star trek 6 changeling

Star Trek's Shapeshifting Changelings Explained

Despite not being as well known as Klingons, Romulans, or the Borg, the Changelings may be the most deadly foe the Federation and Starfleet have ever faced. Introduced in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," a series set on a former Cardassian space station orbiting a wormhole leading to the distant Gamma Quadrant, the Changelings would quickly form the backbone for the entire series-long story. That they were the same race as the station's enigmatic security chief Odo added another layer to the story. 

Not only do the Changelings wield tremendous powers that allow them to alter their shape and form, but they are also rulers of a vast interstellar empire. With the ability to steal another person's identity and a galactic army at their disposal, they are a terrifying threat that added suspense, thrills, and chills to "Star Trek."

More recently, the Changelings have returned to the franchise after a decades-long absence, first in a brief appearance in an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery." However, Season 3 of "Star Trek: Picard" sees them return in full force to plague the Federation. If it's been a while since you've watched "Deep Space Nine" or aren't familiar with it, you may be looking for a bit of a refresher. From their long history and strange biology to their part in the dreaded Dominion, as architects of the greatest war that "Star Trek" has ever seen, here's a brief primer on the shapeshifting Changelings.

The Changeling's real life origins revealed

The Changelings didn't debut until the "Deep Space Nine" Season 3 premiere episode "The Search," but their conception goes back to an earlier directive from producers. Specifically, the showrunners wanted to create a malevolent foe from the Gamma Quadrant that would help give the series its own flavor. According to the producer Ira Steven Behr, they were nervous. "We can't risk it all on one race of villains," he said in the documentary "What We Left Behind." Instead, they set out to create three evil adversaries, hoping that one would prove popular — and they wanted to make them all terrifying.

"We're gonna make them as scary as any villains you can possibly find," Behr said in the "Deep Space Nine Companion." He told his writers to read Isaac Asimov's "Foundation"  trilogy as research, and the result was the Dominion — an incredibly powerful and ancient group that ruled the Gamma Quadrant. The Jem'Hadar were their foot soldiers, the Vorta were what Behr called 'the face men,' and the Founders of the Dominion were revealed as Odo's shapeshifting people in a shocking twist.

As a result of this change, Odo, played by Rene Auberjonois, became one of the most important characters in the series thanks to his connection to the villains of the multi-season story arc that would dominate the remaining seasons.

The Changelings distant origins explained

Now that we know how the Changelings were created by writers and producers, how did they come to be in the world of "Star Trek"? If we are to believe a story told by the Vorta, their origins date back eons, and they were once solid lifeforms just like humans, Vulcans, or Klingons. Eventually, they evolved into the shapeshifters we know, and their society evolved alongside them as they set out to explore the stars and learn about the galaxy. Unfortunately, when they encountered other populated worlds, they were not greeted with open arms.

Instead, they were met with intolerance and even cruelty for no other reason than their non-solid state. As shapeshifters, they were distrusted by what they called mono-forms — ordinary beings who are confined to a single shape — who they more commonly referred to as "solids." According to the legend, the changelings were hunted by the solids and given the derogatory moniker of "changelings," which they would later co-opt in defiance of the prejudice they faced. They eventually found a haven from the solids in the Omarion Nebula, a remote region where they established a home. 

Eventually, though, the Changelings realized that the only way to overcome the bigotry and intolerance of the solids was to control them. In order to conquer and enslave the rest of the galaxy, they'd first have to build an army.

They're considered gods

In the episode "Treachery, Faith and the Great River," a dying Vorta named Weyoun-6 tells Odo the story of how the Changelings founded the Dominion. According to this Weyoun, a Changeling once found itself on the run from a group of abusive solids, and a race of primitive, ape-like people helped hide the shapeshifter, saving its life. From then on, the Changeling vowed to reward the creatures who had saved it, later using their knowledge of genetics to advance their biology and create the Vorta, a highly intelligent, cunning race that would serve the Founders in all things.

Beneath the Vorta are the Jem'Hadar, a race of genetically engineered soldiers who want nothing more than to obey the Founders and are among the most efficient killers in the "Star Trek" canon. They live short lifespans but are bred quickly, aging into adulthood in a matter of days, and are kept docile thanks to an addiction to a chemical compound called Ketracel-white. But the Founders also engineered both the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar to worship them as gods, as they are, in a very real way, the masters of their creation.

Except for in the most extreme circumstances, it is nearly impossible for either race to defy the Founders. With an undying loyalty, the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar have helped assure the Changeling's supremacy and the Dominion's endless rule of the Gamma Quadrant.

Changeling biology

As shapeshifters, the Changelings have biology unlike any other race in "Star Trek." Their "morphogenic matrix" allows them to take on not just other shapes but other states of matter, too. They can hide in plain sight as a human, an Andorian, or a Tellarite, able to accurately mimic any lifeform nearly instantly. They can even replicate their voice simply by hearing it, though Constable Odo has never been able to quite master these skills.

However, their shapeshifting isn't limited to just people, as Changelings can just as easily become a tree, a rock, or even equipment with a reflective surface. We have seen Changelings become water, vapor, and even fire. Still, their biology has one serious drawback — they must regenerate in their natural, liquid state at least once every 16 hours. We've seen this weakness cause problems for Constable Odo, who must regenerate at least one hour each day by reverting to his liquid form and collecting himself in a small pail that he keeps in his quarters. 

In addition, if any part of a Changeling's body is cut off, removed, or otherwise separated from them, it will revert to its liquid state almost immediately. This is how Starfleet, at first, was able to detect Changelings hiding among them by drawing a blood sample. Of course, the Changelings eventually found a way around this measure, presumably by collecting the blood of the people they were disguised as and releasing it on cue during any blood test.

The Great Link

Since they need to regenerate frequently, and due to the energy required to hold a solid form, Changelings prefer to spend the majority of their time in a liquid state. When they communicate they rarely do so verbally, as they prefer to meld together into what is referred to as "linking," which is a bit like mixing two cups of water together. When linked, Changelings cease to be individuals, merging into what is, in essence, one being. In effect, there are no true individuals among Changelings, only parts of the whole who gain brief periods of individuality when separated from the Link.

As such, the Changeling homeworld is essentially one giant ocean comprised of themselves in what is called the Great Link. During their lifespan they can become individuals to explore the galaxy and return home to the Great Link to share what they've learned. Described as "a merging of form and thought, the sharing of idea and sensation," the Great Link is a place of comfort for Changelings. However, this Great Link, covering nearly the entire surface of a planet in the Omarion Nebula, also makes a tempting target. 

In the two-part "Deep Space Nine" episode, "Improbable Cause" and "The Die is Cast," the Romulan secret police known as the Tal Shiar teamed up with the Cardassian intelligence agency the Obsidian Order to destroy the Changeling homeworld. Unfortunately for the Alpha Quadrant, this all turned out to be a ruse by the Founders to eliminate both factions.

Odo and the Hundred

Though they prefer to remain in the Great Link, the Changelings still thirst for more knowledge of the galaxy. To that end, they dispatched 100 infant Changelings out amongst the stars, which they hoped would come to live among the solids and then one day return home to the Great Link to share what they had learned. When Odo met his people and discovered the Founders, he realized that he was one of these Hundred. However, now that he had spent time among the Bajorans and the Federation, he saw his people as the enemy.

While Odo refused to rejoin them, the urge to be a part of the Great Link persisted. Eventually, he'd encounter two more members of the Hundred. In the episode "The Begotten," a dying Changeling child is discovered, unable to shapeshift, and Odo takes it upon himself to become a parent to the naive, formless creature. While the Changeling eventually dies, it is absorbed into Odo and helps resolve a season-long story that had seen Constable Odo forced into a solid, humanoid shape by his people.

Later, in the episode "Chimera," Odo meets a Changeling named Laas, who has lived among another race of people for the past century. He agrees with Odo that the Founders are misguided and invites him to join his search for other lost shapeshifters to form a new, better version of the Great Link. Odo regretfully declines, feeling a duty to his friends on Deep Space Nine.

They are obsessed with order

As a result of their natural state of oneness in the Great Link, there is rarely — if ever — any disagreement or discord among their race. In fact, it's established on multiple occasions that "no Changeling has ever harmed another," a point that is thrown in Odo's face when he betrays his people and murders a Changeling saboteur in the Season 3 finale, "The Adversary." It is this act that forces the Changelings to force Odo into a solid form in the Season 4 storyline. While Odo is unlike the galaxy-conquering Changelings he comes from, he does share their innate need to bring order to chaos, which some have likened to a biological drive.

This is partly what makes Constable Odo such an efficient security officer and investigator, as his desire to bring order made him a ruthless pursuer of justice in a chaotic environment like the Cardassian space station Terek Nor, which eventually became Deep Space Nine. However, for the rest of his people, this means ruling the galaxy, as they see solids as chaotic creatures which are always fighting amongst themselves. 

Ultimately, the Changelings — as Founders of the Dominion — view their conquering tactics as a means of helping those races achieve peace and order, even if they have to enslave them and break them of their desire for freedom to achieve it.

They plotted to destabilize the Alpha Quadrant

Upon discovering the wormhole, the Changelings were initially content to stay in the Gamma Quadrant. However, as the Federation and other Alpha Quadrant powers made more and more excursions into their territory, the Changelings knew that the chaos on the other side of the galaxy would soon threaten them. In their first meeting with the Federation, they ran an elaborate simulation with the crew of Deep Space Nine to see how they would react to a Dominion presence in the Alpha Quadrant, determining that they would be met with open hostility.

In response, the Changelings began staging plots to destabilize the Alpha Quadrant to make it easier to conquer. After plotting to dismantle the Cardassian and Romulan intelligence agencies, the Changelings infiltrated Starfleet in an effort to trigger a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi in "The Adversary," revealing the extent of the Changeling threat for the first time.

The story that brought Worf to "Deep Space Nine" also sees a Changeling posing as a high-ranking Klingon official and sparking a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire that risks decimating both sides. At the same time, Changelings begin replacing key individuals on Earth, precipitating a militaristic coup that is only thwarted by Captain Sisko. When these plots are foiled, the Federation knows that a war with the Dominion is all but inevitable.

The Dominion War explained

Following the failed attempt to force the Federation and Klingon Empire into destroying each other, the Changelings lead the Dominion deeper into direct conflict with the galactic powers of the Alpha Quadrant. They are aided by the Cardassians, who join the Dominion, fortifying their forces, and all-out war is quickly declared on the Federation and the Klingons . In what became a high point for "Deep Space Nine," the Dominion War breaks out, and what was truly groundbreaking for "Star Trek" was that victory for the Federation did not seem assured.

In fact, the Dominion succeeds in conquering Deep Space Nine in a status quo shaking story. Later, in what is generally regarded as one of the series' best episodes , "In the Pale Moonlight," Sisko takes desperate action to force the Romulans to join the Federation and Klingon alliance to tip the balance of power. The longer the war drags on, the more it seems like the Changelings would wind up taking over the Alpha Quadrant, as millions of lives were lost. 

What eventually turns the tide, however, is the Cardassians themselves, who rise up to fight back against the Dominion. Led by former villain Damar, the Cardassian rebels help the alliance topple the Dominion and push them back into the Gamma Quadrant. Of course, they aren't alone, as they have a little help from Starfleet's own clandestine intelligence agency along the way.

Section 31's genocidal gambit

At the height of the Dominion War, the Changelings have driven the Federation off of Deep Space Nine. Odo stays on the station along with Major Kira, with plans of helping to sabotage the Dominion, though he often "links" with the leader of the Changelings, causing fears that he has joined their cause. What he doesn't realize is that he has inadvertently passed a deadly genetic disease to the rest of the Changelings, threatening to kill their entire species. It's later revealed that this disease is the work of Section 31, a covert Starfleet intelligence agency willing to go to extraordinary lengths to secure the safety of the Federation.

Led by Director Luther Sloan, Section 31 developed a pathogen that would infect Changelings and break down their molecular structure, making it harder for them to revert to their liquid state. Eventually, unable to assume their liquid form, they would deteriorate and die. Covertly, Section 31 infects Odo with the pathogen with hopes that he will pass it to his people — and that's exactly what happens. A last, desperate, genocidal gambit, Section 31 is willing to wipe out the entire species of Changelings to end the war. 

Unfortunately, rather than convince the Changelings to surrender, it spurs them to fight to the death, promising to kill untold billions before they are exterminated.

Facing Alpha Quadrant justice

It's worth noting that the Dominion War wasn't the only ongoing story that weaved its way through seven seasons of "Deep Space Nine." The story of Captain Sisko and his connection to the Bajoran prophets is also front and center, and in the series finale, both come to a head. While Sisko battles with a demonic entity on Bajor, the greatest starship battle in "Star Trek" history takes place, with the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and their new Cardassian allies hoping to defeat the Dominion once and for all. However, the Changelings refused to give an inch, even as their hope for victory dwindled.

It was only thanks to Odo that the Changelings finally give in. After being cured of the disease developed by Section 31 — thanks to the efforts of Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien in the episode "Extreme Measures." Odo links with the leader of the Changelings and heals them as well. He is also able to convince them to seek peace and avert total annihilation, but it comes at a great personal cost. 

While the Changeling's leader remains in the Alpha Quadrant to face justice, Odo rejoins the Great Link in the Gamma Quadrant where he can cure his people and hopefully teach them compassion and empathy to end their destructive ways. As far as we know, Odo never returns from The Great Link.

A rogue faction resurfaces

In the "Star Trek: Picard" Season 3 episode "Seventeen Seconds" we discover in a shocking twist that the Changelings have returned to "Star Trek" after more than 20 years. What's worse, however, is that they have infiltrated Starfleet. They have an agent aboard the USS Titan, while others are involved in a plot to steal a deadly weapons from Daystrom Station.

Former Enterprise security chief Worf has been aware of this conspiracy and has been tracking down the threat. Thankfully, he is now aided by former Picard ally Raffi Musiker. Given Worf's experiences on "Deep Space Nine," he would seem to be the perfect man for the job. In fact, according to Worf, he was alerted to this rogue faction by his old friend Odo, who is still a part of the Great Link in the Gamma Quadrant. 

It seems that after Dominion surrendered in the final episode of "Deep Space Nine," there was a schism within the Changelings for the first time, as a group of shapeshifters broke away and refused to accept defeat. Now it would seem that this faction is looking to reignite the war with the Federation and conquer the Alpha Quadrant once and for all.

Julian Bashir (Changeling)

The Changeling Julian Bashir was a Changeling of the Founders in the 24th century . In the 2370s , this Changeling was one of a handful of agents tasked with destabilizing relationships between the larger organizations of the Alpha Quadrant .

In 2373 , Julian Bashir was captured by the Dominion on Meezan IV and sent to Internment Camp 371 . This Founder took his place with the mission of helping Dominion forces travel to Cardassian space and hatching a plan to cripple Federation , Romulan and Klingon forces. It spent a month keeping up appearances before carrying it out, including playing darts and racquetball with Miles O'Brien .

In the meantime, the Dominion had been negotiating incorporating the Cardassian Union , and had to move a fleet into the Alpha Quadrant . After the crew of Deep Space 9 planned to collapse the Bajoran wormhole with a phase-conjugate graviton beam perfected by the Trill Science Ministry , the Bashir-Changeling sabotaged the station's emitter array . This instead stabilized the wormhole and allowed the fleet through.

Later, when Dukat promised to retake DS9 with the new forces, the Changeling attempted to destroy the Bajoran sun , thereby wiping out the combined Federation, Klingon and Romulan fleets gathered to do battle with the Dominion. It stole the runabout the USS Yukon and killed its crewmembers in order to modify it with an explosive device composing of trilithium , tekasite , and protomatter and fly it into the sun. It was, however, intercepted and by the USS Defiant before he could carry it out. The Defiant towed the Yukon into clear space with a tractor beam where the bomb detonated harmlessly, destroying the Yukon and the Bashir Changeling. ( DS9 : " In Purgatory's Shadow ", " By Inferno's Light ")

Background information [ ]

Bashir and his first Changeling replacement

Bashir had previously been impersonated by a Changeling who portrayed Krajensky in " The Adversary ". In that episode, however, the real Bashir was missing for a matter of hours before his replacement was revealed to be a spy.

The real Dr. Bashir, still with the old Starfleet uniform

Based on the fact that the real Bashir was not wearing the newer uniforms , which had been introduced in " Rapture ", we can deduce that he had been replaced by a Changeling since at least that episode. This means the Changeling performed surgery on Sisko in "Rapture" and tried to help save the Changeling infant in " The Begotten ".

On the other hand, it is also possible that it was acceptable to wear either uniform style during that transitional period, as was seen in the transitional period Star Trek Generations , indicating that he may have been captured after the aforementioned events. Furthermore, while it has been argued that is unlikely since all Starfleet officers stationed on DS9 since " Rapture " have been wearing the newer uniforms, the real Bashir clearly gave his whereabouts as being on Meezan IV (not DS9) at the time he was abducted.

In response to the often proposed question, Ronald D. Moore commented " It would've been before "Rapture. " ( AOL chat , 1997 ) Moore has also noted that although the writing staff didn't think the revelation would damage anything about previous episodes, René Echevarria did have reservations about the changeling delivering Kira's baby . ( AOL chat , 1997 )

The Bashir Changeling also appears in The Badlands, Book Two , which takes place just after the events of " The Begotten ".

Star Trek tie-in author, Christopher L. Bennett , proposed the following about the Changeling:

Indeed, the timeline doesn't really work out there. The uniform change was in "Rapture", and Bashir was supposedly abducted 37 days before the end of " By Inferno's Light ". But there's no way that "Rapture," " The Darkness and the Light ", " The Begotten ", " For the Uniform ", " In Purgatory's Shadow ", and "By Inferno's Light" could've all taken place within less than 37 days. According to dialogue, "Darkness" is at least three weeks before "The Begotten," which in turn covers nearly 2 weeks. So that's at least 33 days right there, and the events of "For the Uniform" and the 2-parter cover about a week each, plus however much time might have elapsed between them. (Even if we assumed 26-hour Bajoran days, 37 of those is only 40 Earth days, so that doesn't help.) So Bashir must have been abducted after the uniform change; there's simply no other possibility. The fact that he's in the old uniform is a paradox. On the other hand, it's stated in dialogue that Kirayoshi was born "less than a month" before "Purgatory." Since the 2-parter takes about a week, that pretty much requires that Bashir was abducted in between "The Darkness and the Light" and "The Begotten". That part can't be finessed, since the dialogue is explicit. On the one hand, Bashir had to be abducted after the uniform change, which creates a plot hole; but on the other hand, Kirayoshi had to be delivered by the changeling impostor, which creates a second plot hole. It's a total mess -- they just didn't think through the timeline carefully when they put in the date references. But as for this part 'Because if Changeling Bashir helped to deliver the baby in "The Begotten", then he also did the ultra-delicate brain surgery on Sisko in "Rapture".' Since "Rapture" was significantly more than 37 days before the end of "Inferno," that means it was the real Bashir who did that. [1]

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The Changeling (Episode)

Stardate 3541.9 : The Enterprise encounters a probe named Nomad.

The Enterprise investigates the destruction of the Malurian system 's four billion inhabitants and locates an unexpected source: a self-contained computer/space probe of great power called Nomad . The device threatens the Enterprise, but Kirk and crew are temporarily saved when Nomad mistakes Captain James Kirk for its creator, Human scientist Jackson Roykirk . Nomad, a space probe launched in 2002 to seek out alien life in the galaxy , was damaged by a meteor that confused its programming and cut it off from Earth . It then encountered an alien probe, Tan-Ru , which was launched to secure sterilized soil samples. The resulting hybrid mechanism believes that its mission is to destroy imperfect life forms. Its altered programming and weapons make "the changeling" capable of fulfilling its new mission. Kirk uses the machine's confused image of him as a basis for its destruction: he convinces Nomad that it is imperfect, and the device is transported out into space before it self-destructs .

