Stardate: 47988.0. Shortly after Picard is diagnosed with a long-term, potentially debilitating brain disorder, he starts experiencing bizarre shifts into three main time periods: 25 years into the future, a few days before the Enterprise-D is sent on its mission to Farpoint station, and the present. Picard realizes that Q is behind these shifts through time.

Stardate: 47988.1. After his encounter with Q, Picard assembles the senior staff, and wonders if Q is actually giving him a chance to save humanity by showing him that the spatial anomaly also exists in the past. As they talk, the ship reaches the Neutral Zone, then Picard returns to the future, where Beverly's ship is also on the edge of the Neutral Zone. He convinces a reluctant Worf to accompany the group into Klingon territory, and then travels to the past, where he orders the crew into the Devron system.