FounderBashir's actions in The Begotten

[erastus25]

Background: At the end of The Begotten Odo's baby changeling dies despite the efforts of Dr. Mora and Bashir. Two episodes later it is established that sometime before The Begotten Bashir has been replaced by a founder.

Question: Did FounderBashir really try to save the baby changeling? Certainly the shapeshifter would have had a much better idea of how to save the baby than Mora, yet we see Mora give a suggestion that faux-Bashir supposedly hadn't thought of yet. That seems fairly improbable. Is it possible that the changeling didn't use evey skill at his disposal to save the baby? If so, would he be guilty of violating the "no changeling (except Odo) has ever harmed another" rule?

 

[Jono]

Only if the Changeling Bashir actually harmed the Founder. It might be that the Changeling realised that the baby changeling was a goner anyway no matter the they tried.

 

[Marie1]

Ah yes! They mention the burn treatment conference that Bashir went to when he was really captured in that episode, don't they? He was gone what? 4 weeks?

I'd say he tried his best to save it, Founders are obsessive like that. If he could have, I'm sure he would have.

 

[PorthosShadow]

I suppose the most reasonable answer is that the writers didn't want to tip their hand as to the fact that Bashire had been replaced by a changling.

The other possibility is that rofeta is right in that the founder figured the baby changeling was already gone but its possible that given just how important his mission was ("By Infernos Light") he wasn't about to do anything that would screw it up even if that meant letting another changeling die.

But erastus may be on to something about their rule about not harming other changelings. I think the founder impersonating Bashire ignored their rule on a "technicallity" as most sencient beings have the tendancy to do when their own goals are threatened. Hell, look how many times the Klingons get arround their own sense of honor do what they want to do. I suppose hypocracy is just a universal trait, solid or not.

 

[Daneel]

Ah yes! They mention the burn treatment conference that Bashir went to when he was really captured in that episode, don't they?

Did they? I don't really recall, but I don't think so.

Personally, I'm not convinced that Bashir had already been replaced by a Changeling by the time of "The Begotten". Yes, it would make sense given how close this episode is to "In Purgatory's Shadow", but I think the Changeling would have been able to save the infant... and would have done so.

This whole mess isn't helped by the fact that the writers, IIRC, basically admitted that they hadn't planned out the "Bashir-is-a-Changeling" situation until they started working on the episode in which it was revealed. So we're stuck with the assumption that Bashir in "The Begotten" might very well have been a Changeling, when that wasn't the original intention at the time at all.

Oy...

 

[Hermiod]

I doubt Change-o-Bashir would have allowed the baby Changeling to die if I could have prevented it. The Founders are very clear on this - the 100 infants they sent out to explore the galaxy are more important to them than the Alpha Quadrant. Change-o-Bashir would not have put the mission first.

 

[SoM]

I suppose the most reasonable answer is that the writers didn't want to tip their hand as to the fact that Bashire [sic] had been replaced by a changling. [sic]

Actually, they didn't know Bashir was a changeling at that point (in the same way they didn't know Bashir was genetically engineered until By Inferno's Light was already in the can).

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I can't imagine that Founder Bashir intentionally let the baby changling die. I think he'd have saved him, if it would have been possible. The Founders were VERY particular that way.

 

[Timo]

But remember that the Founders used their 100 infants as tools in the first place. They were not particularly protective of them or their well-being.

Indeed, the infant in "The Begotten" seems to be a tool of the Founders, too. Quark donates it to our heroes. That's so out of the norm for him that I cannot help but think that Quark was generously paid to do so - by the Founders, who wanted to bring Odo and the infant together.

The infant would have been a test, to see if Odo treated it right. And Bashir the Founder would be the one supervising and administering the test. When Odo passed, Bashir the Founder gave him back his shapeshifting abilities, and quietly terminated the infant that had served its function. Or perhaps Bashir even used the infant for making a shapeshifter out of Odo, killing the little thing in the process.

Indeed, this may have been the main mission of the Founder Bashir: to observe Odo, and to administer the test when the time felt right. There would have been other missions of opportunity, too, such as messing with Sisko's brain and making him publicly denounce the UFP/Bajor alliance; some general spying; and, finally, the grand finale where he either tried to blow up the star or then created the false impression that he was going to blow it up, in order to distract the defenders during the first wave of Jem'Hadar forces through the wormhole.

It does make a lot of sense in hindsight, given some imagination - even when none of it was really the intention of the writers!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[votd]

I always though that the infant permanently linked with Odo; like was said in an earlier episode the great link is one or many depending, so maybe Odo after that point was a merging of the two that his original personality dominated due to the baby being so young.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

What I found somewhat disturbing was that "In Purgatory's Shadow" implied that Julian was abducted before the Starfleet crew changed their uniforms, i.e. the episode "Rapture" - and yet in that very episode we have "Bashir" performing intensive procedures on The Sisko. A missed opportunity for the Dominion, perhaps?

