Headscratchers / Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Changelings

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Whacking the Dominion Hive

• In the Deep Space Nine episode "The Jem'Hadar", a Jem'Hadar representative of the Dominion comes through the wormhole and states, in essence, that the Gamma Quadrant (or at least the part of the quadrant near the wormhole) is within Dominion space, and that any excursion through the wormhole would be considered an incursion into their territory and treated as such. The general response on the part of the Bajorans and Federation is basically, "Oh, yeah? Try and stop us from exploring!" Why the sudden disrespect for the requests of a sovereign nation? If the wormhole instead led to, say, an unexplored mass of space within Romulan borders and the Romulans sent a representative that said, "Quit sending ships into our space!" would the Federation thumb their nose at this, or would they back off and resolve the matter more diplomatically? But no, the Federation and other Alpha Quadrant races keep sending their (heavily armed, at least in the case of the Defiant) ships through, completely disregarding the wishes of the Dominion. No wonder the Dominion finally just decided to invade the Alpha Quadrant itself.
  • Because it wasn't actually their territory? If I recall correctly, they don't even really say that it is exactly. It's more that they consider the entire Gamma Quadrant to be their "sphere of influence", and so oppose any other nations entering it. But considering that this is literally a quarter of the entire galaxy, this is rather an extreme position.
  • If I recall correctly, the area around the Gamma Quadrant terminus of the wormhole wasn't Dominion territory for the first two years of Deep Space Nine. Certainly most of the people we met from the Gamma Quadrant in those two seasons seemed to treat the Dominion as an abstractly distant power rather than as an aggressive occupier. It seems more like the Dominion unilaterally annexed that territory around the end of season 2, then barged through the wormhole and told the Alpha Quadrant to GTFO. Since this was Kira they told this too, she naturally wasn't going to take this lying down. It should also be noted that the Dominion asserted their authority in their new "territory" by hunting down and destroying every single Alpha Quadrant ship and colony they could get their hands on.
  • The wormhole terminus was never really part of Dominion territory. I believe the writers used a metaphor something like this: Imagine if the Chinese claimed complete dominion over the East China Sea and added that ANY non-Chinese ships there would be destroyed. Yes, people wouldn't start sailing on the Chinese coast, but they wouldn't really pay any attention to this warning on the coast of Japan or even some distance away from it. One single navy couldn't possibly patrol a region so vast, and the Federation knows that the Dominion is only a distant threat in the section of the Gamma Quadrant they're near, so they keep exploring and don't really get caught.
    • Ignoring for the moment the weirdness about territorial claims in space and the inconsistency about what the Dominion even is (a mafia-like organization that has a private army for when other methods fail? An empire with clearly defined borders?), it is pretty clear that the wormhole is not in Dominion territory. We know this because "Broken Link" has this exchange: "DAX: We've just cleared the wormhole. SISKO: Begin transmitting a request for assistance, then set a course for the Dominion." The dialogue in "The Jem'Hadar" is probably just posturing. After all, it is presumably within their power to collapse the wormhole themselves if they really wanted to keep the Alpha Quadrant powers out.
  • The Federation is a great power in its own right, and even peaceful great powers don't like being bullied. Even weak governments don't like that. The Dominion's demands were a slap in the face of Federation sovereignty.
  • Both the phrase "Whacking the Dominion Hive" and this complaint, by the way, come straight from Phil Farrand's The Nitpicker's Guide for Deep Space Nine Trekkers, a book full of Headscratchers and other nitpicks. 'Tis a good read.
  • Having encountered the Klingons, the Romulans, the Cardassian, the Borg, and who knows how many other species that had a tendency towards aggressive expansion, the Federation has to understand that when confronted by a society inclined towards violent conquest, submission is a form of suicide. The only way to avoid being run rough-shod over is to establish immediately that the Federation isn't going to kowtow to the Dominion and will instead expect to be treated with respect or, at the very least, a lack of aggression.
    • If anything the mistake the Federation made was treating the Dominion as if it were a power like the Cardassians or the Klingons. They all talked the talk, they'd rattle their sabres (or their bat'leths) maybe have a small border clash, then they'd get down to business of talking things out diplomatically with the occasional bit of posturing going on for face-saving's sake. Even the Klingons, for all their warrior zerg-rush talk have done that. Trouble is the Dominion are more like the Borg in that they are completely irrational in their worldview and genuinely do see it all as "Us vs Them absolutism". To be fair, the Dominion did initially paint themselves as a reasonable power with their use of the Vorta so the Federation's mistake was an understandable one, and even if they had withdrawn back through the wormhole the Dominion would still have come for them eventually.
  • On the flipside, doesn't the presence of a clear military threat in the Gamma Quadrant mean that the Federation ought to have taken a much more active approach? As in: build a starbase at the far end of the wormhole, move an armada in to guard it, don't send out ships without escorts, etc.? If this would seem like an aggressive, militaristic, expansionistic move... well, that's what they were accused of doing anyway, so why not do it correctly?
    • Related to the above — in "Destiny," I'm always a bit amused by the premise. Sure, establishing a permanent communications link to the Gamma Quadrant is a good idea, but you know what else would be good? A lookout. As in, post somebody over there ready to run over and inform DS9 of a threat at a moment's notice. Further, they should be ready to seal the wormhole on short order starting in Season 3, rather than only putting it together on the fly two or more years later.
    • One not-so-minor hitch is that the Bajorans were never fully on board with any solution that would have sealed them off from their religion's "gods." Had the Federation invoked that "nuclear option" of sorts, it would have been a major diplomatic incident even in light of the Dominion threat.
    • To the above: Let's not forget that in "The Search, Part II," Sisko and co. are unequivocally willing to seal the wormhole when there's no other options left (and presumably seek forgiveness from the Bajorans after the fact). There's a rather silly plot point in "In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light" that only now, when dealing with a ticking clock, does Sisko instruct his crew to come up with a way of sealing the wormhole without harming the Prophets (which the Dominion swiftly subverts). There should have been a standing plan for this since early in Season 3, if not earlier.
  • The Dominion make the claim that the other side of the wormhole is in their territory first after two years of no word of their ownership (other cultures had mentioned the Dominion, but the Dominion themselves had made no overtures and taken no action), and second and more importantly, by way of announcing that they'd massacred the New Bajor colony on the other side of the wormhole - Kira notes the design of the tricorder the Jem'Hadar gives her is Bajoran, and he specifically says that the colony was wiped out. And when the Odyssey goes through for the express purpose of recovering the hostages, the Dominion respond with a suicide run on a fleeing starship, which is a clear indication that the Dominion harbor hostile intent, that they would kill a ship of roughly a thousand Starfleet officers attempting to leave just to prove they could. Follow this with Eris making a pretty clear statement of the Dominion still having intentions for the Alpha side of the wormhole, why SHOULD they listen to the Dominion's claims, since the Dominion won't resist poking the Federation hive, thinking they have tactical supremacy.

