Q VS the Celestial Toymaker -- DEATH BATTLE Fan Blog | (Star Trek VS Doctor Who) | "One More Game"


“It is said that the gods play games with the lives of men. But what games, and why, and the identities of the actual pawns, and what the game is, and what the rules are - who knows? Best not to speculate. Thunder rolled…it rolled a six.” 

-- Terry Pratchet 

(Thumbnail by Morkez Marihser, who led the Q research for the blog)


Q, the Eponymous Reality Warping Member of the Q Continuum from Star Trek.


The Celestial Toymaker, the Cosmic Force of Play from Doctor Who .


Reality: To most people, it is a state of living. An incontrovertible and inescapable fact. For these two, reality is simply a toy, played with via their immense chaotic power. They have made the ground under humanity’s best foot forward shake and tremble with their every whim. But in this DEATH BATTLE blog, they will instead match their abilities against each other in order whose power is truly superior. The game is afoot, and only one will walk away from the table.


Will the Continuum’s Finest beat the Toymaker at his own game? Or will the Giggling Gamesman leave the universe completely Q-Less? We’ve analyzed their powers, party tricks, and skills, to find out who would win a DEATH BATTLE!


Trailer by Morkez 


Before We Start…


For Q, all on-screen media will be used for continuity, including live action and animated series, some games, official information resources, and more where specifically indicated. We have a more detailed explanation of what is and isn’t canonical listed below in a very handy Q&A segment.


There will be SPOILERS for all Star Trek content through the ending of Star Trek: Picard…in case there are those of you out there who actually want to watch it. Our condolences in advance.


(All research was completed prior to the airing of Discovery Season 5. While it is unlikely that the show has anything more to do with Q or the Star Trek cosmology than what we discuss in the blog, we’re mentioning this for transparency’s sake.)


As for the Toymaker, it is acknowledged that most of his first appearance has been lost. However, there are existing Prose adaptations of that appearance, along with audio recordings that can be used in their place. (Visual references may be taken from Dinopuff’s fan-made reanimation of that storyline, all credit to him.) Books, Comics and Big Finish audio productions will also be utilized, though we acknowledge that some may contradict each other.


There will be SPOILERS for all of on-screen Doctor Who, up through the recent Fourteenth Doctor special, “The Giggle”.


(All research was completed around the same time as announcement of the Toymaker’s appearance in Big Finish’s “Metamorphosis”, releasing in June of 2024, or the airing of the OFFICIAL reanimated First Doctor “Celestial Toymaker” serial.)


Oh, and you might also notice that the blog is a bit on the nontraditional side. We made this decision given the nature of the characters both inherently and comparatively, as well as the franchises they come from not exactly eager to show cosmology as directly as your average comic book. Half the time these shows are about humans trying to survive all the wibbly-wobbly final-frontier gobble-de-rubbish. So, we’ve adapted the format to best showcase each to the best of our ability, as well as convey their differences as we go.

Background

Q


“Welcome to the very end of the road not taken.”


Ever wonder why John de Lancie voiced the guy who lost to Bill Cipher? Or why Bill had him tell Jean-Luc his show was worse than “Code of Honor”? Meet the reason why. You know him, you love him, you dread him, and you wouldn’t be the same without him. One letter, many questions, and all the time in the omniverse for them to be answered, right on…Q.


The Q have existed for no less than four billion years. When time began in the universe of Star Trek, they were already there. They arose and evolved within the Q Continuum, where they live and exist in their omnipotence, self-governing and imposing their will outside of it only when it suits them. Some say they were once not unlike humans, some say they were always omnipotent. One thing is for sure…if there is a God among other gods, He would wish to be a peer of the Continuum, rather than their enemy.


The most famous member of his eponymous species, our Q in question is a figure disproportionately interested in humanity and what it has to offer, especially via the various Starfleet crews of the 24th century. He has taken a liking to Jean-Luc Picard as a frenemy, allied with Kathryn Janeway to change the trajectory of his own people, and…well, he certainly had an encounter with Benjamin Sisko, that’s for darn sure. (We don’t talk about the crew of the Cerritos.)


Q stands out amidst his race for his rebellious attitude, often running afoul of his own kind in order to satisfy his fascinations with humanity. Despite all of the Q watching all of humanity from a distance at all times if they so wish, he’s gotten to know them much differently up close and personal. At first it was acting as a representative judge for the Continuum to confront humanity’s perceived evolution past savagery. Then it was to test if humanity was ready for the dangers that were truly out there. Then he got a bit too curious and had to be tested himself among them. And so on, and so on. All to see them achieve a potential he rarely ever gets to see in any species, a potential for limitless evolution of the mind and even potentially the evolution of his already perfected species. To push them along the road not taken.


…and then one day Paramount decided he should be used as a draw for their horrible streaming show, killing him off without even trying to explain it. But let’s not worry about that…yet…

The Toymaker

“Doctor, we meet again. The Time Lord and the Toymaker. One final game.”


There are many powerful beings in the Doctor Who Universe, Rassilon, The Black and White Guardians, Fenric, Zagreus, The Beast…but none quite match the sheer chaotic madness whenever the Toymaker is playing his game.


The history of this ancient and powerful being is confusing and often contradictory (by his own design). What is commonly accepted is that the Toymaker is a Guardian of Time. The Guardians of Time are an ancient race of beings that embody certain aspects of the universe; for example, the White Guardian embodies Light whilst the Black Guardian embodies Darkness. (SIMPLE AND CLEAN IS THE WA--) The Celestial Toymaker is the Crystal Guardian, dubbed "the Guardian of Thought in Time,” “the Guardian of Dreams,” “He Who Walks in Dreams,” and embodies the concept of play within the Doctor Who Multiverse. 


This ancient entity had only one problem: Boredom. And so he took to challenging people to games, where he tested his skill and fortune in order to come out on top. He would eventually come across a being of immense intelligence that could truly challenge him: the First Doctor. Through challenging the Doctor and his companions Dodo and Steven, he realised that the Doctor was more of a challenge than he thought; defeating the Toymaker and destroying his realm via a pre-arranged sequence. However, it turns out that the Toymaker is pretty much immortal and nearly impossible to kill, and in spin-off material would challenge the Doctor to numerous games, testing his limits across several incarnations.


In the main-line series, the Toymaker would return, manipulating events to make the entirety of the human species believe that they were right about…well, anything and everything. This brought him into conflict with the Fourteenth Doctor, mentally tormenting him and facing him in a single-draw card game. The Toymaker won, but in order to further challenge the Doctor, he chose to kill the 14th and force their “best of three” to be against the following incarnation.


However, due to the unexpected phenomenon of Bigeneration, the Toymaker had to contend not with one Doctor, but two. The Toymaker faced off against the 14th and 15th Doctors in one final game--the FIRST game--Catch. Ultimately, the Toymaker was defeated and per the rules of the game was sealed inside a toy chest, never to come back…though that remains unlikely. The Toymaker will always be back to play one more game because everyone loves games, and you can’t stop the force of play for long.



Abilities 

Q


Yes.

THE END


…okay, we can’t actually end this here. In truth we might as well. Q is a character who can do anything, anywhere, inconceivably, imperceptibly, unless he deigns to show it to mortals. There is a big distinction between what he cannot do, does not do, and chooses not to do. More often than not, it’s the latter, but we made sure to check just to be safe.

Teleportation

Q is capable of teleporting himself and anything else across time, space, and reality. He can do this to whoever he wishes, sending them where and whenever he wishes, ranging from the birth of the universe (8:26) to the interior of the Q Continuum and back again. The teleports are usually instantaneous, he can also fling something across thousands of light years (16:42) if he wishes for more dramatic effect. It does not matter if someone else is in the position he is aiming for, as he can subsume their position (and even take their appearance). (20:20) In a similar fashion, Q can enter astral planes like a Bajani pain trance (51:03) as well as the afterlife (1:30), which he has some form of control over.


Shapeshifting


Q is capable of appearing as anything he wishes. He prefers the human-like John de Lancie guise but has also appeared as an Aldebran Serpent (1:30), a Bajoran, Lieutenant Commander Data, a Chozukan (notable for not looking like John de Lancie), and much, much more.


                                                   Duplication


Q is able to duplicate himself, interact with said duplicate, and dismiss him from existence at will. [15:58]. Both versions of Q appear to act independently of one another.

                                                     Phasing


Q and other members of the species have been shown being capable of phasing through solid matter. [37:20] They interact with it however they so wish, much like how their physical forms appear however they so wish.

