DS9 News & Stories: Founders of the Dominion

Site: http://lcars.frontierfleet.net/core/Founders

Quadrant: Gamma Quadrant

Physiology:

The Female Founder

In their natural form, the Founders exist as a gelatinous liquid and can unite is what is described as the Great Link which they can leave and reform into any any shape whenever possible.

Their ability to shapeshift is so complete that a founder in the guise of another species is virtually undetectable even with scanning equipment. However, should a piece of the Founder’s body be separated from the main body mass, the separated piece reverts to a gelatinous state. The Founders also revert to a gelatinous state upon death.

Starfleet phasers set to a force of 3.5 are sufficient to force a Founder to revert to a gelatinous state.

Dr. Ethan Locken theorized that the Founders were once solids, but their current state was achieved through the same genetic engineering used to create the Jem’Hadar and the Vorta.

History:

The Founder’s Gelatinous State

The Founders created the Dominion. Some Dominion subjects believe they are a myth. The Founder’s homeworld is a sunless Class-M planet located in the Omarion Nebula.

Long ago, the Founders explored the galaxy, but were persecuted by non-shapeshifters. This persecution fueled their all-powerful drive to control the chaos around them. Beginning some 2,000 years ago, they sought to maintain order out of this chaos with a rule based on strict obedience, enforced by the Jem’Hadar troops they genetically bred into chemical addiction for control, and administered by the cloned Vorta both of whom worship the Founders as gods.

The Founders did not lose their curiosity about the universe. They sent a hundred infant members of their race across the galaxy, implanting in each a powerful desire to return home, so that the Founders could learn of distant places. Odo was one of these infants.

Odo & The Female Founder linking

Until Odo’s torn loyalties led him to defend the U.S.S Defiant by accidentally killing a Changeling spy in 2371, no Founder had ever harmed another due to their strong link with all other members of their species.

In 2371, the Romulan Tal Shiar and Cardassian Obsidian Order launched a massive attack against the Founder’s Homeworld, bombarding the planet with a fleet of 20 starships. The Founders had learned of the plan, and staged an ambush, by evacuating the planet, and placing a fleet of 150 Jem’Hadar ships nearby to destroy the invading fleet. Both organizations were decimated by the Jem’Hadar.

The Founders also tried to initiate a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi.

Sometime before 2373, the Founders replaced Klingon General Martok in hopes the Dominion could gain control over the Klingon Empire. The Founders then led Odo to believe that Gowron, not Martok, had been replaced by a changeling. However, the truth was discovered, and the original Martok was eventually rescued.

In 2373, The Founders entered into an alliance with the Cardassian Union, giving the Dominion a significant foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. The agreement resulted in a reinstatement of the Khitomer Accords.

Cardassians, members of the Dominion

New Info:

Founders have to return to their natural state every 18 hours to regenerate. (DS9: A Man Alone)

Founders do not eat. (DS9: The Forsaken)

Contributed by: Clare Bradley

DS9 Stories/News: Goodbyes

Source: http://deflipside.com/?page_id=1693

by Christopher DeFilippis

DeFlip Side, Vol. 1, No. 6
(First Appeared: June/July, 1999; First Light E-zine, Issue #82)

This is going to be short and sweet, folks. My original plan for this month’s column was to bid a fond farewell to Deep Space Nine, until recently the best show on television. I was going to do an in-depth review of the final episode, exploring whether or not it brought the Dominion war arc to a satisfying conclusion, as well as if it proved a fitting send-off to the best Trek series ever; my swan song to the swan song, so to speak. But those ne’er do-wells at Paramount took the wind out of my sails. After watching the finale, I came to only one inescapable conclusion: It’s not over.

After all, Sisko left his baseball behind.

Of course, there’s also the question of his unborn child, his career in Starfleet, a new Defiant that needs to be broken in, an unfinished real estate transaction on Bajor and his promise that he would return “in a year from now or yesterday.” But the baseball is the cincher. He doesn’t leave home without it, much less take up permanent residence in Prophet limbo. We haven’t heard the last from him or the rest of these characters. I don’t know when or in what format, but we’ll see them again. Bet on it.

This fact colors my opinion of the two-hour series finale. As a final good-bye, it would have left too many loose ends. But as a “so long for now” it was perfect. It brought enough closure to satisfy, but egged us on just enough to keep our expectations for a return simmering on a low frame somewhere in the back of our brains. Like Kira and Jake, we’re all gazing out of a portal on the Promenade, waiting patiently to see what happens next.