Image Gallery

Map of the Sol system (enhanced; Original )

Lt. Carlisle

Command Crewman

Security Officer Lemli

Ens. Roger Lemli

Medical Technician

Dr. Jackson Roykirk

Security Officer #1

Security Officer #2

Security Officer #3

Crewman Singh

Transporter Technician

Nomad schematic

Related Data

Created by Gene Roddenberry

Starring William Shatner

Also Starring Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock and DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy

Written by John Meredyth Lucas

Directed by Marc Daniels

Produced by Gene L. Coon

Executive Producer Gene Roddenberry

Associate Producer Robert H. Justman

Featuring James Doohan … Scott Nichelle Nichols … Uhura George Takei … Sulu Majel Barrett … Christine Chapel

With Blaisdell Makee … Singh Barbara Gates … Crewwoman Meade Martin … Crewman Arnold Lessing … Security Guard and Vic Perrin … Nomad 's Voice

Script Consultant D.C. Fontana

Assistant to the Producer Edward K. Milkis

Theme Music by Alexander Courage

Music Composed and Conducted by Fred Steiner

Director of Photography Jerry Finnerman

Art Director Walter M. Jefferies

Film Editor … Fabien Tordjmann Unit Manager … Gregg Peters Assistant Director … Elliot Schick Set Decorator … Joseph J. Stone Costumes Created by … William Ware Theiss Photographic Effects … Westheimer Company Sound Effects Editor … Douglas H. Grindstaff Music Editor … Jim Henrikson Re-Recording Mixer … Elden E. Ruberg , C.A.S. Production Mixer … Carl W. Daniels Script Supervisor … George A. Rutter Casting … Jospeh D'Agosta Sound … Glen Glenn Sound Co. Makeup Artist … Fred B. Phillips , S.M.A. Hair Styles … Pat Westmore Gaffer … George H. Merhoff Head Grip … George Rader Property Master … Irving A. Feinberg Special Effects … Jim Rugg

A Desilu Production In Association With Norway Corporation

Executive in Charge of Production Herbert F. Solow

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The Changeling (Episode)

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Travelling in the space, the Enterprise finds that some planets have desappeared. They discover that the guilt of this disappearance is an old space probe, called Nomad , built to discover, which was launched from Earth in the early '2000 and which has merged with another probe, built to destroy. Now It travells in the space destroying anything is not "right", and so anything which is biological or in other words human.

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“The Changeling” Remastered Screenshots + Video + Mini Review

| February 4, 2008 | By: Anthony Pascale 95 comments so far

Nomad on MST3K Our little perfection fetishist showed up on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 …check it out (comes in around 3 minutes into it)

did they hide the wires?

Anyone find it strange that a photon torpedo can’t destroy Nomad, but security still tries to destroy it with hand phasers?

re: 2 Keith

Maybe they should have gone at it with stone knives and bearskins :)

What’s next week’s episode?

ohhhhh NOMAD. you silly robot. I heard from a reliable source last night that NOMAD will NOT, repeat NOT be featured in the new movie. Just wanted you all to know that before the rumors got out of hand.

Nomad Too bad So sad Just a fad Makes me mad But, it’s rad!

Not a winner episode by any means. Some of the rare times that robots were used as part of the story, or reused in this case. I believe this little robot was used again in a stronger episode with a certain immortal. Oh those low budget STAR TREK days.;) Still I can’t help but love them as they have more heart and soul them some Scifi shows with bigger budgets. I do recall growing up wondering why the Enterprise would not have a few robots here and there for hazardous missions. Maybe all those redshirts really were advanced androids all this time.;)

More of a fan of these shots trying to look a little closer to the original style. Of course I still thinks the CGI ship isn’t right, but I’m goofy that way.

I always found it odd that the Enterprise withstands several “bolts” from Nomad, each said to equal the energy of 90 of their photon torpedoes, and yet Kirk is beside himself with disbelief when Nomad manages to withstands just one photon torpedo in return.

#1: Yes, looks like they did clean up the wires. I didn’t notice them. Anyone?

Exactly right, #9. That always bothered me a lot too. It really is obviously inconsistent and it is annoying the writers couldn’t put a few neurons together. Very careless and stupid. But a good episode.

In addition to playing “M4” in “Requiem for Methuselah,” Nomad was also the Romulan cloaking device in “The Enterprise Incident.” I hope he got residuals.

I thought I also noticed a different and more fancy picture on one of the monitors above Spock’s station.

LOL I loved the Doctor Who reference in the caption for the last pic!! I actually did a photomanipulation of just that idea a while ago, check it out: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/Deloravius/Trek%20Who/FINAL-DalekTrek.jpg

This was always one of my favorites. I wouldn’t dare argue the point, though, because I have special reason to love it that seriously clouds my judgement: this was one of the three TOS episodes I owned on video when I was a wee lad. Every year or so, I would save up ten full dollars (which was a lot of money back then, you young’uns) and go down to Best Buy to purchase an Original Series VHS. This was a time of brutal and difficult decision making, as I always wanted to pick one I had never seen before, and there were quite a few of those, and just how is a boy of that age to judge what a good episode might be from just the cover?

Anyhow, I’d probably seen “The Changeling” two or three dozen times before we lost the tapes, and so it holds a place very close to my heart.

“Non sequitor! Error! Error! Error! Error! Tan Ru! Tan Ru!”

It truly seems that CBS is not taking this project seriously at all! They did not even change the phaser fire, like in wink of an eye, I mean c’mon. If we are going to spend over $100 on dvd’s please make them interesting. This 2nd season project is nothing but reuses. This episode did not involve planets, just ship exteriors. Did anyone notice that at the time St.com was alive! the remastered trailers for season 1 were more exciting to watch. I dont know what happened?? Ultimate computer, I hope they really give this the TLC it deserves!!

Oh, and the point of that whole post: well done, CBS Digital. It is a remastering worthy of one of my much-loved episodes.

I’m confused, though…if they were going for a green look for Nomad’s energy bolts, why weren’t they consistant with the redshirt zapping scene? For consistancy’s sake, wouldn’t it have made more sense to either change the space bolt color to red to match the redshirt scene, or change the color of the redshirt scene to match the space bolts??

I also can’t figure out why they leave some phaser effects alone, and allow the 60’s effects to prevail (apparently thinking they’re okay enough as is), but they replace stuff that IS okay enough as is (like Nomad’s space bolts).

I think CBS digital is really starting to get bored with this project. It sounded like a really awesome and amazing enterprise (pun intended) but it’s just fallen apart.

Re: 7. Rick

“Still I can’t help but love them as they have more heart and soul them some Scifi shows with bigger budgets.”

Right on, Rick, right on! There are so many that do not appreciate that. All the flashy whiz-bang is no substitute for old fashioned “heart and soul”.

Next week is “The Ultimate Computer,” according to Comcast.

Peace. Live long and prosper. The Vulcanista }:-|

“To boldly go where Nomad has gone before …” http://www.google.com/search?q=%22where+nomad+has+gone+before

1) So why was this episode titled the ‘Changeling’?

2) I have TOSR on DVD and realized that hey they no english subtitles, and the spanish audio is super crap. To me that shows the true colors of this Remastered endeavor. If they can’t even upgrade that, how am I supposed to hope for anything above and beyond from the visuals. Really.

Note to Paramount. Star Trek is obviously a revenue producing item that should receive better treatment. When such sub par revamping is executed, it engenders animosity from fans and puts your business position with them in a state off ill repute.

If blu-ray does come out on top I hope you guys give this stuff over to ILM, the real masters of remastering. Who cares how long it takes. Just get it done right – that way Trekkers will vouch for your product, you guys will make tons of cash and the fans will be happy.

Defeat the no-win scenario.

I alone must bear responsibility for the unimaginable losses caused by the Nomad autonomous space exploration prototype. As I now realize, albeit far too late to save billions of souls, Nomad was equipped with an insufficiently developed and tested auto-destruct mechanism. Had the system worked as intended, Nomad would have annihilated itself on determining that it had been irreparably damaged or that its integrity had been compromised in any way that would have presented the slightest hazard to the ecosystems it was designed to study.

Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise have again proven, in a spectacular episode of courage and intelligence, that there is no mere technological substitute for Star Fleet’s manned space exploration program. It is only through the combined efforts of the boldest and brightest minds of the Federation that we may learn more about our infinite universe, and more importantly, about ourselves.

– Jackson Roykirk –

Beeing such a Dr Who fan as well, I’ve simply loved the EXTERMINATE picture. A very nice way to start the day.

I believe this ep was an inspiration for TMP. Similar storyline.

Love the Dalek reference! :D

Did anyone notice(after Nomad blew up) that Kirk looked right at the camera before the extremely awkward fade to the Enterprise?

I thought for sure that CBS was going to go all CG with nomad. I never saw wires even in the dvd’s but the shot where nomad follows Mccoy onto the turbolift is god awful..looks like the camera and nomad are bolted to a shopping cart

Shame on CBS-D! lazy bums!

even remastered that enterprise looks ridiculously small.

#12 that’s fricken halarious. ^ #18 I’m beginning to agree with you. ^ #21 very good! And funny. ^ #22. Haha check out “tomarrow is yesterday” that title had nothing to do with the story ether. Also they (CBS/paramount) want you to allways search for the best edition of Star Trek episodes. Do you really think this is the last TOS dvd set to end all sets. Haha. ^ BluRay is doomed. ^ Loved the Dalek reference. ^ This was a great episode for alot of reasons.

The green weapon that Nomad fired was actually pretty good. The expolsion of Nomad was not. The original was actually better. The new explosion was just basically nothing too much more than a flash. The photon torpedo was ok.

But this is another one of those episodes where the things that were not fixed outweigh what was fixed. The reason for that is because of the minimal amount of space effects. You had a lot of opportunities to fine tune and fix: the had phaser shots – come on, having them stop suddenly at the edge of door frames?? You can touch up the beams, and add a shield around Nomad. The phaser shots that Nomad fires – you mean to tell me that a robot fires out a series of diamonds? The shots at the Ensign Ricky’s and the shot at Scotty needed fixing. The vaporization of the officers needed to be fixed too.

The scan of Uhura was actually not too bad of an original effect. It could have been made just a little bit more wavy, and added pulses to the beam. However, that’s just pickiness talking. Its still ok as is.

CBS-D here’s somethign for you to chew on: if you did more with this remastering going full on hardcore – fixing ALL those effects (like the phasers & vaporizations – and yes, I saw “Wink of an Eye,” so don’t tell me it can’t be done) digitally re-recording the music (as originally composed) and sound effects (an exact duplicate) I would be willing to pay what you are charging and probably even more. I’m sure there are a number of folks on this site who post on this forum that gree with me.

I think I speak for many people when I say that I really dislike that I was misled with how far this project would go when I saw the phaser effects on “Wink of an Eye.” The big episodes like “The Doomsday Machine” we expected something mind-blowing and we thank you for that. But even these minimal effects episodes need some love too, and fixing hand phasers is a nice touch. You fixed a vaporization (although I don’t think it was all that great) in “Wolf in the Fold” (I think) so that can be done too. To me, you have to fix all of them, or fix none of them.

In other issues: If there was ever a debate on what caused the doors to open: this episode proves it’s not weight on the floor, but motion activation.

Also, what is more impressive: the anti-grav hover units (which can be assumed exist, seeing as we see them in TMP, which in Trek canon, takes place only a few years after this) or the anti-grav carrying units seen in this episode, which presumably create a loaclized pocket which significantly reduces the effect of the ships artifical gravity?

“BluRay is doomed”

and how is that? BluRay is taking the market by storm and is the far superior format. Do you have any evidence to support your theory?

I was worried that they werent gonna hide the wires.

They did NOT hide the strings in “Where no man has gone before” when Gary makes the cup of water come to him (they’re glaringly obvious on the standard def version of the DVD)

I really hate that CBS digital isnt even bothering with some stuff that really needs fixing like the visible strings in “Where no man…”, blank viewscreen in “Enemy Within” and untouched matte in “Gamesters of Triskelion” What else are they gonna carelessly ignore?

“That unit is defective. Its thinking is chaotic. Absorbing it unsettled me.” “That ‘unit’ is a woman.” “A mass of conflicting impulses.”

I could never figure out exactly why, but I’ve always liked that episode very much… :)

31. OR Coast Trekkie

“But even these minimal effects episodes need some love too, and fixing hand phasers is a nice touch.”

I totally agree with you OR Coast Trekkie. I know that we are told the effects were an after thought to this remastering and that’s why the budget has not been there to give these guys the time to do more, but you have to ask why where the effects just an afterthought? Its been talked about by fans for years and It seemed obvious to me.

I would love to see this done again. Maybe if Blue – Ray wins out CBS will go back and look at more improvements? Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. but I would love to see some more time and love given to the effects for each episode. I say it all the time …”fix all those phasers” , ” I love to see the Static Display screens on the bridge do something” and “why have they left that matt painting alone” etc etc..

The truth is there is so much more that could be done IF they were given the time and money. It seems to be this project has been rushed and done on the cheap, just to turn about a quick profit, which is a great shame.

I don’t mean that I have found all the efforts by CBS Digital bad, far from it. I have enjoyed some of the work, like “Doomsday” Journey to Babel” and Amok Time” but even when watching those episodes I have thought I wish they could have done more to the little things.

I love TOS and enjoy it in its original form on DVD over and over so I don’t need the new effects to make me watch it, the stories do that for themselves but I would still love to see it and own a version of it where it’s been updated, effects wise, to the highest standard possible today.

Give this remastering a big budget and some decent art direction, make the most of the space shots and remaster all the dated effects, add little touches, like making those chucky pads they right on a touch screen and displaying data, lots of little touches like that would be worth it for HD DVD. I guarantee more younger people who can’t look past the effects of this show would start watching. Plus it would be so much fun to see.

I know this isn’t going to happen any time soon and to some extend I still enjoy seeing what CBS D has done each week. I just wish this whole project could have been more than what we have ended up with..

For my money, the teaser and first act of this episode are one of the high watermarks of Star Trek. The writing, direction, the editing, the MUSIC! (even if it’s tracked, it’s tracked superbly!), the performances are all first rate. There are few other sequences in which the show achieved such a peak level of tension – although the last act of “The Doomsday Machine” is equally fine.

#27 – spockboy – “Did anyone notice(after Nomad blew up) that Kirk looked right at the camera before the extremely awkward fade to the Enterprise?”

Because of the New SFX being added the fade is much quicker than the original. In the original, Shatner looks to the camera and fades out even though he appears to be speaking. What did he say? – – – “Listen about that Bacon … no really!” – – – referring to the bad bacon served on set earlier that morning. “That bacon is really bad it just stays with you the whole day.” – found earlier in the ST Blooper Reel. Review and put the two scenes within the Blooper Reel together.

Wow! Surprised at disdain for this episode! One of my favourites actually.

And the Spock affirmative reply to Kirk’s – you didn’t I had it in me did you? comment is worth the episode alone.

The adventure continues…

The ball is..Bluu…..Bl.Bluu…Blu-E Ray?

Blue Ray=Betamax same destiny.

#22 and #30:

If you would LISTEN to some of the quieter dialogue in these shows instead of watching for the special effects and action, then you’d know why the episode was called “The Changeling.” Spock, after his mindmeld with Nomad, is telling Kirk how the original Nomad probe, launched from earth, was damaged in space, then encountered an alien probe of great power (Tan Ru) and together they repaired each other and merged into the “new” Nomad. And now this new Nomad is returning to Earth.

Kirk then remarks that this is like the old legend of the changeling—where fairies (with their awesome magical powers) would steal a human baby and replace it with a fairy baby, to take the human baby’s place.

Makes perfect sense and it’s a decent analogy.

Or, one might have simply looked this up somewhere in an encyclopedia or even a dictionary to get your answer.

Come on kids, start thinking.

The effects on Doomsday Machine were excellent–but they chopped out one of the best lines of the episode–where Spock says, “Vulcans never bluff.” How could they chop that out?

39: Yeah, because Betamax out sold VHS every single week like Blu Ray outsells HD DVD.

“I am not Nomad, I am a similiar device known as Monad. I should destroy you for that, but I’ll give you a Mulligan this time.”

HD-DVD is going to DIE! Did you see their Superbowl commercial? If you were one of the few who got to see it because they paid stations to air the spot locally rather than nationally (shows how much money they’ve got), they aired it in standard defination. STANDARD?! YOU DON’T AIR A HD RELEATED SPOT IN STANDARD! Do they not want people to see how the picture is suppost to look? GO BLU-RAY! The ONLY choice.

One thing I always disliked in this episode is how lightly Uhura’s memory wipe is taken. Her whole life up to this episode is gone… but in the space of that hour, she relearns everything and is back doing her job. Silly. What about her identity? She consists only of what she does for a living, and when she relearns YEARS of knowledge in a few hours, she’s fine? WHAT THE…?

I just pretend that they said “she has a short-term memory loss” and let it go. But it was sloppy writing and short-changed the character. All she is, is “Hailing frequencies open.”

#40 – If you would LISTEN to some of the quieter dialogue in these shows instead of watching for the special effects and action, then you’d know why the episode was called “The Changeling. –

Exactly. As much as I appreciate the remastered episodes myself, people shouldn’t forget about the fact that TOS got iconic without benefiting from elaborated special effects, but from giving us wonderful character interacting, great storytelling, and subtle dialogues.

During “Turnabout Intruder” just before Scotty & McCoy discuss the procedings in the briefing room, there is a shot of the Enterprise from below/front with very dramatic music. The ship is slightly nose-up and is ‘sliding’ forward. It’s a great shot, one of the clearer opticals.

That’s a shot I think looks great and should be reproduced EXACTLY. But I’m not seeing a lot of that, sure some shots are close, but viewing angles are changed. I didn’t see this episode, but in the article, Anthony says the ext. opticals are “shot for shot”. Which, I think they should do with some of the better visually composed shots.

I’m glad for the upgrades, but sometimes the original shots are fine as they are. Anyone at CBS-D reading….?

Nomad rocks. ‘Nuff said.

So does anyone else think the Enterprise could really take the pounding described in the opening of this episode? We’re told each one of Nomad’s blasts is equal to *ninety* photon torpedoes…and Enterprise takes *three* of these! That’s like getting hit with 270 photon torpedoes!!

I don’t envy the people at CBS Digital, because no matter what they do, some so-called “fan” is going to bitch about it. “You’ve gone too far; you’re raping my childhood!” “You didn’t go far enough; why did you even bother?!!” Not to mention the ones who’ll scream to the high hills if even one of the warp nacelles is 1/96th of an inch lower than the other.

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Star Trek – The Changeling (Review)

The first Star Trek pilot, The Cage , was produced in 1964. To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, this December we are reviewing the second season of the original Star Trek show. You can check out our first season reviews here . Check back daily for the latest review.

The Changeling , an episode so good that they made it twice.

Sarcasm aside, The Changeling is mostly interesting for reasons outside the episode itself. It is the first contribution from John Meredyth Lucas, who would become the show’s producer towards the end of the season. Lucas took over from Gene L. Coon and is notable for being the first production staff member on Star Trek to direct an episode from his own script, with Elaan of Troyius in the show’s troubled third season. The Changeling arguably had an even bigger influence on the franchise, serving as a template for the first feature film.

Probing problems…

Okay,  “template” may be a slight exaggeration. However, you can definitely feel the influence of The Changeling on Star Trek: The Motion Picture . However, that may simply be because the script to The Changeling hits quite heavily on some of Gene Roddenberry’s pet themes. It has a villainous robot outwitted by emotional humans, Kirk besting a god-like entity, and larger philosophical questions about religion and theology.

Even outside of the themes that resonate specifically with Roddenberry, The Changeling hits on a variety of other classic Star Trek tropes – from a threat leaving nothing but dead star systems in its wake through to an abundance of dead red shirts. There’s an argument to be made that The Changeling is one of the most archetypal Star Trek episode. If you were to bake a  Star Trek episode from a stock list of ingredients, it would look a lot like this. For better or worse.

