Bashir Changeling Earlier Than "RAPTURE"?

[Farscape One]

In another thread about 24th century justice, I posted that Garak had to be released early from a 6 month confinement after the events of "BROKEN LINK"... "THINGS PAST", his next appearance, would seem to indicate only about 3 months went by, possibly less.

Upon further thinking, what could make his sentence shortened? His extreme claustrophobia would be a logical reason, which if that were the case, he would likely need a medical officer to confirm this... like Dr. Bashir.

Bashir in the Dominion prison clearly has no idea about Garak's fear until his panic attack while trying to make that signal.

So it makes me wonder... could Changeling Bashir have been with us for at least two more episodes than we thought?

I suppose there are other reasons why Garak got out of confinement sooner... but it did make wonder.

Thoughts?

 

[Tosk]

Seems like a stretch to me. You've got two big maybes stacked next to each other to reach this conclusion. Maybe Garak got a shortened sentence due to claustrophobia, and maybe if true then Bashir wasn't Bashir in those eps. If his claustrophobia got him out, it's hard to see him managing three months in the slammer. (Besides which, surely "six months in a holding cell" is not literal. No way Starfleet confines people to solitary in one of those little cells for very long.)

I'm biased though, 'cause I tend to believe Bashir was replaced much closer to Purgatory than The Rapture.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Pulled strings by Section 31, who thought having a man like Garak who is willing to go as far as they are to defeat their enemy out of prison is a good thing?

 

[The Wormhole]

In my head canon, Changeling Bashir is first seen in The Ascent.

 

[Terok Nor]

I like to think Changeling Bashir first appears in Rapture due to the fact Real Bashir is wearing the old style uniform in In Purgatory's Shadow. However, it's entirely possible the reason for that is because he was beamed into the Dominion's clutches while he was asleep in bed and likely wasn't wearing a uniform at the time. For all we know the Jem'Hadar just threw any old uniform at him that they had laying around. I'm sure they had plenty of deceased Starfleet prisoners who didn't need their uniforms.

I do find it hard to believe a Changeling spy could perform brain surgery on Sisko in Rapture...

 

[The Wormhole]

For all we know the Jem'Hadar just threw any old uniform at him that they had laying around. I'm sure they had plenty of deceased Starfleet prisoners who didn't need their uniforms.

Why would they give him a uniform as opposed to having him wear whatever he was wearing when he was captured? We saw no indication any of the other prisoners were required change out of whatever they were wearing when they were captured.

 

[Farscape One]

And i always thought of "RAPTURE" as the changeover point, mainly due to the uniform.

I just thought about a couple things, and thought this was another possibility.

About the brain surgery... well, we have no idea how much knowledge Changelings actually have, and how far each Changeling has trained to infiltrate whatever area they do. It might also explain why they are so good at infiltration.

Besides, Bashir Changeling was being Bashir. And for Changelings, to become a thing is to know a thing.

 

[Terok Nor]

Why would they give him a uniform as opposed to having him wear whatever he was wearing when he was captured? We saw no indication any of the other prisoners were required change out of whatever they were wearing when they were captured.

He slept in his uniform if that's the case.

 

[Timo]

...It's not as if we see any of the prisoners naked. But if Bashirs was, when captured (he normally wears silken-looking pajamas in bed), apparently his captors would feel compelled to get him clothing, with a human-sized rather than Cardassian neckway. Recycling from another captive sounds likely, blood stains and all.

OTOH, I doubt Garak ever got imprisoned. That is, the Federation supposedly does not believe in jailing for the purpose of freedom-deprivation torture, and hasn't since the Dr Adams reform of TOS. It would after all be mighty odd for Garak to get the same length of freedom-deprivation torture for attempted genocide that Yates got for smuggling medical materiel...

...But perfectly consistent for both to be locked in a facility "until healed of their criminal illness". Which Garak would no doubt fake far quicker than Yates, although doing it in less than half the time allotted would make the experts unlikely to agree (they had done the allotting, after all).

Starfleet post-Adams of course still believes in punishment, ranging from toilet detail or stripping of rank to life sentences or executions. But neither Garak not Yates were Starfleet. And even Paris and Eddington may have been undergoing therapy rather than torture.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkt]

The penal colony Paris was in at the beginning of Voyager looked pleasant, but it was still a loss of freedom.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

The idea that Bashir was a changeling in Rapture is based on the mistaken notion that militaries enforce hard transitions to new uniforms. Currently the US Navy is undergoing a two year transition to it's new daily work uniform.

 

[Farscape One]

Even following that idea, every Starfleet officer we saw assigned to DS9 in "RAPTURE" wore the new uniform, which was Bashir's posting. It seems to still track that he was a Changeling in that episode.

Other officers in other postings my still be transitioning, which makes sense given the ones we saw in the signing ceremony, but each posting is done, one at a time it seems. DS9 was finished with the transition.

 

[Timo]

The penal colony Paris was in at the beginning of Voyager looked pleasant, but it was still a loss of freedom.

So is hospitalizing, regardless of whether it is for curing criminal insanity or tuberculosis. We can't tell from the scenes alone whether torturing of Paris with freedom deprivation for deterrence purposes was underway or not. Odd just are that it was not, and Janeway's possible kind words did not "shorten a sentence" as much as they "supported a diagnosis of no longer criminal".

Mind you, whatever the penal system of Trek, it seems to work very well. As far as we can tell, there are zero repeat offenses. Yet offenders aren't passivated - they are free to come up with all-new sorts of crime.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

I always thought it was odd that the Founders sent the Bashir changeling on a one-way trip into the Bajoran sun. It seems that they would want to prevent harm to one of their own kind.

Kor

 

[Timo]

That presumes that the idea really was to nova-bomb said sun. In the end, though, the sortie only served as a diversion. So for all we know, the Founder faked the signature of the onboard bomb, in order to lure the hero ship away from the station at the crucial moment and force the station to fire its once more sabotaged phasers which would seal the Dominion victory with an explosion right where the fleets sat, rather than fifteen lightminutes away...

And who says the Founder died? There was plenty of time for him to evacuate before Kira and Dax warped in.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jaime]

I always thought it was odd that the Founders sent the Bashir changeling on a one-way trip into the Bajoran sun. It seems that they would want to prevent harm to one of their own kind.

Kor

It’s possible that was his own plan.

 

[jaime]

He slept in his uniform if that's the case.

Long day in sick bay. Who hasn’t flopped onto bed and gone nanight in uniform at some point.

 

[Sakonna]

I always thought it was odd that the Founders sent the Bashir changeling on a one-way trip into the Bajoran sun. It seems that they would want to prevent harm to one of their own kind.

I might be wrong on this, but I believe the Bashir changeling was the last time they depicted any changeling infiltration on the series? So I can go along with the otherwise-iffy logic of the suicide mission, because it seemed to have consequences. The Founders could justify the sacrifice of one of their own for the reward of an immediate takeover of the Alpha Quadrant (much the way the Female Shapeshifter sacrifices her freedom for the rest of the Link in the finale), but when the Bashir changeling was killed AND the plan failed, they had to seriously reassess and could no longer justify the risks of infiltration.

 

[Jedman67]

I don't think the writers gave much thought to when Bashir was replaced by a changeling until Purgatorys Shadow and thought it would be a great plot point. Memory Alpha is pretty contradicted on this point.

 

[Terok Nor]

I read somewhere they cut out a scene from the episode before In Purgatory's Shadow featuring Bashir as he acted too much like the real deal for the Changeling twist to make sense.