Spotting Changelings: Not So Hard?

So I just rewatched the episode where Odo gets turned human and something occurred to me. Right after the Changelings spit Odo back out Bashir whips out an ordinary medical tricorder and says he detects various and sundry organs (heart, liver, lungs, or some such) and Bashir says "Gosh! He must be human now!" So wait a minute. If it's that easy to tell humans and changelings apart, why does the Federation have such trouble with it?

• It's probably more "in contrast to how Odo usually scans" than changelings more broadly. As you say, the Founders must have a means of fooling scans most of the time.
• Good point, especially given Odo's earlier claim "If you scan me when I'm a rock, you'll detect a rock." But yes, Odo isn't as good a changeling as the others and in any case is usually not interested in fooling scanners, so maybe he normally doesn't bother with the organs. (So his earlier statement should really be "If you scan me when I'm a rock, you'll detect a rock, assuming I decided to fully mimic the rock from the inside out. Otherwise sometimes not.")
  • This is directly addressed in-episode. Bashir notes at one point that when he normally scans Odo, he reads an object of uniform density rather than the fluctuations he's currently detecting due to Odo's illness. Thus, Odo scans like a large mass of jello that can move, rather than having distinct parts like solids. While Changelings probably can mimic humanoids down to internal organs, the more disturbing question is how do they research what all those organs are like so they can mimic them - vivisection?
    • Possibly medical scans, but considering that most Changelings are murderous dicks then yes, probably vivisection. Hell, they may scoop out someone's guts and stuff them in their own bodies to get a "feel" for them to replicate them better.
• Odo does not at any point try to disguise the fact that he is a changeling when Bashir scans him. He points out at many times during the series that he COULD ("If you scan me when I'm a rock, you'll detect a rock."), meaning he has the ability to hide from scans, and obviously the other Changelings do too. But everyone already knows Odo is a changeling, so what reason would he possibly have to disguise himself from Bashir's scans? Starfleet Security is actually VERY concerned about Odo FOR THIS REASON, and they point it out.
  • You're all forgetting Odo's corollary to that statement: he says that if you scan him while he's a rock, you'll detect a rock, and that while HE isn't skilled enough to mimic a humanoid body, a Founder probably would be.
• While we're at it, why not use telepaths to detect Changelings? Since Betazoids don't detect Odo's emotions, a sufficiently talented one should have little trouble finding a faux example of a race they can normally detect.
  • Telepaths have a habit of being underutilized in every franchise that they are in for the reason being that their powers are nearly always game-breaking; that is why they made Deanna Troi half-human just to give her an excuse as to why she isn't just stopping every threat to the ship with a wave of her hand. A full Betazoid guarding every major ship and facility would basically castrate the sole thing that makes the main villain a threat with the exception of their army. Fridge Brilliance of course in that the Dominion attacked and conquered their home world...
    • I can imagine that being that hypothetical Betazoid on duty would be a seriously dangerous job, since the Founders would have no qualms about killing them and calling it a day.
    • Or kill the telepath and then take their place, can you imagine the damage a shapeshifter could do if they impersonated the telepath in charge of finding shapeshifters?
    • You'd need another telepath to keep tab on the first one! And yet another to monitor that one! And...
• It seems really rather improbable that the famed Starfleet Engineers couldn't come up with some manner of detecting a changeling. I kind of assumed they must have at some point because the Founders apparently stopped even trying to plant imposters throughout Starfleet despite how effective the tactic was. The show itself seemed to quietly drop it.
  • Star Trek: Picard established that Starfleet did indeed come up with methods for detecting changelings (the Renegade Splinter Faction came up with ways to beat those detection methods, but it seemingly cost them the ability to assume any form except humanoid).

