I really do wonder how much of their attitude naturally derives from their biology. They are essentially a single organism, like the Borg, surrounded by a universe of what they seem to consider p-zombies - things that look and talk and act like entities with feelings, but aren't, not really.
Commander Zoom on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited January 2020
From what the Founders say in DS9, they don't seem to have an trouble recognizing that other races are completely sentient, they simply don't give a shit because those races aren't immortal and can't change form. They apparently view any opinion besides their own as inherently worthless to the extent that they don't lack anger or hatred, they merely don't consider solids as worth hating or being angry with. Naturally, all that falls apart when they get hit with the virus and they begin to realize they fucked up and that solids can totally kick their ass, and then they start getting pissy about solids.
So it's not like they can't see other aliens as aware, they just choose not to care because they've got so much power that they don't have to care.
except for the part that EVERY race the founders run into have been terrified/hostile of shapeshifters. So the founders have to genetically engineer races to not fear them.
Well, that's the Founder's word, but how much you trust that, I don't know. This is a race that sends out "infants" blind just to see what would happen.
except for the part that EVERY race the founders run into have been terrified/hostile of shapeshifters. So the founders have to genetically engineer races to not fear them.
Do we ever see any evidence of this? They said it to Odo because Odo experienced fear and hostility from solids. Everything they did with him was designed to bring him back to the Great Link, and everything else largely an afterthought. Change Leader told Weyoun that she'd give up the entire Alpha Quadrant to get Odo back. Which is very close to what happened in the end.
And even if they had experienced Bad Things in the past, that doesn't apply to the Alpha Quadrant. The Federation would never have attacked them unprovoked, something they could've easily confirmed through infiltration. The whole Dominion War, including their near-extinction, only happens because the Founders picked a fight.
Debates like this are weird, because it's "genocide in self-defense," which is not something that has ever existed in the real world. There have been plenty of genocides, unfortunately, but there's never been a group that a) faced an existential threat from an enemy, b) still had the ability to annihilate that enemy, c) without itself being destroyed in turn.
except for the part that EVERY race the founders run into have been terrified/hostile of shapeshifters. So the founders have to genetically engineer races to not fear them.
Do we ever see any evidence of this? They said it to Odo because Odo experienced fear and hostility from solids. Everything they did with him was designed to bring him back to the Great Link, and everything else largely an afterthought. Change Leader told Weyoun that she'd give up the entire Alpha Quadrant to get Odo back. Which is very close to what happened in the end.
And even if they had experienced Bad Things in the past, that doesn't apply to the Alpha Quadrant. The Federation would never have attacked them unprovoked, something they could've easily confirmed through infiltration. The whole Dominion War, including their near-extinction, only happens because the Founders picked a fight.
Debates like this are weird, because it's "genocide in self-defense," which is not something that has ever existed in the real world. There have been plenty of genocides, unfortunately, but there's never been a group that a) faced an existential threat from an enemy, b) still had the ability to annihilate that enemy, c) without itself being destroyed in turn.
It's also weird because most countries have a civilian population; it's arguable that the Great Link hivemind is a legitimate military target, as it's definitely involved in the war. I don't like the use of a biological weapon, but an orbital bombardment or the like is closer to a regular military operation than any real-world genocide.
Are we sure that all pieces of the Great Link have equal say in what goes on? We don't learn anything about it except from Change Leader or from Odo, who learned it from Change Leader. The story gives little reliable information about the Dominion. We see what the Dominion does, which is create genetic plagues, commit genocide, enslave, and start wars of conquest.
There's stuff in the STO DS9-related expansion that suggests that "she" was somehow hiding/withholding information from the rest of the Link, which is not supposed to be possible (and I'm sure that "she" had a hand in them continuing to think and say that).
It's also rough because, like, maybe if you separated some of them from the Link they could turn out like Odo.
Do they ever touch on whether they could just like, have a group who split off and started their own Link?
As individuals, they seem as subject to their upbringing as any solid. Odo is heavily oriented towards order and justice and that may be a biological trait, but he also refuses to employ lethal measures given any reasonable choice. The one time he encounters another of his wandering siblings, the guy turns out to be turning into just as much of prideful, stuck-up asshole as the Founders, up to and including killing solids out of convenience and thinking absolutely nothing of it; seems like he wasn't well-treated when "growing up", though. But that second changeling doesn't seem totally sold on the Founders either, and wants Odo to join him so they can form their own link.
