Hippocratic Oath, what happened to that?

[Timo]

I wonder - both cultures are as a first approximation quite prone to monolithic thinking, being Collective and all. Internal mulling doesn't translate to external discord, so "standing policies" are likely to enjoy great popularity inside the Collective, and great stability as the result. And if paranoia is a standing policy, then dissent against it is going to be all the harder.

The alternative to expansion with the help of copious genocide no doubt exists, but the Link may not merely have difficulty accepting it, it may have difficulty even finding it. It's a devious goal to have, too, because it's something that only yields dividends in the future, when everybody truly is subjugated; the current state of affairs never suffices, and only makes things worse "in the short term"...

Tino Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

I wonder - both cultures are as a first approximation quite prone to monolithic thinking, being Collective and all. Internal mulling doesn't translate to external discord, so "standing policies" are likely to enjoy great popularity inside the Collective, and great stability as the result. And if paranoia is a standing policy, then dissent against it is going to be all the harder.

`

It's an interesting question, all right. On the one hand, you'd expect them to be very predisposed to "group think" but we can't really see into the great link. For all we know, the consensus they seem to reach within seconds of linking may be their equivalent of years and years of arguing and bickering and counter-arguing and perhaps even agreeing to disagree. The female founder would have been thoroughly subjected to the groupthink by virtue of her living in the great link (except for the last 2 years), yet she agrees in seconds to surrender and stand trial after Odo links with her.

We do know they send out infant changelings, and they do not seem to particularly mind Odo disagreeing with them - just wishing him to return home, eventually. Him being on the side of the "to be subjugated races" and helping in the war against their own underlings doesn't seem to concern them overmuch- they only punish him after he kills a fellow changeling, which is their highest or perhaps even only law. So that could mean that within their own ranks, they ascribe a high value to individual freedom as long as it doesn't harm another Changeling (for whatever the appropriate definition of "individual" means to them).

Of course, it can also all be interpreted a different way, in that they're supremely confident that Odo will eventually come over to their view, that any resistance is futile, and this is simply a learning experience for our young student Odo - a youth folly he will outgrow in time.

 

[Timo]

...Or they treat Odo as an infant still, or at most a toddler, and don't really pay any attention to his thought processes at all. Debates concerning him only deal with, well, how to deal with him, and even him getting a hug doesn't lead into Mrs Robinson actually listening to him.

Whether individual Founders even exist is a scifi concept not examined much in the show. Loitering outside the Link may be a phase a toddler goes through in order to become a full-fledged member of the community - or a grinding phase every new stone is subjected to before it is added to the cathedral as an immobile fixture, a bench test for a processor before it becomes part of the mainframe. Perhaps Odo will one day take his destined place and become Tertiary Adjunct to Sinister Sub-Loop 1701 in Unimatrix 47, or the Voice of Mildly Concerned Self-Doubt on Aesthetic Issues to the Link, Asimov's Gods Themselves style? Perhaps he will become less? (Perhaps he was executed and recycled the moment he dove into the Link in "What You Leave Behind"?)

It would be fun to think that Odo is a precedent in Changelings going native: perhaps the Link has never sent a Hundred out before, and now suffers the consequences, and perhaps learns? Then again, the Dominion boasts on being ten thousand years old, and the Hundred we hear of were launched yesterday: a certain percentage of each such earlier batch may have done what Odo did, and the Dominion still stands after the ten thousand years.

The Jem'Hadar are another aspect of stability, with short life cycles where Founders apparently have long ones. We see dissent leading nowhere there. But we do see dissent, and we can't readily argue the Jem'Hadar would lead oppressed lives in terms of their own POV. Perhaps free thinking is something the Founders can afford to not just tolerate but in fact encourage within the Jem'Hadar ranks, when even rebel groups ultimately rebel for the greater (Founder) good. Faulty copies of the Vorta are treated as serious defects in the system and hunted down; all-new and experimental batches of Jem'Hadar are deployed in the field with abandon. And yet the Dominion stands. The heroes trying to turn the already existing (but from their viewpoint perhaps just budding) freedom of the Jem'Hadar into a weapon aren't merely failing in a dramatically interesting way - they are also engaging in a morally dubious exercise in a dramatically interesting way!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JesterFace]

Julian: I can't free you of your addiction. I can replicate some more ketracel white, though.

Basically Federation had the ability to free the Jem'Hadar from Dominion's slavery if they could produce ketracel white? I wonder, was it ever suggested that "hey, let's give the Jem'Hadar all the ketracel white they will ever need, maybe they will stop fighting after they no longer need to obey the Founders"?

 

[Charles Phipps]

Basically Federation had the ability to free the Jem'Hadar from Dominion's slavery if they could produce ketracel white? I wonder, was it ever suggested that "hey, let's give the Jem'Hadar all the ketracel white they will ever need, maybe they will stop fighting after they no longer need to obey the Founders"?

Nope. Though most Jem'Hadar were fanatically loyal to the Founders without it. This group wasn't.

 

[BillJ]

Basically Federation had the ability to free the Jem'Hadar from Dominion's slavery if they could produce ketracel white? I wonder, was it ever suggested that "hey, let's give the Jem'Hadar all the ketracel white they will ever need, maybe they will stop fighting after they no longer need to obey the Founders"?

I think they would eventually move away from the Founders if they had another source of the Ketracel White. Problem being, once the secret is out, the Jem'Hadar could produce it on their own and be loyal to no one.

Jem'Hadar under the control of no one would be a headache for everyone.

 

[Farscape One]

I have to agree. They never slept, ate, rested, or had any recreation whatsoever. They did exactly one thing... be a soldier.

And their addiction to the White made them merciless and bloodthirsty if off the drug. I love the Jem'Hadar, but the sad truth is it looks like they can never be free.

 

[JesterFace]

I love the Jem'Hadar, but the sad truth is it looks like they can never be free.

What might have become of the Jem'Hadar after Dominion made peace with the Alpha Quadrant? There are wars to be fought somewhere else and to keep things in order in Gamma Quadrant?

 

[BillJ]

What might have become of the Jem'Hadar after Dominion made peace with the Alpha Quadrant? There are wars to be fought somewhere else and to keep things in order in Gamma Quadrant?

They'd continue to be the Founders muscle, I imagine.

 

[Timo]

I have to agree. They never slept, ate, rested, or had any recreation whatsoever. They did exactly one thing... be a soldier.

To be sure, we can't really tell how much of that was just propaganda in "To the Death"; how much was pertinent to the mission at hand (and thus not to what the Jem'Hadar did the rest of the time); and how much really applied to the whole species.

And their addiction to the White made them merciless and bloodthirsty if off the drug.

Hmh? As far as we could see, deprivation only made them itchy. Including with the trigger finger - but since it also seemed to disrupt their aim, they actually became less of a threat.

I love the Jem'Hadar, but the sad truth is it looks like they can never be free.

On the other hand, they get plenty of opportunities to pursue the dream of their lives, and the life of their dreams.

Timo Saloniemi