How Does Odo's Mass Change?

[CaptainChewbacca]

When he's a humanoid, he has the mass of a humanoid. When he's a champagne flute, he has the mass of one. Where does the rest go?

[Robert Walper]

When he's a humanoid, he has the mass of a humanoid. When he's a champagne flute, he has the mass of one. Where does the rest go?

It's been theorized that the changelings use a natural form of "mass lightening".

This isn't all that a bad idea. Lass, another changeling Odo encountered, was able to move through space, at warp speed IIRC. This would support the idea of changelings having subspace properties.

[Ted C]

If he can shift some of his mass to subspace, as Robert suggests, that would explain how he can transform into smaller, lighter objects.

How he (or any other Changling) can transform into a larger, more massive object is an entirely different question. We might suppose that the natural mass of a Changeling is considerably greater than that of a human, and that they normally keep a substantial portion of that mass in subspace.

Changelings would have to have a really odd metabolism to exist partially in normal space and partially in subspace like that, with the ability to shift mass from one to the other at will, but it makes as much sense as anything.

[Anarchist Bunny]

Isn't Odo smaller when he's in his natural form?

[Sir Sirius]

Isn't Odo smaller when he's in his natural form?

Yes and since the bucket he "sleeps" in can be carried around effortlesly he isn't all that dense in that form either.

Edited to correct a bad typo.

[Ted C]

Isn't Odo smaller when he's in his natural form?

His mass and volume in normal space is certainly not very great when he's "asleep", but if he naturally has a lot of mass in subspace, that's not a big deal.

[Darth Wong]

It's because the writers stopped even maintaining the flimsy pretense of being legitimate sci-fi after Gene Roddenberry lost control of the series.

[Metrion Cascade]

IMO, changelings are some kind of intermediate state between energy and matter. They dump or gain mass by matter-energy conversion. They need more, they grab something (air, what have you) and convert it. They need less, they vent it (as air or what have you). This is also why they can become various elements (a human, a rat, or a metallic chair). They just create the elements they need. Mass lightening as an explanation for the varying sizes doesn't wash because they mimic the anatomy and composition of their subjects down to the subatomic level. Presumably they can generate subspace fields (we know Odo's created his commbadge from scratch every morning for seven years) by mimicing subspace technology, but that tech would be detectable, as would the subspace field.

And how do things like phasers and high-powered forcefields kill them? Overloading them. They get more energy into their systems over a given timeframe than they can get control of or convert to matter in the same amount of time.

[Ted C]

It's because the writers stopped even maintaining the flimsy pretense of being legitimate sci-fi after Gene Roddenberry lost control of the series.

I think your cynicism quotient is steadily rising, Mike. Not that I'm disagreeing, mind you, but you seem to have almost given up on suspension of disbelief with regard to Star Trek.

[Sarevok]

It's because the writers stopped even maintaining the flimsy pretense of being legitimate sci-fi after Gene Roddenberry lost control of the series.

Agreed. Odo was too far fetched and unrealistic even for a science fiction series like Star Trek.

[Slartibartfast]

If they had only paid more attention to T2, where they stolen the concept and FX from, they would have heard the part that the T1000 could only mimic objects of the approximate size and mass.

[Winston Blake]

IMO, changelings are some kind of intermediate state between energy and matter. They dump or gain mass by matter-energy conversion. They need more, they grab something (air, what have you) and convert it. They need less, they vent it (as air or what have you).

1. What exatly do you mean by "intermediate state between energy and matter". That doesn't make sense to me.

2. If they dumped/gained mass by matter/energy conversion then when Odo went to sleep in a bucket, all his excess mass would be converted to energy according to E=mc^2, and DS9 would be destroyed. Then in the morning when he woke up in DS9's debris field and decided to take humanoid form, where would he get THAT MUCH energy from? (same equation, E=mc^2)

3. Changing from average humanoid mass into average champagne flute mass (in say, a few seconds) by converting his excess matter to air would create so much overpressure he'd kill anyone around him and (at least) blow out windows. Go back to humanoid and you get a rarefaction wave.

This is also why they can become various elements (a human, a rat, or a metallic chair). They just create the elements they need. Mass lightening as an explanation for the varying sizes doesn't wash because they mimic the anatomy and composition of their subjects down to the subatomic level.

I admit, it's hard to see how changelings can actually spontaneously create specific materials, but that why the Subspace Catch-All (tm) mechanism works so well.

Mass-lightening wasn't proposed to solve why they create materials, it was to solve how they can lose and gain mass.

[Metrion Cascade]

IMO, changelings are some kind of intermediate state between energy and matter. They dump or gain mass by matter-energy conversion. They need more, they grab something (air, what have you) and convert it. They need less, they vent it (as air or what have you).

1. What exatly do you mean by "intermediate state between energy and matter". That doesn't make sense to me.

Or me, but there are multiple references to it in Trek and other sci-fi (such as the Death Star's "hypermatter" reactors).

