Comment on Who had it worse?
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 3 days ago
Q is just a dick. He could’ve brought Voyager back home but didn’t and then involved Janeway in that continuufederacy civil war. He exposed Picard and crew to the Borgs and didn’t lift a finger when he got Locutussed. I think in terms of dead people he may have screwed Picard over more. I may be wrong but I think more people died in that cross section being cut out by the Borgs as a direct result of Q finger snapping the D out to meet them. But at the core, he just does stuff because he’s a bored omnipotent dick and he makes everyone in his path suffer.
lemmyng@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Counter argument on the Borg encounter: By accelerating the Federation encounter with the Borg, he likely prevented more suffering than had he not intervened, as it would have led to an unaware Federation not being prepared for Wolf 359. Yes, the Federation survived that just by the skin of their teeth, but they survived.
Lupus@feddit.org 3 days ago
Isn’t that even argued in the episode? Like Q wanted to humble Picard when he doesn’t want to accept him onto the Enterprise as a crew member and Picard criticizes his interference. Then Q says something like “You are not prepared for what awaits you”. Indicating that he has other motives than his usual tricksterdom.
Q has always had a certain curiosity for humanity and his actions are always layered but in this instance I think the layers are only.hiding his intent on helping humanity/Starfleet prepare for threats bigger.than anything they have ever encountered.
And later he says something like “If you can’t handle a bloody nose you should go home and hide under your bed” meaning something like “if you’re out here you have to be prepared to face threats and horrors unimaginable to man.”
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 days ago
Wolf 359 also prepared the Federation in dealing with a potentially superior technological foe. A lot of the fleet improvements would come online by the time the Federation came in contact with the Dominion. A pre Wolf 359 Federation would have gotten easily conquered by the Dominion.
To add to it, Voyager bright back a lot of technology after its travel, a lot of which got adopted by the Federation once Voyager returned. So you had two major technological jumps to the Federation with Q involvement.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 3 days ago
Now i’m torn. On the one hand I want to dismiss your counter argument as a counter factual and therefore there is no need to even glance at it. On the other hand, the omnipotent dick is part of the equation and he can control these things and I kinda see where you’re coming from. I would say he is being more of a d though because he is rubbing Picard’s nose in how unprepared humanity is in the stars. The fact that his finger snapping detour shortened the encounter timeline with the Borgs may have had the one positive effect: forewarning for the feds. And that may have put them in a position to win by the skin of their teeth. So your counter argument holds some limited and not massive amount of water.