Q vs. Han Solo and Chewbacca

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2003-03-04 10:14am

Q appears in the main hold of the Millennium Falcon.
Q: "My dear Captain Solo, how DO you do?

SOLO: (sitting at the tech station) "What the...."

CHEWBACCA: "RWOOOARRR!"

Q turns to Chewbacca

Q: "Ah, I forgot you furry companion! Shouldn't he be on a leash?"

Q snaps his fingers, and a pink leash and muzzle appear on Chewie. Q turns back to Solo.

Q: "Now then-"

Solo lands a haymaker square on Q's jaw, sending the near omnipotent being smacking into bulkhead, and finally to the deck.

Which is shown as possible in the canon DS9 episode "Q-Less"

Q: "Hey! You hit-"

Q is cut off by Chewbacca, who grabs the alleged omnipotent being and bashes his head into the opposing corridor walls, then rips his arms off. Solo sets his blaster to vaporize, and destroys what's left of Q.

Which is shown as possible in the canon TNG episode, "Q-Who?" where Guinan physically threatens Q, who backs off and is apprehensive.

SOLO: "Chewie, get the aerosol. Goddamned space pansies..."

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2003-03-04 10:25am

You might also want to factor in two more things:

1. Han Solo is a quick-draw artist. Not as good as Gallandro the Gunman, but still fast enough to get the drop on a Lord of the Sith (fat lot of good it did him). An unsuitably startled and armed Solo could very well put a blaster bolt squarely in Q's chest.

2. Q has very human reaction times when in human form, as witness his being unable to stop or avoid having Ben Sisko's fist transfer kinetic energy to Q's nose while in a bare-knuckles boxing match.

It would not ultimately change the end result, of course, but Q might actually die before being able to say anything.

If Q appears while the Falcon is in hyperspace, the body will be easy enough to get rid of: drag Q's corpse to the airlock, cycle the airlock, and as soon as the body leves the drive field, the patterns of energy and matter that are Q become irretrievably randomized.

Also, Han's blaster probably doesn't have a vaporize setting as such, though he could undoubtedly set it to work as a wide-angle plasma torch at very short range.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2003-03-04 01:49pm

Are you guys high? No human is going to beat a Q.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-04 02:20pm

Superman wrote:Are you guys high? No human is going to beat a Q.

A Q can be imprisoned in a comet, which is just a big ball of ice, and this comet was not mystical in any way; Voyager's crew opened it up and freed him. Their powers are obviously more complex than we think.

Besides, they may be able to do impressive things, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have infinitely fast reaction times; what happens if a Q takes human form and you catch him off-guard? He can obviously paste you if he has time to react, but what if he doesn't?

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-03-04 03:08pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Superman wrote:Are you guys high? No human is going to beat a Q.
A Q can be imprisoned in a comet, which is just a big ball of ice, and this comet was not mystical in any way; Voyager's crew opened it up and freed him. Their powers are obviously more complex than we think.

Besides, they may be able to do impressive things, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have infinitely fast reaction times; what happens if a Q takes human form and you catch him off-guard? He can obviously paste you if he has time to react, but what if he doesn't?

Don't forget that episode where the girl who manifests Q powers shows up. Weren't her parents killed in a storm or a hurricane?

For that matter, was she "born" into her powers (was she manifesting them innately) or did Q have to do something before she could really do anything?

Perhaps some of their powers are innate, but their greater abiliites are from technology?

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2003-03-04 03:36pm

It's possible that it was the composition of the comet. Seeing as so many things in trek have trouble working around certain elements.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-03-04 03:41pm

Don't forget that episode where the girl who manifests Q powers shows up. Weren't her parents killed in a storm or a hurricane?

A storm created BY the Q. It becomes apparent in episodes like Voyager with the Q civil war that the only thing that can seem to kill a Q is another Q. Or people wielding Q level technology.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-04 03:46pm

Stravo wrote:
Don't forget that episode where the girl who manifests Q powers shows up. Weren't her parents killed in a storm or a hurricane?
A storm created BY the Q. It becomes apparent in episodes like Voyager with the Q civil war that the only thing that can seem to kill a Q is another Q. Or people wielding Q level technology.