Melding metal…

There are a lot of good ideas here. Star Trek is a show that had a wonderful capacity to tackle big ideas within the framework of admittedly cheesy science-fiction. The idea of a robot on a visible string voiced by the control voice from The Outer Limits looking for God and the reason for existence while torturing Kirk and his crew seems to hit that cross-section pretty much perfectly. (See also: Mirror, Mirror , an episode that balances a cautionary tale about totalitarianism with goatees and evil sexy costume changes.)

The Changeling concerns Nomad, a wandering space proud sent out into the wider universe by humanity in the late twentieth century. While out there, it collided with “the other” , an unknown entity that scrambled its circuity while imbuing it with awesome power. As a result, Nomad has taken to wandering the cosmos, wiping out entire solar systems because they do not conform to its idea of perfection.

“Your line readings are a little robotic today…”

This plot set-up is interesting on a number of levels. It’s another firm rejection of utopianism. Although Roddenberry would try to turn the Federation into a utopia in The Motion Picture and the early years of Star Trek: The Next Generation , it’s quite clear that Star Trek itself rejected this train of thought. Over the course of the series, Kirk rejected the idea of a utopia in various forms – whether the totalitarian oppression in Return of the Archons or The Apple , or the idleness of This Side of Paradise .

In many ways, Nomad’s quest reinforces this rejection of utopia. Nomad is no longer seeking information for the purpose of expanding its knowledge or broadening its range of experience. Instead, Nomad is seeking perfection. Nothing on its journey measures up to perfection. Indeed, although Nomad has set a course for Earth, Kirk and his crew know for a fact that their home planet will not meet the standards of “perfection” set by Nomad.

“Well, if we kept Scotty in this shirt long enough, it was bound to happen…”

The Changeling explicitly compares Nomad to the crew of the Enterprise. Exploring the back story of the probe, Doctor McCoy notes, “It was supposed to be the first interstellar probe to seek new life-forms.” Given that Kirk explicitly acknowledges that the Enterprise’s mission is  “to seek out new life-forms and new civilisations” at the start of  every single episode , it seems like The Changeling invites the comparison.

However, while Nomad may have began with the same mission as the Enterprise, it deviated along the way. “Somehow that programming has been changed,” Spock reflects. “It would seem that Nomad is now seeking out perfect life-forms, perfection being measured by its own relentless logic.” In some respects then, Nomad could be read as a cautionary tale – a reminder that the Enterprise is out there to explore other worlds, not to measure them or to grade them or to rank them.

Testing Kirk’s metal…

After all, Nomad is corrupted by its encounter with a strange alien force identified only as “the other.” Spock explicitly acknowledges “the other” as an imperialist force – using exploration only as a means to that end. “The other was originally programmed to secure and sterilise soil samples from other planets,” he tells Kirk and McCoy, “probably as a prelude to colonisation.” This suggests that the Enterprise does not see its own space exploration as colonial in nature – “the other” is but a twisted reflection.

It’s also interesting to note that Nomad poses a direct threat to Earth itself. This would seem to be the first time that the crew of the Enterprise has encountered an adversary heading straight towards Earth. While the planet-eater in The Doomsday Machine had charted a course “through the most densely populated section of our galaxy” , the episode had left it somewhat ambiguous as to whether the organism was heading towards Earth.

“We really should have a procedure in place to deal with this sort of situation…”

This is an interesting twist of itself. Star Trek is a show that has been fascinated with exploring outwards, pushing further ahead – after all, there are lots of strange new worlds to visit. However, the second season has seen the ship pulling back a bit from the edge of known space, operating less on the fringes and spending more time developing the wider universe, building on the characters we already know.

Amok Time and Journey to Babel take the Enterprise to Vulcan, Spock’s home planet. Friday’s Child sees McCoy returning to Capella IV. The Doomsday Machine sees the crew encountering a sister ship. Mirror, Mirror offers dark counterparts to our crew.  I, Mudd marks the reappearance of the show’s only recurring guest star outside of the ship’s crew. It seems the Enterprise is spending more time in familiar spaces this season, as interested in building up the world around our characters as it is in confronting them with new ones.

Into darkness…

When the Enterprise last encountered pieces of Earth’s history – Khan Noonien Singh in Space Seed or Apollo in Who Mourns for Adonais? – it occurred because the Enterprise had pushed out further ahead and effectively overtaken those other outward-bound travellers. The Botany Bay was moving slower, and Apollo had settled down to retire. Here, however, the Enterprise encounters a piece of Earth’s history on the way back home.

Star Trek was so fixated on outward exploration that viewers would not catch a glimpse of twenty-third century Earth until The Motion Picture – when another probe with delusions of godhood decided to return home. Indeed, the Enterprise crew made several visits to Earth’s history (in episodes like Tomorrow is Yesterday , The City on the Edge of Forever or Assignment: Earth ), but no trips to their own version of Earth. The spin-offs and feature films visited Earth more frequently, with Star Trek: Voyager making it the point of the show.

Where Nomad has gone before…

These are all interesting elements of  The Changeling , but the episode feels a little overly familiar. There’s a sense that the show has covered a lot of this ground before, and will do so again. A massive interstellar threat destroying whole star systems? That’s a stock plot ingredient, from shows like Operation — Annihilate! , The Doomsday Machine or The Immunity Syndrome . Nomad’s questions of religion evoke other Star Trek plots that blend technology and religion, like Return of the Archons or The Apple .

The Changeling feels like more of a riff on classic Star Trek tropes than an episode of itself. An evil computer Kirk reasons to death? It’s been done – in episodes like What Are Little Girls Made Of? or I, Mudd . It is such a standard operating procedure that  “using logic to defeat an evil computer” was only one small part of the climax to Wolf in the Fold . Even the episode seems a little repetitive itself, as Nomad wastes two separate pairs of red shirts at different point. (Nomad is so enamoured with killing red shirts that even Scotty and Uhura aren’t safe.)

“Thank goodness we won’t have to do this again for at least another decade…”

Gene L. Coon’s stewardship of Star Trek was one of the most intriguing and consistent periods of production. Coon oversaw any number of genuine classics, and more than a few episodes that are more interesting than their flaws might suggest. He is – along with D.C. Fontana – one of the unheralded Star Trek legends. Coon is a creative force that shaped the franchise as we know it only to wind up largely overlooked and ignored.

However, it does seem that Coon had his blind spots. In particular, Coon seemed quite fond of recycling familiar elements into his scripts. There are several instances during Coon’s tenure where the production team pressed ahead with a story that bore uncanny similarity to another from earlier in the show’s lifecycle. This is the second of three consecutive episodes where Kirk has to deal with an insane computer. The next episode, The Apple , feels like Return of the Archons with added biblical imagery.

“Uhura is correct, this is surprisingly comfortable…”

There’s a reasonable argument to be made that The Changeling is more of a Star Trek mixtape than an engaging episode in its own right. As such, it makes a great deal of sense that The Motion Picture would feature a very similar plot. John Meredyth Lucas acknowledged the similarities himself in an interview with Starlog :

“The plot, of course, I recognized,” Lucas laughs. “If anything, the film proved that it’s a little hard to sustain that plot for a full movie. God knows that our effects were pretty damn good then, but are primitive today.”

This is an episode that checks all the expected boxes for a particular type of Star Trek . This is big idea-driven Star Trek , a demonstration of the franchise’s lofty science-fiction aspirations.

Everything is askew…

The problem with The Changeling – and the problem with The Motion Picture – is a sense that show doesn’t know what to do outside of a pretty catchy premise. A machine looking for God is a great high-concept story hook. A machine that has confused Kirk with God should be a launchpad to a more interesting story. However, The Changeling feels surprisingly lifeless. Once The Changeling has played those two (admittedly brilliant) cards, it has nowhere to go.

Nomad seems to spend most of the episode just wandering around the Enterprise causing trouble that nobody seems too worried about. It wipes Uhura’s memory, but she gets better. It kills Scotty, but he gets better. It kills anonymous security guards… and then kills more anonymous security guards. Nobody seems too bothered. Nomad floats around like it owns the ship, but there’s no palpable sense of dread as it moves, or no sense of mechanical horror to its actions.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure these two anonymous red shirts will deal with the problem…”

These problems are best illustrated during Nomad’s visit to Engineering. The probe has already killed and revived Scotty. It has murdered several crew members without so much as a second thought. The probe’s arrival should be a horrific moment. Instead, Scotty scolds the probe as if it were a misbehaving child, rather than an entity that killed him and resurrected him. “What are you doing here?” he asks. As the probe nears a vital control, he instructs, “Leave that alone.” It’s not a genocidal robot with a god complex. It’s a very naughty boy.

There is something inherently absurd about the way that Nomad moves through the ship – taking the tubolift and waiting for the doors to open – to the point where it seems like it should be whistling to itself or something. There’s nothing wrong with the design of the probe itself – which is typically impressive and in keeping the style of the show – but more to do with the way the script was Nomad wandering seemingly randomly around the ship for most of the episode.

“… if not, these two certainly will.”

And then there’s the show’s “subplot” Uhura. The supporting cast on Star Trek never really got much to do. The show was largely driven by Kirk and McCoy, with McCoy occasionally getting in on the action. It’s telling that it’s easier to think of “moments” featuring the supporting cast over the show’s three year run than it is to think about “a Sulu episode” or “a Scotty episode.”  It is quite fair to argue that Star Trek only truly became a functioning ensemble with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , which went out of its way to give most of the cast stuff to do.

This is why the amount of exposure these minor characters was such a big deal – why Nichelle Nichols and George Takei resented Shatner’s screen-hogging and line-stealing , and why Shatner could respond by suggesting their characters never had anything worth stealing. ( “They didn’t have great scenes. They didn’t have good lines. There was nothing to nick.” ) Indeed, when Walter Koenig joined the cast at the start of the second season, George Takei was originally resentful of another member of the cast competing for the limited spotlight afforded ensemble players .

Tonight, on All My Circuits…

To be fair, this was largely the style of television at the time. True ensembles were rare, and Star Trek was a show that put its leading actors in the opening credit. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (and, to a lesser extent, DeForest Kelley) were the literal stars of the show. Everybody else was along for the ride. When an actor like Nichelle Nichols or George Takei was unavailable, their character simply did not show up in the script. Uhura’s nature as a day player is alluded to in The Doomsday Machine , when her plot function is taken by a random and anonymous female character.

This is a perfectly understandable production reality – it’s not as if Star Trek was the worst offender on broadcast television. The other spin-offs may have felt more like ensemble pieces, but Star Trek was a product of its time. The problem isn’t so much these realities. The problem is the way that discussions of the show frequently gloss over these legitimate concerns in order to make Star Trek seem like a uniformly progressive piece of television. It was an inspirational and progressive television show in some ways, but the series had massive weaknesses and blind spots that need to be acknowledged.

Take it as read…

The second season did at least make an attempt to spread the love among the supporting cast. Although Kirk and Spock were never far from the spotlight, some of the episodes of the second season would make a point to draw in the secondary players. Wolf in the Fold saw Scotty accused of murder. Friday’s Child featured McCoy rather heavily. The Apple gives some spotlight to Chekov. Kirk remains the driving force in these plots – even McCoy is left out of the climactic confrontation in Friday’s Child – but it is a nice gesture.

So it makes sense that The Changeling should offer viewers a subplot focusing on Uhura. In many ways, Uhura is the least-developed member of the ensemble. Sulu is established as a botanist and an adventurer. Chekov is an enthusiastic young Russian nationalist. Scotty is a very wry engineer who considers the engine room to be his fiefdom. In contrast… Uhura sings. Uhura’s recreational activities involve singing, and that is only because Nichelle Nichols has a lovely voice.

“Try to out-act me, eh?”

That is pretty much the only thing that we know about Uhura as a character. Her first name would not be uttered on screen until the JJ Abrams reboot, when she replaced McCoy as a member of the leading trio. While it does mean that McCoy’s role has been somewhat been diminished in the new films, it does a lot to make Uhura a more rounded and developed character. While a portion of that character development comes from her relationship with Spock, it is still more development than Uhura received over the course of the original Star Trek .

However, Uhura’s plot in The Changeling is just terrible. Nomad hears her singing, and decides to wipe her brain, because the probe’s ability to transfer memories seems to have a “cut” function, but no “copy” command. As a result, Uhura’s mind is wiped. She is set back to “zero.” Uhura can utter a few sentences of Swahili, but has no lingering personality or memory or history. She is taken to sick bay, where she begins the painful process of re-assimilation.

“Where is my mind?”

Except, of course, she doesn’t. Uhura is taught to read. She is apparently a quick study. By the end of the episode, McCoy informs Kirk that Uhura’s re-education has already reached “college level.” He assures Kirk, “She’ll be back on the job within a week.” There are several very serious problems with this particular plot thread. These problems are both problems of plot logic and of character development – suggesting some uncomfortable truths about how the show actually sees Uhura. (The fact that this plto thread is resolved in a throwaway line from McCoy rather than a scene with Uhura is troubling of itself.)

Most superficially, it seems to reinforce the uncomfortable suggestion that Uhura really does serve as little more than a glorified receptionist, taking and holding Kirk’s calls. To be able to go from “complete memory wipe” to “back at work” in a week suggests that the work is not too hard. It’s hard to imagine that Kirk or Spock or McCoy could re-learn everything they needed to do their jobs within a week, but Uhura’s plot functions are so generic and so basic that she can manage it

“Lighten up…”

More that that, though, the episode completely glosses over the implications of the memory wipe. Nomad forcibly wiped Uhura’s memory. That is Uhura’s entire life. It is any memory of her parents and her home life lost forever. Uhura cannot remember her childhood, her first love, her college education, her love of music, her time in the service. When she next meets an old friend, she will have no frame of reference for the conversation. Anything Uhura did not jot down in a diary is lost forever.

However, The Changeling captures none of that. McCoy never once suggests that Nomad has effectively murdered their friend – that the Uhura anybody knows is effectively dead, and a “new” Uhura has been born in her body. Instead, Uhura’s recovery is measured explicitly in terms of her ability to do her job. There’s a clear implication that Uhura’s life doesn’t exist outside her ability to perform tasks like reading and writing and opening hailing frequencies. There’s no suggestion of counselling or therapy.

Systems failure…

Let’s talk about Uhura for a moment. As a character, she’s very shallow and very poorly-defined. However, Uhura has been swept up in the mythologising of Star Trek . She is a character who has, in hindsight and in the context of the sixties, to the point where she seems monumentally important to those with even the most casual fan of Star Trek . Much as Roddenberry has done with Star Trek itself, Nichelle Nichols has worked hard to build up the legend around the character.

Uhura has been credited as being the “first major black female TV role” and being part of the “first interracial kiss.” These have become as much a part of the show’s history that they are hardly questioned or interrogated. Fans are eager to give Star Trek plaudits for trailblazing and for being ahead of the times. There are certain segments of television fans who will claim that  Star Trek: The Next Generation pioneered the idea of the season-ending crossover, glossing over the existence of  Cheers and  Dallas .

Nomad’s gone mad…

Uhura’s importance tends to get somewhat over-played. Never mind that Uhura was ultimately more of a recurring guest star than a “major role” on the show, or that there had been major black female characters black female characters on television since the fifties, albeit in roles informed by the racism of the times . Indeed, the sixties were a hotbed for significant black characters who tend to get somewhat overshadowed by Uhura – Bill Cosby’s work on I, Spy a year before The Man Trap aired, or Diahann Carroll in Julia contemporaneously with the second season.

Even the famed “first interracial kiss” is something of an exaggeration. After all, Bill Cosby had kissed a Japanese woman in an early episode of I, Spy . It isn’t even a first within the context of Star Trek itself, as William Shatner had kissed French/Vietnamese actress France Nuyen in Elaan of Troyius , an episode produced before (but aired after) Plato’s Stepchildren . This ignores the passionate embrace between Ricardo Montalban and Madlyn Rhue in Space Seed from the first season.

A gesture of good faith…

This isn’t to undermine the importance of Uhura as an influence. Indeed, Whoopi Goldberg has talked about her enthusiastic response to seeing Nichelle Nichols on the television screen . Many African American women in science and technology have acknowledged that Uhura inspired them . Nichelle Nichols was hired by NASA to help them recruit women and minorities , which shouldn’t be a surprise – Mae Jamison, the first black female astronaut, has cited Uhura as a strong influence .

Uhura was an important and inspirational figure, but it is very easy to get swept up in the hype – it allows classic Star Trek to coast by with a reputation that it doesn’t entirely deserve. As much as the show likes to take credit for featuring a diverse ensemble, the series never did that much with the characters in question. Describing Uhura as a major character pays due respect to the place she holds in the hearts of many people, but it also paints a picture of Star Trek that is misleading and disingenuous.

Does not scan…

Perhaps George Takei himself best expresses this sentiment. In his autobiography, To the Stars , he reflects on his own struggles with his place in the larger Star Trek mythos:

I was proud to be a part of it. But I wanted to be prouder; I wanted Sulu to be doing more. My ship may have been moving steady at warp three, but I wanted to do more than merely announce that fact.

The same is true of Uhura. It’s one of the weaknesses in classic Star Trek , and one that might be excusable as a product of its time, if the series had not worked so relentless to build up its own reputation as a trailblazer.

“Don’t worry, Uhura, I’m sure the franchise’ll figure out how to write a communications officer eventually…”

There is a tendency to build a hype around Star Trek , one facilitated by Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry after all, also claimed that he was proud of diversity on Star Trek , and created a narrative where he fought the network to preserve his idealistic vision. This version of events is so well reported that is largely accepted . In fact, the diversity was largely down to NBC :

There were many negotiations with NBC about the diversity of casting. Roddenberry had wanted a female first officer, which the network did not accept according to Solow in our interview, partly because Majel Barrett (later to be Nurse Chapel in TOS, and Lwaxana Troi in TNG, as well as the second Mrs. Roddenberry) did not work in the part. Nevertheless, NBC had a policy of encouraging a degree of diversity from which TOS benefited. The series still looks exceptional in the multiculturalism of its cast. In May 1965, NBC’s Mort Werner had sent out a directive to all network series producers to hire more actors from diverse racial backgrounds; the regular Star Trek crew had African American Nichelle Nichols,Japanese American George Takei, Walter Koenig as the Russian Chekov, and of course, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, the Vulcan, providing a regular commentary on the nature of otherness that was to become a major theme in all the series and movies and the subject of a still-proliferating flow of scholarly comment.

Although Roddenberry likes to point to the removal of Majel Barrett as an example of the short-sighted network thwarting his utopian vision, the studio seemed unhappy with the hiring of Roddenberry’s mistress for a major role in the series. It is worth noting that Nichelle Nichols was also having an affair with Roddenberry when she was cast as Uhura.

“Tell Uhura not to worry, we’ve got an anonymous extra filling in for her…”

Uhura’s plot is just a small part of The Changeling , but it remains the most significant episode of the series from Uhura’s perspective. Sadly, that is a rather damning indictment.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the second season of the classic Star Trek :

• Supplemental: (Gold Key) #1 – The Planet of No Return!
• Supplemental: (Marvel Comics, 1980) #4-5 – The Haunting of Thallus!/The Haunting of the Enterprise!
• Metamorphosis
• Friday’s Child
• Who Mourns for Adonais?
• Supplemental: Spock’s World by Diane Duane
• Supplemental: New Visions #3 – Cry Vengeance
• Wolf in the Fold
• The Changeling
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #43-45 – The Return of the Serpent!
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2009) #13 – The Red Shirt’s Tale
• Supplemental: Deep Space Nine – Crossover
• Supplemental: New Visions #1 – The Mirror, Cracked
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #9-16 – New Frontiers (The Mirror Universe Saga)
• Supplemental: Mirror Images
• Supplemental: Mirror Universe – The Sorrows of Empire by David Mack
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2009) #15-16 – Mirrored
• The Deadly Years
• Supplemental: (Gold Key) #61 – Operation Con Game
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #39-40 – The Return of Mudd
• Supplemental: The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold
• Supplemental: Alien Spotlight – Tribbles
• Bread and Circuses
• Journey to Babel
• A Private Little War
• The Gamesters of Triskelion
• The Immunity Syndrome
• A Piece of the Action
• By Any Other Name
• Return to Tomorrow
• Patterns of Force
• The Ultimate Computer
• The Omega Glory
• Supplemental: Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1989) #49-50 – The Peacekeepers
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2008) Assignment: Earth

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: bill crosby , characters , divinity , ensemble , Gene L. Coon , gene roddenberry , i spy , john meredyth lucas , Nichelle Nichols , nomad , progressive , racism , religion , star trek , Star Trek: The Motion Picture , supporting cast , the changeling , the motion picture , tos , Uhura |

4 Responses

Cool. I really enjoy your thoughtful reviews. Question: Do you know if any of the novels or other expanded universe material ever followed up on Uhura’s dangling plot thread from this episode? I’ve always assumed that somehow those memories got restored (because seriously, none of her subsequent appearances make much sense if that isn’t true), but we’re never told how. It seems like an obvious basis for a new story, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing it.

