Why attack Odo

[Timo]

The real question is why the Dominion would even allow their troops to attack and possibly harm Odo, when
- the whole point of the whole thing was to bring back odo
- AND the dominion had perfect control over the situation?

Which attack are we talking about?

In "The Search", the Founders probably honestly didn't know Odo would be aboard the intruding ship, and didn't prepare their Jem'Hadar for the possibility.

In "The Die is Cast", it is possible that the runabout where Garak and Odo were fleeing was arranged some special protection, and that the Jem'Hadar just faked the attack against Odo. Then again, it's equally possible that this was a typical fog-of-war situation where Odo was on his own - there'd be no active effort to kill him, but no possibility of arranging for his protection in the battle, either. Ditto for the Klingon rampage in "Way of the Warrior" - the fake Martok wouldn't have been able to orchestrate every little detail of it, but he could have assumed Odo would survive no matter what.

In "The Adversary", the hostile Founder might have intended to save Odo whilst killing all his friends - but when Odo sided with those friends, the Founder might well have made the decision to kill Odo, as surely was the privilege of Gods. Besides, the Jem'Hadar would never find out about it anyway, so the Founder could do anything and everything without endangering the loyalty of the troops.

The "we don't kill each other" thing is obvious propaganda to begin with: clearly, individual Founders disagree with each other, and sometimes these disagreements come to a sharp point. But a feeling of unity against Solids no doubt does limit Founder-to-Founder violence to a minimum.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

Maybe Changelings didn't look like Odo before Odo met them - why should the Changelings just happen to have "natural" forms that were Odo-like? Their natural forms should be goo.

So the female Changeling shape-shifted to look like Odo just so that he would feel more at home with them. And the Jem'hadar had no way of connecting Odo's looks with a Changeling because they'd never looked like that (and who's to say those Jems knew what Changelings looked like in their natural form).

A number of Jem'Hadar characters (I don't mean the nameless cannon fodder ones) often spoken of never having seen a Founder.

 

[TeutonicNights]

The real question is why the Dominion would even allow their troops to attack and possibly harm Odo, when
- the whole point of the whole thing was to bring back odo
- AND the dominion had perfect control over the situation?

Which attack are we talking about?

In "The Search", the Founders probably honestly didn't know Odo would be aboard the intruding ship, and didn't prepare their Jem'Hadar for the possibility.

I find that hard to believe. Unless the Dominion didn't know at all that Odo was with the Bajorans.
IF they knew however, they should have prepared at least for the possibility Odo would be aboard.
I don't recall the episode in detail, but maybe they just ordered their troops to use melee attacks, which would not severely endanger Odo.

Whether the mission was to get Odo or just the Defiant crew, the plan was to get them alive in any event. So this is not a real problem anyway.

In "The Die is Cast", it is possible that the runabout where Garak and Odo were fleeing was arranged some special protection, and that the Jem'Hadar just faked the attack against Odo. Then again, it's equally possible that this was a typical fog-of-war situation where Odo was on his own - there'd be no active effort to kill him, but no possibility of arranging for his protection in the battle, either. Ditto for the Klingon rampage in "Way of the Warrior" - the fake Martok wouldn't have been able to orchestrate every little detail of it, but he could have assumed Odo would survive no matter what.

makes sense.

In "The Adversary", the hostile Founder might have intended to save Odo whilst killing all his friends - but when Odo sided with those friends, the Founder might well have made the decision to kill Odo, as surely was the privilege of Gods. Besides, the Jem'Hadar would never find out about it anyway, so the Founder could do anything and everything without endangering the loyalty of the troops.

Or they would both have been transported off the ship in time.

The "we don't kill each other" thing is obvious propaganda to begin with: clearly, individual Founders disagree with each other, and sometimes these disagreements come to a sharp point. But a feeling of unity against Solids no doubt does limit Founder-to-Founder violence to a minimum.

I agree when it comes to the post "The Search" (or at least the post "The Adversary") time, when Odo had become a rogue element. But in "The Search" they (imo) wanted to bring one of their "lost" children home. They had no reason to want him harmed or even put in danger then.
Unless they didn't know Odo existed of course, as said.

 

[Timo]

On that note, they deliberately sent a hundred of their "children" (whatever that means) to harm's way, apparently and reputedly for the purpose of gathering intelligence. While they might restrain from deliberate gooslaughter between adult individuals, they certainly aren't overtly protective about their "offspring" or relatives.

Clearly there's a difference between how the Founders view and treat their "children" or young ones and how they view and treat fellow adults. At which point Odo would start to count as an adult, one not to be deliberately violated, is unclear. Everything points at him still being immature, and "The Search" also outright states that he returned to the fold much sooner than expected. His ideas about "harming" may not be commeasurate with the usual Founder ideas about "harming"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TeutonicNights]

Good points.
I would have liked to learn more about the Changelings anyway. How they came into existence (evolution or technology) and how they came up with the "sending out infants randomly amongst the solids and see if they return" strategy.

The "only adults count as real founders" theory is good.
The founders certainly knew those infants would return with solids having influenced them. It's conceivable that they would have a different, low, status, at least for a time.

However I would have liked an in-series explanation that sending out the infants was just the "traditional way". Like the original reason behind it was forgotten: to refresh the dominion and keep them from becoming the evil murderous empire that they were.
Thus giving Odo a real "task" within their society and the reformation of the dominion as his goal. Or maybe I have been watching too much "Matrix" movies lol.

 

[Marie1]

I'm more troubled by the fact that the Jem'Hadar, the Hunters... and so many other things... including rocks, can beat up Odo. For crying out loud...

But as brought out I think, and established in "Hippocratic Oath" most Jem'Hadar have never seen a Founder, so unless one shapeshifts- and even then, I don't think Founders are the only shape shifters in the ST universe- they really don't know. And add to that they think that everyone other than them, the Vorta and Changelings are worthless and below them and taa daa! They may need some more genetic tweaking... -_-