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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x05 - "Imposters"

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But it's worth noting that it was said that if you scan a Changeling when they're a rock, your scan will say it's a rock. Changelings were all about becoming a thing.
yes, I’m sure they could pass a superficial scan even at the times of the war, otherwise all that stuff about blood tests wouldn’t make any sense. Incidentally, the idea that a more thorough scan done during beaming makes perfect sense then.
 
So what exactly was Ro's point in transferring the Titan crew to the Intrepid? To save their careers as she sends the Titan into fugitive mode? Yes she might save their careers but it's a possibility she's also doomed their lives.

She answered this in the episode. Intrepid is already compromised, she gets as many people off the titan as possible to give them fewer people who could be imitated.
 
And that's ridiculously vague and unhelpful to even start from.
In order to 'become' something you'd basically have to know the detailed principles behind what makes an object what it is.

And while I will agreee that experienced changelings might be able to have a higher degree of information about various species... the only other way I can think of is that they can take DNA samples of say a person, and use that as a baseline for changing into them (and even then, if any part of their body detaches, it usually reverts to its gelatinous state).

Changeling biology would have to have some kind of internal analyzer of sorts which gives them information about what makes an object an object - but Ds9 did not suggest the existence of such a mechanism.

It's always been hand-wavy why Star Trek SPACE MAGIC technology can't immediately identify changelings.

But you accept it for the story.
 
They will probably kill off poor Shaw, but I would also like to see more of him. They would need to expand on his character to give him more depth. Somewhere there’s an old friend who served with him on the Constance who can call him on his BS. He could be made the ship’s doctor or engineer, just transferred in. Maybe there’s a sister or an ex-wife with a son Shaw couldn’t raise, so he immediately empathized with the Picard situation and didn’t fight about saving Jack. Maybe that kid is in Starfleet Academy and ends up serving alongside the rest of this Next Generation.
 
It’s repeatedly established Odo — who arguably has the *most* experience being a solid (after a certain point, it’s entirely believable his face option was purely psychological, and he really could be whoever he wanted to) does not have internal organs, hence his bad back when stuck as a solid. Nothing here really goes against anything. It brings to mind TMP and the Ilia probe, if anything.

As to a Vulcan Gangster, he is correct, the existence of deviants/people existing outside of established norms is a normal function of a working society or civilisation. It’s basic Sociology, though one that gets ignored quite often. He’s hardly the first, or even the second, Vulcan villain.
 
They left their buckets on Intrepid.
A Starfleet wide alert needs to be issued. All Federation ships, planets and facilities should be searched *immediately* for Boungelliki buckets. This should help to expose and eliminate the Changeling infiltration threat. Boungelliki Buckets should be searched for within 16 hours traveling distance (at maximum known warp) of the facilities involved in Frontier Day celebrations. A ship wide Quantum stasis field should also be enabled on board the Titan and all Federation ships to trap Founders in their solid form and expose them. This tech should be as common and easy to produce as Boungelliki buckets by now? :shrug:
 
uh? No. Odo is repeatedly presented as a pretty lousy shapeshifter.

Not really, he presents himself as a pretty lousy shapeshifter. It’s a bit like Data and his ‘I don’t have emotions, but look how my daughters death has affected me’ stuff.
In actual fact Odo is at least as good at shape shifting as any other changeling (he’s does birds, the lot) but has ‘his’ face and almost a psychological block — perfectly in keeping with his character, look at the Kira relationship — on being ‘other people’. He can do a functional communicator but not cheekbones? A bird right down to the feathers, but only does floppy hair when he is emotionally compromised?
I strongly think it’s part of his character, as opposed to an actual limit. Like a sort of… psychologically induced Changeling/Founder dyspraxia. And a bit of modesty and honour. If he were more shady as a person he would be shifting into Kira and standing in front of a mirror in his quarters xD
(Important point that, that so far the Changelings in Picard have not been referred to as Founders or Dominion.)