Technological Manipulation

Q can manipulate technology at will, be it to override it or communicate from within it. (26:05) No technology is seen having an effect on him or even being able to traditionally detect him, from advanced Federation technology to that of the Borg. (Reference point: the entire game, pretty much.) He can also create technological manipulations in advance of when they kick in, like when he left a program within a 21st-century VR headset to be found by Kore Soong, even in a weakened state at the time.

Gravity Manipulation

Q has stated himself to be capable of altering the gravitational constant of the universe, his normal solution to a problem he could not fix without his powers at the time. [16:18] Q are also able to apply personal gravity between themselves and any surface in space, like when Q and Amanda stood on the surface of the Enterprise hull at Warp Speed with no consequences.

Telepathy

Q has been shown being capable of communicating ethereally and telepathically (21:11). He is telepathically strong enough that his presence overwhelms a strong telepathic mind (or empath in the case of Commander Troi). He can even communicate telepathically to individuals, or manifest himself in an ethereal form like…cigar smoke. He is also capable of creating illusions, though the most common scenario is that he is present, rather than an illusion.

Omniscience

Q is all-knowing, at will, stated multiple times by multiple members of the species. As soon as he wishes to know something, he does. This is first shown in what can be mistaken for further examples of telepathy, like when he mind-read the Enterprise crew in order to figure what they wanted to drink, including the android Data with no mind to speak of. (9:10) Any lack of knowledge is a matter of choice.


(This may be defined as semi-omniscience or near-omniscience depending on your definitions, as it is at will rather than passive or automatic.)

Reality Creation / Control

Q has been shown to be able to create new realities complete with living beings and environments [19:14, confirmed to be real at about 20:50]. Q is also capable of materializing any object or living thing into existence, such as when a Q-empowered Riker created the ideal mate for Worf (41:08) and a not-yet-fully-developed Q unintentionally created a room full of puppies she later dematerialized. (2:30)


Q are able to alter living beings as he sees fit: including forcing someone to fall in love (33:01), turning someone into a dog and back (same episode, 27:56), fusing Neelix’s mouth shut (8:58), undoing that while also repairing heavy damage to Voyager (same episode, 0:09), making an emotionless android genuinely laugh without the aid of simulation technology (40:29),  manipulate size (9:31 and 10:00), and countless others. These are just highlights of a reality warper whose answer to “what can you do” is “yes”.


Also, the mariachi scene. Also, the boxing scene. Also, the beach vacation scene (21:20). Also, BOTH bed scenes. (latter at 37:33). And…if you insist…the chessboard scene. (18:11)

Existence Erasure

Q has stated that he is more than capable of erasing any ordinary being from existence - basically turning them into nothingness. (12:15) He has temporarily performed this to those whose positions he replaces or beings he creates, and another Q did so permanently to the males of the Voyager crew by accident (5:44) which Q had to undo. (7:53) As stated above, Q are capable of doing this to just about anything.


Timey Wimey Rubbish

Q is capable of manipulating the flow of time, the timelines of individuals, and whether or not any alteration to the above changes the flow of history. He experiences time both dramatically faster and drastically slower than humans do (it is stated that ten minutes for us is years for him, and also that his immortality gives him a comparatively skewed perception).


Q is capable of creating temporal loops, creating exceptions to said loops (“Q2”), freeze the passage of time (Star Trek: Borg), send someone back in time to alter their past with current memories intact (“Tapestry”), and send someone back and forth through time with no alterations to the timeline except ones he chooses (“All Good Things…”). He is able to create entire alternate timelines (“The Star Gazer”) that operate out of his control. He is also able to pluck figures from history and return them back with no memory of the occasion. (“Death Wish”)


The premise of the second season of Picard, as first displayed in “Penance”, is that he split time in two, changing the present by changing the past, and even changing events further in the past (which is an actual in-universe explanation in line with the abilities that account for continuity-based plotholes).

Power Granting / Removal

Q has can grant his powers to another individual (20:57).While a line later implies that Riker is not actually made a Q at that point, the rest of the conversation implies it is the Q as a group and not a statement of Riker’s or Q’s power being any different at that point. Q is also capable of revoking this power from another Q, presuming they do not resist the effort. Should the Q resist, more of the Q are presumably required, but Q was able to remove the powers of both Quinn and Q Jr. with no assistance required, the latter without his knowledge.

Raising the Dead

Q is capable of resurrecting the deceased, as performed by Riker-Q to Wesley Crusher…who, to his credit, wasn’t even on the bridge at that point. (28:14) The entire premise of the episode “Tapestry” is based on potentially giving Picard a chance to live his life differently, and at the end Q’s manipulation leads him from being fatally wounded to awake and alive. There are other examples throughout the series, like Elnor in Picard Season 2, though the resurrection is off-screen.

Energy Manipulation

Q has been shown being capable of creating an unbreachable force field in space and on the bridge of the Enterprise (4:31, 6:11). Q are able to cause, hold back, and reverse a warp core breach (8:40) and other similar circumstances. Force fields have no effect on Q, and are only noticed as a curiosity. (0:56)

Fourth-Wall Awareness

In the “Star Trek: Borg” game, Q was shown to be capable of breaking the fourth wall throughout the game. An example that occurs in the game is Q addressing the player how the PC works. (Q functions in the story the same way as he does in the tutorial, visually and narratively. Whether or not you want to count this does not affect the outcome.)

Sealing

Members of the Q Continuum are capable of sealing away higher-dimensional beings like their own, constructing confinement that prevents escape, like what happened to Quinn. (The prison was later penetrated by Starfleet technology, but Quinn was unable to escape it himself, which was the intention.) 


Telekinesis

Q is capable of telekinetically moving objects around even ones as big as a Starship as shown when he hurled the Enterprise over 7,000 light years in seconds [16:42]. While Q could just have sent them there instantly given his other showings and likely hurled the ship as he did  At other points Q are able to levitate objects and other people.




The Toymaker


Yes.

ALSO THE END


…in all seriousness, the Toymaker is the cosmic force of play and houses an exceptional range of abilities. Being a god and/or reality warper, he can pretty much do anything.


Before we get into more traditional abilities, let’s start with some more specific details on what the Toymaker is beyond his general background, and what he has to work with. From there, things should make sense…well, as much as he can make sense anyhow.


Time Lord Body

Rallonwashatellaraw, or “Rallon” for short, was a friend of the Doctor’s during his time at the Time Lord Academy. In one adventure, he along with the Doctor and another friend named Milena ended up in the realm of the Toymaker. Due to the true of the nature of the Toymaker (which will explained later) his original body did not suit this universe so instead he ultimately decided to possess Rallon's body. Very little remained of the original person with it, creating the initial assumption that Rallon’s life-force had been completely snuffed out by the Toymaker’s will.


However, Rallon became one of the Toymaker’s greatest weaknesses as he couldn’t snuff him out completely. The two fought over control over his body, thus allowing time for the Toymaker to fully adapt to corporeal existence. In a later encounter, the remaining part of Rallon tried to cripple the Toymaker’s existence by using up all twelve of his regenerations at once. This disrupted the Toymaker completely and reduced him to a weakened state, thus causing his whole realm to disappear. Anything that Rallon does from within can potentially weaken him for long periods of time.


Despite these weaknesses, the Toymaker maintains all the memories, abilities and experiences of Rallon. The following is a list of specific Time Lord abilities that the Toymaker has presumably inherited via his host body:



True Form: The Guardian of Dreams and Reality

The Toymaker’s true identity is that of the Guardian of Dreams and Reality. His role in the universe is to shape the dreams of the entire multiverse. He is directly tied into the dreams of everyone. Without people in the universe dreaming, he not cannot survive; but without him present, no one can dream, and many species would be doomed to die out. He was originally an incorporeal being until his encounter with the Doctor, Milena and Rallon, originally existing between the dimensions until he was able to make his way to the mortal reality. While he takes on a human visage, his true form is more abstract with it looking like a ball that contains stars,planets and space inside it. 


As a member of the Guardians, he is exceptionally powerful; being able to reshape an entire universe to his liking. Such is the case with Toymaker’s realm, it having everything that the normal universe has includes, stars and galaxies. He maintains this universe and if it should be destroyed, he can simply rebuild the realm with his mind, though it does take time.


The Guardians have been stated to be at the pinnacle of the cosmic hierarchy in the Doctor Who Multiverse, though this has been contradicted as the Glory is stronger than the Guardians. (Details in later sections.) The Guardians are capable of easily erasing a Chronovore--someone who capable of destroying the universe--from existence through unraveling its timeline piece by piece in order to make sure that it never existed (pg 11) as well as warp the Time Vortex which has been described as being 5th Dimensional.