The Founders certainly seem capable of change, they've simply been stuck in their unassailable we-are-superior philosophy so long that the only way to really get them to consider other options was to make it a literal life-or-death adapt-or-die choice. Not to mention that the Great Link gives every indication of being heavily addictive, like some kind changeling narcotic; they don't seem to need it at all to survive, but they resent being out of it and withholding it was a big piece of leverage over Odo. Even just with one other changeling in the Link, Odo really struggled with overcoming the appeal of the Link and retaining his own opinions and directives.
I wonder if they send off their offspring into the unknown specifically so they'll get treated horribly and return to the link and reaffirm the Founder's opinions on how solids are terrible.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I feel like they do it more to find unconquered worlds within reach. Chuck the kids out into space, wait a thousand years, then go take over all the places that have been found bu don't look too strong. I dunno if they have any kind of doubt about how the kids will react to solids and vice versa, so I feel like they could just keep them around in the Great Link if they just want to brainwash them.
I feel like they do it more to find unconquered worlds within reach. Chuck the kids out into space, wait a thousand years, then go take over all the places that have been found bu don't look too strong. I dunno if they have any kind of doubt about how the kids will react to solids and vice versa, so I feel like they could just keep them around in the Great Link if they just want to brainwash them.
They don't need to do this to find conquerable worlds within reach. They have an entire space army. Also, the kids aren't sent to worlds within reach, they are sent into deep space to places that never even heard of the Dominion.
They do it to explore. Send out the kids into deep space, with a genetic need to return home, wait a thousand years, and they kids are back with experiences of dozens of new worlds they never heard of, and when they rejoin the Great Link these experiences become their experiences and it's like they spent a thousand years on those strange new worlds.
Well, that's the Founder's word, but how much you trust that, I don't know. This is a race that sends out "infants" blind just to see what would happen.
I'm not sure they're capable of lying in the Link. Obviously their personnel perceptions would color what Odo receives from them, but it was probably truthful aa far as they were concerned.
I feel like they do it more to find unconquered worlds within reach. Chuck the kids out into space, wait a thousand years, then go take over all the places that have been found bu don't look too strong. I dunno if they have any kind of doubt about how the kids will react to solids and vice versa, so I feel like they could just keep them around in the Great Link if they just want to brainwash them.
I actually found the justification for why the founders were so hateful to be pretty compelling. Imagine if DS9 never came into the possession of the Federation/Bajor had never been freed, and so Odo's entire experience was just a thousand years of Cardassia doing horrible Cardassian shit, or if he had landed in the Romulan empire, or with the Klingons. Living alone and powerless in any of these societies and viewing it as an outsider would give you a pretty horrible disposition towards these other races. You could easily see Odo's strong sense of justice getting warped into just general hatred and apathy if he wasn't given positive influences in his life like Kira and Sisko.
The irony of the Founders is that they live in constant fear of meeting solids that act exactly like they do, and are every bit as hateful, arrogant, and violent as they claim solids are.
I always took the Founders to be a species that likely had a legitimate reason for turning inward and closing off from the rest of the universe. And who then, in their need to protect themselves so those terrible things never happened again, turned into the exact thing they hated in the first place.
I always took the Founders to be a species that likely had a legitimate reason for turning inward and closing off from the rest of the universe. And who then, in their need to protect themselves so those terrible things never happened again, turned into the exact thing they hated in the first place.
I would have more sympathy for this if their main enemy in the story wasn't the Federation. Maybe that need to protect themselves explains the creation of the Dominion, but not its aggressive expansion.
It does make them even more of an anti-Federation than the Borg, though. Humans were traumatized by self-inflicted near-extinction, then managed to win a seemingly hopeless war with the Romulans. They used that victory to create a nation based on equality, empathy, and peaceful cooperation. The Founders were traumatized by a near-extinction, allegedly at the hands of solids, and managed to win that hopeless war. They used that victory to create a nation of slaves genetically engineered to believe they are gods.
Before they introduced the Borg Queen, the Collective was a force of nature more than anything else. You could no more call it evil than you could a hurricane. But the Dominion? If the Q Continuum ever decided to act like benevolent gods, they'd wipe it from existence.
I generally regard the Founders in light of at least their initial characterization, which was like Odo in that they had a really strong innate desire for order. Which in terms of characterization I think is a nice mirror to how completely without limits their lives can be given their shapeshifting abilities.
