Can Q be stopped?
- Thread starter Drache64
- Start date
Considering that Trek has featured many super-powerful beings and races(Kevin Uxbridge, Trelane, Nagilum, Thasians, Metrons, etc.), I would think that it would be possible, but "stopping" is a vague term.
Such a scenario reminds me of those comic book battles where you have characters like Galactus, the Beyonder, the Stranger, etc. involved in conflicts with OTHER supposedly invulnerable beings or confronted by objects of incredible power(such as the infinity gauntlet) and it just becomes kind of silly.
Didn't Guinan hold back Q when he met her on the Enterprise. They seemed to have a past and not a good one at that. Q made some cryptic comments about her but they never followed up on this...
In 'Death Wish', Quinn said that the Q are not omnipotent at all, despite their appearance of same. (And I believe him...much more than the regular Q we always see.) So it may be possible to stop them, although I'd have no idea how.
It was clear there existed power which could harm the Q. And there are some implications in TNG that the Q are concerned that humans will eventually reach the point where they can pose a threat, far down the line.
But do humans crave order more or do they shun it? I think humanity seeks its own self-order on its own terms and doesn't like being pushed around by "higher beings" who think they know better. This existential question was effectively discussed in Babylon 5, contrasting the difference between the Vorlon "order" philosophy, involving the influencing of lesser sentient life by a super-race and the Shadow "free range" Darwinian philosophy of letting the lesser sentient beings figure the universe out for themselves, where only the strong survive. Interestingly, I found myself quietly rooting for the Shadows towards the end. Vorlons actively manipulated the other races by appearing as gods and blatantly directing their development against their will, ostensibly for our own good. That didn't sit well with me philosophically. Smashing worlds with their planet killer when they realized that nobody wanted their flavor of control kind of sealed the deal. They had their little scorch-and-burn tantrum and decided to cleanse the entire galaxy of us puny sacks of water and chemicals and hope that new, more easily-controlled life will evolve once again in another billion years for them to play with. Trelaine would have gotten along well with them.
Getting back to the original Trek question, I'm not entirely sure that that's the Q's motive. JirinPanthosa makes a good point that the Q potentially saw humanoid life - particularly human life - as a clear and present danger in the far future to their own existence. I think Q was actually sent to "check us out" to see what kind of threat we posed. If they were truly omnipotent, they would have seen into any number of possible futures what we could become but I think they couldn't nail it down, frustrating them. Picard's Shakespearean "in apprehension, how like a god" speech particularly incensed Q and I think struck a BIG nerve, exacerbating the frustration. If any of these super-races wanted to impose some kind of order, it was the Organians and maybe the Metrons, but the former appear to have checked-out somewhere along the way in the late 23rd and the latter never seemed to care much about anything outside the Gorn region of space. The rest of the other big races clearly have more important things to do with their non-linear time than play with the galactic ant farm.
I personally prefer the TOS Battlestar Galactica philosophy as employed by the "Ship of Lights" beings, which were allegedly ascended Lords of Kobol. They sought to gently nudge humanity along without actively interfering in its natural development. It was only when Iblis attempted to directly manipulate the humans (imposing his own form of "order" - I detect a pattern here) that they decided to actively intervene and reveal their existence to re-balance the grand cosmic chess game. They mentioned to Apollo & Starbuck, "As you are now, we once were; as we are now, you may become", stating that they encourage the ascension of humanity to a higher level of being, but they will largely be on their own, with some help and occasional guidance from the Beings of Light. Arguably, a better compromise between the more inflexibly absolutist Vorlon and Shadow doctrines.
In short... Can the Q be stopped? Almost certainly. Should the Q be stopped? Probably. Humanity might pose a threat to them, but they definitely pose a threat to us.
Getting back to the original Trek question, I'm not entirely sure that that's the Q's motive. JirinPanthosa makes a good point that the Q potentially saw humanoid life - particularly human life - as a clear and present danger in the far future to their own existence. I think Q was actually sent to "check us out" to see what kind of threat we posed. If they were truly omnipotent, they would have seen into any number of possible futures what we could become but I think they couldn't nail it down, frustrating them. Picard's Shakespearean "in apprehension, how like a god" speech particularly incensed Q and I think struck a BIG nerve, exacerbating the frustration. If any of these super-races wanted to impose some kind of order, it was the Organians and maybe the Metrons, but the former appear to have checked-out somewhere along the way in the late 23rd and the latter never seemed to care much about anything outside the Gorn region of space. The rest of the other big races clearly have more important things to do with their non-linear time than play with the galactic ant farm.
