Chimera

DVD, DS9 S7 (Chimera) (2)

Odo's position on DS9, residing with the enemies of his people, had become comfortable once he'd had his wish granted and was living happily ever after with Colonel Kira. In his early years on the station he'd had to build and rebuild trust with the 'solids' all his conscious life and had come to find his Changeling nature constrained by their worldview and mores. This was exacerbated by his intensely personal and private attitude to his true self that he kept hidden, refusing to regenerate with others around, though somewhat comfortable shapeshifting given the right circumstances. But as the war had hotted up and his people, the Founders of the Dominion, had left no wiggle room for even the hint of diplomacy or justice with the Alpha Quadrant races, this had simplified Odo's life: he had no place for his people because they refused to operate in the same moral sphere that he had always lived by and could not countenance abandoning, even if it was to reunite with his physical nature, the mind more important than the physical even for such an unusual form of life. Once Kira had been won, he was a comfortable Constable and only had to worry about keeping order, which is where he'd always found his satisfaction and did very well. He was effectively reset to the early seasons where his place was assured, his niche carved out, except with the longing to find out about his origins removed: he'd found out and it was unfortunate, but they weren't compatible with his existence.

We know from Garak's torture of him in Season 3's 'The Die is Cast' that his longing to discover who his people were had been replaced by a strong desire to return to them. He'd even gone through the stage of being seduced into their way of thinking, that solids aren't really important, the only meaning to be found was in The Great Link, the merging in liquid form of all the Changelings together. He'd walked that path with the Female Changeling and had come to the realisation of her negative intentions, or at least her misguided understanding of the solids, people that had become friends to him and that he'd seen perform many noble acts of generosity and justice, and he didn't see that in his own people. Life had become black and white for Odo, he was happy with Kira and knew he couldn't be with his people when they were in their current attitude, but you always sensed that he wanted to be a Founder apologist, someone that could see both sides of the argument, though while war was ongoing that could never be resolved. The introduction of Laas into his life unexpectedly upsets the balance and makes him question everything he's accepted about his whole life because he really hasn't had that outside perspective, an alternative to the warlike and preemptive actions of the Founders who act out of fear and experience of their own treatment at the hands of the solids. Laas shows up with exciting new possibilities.

For a start, Odo has the opportunity to link again, which he hadn't done since the Female Changeling, something as natural to their form as talking is to humanoids, and which is essential for their race to be complete, both as individuals and a group entity. You realise how much he's given up that he can never experience the link, cut off from his people and the ability to exist as he was designed to. Laas' simple, clipped logic and reluctance to fit into any mould of the solids' so different and constrained lives is a blast of air into a room where Odo hadn't even been trying to breathe, but had become satisfied with less than breathing. Laas is both an embarrassment to his own personal space of accepting his nature in private, but keeping it closed off in public, and a siren call to adventure. To go off into the great unknown, travelling through space must be the most complete freedom a being could experience, and if that had been all Laas offered, it wouldn't have been such a hard decision, but he came with a plan and a quest, one that would have given Odo new purpose, too, away from the concerns of his people versus his friends, away from duties and constraints, the ability to completely let loose and be whatever he felt like - it must have been an alluring prospect, and it's something he's internally conflicted about, though at this stage of the series it's more a conflict about Laas and his presence on the station, because as Odo tells Kira, he's happy being there with her and wouldn't want to leave.

Before we come to Odo's choice, he goes through a burgeoning realisation of a crisis of identity. He's lived in bipedal humanoid form for thirty years, and learned to make a life that way, but as Laas presents to him, he hasn't really been living the way he was designed to. Suddenly he has to wake up and look around himself and question whether he really is part of this community or whether they merely tolerate him. O'Brien is quick to retort to Laas' coldness and unfeeling rudeness when Odo tries to introduce him to his colleagues and really only Kira can see how deep Odo's situation has become with the appearance of this non-Founder Changeling. She cares for his wellbeing so much that she risks everything by freeing Laas and letting Odo know where to meet him: it shows how much she cares that she was willing to give him the chance to choose what's best for him rather than keep a grasping hold upon him, something impossible to do with a person that can change to liquid. Maybe she always realised that Odo was needed by his people and had the need of his people to be complete, and all this is a well-judged precursor to his eventual leaving to return to the Changelings and provide that outside perspective of positive experiences with the peoples and lifeforms they feared. To remind them of the similarities: because the Changelings and the Federation, and indeed, any race that has curiosity enough to go out exploring space, share that adventurous spirit of being drawn to the unknown out there.