The Founders empire is just the same kind of thing Odo would do to the Promenade, writ large enough to cover the galaxy. On several occasions he basically mutters about them not letting him run the place like history's most controlling police state.
I always took the Founders to be a species that likely had a legitimate reason for turning inward and closing off from the rest of the universe. And who then, in their need to protect themselves so those terrible things never happened again, turned into the exact thing they hated in the first place.
I would have more sympathy for this if their main enemy in the story wasn't the Federation. Maybe that need to protect themselves explains the creation of the Dominion, but not its aggressive expansion.
It does make them even more of an anti-Federation than the Borg, though. Humans were traumatized by self-inflicted near-extinction, then managed to win a seemingly hopeless war with the Romulans. They used that victory to create a nation based on equality, empathy, and peaceful cooperation. The Founders were traumatized by a near-extinction, allegedly at the hands of solids, and managed to win that hopeless war. They used that victory to create a nation of slaves genetically engineered to believe they are gods.
Before they introduced the Borg Queen, the Collective was a force of nature more than anything else. You could no more call it evil than you could a hurricane. But the Dominion? If the Q Continuum ever decided to act like benevolent gods, they'd wipe it from existence.
The Borg Collective (pre-Queen) was more than a force of nature: it was a twisted reflection of the Federation. Locutus said it best in BoBW: the Collective seeks only to improve the quality of life for all species. Which is the same goal as the Federation! And like the Federation, the Collective is composed of a set of races unified in a single government and working together towards that greater good. People in the Federation and the Collective enjoy a post-scarcity lifestyle, better technology, medical improvements and implants for any impairment... except of course that the Collective has no respect for individual freedom or self-determination. Species join by force if they won't join peacefully, and individuals receive implants by force to improve all senses whether they want to or not.
I generally regard the Founders in light of at least their initial characterization, which was like Odo in that they had a really strong innate desire for order. Which in terms of characterization I think is a nice mirror to how completely without limits their lives can be given their shapeshifting abilities.
The Founders empire is just the same kind of thing Odo would do to the Promenade, writ large enough to cover the galaxy. On several occasions he basically mutters about them not letting him run the place like history's most controlling police state.
I think there's probably something to be said that Odo's formative experience in what law and societal control is being...
well, a mining camp orbiting a planet annexed by space nazis. He literally grew up under and operating an apparatus of the already existing fascist Cardassian state. Everyone's probably lucky he came out as well as he did, given the circumstances.
The irony of the Founders is that they live in constant fear of meeting solids that act exactly like they do, and are every bit as hateful, arrogant, and violent as they claim solids are.
So they're American?
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
The irony of the Founders is that they live in constant fear of meeting solids that act exactly like they do, and are every bit as hateful, arrogant, and violent as they claim solids are.
The irony of the Founders is that they live in constant fear of meeting solids that act exactly like they do, and are every bit as hateful, arrogant, and violent as they claim solids are.
So they're American?
you forgot the word Nazi.
The terms are closer than I would like.
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
aww jeez "The Founders" are a for-all-intents-and-purposes mythical group who the subjects of the Dominion worship as gods whose ideas about what the dominion is for are considered paramount.
I'm now 100% confident there's a Vorta College Dominionist Society group dedicated to training conservative kids in trolling their more liberal classmates and reading Scalia for some reason
I generally regard the Founders in light of at least their initial characterization, which was like Odo in that they had a really strong innate desire for order. Which in terms of characterization I think is a nice mirror to how completely without limits their lives can be given their shapeshifting abilities.
The Founders empire is just the same kind of thing Odo would do to the Promenade, writ large enough to cover the galaxy. On several occasions he basically mutters about them not letting him run the place like history's most controlling police state.
I think there's probably something to be said that Odo's formative experience in what law and societal control is being...
well, a mining camp orbiting a planet annexed by space nazis. He literally grew up under and operating an apparatus of the already existing fascist Cardassian state. Everyone's probably lucky he came out as well as he did, given the circumstances.