Attack of the 50-Foot Odo

• So Odo's a changeling, right? We've seen him get pretty small, and change his mass so, for example, when he's a bag he's not as heavy as his humanoid form. This means he can change his mass at will (which is a Headscratcher in and of itself). We've also seen Changelings flying through space on their own without any problems (like Laas did in "Chimera", as a creature the size of a runabout). Why doesn't Odo ever use this to his advantage? Why does Odo take runabouts when he could just go into space by himself? Or, for that matter, why couldn't he become the size of the station and just pick up enemy ships and hurl them into the sun or something (other than it would be totally ridiculous)? They wouldn't even have needed to do effects shots: just shoot Rene Auberjonois handling the actual ship models used for filming! True, it would be pretty silly, but I think there are other possibilities to use a giant Odo (humanoid or not) or at least a space worthy Odo that would've been useful and cool to see without treading into B-movie territory. But I think the only time we ever see him get larger than his humanoid form is when he is protecting "Kira" from a rockfall in "Heart of Stone", at least that I can remember.
  • I agree in the abstract that Odo does not use his powers usefully very often. On those odd occasions when he forms tendrils to grab attackers, I wonder why he doesn't do it more. But do not forget that, in the grand scheme, he is a novice changeling. He was amazed to find that Laas could fly through space as this was a power well beyond his, so one can't expect him to just be able to do it himself. This is an important part of his characterization — remember that Odo is a misfit, not a demigod. Laas had centuries of practice that Odo lacked, and the Changelings in the Great Link had significantly more again.
  • Odo does become significantly larger than his humanoid form in "The Alternate," but does not do so consciously, again an indication that he has vast powers that he has not begun to master.
  • Further, note that the Changelings tend towards using their powers in subtle ways for purposes of infiltration and subterfuge, rather than spectacular shows of force. What would be gained by becoming giant, even if they could do it? Changelings are not invulnerable, and it would just provide a larger target.
  • From a real-life perspective, it could easily have been because all the shape shifting could be expensive and difficult to do.
  • I just want to know what happens to his comm badge when he turns into, say, a drinking glass (as we see one episode.)
  • He met Laas before "Treachery, Faith and the Great River", so I'd personally like to know why Odo was concerned about freezing to death or asphyxiating in the latter episode. He knows for a fact that Changelings Can Breathe in Space!
    • Laas can also turn into fire, so that may be how he keeps warm in his space-dwelling form. And maybe he just held his breath. If he can travel faster than light then anything is possible!
    • Um, "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" was eight episodes earlier than "Chimera."
    • He wasn't worried for himself, he was worried for Weyoun 6.
  • The answer is obvious. Because he doesn't know how. For a Changeling, shapeshifting isn't as easy as just wanting to be something else and *poof* you're something else. There's more to it than that. It takes serious skill, which Odo doesn't yet have. Before he met Laas he didn't even realize it was possible for him to become fire, or fog, or a space-whale.

Why was Odo turned Human and not Bajoran?

