I really hope some episode of Picard at least gives us a glimpse into what happened to the Dominion. I don't count STO as canon and I doubt the showrunners would either.
Likely it's just been a uneasy detente in public and an escalating cold war in private, as the Founders rebuild their war chest and lock down their territories in the Gamma quadrant. I didn't get the sense from DS9 that they as species were going to learn anything from the war or Odo's experiences. I'd bet they'd blow up or block the wormhole as soon as possible too.
I got the opposite impression. There was a period of time in which the Founders tried to live with solids, but they learned the lesson "solids are sad, inferior scum" and learned it too well. Now that their illusion of superiority has been completely destroyed, even amongst themselves, and all their secrets laid bare, the only guarantee I can see them wanting is to be left alone. They don't actually want to be running the Dominion, which is why they created a race of enforcers and a race of administrators/bureaucrats; they seem to genuinely resent being distracted by the needs of the empire, as it only exists to assure their comfort and safety while they have their endless weird changeling orgy.
The Founders are stubborn, but they aren't completely stupid and they don't seem big on holding grudges. Personally, I'd expect they would fold up on the whole Dominion idea and instead move over to living secretly somewhere nondescript, with the Federation's backing. Solids could commence an eternal war against one another for all they care, as long as the Founders are left in peace. Hell, probably the only thing the Founders mind about the whole Dominion War is that it actually killed a few Founders, nothing else about it probably carries any weight to them.
Aye. This reading also lines up with the general tone and themes of the ending and the series and the franchise.
To the Founders, the Dominion is the Founders. And because of who they are and how the Dominion works, no one else's opinion matters. It's an extension of their own desire for control and has no other real purpose. They aren't going to hold a grudge or anything. They don't fucking care. Odo is there to convince them to change their minds on the issue of solids and that's all it really takes because no one else's opinion on what the Dominion should do matters.
The Founders have an Empire purely to secure their own existence. They don't actually care for any of it other than they fear not having it will cause the destruction of their way of life. I doubt they'd really care if they lost the Empire. They would just be worried about the consequences of not having that protection. But the Empire can die as far as they are concerned.
Odo is also going to tell the Founders that Section 31 created the plague. The Founders are not going to like that.
"Attempted genocide before the war even started? Maybe we're not so different after all..."
Before the war? The first interaction between the Dominion and the Federation led to the loss of a Galaxy class as part of a Dominion scheme to insert a spy into the Federation. Section 31 is a bunch of assholes, but I'm willing to cut them some slack on the 'technically not actually at war' front.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Please excuse my faulty memory on this, but were Galaxy class ships the only ones that did the whole bring families on board experiment? I’m assuming that the federation did away with that at some point.
Please excuse my faulty memory on this, but were Galaxy class ships the only ones that did the whole bring families on board experiment? I’m assuming that the federation did away with that at some point.
Sisko had his wife and child aboard the Saratoga. Seemed to be a more general thing in the Pre-Wolf 359 Federation
Please excuse my faulty memory on this, but were Galaxy class ships the only ones that did the whole bring families on board experiment? I’m assuming that the federation did away with that at some point.
Sisko had his wife and child aboard the Saratoga. Seemed to be a more general thing in the Pre-Wolf 359 Federation
I'm not sure there's any indication it wasn't still a thing afterwards. Anything but the smaller ships seems to have people's families along for the ride.
The Founders have an Empire purely to secure their own existence. They don't actually care for any of it other than they fear not having it will cause the destruction of their way of life. I doubt they'd really care if they lost the Empire. They would just be worried about the consequences of not having that protection. But the Empire can die as far as they are concerned.
Pretty interesting stuff
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the founders asked the prophets for some nonlinear space they could just fuck off to forever where no solid could touch them. No form, no time. It's perfect!
So I realised something significant has happened in the past few episodes of TNG and yet I kinda just .... forgot about it. Which kinda speaks to how little it mattered in the end.
Wesley left the series. Oh, he'll be back from a few good episodes later, but as of a few episodes ago he's just gone. He even had a half-decent send-off episode. Although I feel like it being more about him and Picard then him and his mother just kinda speaks to how little his being Crusher's son ever mattered. And the actual revelation with him and Picard just doesn't ring true to me. He's never felt like a guy trying to impress Picard this whole time.