The Celestial Toyroom 

This is the Celestial Toymaker’s home that he creates and maintains. According to the First Doctor, it is own universe which the Toymaker has complete control over, allowing him to change it however he likes. The Celestial Toyroom being its own universe is backed up in the Target Novelization where the Toyroom contains stars,space and galaxies; and in Divided Loyalties where it is described as everything in all of creation including thousands of galaxies. Its appearance alters based on the Toymaker’s desires, as shown by him transforming it into a giant castle made out Lego Bricks.


The Toyroom is specifically a conduit to the source of his power meaning if the Toymaker’s mental state is affected, it will weaken and alter the realm, with it breaking apart and reforming as per the Toymaker’s mental state. Due to being directly connected to the Toyroom, he needs a realm to exist in order to maintain his power for extended periods of time. It will ultimately dissipate upon his defeat in a game with that at stake. However, while the Toyroom can be destroyed, it will not kill the Toymaker and as such he can simply create a new one, though again, it does take time.


Games

The Toymaker can challenge and be challenged by anyone to a game. Should someone challenge him, he has no choice but to accept, though they can discuss the game itself before playing. [31:03] This simultaneously becomes his greatest potential strength and weakness: If the Toymaker wins, then he punishes the loser by turning them into his toys, or any other fate he decides. The opponent, however, will able to do the same if the Toymaker loses. In either case, neither side can avoid abiding by the outcome.


For example, Fenric stated that if the Toymaker loses, he would take Toymaker’s body (AKA Rallon’s) so he might be free of an extradimensional prison. Later on, as he lost against the 14th and 15th Doctors in a game of Catch, Doctors forced the Toymaker to banish himself from this existence [47:50-48:20] which resulted in him turning 2D and folding in on himself [48:00-48:40].


It should be noted that during these games, the Toymaker will has to abide by the rules of the game, the rules blinding his entire existence [32:20-32:45]. It should also be noted, however, that while the Toymaker can’t strictly cheat, if his opponent adjusts the rules to their benefit (AKA cheating) then the Toymaker can also follow those same parameters. (In other words, cheating the cheater but only if the cheater cheats.) For example, in “The Greatest Gamble”, Gaylord Leferve tried cheating at cards, and the Toymaker altered the cards to disrupt Gaylord’s cheating. 


The Toymaker is not very picky about which games he plays, but here are some highlights:



…okay, NOW we get into the more standard ability sets. Some of this information will be repeated for the sake of thoroughness.


Reality Warping

The Toymaker possesses the ability to warp reality to his liking. This doesn’t just extend to the Celestial Toyroom but also the Doctor Who universe as shown during his encounters with UNIT, where he turned the main UNIT room into a Spice Girls music video set, warped around the room, and turned incoming bullets into rose petals. He can play with space,time and matter as shown through creating elaborate mouse traps or creating various game scenarios. Examples of reality altering feats include examples such as constantly creates balls so that he is tossing them infinitely even after throwing several of them [20:00-20:40] as well as creating an infinite amount of rooms that are much bigger then what would be possible in a given space. [21:50-22:00]

Shapeshifting

The Toymaker can shape his body in however manner he pleases including making his head a ball of energy, as well as morphing his form into other people such as a dancer. He can also change his size within the Toyroom [26:50] as well as morph into other people in order to trick them as shown with him posing as the 4th Doctor.


Dream Manipulation

Due to being the creator of dreams, he can instantly put people to sleep as well as create dreams/nightmares for his target, as shown when he created a Nightmare for Nyssa and the rest of the TARDIS crew praying on the fears of The Doctor, Nyssa, Tegen and Adric.


Mind Manipulation

Commonly, Toymaker uses mental manipulation in order to get the advantage against his opponents, considering reading minds to be second nature to him. He is capable of erasing memories so his opponents never know he appeared as well as completely erasing a woman’s memories and turning her into the Red Queen for his elaborate chess game. He can even manipulate the minds of greater beings such as The Doctor (who’s mental capabilities are far greater than ordinary humans. 


Perhaps the greatest feat of mind-manipulation that the Toymaker has displayed is when he manipulated the brain activity of the entire human species (to make them believe that they are right) with only certain technology being able to resist it [05:15 to 05:25]. He did this through the use of musical palindromes (a basic tune). This tune was actually a laugh (the Toymaker’s laugh) that occurred when Stookie Bill (1925) (the first image in TV) was displayed and has been hiding through every screen ever sense, sneaking into to every human’s head via every screen causing the mental manipulation [13:45-15:20]


Weather Manipulation


The Toymaker can create storms as shown with his encounter with the 14th Doctor where he can create storms inside of his Toyroom [26:50]. He also used this ability in Divided Loyalties where he reshaped the sky. He can also create Maelstroms of Destruction that destroy everything they touch. 


Lighting Manipulation


The Toymaker is capable of shooting out lightning as shown with his fight against the 12th Doctor and Clara.


2D/3D Manipulation

The Toymaker is capable of turning any object 2D and 3D as shown when turned 2D Postcards into 3D Environments as shown when he transported the 12th Doctor and Clara into Postcards and they were forced to explore these 3D Spaces. He can also turn 2D projections (via tv) into 3 Dimensional Environments. 


Soul Manipulation

During the events of the Nightmare Fair, The Toymaker created an arcade game that would steal the soul of whoever played it. This would allow the Toymaker to gain more minions as he inserted the souls into his puppets. (No image as the appearance was audio only.)

Possession

Toymaker can possess beings that are strong enough in order to hold true form such as Time Lords as ordinary humans would instantly die from the experience. When he possesses a being it leaves very little else of the original person but still potentially infer which leads to defeat in Divided Loyalties. 


Telekinesis


The Toymaker is capable of telekinetically moving objectives such as manipulating large cards in order to trap the 12th Doctor and Clara

Minions

The Toymaker prefers not to engage in direct combat but rather forces his opponents into game scenarios to see if they win and as such, he employs minions in order to carry out his talks. He also has a chest containing several things that he can simply manifest into existence including Clowns,Playing Cards, Nursery Characters. His favourite minions have to be puppets as he can instantly turn people into puppets and make them move around and talk on his commands. [27:35-28:50]. 


Transmogrification 


Toymaker can turn anything into something else as shown during his fight against UNIT where he instantly turned human soldiers into balloons with still-surviving consciousness [37:10-37:20] as well as transforming bullets into rose petals [37:00-38:00]


Absorption

Toymaker can absorb anything into himself as shown be capable of absorbing as shown he manifested the vortex energy from the TARDIS and the liquefied Tardis into himself

Omniscience

Guardians of Time have been stated to possess Omniscient-like knowledge (though despite this their personalities can lead to them making rash decisions). Guardians have knowledge on the wider cosmic universe including planets, species such as the Daleks and Time Lords, as well as higher dimensional technology such as TARDISes. He also possesses knowledge about the Doctor’s past, including the 11th, 12th and 13th eras including deaths of companions and a potential universe destroying event. [29:30-31:00]


Illusions

The Toymaker is capable of creating illusions in order to trick opponents as shown when pretended to be the 4th Doctor in order to mess with Adric. He can also create fake copies of other objects as shown when he created a conveyor belt of TARDISes in order to force Steven and Dodo to see which one is the real one.


Gravity Manipulation

The Toymaker is able to completely control the gravity of the Toyroom as shown when Gaylord shoots at him and the bullets drop. He can also reshape gravity to walk on walls.


Sealing

Whenever someone loses his games, he can seal them into objects as shown when the Master lost against him and was sealed inside his Golden Tooth. 

Teleportation 

The Toymaker is capable of appearing whenever and however, either through instantly materialising or using doorways or he can create doorways to other locations. [36:29] even through time as shown when he appeared in 2023 from 1924 within a matter of minutes. He is also capable of teleporting other people with a simple thought as well as taking them to his home universe, the Toyroom. He is even able to breach dimensional prisons as shown when he traveled to the Entity, AKA Fenric’s Dimension which is at a different plane of existence. The gray void where the Entity resides is described as a non-world — "an unimaginative little world — a dimension of shadows and half-lives" that is extremely difficult to access…and yet the Toymaker did it anyway. 


Power Bestowing 

Guardians of Time are able to grant “Enlightenment”; whoever receives this power is able manipulate time and break all of reality down to the point that they are capable of destroying the entire universe. 


Existence Erasure 

The Guardians, including the Toymaker, have the capability to completely erase beings from existence, as shown when the Guardians erased a Chronovore (someone who is capable of destroying the universe) from existence through unraveling their timeline piece by piece in order to make sure that they ceased to ever exist. This erasure was so notable that it even affected the Time Vortex. The Toymaker has also demonstrated existence erasure as shown when he erased a monster from existence, turning it into nothingness.