These blobs are something else, so the question is about *why* and *why now* really.
 
n actual fact Odo is at least as good at shape shifting as any other changeling
the other shapeshifters can easily pass as humans, he can’t.

he’s does birds, the lot
which are not convincing to birds, as he himself says.

almost a psychological block
There is zero indication of this.
He can do a functional communicator
No, he can’t. He uses an actual communicator that he hides inside himself if he is in a non relevant form.
I strongly think it’s part of his character
it’s all your imagination.
 
I have a head canon for Odo's inaccuracy. While I don't think he's got a psychological block, because the female changeling also had the same 'fuzzy face' if you will, Odo has said that imitating the exact features of a human face is difficult. He was able to do it much better in "children of time" because he'd had so much time and ability to really learn and practice it. I think it's about focus and concentration and learning how to do that with your body, similar to being really good at advanced martial arts or something. Odo and the female changeling didn't need to look exactly like humans in order to interact, so they didn't bother with olympic-class shape shifting. The changelings that wanted or needed to imitate humans had to make a special effort to really learn the skill through meditative shapeshifting. And these new ones have evolved because the founders are notorious genetic experimentors, creating the Jem Hadar and specifically evolving the Vorta to suit their needs. So the rebel changelings evolved themselves to more accurately imitate solids because it suited their needs. Anyway, that's my head canon.
 
the other shapeshifters can easily pass as humans, he can’t.

which are not convincing to birds, as he himself says.


There is zero indication of this.

No, he can’t. He uses an actual communicator that he hides inside himself if he is in a non relevant form.
it’s all your imagination.

lol.
The communicator thing is explained where?

Because everything else about Odo suggests he is essentially an artist who ended up being a policeman. One who refuses to do forgeries, and constantly puts down his own work. It is right there on screen — future Odo is better at faces, but also more of a dick, because those psychological blocks are just not there anymore.

He doesn’t take a full Bajoran face, because as the ‘only one of his kind’ he has an even stronger reason to hang on to ‘his’ face. Think how logical that is.

Like many Trek characters, he is very strongly the Pinocchio ‘real boy’ character. The secret being he is a ‘real boy’ all along. When he gets too caught up with the female changeling, he claims to be getting better at shapeshifting, but at the same time it is quite apparent that his true self and character is being subsumed and distorted by the addictive sub-text. It’s almost a sub-text about how nationalism (or other such ideology) will take those who feel disenfranchised, are outsiders, and by giving them a place and an identity, get to control that identity.
Odo is pulled out of that by Kira appealing to his true self, the one he made for himself, that isn’t about control by others.

And again — yes, he says the birds aren’t great, but do you know any artists? I bet even Leonardo kept saying ‘ah yes, but I forgot the eyebrows you know?’ or words to that effect about something. ‘Way of the Warrior’ opens with him winning a game of security exercise tag, and then he’s all like ‘Oh, those other guys are all better than me so watch out!’ when what it comes down to, on an intrinsic layer, is that he *doesn’t like to be dishonest*. The whole scene where he simulates the drinking is him basically drawing attention to a trick, because it’s the most obvious trick ever, but at the same time he’s never done it before because he is honest to the point of it being pathological. That’s his thing. He’s so upright he does his back in, once he’s got a spine.

It’s right there on screen, and the only explanation for why he can do a full tuxedo but never got round to lips.
 
Was it ever expressly stated that Changelings could mimic the internal organs of the individuals they were pretending to be? Apart from not being able to replicate blood, Odo said he had no sense of smell or taste so it doesn't appear that changelings can replicate a working olfactory system or taste buds. Sure Starfleet sensors couldn't detect changelings, but that could be for a multitude of reasons.

They can replicate blood, and it oozes through a cardiovascular system, while it's inside them.

Disconnected from the whole, that blood goes back to ooze quickly.

When Odo was forced to be a solid, his body was tricked into taking humanoid form as well as one of the other, older changeling could.

He could eat, digest, poop, smell things, and create Sperms to express in the usual way.... Which stayed original recipe, and did not revert to founder goop.