 

[Myasishchev]

What I found somewhat disturbing was that "In Purgatory's Shadow" implied that Julian was abducted before the Starfleet crew changed their uniforms, i.e. the episode "Rapture" - and yet in that very episode we have "Bashir" performing intensive procedures on The Sisko. A missed opportunity for the Dominion, perhaps?

No way, Changeling Bashir induced the visions somehow, and got the Emissary to talk Bajor into not joining the Federation, paving the way for the Dominion non-aggression pact.

One thing to consider with the infant changeling's "death" is the radically different life cycle of the Founders. Individuality for a Founder appears to be ephemeral. Their natural state is the Link, in which the individual Founders are "drops" in an "ocean," and in which generally consciousness and information appears to be shared.

Perhaps destroying an individualized Founder, such as Odo did, is not a crime so much because it destroys an irreplaceable consciousness, but because it forever makes inaccessible an individualized Founder's information and experience to the Link.

In that regard, Changeling Bashir might have been relatively unconcerned with the physical death of the infant Founder, as he knew it would live on by instinctively linking with either himself or Odo, as it reached the limits of its own body. Perhaps he himself preferred that it link with Odo, feeling sorry for the Founder brought low and made a Solid--a form of harm to a fellow Changeling that he might well have regarded worse than death.

 

[Timo]

One may also remember how the concept of these "infants" was introduced in the first place, in "The Search II". The Founder there responded to Odo's query somewhat enigmatically:

Founder: "You were still newly formed when you left us."
Odo: "Newly formed?" You mean I was an infant?"
Founder (after thinking it over for quite a bit of time): "An infant, yes."

The thinking pause is scripted in; clearly, there wasn't supposed to be a 1:1 correspondence between newly formed Founders and the humanoid concept of infants...

I rather like the idea that Founders at an early age aren't really differentiated, but just part of the bulk of the Link, and thus useful as tools. They may act as detached eyes, ears and brains without yet meeting the Founder criteria of being creatures worthy of attention and protection - and they may return to the fold before they form identities of their own, perhaps to be absorbed forever.

Yet Odo and Laas both had time to grow into individuals before meeting other Founders - and still the Founders in "The Search" considered Odo's return premature. So return-and-be-absorbed clearly wasn't the mode of operation intended for The Hundred. But that doesn't mean the "infant" in "The Begotten" wouldn't have been considered an expendable lump of useful biomass.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

Here's another thing that occurrs to me. If we accept identity as fluid (ha ha) in the Great Link, is what Section 31 did still genocide as we normally define the term?

If it is indeed some kind of single consciousness out of many, then is the Link not responsible for the Link's actions and decisions? Is the Link as a gestalt not then a valid military target?

Another question that's been bugging me is how Founders are able to impersonate people. I don't mean physically, that's the easy part. How did they obtain Bashir's intimate knowledge of the people he's been working with for five years? Perhaps it was more than mere interrogation. If the Founders can replicate anything (and they can do warp coils just fine it seems), can they not replicate the very mind of a man?

 

[Timo]

Genocide should work as a definition even if the genus consists of just one individual, I'd think. (Although this could be seen as a mitigating factor if said genus reproduces sexually and thus is going to be extinct after this generation anyway. )

If it is indeed some kind of single consciousness out of many, then is the Link not responsible for the Link's actions and decisions? Is the Link as a gestalt not then a valid military target?

Quite possibly. Then again, it's currently good manners not to try and assassinate the real culprits even in times of war, but to only kill, hurt and maim their underlings and subjects of varying degrees of guilt. The explicit aim of coalition forces to assassinate Saddam in the two recent wars with him was somewhat out of line with established US doctrine and commitments in that respect.

OTOH, guilt of war could easily be extended to any number of underlings, subjects and bystanders, as was done in WWII where civilian populations were explicitly considered valid targets by the various parties - both in terms of "collective guilt" and in the concrete sense of each of them contributing to the war effort, however indirectly.

How did they obtain Bashir's intimate knowledge of the people he's been working with for five years?

A good question - but then again, in "Heart of Stone" Odo was in no way amazed that the Founder imitating Kira had in-depth information on DS9 events and happenstances. As in really in-depth, phrases spoken, holodeck mishaps suffered, the works.

We should assume that there were Founder agents on the station constantly at least from the second season on, doing extensive groundwork. Some probably remained till the very last, that is, the evacuation at the end of "Sacrifice of Angels". Whether they were shapeshifters or other operatives is unknown, but I'd be perfectly ready to believe in a Founder or five being present at all times.

