When was Bashir Replaced? 
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In "Inquisition" (DS9) Sloan mentions that Bashir spent five weeks in the Dominion prisoner camp, and Bashir confirms this by saying that it was exactly 37 days. It is uncertain whether he meant that it had been 37 days since his kidnap, or 37 days since his arrival at the camp (that's why I didn't put it into the article). 37 days is 101.3 Stardate units. "The Darkness and the Light" (we get no Stardate in "Rapture") is 146 units before 'By Inferno's Light', or 53-54 days, a discrepancy of 16 or 17 days. Even assuming that he did not count transport time to the camp, or was interrogated for two weeks, this does not quite match up. Besides, in "Rapture", he performs extensive surgery on Captain Sisko, who will go on to become one of the Dominion's greatest enemies. It makes more sense that a Changeling would let him die. However, he does seem slightly out of character in the episode. That still does not remove the problem of a Changeling letting an infant Changeling die in "The Begotten". This contradicts 'No Changeling has ever harmed another', although that was not strictly true by that time. He could surely have found an opportunity to link with the infant Changeling and save its life, or even help it to escape.
Overall, we can be certain that Bashir was replaced before "For the Uniform" because of the dates given, but it becomes difficult before then. As a guess, around the time of "Rapture" would make sense, assuming that he was wearing his old uniform for some reason. This assumes that he spend some time in captivity, but not in the camp. Either way, his failure to help the infant Changeling is inexplicable if he was one himself.
Note, the figures above are for 24-hour Terran days, not 26-hour Bajoran days. Assuming that an hour is the same length on both planets, 37 Bajoran days counts as 109.7 Stardate units, but that still leaves a discrepancy of 13 or 14 Bajoran days to "The Darkness and the Light".
– --86.168.115.89 21:33, 7 April 2009 (UTC) L E Greys
- Stardates and real days do not have any realworld conversion. — Morder 21:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- All of this would be speculation anyway, as it was never said specifically(beyond the five week estimate by Sloan).--31dot 23:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I would never have interpreted the death of the infant Changeling as Changeling-Bashir REFUSING to help it, or LETTING it die: I interpreted it as there was genuinely nothing he could have done - the illness was too severe, or perhaps even completely unknown to the Founders. How many bizarre alien pathogens or maybe even carcinogens do you think it might have encountered on its trip from the Gamma Quadrant, into Quark's possession, and all while being on DS9? --24.16.218.57 21:40, July 17, 2012 (UTC)
Beside, given all the work Odo put into helping the infant Changeling, how could Bashir be certain that the infant wouldn't have immediately given him away the moment it was cured and could communicate had he linked with it? We know the Founders can at least attempt to restrict info sharing during a link, but still, I doubt Bashir could have hidden his very act of linking with the infant from it.--2.101.237.201 10:01, May 11, 2014 (UTC)
- For reference, there is an in-depth article discussing this at Ex Astris Scientia. --| TrekFan Open a channel 21:18, May 11, 2014 (UTC)
