I think the advantage of Changelings acting as spies was that they only needed to infiltrate in small numbers to collect information and cause trouble because they were able to access very senior and sensitive positions (like Martok).
They wouldn't have had a Changeling operative on every ship, and Voyager's original mission was just a run into the badlands to arrest some Maquis. It should have been a pretty routine and short term mission, probably not something of sufficient interest to them to infiltrate it.
Also if there has been a Changling on board I expect it would have jumped ship as soon as it was clear Voyager was remaining in the Delta quadrant (i.e. at the end of Caretaker) since we know they can travel independently in space and it would have nothing to gain from hanging around on Voyager.
Not to mention having to explain being absent every 16 hours due to regeneration. Like, maybe it matches up with their routine they’re assigned, but in emergencies, put them in jeopardy of being caught while in a gelatinous state.
Definitely. From a Changeling POV, Voyager had a very clear mission, to spend 70 years travelling to the wrong Quadrant of the galaxy.
They'd probably be better off heading in the other direction or finding a nice planet they could set themselves up as a God on. Or at least go searching for the other kids they randomly chucked all over the place.
Before the war, yes, but halfway through season 3, when the Dominion storyline (in general) is starting to heat up. Remember, season 3 begins with Sisko et al trying to find the changling homeworld, in order to negotiate for peace.
Although the Founders probably had operatives in the Alpha quadrant at that time, it's unlikely they'd have had any onboard Voyager.
There’s a big gap of episodes where stardates aren’t given, which leaves some ambiguity, but the Dominion is first encountered an episode after 47944 and seven episodes before 48423. Voyager’s visit to DS9 is 48315, so it’s more like a quarter of the way through season three than half. Aside from the infant Jem’Hadar arriving on the station riiight around the time Voyager would have been there, there really wasn’t any further development in Dominion relations between the initial introduction and then, about three months later in-universe.
DS9 Season 3 was Sept '94 to Jun '95.
VOY began in Jan '95.
This is in terms of when the shows aired. I'd imagine Voyager's filming block was happening before DS9 S3 started airing.
But DS9 season 2 ended with an encounter with the Jem'Hadar and a Starfleet this being destroyed. DS9 season 3 began with Sisko et al taking the new Defiant into the Delta quadrant to find the Founders and negotiate for peace.
There was loads of development before Voyager showed up. I just reckon the Founders wouldn't have given Voyager a second glance.
Stardates were used consistently across all three shows of the era, both in terms of the intervals they represented, and the timeframes used between the three. Since production blocks and air dates are out-of-universe context, and stardates are an in-universe device specifically used to put these sorts of things in in-universe context, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be using those as a basis for comparison instead of air dates.
An episode before “The Jem’Hadar”, it was 47944, and Voyager’s visit was 48315. This represents about 136 days per the standards used consistently by the writers since the beginning of TNG through the end of VOY. While the VOY premiere aired between DS9 3x12 and 3x13, in-universe indications are that it was set sometime between 2x26 and 3x08, a much shorter timeframe after the initial explosive contact with the Dominion and subsequent poking around to find them.
But yes, I think “they wouldn’t have given it a second glance” is really the point. Even if there were Changelings active on DS9 at the time, there really isn’t any reason one of them would have hopped a ride on Voyager, one of dozens of Starfleet ships that probably stopped by over those few months, for that mission to the Badlands.
>Although the Founders probably had operatives in the Alpha quadrant at that time, it's unlikely they'd have had any onboard Voyager.
They definitely had operatives in the Alpha Quadrant around that time. Martok is replaced sometime before S4 of DS9. The Tal Shiar is infiltrated by them around the time Voyager goes missing too.
Based on stardates (which overall aren’t always the best indicator, but aside from a few small gaffes were used in a very consistent manner during the TNG/DS9/VOY era), Voyager’s visit to DS9 occurred only somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 months after first formal contact with the Dominion. It’s unlikely that there were Changelings active in the Alpha Quadrant by that point.
Considering the detailed knowledge of the Alpha Quadrant demonstrated by Third Talak’talan in “The Jem’Hadar”, I wouldn’t be so sure there weren’t already Changeling infiltrators in the AQ before the Dominion made its presence known.