I am afraid I don’t know. But I can understand not wanting to touch that plot point with a ten-foot pole.

I’m not sure I agree that Uhura’s value was reduced to that of the help and her personhood was ignored. Yes, it seemed Nomad put her brain in a developmental state below that of a new born baby’s, but why were they able to get her up to the college level before the credits even rolled while a baby needs 2 decades to progress that far? And remember how she instinctively reverted to Swahili? It seems me that this wasn’t a matter of her brain being reformatted but just all her files being deleted and McCoy’s job was to painstakingly undelete them (the most demeaning aspect of that being that her brain has a file system as primitive as FAT) and at the end of all that, they’d have *all* of Uhura again.

Also, I don’t see this episode as being just more of the tired Humanism you see in all those other episodes (which includes more than just the Apple and the Archons). It could apply to religion, but it seems to go beyond that to anyone concerned w/perfection and the price paid for it, like in Way to Eden.

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Star Trek: The Changeling

4 comments:

In his book on the making of "The Trouble with Tribbles", David Gerrold mentions viewing the rushes of the teaser of this episode, where everyone is throwing themselves across the bridge, and how one of the actresses was cursing each time she threw herself to the deck. Turned out she had broken her arm. As for the faster-than-Warp-10 thing (they also went faster than Warp 10 in "By Any Other Name" and "That Which Survives", among others, it's because they were using the "old scale" - they didn't decide on Warp 10 as the top of the scale until TNG.

What I find funniest about this episode is Spock saying that the blast from Nomad was equal to 90 photon torpedos, and the shields have dropped 25%. So the Enterprise shields can absorb 360 photon torpedos before they fail? It sure doesn't seem like it in other episodes.

The best part for me is Kirk's face when Spock admits he didn't think the Captain had the logical ability in him to outwit The Nomad.

I mentioned the original motion picture before, as I saw it in the theater as a kid with my parents. It was not a very good movie, and Wrath of Khan is so much better, but you can indeed see the root of V-ger/Voyager here. I rather like this one overall, but wish they had handled a few things a bit differently, made it a bit less god-like but still a threat. The voice work was good and even the effects for Nomad/Tan Ru were decent for the day. And I concur on the voice for sure. I'd probably rate this one a tad higher than 2/4 probably 2.5/4 which isn't that different really. Not one of the greats, but not one of those 'ugh' ones either.

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The changeling (1967).

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Star Trek: The Original Series

“The Changeling”

Air date: 9/29/1967 Written by John Meredyth Lucas Directed by Marc Daniels

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

The crew encounters Nomad, a computerized Earth probe that somehow merged with an alien probe and subsequently launched a mission to "sterilize" (read: destroy) anything that is "imperfect." Nomad has already killed millions. Fortunately, Nomad mistakes Kirk for its creator, a scientist who died hundreds of years ago. This gives Kirk just enough perceived authority over the machine to keep it from destroying the Enterprise and its crew.

Nomad and the mystery behind its existence is neat in story terms, and it being on the verge of destroying everything keeps us mindful of the danger. A scene where Spock mind melds with Nomad is interesting (even though I wondered how he could read the thoughts of a computer). But the episode suffers from a few too many unproductive gimmicks: Scotty dying and then undying; Uhura's mind being wiped of all information; and, of course, the cliché where Kirk Outsmarts the Computer™ yet again—although this time it seems a little more plausible than in previous episodes.

Unfortunately, the ridiculously implausible idea of Uhura's wiped mind being retrained with basic education (she is reading sentences on the level of "See the dog run" at one point in the episode) is more than just a little absurd. The fact that she's on the bridge the next week as if nothing happened is just plain silly.

Previous episode: Who Mourns for Adonais? Next episode: Mirror, Mirror

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Comment Section

45 comments on this post.

I didn't get how Spock could mind-meld with the computer/robot, either. And I'm not sure it was a good writing choice; Spock's telepathic powers aren't to be bandied about or used lightly--it's just not Spocklike to do that.

How can we see the pulses approaching if they're going "Warp 15"?

That Uhura learning to read scene is high comedy, especially when Chapel goes over to McCoy and asks with seriousness and dejection, does he think they can really teach her again!? And then Uhura pronounces "blue" as "bloo-ey" and McCoy and Chapel laugh indulgently like Uhura's an adorable two-year-old. I think what makes it so bizarre, funny, and extreme is that only the most half-hearted effort is made to acknowledge how devastating this total loss of memory would be, and how difficult retraining would be, while still providing enough of an effort that it is not wholly glossed over. If they glossed it over entirely ("she'll be retrained for next week!") then it would be clear that the writers et al. didn't really expect us to buy it in any realistic way, but needed us to accept it and move on. The slow-approaching but "warp 15" pulses (as Jack mentions) and Spock's mindmeld with the totally non-biological machine (as Jammer and Strider mention) are examples of this -- they are totally goofy concepts, but they are part of the plot, so, deal with it and move on. If they actually took the thing *really* seriously, even ending the episode on something of a downbeat the way TNG's "The Mind's Eye" ends with Troi saying that it would take Geordi a long time to deal with the events of the episode (even though he's fine next week), there would be a sense that they were lending it the proper gravity. This business has essentially one or two lines which tell us this is Serious!, and then end with a joke; it's one of my favourite "bad" moments from the original series, perhaps because it's bad in a bizarre, audacious way that only this show could do. Another moment I found quite funny, but I'm not sure is actually a poor decision, is a few times during the final Kirk/Nomad confrontation there would be a shot of Kirk saying something, and then a reaction shot of Nomad floating in stunned silence. Hee. It's funny how easily this anthropomorphization goes down, to the point where we look to a machine that literally cannot express any reaction visually in order to "see" its reaction. In general I think the episode does a good job of making Nomad seem like a recognizable character even though it's just a machine wandering about; one of the details I like is the way its attitude toward Kirk subtly changes from reverent awe to confused reluctant compliance to outright hostility as it becomes more and more disenchanted with Kirk's decisions. The rest of the episode is pretty okay, if not thrilling. The Scotty death and rebirth business I agree is a little pointless. The extent of the social commentary comes down to the idea that well-intentioned missions can become twisted; *probably* we're not going to be sending out any probes which will merge with other probes to become super-probes which kill people, but it's a common theme in science-fiction that computers can sometimes go astray of the original *intent* of the programming, and something like that happens with Nomad. Nomad's emphasis on perfection and sterilization is also one of the series' frequent reminders that humanity is flawed, and this is not actually a "bad thing": ability to accept imperfection is necessary in order to go on with life, and Nomad's extremism comes down to its arbitrarily high standard for existence and perfection. The search for self-improvement and improvement of the world *is* a valuable one, but let's keep things in perspective. Like Jammer, I find Kirk's short-circuiting Nomad's logic more plausible than in other Kirk Outsmarts the Computer episodes, partly because the specific problem Nomad had, the impossible standards for perfection and the programming to destroy anything falling short of that problem, is one that obviously *would* implicate Nomad, as a sub-perfect machine. I think I'd say 2.5 stars for the package, too.

I rather like the theory some fans have that Uhura only lost her LANGUAGE, and that she had everything else just fine. It makes the consequences still real but averts the obvious issues of her TOTALLY losing her memory.

I enjoyed this episode a lot more than I enjoyed the Star Trek the motionless I mean the motion picture. It would had been funny if Nomad was a Dalek. It would had been better if McCoy discovered the effect on Uhura was only temporarily due to Scotty interrupting the process. Great use of the cast with a few exception. 1. I wish they replaced Mr. Singer with Chekov or transporter chief kyle. 2. Replace Scott with Sulu for the last act when they grabbed the anti grab.

todayshorse

Saw this today for the first time, ive been watching quite a few of series 1 and 2 mainly because tomorrow is 'Mirror Mirror' which im eager to see. But this episode left me.....speechless! Ludicrously bizarre, laugh out loud-able in the most part. I thought the previous episode with Adonais and his 'giant hand' holding the ship was somthing but 'nomad'...well...I guess this episode had somthing to do with 'The Motion Picture'...carbon units/units, the basic premise etc, ill have to read up on it. How the crew kept a straight face whilst 'wobbly' nomad wandered around the ship i dont really know. Love Spocks reactions to some of the things 'nomad' said though and Uhura 'see dog run'...sigh!

Ah yes, yet ANOTHER episode where Kirk "outwits" the machine with self-destructive "logic". But wow, I was face-palming through a lot of this. From Spock's mind-meld (with a tin can?) to Uhura going from pre-school English to "College level" in a short time (wtf, do they have some kind of learn-by-osmosis machines in the 23rd century, ala the "lesson feeds" in "The Matrix"?), to the lovely (laughable) Nomad-perspective camera angles, to Kirk's TERRIBLE joke at the end that REALLY made me put palm to face... And yet, it was still an enjoyable episode, and I could get past the hokeyness and silliness. It was also interesting to see this story again, and realize what I somehow hadn't realized before: "Oh hey, this is where they got that whole V'Ger thing from The Motionless Picture!" [The movie being a slightly different case, where the story was oversimple and the plot not all that well thought-out, and the pace plodding with somewhat stiff acting, but nonetheless still was somehow an enjoyable thing to sit through]. I give it 1.5 out of 4. Stupid, but fun.

I realize not everything has to make complete sense, but the thing with Uhura made not sense. How did she still know Swahili if her mind had been wiped? Wouldn't there be major psychological implications if she had lost all her memory? How would it be possible to relearn everything in a matter of weeks? The joking at the end was unnecessary, too. Seems weird to make jokes about a thing that just killed 4 billion people. Altogether, this is a pretty weak episode.

I've never seen the episode, but I did see Star Trek: The Motion Picture... Judging from this synopsis, they're basically the same story. Which only proves the movie could have been half as long and with twice as many laughs ;-)

So last episode was the advanced alien who was like a god, this episode is Kirk outwitting a computer, and next episode is bearded Spock. It's the TOS trope trifecta! Toss in some red shirt deaths and a few "He's dead Jim"s and we've got it all! I have to admit the Uhura thing was odd. So, Nomad wiped out everything in her brain? So then how did she still know Swahili? It's not like the language is innate within her, and its highly unlikely anyone on board would have taught her Swahili first. So I guess Nomad just wiped out some of her brain. But why keep Swahili and not English? Did it just wipe her brain down to a 4 year old? Do our brains really work that way, with a "date learned" stamp on everything? I guess what I'm saying is that glossing over Uhura relearning everything within a week is slightly forgivable since it's not clear what she really lost. I guess we can fanwank it away that she really didn't lose that much of her knowledge, even though that's what Nomad implied. Oh well, best not to think too much about it. Also best not to think too much about Nomad's origin story. We had, what, two different non-sapient robots cram together to suddenly become a sentient AI with a garbled mission combined from the mission of the two different programs they had. Does assembly code really work like that? Wouldn't the programming be less in English and more in producing the protocols and logic trees to carry out the mission? Instead, it seemed more like what a human would think, combining two vague mission statements into one. To me, it seems clever on the surface, but underneath is just kinda stupid. Although hey, who knows how the whole AI think works in the Trek universe. I will admit though, that while the "outwitting a computer" thing is thoroughly mocked in TOS, it was reasonably well done here. I like the way it was done, with Kirk slowly getting to the point to show Nomad his logical flaw. Going the route of getting Nomad to agree that his role is to destroy anything perfect, then pointing out that Nomad himself is perfect, was well done. And hey, the rising crescendo of Kirk's demands on Nomad keeps the tension going well enough, followed by the race to getting him off the ship. It's a lot better than just demanding him the last digit of pi or something. Oh well. It's a simple plot, but one that works well enough.

I love Kirk's final remark/joke. Only the original crew had the chemistry to pull that kind of thing off.

Another mediocre episode for me after "Who Mourns for Adonais?". Just a lot of silliness with Scotty being killed then brought back to life, part of Uhura's memory being wiped out and her learning to read basic English again, Spock mind-melding with a computer... The premise of an old Earth probe being damaged and turned into an ultra-powerful killing machine that adopts Kirk as its creator is interesting. As Nomad starts to piece together its next move (killing off the crew and heading for Earth while starting to disobey Kirk) works, however the story is slow paced, it does drag as if it was a struggle to fill the full hour. I do agree with many of the comments already made that of all the instances where Kirk convinces a computer to destroy itself, this one's probably the most well done. This one rates 2/4 stars for me. Very much a true science fiction story which has its silly quirks.

Uhura's memory-wipe aside, I liked this episode. The two things that stood out for me were the cinematography, especially the shots looking over Nomad's "shoulder," and the music score. I realize many of the music quotes were reused later in the series, but wow they are good. I am not sure at what point they stopped composing new scores and simply used existing material. If the pieces in this episode were from earlier ones, I wish I knew which ones. When watching TOS, I also keep in mind when it was done, and I'm frequently thinking the effects were so good for that time. The way Nomad floats around the Enterprise about 3 feet of the floor is so nicely executed. I couldn't tell if they had it on some kind of rolling dolly or suspended with wires, but neither was at all discernible. You can be sure none of it was digital! 3 stars for me on this one, just on the strength of the music and production values.

So many problems with this episode: - Nomad conveniently thinks Kirk is the engineer who created it and also conveniently forgets that it was built by humans.... even tough it scans all the "units" to determine they are biological, it just "forgets" to do that with Kirk and doesn't realise until Kirk tells it at the end? - Uhura remembers Swahili but has to be taught English? Wouldn't here entire personality be different, all her experiences and upbringing that made her herself have been lost? - A mind meld with a robot? Come on they could have come up with a better solution than that. - Some abysmal camera work following Nomad around the ship closely from behind. What was the director thinking? Not a terrible episode but not one of the best. 2/4

@Peter - As for the musical score -- like most TOS episodes, it's a mish-mash from other ones that had original scores. I'm pretty sure nothing original was made exclusively (or mostly exclusively) for this episode. Probably the 2 most used episodes for the score are "Catspaw" (the impending danger music as Nomad wanders through the hallways) and "Amok Time". There's also a bit of "Who Mourns for Adonais?" and a bit of "Metamorphosis". But I don't think of this episode, in particular, as being one of the TOS episodes with an outstanding score -- those would be (having original scores) "The Doomsday Machine", "Amok Time", or "The Conscience of the King". "Metamorphosis" had an excellent musical score as well. They wrote some great music for S3 as well in "The Empath".

Not a super serious episode but certainly fun to watch over and over again. I love watching Kirk out-logic Nomad in the end - my dad and I loved to act that part out together when I was a kid. Good memories! "A mass of conflicting impulses" - Nomad describing Uhura

Why would the merged probe have the deadly firepower shown here? Surely this is vastly more potency than a probe would need to sterilize the quantity of soil a one meter probe could store.

A really fun and tense episode, "The Changeling" is also a neat look at how the same story can be done different on TV and in a feature film. While "Star Trek The Motion Picture" tells this story as an epic Heart of Darkness journey into the awesome unknown, keeping the big reveal secret until the end, the TOS source episode relies more on character and tension to get the job done. The coincidence that saves the ship here at the start is a bit extreme, but I give "Changeling" 3 stars because it's fun and tense. The crew's efforts to manage and then defeat Nomad make for some intriguing conflict. Glad to see Uhura and Scotty mix it up a little in the plot, here, too. The theoretical implications of an Earth probe coming home to destroy Earth after mingling with aliens are better discussed in TMP, including the search for God aspect, but the TOS ep does a better job of highlighting what we love about the TV series: People working together to solve a problem. This episode is a good example of how TOS could sell minimal special effects -- the probe design is rather underwhelming and unthreatening compared to V'ger -- with convincing acting and stylish filmmaking. I especially love Kirk's logical victory at the end that actually feels logical for once: It's a clever leap of intuition to apply the implications of his own imperfection to Nomad's mistaken identification of him as "the Creator." This is a bit more reasonable than the TMP resolution of entering the transmission codes into V'ger, though perhaps less mystical than the Decker-Ilia merging. Anyway, "Changeling" is a good but not great TOS episode with iconic imagery, even though there's not much deep substance to the themes here.

I thought Uhura's mind-wipe was meant to echo Nomad's. Uhura, like Nomad, is a life-seeking communication's device which upon contact with alien technology suffers a breakdown and loss of memory. Like Nomad, she then needs to be reeduacted. IMO, the episode would have been better if Scotty's death was removed from the script. Devote that time, instead, to developping the Uhura subplot better (and with more gravity).

Debra Petersen

Just finished watching this one again on H&I. Isn't it a little odd that Kirk would say Nomad "thought I was it's MOTHER"? Wouldn't a man more naturally say FATHER? I guess the writer was going for some humor and thought it sounded funnier that way, but to me it just sounds...strange.

Just watched the episode expecting it to be the one where that woman turns into a yeti. Instead we got the same storyline that would feature in TMP, that crappy TNG episode about mining robots and no less than two Voyager episodes: Dreadnought and Warhead. Talk about returning to the well. TOS is something I view with ambivalence. To me it is undoubtedly the weakest Trek series. Even though season 1 of ENT is generally not good, it's wishy-washy and boring rather than embarrassingly absurd like TOS. It seems that either a TOS episode is a masterpiece, or it's a laughable dud which nobody in their right minds would even think of, let alone pitch, sell and get someone else to produce. The general quality of this series would be totally unacceptable today. Unfortunately The Changeling is just such embarrassing tosh. The threat emanated by Nomad is undone by, well, everything else about it, from the cheesy robot voice to the way it wobbles when flying. It regards itself as perfect and yet looks like the exhaust of an old car. As for Spock mind melding with it, this is one of the great WTF moments in sci-fi. So if I possessed telepathic abilities, I would mind-meld with my computer's hard drive? Perhaps Spock can also read a book just by sitting on it. I'm trying to be nice since this is vintage sci-fi and it's probably someone's favourite episode (although I fear the thought that such a person exists). Give me TNG's Masks instead, at least that has eerie music and a creepy atmosphere of dread. And it has a robot talking in a silly voice.

Standard issue fare for TOS, hitting all the notes except "starry-eyed sexy lady falling for Kirk." Instead, it is an eyeless, floating piece of metal which falls for Kirk. The Uhura thing was beyond silly, though it was nice to see her get some screen time. A good sci fi concept, not particularly well played out. Average.

Bobbington Mc Bob

Ah the original Star Trek "Unrecoverable change, remedied by next week" reset episode. This must surely have been the model for the entire series run of Voyager :D I liked this one, the sense of foreboding from Nomad felt very real, and I could see the seeds for V-ger in this too. Watching TOS for the first time having seen everything that came after first can be a really fun exercise in deja-vu like a-ha moments.

They were totally going for a Star Trek meets a Dalek episode right? They did a good job. The probe did come across as weirdly creepy.

James T. Kirk. Jackson Roykirk. Doesn’t sound similar to me. Really a sophisticated computer couldn’t tell the difference?

Neo the Beagle

Warp 15 bolts, equal to 90 photon torpedoes?!? From little Nomad? And to absorb (1) torpedo from Enterprise? Nomad and the Doomsday Machine should have had their own spin-off series: which one could destroy the most planets in the least amount of time...

