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Q is an antagonist but I've never thought of him as a villain. He has no obligation to be good imo but he's still mostly benevolent or mildly mischievous.
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Jan 23, 2018 06:09
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Dr. Video Games 0081 posted:Q is an antagonist but I've never thought of him as a villain. He has no obligation to be good imo but he's still mostly benevolent or mildly mischievous. Yeah, I’ll agree to that! Well put.
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Jan 23, 2018 06:13
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WampaLord posted:Sure, but during the moments leading up to Q teleporting them, you can tell Q is doing it because he's pissed at Picard's arrogance. It's an emotional decision, made in the moment, and while it's easy to paint it as "Oh, he had to warn them about the Borg because they were coming anyway" it's clear that Q was just mad. Q operates on a whole other level from us, though. He's capricious and temperamental, and I wouldn't call him exactly "benevolent" in a way humans would define it, and he can be super dangerous. But he also is a guide of sorts.
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Jan 23, 2018 06:25
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turn left hillary!! noo posted:Q operates on a whole other level from us, though. He's capricious and temperamental, and I wouldn't call him exactly "benevolent" in a way humans would define it, and he can be super dangerous. But he also is a guide of sorts. He's not bad but he definitely plays poker with Nagilum on weekends.
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Jan 23, 2018 06:27
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That's what makes Q a foil to Picard, because Picard is all about discipline and responsible use of power. A lot of Next Generation stories have the Enterprise crew asking, "We have the power to do x, but do we have the right to?"Their power is subordinated to a moral and ethical code...the values of the Federation, the Prime Directive, and so on. Q, on the other hand, is power unconstrained by ethics or discipline. He's totally arbitrary. He does whatever he wants because he wants to do it and doesn't care about the consequences or whether his actions will hurt people.
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Jan 23, 2018 06:31
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dont even fink about it posted:Obviously if the show were made even five years later you would have gotten a full Guinan/Q arc. But the thrust from what little we got of Q and Guinan is simple--Guinan is benevolent and has some kind of rule about not directly interfering with mortal affairs, and Q is... Doing it differently. Thank god.
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Jan 23, 2018 09:26
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Dr. Video Games 0081 posted:Q is an antagonist but I've never thought of him as a villain. He has no obligation to be good imo but he's still mostly benevolent or mildly mischievous. He literally teleported them next to the borg which lead to countless deaths.
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Jan 23, 2018 11:24
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socialsecurity posted:He literally teleported them next to the borg which lead to countless deaths. I've always thought of Q as more like weather than a person.
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Jan 23, 2018 11:33
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socialsecurity posted:He literally teleported them next to the borg which lead to countless deaths. Er, wasn't it 18 deaths? Easily counted.
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Jan 23, 2018 12:06
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Er, wasn't it 18 deaths? Easily counted. That cube headed to Earth afterwards
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Jan 23, 2018 12:07
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socialsecurity posted:He literally teleported them next to the borg which lead to countless deaths. I always took that as Q trying to help in his weird omnipotent way. Picard and the crew were being arrogant and Q showed them oh no, you fuckers better stay on your toes or you're going to get steamrolled out here.
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Jan 23, 2018 12:08
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Grand Fromage posted:I always took that as Q trying to help in his weird omnipotent way. Picard and the crew were being arrogant and Q showed them oh no, you fuckers better stay on your toes or you're going to get steamrolled out here. I've always seen that as Q acting in a fit of pique that Picard doesn't want to hang out with him.
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Jan 23, 2018 12:32
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Epicurius posted:I've always seen that as Q acting in a fit of pique that Picard doesn't want to hang out with him. Could be either or both. In any case I think reducing Q to a villain is a huge disservice to his character. Antagonist, sure. He's there to create conflict.
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Jan 23, 2018 12:45
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Grand Fromage posted:Could be either or both. In any case I think reducing Q to a villain is a huge disservice to his character. Antagonist, sure. He's there to create conflict. Yes, exactly this. Duras is a villain, Q is an antagonist.
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Jan 23, 2018 12:48
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dont even fink about it posted:Obviously if the show were made even five years later you would have gotten a full Guinan/Q arc. But the thrust from what little we got of Q and Guinan is simple--Guinan is benevolent and has some kind of rule about not directly interfering with mortal affairs, and Q is... Doing it differently. For all the things Generations did wrong, the ambiguity over what level of influence the Nexus still had on Guinan was a great capstone to the questions of what she really is. Still lots of mystery, but an explanation.
