Weyoun

"My loyal Weyoun. The only solid I have ever trusted."

– Female Changeling, 2375 ("What You Leave Behind")

Weyoun was the "noble progenitor" of a series of Vorta supervisors, diplomats and administrators in the service of the Dominion during the late 24th century. Like all Vorta, Weyoun was cloned; at least eight copies were known to exist, five of which were encountered by the Federation. (DS9: "Ties of Blood and Water", et al.)

According to Damar, all of the Weyouns had overconfidence in common, which he suggested the Founders ought to consider eliminating from the clones' genetic recipe. (DS9: "Strange Bedfellows")

Prior to Weyoun 6, none of the Weyouns had ever turned out defective. Weyoun 7 found the very idea of any of the Weyoun clones committing treason unthinkable. (DS9: "Treachery, Faith and the Great River")

Until the death of Weyoun's eighth and final clone, he remained the only "Solid" that the Female Changeling claimed that she had ever trusted. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind")

Appendices

All appearances

• DS9:
  • "To the Death" Weyoun 4
  • "Ties of Blood and Water" Weyoun 5
  • "In the Cards"
  • "Call to Arms"
  • "A Time to Stand"
  • "Behind the Lines"
  • "Favor the Bold"
  • "Sacrifice of Angels"
  • "Statistical Probabilities"
  • "Waltz" (as a "phantom")
  • "Far Beyond the Stars" (only as part of Sisko's vision)
  • "Inquisition" (only as a hologram)
  • "In the Pale Moonlight" (only as a hologram)
  • "Tears of the Prophets"
  • "Image in the Sand"
  • "Shadows and Symbols"
  • "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" Weyouns 6 and 7
  • "Penumbra" Weyoun 7
  • "'Til Death Do Us Part"
  • "Strange Bedfellows" Weyouns 7 and 8
  • "The Changing Face of Evil" Weyoun 8
  • "Tacking Into the Wind"
  • "The Dogs of War"
  • "What You Leave Behind"

Background information

The role of Weyoun was created specifically for actor Jeffrey Combs by Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler, as Combs' previous appearances on I AM ERROR had been in two roles – Tiron and Brunt – for which his face had been covered by heavy prosthetic make-up. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 17, p. 16) Combs has said that Weyoun is his personal favorite out of all the Star Trek roles he has played, due to his relatively increased input on the role. [1] The actor has also commented about Weyoun, "I love about him his grace and poise and ruthlessness and loyalty. Something that I really wanted to instill in him was, you know, you kinda have to fly by the seat of your pants. I really didn't know what he looked like, I didn't know anything about the design concept of the character when I arrived that first morning. I'd had a script for a couple of days, but I tend to really get a lot of hints from the outside, that tells me who I am inside. It does with all of us, the kind of shoes you wear tells you who you are. So when the process started, I began to see how sort of royal and regal he was, and there was something kind of Japanese, but also he was the courtier in the court, he was the foppish, coiffed, graceful diplomat who would go from one party to another and make them all run smoothly. And he would do anything he could, with a smile, to make it look as easy as possible, and get exactly what he wanted. So I took a little spice from the French court as well." (Hidden File 02, DS9 Season 7 DVD special features)

On another occasion, Combs elaborated, "I didn't think of Weyoun as evil, I think that's a mistake; it's always best to play them as if everything they do is justified. I played him as if he prided himself on how eloquent and elegant he could be, and on his ability to manipulate and cajole. He considered himself really adept at the political game. Sometimes I think he felt misunderstood, but he was a good actor too, feigning shock or surprise. Pretending you're vulnerable and that you're genuinely taken aback by someone's harsh words can be a useful tool, making the other person think that you're off balance when really you're two or three steps ahead." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 17, pp. 17-18)

Having played several aliens in the Star Trek franchise involving heavy makeup, Combs contrasted his Weyoun makeup with that of a Ferengi; "Weyoun was quite comfortable. It was a longer makeup, even though it looks simpler, because hair was involved; I'd get to a particular place in the makeup and then go get the hair done, and then go back and get finished off. And I could hear quite well, because the ears were little holes." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 17, p. 19)

Weyoun's distinctive violet/purple eyes were created by the use of elaborate contact lenses. [2]

In 2002, Weyoun placed eighth in TV Zone's list of the top twenty science fiction television villains. The Borg Queen was second, Dukat was fourth, Q was eleventh, and Seska was eighteenth.

According to the script for "Behind the Lines", his name was pronounced as "WAY-yoon". [3]

Apocrypha

Millennium

Weyoun 2 was said to have had a relationship with one of Kilana's clones in Inferno.

Weyoun 5 played a major role in the Deep Space Nine book trilogy Millennium. Shortly after a second, red wormhole destroyed Deep Space 9 in 2374 when three red Orbs were brought together, Weyoun led a fleet of Dominion ships to find out if the new wormhole could go to the Gamma Quadrant after the original blue one would not open. Pursued by Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise-E, Weyoun and the Dominion ships entered the wormhole, which would not open for the Enterprise, and arrived at a point deep in the Beta Quadrant near the border with the Delta Quadrant. When Weyoun returned to the Alpha Quadrant though the wormhole, he commanded a fleet from an alien race called the Grigari, the Dominion fleet he had taken with him having been destroyed. Weyoun claimed that the "True Prophets" – a group of Prophets inhabiting the red wormhole, from whom the blue wormhole prophets had broken away millennia ago – had anointed him as their kai.

