of omnipotence and yet obsess over communicating with mortals. I can't believe how absurd he is. And talking to them as if they could actually give him insight? Whining endlessly about his problems with the child? (Which, frankly, don't surprise me. The child is spoiled rotten. I might have expected Q to have no concept of discipline.)

How completely ridiculous. Also, completely expected. I knew he'd be up to something stupid, although I boggle at quite how stupid.

I was going to ask symbiont_dax to get ezridax to convince the Intendant (kiranerys at the moment) that what she really, really, really wants to do is seduce Worf. Because I really, really, really want to inflict her on Worf. I've been longing to do something evil to Worf ever since he threw me in a brig.

And then I remembered that the idiotic slug actually *married* Microbrain. Which most likely means it won't want to help me inflict the Intendant on him. doctorbashir is probably too busy drooling over the prospect of sex with someone who looks just like Kira but is omnivorous, _garak_ is no longer on the station, neither is O'Boring, and I'm not going to stoop to having conversations with Ferengi. Meanwhile the Andorian and the new Bajoran security officer don't *know* Kira well enough to have figured out this is the Intendant (which, honestly, doesn't speak well to their general level of intelligence, but then, Q's off being an Andorian and if *she* likes them they *must* be stupid.)

I suppose I *could* just pick her up and plunk her down on Worf's doorstep... but it would be infinitely more fun if she'd agree to it.

I am *unbelievably* tired of dealing with Organians.

They actually confine themselves to a single planet, where they pretend to occupy mortal forms, and have only ever concerned themselves with the affairs of the universe when people start wars on their pathetic little planet. And they have the nerve to act as if *we* are inferior because we had a civil war?

Fine. We're violent and savage in comparison to the rest of the omnipotent species. So maybe you should NOT PISS US OFF.

I hate Organians. Holier-than-thou twits.

And Quinn thought life was terminally boring. Ha! I'm learning new things all the time.

For starters, I learned something about humans. I've known that compassion is one of the primary traits of the species since, oh, Farpoint at least. But I didn't know the extent to which this applies. Apparently, if you taunt people, put some of them on trial and then subject them to numerous tests, or woo them unsuccessfully and then drag them into a war zone... if they're human they'll *still* respond to you with compassion if you throw yourself at their mercy (well, metaphorically; not planning on doing it actually again anytime soon, thanks) and beg for help. (Or even if you don't beg for help and simply have hysterics.)

I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. I never expect this of humans. It's too... well, frankly, it's too weird. You people are as strange in your own way as the Vulcans are in theirs.

This is as alien a concept to me as the thought of asking for help in the first place, or getting it, but... well, when you're making use of a known trait of aliens you should probably respond in the way *their* culture demands, not your own... so, thank you. To everyone who responded for responding, to Picard and Data for putting up with my ranting in person, and to wes_crusher for helping Amanda with my kid. A planet full of ice cream? Sounds like he was relatively well behaved. Well, for him, anyway. No temporal anomalies, I hope?

I have some perspective now. Maybe. Hearing about how someone else tried the exact same thing I'm trying (different species, but the whole "reproduce for the first time" thing) and the kid *died*... well, there's a wake-up call to stop the pity party. At least being the parent of a Q leaves you reasonably certain *that's* not going to happen. (Well, unless war breaks out again or he grows up to torque off the Continuum really, really badly. Hopefully neither is very likely.) Maybe I will actually pull this off and maybe I won't, but I think I can avoid having complete nervous breakdowns again. Well, at least until he gets to the level of maturity I was when I first met humanity... which, considering his parentage, is a frightening thought, and I think I would rather not think that thought just now. Okay. Moving right along.

I take that back. Everyone can be positively grotesque when sordid reproductive rituals are involved. Including Trill symbionts and, apparently, Q. *shudder*

Watching amanda_the_q throw herself desperately at doctorbashir, thus triggering a ridiculous four-way fight between her, him, his current paramour ezridax and her symbiont symbiont_dax followed by egregious quantities of make-up sex... Part of me is entertained, and part of me would be vomiting if I actually had an alimentary tract. I really thought Amanda was over her "have sex with everything humanoid that moves" phase. You know, people, sex is entertaining enough, but it is not the sum total of existence. A Q should most especially be capable of thinking of something else. Particularly one who believes that it's not the role of the Continuum to completely disrupt mortals' lives for a quick fix of amusement.