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Jan 23, 2018 13:26
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Parachute posted:my wife and i just finished voyager and i liked it a lot more than when i watched it off-and-on when it originally aired. regarding the ending: The answer to this question is what would producers want in a trek series set after Voyager. You bet your rear end there would be Borg again. Enterprise couldn't even help themselves from having a Borg episode.
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Jan 23, 2018 14:30
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Grand Fromage posted:Could be either or both. In any case I think reducing Q to a villain is a huge disservice to his character. Antagonist, sure. He's there to create conflict. I think Q was, in his own way, helping Picard and the Federation to grow. They'd become arrogant and complacent, certain that they were king of poo poo mountain and nothing in the galaxy could best them. So Q knocked them down a peg, wiping that smug look off Picard's face and reminding him - and by extension the Federation - that no, they are not kings of poo poo mountain... although they might be in due time. It's a classic story thread, the smug and overconfident hero who needs to be humbled and stomped into the dirt so he can learn and grow because he'd become complacent and his ego had gotten in the way - and frequently its his own mentor who does it. I've always seen Q as Picard's mentor that way. He's seen something remarkable about Picard, a genuine spark of something that sets him apart and must be cultivated. Just look at Q's dialogue in All Good Things. I think Q is grooming humanity for a bigger role in the universe than they currently imagine, and if it takes a few hard knocks for them to realize their potential then so be it.
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Jan 23, 2018 14:45
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One thing that the Guinan and Q discussion made pointed for me: there definitely seems to be a dearth of negative-space storytelling in lots of modern shows and movies. Some of my favorite stories use sparse dialogue and description to tell a tale thoroughly by what is outlined or implied by the text. Pratchett was amazing at fleshing out entire characters or settings just from an offhanded line every few books. My brain goes nuts, connecting the dots, then filling in the resulting outlines. Lots of stories seem to be written to be very neat and tight now, with everything having a reason and meeting up with a purpose in the story, all of which is explained or shown. That definitely doesn't leave the door open to creativity. I'm seeing that a lot in Discovery: it's like an engine full of specialized parts that fit together, and if it ends up working it'll be cool but you can't customize it, you can't build off it, it's a self-contained shiny device.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:14
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Brawnfire posted:One thing that the Guinan and Q discussion made pointed for me: there definitely seems to be a dearth of negative-space storytelling in lots of modern shows and movies. Some of my favorite stories use sparse dialogue and description to tell a tale thoroughly by what is outlined or implied by the text. Pratchett was amazing at fleshing out entire characters or settings just from an offhanded line every few books. My brain goes nuts, connecting the dots, then filling in the resulting outlines. I'm with you on this, but bringing it back to the discussion of TNG, it's hard to give the show the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this kind of thing. Like, maybe they were just trying to be mysterious, which is cool, but there's also a good chance that the writers of that episode were trying to plant a seed for later stuff that was just never picked up. This is the same show where the second-to-last episode of a season suggests that Starfleet has been infiltrated at the highest levels by evil parasites, which is then immediately forgotten. I can understand people being unsatisfied by some of the loose threads. On the other hand, a loose thread is better than dropping in something like that only to completely contradict it later, which happens often enough.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:23
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the best Q is the one who wanted to die and talked about it all the time including in the Q continuum newspaper
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Jan 23, 2018 15:23
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I’m pretty convinced the Guinan/Q thing was an idea that they meant to get back to later but didn’t. All they really establish is that Guinan is just a very long lived humanoid and does not have any special abilities. But being like 500 years old allows her to have way more knowledge than normal humanoids.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:32
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When I write I drop all kinds of plot hooks and hints and stuff with no plans to use any of them or where they lead. Then later I go back through them and decide which ones make for a good ending, and leave the rest out there as just world flavor. I'm pretty sure Guinan's nature was that sort of hook thrown in, it doesn't mean you're necessarily planning to get back to it but it's there if you come up with something. If I were writing a TV show I'd be constantly stocking the mantles with guns without any plan and it'd look like I knew exactly what I was doing when I went back to them later. Resisting the urge to explain Guinan was a good choice, in any case. There's no way it could have added anything of value. Same way that they dropped hints but never entirely connected the dots with Garak. No need.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:38
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Nv2R9Acec Trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek. I laughed a few times.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:42
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FlamingLiberal posted:I’m pretty convinced the Guinan/Q thing was an idea that they meant to get back to later but didn’t. All they really establish is that Guinan is just a very long lived humanoid and does not have any special abilities. But being like 500 years old allows her to have way more knowledge than normal humanoids. Guinan definitely did have special abilities though. She knew when the timeline had been altered, for example. I don't know what the El-Aurian Kung Fu was about, though, and that makes the scene just a bit more interesting, in my opinion.
