What if a Founder entered the SW galaxy...

Totenkopf · Post by **Totenkopf** » 2002-11-24 11:59am

And got trained as a Jedi?

Combining his latent shapeshifting abilities with Force skills...

What sort of fighter would that be?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-11-24 12:03pm

It'd be pretty cool- though I don't know what advantages force use would confer on a shape shifter.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-11-24 12:41pm

It'd make a for one hell of a fighter. Force precognition combined with the abilty to manipulate your body make up would produce a very very dangerous fighter.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-11-24 01:37pm

Founders are also depicted frequently as being enormously strong, on their own, and able to shape-shift into virtually anything. It would be an extraordinarily powerful warrior.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-11-24 01:39pm

Master of Ossus wrote:Founders are also depicted frequently as being enormously strong, on their own, and able to shape-shift into virtually anything. It would be an extraordinarily powerful warrior.

Here is an evil thought. A Shapeshifter that can fight without need of a light sabre. It alters its body to allow enemy blades to pass through with no problem and it alters its arms into blades of its own.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-11-24 01:42pm

Alyeska wrote:
Master of Ossus wrote:Founders are also depicted frequently as being enormously strong, on their own, and able to shape-shift into virtually anything. It would be an extraordinarily powerful warrior.
Here is an evil thought. A Shapeshifter that can fight without need of a light sabre. It alters its body to allow enemy blades to pass through with no problem and it alters its arms into blades of its own.

So, basically what we see in ST with the founders, combined with the liquid-metal terminator. I'm pretty sure that Founders can avoid bladed weapons like that, didn't Odo's friend avoid a Klingon dagger in similar fashion? I can't remember if he stabbed the Klingon back or not, but IIRC he did injure the Klingon warrior.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-11-24 02:46pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
Alyeska wrote:
Master of Ossus wrote:Founders are also depicted frequently as being enormously strong, on their own, and able to shape-shift into virtually anything. It would be an extraordinarily powerful warrior.
Here is an evil thought. A Shapeshifter that can fight without need of a light sabre. It alters its body to allow enemy blades to pass through with no problem and it alters its arms into blades of its own.
So, basically what we see in ST with the founders, combined with the liquid-metal terminator. I'm pretty sure that Founders can avoid bladed weapons like that, didn't Odo's friend avoid a Klingon dagger in similar fashion? I can't remember if he stabbed the Klingon back or not, but IIRC he did injure the Klingon warrior.

Yes, he did stab back. That was why there was such a ruckus.

Oh, and the Founders can become weird stuff like fire. Would one need to have a lightsaber or could he potentially make something like it out of himself?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-11-24 02:57pm

You'd need a Turbolaser to kill one.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-11-24 03:03pm

Howedar wrote:You'd need a Turbolaser to kill one.

Oh, I think they can be killed in other ways, but it would be very difficult.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-11-24 03:51pm

Can Founders shape shift into complex objects?

Soulman · Post by **Soulman** » 2002-11-24 05:00pm

Well they can turn into perfect copies of animals (without the wobbly bits inside), that's pretty complex...

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-11-24 05:08pm

One turned into a large space-faring creature thing. And fire.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-11-24 05:35pm

It appears that they can mimic the external appearance of most anything, but I don’t recall them ever actually creating what the mimic beyond appearance. If they could do that then a Founder could turn his hand into a phaser, hold a real battery inside of its self and go on a rampage. But we've never see anything like that. Just external appearances.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2002-11-24 05:37pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
Alyeska wrote:
Master of Ossus wrote:Founders are also depicted frequently as being enormously strong, on their own, and able to shape-shift into virtually anything. It would be an extraordinarily powerful warrior.
Here is an evil thought. A Shapeshifter that can fight without need of a light sabre. It alters its body to allow enemy blades to pass through with no problem and it alters its arms into blades of its own.
So, basically what we see in ST with the founders, combined with the liquid-metal terminator. I'm pretty sure that Founders can avoid bladed weapons like that, didn't Odo's friend avoid a Klingon dagger in similar fashion? I can't remember if he stabbed the Klingon back or not, but IIRC he did injure the Klingon warrior.

You're forgetting the DS9 pilot: Odo breaks up a burglary on the promenade and one of the burglars twirls and throws a length of chain with a spiked/bladed mace head attached to it straight at Odo. The spiked weight, which would have caved in the front of a human's skull quite handily, passes right through Odo's head in a little T1000 effect and embeds itself in a piece of scenery behind Odo.

On the other hand, in canon, Founders can be killed by big explosions, really extreme acceleration, a direct hit on its body in solid form by a Federaton-style energy small arm, direct contact exposure with an unshielded warp core, and Section 31's artificial shapechanger cooties. Founders are infernally tough but hardly invulnerable.

Also, a juvenile changeling of the sort the Founders apparently seeded in large numbers throughout the parts of the galaxy accessible to their ships would seem more drawn to the Sith. Arrogance, contempt for lesser beings and a need for order, complete with draconian punishments, appear pretty much hardcoded into the makeup of changelings. An appeal to "bring order to the Galaxy" would be nearly irresistible to a changeling, and if a few trillion sapient beings and a few thousand worlds have to get blown to bits ... you can't make a Zagnorbian omelette without disrupting the crystalline subspace harmonics of a few billion Zagnorbian ova containment systems.

Acclamator · Post by **Acclamator** » 2002-11-24 05:42pm

Actually, a Founder would probably be able to turn its body into a gun barrel to fire projectile weapons.

It would still need to carry rounds of ammunition that were not part of it, but it could use its own body to form the barrel and breach, from which to fire them.

