Empathy has become something of a watchword in recent years, finding its way into policy discourse, HR communications, philanthropic endeavors, and (sigh) social media. Thanks to our endless political season, our increasingly connected world, and our growing collective awareness of systemic injustices, there is a greater need to step out of our own limited experiences and see the world from a different perspective. I sometimes come across this impulse in well-intentioned op-eds that try to frame our fiercest political debates in the most personal way possible, albeit with mixed results.
There has also been a robust discussion of empathy, what it means, and how to apply it in many of the most influential movies, TV shows, and fiction of the last few years—in particular the major works of science fiction and fantasy. Sometimes, that trend comes across in overt form, like the progressive utopia depicted in Star Trek: Discovery, the fourth-wall-breaking She-Hulk, the meta-ness of Wandavision, the tenderness and coziness of Doctor Who, and the found family in Interview with the Vampire. But even something as cynical as House of the Dragon can be seen as promoting empathy, with its humanization of flawed people in utterly hopeless situations.
Storytelling, after all, is an exercise in empathy, and I’m never surprised by the occasional study suggesting that reading fiction, or even mindfully watching a film, can help to promote a better understanding of other people. I also agree with film critic Roger Ebert’s description of movies as “empathy machines” that help us to “to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.” Speculative fiction—that umbrella term for science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other fantastical genres—is in a unique position to imagine radical, unorthodox, and otherworldly versions of empathy.
One example sticks with me twenty-five years after first seeing it. To this day, it still fills me with wonder and leaves me brimming with questions. I’m referring to “What You Leave Behind,” the last episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (hereafter DS9), which ended the show’s seven-season run in May 1999.
For those who love the show: Welcome! You made it to the part of the article that probably drew you here. For those who are new, here’s the context.
The universe of Deep Space Nine
Deep Space Nine is a space station controlled by the Federation, a mostly peaceful and democratic group of allied planets that includes Earth. It also happens to be located in disputed territory, and is positioned next to a wormhole that leads to the other side of the galaxy. The wormhole, it turns out, becomes the conduit for a major invasion of the Federation, led by the Dominion: an empire bent on conquest, and ruled by a shapeshifting species known as the Founders.
The last few seasons of DS9 cover the war between the Federation and the Dominion. But instead of focusing on battles and tactics, the storytellers spend a lot of time showing how the war affects the individuals on board the station. Thus, the noble Captain Sisko must become a hardened warrior, willing to compromise his values to secure victory. Major Kira Nerys must dig up the trauma of her past as a resistance fighter. And Odo, the station’s constable, finds his loyalties tested, for he is a shapeshifter as well, with a deep personal relationship with the nameless Female Changeling who has overseen the Dominion’s war effort.
In the final episode, after millions have died, the Federation finally turns the tide and manages to surround the remaining Dominion forces on a single planet. Their success is due in no small part to a virus that has infected the Female Changeling, weakening her while also turning her crueler than before. When Federation forces arrive at her headquarters, the Changeling refuses to surrender. Instead, she promises to wipe out the inhabitants of the planet and order her troops to fight to the last soldier. “You may win this war,” she says, “but I promise you, when it is over, you will have lost so many ships, so many lives, that your victory will taste as bitter as defeat.”
Despite her formless face, the hate in her eyes seems intractable. But Odo has a solution. He arrives at the headquarters to convince the Changeling to stand down. When she refuses, Odo asks that she “link” with him. The shapeshifters’ true form, after all, is gelatinous, and on their homeworld they form a giant sea where they exist as many and as one at the same time. The Changeling agrees. The two hold hands and briefly return to their true shapes. When they become solid again, the Changeling is cured. She calmly rises from her chair and makes contact with her fleet, ordering them to surrender. As the others in the room stare in wonder, Odo explains that the Changeling has agreed to stand trial for her war crimes.
Becoming the other
Watching this for the first time, I was stunned at how anticlimactic it was. Yet it made perfect sense. The writers seem to be saying: if only we could get our enemies to see things as we do, then they would understand, and even the bloodiest conflicts could end. Indeed, Odo believes that understanding is all that is needed. When the Changeling asks, “If you cure me, what will you ask in return?” he replies, “All I ask is that you link with me.” For him, connection is the end in itself. Good things will come from it.
