I’m a science fiction writer. While only a very few people have read any of my works, (mainly editors and critique group members), I do have wide-ranging opinions on the subject and have presented them in this forum occasionally over the past several years. Science fiction can be a powerful medium for examining the human condition, for teaching us about ourselves as human beings and as stewards of the land and water on this blue and green and white and brown planet we live on. I believe it should be used largely in that way. Most sci-fi does that.
But sometimes sci-fi presents works that seem to defy that concept. Not that that’s inherently bad, but that it goes against my grain when sci-fi runs off the deep end and simply blathers on about nothing in particular. The most particular example of this is the character of “Q” in the Star Trek universe.
“Q” is an all-powerful character, capable of doing anything “he” wants. (“Q” is played by a male actor, but there’s nothing about “him” that insists he has to be male.) And I mean “anything” in the most literal sense of the word. He could change the gravitational constant of the universe if he chose. Can you imagine? What power! What immense omnipotence! Such vast strength! While the episodes in which “Q” appears have been well-written and are actually quite entertaining (“Q” does bring a little humor to the otherwise staid bridge crew on the Enterprise), I wonder if “Q” really serves a purpose in science fiction. He’s waaay too powerful. Like a god that could strike down anyone he/she wanted at any time. I suspect he was devised to show how we humans would react to being put in the presence of such a powerful being, of such an all-powerful entity. In the first episode in which he appears, he puts the entire human race on trial for crimes against—well, I’ve never been sure against what—but is eventually persuaded not to obliterate all humans by Captain Picard and the others.
“To obliterate all humans.” Does this serve the basic interests of science fiction? What do we learn from this? Were there a real entity such as “Q” in the universe, it’s likely we’d all be dead by now. “Q” is so far above all the known physical laws and concepts of this universe that his existence is inherently impossible.
I suppose “Q” does play a role in teaching us about how it is possible for an individual or small group to go up against a larger organization and still win, (“you can fight city hall”) but in terms of the broader science fiction universe, “Q” is so unwieldly as to be almost unworkable. And unimportant. I suggest we keep our characters more modest. Let us invent characters we can relate to. Characters like ourselves. Characters who show us the way, rather than running so far ahead we can’t keep up.