I personally prefer the TOS Battlestar Galactica philosophy as employed by the "Ship of Lights" beings, which were allegedly ascended Lords of Kobol. They sought to gently nudge humanity along without actively interfering in its natural development. It was only when Iblis attempted to directly manipulate the humans (imposing his own form of "order" - I detect a pattern here) that they decided to actively intervene and reveal their existence to re-balance the grand cosmic chess game. They mentioned to Apollo & Starbuck, "As you are now, we once were; as we are now, you may become", stating that they encourage the ascension of humanity to a higher level of being, but they will largely be on their own, with some help and occasional guidance from the Beings of Light. Arguably, a better compromise between the more inflexibly absolutist Vorlon and Shadow doctrines.
In short... Can the Q be stopped? Almost certainly. Should the Q be stopped? Probably. Humanity might pose a threat to them, but they definitely pose a threat to us.
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Well, it might be more of a question of whether you can stop him even if you have a way.
Q has seemed to indicate knowledge of the future. Surely he could see such an attempt coming and stop it beforehand.
But let's say for some reason he doesn't see it coming -- he can still react faster than mere mortals and change things in real time.
But let's throw that out the window, too. You still have the Q Continuum to deal with. Will they allow you to do it (regardless of their standing with DeLance's Q).
That episode of Voyager where Q helps them create a way to enter the Q Continuum, seems to imply that while the Q deal with increadible powers, they are still manipulating time, space, energy, etc., that they will work within the way the universe exists. So if that is the case, surely a way to dampen, if not stop Q from using his powers, could be worked out in the future. Maybe a good reason Q keeps on top of humans -- he knows that eventually the Q will be confronted by them.
Q has seemed to indicate knowledge of the future. Surely he could see such an attempt coming and stop it beforehand.
But let's say for some reason he doesn't see it coming -- he can still react faster than mere mortals and change things in real time.
But let's throw that out the window, too. You still have the Q Continuum to deal with. Will they allow you to do it (regardless of their standing with DeLance's Q).
That episode of Voyager where Q helps them create a way to enter the Q Continuum, seems to imply that while the Q deal with increadible powers, they are still manipulating time, space, energy, etc., that they will work within the way the universe exists. So if that is the case, surely a way to dampen, if not stop Q from using his powers, could be worked out in the future. Maybe a good reason Q keeps on top of humans -- he knows that eventually the Q will be confronted by them.
I doubt it. Q, any Q, could click their fingers and wipe your race from existence. and the clicking of the fingers would just be for show.
So no I dont see how you can "stop" the Q in any traditional sense.
By logically convincing another equal-or-greater power that the Q are a danger to the fabric of the cosmos. Or, at least, their particular corner of it. We don't really know the dynamic between all the different super-races that exist in the universe. Several that have already been mentioned seem to take great interest in our own little galaxy and humanity in particular. A writer's conceit to serve the greater story to be sure, but still canonically established as fact.
What about the rest of existence? Have they all divided up the universe into "territories" where they won't infringe on each others' sand boxes? Or are their motives so completely transcendent of our own understanding of territory, resource allocation and simply being that we would be unable to comprehend it with our primitive minds (as Q so gleefully likes to remind us)? I tend to doubt it to a degree, considering the easy way we can ascertain Q's intentions at the regional level. He's an arrogant demigod that, yes, is more powerful than humanity, but he and his kind appear to have limitations and attributes. His fore-mentioned hostile reaction to Guinan's presence on the E-D speaks volumes. He was downright scared.
It's been a very long time since I saw the episode in question, but it seemed to me that their little "civil war" in Voyager quite effectively grounded their psyches in surprisingly mundane terms. I would not consider such internal strife a particularly ascended activity to undertake. And then we have Uxbridge who, with a single thought, wiped out the Hussnock (sp?) entirely - in the blink of an eye. Why? He saw the people he was living with destroyed including his human wife. That seems an awfully human-like response to such a horrid experience. Why would someone as ascended as him, with such total power, pacifist or not, honestly care about the snuffing out of conventional 3-dimensional life? Do any of us care if an exterminator wipes out an entire colony of insects in and around someone's property, easily exceeding the numbers killed by the Hussnock, or possibly even the genocide of the Hussnock themselves? I sure don't. Why should a Douwd?
