Rewatcher’s note: Due to a massive deadline on the 28th, the Fourth Season Overview will be postponed until Tuesday the 29th, with the fifth season kicking off with “Apocalypse Rising” on the 2nd of May.
“Broken Link”
Written by George Brozak and Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Directed by Les Landau
Season 4, Episode 25
Production episode 40514-498
Original air date: June 17, 1996
Stardate: 49962.4
Station log: Garak lures Odo to his shop to try to set him up with Chalan Aroya, who runs a new Bajoran restaurant. She’s obviously interested—Odo obviously isn’t. Suddenly, in mid-conversation, he has a seizure and collapses, with parts of him reverting to liquid form as he convulses.
Bashir doesn’t know much about changeling physiology—no one does—but he does have other previous scans of Odo, and his mass and density are different from what they normally are when he’s in humanoid form, and in a state of flux.
In the wardroom, Sisko, Kira, Worf, and Dax watch a recording made by Gowron refusing to give up the Cardassian colonies they’ve annexed, and also demanding that the Federation abandon the Archanis sector. The Klingons gave up their claim on Archanis four centuries ago, so Sisko assumes Gowron is saber-rattling. Either way, war is looking inevitable.
Kira brings Odo a criminal activities report by way of cheering him up. Unfortunately, that leads him to leave the infirmary and go after a smuggler—only to collapse into a pile of goo. He manages to get back to the infirmary, but he’s no longer able to completely hold a humanoid shape. Bashir’s tests indicate that he’s destabilizing. Bashir mentions the possibility of sending him to Dr. Mora or to Starfleet Medical, but Odo knows that his only chance now is to go to the Founders.
Sisko’s plan is to take Odo to the Gamma Quadrant in the Defiant and broadcast a signal to the Founders explaining their intentions. Garak asks to come along to the GQ because he wants to determine if there were any survivors of the massacre of the Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar fleet. Sisko agrees only if Garak will also keep Odo’s mind off his condition by distracting him with innuendo, half-truths, and vague comments about his past (which works wonders).
The plan works, as dozens of Jem’Hadar ships show up and surround the Defiant. The female changeling and four Jem’Hadar beam aboard. The female changeling says she wishes to help Odo also, and offers to take Odo with her. Sisko wishes to accompany Odo, but the female changeling is unwilling to reveal the location of the Founders’ new homeworld. They compromise by having a Jem’Hadar pilot the Defiant, while using a doodad to erase all navigation data.
The female changeling visits Odo in the medical bay. She links with Odo, which ameliorates the problem, though it doesn’t cure him, and then she speaks to him in private. Odo quickly realizes that the Founders were the ones who gave him this virus, by way of getting him to return to the Great Link—but not just for the sake of bringing him home, but so he can stand trial for the death of the Krajensky changeling. If Odo refuses to join the Great Link and be judged, the virus will kill him—the female changeling was only able to stabilize him temporarily.
The female changeling assures Garak that all the Cardassians in the Omarian Nebula were killed—and that every Cardassian will be killed for their actions against them. Garak is, to say the least, nonplussed.
Sisko, Worf, and O’Brien try to figure out a way to keep tabs on Odo while he’s in the Link, but Odo himself interrupts them and says that he doesn’t want them to. He’s spent his life in pursuit of justice—now that he’s the one who’s committed a crime, he can’t turn away now.
They arrive at the new Founder homeworld. Sisko and Bashir accompany the female changeling and Odo to the surface. The latter two enter the Link, Odo actually smiling at Sisko and Bashir before he goes in.
Worf discovers Garak trying to gain control of the Defiant weapons systems. His goal is to wipe out the Founders homeworld, which would kill Sisko, Bashir, and Odo as well, and likely lead to the deaths of everyone on the Defiant once their rather large Jem’Hadar escort discovers what they’re doing, but to Garak’s mind it would be worth it. Worf disagrees and takes him down.
The Link ejects a naked Odo. Bashir scans him and discovers that he’s now human—with a respiratory system, a cardiovascular system, and all the rest. He still has the unfinished facial features he had before, though. His punishment, according to the female changeling, is to be a solid. Sisko, Bashir, and Odo beam up, and Bashir confirms that he’s human.
When they return to the station, Garak provides Odo with a new uniform, and then Odo arrests Garak for his sabotage (he’s been sentenced to six months in a holding cell).
Despite still getting headaches and adjusting to eating and drinking and sleeping, and despite still seeing flashes of things he experienced in the Link, Odo insists on going back to work. When he was in the Link, he was finally home, and then it was ripped away from him. His job as chief of security is all he has left.
Gowron sends a message on all frequencies to all Federation bases, announcing that he’s sending a task force to Archanis to take it back. Upon seeing Gowron’s face, Odo realizes that one of the things he saw in the Link was Gowron’s face.
Chancellor Gowron is a changeling.
To be continued…next season…
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko goes to great lengths to help Odo, risking himself and the Defiant numerous times—yet there’s never any sense that he is at risk. Even when he’s not at all in control of the situation, he seems to be, and there’s no doubt that he’s with Odo to the end and that he’ll get him back home.