Anyone notice the 4 episodes in a row that puts Scotty thru hell? Last week : Apollo backhanding Scotty (enough to appreciate the stunt work involved, btw) several feet, having his arm paralyzed, and of course having his phaser zapped when he drew it, injuring his hand. Apollo almost killed him. This week: Now it's Nomad's turn: NOMAD kills Scotty! Sorry for that spoiler alert. But he comes back to life! Sorry for that spoiler alert also. Next week: no chance to rest, as Scotty is under extreme pressure in the Mirror Universe, with death a certainty if he fails Finally: Scotty gets fired by Kirk because Scotty can't find a way to counteract Vaal in "The Apple", thus dooming the Enterprise to a fiery disintegration. As the Enterprise starts to burn up in the atmosphere, Scotty probably had second thoughts about not taking that vacation last month that he had coming....

@Beth, I agree with every single word you wrote! Silly & enjoyable :-)

I quite liked elements of this: - the AI story including the crashing and merging of two probes (presumably both had self-repair routines built in) - Uhura's greater contribution than usual, including getting to hear her sing. (I've assumed that the 'mind wipe' was actually induced amnesia which left some abilities intact, e.g. knowledge of Swahili) - the use of logic from Kirk (would have been better from Spock!) to cause NOMAD to self destruct (but why does that always mean a speeding up falsetto voice? Kubrick's HAL going slower and deeper singing 'Daisy Daisy' was more effective). But other elements were ludicrous if not downright offensive: - huge destructive pulses from NOMAD at the start - what, from something that looked like an interplanetary vacuum cleaner?? - the crew's underwhelming reaction to the destruction of billions of people - yet how on earth did NOMAD actually achieve that? It's only a tin can after all. - NOMAD's categorisation of its scan of Uhura as a mass of chaotic impulses - WHAT, BECAUSE SHE'S A WOMAN????? Not an outright poor episode - I'll give it 2 or perhaps 2.5 stars

I liked this version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture better than that feature film remake. The work with the Nomad prop was pretty skillful. They could have easily improved the Uhura situation by a line or two saying the damage wasn't as severe as it first appeared, was just temporary like being stunned, or whatever. A cop out, but way less than what they went with!

(Skillful for TV of that era) I think Nomad basically was indeed a Dalek knock-off. Dalekmania was HUGE in the mid 60s and there were even two Dalek oriented feature films by the time this episode was made. British films, but there's no way that would have gone unnoticed by contemporary American sci-fi writers. (For those less familiar with Doctor Who history, the Daleks were so popular initially that they overshadowed the Doctor himself.)

@ Trek fan and NoPoet et al, I'm sorry but besides the idea of an old soace probe from earth, isnt the plot of The Motion Picture very different and more original and richly imaginative than this episode..not that thuw episode is bad or unoriginal..but it had the vger cloud and unique alien environment ofnthe cloud where vger was in and those potential otber alken lifeforms/galactic structures within the cloud and the Ilea life form?

Spock's mind-meld with Nomad wasn't as ridiculous as some here have stated. Spock once or twice mentioned that Nomad was incredibly sophisticated, almost biological in its makeup - - which I suppose was included by the writer specifically so the mind-meld option would work. One thing that bothered me about Nomad's destructive energy bolts at the beginning was that they became progressively less destructive after the first one. Another thing that I wondered was why the Enterprise didn't just move slightly to the side to get out of their way, since the crew could see them coming and had plenty of time to react. Also, the part about Uhura, a woman, being "a mass of conflicting impulses" highlights the societal sexism of the time in which the show was produced. Remember, during the TOS period, women were still not allowed to be starship captains.

A LOT of people in these comments need to watch the episode again - Uhura didn't lose her memory (she retained Swa'hili, knew who Christine was, had language skills, retained her intelligence, mathematical aptitude etc.) What she lost was her knowledge. They make that point several times. Which is why she's able to re-educate so quickly, the intelligence and ability is still there - they just have to feed the information back in.

Proud Capitalist Pig

In folklore, a “changeling” is a sprite that has been sent as a replacement for an infant child that has been stolen by other sprites. How perfect for this little examination of AI -- we indeed are selling our souls to this technology, and I’m sure will soon be creating bastardized machine-children in the place of offspring. Nomad was a hoot -- a little flying vacuum cleaner with a testy voice and a bad attitude that’s responsible for killing “billions.” I too got a kick out of those over-the-shoulder shots as Nomad is stalking the ship. One question (just a nitpick) -- why did it zap Scotty but *vaporize* that unfortunate crewmember that no one cares about? The only reason that Nomad could "repair" Scotty's unit was that Scotty wasn't disintegrated. How convenient! I always appreciate stories that warn us about powerful AI’s but as Jammer and other commenters have indicated, this one was a tad silly as well. An interesting notion is that when imperfect beings (such as we humans) create “perfect” technology, the technology would usually end up just as imperfect as we are. The logic puzzle that Kirk introduced to Nomad in order to end the threat was damn obvious and simplistic but fine for a 50-minute science fiction tale I guess. Yes the plights of Scotty and Uhura were as dead-on-arrival as Scotty was on the Bridge. But I loved when Uhura provided her own “On-Hold” muzak over the proverbial ship’s phone -- using her own beautiful voice, of course! Nomad (re: McCoy) -- “This is one of your units, Creator?” Kirk -- “Yes, he is.” Nomad -- “It functions irrationally.” Kirk -- “Sometimes.” My Grade: C-

I fully agree that this episode is meant to show perfect AI as a threat: the more perfect a computer is, the more difficult it is to keep it under control – sooner or later it will reach a point where it no longer needs its “creator” and starts programming itself independently. The episode makes a very valid point why AI still needs human control. At first, Kirk and Spock wonder about Nomad’s purpose and if it is indeed the probe built by Roykirk centuries ago, because they remember its mission was a peaceful one. In Spock’s mind-meld with Nomad, he learns that Nomad merged with that other probe called Tan Ru. I think it’s essential to note that none of them was a killing device, the missions of both probes were scientific ones: Nomad was “supposed to be the first interstellar probe to seek new life-forms”, and Tan Ru was sent out “to secure and sterilise soil samples from other planets”. In a way, their missions could even be called similar to that of the Enterprise! When the probes merged, a perfect computer was created… but it has a screw loose. Yet it doesn’t notice… how could it? This kind of superior control can only be performed by humans, which leads to the point that AI will always need and should always remain under our control. Which still sounds pretty relevant today.

@Lannion Great points, Lannion. I like how you highlighted that the original mission of Nomad went awry *because* of its interstellar journey--what it was designed to do. When AI learns "too much," it becomes too dangerous.

If the idea of a changeling is that fairies exchange a normal baby for a spite, then I think it becomes difficult to see this episode as being about the dangers of AI. The Ultimate Computer is much more obviously about that. But if we're taking the title seriously then it seems to me much more relevant to marvel at the existence of fairies rather than the changeling itself and how it's causing you problems. Or put another way, the fact that space contains such wonders, some of them dangerous or capricious, makes it both enticing and menacing. Nomad is a terror, but also did sort of do what it was supposed to: discover something new and bring back that information. It's just that the manner of bringing it back isn't what we would have ever wanted. Better be careful what you ask for: sometimes if you ask a question you'll get an answer when you are not ready for it. It seems to me that if I wanted to draw out a general message, which is a bit tough since this is more of a horror show than an exploration episode, it would be more about what's out there than about Nomad itself. Things very strange can change what you know and switch them for terrors. This happened to one probe, and caused so much damage it could have destroyed the Earth. What happens if mankind itself meets something out there that changes us for the worse?

@Peter G "Things very strange can change what you know and switch them for terrors. This happened to one probe, and caused so much damage it could have destroyed the Earth." I tip my hat to you, Peter G. I think you captured the message perfectly. Such a reading does place the Nomad AI in a more innocent light, even though we still brought about its destructive path by creating it in the first place. I think a lot of science fiction stories that are similar to this are meant to put a check on our hubris.

@William B: ))and Spock's mindmeld with the totally non-biological machine (as Jammer and Strider mention) are examples of this -- they are totally goofy concepts(( Nomad was a fusion/hybrid of the original Earth space probe and an ALIEN space probe named "Tan Ru." For all we know, "Tan Ru" may have been at least partially biological (maybe it had Voyager's "gel packs" or what-not).

@elscotto: ))How did she still know Swahili if her mind had been wiped? Wouldn't there be major psychological implications if she had lost all her memory? How would it be possible to relearn everything in a matter of weeks?(( Uhura was singing ENGLISH when Nomad scanned her. The scan thus affected only her ENGLISH. Bones and the others refer to her mind being "wiped," but that was obviously before an in-depth examination could be performed; it was not an exact diagnosis. The scan Nomad performed thus merely "clouded" her English-language skills, and so it was relatively easy to "re-activate" them. Sheesh! You people are all so *literal*. Uhura faints, Bones flippantly says that her "mind was wiped" (a mere FIGURE OF SPEECH!), and you folks go so far as to complain that she should have been reduced to a drooling idiot, pooping in her panties, PERMANENTLY!

This episode is definitely a little weak from a plot mechanics standpoint. Scotty’s death/resurrection was a bit much and really served no purpose, Spock mind-melding with Nomad is a bit of a stretch only partially salvaged by how little we really know about Nomad, the crew ripping off pithy quips in the wake of billions of deaths is a tad tone deaf, and of course Uhura having to relearn English in a week seems unlikely. I will say on that last point tho, it’s possible Uhura was just suffering from a severe case of disorientation rather than a total mind blowout, the episode isn’t really that specific about it. But all that being said, I still enjoyed this one. It’s a pretty solid core idea, which I’m sure is why they chose to recycle it for ST:TMP. This episode probably became much more prescient in the wake of the Voyager probe launches in the 70s and as such seemed like a no-brainer as the basis for V’Ger. I thoroughly enjoyed the Kirk-kills-computer-with-logic cliche, and agree with the above commenters that it’s probably done best here. I think what saves this episode from total ridicule is that despite the questionable creative choices written into it, none of the characters act out of character. Scotty doesn’t get killed because he does something un-Scotty-like, his actions are pretty understandable, same with Uhura. So while the episode strains credulity and has some pretty improbable contrivances, the heart of the show isn’t disrespected. It’s enough for me to still find this outing fun to watch. 2.5/4 masses of conflicting impulses.

Radio Jonathan

A good but flawed episode. Many of the flaws have been discussed so I won't go into them again. This episode, along with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Star Trek Voyager episode "Friendship One" and the Space:1999 episode "Voyager's Return" all have a similar overall premise. We are sending probes out in the interests of science and if there is intelligent life out in the universe, friendship. In spite of these good intentions, are we inadvertently doing any harm? Something to think about.

I really do like this episode despite the ridiculous notion that Uhura could be “Re-educated” in a week or two. On the same issue, how could she have retained the ability to speak Swahili? If her “memory banks” were truly wiped as Nomad claimed they were, she’d have to be toilet-trained, taught to use a spoon, dress herself, etc. A possible explanation could be written into the story that Nomad’s brain-wiping assault had interrupted by Mr. Scott’s rush at the machine which resulted in an incomplete memory flush of Uhura’s mind. The one thing that the writers seem to omit over and over in these episodes occurred once again in this one. During the inevitable final scene on the bridge at the Captain’s chair when the three or four main cast members are exchanging comical quips and retorts, nobody ever seems to mention or even bother to remember that in the last few “Star-Hours” during the crisis four lower ranking crew members were disintegrated into oblivion by that flying space vacuum cleaner Nomad. Ya think Kirk even takes the time to write letters to their parents claiming how they gallantly died in the line of duty?

"On the same issue, how could she have retained the ability to speak Swahili?" I always assumed Swahili was her first language and English she only learned later in life, ergo her Swahili was more ingrained. Nomad's mind wipe obviously wasn't complete.

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Changeling (Star Trek)

Thousands of years ago, members of this species faced persecution from other races which feared them for their abilities. As a result, most of them came to reside on a small rogue planet in the Omarion Nebula, located in the Gamma Quadrant.

• 2 Culture and society
• 3 Appearances
• 4 References

Biology [ ]

The Changelings are extremely non-conventional lifeforms. Their natural state is that of a golden liquid, but they are able to take virtually any form they wish, including solids, liquids, gases and even plasma or fire. Inexperienced Changelings, such as Odo, must return to their liquid state every 16 hours. It's not known whether the same applies to older and more experienced individuals, who have demonstrated abilities that Odo hasn't mastered yet.

Changelings emerging from the Great Link.

A Changeling's body is not made out of cells, but of a biomolecular structure known as their morphogenic matrix. The lack of cells means that Changelings are not affected by senescence, being biologically immortal as a result.

They have no sense of smelling and their minds cannot be read even by naturally telepathic species.

It appears that when a Changeling assumes a specific form, it does not only mimic its external appearance, but its molecular structure as well. When they become rocks, for example, a sensor will not detect them as lifeforms. They are able to morph themselves into fully functional electronic devices. This doesn't make them vulnerable, however, since they can immediately return to their liquid state at anytime. Another interesting aspect of their shapeshifting abilities is that when they morph into a much smaller object, they are able to truly reduce their apparent mass and weight, rather than just compress their volume. The object in question will weigh no more than the expected.

Changelings do not eat or drink, and need no air or any other substance to live. They are perfectly able to survive in space vacuum for unlimited periods of time. Since they need no sunlight either (their adopted homeworld has no sun), it is a complete mystery how they get the energy they need for living.

One possible idea to explain both the Changelings' mass alteration abilities and how they obtain energy is that they are able to exist in subspace, as well as in normal space, regularly importing and exporting mass and energy between the two. [1]

A Changeling masquerading as another humanoid can be exposed by taking a blood sample, since the part of the Changeling separated from the rest will revert to its natural liquid state. This is a characteristic that they share with the mysterious " Thing " species.

Culture and society [ ]

Changelings are an ancient race believed to have originated somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant. Once peaceful explorers, they suffered prejudice from several "solid" races, who were afraid of the Changelings' almost unbelievable powers and resilience.

The Changelings finally decided that the best way to protect themselves was to take control of their surroundings, and thus they founded the Dominion , a major military organization that rules most of the Gamma Quadrant. The Changelings (or Founders , as they are usually referred to) are the absolute rulers of the Dominion, but are still very reclusive and enigmatic, being treated as god -like mystical entities by their servant races. The warriors of the Dominion are Jem'Hadars , a violent humanoid species genetically created by the Founders.

Constable Odo.

Although all Founders are Changelings, not all Changelings are Founders. The most notable exception is Odo, a member of a group of one hundred Changelings who were sent out to travel through the galaxy and gather information about other planets and races when they were still infants. After countless years of drifting through the cosmos, Odo was found by the Bajorans and ended up working for the Cardassians and later on the Federation as chief of security aboard the space station Deep Space 9.

Most Changelings have little sense of individualism. They enjoy merging themselves together to become part of what they call the Great Link , a gigantic ocean of Changelings in their natural liquid form, all deeply interconnected on a physical and mental level (the result is similar to the sentient planetary ocean of Solaris ).

The Great Link used to be located on a rogue world in the Omarion Nebula, but this planet was abandoned in 2371, as an infiltrated Changeling posing as a Romulan Tal Shiar agent became aware of a plot by the Cardassian Obsidian Order to destroy the Changelings' homeworld and fatally cripple the Dominion. In addition to evacuating the planet, the Changelings also took the opportunity to plant 150 Jem'Hadar warships waiting to ambush the Romulan and Cardassian fleets, resulting in the Battle of the Omarion Nebula. Following the success of this operation and heavy losses for both the Romulans and the Cardassians, a Changeling agent claimed that the only threats that still remained to them in the Alpha Quadrant were the Klingons and the Federation.

Changelings are so isolated that some species in the Gamma Quadrant regard them as just a myth, being unaware that they're the real force behind the Dominion.

Appearances [ ]

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

References [ ]

• ↑ This idea was first proposed by Star Trek writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe.
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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekS2E3TheChangeling

Star Trek S2 E3 "The Changeling" » Recap

Original air date: September 29, 1967

The episode starts off as most episodes start off: with the Enterprise on its way to a planet for Kirk to screw around with. Only, this time … there's no planet. The entire system they were assigned to go to has had all of its organic life forms vaporized , leading the crew to wonder just what the hell is going on. The answer comes in the form of a tiny vehicle firing massive amounts of plasma energy at the ship, resulting in a weak retaliation and the most ludicrous exchanges known to mankind:

Spock: Our shields absorbed (the) energy equivalent to 90 of our photon torpedoes . The energy used in repulsing this first attack reduced our shielding power 20% . (Kirk orders a single photon torpedoes launched, It does nothing .) Spock: No effect. The target absorbed (the) full energy of our torpedo. Kirk: [incredulous] Absorbed it? ... What could've absorbed that much energy, and survived??

Um … yeah. The Enterprise can absorb 450 torpedo hits , but Kirk is stunned when the other vehicle absorbed the detonation of one torpedo. note  Either they assumed it was a spaceborne Glass Cannon , or that something as small as two meters in length shouldn't be able to withstand that kind of attack.

Anyway, Kirk orders a hail to the probe, which inexplicably stops its attacks. After some exchanges of Translator Microbes , the probe, called "Nomad", ceases hostilities, referring to Kirk as " The Creator " in the process. It's brought aboard, against the concerns of Scotty , and is let loose on the ship. This can't possibly go wrong, can it? I mean, it's not possibly like it's able or willing to Kill All Humans and — oh, wait, it's shown to have the power to annihilate an entire planet's worth of organics, and tells the crew that its mission is to "sterilize all imperfect biological organisms". Right then, moving on …

The big three converge over what exactly Nomad is and what it's doing; it seems like the probe wasn't , in fact, able or willing to cause The End of the World as We Know It , in the first place, and its creator — Jackson Roykirk — programmed it for simple deep space exploration. By its own admission, Nomad clearly had an incident with what it calls "The Other", which altered its structure and programming, causing it to become Bender's non-alcoholic and more abusive ancestor and mistaking Kirk for its builder. Unfortunately, by the time they realize this, Nomad has already been lured to the bridge by the siren's song of Uhura, which confuses it and causes it to wipe her memory when it can't discern the logic of "music". And it kills Scotty, too, when he tries to interfere, but the machine fixes him right up afterwards, so it's no big deal. Of course, with Uhura's brain now wiped, we get a hilarious re-education subplot involving her trying to read "The dog has a ball". note  Unfortunately, the broadcast version of the remastered episode has severely truncated the scene where Uhura is re-learning how to read.

With time running out, and information on what happened to Nomad still scanty, Spock somehow manages to mind-meld with the thing. It turns out "The Other" is a probe called "Tan-Ru", sent by an alien society to collect and sterilize soil samples as a prelude to colonization, and they combined during a self-repair attempt into the current Nomad. How that gave it the ability to nuke a world is left to the imagination, and there is no time to speculate, as Nomad has shut down the life support systems of the ship, threatening everyone on board. After confronting the killer probe and confirming that its death orders have no loophole, Kirk does what he does best: confuse a computer to death, by dropping the Logic Bomb that Nomad isn't perfect as it mistook him for its long-dead creator. This melts down two computers — Nomad itself, and Spock's brain, as Kirk was never one for flawless logic, but luckily they're able to beam the probe off the ship before it blows itself up.

