Honestly, I'm pretty sure I picked the term up always seeing it used around here so often it just eventually became what they were called to me.
What are your opinions regarding Star Trek that are, shall we say, unorthodox?
It's not "canon" (and here's my unorthodox opinion: [Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive]"I don't care!"[/TLJiTF]) but the novelization for "Emissary" puts Odo's discovery (and thus, his first memories) at 2319, making him 24 years older than Nerys.
He was also technically born "centuries ago" when the Link plooped him and Laas and their siblings that the show didn't care about out into space.
And as you stated, the novelization is not canon. Going by what has been said or shown screen, Odo is younger than Kira.
I would absolutely agree about it being a series of attempts to make them more human and relatable, but there's a but, a however.
There's been a body-horror element to the Borg all along. Also, the baseline established for them was like a zombie horde speaking in unison. In the audience's initial encounters, including with Locutus, the Borg seemed to have no emotional range at all.
For me, making members of the collective more individual, "more human", less like zombies, and most importantly able to feel only amplified the body-horror elements. It's probably one reason why I'm placing the Jurati Borg pretty far out and much weirder than the original Borg. A secondary reason would be that a zombie/human hybrid is something that I'd classify as more peculiar than just a zombie, which of course is more peculiar than just a plain ol' vanilla human. These are two of the reasons that I can articulate, the biggies, for why I see an overall increase in weirdness.
(But "of course", there's a third. For me, the idea of Unimatrix Zero came out of nowhere. It's not inconsistent, but unless I missed something it's not implied, not required by anything that came before either. I'm not saying the idea is bad, but as an independent hypothesis, sorta by definition its introduction increased the level of the fantastic and the peculiar.)
But your assessment makes sense, and I'm not going to argue against it.
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If we ignore the canon part where he got gooshed out centuries ago anyway.
I don't remember the day I was born, but I don't get to lop off those early years when I tell people my age.
Odo wasn't even aware of what he was until he was discovered in the Denorios Belt and later, through Dr. Mora, discovered he even could change shape or communicate.
Look at his time in space floating in space as the equivalent to us still being in the womb. We never count those 9 months as part of our age because we are still developing to be born. Odo's time in the lab can be considered his early childhood (learning to shapeshift being the equivalent of learning to crawl, walk, etc.).
Why would I do that when he comes from a womb planet that he was birthed from?
Because we don't know in what state he was in when was floating in space. (In stasis in a jar or pod, or just free floating as goo. If in stasis, he wouldn't age because it's stasis.)
All we do know is that he was found in the Belt and was sent to Mora to study. They didn't even know he was alive, which is why his name translated on Cardassian means 'nothing'. (Well, he shortened his name from 'Odo ital' which meant "nothing'.)
Odo didn't seem to remember being out in space for very long. He also didn't know he could shapeshift.
The asymmetry in the TNG uniforms also bothered me.
The novelization is contradictory when it comes to Odo's discovery.
When Sisko first meets Odo, Odo says he was found fifty years ago.
A few chapters later when Sisko and Dax head to the Belt to examine the gravity fluctuations, Odo says that's where he was found thirty years ago.
Also, in the novel of Emissary, Quark is Nog's father, not Rom as he hadn't been created yet.
The asymmetry in the TNG uniforms was the arrowhead motif, aka Starfleet delta, writ large in black on the color, you know.
Was it the existence of asymmetry or the way it was executed?
With the badge or combadge, there's unavoidably some asymmetry, in the choice of which breast to place it on (left). The TNG uniform colors seem intended to underscore that fundamental asymmetry in a way that the TOS uniform color scheme did not.
Kirk's e.g. season two wraparound was asymmetric in more ways than just the badge placement, but I always loved that one. It was my favorite of his green shirts.
The DISCO collar and hem asymmetries, including if not especially those introduced into the versions of their TOS uniforms, yuck! Poorly conceived, I thought. No manner of execution could possibly have saved it.
The arrowhead motif in the TNG uniforms never bothered me so much.
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* - By the way, I much prefer arrowhead to delta. It's not really a delta. A capital delta is triangular, aka trilateral. This shape has four vertices. It you draw it with straight lines, it's a quadrilateral, not a triangle.
The way it was executed.
I was thinking about ranking all the uniform variations but realized there's a lot of variations over the years. I guess I can just do a top 8:
First Contact Grays
Enterprise
Discovery (Seasons 4-5)
Strange New Worlds
Lower Decks
Generations/DS9 Seasons 1 to Halfway into Season 5/Voyager
Maroons
Kelvin Universe
My least favorite 2:
Discovery Seasons 1-2 (I wish the Shoes didn't look like Sneakers, then it wouldn't be in my bottom 2)
TNG Seasons 1-2
First Contact Grays
Enterprise
Discovery (Seasons 4-5)
Strange New Worlds
Lower Decks
Generations/DS9 Seasons 1 to Halfway into Season 5/Voyager
Maroons
Kelvin Universe
My least favorite 2:
Discovery Seasons 1-2 (I wish the Shoes didn't look like Sneakers, then it wouldn't be in my bottom 2)
TNG Seasons 1-2
The most practical: ENT and the 2164 Franklin unforms.
The least practical: The Monster Maroons.
But dammit, do I love the Monster Maroons. Even after losing the undershirts and belt there was still something good and military about the jacket.
The least practical: The Monster Maroons.
But dammit, do I love the Monster Maroons. Even after losing the undershirts and belt there was still something good and military about the jacket.
My first exposure to the original cast was through the movies, so I have a soft spot for the Maroons mainly for nostalgic reasons.
I could tolerate them with the belt and undershirt, they looked pretty bad when they took those elements away.
The evolution of the Monster Maroon jackets and insignia/commbadges over 71 years.
Without the belts and undershirts they were definitely way, way weaker and felt off. The TNG Era costuming budget wasn't always the franchise's best friend.
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