Just curious.
I’d say it’s kind of unclear. There are definitely many beings who give the impression of being ‘all powerful’ except for one fatal flaw. In TOS, there was the episode “Who Morns for Adonis,” where we had the Greek pantheon with (presumably) god-like powers. But, their power was directly dependant upon human belief in their existance, so that kind of takes them out of the running.
There was that Next Generation episode where there was the fellow who had wiped out a whole race of beings just by thinking about it (and then lived alone in isolation on a planet and scared everyone away so he would not ever have to worry about what he might do to people). I don’t remember if it’s ever explained how/why he was able to do this or to what extent he was able to manipulate things just by thinking about them, but he certainly wielded phenomenal cosmic power.
Well, I would say Yes.
In the TOS episode The Squire of Gothos, Kirk and Co. encounter Trelane, a being with unnervingly Q-like abilities and arrogance.
And it turned out that being was just a child, who gets scolded by its parents for tormenting its playthings (the Enterprise and its crew).
It may well be that Trelane grows up to be ‘Q’ himself. But I suspect that they are the same order of beings, if not the same species specifically.
The Organians.
Since the OP includes books, Peter David’s Q-Squared novel shows that Trelane was a Q, just not our Q, who had to try to convince Trelane to settle his butt down.
The first thing anyone mentions in geek circles when this question arises is “Hey, there was Squire Trelane!”
We also have the Metrons, from “Arena,” who stranded Capt. Kirk and the tyrannosaur guy out at Vasquez Rocks. However, aside from teleporting people around and paralyzing their starships, we never get a good idea of their precise power levels.
There were the Melkots, from “Spectre Of The Gun,” but since Kirk and crew realized that their “OK Corral” was simply an illusion, we can safely say they weren’t as tough as the Q; the Q would simply have made the entire thing real. Unless, of course, the Melkots were the Q, and they were just trying to figure out how good human problem-solving skills were…
…and then, there was the NextGen episode where this one guy exterminated an entire sentient species, wherever they were, anywhere in the universe, in the blink of an eye, because they offed his human wife.
Then again, if he was as powerful as a Q, he would simply have resurrected his wife, and then resurrected the alien invaders, given them a stern warning and a kick in the butt, and gone on about his business. Instead, he sat there on his planet, mourning and whining about what he’d done. Somehow, this simply does not strike me as a Q-ish reaction.
In the book I, Q there’s another continuum called the M. The M seem to exist only to fulfill the universal law that everyone must have an adversary, and the M would say the same thing about the Q.
They don’t get along because they don’t get along, and that’s about it. Something about mothers was involved as well.
The guys who trained Charlie X seemed pretty powerful, and arguably Gary Mitchell would eventually have developed ultra-mega abilities if Kirk hadn’t dropped that rock on him.
He was a Douwd from the episode “The Survivors” - (one of my favorites). The invaders he destroyed were the Husnak.
• Nagilum from the TNG episode “Where Silence Has Lease” also seemed to have a tremendous amount of power - he could kill crewmembers with a single thought, create illusions, etc.
• The Centharians from the TNG episode “The Nth Degree” - they make Barclay super-intelligent so he can make the Enterprise travel to their world, where they exchange information. (This one was kind of lame, since they never again referred to the technology they should have gained from this exchange).
See, the Q are strange, in that it seems like the ST writers never quite knew what to do with 'em. At first, they seemed insistent on sticking with the “omnipotent, but with self-imposed limits” shtick, but as Q made more and more returns, he got weaker and weaker (getting cold-cocked by a mere human - badass black dude though he may be - ain’t exactly a sign of omnipotence). Eventually, they got left at petty, rabble-rousing whiners that have stagnated into inaction and are slowly “dying out” (how an omnipotent being dies, I have no idea).
Frankly, I’d say the 29th-century Federation could probably match the Q in terms of meddling abilities. Q never did do anything that couldn’t be pulled off with mere advancements (in terms of sensitivity and range) of “current” (that is, around the time of TNG) technology. Big holodecks, cloaking devices, transporters, replicators… assume a big enough power supply and greater ability, and you explain all of Q’s abilities right there.
I think this TOS episode has the makings for a great motion picture–provided it’s seriously tweaked.
"Jean Luc never struck me!’…But easier to provoke.
Q set Sisko up for that.
More importantly, Q always did good in the end. In Q-Less he helped the crystal thing escape and even in a Bogart fashion Gave Up the Girl.
The Guardian of Forever, and its builders. If you don’t like the outcome, change the timeline.
B&B must think they are members of this race.
My second choice would be to concur about the Organians.
I still maintain that the Prophets are more powerful than the Q, since the Q still seem to exist within Time. But I’m not sure whether the Prophets or the builders of the Guardian of Forever (or the Guardian itself, for that matter) are more powerful. Hmm… Come to think of it, maybe the Guardian-makers were the Prophets…
The Prophets have no concept of time; I don’t see how or why they would the Guardian.
It was shown in the final TV episode of Next Gen, the Q can manipulate time as they want.
Actually, it was shown in the Next Gen finale that they can’t manipulate time as they want. Yes, they can travel through it, but then, so can any warp-capable ship. But they’re so incompetent that they need to get Picard to do their manipulating for them. Definitely still within Time, unlike the Prophets.
I was under the impression that Q was helping Picard set to rights the event Picard caused.