"THE SHIP" Changeling...

[Timo]

...Now there's an idea! Although it would probably be Odo pretending to be O'Brien instead.

In general, Founders don't seem to appreciate risking their own neck-imitations. Direct action like this would be atypical, but by no means impossible. OTOH, I don't see Leyton holding back: he wanted people killed when it suited him, and he didn't appear to be particularly cornered yet when he ordered Kira, Worf and the rest killed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

Apologies - let me try and explain/simplify my comments. [..] Hope this helps!

It absolutely does, and thank you! Just a few comments:

The female Caretaker - hopefully self explanatory.

The ship stumbled onto something touched by the female Caretaker, not to the entity herself. Arguably, stuff touched by her could be all across the galaxy - and that she herself is soon detected nearby may be more a result of the discovery than a preset parameter.

The assimilated Starfleet officer on the crashed Borg Cube - known about via records.

The Borg may or may not keep assimilees from a certain region confined to a specific Cube. But odds are that they distribute a lot, because distribution is what they are famed for. Finding a Starfleet assimilee (of which there probably are fewer than a million) among the at least trillions of Borg may still be unlikely - but the Borg would be perfectly capable of flinging Alphans in the way of an Alpha vessel for whatever purpose, by using their superior propulsion and teleportation technologies.

Crashed SS Raven - self explanatory.

Well, not really. Seven is steering the ship at that time, with her "improved course home". And Seven is being steered. (Also, just to be sure, there's nothing coincidental with the VOY heroes originally meeting the former Annika Hansen.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Farscape One]

I tend to think the O'Brien Changeling was being truthful, given his statement of 4 being more than enough to cause havoc on Earth.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

We'll agree to disagree then. As I said we know the ship crashed, the crash killed everyone on board bar one survivor, who died days later from critical injuries.

To my mind to look for an explanation for those critical injuries other than a ship crashing into the ground from orbit seems completely unnecessary.

If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, chances are it's a duck.

The crash didn't kill the crew it was extreme gravity from faulty dampeners. Extreme Gs could possibly compress mess with or rip apart a founder

 

[Sidewinder]

I tend to think the O'Brien Changeling was being truthful, given his statement of 4 being more than enough to cause havoc on Earth.

Agreed. What reason would he have to lie? He was bragging about how easy it was for them to be that disruptive to an entire planet.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Something always bothered me.

We've Changelings die before... the Krajensky one and the Martok one. They were from energy based weapons or being by the warp core.

But this one... we know the Jem'Hadar died on the ship because they got their bones smashed, basically.

So how did the Changeling die? He started to die toward the end of the episode. He clearly was able to take a different form, which was why he was hidden for so long.

And given how we see Laas able to fly in open space without a problem, this doesn't exactly make sense to me. (Granted, Laas was over 2 years later from this episode and the writers might ave simply overlooked this. Still begs the question.)

Best not to think too hard about valid questions like yours because the DS9 bunch during those War seasons were not. They were throwing sh*t at the wall and hoping it'll stick.