I’ll spare you all a long-winded essay on what I liked and why. Different parts of the finale will have appealed to different people for different reasons. But there is no call for excess exposition. After all, we’re not talking about “Mirror Image” here (the legendarily confusing finale to the TV series Quantum Leap). Instead, I’ll be as succinct as possible:

The Good Stuff:

• The death of Kai Winn.
• The kick-ass battle scenes.
• Kai Winn’s unfortunate demise.
• Garak’s revenge on Weyoun.
• Barbecued Kai.
• Nog’s promotion.
• Pah Wraiths 1, Kai Winn 0
• Kira’s ironic role in the liberation of Cardassia.
• Kai Winn all gone.
• Ezri’s nearly exposed breasts.
• Bye bye Kai.
• Sisko plowing Dukat over the cliff’s edge in a flying tackle.
• The old bag bites it.
• Martok’s self-satisfied belt of blood wine while standing on bloated enemy corpses.
• She’ll finally shut up.
• The faint hope that once O’Brien accepts a teaching position at the academy, he’ll attain some kind of rank (Where does “Chief” fall, anyway? As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between ensign and lieutenant. So Nog outranks him now? Not a proud legacy for more than a decade in uniform…).
• Winn-kabob.
• Damar’s last stand.
• Burn Winnie burn.
• Worf’s new-found honor and influence with the Klingon council.
• Are those Kai burgers I smell?
• Bashir finally gets some.
• Armagedd-Winn.

The Bad Stuff:

• Vic Fontaine’s schmaltzy send-off.
• A too-short stand-off between Dukat and Sisko that smacked of the
• Kirk/Mitchell showdown in “Where No Man has Gone Before” (“Get on your knees and pray to me, James”).
• A tuxedo-clad Odo melting into the Great Link.
• The use of stock footage of a Klingon getting blown down a corridor on a wave of fire (from The Undiscovered Country, I think).
• Worf’s flashback sequence that held not a smidgen of Jadzia memories. (I guess Paramount didn’t want to have to pay residuals to Terry Farrell.)

 

As you can see, the good clearly outweighed the bad. I think the very best thing about the episode, and the series over all, was that I could never tell exactly how things would turn out. And even when I did have a pretty good idea of where things were going, the characters would reach their destinations via completely unexpected routes.

This rule holds true for the future of Deep Space Nine. It’s a foregone conclusion that Sisko will come back. Just watch; he’ll soon get tired of playing pinochle with Wesley on the astral plain and shuffle back into his mortal coil for a return to his old life. But to what effect? Will he be considered a lord on Bajor? Will his new found Prophet wisdom cause a rift between him and his all-too-human friends and family? Will he have hair? I can’t even guess at the possibilities.

Of course, we’re most likely to be hearing from Worf the soonest. I just hope the powers that be use the opportunity they’ve created to full effect in the next movie. Worf’s position as Federation ambassador to Qo’noS lends itself to a sweeping story that could encompass the Federation and Klingon Empire and propel the franchise forward, something it sorely needs after the disaster that was Insurrection.

The one thing I do not want to see is a feature length film that combines the Next Gen and DS9 casts. The writers have a tough enough time as it is finding useful roles for the entire Enterprise-E ensemble with each outing. If they tried to add the DS9 crew as well, the screen would be packed tighter than Seven of Nine’s Wonder Bra, but with a far less marvelous result. I’ll pin my hopes on a small-screen reunion that will give the DS9 characters and plot lines free reign.

In the meantime, I guess I still have Voyager to give me my Star Trek fix, though it’ll be like going from heroin to methadone. Now that the DS9 writers are freed up, maybe they can help put Voyager on the right track and raise it to the standards we’ve come expect from Star Trek. But I’m not gonna hold my breath. I don’t have to anyway.

When DS9 premiered, I still had a maniacal hatred of new Trek. I wasn’t sucked over the Next Gen event horizon until Generations hit the theaters. And by the time I got into DS9, it was well into its run. So I ask you to pray with me now that channel 11 in NY soon starts rerunning the series from the beginning. There are three years worth of episodes I’ve never seen. It’s a little something extra to look forward to.

See Pop? Sometimes it works to your benefit to be a day late and a dollar short…

DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Stories/ News: Odo & Kira Relationship Review (13)

 ”The Abandoned”

Review originally printed in ORACLE

Newsletter July 2011

____________________________________

 

Review written by Mary Shaver

 

The Jem’Hadar’s confidence in his abilities and strength are growing rapidly. After leaving the holosuite he and Odo walk along the Promenade and the boy proclaims that everyone is afraid of him and that he could kill any one of them. He seems to grow visibly more menacing and intimidating by the moment. He is also becoming much more self-aware and certain of his place and purpose in the universe. He admits to Odo that he doesn’t think he cares about anything else besides killing and is unmoved by Odo’s assertion that there is so much more to life than that (contrast this to an earlier conversation when the boy confessed to wanting to fight and then asking Odo if that was wrong. Now he had no such doubts or reservations).

