Q Does Not Do Anything Trivia Quiz

Answer: Maritime

Q-codes were developed by the British government in 1909 for use in maritime radio communication. The original list of 45 codes was quickly adopted for international use as the operator's native language was largely irrelevant.

These days there are over 100 codes with those in the range QAA to QNZ assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. QOA to QQZ is used by the Maritime Mobile Service, and QRA to QUZ is covered by the International Telecommunications Convention. NATO have added a similar system called the Z Code for military use.

Answer: Seveneves

The novels listed are by Isaac Asimov ("Foundation" (1951)), Arthur C Clarke ("Rendezvous with Rama" (1973)), William Gibson ("Neuromancer" (1984)) and Neal Stephenson ("Seveneves" (2015)).

"Seveneves" starts with the unexplained break-up of the moon, resulting in the delayed destruction of life on Earth by meteorite storm. One of the protagonists communicates with her father by Morse code, including Q-codes at times. It also proves to be the method that a deep-space expedition falls back on when their radio fails and, lacking the parts to repair it, they fabricate a spark-gap transmitter instead. This uses electric sparks to create the Morse code and was the method used in the first 30 years of radiotelegraphy from 1887.

Answer: My vessel is 'healthy' and I request pratique.

Having the radio name Quebec and also called the Yellow Jack, the yellow-coloured flag is a request for pratique (a licence given to a ship to enter port). The request is made on the captain's assurance that the ship is free from contagious disease. If pratique is refused, the ship must continue to fly the Q flag and is placed in quarantine until cleared by local authorities.

The flag can also represent the letter Q in a series of flags raised to spell out a message or as part of code word.

Answer: Star Trek

Q is both a fictional character and the name of a race. John de Lancie is the American actor who has portrayed Q in six "Star Trek" series from the 1987 "Encounter at Farpoint" episode of "Star Trek: Next Generation" through to the 2025 "Wedding Bell Blues" episode in "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds". An omnipotent character, he at first takes on a role of judging humanity (mainly through Jean-Luc Picard) and then more as a mentor, albeit sometimes for his own amusement.

Answer: Armed merchant ship

Named after Queenstown in Ireland where a number of the merchant vessels were converted, Q-ships were decoy vessels designed to lure enemy submarines into making surface attacks when they would be vulnerable to the concealed weaponry. In the First World War, German torpedoes were expensive and unreliable whereas deck gun ammunition was cheap and so surface attacks were preferred where the threat appeared low.

Used during the World Wars by both the British and German navies and also the Japanese and US navies during the Second World War, they had mixed results. Flying under false colours had been used since at least the 17th century and was considered a legally acceptable tactic for warships providing that proper flags were raised before firing commenced.

Answer: Glutamine

Although there are over 500 amino acids in nature, only 22 are incorporated into proteins in all known lifeforms. These are also known as proteinogenic (meaning 'protein creating') amino acids. There is a naming convention for these alpha-amino acids with the letter Q being the one for glutamine.

Considered a conditionally essential amino acid, in the sense that the body can usually manufacture enough of it, glutamine has various roles including in protein synthesis, lipid synthesis, kidney acid-base regulation, as a source of cellular energy, to donate nitrogen and carbon, and as a non-toxic transporter of ammonia in the blood.

Adrenaline (also called epinephrine) and estrogen are hormones whilst cholesterol is the main sterol biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential element in cell membranes and for signalling.

Answer: 10 points

Scrabble is a board game where single-letter tiles are placed onto a 15 x 15 grid of squares to make words and earn points. A crossword format is used. The game was invented by American architect Alfred Mosher Butts in 1931. He called it Criss-Crosswords.

The points value of a Scrabble letter depends on its frequency of use in English. Versions of the game in other languages have different letter distributions, however generally the rarer the letter the more points that are attributed to it. In English-language versions, there is one letter Q amongst the 100 tiles and it (along with the letter Z) is worth 10 points. Most words using a Q also need a U, which restricts usage options. Words borrowed from other languages (like qat, qadi and sheqel) make up most of the U-less words, although there are a few (like qwerty) that are not borrowed.

Answer: Jussi Adler-Olsen

Best known for his "Department Q" series of novels, Jussi Adler-Olsen has had non-fiction books published since 1984 and fiction since 1997. Many of his popular books have been translated into English and he has received multiple nominations and awards since 2010.

A number of his crime books have been adapted as Department Q films such as "Kvinden i buret" ("The Keeper of Lost Causes") (2013). Netflix released the first series of their TV adaptation in 2025 in which Carl Morck returns to police work after recovering from a shooting incident.

He is assigned as the sole officer to deal with a pile of cold cases.

Answer: China

There are a quite a few cities around the world that begin with the letter Q. How many depends on how you define a city. There is even one country that begins with the letter Q, namely Qatar.

Qingdao is a port-city in Shandong Province and across the Yellow Sea from South Korea, Qiqihar is inland and north of the Korean Peninsula, while Qinzhou (with urban districts Qinbei and Qinnan) is a port-city in the Gulf of Tonkin towards the western end of the Chinese coastline.

Answer: Die Another Day

Q is the head of the fictional research and development arm of the British Secret Service and frequently appears in James Bond films, usually irritated by Bond's lack of care with the gadgets and vehicles supplied by Q. John Cleese first appeared in the 1999 Bond film "The World Is Not Enough" as Q's assistant, receiving the designation 'R'.

When the actor Desmond Llewelyn (who portrayed Q in 17 Bond movies between 1963 and 1999) died in a car crash in 1999, John Cleese took over the role of Q for the 2002 film "Die Another Day". The actor Ben Wishaw took on the role from 2012 with no Q appearance in the two Bond films released in the decade between.