test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
How does linking (changelings) work
fedman70
Member Posts: 150 Arc User
We don't really know this for certain, but I think if I was a changeling, I wouldn't link, and here's why.
Take two changelings that have never linked before, if they link, then when they unlink, is what went in exactly what comes out? Or is what comes out a mixture of both changelings.
The female changeling said if she returned to the link, the drop becomes the ocean, then if back again, the ocean becomes a drop. So, could two changelings link, and form a solid shape together, with twice the mass, say a humanoid twice as big
For us, our brains create our consciousness, I don't think anyone would want to mix their brain with someone else's, basically, you'd die, the new person would be an entirely different, just like transporting someone would also kill them, the new person is really a clone with all the memories, personality and knowledge of you, but a totally new person.
Take two changelings that have never linked before, if they link, then when they unlink, is what went in exactly what comes out? Or is what comes out a mixture of both changelings.
The female changeling said if she returned to the link, the drop becomes the ocean, then if back again, the ocean becomes a drop. So, could two changelings link, and form a solid shape together, with twice the mass, say a humanoid twice as big
For us, our brains create our consciousness, I don't think anyone would want to mix their brain with someone else's, basically, you'd die, the new person would be an entirely different, just like transporting someone would also kill them, the new person is really a clone with all the memories, personality and knowledge of you, but a totally new person.
Post edited by fedman70 on
0
Comments
Elim Garak
Every 7-8 years every cell in your body is replaced, does this also make you a different person.
If not then a transporter is no different.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
If this was not the case then it would be hard to know what amount you should take back on separating so to me there must be some level of genetic difference.
their entire body probably works as their brain in some way. if the was any kind of mixing then i think that would have been explored in the show. they clearly maintain their own personality when separating, just the influence of the linking remains.
New life, and New civilizations...
While you're separate, you're separate. While you're there, you're It. That might explain quite well why Odo didn't return from the Gamma quadrant after just a quick visit. He'd understand that, with the link, once all your bits and pieces leave, it just kind of reverts to the state it was in before you showed up and introduced this idea that not all solids are evil. It doesn't itself experience or learn. It'd have to send out some other blobs to go and have similar experiences to the ones Odo had, and reabsorb them, before there'd be enough redundancy in the link for Odo, or what's left of him, to take a vacation.
There's something to be said for memory sharing, I guess, but I say the more alien, the better.
That would be true IF, A, the transporter works much like a replicator, AND, B, it deconstructs and then reconstitutes you all in one go. While transporters and replicators appear very similar, replicators cannot create anything living, so there is a difference somewhere in there. Though what exactly it is I can't say. As for B, a transporter could get around the whole killing you problem by deconstructing and reconstituting you in increments, removing a few molecules, materializing them at your destination (or in the pattern buffer in between) and maintaining an artificial connection between the molecules at your destination, and the molecules still at your departure point, so that if you wave your hand mid-transport, the molecules already sent will mimic the movement on the other end. This is what I imagine the confinement beam does. Keeps everything in its proper place so you don't destroy yourself with the tiniest movement (inflating and deflating lungs, a beating heart, travelling blood cells would all merge into each other if it didn't) or just by beaming into a mild breeze, and has the convenient side-effect of your entire nervous system not responding like you're on fire while all this is happening, as as far as it's concerned, you're still 100% intact.
Since at no point you'd actually cease to exist this way, for a split second, you'd be in two places at once (well, 50/50, anyway), and also not dead, which is widely regarded to be a positive thing. But wait, there's more! If you beam down in three billion easily-contained one nanosecond portions now, you'll also avoid the problem outlined in the old "Science of Trek" book, where your entire body is instantly converted into an impossible to contain amount of energy and rips the transporter operator, transporter room and all the rest of the Enterprise a few hundred new ones.
But yeah...
The Galaxy Quest saran wrap one is still more realistic.
But the borg collective does NOT involve mixing each other bodies together, just their thoughts via implants, it's not the same thing.
Does it really? What about the hundred changelings who were sent out by the founders, Odo and Laas at first had no knowledge that they could even shapeshift.
Not the ones the Federation has, but the aliens in the "Allegiance" TNG episode had ones that could, they stated that's how they created the Picard Imposter.