Next up: Did the Founders send an early Weyoun clone to Andoria undercover, in order to rise through the ranks, defend United Earth, and prevent a Romulan hegemony that would span two quadrants and rival the Dominion?

Progenitors: Let's seed life so we're not alone. _half a billion years later_ [Progenitors have become shape-shifting Founders] Founders: OMG these absolute muppets. Welp, time to dominate them.

Meanwhile the Tholians are like "Stay the hell away from us you frozen meat bags."

Not the Federation. But the Klingons, yes. The Klingons were the ‘first version’ of the Jem’Hadar but their experiment went rogue and overthrew their masters Planet of the Apes style. The Klingons claim they got rid of their gods, meaning they drove the Founders off Quo’nos and took over.

"so we need someone for the Founder, a bit androgynous, who doesn't mind hours in makeup" "What about Salome Jens, she's a cracking actress and never whinged about the makeup. bet she'll do it. She was great in that Next Gen episode" "Sure, let's ask her" And the theories begun

I do find it ironic that the species in this TNG epsiode were eventually all the ones that would ally and fight against the Dominion, ironic isn't it? Human, Romulan, Klingon and eventually the Cardassians, all met here on that planet to observe this revelation.

I was always disappointed that this story line wasn't developed further. I thought it was such a huge deal! And I definitely assumed that the Founders were the same race (or descendents thereof) as those in "The Chase". Glad to see someone else thinking along these lines.

Title says "species of the Federation," thumbnail shows species of the _quadrant_ while LoreReloaded sits back and waits for the swarm of corrections to boost the vid in the algorithm.

The sphere builders from Enterprise may also be a remnant or be related. They, too, have extremely similar features (and it looks like all three races were played by the same actress).

The Founders think of the Solids like the "red-headed stepchild". Makes sense.

I thinkt the Founders were one of the First SPecies created by the Preservers. But unlike the Q and Organians that evolved into energy beings, they evolved to be shapeshifters

Love it as always....Perfect for my lunch break 😊 An intriguing theory. This TNG episode was from April of 93 which is season 6 episode 20. The pilot of DS9 was on Jan 3rd of that year, a few months earlier. I wonder if any of this was in the heads of the writers at the time.

In Star Trek Online, the Progenitors are also the Preservers from TOS, and an archive containing numerous Progenitors in stasis is found in Deferi Space, where the Federation had to race the Breen to the archive, as the Breen wanted the weapons of the Precursors, and when they discovered that there were no weapons, only knowledge, they tried to destroy the archive.

Worf: Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors killed them ages ago. They were more trouble than they were worth. You haven't experienced Nietzsche until you've read him in the original Klingon. --- Worf, probably

I think the Dominion knew about the wormhole long before the Alpha Quadrant. It could explain their knowledge of recent events like the Cardassian border wars, although it could have come from New Bajor or the numerous missing ships. Also at least one Changeling came through the wormhole, the odds of Odo’s bucket finding it by accident are infinitesimal. And finally we see at least one race from the Gamma Quadrant with knowledge or prophecy of the wormhole.

Nice. I love it.

The Founders: The Precursors of the Star Trek universe.

The alien recording said they found no one when they first started exploring. The Founders said when they first started exploring all they found were hostile races, which led to them becoming xenophobic and seeking to control those who tried to harm them. There's no evidence that the Great Link suffered some memory loss as their memory extends back to when they were solids.

This reminded me a lot of BSG and the Alien franchise with the seeding of life.

eh, the dna episode was a thing that never went anywhere

While I don't think there's enough information to answer the question of Progenitors being ancestors of the Changelings, there is enough information to conclude that the same actress was used twice.

