ODO's weight

[RobertScorpio]

I was watching DS9 last week, and it was the episode where Odo became a rat, Emissary. When Odo changes his size, and becomes a rat in this case, does his weight change? Is he actually very light when he is in the shape we see him in most the time? Or is his weight constant? I'm not sure.

Rob
Scorpio

 

[cultcross]

It's always been a question with the Founders - For example, we see Sisko carrying Odo with no problems when he becomes a briefcase in Homefront. We've seen him become a flying bird - who would need to be very light. Yet we've seen him become rocks, and metal strong and hard enough to bend a turbolift walls (Crossfire).
Essentially, it seems that Odo's mass changes when he shapeshifts, which makes no sense, logically.

But then, there's plenty that doesn't make sense for a liquid organism - we've seen parts of Odo/Founders detached from the bulk become liquid again - but which 'bit' determines the bulk - if they were a worm, and cut precisely in half, which side would liquefy? Can they control separated parts of themselves? a shot in The Die is Cast suggests they can - small droplets of Odo rush into his bucket after he liquifies. But this is difficult to explain as well.

 

[JoeD80]

I seem to recall something in the DS9 companion where this is discussed but I don't remember the details. I need to break that book out again.

 

[Photon]

16 fluid oz.

 

[Dream]

As heavy as the plot requires it to be.

 

[Timo]

In "Vortex", Odo's humanoid form is commented by the guest villain to be "heavier than it looks". However, Rom easily carries all of Odo, in the guise of a drinking glass, on his tray in an earlier scene of that very episode.

It seems that Odo can do much more than merely change his shape. He's not a lump of malleable goo that can assume various shapes; rather, he's an enigma that can bend the laws of physics in order to achieve a number of seemingly impossible transformations. Again returning to "Vortex", Odo as a drinking glass is perfectly transparent, and subsequently shatters into tiny pieces, yet at reassuming his humanoid form, he suddenly sports his comm badge, which seems fully functional despite being larger than any of the shards we just saw. It seems almost natural (!), then, to assume that Odo can send not only parts of himself but also items held close to his body into some sort of not-here limbo, explaining not just the loss of mass, but the loss of items or opaqueness or other such aspects as well.

Basically nothing that Odo does could be explained solely by assuming that he is a versatile organism. He must know a trick or two that transcent conventional physics in order to do what he does.

As for the "separated pieces must turn to goo", that's probably largely bullshit. It may hold true for near-infants like Odo, but advanced Founder agents must be able to secrete parts of themselves to maintain the illusions - they must emanate scent molecules, for one thing. It's not as if any Founder voluntarily lets bits of himself turn into goo anyway, in any episode: when such a thing happens, in "The Adversary" or "Paradise Lost", it is always a ruse to fool the poor humans who believe in this fallacy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RobertScorpio]

As for the "separated pieces must turn to goo", that's probably largely bullshit. It may hold true for near-infants like Odo, but advanced Founder agents must be able to secrete parts of themselves to maintain the illusions - they must emanate scent molecules, for one thing. It's not as if any Founder voluntarily lets bits of himself turn into goo anyway, in any episode: when such a thing happens, in "The Adversary" or "Paradise Lost", it is always a ruse to fool the poor humans who believe in this fallacy.

Timo Saloniemi

Timo..you seem to know alot...

Is there a limit to how big Odo can get? The renegade Founder who tried to get odo to come with him was in the shape of a ship or something like that...do you think more than one shape-shifter could merge and thus double the upper size they could go??? I mean, if all of the Founders, on that planet, wanted to, could create objects truely massive in size? Planet sized?

Rob

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

I think Timo has really wrapped up the Founder concept up in a very concise way. There's just no explaining them except to say they may have god like powers to do some of the things they do.

 

[Jono]

As for the "separated pieces must turn to goo", that's probably largely bullshit. It may hold true for near-infants like Odo, but advanced Founder agents must be able to secrete parts of themselves to maintain the illusions - they must emanate scent molecules, for one thing. It's not as if any Founder voluntarily lets bits of himself turn into goo anyway, in any episode: when such a thing happens, in "The Adversary" or "Paradise Lost", it is always a ruse to fool the poor humans who believe in this fallacy.

Timo Saloniemi

Timo..you seem to know alot...

Is there a limit to how big Odo can get? The renegade Founder who tried to get odo to come with him was in the shape of a ship or something like that...do you think more than one shape-shifter could merge and thus double the upper size they could go??? I mean, if all of the Founders, on that planet, wanted to, could create objects truely massive in size? Planet sized?