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Now that she’s carrying the O’Brien fetus, Kira is subject to major sneezing fits, which is common for pregnant Bajoran women. Every time she has a sneezing fit, the officers around her wager on how many. (In Act 1, Sisko wins with eight. Dax picked seven, Worf picked ten.)
The slug in your belly: Worf asks Sisko if Dax’s previous host was as argumentative as Jadzia is, and Sisko says he was worse. Dax response is, “Thanks—I think.”
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: In “The Search, Part II,” Odo finally found his people and then was devastated to discover they were bastards. In “The Die is Cast,” Odo admitted to Garak that his greatest desire was to return home to his people despite their being bastards. In this episode, he gets an object lesson in getting what you wish for, as he does return to the Great Link, finds it to be even more awesome than expected, and then has it, and his shapeshifting ability, yanked away from him.
Rules of Acquisition: Quark confidently tells Odo that he expects to own the station by the time Odo gets back from the GQ, which is by way of getting an assurance from Odo that he will be coming back. It’s as close to a declaration of concern as Quark is likely to give his nemesis.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf discovers Garak’s attempt at sabotage. Garak at first tries to appeal to Worf’s Klingon-ness, but he’s a warrior, not a murderer, and not about to commit genocide, taking his captain and crew with him. So Garak tries to break free and actually puts up a good fight for a minute—one suspects that Worf was more surprised than anything. However, Worf is able to take him down in short order, with the comment, “You fight well—for a tailor.”
Plain, simple: Garak worked as a gardener at the Cardassian embassy on Romulus for a time. By a startling coincidence, several Romulan dignitaries died under mysterious circumstances that year…
Victory is life: It’s taken so long for the Founders to take action against Odo because, as has been stated several times, no changeling has ever harmed another. This is new ground for them, and there’ve been a lot of arguments in the Great Link over how to proceed. They eventually decided on Trial By Communal Goo.
Tough little ship: The Defiant travels in the Gamma Quadrant while uncloaked, prompting O’Brien to say that it’s like being naked. Sisko and Worf agree, leading Dax to smile and say she’s amused by being in the presence of so many naked men.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: The owner of the new Bajoran restaurant flirts outrageously with Odo on two occasions. Odo is less than receptive the first time, vaguely intrigued the second.
Keep your ears open: “Odo values his privacy. He does not like to…socialize.”
“I think it’s all an act.”
“It is not an act. He told me so himself.”
“But you were socializing with him when he said it.”
Worf insisting that Odo be left alone, and Dax disagreeing.
Welcome aboard: Recurring regulars Andrew J. Robinson, Salome Jens, and Robert O’Reilly are back as Garak, the female changeling, and Gowron, respectively, while Leslie Bevis makes her third and final appearance as Rionoj (she’s named for the first time in the episode’s script). Jill Jacobson plays Chalan.
Trivial matters: The Founders finally punish Odo for his killing of another changeling in “The Adversary.” He will remain as a “solid” until “The Begotten” next season.
This marks the third opening-credits regular who’s been exiled from his own people this season. First Worf in “The Way of the Warrior,” then Quark in “Body Parts,” and now Odo. Plus we’ve got recurring regulars Garak and Dukat, both exiled from Cardassia (the latter by his own choice).
The script for “To the Death” had Weyoun clapping Odo on the shoulder, which is supposed to be when Odo was infected with the disease that leads him to the Great Link in this episode. The way the scene was shot, you can’t really see Weyoun’s shoulder-clap, however. In addition, it will be established during the seventh season that Odo was given a morphogenic virus by Section 31 back in “Homefront,” and it is his link with the other changelings in this episode that transmits that virus to the rest of the Founders.
Chalan was intended to be a new recurring character and possible love interest for Odo in the fifth season, but the producers weren’t happy with Jill Jacobson’s chemistry with Rene Auberjonois.
The female changeling in essence lies twice to Garak. First she says there were no Cardassian survivors following the attack in “The Die is Cast,” and she also says that the Dominion will destroy Cardassia in retaliation. Both will prove to be false in “By Inferno’s Light” and “In Purgatory’s Shadow.”
Garak’s time at the Cardassian embassy of Romulus will be detailed in Andrew J. Robinson’s Garak “autobiography,” A Stitch in Time. He previously mentioned in the last episode, “Body Parts,” that he was a gardener before he was a tailor. His six-month sentence will be up shortly prior to “Things Past” next season.
Walk with the Prophets: “He is one of you now.” This is one of those episodes I had very little memory of the details of until I saw it again, and realized it was another one (like, for example, “The Collborator”) that was more important for what it established than what it accomplished as an episode.
In terms of the former, this is big stuff. Odo’s committed a crime that allegedly has never been committed in the entire history of changeling-hood. (A claim I find impossible to credit, but the Founders aren’t exactly a race that values truthiness…) His punishment is just brutal, though probably not for the reasons the Founders think. The female changeling’s lament that perhaps they should have just killed him is mostly because she finds the notion of being in one shape all the time to be agony. But that’s not Odo’s punishment, it’s that he’s finally home and then he has it torn away in more ways than one. Shapechanging isn’t really a major part of Odo’s life (although that’s partly an artifact of budget, as they have to limit the number of times they can use CGI morphing on a TV budget), but far worse was to give him heart’s desire for a few hours and then make it clear that he’ll never ever have it again.