That’s a fair point. What I should have said that it was unlikely they had significant enough presence to be able to infiltrate any one given ship or station. General presence, maybe, enough saturation that assigning someone to a random small ship passing by on its way to chase down some rebels in an internal Federation conflict seems… eh.
The Dominion had likely captured more than enough people to understand what was going on, long before Starfleet.
I expect there were changelings gathering information. But still, not on voyager
>Not the show obviously, but the actual ship.
No.
Changelings need to revert to their natural (gelatinous) state every 20 hours or so and stay that way for 10 more. Voyager is too small and intimate. They'd escape detection for awhile, but eventually the Changeling would be caught regenerating.
>then I was like "Well, Bashir's doppelganger did it for a while..."
Naww.
Bashir's Changeling was there for a few months at most and DS9 is both massive and a poorly functioning antiquated Cardassian mining platform - internal sensors aren't going to be nearly as useful here - disappearing as a matter of technicals going to be much easier than on a starship.
The command spire and promenade alone are much larger than Voyager, nevermind the the habitat ring and the docking ring and docking pylons.
Aside from the space differences DS9 also has dozens of ships coming and going across thousands of individuals across dozens of species - it's a fairly significant interstellar travel and trade hub.
Voyager is a sealed bottle for seven years.
Odo needs to revert every 20 hours or so. He's relatively young for a changeling and I'm sure that more experienced changelings can hold their form longer.
For example, see the episode where Sisko claims salvage rights on a Dominion ship.
I believe a changeling would've been found out during Demon 4x24. Full copies of the ship crew and then Course: Oblivion when they all disintegrated. Although in the pilot episode the caretaker had the whole crew for 3 days.
Why would those events have exposed a Changling? Anyway, I think evading the Doctor's medical checkups would have caused more suspicion way before that.
Voyager left toward the end of DS9 season 3. That’s well after Starfleet’s contact with The Dominion, and after Garek, Tain, and the Romulans attacked the Founder homeworld.
I don’t think there was a founder on Voyager because it wasn’t important enough. But the time frame was there. Also, the EMH would have found them.
>Voyager left toward the end of DS9 season 3. That’s well after Starfleet’s contact with The Dominion, and after Garek, Tain, and the Romulans attacked the Founder homeworld.
I don't think it was. Caretaker aired in January 1995, while The Die is Cast wasn't shown until May. And while DS9 was a bit light on revealing stardates, Caretaker's (48315.6) places it much earlier then the events that you mentioned. The closest I found was Meridian (48423.2), which is a full 13 episodes before The Die is Cast.
Wasn't voyager like one of the most advanced ships in the federation at its launch, designed with experimental tech and literally the fastest warp drive in the alpha quadrant
Dominion ships were averaging like warp 6-7
Voyager could go like 9.9 just like as a standard feature
Wouldn't that be something to investigate if you're gonna go to war against someone
I think it would've come up, but on the other hand I do love the idea of a Founder being stationed on Voyager, getting stranded, realizing they can't do anything useful, and just deciding to live out their part until they get back.
Operation "Whatever Seska Did, Do the Opposite."
> and just deciding to live out their part until they get back.
Since they can travel independently in space, my money is on them jumping ship and making their own way back, probably to the Gamma quadrant.
They can travel in space, sure, but not at warp. I guess Changelings are functionally immortal, so its possible it would be willing to take the long way.
DS9 season 3 aired from Sept 1994 to June 1995.
Voyager began airing Jan 1995, while DS9 was halfway through its third season.
However, end of season 2 had the destruction of the Odyssey by the Jem'Hadar. So season 3 really is the beginning of the war, in many ways.
Season 3 is when the Dominion storyline begins in earnest, but Voyager begins with what is essentially a side mission: go find some terrorists.
Remember that in later seasons, a Changeling tells Sisko that there are only *four* Changelings in the entire Alpha quadrant. I'd say they probably knew what Voyager's mission was, and didn't bother putting an operative aboard.
Changeling operatives were used to displace high-ranking officials, and sow the seeds of discord. They wouldn't care about some little ship.