 

Their talk is interrupted by the chirping of Odo’s comm badge. Sisko want to see him. Odo instructs the boy to return to his quarters and then goes to Ops. As soon as Odo walks in to Sisko’s office he knows something is wrong. Turns out Star Fleet didn’t buy Sisko’s delaying tactic and a ship is en route to DS9 to collect the Jem’Hadar. Odo feels understandably betrayed. He’s heard the ‘orders are orders’ line before. It does nothing to ease Odo’s mind when Sisko reveals that Star Fleet considers the boy to be a ‘top priority.’ The Jem’Hadar is in jeopardy and Odo feels responsible for his desperate position.

 

Breaking into the conversation is the Jem’Hadar who has matured to the point where he can now shroud himself. He has acquired a phaser and he demands a runabout. Exuding confidence, the boy has become a full-fledged Jem’Hadar soldier. He is even giving orders to Odo. He doesn’t belong on the station and neither does Odo, so they are leaving together. Sensing the danger Odo gives Sisko a long look while assuring the Jem’Hadar that no one will interfere with them. From the way he is waving that phaser around, Odo is rightly concerned that someone will get killed if the Jem’Hadar doesn’t get what he wants.

 

Odo discovers the Jem’Hadar’s plan as they make their way to the runabout. He is returning both of them to the Gamma Quadrant, where their people are and where they belong. Odo protests that neither of them belong there, but it falls on deaf ears. In a last ditch effort to save the Jem’Hadar from himself, Odo makes the extraordinary offer to accompany him anywhere in unexplored space where no one will bother them. Odo has become so invested in the future of this boy that he is willing to sacrifice the only life he’s ever known. Is he making this offer solely for the sake of the Jem’Hadar in the hopes that he will learn about himself and grow independent of his programmed heritage? Or is he doing this in an effort to assuage his own guilt for the actions of his people? Perhaps a little bit of both. Whatever Odo’s motivation, his offer is rejected outright, and worse still, the Jem’Hadar accuses Odo of allowing his mind to be twisted by the humanoids. He already knows exactly who he is and where he wants to be – with his fellow Jem’Hadar. And then he says something that surely cuts Odo to the quick. “I don’t know what these other Changelings are like. But I know they’re not like you.”

 

 “No, they’re not,” he replies unhappily. If the Founders were more like Odo, a race like the Jem’Hadar would never have been created, the Dominion wouldn’t exist and such brutal taskmasters wouldn’t control millions of people. On the other hand, if Odo were more like the Founders, he could rejoin the Great Link with a clear conscious and have the feelings of belonging and acceptance that have been so elusive for him here in the world of the Solids. The sad reality is, Odo is not like the Founders and nothing can change that. Odo looks at the boy and realizes that the gulf that separates them is much too wide to bridge.

DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Stories/ News: Odo & Kira Relationship Review (10)

“The Abandoned”

Review originally printed in ORACLE

Newsletter July 2011

____________________________________

 

Review written by Mary Shaver

Once the boy has been identified as a Jem’Hadar, Star Fleet is extremely eager to get their hands on him. Sisko announces to the Senior Staff assembled in the wardroom that Star Fleet is sending a ship to DS9 to transfer him to Star Base 201, where he will be turned over to a team of specialists. Odo, standing apart from the rest of the staff who are seated at the table, is already looking troubled. When Sisko details Star Fleet’s plan for the boy, he inquires  in a tone of voice that hints of suspicion, exactly what type of ‘specialists.’ Odo is pretty sure he already knows the answer to his question and Sisko confirms that a group of scientists have been assembled who intend to ‘study’ the boy. Direct and blunt as always, Odo cuts to the chase – “So he’ll be studied  . . . like a laboratory specimen?” Sisko’s weak retort that he will be well-treated earns him a sarcastic “So . . . he’ll be a well-treated specimen.” When Bashir agrees with Odo that the Jem’Hadar is a sentient being and not a biological sample a spirited discussion ensues. Dax argues that while sentient, the Founders might well have removed the Jem’Hadar’s free will, leaving only a genetically programmed killing machine. Kira chimes in and agrees with Dax. He is dangerous and she doesn’t want him on the station.

 

Recognizing what the Jem’Hadar will have to look forward to if Star Fleet takes possession of him, Odo speaks up and volunteers to work with the boy to get the answers everyone is seeking. Odo assures Sisko that the genetically implanted deference the boy shows towards Odo will allow him to keep the boy from harming anyone.

 

A concerned Sikso dismisses the rest of the staff in order to talk to Odo alone. He wants to understand what has motivated Odo to make this offer, but guesses that Odo is seeking to atone for what the Founders have done to the Jem’Hadar.

