The Trill in TNG vs DS9

[Trek Survivor]

I posted this here because - if there is an explanation/retcon similar to the one I'm asking for, it will no doubt be found in books/comics rather than the TV show.

CBS Action showed "The Host" last night, an episode I hadn't seen in years. I'd always remembered how different the Trill in this show looked to Dax and other Trill in DS9, but I'd forgotten some of the other - perhaps more glaring - contradictions such as:

1) None of the crew being aware of the Trill symbiotic relationship, despite us later finding out they've been integral in Federation politics (Curzon) for years, and Ben Sisko AS A CADET was well aware of it all.

2) Trill can't use the transporter without it hurting the symbiont.

3) The (slightly creepy) way Odan's personality completely submerges Riker's own. Now, we could argue this was the effect of transplanting into a human rather than a Trill, but the Trill woman at the end almost seems like a monotone "blank slate" (might just be the actress' delivery) before getting the slug.

Terry Farrell used to joke about the physical differences ("maybe that guy's from the north, and I'm from the south") - I can almost buy that for the physical differences (or not care that much) but what of the above?

So, have any books or comics ever tried to address this? I know that many aliens and cultures in Trek, over time, adapt different characteristics - physical and personality-wise (e.g. Klingons) but "The Host" aired less than 2 years before "Emissary", and was not separated by decades/different creative staff etc.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I personally think that Odan's symbiont had been infected by the parasites (of TNG's Conspiracy) which was why it subsumed the host.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I recall metion that transporters "improved" since "The Host" and mention of bumpy-headed Trills in "The Lives of Dax", I think it was. But the bigger issues (total control of a host etc) were ignored.

 

[MvComedy]

The Trill story in Worlds of DS9 volume 2 briefly mentions the bumpy-headed Trills as simply being a rarer variety of Trill.

Lives of Dax does explore the fact of the Trill humanoids keeping the existence of the symbionts a state secret from other species. I can't remember if it was mentioned in the Tobin story, but the Emony and Audrid stories specifically mention the Trill hiding the existence of the symbionts from other species, even other members of the Federation. I haven't read the book in years so I don't remember if it was mentioned when this policy ended, but the Audrid story takes place during the TOS era so it was at least up to then. I'm not sure if it reconciles with the fact that the TNG crew didn't know about the symbionts when it seems like they should have, but if it does I don't recall it.

 

[Christopher]

I think it's pretty much been established, or at least implied, that Sisko's knowledge of Curzon's symbiont was something he kept secret out of loyalty to his mentor.

And yeah, I always figured the humanoid hosts seen in "The Host" belonged to a different subspecies, as Unjoined more or less confirmed. My idea is that they're a more primitive, less intelligent variety of hominid that's managed to survive alongside modern Trill humanoids, perhaps because they had the symbionts giving them full intelligence and were able to coexist more successfully. That could be why they didn't seem to contribute any personality of their own to the joining. And it would be only that subspecies that has the transporter problem.

 

[Sci]

I find it's all much simpler to just ignore "The Host" completely.

Though I'll never understand how the Trill could possibly hide the existence of Joining in their society from the rest of the Federation. That would be like America trying to hide the existence of race.

 

[Christopher]

^Or Vulcans hiding the existence of pon farr? Or Stratosians concealing the fact that they enslaved and tortured the Troglytes? If anything, the Federation seems to be pathologically reluctant to intrude on its members' privacy.

 

[Sci]

^Or Vulcans hiding the existence of pon farr?

That one, I can sort-of buy, actually. Vulcans would probably be reluctant to speak about it in public even amongst themselves, after all, and the practical effect of it could easily be hidden -- "Terribly sorry, but Mister T'John T'Doe has contracted a rare disease and needs to return to Vulcan for treatment."

Or Stratosians concealing the fact that they enslaved and tortured the Troglytes?

