- Raffi Musiker: There has to be something. Some last, desperate, wild solution, J.L.? That's what you do!
- Jean-Luc Picard: My resignation was the last, desperate, wild solution. I never believed that they would accept it.
- Jean-Luc Picard: Mars is burning, tens of thousands are dead, and nobody is thinking, nobody is listening, they're just reacting!
- Raffi Musiker: Wait a minute. What happened in there, JL?
- Jean-Luc Picard: They said that our plan was "unfeasible." Half of them never wanted to rescue the Romulans in the first place, and the rest are... are just frightened. I never dreamed that Starfleet would give in to intolerance and fear.
- Jean-Luc Picard: You were the XO of a heavy cruiser?
- Cristóbal Rios: The ibn Majid. You never heard of it because it doesn't exist. Starfleet erased it from the records.
- Jean-Luc Picard: Do I detect a certain bitterness towards Starfleet? You must know that Starfleet and I long since have parted ways.
- Cristóbal Rios: If you say so. I really don't give a damn.
- Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, really? I see this ship is impeccably maintained, every bolt, and clasp, and fitting in place. Everything stowed in regulation Starfleet order. I don't know what happened to you, Rios, or the ibn Majid, but five minutes on this ship, and I know precisely what I'm looking at. You are Starfleet to the core. I can smell it on you.
- Cristóbal Rios: That's just my tragic sense of life. Raffi warned me you were a speechmaker.