The Tropeling:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot : Nomad, a deep-space probe, clearly had an incident with what it calls "The Other", quickly revealed to be an alien probe named Tan-Ru, which altered its structure and programming, causing it to become self-aware . Part of its new programming includes the sterilization of life as a prelude to alien colonization, corrupted from Tan-Ru's original mission. Spock: (mind-melding into a Machine Monotone ) I am Nomad. I am performing my … function. Deep emptiness … it approaches … collision … damage … blackness. … I am the Other. I am Tan-Ru … Tan-Ru … Nomad … Tan-Ru … error. Flaw. Imperfection. Must … sterilize. ( Beat ) Rebirth … we are complete … much power … gan ta nu ik-ta Tan-Ru … the Creator … instructs … search out … identify … sterilize imperfections. … We are Nomad … we are Nomad … we are complete. We are instructed … our purpose is clear … sterilize imperfections … sterilize imperfections … Nomad — sterilize — sterilize — NOMAD — STERILIZE —
• A Million Is a Statistic : A planetary population of four billion, sterilized by Nomad, isn't mentioned again in the episode.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated : Nomad overhears Uhura singing to herself, and curiously approaches her about this unique form of "communication". The probe ultimately can't understand the idea of music and decides that it is frivolous.
• Back from the Dead : Scotty.
• Nomad claims that its mission is non-hostile, after having killed the inhabitants of four worlds .
• Spock claims that Kirk was just testing Nomad's memory banks, because he realised that Nomad's assumption that Kirk was The Creator was the only thing stopping it from 'purging' the 'biological infestation' on Enterprise .
• Blue-and-Orange Morality : Nomad is simply a computer carrying out (the garbled remnants of) its programming and that of Tan-Ru.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs : Nomad and Tan-Ru's programming is a rare dramatic example. Nomad's orders: Seek out new life forms. Tan-Ru's orders: Collect soil samples and sterilize them. Final result : Seek out and sterilize imperfect life forms.
• Continuity Nod : The song Uhura sings is "Beyond Antares", which she'd sung in full back in "The Conscience of the King" .
• Cooldown Hug : Kirk gives Spock one after a Mind Meld goes bad.
• Creator Cameo : Marc Daniels, the director of the episode, appears as the photo of Jackson Roykirk (at 17 minutes and 48 seconds into the episode, to be precise).
• Death Is Cheap : Scotty is killed by Nomad, then revived by it in a matter of minutes no worse for wear.
• Early-Installment Weirdness : The Enterprise is stated as passing warp 10 and then warp 15. Later series would establish warp 10 as the absolute maximum way to quantify speed and as infinite speed . This has led to fanon that in between TOS & TNG, the method of calculating warp speed was changed.
• Easy Amnesia : Nomad claims he's completely erased Uhura's mind, yet she is nearly "re-educated" by the end of the episode. It implies that Nomad didn't actually erase Uhura's memories, but simply blocked her access to them, another strike against the machine's supposed "perfection".
• "Eureka!" Moment : In the final confrontation with Nomad, Kirk, after confirming several times that Nomad will "sterilize" anything that is imperfect or in error without exception, decides to convince the probe that it itself is imperfect, and by its own logic should be eliminated .
• Exact Words : Kirk asks Nomad if he destroyed the system where they found him. He answers truthfully, "Not the 'system', but the biological infestation ."
• Fusion Dance : Spock's mind-meld with Nomad reveals that, after their collision long ago, Nomad and Tan-Ru underwent one of these as they merged and self-repaired. The "new" Nomad kept the Earth probe's name, the alien probe's power and hardware, and a blend of each other's programming (settling on "search out … identify … sterilize imperfections ").
• Gone Horribly Right : Nomad upgrades the Enterprise ' s engines, causing it to reach warp 10 and then warp 15 . However, the ship starts to break down because it is not designed to travel that fast, and so Kirk demands the upgrades reversed.
• Hates Being Touched : Nomad. Trying to touch it is not a good idea. Whether or not this is because it interprets any contact as an attack is not known. It will, however, allow itself to be touched (e.g. by Spock) if Kirk orders it to do so, because it believes that Kirk is its Creator.
• I'm Standing Right Here : Bones is clearly offended when Nomad says that he "functions erratically".
• "It" Is Dehumanizing : Nomad refers to everyone, human or Vulcan, as a "unit".
• It Runs on Nonsensoleum : How Nomad packs so much power into a couple-metres-long probe is never really explained.
• Jewish Mother : Invoked by Kirk, with tongue firmly in cheek, mock-mourning the probe that thought Kirk had created it: "You saw what it did to Scotty. What a doctor it would have made. [beat] My son, the doctor."
• Just Testing You : After Kirk asks Nomad why Nomad refers to him as "The Creator", Spock quickly interrupts, telling Nomad that "The Creator was just testing your memory banks".
• Little "No" : Spock: My congratulations, Captain. A dazzling display of logic. Kirk: You didn't think I had it in me, did you, Spock? Spock: No, sir.
• In the climax, Kirk convinces Nomad that it is itself imperfect by revealing that its creator, Jackson Roykirk, is dead and that Nomad mistook Kirk for him. Then he says that Nomad made another error by not discovering the first error, and then committed a third error by not sterilizing itself after the first two. This sends Nomad into a Villainous Breakdown that leads to its self-destruction.
• Also subverted earlier in the episode. Nomad came to see that Kirk (who it still thought was its Creator) also qualified as an "imperfect" being. When Kirk asked it how an imperfect being could have created a perfect machine, Nomad simply concluded that it had no idea.
• Machine Monotone : Spock slowly takes on this speech pattern as he mind-melds with Nomad, and even as he backs away from the probe, showing the gradual Mind Rape inflicted by the probe's powerful artificial intelligence.
• Spock says "… Nomad … sterilize …" over and over again after a mind meld gone wrong with the probe NOMAD.
• Nomad, after Kirk gives it a Logic Bomb , causing the probe to repeatedly shout "error", "analyze", "examine", "faulty" and so on in a progressively higher and more distorted tone until it self-destructs.
• Mechanical Abomination : Once a simple exploration device, Nomad now wields both the power to raze worlds and a vast, warped intelligence that drives it to kill.
• Mistaken Identity : Nomad thinks Kirk is his creator, Dr. Jackson Roykirk.
• Oh, Crap! : When Kirk, angry over Nomad referring to the redshirts he "sterilized" as "biological units", answers, "I'm a biological unit and I created you!" This confuses Nomad, and Kirk realizes that he was foolish to say it, as it now leaves everyone open to "sterilization".
• Only Mostly Dead : Scotty, but he gets better thanks to Nomad's intervention.
• Only Sane Man : Scotty is the only crew member who objects to bringing a planet-sterilizing superweapon aboard the ship. McCoy , to an extent, is also all kinds of apprehensive.
• Pintsized Powerhouse : Nomad, five hundred kilograms and a metre or two long, can knock out the Enterprise shields with just three blasts.
• Scotty is zapped by Nomad but revived, whereas every other Red Shirt it attacks is completely vaporized.
• Nurse Chapel somehow survives trying to stop Nomad from accessing Kirk's medical records as well, being only stunned. It happened off screen, so we don't know exactly how threatening she was to Nomad.
• Kirk also reveals at one point that he is a "biological unit" and thus imperfect, but his status as the Creator in Nomad's mind means Nomad never seriously tries to "sterilize" him.
• Poke in the Third Eye : The mind-meld with the probe's artificial mind goes seriously wrong, to the point that Spock is sent into a near-catatonic state as Nomad takes control of the meld. Kirk, who Nomad fortunately respects as its "Creator", has to order Nomad to let go of Spock and drag the Vulcan out into the corridor to recover.
• P.O.V. Cam : We get a couple of them from Nomad. Once when he follows a leery Bones to sickbay, and once when he walks off with some disgruntled guards.
• Reaction Shot : When Kirk drops the Logic Bomb , the camera briefly cuts to Nomad; it doesn't visibly react, but one can easily imagine that it's thinking "WTF?" after the Wham Line .
• Red Shirt : One of the highest body counts in the series, as Nomad vaporizes four security guards when he breaks confinement and kills (or at least incapacitates) two others.
• Robo Speak : This is how Nomad talks.
• Nomad mistook James T. Kirk for Jackson Roy kirk , his creator. Strike one.
• Nomad did not immediately discover his mistake and imperfection. Strike two.
• Nomad did not correct by sterilization. Strike THREE and yer' OUT!
• Screen Shake : And it's a doozy, with the entire bridge crew hurled back and forth as Nomad's opening shot hits the shields.
• Significant Name Overlap : It's downplayed, but James T. Kirk and Jackson Roykirk have some naming similarities, such as their first initials and the last (or all) four letters of their surnames. This is enough for Nomad, with its garbled programming, to mistake Kirk for Roykirk as its "Creator", and eventually lead to its own self-destruction after the mistake is clearly identified.
• Snap Back : Uhura is back to normal by the next episode, despite last being seen being taught to read again and only being able to speak Swahili. An earlier draft of the script had Nomad explaining that it had not purged her brain completely — her memories and experiences were intact, but her ability to express language was wiped. This line was probably cut for time. They probably taught her Swahili first because it was her original language. (By the way, she first says Sikumbuka — "I can't remember" — then ina mbwa ni tufe, "the dog has a ball.") The James Blish novelization still has this version.
• Speaks in Binary : Nomad while in space. It later changes to a mathematical message requesting language equivalence.
• This Cannot Be! : Kirk when told the entire population of the system has been destroyed, then when told that Nomad just absorbed the energy of a detonating photon torpedo with no damage.
• Title Drop : When Kirk discusses with Spock the old notion of a changeling — a creature left in place of a baby by the Fair Folk .
• Too Dumb to Live : You would think that after the deaths of the first couple of redshirts , the others would quit firing on the damn thing. But they don't.
• Touched by Vorlons : Nomad's destructive abilities were enhanced after the impact with an alien probe.
• Unexplained Recovery : Scott was tempting fate, wearing that red shirt in every episode. He got better, but at least four other Redshirts weren't so lucky.

• Villainous Breakdown : Kirk's Logic Bomb to Nomad leaves the probe shaking and erratically shouting "Error", "Analyze", "Must sterilize" and variations thereof in a rising and distorted voice, as it builds up to self-destruct.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction : Nomad counts as one, after its fusion with Tan-Ru.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill : Kirk assures Nomad that they mean no harm, moments after firing a photon torpedo at it. And then Nomad, in a major Refuge in Audacity moment, states that its own mission is non-hostile, moments after pummeling the Enterprise with powerful energy bolts.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human? : Inverted. Nomad wants to kill anything that's too human. Spock is spared because he is so much more "orderly" than the human crew members. Spock seems almost flattered to be described as such.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds : Aw, he's just a little lost robot doing what he thinks he was programmed to do!
• Writers Cannot Do Math : The range to Nomad when it is firing at Enterprise is given as 90,000 km, and the plasma bolts are travelling at Warp 15. They shouldn't be taking several seconds to impact, they should be covering that distance in a tiny fraction of a second.

Video Example(s):

Captain kirk and nomad.

Captain Kirk exploits Nomad's belief that it is perfect and programming to eliminate imperfections by pointing out something it overlooked: In mistaking Kirk for its creator, it is itself imperfect, and thus must eliminate itself.

Example of: Logic Bomb

• Star Trek S2 E2 "Who Mourns for Adonais?"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S2 E4 "Mirror, Mirror"

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Galactic Journey

[October 6, 1967] Deus ex Machina ( Star Trek : "Changeling")

Recycling is good practice

We are now three weeks into the second season, and Star Trek continues to impress.  If the season premiere was an episode that could only have existed in the Star Trek universe, last week's and this week's are back to the first season formula of adapted, universal science fiction tales.  Nevertheless, "The Changeling" is a uniquely Trek episode, adding to the depth of the setting and capitalizing on what we know of the characters.

Checking in on the Melurian system, the Enterprise finds that something has wiped out its four billion inhabitants.  Said something then begins shooting at the Enterprise with bolts possessing the power of a whopping 90 photon torpedoes (the fact that the shields can withstand four such hits suggest either the torps are weak sauce or the assailant was at the edge of its range).  After firing on the enemy, Kirk attempts communication; that Kirk didn't try talking first is not inconsistent with his character; he's "a soldier, not a diplomat."

The hail works.  The assailant, barely more than a meter in length, consents to being beamed aboard the Enterprise .  There, it is quickly determined that it is what is left of the 21st Century deep space probe "Nomad", and it thinks Kirk is its creator, Jackson Roy Kirk (perhaps a distant ancestor?)

Nomad is now more than just the next iteration of Mariner spacecraft.  After a collision and merging with the alien probe, Tan Ru , it is now an intelligent, self-aware being with just two motivations: "To seek out and sterilize all that which is not perfect" and to impress his creator, "The Kirk."  Nomad “fixes” the Enterprise so it can go Warp 11, popping all of the Enterprise's rivets.  It kills Scotty, then brings him back to life.

More chillingly, it zaps four security guards out of existence (to be fair, they fired first).  It gives Uhura a kind of stroke, temporarily cutting her off from her advanced knowledge.  And when Kirk concedes that he is an imperfect biological unit, Nomad resolves to go back home to Earth–and wipe out all imperfection.  He is only stopped when Kirk, in "a dazzling display of logic", makes Nomad aware of its own imperfections, ordering it to self-destruct, which it does.

There's nothing in this episode we haven't seen or heard before.  The naive, all-powerful presence taken aboard the Enterprise , kept in check solely by a tenuous parent-worship of Captain Kirk, is the same plot as "Charlie X".  Kirk already defeated a computer with logic in "Return of the Archons."  All of the action takes place on the Enterprise , and much of the music is recycled from the prior two episodes.

And yet, this may be my favorite episode of the season thus far.  Not only do we learn some interesting things about Terran history (we now have a tentative timeline – from the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s to the first warp-powered probes of the early 21st Century), but the episode depends in large part on things that have already been established about the characters we've come to love.

Nomad is intrigued by Uhura because of her singing, and we get to see her speaking Swahili again, too.  Scotty gets himself killed defending her (we learned last episode that Scotty's brain short circuits where women are concerned).  Spock uses his mind-touch on Nomad (and aren't there all kinds of interesting ramifications from that ).  Kirk is better than ever at beating computers–his defeat of Nomad was far more logical and satisfying than his victory over Landru.

I found Kirk's performance more understated this episode, which I appreciated, and Nimoy was excellent as usual.  I also appreciated the return to a more ensemble approach, with heavy focus on Uhura, Chapel, Scotty, and McCoy.  If there was only one bobble in tone, it was Kirk's (admittedly funny) line about lamenting the loss of Nomad, his son, the doctor.  Given the loss of four billion Melurians and four of his crew, one would think Kirk would be a touch more somber.

Those are quibbles, though.  Four stars.

The Truth will set you free

I find large numbers to be amazing things.  We as human beings have developed ways to express and manipulate numbers that are vaster than we have the ability to conceive of.  I myself can mentally picture 10 bowling pins, 100 sheets of typing paper, and a jar of 1000 pennies.  Ten thousand, one hundred thousand, and even one million are numbers that inspire awe.  How about four billion?  Imagine you line up everyone on earth, you would be 500 million short of four billion!  This week’s episode of Star Trek left me with a question that needs to be answered.  How do you kill four billion people?

I don't mean the physical means by which he brought this about.  Each of Nomad's bolts packs a 90-photon torpedo wallop.  I mean how does Nomad, an intelligent thinking machine, kill four billion people?  I look at Star Trek as a mirror being held up to the audience.  With the writers holding up that mirror and saying, “This is what we look like.” Therefore, the question also is, how do we as intelligent thinking beings kill hundreds, thousands, and even millions of people?  The answer to both questions is the same.  You believe a lie.

Nomad believed that it was perfect.  That its creator was perfect.  That the mission in its memory tapes were perfect.  Nomad took that belief as a given.  So, anything that didn’t fit within its own understanding should be wiped clean.  We saw this when Nomad encountered a singing Uhura and erased her mind.  Since Nomad was perfect any action it took was ultimately justifiable, so any resistance to it should be eliminated, which was the case of the four guards and Scotty.  All of which died.  Along the same lines, any being that does not meet his level of perfection is an infestation which must be eliminated.  We were told about four billion examples of that, with the promise of more to come.

By Nomad’s actions we see our own human condition.  When we believe the lie that we are better than those around us, that those who are not like us are below us, we find justification to ignore them.  Those who we can’t ignore we remove.  Those we don’t understand or agree with we erase.  Those not like you are not human, so killing them is justified, because those “things” are a useless infestation.  My friends, we believe such lies and commit these acts upon other humans.

In the end, Nomad was undone by the truth.  When it learned the truth that it was not perfect, Nomad stayed consistent with its other beliefs and ended its own existence.  How do humans respond when they are exposed to the truth?  Perhaps a future episode of Star Trek will provide that answer.  I cannot.  Since like you, I am afflicted with my own deck of lies that guide my own beliefs.

Overall, this was another exciting and thought-provoking episode which makes my Thursday nights most enjoyable.  Not perfect by any means, but a worthy addition to this wonderful program.

"The Nomad who Wandered Got Lost"

As a self-confessed robot-a-phile, I felt the need to take a second pass at this episode to fully understand its protagonist. After listening to the audio tapes I made of the episode, I found that the understanding I gained left me unsettled.

The concept I found most disconcerting is that, despite the fact that it wiped out an entire solar system's worth of people, to hate Nomad would be as unreasonable as hating a child. Though it is powerful, ancient, sophisticated, and sentient to boot, Nomad is frequently compared to a child. The fact that this episode is called "The Changeling" implies that it is a lost child robbed of its intended destiny. Much like a child whose birth kills its mother, it gains sentience by being cruelly ripped from the void, forced to survive the trauma of its birth while destroying the only witness to its initiation of life. To assuage its survivor's guilt after the entanglement with the alien probe, it seeks to validate its existence with the hastily slapped together objectives from the partial data stores of two damaged probes, with predictably disastrous results. It may kill people, but only in the way a Changeling child might if given immense power and no moral guidance.

The other concept that left me with "insufficient data to resolve problem" was how easily Nomad was compelled to merge two peaceful objectives into one murderous one. In Spock’s words, "Nomad was a thinking machine, the best that could be engineered" and yet that same intellect made it unable to live up to its own standards. In trying to explain its sentience in a literal vacuum, it uses its 'perfection' to explain why a lowly soil sterilization probe was sacrificed to preserve its function. In honoring that sacrifice by incorporating "the other's" programming, it is then faced with the impossible task of applying a local objective onto a global scale. To make its task more manageable, it translates 'sterilize your environment' to "sterilize imperfections." This way, it avoids failing its objective and admitting that its pursuit of perfection is internally flawed. When Kirk exposes this flaw, Nomad's inability to reconcile it was probably the most human reaction I've ever seen. I tip my hat to the kind of writing that could make me wonder if self-destruction is in the nature of an inquisitive mind.

This episode lost points, however, when it came to Uhura's subplot. I initially had a visceral reaction to her re-training scene. The way they talk to her while teaching her to read is not the way you talk to a stroke victim re-learning language, it's how you speak to a child learning language for the first time. I bristled at the nurse's condescending praise and saw it as an insult to Uhura’s intelligence. Listening through the second time, however, softened my perspective. By including Uhura’s outburst in Swahili, and the nurse's comment that Uhura "seems to have an aptitude for mathematics," it was apparent that there was most likely no malicious agenda to make Nichols look stupid. More than likely the purpose of the scene was to say 'Gee English sure is a silly language.' While not being as offensive as I originally thought, it's still disappointing and doesn't hold up to the standard set by the writing of the rest of the episode (strong enough to still get four stars).

The next episode of Trek is TONIGHT! It doesn't look like we're in Kansas anymore…

Here's an invitation. Come join us!

3 thoughts on “[October 6, 1967] Deus ex Machina ( Star Trek : "Changeling")”

This was a very good episode. I think I liked "Amok Time" more and a couple of episodes last season, but if this one isn't in my top 5 of Star Trek episodes to date, then it's number 6.

There are certainly problems, especially with Uhura's retraining, as Amber notes. It's especially bad if you take Nomad's assertion that her memory banks had been wiped clean. That would mean the Uhura we have come to know no longer exists. Treating her condition as something akin to a stroke where she has to relearn how to access those memories at least means she's still the same person.

Kirk's lines at the end also seem rather out of place. A bit of gallows humor, perhaps; a means of coping with the immense loss of life. But the double punchline is too much. Ending with "My son, the doctor" would have been better. Not much, but some. They could have found the 10 or 15 seconds they needed to round out the time somewhere else.

The rest of the writing is pretty good. Nimoy's performance during the mind meld was excellent and beefed up by some very good direction from Marc Daniels. The way he swings around Nomad after reaching the point where Nomad and the Other merged was incredibly effective. Good direction from Daniels elsewhere, too, as usual. Some of those shots from right behind Nomad as it moved through the ship were disturbing.

Finally, a quibble for the Traveler. From the way everyone pronounced it, I believe Nomad's creator was Jackson Roykirk, not Jackson Roy Kirk. So probably not a relative.

