Sending infants in2 the scary anti Changeling world seems absurd

[Solarbaby]

If your species had been persecuted and hunted and chased over the galaxy and you came to find a rogue planet to hide on and rest and build your society again- would you really send your infants out on their own to explore the galaxy without a clue as to who/what they actually are?

No changeling has ever harmed another- apart from Odo? Doesn't the fact that any number of nasty endings could happen to the 100 infants sent out suggest this is parental neglect at its worst?

If so- then thats harm to other changelings (indirectly).

Although it was a cool idea to explain where Odo came from it is bad storytelling. The founders regard themselves all equal and must never harm each other. So why abandon the young?

If alien minds did differ in the way they regarded their species surely the parental instinct would remain the same or what would be the point in procreating?

It would have been better to say that the infants were lost during the exodus of the Changelings during their last persecution.

Imagine finding out that all your children were murdered by xenophobes and you could have prevented it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

They weren't really "infants", as we would understand that term, more like changelings who had never gone outside the link. Obviously Odo isn't an infant...

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

They weren't really "infants", as we would understand that term, more like changelings who had never gone outside the link. Obviously Odo isn't an infant...

I think they did it because the 100 couldn't knowingly reveal information on their tactics, strength, bases, and so on. I think they really were cruel enough to use their own in that way; to me, it fits their M.O.

 

[Solarbaby]

But Odo didn't know he was a changeling. He had no memory of the link. He didn't know he could change form until he was tortured by a Bajoran scientist.

If the founders wanted to send out representatives to explore the galaxy why not send out an experienced shapeshifter rather than someone whom, for intents and purposes, was the equivalent of a sperm? It doesn't make sense to me lol. The writers definitely wrote this one wrong.

 

[Solarbaby]

They weren't really "infants", as we would understand that term, more like changelings who had never gone outside the link. Obviously Odo isn't an infant...

I think they did it because the 100 couldn't knowingly reveal information on their tactics, strength, bases, and so on. I think they really were cruel enough to use their own in that way; to me, it fits their M.O.

Actually that's a good point. Maybe if they had made a point of making the young prove themselves by surviving in the outside world it would have fit in better with your opinion of them being cruel enough.

I just don't buy the whole- Great Link/no changeling has harmed another/"leave the solids and come home Odo" - when the Founders were brutal enough to leave their babies on someone else's doorstep.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I also found myself wondering if the Great Link was subconsciously trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy...that is to say, what happened to Laas: go out and prove just how bad the outside universe is just so they can thumb their noses and say they were right, and justified in their oppressive policies. Of course, it SO did not work with Odo; no wonder the whole Link had a conniption!

 

[AdmiralGarak]

On the other hand, maybe sending Changelings who didn't have preconceived notions and prejudices of life outside the Link was what they had in mind.

 

[Timo]

Sounds good to me.

Also, we never learn how Changelings procreate. Perhaps their infants have nothing to do with it? Or perhaps they are the strongest link in the chain, the most robust part of the breeding mechanism, and the deliberate culling of extra infants is beneficial to the biology of the species?

Humans are no "better", to be sure: we send our most fertile males to near-certain death at times of crisis. There's no real sense to this action at this day and age: sending nearly senile elders, young children or a gender-equal group of breeders would be just as workable in today's style of warfare, and all would probably be better for the sending nation's economy and survival than sending the healthiest males.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[doctorfoto]

The problem lies in us ascribing our own humanoid attachments to our young to the Changelings. We assume they love their 'babies' as we would.

But what if that's simply not the case.

As a race, the Changelings really have no possessions, just the Link. Okay, sure, they could send out Vorta or Jem'Hadar, but that defeats the purpose of finding out how Solids out of their control deal with Changelings now that thousand of years have past.

So they're all hiding and a few of them are curious about the Solids that are out of their control. Some wonder if they're all that bad, but the others say "No, they're just as bad as they ever were"

How do they find out? "Well, we'll send out this undeveloped batch of the Link over here. These hundred will know nothing of us. They have no opinions on the matter. We're not especially attached to them as they haven't been formed but we'll find out once and for all how these humanoids treat us after all these years."

So the Changelings use an undeveloped portion of the Link as 'probes'. When Odo finds them again they want him back. Not because they had any attachment to him before, but simply because he is a Changeling and he belongs with them. Like giving away a child you never knew for adoption and meeting him years later. Regardless of his raising, he looks like you, he belongs to you. Obviously that's not right, but that's how the Changelings see it. That and the fact that the Hundred's return was part of their plan and they do like to get their way.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

It's the Dominion, none of their plans made sense! They abandoned their home planet just to get rid of the Romulan and Cardassian intelligence agencies!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Okay you got em there. We could invent a rationale for why the Founders would do that, but the real reason is that the writers had to explain Odo, and didn't think the whole thing through too well.

It would have been better for Odo to have been "kidnapped" by some explorers, maybe centuries before, who decided to take a little scoop from the Great Link for analysis and then blundered thru the wormhole by random accident. Because they made it thru the wormhole, Odo was never retrieved by the other Founders, who would have been searching for him. It's inconsistent characterization for the Founders not to tear up the Gamma Quandrant looking for their kidnapped offspring, and the wormhole provides a reasonable excuse for their lack of success.

