Wow to think I almost started to read the Shattner books.

[Christopher]

Don't forget Amanda Rogers.

Whose parents had left the Continuum and taken human form before they conceived her.

And Trelane's mother in Q-Squared was implied to not be another Q.

Still doesn't work for me. It was one of Peter David's best books, don't get me wrong, but I just don't buy the conceit that Trelane had anything to do with the Q. The only thing Trelane and Q had in common was attitude. Trelane was an immensely less powerful being, dependent on technology to achieve his feats, and since he was grossly lacking in basic knowledge about the speed of light and the fact that food has flavor, he was obviously nowhere near a Q's omniscience. (And no, I don't buy "He was still young" as an excuse, because Riker had full Q power the instant he was endowed with it in "Hide and Q.") And I just don't like the small-universe syndrome. Given the age of the galaxy and what we know about the evolution of higher intelligence in Trek, the galaxy must be littered with countless incorporeal superintelligences. What are the odds that any random two, particularly two that both caused trouble to captains of ships named Enterprise, would be related? Infinitesimal, that's what. And why link Trelane to the Q instead of some other powerful race like the Travelers or the Thasians or the Edo god or any of a whole bunch of other options? For no other reason than that the characters seem similar. But that's not good evidence of anything except that Roddenberry was rehashing old ideas.

 

[Destructor]

Given the age of the galaxy and what we know about the evolution of higher intelligence in Trek, the galaxy must be littered with countless incorporeal superintelligences.

And in TOS, it kinda is!

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

Don't forget Amanda Rogers.

Whose parents had left the Continuum and taken human form before they conceived her.

If they had taken human form completely, why would their child have Q powers?

I've always thought it a wee bit (no, a large bit) ridiculous that the Q had never procreated before. But it's 'canon' so...hmm. My way of rationalizing it is that the Q are never totally honest with humans so why believe anything they say? Are they really omnipotent? (Not according to the actual definition of the word or the fact that in some novels there are more powerful beings. You can't be more or less omnipotent.) How do we know they haven't procreated before? We know Q (THE Q, John de Lancie's Q) in particular enjoys manipulating humanity, so maybe the others do as well.

I haven't read Q-Squared, so I don't know how the idea is advanced in the book, but I think it's silly to make Trelane a Q, like you said, there are a ton of super-advanced semi-omnipotent beings and the similarities between Q and Trelane are only passing and coincidental in my humble opinion.