But the big thing I noticed in hindsight is how little his leaving mattered. People like to bitch and whinge about Wesley but he's ... he's fine. He's got a few bad moments early on but literally all the characters are kinda bad in those episodes. And yeah, Wheaton is not that strong an actor. But overall, as the show settles in, he settled in as part of the cast and it's just been fine.
But the more he settled in, the more he became just a background character. He's like O'Brien, except I think O'Brien is probably actually more meaningful as a character in the past season and a half. He feels perpetually outside of the plot. And when he shows up he does his thing and it fits right in but it's really telling that you can remove him and replace him on the bridge with generic female extras at the helm or just nobody at meetings in engineering and the show just doesn't even miss a beat. I didn't even notice or think about it till like 6 episodes later when I was mulling over what to say next and realised I'd never even mentioned his leaving.
He was never really that annoying but his leaving just ends up demonstrating how superfluous he is to the show when it finally figures out what it's best form is. And that's far more damning.
Part of the issue is that we never got a satisfying conclusion to what he has become. You've got the whole Traveler thing that was never really fleshed out, then you've got the Nemesis deleted scene thing where I guess they were all "lol, nevermind about that Traveler thing and finding my own path stuff, I'm an officer again, tee hee!"
I suppose we have an opportunity in Picard to answer that question. But do we even really want it tacked on to Picard? Would Wheaton even want to do it? Or do we just pretend Wesley never existed and forget the whole thing?
Part of the issue is that we never got a satisfying conclusion to what he has become. You've got the whole Traveler thing that was never really fleshed out, then you've got the Nemesis deleted scene thing where I guess they were all "lol, nevermind about that Traveler thing and finding my own path stuff, I'm an officer again, tee hee!"
I suppose we have an opportunity in Picard to answer that question. But do we even really want it tacked on to Picard? Would Wheaton even want to do it? Or do we just pretend Wesley never existed and forget the whole thing?
I mean, there are hundreds of billions of people in the Federation. I'm ok with not knowing what each and every individual one has been up to over the past 20+ years.
I really hope some episode of Picard at least gives us a glimpse into what happened to the Dominion. I don't count STO as canon and I doubt the showrunners would either.
Likely it's just been a uneasy detente in public and an escalating cold war in private, as the Founders rebuild their war chest and lock down their territories in the Gamma quadrant. I didn't get the sense from DS9 that they as species were going to learn anything from the war or Odo's experiences. I'd bet they'd blow up or block the wormhole as soon as possible too.
I got the opposite impression. There was a period of time in which the Founders tried to live with solids, but they learned the lesson "solids are sad, inferior scum" and learned it too well. Now that their illusion of superiority has been completely destroyed, even amongst themselves, and all their secrets laid bare, the only guarantee I can see them wanting is to be left alone. They don't actually want to be running the Dominion, which is why they created a race of enforcers and a race of administrators/bureaucrats; they seem to genuinely resent being distracted by the needs of the empire, as it only exists to assure their comfort and safety while they have their endless weird changeling orgy.
The Founders are stubborn, but they aren't completely stupid and they don't seem big on holding grudges. Personally, I'd expect they would fold up on the whole Dominion idea and instead move over to living secretly somewhere nondescript, with the Federation's backing. Solids could commence an eternal war against one another for all they care, as long as the Founders are left in peace. Hell, probably the only thing the Founders mind about the whole Dominion War is that it actually killed a few Founders, nothing else about it probably carries any weight to them.
Aye. This reading also lines up with the general tone and themes of the ending and the series and the franchise.
To the Founders, the Dominion is the Founders. And because of who they are and how the Dominion works, no one else's opinion matters. It's an extension of their own desire for control and has no other real purpose. They aren't going to hold a grudge or anything. They don't fucking care. Odo is there to convince them to change their minds on the issue of solids and that's all it really takes because no one else's opinion on what the Dominion should do matters.
But then why try to aggressively take over the alpha quadrant? They could have mined the wormhole, or destroyed it, and moved on with their day. I've started to think that all their talk of being left alone is just another distraction. They're as power hungry as any of the other races in the galaxy, if not more so.
