This article or subsection has an associated category. | Q Continuum |
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The Q Continuum is a plane of existence that is composed of the beings who are known as "Q". The term is also used to refer collectively to the Q themselves.
History and specifics[]
The Q Continuum's true form cannot be perceived by humanoids, and thus will appear as analogues from various milieus of the three-dimensional universe. (VOY episode: "Death Wish")
The Q were supposedly created by the actions of the Anschlasom, a species that inadvertently entered the Omega Continuum tens of thousands of years ago and corrupted the balance existing between the two continuums, resulting in the openings of thousands of doors to the Omega Continuum in the multiverse and the birth of sentient life in the Q Continuum at the dawn of time. (VOY novel: The Eternal Tide)
The Q Continuum is the ultimate source of creative power in the multiverse and it exists as the opposite of the Omega Continuum and counteracts its destructive nature by slowly releasing creative power in the multiverse. (VOY novel: The Eternal Tide)
The Q Continuum was preceded, in terms of "first of the two to exist", by the Q's neighbors, the M Continuum. (TNG novels: I, Q, Q-Zone)
To interact with the 3-D realm, the Q presented themselves in the guises of the species they interacted with, and were readily able to change the appearance of their avatars. (TNG episodes: "Encounter at Farpoint", "Hide and Q", TOS - The Q Gambit comic: "Part 3")
The exact origin of the Q is equally unknown. Quinn once implied that the Q had begun their history in a manner similar to the Humans and Vulcans. (VOY episode: "Death Wish")
With Q even fearing that the humans would one day follow a similar path. (TNG episode: "Hide and Q")
Q later claimed his people had always existed as they were. (VOY episode: "The Q and the Grey")
Q once claimed to James T. Kirk that he could manipulate space/time as easily as Kirk could "change the water in a fishbowl". (TOS - The Q Gambit comic: "Part 1")
Quinn claimed the Q were not omnipotent, comparing their status to Starfleet to how a primitive society would view the USS Voyager, though he did not elaborate on any of his species' limitations. (VOY episode: "Death Wish")
Nonetheless, the Q were powerful enough to teleport across vast distances, "misplace" asteroid belts, collapse galaxies, and even travel outside of the universe. (TNG episodes: "Q Who", "Deja Q", "True Q")
Such was their power that they regarded private planets as toys for their young. (TOS episode: "The Squire of Gothos")
A single Q was able to completely alter the history of two separate universes. (TOS - Star Trek—Legion of Super-Heroes comic:)
Sufficiently powerful entities could pose threats to the Q however with the forces of 0, The One, Gorgan, and (*), bringing the Q to their knees. The latter two were even able to evade capture by their foes. (TNG novel: Q-Strike)
Equally, when forced into a war with the Pah-wraiths, the Q were brought to the brink of defeat, with Q even confessing to Kirk that, in their native dimension, the Q were not the gods they were in the 3-D universe but as mortal as humans. Being at the nexus of the Bajoran wormhole, an interdimensional crossroads, stripped Q of his powers. (TOS - The Q Gambit comics: "Part 5", "Part 6")
Likewise, though they regarded themselves as more powerful than the Organians, Metrons, or even Prophets, all three races proved capable of fighting the Q on equal footing with a war between them projected to last centuries. (TNG - The Q Conflict comics: "Issue 4", "Issue 5", "Issue 6")
Though seemingly incapable of death, the Q were capable of being killed by weapons forged by their own kind. (VOY episode: "The Q and the Grey", TNG - The Q Conflict comic: "Issue 6")
The Q were also capable of executing rogue members of the Continuum. (TNG episode: "True Q")
Despite interacting with less evolved species across time and space, the Q culture was so heavily stagnant and sterile that by the 21st century, Quinn felt he had done and seen literally everything in the universe. (VOY episode: "Death Wish")
When he committed suicide, the first Q to do so, his death sparked the Q Civil War, dividing the species into the conservatives, those that sought to end any interactions with other species, and those who sought to revitalize their society. (VOY episode: "The Q and the Grey")
The Q were capable of granting their power to others. (TNG episode: "Hide and Q")
Readily capable of stripping them away from members of their people. (TNG episode: "Deja Q", VOY episode: "Death Wish")
Likewise, a Q could renounce their powers. (TNG episode: "Q Who")
In 2378, the Continuum went into hiding when Kahless began using the Orb of Destruction to kill the gods of the Milky Way Galaxy. (ST - Godshock comic: "Part 3")
In 2380, Q elected Cwansi as the representative of the Q Continuum in the galaxy. (NF novel: The Returned, Part 3)
The Q's last known contact with the Federation occurred around 2590. In 3190 the Federation considered them as possible creators of the dark matter anomoly along with the Metrons, Nacene, and the Iconians. However since the Federation had not heard from the Q in about 600 years and the DMA did not fit their established pattern of behavior, the Federation dismissed them as possible creators of the DMA. (DSC episode: "The Examples")
Perceptions[]
- In 2273, shortly after Willard Decker, the Ilia probe, and V'Ger fused into a new cosmic entity, Q drew it into the Q Continuum, which was visualized as a wheat farm. (TOS - Waypoint - Special comic: "Consider Eternity")
- In the year 2364, Q himself first described it to Commander William T. Riker, first officer of the Federation Starfleet starship USS Enterprise-D as "limitless dimensions of the galaxy in which we (the Q) exist". (TNG episode: "Hide and Q")
- In 2372, it was first perceived as a long, dusty road by Captain Kathryn Janeway and Lieutenant Tuvok of the USS Voyager. (VOY episode: "Death Wish")
- The following year, it was viewed as part of the American Civil War by the crew of Voyager. (VOY episode: "The Q and the Grey")
- When Doctor Selar was brought to the Q Continuum during the Q Civil War, she perceived it as the planet Tyrus III, a battlefront during the Vulcan-Romulan War. (NF short story: "'Q'uandary")
- When Captain Jean-Luc Picard witnessed a past version of the Q Continuum, dated millennia in the past, he perceived it as a complex system of roads around a kind of multi-storey car park, reflecting Q's description of it as the ultimate means of accessing any point in the universe. (TNG novel: Q-Zone)
- In 2374, it was also seen as Times Square on New Year's Eve of 2000, as well as the 1940s world of Dixon Hill, by Captain Picard and Lieutenant Commander Data of the USS Enterprise-E. (TNG novel: I, Q)
- In the audio production Spock vs. Q: The Sequel, Q implies that there is also a "P Continuum", and that the P can command the Q (as in "mind your P's and Q's").
Known Q[]
- Q
- Q2
- Female Q
- Q (Junior)
- Q (Colonel)
- Q (Judge)
- Quinn (formerly; deceased)
- Amanda Rogers
- William T. Riker (temporarily)
- Trelane
- Monica
- Tenley
- Shiva
- California Steve
- Other Q (TNG comic: "Q's Day"):
- Q wearing science division captain uniform
- Q wearing operations division captain uniform
- Q wearing operations division commander uniform
- Q wearing command division commander uniform
See also[]
Appendices[]
References[]
External link[]
- Q Continuum article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- Q (species) article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.