Immortality

Being a Guardian of Time, who are fundamental concepts of the universe, it is extremely difficult to properly kill the Toymaker for good, rather than merely stalling or sealing him away. In the Big Finish audio “Solitaire”, the Toymaker due to his own arrogance stays behind in the Toyshop whilst shrunk to 0% of its original size, essentially crushing him into nothingness. Toymaker survived, though it took some time to regenerate his new body.


He even survived complete absorption as shown in “Magic Mousetrap”. His essence was sealed within a doll by the Seventh Doctor, which was then split up and eaten by eight people, with the memory of the Toymaker being erased from everyone involved to ensure he could not survive in their dreams. He somehow survived this by escaping via being absorbed into the “essence of humanity”. It should be noticed that this nearly killed him, and would have left him to wither and die should he have not escaped in this incredibly unconventional way, and even then, he purposefully allowed himself to have this happen so he could “feel what it was like to lose”. (Turn the legs to jelly, all that.)


Timey Wimey Rubbish

Being a member of the Guardians of Time, the Toymaker naturally has control over time. Guardians have been shown capable of completely stopping time, moving individuals through time and space, inserting themselves into the time stream, and tracking people even across all of time. It is also implied in “The Giggle” that the Toymaker is able to mess with timelines as shown when he stated that he made a jigsaw out of the Doctor’s history which would not be easy to accomplish either literally or proverbially given the Time Lords’ temporal awareness. [31:15-31:30]. It should be noted that the Toymaker has also been shown to manipulate the Space-Time Vortex in order to pull the Doctor to this exact location as well as intensify the Time Vortex directly.

Imaginuem

The Imaginuem can transmit raw light into matter, creating a duplicate of the 8th Doctor. Later on, a duplicate of the Toymaker was created in order to place him in an eternal stalemate.





Cosmology Q&A

Before we go any further, let’s clear up some misconceptions about Star Trek, the Q, Doctor Who, the Toymaker, and other details that people have brought up before when talking about these characters and their various matchups. Make it a…Q&A, if you will, that we will use in place of more traditional feats and scaling sections.


…oh, and we’re not including “Assimilation Squared”. Cool that it exists, though.


Q


Q: What is canonical to Star Trek?


A: Everything on a screen. TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, DIS, PIC, LD, PRO, SNW, the ten original movies, the three Kelvin movies, video games directly placed in line with those shows on them like Elite Force, and live action interactive games like Star Trek: Borg. (That last one is notable because it gives us canonical confirmation that Q can break the fourth wall, to a point. The other games are case by case, but Q is an exception.)


Books, outside of direct novelizations of films, and comics, outside of direct tie-ins to shows and films produced by IDW in recent years, are considered apocrypha. Q is likely aware of them, but we can’t actually consider them for versus. This also applies to the novelizations of existing episodes, which were not made with later continuity in mind, and were repeatedly contradicted. (Fun fact, Q actually appears far less in the novelization of his debut, mainly because he was…created to pad out the runtime to 90 minutes. Yes. Seriously.)



Q: How big is the cosmology of Star Trek?


A: An infinite multiverse. While parallel universes are usually individually depicted in canonical material, such as altered individual timelines in Voyager’s “Non Sequitur”, the Kelvin timeline movies, or the famous Mirror Universe that debuted in TOS’ “Mirror Mirror”, one episode made things clear. TNG’s “Parallels” showed Worf transported from one divergent timeline to another, over and over as a result of a quantum anomaly. Every time he shifted, it was not just a change to his reality, as by the end of the episode, different versions of the Enterprise were pulled into a single universe from an ever increasing number of parallel universes, 285,000 and counting. Each of them physically existed with a quantum signature native to their own universe, including the one that the main Worf originally came from and another that tried to prevent the anomaly from being undone. These ships were able to physically interact with one another prior to the undoing of the anomaly’s effects.


The multiverse has also been canonically threatened by mortals. In Discovery’s “Despite Yourself” and “What’s Past is Prologue”, a Mirror version of Paul Stamets tried to create a reactor that corrupted the mycelial network, a space-fungus-realm that was said to be the underpin of all quantum realities, and that the destruction of the network would bring with it the destruction of all life. (Multiversal mushrooms are a thing in Star Trek. Yes. Really.) The episode defines “quantum reality” in the same way as other episodes define “parallel universes” with different quantum signatures.


It is also thereby possible that if a human can accomplish this sort of thing, so can Q, by willing the same sort of device into existence, assuming he does not already have other means to disrupt the mycelial network on his own.


Q: Why are all the Q named Q?


A: Because it is the way it is. This blog distinguishes between notable members of the Q for sanity’s sake, but the Q have evolved beyond such concepts as physical form and language, amidst their immortal omnipotence. Names are meaningless for Q. (There is a non-canonical book that says he chose it because “Q always comes before U”, which is…at least in character?)



Q: What exactly is the Q Continuum?


A: The Q Continuum is the home of the Q species, it is an extra-dimensional that exists far outside of the universe. Formally introduced in TNG’s “Hide and Q”, Q refers to it as “the limitless dimensions of the galaxy in which we exist”. Essentially, an infinite extradimensional layer on top of all existing realities. The interior is first shown in Voyager’s “Death Wish” and again in “The Q and the Grey”, which will be explained in later sections. For now it is good to note that outside the war in the latter episode, one cannot enter the Continuum without the help of a Q, and even the one time a mortal did, it was a de-powered Q who applied her knowledge to help the Voyager exploit vulnerabilities in spacetime created by the war. It is unclear if the Continuum is manipulated by Q, or if it IS the Q race removed from any extra-dimensional physicality, or both.


Q: How do the Q lose their powers?


A: Well, it doesn’t happen randomly. The Q can potentially choose not to use their powers, but as far as more strict cases, like Q himself in TNG’s “Deja Q” and his son (long story) in Voyager’s “Q2”, the Continuum goes out of their way to depower a Q. That Q is left mortal in a form chosen by the Continuum's unseen council, and their powers can be reinstated by said council. During “The Q and the Grey”, She-Q loses her powers as a side effect of running into an astronomical disaster which itself was a side effect emanating from the war within the Continuum. However, in “Death Wish”, Q removes Quinn’s powers himself. The implications of this mean that one Q can potentially depower another, or perhaps the Continuum gives them the power to do so.



Q: Exactly how did Q get punched in the face?


A: The same way Q manages to interact with physical matter in the first place. He brings himself down to the mortal realm and on their level. If he wished to be unaffected, he could be. But in the case of DS9; “Q-Less”, he let his ego go unchecked, and challenged Sisko to a boxing match where he was punched squarely in the jaw. Q felt the pain because the body was made to feel it. As well as the fact that he didn’t actually expect anyone to do this as Picard never actually socked him in the face.


Q: Without losing their powers, can the Q even be killed?


A: Yes…kind of. There are two cases that matter here. One is TNG’s “True Q”, where two Q had decided to exit the Continuum and assumed human forms, conventionally giving birth to a daughter who would be revealed to have Q powers that developed later in life. The parents were later killed by a tornado, but it was later revealed that the event was in fact the Continuum executing the couple.


The details on how this happened were not given, but seeing as the parents had refrained from using the Q powers without actually giving them up, it is presumed that the Continuum either killed them directly with the tornado or had removed their Q abilities before allowing the unusual tornado to do so naturally. The other example is Voyager’s “The Q and the Grey”, where a civil war over a philosophical upset caused Q to “kill” each other, with, uh…well…



Q: What are “Q weapons”, and can a mortal kill a Q using them?


A: This is an inapplicable question based on a misconception. Anything within the Continuum that has been seen by a mortal, including us in the audience, is done so by a filtered perception provided by the Q. The Q arrange things so that any visitors, in this case the Voyager crew, can witness the Continuum in a way where they can perceive things. The first time, it was a stop on a Western desert road, where Q were everything from other living beings seen within to an inanimate scarecrow. (It was also called a manifestation, though the distinction from that function with the main Continuum is unclear.)


The second time, it was based on Earth’s American Civil War, with which we saw muskets and bullets shoot, wound, and potentially kill a Q inside the Continuum. (The Q being such high entities, death in their natural state might not even be a thing for them, at least, without changing them from said natural state first for any summary execution as described in “True Q” and “Death Wish”. Even when we see Q set up for execution we don’t know how it works.)


This is not an actual weapon that kills a Q, this is simply a perception mortals have of whatever cosmic processes and impossibilities the Q are doing to one another. We see Q can be wounded, portrayed as bleeding, and Janeway is able to treat that wound because it is her that is elevated up to the level of interacting on that level, rather than the other way around. The same goes for any other human who attempts a rescue mission holding one of the “Q weapons” and threatening a Q. The ability is placed in their hands to harm a Q, and should that perception never be put in place for mortal visitors to utilize, the “weapons” would never have existed. And if any other mortals were brought in, the Q and all they do to each other could look like quite literally anything the Continuum wished. TL;DR, the look of the Continuum and any “weapons” are conceptual depictions of incomprehensibilities that the Q allow mortals to interact with.