Part of the issue is that we never got a satisfying conclusion to what he has become. You've got the whole Traveler thing that was never really fleshed out, then you've got the Nemesis deleted scene thing where I guess they were all "lol, nevermind about that Traveler thing and finding my own path stuff, I'm an officer again, tee hee!"
I suppose we have an opportunity in Picard to answer that question. But do we even really want it tacked on to Picard? Would Wheaton even want to do it? Or do we just pretend Wesley never existed and forget the whole thing?
I mean, there are hundreds of billions of people in the Federation. I'm ok with not knowing what each and every individual one has been up to over the past 20+ years.
But how many of them are a Mozart, or a Cochrane, or a Daystrom, or Gene Wesley Roddenberry's personal "Sue"? :rotate:
I really hope some episode of Picard at least gives us a glimpse into what happened to the Dominion. I don't count STO as canon and I doubt the showrunners would either.
Likely it's just been a uneasy detente in public and an escalating cold war in private, as the Founders rebuild their war chest and lock down their territories in the Gamma quadrant. I didn't get the sense from DS9 that they as species were going to learn anything from the war or Odo's experiences. I'd bet they'd blow up or block the wormhole as soon as possible too.
I got the opposite impression. There was a period of time in which the Founders tried to live with solids, but they learned the lesson "solids are sad, inferior scum" and learned it too well. Now that their illusion of superiority has been completely destroyed, even amongst themselves, and all their secrets laid bare, the only guarantee I can see them wanting is to be left alone. They don't actually want to be running the Dominion, which is why they created a race of enforcers and a race of administrators/bureaucrats; they seem to genuinely resent being distracted by the needs of the empire, as it only exists to assure their comfort and safety while they have their endless weird changeling orgy.
The Founders are stubborn, but they aren't completely stupid and they don't seem big on holding grudges. Personally, I'd expect they would fold up on the whole Dominion idea and instead move over to living secretly somewhere nondescript, with the Federation's backing. Solids could commence an eternal war against one another for all they care, as long as the Founders are left in peace. Hell, probably the only thing the Founders mind about the whole Dominion War is that it actually killed a few Founders, nothing else about it probably carries any weight to them.
Aye. This reading also lines up with the general tone and themes of the ending and the series and the franchise.
To the Founders, the Dominion is the Founders. And because of who they are and how the Dominion works, no one else's opinion matters. It's an extension of their own desire for control and has no other real purpose. They aren't going to hold a grudge or anything. They don't fucking care. Odo is there to convince them to change their minds on the issue of solids and that's all it really takes because no one else's opinion on what the Dominion should do matters.
But then why try to aggressively take over the alpha quadrant? They could have mined the wormhole, or destroyed it, and moved on with their day. I've started to think that all their talk of being left alone is just another distraction. They're as power hungry as any of the other races in the galaxy, if not more so.
The founders have always sought after control, which isn't exactly the same thing as power. The motivation is around not having anything around that could threaten them. (Even though their attempts at control lead directly into three attacks on the Founders (that I can remember), one successful.)
Then there's the Vorta; the Founders left administration to the Vorta, and they seem to be much more interested in the war than the Founders. Perhaps the Founders would have been perfectly fine with mining the wormhole, but the Vorta didn't consider that solution. (They've never seemed particularly imaginative.) The Founders didn't care what solution the Vorta came up with, because they created the Vorta specifically so they didn't need to deal with this sort of thing.
I really hope some episode of Picard at least gives us a glimpse into what happened to the Dominion. I don't count STO as canon and I doubt the showrunners would either.
Likely it's just been a uneasy detente in public and an escalating cold war in private, as the Founders rebuild their war chest and lock down their territories in the Gamma quadrant. I didn't get the sense from DS9 that they as species were going to learn anything from the war or Odo's experiences. I'd bet they'd blow up or block the wormhole as soon as possible too.
I got the opposite impression. There was a period of time in which the Founders tried to live with solids, but they learned the lesson "solids are sad, inferior scum" and learned it too well. Now that their illusion of superiority has been completely destroyed, even amongst themselves, and all their secrets laid bare, the only guarantee I can see them wanting is to be left alone. They don't actually want to be running the Dominion, which is why they created a race of enforcers and a race of administrators/bureaucrats; they seem to genuinely resent being distracted by the needs of the empire, as it only exists to assure their comfort and safety while they have their endless weird changeling orgy.
