Tapestry (episode)
After being attacked on an away mission, Picard dies and meets Q in the afterlife who offers him the chance to change a crucial moment in his history and prevent the mistakes he made in his youth.

Summary

Teaser 

In sickbay, Dr. Crusher orders the stasis units to be brought on-line and tells one of the medical staff that Dr. Selar can use Ward 3 for the ambulatory patients while she attends to the away team in the main area of sickbay. The away team, consisting of Commander Riker, Worf, Ensign Kellogg, and two security officers are transported in. After Worf lays Picard down on the biobed, she asks how he was injured. Riker tells her that they were attacked by the Lenarians just outside a conference room. Dr. Crusher quickly deduces that Captain Picard has essentially had a heart attack, due to his artificial heart. She and Martinez, along with other medical staff, desperately try to save the captain, though it seems that they are unable to. Picard suddenly finds himself in a white void of dazzling brilliance seemingly uninjured, except for the large burn on his uniform from the weapon that he was attacked with. After looking around with confusion for a few seconds, Picard sees a shining figure dressed in white holding out its hand. Picard cautiously walks towards the figure, who then holds out his hand. After Picard shakes hands with the figure, he is pulled into focus and turns out to be Q, who greets him with "Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead."

Act One

Picard pulls his hand sharply out of Q's and asks what happened, to which Q replies "I told you. You're dead, this is the afterlife, and I'm God." Picard laughs in disbelief, telling Q that he is not God, but he goes on to say that Picard had died approximately five minutes earlier. Picard still refuses to believe Q, on the basis of saying "I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed." Suddenly, Picard's father appears and starts lecturing him, telling Picard that joining Starfleet was destined to bring him to a bad end and then he hears all the people that had died because of things he did or failed to do. Picard refuses to respond to any of the people he hears, not wanting to play into Q's hand, though Q says he is doing this for Picard's benefit.

Q then asks Picard if he has any regrets from his life, but Picard tells him that his only regret is "dying and finding you here." In response, Q makes Picard's artificial heart appear in his hand. He asks why Picard needed it, and the story begins to play out, showing Picard as an ensign, fighting a Nausicaan, then getting stabbed through the heart and laughing. Picard admits that he did regret some things from earlier in his life. Suddenly, he is slapped hard by a woman and he finds himself in his living quarters as an ensign on Starbase Earhart.

Act Two

The woman who slapped him is Corlina, one of two dates that Picard set up and she found out a while back. She leaves in a huff and he turns around to find his two closest friends, Cortan "Corey" Zweller and Marta Batanides mockingly applauding him. Q appears in the room after Corey and Marta have left and convinces him he is back in the year 2327. Q explains it is two days before the fight with the Nausicaan, which Picard must choose whether to stop or not. Picard is adamant not to stop the fight in case he changes the timeline. Irritated, Q promises that nothing Picard does here will cause any major changes or affect anyone but himself. Frankly, he states, Picard is not that important. Satisfied, Picard accepts Q's terms and goes along in stopping the fight. By this time Picard realized that he is late for another date at the bar with an older woman named Penny.

Later in the bar, Picard and Penny are seen talking to each other. Picard in his usual stiffness states that he just wants out. Penny, on the other hand wants Picard to make his advances. Picard tells Penny that he hardly knows her and wants to know where she is from and what her interests are. In response, she tells him she is from Rigel, her last name is Muroc, and she likes men in uniform. After the conversation, Penny tells Picard that she thinks they are done talking and goes in for a kiss, but Picard meekly retreats from her advances. After the kiss, Picard goes on telling Penny that she is a "handsome woman" and he gets a drink splashed in his face for his comments. Q looks on as the bartender observing the conversation and Corey playing dom-jot.