The show never makes it clear if the Changeling’s surrender is merely transactional. In other words, does she agree to Odo’s terms because he has cured her, or because she now sees the situation from his perspective? I believe it’s the latter. Though their link lasts only a few seconds, they act as if they have spent a lifetime getting to know each other. In particular, I noticed how the Changeling responds to Odo only with her body language, suggesting that their connection has now moved beyond mere words.
The link is not the only kind of empathy device in the Star Trek universe. Much more famous is the Vulcan mind meld, through which people can share thoughts and memories in an intimate, trancelike ritual. There are downsides, starting with the fact that different species react to the mind meld in different ways. Moreover, this connection still distinguishes the participants, whereas the link combines the individuals into a collective consciousness in which identity no longer applies. In my own fiction, I have dabbled with mindreading technology, in part because I needed the characters to learn something quickly to advance the plot. In the world I created, the “translator” device exacts a heavy toll on the user, degrading their mind after repeated use, until they can hardly tell their dreams and their distant memories from reality.
As much as I love the ending of DS9, there is a way in which Odo’s peaceful solution has not aged well for me. Much like those well-intentioned op-eds, there is a naivete to Odo’s diplomacy. In the 2020s, that kind of innocence has not served us well. Dialogue is a good starting point for resolving a conflict, but it is not an end in itself. Sometimes I worry that an overemphasis on kindness and empathy has allowed certain people to feel better about doing the bare minimum when more drastic action might be required. In that context, bad-faith actors will thrive and multiply.
Productive dialogue sometimes requires us to tell dishonest people that we will not be having a conversation with them, no matter how much they whine about it and play the victim. You cannot have a debate about how to deal with climate change, for example, with a person who doesn’t believe it’s real. No amount of empathy can magically make that conversation useful or productive. And consider this: couldn’t the link have gone the other way, with the Changeling manipulating Odo into taking her side? Couldn’t she have played on his fears and resentments, like any other dictator?
Perhaps “What You Leave Behind” is suggesting is that only a true “link”—in which the participants not only understand each other, but actually become one another—can heal such a bitter dispute. In the real world, we are stuck with words, with no access to each other’s thoughts, perceptions, desires, and phobias. Storytelling can further bridge that gap, but it, too, has its limits.
Thus, a pure empathy—even when compared to aliens and wormholes—may be the most fantastical idea in all of fiction. An impossible idea, most likely. Nevertheless, many works of science fiction will continue to push their audience to strive for this ideal, to risk their comfort, even their lives, and grow beyond their original potential. It may not be perfect, and our heroes may stumble. But bravely stepping into the unknown, and honestly engaging the other, is the only way forward.
I was so disappointed with the ending to this show that I haven’t been able to do a rewatch. It was just so absolutely terrible.
“naivete”
Nah. The link didn’t win the war. It was won militarily and diplomatically.
Wars can end quickly but they don’t tend to stop on a dime The link just shortened the skid marks a bit and maybe lessen the likelihood of conflict restarting in the short term.
I believe the exchange was transactional, but not the transaction the author thinks. The Female Changeling agreed to stand down and stand trial because while they were linked, Odo agreed to return to his people, to rejoin the Great Link.
Remember that the Founders are possibly the single most xenophobic species ever depicted in Star Trek. The whole reason the Dominion exists is because the Founders believe that they are superior to solids, that solids are inherently a threat to them, and that by dominating solids they can impose an order to the universe that will keep them safe and secure in their rightful place at the top of the heap. “No Changeling has ever harmed another” because they view themselves as a part of each other (to harm one is to harm all in the Great Link, after all) and they are all that matters. Repeatedly during the series, the Founders go to great lengths to induce Odo to come back to them. All because they are so xenophobic they can only care about themselves; the life of one Changeling, even a “traitor” like Odo, means more to them than millions of solid lives, because solid lives don’t matter and to them being apart from Odo is like being apart from your arm. And yet they would never force him to return either, because again his agency is the only agency they respect, because he is one of them.
So, when Odo agreed to rejoin the Great Link, he was offering the Female Changeling something more valuable to her than the entire Alpha Quadrant. Because all the planets and ships and solid lives mean nothing compared to one of their own coming home.