The Founders are stubborn, but they aren't completely stupid and they don't seem big on holding grudges. Personally, I'd expect they would fold up on the whole Dominion idea and instead move over to living secretly somewhere nondescript, with the Federation's backing. Solids could commence an eternal war against one another for all they care, as long as the Founders are left in peace. Hell, probably the only thing the Founders mind about the whole Dominion War is that it actually killed a few Founders, nothing else about it probably carries any weight to them.
Aye. This reading also lines up with the general tone and themes of the ending and the series and the franchise.
To the Founders, the Dominion is the Founders. And because of who they are and how the Dominion works, no one else's opinion matters. It's an extension of their own desire for control and has no other real purpose. They aren't going to hold a grudge or anything. They don't fucking care. Odo is there to convince them to change their minds on the issue of solids and that's all it really takes because no one else's opinion on what the Dominion should do matters.
But then why try to aggressively take over the alpha quadrant? They could have mined the wormhole, or destroyed it, and moved on with their day. I've started to think that all their talk of being left alone is just another distraction. They're as power hungry as any of the other races in the galaxy, if not more so.
The founders have always sought after control, which isn't exactly the same thing as power. The motivation is around not having anything around that could threaten them. (Even though their attempts at control lead directly into three attacks on the Founders (that I can remember), one successful.)
Then there's the Vorta; the Founders left administration to the Vorta, and they seem to be much more interested in the war than the Founders. Perhaps the Founders would have been perfectly fine with mining the wormhole, but the Vorta didn't consider that solution. (They've never seemed particularly imaginative.) The Founders didn't care what solution the Vorta came up with, because they created the Vorta specifically so they didn't need to deal with this sort of thing.
From what we saw, the Founders had a very hands-on management style when it came to the Alpha Quadrant war. The Female Changeling was right there in the command centre of DS9 with Dukat and at the HQ on Cardassia Prime with Weyound and Damar. She even conducted negotiations with the Breen that Weyound seemed unaware of. So I don't believe they were uninterested in the war and got duped into it by the Vorta.
I really hope some episode of Picard at least gives us a glimpse into what happened to the Dominion. I don't count STO as canon and I doubt the showrunners would either.
Likely it's just been a uneasy detente in public and an escalating cold war in private, as the Founders rebuild their war chest and lock down their territories in the Gamma quadrant. I didn't get the sense from DS9 that they as species were going to learn anything from the war or Odo's experiences. I'd bet they'd blow up or block the wormhole as soon as possible too.
I got the opposite impression. There was a period of time in which the Founders tried to live with solids, but they learned the lesson "solids are sad, inferior scum" and learned it too well. Now that their illusion of superiority has been completely destroyed, even amongst themselves, and all their secrets laid bare, the only guarantee I can see them wanting is to be left alone. They don't actually want to be running the Dominion, which is why they created a race of enforcers and a race of administrators/bureaucrats; they seem to genuinely resent being distracted by the needs of the empire, as it only exists to assure their comfort and safety while they have their endless weird changeling orgy.
The Founders are stubborn, but they aren't completely stupid and they don't seem big on holding grudges. Personally, I'd expect they would fold up on the whole Dominion idea and instead move over to living secretly somewhere nondescript, with the Federation's backing. Solids could commence an eternal war against one another for all they care, as long as the Founders are left in peace. Hell, probably the only thing the Founders mind about the whole Dominion War is that it actually killed a few Founders, nothing else about it probably carries any weight to them.
Aye. This reading also lines up with the general tone and themes of the ending and the series and the franchise.
To the Founders, the Dominion is the Founders. And because of who they are and how the Dominion works, no one else's opinion matters. It's an extension of their own desire for control and has no other real purpose. They aren't going to hold a grudge or anything. They don't fucking care. Odo is there to convince them to change their minds on the issue of solids and that's all it really takes because no one else's opinion on what the Dominion should do matters.