It’s funny, the female changeling says that it might be their fault for sending him away the way they did 99 other baby changelings, and she’s correct except for the word “might.” It shouldn’t really be a surprise that having them come to maturity in isolation might lead to crap like this.
It takes for-bloody-ever to get to Odo’s fate. We’re left without a real B-plot, unless you count Garak’s wholly out-of-character and out-of-left-field attempt to commit a murder/suicide with the Defiant. Garak is a spy, he’s the type of guy who engages in poison or transporter accidents (as he discusses with Odo when babbling about his past as a “gardener”), not blowing up a planet while surrounded by dozens of hostile ships. That’s a Dukat move or (as we’ll later see) a Damar move, not a Garak move. And it just comes across as pointless filler because there’s not enough story here to fill the hour.
You might count the Gowron stuff as a B-plot, but that’s just one scene at the beginning that’s not even referenced again until the chancellor’s ultimatum at the end—and that’s all really just there to set up the season-five premiere, it has very little to do with this episode at all.
And so instead the Odo story just meanders forward. It doesn’t even have the usual tension of a medical drama, since Bashir’s entire treatment strategy consists of staring at the screen and going, “Hoo boy, yeah, that molecular structure sure is destabilizing a lot!” We get lots of fun banter among the crew (like O’Brien bitching about Kira and Keiko going quiet on him as soon as he enters their now-shared quarters) but, again, it comes across as filler.
Watching Odo adjust to being a solid will make for a good ongoing subplot in the fifth season, and the bombshell at the end is magnificent—Gowron’s been a recurring character on two shows for six years now, so Odo’s last line hits very hard—but all of that is setup for future stories. This particular episode is about fifteen minutes’ worth of interesting story stretched out into an hour.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be at TrekTrax Atlanta 2014 this weekend where, among other things, he’ll be debuting The Klingon Art of War. Other guests include actors Arlene Martel (T’Pring in “Amok Time”), Jeremy Roberts (Valtane in Star Trek VI and “Flashback”), and Felix Silla (Twiki in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century); artists Heather Hausenfleck and Mark Wright; radio personality Dan Carroll; makeup artist Dale Morton; puppeteers Felt Nerdy and Death by Puppets; musicians Go, Robo, Go! and Hyperspace; performance artists The Spirit of Broadway and Betsy Goodrich (a.k.a. Danger Woman); and various folks involved with the Star Trek: Phase II, Starship Farragut, Exeter Trek, Star Trek: Reliant, and Project: Potemkin fan series. Keith’s schedule can be found here.
Garak’s out-of-character actions can be justified when you consider:
1. Given the truth about his relationship to Tain, he might very well succumb to vengeance and abandon his cardinal spy rules.
2. He’s a Cardassian patriot — and the Female Founder just told him that she’s going to kill them all. I’d be displeased too.
And with knowledge of what’s to come, I can’t help but chuckle darkly when Odo melds with the Link. In their pursuit of judging Odo, they have no idea what they’ve done…
As KRAD says, there isn’t a lot here, and I’m not really sure how I feel about what is there. Making Odo a solid leads to a bit of interesting character study, but it also feels really tacked on. Like they suddenly didn’t know what to do with him as a changeling anymore and tried to wipe it away. For me, it’s a meh episode with mildly interesting but wholly unnecessary consequences.
Remind me again, please,
How do the Founders know Odo killed a changeling? There was only one on the ship wasnt there?
Thats a big assumption to make since there was the whole crew of the defiant to also blame.
So either a.) the Founders underestimate Starfleets ability to kill a changeling
B.) their professed ‘lack of killing each other’ motto is a load of batha poodoo.
LuvURphleb: The official Starfleet and Bajoran Militia records all would have had reports of what happened on the Defiant. The Founders have proven themselves to have excellent intelligence-gathering skills, so I doubt it was very long before they got their hands on one of the logs and/or reports on that incident…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Garak’s play here didn’t come out of left field for me. He was faced with the death of his mentor and many former associates along with the prospective elimination of his entire race. The female shapeshifter was never more malevolent than in that moment and I believed her claim that they would at least try.
I agree with James2, this episode is much stronger when you consider the rest of the series with it; section 7 and the near destruction of the Cardassians that eventually came to pass anyway.
I always suspected that Chalan Aroya was a Dominion spy and that she infected Odo with the virus when she touched him. I couldn’t see any other reason for her to be in the story. Even knowing that she was meant to be a prospective love interest, I still think she may well have been a spy.
And I disagree that the Founders don’t value “truthiness.” “Truthiness” means placing what you want to be true over actual facts and reason. A statement like “No Changeling has ever harmed another,” which is implausible when considered objectively but reflects an idealized belief that the Founders want to be true, is a classic example of truthiness.
Was the Female Changeling really lying when she said the Dominion would destroy the Cardassians? Given what she orders on Cardassia in the series finale (and how efficiently it was carried out), I’ve always assumed genocide was always the Founder’s planned end game for the Cardassians (and presumably for the Romulans as well.)
As a rpogramming note, does that mean we get the Season 4 overview on Tues, Apocolypse Rising on Thurs, and The Ship on Fri?