• Why did the Founders in the Link make Odo anatomically human (as Bashir's analysis confirms) and not Bajoran? He has far greater ties to the Bajorans than the Federation; he was raised by a Bajoran scientist, he's part of a Bajoran security force, and the whole basis of the female changeling's accusations about his divided loyalties are based on his love of Kira, who is Bajoran. And the Founders don't seem to be sensitive to the fact that humans are a major force in the Federation; they don't make too many distinctions among species of solids anyway. But if they were going to choose a specific species to turn Odo into, the logical choice would've been Bajoran.
  • It is a curious decision, which reeks of the Star Trek's humanocentric sense that everyone who isn't human should strive to be... or become one involuntarily! But justifications as possible. For the Founders, it's an us and them mentality, as you note: solids are solids. So perhaps their choice was arbitrary. Perhaps they had examined more humans and knew their anatomy better. The "Odo as human" arc turned out to be a bit of an Audience-Alienating Era, didn't it?
  • Could have been another layer of the punishment. By turning Odo human, he is further isolated from the culture that he grew up in and is thus made even more alone.
    • I'm not sure that really works as an explanation, because 1: Odo was only marginally connected with Bajoran society to begin with, and 2: he doesn't outwardly look like a human even during his exile. He just looks like Odo (and, as emphasized in "Apocalypse Rising," chooses to continue to look that way). The arrangement of his internal anatomy would seem to make little difference.
    • It would add another layer of separation between Odo and Kira for him to be human. There are no secrets in the Great Link, so undoubtedly his entire race knows how Odo feels about Kira. By making him human instead of Bajoran, that adds a definite biological barrier, if nothing else in Odo's mind.
  • Sisko and Bashir (both human) were the ones accompanying Odo at the time. The Founders may have used them as the base template for Odo's new solid form.
  • The simpler and more likely explanation: When Bashir says that Odo has been "turned human", he doesn't mean Odo has literally been turned into someone of Terran extraction. He's using "turned human" as shorthand for "a biological being with a calcium-based endoskeleton and internal organs including a heart and lungs". Odo might not be any actual race in particular, he's just "a biological" now, and Bashir says he's human because "he's a living being as we are familiar with the concept!" doesn't carry the same sort of Wham Line punch.
    • Is not "humanoid" generally that shorthand term? I can't think of an example of "human" explicitly being used to describe a being who was not human, as in Terran.
    • "Humanoid" means having the appearance of a human or being of the shape of a human. In other words, Odo was, usually, a humanoid as a changeling. As for why they said "human", it easily and immediately understandable to the viewer what has happened. Moreover, it is unlikely that Odo was any given race, so much as "no longer a changeling", going into detailed specifics or, worse, no elaborating on phrasing that required it, wouldn't have made a lot of sense right there, much easier to just say, "human", since a human is talking (and it did immediately get the point across of what had happened).
    • Bashir tells Odo: "Physiologically, you're completely human" in the Infirmary at the end of "Broken Link." The clarification "physiologically" leave little space to argue that he is anything other than literally human, as opposed to simply "humanoid" (which might be implied by Bashir's earlier statement "I'm reading a heart, lungs, and a digestive system. It's as if he were human," made on only cursory evidence).
  • The Changelings were busily inserting themselves into every level of the Federation that they could at that point, which would for the most part mean replacing humans. They were probably more familiar with human biology than any other "solid" race... turning Odo into a biological humanoid probably wasn't easy in the first place so they'd go with the race they were most familiar with.
  • Perhaps its as simple as the Changelings just weren't all that invested in the decision? To them one solid is the same as another. Bajorian, human, Klingon, makes no difference. Why human? Because there were two humans standing there and one solid is the same as the next.
  • It makes perfect sense. Odo was made human as punishment for killing a fellow Changeling in the season 3 finale. The punishment was the Great Link's way of saying "You like them so much that you’re willing to kill one of your own for them, go ahead and be one of them." Odo killed that Changeling to save the crew of the Defiant, which was diverse but majority human.

Confessions of a Linking Addict

• In "Behind the Lines" and "Favor the Bold," the Female Changeling weakens Odo's resolve through linking, the act of two or more Changelings melding together. Afterwards, he's completely infatuated, spending days linking with her while neglecting other duties. In effect, he's behaving like the Changeling equivalent of a sex addict. Why did linking with the Female Changeling have this effect on Odo? He links with her in other episodes ("The Search"; "What You Leave Behind") and briefly enters the Great Link ("Broken Link") without any ill effects. Furthermore, he and Laas link in private in "Chimera," but neither man was overwhelmed by the experience. Despite being emotionally vulnerable when the Female Changeling came knocking, Odo isn't shown to have an addictive personality, so what explains this response to linking?
  • I thought it was fairly clear that it wasn't the linking itself, and there's no real "addiction" going on. It was the emotional connection with the Changeling that was weakening his resolve. His continuing desire to rejoin his people was growing stronger and wearing him down. And now that the Female Changeling, because of the mines, is also separated from her people, Odo feels a need to comfort her, and form a small Changeling community with her, as well as learn from her. She's become more vulnerable and more approachable to him, and that makes him feel all the more that he belongs with her and with Changelings in general. And that ends up seeming more important to him. That and the entire time she is feeding him propaganda on how much more important Changelings are than Solid issues, and it's starting to get through. The other times he wasn't as vulnerable, wasn't as desperate for Changeling contact, and Laas wasn't nearly as charming or convincing.
  • I was always curious about linking for another reason. In "A Simple Investigation," Odo explicitly compares it to humanoid sex. This isn't necessarily to characterize the Great Link as a gigantic, non-stop orgy, but to describe the intimacy of the experience... this plays into the war arc as described above. Is it then possible to understand "Chimera" as an episode about a love affair between Odo and Laas?
    • Sure it is, in the same presumably non-sexual way that Changelings are always seeking intimacy with each other. That is, in a way that doesn't seem to be directly related to reproduction, and certainly not intended to cause "pairing off," except when circumstances force it as in the wartime situation above. This would be distinct, however, from Odo's romantic relations with solids, where he seems to have ingrained in himself a heterosexual male orientation (perhaps he emulated Dr. Mora more than he realized), consistently showing attraction, love, and even lust only for female humanoids, and interest in the humanoid reproductive act. His affair with the female Changeling, however, seems to combine aspects of both, since she has consistently appeared (and appealed) to him as a female humanoid and has engaged in solid-style intercourse with him as well as linking.
  • This is the hallmark of how DS9 is Darker and Edgier than Star Trek, The Next Generation. Odo was not a duplicate; he was not borg, his software is not being manipulated; he has not been made super-intelligent by an alien; he was not brainwashed by Romulans, or by a game, and he hasn't had someone else's negative emotions dumped on him. He doesn't even have any mundane Real Life version of any of those, such as an addiction. He is himself, he is Odo, and he chose to betray his friends.
    • Yes, but it still rankles how "Odo and Kira talk in a closet, unseen" serves as a reset button.
    • According to the writers, it bugged them too, but they were having difficulty resolving the situation otherwise. Presumably they could either drag it on for episodes (or seasons) of Kira resenting and sniping at Odo and Odo futilely trying to prove himself to her, or do the closet reset, and they chose the reset. And while it's the easy way out, that doesn't necessarily make it the wrong one... watching two characters hate on each other every episode because of a mistake one of them made might have been accurate characterization but probably not fun to watch.
    • The difficulties of writing episodic television are very real, but even allowing for that, this is awfully weak writing. The problem is not the fact that it happens quickly, or even that it restores some version of the status quo. It's that it happens off-screen, which means it can't contribute to the character arcs of either Kira or Odo. If we can't understand the terms of their reconciliation, then that nullifies the drama of their divide to begin with. And it squanders the opportunity to address another dramatic problem of Season 6: if working through this difficulty moves their friendship to a different place, then their becoming lovers later also seem less sudden and shoehorned (as it does from Kira's side).
    • To be fair, Odo didn't betray his friends so much as neglect his duties, which is still pretty bad, especially given the stakes, but we don't know what linking really feels like, so we can't judge him for getting addicted to harshly. And Kira forgiving Odo so quickly, if given a little more attention, could have been an great oppurtunity to show her Character Development: Odo comes to her quarters carrying flowers and "wearing" a tuxedo, she swats the flowers away and tells him that there's no excuse for what he did and people they both cared about could have died or worse because he got addicted to something just like the thugs he busts, he says she's right, but regardless of that, she forgives him, he's truly sorry, and she looks like she's about to go off on him again, but then smiles and says she believes him.

