Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Q

10. He's Inspired By Lord Byron

Deciding how to play Q was surely one of the most difficult parts of playing his character. Alien figures fascinated with testing others is as old as Rumplestiltskin, and Q being basically omnipotent only added further vagueness to how he'd be best played.

Whilst devising how he would play Q, John De Lancie revealed an unusual - but not surprising - source of inspiration: Lord Byron, a famous (and somewhat infamous) poet. Byron himself is iconic enough, but he's especially well known for one particular quote, which Lady Caroline Lamb used to describe him after their first meeting; "mad, bad, and dangerous to know".

As surreal as it is to compare a Victorian era English poet and a galactic god-like being, the more you compare the two, the more you realise they are... weirdly similar.

It's an unusual place for Lancie to have taken inspiration from for sure, but all the better for how out of left field it feels. Thankfully, though, Q seems to share in Byron's theatrics without sharing in his love of being involved in romantic scandals. Otherwise, who knows what love triangle he could have gotten involved in.