Not a problem if The Ship moves to the Tues after, I just plan my work around these postings.
An interesting observation I didn’t make until I saw the number in the writeup above:
100 changeling infants were sent out ( Odo plus 99 others )
100 is a very “solid” number, as it is only significant in the context of a base-10 numbering system, which is natural to us because of the number of digits on our hands.
I agree with #7…in retrospect I figured the Founders always intended to annihilate the Cardassians, and that Dukat just made it easier for them to do so.
@1,
I also didn’t think Garek’s actions were terribly out of character. Between his grief for Tain and his fear for Cardassia, there were reasons he might act drastically. Plus, Garek is an opportunist, and he sees an opportunity here. He might prefer to arrange a poisoning or accident or something else that will let him get away, but I believe he’s capable of more direct action if necessary.
Though Garek is lucky he’s a regular, else he’d probably get more than 6 months in the slammer for attempted genocide.
@9,
That’s an interesting thought: if we “solids” determine our numbering system by how many digits we have, what numbering system would a species that could choose its number of digits go for? 12 perhaps (a number divisible by a quarter of those less than it)? 2 or 16, maybe, if computation and logic developed about the same time as math?
Broken Link is definitely the show’s weakest season finale, by far.
Even though it sets up a lot of important plot points and moves the overall arc forward, it doesn’t deliver enough of an emotional impact on its own. Ira Behr and Robert Wolfe were most likely burned out after such a hectic and intensively productive season, and had three days to crank out a 26th script. Just enough story to leave viewers hanging for the 5th season. After so many outstanding episodes, there was a high chance of ending the year with a clunker.
The female changeling in essence lies twice to Garak. First she says there were no Cardassian survivors following the attack in “The Die is Cast,” and she also says that the Dominion will destroy Cardassia in retaliation.
I wouldn’t call it a lie. Technically, the destroying Cardassia part will turn out to be true eventually, if only three years after the lie itself (with hints of truth beneath).
Adding to the previous comment.
If anything, this only shows the pitfalls of trying to cram 26 episodes in a single season, when a lesser number could easily allow for the producers to create content just as good, if not on a better level.
I have ongoing arguments with friends who feel that Game of Thrones should have more episodes per season. I always bring up the Soap Opera argument. More shows, less quality.
Quoth Rancho Unicorno: “As a rpogramming note, does that mean we get the Season 4 overview on Tues, Apocolypse Rising on Thurs, and The Ship on Fri?”
No, I got my dates confused. I’ve edited the post but, no, we’ll be on the usual schedule next week: overview on Tuesday, “Apocalypse Rising” on Friday.
And in general: sorry, I don’t buy that the finale was the intended endgame all along. The destruction of Cardassia Prime was an action taken only due to a specific set of circumstances.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@krad
In terms of the characters, you’re right. The Dominion probably had no intention of bombing Cardassia at that point, and the Female Shapeshifter was making an empty threat to Garak.
But in terms of real-world production, I remember Ira once mentioned he decided on having Cardassia pay the price for the war very early in the show’s development. He probably could see where this was all going by this point, and decided to plant the line as a harmless seed, in case it went forward years later.
@14: The Founders:
1. Believe all Solids want to destroy them;
2. Are big believers in disproportionate revenge against species who have opposed them (see The Quickening);
3. Are perfectly fine with genocide. (see Weyoun’s plan to kill everyone on Dominion occupied Earth, which presumably if Founder approved); and
4. Are perfectly willing to play the long game. (see Statistical Probabilities where Jack describes how it is typical Dominion strategy to give up things in the short run for long term advantage).
Now add in the fact that some Cardassians and Romulans did actually try to genoicde them, and it would be astonishing if the Founders weren’t planning genocide against those races. They are going to blame all Cardassians for Tain’s action, and while they might be willing to take advantage of the Cardassians for a time (giving up their short term desire for immediate revenge for the long term gain of securing the Alpha Quadrant), that doesn’t mean they are ever going to forget that the Cardassians tried to wipe them out or that they won’t turn on the Cardassians with genocidal intent the second they are no longer useful.
(And again the fact that the Dominion was able to so efficiently devestate Cardassia in such a short period of time even as their entire war effort was collapsing suggests they were carrying out a long standing plan.)
It makes you wonder if Dukat realized that his Dominion ‘allies’ were going to screw Cardassia over in the long run — or if he was arrogant enough to believe Cardassia would win the day.
I was expecting more snark about them taking the Defiant out on this mission. You don’t need a warship for a mission of mercy, a runabout is fine. It’s not like they were planning to fight or cloak. The idea that the Dominion would then bring a fully crewed warship to their new homeworld under minimal (internal) guard is just plain stupid. Why not simply beam Odo, Sisko and Bashir to one of their own ships for the journey? S&B were volunteering anyway.
I never really liked this episode. You’re right that it is only about fifteen minutes worth of story stretched to an hour, but my big beef is the Changlings changing Odo into a human. How, exactly, do they do that? I mean, I get that there are operations that could occur in order to give someone a certain appearance and organs and systems of organs could, theoretically, be implanted into a person to make them something more…or less. But, they didn’t do that. They just melded with him (I guess that’s kind of what is happening in the Link) and, poof…magically he’s not only a being with human biology, but they stripped him of a basic (for their species) evolutionary process in being able to shapeshift. How the hell do they just magically do this? I never liked that they could just do it willy-nilly.
