Parallel universe where the Founders really are a myth. In this universe, the Vorta attempt to genetically engineer themselves. Their (imagined) benefactors delight in taking new shapes, copying new bodies, so the most loyal Vorta give them a quiverfull.
Of course, this doesn’t exactly work. Devotion to the Founders is culturally transmitted and has very little to do with genes. They’re horrified to discover that, despite their best efforts, the Founders’ visitations to their children are waning. Eventually, they switch to actual gene engineering. When even that proves to be unreliable, they create the Jem’Hadar. Their sect, fast-growing but by no means universal, seizes control of the Vorta homeworld.
According to them, the Founders did all these things. In a way, metaphorically, this is true. No one physically shapeshifts, there are no actual Founders, but through the Vorta they take solid form, imposing their will onto the Gamma Quadrant.
In the Alpha Quadrant, the same societies that were most susceptible to changeling infiltration instead fall to the changeling myth. Their leaders are gripped by the mere idea of the Founders, driving them to act fearfully and aggressively. Assume everyone around you is untrustworthy, evil, changeling. Shatter your faith in your neighbors; the only thing you can believe in is the inevitability of the Dominion. And so they shapeshift into Founders, afraid of all other solids and determined to bring them to heel.
Everyone still has the same interactions with Odo, even though he doesn’t exist (odo’ital indeed). He’s Quark’s conscience, Kira’s commitment to fighting impossible odds, Bashir’s hippocratic oath. He’s flying overhead when Damar and Garak shout “for Cardassia”. In other words, he’s all the positive, community-building aspects of faith. He’s faith in other people, above the Dominion, above the State, above latinum, above every instinct that screams this is a losing battle, and what’s worth saving about the solids anyway?
Section 31 almost destroys this kind of faith, but it survives; ultimately healing the faith that poisoned the Vorta.
