Laas question (Chimera spoilers)

[Nerroth]

Hi.


While I can't remember much of the episode proper, I was reading over the MA page for Chimera, as well as the profile page for Laas, and I was wondering about something.


When he was in his space-faring form, is he 'only' shown as being able to fly at impulse (which is still one hell of a feat!) or did he somehow travel from his previous star system via warp travel (either by riding the kind of tachyon eddies that the Bajoran lightships occasionally used, or under his own power)?


One wonders just how far the power of a Changeling can go...

 

[Daneel]

Unless his shapeshifting powers were so advanced as to allow him to perfectly mimic a warp core and thus generate a stable warp field (which is not even mentioning the stores of matter/anti-matter he would need), I'd have to say he probably couldn't exceed impulse.

As for how he travels between systems, those tachyon eddies are as good an explanation as any, at least in sectors that contain such eddies (like the one in which the Bajoran system is found). I'd also surmise that he probably hitches a ride (discretely) on vessels when he wants to travel long distances.

 

[Nerroth]

Unless his shapeshifting powers were so advanced as to allow him to perfectly mimic a warp core and thus generate a stable warp field (which is not even mentioning the stores of matter/anti-matter he would need), I'd have to say he probably couldn't exceed impulse.

I guess a Romulan-style singularity might be somewhat problematic, too...

...but then, one wonders what methods any known spaceborne species which may have self-propelled FTL travel may or may not use.

As for how he travels between systems, those tachyon eddies are as good an explanation as any, at least in sectors that contain such eddies (like the one in which the Bajoran system is found). I'd also surmise that he probably hitches a ride (discretely) on vessels when he wants to travel long distances.

Both good answers - but I wonder if there is an issue of duration involved.

How long did Laas survive flying out there, or could have had he not been found?

Indeed, what kind of sublight propulsion system did he use, one wonders?

 

[Navaros]

I don't think the writers ever thought that far ahead about this issue, hence any answers you get would be sheer speculatoin AFAIK.

The Companion has a concept illustration of Laas as the ship, describing it as "John Eaves' concept for the 'space swimin, changelin thing."

In the illustration it has arrows pointing to the cheeks (my own word describe the location, kinda hard to describe it with words ) with a descriptor that says "Negatively charged space particles enter here".

Then it has arrows pointing at the back that say: "Entity is positively charged, and magnifies the opposite polarities, thus repeling its form in a zero G, zero atmospheric conditions, motion is acquired by this feature."

 

[Daneel]

With regard to the spaceborne life-forms, that's a fair point, and it would seem likely that at least some of them (like the Crystalline Entity) have some means of travelling faster than light. It has been stated more than once in Trek that there are no known natural phenomena that can exceed the speed of light... but of course, that's been contradicted more than once onscreen as well.

With Laas travelling through space, though, one has to wonder: how would he regenerate? He may not need to regenerate as often as Odo (who is much less experienced as a shape-shifter), but it seems to me that all Changelings need to do it at some point. Perhaps he carries some sort of a container inside of him when he travels through space, using it to regenerate when he needs to, I don't know. I agree, I don't think the writers thought the whole thing through this much.

 

[Nerroth]

Interesting ideas regarding the sublight motion - though that whole polarities thing wouldn't have been quite as useful for Laas in terms of actually getting off-world (assuming he couldn't hitch a ride or something).


Oh, and in terms of regeneration, was it not something to do with Odo's own limitations regarding control over his abilities, rather than a natural aspect of Changeling physiology, which required the regular bucket trips?

The Founders didn't seem to need to do this, and I'm not sure (those who remember the ep better might be clearer on this) that Laas needed it either.



Poor Laas might have needed to get found before that Founder plague Odo would have accidentally passed on killed him, though...

 

[Navaros]

I'm pretty sure I remember the female Founder saying she hasn't regenerated for a really long time because she wasn't able to any more due to her illness, and hence she knew she was very close to death because she needed to.

 

[nx1701g]

I thought that it was something along the lines of the tachyons used by the Bajoran ships.

 

[Myasishchev]

Changelings aren't (visibly) bound by conservation of mass or energy. They can emulate anything, apparently including antimatter (alternatively, a fusion power plant) and warp coils. And apparently including a humanoid brain, with all the thoughts and memories in it. However, a shield or particle weapon must be tricky, because they never use their abilities (that we know of) to create phasers or forcefields out of their bodies.

They have good cause to declare themselves gods--if they were physically hardier, they'd be close to par with Q.

Then again, for all we know, they aren't really killed-killed when they're disrupted; maybe only some information is lost, but they come back, like Unfolders in Zack Parsons' That Insidious Beast. The fluidity of their identities suggest that the loss of information is the only thing they're actually pissed about when the solids hurt them, anyway.

 

[DS9Continuing]

I don't know why people are talking about matter-antimatter. That has nothing to do with faster-than-light travel per se. All matter-antimatter explosions do is provide the raw power that is needed for the machinery that actually generates the warp field to do its work. If there's some other way to generate that power, then matter-antimatter reactions needn't have anything to do with it. And Laas clearly did have some other way of generating that power. So it seems a lot more likely that Laas replicated the nature of a warp coil, which he just powered with his own natural power reserves. As mentioned, he would be far from the only life-form to be able to naturally travel at warp.