‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3: Who Are the Changelings?

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 3.Star Trek: Picard Season 3 has seen the show’s protagonists in an intense battle with the mysterious Vadic (Amanda Plummer). As if being terrorized by Vadic’s super-powerful ship, the Shrike, hasn’t been bad enough, in the third episode, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Jack Crusher (Ed Speelers) discover that the Starfleet ship they’re aboard, the Titan, has been sabotaged. The saboteur, Ensign Foster (Chad Lindberg), then attacks Jack, who catches a glimpse of who Foster really is.

What we learn after Jack’s attack is that Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) and team are up against more than one diabolical enemy on the outskirts of Federation space. Vadic is one of them. The other is the Changelings. And they’ve already begun their attack on Earth.

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The First Changeling

The crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager never dealt with the Changelings — they first appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. These Gamma Quadrant aliens were unknown to the Federation, and for the longest time, there was seemingly only one specimen of this species in the Federation, Odo (René Auberjonois).

Odo was first discovered in the Bajoran system, but he was in his gelatinous form and considered non-sentient. For several years, Odo was experimented on by the Bajoran scientist Mora Pol (James Sloyan) before Odo was able to retaliate by mimicking other objects. He eventually took on humanoid form, copying Mora’s look. Odo had to learn about his abilities and limitations the hard way — while he could shapeshift into many objects like a chair or crate, his body needed to return to its original viscous liquid form every 16 or so hours. There were times when Odo was prevented from regenerating, and he suffered greatly but was able to recover.

Odo spent the majority of his life believing he was alone in the universe. He had no memory of where he came from or who his people were. His name came from the Cardassion word for nothing, as that was what he was labeled as when he was found. Up until the events of Deep Space Nine, Odo also lacked any real friends or connections (he’d fallen out with his father figure Mora Pol before the show began), but that soon changed as he grew closer to the senior staff of the station, eventually even beginning a romantic relationship with First Officer Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor).

Much to the shock of Odo and all of the Federation, finding Odo’s people spelled disaster for the Federation.

The Founders

The Founders, as their subjects referred to them, were Changelings who existed primarily in the Great Link — a giant ocean where Changelings intermingled in their natural state. They appeared to have something of a hive mind, but still maintained some form of individuality, unlike the Borg. Odo was really only living half a life — he had no idea how far his shapeshifting abilities could go. Unlike other Changelings, Odo couldn’t mimic the faces of other people. He also needed to regenerate, which was another unique limitation for him. Since Odo was alone in the Alpha Quadrant, he didn’t know that his people, once in their natural state, could merge with one another to form a mental link that allowed them to share experiences and memories with one another. He learned much from the Female Changeling (Salome Jens) who tried to ensnare Odo’s loyalty.

At some point in the Changelings’ long history, they once lived among other humanoids, but their shapeshifting abilities caused suspicion, and they were hunted and killed. They retreated to an isolated planet to form the Great Link. However, the Changelings didn’t want to forego exploring the galaxy completely, so they sent out 100 infant Changelings into the galaxy. One of those infants was Odo, and he eventually met another of the Hundred Changelings on Deep Space Nine, but Laas’ (J.G. Hertzler) distrust and hate of “solids” drove a wedge between them.

The Changelings saw “solids” as chaos mongers, so a group of them founded the Dominion, where everyone had to strictly follow the rules and orders of the Founders. The Founders’ will was carried out by the species called the Vorta, and their executors were the genetically-engineered soldiers, the Jem’Hadar.

The Dominion War

Deep Space Nine became hot property once a giant wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant opened up across its bow. This also meant the station was on the front line when anything came through the wormhole. During visits to the Gamma Quadrant, news traveled of a ruthless group called the Dominion. At first, Starfleet wasn’t bothered by this group, but then the Jem’Hadar destroyed a Starfleet vessel, and all hell broke loose.

The Federation was on high alert, expecting a Dominion attack, but what they didn’t know was that the Founders had infiltrated some of their highest-ranking posts by masquerading as officials and political figures. By destabilizing the Federation from the inside, the war wasn’t inevitable, it had already begun. On one side was the Federation, and on the other the Dominion. Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and his crew faced several battles, but they came away mostly unscathed, unlike many other Federation ships. There were coups and mass panic on Earth and across the Alpha Quadrant.

The Founders also cleverly duped the Cardassians into attacking the Klingons, thereby pitting two powerful Alpha Quadrant forces against one another, and ensuring the Federation’s strongest ally, the Klingons, were too distracted to help them in their war efforts. Though the Cardassians were the Dominion’s allies, Cardassia was decimated by the end of the war.

Major Kira Nerys, along with a ragtag team of Cardassians, formed a rebellion and captured the Founder who was leading the war efforts. The Founders had been infected by a morphogenic virus by then but Odo remained uninfected. He offered to return to the Great Link and help cure his people if the Founder surrendered. She did and the Treaty of Bajor was signed soon after stipulating the Dominion cease its military operation in the Alpha Quadrant and remain in the Gamma Quadrant.

The Federation suffered many casualties, and the war changed the power dynamics of the Alpha Quadrant for a while.

The Changelings on ‘Star Trek: Picard’

The Changelings debuted on screens in the 1990s, and now they’re back in 2023. The character design is startlingly different because of the advancements in technology and visual effects. Where we had a very obvious CGI look of the morphogenic form on Deep Space Nine, on Picard, the species looks like melted flesh. Honestly, the original look is better.

But superficial changes aside, Worf (Michael Dorn), the only member of the Enterprise who has actual experience with Changelings, explains what happened to the species after the Dominion War. A terrorist faction broke away from the Great Link, unable to accept the result of the war. Odo informed Worf of the rogue faction, but Starfleet was unable to acknowledge the return of these Changelings — any mention of them would start a whole new war.

It appears Worf may have been tracking these individuals for some time, but how do you hunt something that can look like anyone and anything? One Changeling had already infiltrated the Titan, even though the Titan’s mission was insignificant, at best. Meanwhile, Raffi Musiker’s (Michelle Hurd) mission to hunt down the location of a stolen portal weapon also led her, and her handler Worf, to another Changeling.

The Changelings have control of the powerful portal weapon that destroyed a Starfleet recruitment center in the season premiere. But Raffi and Worf posit that this weapon is a distraction. From what? And what does Vadic, who also has a portal weapon aboard the Shrike, have to do with the Changelings? We don’t have answers yet, but does Vadic’s crew look eerily like Jem’Hadar to you? No? Just me then.