(The included picture is from the “Q Conflict” comic, which tried to redefine a “Q weapon” as weapons by the Q that can kill the Q in the mortal plane. To say the least, this is as non-canonical as it gets.)



Q: Why was Q afraid of Guinan?


A: …yeah…that…uh…we don’t have an official answer. Guinan, a member of the El-Aurian race, is incredibly long-lived and has the ability to perceive alterations to reality, such as in TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise” or the second season of Picard, the latter of which was performed by Q in the first place. She’s also escaped from the extradimensional honey trap known as the Nexus, seen in “Star Trek: Generations”, though we did not see her do so.


In TNG’s “Q Who?”, which is known for debuting the Borg, Q and Guinan have an interaction where the two hold hands up as if they are about to start magically dueling one another, and state how they each see the other as a threat and have had dealings with one another in the past. This “confrontation” is immediately deflected and no explanation is given for what the hell just happened.


In Picard’s “Monsters”, a younger Guinan (her appearance is a plothole, but this is Q we’re talking about) mentions that her race and the Q Continuum had a cold war, and that the results of it gave her a bottle that she attempts to use to perform a summoning ritual. No explanation is given for how the two fought a war, what threat the El-Aurians were to the Q (though vice-versa should be obvious), why the ritual failed to summon either the main Q or some other Q in the active time period (namely 2024), etc. We once again see Guinan hold up her hands--in the same fashion as the image above--to defend herself when she thinks a Q comes in, but it’s only a human FBI agent.


The following episode, “Mercy”, has Q approaching Guinan, not knowing who had performed the summoning, while also making it unclear whether or not he could have rejected the summoning, if another Q could have been summoned instead, or if the summoning is simply an invitation to meet rather than a meeting forced upon a Q. That is, however, the only discussion of the nature of the relationship between El-Aurians and Q discussed in that conversation.


TL;DR, we don’t know why Guinan was a threat to Q, or any El-Aurian for that matter. Answers contained in apocrypha are inconsistent and would not be considered regardless for this blog.



Q: Does Q actually need to snap his fingers in order to use his powers?


A: No. Q, She-Q from “The Q and the Grey”, and Q Jr. in “Q2”, are usually shown performing their abilities with a snap. Another Q in “Death Wish” is shown capable of using his powers with a different hand gesture. Amanda, learning she has the powers, uses a different hand gesture with both arms, though she is still learning to control them to begin with. 


When depowered, these beings have attempted the hand gesture and found themselves with nothing happening. In many other instances, however, such as both of his appearances in TNG’s Season 1 and “Tapestry”, Q performs all sorts of actions without such a gesture. This shows that the snap is performative at best and a requirement given to his mortal-like guise at worst.



Q: What about other Q-like beings?


A: While it’s true there are other powerful beings that could be seen at the level of the Q, any story directly connecting them in power is considered apocrypha. For the sake of argument though, we will use other beings considered god-like in the series that have shown themselves off in similar capacity. Anything that only showed up in apocrypha, such as the M Continuum or 0 (yes seriously), will not be considered.


(Once again, the above image is from the non-canon “Q Conflict” comic, but I cover all of them below anyhow.)


  • Trelane: In TOS’ “The Squire of Gothos”, Trelane is the first Q-like being introduced to the franchise. (Gary Mitchell doesn’t count.) While he exhibited many of the same abilities, a number of them were oddly technology-based, and one that did not make the list was omniscience of any sort. On top of that, he had chosen to play with Kirk like he were a toy or pet, only to be punished by his parents and forcibly sent to the cosmic equivalent of a time-out. It is only in the apocrypha, the novel Q-Squared, where it is stated that Trelane is a Q, and also more powerful than several Q at once. The shows never demonstrated either of these. In fact, the only time Trelane was mentioned again was when…*sigh*...the SNW episode where Lower Decks characters traveled to Pike's Enterprise before Kirk took command. And only because the phrase “Holy Q!” wouldn't have made sense to them…even though Kirk still hadn’t met Trelane yet. So really, neither would a reference to him, and this whole situation was a waste.

  • The Organians: The Organians, such as Ayelborne, are a complicated situation. They are beings of pure thought masquerading as normal people with abilities that display extremely high intelligence, external awareness (not necessarily omniscience), possession, telepathy, induced psychosomaticism, and technological manipulation of every Federation and Klingon ship near the border of their spaces. They appeared to be more like ghosts in ENT’s “Observer Effect” and somewhat godlike in TOS’ “Errand of Mercy”, but the details are inconsistent. Perhaps like Trelane, these were proto-Q, as some concepts were reused…and similarly dropped

  • The Excalbians: In TOS’s “The Savage Curtain”, the Excalbians are mineral-based life forms exhibiting some forms of reality-warping, no more impressive than Trelane without the technological hindrance. But unlike Trelane, or even Q, that they were mineral-based was easily detected, and had distinctly physical forms. They could, however, take guises that register on scans as carbon-based known species, like Abraham Lincoln, Genghis Khan, and Kahless (AKA Klingon Jesus…and let no episode of Discovery tell you otherwise). Omniscience here was limited, as they could reproduce the faces and names of figures throughout interplanetary history, but had no real concept of good and evil.

  • The Metrons: In TOS’ “Arena”, AKA the episode with the Gorn…for all intents and purposes are exactly the same as the Excalbians, just a lot prettier-looking. Though it is stated that they evolved to get to that point.

  • Nagilum: In TNG's “Where Silence Has Lease”, Nagilum is a non-corporeal entity that exists outside of spacetime and experiments with the Enterprise within a rift. The concepts of mortality and even biology were foreign to it. However the abilities it demonstrated were nothing beyond a Q. Killing with a thought, altering spacetime for a physical loop (the “one Riker, one bridge scene) and even just appearing as a floating head. The original print TNG encyclopedia says it lives in a hole in space rather than outside of time so arguments can be made that even if individual abilities here aren't shown by a Q, Nagilum's place in the cosmic hierarchy is arguably lower and weaker than the Q Continuum anyway.

  • The Cytherian: In TNG’s “The Nth Degree”, we get another floating-head entity much like Nagilum. Unlike Nagilum, however, the Cytherian demonstrates even less abilities, mostly the ability to enhance mortal intelligence to an unexplained degree, one likely surpassed by Q to begin with. He is still mentioned in case those of you reading this blog remember him.

  • Armus: In TNG's “Skin of Evil”, Armus was a psychic and physics-defying pile of malevolent goo that killed Yar. That is it. Why does Memory Alpha list it as a god-like entity in the first place? But hey, what are VS and sci-fi fans if not pedantic, so, here you go. Armus. Enjoy.

  • The Douwd: In TNG’s “The Survivors”, a single member of this god-like race had taken a self-imposed exile. Like Trelane, omniscience was not one of their abilities, but the power on display is closer to what we might attribute to the Q. The Douwd in question, going by Kevin Uxbridge, lived for thousands of years and fell in love with a woman; when she was killed by Husnocks, he killed their entire race--all fifty billion of them throughout the galaxy--instantly.

  • The Bajoran Wormhole Prophets and Pah-Wraiths: This is…another beast entirely. Essentially they are extratemporal beings who live in a wormhole and require outside emissaries, such as Sisko, to act. They can communicate within and without the wormhole and have various artifacts with power and connection to them, known as the Orbs or Tears of the Prophets. These include the Orb of Contemplation, the Orb of Time, the Wisdom…if this starts to sound like some kind of Infinity Triforce, that’s because it is, except even less defined. All we know is that these are religious entities on their own plane of existence, the Prophets are good, the Pah-Wraiths are evil, and your patience with DS9’s overarching plot is going to be dependent on your patience for religious allegory…none of which involves a Q. And speaking of religion…

  • Sha Ka Ree's “God”: Since this made it into a movie, let’s address it. From “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”, this entity at the center of the universe, residing on a mythical planet known as “Sha Ka Ree”, is…NOT God, in any sense. It is somewhat abstract, but the most it actually proves to be is non-corporeal being trapped in the center of the Milky Way galaxy via the Great Barrier…that proved incredibly easy for Kirk’s Enterprise-A to penetrate. It simply wanted to escape, shot laser eyes at Kirk and Spock that managed to kill neither, and then either died or was severely injured by the Enterprise’s photon torpedoes and a Klingon Bird of Prey. (Q would likely snicker at this, almost as much as we would watching it, if either party wasn’t so irritated watching the movie.)



Q: Are you going to talk about how Q mate?


A: No.


Q: …But what if you DID use the books?


