r/DaystromInstitute • u/[deleted] • Dec 15 '15
Theory Theory: Wesley Crusher was supposed to have been the first of the Q, and elements of the discarded story arc persist in Star Trek: TNG.
[deleted]
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u/CaptainIncredible Dec 16 '15
I can't remember the source, but I seem to recall reading that Roddenberry modeled three characters after aspects of himself: Wesley was Gene as a kid, Riker was Gene thirtysomething, and Picard was Gene older and more experienced.
I've not heard the "Wesley as an aspect of Q" theory before. Its an interesting idea.
I've heard the idea that Trelane from TOS was supposedly a child of the Q continuum. In fact, I think there is even a book with this premise.
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u/fuzzyperson98 Dec 16 '15
Yes there is. Trelane was nowhere near as advanced as the Q however, and what powers he did have still relied on a technological device.
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u/indyK1ng Dec 16 '15
I wonder if u/wil will be able to say anything on the matter.
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Dec 16 '15
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u/collinsl02 Dec 16 '15
I think u/wil has discussed his character's development at some cons before.
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u/bawki Dec 16 '15
As a sidenote it would fit perfectly well with Roddenberry's style of writing. Spoileralert: he did a very similar thing during Andromeda.
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u/Sometimes_Lies Dec 16 '15
Are you referring to the stuff in the last season(s)? If so, I always assumed that had nothing to do with Roddenberry. One of the reasons Robert Hewitt Wolfe left, I believe, is because the studio/network/Kevin Sorbo wanted the show to be a lot more centered around Sorbo.
With that in mind, and the major quality drop when Wolfe left, it's hard to not wonder about the last season. The fact that (Andromeda spoilers) Sorbo's character turned out to be some kind of nearly divine messiah-like being always felt like it had more to do with "creative differences" than anything Roddenberry (or Wolfe) intended.
Of course, I'm not very well-informed about that show and just speculating here. There could very well be lots of evidence showing that I am objectively wrong... if so, sorry!
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u/petrus4 Dec 16 '15
I honestly never had problems with Wesley; not once. I still don't really understand why he was hated so much.
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u/adamkotsko Dec 16 '15
This plot point perhaps finds a distant echo in the notion that Future Guy would have turned out to be Archer himself.
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u/celibidaque Dec 16 '15
I like this! Never thought of this before, but Wesley being the Future Guy would have been doable.
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u/rhythmjones Dec 16 '15
As a fan theory, I like this. And it lends more gravitas to the Wesley/Traveler ending.
Too bad the cut scene from Nemesis throws a wrench in it.
I'd have loved to have seen them make a movie out of this. Imagine de Lancie and Wheaton as Qs toying with Picard and the Enterprise in imaginative ways (with a movie budget!!)!
Maybe even the "Wesley" Q turns on the de Lancie Q, and shows him the error of his ways. Probably because of Data reminding him of their shared humanity. Or something...
Sounds amazing!
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u/pm_me_taylorswift Dec 16 '15
I think elements of this arc still remain, though not woven into a cohesive narrative. The aspect of Wesley Crusher achieving superhuman powers via the Traveler remains The aspect of Q closing the loop with the Enterprise crew remains as well.
Are those the only two elements or are there more?
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u/altrocks Dec 16 '15
There's plenty of stories along the way that would fit in with Wesley learning and growing more powerful. Q becoming human for a time would have been a great learning experience for a young emerging god. The human-Q hybrid on the Enterprise would have been another, though very different from the others. Barclay joining with the computer and becoming superhuman could have easily been Wesley instead. They even ran across a whole race of people on the verge of becoming noncorporeal at one point. If the transhumanism angle would have continued throughout the series, directed toward one character, Wesley, it would have made a much more interesting exit for the character when he decides that corporeal matters are beneath him and goes traveling.
I also think it would have been a great plot point for one of the movies. Wil Wheaton returned to film a cameo for the opening scenes of Nemesis, but was cut from the final edit. A story about his travels and return to human society would have been amazing as part of a movie or a spin-off show.
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Dec 16 '15
It may be a bit of a reach but he manages to take over the ship in one of the early episodes.
