Mike DiCenso wrote:
Except that for an advanced being, Q acted in a childish manner.
He is always doing than, from his "wee willie winkey" outfit in voyager to other extreme and rather petty human emotional traits he effects.
He never tells anyone what they're going to encounter, just gets all vauge and cryptic all without giving Picard or anyone any reason to trust him.
Why should he?.
He never tells them outright about the Borg, he just tosses them over there to experiance first hand and did nothing to help until Picard cried uncle.
Of course, he loves annoying and humbling picard and generally playing games with people.
But did Q need to really do that? When Q kidnapped Picard earlier in the episode, he could have taken both Picard and the shuttlecraft out to System J-25 without ever having to risk the Enterprise and it's crew.
How would that have shown that the flagship of the federation could be so easily overpowered or got the borg interested in picard?. He wanted to make a impression on picard and the federation in general by scaring the crap out of them.
The borg beating a shuttle?, yea real scary...
He could also have done this in a way to allow Picard to observe the Borg assmilating the planet's peoples and technologies. Then Picard has a reason to believe Q's sincerity, and might even become an advocate for allowing Q to legitimately join Starfleet or at least become an important advisor.
Technologies picard does not understand as well as his own so could not compare and get the true scare he would get from his own ship gettinfg PWNED?. Not only that but how would that make the borg want locutus?.
Q never wanted to join starfleet, it was just a excuse to give him the option to throw the E-D into the borgs path.
But no, Q throws a temper-tantrum and gets 18 people killed, and hastens the Borg's interest in the Federation well before they would have, or when they'd be more advanced and ready to deal with them.
-Mike
The borg were coming the outposts getting attacked proves that, without Q the federation would have never have known about the borg until the cube was near earth and would also have no clue about borg hive mind or its assimilation style of combat. Q's interfearance made the borg want picard as locutus and that ultimatly gave the federation the ability to defeat the cube in BOBW 1&2.
Without Q the E-D would have attacked the cube and got destroyed because of no knowledge/tactic from shelby about varying phasers that broke the tractor beam that held them was gained due to Q-who.
Even earlier in Earths history Quinn saved a ancestor of Rikers and during the hearing Q points out that without Quinn saving rikers ansestor and Riker not existing the Borg would have assimilated the federation.