FOUNDERS: Cultural Index 

Imagine evolving so far and so long that you just turn into a puddle with a bad attitude

RIP Rene Auberjonois :-( thank you for your performance

The Founders seemed to be based on the living sea on the planet Solaris from Stanislaw Lem's novel Solaris. Solaris had the ability not only to fashion itself into individuals, it could also form itself into technology, cities, and starships indistinguishable from the original. The Founders' first starships could have just been themselves.

Rather ironically, what they perceived as their greatest strength, the Great Link, turned out to be their Achilles heel. When Section 31 infected Odo, the disease spread like wildfire across the Great Link because they couldn't quarantine the infected.

I always wondered how the ancient changelings were persecuted when they are pretty much immune to stabbing, slashing and bludgeoning and you can't tie them up or put them in a cage. The only real threats they face is fire and energy weapons.

If you think about it shape shifting is “Art” They can experience any object

Weyoun 1-8 liked this Video

Star Trek Online has a very interesting take on the Dominion, in what atrocities they did in the past with their attempts to create their empire, in their Gamma Quadrant arc.

I hope the great link provides the late Odo (Rene O.) eternal fulfillment. We will miss you.

It would not surprise me if the Jem'Hadar were genetically derived from the Hurq that attacked the Klingons so long ago.

The whole "Granted changeling powers by a changeling" fits in nicely with how Odo ended up getting his shapeshifting powers back, given that it was an infant changeling who did it. Only a changeling can make another changeling.

When Odo was punished for killing a changeling he wasnt locked in the humanoid form that he usualy exists in he WAS changed into a humanoid.

The progenitors, the preserves and the founders are all one group that has changed significantly over time, becoming different species over the eons.

“What you can control can’t hurt you, but what you oppress will”

The Dominion has endured for over two thousand years, and will continue to endure long after the Federation has crumbled into dust.

I like the theory that they evolved from the ancient humanoid seen in The Chase in TNG.

I always prefer the idea that they were always shapeshifters

Can we have a cultural index on humans? I think this one would be challenging, but fun. We do just about every major race out there, but outside of a few subsets of humans haven't really focused on ourselves and what we've become.

The Changelings are definitely the most interesting species I have seen on Star Trek and I would really love to get more of them on screen.

Great piece! Would love to see a vid on the Fremen of Frank Herbert’s Dune

Dude, growing up father loved anything Star Trek and so I ended up watching a lot with him. (My favorite was Next Generation) and I still feel like I learned quite a bit from your video. Thanks, this was amazingly done.

I wonder how the Borg and Dominion would interact?

Odo needs to regenerate, it's not clear if other, older, Changelings need to.

I love this series! I watch them while I'm playing STO so I can get a better understanding of the races and cultures - keep em' coming :)

Ooo! Founders vs. The Borg! Place your bets, everyone! 😈

I liked how the differences between solid and changeling went beyond just mere mistrust because they can change shape--they had a fundamentally different way of dealing with the universe being ne giant being--there's no lies and deceptions and words, no disorder, nigh immortal, no murder.

Excellent video on one of Trek's most fascinating races, the Founders. I always viewed the Founders as a cautionary tale to oppressed people to beware becoming like your oppressors. As for the next video, I vote for the Vorta.

I would like to recommend the Caitians for the next Federation Cultural index.

That was a fantastic video! Very eloquent and thoughtful insights on the Founders here. Thank you so much for making this!

star trek is full of dire warnings about what our society can become

Your videos are always great and this one is no exception. Thank you.

I was never a fan of the Founders other than Odo.

Technically the female changeling leader killed several to cover her tracks

Next: The Wraith (Stargate) (please?)

An interesting compare and contrast would the Jem'Hadar and the Clone Grand Army of the Republic. Both are slave armies, though the Jem'Hadar or more ruthless and the clones, at least under the command of some Jedi, were allowed to be given some freedoms.

What I have noticed about the Link is that the rate at which communication occurs between Founders is far quicker than speech or even standard telepathy. I'd say even the Borg communicate at a slower pace. Best example is when Odo heals the Female. Considering her determination not to surrender moments before, the two obviously had a conversation while linked. And I doubt it was short or easy. But time is not really perceived in the Link it seems.

Ds9 and all related to these time line in star trek was and is still my favourite.

Wow. Great info! Thanks for sharing!

You know for a species that hates solids they do seem to be fascinated about what its like to be one.

Great information

3:09 Sounds kinda like a Vulcan Mind Meld.

Founders were basically like Cardassians....with Federation-level resources and Klingon military.

Wow, they sounds like facedancers from dune!

Cool video :D

Great stuff as always

Yet another call for a Cultural Index for the 'Kilrathi' of Wing Commander!