On another note, Quark going up to Odo and making sure that he’s going to return is, well, it’s kind of sweet actually. As we’ll see later in the series, these two hate each other, but they kind of love each other as well, don’t they? I like that dynamic.
@19: I don’t have a problem with what they did to Odo. I mean, in order to fool sensor scans, Changelings must be able to shapeshift into perfect simulacra of humanoids right down to the level of internal organs and tissues, perfectly mimicking everything right down to the cellular level, if not the molecular level. It would simply be a matter of inducing such an exact transformation in Odo and then somehow “locking” him in that form, disabling his ability to change out of it.
Well, correction, I do have one problem with it: Out of all the humanoid species they could’ve turned Odo into, why choose human? Bajoran would make more sense.
They not only turn Odo into a human but a slightly deformed human (his usual face) that for whatever reason resembles all the other Changelings in their “normal” form. So every day he’ll be reminded he looks like one of his people but… really isn’t.
Geez, these guys really know how to rub it in.
@20. I’ve been thinking about that, and I’m guessing that either the Founders (for whatever reason) assumed Odo was aiming for “human” rather than “Bajoran,” or what they turned him into was actually based on their original “solid” form (in which case, it would be hardwired into whatever passes for DNA among changelings, and they simply flipped a genetic switch somewhere).
(Which would also helpfully explain their “half-formed” faces as some sort of genetic memory of their “real” faces –they’re not mimicking Odo, he was unconsciously mimicking them.)
@20: I was just going to say that, actually. I suppose the Founders may have connected him with humanity, but I always felt like turning him into a Bajoran would have made more sense, particularly given the way the female shapeshifter tended to harp on his relationship with Kira. It seems to me that the writers just sort of treated human as the “baseline” thing to be.
@22: Why would the Founders assume Odo was aiming for human? They’re not that ignorant of the facts. In “Heart of Stone,” Odo told the Female Shapeshifter about his history with Doctor Mora and how he got his name, assuming she was Kira. So she knows he was raised by Bajorans and learned to mimic them decades before he ever met a human, and therefore every Founder in the Great Link knows it too.
And no, that’s not what their ancestors looked like. They just mimicked Odo’s rough approximation of a Bajoran face when he first met them, and continued to mimic it in their future interactions with Odo and the Alpha Quadrant. In any case, they turned him human, remember, so clearly they did not revert him to their ancestral form.
I always believed it to be that the Founders locked Odo into a human form based simply on the fact that their nearest examples, waiting for him on the rock, were human – Bashir and Sisko. Granted neither of those are a racial match for Odo (if there can be said to be such a thing) but they also said they gave Odo his own appearance back deliberately. Odo on the outside, human on the inside, based off the two guys who were standing right there.
I’m pretty sure I brought this up in the discussion of “The Adversary”, but if the Krajensky changeling had succeeded in his plan, that would have most likely killed Odo. And one changeling would have harmed another. Would they have punished themselves (the entire link) for the death of Odo? I doubt it.
Yay, now I’m caught up…but I’m trying to tread lightly in the comments for now.
Interesting thoughts about the humanocentricism of the episode though. I can see them locking Odo into whatever his usual solid shape was in terms of his physical appearance, but it seems like internally/genetically there was no reason to make him human as opposed to Bajoran, or just some generic ‘humanoid’.
@25: At best, that’s just an excuse for the writers’ decision to make Odo “human,” and it’s that decision that’s questionable. Why didn’t the writers decide to make Odo Bajoran, or just generically humanoid? That would’ve made more sense and wouldn’t have altered the storytelling any, since the impact on Odo was simply about being changed into a solid, so specifically picking humans out of all the gajillions of humanoids out there was a totally arbitrary choice. It reflects the unconscious human-centrism that Trek writers and producers often fail to make sufficient effort to avoid (like when they portray large crowds of Starfleet extras as exclusively human).
The one thing I don’t understand about this episode is Gowron’s actions. Back in Way of the Warrior, he realized that getting the Empire into a war with the Federation and Cardassians at the same time was a suicidally bad idea that would only benefit the Dominion. So what has changed since then? Why is he now willing to start a war with the Feds while he is still fighting the Cardassians?
@29: I believe we’ll find that out in “Apocalypse Rising.” Hint: Keep an eye on his chief advisor.
Random thought about the series as a whole and I guess this is the best place to put it. If the founders hadn’t sent out the baby changelings, I think it’s clear they would have won the war without some impressive writer-hand-wavery.
If the Federation and other Alpha Quadrant powers didn’t know shapeshifters existed, would any of the infiltrators have been caught? If you’re going to depend on infiltration and subterfuge to be prime weapons of your conquest, wouldn’t it make more sense to keep all juvenile changelings close so that you don’t reveal your existence? Aside from the moral issues, how much information would these changelings come back with to compensate for the information they’ve inadvertently given about your species? Obviously the Vorta could infiltrate almost as well for simple intelligence gathering. The baby changelings aren’t getting top secret government data. Just information on the culture, mindset, etc.
