Battle of the ST Omnipotent

[Robert Walper]

Except him explaining this in no way prevented her from testing his assertion. Since she could, him lying is hardly going to accomplish his objective, which was to get her to willingly join the Continuum.

the girl in question had been brought up as a human for most of her life. naturally what she is capable of doing with her powers are going to be somewhat limited by having existed as human for most of that time.

I don't see how. She did things easily that existence as a human would naturally hinder in concept. Like being unprotected in space, changing someone else's free will, cleansing an entire planet's atmosphere of pollutants, etc.

so it's not as though she'd have the icognitive ability to come up with a fraction of what Q was capable of.. who'd supposedly been doing this for centuries.

if it wasn't necessarily a lie, it's possible it was simply a hyperbole as to what they could do. since human imagination would still be limited in scope compared to someone from the continuum.

I'd daresay human imagination freed to do whatever it wants is pretty damn powerful. Implying the Q have a greater imagination is not exactly an arguement against their abilities.

[Winston Blake]

Except him explaining this in no way prevented her from testing his assertion. Since she could, him lying is hardly going to accomplish his objective, which was to get her to willingly join the Continuum.

the girl in question had been brought up as a human for most of her life. naturally what she is capable of doing with her powers are going to be somewhat limited by having existed as human for most of that time. so it's not as though she'd have the icognitive ability to come up with a fraction of what Q was capable of.. who'd supposedly been doing this for centuries.

if it wasn't necessarily a lie, it's possible it was simply a hyperbole as to what they could do. since human imagination would still be limited in scope compared to someone from the continuum.

It was probably more of a Morpheus-Neo "You're faster than this. Don't think you are. Know you are." Q was trying to "free her mind" from the limitations resulting from being brought up as a human. If she knew the power of the Q was limited, she might not be able to feel and release that potential within her.

[Luzifer's right hand]

The Q are not omniptent.

Death Wish

QUINN:
But you mustn't think of us as omnipotent, no matter what the Continuum would like you to believe. You and your ship seem incredibly powerful to life-forms without your technical expertise. It's no different with us. We may appear omnipotent to you, but believe me, we're not.

If Q quotes are valid, then we shouldn't ignore the one from STTNG "True Q":

"To put it simply, we're omnipotent. There's nothing, nothing we can't do."

What makes this quote interesting is that Q was talking to Amanda Rogers who was just beginning to discover her Q abilities. He does specify that he is putting it "simply", indicating it's a little more complicated than simply "omnipotent" (obviously the direct translation is not true). But his willingness to tell Amanda the limits of her powers is virtually only her imagination when she has the capability to test that assertion is not something to be handily dismissed IMO.

Lying piece of shit Q versus helpful suicidal Q. Which one should we belive?

[Gustav32Vasa]

Lying piece of shit Q versus helpful suicidal Q. Which one should we belive?

I'm curious, when have we seen Q lie.

[Robert Walper]

Lying piece of shit Q versus helpful suicidal Q. Which one should we belive?

Both their quotes aren't necessarily in conflict. One claims that they are not "omnipotent", and other claims "put simply" they are. My point was that Q powers would seem to be capable of achieving virtually anything imaginable from a human perspective.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Lying piece of shit Q versus helpful suicidal Q. Which one should we belive?

I'm curious, when have we seen Q lie.

He is often lying but I do not even need to search for a quotes because in Q-less we learn that he is called the "The God of Lies" on a planet.
God of lies or lying piece of shit what's the difference?

[Dennis Toy]

. .like bringing back captain kirk through borg technology to fight the federation in an alliance with the romulans. . .ugh

What you talking bout willis.... that would make a great trek film.

[Eframepilot]

That happened in a novel entitled The Return, by William Shatner (but really but Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens). The writing is actually quite good if one can get past the utter, utter fanficness of the central plot, the contradictions with what we learned of the Borg in First Contact and Voyager, and the ludicrousness of the climax. "My, wasn't it decent of those Borg chaps to install a self-destruct switch to fry their entire collective, even though they'll continue business as usual in the next movie and TV series?"

[Praxis]

Lying piece of shit Q versus helpful suicidal Q. Which one should we belive?

I'm curious, when have we seen Q lie.

Funniest thing I've seen all day

[General Zod]

Lying piece of shit Q versus helpful suicidal Q. Which one should we belive?