If You Prick a Changeling, Does He Not Bleed?

• Throughout the Dominion War people show they aren't Changelings by bleeding. This test was first suggested and implemented by Martok, who they later learned was replaced by a Changeling at the time. Heck, Sisko's father, a chef, figured out how to fool that test as soon as he heard about it.
  • Your point? By the very evidence you supply you seem to get the writers' point right across - that the test was a Batman Gambit by the Founders to sow paranoia amongst the Federation and Klingons, while letting agents who "passed" the test go about their business without suspicion. The very episode in which, as you say, Sisko's father points out the fallacies in the test, was meant to indicate this very plot although it wasn't until much later that they actually learned that, yes, indeed, the one who suggested the test was a changeling themselves.
    • More evidence that it's a Batman Gambit? The Martok changeling isn't the first one to come up with the idea of blood tests — in the episode "The Adversary", Odo notices Sisko can't be a changeling because he's bleeding. But why is Sisko bleeding? Because a changeling hurt him, knowing he'd meet up with Odo soon, and Odo, being a sharp investigator, would notice and develop the blood testing strategy. So, by the time the Martok changeling strolls onto the station, pulls out a knife, and slices his palm open, they all accept it without questioning how or why Martok knows to do such a thing — they just assume he knows because of the intelligence shared by the only trusted person in the alpha quadrant who could have come up with the idea — Odo.
    • Indeed they implement blood screenings even before Martok shows up; in "The Adversary" the changeling (then impersonating Bashir) swaps blood vials to falsely implicate Eddington as the changeling; the fraud is only exposed because the real Bashir happens to be locked up across the hall from the holding cell they are planning to put Eddington in. Why it doesn't occur to them at the time that the blood test can be faked in the opposite direction too, however, is a mystery.
    • Come to think of it, it'd be pretty easy to get around that test if you knew ahead of time you'd be taking it. And by making it standard practice, you know when to expect it.
    • It would be a hell of a lot harder if the Feds did a DNA test on the resulting blood which probably takes less than a minute with their technology, that would at least limit the infiltrators to having to always impersonate the same person.
  • Two Words: Security Theater [1]
  • It's a Shout-Out to The Thing (1982), though it actually seemed to work in that case.

Scent of a Changeling

• When Changelings were infiltrating the Alpha Quadrant, why didn't Alpha Quadrant governments think to use scent to detect them? Being inorganic life forms, Changelings would not smell the same as mammalian life forms in the Alpha Quadrant. Also, Changelings have no sense of smell, so they wouldn't be able to mimic the unique scents of humans, Klingons, or other species they impersonate. Couldn't Alpha Quadrant authorities have used specially trained dogs to sniff out Changeling infiltrators? Better yet, couldn't they have recruited members of races with very strong senses of smell to root out Changelings?
  • Since Changelings can apparently become fire and merge themselves with a human (when the dying Changeling in "The Begotten" linked with solid Odo) there's no reason to rule out the possibility that the infiltrators can't slough off a small amount of cells that retain their solid form and smell convincingly like the original. In principle it's no different than when The Great Link turned Odo into a solid. If The Link can cast off solid organic matter the size of a human, a Changeling should be able to do that with skin cells.
    • What makes you so sure Changelings have no sense of smell? Sure, that's what Odo says to trick the assassin in Improbable Cause, but since he was lying about wanting to buy some perfume who's to say he wasn't lying about having a sense of smell? The whole thing was probably just a Batman Gambit to get the guy to talk.
    • In "If Wishes Were Horses", Quark jokingly tells Odo to try smelling opportunity in the air. Odo replies that he has no sense of smell.
    • See above. That's Odo saying he has no sense of smell. It's possible he doesn't have one because he's not a good enough Changeling to shape shift himself the necessary glands, nerves, and receptors. Other Changelings can obviously exactly duplicate humans, including all their bones and organs, so it's not exactly a stretch to figure they give themselves a sense of smell (and can imitate scents) in the process.
    • Just for the sake of argument, he could be responding to Quark's metaphor with one of his own. If Quark had instead said to listen for opportunity knocking, he could have responded that he was hard of hearing, or said he needed glasses if Quark had said to look for opportunity on the horizon. I'm willing to accept that he genuinely doesn't have a sense of smell, but it's interesting that the two times it's come up, it's been ambiguous enough to allow debate.

