why didn't Starfleet Command follow Sisko's Dad's advice?

[indolover]

When Joe Sisko cut himself when chopping food (in Homefront/Paradise Lost), he said to Ben that if he were a Changeling, he'd kill a human, assume his/her form, take his/her blood and release it on demand.

Since that makes perfect sense, and that the Founders were proven to be cunning and go at any length to protect themselves from the solids, why did the Federation still persist with blood screenings?

I think the Starfleet chief of staff should have hired Joe as his advisor. Nah, scratch that. he should have been on the Federation Cabinet as Defence Minister. Let HIM tell Starfleet what to do lol.

 

[The Librarian]

The last time they let him into a position of authority, he tried to kill the president and start a war, so they're probably a bit wary of doing it again.

 

[Anwar]

The whole "Take a blood sample" idea was given to them BY a changeling in the first place (Martok), it was an inherently flawed idea never meant to work but make things easier for the Dominion.

 

[Jono]

Probably the same reason why the Australian military forces doesn't take my advice on deployments and procurements despite my many years of watching TV and judging from my arm chair.

Starfleet obviously didn't just stop with blood screenings as they were working on the polaron emitters which the crew got their hands on a pair of prototypes in "Apocalypse Rising". We never saw a blood test ever detect a Changeling, the only time it "did" was faked.

The writers pretty much dropped the issue. They probably realised how difficult it would be to really deal with Changeling infiltration when Founders don't need to be a person to get into sensitive areas. They could be a PADD in someone's bag, or a button on their shirt or even just zip in as a common house fly. Not to mention that they can be things like fire and fog...how do you defend against that?

 

[Satyrquaze]

Probably the same reason why the Australian military forces doesn't take my advice on deployments and procurements despite my many years of watching TV and judging from my arm chair.

THIS.

 

[indolover]

Probably the same reason why the Australian military forces doesn't take my advice on deployments and procurements despite my many years of watching TV and judging from my arm chair.

Starfleet obviously didn't just stop with blood screenings as they were working on the polaron emitters which the crew got their hands on a pair of prototypes in "Apocalypse Rising". We never saw a blood test ever detect a Changeling, the only time it "did" was faked.

The writers pretty much dropped the issue. They probably realised how difficult it would be to really deal with Changeling infiltration when Founders don't need to be a person to get into sensitive areas. They could be a PADD in someone's bag, or a button on their shirt or even just zip in as a common house fly. Not to mention that they can be things like fire and fog...how do you defend against that?

the point is that Joe Sisko's point was spot on, in that a Changeling could easily get around it. it makes Starfleet look bad and frankly foolish for not assessing all of the contingencies in the plan.

 

[sonak]

For the same reason that you can't take nailclippers on airplane flights anymore-it's called "security theater." Make a big production about procedures that are only very vaguely connected to safety and it actually makes people think they're safer. Actually you're just making things more restrictive and intrusive, and pretty soon before you can fly on a plane your naked body is being gawked at by some low-level bureaucrat who's sitting behind a curtain somewhere.


remember that changeling's line about how they didn't fear humans the way the humans feared them? It's all about the fear.

 

[Jono]

...

the point is that Joe Sisko's point was spot on, in that a Changeling could easily get around it. it makes Starfleet look bad and frankly foolish for not assessing all of the contingencies in the plan.

How do we know they didn't take it all into account? Starfleet knew it wasn't a foolproof system, the crew of the Defiant showed that when they tried blood screenings in the season 3 finale. The question is did they have a better method that they could roll out immediately and widely enough to check not only Starfleet officers but their immediate families?

The only other method we saw at the time was phaser sweeps. We saw that they were effective against Odo but never saw them go against a Changeling infiltrator who is frankly a far better Changeling than Odo ever was. Given that the setting of level one is a light stun, the level 3 needed to irritate Odo into liquid form should have a high impact. What would a constant stun at level 3 do to a person? The system might detect Changelings but if it is going to give people a heart attack or stroke you can't use it on people.

And as I pointed out, Starfleet was working on other methods such as the polaron emitters, which were still in the prototype phase a year later. It seems that Starfleet might not have had another trick up its shelve so blood screenings, as flawed as they were, were the only option.

I do enjoy the fact that the last time we saw them was real Julian Bashir using it to prove he wasn't a Changeling while Changeling Bashir was running blood tests to check for Changeling infiltrators on DS9.

 

[Cyke101]

I do enjoy the fact that the last time we saw them was real Julian Bashir using it to prove he wasn't a Changeling while Changeling Bashir was running blood tests to check for Changeling infiltrators on DS9.

I also enjoy that when we finally meet Real Julian again, he's in his original DS9/pre-First Contact uniform. It was a subtle but concise continuity nod that really cemented how long the real Julian was in captivity.

 

[Jono]

^ Which has its own issues that raise their head around here from time to time. Why Bashir was still in uniform if he was taken in his sleep, why did the Changeling save Sisko's life and the seemingly more troublesome why the Changeling didn't save the baby Changeling's life given how crazy they are about other Changelings.

 

[C_Miller]

It's actually a very realistic thing to do. Was it actually accomplishing anything, but it makes some of the more paranoid people feel just a bit safer. Take a look at the United States' airline security measures. How many terrorists have these measures actually caught (closer to zero than they'd like to admit), yet we keep them because there are paranoid people out there who feel safer.

 

[MikeS]

For the same reason that you can't take nailclippers on airplane flights anymore-it's called "security theater." Make a big production about procedures that are only very vaguely connected to safety and it actually makes people think they're safer. Actually you're just making things more restrictive and intrusive, and pretty soon before you can fly on a plane your naked body is being gawked at by some low-level bureaucrat who's sitting behind a curtain somewhere.


remember that changeling's line about how they didn't fear humans the way the humans feared them? It's all about the fear.

An excellent post, and a reminder to all of how far ahead of its time DS9 was.

 

[G2309]

We probably didnt see the perfected detection devices because by the time they were ready most of the founders were stuck in the gamma quadrent.
After they mined the wormhole we only saw one changling who was part of the dominion.

 

[Jono]

After they mined the wormhole we only saw one changling who was part of the dominion.

Ah, but because the detection method was so poor how many more did we not see?

The Cardassian spy in "A Change of Heart" was offering info on the number of Founders and what they were all doing as incentive to get extracted when he felt his cover was blown, which suggests there were more than one. Unless he was lying (or all is info would say is "One. On Cardassia Prime planning galactic conquest"), which is always a possibility. He was very desparate and knew that Starfleet Intelligence could not turn their backs on the chance he could deliver what he promised.

 

[C_Miller]

For the same reason that you can't take nailclippers on airplane flights anymore-it's called "security theater." Make a big production about procedures that are only very vaguely connected to safety and it actually makes people think they're safer. Actually you're just making things more restrictive and intrusive, and pretty soon before you can fly on a plane your naked body is being gawked at by some low-level bureaucrat who's sitting behind a curtain somewhere.


remember that changeling's line about how they didn't fear humans the way the humans feared them? It's all about the fear.

An excellent post, and a reminder to all of how far ahead of its time DS9 was.

I wouldn't say it was ahead of its time (at least not in that respect), but like all of Star Trek it made a comment on human nature. We've been doing stuff like that through out all of human history. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Lincoln's Suspending of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, the Sedition and Espionage Acts of 1918, the internment of the Japanese, the PATRIOT act. Americans are very quick to vote away their rights and liberties for the fleeting feeling of safety. DS9 did an excellent job of showing that.