OTOH, Dr. Bashir might have been an ideal choice for abduction, as he was known to be somewhat detached from the community by his irritating mannerisms and sheer snobistry (both probably conscious choices, to better hide the dirty genetic engineering secret he harbored). Few people on the station probably had an inkling of what he did even when he was himself, professionally or privately speaking. And O'Brien had a good radar for such things in other episodes, but Bashir might have been too fluid a character for even the Chief to fully grasp.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timofnine]

Another question that's been bugging me is how Founders are able to impersonate people. I don't mean physically, that's the easy part. How did they obtain Bashir's intimate knowledge of the people he's been working with for five years? Perhaps it was more than mere interrogation. If the Founders can replicate anything (and they can do warp coils just fine it seems), can they not replicate the very mind of a man?

To know a thing, is to become a thing.

 

[Jono]

Another question that's been bugging me is how Founders are able to impersonate people. I don't mean physically, that's the easy part. How did they obtain Bashir's intimate knowledge of the people he's been working with for five years? Perhaps it was more than mere interrogation. If the Founders can replicate anything (and they can do warp coils just fine it seems), can they not replicate the very mind of a man?

They could stalk them for some time before the swap as either an actual person or maybe even something like a button on their clothing. That plus the fact Starfleet officers keep logs about everything they do would help.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

Indeed, the infant in "The Begotten" seems to be a tool of the Founders, too. Quark donates it to our heroes. That's so out of the norm for him that I cannot help but think that Quark was generously paid to do so - by the Founders, who wanted to bring Odo and the infant together.

Either that or Quark really didn't know what to do with a container of blue snot and wanted to get rid of it.

 

[SoM]

Indeed, the infant in "The Begotten" seems to be a tool of the Founders, too. Quark donates it to our heroes. That's so out of the norm for him that I cannot help but think that Quark was generously paid to do so - by the Founders, who wanted to bring Odo and the infant together.

Uhh... he didn't donate anything. Odo paid eight slips of GPL for it (I say "paid", Quark named a price, dropped it slightly when he found out the baby changeling was sick, and jabbed Odo's thumb onto his PADD).

On the rest of your post - at every turn, we're reminded that "no changeling has ever harmed another" (except Odo at the end of S3, for which he's tried and punished in Broken Link), and that the Founders see Odo as more important than the rest of the Alpha Quadrant. Changelings = everything, Solids = something to be managed if they can be, eliminated if they can't.

[And we're told several times that they didn't expect to see ANY of the Hundred for another century or three. Who knows how long before they expected the last of them to dribble in?]

 

[erastus25]

I suppose the most reasonable answer is that the writers didn't want to tip their hand as to the fact that Bashire had been replaced by a changling.

The other possibility is that rofeta is right in that the founder figured the baby changeling was already gone but its possible that given just how important his mission was ("By Infernos Light") he wasn't about to do anything that would screw it up even if that meant letting another changeling die.

But erastus may be on to something about their rule about not harming other changelings. I think the founder impersonating Bashire ignored their rule on a "technicallity" as most sencient beings have the tendancy to do when their own goals are threatened. Hell, look how many times the Klingons get arround their own sense of honor do what they want to do. I suppose hypocracy is just a universal trait, solid or not.

But they make it quite clear that Odo was far more important to them than the war, on multiple occasions no less, so I doubt he would let it die for any mission. As an alternative, maybe the changelings don't see other changelings as sentient until they have reached maturity. That would allow them to send out infants without true concern for their survival, because they don't yet see them as "real people". At the same time, it would allow them to be really concerned about a fully mature Odo.

Ah yes! They mention the burn treatment conference that Bashir went to when he was really captured in that episode, don't they?

Did they? I don't really recall, but I don't think so.

Personally, I'm not convinced that Bashir had already been replaced by a Changeling by the time of "The Begotten". Yes, it would make sense given how close this episode is to "In Purgatory's Shadow", but I think the Changeling would have been able to save the infant... and would have done so.

This whole mess isn't helped by the fact that the writers, IIRC, basically admitted that they hadn't planned out the "Bashir-is-a-Changeling" situation until they started working on the episode in which it was revealed. So we're stuck with the assumption that Bashir in "The Begotten" might very well have been a Changeling, when that wasn't the original intention at the time at all.

Oy...

It's generally accepted that Bashir was replaced some time before Rapture because of the uniform change. But, I agree, the writers kinda fouled things up by planning it on the fly. It really would have helped if they had known Bashir had been replaced as they wrote those episodes. Kind of like it would have been nice if Ron Moore had decided who the 12 Cylons were ahead of time...