The reason it’s a great ending and still addresses the concept of empathy that the author of this piece wants to talk about, is because Odo’s decision to return doesn’t just end the war, but creates hope for a lasting peace. While the Founders only care about getting Odo back, Odo knew that his joining them would introduce the empathy and love he had for solids into their shared consciousness. By agreeing to return, Odo brings empathy to a species that previously had none. His experiences with solids will undermine the Founders’ previously-impenetrable xenophobia. So maybe they will come to see things a little bit from his perspective, and they won’t feel the need to dominate solids anymore. Hence, a lasting peace.
Empathy was not the Female Changeling’s reason for agreeing to stand down. But Odo knew it was why he had to return to his people, which is why he made the offer, which he had never done before, and that is why she agreed. The lesson for all of us is that the only way to truly move past conflict is to understand and empathize with one another.
I always believed the entire Dominion War was to bring Odo home. If Odo was so enamored of this “Federation,” the Female Changeling thought, we’ll just destroy it. Thus, Odo will have nothing to stay in the Alpha Quadrant for. Once he agreed to return, she stopped the fighting, since her primary objective had been achieved.
Maybe. But I believe Ronald D. Moore mentioned in an interview somewhere (I wish I could find where) that the Dominion already knew about and had designs on the Alpha Quadrant long before they were even aware Odo was there, designs that were accelerated by the discovery of the Bajoran Wormhole. This was never officially established in the series, but it was in the mind of at least one major writer of the series while the show was being produced.
I’ve read that comment before, but it’s still consistent even with that pre-planning. The Dominion was aware of the Alpha Quadrant powers and preparing for encounters in the further future when they’d naturally interact. The wormhole accelerated that contact, but it also brought to their attention that Odo existed.
This created a different problem, btw. Because of Odo and their failed attempts to reach out to him, the powers they were trying to conquer were aware for the first time that the Founders were not just a myth, but also that they were Changelings. The destabilizing element that the Changelings could typically carry out in secret was not as readily available a tactic in the war with the Alpha Quadrant, who were more on the lookout for imposters.
The great strength of Star Trek, somewhat lessened with recent series, was its ability to hold a mirror up for people to see themselves. It allowed people to question their own moral compasses and to explore the fringe cases under their own ethical lenses. It was not a one-solution-fits-all-obstacles type of show. And for this episode, they deliberately left it ambiguous as to what caused the change of mind. Was it a deal they reached? Was it pure compassion? Was it gratitude? Was the Female Changeling finally able to see Odo’s point of view that solids were real people worthy of life and respect? Was Odo finally able to see the Female Changeling’s point of view that he was an integral part of the Great Link?
The problem of Star Trek, on the contrary, is those who insist that their interpretation of a nuanced and ambiguous episode is the only valid one. What you see in an episode reflects who you are and what you value.
I’ve always thought of mind melds as a “man-with-one-watch-always-knows-exactly-what-time-it-is/man-with-two-watches-is-never-sure” type situation.
Right now, as an individual, there are things about which I feel absolutely certain. And I try to be humble about this, and I try to be intellectually open to entertaining the possibility that I could be wrong, but I don’t think that it’s possible to exist as a human if you believe in nothing. And I could tell you all about why I believe the things that I do, I could say that they’re rooted in logic, in empiricism, in information from people that I trust, but that’s just kicking the can down the road. The circumstances of my life, my parenting, my education, my experience, etc., have all led me to develop certain values (including a belief in logic and empiricism) and trust certain people and certain institutions. So I figure that, ultimately, it’s a matter of memory. I am certain of the things about which I am certain because I have the memories to support them. And of course I could make an argument for why logic and empiricism and, hell, my particular moral values are all objectively good things to believe in, and I am certain that this is true. But would this persuade who didn’t already value the same things that I do?
And then I look at people who objectively don’t share my values, say, that antivax trucker convoy that occupied Ottawa a few years ago. And here I must admit, that it’s very difficult for me to even think of these people non-pejoratively. And yet, in their minds, they are just as certain about their certainties as I am about mine (if perhaps somewhat less philosophical about it). And the thing is, I haven’t lived their lives; I don’t have their memories. And if I did, presumably, everything that they believed would make sense, and least on its own terms.
