While plenty of Trekkies feel that “Star Trek: Discovery” made its share of glaring offenses in terms of contradicting long-established Trek canon, more recent Trek series, “Star Trek: Lower Decks” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” have done a good job of rather impressively weaving in decades-old franchise lore and even ironing out a few potential plotholes that have come along through the years. “Strange New Worlds” provides the most recent example of this in Season 3’s “Wedding Bell Blues,” reaching way back into Trek canon and heavily implying confirmation of a long-held fan theory that the “Star Trek: The Original Series” legacy character Trelane, a rather impish quasi-omnipotent being with a flair for 18th-century ‘fits, is a Q.
Although he is never actually referred to as “Trelane” in the series, Rhys Darby plays an omnipotent wedding planner with a similar flair for the 18th-century justacorps, that sassy, brocade-covered knee-length coat drip rocked by the likes of Alexander Hamilton. After spending the episode slicing and dicing up the Enterprise crew’s reality into a Spock-Chapel wedding for his own entertainment, the planner starts having a full-fledged crash-out. That is, until he is interrupted by his “Dad,” an energy force voiced by Q actor John de Lancie, who chastises him for his naughty shenanigans just as Trelane’s parents do at the end of the “TOS” episode “The Squire of Gothos.”
Despite the episode never fully spelling it out onscreen, “SNW” executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers affirmed the connection to TV Insider, with Goldsman calling it a “very smart piece of head canon that we now have absorbed into canon gratefully.” This reveal, which one fan called an “INSANE LORE drop” in a Reddit post, has left many Trek fans positively giddy at the implications.
Fans have long speculated that Trelane was a Q
Fans have theorized that Trelane was a Q ever since the latter character’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation” debut. While appearing on a 2019 Star Trek Convention panel, John de Lancie was asked about the connection by way of a fan question. The actor, who only became familiar with the “TOS” Trelane (William Campbell) a few years after filming his first Q scenes, concluded that although he hadn’t seen an official connection, the characters were similar enough that there could be something there. “I think that there is some sort of, you know, we’re cousins,” the actor said.
Even Mariner (Tawny Newsome) hinted at similarities between Trelane and de Lancie’s Q in the “Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds” crossover. After all, both love that flashy 18th-century garb, and both are fascinated with humanity — particularly our martial tendencies. Trelane, who is such an Earth fanboy that he’s turned human cosplay into a lifestyle, right down to his gothic castle, expresses his appreciation for Napoleon Bonaparte and refers to himself as a general before switching to “squire.” In the “TNG” episode “Hide and Q,” Q shows up in full French marshal regalia, bicorne hat and all. Both are essentially trickster characters, oscillating between whimsical and hostile or accusatory behavior. And both characters have a flair for the dramatic; they love to show off when they’re messing with the various crews of the Enterprise, even putting their captains on trial at one point.
Although Star Trek novels aren’t necessarily canon, Trelane appears as a major character in writer Peter David’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation” novel “Q-Squared,” which incorporates the fan theory. According to the book, Trelane received his name as he was a child who “once straddled three lanes of eternity” (p. 432).
The Q-Trelane connection has major implications for the Q lore
While the Q-Trelane drop answers a longstanding question, it also comes with a lot of canonical baggage — exactly the kind of baggage fans love to dive into. First, there’s the question of where in Trelane’s timeline his Pike Enterprise encounter falls. Just as Trelane was scolded by his energy-being parents in “The Squire of Gothos,” when a parental unit comes calling, wedding planner Trelane is revealed to be a child by his species’ standards — albeit a child with 8,020 years under his belt. Trelane reveals he first got the idea to prank them after seeing Christine’s date and future ex, Dr. Roger Korby (Cillian O’Sullivan), “digging in the dirt on the old homeworld.”
Although “Strange New Worlds” takes place before the timeline of “Star Trek: The Original Series,” Trelane’s wedding planner shenanigans appear to take place in his timeline after meeting Kirk and company, implying that he’s already been on this ship (albeit in the ship’s future) — not that this is a problem, given the Q species’ ability to skip around through space and time. Like the “TOS” Trelane, Darby’s seems to still be learning about humans, even conjuring up bad food at one point.
The revelation also means that “TOS” Trelane’s dialogue applies to the Q lore iceberg, which in turn suggests long-held Q secrets have been hiding in plain sight. First, there’s Trelane’s mention of the old Q homeworld in reference to Vadia IX, where Korby and Chapel were working. Although delivered almost as a throwaway line, this little nugget suggests the Q evolved from corporeal beings. Other difficult Q Star Trek questions, like whether Trelane is Q’s child, Junior, from the “Voyager” episode “Q2,” or a Spock’s secret sibling situation, still remain unanswered.