Rob

Or how small they can get? Could a Founder turn into a strand of hair, a blood cell or a single molecule of oxygen?

 

[Timo]

One might argue that a Founder, or part of a Founder, must be capable of becoming a molecule, so that scents and tastes can be imitated; otherwise it would be difficult for a Founder to pretend to be a humanoid. Then again, a Founder might carry with it a stash of scent chemicals, circumventing this program.

Joe Sisko speculated that Founders could circumvent the blood test by storing human blood within themselves, but it's also possible that detached pieces of Founders could imitate blood long enough to pass muster, then become tiny agents smack in the middle of UFP forensic laboratories...

Which does make one wonder about Founders splitting or joining. We know that the Link features a communion of individual Founders somehow, and we know Founders have "children" or "infants" in some sense, including the Hundred and possibly separately the foundling of "The Begotten". However, there is nothing specific to disprove the idea that Founders could join for purposes other than Linking, or split for purposes other than procreation. Indeed, we don't know if Founder reproduction involves joining or splitting.

Even in goo form, a Founder can be of varying sizes: Odo has been a small lump of goo when transforming from a bag or a mouse, but a much larger lump when transforming from a humanoid. The biggest he ever was may have been the monster in "The Alternate", but the spacecraft that Laas imitated was quite a bit bigger, and no limits have ever been explicitly set.

I'd in general argue that Founders are indeed godlike in their powers from the physical-biological point of view, but are limited by their level of training and experience. Then again, Laas didn't get "formal" training but still managed the most impressive Founder tricks yet...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guartho]

Could it be that Founders can assimilate and dissimilate the matter around them? Maybe what makes Odo Odo is actually a very small part of him and the rest is just matter soaked up by his "metagenic whosawhats." When he wants to get bigger, like that massive blob in the ep that introduced Dr. Moya he soaks up a lot of air and turns it in to whatever he likes. When he wants to turn into a rat the bulk of him becomes air.

 

[cultcross]

Could it be that Founders can assimilate and dissimilate the matter around them? Maybe what makes Odo Odo is actually a very small part of him and the rest is just matter soaked up by his "metagenic whosawhats." When he wants to get bigger, like that massive blob in the ep that introduced Dr. Moya he soaks up a lot of air and turns it in to whatever he likes. When he wants to turn into a rat the bulk of him becomes air.

I was considering suggesting the same thing, but a quick bit of ideal-gas maths let to to conclude that if he turned from a rat into a person in my living room, he'd create a vacuum before he reached pig size. (assuming sealed room, obviously) - air isn't very massive.
Besides, we see (or at least it is implied) Laas changes shape in space. The mass density of open space would never allow for such an ability.

 

[Guartho]

Air was just an example, but I see your point. About Laas, did we seem him go from small to big in space or from big to small? Big to small could be done anywhere. Only small to big would require adequate source material.

 

[Tyberius]

Air was just an example, but I see your point. About Laas, did we seem him go from small to big in space or from big to small? Big to small could be done anywhere. Only small to big would require adequate source material.

And then there is the issue of the complicated electronic device - the communicator. Do the Founders have access to a subspace pocket in which they deposit particular items or parts of themselves?

 

[Guartho]

I think it depends on skill. Founders can replace people with a degree of detail that fools medical tricorders. I don't imagine the components of a communicator are much more or less difficult than a complicated nervous system.

Which makes me think of another question. If a founder duplicates a Betazoid, can they read minds? No wonder the Vorta see them as gods.

 

[cultcross]

Air was just an example, but I see your point. About Laas, did we seem him go from small to big in space or from big to small? Big to small could be done anywhere. Only small to big would require adequate source material.

Good point, Laas went big-to-small in space, so your theory would work to explain it. Still, I think a treknobabble 'subspace shift' or mysterious particle which defies conservation of matter is probably our best bet for an 'explanation'. Nothing in physics as we understand it explains the Founder's abilities, that I can see.

 

[SoM]

Remember as well that Odo was still a changeling in early S5 - the Founders forced him into a specific form and prevented him overriding the lock (until the dying infant in The Begotten undid it), but they didn't bodyswap him into a human body or anything of the sort. And in that form, his blood stayed blood when removed, he had internal organs, tastebuds, etc...

