Betrayal (and a bunch of other really silly questions)
OOC: Reposted from theatrical_muse from 9/29/2005, 34 of 50.
Most people wish that I...
...would go away and leave them alone.
I don't know why. I'm a funny, entertaining guy. An entity could get a complex from this kind of thing, you know.
What is the one thing about yourself that you don't want anyone ever to know?
Oh great and glorious creators of questions for this place, answer me one question: if I didn't want anyone to ever know something about myself, WHY WOULD I TELL YOU?
If you could find out one single fact about every person you met, what fact would you want to know, and why?
I already can find out rather more than one single fact about every person I meet. And whenever I meet someone, the first fact I find out about them is: are they worth my time?
I mean, I might be immortal, but I'm still never going to get back those ten minutes spent in the company of Z'oodra Lugorg. Or the day or so I spent on testing William Riker.
Have you ever experienced something you couldn’t explain? Write down your brushes with the mysterious.
I know everything. Therefore, no, I've never experienced anything I couldn't eventually explain.
Have you ever betrayed someone's confidence? Has anyone ever betrayed you?
The thing about betraying someone else is, they have to have trusted you in the first place before you can betray them.
I have, I admit, occasionally flaked out on something I promised to do for somebody, whether it be a fellow Q or a mortal. Once in a while I've even forgotten something I promised a mortal until after they were dead, which is why it's helpful that I can travel in time when I feel it warrants it. But I suspect that pretty much everyone I ever promised anyone where I didn't follow through didn't expect much different from me. I make sure to establish a rep, see.
The Q tend to be worshipped as gods. When I was much younger, I thought that was rather funny, actually, and I used to enjoy showing up and getting entire populations of sheeplike primitive mortals to abase themselves before me. But then I discovered that mortals are entirely self-serving in their worship. They don't sing hymns to your name for your sake but for their own. And they will, without thinking twice about it, do completely the opposite of whatever you told them to do, while claiming it is your will.
After I left a bunch of mortals thinking I was a god of fun and parties, and came back five hundred years later to find them sacrificing small children in my name, I decided that I really, really didn't want anyone worshipping me. And the thing is, if you let mortals think you are reliable and helpful and they can trust you, they will worship you. And then they'll start relying on you instead of doing things for themselves. And they'll whine a lot. And they'll ask you for everything under the sun. And they'll claim that it was through your intervention that they got their spiffy new pickup truck. And before long they'll pervert everything you said and start killing people and saying it's your will. I mean, you can claim that you represent peace and love and endless forgiveness and they will still do it. If your thing is to represent yourself as a god of caprice and trickery and merriment, oh, you're screwed, buddy. You can't even begin to imagine the horrible things mortals will come up with to do and claim you told them to.
So, in order to make sure they don't worship you, they don't ask you for stupid stuff, they don't blame you for bringing the drought their own stupid policies of over-farming brought on and they don't end up torturing people and saying you said to, you have to make sure that mortals DON'T TRUST YOU. And if they don't trust you, then you can't betray them. I'm pretty sure that if I pulled the deepest, darkest, most embarrassing secret out of the head of any mortal who's encountered me and wrote it in letters of fire across the sky while they were in the middle of negotiating with Klingons, or at a dinner party with their mom and the Queen, or being inaugurated as President... none of them would be surprised. Upset, sure, shocked, definitely, mad at me, you betcha. But betrayed? No. None of them trust me not to do something like that, so I can't betray them by doing it.
I make sure to maintain low expectations. Then it's not hard to live up to them.
As for other people betraying me... I'm used to it.
Most people wish that I...
...would go away and leave them alone.
I don't know why. I'm a funny, entertaining guy. An entity could get a complex from this kind of thing, you know.
What is the one thing about yourself that you don't want anyone ever to know?
Oh great and glorious creators of questions for this place, answer me one question: if I didn't want anyone to ever know something about myself, WHY WOULD I TELL YOU?
If you could find out one single fact about every person you met, what fact would you want to know, and why?
I already can find out rather more than one single fact about every person I meet. And whenever I meet someone, the first fact I find out about them is: are they worth my time?
I mean, I might be immortal, but I'm still never going to get back those ten minutes spent in the company of Z'oodra Lugorg. Or the day or so I spent on testing William Riker.
Have you ever experienced something you couldn’t explain? Write down your brushes with the mysterious.
I know everything. Therefore, no, I've never experienced anything I couldn't eventually explain.
Have you ever betrayed someone's confidence? Has anyone ever betrayed you?
The thing about betraying someone else is, they have to have trusted you in the first place before you can betray them.
I have, I admit, occasionally flaked out on something I promised to do for somebody, whether it be a fellow Q or a mortal. Once in a while I've even forgotten something I promised a mortal until after they were dead, which is why it's helpful that I can travel in time when I feel it warrants it. But I suspect that pretty much everyone I ever promised anyone where I didn't follow through didn't expect much different from me. I make sure to establish a rep, see.
The Q tend to be worshipped as gods. When I was much younger, I thought that was rather funny, actually, and I used to enjoy showing up and getting entire populations of sheeplike primitive mortals to abase themselves before me. But then I discovered that mortals are entirely self-serving in their worship. They don't sing hymns to your name for your sake but for their own. And they will, without thinking twice about it, do completely the opposite of whatever you told them to do, while claiming it is your will.
After I left a bunch of mortals thinking I was a god of fun and parties, and came back five hundred years later to find them sacrificing small children in my name, I decided that I really, really didn't want anyone worshipping me. And the thing is, if you let mortals think you are reliable and helpful and they can trust you, they will worship you. And then they'll start relying on you instead of doing things for themselves. And they'll whine a lot. And they'll ask you for everything under the sun. And they'll claim that it was through your intervention that they got their spiffy new pickup truck. And before long they'll pervert everything you said and start killing people and saying it's your will. I mean, you can claim that you represent peace and love and endless forgiveness and they will still do it. If your thing is to represent yourself as a god of caprice and trickery and merriment, oh, you're screwed, buddy. You can't even begin to imagine the horrible things mortals will come up with to do and claim you told them to.
So, in order to make sure they don't worship you, they don't ask you for stupid stuff, they don't blame you for bringing the drought their own stupid policies of over-farming brought on and they don't end up torturing people and saying you said to, you have to make sure that mortals DON'T TRUST YOU. And if they don't trust you, then you can't betray them. I'm pretty sure that if I pulled the deepest, darkest, most embarrassing secret out of the head of any mortal who's encountered me and wrote it in letters of fire across the sky while they were in the middle of negotiating with Klingons, or at a dinner party with their mom and the Queen, or being inaugurated as President... none of them would be surprised. Upset, sure, shocked, definitely, mad at me, you betcha. But betrayed? No. None of them trust me not to do something like that, so I can't betray them by doing it.
I make sure to maintain low expectations. Then it's not hard to live up to them.
As for other people betraying me... I'm used to it.