The drones in small Collectives have truly not separated at all – are not individuals when they are still connected, to be reconnected by the whole in time. But she is not concerned with individuals, who will always die. Occasionally small groups of drones will, by accident or design, form small Collectives of their own. Oh, there have been others lost here and there over the countless millennia – ships cut off from the Collective by technical error, individuals of assimilated species who managed to flee. She is dying three hundred and twelve small deaths on board a cube that has been caught in a subspace rift and pulled apart. She is rerouting power on a healing sphere. She is coming into the Collective, a fresh new mind bleeding terror for only half a microsecond before it adjusts into its perfect new role. She is reassigning various beings to various ships. She considers them now, and while she considers them she is also launching a vessel into the region of an as-yet-uncontacted species, for investigation and absorption. The solution, she thinks, is in those mistakes. There have been three mistakes in her attempts to assimilate the Federation. Twice she has tried a direct assault on the Earth yet both times she has failed. Yet they waste their time on minor quibbles, territorial disputes and cultural delegations and peace and law. It thinks itself mighty and wise, but it is a pale imitation of what she could offer them – and of what they could offer her. It sits smug in its corner of the galaxy, surrounded by others just as smug, enemy and friend alike. There is little need for a body just now. She looks at it from above, where she hangs, a head and dipping spine, without the rest of her physical form. She thinks of the Earth, many thousands of light-years away, and an image of the planet appears on the screen nearest her. She knows them as you will know them, as she will know you. Many billions of beings, and all are one, and all are her. Her thought is the thought of the ship, of all the ships, and of all the beings on the ships. There are few displays, no controls: she has no need of such things. She stays in the power core of her ship, which is also a part of her. We is perhaps the most appropriate, for she is many, and soon enough she will be you. She knows it well.Ī point of order: Call her she if you’d like, for convenience's sake, but it would be as accurate to use he, they, it. If you learned the true meaning of love in 1992 through the line "like Geordi.and Hugh," and have been haunted ever since, or if That One Episode of ST:Picard left you bleeding internally, this fic is for you. If and when other side-ships show up (J/C and P/T are the likely candidates) I'll tag for 'em. I reserve the right to make up the WORST technobabble you've ever seen. I have not given one ounce of thought into how this affects other episodes and nor should you - there may be timeline-breaking references in here but who can keep track of Trek timelines, anyway. What would happen if Hugh didn't leave the Enterprise at the end of the episode? I mean besides Geordi's frantic, haphazard wooing. In my Star Trek sometimes the characters say fuck. 8 years to finish my last multi-chap but you can't say I didn't finish it!). I 1) write l o n g 2) write s l o w 3) may or may not up the rating for sexual content, dunno yet 4) consider fanfic-updates the absolute last priority after every other thing in my life, but I also hate to leave things unfinished (it took me approx. Hello! Starting another patented wordswithout epic was a mistake! But Star Trek has kept me sane this pandemic so what are you gonna do. Stats: Published: Updated: Words: 130290 Chapters: 23/? Comments: 112 Kudos: 86 Bookmarks: 23 Hits: 2340
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