It's the Dominion, none of their plans made sense! They abandoned their home planet just to get rid of the Romulan and Cardassian intelligence agencies!

That was part of our long-term ingenious plan, bwahaha!

...well, we can't complain too much, considering how stupid the writers had the Federation, Cardassians, Romulans and Klingons be, at various times in the story. Sometimes that war came down to Dumb vs. Dumber.

 

[Kegg]

Okay you got em there. We could invent a rationale for why the Founders would do that, but the real reason is that the writers had to explain Odo, and didn't think the whole thing through too well.

Bingo. At least they tried to address the idea when Odo meets another just like him, but really this was one aspect of the Founders master plan that made absolutely no sense (and in the long run was dangerously counterproductive, with Odo chosing to side agianst his own people and that. This would not have happened had he been raised in the Link.)

It even makes their situation all the more absurd when getting Odo back is a higher priority than the War, when Odo was thrown out there and sent to a very likely death in the purpose of the War. Flip-flop go the sandals of the Dominion logic.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It even makes their situation all the more absurd when getting Odo back is a higher priority than the War,

Oh don't get me started on the swiss-cheese logic of DS9! If getting Odo back was such a priority, why did this conversation never happen in early S6:

Female Founder: "Odo, return to The Great Link and we'll end the war. Otherwise, countless millions will continue to die."

Odo: "Uh...well I guess I don't have much of a choice, huh?"

The only reason she wouldn't have said that is if the whole "we just want Odo back" thing was a transparent excuse for their real motive, which was either epic paranoia or plain ole imperialism.

 

[doctorfoto]

On that vein, I always figured that it wasn't enough to coerce Odo into coming back to the Link (they could have threatened to kill Kira), he had to freely return. The fact that he chose the Solids over the Founders is what really pissed them off.

Then the onus goes to Odo, if he knew that his return would stop the war, why not just go back to the Link in Season 5? I know - crazy logic.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It even makes their situation all the more absurd when getting Odo back is a higher priority than the War,

Oh don't get me started on the swiss-cheese logic of DS9! If getting Odo back was such a priority, why did this conversation never happen in early S6:

Female Founder: "Odo, return to The Great Link and we'll end the war. Otherwise, countless millions will continue to die."

Odo: "Uh...well I guess I don't have much of a choice, huh?"

The only reason she wouldn't have said that is if the whole "we just want Odo back" thing was a transparent excuse for their real motive, which was either epic paranoia or plain ole imperialism.

The founders seemed to have no understanding of compromise. They wanted, expected everything to be theirs and to go as they planned. When they were kissing up to the Breen and offering them stuff it was all bullshit of course, they never actually intended to give anyone anything. Making a deal was just about impossible for them and they were pushed to near extinction before they did so.

Yes it's written with lots of holes but I like to think that they truly were completely alien in their thoughts. Maybe if you exist as an individual who is also a mass of millions of individuals all of whom know they are right both as individuals and as the mass it is nearly impossible to see another perspective or to entertain any notion of being wrong about something. It's like the ultimate cult.

 

[Jono]

For the most part the Founders are isolationist. They don't really go out and explore, only a few seem to bother to interact with their creation, the Dominion, at all. Mostly they they just float in the link doing whatever it is they do.

Eventually you would think that would get dull, so maybe they sent the 100 out to the far reaches so that they could bring back completely new experiences. Things like "love" and solid love-making, exotic creatures, new ideas or ways of looking at things, a different coloured rock...all that exciting stuff the Founders in the link can then instantly learn about and if they want to can try out. If their philosophy is "to understand a thing you must be that thing" then with this plan they can bring back more information on the galaxy and better understand it. So you send out blank slates that won't be influenced by prior experiences so they can fulfil "appreciate" what they experience out there.

Sure the plan would take centuries but I think Jack pointed out that the Dominion thought about a longer term than most humanoid species, probably because the Founders can live for centuries.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

That's a good way of looking at it XmasRoo. That would be why they wanted Odo back so much, not the way a human would want to connect to an adopted child but because he was just chock full of "being a thing" experiences. No other of the 100 had ever come back and they really wanted to have the experiences Odo had saved up.

 

[Kai Winn]

how did them send them off, anyway? by a space ship, and threw them out somewhere? floating in space can't be healthy, not even for a specialty like them. odo must have experienced what it is like to be solid, frozen solid.
i also wonder why odo never contacted any of the alpha quadrant shapeshifters, at least the allasomorphs rivalled his abilities.

 

[Jono]

^ With Odo I think they only said they found him "floating in the Denios belt in his natural state", which suggests he didn't have a ship.

 

[Navaros]

I agree with the OP.

This is a point that could have been better thought-out by the writers.

It would have made far more sense if the infants were stolen by someone who wanted to sell them for profit, like to say the group who collects unique things from the Think Tank episode of Voyager. Then, they could have said something like a changeling went to rescue the stolen infants and in the ensuing struggle, they got scattered across the universe by accident.

As it stands, sending out infants into a hostile world, does indeed make no sense.