Question About Death Wish and Amanda Rogers Parents

[Chris Parr]

Okay, so in "True Q" it's revealed that the Q used a tornado to kill Amanda Rogers' parents, who were Q who had assumed human form to live on Earth, and then in "Death Wish" the Q who became known as Quinn was granted mortality and then given poison so that he could end his life as he wanted.

My question is—why? What was the point? I mean, given that souls exist in the Star Trek universe, what happens when a Q becomes mortal and "dies"? Do Q possess souls? If so, then Quinn's suicide was a pointless waste of time, since he would continue on in another form of pure spirit which may be just as powerful, and just as immortal. Ditto for the execution of Amanda Rogers' parents.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Do we know souls exist? TOS aside (where they sometimes make a big speech involving The Soul...)

An example given I can think of, I can justify with tech or Trek-Tech.

Spock's Katra is the closest we see (and Surak's I suppose), but they're due to mind melds. "His living spirit. His essence." That was transfering brain patterns from one to another - and we know this is a chemical thing not a magic thing - they can transmit viruses through this method (VOY Flashbank, ENT Stigma). I really hesitate to call this a "soul" as we understand it (i.e. floating away after death).

Neelix: Died and when revived said there was "nothing" in the afterlife.

Picard: Died and apparently his soul went to heaven because Q was God. I hope you take this with a massive, massive grain of salt. This is Q. I think much more likely he freezes time or slows it down a lot at the last second, all of it's in Picard's head, then Q fixes him.

Janeway: "Died" but her mental energy was trapped by an alien which pretended to be from an afterlife but was just eating neural energy. A trick.

Barge of the Dead: Torres is hallucinating and in a coma.

Cathesis: Chakotay's neural energy decides to wander around the ship for reasons I can't remember - but it was a tech tech thing. Couple of warp fields and a hypospray and he's back to normal.

Kirk: Living in the Nexus, it appears he was physically pulled in and alive in there, rather than actually dead - since the same happened for all the El'Aurians unless we're suggesting they're all ghosts. Picard seemed to go in and out as well just fine and be alive.

Sub Rosa: That Shakarr Ghost that haunts the Howard women - turns out to be an alien and not really a ghost

Tuvix: Whether Tuvok and Neelix were dead or not (it's hard to tell), apparently their "soul" then can merge and then be unmerged with a transporter beam. Ethics of the episode aside of course. If Souls are real, they can be beamed up by scotty.

Second Chances: Duplicate of Riker - both seem to have "a soul", no? Or at least they're identical. Apparently you can duplicate a soul via transporters. Unless one or both of them as a result of it are now the walking dead.

Deadlock - Harry Kim shows souls, if they exist, can apparently either: 1) stay "dead" but have an identical replacement happily coexist or 2) souls can jump from one version of Kim to another. Either seems a bit odd to me, if you're in to that sort of thing which personally I'm not.

Sisko - What you leave behind - He was half prophet to begin with - that isn't his "soul" in the Wormhole, that's... him. He's an energy being now.



What other canon instances of ghosts / souls are there?

Do The Borg have souls? What about the Borg that crashed in ST:FC and died, only to be revived a hundred years later? Were their souls with them the entire time or did they come back when the Borg did?

See in Trek, it's not as easy as yes or no. Either Souls exist or they do not. I would say judging from the language used, either the Federation as an entity has no policy on them (which would seem odd if they were confirmed as existing) or something like that. I think there's no evidence even in the 24th century, of souls.

EDIT: Or, it has been discovered and fully debunked as a Science Thing - no magic - and is part of the "life readings" or "life-signs" they go on about in sick bay every so often. But these are usually "fixed" with 20 CCs of something or other, rather than burning sage and chanting.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Or, it has been discovered and fully debunked as a Science Thing - no magic - and is part of the "life readings" or "life-signs" they go on about in sick bay every so often. But these are usually "fixed" with 20 CCs of something or other, rather than burning sage and chanting.

My observation, for what little it may profit you: The original series swung open the door on the possibility of being able to transfer one's "soul"(memory engrams, essentially, a copy of one's mind)with the episode "The Ultimate Computer," which, of course, would lead to the whole katra/just in case Nimoy changed his mind thing in STIII, which would ultimately culminate in Data transferring his "memory engrams" into B4 in Star Trek Nemesis. And, aside from the list of example you've provided, that's pretty much all the franchise has to say on the matter of souls, as far as I've been able to determine.

Of course, there's the TOS episode "Return To Tomorrow," where Sargon and his people possessed Kirk, Spock, and Anne Muhall, while working to build androids that could hold their essences. And, the strong implication that one could "evolve"* into a god-like being from "Errand Of Mercy"(TOS) onward to the end of the TNG series.

*Star Trek has nearly always taken the meaning of evolution to be progression from lower to higher forms of life, or the Scala Naturae model made popular by Saint Augustine, as he used this as a cornerstone of his theology. This, of course, is in opposition to what scientists mean, when they say evolution, which is simply a change in population genetics over time, or the "Tree of Life" model.

[hunter5]

I didn't care because the episodes contradict each other given that the Q killed two Q in true Q but imprison Quinn to prevent him from killing himself because dead Q are bad or something.