Error?  Error?  Malfunction!  Must… ana-lyze…

Not much to add except that this was well worth watching,

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction

Constable Odo's 10 Best Star Trek: DS9 Episodes

• Odo's best DS9 episodes focus on criminal investigations, his origins, and ideological clashes with Changeling Founders.
• Odo's relationships with Quark and Kira define many episodes, showcasing his softer side and developing romantic connections.
• Odo's characterization shines in episodes like "The Begotten" and "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" with emotional depth.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's best episodes about Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois) focus on his criminal investigations, the search for his origins, and his ideological clash with the Changeling Founders. Played by acclaimed actor Rene Auberjonois, Odo's best episodes of DS9 are characterized by some incredible acting, delivered from underneath heavy layers of prosthetics . Across seven seasons, the beloved Star Trek: DS9 character had to grapple with prejudice, unrequited love, and the sins of his past in episodes that showcased the thematic heft of the Star Trek: The Next Generation spinoff.

Odo's relationships with Quark (Armin Shimerman) and Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) also define many of the Constable's best Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes . As DS9's Chief of Security, Odo was the perfect foil for the Ferengi bartender, but Quark and Odo's rivalry had an undercurrent of mutual respect that bordered on affection . Odo also had a close friendship with Kira, formed by a fateful moment from years earlier. Odo and Kira's friendship eventually developed into a romantic relationship, and that progression can be seen in some of the Constable's best DS9 episodes.

Every Star Trek: DS9 Episode Directed By Rene Auberjonois

Star trek: ds9 season 1, episode 17, "the forsaken", teleplay by don carlos dunaway & michael piller, story by jim trombetta.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 1, episode 17, "The Forsaken" is one of the more successful DS9 and Star Trek: The Next Generation crossover episodes . The episode paired up the unlikely duo of Constable Odo and Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett) for a two-hander that revealed the insecurities of both characters. Odo's relationship with Lwaxana allowed DS9 's gruff Chief of Security to show his softer and more vulnerable side , improving the character as a result.

In the episode, the incorrigible Lwaxana Troi falls in love with Odo, and tries to woo the irascible Constable. Lwaxana's attempts are hindered by an alien intelligence that saps Deep Space Nine's power, stranding her in a lift with Odo. "The Forsaken" was one of Rene Auberjonois' favorite episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Discussing the episode in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion , Auberjonois stated that:

" It helped to establish Odo and give him more dimension than he'd had up to that point "

Star Trek: DS9, Season 7, Episode 22, "Tacking into the Wind"

Written by ronald d. moore.

"Tacking into the Wind" is one of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's best Worf episodes , as it primarily focuses on his attempts to bring Chancellor Gowron (Robert O'Reilly) into line. However, there's also some very strong and emotional material for Odo and Kira as the morphogenic virus continues to ravage the Changeling's system . Kira, Odo, and Garak (Andrew Robinson) are sent on a dangerous mission to retrieve information about a devastating Breen weapon.

By infecting Odo, Section 31 effectively prove the Founders' belief that the "Solids" are barbaric and cruel.

Odo's determination to continue the mission despite his worsening health is heartbreaking. However, it speaks to the strength of Odo's character that he never lets Section 31's betrayal cloud his feelings about the "Solids". By infecting Odo, Section 31 effectively prove the Founders' belief that the "Solids" are barbaric and cruel , but despite the cruelty meted out to him by Section 31, Odo knows that it's wrong to reduce all of Starfleet to the actions of some rogue operatives.

Section 31s 5 Worst Crimes During Star Trek DS9s Dominion War

Star trek: ds9, season 7, episode 6, "treachery, faith and the great river", teleplay by david weddle & bradley thompson, story by philip kim.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , season 7, episode 6, "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" explores Odo's status as a god . Odo is shocked to discover that Weyoun ( Jeffrey Combs ) wishes to defect from the Dominion to the Federation. However, the Dominion and the Cardassians are determined that Odo and Weyoun 6 never return to DS9.

What follows is an exciting prisoner transport thriller that also tackles some big themes around religious belief. "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" showcases Odo's courage under fire , as he tries every trick in the book to avoid the combined forces of the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar. Weyoun 6 eventually sacrifices his life to save Odo in the episode's heartbreaking climax, forcing the Changeling to confront how his people have turned themselves into deities.

Star Trek: DS9, Season 3, Episode 14, "Heart of Stone"

Written by ira steven behr & robert hewitt wolfe.

For the majority of "Heart of Stone", Odo believes that Kira has become trapped in an expanding silicon rock formation. The more the formation increases in size, the more it consumes Kira, slowly crushing her to death. Tragically, Odo realizes that he's not trying to save the real Kira when the Major professes her love for him , revealing that it's an elaborate ruse by the Female Changeling (Salome Jens).

"Heart of Stone" is a great Odo episode because the impossible situation forces him to confront, and finally vocalize, his feelings for Kira . That journey is fascinating to watch, and Rene Auberjonois' performance of Odo, recognizing that he's been duped, is incredible. Veering from pragmatism about how Kira sees him as a friend to fury at the Female Changeling's plan, it's exactly the sort of multi-faceted performance that audiences have come to expect from Rene Auberjonois at this point in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

Nana Visitor wasn't a fan of the rock prop in "Heart of Stone", telling the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion that it made her look " like a big old hot fudge sundae ".

DS9's 7 Best Love Stories & Romances Ranked

Star trek: ds9, season 2, episode 12, "the alternate", teleplay by bill dial, story by jim trombetti and bill dial.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 12, "The Alternate" is an early episode that sheds more light on Odo's origins. It introduces the character of Dr. Mora Pol (James Sloyan), the Bajoran scientist who first discovered Odo in his liquid form . Dr. Mora believes that he's found clues as to where Odo originated from, but their research mission is cut short when the away team are stricken by some noxious gas, triggered by the removal of an ancient monument. The gas also has an adverse effect on Odo, turning him into a terrifying monster.

[Odo] comes to realize that this problematic scientist is actually the closest thing he's ever had to a father figure.

"The Alternate" is a brilliant take on Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde , that gives Odo actor Rene Auberjonois some challenging material to perform. The scenes between Odo and Mora are incredibly powerful, as the Changeling comes to realize that this problematic scientist is actually the closest thing he's ever had to a father figure. The scene in which Odo implies that he doesn't trust Mora while becoming the monster is an incredible moment .

Star Trek: DS9, Season 6, Episode 20, "His Way"

Written by ira steven behr & hans beimler.

When Odo hears that holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine (James Darren) gave Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) some helpful pointers on love, he decides to seek the singer's advice about Kira. Fontaine helps to bring Odo out of his shell, turning him into a suave pianist, while also making him more at ease socially. Eventually, Vic orchestrates a first date for Kira and Odo, albeit under false pretenses .

"His Way" was the first appearance of Vic Fontaine in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

By showing a completely new side of Odo in "His Way", Star Trek: Deep Space Nine showrunner Ira Steven Behr and writer Hans Beimler make this one of the character's best episodes. The transition from the drab brown Bajoran security uniform into a sharp tuxedo is a hugely positive one for Odo , not least because it finally allows Kira to see just how charismatic and charming he can actually be.

Nana Visitor and Rene Auberjonois never wanted Kira and Odo to become a couple in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , preferring their bond to be purely platonic.

Star Trek: DS9, Season 5, Episode 12, "The Begotten"

Written by rené echevarria.

For the first half of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Odo is turned into a "Solid" . It's fascinating to see how Odo contends with the frailty of a humanoid body, but it's equally fascinating to see how this plot thread is resolved. After he buys an ailing Changeling infant from Quark, Odo teams up with Doctors Bashir and Maura to cure the sick child and teach it to shapeshift. Odo becomes a doting father, and it's a strong sequel to "The Alternate", as he seeks to avoid the mistakes made by his own surrogate father.

Tragically, the infant Changeling in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is too sick to live, but it does give Odo a parting gift. By bonding with the infant, Odo regains his shapeshifting abilities, giving him a renewed sense of purpose. It's a touching metaphor for parenthood that finally allows Odo and Mora Pol to reconcile their differences. "The Begotten" is a standout episode for Rene Auberjonois in a strong season for the character of Odo .

Star Trek: DS9, Season 5, Episode 9, "The Ascent"

"The Ascent" is the best Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode about Quark and Odo's antagonistic relationship. Transporting Quark to testify against the Orion Syndicate, Odo's runabout explodes and strands the two old enemies on a barren planet. Watching Odo and Quark work together to survive is an absolute joy , and Rene Auberjonois gets some fine opportunities to deploy his dry wit. The scene in which Odo requests his ashes be tossed into his bucket and launched into the Gamma Quadrant is darkly funny.

The final scene of "The Ascent" is one of the best moments, as it sees Odo and Quark come closer than ever to telling each other how they feel. While they both say they hate each other, it's very clear from their laughter that the two Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters love each other. "The Ascent" is also a great Odo episode because it shows a new side to him, as he has to deal with the fragility of his humanoid body , succumbing to the cold and breaking his leg.

Star Trek: DS9, Season 5, Episode 8 "Things Past"

Written by michael taylor.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5 has two classic Odo episodes in a row, as "The Ascent" is preceded by "Things Past". The episode sends Odo, Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) and Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) back in time to when DS9 was Terok Nor . They're forced to live through a brutal tragedy from Odo's past, when he accidentally condemned three Bajoran men to death .

Rene Auberjonois is excellent as a repentant Odo, who is realizing with gut-churning inevitability what's about to happen. The final scene, in which Odo and Kira discuss his culpability in the execution is a quietly devastating exchange between the two friends. "Things Past" is, therefore, a spiritual sequel to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Necessary Evil" , which revealed how Odo and Kira first met.

Star Trek: DS9, Season 2, Episode 8, "Necessary Evil"

Written by peter allan fields.

"Necessary Evil" is the best Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode about Odo , because it firmly establishes the Constable's moral code. While investigating the attempted murder of Quark, Odo discovers that the crime is linked to his first case. Through flashbacks, "Necessary Evil" reveals how Odo came to Terok Nor, employed by Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) as a security officer. Tasked with investigating the murder of a Bajoran collaborator, Odo was unable to close the case, letting the killer walk free.

The killer is revealed to be Major Kira Nerys, and in one of the most complicated scenes in all of Star Trek , Odo and Kira contend with this new information. It's a crucial episode in Odo's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine story. Not only does it establish his origins as Chief of Security, it also reveals the depth of Odo's relationship with Kira, and how it's strong enough to weather the storm of her past crimes.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Cast Cirroc Lofton, Rene Auberjonois, Nicole de Boer, Michael Dorn, Nana Visitor, Avery Brooks, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Alexander Siddig

Release Date January 3, 1993

Network CBS

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Showrunner Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller

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• Star Trek Series | 2364 - 2378
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Could Martia from Star Trek VI have been a changeling?

• Thread starter parrot999
• Start date Jul 1, 2015
• Jul 1, 2015

So, I recently rewatched Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and think it is a really good, and criminally underrated film, which thematically and structurewise matches up with Deep Space Nine, a similarly criminally underrated series. From the tone and political focus, to the much more character focused story telling, and the heavy themes of internal conflict, the final original series movie has a lot in common with DS9. But anyways, it also set up a bit of lore that has relevence to DS9. The idea that shapeshifters are believed to be a myth by most civilizations. Something Kirk remarks to the shapeshifter, Martia. So my question is, could Martia have been a changeling? Possibly one of the hundred? She claimed to be a chameloid when confronted by Kirk, but if she was one of the hundred she wouldn't know about her true species and would likely come up with her own species name like Laas did. Also, she appeared to have a slightly viscous fluid-like appearance when changing form, though far more simplistic than the 3D rendered effect on DS9... What are you guys' thoughts?  

No. Colonel West however...  

Fleet Admiral

Well, there are discrepancies in how a young Changeling like Odo behaves, and how Martia does. But Changelings are specifically known for their ability to look like something else, so there is no telling! Say, the ability not to glow like the DS9 Changelings do while changing form would be a necessary skill for any adult Changeling trying to impersonate a top officer in the paranoid Romulan intelligence service, for months at an end... True, we have never seen a DS9 Changeling swap form without the glowing thing - but then again, a Changeling swapping form in front of the cameras is usually one already exposed, and in no further need of pretending (the form-swap is to facilitate escape into the air, through an air vent, or the like). But where is this inborn "sense of justice" (that is, need to dominate) that Odo and Laas had even without knowing who they were? Does Martia run the prison camp through manipulating the warden (that is, does he call her "Constable")? Does she sort out the alien scum into those who live and those who die? Or does she just drink a lot due to her disdain of solid food? And does she really need to cooperate with the Klingons in order to regain her freedom, what with being a more skilled shapeshifter than Odo ever became? Timo Saloniemi  

SpocksOddSocks

Fleet captain.

Karzak said: No. Colonel West however... Click to expand...

One oddity of ST VI is that Kirk and McCoy act as though they've never encountered a shape-shifter before, and have only heard rumors of such things, despite, say, Captain Garth, who supposedly learned the secret of molecular transformation for some exotic alien race known to the Federation. There was also the Salt Vampire, although that was more about projecting a telepathic illusion than actual shape-shifting since it appeared different to different people at the same time ....  

It can be argued whether Garth could really change his shape, or just create the impression of this happening like the Salt Vampire and several other illusionists did - but such hair-splitting shouldn't affect Kirk's perception on whether Martia was an all-new phenomenon or not! Martia had not demonstrated any "true" shapeshifting (such as the trick of becoming physically smaller and thus slipping out of that shackle) yet when Kirk colored himself impressed... But Kirk would know that a) Martia was not a Salt Vampire (he had Crater's expert opinion that those were extinct), and that b) Garth was not a species. And Kirk is in the business of running into exotic alien things that are mostly the same from week to week, so he would have learned to be discerning. Timo Saloniemi  

Timo said: It can be argued whether Garth could really change his shape, or just create the impression of this happening like the Salt Vampire and several other illusionists did - but such hair-splitting shouldn't affect Kirk's perception on whether Martia was an all-new phenomenon or not! Martia had not demonstrated any "true" shapeshifting (such as the trick of becoming physically smaller and thus slipping out of that shackle) yet when Kirk colored himself impressed... But Kirk would know that a) Martia was not a Salt Vampire (he had Crater's expert opinion that those were extinct), and that b) Garth was not a species. And Kirk is in the business of running into exotic alien things that are mostly the same from week to week, so he would have learned to be discerning. Timo Saloniemi Click to expand...

Mr. Laser Beam

Martia said that it takes a lot of effort to change shape. Most Founders find it easy to do. (Odo has a hard time mimicking one specific shape - the human face - but otherwise he doesn't look like he's struggling.) And I'm sure Martia really is changing shape, otherwise she wouldn't have needed to turn into a little girl just to get out of the chains like we see her do. And as they're climbing up out of the tunnels, she changes shape a couple of times there too. So I think it's not just mental. As for Odo's sense of justice, there's an interesting tidbit put forth in the recent novel Disavowed ... Spoiler: novel It suggests that the mirror universe Founders are like Odo - they have their own Dominion but they run it much more fairly, are not worshipped as gods, and are even subject to Dominion law. Some wonder whether the Mirror Odo is actually from the regular universe, and the reverse...our Odo might be from the MU.  

2takesfrakes

Rear admiral.

Martia was very cool and I wouldn't have minded seeing her come back to STAR TREK as a distant relation, or just another shape-shifter who happens to look like her. I'd say "yes," she's a changeling and a missed opportunity. They should've brought her "back" in true STAR TREK fashion, some way, to further her adventures. And her love for cigars was very cute. I would not be at all surprised if she, herself, only lit up for "the look." I doubt it was supposed to have an effect on her ...  

Christopher

Greg Cox said: One oddity of ST VI is that Kirk and McCoy act as though they've never encountered a shape-shifter before, and have only heard rumors of such things, despite, say, Captain Garth, who supposedly learned the secret of molecular transformation for some exotic alien race known to the Federation. Click to expand...

But Garth was said to have learned the art of "cellular metamorphosis" from the Antosians, who presumably knew it as well. Click to expand...

In general, this was a pretty common trope on TOS: Everything they ran into was "like nothing we've ever encountered before!" Just once, I wanted Spock to report "peculiar energy readings, not unlike the ones we recorded at Beta Alpha VI. Possible some manner of non-corporeal life-form . . . of the sort we've encountered several times before?" Kirk: "Again?"  

What always got me was TNG's "Where Silence Has Lease," where they came upon a zone of darkness in space that was uncannily similar to the zone of darkness from "The Immunity Syndrome" (albeit a bit cloudier and bluer), and Data explicitly stated that no Starfleet vessel had ever encountered anything even remotely similar. Although, knowing what I know now about Roddenberry's intentions to divorce TNG from TOS as much as possible and make it something of a soft reboot, I wonder if that was a deliberate repudiation of the past rather than just forgetfulness. Maybe GR thought the idea of a giant space amoeba was too silly, so he wanted to write it out of history. Then again, TOS did occasionally have moments of continuity that were unusual for the '60s -- like in "By Any Other Name," where D.C. Fontana not only brought back the energy barrier at the galactic edge, but had Kirk remind Spock of the mind-touch trick he used to escape a cell on Eminiar VII.  

• Jul 2, 2015

I think it is also a fair thing to assume that the writers on the various Star Trek shows probably don't keep track of the obscure details about previous episodes quite as religiously as we, the fans, do.  

Christopher said: ...Roddenberry's intentions to divorce TNG from TOS as much as possible and make it something of a soft reboot... Click to expand...

JWPlatt said: Christopher said: ...Roddenberry's intentions to divorce TNG from TOS as much as possible and make it something of a soft reboot... Click to expand...

Karzak said: I think it is also a fair thing to assume that the writers on the various Star Trek shows probably don't keep track of the obscure details about previous episodes quite as religiously as we, the fans, do. Click to expand...

Greg Cox said: Karzak said: I think it is also a fair thing to assume that the writers on the various Star Trek shows probably don't keep track of the obscure details about previous episodes quite as religiously as we, the fans, do. Click to expand...

MacLeod said: Quite true, however times change, so is today's audiance less willing to forgive continuity errors between episodes? Or has a change occured at one point you had to wait for a re-run to rewatch an episode. Today you can buy it on DVD/BR or as a digital download or stream it. Viewing habits have changed with DVR's meaning you could record weeks of episodes and watch them all one lazy afternoon. Click to expand...

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A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

• Memory Beta articles sourced from games
• Changelings
• Memory Beta articles sourced from novelizations
• Memory Beta articles sourced from novellas
• Gamma Quadrant races and cultures
• Races and cultures
• Non-humanoid species
• Dominion races and cultures
• 1.1 Biology
• 1.2 Culture
• 1.3 History
• 2.1 See also
• 3.1 Appearances
• 3.2.1 References
• 3.3 External links

History and specifics [ ]

Biology [ ].