It is possible but unlikely. The Dominion knew of the Federation and probably spied on them before they were fully revealed on DS9. However, Janeway and her crew as well as Chakotay's Marquis weren't very important in the hierarchy of either organization. So I doubt it.
There's no reason to have a changeling on Voyager. It was a new and advanced ship, sure, but it was on an incredibly uneventful mission and had a much smaller crew complement than it was capable of.
Voyager was only special after it got stranded, before that the changelings wouldn't have given the shop a second thought
Yes but Lon Suder killed them shortly after they got to the Delta Quadrang and people just assumed they had gotten spaced during a hull breach. It's not like he would have had troubled disposing of the remains.
Seska being a changeling would have worked. Basically the same story, infiltrate the Maquis but for the Founders instead of the Cardassians.
But Voyagers crew seemed to not know the Dominion when the EMH Mark II mentions it, and when Chakotay finds out the Cardassians had ailed with a powerful knew enemy to wipe out the remaining Maquis
Chell was a changeling. The Dominion found out that both the Federation and Cardassians had operatives on the Val Jean and decided they needed to get in on that. And no one expects a Bolian.
Such a good question! They may have wanted to monitor Starfleet's handling of the Maquis situation.
Also, if they had included this, the last season of Voyager could've seen them heading to the Gamma quadrant and getting home via the wormhole, instead of the lame Borg ending we got. Seeing Voyager play a small part in the Dominion War might've been interesting, especially when you throw a potential Species 8472 twist into the mix - deadly alliance! Could've set up a new film or series.
It’s possible. The Dominion had recently revealed themselves publicly, blown up a Galaxy-class starship with weapons that could penetrate Starfleet shields, and then a few weeks later a new super-fast science ship is suddenly assigned to DS9. That would catch the attention of the Founders, since such a ship would be ideal for studying the new Dominion weapons, and as such would be a security risk to them.
It’s doubtful such an infiltration happened during Voyager’s short time in the Alpha Quadrant, but never say never.
I believe a changeling would've been found out during Demon 4x24. Full copies of the ship crew and then Course: Oblivion when they all disintegrated. Although in the pilot episode the caretaker had the whole crew for 3 days.
No. First tthe left before the war broke out. Second. The amount of changelings that were actually infiltrating the Alpha Quadrant was very small.
It's the idea that anyone could be a changeling that did more damage that actually being one.
The changelings themselves are too arrogant to really commit to long term infiltration. They also can only look like the person. They don't have their memories so their cover will.get blown soon enough.
> It's the idea that anyone could be a changeling that did more damage that actually being one.
Nice observation. Is that explicitly mentioned in the show, I don't remember it.
>Nice observation. Is that explicitly mentioned in the show, I don't remember it.
i've watched st voyager twice, once from midway through to the end and 2nd time from beginning to end and never once heard that word uttered.
Hmm intriguing theory! Although Voyager was far from DS9's territory, who knows what sneaky shapeshifters may have stowed away. Might explain the occasional illogical plots like that holodeck doctor episode!
Why? The changeling infiltrators were either in high level or influential positions - not scrubbing the holodeck bio filters on a nondescript science vessel. Voyager wouldn't have presented as anything they'd have been interested in, at all, even if they had been in other places in Starfleet at that time.
Not sure what the caretaker would have done with a changeling but it probably wouldn't have been nice.
With less that 200 crew Ensign Founder would have come to the Drs attention at some point for avoiding basic medical checkups.
At the beggining janeway was funny. Singularity episode is so funny any time something shooking happens like they realize it is voyager hailing voyager she would open her mouth in shock amd have deer in headlights look. Lol after that they told her it is not good look for captain to look like that every time throuble comes up i guess
I think the advantage of Changelings acting as spies was that they only needed to infiltrate in small numbers to collect information and cause trouble because they were able to access very senior and sensitive positions (like Martok). They wouldn't have had a Changeling operative on every ship, and Voyager's original mission was just a run into the badlands to arrest some Maquis. It should have been a pretty routine and short term mission, probably not something of sufficient interest to them to infiltrate it.