Both their quotes aren't necessarily in conflict. One claims that they are not "omnipotent", and other claims "put simply" they are. My point was that Q powers would seem to be capable of achieving virtually anything imaginable from a human perspective.

again i point out to my ants vs humans analogy. humans to ants would seem quite literally omnipotent despite the fact we have limitations to what we can do. Q could have simply been describing their abilities in the best terms he could given the limited scope of human languages and ideas.

[General Zod]

I don't see how. She did things easily that existence as a human would naturally hinder in concept. Like being unprotected in space, changing someone else's free will, cleansing an entire planet's atmosphere of pollutants, etc.

again, it's alla bout degree.s existing safely in space and altering someone else's free will are all easily within the realm of human imagination. but things like creating new dimensions, or envisioning beings that exist in higher dimensions would be difficult to visualize at best. as an example.

I'd daresay human imagination freed to do whatever it wants is pretty damn powerful. Implying the Q have a greater imagination is not exactly an arguement against their abilities.

note that i said cognitive ability, not imagination. considering that the Q have seen and done things that the vast majority of humans in ST haven't done, they can naturally envision a far greater amount of things. there's likely things that the Q have encountered humanity hasn't even begun to imagine yet, and would likely fry a regular human mind that wasn't prepared to accept what they saw.

[Morilore]

One should also consider that Q could be ideologically raised to believe themselves omnipotent.

[Darth Wong]

The idea of Q literally being omnipotent is fucking stupid. We know for a fact that they can die. Ergo, they are obviously not omnipotent, otherwise the losing side of their civil war could have simply resurrected their dead comrades.

All you have to do in order to disprove omnipotence is think of one thing that they cannot do, and we already have canon proof of such a thing. Any other pieces of evidence would be mere gravy.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

OK, but are they stronger than the Dowd?

[Robert Walper]

OK, but are they stronger than the Dowd?

You'd think so...Q flung the Enterprise some 7000 lightyears across the galaxy in seconds on a whim. The Dowd resorted to tricks and illusions when trying to get the Enterprise to leave. One might argue he was holding back, but he admitted he tried the same thing on the attacking Husnok ship. Hard to believe he'd try something so complicated and unsuccessful if he could've just hurled the ship so far away it would've taken years to come back. He refused to kill, but he certainly didn't objective to causing Troi extreme discomfort and mental anguish. Hurling the Husnok ship so far would've been a problem for them, but by no means necessarily fatal.

[Robert Walper]

The idea of Q literally being omnipotent is fucking stupid. We know for a fact that they can die. Ergo, they are obviously not omnipotent, otherwise the losing side of their civil war could have simply resurrected their dead comrades.

All you have to do in order to disprove omnipotence is think of one thing that they cannot do, and we already have canon proof of such a thing. Any other pieces of evidence would be mere gravy.

I don't think anyone is suggesting the Q are literally omnipotent. It's merely the term best suited (ie: lazy) to describe their abilities. Even Q admitted the term "omnipotent" is putting it "simply".

[Darth Lucifer]

Someone please tell me if StarTrek.com is considered canon. I thought only televised, movies, and a couple of novels are considered canon. If that is the case, let me ignore the info from StarTrek.com and get directly to the relevant dialogue:

I am a Douwd... an immortal being of disguises and false surroundings. I have lived in this galaxy for many thousands of years....

He also says:

I could have destroyed them [The Husnock] with a mere thought, but this I did not do...I refused to for the same reason I refused to stop the Enterprise. I will not kill!

We also see him as a ball of light toward the end of the episode, but that doesn't necessarily signify omnipotence; also the ability to kill a race with a thought doesn't necessarily mean he's all powerful. Picard describes him as...

We leave behind a being of extraordinary power...

Coupled with his ability to generate illusions and fuck with Troi's mind, I would say he was more of a super-telepath who could even fool starship sensors with his powers. There was no evidence to suggest that he could manipulate matter. If he could have, why not manipulate the matter of the Husnock ship(s) in a non-lethal way?

And just because a being claims they are immortal doesn't mean they are. "Immortal" beings die in science fiction all the time. People mentioned deaths in the Q continuum earlier, and I'm sure the Dowd may be pretty tough (he survived the Husnock equivalent of a Base Delta Zero) but nothing lives forever. Nothing.