Honestly, the impression I got from "The Cloud Minders" was that Ardana was a recent entrant into the Federation (perhaps rushed into Membership in order to keep it out of Klingon hands?), and that the Federation really hadn't spent much time there at all. There seemed to be almost no level of cultural exchange there whatsoever -- no Federates living on Ardana, no Ardanians living in the Federation, etc.

 

[Stevil2001]

The Trill one, though, is especially baffling-- had no one ever read a work of Trill literature? Seen a Trill television show? Visited a Trill school? The Joining is integral to everything about their culture. (You can read a sizeable chunk of Victorian literature and not know about the British Empire, which I always find fascinating.)

When Kareel Odan showed up in the comics, she had spots.

Forged in Fire suggests the Klingon Augment virus infected a Trill colony, if I remember right, giving them bumps.

 

[Sci]

The Trill one, though, is especially baffling-- had no one ever read a work of Trill literature? Seen a Trill television show? Visited a Trill school? The Joining is integral to everything about their culture.

Exactly. That's why I made the comparison to race in America -- it's a social stratifier that's just fundamental to everything about their society, from top to bottom.

(You can read a sizeable chunk of Victorian literature and not know about the British Empire, which I always find fascinating.)

Really? That's interesting -- I hadn't thought of that. I suppose one may draw a comparison to the way you can watch a lot of American television today but come away with no idea of America's relationship with the rest of the world.

 

[Stevil2001]

There might be slight references if someone moves to Canada or is transported, but I was thoroughly amazed when Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone had two whole scenes set in India.

 

[Therin of Andor]

When Kareel Odan showed up in the comics, she had spots.

Yeah, but I loved how when that comic arc first revisited the male Odan (in flashback), they cast a heavy shadow across his face so you couldn't quite see any spots.

The Klingon forehead virus Easter egg in "Forged in Fire" was cool. Hasn't someone also linked the Trill to the spotted Kriosians as well?

 

[JD]

The other one that really bugs me is the ridged Romulans.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The other one that really bugs me is the ridged Romulans.

Proto-vulcans are ridged. See "Who Watches the Watchers". So it seems to me that a higher ratio of Vulcans who left for Romulus had more prominent brows than those who chose to remain behind.

 

[Christopher]

The other one that really bugs me is the ridged Romulans.

Not really a problem, since we only saw a smattering of TOS-era Romulans without forehead-concealing helmets: the "Balance of Terror" Commander, his Centurion, the Female Commander (Charvanek), Tal, the commander from TAS: "The Survivor," another commander and a crewman from TAS: "The Practical Joker," Caithlin Dar, Nanclus, and assorted delegates at Camp Khitomer). It's easy enough to believe that the majority of 23rd-century Romulans were already ridged, but that the elite, ruling class was smooth-headed (though that seems to have been reversed by the 24th century, since the only smoothies we've seen from that era are Nero's working-class mining crew).

 

[captcalhoun]

like Sci, i just pretend The Host never happened, or if it did that Odan was a DS9 spotted Trill.

 

[toughlittleship]

I was watching "A Man Alone" recently, the first episode to focus on the Sisko/Curzon friendship. Sisko isn't sure which host Jadzia might be; he guesses the sixth, hinting Curzon didn't tell him much.

 

[JD]

like Sci, i just pretend The Host never happened, or if it did that Odan was a DS9 spotted Trill.

Maybe what we saw was an alternate reality version of events that also happened in the Prime timeline?

 

[tafkats]

I tend to write off the physical appearance from "The Host" as the same as the Klingons' change between TOS and TNG (before Enterprise felt compelled to come up with a convoluted explanation for it).

Maybe the transporter change could be explained by an advance in transporter technology?

 

[Andy Mangels]

As noted, a reading of Worlds of DS9: Trill - Unjoined will clue a reader in to this. We specifically included this to address the questions.

And also as noted, Forged in Fire does contain tie-ins as well.

Because we were mapping out numerous books across numerous lines at that point, much of our work was able to have ties in to each other (and other Trek lit and TV, obviously). There's even a direct tie-in from Rogue to our Wildstorm Trek Special Borg story.