This definitely has to have played a part in it, but I do like shryke's point that Odo and the Founders may have some innate drive for order and control, both because it's kind of nifty on a meta level (it would be somewhat obvious to characterize shapeshifters as chaotic libertines) and also because it's been a consistent, recurring theme through every Star Trek show, from TOS through Discovery, that alien characters have this constant lowkey nature vs. nurture thing going on where their conscience/personal loyalty/duty/etc is tested by their biology.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I always took the Founders to be a species that likely had a legitimate reason for turning inward and closing off from the rest of the universe. And who then, in their need to protect themselves so those terrible things never happened again, turned into the exact thing they hated in the first place.
I would have more sympathy for this if their main enemy in the story wasn't the Federation. Maybe that need to protect themselves explains the creation of the Dominion, but not its aggressive expansion.
It does make them even more of an anti-Federation than the Borg, though. Humans were traumatized by self-inflicted near-extinction, then managed to win a seemingly hopeless war with the Romulans. They used that victory to create a nation based on equality, empathy, and peaceful cooperation. The Founders were traumatized by a near-extinction, allegedly at the hands of solids, and managed to win that hopeless war. They used that victory to create a nation of slaves genetically engineered to believe they are gods.
Before they introduced the Borg Queen, the Collective was a force of nature more than anything else. You could no more call it evil than you could a hurricane. But the Dominion? If the Q Continuum ever decided to act like benevolent gods, they'd wipe it from existence.
The Borg Collective (pre-Queen) was more than a force of nature: it was a twisted reflection of the Federation. Locutus said it best in BoBW: the Collective seeks only to improve the quality of life for all species. Which is the same goal as the Federation! And like the Federation, the Collective is composed of a set of races unified in a single government and working together towards that greater good. People in the Federation and the Collective enjoy a post-scarcity lifestyle, better technology, medical improvements and implants for any impairment... except of course that the Collective has no respect for individual freedom or self-determination. Species join by force if they won't join peacefully, and individuals receive implants by force to improve all senses whether they want to or not.
It's obvious why the show pivoted to this characterization for "The Best of Both Worlds" and onward (these thematic reasons, and also the body horror of assimilation) but I think it would be cool to see something explore the Borg (or a similar group) the way they were characterized in "Q Who," where they seem completely indifferent toward biology and purely want the Enterprise for the sake of its technology. Guinan even describes them as "the ultimate user."
So instead of wanting to benevolently spread their way of life, they're more just selfish end users constantly jonesing for the next upgrade and pushing forward out of fear of obsolescence (insert something about Apple here, I guess, lol).
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So it's not like they can't see other aliens as aware, they just choose not to care because they've got so much power that they don't have to care.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
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.... naaaaah.
Do we ever see any evidence of this? They said it to Odo because Odo experienced fear and hostility from solids. Everything they did with him was designed to bring him back to the Great Link, and everything else largely an afterthought. Change Leader told Weyoun that she'd give up the entire Alpha Quadrant to get Odo back. Which is very close to what happened in the end.
And even if they had experienced Bad Things in the past, that doesn't apply to the Alpha Quadrant. The Federation would never have attacked them unprovoked, something they could've easily confirmed through infiltration. The whole Dominion War, including their near-extinction, only happens because the Founders picked a fight.
Debates like this are weird, because it's "genocide in self-defense," which is not something that has ever existed in the real world. There have been plenty of genocides, unfortunately, but there's never been a group that a) faced an existential threat from an enemy, b) still had the ability to annihilate that enemy, c) without itself being destroyed in turn.
those solids just can't take a friendly stabbing with good humor.
Fixed.
It's also weird because most countries have a civilian population; it's arguable that the Great Link hivemind is a legitimate military target, as it's definitely involved in the war. I don't like the use of a biological weapon, but an orbital bombardment or the like is closer to a regular military operation than any real-world genocide.
Individuality, the root of all sin!
Do they ever touch on whether they could just like, have a group who split off and started their own Link?
A Romulan/Vulcan type split amongst the Founders at some point past, present, or future TNG would be a neat idea to explore.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
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As individuals, they seem as subject to their upbringing as any solid. Odo is heavily oriented towards order and justice and that may be a biological trait, but he also refuses to employ lethal measures given any reasonable choice. The one time he encounters another of his wandering siblings, the guy turns out to be turning into just as much of prideful, stuck-up asshole as the Founders, up to and including killing solids out of convenience and thinking absolutely nothing of it; seems like he wasn't well-treated when "growing up", though. But that second changeling doesn't seem totally sold on the Founders either, and wants Odo to join him so they can form their own link.