Picard goes over to Marta, who is watching Corey play his game. Marta asked what happened to his date and Picard tells her that she had to leave. At the same time, Corey is seen winning the game with one of the station's aliens. After some time, Corey wins the match and picks up his gambling tokens from the table. Marta states that Corey should give up Starfleet and just play dom-jot professionally. Corey goes on saying that it was mostly math skills that helped him win that game. One of the Nausicaans interrupts the conversation and challenges Corey to a game.

Act Three
Corey accepts the challenge and the game starts. Throughout the game, the Nausicaan dominates Corey and wins. After the game the three friends go back to their quarters to discuss why Corey lost so badly. Corey realized that the only way the Nausicaan won was by using a device located on his belt that controls the balls on the table. He also wants to get even by rigging the table so the device will backfire. Picard by this point tries to dissuade him from going through with the plan. Corey agrees with Picard's reason and walks out. Marta notes that usually Picard is the one who plans the revenge. Picard counters by saying that they are officers now and not cadets any longer – they need to set a different example. Picard and Marta are almost about to kiss when Q interrupts them as he delivers flowers to Picard, badly mangling his name as "John-Luck Pickerd". Marta comments that the flowers are from another of Picard's conquests and she leaves. Q and Picard talk about Marta being friends with him. Q notices that Picard seems to harbor regret for not pursuing a romantic relationship with Marta, and he points that out to Picard. Q also points out that Corey is still going through with his plan anyway and notes that Picard didn't seem to be very persuasive. Picard leaves to confront Corey about what he is doing.

Picard goes to see Corey at the Bonestell Recreation Facility. Corey is under the table rigging it so he can win against the Nausicaan. Corey bumps his head when he thinks Picard is the gambling foreman checking up on the tables. Corey is happy to see Picard and asks him to help rig the table. Picard on the other hand is trying to stop him from making a big mistake. Corey states that Picard is acting like his mother and he should go away if he is not going to help. Picard threatens Corey to stop or he will tell the gambling foreman about what he has done and the two walk off.

Picard goes and talks to Marta in her room. They both talk about Corey's rashness. Picard goes on saying that Corey and he will stay friends for years after this incident and hopes that stopping him won't jeopardise that friendship. The conversation gravitates towards how much Picard's personality has changed after graduation. Marta confesses that she finds his new personality "attractive." This causes both to reveal their feelings for each other and they passionately kiss.

Act Four 
The next morning Picard wakes up to a soft caress on his earlobe and turns in bed to Marta. He is shocked to see it isn't Marta at all, but Q, who says to Picard, "Morning, darling." Q begins taunting him about his relationship with Marta. Picard meets her again, who expresses regret over what they did, fearing that it could have irreparably damaged their friendship. Later, the three friends go to the bar for one last big night out before they get shipped off to their first assignments. Picard tries to engage his two friends in conversation, but both are already feeling distanced from him so it is an awkward and strained affair. Suddenly the three Nausicaans taunt Corey about the game of dom-jot they'd played. Corey gets angry and tries to fight the Nausicaan, but Picard stops him by shoving Corey on to the floor. The Nausicaans walk away laughing, and Picard tries to explain himself to Corey and Marta, meekly telling Corey that the Nausicaan was reaching for a weapon, but the two just walk away from him in disgust. At that point, Q appears and congratulates him; the fight has been avoided, and he is now alive with a real heart.

 
Picard is then returned to the present, where, much to his surprise, his life is incredibly different: he is an assistant astrophysics officer on board the , wearing a blue non-command uniform, a mere junior lieutenant with Worf as his immediate superior. Worf then asks him what is he doing on the bridge. Picard, disoriented, asks what is going on. Worf then looks at the PADD that he is holding and tells Picard that the PADD is for chief engineer Lieutenant Commander La Forge. Picard then asks who the captain of the ship is and Data replies that it is Thomas Halloway. Picard goes to sickbay to talk with Dr. Crusher about his situation. When he enters the chief medical officer's office in sickbay, however, he finds Q sitting at the desk dressed in a 20th century doctor's uniform and speaking in a German accent. Q states that this is what happened to Picard's timeline per their agreement, after he stopped the fight with the Nausicaans. He now can live his life "in safety" running analyses and delivering reports to his superiors, but not in command.