@31: Yeah, it never made any sense to me that a culture as deeply concerned for the well-being of its members as the Changelings were shown to be would just send out a hundred infants into the galaxy. Odds are most of them would just die. It’s a paradox the writers never explained, and it shows the perils of making it up as they went.
@30: Granted, but Martok was also his chief advisor in WotW. Gowron went against his advice there, so why is he blindly following him now?
The only thing I can think of that might explain it is maybe the Federation-Romulan talks in Homefront (the ones the Dominion bombed) spooked Gowron into thinking a Fed-Romulan alliance was in the works, so he figures it is better to take the Feds on now while the Klingons might still be able to beat them rather than wait until they are formally allied with the Romulans and much too powerful for the Klingons to have any chance of defeating.
@33: Well, Gowron’s decisions are always about politics. I’d bet that the war with Cardassia has prompted a lot of the Klingon houses — and the military-industrial complex — to push for further expansion and conquest as a way to accrue more glory and/or profit. So maybe a lot of Council members were initially reluctant to turn on the Federation, but now have gotten fired up for war and have changed their minds.
Yeah.
Gowron had to declare ‘mission accomplished’ in WOTW in order to avoid being assassinated. It makes sense he would be bowing to political pressure to reasset the Empire’s TOS-era policies and reqauire those territories.
@34/35: Perhaps, though in that case you would think Gowron would have just resumed the drive on Cardassia. Plenty of opportunities for glory and plunder in conquering the Cardassians and with much less risk of exposing the Empire to a two front war.
There wasn’t much story in this episode. I always thought Odo should have been Bajoran but they locked him into the form of the nearest solids. I did like the reveal about Gowron being a changeling though it explained a lot. Garak’s behavior is a bit out of character for him but completley understandable. I don’t think he was given 6months for trying to kill the founders but attacking Worf and messing with the Defiants controls.
So for the second time in the past year, I’ve had a flight from Atlanta to New York cancelled on me, forcing an overnight stay at an airport hotel and arriving a day late home. As with last Labor Day, this necessitates a delay in the rewatch — the fourth-season overview will go up on Wednesday rather than Tuesday. My apologies. (I’m writing this comment, by the way, while hurtling through the air in a metal tube. I love it when the plane has wifi.)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Airplanes kind of blow my mind, to be honest.
Although, honestly, the fact that I’m sitting here in Wisconsin and my words are going to go through a bunch of wires and also through the air somehow and show up on your screen in New York is kind of mindboggling too!
(Yes, I know – science! It’s awesome!)
I’ve been debating posting a little Dax-rant here for the last several recaps. But yeah. I have to say if I knew Dax in real life I’d probably hate her and would eventually tell her to stay the hell away from me.
Its this little thing with extraverts like her that over time becomes a big thing for intraverts like me. They have to get in your business shake things up and pull you out of your shell. But thats not how it works. You can’t cure an introvert. There’s nothing to cure. Its just how we are. But extraverts don’t get that. They can’t comprehend that some of us are perfectly happy spending relatively little time socializing and avoiding large crowds as much as we can and quietly reflecting on things.
Likewise, Dax can’t seem to comprehend Odo’s innate need for order and privacy in a space that is his. That, as a liquid being, he lacks constants we take for granted and thus craves constancy elsewhere. No, she knows best and she has to meddle in everybody’s lives.
I get why she thinks this way. As Jadzia she was shy and scared. As Jadzia Dax she has broken out of that and its good for her. She needed people and she was just scared to reach out. But its different for a lot of us. A lot of us don’t actually need people THAT badly and being around people too much wears us out. You’d think with all those lifetimes of experience, Dax would get that.
@1 Very true. This is out of character for what we understand of Garak thus far but later on in the series(and if you have read the books) it become much more in line with who Garak is a person. That is why I like DS9 because characters grow to make earlier actions that do not make complete sense understandable later on. Although there are a few moments of the opposite due to the entire plot not being written out(which I think generally always leads to a more complex and full series).
@3 Simply as they have stated before when he killed that changeling. “We are everywhere”. You dont even know for sure that was the only changeling on the Defiant at the time. That was just the only on that revealed itself. There must be a changeling equivilent to a spy who remains hidden no matter the cost to obtain the maximum amount of intelligence possible. 6 months as a bulkhead in DS9 Ops for example would be a perfect spot.
@13 Yes, a lesser number of episodes would allow you to focus more on the production quality of each episode but it would also limit your ability to tell story as you only have 13hours of airtime instead of 26. This would include episodes whose entire existence is meant to setup later episodes and shows that are merely meant to play around and test ideas(to keep the public, staff, and actors happy as they work around 20 hour days sometimes)
@15 I would really say “empty threat” because at that point they probably would have carried it out had the situation in the alpha quadrant been any better for them to establish a foothold. I dont think they planned to exterminate them regardless in the long run but I do not think the existence of Cardassians as a species mattered much to the Founders one way or the other if they were not useful.
@16 Yea the founders are pretty much insane. They being interconnected mentally with their insanity doesnt really help them get over persecution that may have happened thousands of years ago. They honestly could have carried out the creation of the Dominion in the exact same way and just been benevolent like the Federation, then at the end of the day the “conquered worlds” may not have cared in the end and many worlds may have joined the Dominion on their own simply for the benefits of having the most powerful military, logistical, and economic force in the Quadrant to back them up.
