In TOS, the Enterprise encounters Trelaine, the self-titled Squire of Gothos. A seemingly omnipotent being that toys with the crew for his own amusement.
In TNG, the enterprise encounters Q, a seemingly omnipotent being that toys with the crew for his own amusement.
Trelaine was a child of his species and Q was an adult, but they had a similar “humans are toys” attitude. Q’s came with an added cynicism that you might expect from an adult of Trelaine’s species.
It has been pointed out that Trelaine seemed to rely on technology, which allowed Kirk to defeat him. But Q also always gave his playthings a chance one way or another and, again, Trelaine was a child.
So was Trelaine a Q? Was he from a different god-like species?
And here’s a real curveball for you- Was Trelaine a child Organian?
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I don’t know that I would go as far as Trelaine is Q, just because we’ve seen at least one other Q like DeLancie’s Q- namely, Corbin Bernsen’s Q that gives his powers back to him. Most Q seem to not give a shit. About anything if Voyager has anything to say about it. Maybe there are some who do and there’s plenty of reasons for them to toy with the various corporeal beings they encounter since apparently they have no real moral code.
That said, Trelaine’s parents behaved like Trelaine was doing something bad, so maybe that’s an argument against him being a Q.
Anyway, there’s a lot of room to discuss this I think.
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It isn’t canon, but it could easily be made canon. And even though I didn’t really like the idea at first, I now feel like it would be a good way to retroactively shore up Star Trek lore.
I find it hard to believe that there are MULTIPLE demigod-like species in the Milky Way alone. I feel like they would have stepped on each other’s toes until only one prevailed (actual gods like the Prophets wouldn’t care or be affected). Having Trelaine just be an errant baby “Q” who got scolded for consorting with mortals prevents that inevitability.
Although… a war between the Organians and the Q (or whatever other beings) might be an interesting thing to explore.
Now I’m not saying I recommend it, but Q-Squared by Peter David discusses exactly this.
I didn’t mind it. It wasn’t the best Star Trek book I ever read, but he didn’t do a terrible job tying things together.
Feels like he was genuinely surprised by the destruction of his equipment, and the “adult” of his species weren’t very Q or Organian like.
I think he was just some other ascended species that didn’t spend a lot of time with matter based life.
If you think about the range of organisms just here on Earth - from single-celled creatures like bacteria, or below that even with viruses that are just DNA wrapped in proteins, to other single-celled creatures like Amoeba (yes, that’s an enormous range still in just the realm of single-celled creatures alone!), to multicellular plants, animals, birbs (haha lolz we know those aren’t real!), and finally humans who can literally split and harness the power of the atom - then extrapolate that to the whole Universe in Star Trek, we don’t need to think that every super-powerful creature seen is a “Q”.
To an amoeba, already every one of the numerous forms of insect life on planet Earth is like a “Q”. In that sense then, Q itself was an oddity - not in being a race with that much power, but in choosing to even bother to interact with the lesser forms. After all, we do not do that, to the ones multiple rungs down on the hierarchy below us (or if we do, e.g. yeast, we don’t “introduce” ourselves to them, as Q did to humans).
I think it is consistent with Star Trek’s philosophy, especially in TOS, that we are not supposed to “know” everything, about the VASTNESS of the large, wide universe it is in:-).
Didn’t the Continuum forget about mating until their civil war in Voyager? Or are the Q non-linear beings like the Profits?
There was the child Q who didn’t know she was a Q on TNG.
True. The two Q (we know of) who couldn’t explore infinity figured it out pretty quick.
