Has Q ever really shown power outside of some knowledge and illusion?

Question

I would really like this answer to be within Star Trek: The Next Generation, maybe something else from an old TV show but not going into weird lore. Also would like to avoid Voyager if possible.

Do we see Q do anything that has consequences outside of information sharing? I am not doubting that he is very smart, but I am wondering if according to the show he really wields the power he pretends to.

Any time I think of Q doing something, he does something crazy, changes someone, or teleports someone to a pocket dimension. Then a few minutes later, everything goes back to normal. It's like anything he does has a time limit, and soon enough the effect just wears off on the universe.

So my question is, aside from speaking, do we ever see Q take an action, that does not involve another Q, that persists permanently? Could he be nothing but a trickster, an illusionist that can do nothing more than alter people's perception for a few minutes, or do we have proof against that?

Answer 1

In the TNG episode, "True Q", Amanda Rogers stabilised a reactor on Tagra IV, and cleansed the planet's atmosphere of pollution. Q denied any involvement in the incident.

RIKER [on viewscreen]: Captain, the damage to the reactor is greater than the Tagrans led us to believe. The field modulator is installed and operational, but it's not going to be enough. The reactor has already gone into overload.

PICARD: Can you correct the problem?

RIKER [on viewscreen]: Geordi is trying to stabilise the unit now. We will stay as long as possible. There are thousands of people in the area. If that reactor goes.

LOTE [on viewscreen]: Commander. Over here, quickly.

PICARD: Is this your doing, Q?

Q: Not this time, Picard.

(Q vanishes)

[...]

LAFORGE [on viewscreen]: It's no use. The heat has fused the injectors shut. We're losing containment.

RIKER [on viewscreen]: How long till meltdown?

LAFORGE [on viewscreen]: A few minutes at most. Going to have to

LOTE [on viewscreen]: Commander! Look at this.

LAFORGE [on viewscreen]: This is impossible. Captain, I don't know what's happening, but the reaction is stabilising on its own.

(Picard looks at Amanda)

DATA: Captain, I am reading a massive energy fluctuation in the planet's atmosphere.

PICARD: On screen.

(the murky brown smog clears to reveal white clouds and blue oceans)

DATA: Atmospheric contaminants have dropped to less than one part per trillion. The ecosystem has been restored to its natural state.

PICARD: Amanda?

(Q reappears)

Q: I told you it would be harder to resist than you thought.

AMANDA: I couldn't let all those people die.

_{Star Trek: The Next Generation - S06E06 - "True Q"}

Answer 2

In "Q Who" those crew members died for real.

Editing in the meaning and context... Q moved the ship into Borg territory which got some people killed. The premise of the question is that Q ONLY does short term illusions like "Hide and Q" where the bridge crew get stabbed in a artificial situation. "Q Who" demonstrates the ship was truly moved. Or Q is maintaining an illusion of dead crew members long term. Either falsifies the premise of Q being a short term illusionist.

Answer 3

He altered the orbit of a moon in TNG: Deja Q.

GARIN [on viewscreen]: Captain Picard you've done it
PICARD: I'm sorry?
SCIENTIST [on viewscreen]: The moon. It's back to its normal orbit. How ever you did it, thank you.

For the record, we don't get any specific confirmation that the original problem was Q-caused (although it probably was).

Answer 4

During Q’s second appearance, “Hide and Q,” Picard lures Q (who behaves very differently than in any other episode) into a wager:

Q: Shall we wager on that, Captain? Your starship command against?

PICARD: Against your keeping out of humanity's path for ever. Done?

Q: Done! You've already lost, Picard. Riker will be offered something impossible to refuse.

At the end of the episode, Picard wins:

PICARD: Pay off your wager.

Q: I recall no wager!

PICARD: I'm sure your fellow Q remember you agreed to never trouble our species again. Just as they're aware you failed to tempt a human to join you.

Behind the scenes, “Hide and Q” was intended at the time to write Q out of the series forever, but the producers liked Patrick Stewart and John De Lancie’s chemistry. And the writers later thought of a great idea for another Q episode.

So, the next time we see Q, in “Q Who,” Q is focused on Picard instead of Riker, and everyone remembers Q having made a very different wager.

PICARD: We agreed you would never trouble my ship again!

Q: I always keep my arrangements, sir. Look, we're nowhere near your vessel.

And no one ever remembers what he originally said or calls him on it.

Yes, Q, you would never cheat your way out of one of your wagers, and you would especially never offer a wager to have Picard do the very thing to himself that you gleefully tricked him into a wager to do to himself in “Tapestry”—to teach him a lesson, which he would not have learned had you simply snapped your fingers and done that to him. Knowing all along that you could change the timeline if you lost.

Or, as Lucas Bachmann astutely asks: did that really happen? At the end of “Tapestry,” Picard isn’t sure. Perhaps his own subconscious combined his regrets over how he got the artificial heart that was killing him, the lesson in humility that Q taught him in “Q Who,” and the wager Q offered him to give up his starship command in “Hide and Q,” where Q’s true purpose was to test whether a human would refuse Q and keep his own integrity at the cost of embracing his own mortality. And Picard definitely does remember that he made some bet with Q.

Answer 5

In "Deja Q", when asked how he would restore the moon to its proper orbit, Q casually replies that he would "alter the gravitational constant of the universe". There is no canonical evidence that he was joking.

I would submit that a being who can offhandedly change the laws of physics is certainly no mere illusionist.

In almost every episode, Q nearly-instantly transports himself or others over vast distances or possibly to alternate universes. I would further submit there is no evidence that the artificial settings shown (the courtroom, the planet in "Hide and Q") are illusory. There are several instances of shuttles or even star ships being transported vast distances. In "Tapestry" and "All Good Things", Q appears to have the ability to travel freely in time as well as space and to alter the timeline. Other answers have given additional examples.

Can we absolutely prove that these abilities aren't illusions? Perhaps not, but it seems like a real stretch to hypothesize that they're mere shams. More importantly, it certainly seems that the writers' intent is that Q is actually nigh omnipotent and not merely a charlatan. Occam's Razor applies to interpreting fiction, as well, and if it was intended that Q was merely an illusionist, we surely would have been given some hint.

Answer 6

Long lasting consequences of Q’s actions? When he sends the Enterprise D into the Deltas Quadrant where they encounter the Borg, Q brings them back to their Alpha Quadrant. But the long term consequences are huge: The Borg glean information from the Enterprise D’s computers when they hack into it and send an invasion force towards Earth to assimilate it resulting in the huge loss of lives and ships in Battle of Wolf 359. This has a ripple effect which ends up creating dangerous events not only in STNG, but also DS9 AND Voyager.