Weyoun's first act was to take the Grigari fleet to Cardassia Prime and try to convince Damar and the Female Changeling to join with the Grigari. When the Female Changeling refused, the Grigari fleet laid waste to the entire Cardassian Union, killing billions, including Damar and the Changeling, effectively ending the Dominion War. Having come to believe that the "True Prophets" were gods, Weyoun went to Vorta and opened the tank containing the next Weyoun to see if anything had been changed in his physiology, only to find that, although there were virtually no differences, Weyoun 6 did not believe in the "True Prophets" as Weyoun 5 believed in them. Weyoun 5 then killed his other clones, and, along with the Grigari, went on to destroy Earth, most of the Human colonies in the Federation, and the Klingon Empire in what became known as the War of the Prophets (β). With powers granted to him by the "True Prophets", along with Grigari nanotechnology, Weyoun was all but unstoppable and immortal. The only real threat to him was the Emissary of the Pah-wraiths, Gul Dukat, who was still possessed by the Kosst Amojan Pah-wraith seen in the episode "Tears of the Prophets", and had taken up residence in the mirror universe on Terok Nor.

Weyoun's destructive plans culminated in 2399 when he brought about the end to the entire universe – what he called "pain of life" – with the merging of the blue and red wormholes. The end of the universe, and the timeline, was ultimately avoided after-the-fact by the intervention of two time-traveling groups. The first group was the command staff of DS9, Quark, and Vash who had traveled twenty-five years into the future during the destruction of DS9 in 2374 by the red wormhole thanks to the Defiant travelling around the red wormhole in a slingshot maneuver. The second was Jean-Luc Picard and Nog, who along with Vash, traveled back right before the end of the universe to the founding of B'hala to set into motion the sequence of events that led to the opening of the red wormhole in the first place. The first group, without Vash, then managed to restore the station and close the red wormhole in 2374 by traveling back from after the end of the universe to the day when DS9 was destroyed, exploiting the fact that the red and blue wormholes created a link to the true universe based on when the orbs were first brought to DS9 and when they opened the wormhole. While taking no action to alter the events that led to them travelling to the future, the Defiant crew were able to trigger a collision between Weyoun's ship and a Cardassian ship after the red wormhole opened, killing Weyoun and Dukat, which then pushed a version of the station out of the blue wormhole.

Relaunch novels

A ninth clone of Weyoun appears in the final book of the Deep Space Nine: Mission Gamma relaunch series. Like Weyoun 4, he is the commander of a Jem'Hadar attack ship, created from the genetic profile left behind in the Gamma Quadrant. Exactly when this clone was activated is not revealed, though it is assumed he was created after the end of the Dominion War. He later becomes Odo's chief aide whenever he is separated from the Great Link.

Weyoun 9 reappears in Olympus Descending, the Dominion entry in the Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series. There, it is revealed that Odo specifically reactivated Weyoun so that he would have a familiar face to interact with in the Dominion, and that he is attempting to train the new clone to think for himself rather than blindly follow orders. Weyoun 9 also continues to collect meaningless trinkets in his quarters, just as Weyoun 5 did. Weyoun later appears in the Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel Raise the Dawn.

Other

A tenth Weyoun clone is one of several Deep Space Nine characters who appear in the Star Trek Online expansion "Victory is Life", the story of which is set some 30 years after the events of Deep Space Nine, portrayed again by Jeffrey Combs (who also voices Brunt, his other DS9 role). Weyoun serves as one of Odo's adjutants, alongside a Vorta created specifically for the game, Loriss, with whom he has a not-so-friendly rivalry. Weyoun is also the Vorta supervisor for the Jem'Hadar player character, but is revealed later on to be fanatically loyal to the Female Changeling his earlier incarnations had served during the Dominion War. In the mission "Tenebris Torquent", after the Founder is apparently killed by a rabid Hur'q mutant, Weyoun denounces Odo as a traitor for allowing his beloved Founder to die, and orders the Jem'Hadar to kill him and his associates. When the Jem'Hadar refuse, Weyoun takes it upon himself to try and kill Odo, but is rendered unconscious by Dukan'Rex, the Jem'Hadar captain of Odo's flagship, before he can pull the trigger. Odo then has the Jem'Hadar take Weyoun into custody. In the mission "Home", which follows "Tenebris Torquent", Weyoun is said to have been liberated by followers of the Female changing and attacks Dr. Bashir, Loriss, Dukan'Rex, and the playable character aboard a Hur'q dreadnought while they work to bring a ketracel-based cure for the Hur'q's madness. He destroys the cure once he arrives, but is later shot and disarmed by Loriss. He demands that Dukan'Rex obey him by killing the others; Dukan'Rex refuses, and shoots Weyoun dead on the spot.

Weyoun also replaces the Vorta Eraun in the earlier feature episode series "The 2800", involving the release of the Female Changeling from a Federation prison, and later participates in the next mission "Boldly They Rode" which concerns liberating Deep Space Nine from a Jem"Hadar fleet.

External links

• [4]
• Weyoun at Wikipedia
• Weyoun at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works

This is a featured article. At the time it was last featured (June 2012), it was considered one of the best examples of the Memory Alpha community's work. This article was last featured more than five years ago though, and its status should be reviewed. You can use the links below to see how the article has changed since it was last featured.

---

Original featured revision (23498) • Diff to current • Last featured revision (1400530) • Diff to current • Blurb