That was the motivation, at least in part, of the one hundred infant Changelings being sent out, one of which was Odo. I imagine part of the reason was to gather intelligence and knowledge so as to be prepared for whatever threat faced them, but a large part would have been that desire to know what's out there. The hundred infants is almost a legendary story, mythic in its magnitude, which is why when it's brought up again here, it fires the imagination. There must be ninety-seven others out there because we know Odo was the first to return home and apart from Laas there's only ever been one encounter, the baby that was dying in Season 5's 'The Begotten,' that merged with Odo and restored his shapeshifting nature after it had been removed by his own as punishment for killing another of his kind. This leaves such scope for others, and no doubt some would have died, either from the hatred of solids or the dangers of space, but it was a quest worth pursuing and something that, had the Dominion War not ended, could well have been an option for a conclusion or genesis to Odo's storyline, a new beginning. Because, however you look at it, unlike Quark or Kira, whose lives were bound up with DS9, Odo always had the yearning that meant he was going to be either an eventual wanderer or a prodigal son.

I saw a lot of connections with the 'Highlander' franchise because Laas opens up this realm of possibilities, not just for his willingness to fully explore his abilities, existing as some kind of bird until the flock eventually died out because of the influence of humanoids, living with solids, swimming through space like the Wind Fish from 'Zelda,' but because he had lived multiple lifetimes - he'd been out there for two hundred years, and while he lived with the 'mono-forms' for a while, even having a mate, they couldn't have children. At least he wasn't forced to run around seeking the heads of his fellow Changelings so that there could be only one! We don't know how long Odo would have been adrift, whether he came through the Wormhole to our Quadrant (which we assume), or whether he floated all the way from the Gamma Quadrant, but we know he's old, as are all the Changelings. Like the Immortals they don't seem to be able to reproduce (so how did the infant Changelings come into being?), so there appears to be a set number of them and who knows how long they've lived. For a species that can exist for a century as a rock or a tree if they choose it, life would never get boring. Odo's difficulty is that he thinks so much in terms of not causing aggravation to others, and following his code of justice, he's content with behaving like a solid, even though he can only approximate their image. Laas' words cut deep as a Klingon dagger, because there's some truth in them.

Odo has effectively limited himself, he's mentally so restricted that he doesn't even think to offer to link with Laas until it comes up in conversation and Laas shows interest. His bad experiences of being pulled off course by the Female Changeling have almost blocked an important part of him off, and with Laas that is gradually opened up again, readying him for the eventual place he'll need to take up with his people for their own good, and his. Surprisingly, Quark once again shows what a good friend he is to Odo by giving him a talking to, making him aware in his own harsh and unrelentingly bleak way that humanoid nature is to fear 'the other,' a programmed genetic response that means Odo and his kind can never be truly accepted for who they are for being a threat. Quark doesn't speak for all peoples, he's very Ferengi and un-Federation in his principles and values, which leads us to view 'DS9' as a bleak and hopeless part of the Trek universe, but that's not really true. Quark sees things one way and he paints the worst picture possible, he doesn't sugarcoat anything, he knows Odo needs to know this stuff, or thinks he does. Just like in 'Crossfire' when he gave the shapeshifter advice, or 'The Ascent' where we saw the pair of them surviving, using their antagonism against each other to keep going, Quark and Odo are one of the greatest and most unsung friendships in Trek history. Partly it's because we rarely see them alone together, and partly they're on opposite sides of a divide between justice and lawlessness, though both had skirted around a little to the other side of the fence over the years with their interaction with Federation personnel and each other, but they understand each other, and while Laas thinks he knows Odo's nature better than Odo does, it's actually Quark who knows him best. Laas sees what could be, Quark what is, or what he perceives is.

Yes, Odo could be a wall of fog or pillar of fire, could become a space-borne creature roaming the stars, or live many lives as different animals, but the question is, would it fulfil him? Laas is a wanderer, and Odo is fixed in position, it's not just his shapeshifting nature, it's the mental picture he's created, the mould he's built to fit into something: life, I suppose. It's a good metaphor for those approaching the middle of life, going through their thirties, trying to keep everything the same as it was, because that's what they know, but being confronted with a dawning that they haven't thought beyond the mould they were poured into. That's the great thing about Trek, certainly Trek in the Nineties era: it was written by people of varying ages and experiences and so it not only appealed to varying ages and experiences, but it also matures with age, revealing layers that hadn't been considered before. For Odo, it leads to an assurance of his decision to stay with Kira and the life he knows - as appealing as Laas' offer is, he suggests Laas is still searching, effectively, for what he's already found, and that no amount of physical change could bring him. It doesn't end his wish to be with his own kind, but he accepts that can't happen at the moment and resolves to see whatever needs to be seen through to the end. This new level of understanding between him and Kira brings us to one of the most beautiful scenes between them - we'd already seen one of the most sensitive, when they're discussing things earlier in the episode, and throughout she does whatever she has to for Odo.