Funnily enough actress Soleme Jens who plays the 'Changling' also played the Progenitor in the TNG episode 'The Chase'

The last time I was this early, I was seeding the galaxy with humanoid DNA

i do really like this theory. and while it was probably coincidence and not intentional that the founders resembled the progenitors (even using the same actress) i do think it makes for a nice bit of storytelling symmetry and builds out the lore and mythos. similar to how gul Macet and Dukat are (in beta cannon) distant relatives since both are played by mark Aliamo.

This got me thinking about how the events of the chase were never mentioned again. A prime opportunity would have been for Chakotay to whip out this information for Professor Gagen to present to the Voth elders. Sure they may have tried to suppress the information but it would have made for an interesting story.

Good points! After seeing this video, I'm shocked it never crossed my mind, or had been brought up in Star Trek since those 2 episodes. This could be an interesting topic for the Discovery series to touch on.

"Our gods are dead. An ancient Klingon wariior slew them long ago. they were more trouble than they were worth." and said warrior was then venerated as a god. but Worf still makes a damn good point.

And now tell me that the Borgs are weird Necrons!

I love this idea, great video. I want more nuance to both the Dominion and the Prophets.

I was thinking of this exact same premises.

Valid hypothesis... USS Voyager ran into the Voth in the Delta Quadrant. The Voth originated on Earth, & went into space before humans evolved. There were also the aliens that had visited some Native Americans on Earth early on (& even brought some to a planet in the Delta Quadrant). As well as a few other episodes where Alpha & Delta had interactions. There were Subspace Corridors (Underspace) that occupied an area reaching from Delta to Gamma. As well as the Subspace communication network Voyager stumbled upon that reached from Delta to Alpha. Even Enterprise found that outpost with the dimensional gateway (which they had to destroy). Crew from Deep Space Nine/Defiant & some Jem'Hedar soldiers dealt with another outpost in the Gamma Quadrant that was created by the beings that did the Dimensional Gateways. There is a massive level of interconnectivity in the Star Trek Galaxy.

I hope this is part of season 2 of Picard. I'd also accept this is be a thing in Lower Decks.

I've been thinking about this for years. Nice to see I'm not the only one. It would if true deepen the loar of trek & make the Dominion War even more of a tragedy.

I find your analysis intriguing. Definitely food for thought. Thank you

Random comment...I like your closing title card/music. Very chill design.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if some of the Preservers became the Founders.

The connection between the Progenitors and the Founders is more tenuous than a wisp of fog in the bright sunshine. The Founders natural form is liquidous and their body functions are a complete mystery to Bashir. If they were a long lost branch of the Progenitors, Star Fleet medicine would have some insight.

I like STO's take on this.

I just watched this episode yesterday, I thought right away that the originator looked like a founder.

Very interesting analysis! The Founders even look similar to the Preservers... Question is, why the Founders would bio-engineer solids that they ultimatively have to protect themselves against? As far as my understanding goes, they only create species to serve their needs. And... if they actually created the species of the alpha & beta quadrant, shouldn´t the Dominion be a lot older (and technically more advanced) than is stated in DS9?

Does this explain why some individuals from different species (such as Shran/Weyoun/Brunt) look and sound alike? Within the DNA, there were a few common 'templates' that appeared now and again?

Love this (and have wondered the same, even w/o realizing until today that the same actress played the Progenitor and the head honcho Changeling)! Great work! One tiny tiny aside: it isn't exactly a ""statistical impossibility" for all humanoid life to independently evolve in different places the same way (walking upright, breathing oxygen, doesn't like extreme temperatures etc) if the requirements for evolving humanoid life are extremely narrow to begin with - and we don't really know if they are or aren't, since (in the real world) we haven't encountered any life outside of earth. It's a mystery waiting to be solved :)

Always wondered if the Founders could be connected to Armus. Like, when they transformed from "solids" to their liquid state, Armus was what was left behind.

Now that makes he think the Klingon gods were Goauld.

