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fans. On one hand, Q’s actions led to a direct confrontation between the Borg and the Federation much earlier than it might have happened otherwise. By acting as he did, Q caused the deaths of more than a dozen people and gave the Borg direct information about the Enterprise and its capabilities. On the other hand, the Borg had been making shadow strikes against the Federation and the Romulan Empire for many months already, as Lt. Data confirms.
    In Voyager ’s “Dark Frontier,” it is also revealed that some people in the Federation had heard rumors of the Borg’s existence several years before Q ever met Picard, indicating that the evil race had perhaps been watching humanity and its allies for some time, just on the outskirts, and simply hadn’t gotten around to attacking them yet. With all of this, it seems almost certain that the Borg already had a great deal of information on how Federation starships worked. Encountering the Enterprise didn’t give them anything new beyond the realization that the Federation knew of their existence. By forcing Picard into this encounter, Q allowed the Federation to learn the truth behind these attacks and about the Borg months, possibly years, before they might have found out on their own. As a result, the information Picard learned from this encounter proved to be essential to the Federation in fighting off a full-scale Borg assault later on.
    Was Q really just testing Picard’s pride and only accidentally brought about a good result? Or was this all his twisted way of helping the Federation so it wouldn’t be wiped out in a few years?
    With the Farpoint Station story in mind, imagine that Q might see himself as a drill sergeant for humanity rather than as a fatherly mentor. Such an instructor often uses taunts and reverse psychology to force trainees into overcoming challenges on their own, rather than offering aid. Q goads Picard to follow one path because it seems obvious or easiest, so Picard chooses a different path. In “Q Who,” things are very different. As soon as the Enterprise encounters the Borg, everything Q says is true. He says it in a playful and condescending way, mocking the danger that Picard’s crew is in. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s telling the truth. The Borg aren’t like anything they have faced before, and, just as Q warns, they can’t be reasoned or bargained with. The galaxy definitely is a dangerous place where strange alliances will have to be made in order to survive, and no one race or organization can afford to stand on its own.
The Shifting Faces of Q
    This is another key quality of the trickster in mythology: Anansi, Loki, and Coyote are all constantly (and literally) changing. None of them has a predictable mode of behavior, and each of them will take on a different disposition depending on his ultimate goal in each particular story. They are mercurial (a word that references another merry trickster, Mercury), and just when you think you’ve mapped out their moves, they decide to change the song they had you dancing to. No wonder Q has no real name. Names imply identity, and they often seem to define a person and his or her limitations. They can also be used to trace his or her life in some way (surnames refer to long-dead ancestors, for instance). But this cosmic rogue who constantly plagues Picard (and others) is simply Q of the Q. He has a friend named Q and an enemy named Q, and in one story he encounters a criminal he wishes to cage, also named Q.
    Q’s next several stories are of a different nature entirely. In one, he is punished by his race and turned into a human being, leading to a very interesting lesson in humanity from Lt. Data, the android who longs to be like his mortal comrades. In another story, he forces the Enterprise senior officers to live out an adventure from Robin Hood, seemingly out of amusement and as a way of helping Picard with romance. He