Recently I was reading Memory Alpha and came across this: So does anyone know if this is true and, if it was, what do you think of the idea?
I was always very curious about the exchange between Guinan and Q in that episode where Q sends the Enterprise to meet the Borg for the first time. (I forget the title.) Q seemed to know something about her, and the way she squared off against Q made it seem like she would actually be able to put up a fight. I always wondered if she was more than she seemed. In later episodes she was just an ordinary El-Aurian, but was something more planned originally? Maybe the ENT episodes could have shed a little light on this.
It would have been nice to see her in ENT. I always thought they were going two different directions with Guinan. With the Q stories she is mysterious and maybe powerful. With the Borg her planet was taken and her people helpless and scattered.
It'd be head-scracthing to understand how she'd aged by ENT but had been basically the same age in the 19th, 23rd and 24th centuries. As for the idea itself, it's really pure S4, an idea made for sheer fanboyism. As such I get the feeling I may have liked the result, much as I liked S4. (Indeed, honestly, most of what I've heard about S5 sounded like a swell idea.)
I would also have liked to see Guinan make an appearance. I like the idea of her being mysterious and powerful and really really old.
And the different name would have been consistent with Q saying is that what you call yourself now in Q Who. Another idea for an episode could be to find is to have another episode with Arik Soong where on his quest to now develop artificial lifeforms he finds Data's head, it gets turned on for the episode and switched off before they put it back in that cavern.
That would have been a good two or three parter. You bring in Guinan/Q/Data all into one. Q and Guinan first meet and Data is woken up because Guinan knows where his head. She takes Soong to see what his children's child would make in a few centuries. And Q is there just cause he can be. Although I am not really sure where the Enterprise would be in the episode...
But they were certain nobody was in that cavern since the late 19th Century. But again, they didn't say how they determined that.
You can imagine the outcry there would have been when accusing them of trying to force TNG into the show in any way possible, there was enough flack about the Ferengi and the Borg. Maybe in that same arc we would see Q dealing with Guinan and interact with the Enterprise crew but to make it legitimate Q wouldn't mention his name.
I was most excited to hear about Shatner agreeing to do a Season 5 cameo as Chef. That would've been glorious.
I always got the feeling that Guinan was only with the El Aurians, not that she actually was one. So Soren lived to be about 150. Most of the races in ST live longer than humans do. But we know that Guinan is at least 600 years old, as she's over 100 in the 19th century. And is probably over 1000. She may have been depressed or something, and that's why she was trying to get into the Nexus.
Small correction here, Guinan wasn't trying to get into the Nexus. The El Aurian ships got caught in the energy ribbon and sent out a distress call. That's why the E-B had to come to the rescue. She, as well as the other survivors, got beamed aboard just before the El Aurian ship blew up. It was their brief time within the ribbon that let them experience what the Nexus was all about, but when the transporter grabbed them, they were ripped back into reality.
The Q didn't interact with humans until the time of TNG, remember? They didn't find us interesting until that point.
I would have loved to see that! I, too, have wondered, and just very recently, about how she was in 'Q Who', the clear past association with him, and that gesture in which, hands raised as if to defend with some psi-energetic-etc force, his menacing presence... it leaves room for fanfic ideas, as ref'd here. I'm one who likes the 'fanboy tie-in concepts' S4 had, and glad the producers considered it for the should-have-been 5.Maybe Q and herself met more than once, who knows....he does get around, and has been for far longer than even she...and the Shat as Chef? Well, if not playing Kirk's ancestor as was spoken of in Communicator once back when, I'd take that...
Not a bad idea, if a bit fanboyish. But certainly, Guinan is one of the few 24th century characters who could appear in ENT without violating canon, as we know nothing of her life from the 19th century to the 24th. -- RR
As a big fan of Guinan I would have loved to see her turn up on ENT, would have been nice to see her continue her voyage through the centuries.
I wonder if Guinan was ever a member of Starfleet? She implies she has training to replace Troi as counselor, and she's pretty handy with a phaser, so I always wondered if she could have served in Starfleet in the 23rd century. -- RR