Why would the Founders give the Vorta poor sight, but good hearing when they should have both if they are diplomats and scientists for the Dominion? 
The Vorta have good hearing, but poor sight?
- Thread starter TheVortaKeevan
- Start date
I have long since complained with the Founders. And I wanted my eyes to be lasered. What can I say, I was rebuffed. Even Kilana 3 has no better eyes than me.
I guess the Vorta should always remember their place within the Dominion hierarchy.
They should listen closely. Good eye-sight and stealth was Jem'Hadar business.
The poor eye-sight might be a remnant from their past as ape-like creatures and the Founders didn't see fit to change that.
I guess the Vorta should always remember their place within the Dominion hierarchy.
They should listen closely. Good eye-sight and stealth was Jem'Hadar business.
The poor eye-sight might be a remnant from their past as ape-like creatures and the Founders didn't see fit to change that.
I don't see why the Vorta would need particularly good eyesight to perform the kind of diplomacy the founders want. It's not a spectacularly subtle business anyway. Entice, chide, threaten, attack. Repeat as needed.
I always figured that the founders just didn't bother with much change in the Vorta's original genetic makeup as we know they didn't make them from scratch. It was probably something to do with their original natural environment leading to hearing being good, but not their sight.
I think Weyoun's comments in the episode this was mentioned is meant to reinforce the Vorta's belief in them as gods (with a possibility that Weyoun was starting to question it a little), and the viewer was meant to see it as a clue to the fact that the Founders' genetic engineering capabilities were not as advanced as we might have previously thought.
I also agree with this post.
I think Weyoun's comments in the episode this was mentioned is meant to reinforce the Vorta's belief in them as gods (with a possibility that Weyoun was starting to question it a little), and the viewer was meant to see it as a clue to the fact that the Founders' genetic engineering capabilities were not as advanced as we might have previously thought.
I also agree with this post.
Good hearing so as to listen better to Founder commands.
Poor vision so as to get less opportunity to observe "the man (Founder) behind the curtain".
Poor vision so as to get less opportunity to observe "the man (Founder) behind the curtain".
I wonder about the visual 'tells' that are very useful to pick up on during negotiations. If an ambassador does a particular eye twitch when he is trying to lie, it would be good to be able to see across the room- not every nuance is audible.
But they gave you great hair!
Indeed, my hair is nicer than Eris'.
On the other hand, she is equipped with telekinesis.....
Different species on Earth naturally have different senses. Lots of animals have keener hearing but poorer eyesight than humans. For instance, while cats have superlative night vision, their eyesight in bright light is worse than a human's, and they have more limited color vision. They're also less able to change the focus of their eyes, and so have worse close-up and distance vision than we do. But their hearing is amazing compared to ours.
So it's really kind of ethnocentric to say that Vorta vision is "poor" just because they aren't as strongly vision-oriented as humans are. They just have different sensory priorities. Heck, a cat or dog would consider a human's sense of smell to be severely handicapped. That's their main way of perceiving the world, but for us it's vision.
Now, the problem with this is that the Vorta supposedly descend from tree-dwelling primates, as humans do. Which means they should emphasize vision as much as we do. Primates evolved to prioritize eyesight because of their tree-dwelling lifestyle -- they needed good vision and depth perception to leap between branches, and to see through the mess of branches in the trees, and they didn't need a strong sense of smell because that's the sort of sense that works best close to the ground (since scent molecules are subject to gravity). Then again, maybe what the Vorta believe about their ancestry is wrong.
So it's really kind of ethnocentric to say that Vorta vision is "poor" just because they aren't as strongly vision-oriented as humans are. They just have different sensory priorities. Heck, a cat or dog would consider a human's sense of smell to be severely handicapped. That's their main way of perceiving the world, but for us it's vision.
Now, the problem with this is that the Vorta supposedly descend from tree-dwelling primates, as humans do. Which means they should emphasize vision as much as we do. Primates evolved to prioritize eyesight because of their tree-dwelling lifestyle -- they needed good vision and depth perception to leap between branches, and to see through the mess of branches in the trees, and they didn't need a strong sense of smell because that's the sort of sense that works best close to the ground (since scent molecules are subject to gravity). Then again, maybe what the Vorta believe about their ancestry is wrong.
I question how much the vorta are really supposed to catch that kind of nuance, anyway. They're typically shown as mouthpieces. They follow protocol, do what the founders say, etc. They don't make strategy or policy, and they don't typically use diplomatic events as an opportunity for intelligence gathering (the founders are the perfect spies, anyway).
Not to mention, tells like that could vary wildly among different species and many could easily be imagined that require better hearing than sight. The Vorta could actually be in a better position to perceive them than Humans.
We don't even know for sure if she was. Since the whole situation was a deception for Starfleet's benefit, her telekinesis could've been faked.
So they can't see what the Founders really are.
Wouldn't the shapeshifting kinda take care of that?
That is, assuming that that background story isn't one big lie, too.
Also, for all we know, Weyoun had excellent eyesight and wanted to make good use of it by having the Cardassians believe he was on par with with voles there.
I mean, what possible reason would the various Weyouns have for speaking the truth in either case? What advantage is there to telling the truth, when most of the stuff the Vorta talk about is not readily verifiable or debunkable by their opponents anyway? It's not as if they really are in a business of building trust...
Timo Saloniemi
Vorta are loyal, they are diplomats and scientists, they supervise the Jem’Hadar and relay the Founders’ policy to the troops and the alien races in the Dominion. They are very useful for the Dominion. And they are funny and intelligent and have good looks. Really cute and eye-catching and as honest as any other diplomat or negotiator.
They were genetically re-sequenced, they were nothing like the original ape-like creatures who helped the persecuted changeling. The Founders boosted only these traits in the original genome that they saw as priority, neglecting sense of eyesight or artistic abilities as irrelevant to the Vorta’s functionality. Probably their eyesight was not perfect even before. They lived in forests, they weren’t predators, they ate only berries and nuts. They did not need very sharp eyesight in the twilight of the forest, they did not hunt, they mainly hid and avoided predators.
Still, I firmly believe that Vorta should file a complaint with the CEOs of the Rondac III clone facility and make them address this flaw in the genetic matrix of the Vorta. What is the point of having a god near at hand if you can’t scrounge off some tangible perks?
They were genetically re-sequenced, they were nothing like the original ape-like creatures who helped the persecuted changeling. The Founders boosted only these traits in the original genome that they saw as priority, neglecting sense of eyesight or artistic abilities as irrelevant to the Vorta’s functionality. Probably their eyesight was not perfect even before. They lived in forests, they weren’t predators, they ate only berries and nuts. They did not need very sharp eyesight in the twilight of the forest, they did not hunt, they mainly hid and avoided predators.
Still, I firmly believe that Vorta should file a complaint with the CEOs of the Rondac III clone facility and make them address this flaw in the genetic matrix of the Vorta. What is the point of having a god near at hand if you can’t scrounge off some tangible perks?
A sense of aesthetics and music would be nice.
Weyoun singing opera would be odd, though.
I guess if they could produce offspring their children would look like their parents before they were genetically engineered? Maybe the Founders make test tube babies after cloning the same Vorta get exhausted? I'm guessing there is another batch of Weyouns back home in the Gamma Quadrant. If Weyoun was such a good clone there must be hundreds of his clones at the cloning facility.
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