With that though the dominion might have had to breed a third servant race for workers and menial positions. Almost Vorta but not quite as inherently devious and slimy.
@18 The Defiant may be a warship but it is the primary vessel for the crew. Second, a runabout has even less medical amenities than the defiant, which could have made a difference in Odos survival.
Third, if you are going to go meandering around in enemy territory would you rather have a ship capable of Warp 5(around 200c) or warp 9.5(upwards of 1000c). Fourth, the Dominion are still hostile and thus going in a runabout would have been risking the lives of anyone on the mission needlessly. Its a Starfleet warship(even though the Founders dont reason in that way sometimes) so if they say they are on a peaceful mission you can probably believe them even if they come riding a ship designed as a solar system busting bomb.
@20 Yes changing him in to a Bajoran would have made more sense. In universe it was purposeful as a further means of punishment to make odo always have to remember what he was and that he is different(even though Bashir could easily have performed cosmetic surgery). Outside of universe, its just easier to keep Renee in the makeup we all know and love him in.
@31 Pretty much. On one level sending out automated ships stocked with thousands of probes and subspace relays would have been more effective for pure information gathering. On the other hand there is no personal interaction with probes. The Founders expected the younglings to spend time trying to understand other species, eventually develop the same phobias and arrogance as the other members of the Great Link and return home with the capacity to fully share all this information in an easily relatable way. So more risk and longer time to receive data but sending out the 100 had benefits vs just probes. Although both plans should have been enacted. Honestly a generational ship(Supercarrier) with a single adult changeling or 3 and all the necessities to produce ketrecel white and breed/clone Jem’Hadar and Vorta would have been the best of both worlds. Since changelings have virtual unlimited natural longevity it would not have been a one way trip.
If Voyager did it impromptu then a well prepared specifically designed Dominion vessel could have done it easily.
@36 Then further weakening of the empire against the changelings in the long run and potential retaliation from the Federation. I dont think the empire could have fought the full power of the Cardassians and Federation at once even on their best day. Especially if the Federation could be a bit more relaxed than during the later seasons and just cranked out minimally crewed Defiant class vessels like nobodies business. The Defiant class pound for pound outclass all known klingon vessels at the time in both power and cost effectiveness. Not to mention I believe the Prometheus class which is even more powerful as a warship was already well into development.
@40 I wouldnt think so. While Dax is an extrovert to a degree that could be deemed annoying, she is also a genius joined trill with hundreds of years of life experience and wisdom to draw from. Plus she is a professional and if you told her seriously(which I do not believe any of her friends really sternly told/made her to stop) she most likely would.
Dax understands it, she just has enough life experience to know that if you put yourself in that kind of box at the end of the day you are just missing out. In Odos case as he is already a loner she is really just trying to help him out of his shell, let go of his insecurities and become the most OP character in any military outfit in the quadrant. Imagine Odo and Data tag teaming in command of a Starship(both of them are immortal and are never used to their full potential in canon). You could even retcon the Dax symbiont into a career starfleet symbiont and always have her/him on the same ship with different incarnations.
Quoth ChangelingTomalok: “Yes, a lesser number of episodes would allow you to focus more on theproduction quality of each episode but it would also limit your ability to tell story as you only have 13hours of airtime instead of 26.”
Nonsense. Most of the best shows on TV lately are ones that only have a dozen or so episodes per season, from Game of Thrones to The Shield to The Wire to Doctor Who to Sleepy Hollow to Boardwalk Empire. It’s not a coindcidence that the strongest season of Battlestar Galactica was the first, which was only a dozen episodes.
Quoth ChangelingTomalok again: “Yes changing him in to a Bajoran would have made more sense. In universe it was purposeful as a further means of punishment to make odo always have to remember what he was and that he is different(even though Bashir could easily have performed cosmetic surgery). Outside of universe, its just easier to keep Renee in the makeup we all know and love him in.”
You’ve missed the point. This has nothing to do with Rene (not Renee) Auberjonois’s makeup, this has to do with Bashir doing an internal scan of his organs and declaring him to be human. But that makes no sense, as Odo has no real connection to humanity. He was raised on Bajor by a Bajoran person and lives on a Bajoran station — and the Founders are aware that the solid that he’s in love with is a Bajoran woman. So it makes no sense, none, that he would be transformed into a person from Earth.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Even if not many people will be reading this I want to point out one nice little detail: When Sisko, Bashir and Odo beam up again from the planet’s surface, naked Odo reaches out towards the female shapeshifter in a gesture similar to what Adam is doing in Michelangelos famous fresco “The Creation of Adam”. But, of course, the shapeshifter just stands there without reaching out as well.
