Rocks in (DS9) Shows

[Photon]

The (in)famous rocks that fell on Odo or (getting knocked by the Tosk Hunters ( I blv); do you speculate that Odo had to concentrate on being liquid when he was a solid, in other words-have some time built in to change over.

The flying, spiked doey in Emissary went right through, b/c he seemed to be anticipating it. He seemed not to have anticipated the rocks falling on him and couldn't go liquid in time
Thoughts?

[StarryEyed]

I speculate that if he is hit hard enough (the location doesn't matter), the shock-waves from the impact propagating through his body can stun him. He may be able to prevent it if he is not surprised.

It's also conceivable that he is vulnerable to shock-waves of a certain frequency and that the rock hit randomly produced that. The Hunter may have been able to do it by design.

[DeepSpace84]

Its possible that impact with a large weapon meant for maiming could destabilize his form and a little piece of Odo might fall off. It would be like throwing a knife at Jell-O. Possibly. But, as you say if he sees it coming, he can control his stability and allow it to go right through him.

[chakotay_lover]

Odos character needed to be able to entcipate the danger coming at him, I think, like in one episode where he gets shot by a phaser and dies, alternate universe.

[flemm]

I think the basic reason that this kind of thing happened to Odo, especially early on, was that they wanted him to be just as vulnerable as the other characters, rather than unstoppable and basically invulnerable like the liquid metal Terminator had been.

The writers understood that fans would tend to theorize that Odo should be very difficult to harm (as of course they still do) and didn't want to take his character in that direction.

That's especially important when you consider that the whole concept for the Founders later became that they had been persecuted for centuries by solids until they ended up forming the Dominion in response to that. How could these potentially invulnerable killing machines have been persecuted and hunted by humanoids without advanced technology?

Later in the show the writers got a little more comfortable with showing the changelings doing some impressive things, but the original concept really was just shape-shifting, not superpowers.

For something resembling an in-universe explanation, I theorize that, when a changeling is in his natural state, he is extremely sensitive and vulnerable everywhere, a bit like having exposed nerve endings everywhere or having your consciousness diffused throughout your body.

So I might be able to "knock out" an unsuspecting changeling by striking him anywhere and generating a pain stimulus that is so strong the changeling passes out. However, when the changeling is able to anticipate the blow, he could harden specific areas of his body and allow his consciousness to flow into other areas, and therefore not be affected by my attack.

When Odo is in humanoid form, the situation might be somewhere in between. While mimicking humanoids, his consciousness seems to become focused in his head (for example he sees with his eyes, not with his hands), so maybe his head becomes vulnerable much like a humanoid's, thus allowing him to be knocked out in much the same way.

[Photon]

flemm wrote:

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I think the basic reason that this kind of thing happened to Odo, especially early on, was that they wanted him to be just as vulnerable as the other characters, rather than unstoppable and basically invulnerable like the liquid metal Terminator had been.

The writers understood that fans would tend to theorize that Odo should be very difficult to harm (as of course they still do) and didn't want to take his character in that direction.

That's especially important when you consider that the whole concept for the Founders later became that they had been persecuted for centuries by solids until they ended up forming the Dominion in response to that. How could these potentially invulnerable killing machines have been persecuted and hunted by humanoids without advanced technology?

Later in the show the writers got a little more comfortable with showing the changelings doing some impressive things, but the original concept really was just shape-shifting, not superpowers.

For something resembling an in-universe explanation, I theorize that, when a changeling is in his natural state, he is extremely sensitive and vulnerable everywhere, a bit like having exposed nerve endings everywhere or having your consciousness diffused throughout your body.

So I might be able to "knock out" an unsuspecting changeling by striking him anywhere and generating a pain stimulus that is so strong the changeling passes out. However, when the changeling is able to anticipate the blow, he could harden specific areas of his body and allow his consciousness to flow into other areas, and therefore not be affected by my attack.

When Odo is in humanoid form, the situation might be somewhere in between. While mimicking humanoids, his consciousness seems to become focused in his head (for example he sees with his eyes, not with his hands), so maybe his head becomes vulnerable much like a humanoid's, thus allowing him to be knocked out in much the same way.

I'll buy that in bulk

[flemm]

Photon wrote:

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I'll buy that in bulk

Well, in that case, I'll add to the above that we should remember that water, for example, can kill just like concrete can, if you hit it moving fast enough, due to surface tension. So creating a concussive blow involving liquid is certainly a real possibility.

A changeling might be harmed by such a blow if changelings are indeed very sensitive in their liquid state.

If I jump from a medium height into water, I might be harmed if I dive, but badly injured if I belly flop. This suggests that changelings might be more vulnerable to blunt weapons (such as rocks) than piercing weapons such as knives, due to the greater impact generated by the surface tension.

[tomalak301]

I'm not sure if I understand the question, but what about the Rocks falling over Odo and Kira in Heart of Stone. Odo shielded Kira (Or the Founder) while that happened and seemed to do quite well at that. I do think there was some concentration to that though, but like I said, not sure if I understand the question.

[Finn]

^He expected it in that episode...