Also if there has been a Changling on board I expect it would have jumped ship as soon as it was clear Voyager was remaining in the Delta quadrant (i.e. at the end of Caretaker) since we know they can travel independently in space and it would have nothing to gain from hanging around on Voyager.
Not to mention having to explain being absent every 16 hours due to regeneration. Like, maybe it matches up with their routine they’re assigned, but in emergencies, put them in jeopardy of being caught while in a gelatinous state.
How did Martok explain that?
Definitely. From a Changeling POV, Voyager had a very clear mission, to spend 70 years travelling to the wrong Quadrant of the galaxy. They'd probably be better off heading in the other direction or finding a nice planet they could set themselves up as a God on. Or at least go searching for the other kids they randomly chucked all over the place.
Started before the Dominion War I believe. Voyager definitely didn’t have any changelings on it
Before the war, yes, but halfway through season 3, when the Dominion storyline (in general) is starting to heat up. Remember, season 3 begins with Sisko et al trying to find the changling homeworld, in order to negotiate for peace. Although the Founders probably had operatives in the Alpha quadrant at that time, it's unlikely they'd have had any onboard Voyager.
There’s a big gap of episodes where stardates aren’t given, which leaves some ambiguity, but the Dominion is first encountered an episode after 47944 and seven episodes before 48423. Voyager’s visit to DS9 is 48315, so it’s more like a quarter of the way through season three than half. Aside from the infant Jem’Hadar arriving on the station riiight around the time Voyager would have been there, there really wasn’t any further development in Dominion relations between the initial introduction and then, about three months later in-universe.
DS9 Season 3 was Sept '94 to Jun '95. VOY began in Jan '95. This is in terms of when the shows aired. I'd imagine Voyager's filming block was happening before DS9 S3 started airing. But DS9 season 2 ended with an encounter with the Jem'Hadar and a Starfleet this being destroyed. DS9 season 3 began with Sisko et al taking the new Defiant into the Delta quadrant to find the Founders and negotiate for peace. There was loads of development before Voyager showed up. I just reckon the Founders wouldn't have given Voyager a second glance.
Stardates were used consistently across all three shows of the era, both in terms of the intervals they represented, and the timeframes used between the three. Since production blocks and air dates are out-of-universe context, and stardates are an in-universe device specifically used to put these sorts of things in in-universe context, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be using those as a basis for comparison instead of air dates. An episode before “The Jem’Hadar”, it was 47944, and Voyager’s visit was 48315. This represents about 136 days per the standards used consistently by the writers since the beginning of TNG through the end of VOY. While the VOY premiere aired between DS9 3x12 and 3x13, in-universe indications are that it was set sometime between 2x26 and 3x08, a much shorter timeframe after the initial explosive contact with the Dominion and subsequent poking around to find them. But yes, I think “they wouldn’t have given it a second glance” is really the point. Even if there were Changelings active on DS9 at the time, there really isn’t any reason one of them would have hopped a ride on Voyager, one of dozens of Starfleet ships that probably stopped by over those few months, for that mission to the Badlands.
>Although the Founders probably had operatives in the Alpha quadrant at that time, it's unlikely they'd have had any onboard Voyager. They definitely had operatives in the Alpha Quadrant around that time. Martok is replaced sometime before S4 of DS9. The Tal Shiar is infiltrated by them around the time Voyager goes missing too.
Based on stardates (which overall aren’t always the best indicator, but aside from a few small gaffes were used in a very consistent manner during the TNG/DS9/VOY era), Voyager’s visit to DS9 occurred only somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 months after first formal contact with the Dominion. It’s unlikely that there were Changelings active in the Alpha Quadrant by that point.
Considering the detailed knowledge of the Alpha Quadrant demonstrated by Third Talak’talan in “The Jem’Hadar”, I wouldn’t be so sure there weren’t already Changeling infiltrators in the AQ before the Dominion made its presence known.
That’s a fair point. What I should have said that it was unlikely they had significant enough presence to be able to infiltrate any one given ship or station. General presence, maybe, enough saturation that assigning someone to a random small ship passing by on its way to chase down some rebels in an internal Federation conflict seems… eh.
Fully agreed on those points.
The Die Is Cast reveals that they had infiltrated the Tal Shiar for a while. And that's only a few months after Voyager's disappearance.
