I don't own Star Trek, but just this story and the idea behind writing about the Founders.
The Death of a Founder.
The Great Link was facing a crisis, one that they had never contemplated facing in their existence.
One of their own had just been killed.
Ordinarily, the Great Link would mourn the loss of a Founder because the loss diminished them, but they would always adapt. The changelings didn't measure time in the same manner as other races, something they prided themselves on, and they always moved on with their plans.
But that had changed, because the Founder who had just died had been murdered by Odo, one of their own. The Founders were incapable of feeling or sensing the loss of one of their own dying, and what had caused it; their agents in the Alpha Quadrant had managed to infiltrate the communications network and had managed to transmit information into the Gamma Quadrant. Their agents, other changelings who were on the other side of the wormhole linking the two quadrants had told them what had happened.
The solids had once more played into their hands. They had provided the Dominion with the means of receiving intelligence and the passing on of orders to their agents without needing to go through the wormhole at all. It hadn't taken the Dominion long to discover what Odo had done, but that didn't mean the Great Link had automatically believed what had happened on the Defiant.
The Link had been in denial for a while even as more and more reports filtered through into their hands, but then turmoil had set into the Link.
None of the Founders knew what to do and they had spent months already arguing over the matter, and none of them cared about the running of the Dominion since they relied on the Vorta to perform that task.
It is intolerable. Odo must answer for what he has done.
I still cannot believe one of our own would kill one of us, and over solids! It is intolerable!
Odo should have been brought into the Link the moment he arrived, whether he was ready or not. I know that the plan was for him to experience the Link and what it could bring him; enlightenment, an end to his loneliness, a sense he was home…. but that was the biggest mistake. We should have brought him into the Link proper instead of giving it to him in small doses.
And what good would that have done? It is in the past, now we should look to the future. What do we do? We must find a solution, quickly, or else it shall never be resolved.
I agree. We have been debating for long enough.
I just find it inconceivable one of our own would support the solids.
We should have anticipated that when we formed the plan to plunge the Federation and the Tzenkethi into another war, we should have chosen a completely different starship instead of the Defiant. That way Odo would never have been involved.
The Defiant was chosen because of its cloaking device. You know this.
Yes. But we also knew Odo would have been onboard, and he would have found out about the changeling onboard the ship.
It is pointless to dwell on this particular matter. It has happened, we shall just have to revise our strategy. I also think it is a waste of our time to continually ask about what we are going to do about what Odo has done. I recommend we bring him here into the Link.
We must make him answer for his crime.
But we are not going to harm him. I cannot bear the thought of us executing one of our own just for killing one of our own. We are better than that, killing solids is one thing, but killing one of our own is disgusting.
Agreed.
No, we must not harm Odo. No….. I think we must do to him what he has done to others. Odo is an investigator among the solids, he has brought many criminals who committed acts of murder and theft for their own gain among the solids. It would be appropriate to make him enter the Great Link and be judged for what he has done.
Yes. That would be appropriate.
How would we do it? Odo is not foolish, and besides, he has always refused to re-join the Dominion.
True.
The Founder who had taken the form of Colonel Lovok, the Romulan Tal Shiar officer who had worked with Enabrain Tain in destroying the Great Link, made his own contribution to the debate. He definitely refused my offer to rejoin the Great Link, getting him to join it would not be easy.
I hope we do not have this problem in another few centuries when the rest of the Hundred who have survived the centuries they have been away returning to us.
I am more concerned about when we launch another Hundred changelings in another 900 years. I always had misgivings about the Hundred plan; we should have implanted some of our point of view on the solids, our race memory, a mistrust if you will, to make sure they kept them at arm's length while being inquisitive and extremely curious about gathering knowledge.
We could not have done that; the infants we sent away needed to have completely unbiased views of the solids in order to learn for themselves what the solids are like.
I disagree. I think that the next time we send another Hundred infants out into the universe in order to help us completely understand it, we should make our infants distrust solids, enough so they do not ally themselves with them enough to threaten us in the future, but tolerant enough to study their ways and what is going on beyond.
We shall have to debate that at another time. A more appropriate time, we need to deal with Odo first. I am at a loss of what to do with him; he has refused our attempts to bring into the Link, how do we force him to come to us?
Maybe we should kidnap him? It would be effective.
No. He may find a way to escape. He should make his own way unhindered and unforced.
Yes.
He must arrive freely of his own accord. If we kidnap him, we shall have to harm him in a way we cannot contemplate.
We could threaten that Bajoran woman?
That could work, but she is apparently not interested in him. We should try something different.
Yes.
Wait - do we need to bring Odo back here immediately? We should have time to contemplate what to do when he gets here, so why not make him think we are not coming after him?