Rick sir, I found this video to be quite interesting,entertaining, and comprehensive 👍

Which is a more powerful group conciousness? The Founders Link or the Borg's Collective?

The Founders are wise in all things.

I have always wondered to myself whether the Founders can truly be said to be a race of individuals or if they are a single super organism that can temporarily break off pieces of itself which than function autonomously

Until Odo no changeling has ever harmed another... well at 4:41 it certainly looks like that changeling hurt Odo first! I always wondered how a changeling like Odo could go from something like his humanoid form to a rat. Where does all his extra mass go? He’s either hollow as a humanoid or extremely heavy and dense as a rat, neither of which would hard to detect with sensors etc. Also, in “Vortex” he was said to be heavy as a humanoid, but he was easily carried in his liquid form in “Invasive Procedures”. Do changelings have some ability to drop mass when they change, like into subspace or something. And I always took the 16 hour time limit as a specifically Odo thing due to his relative inexperience of shapeshifting. I doubt infiltrators like Bashir or Martok would have been able to risk reverting every 16 hours, especially if they ended up in, say, a runabout on a two day flight with someone.

Is there a chance you could make a video about the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal?

Since they want to bring all these shows back they should do a reboot of Odo re-joining the link and how it effected them and the Dominion as a whole.

DS9 provided so much needed lore to the Trek universe. The whole religious aspect of the plot arc was annoying but everything from gorn to the ferengi to the trill, dominion, and founders. So much lore I loved it.

Has anyone considered that the race that made Armus was the Founders? When you think about it, it makes sense and fits with their emotionless existence.

I don't think Odo could change the Founders but I do think they could change him, what a version of him did in Children of Time shows how ruthless and selfish he can be.

Ric thanks for another great video! But.. i can't choose between the two, i would like both! Although the Vorta would be the choice if you twist my arm.. but don't, rather do both :)

Yes!! A new index!

Quite late, nonetheless: Federation on par with the Dominion? Uhm... I think not. It took (more or less) divine intervention to even slow the Dominion down and an Alliance with the Klingons and Romulans to wrestle down the Dominion. True, there were the Cardassians and the Breen, however, Cardiassan technology was far behind the F/K/R alliance (even their Flagship-Keldon-Class was barely a 2:1 match for a Galaxy-Class) and the Breen, while a huge tactical asset in the beginning, couldn't make up the numbers.

They have achived instrumentalization or a form close to it.

You say they have no culture, art, drama ect, but who knows what's going on in the great link. Perhaps the link features theatre that puts shame to shakespere and symphonies that make mozart sound like nails on a blackboard. It makes sense that they wouldn't make anything in the real world when they exist almost entirely within the link. It also makes sense they wouldn't bother with frivolities such as a sense of aesthetics in the Vorta when as far as they are concerned nothing outside of the link is worth appreciating.

Very interesting and informative video. So the Founders are a lot like the Star Trek version of the Kaminoans from Star Wars.

Please can you make a video about this Sonic screwdriver thank you for your time please keep up the amazing work and with long and prosper

Nice video!

Nice work*).

I remember someone at work looked like these people.

Awsome sub power

I wonder if the race that shed Armus (Skin of Evil) had merged with the Founders humanoid form to create what became the Changlings

I look forward to a Vorta cultural index

odo's punishment was not permanent the founders changed him back because they thought it was too cruel for Odo to be a solid

What about the shapeshifters in the next generation? Are they in anyway related to the founders?

How do you beat a changeling to death?

It would have been nice if the ST:TNG episode "The Chase" was included. You could draw some interesting conclusions from it. I see also a parallel with the LCL and the AT-field in Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I'd imagine their "great link" is something like a near infinite constructed reality when combined like that. That much processing power could generate more exploration and entertainment unbound by physics than reality. The founders just want to make sure the solid world outside their imagination playground universe doesn't stop the party so they crush the solid world under heel.

The VIL story arc on STO is Interesting. I have heard (never seen it) but apparently the last scene in ds9 is the female changing in her prison cell where Q comes up from the floor as a shapeshifter, and tells the female changing “I told you so”it was a deleted scene but I have never seen proof of this. I have also heard that the founders where actually not that interested in anything but apparently they got word of the federation at some point and started beefing up their military and ships (apparently that is beta) and lastly (also beta) that the borg also have meet the changlings before however apparently a very painful process but the founders can actually squeeze out the nanites and can’t be assimilated (again that the book beta and I don’t know all of the story on that).

One major plot-whole. As you just said, and as several Changeling characters have said, "To understand an object is to become that object". It has also been said by you and several Changeling characters that they sometimes spend days as an object (like a rock) to understand it. How can this be when they have to convert back to their liquid state every 16 hours ?

are they as old as the iconians?