And can any humans tell me why it is that humans who obviously find both of their genders attractive will not only vigorously pretend that they only find one of them attractive, while making it blatantly obvious that this is simply untrue, but will phrase things in such a way as to imply that the only alternative would be for them to exclusively prefer the other one? You'd never catch me doing that. Oh, wait, I did do that, with kathrynjaneway and Q, but then, she'd read the logs of my encounters with Picard so she had to know that gender is in fact entirely optional for me. I refer to myself as male only because that's my form for humans. Given the way my role in the Continuum has changed, if I had to present myself to an entirely new species and it was a species with similar reproductive patterns to humans I'd probably end up presenting as a harried single mother. :-(

Pretending to have been some sort of galactic Lothario was all part of the role. (Why did I take on that role? Was I sabotaging myself? Did I actually get hit in that first firefight and have part of my capacity for reason damaged before I even tried to contact Janeway? No, I know. Q made me do it. It's all her fault. She started to play jealous, so I had to play along.)

The concept of monogamy is completely ridiculous to the Continuum. I'm pleased to see Amanda has left behind enough of her roots that she's actually forgotten that mortals get offended if you throw yourself at their boyfriend, though not pleased that she's retained enough of her roots that she primarily throws herself at male humanoids, the more human-looking the better. We are capable of that most sordid of emotions, jealousy, though we ought to be above it... but come now, when someone you have an interest in won't give you the time of day but expresses a strong interest in a shrill, annoying doctor with a lousy bedside manner and a clingy thief and con artist, jealousy becomes awfully hard to avoid. On the other hand, we share much more nicely than humans do, or most other corporeal mortals (Denobulans being an exception that comes to mind...) The idea of being jealous because you have something, but someone else also has that, and you want to have it all to yourself, is so unbelievably petty I can barely comprehend it. Why? Why do humans do this? (Or mortals? I see a joined Trill engaging in this behavior, so it isn't just humans.) Why can't they enjoy the company of anyone they wish without their companions getting all in a snit about it?

*Snort* Love. They use that as their excuse. I'll tell you about love. Love is about realizing rather too late in the game that a mortal you originally saw only as an example of their species and a rather stuffy one at that is someone you want to spend an inordinate amount of time with, only you're locked into a role and now the mortal will probably mistrust you until the end of time. Love is about being someone's best friend for billions of years, and then sharing your pattern and your life with them to create the most glorious thing any of your species has ever created, only to have them declare that you are ruining the child and they can't stand to watch and storm out on you, leaving you abandoned to the hardest task your species has ever undertaken, alone, with no aid whatsoever. Don't talk to me about love. It's the ugliest of emotions, because it pretends to be benevolent but is truly cruel. Give me something up front about its cruelty every time.

someone I really, really, really, really, really never want to talk to again in all of eternity is on this system.

I'm not scared, see. I've faced being mortal, and getting shot at, and having a kid. It would be beneath me to be scared.

but... maybe I won't be around for a while until I see what That Woman does with her journal.

This *will* count toward your final grade.

If you meet two beings you suspect of being powerful witches, what should you do?

A. Run away screaming in terror.
B. Attempt to propitiate them by finding out what they want.
C. Declare your undying worship of them.
D. Fling yourself to the ground and beg for your worthless life.
E. Tell them to get the hell off your bridge.
F. Attempt to burn them at the stake.

Hint: the answer is not F.

I'm being entirely serious here. Pay attention, folks, this is a once-in-a-millennium event.

( In which I am introspective, and admit to certain fascinations )

Okay, technically not my little girl. In fact technically I was sent to kill her at one point. But hey, everything worked out okay in the end, and I still feel a certain sense of pride in her accomplishments, since I'm the one who brought her in.