If his skin flakes and snot flicks distanced from his main form kept its non porridge consistency, then that means that every other Changeling only failed their blood screenings because they wanted to.
 
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I have a head canon for Odo's inaccuracy. While I don't think he's got a psychological block, because the female changeling also had the same 'fuzzy face' if you will, Odo has said that imitating the exact features of a human face is difficult. He was able to do it much better in "children of time" because he'd had so much time and ability to really learn and practice it. I think it's about focus and concentration and learning how to do that with your body, similar to being really good at advanced martial arts or something. Odo and the female changeling didn't need to look exactly like humans in order to interact, so they didn't bother with olympic-class shape shifting. The changelings that wanted or needed to imitate humans had to make a special effort to really learn the skill through meditative shapeshifting. And these new ones have evolved because the founders are notorious genetic experimentors, creating the Jem Hadar and specifically evolving the Vorta to suit their needs. So the rebel changelings evolved themselves to more accurately imitate solids because it suited their needs. Anyway, that's my head canon.

I think the fuzzy face is just Founder Default setting number one in the character creation options. Or they simply copied it from Odo for a variety of fairly obvious reasons. We know out-of-universe that’s basically the case, and in universe it makes sense too. It certainly disproves the idea that it’s at least Odo being crap at shapeshifting. Whatever he might *say* or *believe* about himself, it is at odds with what we see in many instances. (The Odo floppy hair being the best consistent on screen example.)
 
Yes, I don't think he was bad at it, in that I am not bad at running (I can do it) but that doesn't mean I am an olympic class runner. They must have always been able to mimic internal structures to a certain extent in order to speak but, Odo suggested he wasn't actually able to digest food, that it was "messy" so I always imagined the internal structures weren't completely functional for them, like they would be for a human, hence the golden goo. And the new rebel changelings have evolved or made themselves super fit to 'hold' their internal structures so well that they don't revert to goo after death and their goo looks 'meaty' and different.
 
I have a head canon for Odo's inaccuracy. While I don't think he's got a psychological block, because the female changeling also had the same 'fuzzy face' if you will, Odo has said that imitating the exact features of a human face is difficult. He was able to do it much better in "children of time" because he'd had so much time and ability to really learn and practice it. I think it's about focus and concentration and learning how to do that with your body, similar to being really good at advanced martial arts or something. Odo and the female changeling didn't need to look exactly like humans in order to interact, so they didn't bother with olympic-class shape shifting. The changelings that wanted or needed to imitate humans had to make a special effort to really learn the skill through meditative shapeshifting. And these new ones have evolved because the founders are notorious genetic experimentors, creating the Jem Hadar and specifically evolving the Vorta to suit their needs. So the rebel changelings evolved themselves to more accurately imitate solids because it suited their needs. Anyway, that's my head canon.
Makes sense.

The communicator thing is explained where?
It's not explained aloud (but multiple times behind the scenes), but you can see the communicator being a real one for example in Invasive Procedures, when the bad guys remove it to prevent him to communicate while captive.

yes, he says the birds aren’t great, but do you know any artists?
On the onther hand, we KNOW his human features are unconvincing.

It’s right there on screen, and the only explanation for why he can do a full tuxedo but never got round to lips.
Who says his tuxedo would pass close examination?
 
(Important point that, that so far the Changelings in Picard have not been referred to as Founders or Dominion.)

These blobs are something else, so the question is about *why* and *why now* really.
‘Changeling’ was once a racist term that solids used to refer to Founders. Founders were once hunted down because people feared them, this is why they became isolationists and formed the Dominion after becoming angry with solids.

So Founders is the official name for the species, though Changeling is often used, even by Founders themselves as they took the name on in defiance of the solids.

Founders is the more respectful name, btw.
 
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I wasn’t as keen on this one as the others, but I’m not entirely sure why. It was lovely to see Picards face when Worf popped up on the screen though. Nice moment.
 
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