How can the Founders avoid detection?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

This occurred to me as I wrote a reply to the "commbadge" thread, and doesn't apply exclusively to the Founders but to a number of races which have fooled sensors. If these sensors are capable of nearly instant DNA scans without physical sampling (as when the blade of Kahless was scanned in "Rightful Heir") do brain wave scans at a distance, etc, how can all of these things be fooled - at once?

[Blackstar the Chakat]

I doubt they're all being used at once, or at full intensity. An analogy might be me scanning my computer for viruses. A quick scan might cover one thing or two in a minute but a full scan of the entire computer takes four hours. An unbeatable security scan might just take too damn long to be reasonable.

[Mark]

What I can't understand is how they can fool tridorders. Do shapeshifters shift all the way at the molecular level? If a tridorder can distinguish between various species of solids, why can't detect the absense of, say, a heartbeat, breath, blood gasses, and so forth. How can they duplicate someone, or something so COMPLETELY that a tricorder couldn't tell the difference.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Or that a rock or a briefcase is really a living thing. It should be simple to tell carbon from iron!

[Blackstar the Chakat]

What I can't understand is how they can fool tridorders. Do shapeshifters shift all the way at the molecular level? If a tridorder can distinguish between various species of solids, why can't detect the absense of, say, a heartbeat, breath, blood gasses, and so forth. How can they duplicate someone, or something so COMPLETELY that a tricorder couldn't tell the difference.

They create the organs necessary. We've seen shapeshifters turn into fog, fire, ships, and the mention of turning into clouds. Who's to say what their limits are?

[Mark]

What I can't understand is how they can fool tridorders. Do shapeshifters shift all the way at the molecular level? If a tridorder can distinguish between various species of solids, why can't detect the absense of, say, a heartbeat, breath, blood gasses, and so forth. How can they duplicate someone, or something so COMPLETELY that a tricorder couldn't tell the difference.

They create the organs necessary. We've seen shapeshifters turn into fog, fire, ships, and the mention of turning into clouds. Who's to say what their limits are?

My first answer would be those pesky laws of physics. But this is Trek, sooooooooo........................

[Blackstar the Chakat]

What I can't understand is how they can fool tridorders. Do shapeshifters shift all the way at the molecular level? If a tridorder can distinguish between various species of solids, why can't detect the absense of, say, a heartbeat, breath, blood gasses, and so forth. How can they duplicate someone, or something so COMPLETELY that a tricorder couldn't tell the difference.

They create the organs necessary. We've seen shapeshifters turn into fog, fire, ships, and the mention of turning into clouds. Who's to say what their limits are?

My first answer would be those pesky laws of physics. But this is Trek, sooooooooo........................

Remember, everytime you bring up the laws of physics in Star Trek a tribble dies

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Remember, everytime you bring up the laws of physics in Star Trek a tribble dies

Maybe God really does play dice in the Trek universe*... the results of an action may well be determined by a comic random number generator. It's as good a Trek Theory of Everything as there is

[Mark]

AAhhhhh poor tribble

[Tsukiyumi]

...and the mention of turning into clouds...

In that same episode (Chimera), Laas turns into fog and covers a good portion of the promenade.

[Mark]

And how could he become a gas??? :::fearing for life of another tribble:::

[Captain Picard's Hair]

This is but one of a long list of ways the Founders violate the laws of physics. Consider conservation of mass: If Odo becomes a seabird, he would still have to have the mass of a man, assuming similar density as a man when in humanoid form. A changeling mimicking a seagull would then be a seagull with the density of depleted uranium! There ain't no way in Janeway's Borg Hell that thing's getting off the ground under it's own power! If Odo becomes something bigger, he'd have to reduce his density, accordingly, as well, so it's hard to see him becoming super strong if he becomes a grizzly bear...

Of course, we have seen Founders become a bird and fly...

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Did I just kill a whole city full of tribbles?

[Mark]

Did I just kill a whole city full of tribbles?

You may have just killed more of them than the Klingons

[thelordharry]

Did I just kill a whole city full of tribbles?

You may have just killed more of them than the Klingons

They ate all the quadroditerallium(?) I was going to have for my dinner last night so frankly, you can go kill the lot of them! Feed them all to that caged animal, just like Flox did in ENT. Then, in the words of Scotty, they'll be no tribble at all