Amanda (technically, Q, but I realize that since lesser beings read this journal I probably should use alternate names where they'd be recognizable) has officially been declared the Maiden Goddess on B'fario. Teenage girls are praying to her for luck in finding a mate and other such tedious nonsense. It's days like these I'm heartily glad everyone who ever worshiped me either thought I was a trickster or a demon, but Amanda seems to be enjoying the attention.

Becoming a god is something of a rite of adolescence around here-- adults tend to find it tedious to interact with mortals as gods, and take up either being spirit guides, playacting at being mortal, being general pains in the asses, or don't interact with mortals at all, but the younger ones eat it up. Amanda will be a good maiden goddess. She's already granted three petitioners opportunities for good marriages and made the hair fall out of one particularly obnoxious petitioner.

Why these girls are so hung up on marrying, now, I can't imagine. My advice, if they'd take my advice, would be: don't. Live your life carefree and unencumbered! Party until you're old and then party some more! Growing up and having kids isn't nearly as much fun as they think it is. But then, the B'fario put spinster women to death when they hit menopause, so I imagine they've got some motivation to saddle themselves with the ties that bind and drag. (Amanda will probably put an end to that, though my suggestion would be *don't* do it with a godly lightshow, that's tacky beyond belief. Try to be subtle while you're trying to get mortals to stop doing the stupid thing they've been doing for hundreds of their petty little generations.)

So we've got this group of young turks who are insisting that the Party of Change has lost its way. That, only three thousand years of Continuum time since the war where we took power, we've become as stagnant as what we fought (never mind the fact that 3,000 years isn't *time* to get as stagnant as several billion got us), that the methods we've implemented to try to fight that stagnation aren't working, that we need to smash all hierarchies *entirely* flat (obviously they don't remember the last time everyone in the Continuum had to agree on something-- with a fully flat hierarchy *nothing* would get done), and when I mocked them, as they deserved, they called me a sell-out.

Sellout??!! Look, buddies, I don't remember seeing *you* up against the wall during the war. I don't remember seeing you bleeding and wounded. I *paid* my dues. And what do you want, anarchy? I remember the Continuum in anarchy, though obviously *you* have shorter memories. Maybe you were all hiding during the war.

But, you know... I remember when I'd have agreed with them. Mind you, things are a lot different now-- we don't reflexively insist that things be done the way they always were because that's the way they were always done, we don't completely disenfranchise the youngest of the Q, we actually *listen* to our stupid young turks instead of, oh, kicking them out of the Continuum or even stripping them of their powers. But there was a time when I'd have disagreed with authority simply because it was authority. Now *I* am authority. That... is a scary thought. I think it's going to take a lot more than 3,000 years before I can entirely grasp that.

I'm not some ossified fossil yet, people. Just because I'm still so far the only individual Q to have procreated within the Continuum (well, okay, technically one of the only two Q... but the other one hasn't shown her face around here in 500 years, so who is taking on the greater burden here?), that does not automatically make me some decrepit old elder who thinks the New Age is a newfangled modernism. (Though, is that a misnomer now? We seem to be living in the Even Newer Age, now.) And if *I* say that your idea is stupid, you should take it seriously, dammit, because I'm on your side! *I* don't want to see our progress toward change and growth ruined by falling back into ossification, I've fought for change for the past three billion years, I'm not going to give up on that just because I'm on top of the heap, now. Come on, people, we aren't *humans.* We don't give up our ideals just because we get into power.

But, you know, there's no *reasoning* with these kids. (I say kids. They're mostly my age. *shudder*) They want a greater voice in Continuum politics, and their brilliant idea of how to do this is to remove all ranking within the Convocation so that all Q would be given an exactly equal voice. I brought little q in and asked the Convocation if they thought he was ready for an exactly equal voice, and he treated us all to a lengthy dissertation about neutrinos, which only *he* thinks is novel information and the rest of us have all known for, oh, billennia. Which proved my point. Then they tried to argue an exception for juvenile Q, and Amanda, as I had hoped, went off on them as to how you define a juvenile Q, since she's actually only existed an eyeblink longer than little q but since she was conceived in a mortal form she was close to full adult when we got her, and that totally derailed *that.* For now. But I'm fairly sure they'll be back with a new stupid idea, or perhaps the same stupid idea, soon enough.