When you scan a changeling...

[JirinPanthosa]

This is probably my 5th time through the series and I didn't notice this little continuity glitch before now. Just watched Broken Link.

"I'm reading a heart...lungs...it's almost as if he's human!"

But in other episodes it's established that when you scan a changeling taking the form of a human you scan a human. If that weren't the case, Homefront would be a very different episode. "There are 4 changelings on Earth." "Okay scanning the planet for changelings, there they are! Beaming them into an airtight room." Also Odo mentioned at one point "When you scan a changeling taking the form of a rock you scan a rock."

Why was Bashir surprised to scan human internal organs in Odo?

 

[od0_ital]

Because before being turned human, Odo didn't have internal organs. He told Lwaxana Troi as much in her first DS9 episode.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Yeah, but when you scan a changeling posing as a human, you scan internal organs.

Or else you wouldn't need to go to such lengths to detect them, just scan for the guy without internal organs.

I suppose you can say 'Odo wasn't a good enough changeling to fool the tricorders'. But then again, he seemed good enough to fool the tricorders in the drills.

 

[Tosk]

Odo doesn't imitate internal organs. Other Changelings do when it suits them to fool scanners. When Odo went undetected during the practice run, he wasn't imitating a person, he was imitating inanimate objects....which he is good at. When he's a rock, you'll scan a rock.

 

[od0_ital]

Yeah, but when you scan a changeling posing as a human, you scan internal organs.

Because when Changelings take on a human or Klingon or Romulan or other humanoid form, they have good reason to want to fool tricorders & other scans, so they would have internal organs, or the approximate version of 'em.

But Odo could give a flyin' fuck about whether ya didn't find a stomach, heart or lungs when ya scanned him. He was different and he knew it, so why bother beyond the surface appearance?

 

[JarodRussell]

In another episode, Odo made a point about how changelings understood something by imitating it, be it a rock or a bird. That would mean that if he wanted to better understand humanoids/solids, he would imitate internal organs as well.

They could imitate sex and the sensation that goes with it as well.

Odo's character and abilities is a bit inconsistent.

 

[Pondwater]

They were humanoid organs not made of isomorphic enzymes.

 

[od0_ital]

In another episode, Odo made a point about how changelings understood something by imitating it, be it a rock or a bird. That would mean that if he wanted to better understand humanoids/solids, he would imitate internal organs as well.

They could imitate sex and the sensation that goes with it as well.

Odo's character and abilities is a bit inconsistent.

How so?

After the way he was treated by Dr Mora and the Cardassians durin' the Occupation, it would make sense that he didn't want a better understandin' of humanoids. And even after he started workin' with Starfleet on the station, he continued to insult those around them, lookin' down his simulated nose, so to speak, at the way people would act.

As he told Sisko, again in Lwaxana Troi's first guest appearance, he already had an understandin' of thieves & killers, and that was enough for him to do his job.

As for sex, again, we're talkin' about outer appearance on Odo's part. Ya don't have to simulate testes to look like ya have a penis. And it was the Female Changeling who would have to worry about the internal construction of a vagina when she & Odo had sex.

Presumably, when he & Kira first started to have a physical relationship, he stayed humanoid for her, and again, surface appearances for a penis, no need to put all the internal stuff there for her, too. Not like he would ejaculate bits of his own goo, either, 'cause it comin' back out to reform back into him would probably gross her out.

And after the events of 'Chimera', it probably didn't matter. He could be himself with her, and it didn't matter what shape or form he took to do it.