Very interesting theory. The Progenitors had foresight to know that they might not endure for millions of years, but, through the course of evolution and genetic manipulation, became the Founders? There much more than a subtle similarity between the makeup designs of both, though we were lead to believe that the female changeling was matching Odo's limited skill with faces. It would be interesting if that was actually their original "solid" form and exists as a default humanoid form through genetic memory, which would account for the other male changeling that Odo encountered on DS9 looking similar in the face.

Wow this actually blow mine mind great video

Glad I'm not the only one to play around with this concept. Several years ago, not sure how many but it had to be before 2017 (when I moved), I had been tooling around with a Star Trek novel concept but couldn't get it off the ground withour being too convoluted. Then a short Trek story contest had been announced so I took another crack at it using the concept. I tried to tie up loose ends, design similarities, origins of some things, and Q's relationship with Guinan (I know I didn't spell it right, i never could). Suggesting of course that she had been given thr same opportunity to become a Q as Riker had, only she did join, and accidentally led to the creation of the Borg, then imprisoned in a comet (sent back in time to when the comet was created) and as punishment forced to watch as the Borg devastated world after world including her own. When finally offered release she would have to promise to not interfere again, which she couldn't do, so she counters with being mortal once again. The Progenitors playing a more outside roll, having created the wormhole (some staying inside to monitor it), having a colony near the Gamma Quadrant enterance (planet where Odo got infected billions of years later), some even leaving the galaxy and exploring the universe itself with a mission to preserve life... All of which would then create a variety of evolutionary descendants. As you can tell it was still too convoluted and I gave up before I could get anywhere near complete. Maybe someday, after all I've written much since then and am querying my first novel so...

Sto does an intriguing take on this with the progenitors the iconions and many other mentioned species.

Hey Lore, I love your theorized videos, so can I make a request. What do you think how the Federation act will do in the next 600 years after the 24th Century? Will they continue as a scientific or exploration, or sit down and focus more as a defense force once the Milkway is fully mapped? Will they be an intergalactic power beyond their own galaxy, or not? Would they go to war with species in the Andromeda Galaxy? Would the Iconians return or not? I know this would be mostly fanfiction territory, but you seem to have a knack for telling stories and I would hear your take on a progression that may never come. Or at the very least give the folks at CBS better ideas than what they are getting.

I always thought the progenitors and the sphere builders (from ENT) looked too much like each other.

The woman who played that alien in The Chase also played the Female Founder in Deep Space Nine.

They would have seeded Vulcan, since Vulcans and Romulans are the same species.

The Founders tried to shed off their collective evil and that created Armus

Same actress did both.. that means they are connected! *mind blown*

Progenitors? Hmmm....... ....well, let's just hope no ship full of dolphins ever stumbles across some ancient secret fleet.

yes! A new video! thx Lore Reloaded

Kind of left out the part where the founder said when they encountered solids while exploring they were mistreated.....

Im wondering do the Preservers from TOS fit in here

That Worf clip at the end is basically the running plot of SG1.

Really gets the almonds activating.

Humanoids look like that species because they made it so. The founders look the way they do as an amalgamation of humanoids, because they only really ever imitate others. The founders aren''t humanoids after all, so they'd have no connection with the creator species. I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't quite fit.

its not quite a statistical impossibility that life evolves similar features. convergent evolution is a thing because there's only so many ways to make things work when constrained by chemistry and physics. A door, is probably going to look and function like a door anywhere because that's the simplest sturdiest solution to the problem that works in our universe. There's probably a very limited amount of pathways to evolving sentience (look at how many billions of years it apparently took life on earth to do so) so those lifeforms that evolve sentience and ultimately develop into multi planet societies are extremely constrained in their divergence from the only possible pathways

The 1st ones just went beyond the rim. They are still there waiting.

I think this was a way of explaining why so many species are similar.

this is a great video. I thought the same thing but you all went so much further

Why waas this never explored... damn...