I insist that the true origin of the Founders is the Fluidic Space.

Question. I'm watching Voyager for the first time. Is the Silver Blood related to the Founders/Changling? Like you said about the young Changling, the Silver Blood need a "taste" of sentient life and DNA to change into sentient humanoid life. Another thing too is they were founded on a very dangerous Y planet nicknamed Demon planet. Like you said later in the video. The Changling left to stagnated on a lifeless planet. Since the Delta and Gama Quadrant are right next to each other could they be like the Vulcans and the Romulans?

Have you considered giving Thanks to the Founders by turning November 2019 into Dominion Month? Vorta, Jem'Hedar, and the Others (like the Dosi and any other race)

I don't agree on the art part. True, they don't really "do" art but I think that is replaced with their shapeshifting into different objects to experience being that thing. Like being a rock for a week, or a tree, or a hawk, etc. They seem to enjoy being those things to experience what it's like. In a way, it's significantly superior to, say a painting of a rock. They can become that rock, know what it's like to be a rock. With the painting, we can only stare at it and imagine... Perhaps a better analogy is food; We can observe a filet mignon steak on a plate, maybe even smell it and appreciate that smell/view. But the founders can eat it and experience 'taste'. It's a whole new level of experience & senses.

huh...first reference that came to mind at the start of this video was Sergeant Schlock. further into the video I realized that the founders would absolutely ABHOR Carbosillicate Amorphs rather than just find them odd. amorphs on the other hand seem predisposed to like pretty much everything and everyone, even stuff trying to kill them, most likely a side-effect/leftover from their origin...not sure how spoilery that'd be to mention since it's really not important to the story, just dropping some forshadowing/worldbuilding way to early. important to note that while an amorph has almost no bias and pretty much automatically likes new things they also have no predisposition towards any form of morality or even basic biological imperatives, they are childlike, engaging, genuinely interested in you, almost universally endearing, and yet one of the single most *alien* creatures I have ever seen in any work of fiction both in-setting and from a reader's perspective. basically, they have never in any way cared about any of the shaping factors that have molded every other living thing in existence and by extension every subsequent form of AI. they didn't come into being with any regard to selection pressures and simply haven't died off yet as a result by merit of already being good for just about anything life can throw at them.

Hello, could you do a versus video of The Jem'Hadar soldiers against the Super Soldiers of TNG Season 3 Eps.11 "The Hunted".

I read about The Founders in the Star Trek Visual Dictionary.

Hey can you please do a video on Zeon from Gundam later.

If humans became shape shifters, things would be a lot more fun in college

Could you do one about the Ocampa?

Can you make a Cultural Index video about the Scarrans or any other alien species from Farscape?

Jem'Hadar. (Though a Vorta video would be almost as interesting.)

Maybe the founders are also the progenitors of the alpha quadrants pre history

Very Heinlein A Stranger in a Strange Land philosophy with the Martian word GROK.

Cultural index of the Alliance in firefly next? pls

Has there ever been any conflict between the Borg and the Founders. I suspect that the conflict would be interesting as the Borg assimilation tech may not work in its present iteration against the morphogenic Founders.

Is Armus the abandoned child of the Changlings?

Couldn't it be that the Founders are the same people that Salia in The Dauphin (TNG) is supposed to be leading - that the character we know as the Female Changeling is in fact Salia from that episode? After all, Salia and her guardian are remarkably secretive about the culture they come from, and they adopt human form for rhw convencience of the race transporting them there. It is said several times that Salia is to be a "leader" in the sense of a queen or a President or something like that, but Salia herself explain that "there is no word in your language that explains what I am going to be". Couldn't that mean that rather than being a "leader", she is meant to give up her very individuality (merge with her "subjects") in order to take up her position.

No matter what anyone said about Section 31, but she was right about the Founders. They had to be destroyed before they destroyed life itself in the Alpha Quadrant. And you know, everything would have come to this, the death of the Founders = the death of the Dominion = salvation and peace in the Alpha Quadrant, if not for the intervention of Odo. Although there would have been a more terrible outcome for the Founders if the Borg had found out about the Dominion. I would like to see this show, how the Dominion war machine becomes part of the Borg Collective. I wonder if the Founders can be assimilated?.

I want to be a Founder.

Curious if the Changelings will make an appearance in Discovery season 3. Hmmm

Have the founders ever met the Borg?

Always wondered how they acquired their technology though. If they evolved originally as shapeshifters with the Great Link, then they would have no understanding of even simple tools and machines as they would have no necessity to use them. No, I believe that somehow they evolved their abilities or it was gifted to them by a Progenitor or something else.