But then why try to aggressively take over the alpha quadrant? They could have mined the wormhole, or destroyed it, and moved on with their day. I've started to think that all their talk of being left alone is just another distraction. They're as power hungry as any of the other races in the galaxy, if not more so.
The founders have always sought after control, which isn't exactly the same thing as power. The motivation is around not having anything around that could threaten them. (Even though their attempts at control lead directly into three attacks on the Founders (that I can remember), one successful.)
Then there's the Vorta; the Founders left administration to the Vorta, and they seem to be much more interested in the war than the Founders. Perhaps the Founders would have been perfectly fine with mining the wormhole, but the Vorta didn't consider that solution. (They've never seemed particularly imaginative.) The Founders didn't care what solution the Vorta came up with, because they created the Vorta specifically so they didn't need to deal with this sort of thing.
From what we saw, the Founders had a very hands-on management style when it came to the Alpha Quadrant war. The Female Changeling was right there in the command centre of DS9 with Dukat and at the HQ on Cardassia Prime with Weyound and Damar. She even conducted negotiations with the Breen that Weyound seemed unaware of. So I don't believe they were uninterested in the war and got duped into it by the Vorta.
Yeah, it's pretty clear the Founders take an interest in new things happening. They are all over this whole wormhole/alpha quadrant situation. I imagine because it's something new and uncontrolled, but once they've conquered somewhere and their grip is firm, they just don't care anymore.
But yeah, the Founders are out to control the alpha quadrant the same way they want to control everything else around them. I think the whole "we need to protect ourselves from the solids" thing is more the lie then anything. It's part of the motivation but, as with Odo, they all have a fundamental desire to order the world around them without real concern for much else. Odo's instincts are tempered by his connection to the people around him and the rules imposed by the system he chooses to be a part of. The Founders are deeply paranoid and at the top of the pyramid, making their own rules, so it goes a wee bit differently.
shryke on
+1
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Guys I wasn't actually looking for a discount Dr. Carol Marcus, but somehow I found her.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Well family just got through watching DS9 S3 E8 Meridian.
I'm not sure what's worse. The writing, the acting, or the fact that the central conflict of the A plot can just be solved by JUST TRANSPORTING THE PEOPLE OFF THE PLANET. Forty-six minutes of what can only be described as an agonizing rendition of a sci-fi pulp romance novel.
On the plus side, the family had a real gas yelling at the television.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The Founders wanted the Alpha Quadrant secured because it had at least three different powers to threaten the Dominion, possibly four depending on when you're talking about the Cardassians (or even five, with the inscrutable Breen as well). They started by fucking up a major Cardassian/Romulan fleet and the Romulans were still able to contribute to the war effort and the Cardassians had enough left to turn the tide against the Breen/Dominion forces, and the Klingons still had a strong military left to ally with the Federation after being ground against the Cardassian and Dominions forces for a while.
On top of that, all of those powers except the Breen were aggressively expansionist in their own way. The Cardassians/Romulans/Klingons all had a tendency towards military expansion, and the Federation had a tendency to peacefully absorb neighbors as just a matter of time. So once the Alpha Quadrant suddenly became a neighbor, WHAMMO, the Founders were definitely interested in nailing down any of those pesky Alpha Quadrant ideas of self-rule. Tough to have a safe buffer zone when multiple uncontrolled neighbors can jump from their corner of the galaxy right into the middle of your nice, genocidally-oppressed empire.
As for the female Founder getting involved, the obvious writing-driven reason was to show more about the Founders and their influence on Odo. For an in-setting reason, the Alpha Quadrant forces were clearly stressing the fuck out of the Founders, who would normally have left matters of conquest up the races they designed for that purpose. But The Dominion had spent thousands of years as the 800 pound space gorilla in its quadrant, so it had no fucking clue what to do when up against an opponent with equivalent, and eventually superior, tech, tactics, and strategy; then the Founders had to get involved because they were the only ones in the Dominion who could actually think in strategic terms besides "simper at them harder" and "murder at them harder".
The Founders have an Empire purely to secure their own existence. They don't actually care for any of it other than they fear not having it will cause the destruction of their way of life. I doubt they'd really care if they lost the Empire. They would just be worried about the consequences of not having that protection. But the Empire can die as far as they are concerned.