 

Sisko’s speculation is completely in keeping with Odo’s character. Yes, intellectually Odo knows he is not personally responsible for the reprehensible actions of his people. That doesn’t stop him from feeling an obligation to try and undo the damage they’ve done, at least with this one Jem’Hadar.

 

Add to that the fact that Odo has firsthand knowledge of exactly what it’s like to be a lab specimen. Even now, years after fleeing the clutches of Dr. Mora, Odo continues to harbor a deep and abiding resentment and bitterness over his treatment by the Bajoran scientist. Understandable then that he would be distressed by the probability that this Jem’Hadar will undergo the same sort of treatment and would want to save the boy from that fate.

 

Odo’s impassioned plea to Sisko – to let him find out if the Jem’Hadar will be forever chained by his genetic programming, or if he can grow beyond his nature – is a reflection of Odo’s own recent revelation about himself. Having begun to push back the boundaries in his own life, Odo is uniquely qualified to encourage and assist the Jem’Hadar to do the same.

 

Sisko has reservations, but agrees to Odo’s plan, and assures Odo that he will find a way to delay Star Fleet.

DS9 Stories/News: Boss Chicks: Female Changeling (aka “Gertrude”)

Source: http://www.amaya-radjani.com/2011/11/boss-chicks-female-changeling-aka.html

One of the many races that Deep Space Nine introduced the world to was the Changelings.  Changelings are shapeshifters.  One of the major characters on DS9 is the changeling Odo, the space station’s security chief.  Odo’s pretty badass; if you could change into anything at will, you’d better be a badass.  But having been around humans, Odo has developed some empathy and respect for them, as well as the ability to love.

Odo questioned his origins for many years; as far as he knew he was the only one of his kind.  But in Season 3, he found himself drawn to a rogue planet hidden inside a nebula.  The inhabitants of the planet turned out to be a race of Changelings, in their default liquid form.  The leader of the Changelings was a female.  She had no name, so I took to calling her Gertrude.  Gertrude is played to the T by Salome Jens.  Gertrude tells Odo that their race was once hunted by the “solids” (her term for humanoids) and they sought solace and peace on the rogue planet.  Determined to make sure that never happened again, Gertrude instigated a plan to take over the galaxy.

Mind you, girls & boys, this sorta thing ain’t for the short-sighted or half-assed.  Old Gert was a master manipulator and literally did not give a shit about any other race other than her own.  Gertrude felt that her race was superior above all others and there was an underlying hatred and mistrust of all humanoid cultures.  She founded the Dominion and instigated a bloody, genocidal war across the Alpha & Gamma quadrants, taking over many planetary systems in a serious effort to protect her people at all costs.  The Dominion, ran by the Founders (the Changelings), was a major political power and the sworn enemy of the Federation.  Gertrude coordinated the war efforts which resulted in the deaths of over 800 million people.  She was so completely bad-ass that she negotiated deals with several cultures (Cardassia and Breen, to name a couple), and promptly reneged on them once her objective was met…and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

One might ask how it was possible for Getrude to run half of the galaxy on her own?  She didn’t.  The Founders cloned thousands of loyal assistants called Vorta, who in turn cloned millions of warriors called Jem’Hadar, who were literally built to fight.  They ensured the loyalty of the Jem’Hadar by instilling an addiction to ketracel-white (cocaine) in their genetic makeup.  If any race decided to get up to some chicanery and cause problems, Gertrude sent the Jem’Hadar in to literally destroy their entire population.  This kept societies firmly under Dominion rule.

Gertrude was focused on bringing order to the galaxy (meaning other cultures would serve the will of the Founders or face genocide) and it was her justification for the millions of people who died in the war.  She had no regard for life itself, and ordered the execution of many innocent individuals, even children, regardless of whether they were actual participants in the war or bystanders.  Even Vorta & Jem’Hadar, her personal army, selflessly sacrificed themselves and she…did…not…give…a…fuck.  Even when it was clear the Dominion was going to lose the war (thanks to Kira’s terrorist efforts), Gertrude did not order her troops to stand down, but to fight to the last man.  She was comforted knowing that the Dominion War cost the lives of nearly a billion people and the destruction of hundreds of worlds.

Cardassia: Destroyed. By a Boss Chick.

Best lines:

“…because what you can control can’t hurt you.”

“Isn’t it obvious? You may win this war, Commander. But I promise you, by the time it’s over you will have lost so many ships, so many lives, that your victory will taste as bitter as defeat.”

“I would promise the Breen the entire Alpha Quadrant if I thought it would help win this war.”

Earth: Destroyed. By a Boss Chick.

She never once showed remorse and never apologized to anyone for her actions.  I respect the game.  Therefore, she’s a Boss Chick.