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Jan 23, 2018 15:47
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Parachute posted:the best Q is the one who wanted to die and talked about it all the time including in the Q continuum newspaper The more interesting story is the corruption in the Q continuum police force and how they're taking bribes not to enforce the blue laws.
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Jan 23, 2018 16:17
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Epicurius posted:The more interesting story is the corruption in the Q continuum police force and how they're taking bribes not to enforce the blue laws. You'll also notice that the main article segues into describing a prisoner after the first paragraph.
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Jan 23, 2018 16:45
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:You'll also notice that the main article segues into describing a prisoner after the first paragraph. That's why I love mock newspapers in TV shows/movies. They put in the headlines, and maybe, like in that example, some text, but most of it is either lorem ipsem or text they took from old newspapera.
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Jan 23, 2018 16:53
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Brawnfire posted:I'm seeing that a lot in Discovery: it's like an engine full of specialized parts that fit together, and if it ends up working it'll be cool but you can't customize it, you can't build off it, it's a self-contained shiny device. Yes, this totally sums up how I feel about Discovery. It feels like there's no room for anything to happen outside the ship, unless it can plug directly into the ongoing plot. It makes the rest of the universe feel incidental.
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Jan 23, 2018 16:54
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One of Q's lesser-known powers was projection, it seems. Q pointed the Borg to a buffet and is directly responsible for Wolf-359 and everything afterwards. SpeakSlow fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jan 23, 2018 |
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Jan 23, 2018 17:14
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They were already coming. They're encountered human vessels before and been hit by a beacon from near Earth sent out in the 22nd century
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Jan 23, 2018 17:16
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Al Borland Corp. posted:They were already coming. They're encountered human vessels before and been hit by a beacon from near Earth sent out in the 22nd century Even so, dozens of crew died in that specific episode when the Borg sliced open the Enterprise.
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Jan 23, 2018 17:20
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Grand Fromage posted:Resisting the urge to explain Guinan was a good choice, in any case. There's no way it could have added anything of value. Same way that they dropped hints but never entirely connected the dots with Garak. No need. Guinan's history with Q is just like her history with Picard: We know it exists, we know it's very deep-rooted and meaningful. And that's all we need to know.
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Jan 23, 2018 17:32
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Mike the TV posted:Even so, dozens of crew died in that specific episode when the Borg sliced open the Enterprise. Didn't he also bring them back because he felt sorry for Picard?
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Jan 23, 2018 17:34
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It's beyond frenemies, beyond family rivalry
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Jan 23, 2018 17:36
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HIJK posted:Didn't he also bring them back because he felt sorry for Picard? He absolutely did not bring them back. That's exactly why he's a (villain/antagonist/etc)
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Jan 23, 2018 17:47
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WampaLord posted:He absolutely did not bring them back. Anyone Q killed or died in a situation he was responsible for are transported to a safe paradise zone and all will be united once the federation transcends.
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Jan 23, 2018 17:49
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Baronjutter posted:Anyone Q killed or died in a situation he was responsible for are transported to a safe paradise zone and all will be united once the federation transcends. Oh god, it's  all over again. 
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Jan 23, 2018 17:54
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Epicurius posted:That's why I love mock newspapers in TV shows/movies. They put in the headlines, and maybe, like in that example, some text, but most of it is either lorem ipsem or text they took from old newspapera. In season one of The Flash they “borrowed” text from a university press release describing my friend’s Ph.D thesis. She was so weirded out when I showed her a screen cap of it.
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Jan 23, 2018 17:56
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Q presents in the aspect of a person but he is not a person in the sense that Data, Picard, or the horta are, and I don't think he has the same moral responsibilities as a person. If Worf redirected the ship to rendezvous with the Borg and it brought about the death of some of the crew, he would be morally at fault for their deaths. But that's because he has the same existential conditions as the people who died: he was born, he lives a life occupying a specific trajectory in space and time, he will die and cease to exist, and his coming death is always a concern to him. But Q, with his different access to time, knows that these concerns are illusory: a death today and a death 40 years from now are the same. Potentially Q could give humanity, and all intelligent species, a cure for all ailments, physical, mental, and spiritual. He could save each (or if not each, an untold number) of living creatures from every moment of suffering they were to have experienced. If a person fails to act in ways to reduce and eliminate suffering of his fellow persons, that is immoral. But Q is not morally in the wrong for failing to do so given his very different status as an entity.
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Jan 23, 2018 18:11
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Dirty posted:Yes, this totally sums up how I feel about Discovery. It feels like there's no room for anything to happen outside the ship, unless it can plug directly into the ongoing plot. It makes the rest of the universe feel incidental.
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Jan 23, 2018 18:19
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