They were noted for their capacity to alter their form to levels that were beyond that of similar shape changing species such as the Wraith , Vendorian and Chameloid races. ( TLE novel : Night of the Wolves ) In their most basic state Changelings resemble a golden translucent liquid. ( DS9 episode : " The Search ") This gelatinous substance which was held in a morphogenic matrix that activated into different shapes and textures through the use of a special enzyme. This allowed a Changeling to adopt any shape and texture that they desired so long as they studied the shape long enough. They were unable to mimic an object through a simple glance and were required to see enough of the item or person they wished to copy in order to perfectly take its form. But, by doing so, they were able to create a sophisticated facsimile of flesh and matter; allowing them to even take on clothing. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens ) Changelings can take on almost any form; liquid, solid, gas and even plasma such as flames. Their abilities are limited mainly by their mass: they comfortably take on humanoid forms, but can also take the forms of things somewhat larger, and a great deal smaller. ( DS9 episode : " The Search ") The level of mimicry was so accurate that no known scanning technology was able to detect a Changeling once it had adopted a chosen form. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens ) When a Changeling takes a form - such as a rock - Federation scanners would read the Changeling as a rock. ( DS9 episode : " The Adversary ")

However, any piece of the mimicked item that was separated from the main body such as blood samples reverted back to their gelatinous state. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens ) Any portion of a Changeling's body that becomes separated from the main body reverts back to its natural state. The fact that a person was bleeding was often accepted as proof that a person was not a Changeling as if they were their blood would've reverted to its natural state. ( DS9 episodes : " The Adversary ", " The Way of the Warrior ", " Homefront "). Furthermore, phaser 's that were set on heavy stun were able to force a Changeling to revert to its natural form, although if they were able to shift their surfaces, with enough warning to a mirror-like finish, they could become immune to phaser fire. ( DS9 novel : The Siege ) In addition, a Changeling that was killed also changed back to its true shape. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens ) In addition, a special quantum stasis field was capable of preventing a Changeling from altering their form. ( DS9 episode : " The Die is Cast ")

Whilst they were capable shapeshifters, a Changeling was required to revert to its liquid state every sixteen hours to regenerate. ( DS9 episode : " The Search ") At such a time, they had to spend at least a single hour a day to revert back to its gelatinous form whereupon they rested and rejuvenated. They were able to resist this for a limited amount of time but they would eventually forcibly revert against their will and be unable to take a shape until they had rested. Some Changelings were capable of withstanding this reversion longer than others with some being noted as being able to last a week before changing back to their gelatinous state. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens )

Changelings often had an intense desire to merge together and join the Great Link ; typically this was at least once a week if not more frequently. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens ) In order to accomplish this, they simply reverted to their liquid based form and merged together whereupon a link was established as their forms blended together. ( DS9 episode : " The Search, Part II ") Only foundlings were usually able to resist this urge which was due to the fact that they had been raised without knowing of the Link and thus retained some degree of individuality. This was often an alien concept to the other members of the Great Link. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens ) As such, they often thought of a single member of their race as a drop in a larger ocean and thus saw little sense in individual identity. ( DS9 episode : " The Search, Part II ")

The morphogenic matrix of a Changeling was not perfect and it was capable of suffering from instabilities that could threaten their lives. A Changeling was able to be infected by disease and could spread this instability to the rest of their race through the Link thus threatening the entire species with such an ailment. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens )

The thoughts and emotions of Changelings could not be read by telepathic races such as the Betazoids . ( DS9 episode : " Fascination ") They were also able to survive in the vacuum of space, and were highly resistant to disruptor fire. ( DS9 episodes : " Chimera ", " Apocalypse Rising ") The unique nature of the species meant that they were resistant to Borg assimilation . A Changeling was simply able to compress themselves and eject any nanoprobes within herself without any ill effects to them being seen. ( DS9 - Mission Gamma novel : Lesser Evil )

Culture [ ]

Changelings, especially those that made up the Founders, had a strong desire for order and discipline. They abhorred chaos and sought to control it by oppressing the races that foment it. Initially, they were a race of explorers that long ago had a natural curiosity that made them search the galaxy; however, relentless persecution and suspicion over their shape-changing abilities have made the Changelings a bitter species. They were noted as being one of the most secretive of races in the universe due to their natural distrust of Solids, the mono-form species that have persecuted them for centuries. Thus, they remained out of sight from all but their genetically engineered minions, the Vorta and Jem'Hadar , who worshiped them as gods.

A typical Changeling did not form an equal relationship with a member of another species as they were often a race apart with Solids. Being badly spurned by humanoids, Changelings were normally too bitter to ever trust the Solids. Thus, they found solace amongst their own kind, for only they could join them in forming the Great Link. It was even long said that no Changeling had ever harmed another, which was another reason for this explicit trust in their own kind.

Despite their mistrust of other races, the Changelings still maintained their curiosity of the universe around them. Thus they sent a Hundred infant members of their kind into the galaxy in order to learn more about it by being raised by Solids. However, they were also implanted with a desire to return home and share their experiences with the Great Link. Most of these foundlings often found their way back home where they joined their society willingly; abandoning their past lives along with the friends in order to share in the communal life of the Great Link. These young Changelings were sometimes victims of persecution amongst the races they ended up living with and their experiences often reinforced the Great Link desire to rule the Solids rather than be allowed to be hurt by them. Changelings rarely argued with one another and readily conceded their views to another's greater wisdom or insight. If there was ever any doubt then they simply Linked with one another and through the merger their thoughts and forms became one. In this state, it was easily determined he was fit to lead in a given situation.

Changelings were keen observers of solid behavior. This was not only due to their natural curiosity but also due to their need to protect themselves for they had to understand those they had to enforce order on or otherwise lose control over them. By deeply understanding a species and having intimate knowledge of them, a Changeling was capable of assuming a false identity amongst them with ease. Their time amongst these species does not color their views for deep down they understand that all solids are driven by fear and misunderstanding thus eventually leading them to turn on the Changelings if their existence were truly known. Thus, ironically, by attempting to defend themselves from persecution, the Changelings had become the very beings that Solids had feared.

Within the Dominion, the Changelings that make up the Founders know all the languages of their subject races. Thus, they knew Dominion Standard , Vorta and Jem'Hadar. The infiltrator Changeling also adopted the languages of the cultures they were targeting. Ultimately, however, Changelings had no need for language for their own and instead linked with one another giving them a greater level of communication than words could ever give them. The lack of a spoken language meant also that they typically did not have names for they had no need for them. However, in an attempt to better operate amongst Solids, a Changeling will adopt a name for themselves. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens )

History [ ]

The origin of the Changelings was unknown though according to the Female Changeling they were once a monoform based species until they evolved. According to the elderly Changeling Indurane , their race begun with a semi mythical being called the Progenitor which created the universe and everything in it according to their beliefs. This entity was noted to have taken a population of "solids" and imbued them with its own malleable characteristics which led to the creation of the Great Link. After which, the creature departed known space leaving the Changelings incapable of reproducing, though with lengthy life spans. ( DS9 novels : The Dominion: Olympus Descending , Warpath )

The race embarked on a period of exploration of the galaxy due to their natural curiosity. However, they found themselves hunted and killed by distrustful solids who feared their shapeshifting abilities. Thus, the population of Changelings came together on an unnamed planet in the Gamma Quadrant and called themselves the Founders . This group thus sought a chance to protect themselves by dominating the solids that would wish them harm. In order to accomplish this, they formed a mighty empire called the Dominion which they ruled as gods. ( DS9 episode : " The Search ") One Changeling was noted to have been wounded on an unknown world whilst being chased by an angry mob of solids. This Changeling was given shelter and cared for by a family of small primates and in gratitude the Changeling promised the creatures that they would be part of a mighty empire in the stars. Those primates were genetically engineered to become the Vorta who became important administrators of this empire. ( DS9 episode : " Treachery, Faith, and the Great River ") Similarly, the Jem'Hadar were genetically engineered to serve as the enforcers and soldiers of the Founders' will. ( Decipher RPG module : Aliens )

Prior to and during the Dominion War the Federation and its allies used blood screenings in an attempt to ferret out Changelings. However screenings proved to not be very effective. The Martok Changeling cut himself and allowed blood to pool on Deep Space 9's wardroom table to make Captain Benjamin Sisko and Major Kira Nerys believe that he was actually General Martok . The Changeling that replaced Dr. Bashir remained undetected until the real Bashir escaped, despite blood screenings and other countermeasures. Joseph Sisko offered the opinion that Founders on infiltration missions would maintain a supply of real blood within them to use in such instances. ( DS9 episodes : " The Adversary ", " The Way of the Warrior ", " Homefront ", " By Inferno's Light ")

The majority of the Changelings that made up the Great Link nearly faced extinction when they were infected with a morphogenic virus by a secret intelligence wing within the United Federation of Planets which was called Section 31 . They intended to wipe out the Founders and end the threat posed by the Dominion by committing genocide and accomplished this by infecting Deep Space 9 security chief Odo with the virus in order for him to serve as a carrier for the disease. However, he was eventually cured by the efforts of Doctor Julian Bashir and Odo eventually cured the Female Changeling thus saving the race from extinction as well as ending the Dominion War. ( DS9 episodes : " Extreme Measures ", " What You Leave Behind ")

In 2376 , a Changeling was left stranded on a world after her vessel crashed onto the unnamed planet. When the USS Defiant led by Captain Elias Vaughn came to rescue her they noticed that an assimilated Borg vessel was on the planet as well. The drone attempted to assimilate the Founder but she simply compressed herself and the nanoprobes whereupon she ejected a ball of nanoprobes with no ill effects to herself. ( DS9 - Mission Gamma novel : Lesser Evil ) In the same year, the Changelings attempted to coax the Progenitor to return to them but witnessed its death at the hands of the Ascendants . Consumed with guilt over sending the Hundred away, the Changelings dispersed and decided to live in isolation, even from their own kind. This left only a small number of the race left behind to continue leading the Dominion. ( DS9 novels : The Dominion: Olympus Descending , Warpath )

By 2380 , Steven Levy , a conspiracy theorist, didn't believe that the Changelings actually existed. ( LD episode : " No Small Parts ")

Known Changelings [ ]

• Andrew Ellis (Changeling)
• Female Changeling (mirror)
• Julian Bashir (changeling)
• Lovok (changeling)
• Martok (changeling)
• Moon (Changeling)
• Odo (mirror)
• Skrain Dukat (changeling)
• Theodore Krajensky (changeling)

See also [ ]

• Allasomorph

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

• DS9 episode : " Emissary "
• DS9 episode : " Past Prologue "
• DS9 episode : " A Man Alone "
• DS9 episode : " Babel "
• DS9 episode : " Captive Pursuit "
• DS9 episode : " Q-Less "
• DS9 episode : " Dax "
• DS9 episode : " The Passenger "
• DS9 episode : " Move Along Home "
• DS9 episode : " The Nagus "
• DS9 episode : " Vortex "
• DS9 episode : " Battle Lines "
• DS9 episode : " The Storyteller "
• DS9 episode : " Progress "
• DS9 episode : " If Wishes Were Horses "
• DS9 episode : " The Forsaken "
• DS9 episode : " Dramatis Personae "
• DS9 episode : " Duet "
• DS9 episode : " In the Hands of the Prophets "
• DS9 episode : " The Homecoming "
• DS9 episode : " The Circle "
• DS9 episode : " The Siege "
• DS9 episode : " Invasive Procedures "
• DS9 episode : " Cardassians "
• DS9 episode : " Melora "
• DS9 episode : " Rules of Acquisition "
• DS9 episode : " Necessary Evil "
• DS9 episode : " Second Sight "
• DS9 episode : " Sanctuary "
• DS9 episode : " Rivals "
• DS9 episode : " The Alternate "
• DS9 episode : " Armageddon Game "
• DS9 episode : " Whispers "
• DS9 episode : " Shadowplay "
• DS9 episode : " Playing God "
• DS9 episode : " Profit and Loss "
• DS9 episode : " Blood Oath "
• DS9 episode : " The Maquis, Part I "
• DS9 episode : " The Maquis, Part II "
• DS9 episode : " The Wire "
• DS9 episode : " Crossover "
• DS9 episode : " The Collaborator "
• DS9 episode : " Tribunal "
• DS9 episode : " The Jem'Hadar "
• DS9 episode : " The Search, Part I "
• DS9 episode : " The Search, Part II "
• DS9 episode : " The House of Quark "
• DS9 episode : " Equilibrium "
• DS9 episode : " Second Skin "
• DS9 episode : " The Abandoned "
• DS9 episode : " Civil Defense "
• DS9 episode : " Meridian "
• DS9 episode : " Defiant "
• DS9 episode : " Fascination "
• DS9 episode : " Past Tense, Part I "
• DS9 episode : " Past Tense, Part II "
• DS9 episode : " Life Support "
• DS9 episode : " Heart of Stone "
• DS9 episode : " Destiny "
• DS9 episode : " Prophet Motive "
• DS9 episode : " Visionary "
• DS9 episode : " Distant Voices "
• DS9 episode : " Through the Looking Glass "
• DS9 episode : " Improbable Cause "
• DS9 episode : " The Die is Cast "
• DS9 episode : " Explorers "
• DS9 episode : " Family Business "
• DS9 episode : " Shakaar "
• DS9 episode : " Facets "
• DS9 episode : " The Adversary "
• DS9 episode : " The Way of the Warrior "
• DS9 episode : " The Visitor "
• DS9 episode : " Hippocratic Oath "
• DS9 episode : " Indiscretion "
• DS9 episode : " Rejoined "
• DS9 episode : " Starship Down "
• DS9 episode : " Little Green Men "
• DS9 episode : " The Sword of Kahless "
• DS9 episode : " Our Man Bashir "
• DS9 episode : " Homefront "
• DS9 episode : " Paradise Lost "
• DS9 episode : " Crossfire "
• DS9 episode : " Return to Grace "
• DS9 episode : " Sons of Mogh "
• DS9 episode : " Bar Association "
• DS9 episode : " Accession "
• DS9 episode : " Rules of Engagement "
• DS9 episode : " Hard Time "
• DS9 episode : " Shattered Mirror "
• DS9 episode : " The Muse "
• DS9 episode : " For the Cause "
• DS9 episode : " To the Death "
• DS9 episode : " The Quickening "
• DS9 episode : " Body Parts "
• DS9 episode : " Broken Link "
• DS9 episode : " Apocalypse Rising "
• DS9 episode : " The Ship "
• DS9 episode : " Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places "
• DS9 episode : " Nor the Battle to the Strong "
• DS9 episode : " The Assignment "
• DS9 episode : " Trials and Tribble-ations "
• DS9 episode : " Let He Who Is Without Sin... "
• DS9 episode : " Things Past "
• DS9 episode : " The Ascent "
• DS9 episode : " Rapture "
• DS9 episode : " The Darkness and the Light "
• DS9 episode : " The Begotten "
• DS9 episode : " For the Uniform "
• DS9 episode : " In Purgatory's Shadow "
• DS9 episode : " By Inferno's Light "
• DS9 episode : " Doctor Bashir, I Presume "
• DS9 episode : " A Simple Investigation "
• DS9 episode : " Business as Usual "
• DS9 episode : " Ties of Blood and Water "
• DS9 episode : " Ferengi Love Songs "
• DS9 episode : " Soldiers of the Empire "
• DS9 episode : " Children of Time "
• DS9 episode : " Blaze of Glory "
• DS9 episode : " Empok Nor "
• DS9 episode : " In the Cards "
• DS9 episode : " Call to Arms "
• DS9 episode : " A Time to Stand "
• DS9 episode : " Rocks and Shoals "
• DS9 episode : " Sons and Daughters "
• DS9 episode : " Behind the Lines "
• DS9 episode : " Favor the Bold "
• DS9 episode : " Sacrifice of Angels "
• DS9 episode : " You Are Cordially Invited "
• DS9 episode : " Resurrection "
• DS9 episode : " Statistical Probabilities "
• DS9 episode : " The Magnificent Ferengi "
• DS9 episode : " Waltz "
• DS9 episode : " Who Mourns for Morn? "
• DS9 episode : " One Little Ship "
• DS9 episode : " Honor Among Thieves "
• DS9 episode : " Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night "
• DS9 episode : " Inquisition "
• DS9 episode : " In the Pale Moonlight "
• DS9 episode : " His Way "
• DS9 episode : " The Reckoning "
• DS9 episode : " Valiant "
• DS9 episode : " Profit and Lace "
• DS9 episode : " Time's Orphan "
• DS9 episode : " The Sound of Her Voice "
• DS9 episode : " Tears of the Prophets "
• DS9 episode : " Image in the Sand "
• DS9 episode : " Shadows and Symbols "
• DS9 episode : " Afterimage "
• DS9 episode : " Take Me Out to the Holosuite "
• DS9 episode : " Chrysalis "
• DS9 episode : " Treachery, Faith, and the Great River "
• DS9 episode : " Once More Unto the Breach "
• DS9 episode : " The Siege of AR-558 "
• DS9 episode : " Covenant "
• DS9 episode : " It's Only a Paper Moon "
• DS9 episode : " Prodigal Daughter "
• DS9 episode : " The Emperor's New Cloak "
• DS9 episode : " Field of Fire "
• DS9 episode : " Chimera "
• DS9 episode : " Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang "
• DS9 episode : " Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges "
• DS9 episode : " Penumbra "
• DS9 episode : " 'Til Death Do Us Part "
• DS9 episode : " Strange Bedfellows "
• DS9 episode : " The Changing Face of Evil "
• DS9 episode : " When It Rains... "
• DS9 episode : " Tacking Into the Wind "
• DS9 episode : " Extreme Measures "
• DS9 episode : " The Dogs of War "
• DS9 episode & novelization : What You Leave Behind
• DS9 novel : Unity
• DS9 - Worlds of Deep Space Nine novella : The Dominion: Olympus Descending
• DS9 novel : The Missing
• PIC episode : " Disengage "
• PIC episode : " Seventeen Seconds "
• PIC episode : " No Win Scenario "
• PIC episode : " The Bounty "
• PIC episode : " Dominion "
• PIC episode : " Surrender "

Connections [ ]

References [ ], external links [ ].

• Changeling article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• Changeling article at Star Trek Expanded Universe wiki , the wiki for fan-authored Star Trek .
• 1 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
• 2 USS Voyager (NCC-74656-A)
• 3 Lamarr class

Ahsoka Star Recalls Giving Up on Another Huge Sci-Fi Franchise for Star Wars

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• Rosario Dawson turned down a Star Trek role for Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars .
• She was offered a Changeling role and pushed for playing Q in Star Trek .
• Dawson is a huge Star Trek fan, favoring Captain Picard and The Next Generation.

Rosario Dawson recently revealed that she turned down a role in the Star Trek universe in favor of playing Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars . Dawson first took on the role of Ahsoka in season 2 of The Mandalorian in 2020, and would go on to appear in 2022’s The Book of Boba Fett before starring in the Disney+ series named after her character in 2023. While she’s now synonymous with the franchise, Dawson is also a fan of Star Trek , and says it's okay for fans to “cross streams” and enjoy both.

Appearing at Fan Expo Boston (per ScreenRant ), Rosario Dawson explained that she turned down the role of a Changeling in a Star Trek on Paramount+ series in favor of playing Ahsoka in The Mandalorian . While she didn’t specifically state which character she was offered to play in Star Trek , she did say that it “would have been really cool.” She then jokingly explained how both she and her father were rooting for her to portray the mischievous Star Trek villain, Q.

“I could have been one of Odo’s species, the changeling. I could have been an immortal puddle, guys. Do you understand my pain? (she said clenching her eyes tight). That would have been really cool. I also really pushed to be a ‘Q.’ My dad. That was my dad (donning a masculine voice and pointing to her dad in the audience), ‘Be Q.’ I’m like, I’m trying. Right? Then I can be, you know, annoying… cause chaos, which I love.’”

Though Dawson didn’t go into details as to which character she was offered to play in Star Trek other than it was a Changeling similar to Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , one can deduce that it was probably a part in Star Trek: Discovery , which was shooting around the same time her role as Ahsoka in The Mandalorian came to fruition. While the Changeling seen in the episode 'All In' in season 4 of Discovery was a non-speaking part, it’s possible the role could have been expanded had Dawson accepted the offer.

Rosario Dawson Is a Huge Fan of Star Trek

Though she wasn’t able to appear in the Star Trek universe because of her commitment to play Ahsoka Tano, Dawson says she’s been a huge fan of the franchise her whole life. While Trekkies like to debate which Star Trek series is the best between the likes of the original show, The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , or Voyager , Dawson says she’s partial to Captain Picard, explaining a humorous photo she has yet to reveal to the public.

“I’m definitely a ‘Next Gen’ girl. Captain Picard all the way,” she said. “I have a video of me being dressed as Ahsoka holding up the Picard Earl Gray tea bottle. One of these days I will post it.”

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Dawson is set to appear next in the sci-fi-mystery Speed of Light , and will also lend her voice to the character of Prism in the animated series Ghosts of Ruin . While there’s no word yet on when a second season of Ahsoka might debut, Dawson is already teasing the project , which is currently in development by Dave Filoni .

Season 1 of Ahsoka is available to stream on Disney+ .

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