How would the Dominion replace key persons from fortified worlds for changeling infiltration?

[Unimatrix Q]

Grandpa Sisko is still a changeling to this day.

Wonder why they never really tried to replace Sisko, Garak or a member of the crew, beside of Bashir.

Guess there were actually a lot of opportunities...

 

[Voth commando1]

^Possibly, but the concern raised by arch101 is a valid one. If you replace, say, one of the highest members of the Romulan government, you also need to be able to play the part, i.e. have enough inside (secret) information to not make other members of the government suspicious about you. Obviously you gain that access the moment you assume that form, but you'll still need time to learn it, which you may not have anymore at that point. So probably before attempting to infiltrate on such a high level, you would have to infiltrate on a somewhat lower level first where less eyes are upon you, to get the information you require.

You’d probably spend some time as a rock or a chair or a low level staff member-to get that information via observation and so on.

I imagine a target for replacement is probably under observation for weeks or months before they are replaced with a changeling.

 

[Timo]

"Heart of Stone" establishes something about the level of surveillance: the Changeling knows all about O'Brien's holodeck kayaking and singing. Or if it's making all that up, it has an encyclopedic knowledge of "ancient human sea shanties"!

It would appear almost incomprehensible that the Alpha Axis folks could formulate a "secret plan" at any point of the war. Surely at least one of the chairs in the War Room is always a Changeling? But the bottleneck there might be the Changeling getting the news out to its compatriots in time.

Timo Saloniemi