Animal things

The animal things were an alien army of musket-wielding soldiers wearing 18th century French army uniforms. In 2364, they were created by Q to attack the crew of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) as a show of threat to induce Commander William T. Riker into using his newly realize Q-powers. 

In 2410, Qu recalled the animal things for a hostage scenario aboard the USS Dropzone, believing that Captain Samya's crew's favorite pastime was killing. After Qu left the ship, Samya's crew discovered the animal things responded in a distracted-reverie-like state whenever someone would sing. Refusing this tactic, Samya elected to quickly take out the animal things the old fashioned way, through combat, while her crew leaned toward singing their captors into the lulled states. After every kill, Samya discovered each animal thing sung a clip of a William Shakespeare song from a random play followed by a visible life-energy whisping out of them and into Samya's ready room. Returning, Qu admitted to adapting the "works of Shakespeare", a book in Samya's ready room, into powering his animal things, as he, himself, was not as powerful as most Q's. After Samya decompiled the book in the replicator, the "murdered" animal things returned to their living-base state and were transported back to where they came from. (: ")

Background information

 * The term "animal things" was coined by Worf in the episode.

External link
at , the canon Star Trek wiki.