Star Trek’s Strongest Character Randomly Weakened
When you think about the strongest characters in Star Trek, chances are you think about great warriors like the Klingon Worf or the super-strong android Data. However, the actual strongest character is arguably Odo: he can turn his body into the ultimate weapon, and his shapeshifting abilities also protect him from experiencing much of the pain and discomfort that would plague other characters. However, the season 1 episode “Vortex” portrayed Odo as a much weaker character because the writers were still trying to get a handle on the nature of his powers.
Vortex
Before we can dive into this Odo oddity, let’s review the episode in question. “Vortex” is an early DS9 adventure where Odo meets someone who claims to have plenty of insider info about shapeshifters.
This interests Odo because he knows nothing yet about his people or his powers, but we find out by the end that he was getting conned by this charismatic stranger named Croden who doesn’t, in fact, really know anything about Changelings.
Still, Odo and the newcomer bond, and in the episode’s climax, Odo is knocked out by a falling rock and his new buddy carries him to a nearby runabout. Odo later wakes up with a headache and is grateful enough for the save to help Croden and his daughter find a new home on Vulcan.
“Vortex” is ultimately a decent early Deep Space Nine episode, but the more of this show that you watch, the more confusing Odo’s injuries get.
Odo Shouldn’t Be Knocked Out By Rocks
What’s so weird about Odo getting knocked out by a falling rock, especially since such a fate is a staple of genre television? Time for a little biology lesson: when we get knocked out, it’s because our brains have been violently moved around, putting plenty of extra pressure on our brain stem.
While certain Star Trek aliens have different anatomy (like the many redundant organs in Klingons), this is generally how getting knocked out works for all humanoids in Gene Roddenberry’s beloved franchise.
Odo Is Kind Of Like The Scarecrow
The reason that Odo particularly shouldn’t be able to get knocked out is revealed in a later season 1 episode, “Dramatis Personae.” That episode established that our favorite shapeshifter was not affected by a telepathic energy matrix because of a very specific biological quirk.
Specifically, Odo and other Changelings don’t have a humanoid brain, which is one of the potentially many reasons that their thoughts can’t be read by Betazoids.
The Writers Were Still Figuring Odo Out
It’s not really fair to call what happened in “Vortex” a plot hole, really. After all, the writers of Deep Space Nine were still trying to figure out exactly how Odo’s powers worked, and six episodes later, they determined that he didn’t have a humanoid brain.
Had that been determined earlier in the season, Odo might not have gotten knocked out at all, or he might have been incapacitated by an energy blast, radiation, or another attack later established as affecting Changelings.
Check Vortex Out
If you’ve never watched this episode before, don’t let the early writers’ confusion over Odo’s injury keep you from enjoying “Vortex.” It’s a wonderful character study for Odo and an early master class in acting from the late, great Rene Auberjonois.
Plus, the episode serves as a bit of an informal franchise initiation for the acclaimed performer—after all, can anyone really be a Star Trek actor until they get attacked by some styrofoam rocks?