An alternate theory: The pre-Dominion Founders, during their period of nomadic exploration, already having an interest in genetic engineering, took genetic samples of several species they met in their travels. They analysed them, found the Progenitors message and were influenced by it. They adopted the Progenitors form as their "default shape" to take advantage of any deep-seated genetic memory solid's may have of their creators. They embraced the idea of making their own intelligent species and manufactured/altered the Vorta and the Jem-Hadar etc. They basically stole the identity and legacy of the Progenitors for their own purposes. Even sneakier theory: There are no Progenitors. The pre-Dominion Founders found rumours and stories about a distant creator race and used them for their own ends. They inserted the message into the DNA of species that they thought would cause them trouble in the future. The long- term plan was to appear and claim to be these species creators and demand their worship (like Ardra from the TNG Episode Devil's Due) Unfortunately, time passed and they eventually forgot the plan and instead formed the Dominion. I think the writers really missed a story opportunity with the similarities between the Founders and the Progenitors. Trying to trick solids into believing they were actually the Progenitors is definitely something I can imagine the Founders trying.

The preservers

Not to mention the interbreeding compatibility (eg Klingon/Human, Vulcan/Human)

I have always wondered about this seeing as the actress and appearance of the founding...founder...race as so similar, I very much doubt it but it would be neat for Picard season 2 to look at this and use it.

Conversely, perhaps the Founders were themselves an experimental silicon based seeding by the Progenitors, simply one that retained the memory of their humanoid form and preserved it through the ages better, because evolving a solid humanoid form is less important to changelings.

I don't know if this was pointed out at all but the progs obviously loved to play with dna so is it so weird an idea they might play with their own and "enhance" their evolutions?

So all the races are interstellar finches. Makes sense. While it is just chance in the casting, the fact that the female changeling and the Pregenitor are both played by Salome Jens gives an in universe hint to it them being the same species.

My personal theory / timeline: 1. Progenitors (The Chase), a powerful and ancient race, seed the galaxy with life 2. Progenitors eventually evolve into the Allasomorphs (The Dauphin), who are capable of turning into any of the life seeded by the Progenitors. 3. An offshoot of Allasamorphs eventually learn to extend their abilities to take on *any* form, and become The Founders 4. just for fun: as part of their transition into The Founders, when they first form the Great Link there are some undesirable elements which they cast off. This becomes the Skin of Evil.

This should prove an interesting comment section. 🖖

Find it interesting how that is the same actress who played one of the founders through the bulk of the dominion war.

STO seems to suggest that things aren't so simple. In their story, the Dominion are revealed to have travelled as far as Qo'nos around the time of Kahless.

I always love these types of theories. They are almost always wrong as they rely very heavily on coincidence, but its still fun and interesting, especially if things can easily line up within the lore, which this does. Very nice :D

Fine analogy, but what about the Iconians? Sargon's people? The TKon Empire?

Well if the dominion knew so much about the federation, then they did a bad job of using the available info to fight the war. You would think that they would have the wormhole alien thing thought of BEFORE committing such a large force!

The issue with that is that the Changelings/Founders ARE NOT HUMANOIDS... they just take on a humanoid shape when interacting with them... the Progenitors were humanoids.

it helps that both the progenitor and the founder are played by the same actress

You mean Vulcans at 2:55, right? Since it is the Romulans who are offshoots of the Vulcans. I always found it odd that the Vulcans were not included in this episode.

Glad someone else noticed this!!

In evolutionary biology, convergent evolution is the process whereby organisms not closely related (not monophyletic) Look up the tasmanian tiger. It's 100% possible that creatures as similar as humans and klingons could evolve to be the same if they took a similar niche on their planets.

I think The Founders used to be The Progenitors, but at some point long ago some kind of catastrophe occurred that mostly wiped out most of their population. Since The Founders were very Isolationist with a god complex I like the idea that a sickness spread through the Progenitor population similar to the one that They were given by Section 3, such a huge event could have warped their world view to what it is now. It always seemed weird how Section 31 just had this virus that worked in such a specific way on such a newly introduced race. Maybe after Section 31 found out about The Progenitors they started researching them and found some genetic traces of them (maybe said disease too), and when they found out about The Founders they realised "oh we've found just the thing to deal with these dirty Xenos".

