Star Trek question
 

whats the deal with shape shifters?


Odo was a shape shifter and the people studied him cuz he was unique.


then there was a shape shifter in star trek 6 which was before ds9 in our time and startrek time.


now, i'm watching tng and there is a shape shifter on here and they dont know what she is. the doctor makes a mention of a record of a type of shape shifter in the archives or something.

so how is it there are all these shapeshifters and noone knows what they are.

I'm not sure what you're asking.

Odo was studied on Bajor by Dr. Mora Pol. As Odo was a shapeless mass of organic goo at the time, it's pretty likely Dr. Mora found him to be unique.

I don't see how Martia from Rura Penthe or Anya from 'The Dauphin' relate to Odo's uniqueness in the Alpha Quadrant, particularly from the perspective of a Bajoran scientist (not a member of the Federation).

das

well it just seems like everytime they see a shapeshifter they are fascinated and dont know what it is.

kirk could identify martia pretty quickly (if i remember correctly), but noone on enterprise except the doctor seemed to know what anya was

also, did you actually know all those names or did you have to look em up?

Kirk was so close to retirement after the Khitomer incident that perhaps he didn't file an official report.

As for how he identified her, it went something like this:

McCoy: How in Floyd's Barber Shop did you do that?
Martia: I'm a chameloid.
McCoy: What? I'm a doctor, not a dictionary.
Kirk: A shapeshifter. I've heard of you.

Anyway, he had heard of them in his travels but never actually seen one until she identified her self as a chameloid. I think it's unlikely that every officer in Star Fleet is acquainted with every alien in existance, especially some dead shapeshifter Kirk once met in prison. In any case, I'm sure shapeshifters are like telepaths; they're not all from the same species.

das

Haha ... I'd like to tell you I looked them up, but well ... this is <I>Star Trek</I>. You need to know this stuff. In truth, though, aside from Wesley's ho, those are all fairly well-known characters.

das

I think the other shapeshifters had to stay basically humannoid, while odo could literally turn into any shape

okay, just watched enterprise and they had telepathic shapeshifters. it seems like there are a lot of shape shifting species out there

that is both impressive and sad. although i said something to a friend of mine and he identified the episode by title right away as well.

Having a good memory is neither impressive nor sad. It just is what it is. I remember what I see after watching something on television. Other people remember crazy baseball statistics. It's only sad if you sit around memorizing these things.

das