ODO ITAL, or Odo for short (Rene Auberjonois), serves as Chief of Security aboard Star Base Deep Space Nine. He also was the first of the Changeling race, the Founders of the Gamma Quadrant Dominion, to defect. Soon after that, the Founders made a costly and almost (for them) fatal decision: to prosecute a war of conquest against the Alpha Quadrant. That adventure ended badly, and almost ignominiously--but Odo at last returned to the Great Link, brought his people much-needed succor, and promoted lasting peace and reform. Contents [hideshow] 1.1. Origin of his name 1.2. Background 1.3. History Origin of his name The Bajoran exobiologist who first examined Odo gave him the name Odoital, a Cardassian word which means, literally, nothing. The reason: the scientist first received Odo in liquid form and labeled him Unknown sample. But what no one knew at first, was that he was a Changeling, a shapeshifter.The Cardassians, while they controlled the space station they built and orbited around the planet Bajor, vested in him the post of Chief of Security, after first calling upon him to investigate the murder of a Bajoran collaborator. When the Cardassians withdrew, Star Fleet inherited Odo and left him in place as Chief of Security. He and then Commander (later Captain) Benjamin Sisko, the new commandant, clashed initially but eventually formed a friendship.Odo doesn't always follow the law of whichever people he is serving, but he has a deep sense of right and wrong.Perhaps because of his Changeling nature, Odo is something of a man apart. For a time, he chooses not to engage in romantic relationships, failing to see the point of coupling. Slowly, he develops feelings for Kira Nerys, the station's Bajoran liaison officer, who calls him Constable. He is committed to his post and does daily patrols on a tight schedule. He frequently has to foil the various plots and schemes of Quark, the Ferengi bar owner.During the Dominion War he is one of the few crew members to remain aboard DS9.BackgroundHe was one of the Hundred Changelings sent by the Founders to explore for several centuries. He was found adrift in his natural gelatinous state and brought to the Bajoran Institute for Science where he was experimented upon by Doctor Mora Pol, who did not realize Odo was a sentient being. He harbored some ill will toward Mora after he assumed human form and left, but copied the doctor's hairstyle.Because he did not have the benefit of the Great Link as he matured, Odo's shapeshifting abilities are initially immature, although he does create his own clothes. He does not have a sense of smell or taste and dislikes eating.He has to regenerate every 16 hours or he begins to fall apart.He enjoys kayaking with Chief O'Brien.History Odo had to come to grips, not only with his origins, but with the warlike policies of his people. This moral dilemma came to a head when Odo actually killed a Changeling. Before the Changelings founded the Dominion, no Changeling had ever harmed another. Odo became the first. For this treason, the Changelings somehow forced him to return to the Great Link, and then transformed him into a human being.But even the best-laid plans of Changeling and mouse alike can come to nothing from an unlooked-for circumstance. For a Ferengi trader sold Odo a bottle of goo that turned out to be an infant Changeling. Odo tried to raise it. It didn't survive--but then it integrated itself with Odo and re-transformed him into the Changeling he once had been! Better than that: Odo was fully independent. The Dominion Founders could never harm nor coerce him again.The Founders' decision had another effect that nearly killed them. For Odo traveled to Earth and sought treatment for his affliction from the Starfleet Medical Corps before finally returning to the Great Link to have them judge him. There, agents of Section Thirty-one infected him with a virus fatal to Changelings. So when Odo returned to the Link for judgment, he infected every Changeling in the Link. This included the Queen of the Great Link, who prosecuted the war to its nearly disastrous conclusion.For many years, Odo survived. First, the Changelings turned him into a Solid, a form he kept for nearly a year. (See above). Even after he regained his Changeling nature, he did not shift his shape often. (During this time he declared his deep love for Colonel Kira Nerys of the Bajoran Militia.) But a time came when he would have to change shape much more often, to take part in covert missions against the Cardassians, the Jem'Hadar, and the Breen in the final stages of the War. In the process of capturing a new Breen weapon, Odo nearly succumbed completely to the virus. Only the sheer ruthlessness of Dr. Julian Bashir and his friend Chief Petty Officer Miles E. O'Brien enabled Dr. Bashir to wring from Section Thirty-one the name of the tetrapeptide that could treat the virus. Dr. Bashir treated Odo with this tetrapeptide, and he recovered from the disease.When at length the Queen of the Link suffered defeat, yet still bitterly refused to end the War, Odo came to see her. He offered her a Link, and with it a cure. She took both--and at last understood. She gave the surrender order, and later signed an instrument of surrender in the presence of the major powers in the War.Only one thing remained. Odo, with Colonel Kira to accompany him, returned to the world the Founders had moved to. There he said a final good-bye to Kira, and rejoined the Great Link. Which resumed its healthy appearance as soon as he entered it. We may assume that Odo, with his great knowledge of The Solids and how to form lasting friendships with them, became the new King of the Link. His first royal edict would, of course, be to declare mutual non-aggression with the United Federation of Planets. After that, he presumably put in place a reform program. The Dominion would be a little less Domineering and would never again be as viciously warlike as it had been under the now-abdicated Queen. Show less «