My First Star Trek Book = Mistake

I've never worn Vulcan ears, but...

I’m a huge Start Trek fan. I've seen every episode of every series; own every movie (except the Abram’s aberration) and have thoroughly enjoyed “non-fiction” works like the Star Trek The Next Generation: Technical Manual, Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise Haynes Manual and the Star Trek: Klingon Bird-of-Prey Haynes Manual. While I don’t speak Klingon, I certainly consider myself a Trekkie.

Star Trek: Voyager: The Eternal Tide by Kirsten Beyer was my first venture into the non-canon world of Star Trek. Voyager was one of my favorite series with its cutting edge technology (variable geometry pylons, bio-neural gel packs), the camaraderie between the characters, and all new adventures in a completely new quadrant of the galaxy.

I picked the book up off the shelf at a B&N without reading any reviews or plot points beyond the synopsis on the back cover. Which didn't mention Q. If it had, I probably wouldn't have bought it.

The problem with omnipotence

For those who don’t know, the character Q was introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation television series as an omnipotent and immortal being. There is more than one Q (all called Q by the way), who live in the Q Continuum. They acted like ancient Greek gods and played tricks on unsuspecting species or just generally stuck their noses in where they didn't belong.

On ST: TNG, the Q were mysterious and interesting. The series eked out details about them to keep the interest level high and it was usually fun whenever one showed up (for the audience, not Picard or his crew).

Then came Star Trek: Voyager. A very good series in my opinion, which ruined the Q. They should have left the Q behind with the end of ST: TNG, never to be heard from again (for mysterious reasons of course). You can’t have an omnipotent character in a story because it paints you into a corner almost immediately. Everything is instantly attainable, any mistake can be undone (or made to never occur in the first place), so there’s no conflict, no struggle. Without something to work toward or against, the character has nothing to do and becomes boring and pointless. With the “Greek god” antics already done, ST:V kept having Q pop in an want a kid with Captain Janeway, or in a roundabout way ask for help with a Q civil war, or something equally stupid. In short, the Q character came off the rails.

So back to the point of this post, the Voyager book. As I said, I liked the series, and the synopsis sounded interesting. But I couldn't get through it. Couldn't get past chapter five. Here’s why:

On page 41 Q says “We’re omnipotent, Junior, not omniscient. That’s why, over time, we've established a handful of limits to our actions that the entire Continuum agrees are absolutely necessary. Rule six is we don’t bring the dead back to life. Just because we can do a thing doesn't mean we should. There are certain things we must abide by.”

I hate to break it to Q, but being omnipotent means there aren't rules you have to abide by. You’re all-powerful, not almost-powerful. Also, I would submit that omniscience is a vital component of omnipotence. If one is not omniscient, then one is limited and by definition, not omnipotent. From that point on, everything Q said and did just seemed like random gyrations

Even though my first Start Trek novel was a frustrating experience I haven’t given up. I’m currently reading Star Trek: The Next Generation: Indistinguishable from Magic by David A McIntee, which is good so far (I’m about half way through). If you’re a Trek fan and enjoyed stories which starred the engineering section, I can honestly recommend it.

Till next time...