A: Then Q would be an explicitly omniversal entity, or at least capable of killing one. In “Q-Squared” by Peter David, Trelane (remember him?) merges with an all-powerful force called the Heart of the Storm, which allows him full control over the entire multiverse, collapsing it onto itself. The Q Continuum, in this setting, is apparently a natural safeguard between the multiverse and Heart of the Storm and all the Chaos outside of it. Q, who was “killed” by the merged Trelane, had to be reborn and regenerate from within the beginning of time through to the late 24th century, in which he was only barely able to regain a physical guise in the form of a sword. Picard used that sword to duel Trelane, in which the two stunned him enough to stab the merged godling, piercing through and then destroying the Heart of the Storm from within. Consider this, plus compositing in stories regarding “0” from the Q-Continuum novel trilogy, and we would not have a blog. (Also fun fact, Gary Mitchell was actually just being possessed by Q in TOS’ pilot according to this book.)


Toymaker


Q: What is canonical to Doctor Who?


A: When it comes to the Doctor Who, the main line canon is the Doctor Who Classic Series running from 1963–1989 as well as the Doctor Who Revival Series (NuWho) running from 2005 to present. However, there is evidence to suggest that some of the audio productions, as well as a number of books, are canon with the main TV series. In the Doctor Who Mini-Episode “The Night of the Doctor”, the 8th Doctor lists off several companions that he had throughout his time in Big Finish productions:


“DOCTOR: Get out. Get out! All of you. Will it hurt?

OHILA: Yes.

DOCTOR: Good. Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly, friends, companions I've known, I salute you. And Cass, I apologise. Physician, heal thyself.”


This is not the only reference to Big Finish audios, as the Chelonians are mentioned in “The Pandorica Opens” as one of the races present. The Chaleonians were used in the short story “The Highest Science”. There are other references and nods to the Big Finish audios/novels in the mainline series. As such we will be taking into consideration the Classic Series, The Revival Series, the Big Finish productions, as well as the relevant novels and comics.



Q: How big is the cosmology of Doctor Who?


A: An omniverse. As can be seen in the above panel from the comic “The Glorious Dead”, the term is quite literally used in describing the extent of Doctor Who cosmology, as well as the Glory device that maintains it, and its destruction would leave the infinite multiverse to unravel. Other sources give more specifics, like “The Thief Who Stole Time” with the following.


“To start, time is running raw, rich and unchecked. Nothing slows it down yet. No scenery, no players, no plot, no wishes or broken legs, just a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying what. Time split in the first cell of the omniverse, time dividing time and time again.”


The omniverse was also directly threatened. In “Spiral Scratch”, the Lampreys are entities described with the ability to consume multiverses, guarding an entity known as the Architect of Chaos. The Toymaker, however, has not been directly compared to these entities or even others comparable to them.


Q: What about other god-like beings/devices that the Toymaker could scale to?


A: In lieu of a full scaling section, here is a list of all of them and the details of what they can do.



Chronovores: In “The Quantum Archangel”, a Chronovore was shown to be no match for the Guardians of Time. As covered above, Chronovores are capable of eating pretty much anything such as planets and even entire realities, being able to completely eat a universe out of existence. As such, Chronovores should at least be Universe Level and likely higher due to being part of the higher dimensions like the Six Fold Realm which houses 6th-11th dimensions.

TARDISes: During the events of “Divided Loyalties”, we see the Toymaker overpowering the essence inside of the TARDIS, manifesting and then absorbing the liquefied TARDIS into himself. During the events of his original story we see that the Toymaker and his minions are strong enough to be able to completely penetrate the TARDIS’ defenses. Both of these instances make it fair to scale the Toymaker to the TARDIS. TARDISes are capable of tanking blows from Gabby Gazelaz, who became the Vortex Butterfly, as well as the Quantum Archangel (both the Doctor and the Master’s TARDIS were shown to be a match for her) who is capable of causing a black hole to explode in the Doctor’s face and telekinetically throw planets into each other. TARDISes are also able temporarily stop the Flux, a wave of Anti-Matter that was capable of destroying an entire universe.

Black and White Guardians: It should be noted that the Black Guardian states that he is capable of granting what is known as “Enlightment” which will eventually dissolve the universe. The Black Guardian was also shown causing temporal imbalance that threatened the entire universe. The White Guardian is the Black Guardian’s complete opposite and a member of the Guardians of Time like the Celestial Toymaker, as such they should be comparable to each other in power.

Fenric: While the Toymaker wasn’t able to outright beat Fenric, he has been shown to be capable of stalemating him and as such we believe that it is fair to compare them. Fenric is a member of the Great Old Ones. During the Big Finish audio ”Gods and Monsters” it was stated by the Doctor that Elder Gods have enough power to completely rip the universe apart if they die, which would be at least a Universe level feat. Due to being a Great Old One, he simply sees Universes as a mere speck of dust; something unimportant. 


Q: In “The Giggle”, it is implied that the Toymaker has only met the Doctor once previously: his original serial with the First Doctor. Why use his other media when they are contradicted in recent stories?


A: Good Question, in “The Giggle” it is pretty much confirmed that the Doctor did not meet the Toymaker after his encounter with him as the 1st Doctor in the “Celestial Toymaker” serial. This would be contradictory to other media that the Toymaker has appeared in, and we would be left with one serial and one special, and leave it at that. While the two have plenty to work with by implication, they would be far from covering the full breadth of his character; leaving even such basic details as his as his origins extremely vague and non-descript.


In order to have a more complete picture, we ultimately decided the aforementioned material would be covered, as even including all of them we end up with a concise and not-so-lengthy list of appearances that go into further details on the nature of the Toymaker and his world. Additionally; in contrast to Q, where the very nature of other relevant characters' existence is inconsistent between one piece of spinoff media and the next, these appearances are consistent with regards to everything except for the most recent statement in “The Giggle”, being the most recent.


(If you want to think of it this way, “The Giggle” creates no greater contradiction between other non-televised appearances than any new Star Wars series does with Canon shows, novels, and comics. We also still get a smaller list of general stories for Toymaker than Q has on television alone. Go figure.)



Q: How does the Toymaker interact with the universe?


A: As mentioned previously, the Toymaker’s true form is that of a collective consciousness, possessing neither form nor substance. This prevented him from interacting with the normal world until he possessed the body of Rallonwashatellaraw in order to interact with other beings. While it is very difficult to outright damage the Toymaker, he can still be crippled through attacks to his physical body as shown when Rallon forced 12 regenerations, which crippled him for a long period of time.


Q: Is it possible to permanently kill the Toymaker?


A: Yes, potentially. In “Divided Loyalties”, it is stated that due to Rallon’s physical state degenerating over years, the Toymaker has been affected directly, causing him to have physiological and psychological trauma. While his existential self tried to expel Rallon’s essence, it failed, causing the Toymaker’s mind to permanently fragment and collapse which ultimately lead to his death. As such, it can be interpreted that corruption and erasure of the Toymaker’s mind and essence will destroy him for good, as would Rallon taking further control. However, as mentioned earlier, his physical body can regenerate from nothingness (though it takes time). As such, only direct attack to the mind and spirit--or self-destruction via losing an officially challenged game--will end the Toymaker for good.


Q: Is the Toymaker really a member of the Guardians of Time?


A: The Toymaker as a character has many conflicting origins and accounts with him even changing his backstory, as shown with his conversation with Adric with him saying:

"I, too, am from another universe, Adric. Born elsewhere and forced to live out my life in a place not my own."

…He then altered it in a later conversation.


Many people have tried to determine what the Toymaker is, with the First Doctor believing that he was similar to himself and only being around for a thousand of years, while the 14th Doctor stated that the Toymaker was an "elemental force" with "the power of a god". However, these statements are not from the Toymaker’s own perspective, but rather the Doctor’s; who, while one of the smartest beings in the universe, is not all-knowing and likely does not have a full comprehension of the Toymaker. In “Divided Loyalties”, the Toymaker outright states that he is indeed a member of the Guardians of Time and there is no evidence to suggest within the text that is indeed lying about these events:



As such, for the sake of this blog, we are interpreting the Toymaker as being a member of the Guardians of Time. However, we acknowledge that some interpretations may believe he is just a cosmic being unrelated to them. It should be also noted that the Toymaker would scale from the Guardians of Time in terms of power, due to the Toymaker stating in “The Giggle” that he beat members of the Guardians of Time in a game. Regardless of stat scaling, however, we do not believe it affects the outcome of this match.


Q If the Toymaker is a member of the Guardians of Time, would be given the Six Fold God  Form?