Can Changelings Always Sense Each Other?

• In "The Search", Odo is instinctively drawn to the Omarion Nebula, where he discovers the Great Link. The Female Changeling explains that the pull to other Changelings was encoded in him. This encoding is also exhibited by Laas, who instinctively locates Odo in "Chimera". However, in "Heart of Stone", the Female Changeling disguises herself as Kira and tricks Odo into believing she's Kira for several hours. In other episodes, Odo is in close proximity to Changeling infiltrators, but he doesn't sense their presence. Why couldn't Odo sense that a Changeling was present in all those instances?
  • That's a great point, Changelings do seem to have some innate ability to recognize each other. Another example was in Homefront where Odo identifies a Changeling infiltrator that was impersonating Admiral Layton after only a brief conversation—though I think this was implied to be because of Odo's skill as an investigator. In The Adversary, however, he has no idea who the infiltrator is, so maybe a talented and experienced Changeling is able to hide their nature from a less skilled one.
  • A good point, indeed (it takes a while for Odo to recognize the Martok changeling, too). I wonder, considering that Changelings, though highly used to needing to fool solids, seem not to be used to needing to fool each other, how do they hone these skills?
    • Odo was human when he figured out Martok was a Founder. That was just his keen investigative skills at work. Gowron even complimented him for it.
  • It could also be that their ability to "sense" each other, like the nebula homing signal, is limited to the Hundred. The majority of Changelings wouldn't need a Spider-Sense because they're spending almost all of their time in the Link (and it seems like when they're out doing Dominion dirty work, they tend to be spread out if not completely solo, so don't need a proximity sense—they'd just use normal methods of communication) and the Hundred are supposed to come to them. If two members of the Hundred run into each other, though, it would probably be to their benefit to team up, and they might not recognize each other as like beings otherwise.
  • Odo wasn't sensing other Changelings when he had the "feeling" about the nebula. It was just a vague feeling that he had been there before. Remember, Odo was BORN on that planet. It's like if you go back to a place you lived when you were very young but had consciously forgotten about, but you get a "this place seems familiar" feeling. That's all it was for Odo.
    • Furthermore, Odo didn't feel drawn toward the Omarion Nebula every time he was in the Gamma Quadrant, just during "The Search, Part I." This suggests that the Founders deliberately arranged for him to be drawn home at this time (akin to what they would later do in "Broken Link," if less severely), rather than something innate to his nature.

