Star Trek: 10 Terrible Ways To Time Travel

Q. Just Q. They are a method unto themselves. If it's not John de Lancie's version happy snapping his and your way across time, then it's his (on- and off-screen) son causing temporal chaos at the click of a finger. "What you don't have [Aunt Kathy] is unlimited control of space, matter, and time." Q (the 'humanity on trial' incarnation) was equally as fond of a quasi-historical recreation as he was of pure time travel. Another Q — Quinn — once tried to traverse the timeline in an attempt to escape his jailors (the Q Continuum itself), throwing Janeway and crew back to the baryonic birth of the universe.

Most examples of (John de Lancie's) Q in the role of temporal trickster seemed to come with a lesson that all those involved could have done without learning the hard way. In Tapestry, Q and Picard only got to the heart of the matter after a stay in a new timeline and a trip back to the monster maroons. In All Good Things… , Q and the Continuum had the galaxy on tenterhooks with a logic-defying temporal anomaly.

By the time it came to Star Trek: Picard's second season, the eponymous playmate had had "enough of [Q's] bulls**t," only to get a slap across the face. Technically Q did save a lot of lives (including Elnor's and, in a very roundabout way, billions across the galaxy), but the time travel was all still very convoluted. Q's actions also led to the next terrible method on this list.