The Enterprise is on its way to help a Federation colony in the Sigma III system when the Q appears and prevents them from their mission. The Q wears a Star Fleet admiral uniform and then a Napoleonic marshal uniform, and then he has the crew battle against some sort of humanoid creature. It's a Q episode but it also has an interesting question about the difficulty of science (and extremely intelligent beings) to successfully predict chaotic and complex phenomenon, such as human psychology.
"Hide and Q" (Episode 9, Season 1, Air Date 11/23/87, Star-date 41590.5) poses the interesting possibility that 'the human equation' is more difficult to manipulate and understand than basic laws of space-time. We find this evident in the physics of today; modern physics never uses its basic principles of relativity or quantum mechanics to *precisely* control (in as quantifiable a way as in a physics experiment) human psychological reactions or behaviors.
This idea becomes explicit at the end of the episode. But the whole episode can be read as making this point through a series of failures by Q. Q tempts Riker with the incentive of becoming a Q in the hopes of having Riker teach the Q about the human desire to change, grow, and advance (more on this below). But Q also wants Riker to enjoy using Q powers by suggesting to Riker that he give all the top officers their deepest wish, with bad results -- the Enterprise crew doesn't want to achieve their goals and get what they want through magic.
Picard seems to know in advance that Riker will fail; perhaps suggesting that humans are in a better position to understand human psychology than an all powerful god-like entity. Perhaps Riker was blinded and corrupted by his temporary immense powers to fail to see the same thing. But it's also possible that Picard is granted too much knowledge, or plays an 'I told you so' type game in which he claims to have known in advance what we usually just learn after the fact through experience. Wesley, for example, gladly accepts his prize from Riker and only rejects it after he thinks about it for awhile.
I'm not sure why the Q entities don't have human type desires to advance and grow. For some reason Q fears the potential of humans (and that is why he recruits Riker). But I'm not sure this desire to advance is special to humans at all. It would seem to be a feature of all major Star Trek civilizations that advance, change, adapt, progress, etc. I doubt the Vulcans lack it. But perhaps the Q entities are so advanced they lost the desire to advance through evolution. (Though perhaps humans would lose such a desire as well if they could do all the things a Q can do.)
And some human communities don't advance at all, and instead live by traditions from hundreds of years ago (as Jacob Bronowski points out in his excellent science documentary 'The Ascent of Man'). So there is nothing inherent in our humanity that forces us to advance at our current state of evolution. Such tribes may not exist in the future, but, even so, some individuals may still be lazy or depressed in such a uniformly modernized world.
In one sense the episode has the human equation correct -- human psychology and behavior and emotion is very unpredictable even for a Q perhaps. But the same can be said of the weather and economics to some extent. It seems to me the episode lacks thoughtfulness and perspective on these kinds of questions, and it exaggerates its 'human equation' idea (or perhaps fails to develop it fully enough, to put it nicer).
Otherwise it's mainly an episode for fans of the Q, fantasy, and humanistic literature. I did like the quotes from Shakespeare: the world is like a play or stage (but, Q notes, 'if Shakespeare were alive he would have said *the galaxy* is like a stage' -- no, I think he would have said *the universe* is like a stage!). If you also catch the quote from 'Hamlet', then you'll find some thoughtful ideas about our humanity in this episode. And Q allows them to take center stage.
But I'm not a fan of Q and I'd rather see these views of humanity mixed with more pure SF. So there wasn't anything of interest at all for me until the end when they commented on 'the human equation' and only then did I have something to write about!
"Hide and Q" (Episode 9, Season 1, Air Date 11/23/87, Star-date 41590.5) poses the interesting possibility that 'the human equation' is more difficult to manipulate and understand than basic laws of space-time. We find this evident in the physics of today; modern physics never uses its basic principles of relativity or quantum mechanics to *precisely* control (in as quantifiable a way as in a physics experiment) human psychological reactions or behaviors.
This idea becomes explicit at the end of the episode. But the whole episode can be read as making this point through a series of failures by Q. Q tempts Riker with the incentive of becoming a Q in the hopes of having Riker teach the Q about the human desire to change, grow, and advance (more on this below). But Q also wants Riker to enjoy using Q powers by suggesting to Riker that he give all the top officers their deepest wish, with bad results -- the Enterprise crew doesn't want to achieve their goals and get what they want through magic.
Picard seems to know in advance that Riker will fail; perhaps suggesting that humans are in a better position to understand human psychology than an all powerful god-like entity. Perhaps Riker was blinded and corrupted by his temporary immense powers to fail to see the same thing. But it's also possible that Picard is granted too much knowledge, or plays an 'I told you so' type game in which he claims to have known in advance what we usually just learn after the fact through experience. Wesley, for example, gladly accepts his prize from Riker and only rejects it after he thinks about it for awhile.
I'm not sure why the Q entities don't have human type desires to advance and grow. For some reason Q fears the potential of humans (and that is why he recruits Riker). But I'm not sure this desire to advance is special to humans at all. It would seem to be a feature of all major Star Trek civilizations that advance, change, adapt, progress, etc. I doubt the Vulcans lack it. But perhaps the Q entities are so advanced they lost the desire to advance through evolution. (Though perhaps humans would lose such a desire as well if they could do all the things a Q can do.)
And some human communities don't advance at all, and instead live by traditions from hundreds of years ago (as Jacob Bronowski points out in his excellent science documentary 'The Ascent of Man'). So there is nothing inherent in our humanity that forces us to advance at our current state of evolution. Such tribes may not exist in the future, but, even so, some individuals may still be lazy or depressed in such a uniformly modernized world.
In one sense the episode has the human equation correct -- human psychology and behavior and emotion is very unpredictable even for a Q perhaps. But the same can be said of the weather and economics to some extent. It seems to me the episode lacks thoughtfulness and perspective on these kinds of questions, and it exaggerates its 'human equation' idea (or perhaps fails to develop it fully enough, to put it nicer).
Otherwise it's mainly an episode for fans of the Q, fantasy, and humanistic literature. I did like the quotes from Shakespeare: the world is like a play or stage (but, Q notes, 'if Shakespeare were alive he would have said *the galaxy* is like a stage' -- no, I think he would have said *the universe* is like a stage!). If you also catch the quote from 'Hamlet', then you'll find some thoughtful ideas about our humanity in this episode. And Q allows them to take center stage.
But I'm not a fan of Q and I'd rather see these views of humanity mixed with more pure SF. So there wasn't anything of interest at all for me until the end when they commented on 'the human equation' and only then did I have something to write about!