“True Q” is episode six of season six of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The Enterprise is stopping at Starbase 112 collecting relief supplies for Tagra IV and an unusual passenger. Amanda Rogers is in the captain’s ready room along with the captain and Dr Crusher; she’s been selected for an internship on the ship. The doctor is more impressed with Amanda’s accomplishments – at the age of 18 – than Amanda seems to be. The doctor has arranged her to work in all the major departments, so she can decide what she’s interested in. Or isn’t interested in. Commander Riker arrives; the supplies are ready. The captain asks Riker to escort Amanda to quarters.
Once there, Amanda says they are so big, she could have brought her zoo. What her parents call her three dogs. She could have had a dozen. Riker excuses himself and, when Amanda turns around, there are puppies in her quarters. She doesn’t seem as surprised as she should be, telling the puppies they can’t stay and having them vanish.
Dr Crusher is showing Amanda in sickbay how to test tricorders before they are put in the supply container for their relief mission. The doctor mentions Amanda being accepted to the Academy and that she has a son there. Dr Crusher ends up explaining that Wesley is an only child because of his father’s death; Amanda asks if Wesley knew his father, as both her parents died when she was a baby. She doesn’t remember anything about them.
With the tricorders done, Amanda takes them to the shuttle bay where she talks to Geordi about why they have to use shuttles to get down to Tagra IV, due to what’s being done to try and regulate the planet’s pollution. She glances around and sees an improperly stored case falling towards Riker, gesturing so that it misses him. Geordi then shows Amanda engineering, and Data is talking about the warp core when things go badly wrong. They are looking at a core breach. Then it does breach. But Amanda stops it.
In the observation lounge, Dr Crusher tells the captain, Geordi, Riker and Troi that Amanda seems to be a normal human. Geordi hasn’t determined what caused the core breach; it’s as if the laws of physics went out the window. At which point Q joins them. Yes, he caused the breach; he needed to know if what he suspected was true. Amanda is a Q. Her parents were Q who had taken human form. They grew attached to it and conceived a child. No-one knew if Amanda had inherited the powers of a Q. Q being the Continuum’s expert in humanity, he’s been sent to check.
The doctor asks what would have happened if Amanda couldn’t stop the core breach. Well, he would have known she wasn’t a Q. Q intends to instruct Amanda, so she doesn’t destroy herself, the Enterprise – or the entire galaxy. Once taught, Q will take Amanda back to the Continuum. Q thinks he and the captain need to speak privately and takes them both to the captain’s ready room. Q wants the captain to introduce him to Amanda, to let Amanda know she can trust Q. The captain doesn’t trust Q. But what Amanda does must be her decision; if she is Q, she must understand what it means. He will introduce Q, but in front of Amanda, they must be civil and not argue. Once Q has gone, the captain asks Data to dig into Amanda’s past and her parents.
Amanda is telling the doctor that things started happening a few months ago. Dr Crusher says there’s someone who would like to meet Amanda, if it’s okay. Q walks through the wall and grabs Amanda. The captain uses the door. Q is quizzing Amanda on what else she has done – he dropped the case on Riker – and says he’s going to take her to the Continuum right now. She throws him across the room with her powers.
Back in the captain’s ready room, Q says it was deliberate; he was testing Amanda’s powers. He wants to see if she can behave like a Q. The captain thinks Amanda just did. The doctor is telling Amanda that the only one who can really help Amanda understand what she is is Q. Q’s shadow talks to him as he’s walking through a corridor; Q says he needs more time. It’s possible they won’t need to terminate the girl.
Amanda wants to know more about what being Q is. The captain thinks Q has an ulterior motive; going by Q’s conversation with his shadow, it seems he isn’t being entirely truthful. Q seems to need to make a decision regarding Amanda, and she needs to make on about being Q.