Pretty interesting stuff
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the founders asked the prophets for some nonlinear space they could just fuck off to forever where no solid could touch them. No form, no time. It's perfect!
The Founders do have a sense of curiosity and desire for exploration. They sent out the Hundred to earn about the universe. Plus, they also like to shapeshift into stuff and it would probably get pretty boring to constantly shapeshift into the same things. They'd want to take the form of new things.
And the Changelings do have different personalities. Odo and the Female Changeling are both kind of boring and rigid. But Laas really wanted to explore the universe. And the Changeling who took O'Brien's form in "Paradise Lost" seemed to actually be having fun wrecking havoc on earth.
0
Options
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I certainly could do with moving down the timeline a few hundred years with a decently-done Federation still in place and seeing things like Founders who have broken away from the obvious euphoria-driven grip of their collective goo pool. Odo's personality got pretty flat when he was high on Oneness, and the Female's personality got decidedly more prominent (and bitter) the longer she was away from getting high via the Link; the Link clearly suppresses individuality from increased exposure.
After Odo goes to "speak" with them, I could see any number of Founders viewing the Link as a dangerous addiction that limited their viewpoint to the extent of almost getting them all killed. Plus, they could witness via Odo that the Federation, and even the ultra-suspicious Cardassians, viewed Odo as little more than a curiosity rather than an object of fear and hatred, at least until the Founders started actually waging war via shapeshifting.
I don't think they'd necessarily ever integrate into Federation society wholesale, but I'd think at least a portion of them would be interested in existing in a part of Federation space where nobody actually gives a damn who they are or what they can do and some of them would even be interested in joining up to explore the galaxy, even if it is beside solids.
DS9 season 7, Chimera: (Odo meets a Changeling that was one of the 100 sent out, and wants him to leave DS9 with him.)
So, that certainly seemed like a metaphor episode, but I'm not seeing any confirmation online, and usually Trek is pretty up-front about that stuff. Weird.
I love how the Changelings are slowly developed and revealed in DS9. Like at the start you have Odo and he's a tough guy, a hardass, and he's a Changeling! What are Changelings? Some alien guys I guess, I mean, this is Star Trek after all.
Then slowly we meet other Changelings, and the Dominion is name dropped, and eventually it turns out that Changelings are droplets of living matter from this ocean sized entity of being(s) that have founded a massive empire including all the various civilisations to administer and enforce it etc purely so they can rest in peace knowing their existence as a living ocean existing in perfect internal harmony will be eternal. And they're the series supreme bad guys.
Like nobody could have seen that from the start and yet they're building it across multiple seasons from the get go! So good. So gooood
+5
Options
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
The whole 100 thing with the Founders doesn't really track with the rest of their attitudes towards themselves. They created the Dominion solely to keep themselves safe, can't really fathom the idea of one Changeling killing another, and when they meet Odo they're utterly focused on getting him to come home. But for some reason their master plan to explore more of the galaxy involved lobbing 100 infants into the void to fend for themselves. It's not like they packed them into neat little probes that would deliver them to interesting planets or anything, they just seem to have had the Jem'Hadar or someone lob their boxes out the airlock every thousand light-years or something.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
It's a stupid idea but the Changelings are painfully stupid at times in their own alien way
Which tracks, like, everyone has their intellectual blind spots. They're also as an entity culture basically the embodiment of group think to a fault. They'll all convince themselves this is a great idea, I totally buy that
I like her defence of it: "What better way to learn about them than to see how a species treats the innocent and helpless?"
What, like if a species sent hundreds of their innocent and helpless children out into deep space with no protection? Yeah, that'd be a race you wouldn't want to meet.
Posts
Aye. This reading also lines up with the general tone and themes of the ending and the series and the franchise.
To the Founders, the Dominion is the Founders. And because of who they are and how the Dominion works, no one else's opinion matters. It's an extension of their own desire for control and has no other real purpose. They aren't going to hold a grudge or anything. They don't fucking care. Odo is there to convince them to change their minds on the issue of solids and that's all it really takes because no one else's opinion on what the Dominion should do matters.
