Part 86: Holiday Update: Let's Read: Planet X - Part 11
STAR TREK The Next Generation / X-MEN: PLANET X - part 11Last Time: The book ended
Chapter 32
Picard follows Dr. Crusher to the Holodeck, and meets Professor X.
Planet X posted:
"As Dr. Crusher has no doubt informed you," Picard said, "your X-Men are my guests at the moment. In fact, they proved helpful when complications arose in our dealings with the Xhaldians."
"I am quite pleased with them," Xavier admitted.
"And they with you," the captain replied. "In fact, tha was what spurred me to speak with you. Not one of them has missed an opportunity to refer to you in the most glowing and reverent terms-even when the individual in question may not be reverent by nature."
[…]
"I just wanted to meet you," said Picard. "And applaud what you've done. Given the X-Men's disparate personalities, it cannot have been easy."
Xavier took the praise in stride. "No more difficult, I imagine, than commanding a starship with more than a thousand people on board."
The captain smiled. "Touché."
Holo-Xavier is not Professor Xavier. He then points this out to Picard, but suggests that the captain should come speak with him regularly. Since we all know how often Picard visited Moriarty, you can bet the number of visits will be in the very low '0's.
We then cut to a captain's log. The U.S.S. Venture has arrived and has towed the Connecticut away to be… processed, at Deep Space Seven. We then learn that Dr. Crusher has found a cure for the transformed off-screen.
We then cut to Mary Sue #2… I mean, Lt. Sovar, who's attending the conference where Chancellor Palpatine is telling the transformed they can be cured. Not all of them want to be, obviously, but Lt. Sovar is watching his brother and Corba who, quote, 'seemed to like Erid very much.' We then learn that there are nearly a hundred transformed now, across the whole planet. WOW, numbers so staggering I'm rolling my eyes at the prospect.
Chancellor Palpatine then gives a speech about how he was so concerned about the welfare of the people of NotEarth that he made the mistake of stripping away their freedoms with barely a second thought. Dongs calls bullshit, then Chancellor Palpatine reveals that Dr. Crusher has found a cure for the transformed.
Dongs and Corba aren't happy, and Lt. Sovar almost tries to convince his brother to become normal again, then decides to just be supportive of his brother's choice, no matter what. D'aww.
Chapter 33
Worf and Wolverine gear up for another sparring session, this time against X-Men villains. Sabertooth, The Blob, Unus the Untouchable, and the Juggernaught, all in hologram form. We then jump cut back to Picard, where he explains exactly what the Draa'kon were doing in great and vivid detail.
The gist of it is: The Draa'kon wanted an army, so they seeded NotEarth with bullshit to cause the population of NotEarth to turn into NotX-Men. They were there to harvest the transformed so they could be used as weapons.
Now, this is where we run into that huge and stupid plot-hole I mentioned. The transformed all have random powers. There were also less than a hundred of them in total. That does not strike me as a valid 'army'. Additionally, even captured and threatened with death, the NotHumans got pissed and smashed their way to freedom-they would've done the same as the Draa'kon, and you saw how easily the X-Men cut through them.
So, what I'm saying is, the Draa'kon plan of making superheroes to fight and die for them (because, as you've seen, they're horribly inept conquerors) is stupid and unworkable any way you look at it. The NotHumans would have to want to help the Draa'kon for the plan to work, and it's clear that they don't. So, in summary, King Cold is a retard.
Riker smugs at us that Wolverine tortured this information out of a captured Draa'kon.
We then learn that Geordi has discovered why the X-Men's timehook malfunctioned. Verteron particles in the higgs-bullshit field caused the X-Men's timehook to snap to the Enterprise's timehook (which was on Starbase 88, conveniently, just a few feet from where the X-Men arrived) like a rubber band.
Shadowcat, who has seen this episode before, deduces all of this before Geordi can finish explaining it.
Dr. Crusher then offers to cure the X-Men, but they tells her to go fuck herself. Picard then has a moment with Storm, and the chapter ends.
Chapter 34
The X-Men are about to leave. Worf and Wolverine share a totally not-gay fratboy moment. Shadowcat gives Lt. Sovar a hug and tells him to be careful since she won't be around to keep him from red-shirting on us. Everyone else shares goodbyes (Data with Colossus, for some reason-the two never worked together so I think the author forgot Data befriended Nightcrawler). Picard then asks for a moment alone with Storm, and tells her to call him Jean Luc.
Planet X posted:
She smiled the smile of a delighted child-one who has found a friend to help her stave off the darkness. Then she rejoined her teammates in the center of the cargo bay.
[…]
There was no flash of light, nothing at all to warn the captain of the mutants' departure. One moment, they were there; the next, they weren't. It was that simple.
Still, Picard felt richer for having known them-and one of them in particular. One might even say he felt… transformed.
OK, book ove…
Epilogue
… shit.
The X-Men arrive back at the mansion, safe and sound.
Then, hidden behind a stand of trees…
Planet X posted:
Hidden behind a stand of closely grown pine trees, the omnipotent entity known as Q removed his sunglasses to watch Archangel ascend into the vibrant summer sky. Replacing his glasses, he folded one leg over the other, sat back in his lawn chair, and sipped his pina colada.
"You see?" he said to the gigantic personage standing beside him. "I told you it would work just fine."
The Watcher, eons-old scion of an immortal race, shook his massive, hairless head and adjusted his majestic robes.
"I have seen one being after another tamper with the integrity of Time and Space," the Watcher replied in his expansive, echoing voice, "Kang being a prime example. Yet none of them ever seemed to obtain the results he desired."
Q grinned. "That's because none of them were me, Watcher old bean. A yank here, a tug there, and the Enterprise's timehook-which was in storage on Starbase 88-wound up saturated with verteron particles. That, in turn, drew the X-Men to the Enterprise's universe, where they were eminently available to help solve the mutant crisis on Xhaldia. What could be simpler?"
The Xhaldians called them transformed," the Watcher reminded him. "Not mutants."
"They're all the same to me," said Q. "The point is, the X-Men were in the right place at the right time, and Xhaldia's all the better for it."
"And why do you care so much about Xhaldia?" the Watcher inquired.
Q cast a sidlong look at him. "I thought you people just watched. No one said you asked questions."
"Nonetheless," the Watcher pressed, "you must have had a reason for sparing Xhaldia so much misery."
Q thought for a moment. "Let's just say I've got my eye on the Xhaldians and leave it at that, all right?"
The Watcher frowned. "I can hardly do otherwise. I, like all my kind, have sworn never to interfere in the affairs of others."
Q chuckled. "And a lovely policy it is, my friend-though, I must tell you, you don't know what you're missing."
Suddenly, he snapped the fingers of his free hand and made his pina colada vanish, glass and all. Then he stood up, snapped his fingers again, and the lawn chair disappeared as well-along with the sunglasses.
"Well," he told the Watcher, "got to go. You know how it is-places to grow and people to be. But don't worry-I'll be in touch."
The gargantuan figure nodded his head. "I'm certain you will be."
Q smiled mischeviously. "Perhaps sooner than you think-though sooner is such a relative term."
Leaving the Watcher with that morsel to chew on, Q snapped his fingers a third time-and, at least for the moment, vanished from the X-Men's reality without a trace.
NOW it's over.