17

An example of Q 'created people' can be found in (TNG: "Deja Q"):

With no sign of the Calamarain, or the shuttle, the Enterprise crew assumes they are dead, and Picard suggests that they had seen the last of Q. Q, however, appears on the bridge as a horn-player with a mariachi band, making cigars appear in Picard's and Riker's mouths, and materializing around Riker a pair of scantily-clad women to celebrate. Riker denounces Q's scantily-clad females and states that he doesn't want Qs fantasy women.

The question is: Are these 'real' people or just illusions created by Q?

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  • It probably depends. More than likely the people you mentioned were illusions (i.e. "fantasy women"). But in Voy:"Death Wish" when Q calls a number of people that Quinn interacted with as witnesses they were probably real people (rather than facsimiles of those people). – Xantec Sep 8 '15 at 22:03
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    Why are we even sure that these are illusions, and not just a couple of the thousand or so people onboard we never see? – Zoredache Sep 8 '15 at 22:20
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    Define 'real'. Are they real if they remember their entire lives? Are they real if they had a mother and/or father? Are they real if they are a different version of Q, disguised? Are you real? – Jeff Sep 8 '15 at 23:23
32

Whether any given individual manifested by Q is "real" or not is debatable, and probably varies from one instance to another. The Next Generation episode True Q does show that the Q are capable of creating "real" people:

[Q] then reveals that Rogers is a Q, shocking everyone else. When Crusher claims Rogers' birth parents were Human, Q reveals they were members of the Q Continuum who had assumed Human form. They died in an accident and the Q were unsure if Amanda had inherited their powers, but they have begun to manifest so as an "expert in Humanity," Q was sent to oversee them.

This is a lot of effort by Q standards, but it does demonstrate that at least one method for creating "real" people is available to them.

The Mariachis may have been pure illusion. They may have been real people yanked through space and time for the performance. They might have been created whole and on the spot with memories of lives which never happened. Q may have created an alternate universe, bred his Mariachis over the course of billions of local years, yanked them onto The Enterprise for the performance, and discarded the entire setup when he was done.

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    That last sentence... wow! – zipquincy Sep 8 '15 at 22:31
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    Well, thanks. What I am going for there is that, when dealing with a power level like Q's, distinctions like "real" begin to break down. – Politank-Z Sep 8 '15 at 22:33
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    They might even have been Q himself, simply disguised. In fact, every person Q has ever created might have been Q himself. It isn't like he can't be in two places at once. I'd be willing to bet he's put on a one-Q show of Hamlet, and all 55,000 Q in the audience gave him a standing ovation (except the 27 who were stuck in the line for the bathroom at the end, waiting to use the urinal because the lock (also Q) on the stall door was broken). The urinal was also Q. – Jeff Sep 8 '15 at 23:21
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    @Jeff All in a universe contained in a single atom of my urine, forever and ever, amen. – Politank-Z Sep 8 '15 at 23:31
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    @Jeff That rhymes quite well with the idea, common in many religions (at least on the scholarly level), that any omnipotent creator is necessarily equivalent with all of existence. – evilcandybag Sep 9 '15 at 9:10
-1

The existence of a Q spans the entire continuum, continuum and Q are inseparable and the effects of a Q's actions are equally expansive, even the smallest of actions.

Think along the lines of each beat of a mosquito's wing. Even the smallest action of the Q spans the breadth of the continuum, end to end and beginning to end.

Either one of two thing has happened when Q conjures a person. That person is swept up from elsewhere with a new history and future, or is a whole new creation of a being along with origin and history leading up to what is now.

I think although illusions are certainly possible, they are beneath Q.

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