Act Five
Picard, in disbelief, goes to Ten Forward to get a second opinion from Commander Riker and Counselor Troi sitting together at a table. Picard soon discovers that he won't be promoted any time soon because he "just doesn't take risks" and "doesn't stand out." Picard then asks them if he is a good officer for command. They both agree that he is too timid and has never completed any big goals that he has attempted for himself. Riker and Troi are then called to the bridge and La Forge summons Picard to deliver a report for which he has been waiting. Dejected by all this, Picard goes off to deliver the report to La Forge and calls to Q from a turbolift about the situation, asking if it amusing that he is now a dreary man with a tedious job. The doors open back into the white space where Q is waiting.

Q reminds Picard that he was given exactly what he wanted; a second chance. Picard tells Q that he cannot live as a man devoid of anything that makes life worthwhile, but Q points out that this is the man Picard wanted to be; the man who never defended his friends from the Nausicaans went on to live quite a different life from the one Picard remembers. Although being stabbed in the heart nearly killed Picard, it also helped him realize how fragile life is, and thus made him more willing to take risks and make his mark on the universe rather than play it safe. Instead, he never achieved anything rewarding, never got noticed, and was certainly not the kind of man who would ever be asked to command a starship. Picard asks Q to let him reverse the changes he made, deciding that it would be better to die in the present with a satisfying life behind him rather than continue living life as an average, dreary man bereft of passion and imagination. 

Q returns Picard to the Bonestell Facility, moments before the fight with the Nausicaans. This time Picard doesn't walk away from the fight with the Nausicaans but leaps into it and is eventually stabbed in the heart like before. As Picard looks at the injury, he begins to laugh, knowing history has been set right, and is shown again in the present, lying on the biobed he was placed on after his injury, laughing as he comes to, his bionic heart reactivated.

Picard and Riker speculate afterward in the observation lounge regarding Picard's experience, unsure if it was just a dream or another test by Q. Picard states that part of him can't believe that Q was willing to show compassion by giving him a second chance, but if it was Q, then he is thankful for being allowed to see how important his decisions in life were – he's not proud of many things he did in his youth, but when he pulled on this "loose thread," the tapestry of his whole life came apart. Riker wishes he could have known this young, cocky officer who went toe-to-toe with a massive Nausicaan, and Picard assures him that the stabbing was not his first unpleasant encounter with them, beginning the story from his sophomore year at the Academy on Morikin VII as the Enterprise continues on its way.

Memorable quotes
"Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead."
 - Q, to Picard

"Q, what is going on?"
"I told you. You're dead, this is the afterlife, and I'm God."
"You are not God!"
"Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out or smite you or something."
 - Picard and Q

"I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you; the universe is not so badly designed."
 - Picard, to Q

"After all these years, even now, you manage to disappoint me, Jean-Luc."
 - Maurice Picard, in Q's "afterlife"

"I find it hard to believe that you are doing this for the benefit of my soul!"
 - Picard, to Q

"My only regret is dying and finding you here."
 - Picard, to Q

"Change them? You mean change the past? Q, even if you have been able to bring me back in time somehow, surely you must realize that any alteration in this timeline will have a profound impact on the future."
"Please! Spare me your egotistical musings on your pivotal role in history. Nothing you do here will cause the Federation to collapse or galaxies to explode. To be blunt, you're not that important."
 - Picard and Q

"You will go on with your life with a real heart."
"Then I won't die."
"Of course you'll die!  It'll just be at a later time."
"What if I don't avoid the fight?  What if I won't make the changes?"
"Then you die on the table, and we spend eternity together."
"Wonderful…"
"I'm glad you think so."
 - Q and Picard

"I had no idea you were such a cad. I'm impressed."
 - Q, to Picard

"Penny for your thoughts."
 - Q, to Picard, after Picard gets the drink thrown in his face by Penny

"… It's a beautiful story. It gets you right here, doesn't it?"
 - Q, pointing generally at his heart and mocking sympathy. 
  (A pun on the fact that the story Picard tells ends with Jean-Luc being stabbed in the heart.)