And so I think that, if we could mindmeld, maybe our mutual certainties would just…melt away, like the Founders. Maybe we would each become cognizant of ourselves as mere vectors in an infinite-dimensional possibility space of possible beliefs and values, and we would have to negotiate some new, mutual set of values based on objective criteria (such as logic and empiricism and all of those things that I already believe in). Maybe that’s the deeper origin of Vulcan logic.
On the other hand, maybe our morals would cancel out entirely and that’s where the Borg came from.
By the way, that’s what I hate most about the third season of Picard (among other things): How it did a 180 from What You Leave Behind. Acknowledging the responsibility for the criminal actions of Section 31 was central to the finale of DS9; in Picard, Section 31 commits further atrocities against the changelings, and when Picard and Beverly learn about it, their reaction is not to apologize and assure the changeling they apprehended that they will bring the perpetrators to justice; instead, their reaction feels deeply cynical, as if they’re thinking: “These changelings have obviously been broken by torture, so we can’t reason with them; we’ll just have to kill them.”
It’s, by the way, similar to Picards reaction in Insurrection, where, when he learn’s that the So’na have been expelled by the Ba’ku, he just takes it as further proof of their wickedness instead of questioning the Ba’ku.
That scene was the point at which Picard season 3 lost me. There’d been a few moments that I’d been grinding my teeth over before that, but no; whoever wrote that scene didn’t understand the characters or the message of Star Trek.
I really thought Beverly was a changeling until the last episode, because the real Beverly Crusher would NEVER act the way she did on a number of occasions.
There is a missing link (no pun intended) to the female shapeshifter’s actions. In an early season 6 episode, she scolds her minion Weyoun and reminds him that bringing Odo home to the Great Link means more to her and her people than the entire alpha quadrant in which the Federation is based. Having linked with her before the series finale, Odo very likely knew this.
I agree. This is why the Weyoun who forced his clone to commit suicide did so by threatening to kill Odo, and indeed, came very close to doing so. I suggest that particular model of Weyoun later fell from a high window with Founder help–no Vorta could possibly be allowed to even think of threatening *any* Founder.
I agree that the actions taken by Weyoun 7 in “Treachery Faith and the Great River” could not have been sanctioned by the Female Changeling but I’m pretty sure he & Damar must have kept them secret from her, because Weyoun 7 lived long enough to have his neck snapped by Worf when he and Ezri were captured towards the end of the war in “Strange Bedfellows.”
From the podcast “You are not so smart” : everybody thinks that dialogue with someone you disagree with will work to change minds. However, most people think, “if only they listen to my perspective” rather than, “I’m wrong about stuff but I don’t know what, so let me listen to you.”
The best strategy is to start with “What do we have in common?” and “What do we agree on?” From there you might be able to get to “What do we disagree about and why?” Only from there might you be able to change someone’s opinion. But that first part is, perhaps, another way of saying that you have to start with empathy.
This is a good article, but I think you are missing a very big and simple reason why the Female Founder called off the war after linking with Odo. Throughout the series, the Founder has stated outright that there was nothing more important to her than Odo returning to the Great Link. When Odo linked with her, he not only gave her the cure, but also the promise that he would return to the Link if she surrendered.
That’s it. Odo makes explicit that it is his intention once he returns to teach the rest of his people how to see the universe through his eyes; the implication is that they (including the Female Founder) do not yet because of just one link. Indeed, Odo and the Female Founder have linked several times throughout the series, and this did not bring a sudden revelation to her worldview.
The whole Alpha Quadrant and winning the war meant nothing to the Female Founder compared to Odo freely returning home. That’s it.
Satisfying or not, the ending was very true to the overall ethos of Star Trek, with a non-violent solution being found for a situation where violence seemed to be unavoidable.
I’m reminded of another scene in the same episode when Sisko, Martok, and Admiral Ross are sharing a drink amidst the ruins of the defeated Cardassia, as they all pledged to do much earlier in the war. But while they made that pledge sincerely at the time, when the moment arrives the two humans can’t stomach drinking to their glorious victory atop a metaphorical mountain of their enemies’ corpses. Instead they pour their drinks on the ground in acknowledgement of the horrible waste of it all. Only Martok the Klingon, who has a much more callous and cynical attitude towards war, is able to drink.
That’s the ethos of Star Trek in action right there.