To understand the psychological hooks that exist, even within these highly advanced super-beings, the opportunity to push any one of them into a pitched battle with the Q is possible, so long as a valid argument can be conveyed and the proper strings be pulled.
What about the rest of existence? Have they all divided up the universe into "territories" where they won't infringe on each others' sand boxes? Or are their motives so completely transcendent of our own understanding of territory, resource allocation and simply being that we would be unable to comprehend it with our primitive minds (as Q so gleefully likes to remind us)? I tend to doubt it to a degree, considering the easy way we can ascertain Q's intentions at the regional level. He's an arrogant demigod that, yes, is more powerful than humanity, but he and his kind appear to have limitations and attributes. His fore-mentioned hostile reaction to Guinan's presence on the E-D speaks volumes. He was downright scared.
It's been a very long time since I saw the episode in question, but it seemed to me that their little "civil war" in Voyager quite effectively grounded their psyches in surprisingly mundane terms. I would not consider such internal strife a particularly ascended activity to undertake. And then we have Uxbridge who, with a single thought, wiped out the Hussnock (sp?) entirely - in the blink of an eye. Why? He saw the people he was living with destroyed including his human wife. That seems an awfully human-like response to such a horrid experience. Why would someone as ascended as him, with such total power, pacifist or not, honestly care about the snuffing out of conventional 3-dimensional life? Do any of us care if an exterminator wipes out an entire colony of insects in and around someone's property, easily exceeding the numbers killed by the Hussnock, or possibly even the genocide of the Hussnock themselves? I sure don't. Why should a Douwd?
To understand the psychological hooks that exist, even within these highly advanced super-beings, the opportunity to push any one of them into a pitched battle with the Q is possible, so long as a valid argument can be conveyed and the proper strings be pulled.
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I now remember Q saying, perhaps this was in Voyager, quite forcefully and angrily to not provoke the Borg. Why? Doesn't this mean the Q are worried about what the Borg may be capable of doing to the Q Continuum?
The Borg had one big thing going for them - the hive mind. Something that massive and multi-processing, capable of near-instant communication through subspace nodes and nexuses, could conceivably achieve a kind of ascendance on their own. Their original stated mission was to "strive for perfection" through assimilation. Is not ascension a kind of perfection out of the mundane?
So maybe the Q are the newest kids on the transdimensional block. Maybe they've only just recently ascended (by recent, I mean in the past few hundred million years or so) and the others like the Douwd, Metrons, Organians, etc. are higher up on the evolutionary ladder - some possibly pre-dating the existence of time itself. This could likely explain why the Q are the most humanlike in their motives and why they've taken to bullying other species in the galaxy. If any one of us other mundanes hits the astral plane, they could be well and truly screwed. It could be possible, at that level, to usurp and undermine their existence. Perhaps the other super-races are keeping them in line by not allowing them to completely annihilate potential future adversaries, but give the Q just enough slack to keep us and the Borg down on the lower rungs.
So maybe the Q are the newest kids on the transdimensional block. Maybe they've only just recently ascended (by recent, I mean in the past few hundred million years or so) and the others like the Douwd, Metrons, Organians, etc. are higher up on the evolutionary ladder - some possibly pre-dating the existence of time itself. This could likely explain why the Q are the most humanlike in their motives and why they've taken to bullying other species in the galaxy. If any one of us other mundanes hits the astral plane, they could be well and truly screwed. It could be possible, at that level, to usurp and undermine their existence. Perhaps the other super-races are keeping them in line by not allowing them to completely annihilate potential future adversaries, but give the Q just enough slack to keep us and the Borg down on the lower rungs.
I'm drinking in all the theories. Thank you.Q's weakness (or maybe his humanity) is that he's highly social. Even if he's on a destructive tear, he just likes to talk things through. He enjoys the interplay and he gives everyone a chance to offer a rebuttal. If he were really so bad, he'd just destroy things and not interact. But he'd never do that. That's just not his nature, and so trying to calculate force against force is not applicable. It's true of just about all of Trek's omnipotent menaces (like V'Ger) that they get "talked down" out of their rampages.
There can't be such a plan. So, NO.
It's like the unstoppable force vs. the unmovable object...
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