The Founders certainly seem capable of change, they've simply been stuck in their unassailable we-are-superior philosophy so long that the only way to really get them to consider other options was to make it a literal life-or-death adapt-or-die choice. Not to mention that the Great Link gives every indication of being heavily addictive, like some kind changeling narcotic; they don't seem to need it at all to survive, but they resent being out of it and withholding it was a big piece of leverage over Odo. Even just with one other changeling in the Link, Odo really struggled with overcoming the appeal of the Link and retaining his own opinions and directives.
They don't need to do this to find conquerable worlds within reach. They have an entire space army. Also, the kids aren't sent to worlds within reach, they are sent into deep space to places that never even heard of the Dominion.
They do it to explore. Send out the kids into deep space, with a genetic need to return home, wait a thousand years, and they kids are back with experiences of dozens of new worlds they never heard of, and when they rejoin the Great Link these experiences become their experiences and it's like they spent a thousand years on those strange new worlds.
I'm not sure they're capable of lying in the Link. Obviously their personnel perceptions would color what Odo receives from them, but it was probably truthful aa far as they were concerned.
EDIT: And, of course, Lwaxana
How does the saying go....
If you meet an asshole, you've met an asshole. If you run into assholes all day long....you're the asshole!
Yeah but it was also implied it was really hard to do and was more misdirection.
I would have more sympathy for this if their main enemy in the story wasn't the Federation. Maybe that need to protect themselves explains the creation of the Dominion, but not its aggressive expansion.
It does make them even more of an anti-Federation than the Borg, though. Humans were traumatized by self-inflicted near-extinction, then managed to win a seemingly hopeless war with the Romulans. They used that victory to create a nation based on equality, empathy, and peaceful cooperation. The Founders were traumatized by a near-extinction, allegedly at the hands of solids, and managed to win that hopeless war. They used that victory to create a nation of slaves genetically engineered to believe they are gods.
Before they introduced the Borg Queen, the Collective was a force of nature more than anything else. You could no more call it evil than you could a hurricane. But the Dominion? If the Q Continuum ever decided to act like benevolent gods, they'd wipe it from existence.
The Founders empire is just the same kind of thing Odo would do to the Promenade, writ large enough to cover the galaxy. On several occasions he basically mutters about them not letting him run the place like history's most controlling police state.
The Borg Collective (pre-Queen) was more than a force of nature: it was a twisted reflection of the Federation. Locutus said it best in BoBW: the Collective seeks only to improve the quality of life for all species. Which is the same goal as the Federation! And like the Federation, the Collective is composed of a set of races unified in a single government and working together towards that greater good. People in the Federation and the Collective enjoy a post-scarcity lifestyle, better technology, medical improvements and implants for any impairment... except of course that the Collective has no respect for individual freedom or self-determination. Species join by force if they won't join peacefully, and individuals receive implants by force to improve all senses whether they want to or not.
I think there's probably something to be said that Odo's formative experience in what law and societal control is being...
well, a mining camp orbiting a planet annexed by space nazis. He literally grew up under and operating an apparatus of the already existing fascist Cardassian state. Everyone's probably lucky he came out as well as he did, given the circumstances.
So they're American?
Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You
Ah yes, Dracula's Golden Rule.
you forgot the word Nazi.
The terms are closer than I would like.
I'm now 100% confident there's a Vorta College Dominionist Society group dedicated to training conservative kids in trolling their more liberal classmates and reading Scalia for some reason
too real
This definitely has to have played a part in it, but I do like shryke's point that Odo and the Founders may have some innate drive for order and control, both because it's kind of nifty on a meta level (it would be somewhat obvious to characterize shapeshifters as chaotic libertines) and also because it's been a consistent, recurring theme through every Star Trek show, from TOS through Discovery, that alien characters have this constant lowkey nature vs. nurture thing going on where their conscience/personal loyalty/duty/etc is tested by their biology.
It's obvious why the show pivoted to this characterization for "The Best of Both Worlds" and onward (these thematic reasons, and also the body horror of assimilation) but I think it would be cool to see something explore the Borg (or a similar group) the way they were characterized in "Q Who," where they seem completely indifferent toward biology and purely want the Enterprise for the sake of its technology. Guinan even describes them as "the ultimate user."
So instead of wanting to benevolently spread their way of life, they're more just selfish end users constantly jonesing for the next upgrade and pushing forward out of fear of obsolescence (insert something about Apple here, I guess, lol).