Pretty interesting stuff
"Attempted genocide before the war even started? Maybe we're not so different after all..."
Before the war? The first interaction between the Dominion and the Federation led to the loss of a Galaxy class as part of a Dominion scheme to insert a spy into the Federation. Section 31 is a bunch of assholes, but I'm willing to cut them some slack on the 'technically not actually at war' front.
Sisko had his wife and child aboard the Saratoga. Seemed to be a more general thing in the Pre-Wolf 359 Federation
I'm not sure there's any indication it wasn't still a thing afterwards. Anything but the smaller ships seems to have people's families along for the ride.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the founders asked the prophets for some nonlinear space they could just fuck off to forever where no solid could touch them. No form, no time. It's perfect!
And they were only expecting a three hour tour.
"Gilligan's Island right? ... Bit of advice, if you're going to rip something off pick something that's a bit more obscure"
*cue Farscape sequence*
Fuck... Now I gotta re-watch farscape again. Thanks a lot!
"Okay, you got me. I have no idea what that is."
one of the classic blunders
Wesley left the series. Oh, he'll be back from a few good episodes later, but as of a few episodes ago he's just gone. He even had a half-decent send-off episode. Although I feel like it being more about him and Picard then him and his mother just kinda speaks to how little his being Crusher's son ever mattered. And the actual revelation with him and Picard just doesn't ring true to me. He's never felt like a guy trying to impress Picard this whole time.
But the big thing I noticed in hindsight is how little his leaving mattered. People like to bitch and whinge about Wesley but he's ... he's fine. He's got a few bad moments early on but literally all the characters are kinda bad in those episodes. And yeah, Wheaton is not that strong an actor. But overall, as the show settles in, he settled in as part of the cast and it's just been fine.
But the more he settled in, the more he became just a background character. He's like O'Brien, except I think O'Brien is probably actually more meaningful as a character in the past season and a half. He feels perpetually outside of the plot. And when he shows up he does his thing and it fits right in but it's really telling that you can remove him and replace him on the bridge with generic female extras at the helm or just nobody at meetings in engineering and the show just doesn't even miss a beat. I didn't even notice or think about it till like 6 episodes later when I was mulling over what to say next and realised I'd never even mentioned his leaving.
He was never really that annoying but his leaving just ends up demonstrating how superfluous he is to the show when it finally figures out what it's best form is. And that's far more damning.
I suppose we have an opportunity in Picard to answer that question. But do we even really want it tacked on to Picard? Would Wheaton even want to do it? Or do we just pretend Wesley never existed and forget the whole thing?
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
Wesley is a newtype and he went
Beyond the Time
I mean, there are hundreds of billions of people in the Federation. I'm ok with not knowing what each and every individual one has been up to over the past 20+ years.
But then why try to aggressively take over the alpha quadrant? They could have mined the wormhole, or destroyed it, and moved on with their day. I've started to think that all their talk of being left alone is just another distraction. They're as power hungry as any of the other races in the galaxy, if not more so.
But how many of them are a Mozart, or a Cochrane, or a Daystrom, or Gene Wesley Roddenberry's personal "Sue"? :rotate:
The founders have always sought after control, which isn't exactly the same thing as power. The motivation is around not having anything around that could threaten them. (Even though their attempts at control lead directly into three attacks on the Founders (that I can remember), one successful.)
Then there's the Vorta; the Founders left administration to the Vorta, and they seem to be much more interested in the war than the Founders. Perhaps the Founders would have been perfectly fine with mining the wormhole, but the Vorta didn't consider that solution. (They've never seemed particularly imaginative.) The Founders didn't care what solution the Vorta came up with, because they created the Vorta specifically so they didn't need to deal with this sort of thing.
From what we saw, the Founders had a very hands-on management style when it came to the Alpha Quadrant war. The Female Changeling was right there in the command centre of DS9 with Dukat and at the HQ on Cardassia Prime with Weyound and Damar. She even conducted negotiations with the Breen that Weyound seemed unaware of. So I don't believe they were uninterested in the war and got duped into it by the Vorta.
Yeah, it's pretty clear the Founders take an interest in new things happening. They are all over this whole wormhole/alpha quadrant situation. I imagine because it's something new and uncontrolled, but once they've conquered somewhere and their grip is firm, they just don't care anymore.
