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Perchance to Dream by Howard Weinstein
3.0

This is the type of story that Star Trek does particularly well, and it's one of the ongoing themes that differentiates it from many of the other franchises, some of which have a lamentable tendency to grimdark. Picard and the Enterprise come into contact with two alien races, and the triangle of conflict between the three is slowly untangled to result in three well-meaning societies who have learned to communicate with each other and become friends. There's disagreement within each society as to what should be done, but little of it is mean-spirited and even the naysayers come around in the end. It's just all affirming and generally positive, albeit it does have one irritating subplot, and that (of course) includes Wesley Crusher, who couldn't not be annoying if his life depended on it. As it is, he and two teenage friends are on a training mission to evaluate their possible candidacy for the Academy, and they get caught up in what's going on, but manage to make it all about themselves and spend their time squabbling about who likes who and why, and if only we'd spent that wasted time with Picard instead, because his storyline was excellent. Or with Dr. Crusher, whose storyline inexplicably petered out halfway through and got essentially resolved off-page at the end.