"Flowers! Is there a John Luck Pickerd here?"
 - Q, after bringing a bunch of roses to Picard and Marta's quarters

"Well, let's see… You've managed to get slapped by one woman, get a drink thrown in your face by another and alienate your two best friends. Doing pretty well so far. The only thing left to avoid is being stabbed through the heart."
 - Q, on the changes Picard has made

"Vell, vell, vell. Vhat seems to be ze trouble, Leutnant Picard?"
 - Q, speaking as a German doctor

"… You should be happy! You have a real heart beating in your chest, and you get to live out the rest of your life in safety – running tests, making analyses, and carrying reports to your superiors."
 - Q, to Lieutenant Picard, explaining how dreary Picard's life has become without his near-death experience

"Your performance records have always been good. You're thorough… dedicated…"
"Steady, reliable… punctual."
 - Troi and Riker, evaluating Lieutenant Picard and coming up short

"If you want to get ahead, you have to take chances… stand out in a crowd, get noticed!"
 - Riker, to Lieutenant Picard

"You having a good laugh now, Q? Does it amuse you to think of me living out the rest of my life as a dreary man in a tedious job?"
 - Picard, speaking alone, addressing Q

"I gave you something most mortals never experience – a second chance at life – and now all you can do is complain?" 
"I can't live out my days as that person! That man is bereft of passion… and IMAGINATION! That is not who I am!" 
 - Q and Picard 

"The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be, the one who did NOT fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face to face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is, or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda… going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away-team on Milika III to save the ambassador, or take charge of the Stargazers bridge when its captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe… and he never, ever got noticed by anyone." 
"You're right, Q. You gave me the chance to change, and I took the opportunity. But I admit now – it was a mistake!" 
"Are you asking me for something, Jean-Luc?" 
"Give me a chance, to put things back the way they were before." 
"Before, you died in sickbay. Is that what you want?" 
"I would rather die as the man I was… than live the life I just saw." 
(Q nods approvingly.) 
 - Q and Picard

"Coward! Like all Starfleet! You talk and you talk, but you have no guramba." 
"What did you say?" 
"I said, you… are a COWARD!" 
"That's what I thought you said." 
 - Picards and the Nausicaans last words before the big fight

"There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of… there were loose threads… untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads… it unraveled the tapestry of my life."
 - Picard, to Riker

"I was just trying to imagine a hell-bent for leather, young officer insulting a Nausicaan twice his size. I wish I would have had a chance to know that Jean-Luc Picard."
 - Riker, to Picard

Background information

Production history 
 Final draft script  
 Premiere airdate: 
 First UK airdate:

Story and script
 The episode was initially conceived to have a much broader scope. Entitled "A Q Carol", it involved Q leading Picard through several "mistakes" in the captain's life, in the style of Ebenezer Scrooge in . In addition to the stabbing, Picard was to relive a childhood event in France and an event on the , which would have possibly involved Jack Crusher's death. However, Michael Piller was not entirely pleased with the premise. Ronald D. Moore explained, "He thought it was pointless. Here are some scenes from your life basically. It didn't have the right resonance so I went back and tried to focus in on one incident to make it a little more meaningful." (; Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 271)
 Moore chose the stabbing incident as it had always intrigued him. "It was an interesting little story about him. That story, to me, said a lot about Picard's character – that he was a different guy in those days. Then he changed. Why did he change? What would be the difference in the young womanizing, hard-drinking, hard-fighting Jean-Luc Picard and the guy that we know today?" (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 271)