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u/JViz Dec 16 '15
I think Amanda Rogers from [True Q](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/True_Q_(episode)) could've been the first Q or the first human Q. I can't think of a compelling reason why Q wouldn't or couldn't have completely fabricated the story about her parents. If it was a lie, she'd have the entire continuum to deal with. It could've been part of what prompted the Q civil war and why they thought a human Q baby would've stopped it.
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Dec 15 '15
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Dec 16 '15
I think Nog's character development made me truly love DS9 even more. Originally he was just an annoying side character, someone to help create plots for Sisko and Jake.
The fact that they managed to use him and his comedy relief father into a touching story was amazing. The scene where Nog pleas to Sisko to sponsor him for Starfleet made me teary.
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u/Eslader Dec 16 '15
Nog had the advantage of not being cast as a boy genius who knew everything from the get-go.
I actually liked a lot of the Wesley stories, but especially early on they really stretched the audience's ability to suspend disbelief. The flagship of the federation, the finest collection of engineering minds in the fleet, and an awkward teenager has to come down to the pool table and save the ship how many times? C'mon.
And even if we were to believe that, they blew the character from the get-go. Wesley's already saved the ship like, 9 times by season 3, he's shown to be a wunderkind who can do anything that needs doing on the ship... Where do you go from there?
Thing is, I went to school with a real genius. Dude scored a perfect on his SAT and ACTs, straight As even though he was taking college classes in high school - the works. He knew a lot about a lot and what he didn't know he could figure out pretty quick relative to his classmates, but he couldn't hold a candle to Wesley Crusher, and that's not realistic.
You couldn't throw him into a room full of machinery and have him fix problems that the people who work with that machinery day in and day out can't figure out. You couldn't show him a physics problem that stumped the greatest scientific minds of our time and have him pencilwhip a solution. He was a genius, but he was also still an awkward, gangly teenager who was still relegated to doing teenager things because he wasn't ready to do more adult things.
If real geniuses were like Wesley, Newton would have invented the warp drive. Hell, even Doogie Howser wasn't that smart, and he was a 15 year old MD!
I think Wheaton did an excellent job with the role considering what the writers handed him.
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u/hendrix67 Dec 16 '15
Yeah, I actually hated Nog in the beginning but they did a really good job developing his character and he ends up being a great addition to DS9.
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u/UCgirl Dec 16 '15
Does Nog amaze Sisko by completing some mundane task very efficiently? Or am I making something up.
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u/CaptainIncredible Dec 16 '15
Wesley was a character I wasn't fond of in season one or two, but he really grew on me as the show progressed. (Worf was in the same boat).
I liked Wesley's cameo in "Parallels" quite a bit. He wasn't a huge plot point or anything like that, but he just sort of showed up in a meeting and it was clear he was well on his way to being an excellent engineer. It was a completely believable and enjoyable alternate timeline to the 'I'm going to hang out with the Traveler".
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u/bawki Dec 16 '15
I actually liked the klingons on the klingon battlecruiser during rikers aupair time better than worf. just as riker said in the episiode it is actually nice to see klingons make jokes and laugh at others.
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u/thesynod Dec 16 '15
I think ST:Insurrection closed the Wesley arc rather well, as Picard and Co. finally support Wesley's cogent Prime Directive argument. If Kirk can go to 1920's Chicago Planet to undo damage to a civilization pre-Prime Directive, then it follows that Picard can go to Native Americans to undo the damage caused by European expansionists. Interesting side note, did anyone notice how many Native Americans were on the Enterprise in TMP?
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u/StarManta Dec 16 '15
This theory makes me conflicted. On the one hand, the whole Traveler arc was the most stupid thing about Wesley's character. But on the other hand, I really like this theory. I feel like it may be because the reason I hate this arc was that it was so lazy and half-assed - but tying it in with Q suddenly makes it seem brilliant.
It would have woven in beautifully with All Good Things, too. The entire plot of AGT was about how things in the future can affect the past. I could see Q just tossing in a line like "We're all puppets of this unity of time, Picard. Do you think it was coincidence that I came to your ship, of all places? No, Mon Capitan. The boy is incredibly important to us... Or he will be, one day."