A: For those who don’t know, the Six Fold God is a merging of all the Guardians of Time, creating a being that was even more powerful than themselves individually. However, it requires the uniting of all the Guardians of Time, dealing with a threat that they collectively agree on. Considering the Guardians don’t like each other and are reluctant to work together in order to handle a situation unless it is completely necessary, it is unlikely the Toymaker could convince the rest of the Guardians of Time to trap Q in the Six Fold Realm and attempt to overpower him there. As such, we felt there are too many conditions for this form or realm to be usable in this blog. (Additionally, that would also allow Q to petition the Continuum to help him, crossing every conceivable boundary of outside help.)


Q: Is there anyone above the Toymaker in terms of power in the Doctor Who Multiverse?


A: Yes. As mentioned previously: the Six Fold God is the combined power of all 6 if the Guardians of Time (including the Toymaker) and as such he should be explicitly weaker than such a being. It should also be mentioned, that in the audio production “The Chaos Pool”  it has been shown that the Grace (essentially cosmic beings that are outside of time and space) are directly above the Guardians of Time in Power as when the Grace manifested themselves, they banished the White Guardian and the Black Guardian into the Void to suffer an endless struggle. (It should also be noted that the Grace use the Guardians as their agents so they should be above them in power). Finally there is the Glory, that acts as the entire focal point of the Doctor Who Omniverse and those given its powers are able to affect the Doctor Who Omniverse in a work the Guardians cannot. 


It should be noted that there is little evidence to suggest that the Toymaker is capable of affecting the entire Doctor Who Omniverse. While there is potential evidence to suggest that the Six Fold God (which is the combined power of all the Guardians) can do so as made evident in the “Quantum Archangel,” it never directly states that the Six Fold Gold is able to affect the Doctor Who Omniverse. Here is the exact quote:

“There are some powers in the Omniverse that can do anything. The Guardians, for example.”

It is more likely to suggest that the Guardians are able to affect things on a Multiversial Level (that potentially has at least 27 Dimensions) such as the Time Vortex but not impact the Glory and the Omniversial Spectrum. 


Weaknesses

Q


Is Q explicitly weak to anything? …no, not really. That is, unless you’re a Q. But to illustrate this, it’s time to play everyone’s favorite game… “The Only Things Q Cannot Do!” (Sensitive content warning: discussion of suicide and mental health.)


We turn to Quinn, a Q who featured specifically in the Voyager episode “Death Wish”. Quinn was a Q that tried to commit suicide out of a philosophical need for independence, but could physically not do so. Side effects of his attempts included creating a hundred-year-long war between Romulus and Vulcan, erasing all of the male members of the Voyager crew from existence, and other countless disasters throughout history. Quinn was unable to undo these actions himself, and in the case of the Voyager crew, Q was the one who had to un-erase them.


The episode also discusses the idea that Q, both members of the species like Quinn and our Q in question, can be considered mentally unstable…by the Continuum. While the scale of what it takes to become so or be considered so is by no means comparable to humans or other mortal species, the patterns are similar, if rare…however, that requires us to gain the perspectives of the Continuum, ergo the writers, plus a lot of moral discussions that we here in the VS community should not consider ourselves qualified to get into. What we can get into is that Q has been accurately psychoanalyzed by mortals before, like many of his trickster-god type.




The episode also mentions that Q, among all of his faults from humanity’s perspective, has never been a liar. This did not hold water as he very much lied in front of Q Jr. in “Q2”, though Janeway was able to see through it. This is personality, not inability.


“The Q and the Grey” also shows She-Q having her powers removed, and not by choice or the deliberate actions of another. This is the only case of its kind, and still is a result of the actions of the Q in other forms. Q was able to remove Quinn’s power just fine, though he did not try to resist it.


In Picard’s “Monsters”, a past version of Guinan seems to be attempting a seance-like ritual meant to summon the Q. The ritual fails, and there is no real confirmation that the ritual would have worked. Even if it could, the nature of the ritual is an El-Aurian secret, and El-Aurians have been mentally resistant to reality manipulators before (TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise” as discussed in the Q&A section).


Lastly we have to discuss Q’s death…presumably. The premise of Picard Season 2 is that a dying Q sends Picard from 2401 to an altered version of the 21st century for the final test in humanity’s trial. Somehow, for no explained reason in the series, Q is dying, and in a rare occurrence he has no idea why. At no point in the season does anyone ever get an explanation as to what causes Q to deteriorate, let alone die…more on that in a moment.


In the season finale, “Farewell”, Q supposedly uses the last of his power to send Picard back before the point he took him from and resurrect a dead friend. However, in the series finale, “The Last Generation,” Q appears to Picard’s son Jack in the year 2402, saying it is his turn to take the trial. In response to a confused Jack, Q replies: “and here I was hoping the next generation wouldn’t think so linearly”.


This implies one of two things. One, Q did in fact die, and the version that meets Jack later goes back in time to meet Picard in 2401. Two, Q’s “death” did not stick to begin with as he is not bound by time. The former is more obvious, but given the inconsistent nature of the species only making him more powerful (and the continuity-chucking pretzel that is modern Star Trek to begin with) it is impossible to say for certain. Either way it would not tell us how his supposed death happened to begin with, or if any outside factor could cause it aside from the Q Continuum themselves stripping him of his powers. And as can be seen throughout the show, Q’s powers are fading, but still present.



Toymaker 


While the Toymaker is a reality warping god, he is far from perfect. Due to being a collective unconsciousness, he requires a physical body in order to interact with the mortal realm. (It also can’t be human as the process would kill them instantly.) If his physical host body is disrupted or if the soul of the body disrupts the Toymaker’s control, then it will lead to him being severely crippled. (It even occurs naturally over time, leading to the Toymaker “dying” due to his fragmenting mind).


The Toymaker’s host body, the Time Lord Rallon, used up his twelve regenerations in order to cripple the Toymaker (even if it was temporary). As such, any soul hax that causes a disruption between Rallon and the Toymaker would severely debilitate him, leaving him open to exposure if not death while still combined with his host. As shown in the “Magic Mousetrap”, if the Toymaker’s soul is split or sealed into multiple smaller portions, he will gradually become weaker and over-time and eventually cease to exist; showcasing that if the Toymaker’s soul is split or sealed for extended periods of time, it will kill him for good. 


Mentally, the Toymaker is extremely arrogant and extremely terrified of losing control and continuously desires a safety net that the Toyroom can provide. Due to his arrogance, several beings who are less powerful than him--and are notably NOT omniscient--have either tricked him (1st Doctor) or taken advantage of his arrogance (8th, 14th, 15th). He also struggles against those who have equal power or comparable power to him, as shown when he couldn’t beat Fenric (another higher dimensional entity). The two only put each other in a statmate and would later be overwhelmed by an exact duplicate of the Toymaker through the use of the Imagineum. In essence, a smart enough opponent or a power equal to him can ultimately see through his tricks and cause him to lose his focus and ultimately lose his own game.


Which leads to what perhaps is the Toymaker’s great weakness: one of the core aspects of the Toymaker is that he must adhere to the rules of his games. If he loses, then he will have to punish himself for losing the game in a way decided by the winner. This is most explicitly shown during the 14th Doctor special “The Giggle” where upon losing the game to the 14th and 15th Doctor, the Toymaker was forced to turn into a 2D object and seal himself away forever. 




THE COMBATANTS ARE SET…


Here is a fight script written by Morkez Marihser for how we expect the most likely outcome of the battle to go. Bear in mind, the main ending features HEAVY SPOILERS for the blog’s general verdict. After you’re done reading, feel free to check out the verdict section!



(And for fun, there’s an alternate ending featuring the alternate outcome, but shhhhhh.)


Q VS CELESTIAL TOYMAKER FIGHT SCRIPT


We also have another bonus: our research. If you want to have a look at some of the facts and information we found out about both characters during our research process, check them out here.


Q Research by Morkez Marihser

(Note that this is mostly done as a tally of powers, statements, and plot points relevant to Q.)

Toymaker Research by Mal/The GamingNewsGuy

(Note this is not all the research that was conducted. Just the stuff that was focused on the Toymaker specifically.)

Verdict

So, for starters--

Before The Verdict

Wait, before the verdict? Didn’t the verdict start a sentence ago? Well, that’s what happens when you talk about major reality warpers! Space is warped, time is bendable, and if you want a full explanation then be sure to attend our next meeting on the astral plane last week. Attendance is impossible, try not to be early! …jokes aside, we cannot include a proper “Stats” section in this. When you work with a trickster god from a universe that does not constantly or consistently compare them to everywhere else along the totem pole, numbers become meaningless. Given what we covered in both their Abilities section as well as the Cosmology Q&A, this is the best guess we can proffer…


Given we do not see Q struggling against other non-Q entities in canon material, other entities that might be weaker still achieve universal or multiversal levels of power, and that only the unexplained case of the El-Aurians have ever posed a threat to Q to begin with outside their own kind, one could argue Q is hyperversal or complex-multiversal. (If we included apocryphal material; we would have him scale to, be able to kill, or simply exist as an omniversal entity.)