 However, the basic origins of the story were not as clear. None of the staff could remember the source of the basic "near-death white light" premise. It was only after the episode aired that the producers received a letter from James Mooring, who had initially pitched the idea. The staff were quick to rectify the situation. Jeri Taylor recalled, "I talked to him, Ron talked to him, and they paid him. He was very happy. All he wanted was acknowledgment of this, and we apologized profusely. I hope it restored his faith in our integrity, because we would never do anything like that intentionally." ()
 The morning-after scene between Marta and Picard was cut significantly. In the script, Marta gives a speech about the first day at the Academy. Cut references include "Scobee Hall", where an Admiral Silona gave a welcome speech to the cadets, noting that one in three cadets wouldn't make it through the four-year course. The script including the cut lines can be viewed , while the full, uncut scene is available as a bonus feature on the TNG Season 6 Blu-ray release. Actress J.C. Brandy, who played Batanides, was actually pleased with the cut, as she felt the speech as scripted was too self-pitying and as such not fitting with her character. Ultimately, it was redundant, as Brandy noted. "It said the same thing that the scene showed in one minute." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 272)
 Moore revealed that at one point, the Enterprise captain in Picard's future was to have been Edward Jellico. ()
 Penny Muroc was named for an older woman that Moore had once dated. ()
 The Bonestell Recreation Facility on Starbase Earhart was named after artist and matte painter . ()

Production 
 Portraying the "afterlife" created some technical problems. With John de Lancie in a white robe on a white background, director of photography Jonathan West and producer Merri Howard were concerned that Q would appear merely as a floating head. Both actors were aware of the difficulties in the shot, and de Lancie felt that it made his performance in the scene somewhat more subdued than normal. Moore, however, noted that this low key result was perfect for this more serious than usual Q episode. (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 271)
 The cityscape view from Marta's quarters, visible at the end of Act Three, was reused from the City of Domes, created to Logan's Run (1976) movie.
 Among the costumes and items from this episode which were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay is a Nausicaan knife.

Cast and characters 
 LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge) does not appear on screen but has one brief voiceover line. However, a scene present in the script but not in the episode featured La Forge and "Lieutenant Picard" in engineering, suggesting Picard is treated somewhat like Barclay by Geordi.

Continuity
 Picard told Wesley Crusher the story of fighting with the Nausicaans and getting stabbed through the heart in the season 2 episode . He said that, looking down at the knife, he "actually laughed out loud", which he took as a strange thing to do. When Q and Picard reviewed the incident at the beginning of the episode we see that he did indeed laugh after he was stabbed. This episode adds a twist to the laugh, as Picard may be laughing because he knows his life will turn out the way it is meant to. 
 The context of the fight was changed from . In "Samaritan Snare", Picard's encounter with the Nausicaans was a first-time event as they were "spoiling for confrontation". Everyone in the group gives them a wide berth except Picard, who initiates the fight by insulting the Nausicaans. In "Tapestry" the encounter is an act of revenge because the Nausicaans are believed to have cheated Picard's friend Corey Zweller the previous day.
 This episode marks the first on-screen appearance of the Nausicaans.
 Besides TNG's pilot episode () and series finale (), this is the only Q episode of The Next Generation that does not have "Q" in the title (s  and s  are the only other episodes in Star Trek to feature this).
 Q appeared the previous week on s . In that episode, Q briefly mentioned that he maybe "should pay [Picard] a visit."
 The exact nature of time travel used in this episode is intentionally left ambiguous in light of the full spectrum of Q's powers and the incident that brought about the chain of events in the first place. As observed by Picard himself, Q's powers and ability to create isolated realms of existence introduce the possibility that time travel is not involved at all, or the whole experience could merely be a hallucination in which case Picard never even met Q at all in the episode.
 In one scene at the Bonestell Recreation Facility, both a Selay and an Antican can be seen in the crowd. These races were first seen back in the season one episode , and were deadly enemies. A script note for the same scene warned against using the Ferengi before their discovery. 
 In the brief scene where Picard is seen as an ensign as he originally appeared, he is not bald. However, in  he is seen in a photograph as bald nonetheless – and as he was wearing the NCO uniform at the time, this is presumably before the fight with the Nausicaans.
 This is one of only five TNG episodes that doesn't have a stardate. The others are , and .
 Picard tells Q that if he had not started the fight with the Nausicaans he would never have needed an artificial heart, and subsequently die on account of it from a "random energy surge 30 years later". Q states Picard is 21 years old at the time the fight happened, placing those events in 2326. As the episode takes place in 2369, it was actually 43 years between the fight and his death.

