What's With Q and Guinan?

hello all rick here again with a theory and discussion video with picard season two coming out and john de lancie returning in some capacity as q alongside whoopi goldberg apparently being on board from all indications i thought it'd be a fun idea to look into the past that these two clearly have star trek.com mentions that q and gainen first met around 2160 and memory beta places it at 2165. in this decade humanity was finishing the earth romulan war and joining in the founding of the federation so probably nothing to do with each other and gaining would have been around 400 something at this time something that is relevant to all of these theories is that the q are near omnipotent but not omniscient they don't know everything at all times although it would be fair to say that nothing lies beyond their grasp q was surprised to see gaining on the enterprise d when he first met her suggesting that he was unaware of her presence until that moment once he realizes who she is he is taken aback warns picard that she is more than she appears and equates her to an imp and takes on to no one she clearly has an issue with him too and confesses to having dealings with the cue continuum before in her past but she doesn't elaborate for this video i will be laying out some theories both fan ideas and content drawn from extra canonical stories to speculate on just why the two share such enmity this is because there is precious little to go on in the show which is a deliberate choice on the writer's part to add to gainan's mystery so again there's no actual concrete answer in the show just speculations fueled by observation the first two theories are supported by what we see in generations and the tng episode yesterday's enterprise gainan definitely has a sense for what we'll call the universal status quo she's aware of how things should be even if she has no memory of them and can pick up on alterations to the timeline in the show this is never explained but we have two options in apocrypha the first is that this is just a trait of the ellorians themselves that their panchant for listening goes beyond simply hearing others has a deeper connection to sensing everything the flow of time a perception of the universe el-orians can feel sense or hear when things are not as they should be like an instinct like when your car handles off but you can't place it theory two as to the origin of this power comes from the fact that gainan was exposed to the nexus energy ribbon and once there you always have a part of you trapped there because time has no meaning in it part of your essence therefore is always beyond the confines of space-time giving you a higher insight into the flow of time in the universe and you can see the wood through the trees as it were either explanation for her heightened connection to the universe can fit with this theory perhaps a mix of both but this theory states that any cue can sense this element to her and it makes them uneasy q have control over almost everything and can change reality at a whim but it could simply be that a part of gainan's essence lies beyond the sight and purview of the q continuum and q hates him for it he has no control over her because she is beyond his ability to manipulate entirely his intolerance offer is soon reciprocated and there we go we have a rivalry based on an intrinsic clashing of cosmic forces another theory floating around out there is that she is a cue or formerly a queue in some capacity i'm not sure i'd buy that she was a cue wholesale after all she has a father that was deeply rooted in ellorian society but then again we have seen individuals such as amanda rogers who was born of two q who were living as humans she began to manifest q powers despite being conceived as human who was bought into the continuum by q guynan could be one such other individual some q out there had a child with an ellorion and gainen was the result however she denies returning to the continuum and somehow evades the execution that is the given alternative this might be the origin of the falling out between her and q but this seems a little off considering that she still considers the continuum itself to be almost decent perhaps she gave up her powers something i bet she'd have regretted once the borg came for her home completely speculative scenario here thanks for humoring me but perhaps she swore never to use her powers until the borg came assimilated el aurier then she snapped literally undid it so then the queue arrived and forcibly de-powered her restoring the assimilation of the original timeline now she's mad at cue he's annoyed at her and she has complex feelings now as to the whole thing i still don't think this one is that likely if not a de-powered q then what else well the q can grant their powers to other people to test them as q did with riker in hide and queue could be that this was done once before with gainen yet she went and did something impulsive or against q's predictions resulting in her being immediately stripped of that power but not before it got q in trouble with the continuum this seems a little more likely a scenario where guyan goads cue into giving her a modicum of his power against the judgments of the continuum only to then rat him out to the continuum and get him chastised for it i could easily see this sort of thing playing out perhaps an attempt by going into humble the near omnipotent being and he is humiliated that it worked that to me plays into their established characteristics too there's also the idea that the eldorians were well on their own way to reaching q-like levels of evolution of technology but that the borg assimilation snaps that away from them their level of development may have potentially been a rival for the q continuum so the queue allowed the destruction of their world to prevent that possible but i see an issue with that theory the borg would have assimilated ellorien tech and biology so if they were on the cusp of cue-like powers then the borg would have them i guess it is possible that q removed all traces of advanced ellorian stuff from the borg's path to prevent the bulk from getting their hands on it this could have left the eloreans vulnerable to the borg directly resulting in the assimilation of the illorient people and gainen is aware of this this is circumstantially supported by q chastising q junior for provoking the ball suggesting they're a bit of a taboo species for the continuum so maybe they are actively working to prevent the ball from growing too powerful of course there is the simple theory that there is no special thing no superpower and no cosmic awareness on her part perhaps gainan just pissed him off one day q has done plenty of reprehensible acts in his immortal lifespan that she could rightly have taken issue with and it could be that one time she simply undid some long con or prank he'd been setting up over generations on an unsuspecting populace if she had foiled his schemes once he very well could perceive her as an imp some mysterious sprite of devilish origin especially to a being that has a history of impersonating a deity but then why not simply erase her as q is want to do the answer might simply be because she is eloryan they have incredibly long life spans that touch many lives across the cosmos especially as they are a species of listeners who go out of their way to integrate themselves into places where they can learn a good tale or two to share building a repertoire of experiences to advise others this sort of life leaves a complex trail through time especially as elloriens lived to be well over 700 possibly thousands of years old couple this with the canon fact that the q can perceive through time and understand the repercussions of alterations perhaps she is simply too important to destroy she has affected the lives of too many key figures throughout history eating her from existence would undo all that she did or will do and fixing that mess might be impossible or at the least more trouble than it's worth so q simply refrains from doing this and makes do with being spiteful instead then again it did look like she was readying to counter any attempt for him to relocate her from the enterprise but who knows if this was a bluff on her part so perhaps she did have or is holding on to some vestige of q power honestly i like a lot of these theories as much as i enjoy the idea of officers on the enterprise trying to guess gainan's past over drinks intent forward that would have totally happened i enjoy the mystery it brings and i'm in two minds if i'd ever want to see this answered because the fan discussion around this 30-plus year mystery is brilliant let me know what ideas you have because i'm honestly leaning onto the nexus consciousness idea mixed with her being too vital to history for queue to eliminate safely thanks for watching this video on gainin and q and i hope to see you next time for another law theory or gameplay video thanks again i've been rick and goodbye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Certifiably Ingame

Views: 633,393

Keywords: Certifiably ingame, star trek, lore, theory, guinan, el aruian, continuum, q continuum, de lancie, whoopie, enterprise, generations, nexus, tng, picard, speculation, is guinan a q, mystery, q junior, borg, riker, amanda rogers

Id: J_A08c2T6Nw

Length: 11min 23sec (683 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Cursedderb]

Interesting

[u/HST87]

He character is just very old and wise and has seen some shit that's all.