https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)
one
- Founders - Change shape
- Thing - Change shape
two
- Founders - live in a giant soup and can split off from the soup at will
- Thing - Can divide up the shape at any time into autonomous functional groups
three
- Founders - Fly in space ships
- Thing - Flies in massive space ship
four
- Thing - Doesn’t like fire
- Founders - who likes fire?
I posit that the founders are the Thing, but perhaps a group of founders operating in special operations mode. Or they could be children out on founder Rumspringa like Odo was.
Founders don’t need space ships to get around in space, although I’m not sure how fast they can travel without one.
They don’t? I only recall one time in Accession was it mentioned. For the entirety of the rest of the series they were taxied around in spacecraft, even with a few plot points of them being stranded on planets.
In Chimera (which takes place after Accession) they bumped into a changeling flying alongside their runabout in a form that was space-faring. I guess the argument would be if there exists a creature encountered by a Founder that can travel at (high) warp via some kind of biological or entirely different means than subspace manipulation.