Reception
 TV Guide ranked this as the ninth best Star Trek episode for their celebration of the franchise's 30th anniversary. (TV Guide August 24, 1996)
 Entertainment Weekly ranked this episode #4 on their list of "The Top 10 Episodes" to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 
 The book Star Trek 101 (p. 74), by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block, lists this episode as one of the "Ten Essential Episodes" from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
 John de Lancie remarked, "I thought it was a terrific script…There was a speech at the end where I talk about what he would have been, which I thought was a tip-top speech. I just thought that show from beginning to end was terrific." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 271)
 Michael Piller was not as enthusiastic about the show. "I wasn't much a fan of that show. I thought it was a wonderful premise, I loved the pitch of Picard dying and having the white light experience and reaching out to the hand and it's Q. It's your worst nightmare come true. I found that from the beginning my greatest fear was that it would be . When a series gets tired, they do It's a Wonderful Life. I don't think we ever solved my problems with it in terms of getting a fresh slant. I felt that it was one of those Christmas-type episodes where the direction and the performance were sort of flat. Some of the scenes seemed to be very talky to me. It did not have the power and the impact on me that it seems to have had on other people. I'm delighted that it was a meaningful experience for a lot of people and made them think about their own lives because that's what Star Trek is trying to do. They should accept themselves rather than wish they had done something else." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 272)
 Ronald D. Moore remarked, "I loved "Tapestry" and while Michael and I had several arguments over it, he was the Exec Producer and could've simply forced me to do it differently. To his credit, Michael let me do the show pretty much as I wanted to. I still think it's one of the best things I wrote and one of TNG's finest episodes.". 
 As René Echevarria noted, some fans misinterpreted the message the show was sending. "We've gotten some flack about it. People felt it glorified violence and that it basically says Picard tries to go back and not do the violent thing and solve things by reason and it makes him bland and not captain material. We got big, big letters from people saying this is awful and goes against everything Star Trek stands for. I think the point the show made was more subtle than that, and I think they lost sight of it." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 272)
 Wesley Crusher actor Wil Wheaton was impressed by this episode, describing it as "my favorite episode of Next Generation" and "a really great example of how everything that happens in our lives, even the shitty things, help shape us into the people we are." Wheaton also gave a personal illustration of how he himself had experienced the outworkings of that moral, talking about how, although he had suffered hostility while playing Wesley, he had benefited from leaving the series. (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 106)

Apocrypha
 The novel  shows a timeline where Lieutenant Picard, after being told by Riker and Troi that he needed to step up and be noticed, did just that and by the time of 2380, had risen to Lieutenant Commander and was a bridge officer on the  under Captain Thomas Halloway, as a "final parting gift" by Riker before he left for the , where another timeline shows that Picard also became first officer of the Enterprise-E under Captain Wesley Crusher.
 The novel Q-Squared also references the events of this episode. When Q tells Picard he owes him, Picard asks how. Q then puts one hand over his heart and flaps his fingers while making a "thump, thump, thump" sound and Picard instantly knows what Q was referring to. When he asks if it really happened, Q's answer is "yes and no" and he says it's the best answer he could provide and that Picard wouldn't understand any answer beyond that.

