Changelings in Change of Heart

Source?

 

Whoops, misattributed it. Robert Hewitt Wolfe said it:


As Wolfe explains, "The Dominion knew the Federation was out there long before the wormhole was opened, and they had plans to deal with the Federation when the Federation was projected to enter their space in two hundred years, and they were building slowly towards that, that's why they sent out Odo in the first place. But then the wormhole opens up and suddenly the Federation is in their backyard today and it just throws everything into question for both the Federation and the Dominion." (The Birth of the Dominion and Beyond, DS9 Season 3 DVD special features)

 

Ah I have seen that quote.

 

What is your reason for thinking Lleyton was a changeling or that Odo linked with him? I was referring to the O'Brien changeling who taunted Sisko.

I don't remember the exact date but I seem to remember infection date being 49XXX which would put it toward the end of season 4.

 

It's not canonical, but I suspect at least a few changlings were on detached service keeping tabs on the solids in the Gamma Quadrant too, and so escaped the Section 31 plague. And of course there were the others of the hundred.

 

There is one scene which features a changeling impersonating Leyton.

 

I think it was a lot more than 4 or 5. There were 4 on earth, but the defector says that he has the locations, identities, and missions of every founder in the Alpha Quadrant.

 

Leyton himself wasn't a Changeling, but at one point a Changeling briefly impersonated Leyton. Odo sensed "him," demanded to shake hands, briefly linked with him, and the Changeling shifted into a bird and flew away. Whether that was the same Changeling that impersonated O'Brien and spoke to Sisko, I have no idea.

It was on that visit to Earth that Odo was infected, wasn't it? I seem to remember that being established in, er, whatever episode it was they discovered that Odo had the virus. Have I mis-remembered that?

(As for what the stardates indicate, I'll have to take your word for it. I've never paid the slightest attention to them.)

 

Odo's infection was implied to come from his visit to Earth, as per "Exteme Measures". Or at least the heroes' conviction on that was never contradicted.

The stardate for that examination is in the middle of the 49XXX stardate year (aka Season 4, and approx. three years before "Extreme Measures"). That year would be concluded by Odo infecting the Link in "Broken Link". But Odo would then face judgement from the Link and be turned into a solid - effectively curing him of the disease, so that he only gets reinfected when Linking with the Female Founder during the Dominion occupation of DS9. After all, those from the Link get the symptoms much sooner than Odo does, suggesting Odo's disease was put on hold somehow.

(The intensity of shapeshifting activity of a victim may have to do with the rate of progress of the disease, though - and Odo is a young child who supposedly doesn't do much shifting by Founder standards, either quantitatively or qualitatively. So the temporary curing hypothesis may be contested.)

As for "Paradise Lost" and "Change of Heart", it should be natural to assume that anything stated about Founders in Alpha by those enemy operatives is completely false. That is, likely numbers for non-Odo Founders on Earth during the former episode are "one" (the fake O'Brien/Leyton) and "fifty-plus", with "four" virtually ruled out; and there's a good possibility that no Founders at all remain in Alpha during the latter episode.

OTOH, for all we know, there were no founders on Earth during "Paradise Lost": the one imitating Leyton had fled, and the man looking like O'Brien was one of the real Leyton's men spreading disinformation and fear when there was a dearth of true Founder activity that Leyton could exploit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Somewhat related are there any unknown powers in the area the wormhole crosses? Any aliens in between Bajor and the Idran system? Because if there are I find it difficult to believe any dominion long shot force would reach the alpha quadrant.

 

This makes me wonder...what happened to Laas? Odo linked with him before the cure for the disease was found...

 

He died. All these changelings linking together all the time seems disgusting. Odo says linking is like sex. Does this mean that they are in an ocean sized........?

 

Canonically speaking, we have no idea what eventually happened to Laas, although in one of the novels it's said that the Founders cured him when he returned to the Great Link after the war ended.

 

Odo didn't contract the virus, he was intentionally infected when he was at Starfleet medical, then he infected the link in Broken Link.

Odo was not cured in Broken Link and reinfected. The virus was designed to move slowly in Odo them it accelerated because he was changing shape more often.

Per his dream flashback guilt trip, he was never fully a human.

 

well isn't that convenient....He should've gone to jail.

 

^ For what reason? Laas did kill a Klingon, but it was in self-defense. That is not a crime.

 

Yes, he provoked and killed the guy, and did it with a grin on his face. He was never in any personal danger.

 

Looking at what happened in Things Past, it is possible that Odo was still infected. Indeed, having been "made solid" may have manifest the virus at a lower level than would have been normal.