What do you mean?
What if we give the Federation a cause for concern, something small and simple but has the potential to be dangerous? A weapon is too mundane. Two months ago, we received a report about the remnants of an Iconian gateway, similar to the one we discovered five hundred years ago and provides us with a good deal of our knowledge of enhanced transporter technology. My idea is this; we build a fake Iconian gateway on a distant world in our space, somewhere remote and out of the way, and we release a story that a rogue Jem'Hadar group has rebelled against Vorta scientists sent to restore the gateway. We genetically program the group to attack Deep Space Nine to steal equipment needed to repair it, so then they can alert other Jem'Hadar battalions and stage an insurrection, threatening to take control of the Dominion from us before moving on and threatening the Federation. Starfleet know about the Iconian gateways already, they know about what they can do, so they will understand the threat. The Defiant should preferably be away, though it does not matter if they are present at the station; either option is acceptable for the plan, they should pursue the 'rogue' unit and come across another Jem'Hadar group sent to 'eliminate' the rogue group. The rogue unit of Jem'Hadar should cripple the Jem'Hadar fighter used by the small unit sent to wipe them out, and they should meet the Defiant. We know one of the primary means the Federation use to track down enemy ships is to trace the ion trail, we should take advantage of that.
Agreed.
That would give the scenario greater credibility, another Founder commented as the idea circulated through the Link. What of the Defiant?
We give the Vorta in command of the unit sent to 'pursue' the rogue unit the full account of our plan to ensure it is carried out successfully, the Founder stated, he should be the one to tell Captain Sisko about the 'gateway,' and hopefully Sisko can see past his distrust of the Dominion to want to put the 'gateway' out of action.
The Female Changeling had a concern. We will need to hide the fact this fake gateway is not of Iconian construction and we will need to have images of various worlds from the Federation and from other Alpha Quadrant planets. It will need to be carefully constructed, and it should be shielded to prevent detection of the deception. But what of Odo? How will this bring him here?
I understand the concern about kidnapping Odo and simply spiriting him here, to our new world to be judged for the murder of one of our own. But we should coerce him to come to us, give him and his 'friends' amongst the solids no alternative but to come to us.
What do you suggest?
We release some of our protoplasm in the air of Deep Space Nine during the attack, genetically programmed to enter Odo's body and merge with his own structure to ensure he comes through the wormhole after the 'rogue' Jem'Hadar attack the station to gather equipment to repair the gateway. When the Vorta encounters Odo, he should have enough opportunity to give him another sample of our DNA to break his own structure down.
NO! I will not TOLERATE THIS!
We do not harm our own.
Odo has already harmed one of us, we need to bring him into the Great Link so he can be judged. We need to have a means of bringing him here once the solids realise what is happening to him is beyond their ability to repair. In the Link, we can judge him and see if his actions were justified or not. I am not suggesting we harm him permanently, no. I am suggesting we cause him pain and discomfort to force him to come to us. But along the way, we should show him vague information about our plans for the Alpha Quadrant while pretending it is a side-effect of the Great Link. He will not know the difference; he may have linked with one of us already, but not the rest of us to truly enjoy the sensation and he would lack the skills needed to discern a truth from a lie.
And the information he takes back, what will it do?
Our agent in the Klingon Empire is already preparing to take our agenda forward; in a few short weeks from now, the Klingon Empire will have invaded the Cardassian Union, plunging the Alpha Quadrant in a war. One that will hopefully embroil the Federation, and hopefully they will fall into their predictable stance of morality, and turn against the Klingons and fight alongside the Cardassians. The war will weaken them sufficiently to ensure our takeover of the Alpha Quadrant to purge it of the chaos that had spread through it like a disease because of the solids. We must make Odo think our agent is, in fact, Chancellor Gowron, leaving our agent who has assumed the shape of General Martok to take control of the Empire in order to continue the fighting.
The other changelings processed the plan and they found that it fit in with their approach of looking to long-term in order to ensure their aims were attained over time. You plan for this genetically engineered protoplasm to remain in Odo for a long time?
Yes. We must take the time to prepare, and continue overseeing our plans to build the fleet and mobilise the army we shall need to conquer the Alpha Quadrant and look towards the rest of the galaxy. It would be suspicious if Odo suddenly developed symptoms so soon after only being in the Gamma Quadrant a short period like a few days. A year should separate the two events otherwise he will be suspicious, and he may even suspect we had faked the incident with the rogue Jem'Hadar.
I agree, and in that time we should also send orders to our brethren in the Alpha Quadrant to spread chaos which we shall bring order eventually.
We shall do it, the rest of the Founders agreed.