Which does imply that sufficiently advanced technology is usuable against Q. Unless you want to hand wave it away and say that there is some innate Q component to Q level technology that means only Q can make weapons that work against other Q.

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2003-03-04 03:56pm

I bee that the Q no longer need to use tech.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-03-04 03:59pm

neoolong wrote:
Stravo wrote:
Don't forget that episode where the girl who manifests Q powers shows up. Weren't her parents killed in a storm or a hurricane?
A storm created BY the Q. It becomes apparent in episodes like Voyager with the Q civil war that the only thing that can seem to kill a Q is another Q. Or people wielding Q level technology.
Which does imply that sufficiently advanced technology is usuable against Q. Unless you want to hand wave it away and say that there is some innate Q component to Q level technology that means only Q can make weapons that work against other Q.

We don't know if it clearly is technology. They could just be a perfect example of Clarke's law where Sufficiently advanced technology being like magic, or there could be an innate Qness to them. I come down on the innate Qness in my fic, treating them as true gods but I can easily see where they are simply an advanced race. I would be willing to accept another civilization advanced enough to make weapons to rival the Q, but at the same time, such conflicts would tear the galaxy apart...so maybe they just settle their conflicts over a nice game of chess.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2003-03-04 04:04pm

I think we can chalk this up, once again, to B & B lowering the character's powers. They did it with the Borg.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2003-03-04 04:08pm

Yeah, they had to. After all, they put an incompetent captin in charge of a wussy star ship and sent her into the heart of borg space. If they didn't make the enemys stupider and weaker they would have to have made the show atleast 2 x as stupid to give it the happy slappy sappy ending.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-04 04:14pm

Stravo wrote:We don't know if it clearly is technology. They could just be a perfect example of Clarke's law where Sufficiently advanced technology being like magic, or there could be an innate Qness to them. I come down on the innate Qness in my fic, treating them as true gods but I can easily see where they are simply an advanced race. I would be willing to accept another civilization advanced enough to make weapons to rival the Q, but at the same time, such conflicts would tear the galaxy apart...so maybe they just settle their conflicts over a nice game of chess.

It is something removable from the Q. And therefore unless the Q-ness is there, there is no reason it cannot be replicated by others.

Technology or magic, are just terms.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-03-04 07:08pm

Amanda Rogers is the proof that the Q do not use technology. She was born from two Q and she herself was Q and had Q powers.

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2003-03-04 07:13pm

We have to be logiacl about this. The Q have had no need for technology for thousands of centuries. So why would they have it?

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-03-04 07:17pm

darthdavid wrote:It's possible that it was the composition of the comet. Seeing as so many things in trek have trouble working around certain elements.

If the Q's powers can be screwed with by certain materials....who wants to make plate armour out of some and go around beating them up for the hell of it?

Personally I think its just that they arent as powerful as some think....

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-04 07:40pm

Alyeska wrote:Amanda Rogers is the proof that the Q do not use technology. She was born from two Q and she herself was Q and had Q powers.

Or the ancient technology which the Q employ identified her as a valid user of its capabilities. Look at Apollo in TOS: he gave every appearance of being a true God but it turned out he could be killed by blowing up his temple. He may not have even understood how the thing worked. And if he had a child with the woman he was interested in, would the child have been able to use the temple's power? Maybe. It wouldn't disprove the notion that the power might not be intrinsic. Indeed, it's much easier to explain if it's not intrinsic, since then we wouldn't have to worry about figuring out how he can do these things; there's just some unseen technology somewhere handling all the dirty work.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2003-03-05 01:09am

Darth Wong wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Amanda Rogers is the proof that the Q do not use technology. She was born from two Q and she herself was Q and had Q powers.
Or the ancient technology which the Q employ identified her as a valid user of its capabilities. Look at Apollo in TOS: he gave every appearance of being a true God but it turned out he could be killed by blowing up his temple. He may not have even understood how the thing worked. And if he had a child with the woman he was interested in, would the child have been able to use the temple's power? Maybe. It wouldn't disprove the notion that the power might not be intrinsic. Indeed, it's much easier to explain if it's not intrinsic, since then we wouldn't have to worry about figuring out how he can do these things; there's just some unseen technology somewhere handling all the dirty work.