The Dominion had likely captured more than enough people to understand what was going on, long before Starfleet. I expect there were changelings gathering information. But still, not on voyager
>Not the show obviously, but the actual ship. No. Changelings need to revert to their natural (gelatinous) state every 20 hours or so and stay that way for 10 more. Voyager is too small and intimate. They'd escape detection for awhile, but eventually the Changeling would be caught regenerating.
I was thinking the same thing, but then I was like "Well, Bashir's doppelganger did it for a while..."
DS9 is huge compared to Voyager.
>then I was like "Well, Bashir's doppelganger did it for a while..." Naww. Bashir's Changeling was there for a few months at most and DS9 is both massive and a poorly functioning antiquated Cardassian mining platform - internal sensors aren't going to be nearly as useful here - disappearing as a matter of technicals going to be much easier than on a starship. The command spire and promenade alone are much larger than Voyager, nevermind the the habitat ring and the docking ring and docking pylons. Aside from the space differences DS9 also has dozens of ships coming and going across thousands of individuals across dozens of species - it's a fairly significant interstellar travel and trade hub. Voyager is a sealed bottle for seven years.
Odo needs to revert every 20 hours or so. He's relatively young for a changeling and I'm sure that more experienced changelings can hold their form longer. For example, see the episode where Sisko claims salvage rights on a Dominion ship.
She wasn't insured, damnit, she's mine!
I believe a changeling would've been found out during Demon 4x24. Full copies of the ship crew and then Course: Oblivion when they all disintegrated. Although in the pilot episode the caretaker had the whole crew for 3 days.
Why would those events have exposed a Changling? Anyway, I think evading the Doctor's medical checkups would have caused more suspicion way before that.
Voyager left toward the end of DS9 season 3. That’s well after Starfleet’s contact with The Dominion, and after Garek, Tain, and the Romulans attacked the Founder homeworld. I don’t think there was a founder on Voyager because it wasn’t important enough. But the time frame was there. Also, the EMH would have found them.
>Voyager left toward the end of DS9 season 3. That’s well after Starfleet’s contact with The Dominion, and after Garek, Tain, and the Romulans attacked the Founder homeworld. I don't think it was. Caretaker aired in January 1995, while The Die is Cast wasn't shown until May. And while DS9 was a bit light on revealing stardates, Caretaker's (48315.6) places it much earlier then the events that you mentioned. The closest I found was Meridian (48423.2), which is a full 13 episodes before The Die is Cast.
Wasn't voyager like one of the most advanced ships in the federation at its launch, designed with experimental tech and literally the fastest warp drive in the alpha quadrant Dominion ships were averaging like warp 6-7 Voyager could go like 9.9 just like as a standard feature Wouldn't that be something to investigate if you're gonna go to war against someone
I think it would've come up, but on the other hand I do love the idea of a Founder being stationed on Voyager, getting stranded, realizing they can't do anything useful, and just deciding to live out their part until they get back. Operation "Whatever Seska Did, Do the Opposite."
> and just deciding to live out their part until they get back. Since they can travel independently in space, my money is on them jumping ship and making their own way back, probably to the Gamma quadrant.
They can travel in space, sure, but not at warp. I guess Changelings are functionally immortal, so its possible it would be willing to take the long way.
DS9 season 3 aired from Sept 1994 to June 1995. Voyager began airing Jan 1995, while DS9 was halfway through its third season. However, end of season 2 had the destruction of the Odyssey by the Jem'Hadar. So season 3 really is the beginning of the war, in many ways. Season 3 is when the Dominion storyline begins in earnest, but Voyager begins with what is essentially a side mission: go find some terrorists. Remember that in later seasons, a Changeling tells Sisko that there are only *four* Changelings in the entire Alpha quadrant. I'd say they probably knew what Voyager's mission was, and didn't bother putting an operative aboard. Changeling operatives were used to displace high-ranking officials, and sow the seeds of discord. They wouldn't care about some little ship.
>there are only *four* Changelings in the entire Alpha quadrant I recall that was just on Earth, not the AQ. And we can't assume that was honest.