On the flip side of the coin Q has clearly demonstrated much more power than Kevin Uxbridge. I have to say Q would kill him, and if Uxbridge was truly immortal, then Q would kill him again and again until he got bored of it. After that, who knows?

[Darth Wong]

Did anyone else notice that the story of the Doud requires that he be incapable of stopping the Husnock in any way other than killing them? He couldn't just disable their weapons, shut down their power core, etc? He had to sit there and do nothing because he will not kill, while everyone around him died and the entire planet was BDZ'd, in an operation that must have taken more than enough time for him to recognize what was happening?

Something about his story doesn't add up.

[consequences]

My bs theory:

One day, Uxbridge's wife spilled coffee on his crotch. Since he was in human form at the time, this hurt like a bastard. In pain and anger, he relaxed his control, lashing out, devastating the planet, and killing everyone on it. Realising that telling the truth would make him look like a prick, he made up the whole story of the Husnock attacking, and acted like he killed them all out of grief at his wife dying. This fits with the fact that we never heard of the Husnock before then, and there is never any discussion about how the annihilation of a powerful race affected the power blocs in the region(of course, lack of concern for storylines and lousy writing also explains that).

Bulshit Theory ends.

If he was really powerful, and gave a fuck, he could easily have moved back in time, and stopped himself from killing the Husnock. Ergo, either he wasn't really powerful, or he didn't really give a fuck. We know he didn't erase them from history, as the effects of their attack on the Federation colony remained.

[SCVN 2812]

Did anyone else notice that the story of the Doud requires that he be incapable of stopping the Husnock in any way other than killing them? He couldn't just disable their weapons, shut down their power core, etc? He had to sit there and do nothing because he will not kill, while everyone around him died and the entire planet was BDZ'd, in an operation that must have taken more than enough time for him to recognize what was happening?

Something about his story doesn't add up.

This may tie into the hyper-telepath theory. That one thought might drive the Husnock into a genocidal civil war which they are incapable of ending without intervention from himself or another equally or superior teep or there is only one Husnock left standing. Though that would seem to require even more effort than just altering the mindset of the ship's crew to believe there is nothing of any interest to them on the planet, certainly nothing worth wiping out.

[Darth Lucifer]

In regard to the Hyper-Telepath Theory (I like that; catchy name), I was thinking more Professor X type telepathy (Like in X2) in terms of killing all the Husnock.

[Robert Walper]

I find it hard to believe this Dowd would "hide" his crime of killing off a planet by making the excuse he killed off an entire race instead.

[Tommy J]

Did anyone else notice that the story of the Doud requires that he be incapable of stopping the Husnock in any way other than killing them? He couldn't just disable their weapons, shut down their power core, etc? He had to sit there and do nothing because he will not kill, while everyone around him died and the entire planet was BDZ'd, in an operation that must have taken more than enough time for him to recognize what was happening?

Something about his story doesn't add up.

He said he killed them because he got angry. Obviously a power enough being to eridacate a species by thinking about it could choose alternatives. (if you got angry with me and chose to shoot me instead of flattening my tires wouldn't it be the same?)

Regarding your point about omnipotence, I think it a relative term rather than looking at the strict definiton.

We would be 'omnipotent' to someone who lived in the 16th century. We might perhaps as a timer traveler (if one was arrogant) claim such.

In the book Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Ct, the character was viewed as such even though we know better. The Q's claim to 'omnipotence' is a relative claim.

[General Zod]

Someone please tell me if StarTrek.com is considered canon. I thought only televised, movies, and a couple of novels are considered canon. If that is the case, let me ignore the info from StarTrek.com and get directly to the relevant dialogue:

startrek.com is only canon insofar as the information presented in it is taken from the show is accurate. if it adds new information that we don't have from the movies and series then chances are it's no more canon than any of the star trek novels, given paramount's canon policy.

[SirNitram]

He said he killed them because he got angry. Obviously a power enough being to eridacate a species by thinking about it could choose alternatives. (if you got angry with me and chose to shoot me instead of flattening my tires wouldn't it be the same?)

'He killed them because he got angry' therefore 'He can wipe them out by thninking of it'? Your grasp of logical deduction is apparently non-existant.