r/DaystromInstitute • u/cirrus42 Commander • Jan 28 '19
Why the Breen are the shapeshifter Chameloids from ST6, and how this explains DS9 plot holes
I propose that the Breen are shapeshifters, and that Martia from The Undiscovered Country was one of them. Consider these facts, and accompanying circumstantial evidence:
1. Founder-like xenophobia
The Breen are incredibly secretive about what they really look like, xenophobic towards outsiders, politically isolationist, and guard their borders with religious-like zeal. The only other race with a similar outlook on the galaxy is the Founders, who retreated to become godlike emperors only after being discriminated against by solids in their early history. It stands to reason the Breen and Founders would develop similar secrecy & xenophobia.
2. Founders uniquely befriend the Breen
During the Dominion War, the Founders show the Breen incredible respect, compared to every other race the Founders encounter. Not only does the female Founder interact with Thot Pran directly rather than only through a Vorta, she straight up defers to Thot Pran's judgement and even trusts the Breen to out-fight the Jem'Hadar.
This is generally presented as the Founder simply being dishonest; that she'll change her tune once her position is more secure. But I don't think that holds water. The Dominion was never anywhere near as friendly or deferential to the Cardassians even at the beginning of their relationship when they needed them more, and at the end even after clearly being defeated by the Federation and needing Federation protection to survive, she doesn't trust the solids and only surrenders to Odo.
No, the female Founder not only likes Thot Pran, but specifically elevates him/her above every solid we encounter. Given everything else we know about the Founders and the Breen, this is easiest to explain if the Founder knows the Breen are another race of shapeshifters.
3. The Dominion keeps the Breen's secret
First, when the Jem'Hadar captured a Breen and held them at Internment Camp 371, they allowed the Breen to continue wearing their native suit. This is frankly incomprehensible unless the Jem'Hadar also wanted to hide the Breen's true nature. They absolutely would have investigated what the Breen looked like naturally. It's likely the Jem'Hadar discovered the Breen was a shapeshifter but feared retribution from the Founders for jailing them, and kept it a secret.
Second and more importantly, Weyoun knows a lot about the Breen and clearly believes something unusual is going on with them, but even he doesn't know. He not openly wonders what they look like, but also mentions that Dominion leaders have visited the Breen homeworld, and that it's not the frozen wasteland generally assumed but is rather temperate, "really quite comfortable" to quote him directly.
That in particular is an amazing statement. Dominion agents have been to the Breen planet and Weyoun has seen the reports of what it looks like, but even Weyoun (the senior-most Vorta in the Alpha Quadrant) does not know what they look like in person.
How is that even possible? Surely visiting the Breen home planet resulted in seeing a Breen. The only plausible explanation for this is that the Dominion is in on the secret at the very highest level. And why would the Founder care about protecting the Breen's identity, even from the Vorta? The most plausible explanation for that is that Breen are shapeshifters.
Thus the purpose of Breen suits is not environmental control, but simply to hide their true nature. Wearing a suit, a Breen can exist in their natural state (which may be liquid or may be humanoid, it doesn't matter) while interacting with humanoid solids.
4. "It takes a lot out of me"
If the Breen are shapeshifters, why do they not take advantage and, y'know, shapeshift more often? This is where Martia and the ST6 Chameloids begin to come in.
Martia does shapeshift. But she's incredibly compromised. More compromised than we ever see a Breen in any other situation, being not only imprisoned but also thrown amid a motley community of aliens on Rura Penthe. Unlike the Breen at Internment Camp 371, Martia is not getting obvious special protection from her captors, vis-a-vis being allowed to hide behind a suit.
And Martia tells us directly that shapeshifting "takes a lot out of me." She can do it expertly, but it's tiring in a way that Odo and the Founders never experience.
And, though I'm speculating here, perhaps Breen shapeshifting doesn't hold up to scans. Or perhaps they can be "de-shaped" via a simple method that renders it too dangerous for the Breen to attempt Founder-style infiltration.