2. If they dumped/gained mass by matter/energy conversion then when Odo went to sleep in a bucket, all his excess mass would be converted to energy according to E=mc^2, and DS9 would be destroyed. Then in the morning when he woke up in DS9's debris field and decided to take humanoid form, where would he get THAT MUCH energy from? (same equation, E=mc^2)

He's not releasing and gaining energy. He's releasing and gaining mass (and converting it to energy as needed, but only after it's part of him).

3. Changing from average humanoid mass into average champagne flute mass (in say, a few seconds) by converting his excess matter to air would create so much overpressure he'd kill anyone around him and (at least) blow out windows. Go back to humanoid and you get a rarefaction wave.

Which favors the idea of the mass being sent into subspace...

This is also why they can become various elements (a human, a rat, or a metallic chair). They just create the elements they need. Mass lightening as an explanation for the varying sizes doesn't wash because they mimic the anatomy and composition of their subjects down to the subatomic level.

I admit, it's hard to see how changelings can actually spontaneously create specific materials, but that why the Subspace Catch-All (tm) mechanism works so well.

I hate the subspace thing, since it's such technobabble. BUT - we do know that there's such a thing as "subspace geometry." Maybe a shitload more matter and energy can be crammed into a given volume of subspace than into the same volume of normal space?

But why can't Founders' subspace activity be detected? Or is it only detectable when they change shape?

Mass-lightening wasn't proposed to solve why they create materials, it was to solve how they can lose and gain mass.

It just bore mentioning that matter-energy conversion would also explain why they could create different elements. And mass-lightening doesn't really wash because even if it let them cram their mass into a smaller space, it would be detectable (and they wouldn't be able to mimic the subject's internal composition).

[Winston Blake]

He's not releasing and gaining energy. He's releasing and gaining mass (and converting it to energy as needed, but only after it's part of him).

Sorry, I assumed you meant they absorbed and converted energy to gain mass, and consequently released energy to lose it:

They get more energy into their systems over a given timeframe than they can get control of or convert to matter in the same amount of time.

3. Changing from average humanoid mass into average champagne flute mass (in say, a few seconds) by converting his excess matter to air would create so much overpressure he'd kill anyone around him and (at least) blow out windows. Go back to humanoid and you get a rarefaction wave.

Which favors the idea of the mass being sent into subspace...

I thought you were proposing a subspace-free solution, and was pointing out a possible flaw.

And mass-lightening doesn't really wash because even if it let them cram their mass into a smaller space, it would be detectable (and they wouldn't be able to mimic the subject's internal composition).

Perhaps the supposed "intermediate mass/energy" substance is a sort of 'soup' which isn't either, and this is what is subspace-crammed/mass-lightened?

But why can't Founders' subspace activity be detected? Or is it only detectable when they change shape?

That's the ultimate question here. Maybe on a Trek ship/station there's so much subspace technology it drowns out the changeling's subspace use. Has there been any episodes where they were trying to detect a changeling but couldn't?

[Metrion Cascade]

He's not releasing and gaining energy. He's releasing and gaining mass (and converting it to energy as needed, but only after it's part of him).

Sorry, I assumed you meant they absorbed and converted energy to gain mass, and consequently released energy to lose it:

They get more energy into their systems over a given timeframe than they can get control of or convert to matter in the same amount of time.

That was only in reference to being hit by phasers (pure energy of the sort that thankfully isn't flying around DS9 at all times) - not changing size.

3. Changing from average humanoid mass into average champagne flute mass (in say, a few seconds) by converting his excess matter to air would create so much overpressure he'd kill anyone around him and (at least) blow out windows. Go back to humanoid and you get a rarefaction wave.

Which favors the idea of the mass being sent into subspace...

I thought you were proposing a subspace-free solution, and was pointing out a possible flaw.

I was. And the flaw is present.

And mass-lightening doesn't really wash because even if it let them cram their mass into a smaller space, it would be detectable (and they wouldn't be able to mimic the subject's internal composition).

Perhaps the supposed "intermediate mass/energy" substance is a sort of 'soup' which isn't either, and this is what is subspace-crammed/mass-lightened?

But why can't Founders' subspace activity be detected? Or is it only detectable when they change shape?

That's the ultimate question here. Maybe on a Trek ship/station there's so much subspace technology it drowns out the changeling's subspace use. Has there been any episodes where they were trying to detect a changeling but couldn't?

Any episode where they knew a Founder was loose. That happened at least once on the Defiant, and once on Earth. Also, Odo volunteered to help them test their Founder-detection skills and they failed miserably.

I think such a strong subspace field would be detectable, but I'm not sure whether inteference is a problem. Data scanned for active subspace fields when arriving at Wolf 359, and said there were none. But many ships were still largely intact physically. If such fields are very common on ships, I'd expect a handful to still be running.