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Where in the Star Trek Series does it explain why the Q beings do the things they do? Did they ever mention their purpose in the universe? How does this relate to our human characters?

If they are so intelligent, why can't they predict how humans will turn out? I remember Q is so obsessed with humans for some reason. I think he says they are special in some way. But, did they ever explain further into why humans are so special?

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  • I think it's worth mentioning that the "theme" of humanity is our free will. In almost every mythos the includes super-powered beings, the beings typically operate without free will, and are fascinated by these little mortals whose actions cannot be guaranteed. – Gorchestopher H Jul 9 '12 at 16:37
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The Q have no more idea of the purpose of existence than any other species. They decided on a course long ago, and have followed it since. For the most part, they don't even think about why any more.

As seen on Voyager, they tend to be very 'hands off', passively observing. They have the technology (perhaps so integrated into their beings that it's more correct to say, 'ability') to travel in time and space seemingly at will, so I don't think it's wrong to assume they do know the future of humanity (as well as most/all other species). It is, however, wrong to assume that when a godly-powered trickster is going to torment someone, he'll tell the truth about what he knows.

They relate to humans...rarely. Only one of them has ever (to our knowledge) sought out humanity. His purpose in doing so varied. Essentially, he wanted to mess with a British-accented space frenchman. He seems to have enjoyed doing so, so he helped Jean-Luc on occasion, giving warnings to him about the Borg.

'Q' enjoyed playing with his toy, so he branched out to other, similar ones. Sisko was different, and much less fun to play with. Janeway was fun to taunt, tease, and heckle. 'Q' seemed to enjoy messing with her much more than Picard (which may have had something to do with viewers liking 'Q' much more than any of the other antagonists, leading to overusing him).

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    About knowing the future of humanity... As I remember correctly It was Q who introduced Picard to the Borg in order to kind of "warn humanity" So it seems to me they are more interested in observing how humanity acts. – Sinan Apr 3 '11 at 22:02
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    @Sinan - we don't know that for sure. They know the future, so it's entirely possible that the Borg would eventually grow to become a serious enough threat to the Q that they'd have to be dealt with. They could have chosen to bolster humanity in the distant past (TNG era) to prevent that. The Q could very easily be self-serving, hypocritical jerks, and we'd never know. – Jeff Apr 4 '11 at 13:37
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This is just an old, very advanced race (enough to be seemingly omnipotent, but Qinn claims the opposite) -- and frustrated because of the lack of new incentives.

Thus they probably treat humans like a kind of pets -- negligible but interesting to watch and/or play with.

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    I pity your pets - mine are hardly 'negligible'. – Jeff Mar 30 '11 at 13:08
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    I used it in a sense of not-essential, which is objectively true about great majority of pets; how do you care about a pet is an orthogonal issue. Qs' sentiment for humans also had huge impact on their race. – user48 Mar 30 '11 at 13:43

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