The Changeling Julian Bashir was a Changeling of the Founders in the 24th century. In the 2370s, this Changeling was one of a handful of agents tasked with destabilizing relationships between the larger organizations of the Alpha Quadrant.
In 2373, Julian Bashir was captured by the Dominion on Meezan IV and sent to Internment Camp 371. This Founder took his place with the mission of helping Dominion forces travel to Cardassian space and hatching a plan to cripple Federation, Romulan and Klingon forces. It spent a month keeping up appearances before carrying it out, including playing darts and racquetball with Miles O'Brien.
In the meantime, the Dominion had been negotiating incorporating the Cardassian Union, and had to move a fleet into the Alpha Quadrant. After the crew of Deep Space 9 planned to collapse the Bajoran wormhole with a phase-conjugate graviton beam perfected by the Trill Science Ministry, the Bashir-Changeling sabotaged the station's emitter array. This instead stabilized the wormhole and allowed the fleet through.
Later, when Dukat promised to retake DS9 with the new forces, the Changeling attempted to destroy the Bajoran sun, thereby wiping out the combined Federation, Klingon and Romulan fleets gathered to do battle with the Dominion. It stole the runabout the USS Yukon and killed its crewmembers in order to modify it with an explosive device composing of trilithium, tekasite, and protomatter and fly it into the sun. It was, however, intercepted and by the USS Defiant before he could carry it out. The Defiant towed the Yukon into clear space with a tractor beam where the bomb detonated harmlessly, destroying the Yukon and the Bashir Changeling. (DS9: "In Purgatory's Shadow", "By Inferno's Light")
Background information[]
Bashir and his first Changeling replacement
Bashir had previously been impersonated by a Changeling who portrayed Krajensky in "The Adversary". In that episode, however, the real Bashir was missing for a matter of hours before his replacement was revealed to be the infiltrator.
The real Dr. Bashir, still with the old Starfleet uniform
Alexander Siddig found out that Bashir had been replaced by a Changeling during the filming of “For the Uniform”. Siddig commented "I was told during "For the Uniform" where I had one scene which was played as a Changeling. They must have decided not to tip their hand at that point and give anything away so they cut the scene". ("Time for a Changeling", Dreamwatch magazine, issue 36)
Based on the fact that the real Bashir was not wearing the newer uniforms, which had been introduced in "Rapture", we can deduce that he had been replaced by a Changeling since at least that episode. This means the Changeling performed surgery on Sisko in "Rapture" and tried to help save the Changeling infant in "The Begotten". On the other hand, it is also possible that it was acceptable to wear either uniform style during that transitional period, as was seen in the transitional period Star Trek Generations, indicating that he may have been captured after the aforementioned events. Furthermore, while it has been argued that is unlikely since all Starfleet officers stationed on DS9 since "Rapture" have been wearing the newer uniforms, the real Bashir clearly gave his whereabouts as being on Meezan IV (not DS9) at the time he was abducted. Captain Sisko switched to wearing the TNG season 3-7 uniform in "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost" for example.
In response to the often proposed question, Ronald D. Moore commented "It would've been before "Rapture." (AOL chat, 1997) Moore has also noted that although the writing staff didn't think the revelation would damage anything about previous episodes, René Echevarria did have reservations about the changeling delivering Kira's baby. (AOL chat, 1997) Robert Hewitt Wolfe commented: “Hitchcock [introduced the term “fridge logic” as] anything that you didn't really need to know until you were done watching the movie. There’s sometimes when I think it’s better not to give everything. It makes the audience have to work things out for themselves, and think things through a little bit. Sometimes I think that if we don’t do that we’re sort of cheating people of some of the fun. So, when exactly Bashir was captured is one of those mysteries that people can noodle themselves for as long as they want, and argue about it on the Internet. I’m never going to give a specific answer on that one. I don't want to spoil anyone's fun.” (Cinefantastique 134, Vol 29 #6/7, 1997)
Commenting on the possibility that Bashir was a Changeling in “Rapture” and “The Begotten”, Wolfe commented: “Those are kind of critical episodes. Was he a shape shifter or wasn’t he a shape shifter? I don’t know right now. We may eventually reveal that. But it’s kind of fun to wonder, isn’t it? I think it’s kind of fun that people who really know the show can watch those episodes and say, ‘Is he a shape shifter? Because if he’s a shape shifter this is a completely different episode I’m watching.’ That’s the beauty of it. And that’s why I don’t think we should ever nail down for sure, because I just like the idea that you watch it and go, ‘What’s exactly going on here?’ Many people have gone down many different paths with who is a changeling and who isn’t. There’s some great theories. Sometimes I go, ‘Maybe we should have done it that way, because it’s kind of more fun.’ But the truth is we change our minds about it all the time too, we don’t actually have every detail worked out years in advance. We sort of go where the show takes us.” Hans Beimler commented: There was nothing so nefarious going on in our minds, but in retrospect it’s one of those things that worked out nicely. You don’t know whether what, if anything, he did, or could he have done more to help, or did he obfuscate things himself. So I think it worked for the drama of the piece. To be honest with you, I don’t think we knew at the time. We hadn't realized that it would go that far back. We hadn't exactly worked out the timeline. That’s one of those things that Robert, who’s the resident Vulcan, will come running into Ira's office, and will have worked out the whole pattern of when and what everything happened and is so excited because of all the different possibilities. When all that works, you just know that you’re on the right television show. This was really a lot of fun." (Cinefantastique 134, Vol 29 #6/7, 1997)
The Bashir Changeling also appears in The Badlands, Book Two, which takes place just after the events of "The Begotten". The character has been on the station since at least that episode.
Star Trek tie-in author, Christopher L. Bennett, proposed the following about the Changeling:
Indeed, the timeline doesn't really work out there. The uniform change was in "Rapture", and Bashir was supposedly abducted 37 days before the end of "By Inferno's Light". But there's no way that "Rapture," "The Darkness and the Light", "The Begotten", "For the Uniform", "In Purgatory's Shadow", and "By Inferno's Light" could've all taken place within less than 37 days. According to dialogue, "Darkness" is at least three weeks before "The Begotten," which in turn covers nearly 2 weeks. So that's at least 33 days right there, and the events of "For the Uniform" and the 2-parter cover about a week each, plus however much time might have elapsed between them. (Even if we assumed 26-hour Bajoran days, 37 of those is only 40 Earth days, so that doesn't help.) So Bashir must have been abducted after the uniform change; there's simply no other possibility. The fact that he's in the old uniform is a paradox.
On the other hand, it's stated in dialogue that Kirayoshi was born "less than a month" before "Purgatory." Since the 2-parter takes about a week, that pretty much requires that Bashir was abducted in between "The Darkness and the Light" and "The Begotten". That part can't be finessed, since the dialogue is explicit. On the one hand, Bashir had to be abducted after the uniform change, which creates a plot hole; but on the other hand, Kirayoshi had to be delivered by the changeling impostor, which creates a second plot hole. It's a total mess -- they just didn't think through the timeline carefully when they put in the date references.
But as for this part 'Because if Changeling Bashir helped to deliver the baby in "The Begotten", then he also did the ultra-delicate brain surgery on Sisko in "Rapture".' Since "Rapture" was significantly more than 37 days before the end of "Inferno," that means it was the real Bashir who did that.[1]
External link[]
- Julian Bashir (Changeling) at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works