Just curious. He often commented that other parts of his body were not real. He said he had no sense of smell, his mouth wasn't real, he had no digestive track. Yet whenever he wanted to read something he picked it up and looked at it with his eyes.
How Did Odo See?
- Thread starter The Boy Who Cried Worf
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Don't even try to understand 'the physics of Odo'. Even the writers are in the dark on this subject.
Remember Odo was limited in his shapeshifting abilities. Just because he couldn't smell, etc., doesn't mean it was beyond his natural abilities. One shapeshifter could turn himself into a starship for goodness' sake.
So I think "seeing" is something they do naturally but perhaps by other means than electrochemical polarization of ganglions leading to an occipital lobe.
I believe the technical term is "goo".
So I think "seeing" is something they do naturally but perhaps by other means than electrochemical polarization of ganglions leading to an occipital lobe.
I believe the technical term is "goo".
He shapeshifted himself a pair of eyeballs. Why wouldn't they work if he got the physiology right?
Why he couldn't whomp up a functioning digestive system is a mystery. Maybe he found it unpleasant and unnecessary.
Why he couldn't whomp up a functioning digestive system is a mystery. Maybe he found it unpleasant and unnecessary.
Odo can see even when he doesn't have eyes, and hear even when he doesn't have ears. The Founder goo is omniscient. Respect the goo.
I chalk this up to that the Founders are gods.
Obedience brings Victory, eh?
Maybe Odo can 'see' in the same way the VISOR-era Georid could 'see' by picking up all sorts of bits of information and than turning them into a visual image.
It would seem the Founder Goo is capable of significant physiological feats such as vision, comprehension and shapeshifting regardless of the form the Founder takes. How much of it is "real shapeshifting" and how much "mere illusion" remains undecided: Founders can get incurably ill, so obviously they depend on their physical bodies somewhat, but OTOH they can fool humanoids and their tricorders into thinking that the Founder has just become rock or mist or fire, something no physical matter could ever do and retain sensory or cognitive capabilities.
Whether by illusion or actual physical transformation, adult Founders do indeed seem godlike in their abilities. But Odo is not. In "Duet", a violent man with an exposed knife in hand surprises him from behind, heavily suggesting his shoulder blades or butt cheeks are incapable of vision. And lest we think that Odo actually wanted the knife-wielding man to succeed and therefore turned a blind butt at the act (Odo was escorting a man who desperately wanted to die, after all), in "Way of the Warrior" Odo once again misses a guy with a bladed weapon at his six o'clock - and this time, Odo himself is the target.
...Then again, why should a Klingon sword ever be a threat to Odo? Cut in two, he'd just become two little Odos, each capable of punching the stupid Klingon in the groin and then high-fiving and rejoining for a final kick-while-he's-down. So when Odo thanks Bashir for watching his six, he's probably just being polite and not truly thinking that his (20/20 vision) butt was just saved by the Doctor.
To be honest, I tend to think Odo doesn't really have eyes on his back. Or more exactly, he does have eyes all over him, but he's too young to be able to process all the visual input coherently, and usually tends to concentrate on things in front of him. That is, his brain-equivalent is not very good at processing what a human would call "glimpses at the corner of the eye".
Timo Saloniemi
Whether by illusion or actual physical transformation, adult Founders do indeed seem godlike in their abilities. But Odo is not. In "Duet", a violent man with an exposed knife in hand surprises him from behind, heavily suggesting his shoulder blades or butt cheeks are incapable of vision. And lest we think that Odo actually wanted the knife-wielding man to succeed and therefore turned a blind butt at the act (Odo was escorting a man who desperately wanted to die, after all), in "Way of the Warrior" Odo once again misses a guy with a bladed weapon at his six o'clock - and this time, Odo himself is the target.
...Then again, why should a Klingon sword ever be a threat to Odo? Cut in two, he'd just become two little Odos, each capable of punching the stupid Klingon in the groin and then high-fiving and rejoining for a final kick-while-he's-down. So when Odo thanks Bashir for watching his six, he's probably just being polite and not truly thinking that his (20/20 vision) butt was just saved by the Doctor.
To be honest, I tend to think Odo doesn't really have eyes on his back. Or more exactly, he does have eyes all over him, but he's too young to be able to process all the visual input coherently, and usually tends to concentrate on things in front of him. That is, his brain-equivalent is not very good at processing what a human would call "glimpses at the corner of the eye".
Timo Saloniemi
Non canon - but the opening from the novel Warped described Odo's shifting in detail and I'm sure it mentioned him being unable to see until he formed an eye ball of some kind.
That sounds like me after eating food recently, I can't keep anything in for long, maybe I am a shapeshifter.
I think the vision thing is some cells that are photo sensitive. When he is in a goo form they are like the light sensitive patches on a planeria. When he makes an Eyeball, he puts the light sensitive patches where a retina would be and he is set to have good vision. Maybe he can make small compound eyes when he is in another shape so he can see. Like when he turns into a glass, they have a small spec on them which is his eye...
The Evolution of the eye is something he may have to master to see like a human could.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
This brings to mind how Odo could take a few photo sensitive cells and turn them into human eyes. In a way a shapeshifter is like a "rapidly evolving life form" when they are first born and learn to start shape shifting.
Also I though that Lals or whatever his name, he was played by JG Hertzler, had advanced enough that he could smell and taste things. Maybe a changeling needs to learn/evolve these traits and that the only inherent inborn sense that changelings have is "The link", "sound, via vibration" and rudimentary vision when they are born. The rest they have to learn over time.
That was answered in the Season Seven episode with Laas. After laws killed the Klingon Warrior, the Klingon High Council cried foul because one of their soliders was killed because the shapeshifter knew he couldn't be harmed by a bladed weapon.
One might argue that punching with a conveniently pre-shapeshifted fist of steel would be less strenuous than constantly shapeshifting during the actual fight. What Odo did in "Emissary" to stop the hoodlum with the morningstar was fine against individual hoodlums. But if he tried to do that against fifty Klingons, he'd probably get tired pretty quickly.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
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