The Toymaker would be given about the same, hyperversal or complex-multiversal. Even including all of his extended material, the Six Fold God Realm would be beyond his reach. However, he can manipulate the Time Vortex, stated to be either fifth-dimensional or at some similar dimensional tiering, depending on the source. While the Omniverse exists in Doctor Who, there is no clear indication that he is at that level of power, and all the reason to think he isn’t. (Though it once was stated that he was, the mere existence of the Glory and the Six Fold God has reaffirmed that it was not true)


For those of you that are not VS-inclined, the bolded terms are meaningless. For those of you that are, they’re…still probably meaningless. 1-B? 1-C? A-1? Steak sauce? And more importantly, mostly irrelevant! These are not two entities who often get into direct cosmic power struggles in their stories. Are they capable of it? Most likely, but we’re not getting NPH in a beam struggle, sad as that is to say. There are many games to cover, but the numbers game is not one of them. Let’s focus on what they can do with all that power from here on out.

Abilities / Inabilities

Separate from one of the Toymaker’s games, neither character has much of what they cannot do. However, Q’s strongest abilities are only restrained when attempting them on other Q. Even if we were to apply that logic to similar cosmic peers, it would be irrelevant. Toymaker on the other hand has been seen fighting other entities of like, such as in the Eighth Doctor side novels, and running into a stalemate at absolute best.


Despite being the arbiter of dreams in the Doctor Who universe, the Toymaker cannot put Q to sleep as Q does not sleep, or dream, or any such activity that mortals need to do to sustain themselves. Q could potentially put Toymaker to sleep, however, or at the very least there’s no active reason in Doctor Who why that wouldn’t work. They could also potentially face each other within someone else’s dream, but that would be no different to them than any other arena.


Q’s abilities also potentially have the ability to wound the Toymaker, in far higher likelihood than the other way around. This is because Q does not require an outside physical body to use as a host, he creates his own at will if he so wishes. Toymaker on the other hand required Rallon, the Time Lord, whose resistance to him was more than capable of putting him in a similar situation to, say, Bill Cipher at the end of Gravity Falls. (The irony is not lost on the writers of this blog.) Q could further deteriorate the body or mind of the host, or even provide additional resistance to Toymaker’s control within the host’s mind. All this really means is that should a game never start, Q has more options to attempt to kill Toymaker than the other way around.


Toymaker is also vulnerable in that he requires his realm to exist in order to maintain his power, whether or not he is currently in it. If he wished, Q could simply destroy the realm in any capacity he would normally use to destroy any other plane of existence, though he would meet resistance. This would still only benefit Q in the long run as Toymaker ends up distracted and Q does not share that vulnerability via the Q Continuum.


Both are able to give powers to other individuals they find and recruit to their cause, but this is not equal between the two. Q is able to grant other people the power of the Q, with no stated difference that it is any different between himself and the new Q. Toymaker is able to grant the far less flexible “Enlightenment”, which is not the same thing as the Toymaker’s own powers.


For any other abilities, the two are indistinguishable as far as has been displayed in either series. Both of their omnisciences could also make them aware of the other the moment they choose, so it is effectively no difference.


Advantage, Q.

The Games

The single biggest way Toymaker gains an advantage in this and almost any fight is via his games, which are also the single biggest way Toymaker dooms himself to potentially lose. Winning the game will give either control over the other to whatever extent they so desire, be it imprisonment or the ability to kill the other, as it supersedes the existing powers of even those at the Toymaker’s level or above. There is no indication that any superior amount of power will be able to overcome a game that is agreed to and lost.


For starters, these games must be a given and accepted challenge by both parties. While Toymaker is not the only one who has given these challenges, as the First Doctor was the recipient in the original “Celestial Toymaker” serial, the Toymaker cannot refuse a challenge issued against him. With no accepted challenge, however, neither the Toymaker nor his opponent have any altered power over the other, meaning that an unchallenged Q would not be vulnerable, nor would an unchallenged Toymaker have any additional power over him. (The two names can be swapped in that sentence, but it just leads to Q having a possible advantage again.)


Once the game is accepted, the winner must be met on the terms of the agreed-to game. Should Q violate the terms he sets, Toymaker would be able to push back the exact same way…essentially, a cheater will be automatically and equivalently cheated back. Should Q challenge Toymaker to a game he has an advantage in, and does not cheat, then the advantage (albeit not a guaranteed win) remains with him.


Advantage, Q.

Intelligence & Character Flaws

Toymaker’s games do not change the intelligence of either participant, simply the abilities they are restricted to in order to partake in the games fairly. Q has a stated IQ of 2005, and arguably that is simply an arbitrary number for an all-knowing, omniscient character such as himself. Should the game remove that, his intelligence still remains, and far lesser beings than he (such as the Doctor) have defeated Toymaker in a game of wits. Whatever the Toymaker’s intelligence may be, it was not so high that he automatically won every game he went up against, and his notable losses were against those who were smart, just not, God-level smart, whatever definition each universe’s context applies to that. (Not to mention that while Q lost his omniscience along with his powers in “Deja Q”, his IQ and knowledge stayed with him.)


What must also be said is that unlike Q, Toymaker rarely ever seems to learn from his mistakes, at the very least in the ways that matter. Q has made brash errors that have resulted in his punishment and exile, the alienation of his wife and son, and even an entire war between immortals. He has also given up the notion that even mortals cannot teach him a thing or two, much as he would hate to admit it, and has learned from the way they handle the impossible as a way to better handle his type of impossible among others. Toymaker’s peers have taken an exclusively antagonistic role or reluctant cooperation, with little to be learned aside from crafting more and more schemes for revenge. One combatant spends his time choosing better games to play, the other is choosing better ways to play them or whether to play them at all.


Advantage, Q.


Immortality

Both combatants are immortal, and both can supposedly die. With Q, it is never clear that anyone but a Q can even kill another Q. Q’s own supposed death was also never given a reason. With Toymaker, his potential death (the “eat a doll” thing) was confirmed by both himself and the Doctor to be lethal, though the Toymaker had apparently “allowed” this to happen in the first place, and then found a way to escape it in the “essence of humanity.”


Q could easily cut off any outside means of escape by leaving him in a void with no one else present, making the Toymaker require outside help in order to survive losing a game should Q decide he dies as a penalty. Should Q lose the game, though, it is unclear whether Q would be able to escape in a similar way, as no particular event has happened in canon. So in essence, Q can prevent Toymaker from fleeing his punishment, while it’s unclear if Q can even flee his own.


Advantage, neither.



And with that all calculated, here is the tally.

Advantages/Disadvantages

Q

“If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.”


= Potentially infinite power

= Unlimited reality warping

= Cannot be deprived of powers easily

= Unable to escape fate should he lose the game

+ Experience in outwitting opponents

+ Superior control over time itself

+ Could potentially harm Toymaker’s true form directly…

= …though there’s no clear proof it would kill him

+ Could potentially poison Toymaker via his Time Lord host

+ Has means of cheating games…

- …that would then also be given to the Toymaker

+ Can create containment for other immortal beings

+ Has learned from mortal creativity and applied it to his godhood

+ (Would be infinitely stronger if composited with novels)

+ John de Lancie



Celestial Toymaker

“I came to this universe with such delight. And I played them all, Doctor. I toyed with supernovas, turned galaxies into spin tops. I gambled with God and made him a jack-in-the-box. I made a jigsaw out of your history. Did you like it?”


= Potentially infinite power

= Unlimited reality warping

= Cannot be deprived of powers easily

= Unable to escape fate should he lose the game

+ Canonically has defeated stronger entities…

- …through one of his games, only

+ Able to cheat to win the games

- …but only if the opponent cheats first

- Undeveloped ego makes him vulnerable to trickery

- Rules of his own game makes him defeatable by any skilled opponent

- Human host body makes him vulnerable to physical and psychic attacks

- Neil Patrick Harris (...kidding, KIDDING--)




For all stated reasons above, we come to a very clear conclusion. Having the sharper mind, room to learn, and only a servant of the limitations he himself chooses, the Continuum’s poster deity takes the victory.


When infinite power is not enough, all it takes to defeat the Celestial Toymaker is intellectual Q-riosity.


The Winner of this Blog is Q.




Blog by Mal/TheGamingNewsGuy, with Morkez Marihser.

Special thanks to BangJang for reading over to see if this makes nonsense.

Comments

Post a Comment