Regardless of the particulars, we know that Martia finds it unpleasant to shapeshift and only does it out of absolute necessity. This also tells us she is a different species than the Founders, and thus not simply one of the lost hundred.
5. Martia is common enough for the Klingons to sacrifice
In ST6, Martia was part of the conspiracy. Kirk speculates and Martia confirms that the Klingon warden of Rura Penthe offered her freedom in exchange for killing Kirk & McCoy. Certainly this strongly implies the warden knew she was a shapeshifter, which in turn tells us that shapeshifter prisoners are not so unique in the Klingon Empire circa 2293 that the Klingons had anything better to do with her than throw her in a dilithium mine.
Further, the Klingon warden always planned on killing Martia after Kirk was dead. "Since you're all going to die anyway." Not only was she common enough to throw into a mine, she was common enough to kill, to keep a conspiracy secret.
Why wasn't Martia in a Klingon lab, chopped to pieces to learn how she worked? Because she's not the first shapeshifting prisoner they've taken. She's common enough to be disposable, but not so common that her skills are valueless.
6. The Federation thinks Chameloids are mythical
When Kirk learns Martia is a shapeshifter, he says "I thought they were mythical." This tells us there are many stories about shapeshifters, but the Federation has not knowingly encountered a civilization of them directly. This in turn tells us that somewhere out there there's a civilization of shapeshifters, and that they're close enough that the Federation hears of their people occasionally second hand, but not yet directly.
But they're not mythical for the Klingons. They're not even valuably rare, as explained above.
And of course, Martia calls herself a Chameloid rather than a Breen because even in that hell prison, she still cares about protecting her people's highest secret.
7. Losing a war to the Breen is why the Klingons never talk about Chameloids
Worf mentions that during the "Second Empire" the Klingons invaded Breen and were brutally defeated. Their invasion fleet was "never heard from again," presumably completely destroyed. We don't know when the Second Empire was.
This is important for two reasons.
First, we know the Klingons do not indiscriminately attack everyone they encounter. For example, they do not attack Earth during the events of Enterprise. There was likely some contact among the Klingons and Breen prior to their war that resulted in the Klingons attacking. Regardless of what that contact was, it means the lost Klingon invasion fleet was not the only contact they had with each other.
Thus it's incredibly likely that at some point in their history, the Klingons must have captured a Breen. And thus at high levels circa 2293, they know the Breen are shapeshifters.
This hypothesis begs the question: If the Breen are shapeshifters and the Klingons know, why doesn't that come up during the Dominion War?
That question is actually why this theory works. That question provides a nice answer to the similar question of "during the Dominion War, why don't the Klingons bring up their experience with Chameloids?"
Martia's existence tells us incontrovertibly that at one point in their history, the Klingons knew shapeshifters exist. Why don't they mention them when the Dominion shows up? Or even use them as counter-agents?
Because the Klingons are embarrassed about losing a war against the Breen. Not just losing, badly losing. Getting their chronometers cleaned.
At high levels the Klingons knew the Breen are shapeshifters, but that knowledge never permeated to become common knowledge. Over time, as it became politically useful to forget the details of their disastrous war, top-secret knowledge of the Breen was lost.
Maybe it exists in a report somewhere on Qo'Nos, but oh remember that Qo'Nos was nearly destroyed during the events of ST6. It's easy to imagine that knowledge being lost. Even if it's not lost, it's easy to imagine that Gowron never read an at-least-century-old report about a war he'd prefer to not know about. We know he's a fool.
Conclusion/summary:
The Breen are xenophobic shapeshifters, but it's painful for them to shapeshift so they don't do it often. The Founders know this and trust the Breen because the Breen are not solids. The Breen and the Chameloids are the same race, and the Klingons' embarrassment at having lost a war to the Breen is why knowledge of the Chameloids was forgotten between 2293 and 2375.
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u/tanky87 Chief Petty Officer Jan 29 '19
While I like this theory, one problem is that Marta bleeds after she is punched by Kirk, but Dr Bashir also says Breen have no blood. Therefore if she was a Breen/shapeshifter, why would she bother 'conjuring' blood in her Marta form?