He presents himself in a shower of sparkling light that could have looked very silly if the episode hadn't built up to that moment in such an organic way, or if the effects hadn't cut it, but it's a lovely moment to crown an episode that is better than you think, almost a great one. The difference is that it does come across like an episode from the early seasons. We're back to Odo's judgement or loyalty being questioned - no one's suggesting he step down as Security Chief, but Martok expresses concern that he's in charge of the prisoner after Laas has executed one of the General's troops who became threatening, but effectively couldn't have harmed him, by doing the 'Terminator' thing, turning his arm into a long sword for stabbing (I almost wanted him to say, "You call that a knife? This is a knife," in the 'Crocodile Dundee' tradition, though instead we got, "Mine's bigger," in the Q tattoo from 'Voyager' tradition!). How I wanted Martok in the episode, especially so we could have seen him and Laas go at it. Why? Because the soft-spoken Changeling was played by the same actor, JG Hertzler (credited as Garman Hertzler), and the fact that he has such a different attitude and speech pattern (modelled after Captain Kirk, according to Hertzler in 'The DS9 Companion'!), that you would never even think of the two in the same episode. Like so many of the great Trek troupe, Hertzler proved he could successfully tackle multiple roles, the makeup doing half the work for him, but his acting choices vastly informing the character. He would go on to continue this ability with other aliens in both 'Voyager' and 'Enterprise,' though I really wanted to see Martok again, via time travel or whatever, because he's one of the greats.

Laas may not have been classed as one of the greats, but he was compelling, to Odo more than anyone. I like that the Constable has a moment to explain to this more experienced Changeling who's been out in 'the world' that what he has dismissed as unimportant or unattainable (a link to the Chimera title), Odo still finds right and good, and while things will never be perfect, he doesn't have the wanderlust to go out into the universe and explore in the hope of finding something deeper. That's essentially what I read into it, anyway. Kira proves her mettle by letting him go, and I even love the mechanics of their meeting: she sends Laas to a planet with an orbital tether, whether because he'd be able to know it from sight, since he doesn't have an onboard computer or guidance system to differentiate planets, or because a tether means he can slide down it, because you have to wonder how a Changeling gets through a planet's atmosphere, though if he can turn to mist he could float gently down - in this case time was of the essence. I also like that Kira risked everything in the same way O'Brien did to rescue Tosk, another reason this has the feel of a very early episode. How she didn't fall under suspicion I don't know, except it wasn't important to the story, just that Laas needed to be gone without Odo feeling he was at risk. Kira was the last person to see him, surely there are security cameras in the Holding Cells and the computer would have registered that she deactivated the forcefield. Of fire and fog this Changeling could make himself, but no one would seriously believe in him passing through an energy field! If he had been part of an extradition to the Klingons it would have given them material for further exploration of solid versus liquid rights and attitudes towards those that look like the enemy during a time of war, but they already had enough on their plates to tie up.

Which leads me to a few loose ends of my own: the question of whether Keiko O'Brien is on the station this season during a war, or not - we keep getting hints, and in this one O'Brien's worried because, unlike Odo, he didn't get a nicknack for her from their trip to a conference (Trek characters love their conferences - couldn't they just have logged into the website and participated from there? They could have linked a Holosuite up for a live broadcast!). He offers to buy Odo's Rigelian chocolates from him (which Odo pronounces 'Rig-alien' where I always thought they were called 'Ry-jelian'), another example of the writers ignoring the fact that in the 24th Century humans don't have money. Like Jake in 'In The Cards.' He could have been offering to barter something, I suppose, but it's best to gloss over such statements and not look too deeply at offhand remarks or you can go mad! I'm not sure how fast they were coming in to the Bajoran system on their Runabout, but it couldn't have been at warp or Laas wouldn't have been able to fly faster than them in space, but you wonder why they'd have slowed to impulse before actually reaching Bajor or DS9. Maybe there's a speed limit to avoid ships all warping into each other. Lastly (or Laas-ly), we hear again of the virus affecting the link, proof that Laas isn't a Founder because he's clean (although not any more since we'd later find out Odo carried it unknowingly to his people, unless the potency had worn off after the first link with the Female Changeling). I wouldn't have said this was that good an episode, but it sensitively deals with Odo's identity and proves far more engaging than expected, despite no Phaser battles or ships fighting. Real Trek, you'd have to say, building character like in the early seasons.

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