Video and DVD releases
 UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 71, 
 As part of the UK VHS collection Star Trek: The Next Generation - Q Continuum: 
 As part of the TNG Season 6 DVD collection
 As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Q collection
 As part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation - Jean-Luc Picard Collection
As part of The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume 2 DVD collection

Links and references

Starring 
 Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
 Jonathan Frakes as Cmdr. William Riker

Also starring 
 LeVar Burton as Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge (voice)
 Michael Dorn as Lieutenant Worf
 Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher
 Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
 Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data

Guest stars  
 Ned Vaughn as Cortan Zweller
 J.C. Brandy as Marta Batanides
 Clint Carmichael as Nausicaan 
 Rae Norman as Penny Muroc
And
 John de Lancie as Q

Co-stars 
 Clive Church as Maurice Picard 
 Marcus Nash as Young Picard
 Majel Barrett as Computer Voice

Uncredited co-stars 
 David Keith Anderson as Armstrong
 Michael Braveheart as Martinez
 Cameron as Kellogg
 David Paul Christian as Ten Forward waiter
 Tracee Lee Cocco as
 Antican
 Jae
 Nick Dimitri as Nausicaan
 Inez Edwards as science division officer
 Holiday Freeman as command division officer
 Goldie Ann Gareza as command division officer
 Melanie Hathorn as sciences officer
 Christie Haydon as command division ensign
  as science division officer
 Rad Milo as civilian
 Tom Morga as Nausicaan
 Keith Rayve as command division ensign
 Joycelyn Robinson as Gates
 Unknown performers as
 Buck-toothed alien
 Corlina
 Five afterlife voices
 Four Starfleet officers
 Male civilian
 Operations division officer
 Operations division officer
 Rotciv member
 Selay
 Tailhead
 Ten Bonestell Recreation Facility customers
 Transporter operator (voice)

Stunt doubles 
 John Nowak as stunt double for Patrick Stewart
 Lynn Salvatori as stunt double for J.C. Brandy
 Unknown stunt performer as stunt double for Ned Vaughn

Stand-ins 
 Debbie David – stand-in for Brent Spiner
 Michael Echols – stand-in for Michael Dorn
 Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
 Lorine Mendell – stand-in for Gates McFadden
 Richard Sarstedt – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
 Dennis Tracy – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
 Guy Vardaman – stand-in for John de Lancie

References 
2327; adolescent; ; ambulatory case; amusement; artificial heart; assistant astrophysics officer; asteroid; astrophysics lab; B-2 Spirit; baby's breath; barokie; best friend; bio-regulator; blasphemy; Bonestell Recreation Facility; bouquet; cad; cadet; cardiac arrest; career; Class of '27; compressed teryon beam; cordrazine; cortical stimulator; deep space assignment; delivery man; disorientation; dom-jot; ; Federation; gambling foreman (occupation); gambling foreman (individual); God; graduation; guramba; ; head mirror; imagination; inaprovaline; intention; internal bleeding; isocortex; ladies' man; Lenarians (Lenarian attackers 1); leutnant; lieutenant junior grade; liver; magna-spanner; magnetic device; Milika III; Milika III ambassador; Milika III away team; Morikin VII; mortality; Narth; Nausicaan; Nausicaan language; Nausicaan outpost; Nausicaan sword; penny; postmortem status; pulmonary support unit; Rigel; rose; Selar; senior officer; sense of humor; sophomore; spleen; Starfleet Academy; ; Stargazer captain; stasis unit; statistical analysis; stethoscope; straight nines; toast; transporter room 4; trigonometry; turbolift; ward three; wrist

Other references 
 Spacecraft Systems Status: Bussard collector; captain's yacht; class M; gross vehicle mass; impulse engine; main shuttlebay Mars; navigational deflector; observation lounge; phaser bank; service docking port; shuttlebay 2; shuttlebay 3; torpedo launcher; umbilical connect port; Utopia Planitia; warp nacelle

Deleted scenes references 
; Scobee Hall; Silona; trioxina

External links
 
 
 
 

de:Willkommen im Leben nach dem Tode
es:Tapestry
fr:Tapestry (épisode)
ja:運命の分かれ道（エピソード）
nl:Tapestry
pl:Tapestry
pt:Trama
TNG episodes