Why did the Changelings look like Odo?

[Deckerd]

Trouble is, the people who were watching the show weren't idiots. My own take was that it was pure intellectual laziness.

[DS9forever]

Melakon wrote:

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Also, Salome Jens' earlier appearance as the ancient humanoid in TNG's "The Chase" sort of looks like a precursor to the Odo makeup, so there might be a workable explanation there.

"The Chase" aired several months after "Emissary".

[Melakon]

^ I know that, but it could have been part of an early design concept for Odo. I've not seen any of Westmore's sketches for the character.

[Hando]

I would say that the Changelings had to have an official appearance.
How else would their servants recognize them...

What would a Vorta do when a Changeling with human appearance came to him/her and gave him/her an order? Ask the Changling to perform a miracle?

[C.E. Evans]

I've been of the opinion that it takes energy to maintain a highly detailed humanoid form (especially with the face), and the slightly less detailed form that Odo adopted is just easier to maintain.

[_C_]

Don't forget that Odo got better at shapeshifting, or would have, ie in "Children of Time."

Odo just didn't quite manage to get his face right. I think the Founders went with Odo's appearance so other races could identify them in their "default" form when they weren't puddles of goo.

[HaventGotALife]

Captain Nebula wrote:

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Odo modeled his hair like Dr. Mora Pol, the Bajoran Scientist that worked with him when he was first found. Why did all of the other Changelings have hair just like Odo then?

There natural form is as a liquid. They aren't humanoid at all. Odo wasn't a good shape-shifter, remember. He did his best to imitate a form, but when they take the shape of a humanoid, perhaps they either A) wanted the Alpha Quadrant to know they were changelings or B) this is how their natural faces look, smushed and ill-defined features. Like a baby can babble, but can't talk in sentences. It's just the least of a form they can take.

[-Brett-]

Deckerd wrote:

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Trouble is, the people who were watching the show weren't idiots.

An interesting theory.

This is the same fanbase that's continually perplexed at the Riker/O'Brian scene in "Defiant", so I'm a bit skeptical.

[Boomer359]

I don't think the Founders really had a default humanoid shape - or, at least, they didn't until they came across Odo.

If Odo's appearance really was typical of the Founders, it seems like the Vorta (Erris, Emmis, maybe?) from the Season 2 finale should have recognized him as one of her gods. Instead, she barely acknowledges him when he steps up to arrest her before she escapes.

Since the Founders make their first appearance in the next episode looking like Odo, I always assumed that they were able to somehow determine that Odo was one of them from the Vorta's report and thereafter mimicked his appearance to make it clear to him and everyone else that they were the same species.

[Pavonis]

Boomer359 wrote:

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...
If Odo's appearance really was typical of the Founders, it seems like the Vorta (Erris, Emmis, maybe?) from the Season 2 finale should have recognized him as one of her gods. Instead, she barely acknowledges him when he steps up to arrest her before she escapes.

Eris was trying to be undercover. Though her cover was blown, she was hardly around long enough to give away anything she knew about the Founders and the Dominion. Not to mention that it is unlikely that every Vorta interacts directly with the Founders. It's entirely possible she had never seen a Founder herself, and wouldn't be able to peg Odo as one.

[Marcus Porcius Cato]

A consideration for Odo?

[HaventGotALife]

Boomer359 wrote:

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I don't think the Founders really had a default humanoid shape - or, at least, they didn't until they came across Odo.

If Odo's appearance really was typical of the Founders, it seems like the Vorta (Erris, Emmis, maybe?) from the Season 2 finale should have recognized him as one of her gods. Instead, she barely acknowledges him when he steps up to arrest her before she escapes.

Since the Founders make their first appearance in the next episode looking like Odo, I always assumed that they were able to somehow determine that Odo was one of them from the Vorta's report and thereafter mimicked his appearance to make it clear to him and everyone else that they were the same species.

There's not much continuity between The Jem'Hadar and every other episode with the Dominion. Take, for instance, the way the Jem'Hadar act. They are menacing bad guys, arrogant in the 2nd season finale, in the rest of the series they can take the dialogue and they are just confident in themselves and the Dominion. The Vorta can summon an energy bubble from her chest and knock Sisko to the ground? I believe the bible on the Dominion was written between the 2nd and 3rd seasons by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. At least, that's what I think remember from the DVD commentaries.

[HaventGotALife]

Marcus Porcius Cato wrote:

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A consideration for Odo?

And the out-of-universe explanation is that we can recognize Changelings on site. If they didn't do it, they would have to tell us each time we ran into a Changeling. This was just easier.