 

[Red Ranger]

Peeps:

It's an interesting set of questions. In thinkiing about it, I believe it has to do with the Great Link. Even though Odo wasn't even aware of the Link when we first met him, I believe there is more to the Link than just a conglomeration of all the shape-shifiters. For Odo and the Founders to shape-shift so convincingly into such varied shapes, even inanimate objects, it must require some kind of access to another dimension, from which they all derive their metamorphic state.

This other dimension, which all the Founders are linked to, allows them to add or subtract mass and weight until they need more or less for their next form. It's a subconscious ability, like breathing, that's probably part of their shapeshifting m.o. So Odo wouldn't need to learn this ability, the way he needed to learn how better to emulate humanoid faces, for example.

As for Odo's communicator, maybe he has the ability to absorb into his body inanimate objects, making them temporarily part of his liquid state, then able to reform it when needed. Or perhaps he shunts inanimate objects into this same dimension where he can store or pull out extra mass.

Or maybe the Great Link itself is extradimensional, and when the shapeshifters lose mass, it shunts back to the Great Link. When they turn into a larger form, it pulls some of that metamorphic liquid from the shared pool of the Link.

Sounds like pseudo-science, but hey, thought I'd take a crack at it.

Red Ranger

 

[Timo]

I think it depends on skill. Founders can replace people with a degree of detail that fools medical tricorders. I don't imagine the components of a communicator are much more or less difficult than a complicated nervous system.

But fooling a medical tricorder does not necessarily mean becoming completely and convincingly human. It merely means fooling the device. If a Founder did become completely and convincingly human, it would cease to be a Founder and could never shapeshift back!

No doubt the Founders to a large part rely on sleighs-of-goo to confuse the observers and instruments around them. Their "authenticity" could be skin deep, perhaps with a sensor-impermeable barrier just below skin depth and a series of special organs emitting false signals of interior structure and composition.

Good point, Laas went big-to-small in space, so your theory would work to explain it.

Would a Changeling stranded in deep space so callously discard his raw materials, though?

Remember as well that Odo was still a changeling in early S5 - the Founders forced him into a specific form and prevented him overriding the lock (until the dying infant in The Begotten undid it), but they didn't bodyswap him into a human body or anything of the sort. And in that form, his blood stayed blood when removed, he had internal organs, tastebuds, etc...

...An ability an adult Founder would probably have to possess, in order to convincingly masquerade as General Martok or Colonel Lovok for months or years at an end.

Probably the 18-hour regeneration cycle of Odo's is more akin to the need of a baby to have naps every few hours. A baby will cry a lot if deprived of this, but an adult won't mind if he only gets to sleep once per day. Except with the Founders, it's probably even more extreme: an adult Founder doesn't need a 50-hour cycle versus an 18-hour one, but more like a 50-month cycle. Remember that the Female Founder did essentially just fine despite being deprived of shapeshifting for months upon months at an end.

So again I'd like to draw a very sharp distinction between what a Founder can do, and what an unstimulated child Founder possesses the skills, patience and experience for doing.

As for Odo's communicator, maybe he has the ability to absorb into his body inanimate objects, making them temporarily part of his liquid state, then able to reform it when needed. Or perhaps he shunts inanimate objects into this same dimension where he can store or pull out extra mass.

Both of those are IMHO preferable to the idea that Odo re-creates the complex device every time. An adult Founder might be capable of this, but Odo should lack the skill, considering what other skills he lacks.

Or maybe the Great Link itself is extradimensional, and when the shapeshifters lose mass, it shunts back to the Great Link. When they turn into a larger form, it pulls some of that metamorphic liquid from the shared pool of the Link.

Now that's original, and quite intriguing! One wonders what sort of things could be transmitted through this shared realm... Apparently not the S31 disease, at least.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SoM]

Probably the 18-hour regeneration cycle of Odo's is more akin to the need of a baby to have naps every few hours. A baby will cry a lot if deprived of this, but an adult won't mind if he only gets to sleep once per day. Except with the Founders, it's probably even more extreme: an adult Founder doesn't need a 50-hour cycle versus an 18-hour one, but more like a 50-month cycle. Remember that the Female Founder did essentially just fine despite being deprived of shapeshifting for months upon months at an end.

Also, Odo's need for it waned as the series went on - remember the infamous "talk in the closet" with Kira in You Are Cordially Invited? Apparently, he spent a whole day on duty, a whole night in there talking with Kira, and then went straight back on duty...