Star Trek’s Most Epic Fight Deserves To Be Seen

But would you believe that the best Trek battle of all is one that fans never got a chance to see?

Leonard Nimoy and John DeLancie have reprised their iconic characters to record Spock vs Q, a vintage Simon & Schuster audiobook that fans will never be able to see in live-action form.

Spock vs. Q was recorded in front of a live audience, and that alone gives it a particular flavor that most Trek audiobooks are lacking. Regardless of how it was recorded, though, the chief joy of this audiobook comes from the rhetorical clashing of its alien titans.

Spock is the ultimate creature of logic and Q is the ultimate creature of chaos. Think of this as a very nerdy exploration of what happens when an unstoppable object meets an immovable force and you’ll have the right idea.

But what are these two big names fighting about in Spock vs. Q? Fittingly enough, the plot is a perfect intersection of The Original Series and The Next Generation.

In this story, Spock has traveled back in time to help humanity avert future disaster (a bit like we saw in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), and Q has shown up to mess with Spock’s mission and cast judgment on humanity (a bit like we saw in the TNG pilot episode “Encounter At Farpoint”). 

Before too long, their respective missions become an afterthought as Spock vs. Q becomes a debate over whether humanity deserves to survive the future calamity that Spock wants to keep from happening.

For his part, Spock realizes that he may not be able to save humanity without Q’s help…or at least, without Q stepping aside.

As for Q, the big question throughout this audio production is whether the airtight logic of Spock can appeal to Q in ways that Captain Picard’s humanitarian pleas never could.

Aside from the joy of hearing our title characters rhetorically duke it out, part of what makes Spock vs. Q so fun to listen to is that it now serves as a kind of fascinating “what if” concerning two of the franchise’s favorite characters.

Thanks to later films and series, we know that each suffers a bleak fate: Ambassador Spock is transported to the past and eventually dies in an alternate universe whereas Q seemingly embraces death after one last misadventure with Picard.

In this audiobook, though, the characters are alive and well, and each of them arguably gets a better send-off here than either gets onscreen.

With that being said, we’d love to visit the Mirror Universe out there where Spock vs. Q was turned into something like a made-for-TV movie.

Leonard Nimoy and John DeLancie are perfect foils for one another, and each exhibits an intimate understanding of his character that can only come from a place of love.

While you’ll never be able to see these characters “boldly go” at each other on the big screen or small screen, you can always order the book directly from Simon & Schuster today.