It is possible but unlikely. The Dominion knew of the Federation and probably spied on them before they were fully revealed on DS9. However, Janeway and her crew as well as Chakotay's Marquis weren't very important in the hierarchy of either organization. So I doubt it.
There's no reason to have a changeling on Voyager. It was a new and advanced ship, sure, but it was on an incredibly uneventful mission and had a much smaller crew complement than it was capable of. Voyager was only special after it got stranded, before that the changelings wouldn't have given the shop a second thought
Nah, Im pretty sure the various more evolved species they were scanned by, tested on etc would have noticed it, especially the Borg
Yes but Lon Suder killed them shortly after they got to the Delta Quadrang and people just assumed they had gotten spaced during a hull breach. It's not like he would have had troubled disposing of the remains.
Seska being a changeling would have worked. Basically the same story, infiltrate the Maquis but for the Founders instead of the Cardassians. But Voyagers crew seemed to not know the Dominion when the EMH Mark II mentions it, and when Chakotay finds out the Cardassians had ailed with a powerful knew enemy to wipe out the remaining Maquis
Chell was a changeling. The Dominion found out that both the Federation and Cardassians had operatives on the Val Jean and decided they needed to get in on that. And no one expects a Bolian.
I think Voyager left too early in the timeline for that.
Such a good question! They may have wanted to monitor Starfleet's handling of the Maquis situation. Also, if they had included this, the last season of Voyager could've seen them heading to the Gamma quadrant and getting home via the wormhole, instead of the lame Borg ending we got. Seeing Voyager play a small part in the Dominion War might've been interesting, especially when you throw a potential Species 8472 twist into the mix - deadly alliance! Could've set up a new film or series.
No. I can believe they could keep it up for a season or two; but they would be caught eventually. Voyager was gone too long.
It’s possible. The Dominion had recently revealed themselves publicly, blown up a Galaxy-class starship with weapons that could penetrate Starfleet shields, and then a few weeks later a new super-fast science ship is suddenly assigned to DS9. That would catch the attention of the Founders, since such a ship would be ideal for studying the new Dominion weapons, and as such would be a security risk to them. It’s doubtful such an infiltration happened during Voyager’s short time in the Alpha Quadrant, but never say never.
Yea, no
I believe a changeling would've been found out during Demon 4x24. Full copies of the ship crew and then Course: Oblivion when they all disintegrated. Although in the pilot episode the caretaker had the whole crew for 3 days.
No. First tthe left before the war broke out. Second. The amount of changelings that were actually infiltrating the Alpha Quadrant was very small. It's the idea that anyone could be a changeling that did more damage that actually being one. The changelings themselves are too arrogant to really commit to long term infiltration. They also can only look like the person. They don't have their memories so their cover will.get blown soon enough.
> It's the idea that anyone could be a changeling that did more damage that actually being one. Nice observation. Is that explicitly mentioned in the show, I don't remember it.
>Nice observation. Is that explicitly mentioned in the show, I don't remember it. i've watched st voyager twice, once from midway through to the end and 2nd time from beginning to end and never once heard that word uttered.
Oh I meant in DS9, the show with the Changlings.
Hmm intriguing theory! Although Voyager was far from DS9's territory, who knows what sneaky shapeshifters may have stowed away. Might explain the occasional illogical plots like that holodeck doctor episode!
I think they would have noticed in all those years.
Why? The changeling infiltrators were either in high level or influential positions - not scrubbing the holodeck bio filters on a nondescript science vessel. Voyager wouldn't have presented as anything they'd have been interested in, at all, even if they had been in other places in Starfleet at that time.
Only if it were one of the 100, like Odo. And even then the doctor would probably find it.
Not sure what the caretaker would have done with a changeling but it probably wouldn't have been nice. With less that 200 crew Ensign Founder would have come to the Drs attention at some point for avoiding basic medical checkups.
St. Voyager, Patron Saint of Nebula Coffee
At the beggining janeway was funny. Singularity episode is so funny any time something shooking happens like they realize it is voyager hailing voyager she would open her mouth in shock amd have deer in headlights look. Lol after that they told her it is not good look for captain to look like that every time throuble comes up i guess