But yeah, the Founders are out to control the alpha quadrant the same way they want to control everything else around them. I think the whole "we need to protect ourselves from the solids" thing is more the lie then anything. It's part of the motivation but, as with Odo, they all have a fundamental desire to order the world around them without real concern for much else. Odo's instincts are tempered by his connection to the people around him and the rules imposed by the system he chooses to be a part of. The Founders are deeply paranoid and at the top of the pyramid, making their own rules, so it goes a wee bit differently.
I'm not sure what's worse. The writing, the acting, or the fact that the central conflict of the A plot can just be solved by JUST TRANSPORTING THE PEOPLE OFF THE PLANET. Forty-six minutes of what can only be described as an agonizing rendition of a sci-fi pulp romance novel.
On the plus side, the family had a real gas yelling at the television.
Next Episode: Double-Riker time.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Crops are awful:
Warren: Please friend, choose to live.
Warren: I regret your choice.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
On top of that, all of those powers except the Breen were aggressively expansionist in their own way. The Cardassians/Romulans/Klingons all had a tendency towards military expansion, and the Federation had a tendency to peacefully absorb neighbors as just a matter of time. So once the Alpha Quadrant suddenly became a neighbor, WHAMMO, the Founders were definitely interested in nailing down any of those pesky Alpha Quadrant ideas of self-rule. Tough to have a safe buffer zone when multiple uncontrolled neighbors can jump from their corner of the galaxy right into the middle of your nice, genocidally-oppressed empire.
As for the female Founder getting involved, the obvious writing-driven reason was to show more about the Founders and their influence on Odo. For an in-setting reason, the Alpha Quadrant forces were clearly stressing the fuck out of the Founders, who would normally have left matters of conquest up the races they designed for that purpose. But The Dominion had spent thousands of years as the 800 pound space gorilla in its quadrant, so it had no fucking clue what to do when up against an opponent with equivalent, and eventually superior, tech, tactics, and strategy; then the Founders had to get involved because they were the only ones in the Dominion who could actually think in strategic terms besides "simper at them harder" and "murder at them harder".
The Founders do have a sense of curiosity and desire for exploration. They sent out the Hundred to earn about the universe. Plus, they also like to shapeshift into stuff and it would probably get pretty boring to constantly shapeshift into the same things. They'd want to take the form of new things.
And the Changelings do have different personalities. Odo and the Female Changeling are both kind of boring and rigid. But Laas really wanted to explore the universe. And the Changeling who took O'Brien's form in "Paradise Lost" seemed to actually be having fun wrecking havoc on earth.
After Odo goes to "speak" with them, I could see any number of Founders viewing the Link as a dangerous addiction that limited their viewpoint to the extent of almost getting them all killed. Plus, they could witness via Odo that the Federation, and even the ultra-suspicious Cardassians, viewed Odo as little more than a curiosity rather than an object of fear and hatred, at least until the Founders started actually waging war via shapeshifting.
I don't think they'd necessarily ever integrate into Federation society wholesale, but I'd think at least a portion of them would be interested in existing in a part of Federation space where nobody actually gives a damn who they are or what they can do and some of them would even be interested in joining up to explore the galaxy, even if it is beside solids.
So, that certainly seemed like a metaphor episode, but I'm not seeing any confirmation online, and usually Trek is pretty up-front about that stuff. Weird.
Then slowly we meet other Changelings, and the Dominion is name dropped, and eventually it turns out that Changelings are droplets of living matter from this ocean sized entity of being(s) that have founded a massive empire including all the various civilisations to administer and enforce it etc purely so they can rest in peace knowing their existence as a living ocean existing in perfect internal harmony will be eternal. And they're the series supreme bad guys.
Like nobody could have seen that from the start and yet they're building it across multiple seasons from the get go! So good. So gooood
Which tracks, like, everyone has their intellectual blind spots. They're also as an entity culture basically the embodiment of group think to a fault. They'll all convince themselves this is a great idea, I totally buy that
What, like if a species sent hundreds of their innocent and helpless children out into deep space with no protection? Yeah, that'd be a race you wouldn't want to meet.