I've seen this theory before (a long time ago actually)...that the "ancient humanoids" were the ancestors of the founders. The main justification is the look is similar, and the "ancient humanoid" was played by the same actress that played the female changeling (Salome Jens). It's not impossible I guess. We know very little about the history of the founders, other than that they were actually humanoids at one point in the distant pass before evolving into shapeshifters. Another theory says that the ancient humanoids were the Preservers.

It’s really suggested that the founders knew if alpha quadrant history because they are shape shifters and came in another form and looked it up. I mean they all look melted because odo isn’t good at faces and it’s him they are trying to get to.

But it's just a theory.... A Trek Theory!

"Being Pedantic rant: It's not a "statistical impossibility" for sentient life to develop along similar evolutionary paths. Oxygen is a highly reactive element, but not so reactive as to be explodey under most conditions, so it makes sense that a lot of lifeforms would adapt to take advantage of it. Liquid water is pretty important to life as we known it, and can only exist in a pretty narrow range of temperatures so it would make sense that any lifeforms that developed to depend on it would be most comfortable within those temperature ranges. Sight, hearing, smell, touch are all vitally important survival traits, and would be expected in some form or another for any sentient lifeform. Oral communication is practically a necessity for sentient life to develop anything more advanced that stone tools - you can communicate a lot with body language, but complex esoteric concepts require more. Pretty much the only statistically impossible thing about the milky way species depicted on ST is that they are almost entirely bipedal tetrapods, but that's mainly because it's a lot cheaper to put makeup on human actors than it is to CGI a lot of funky-shaped alien species (and CGI wasn't a thing in TOS and early TNG eras when most of the alien species we're familiar with were introduced). The Progenitor/Precursor aliens were a narrative way to explain the unavoidable similarity of the various alien species shown on ST. :End Pedantic Rant:

Very good, once again. But um live streams please. I very much enjoy you in the more open setting. you can go on a tangent or 2 but its kinda fun man.

Spooky. The projenitor actress really is the same actress as the female changeling from DS9, Salome Jens. I actually really like the sign-off quote from Worf. It would actually correspond with the reasons why the changelings fled to solitude.

No. The Founders have always been shapeshifters. They're physiologically nothing like us. But there are other shape-shifting species in Trek.

She said “We found non like ourselves.” While the general impression would indicate there were no other alien civilizations out there. But what if there were but they were just to alien to build communication and/ or conflict came about.

To be fair humanoid life forms are one of the best ways to interact with the physical world( I think) now that I think about it they are kind of limited but something to note is that compared to most species each of the 4 major races in the alpha and beta quadrant do seem to be the most in control of everything they can interact with. And seems to me to be most evolved form of physical life( I could get into q but they are beyond physical life for example)

Well it's the same actress that plays the Progenitor and the Female Changeling...

Warf did say that ancient Klingon warriors killed their gods.

I definitely think it's just coincidence, especially since it's clearly the same actress. While this idea is interesting and unique, it's highly unlikely a species a prideful as the Dominion's changelings would exist in a form that's basically like living in information and would forget their own history. One would think they would incorporate being the origin of all life into their schtick about being gods.

Still, the time is the problem here: 1st the Dominion as a state/society is just to young... ridicolous young, compared the the progenitor species. Yes the Founders could be the direct successor of them but after such a long time, their Empire fell, their culture changed and most important of their physiology is completly different. So in the end you could make the whole argument for all of those species being on that planet: they're as much the progenitor-race as the Founders, or the other way around. Like chickens aren't T-Rexes, even if they're related.

it comes down to budgeting star trek could not afford exotic looking squid people.