Spoiler-Alert!
This article contains mild spoilers for almost all Star Trek episodes in which Q appears. These include: “Encounter at Farpoint” (TNG S01E01 and E02), “Hide and Q” (TNG S01E10), “Déjà Q” (TNG S03E13), “Tapestry” (TNG S06E15), “Death Wish” (VOY S02E18), “The Q and the Grey” (VOY S03E11) and “Q2” (VOY S07E19).
Q may be popular with the viewers of the late 20th and early 21st century, but for Jean-Luc Picard and Catherine Janeway and everyone on board the Enterprise and Voyager, he is more of a nuisance – and a very dangerous one at that. Q loves chaos and very rarely reveals his intentions, but that’s not even the main problem: Q possesses an extraordinary power that makes him seem almost like a god. But in the end, even he is not omnipotent, as already mentioned in the article “Star Trek: How the encounter at Farpoint changed the fate of humankind”. At this point, however, I would like to go into this in more detail.
Q the God
When we first meet Q (TNG S01E01 and E02), he is downright terrifying. While endowed with a not inconsiderable amount of charisma, sarcasm and quick wit, he is nevertheless presented to us as a potentially omnipotent antagonist, even if this assumption is not actually proven true – but more on that in a moment. First of all, we need to clarify how one can come to believe that Q is something like God in the first place.
Well, in his immensely arrogant manner, which admittedly is a not insignificant part of his charm, he often conjures up this image himself. Not only does he refer to himself as such or title himself as omnipotent, no, he also tends to show off his power at every opportunity. Among the abilities the audience witnesses as a result are the power to manipulate matter and energy, to create and destroy (or create an illusion to do so) and even to control time at will.
Consequently, Q is capable of moving suns, asteroids and planets, creating alternative timelines and manipulating natural laws. And did I mention that Q is immortal and perhaps even omniscient? Since he uses these powers almost exclusively for his own amusement, he quickly earns a reputation in Starfleet for being a ” rude, interfering, inconsiderate, sadistic pest” (Capt. Janeway, VOY S02E18) – even though his actions very rarely result in actual negative consequences. Above all, he seems most likely to cost everyone he encounters some nerves.
That Q is still a character to be taken seriously, despite all the rather humorous scenes, becomes clear, for example, in the episode “Tapestry” (TNG S06E15). Here Q appears to Capt. Picard after the latter had died because of his artificial heart:
Capt. Picard: Q, what is going on?
„Tapestry“ (TNG S06E15)
Q: I told you. You’re dead, this is the afterlife, and I’m God.
Capt. Picard: [laughs scornfully] You are not God!
Q: Blasphemy! You’re lucky I don’t cast you out, or smite you, or something. The bottom line is, your life ended about five minutes ago under the inept ministrations of Dr. Beverly Crusher.
Capt. Picard: No, I am not dead. Because I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed.
It is never really resolved whether the scene experienced by Capt. Picard is actually an impression of the afterlife. In any case, the captain of the Enterprise does not believe this. But even he can’t quite deny what happens afterwards: Q gives him the chance to change the past (or create an alternative timeline) in which he is never injured in battle so badly that he has to receive this artificial heart.
In fact, Capt. Picard does change his own past, but he finds that he never became the man he was before – and so he eventually undoes all the changes. With or without Q’s help, Capt. Picard surprisingly wakes up alive in sickbay at the end. Certainly, in this episode Q seems like the god he thinks he is, and one is willing to believe he might be omnipotent after all.
Q the Q
Well, there is, however, a very unmistakable argument as to why Q cannot be omnipotent at all: There are other Qs. From philosophy and theology this problem is well known – there cannot be two (or more) entities that are omnipotent, as they would mutually limit their power. This is also true in this case, because time and again, when other Qs come into play, this is exactly what can be observed.
The first time we learn that Q is not the only one of his kind is during his second appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation, when he offers Capt. Picard‘s first officer, William Riker, in the name of the Q Continuum to become a Q himself and temporarily gives him the appropriate powers. But we become aware of the problems associated with the coexistence of different Qs only when not all Qs are of the same opinion.
Things become somewhat paradoxical when it comes to the potential mortality of Qs. The Q Quinn, who has a death wish, explains in VOY S02E18 that the Qs left mortality behind a long time ago and that he now longs for it. However, he cannot grant himself this, only the Continuum can. How other Qs are able to give him mortality is not really clear, but Q hints at several points that there is a form of hierarchy in the Continuum that requires Qs to have power over other Qs.
Q: You can’t hide from me, Q!
„Death Wish“ (VOY S02E18)
Quinn: And you can’t take me by force! I’ll stalemate you for eternity if I have to!
Capt. Janeway: The hell you will! The vaunted Q Continuum: ‚Self-anointed Guardians of the Universe‘! How dare you come aboard this ship and endanger this crew with your personal tug-of-war!
Q: Did anyone ever tell you you’re angry when you’re beautiful?
A very similar problem is at stake when Q, who causes nothing but trouble and chaos throughout the universe and does not abide by any of the ominous rules of the Continuum, is stripped of his powers and made mortal. At his own request, he is abandoned on the Enterprise, which is on a rescue mission to protect a planet from its own moon, which has gone out of orbit.
Capt. Picard: Return that moon to its orbit.
„Déjà Q“ (TNG S03E13)
Q: I have no powers! Q the ordinary.
Capt. Picard: Q the liar! Q the misanthrope!
Q: Q the miserable, Q the desperate! What must I do to convince you people?
Lieutenant Worf: Die.
Q: Oh, very clever, Worf. Eat any good books lately?
Q even honestly tries to help the Enterprise on the mission, but everything gets a little out of hand when the Calamarain, a species that has probably already experienced Q and his pranks, show up. They torture Q and want to get hold of him at all costs. In doing so, they also endanger the mission of the Enterprise. Finally, Q’s noble side surfaces when he voluntarily surrenders himself to protect everyone on board the ship (and thus everyone on the endangered world). His selfless act becomes his own salvation at the last moment, for as a reward he is made Q again. As a farewell, he steers the moon back into its orbit and gives Data, who wishes nothing more than to be able to feel human emotions, a laugh.
Last but not least, the Q’s power also seems to be a “matter of practice”. This can be seen when the Voyager unknowingly frees the Q Quinn from his prison, in which he has been locked up powerlessly for 300 years, and he then (when he actually wanted to destroy himself) accidentally “flicks away” all the male crew members of the Voyager.
And I can’t help but point out another one of my favourite scenes. Because apparently Qs are not able to reproduce on their own either. They also need someone else to do it, and when Q gets the idea of fathering a child, he chooses Capt. Janeway of all people. In short: she is not exactly taken with the idea.
Q: I know that you’re probably asking yourself, „Why would a brilliant, handsome, dashingly omnipotent being like Q want to mate with a scrawny little bipedal specimen like me?“
„The Q and the Grey“ (VOY S03E11)
Capt. Janeway: Let me guess: no one else in the universe will have you!
Q: Nonsense! I could have chosen a Klingon Targ; a Romulan empress; a Cyrillian microbe.
Capt. Janeway: Really? I beat out a single-celled organism? How flattering!
Eventually, though, they don’t have an offspring together – Capt. Janeway reunites Q with his ex instead. However, she can’t quite escape the responsibility for Q’s son, she is made godmother and even has to take care of Q Junior (in some books also called “q”) for a while when he gets into conflict with the Continuum because of his rebellious nature – he really is very similar to his father. However, with the help of “Aunt Cathy” and the crew he also discovers his “humanity” and finds his way as Q (VOY S07E18).