That would be cool as fuck.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-11-24 05:45pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:It appears that they can mimic the external appearance of most anything, but I don’t recall them ever actually creating what the mimic beyond appearance. If they could do that then a Founder could turn his hand into a phaser, hold a real battery inside of its self and go on a rampage. But we've never see anything like that. Just external appearances.

There was a changeling that turned into mist. If it was just the external appearance then wouldn't that mean that a lot of people breathed him in?

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2002-11-24 05:49pm

"Man the gun!"
"The guns have been destroyed!"
"Dammit! No guns- oh. Wait. Wow."

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2002-11-24 05:56pm

The business of how deep a Founder's shapechange goes appears to be more a matter of choice than anything else. Merely producing a surface change, while remaining golden and gooey on the inside, could be assumed to be a lot simpler than perfectly mimicking a human ambassador through and through (to the point that even a tricorder medical scan can not tell the difference).

Acclamator · Post by **Acclamator** » 2002-11-24 06:01pm

We also know that they can turn into birds and fly.

With their ability to look like anything, be fully mobile (turn into a bird and fly, turn into cheetah and run at 60MPH, turn into a fish and swim fast), combined with Jedi powers... I'd say that the Jedi-Founder would easily be the most powerful warrior in the galaxy.

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2002-11-24 06:21pm

I can see a Founder as the new Emperor and ultimate Sith lord. While he/she/it may be no more intelligent or cunning than Palpatine, he/she/it would be significantly more difficult to destroy. During it's down-time in storage buckets, it would be vulnerable, but reasonably fanatical guards should be able to aleviate any danger there.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2002-11-25 12:05pm

jegs2 wrote:I can see a Founder as the new Emperor and ultimate Sith lord. While he/she/it may be no more intelligent or cunning than Palpatine, he/she/it would be significantly more difficult to destroy. During it's down-time in storage buckets, it would be vulnerable, but reasonably fanatical guards should be able to aleviate any danger there.

In fact, the storage bucket problem might not be as much of a problem in a Star Wars setting. The monks whose monastery Jabba the Hutt appropriated as his palace aimed ultimately to become disembodied brains contemplating enlightenment. Whenever one of the brains in a jar had to get around, it called a spider droid to it, and the brain jar was hooked up to the droid body and could then take appropriate action. Those mechanical spider things in Jabba's palace were precisely such monks on their rounds.

Given that ability, and the fact that Founders can communicate with each other while in their soft-set pudding state, it's no great leap to assume that the Sith Founder could commission a suitable droid. If the Founder feels tired and squishy, it's a small matter to pour into the armored compartment in the droid and either interface with the droid to control it directly, or allow the droid's autonomous systems to take care of matters if the Founder is feeling like catching some gelatinated shut-eye. Adding on shields, armor, repeating blasters and a half-dozen lightsaber arms (as Founders appear capable of using more than two limbs simultaneously in coordinated actions), and you've got a ridiculously overpowered creature piloting a ridiculously overpowered combat droid. (That kind of combination is, of course, known as a turbolaser magnet.)

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2002-11-25 12:50pm

Patrick Ogaard wrote:
jegs2 wrote:I can see a Founder as the new Emperor and ultimate Sith lord. While he/she/it may be no more intelligent or cunning than Palpatine, he/she/it would be significantly more difficult to destroy. During it's down-time in storage buckets, it would be vulnerable, but reasonably fanatical guards should be able to aleviate any danger there.
In fact, the storage bucket problem might not be as much of a problem in a Star Wars setting. The monks whose monastery Jabba the Hutt appropriated as his palace aimed ultimately to become disembodied brains contemplating enlightenment. Whenever one of the brains in a jar had to get around, it called a spider droid to it, and the brain jar was hooked up to the droid body and could then take appropriate action. Those mechanical spider things in Jabba's palace were precisely such monks on their rounds.

Given that ability, and the fact that Founders can communicate with each other while in their soft-set pudding state, it's no great leap to assume that the Sith Founder could commission a suitable droid. If the Founder feels tired and squishy, it's a small matter to pour into the armored compartment in the droid and either interface with the droid to control it directly, or allow the droid's autonomous systems to take care of matters if the Founder is feeling like catching some gelatinated shut-eye. Adding on shields, armor, repeating blasters and a half-dozen lightsaber arms (as Founders appear capable of using more than two limbs simultaneously in coordinated actions), and you've got a ridiculously overpowered creature piloting a ridiculously overpowered combat droid. (That kind of combination is, of course, known as a turbolaser magnet.)

Don't forget that only Odo turned back into liquid form every day. The other founders were able to keep their figure much longer.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-11-25 01:24pm

IIRC Founders are able to mimick very closely what they are trying to hide as. A Founder mimicking a human would show up on sensor scans as a human. Mimicking a rock, they would show up as a rock. The only way they could be detected was either by hiting them with a low powered energy sweep from a phaser or by detaching a small section from them.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-11-25 07:58pm

Alyeska wrote:IIRC Founders are able to mimick very closely what they are trying to hide as. A Founder mimicking a human would show up on sensor scans as a human. Mimicking a rock, they would show up as a rock. The only way they could be detected was either by hiting them with a low powered energy sweep from a phaser or by detaching a small section from them.

So would they be able to form a gun? And could their bullet hold shape long enough to kill anyone?

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-11-25 08:23pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:
Alyeska wrote:IIRC Founders are able to mimick very closely what they are trying to hide as. A Founder mimicking a human would show up on sensor scans as a human. Mimicking a rock, they would show up as a rock. The only way they could be detected was either by hiting them with a low powered energy sweep from a phaser or by detaching a small section from them.

So would they be able to form a gun? And could their bullet hold shape long enough to kill anyone?

I don't think it would work. They used to test for changelings by taking blood samples. After a second or so it reverted back to the golden liquid. Maybe if they had the bullets inside them?