WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 3, "Seventeen Seconds."The introduction of a rogue schism within the Changelings in Star Trek: Picard season 3 sets up a very different type of Dominion War in Star Trek's 25th century. Investigating the theft of weapons from Starfleet's Daystrom Station, Captain Worf (Michael Dorn) and Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd) have discovered that the perpetrators are rogue Changelings who broke away from the Great Link. Worf acted on the information of his former colleague, and Changeling, Odo (Rene Auberjonois), who informed him of a rogue element within the Founders seeking revenge on the Federation.
First introduced in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Founders were a shapeshifting species from the Gamma Quadrant who ruled over the Dominion and sought to subjugate the Alpha Quadrant. They were eventually defeated, bringing DS9's Dominion War to a close. However, Star Trek: Picard season 3 reveals that there are those within the Great Link that feel aggrieved at how the Founders were treated under the stipulations set out by the Treaty of Bajor following the Dominion's surrender. This suggests that, deep in the heart of the Gamma Quadrant, there is an internal struggle in progress within the rulers of the Dominion.
