In TOS, the Enterprise encounters Trelaine, the self-titled Squire of Gothos. A seemingly omnipotent being that toys with the crew for his own amusement.
In TNG, the enterprise encounters Q, a seemingly omnipotent being that toys with the crew for his own amusement.
Trelaine was a child of his species and Q was an adult, but they had a similar “humans are toys” attitude. Q’s came with an added cynicism that you might expect from an adult of Trelaine’s species.
It has been pointed out that Trelaine seemed to rely on technology, which allowed Kirk to defeat him. But Q also always gave his playthings a chance one way or another and, again, Trelaine was a child.
So was Trelaine a Q? Was he from a different god-like species?
And here’s a real curveball for you- Was Trelaine a child Organian?
I don’t know that I would go as far as Trelaine is Q, just because we’ve seen at least one other Q like DeLancie’s Q- namely, Corbin Bernsen’s Q that gives his powers back to him. Most Q seem to not give a shit. About anything if Voyager has anything to say about it. Maybe there are some who do and there’s plenty of reasons for them to toy with the various corporeal beings they encounter since apparently they have no real moral code.
That said, Trelaine’s parents behaved like Trelaine was doing something bad, so maybe that’s an argument against him being a Q.
Anyway, there’s a lot of room to discuss this I think.
I’m not seeing the comparison between Q2 and Q though. Q2 was tasked with stripping Q of his powers because the Q Continuum/Q2 got tired of constantly apologizing on behalf of Qs bullshit, the same thing that Trelanes parents had to do. He didn’t like humanity but I mean none of the Q in general seem to “like” them so much as tolerate as you mentioned. Some Q fuck with humanity but only now after Our Q has fucked with humanity. They seemed to have exactly zero interest in us until randomly during the Encounter at Farpoint one particular Q gets pissed for seemingly no real reason and starts toying with them like an asshole, Trelanes bit almost to the letter. Even going so far as to throw Humanities history in the face of them now while only understanding the form and not the substance (same as the food and fire).
It’s just bizarre to me that no one in the Q Continuum gives a fuck about humanity at all for millenia, then a child messes with them for a short period of time, everyone ignores them again and then randomly there’s an adult Q whos hellbent on fucking with Humanity at every opportunity.