Odo can do everything but faces

• So if Odo can perfectly imitate a rat, a bird, a chair, a drinking glass, a Bajoran uniform, a working Bajoran comm badge, presumably a working universal translator within his ear, and just about anything else, why are faces so difficult? Ears and noses should not be any harder than fur, paws, feathers, exact details of a rock, that comm badge, etc. He does hair perfectly, we've seen it messy and in strands before, so was the deal with faces just an attempt at making him seem like a stranger, or to make him more visible as "not human/Bajoran/whatever"?
  • Some of that is covered in one very useful line from Homefront: "I'm not sure the gulls would agree." Odo can't imitate fur, paws, feathers, etc. as well as he seems to. It's just that humans (and other humanoid aliens, for their species respectively) are specially attuned to recognizing faces, and thus can recognize any imperfections in the attempt to do so far more easily than for any other object or living thing. At least that's the premise we're asked to accept. (And yes, it means that humans can notice imperfections in imitating Bajorans more than animal species from their own world; it's all part of having humanoid aliens.) I'm not sure this explains the comm badge and the translator, but it's possible that those things are done differently than just replicating the technology; perhaps changelings are inherently able to make their bodies perform such functions in some other way.
  • I've always had a WMG on this that I like: It's an in-built restriction. We know that they have engineered the drive to return home into Odo so I don't find it unlikely to think that things like his regeneration cycle (which Word of God states is unique to him) and the inability to mimic faces are all part of the same thing. My guess is that it requires some form of training in the Great Link to reverse. It would also help prevent him from getting too close to the solids if he can't mimic them properly; the Federation and Bajorans don't care but imagine if he originally landed in the Klingon Empire for example. Incidentally the real world explanation is the same reason Troi isn't a full telepath: to help prevent his powers from reaching Game-Breaker status.
  • Also, real life data indicates that faces are, indeed, hard. There is a whole part of our brain dedicated to recognizing faces, and if this part is damaged, patients have to learn other tricks to tell other people apart from each other. And there are a lot of neurotypical people who have difficulty remembering faces. So imagine trying to create a detailed, unique humanoid face and maintain it constantly, while also maintaining the rest of your shape and walking around talking and checking on Quark - it would be very difficult.
  • On the comm badge, I think we've seen a couple of times (possibly in "Invasive Procedures") people confiscate Odo's comm badge by taking it off his uniform like often happens to the Starfleet people. Yet, we never see it disintegrate into a puddle a few seconds later, so it must be a real comm badge... which raises another Headscratcher... where does it go when Odo morphs into something else? Does he drop it somewhere? If so, does he have to imitate one when he returns to humanoid form? Does it take it within himself, but that would make imitating something like a glass difficult. I don't know, maybe it goes to the same hammerspace he must leave some of his liquid in when he becomes something tiny like a bird and he retrieves it later.
  • Odo's always been a suspicious sort, and expects others to have hidden motives; it's part of why he's a good cop. It's possible that, early on, he was hesitant to try to copy human faces correctly, just in case it led to the humanoids around him growing afraid of his capacity to duplicate people. By the time he'd become close enough to his co-workers to potentially try out that capability, without fear of alienating them, everyone had gotten used to the not-very-good face he'd improvised being "Odo's face", so he kept it. Ultimately, when the Founders' nature became known, Odo was stuck: he didn't dare try to mimic faces accurately, because if he did so, it'd draw even more suspicion upon him than he'd already incurred from Dominion-haters, just for being a member of the same species.
  • Another possibility is Odo keeps his face an imperfect and vague form as a reminder to himself (he's not Bajoran, nor Human, nor any other species), or a practical tool for his job (being basically indistinct allows one to be amiable with many races, and allow him to let THEM assume his species to his favor)

Odo can't come back?

• In the series finale, Odo makes it quite clear to Kira that once he joins the Great Link he won't be coming back. However, it's never made clear why exactly this is the case. Odo's stated goals in joining the Link are: 1) to cure the other Changelings from the virus, and 2) to teach them what he has learned about solids, so they would cease trying to rule over non-Changelings. The first goal is reached almost instantaneously: as soon as Odo enters Link, it starts to heal. The second goal probably takes more time, but it shouldn't take Odo decades... We've seen that the exchange of ideas via the link is very fast; for example, in the finale the female Founder is convinced to surrender almost immediately after the Odo links with her. So, after he's finished with his tasks, there shouldn't be any reason why Odo can't return to Kira – or at least visit him regularly, if he doesn't want to permanently leave the Link again. (Kira could easily visit Odo on the Founder planet too, but that option is never mentioned either.) This is especially baffling since only a few episodes earlier, in Chimera, Odo didn't join Laas because his love for Kira was more important than linking with other Changelings.
  • Odo doesn't ever actually say that he won't come back. He is basically telling Kira that he might not be back for a long time (possibly longer than her lifetime), so he wants to say goodbye now just in case (after all, something could happen to her while he's away, etc). He agreed to return to the Link to cure his people and end the war, and he wants to teach them now to trust "solids", and he recognizes that that is more important than his personal life.
  • It's consistent with the logic with Kai Opaka in "Battle Lines": once you're in the Gamma Quadrant, you're there for good!
  • It's not consistent at all; Kai Opaka was forced to stay on the planet she was on because the nanotech that revived her kept her tied there. If she'd left the planet, she would've died, which certainly isn't the case with Odo. Once he's done teaching the other Changelings about solids, there's no reason why couldn't leave the planet and visit Kira.
    • No need to be so literal. It's a reference to a storytelling device (and note that Opaka is treated as if she is flat out inaccessible forever, when in fact Bajor could hypothetically just radio her every time spiritual advice is needed).

