Star Trek: Everything We NOW Know About The Q Continuum
7. It's Been A Long Road
By now the image of the Q Continuum, represented as one long unbroken road, is familiar to many fans. Originating in the episode Death Wish, this version of the Continuum served only to allow Janeway and Tuvok to understand the nature of the beast. It was not meant to be taken literally, nor was it the precursor for the greatest theme song of them all.
The road that would form the basis of a crucial scene in the episode was also a stand-in for the then-journey of the character. John de Lancie's Q had appeared several times on The Next Generation and once on Deep Space Nine. Rick Berman was initially resistant to having him simply pop-up on Voyager as well, particularly if it meant more of the same.
In Star Trek Monthly, Issue 10, Berman noted:
Bringing Q to Star Trek: Voyager has to be done carefully. We don't want to give the impression that of all Starfleet ships around, the only ones Q visits are those that have on-air series.
De Lancie's appearance on Deep Space Nine was an attempt at bringing his trickster-god character to the spin-off but it didn't seem to click, so even though he initially believed he was being pitched another script for that series, de Lancie had no idea Voyager was on the cards, as per The Official Star Trek Voyager Magazine, Issue 6.