Agreed. We also know that the Q do INDEED use technology, thanks to "The Q and the Grey". Run of the mill humans, weilding Q weapons, were able to threaten Q in their own continuum.

This also goes a very long way to confirm that Trelane was quite possibly a Q as well.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2003-03-05 01:14am

Admiral Johnason wrote:We have to be logiacl about this. The Q have had no need for technology for thousands of centuries. So why would they have it?

Again, VGR's "Q and the Grey" disproves this.

As I've said before, If I came to 21st century Earth with the E-D, I could beam you up and into a holodeck, and be Q too.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-05 01:24am

Lord Poe wrote:
Admiral Johnason wrote:We have to be logiacl about this. The Q have had no need for technology for thousands of centuries. So why would they have it?
Again, VGR's "Q and the Grey" disproves this.

As I've said before, If I came to 21st century Earth with the E-D, I could beam you up and into a holodeck, and be Q too.

I should also point out that AJ is using circular logic. He's trying to prove the Q don't require technology by assuming it as a premise. In short, we know they don't use technology, so they don't use technology. How does he know that they haven't used technology for thousands of centuries?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-03-05 01:32am

Admiral Johnason wrote:We have to be logiacl about this. The Q have had no need for technology for thousands of centuries. So why would they have it?

Textbook example of circular logic. The Q don't need technology, so therefore they don't use it.

Unfortunately, as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The Q might be using technology to give them their powers--we just can't be sure, because their technology would then be so much more advanced than ours (and, for that matter, those on the E-D) that we could not tell it apart from magic.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-05 02:10am

[quote="Lord Poe"Agreed. We also know that the Q do INDEED use technology, thanks to "The Q and the Grey". Run of the mill humans, weilding Q weapons, were able to threaten Q in their own continuum.

This also goes a very long way to confirm that Trelane was quite possibly a Q as well.[/quote]

I know it's not canon, but I believe that one of the books says that Trelane is a Q. There might be some useful arguments in that book.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2003-03-05 02:54am

neoolong wrote:I know it's not canon, but I believe that one of the books says that Trelane is a Q. There might be some useful arguments in that book.

Not canon, true. However, when books stray into complete contradiction, they put a disclaimer at the beginning of them, such as in the novel "Prime Directive", which makes Kirk out to be a genocidal madman.

In "Q in Law" (I think that's the title) Q turns out to be Trelane's daddy. He banged Trelane's mom while his dad was away.

Eframepilot · Post by **Eframepilot** » 2003-03-05 03:00am

The Q definitely use technology (their weapons, represented as guns and cannons) of some sort. But so what. In the Marvel Universe, Galactus and the Celestials use technology despite being virtually omnipotent without it. Thus, we cannot assume that all of the Q's powers are derived from technology. Even if all of their powers are derived from some extradimensional source, they are definitely not just "regular" humanoids using mysterious tech. Q's son was punished by being trapped in the form of an amoeba for several hours; if he wasn't self-aware to some degree, it would have been a useless punishment. There is no reason to believe that Q "bodies" are anything but conveniences, as they can change to nonsentient forms and retain their consciousness.

On Trelane: Trelane is not a Q. He is a child at a time before the Q had children. Q jr. was the 1st actual Q child born of Q parents intentionally; Amanda Rogers came before, but was an anomaly conceived as a human. (Plus the writers forgot about her.)

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-05 03:12am

Eframepilot wrote:The Q definitely use technology (their weapons, represented as guns and cannons) of some sort. But so what. In the Marvel Universe, Galactus and the Celestials use technology despite being virtually omnipotent without it. Thus, we cannot assume that all of the Q's powers are derived from technology. Even if all of their powers are derived from some extradimensional source, they are definitely not just "regular" humanoids using mysterious tech. Q's son was punished by being trapped in the form of an amoeba for several hours; if he wasn't self-aware to some degree, it would have been a useless punishment. There is no reason to believe that Q "bodies" are anything but conveniences, as they can change to nonsentient forms and retain their consciousness.

Then why did Q want Janeway's DNA? What use would DNA be to a being who has no physical substance? That incident alone indicated to me that Q is an organic being who uses a lot of tricks.