Typhoid Odo

• There's a certain amount that's never made sense to me about the disease Section 31 engineered. Contrary to his original assumption, Bashir determines that Odo was the first changeling infected with it, during the "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" two-parter. It must have remained within him even during his tenure without his powers; fair enough, the disease needs to survive in a lot of states of matter anyway. But why does he end up showing symptoms at all? Shouldn't he be a Typhoid Mary-style asymptomatic carrier? As soon as he shows symptoms, that eliminates the likelihood of him spreading it. Or was Section 31 just absurdly lucky that it took him so long to show symptoms, doubtless slowed down by factors they couldn't have anticipated (notably, his powers being removed?)?
  • I always figured that he infected the Great Link when they turned him human, which actually ended up purging him of the disease, and he didn't contract it again until the early season six arc when he linked with the female Changeling again. Following that logic, maybe they did infect him with some Typhoid-Mary version of the disease that only activated after being spread once, but after his human stint and re-infection from the female Changeling he would end up with the activated version of the disease.
    • Nice though, but we know that scenario can't be accurate because of this exchange in "When It Rains . . ."
    BASHIR: Hang on, hang on, I'm just trying to figure out when Odo became infected. I analyzed the sample he left and mapped out the life cycle of the virus. I'm programming the computer to calculate just how long it took for the virus to achieve its present level of concentration.
    O'BRIEN: That makes sense. According to that, he was infected over two years ago?
    BASHIR: More than that. I just don't understand. I assumed he became infected when he Linked with the female shape-shifter.
    O'BRIEN: But if it happened that long ago, how come he hasn't shown any symptoms before?
    BASHIR: Good question. Got it. Stardate four nine four one nine.
    O'BRIEN: Almost three years ago.
    BASHIR: Wait a minute. Four nine four one nine. That's the day that Odo was at Starfleet Medical.
    • This dialogue (key dialogue, as it proves he was infected by Section 31 deliberately) makes no sense whatsoever if Odo was infected, de-infected and re-infected.
• PS: I move that the disease be formally renamed "odosclerosis."
  • Well, we find out later that when the baby Changeling merges back with Odo, it's essentially able to just "reactivate" him as a Changeling himself, meaning that essentially he never stopped being one. More likely the Founders just forced him into that one form and then locked him that way without causing any actual change to the nature of his cells, which means that even if he'd stayed as physiologically a human the disease probably would have eventually started affecting him.
    • I think that's the only scenario that makes sense with the facts we're given.
  • There's another problem, though, with the idea that Odo was infected the whole time: the alternate timeline in "Children of Time", in which Odo has lived 200 years with no signs of the virus. Something that happened after that episode had to have played a role in Odo developing the virus, or else it doesn't make sense that he never did in the alternate timeline.
    • The planet in that episode had an abnormal atmosphere which affected present-Odo, forcing him to remain inanimate liquid for the entire episode. While Odo did eventually adapt, the atmosphere might have also affected the virus, keeping it from progressing.
  • Factoring in the aforementioned alternate timeline, it seems like there's two possibilities:
    • One would be that Odo had the virus but it was made dormant by his being made a "solid", and linking with another infected Changeling caused it to become active. So he was technically infected but he never would have developed symptoms if not for his linking with the female Founder.
    • The other is that Bashir's not quite right about how the virus transmission works. Bashir is sort of assuming that concentrations would develop the same way they would in humanoids (a single point of infection incubating and spreading), but since linking involves such deep intermingling, it may be that the new victim gets the virus at the same concentration that the infected carrier had it at, rather than getting it at a preset level and it having to replicate. If Odo gave it to the Founders at the concentration he had at the time, and then the female Founder gave it back to him at the concentration she had at the time, the concentration and progression would be functionally the same as if it had been developing in him from the moment he was infected. Bashir might just have misread that as "he's been infected since the day of his visit to Starfleet Medical".
    • It could be that like some earth viruses, the plague virus is species specific. This is similar to how some viruses will affect animals, but not people. If they turned him purely biologically human when they punished him, the virus may not have been able to produce symptoms due to his human physiology while still lurking in his equivalent of DNA. When Odo merged and reactivated his shapeshifting, the virus reactivated and started killing him again. Alternately, Section 31 didn't want to kill Odo, just the rest of the changelings. The original virus may have been tailor made to exclude Odo's genetics from infection (making him truly a Typhoid Mary). After he merged with the other changeling and regained his shapeshifter abilities, his DNA was mixed with the other changeling and the virus was able to activate.

No food

How do they sustain themselves without consuming anything? The best we get is "regenerating" which at best is described as reverting to their basic liquid state but nothing else. We assume they can grow over time (though they never specify how... their default size isn't very big, one would assume most forms they take are hollow) and Odo has to supply samples of himself for testing, which we assume grows back (though that gets into the issue of where they keep their brains, if they can cut parts of themselves off without ill effects). Their biology seems to have a few similarities to the symbiotes from Marvel Comics, but those entities do consume food.

• They absorb stuff from the air?

Odo's career choice

• Why is Odo merely the security chief on DS9? With his shapeshifting abilities, he could be an incredibly effective spy. In fact, we see how much havoc the Founders were able to wreak on the Federation. Odo could easily have infiltrated the Cardassians, Romulans, even the Dominion on behalf of the Federation.
  • There's several potential reasons:
    • Simplest reason: He doesn't want to. He wants Order, which a chief of security can see to by arresting or stopping criminals, but a spy can't in that way
    • He wouldn't be too terribly useful as one; he can't get humanoids right, so he'd be relegated to eavesdropping in animal or inanimate form. And he only has 16 hours before he has to find a hiding place so he can become goo.
    • And he has no reason to spy for the Federation; he's mostly aligned to Deep Space 9, specifically, with maybe a secondary alignment with Bajor, and only really becomes involved in stuff outside the space station after the Dominion War starts. He might be able to spy on the Dominion, but there's at least a chance that Jem'Hadar, maybe even Vorta, can sense Changelings; the kid Jem'Hadar immediately knew Odo was one, as did Weyoun. While Weyoun had seen a Founder before, they don't really have much reason to take a shape similar to Odo when talking to the Vorta, nor is there reason to believe that there's no other species looking like Odo does.