I am just now getting back into DS9 on Spike. For some reason I never got into the series during the first run, but I am really enjoying it now.
So I am getting confused on the whole Trill society/planet stuff. I always thought that the Trill was the “thing” that got switched around into different bodies. I must have really missed the boat because I thought those symbiant beings could go into any humanoid–can they?
I think I will enjoy the series more knowing the “backstory” of Trill society/planet.
The Trill were originally introduced in the TNG episode “The Host” where they looked completely different and acted mostly different from DS9 Trills. In it, Odan, an ambassador, became ill for some reason or another (I have not seen the episode) and had to have the symbiont (the slug) transferred to someone else, Riker, whose personality was completely subsumed until it was taken out again at episode’s end.
When Deep Space Nine debuted a year or two later, the producers wanted some species from TNG and settled on the Trill as one of them, casting the statuesque Terry Farrell in the role (but wanting Famke Janssen first… the role was made with her in mind) and having to revamp the make-up for the species because they didn’t want to obfuscate her beauty.
Hence the spots instead of the prosthetics.
Also, the Trill concept was tightenend up a bit more too. As originally concieved, the humanoid body was basically just a shell for the symbiote but DS9 decided that wasn’t the best way to go so they made it more of a melding idea where the host learns from the symbiote and the symbiote experiences new … uh, experiences. It was more equal this way. And also, as the character of Ezri points out in S7, the symbiotes can only inhabit Trills now, not just any humanoid, which is more realistic. Or as realistic as Star Trek gets anway.
It’s never explained how they evolved to be able to be co-dependent like this though.
Actually, they’re not co-dependant. The humanoids don’t need the symbiotes, and in fact it seems that only a small number of symbiotes exist. Jadzia talked about how there was a huge competition to get a place in line for the next available symbiote, and getting one is a huge honor.
I’ve always wondered if perhaps there was a movement on the Trill homeworld that considered the symbiotes to be exploiters of the humanoid species, ensuring devotion via Big-Brother-like tactics. Ezri certainly didn’t consider joining to be an honor at first.
But Ezri also didn’t have to go through the same process that makes it such an honour to be chosen either, nor was she at all prepared to be sharing her body with another personality. She had to join bcause if she didn’t, the Dax symbiote would die, and she was the only Trill on the ship. She didn’t earn it, she just got it. Where’s the honour in that?
True, dat. But from my understanding of Trill culture, the “it’s an honor to bear a symbiote” thing is culture-wide, not limited to the select group of competitors for any given worm. If you remember from one of the J. Dax-centered eps, there are actually many more possible suitable joining combinations within the Trill population. The Commission deliberately downplays the numbers, primarily to prevent black-market trading of the symbiotes, but it also helps to keep the “social value” of a joining high.
I think most Americans would consider it an honour to be elected President. That doesn’t mean that everyone wants to be elected. And someone who was elected but wasn’t ready would probably be more than a little annoyed at all the new responsabilities they have to deal with and weren’t prepared to deal with.
The idea is intriguing though. ST isn’t known for explaining things in depth, especially where cultures are concerned.
There was an episode where Jadzia began remembering a host that Dax never had. Turns out that Dax was once implanted and survived for six months in a host who was a murderer. He should have been screened out by the symbiont committee, but he wasn’t. Although the humanoid population of Trill is told only a small fraction is suitable as hosts, the truth is fully half of them are capable of hosting a symbiont. Not wanting to turn the symbionts into some sort of commodity to be fought over, the committee hid this info. Sisko blackmailed them with this secret into helping Jadzia, who was dying. They were fully prepared to let her die to keep their secret.
This could make for an interesting novel. A “rebel” sub-culture that considers the symbiotes to be manipulative parasites, and uses terrorist tactics to attempt to kill them off.
It even fits into the Trek Rule About Alien Cultural Diversity[sup]TM[/sup]: Cultural diversity is bad. When it exists in an alien culture, it is always always ALWAYS a source of conflict, and never serves to enrich the alien society in any way.
Once joined, they are, which is what I was saying when I said they evolved to** be able to be** co-dependent. Removing the symbiote kills the host and if the symbiote’s not given a new host within three days, it dies too.
[spoiler]That’s touched on briefly in the DS9 Relaunch when, I think, Shakaar is murdered by a Trill special ops agent because he’s been infected by the neural parasites from TNG’s S1 episode, “Conspiracy”, who’re biological cousins of the Trill symbiotes according to the novel’s author.
Really good series of books overall. I highly reccomend them.[/spoiler]