This episode wasn’t bad. Not the best but not the worst either. This is a nitpick, but so be it. I never understood (and this was true in episodes of TNG as well) why Worf brought a security team with him to the Jefferies tube then told them to wait where they were. Why didn’t he just go by himself? He didn’t even tell them something like “If I’m not back in five minutes, come after me.” No. He said “Wait here.” For what? Him to come back with the saboteur or for him to get his ass kicked? Then he tells Garak “I am a warrior… not a murderer.” Um… hate to break this to you Worf, but the common definition of a warrior is
“A person engaged or experienced in warfare.” Warfare by definition is “The process of military struggle by two nations,” which ordinarily involves murder. I know it’s splitting hairs but a warrior almost by definition is a murderer. Maybe he should have said “…Not a mass murderer.” Then he proves how tough he is by almost getting his butt kicked by Garak.
#1: the founders new exactly what they were doing, they purposely let Odo see Gowron as a changeling to try and start a war between The Empire and the Federation. It was part of their plan.
When Worf tells Garak that he’s a warrior not a murderer, he seems to be forgetting Duras.
@47/CathWren: By Klingon standards, Worf killed Duras in fair and honorable combat, so it falls into the “warrior” category.
48CLB, good point.
BTW, I’m fairly new to posting here. How do you find out when new comments are made to a thread you’ve already passed? I’ve posted in a few other threads but never knew if anyone responded because I couldn’t remember which places I posted. Is there anyplace on Tor that explains how to use the system?
Cathwren: https://www.tor.com/conversations/?view=mine
50MaGnUs, Hey Thanks!
No problem.
Point of interest; Jill Jacobson played Vanessa in TNG’s “The Royale.”
I’m chuckling as I read the human-centric critique here – humanoid is a ridiculous word that no other species would accept as a description for themselves. It’s just as likely as calling everyone on the station Cardassianoid, given that we’re talking about shared trunk, limbs, and symmetrical bipedal setups.
Bipedal mammalians might work – but even mammalian might not apply wholly to Cardassians. Bipedal vertebrate solids is the only term that works for me in the Trek world so far.
@54/Ronnie: But presumably whatever term the aliens use for it would be translated into English as “humanoid,” because that’s the English word for that concept. Just as whatever word they use for dirt or soil could be translated as “earth.”
Into English or into any Earth language the characters might hear with the UT. And if they’re speaking “Federation Interlingua”, if it exists, they’ve come up with a word that’s species-neutral.
@56/MaGnUs: A number of Trek episodes have established that the characters do speak English. They’ve referred to it as English by name, and 20th-century people who’ve interacted with Starfleet officers through time travel or cryogenics have recognized it as English. (In some cases it could’ve been the result of the UT, but then you’d think the Starfleet characters would’ve explained it as such.)
Anyway, the characters speak English for the audience’s benefit, so the terms they use are the ones the audience will understand.
I always laugh out loud when the Changeling Queen, right after again saying no changeling has ever harmed another, informs Odo that the destabilizing illness they’ve infected him with will kill him if he refuses to submit to their judgement. So much for no changeling ever harmed another. After dumping human Odo on shore she also says that perhaps they should have killed him instead of making him human.
Not particularly comforting to submit to those who would judge you but certain standards but not hold themselves to it. Not surprising of course.
I got a good chuckle from Bashir’s “Oh, right…” reaction when Sisko caught him short of skimming a stone across the Great Link!
Speaking of which, I had forgotten just how great the Great Link was portrayed to be in this episode in its vastness. The Dominion is even scarier than we thought, now we know there to be so many more changelings!
So in one scene, Bashir says that movement worsens Odo’s condition and then, a few minutes later, they have him walking to the Defiant instead of using an anti-grav stretcher or something. This is while everyone, including Starfleet personnel who should have been trained better and have more to do, stand around and gawk … nice. One officer even looks down at the floor as Odo passes as if to say “Ewww, he’s dripping!”.
When Bashir says that Odo’s molecular structure can’t handle a transporter trip, I couldn’t help but think how many times it’s been used to sort out other people’s molecular structures. I guess they needed an excuse for a dramatic scene that didn’t work anyway.
Overall, a good episode otherwise. I thought the bit between Garak and Worf was hammed up a bit but I liked it otherwise.
I wonder if there’s any significance to the fact that the founders gave Odo O-negative blood, making him a “universal donor” but not a “universal receiver.” Maybe I’m reading too much into it, maybe a blood type was picked by the writers at random.
Lockdown rewatch.
A decent episode but not as strong a finale as this excellent season deserved. For the first time I thought Garak was misused, not only in his suicidal attempt at destroying the founders (not in Garak’s Character for me) but also the rather cringe attempt at match making for Odo, I am glad the writers decided against that love match going forward.. Salome Jens once again shines as the founder and Rene Aubjonois it almost goes without saying is magnificent. I was never sure about the decision to make Odo a solid, was it a cost saving decision to save on special effects? Thankfully the writers soon realised their error and reversed it mid season 5.
On the subject of Odo being made human rather than Bajoran, I agree with CLB @28 That it’s simply reflective of the unconscious human-centrism of the showrunners. However, in my headcanon, I think making him Bajoran would have almost been a reward. He’d love any chance to be closer to Kira and being biologically Bajoran is another step in that direction. Not to diminish their eventual romance in spite of their differences or anything. Their love story was one of the most beautiful aspects of DS9‘s run.
As for the argument of Garak being out of character in his attempt to destroy the Founders, I disagree. As others have commented, I thought it was thoroughly in character and as an opportunist, it was a chance Garak would not have passed up.