In the TNG episode, The Host, Star Trek introduced a new species that consisted of a humanoid life form existing symbiotically with a creature living inside of it. It's a great idea taken straight from nature, although in the animal kingdom it usually involve two species cohabitating an environment to their mutual benefit. The "environment" in this case is the humanoid body of the Trill. That's not to say there aren't helpful microbe types of parasites that exist in real life, but in the case of the Trill the beings living in symbiosis are both conscious beings with higher reasoning. Even the word "Trill" is a musical term that indicates the vibrato of two separate notes being played so rapidly in succession that they become one phrase. I noted yesterday when I was reviewing The Host that they probably never intended to use the concept again. After all, it'd served it's purpose which was to give Beverly Crusher a personal story of "seeking new life and new civilizations." But I'm so glad they revisited this idea when creating Deep Space Nine. And I'm so very thankful that they reworked and changed the concept the way they did. Yesterday I was pointing out the changes in an abbreviated fashion as I came to them while reviewing the episode. Today I just want to point them out again so we can take time to appreciate how and why all the changes were a change for the better.
First of all, the superior spots. The first Trill, Odan and his next next host Kareel were given a headpiece to wear to distinguish them as aliens. They weren't bad little headpieces and they didn't detract from the attractiveness of either actor, but they didn't stand apart as something unique either. Tasked with making the different aliens they met actually look different wasn't easy. They couldn't go around giving everyone extra limbs or oversized heads because it was too much work and money. The simplest fix was bestowing Elvin type ears on both Vulcans and Romulans. And the next simplest fix was varying forehead designs. The first Trill forehead pieces were just another random creation. The spots on the other hand were very unique. They were probably inspired by the spots given to Kamala in the episode The Perfect Mate (TNG) but they definitely stood out and were pleasing to look at. It didn't hurt that Terry Ferrell was drop dead gorgeous in her prime either. I'm sure the make up artists cringed when they had to deal with applying them to the entire body, but this sort of thing is what draws viewers and it's always worth it.
Secondly, the symbiont itself. In The Host the symbiont is very colorful and seems almost bejeweled and didn't look terribly organic. It's consistent with the atmosphere of TNG. At barely into the 1990's, they weren't ready to introduce anything too gross looking or off putting to the audience in what was already a bizarre story. But when the Trek atmosphere turned darker for DS9, they went for a more realistic looking alien presence to inhabit the bowels of a humanoid body.
In The Host the symbiont is delicate and can't travel through the transporter. That is also cast aside in DS9, thankfully because the Dax character would've been quite ineffective. Other small details were added in such as the fact that they have cold hands and are extremely allergic to insect bites since the biochemical connections between host and symbiont can't handle the reaction to the venom. Another bigger detail that helped to make much more sense of their existence is that their personalities are not exclusively based on the symbiont. In The Host I noted that Riker became fully and completely Odan. Both Picard and Crusher had reason to note that he, at times, reminded them of Riker in personality, but Riker had no conscious presence in their link. The episode moves so quickly that you don't really have time to think about the fact that the next host isn't a zombie who is waiting to be inhabited by Odan, but that she's her own person who seems self aware and mature and doesn't appear to be simply livestock for the use of the symbiont. We didn't have time to think about it, but the writers thought long and hard about it and decided that not only should each host be their own person as well as the embodiment of the symbiont, but that not every Trill is joined to a symbiont. That it takes a lot of strength of mind to handle this kind of union and lifestyle thereafter. This makes the character of a joined Trill amazingly complex and multi layered. And also old while still young. I think a lot of the success of the character of Dax is that Ferrell was able to pull off the illusion of long aged wisdom with the pluckiness of a young Starfleet science officer.
Hosting a symbiont is a lifetime commitment and the person must be mentally and emotionally stable. Stable and usually what we would consider the elite insofar as education and training. The best of the best, as it were. The consequences of being joined if you're not capable result in the symbiont's personality overwhelming the host's and that would be more like Odan and Kareel Odan even though, that wasn't a problem in The Host. But in DS9 it's a huge problem due to the complex, dual nature of a joined trill like Dax who is fully Jadzia and fully Dax. The purpose of the symbiont is to live as many different lives as possible, not just to be itself. Being separated prematurely would also be fatal and it added another layer of color to the concept.
Their dependence on each other is more than physical though and the Trill also employ a telepathic ceremony in which a joined trill can separate the personalities out and place them into willing, temporary host bodies in order to talk to them and discover their own unique memories. It's a ritual similar to the Vulcan ritual employed at the end of Star Trek III in order to recapture Spock's mind from McCoy's body and I thought it was a nice incorporation of that theme.
They also solve the problem presented in The Host of having to deal with your lover potentially changing bodies all the time. Poor Beverly is subjected to having to accept someone she loves like a brother as her boyfriend and is then faced with the decision to continue the relationship when he is embedded in a woman. It doesn't matter how comfortable or uncomfortable you are with homosexuality, if you stop to think about what Crusher went through, all would agree that the strain of keeping up with multiple changes would be too much for anyone to deal with - even if she'd been okay with dating a woman or even if Odan had become a different man. It's utter insanity and in order to reinvent the Trill, it's a problem that would have to be addressed.
Trill law forbids the reassociation of joined Trill who had once been lovers in previous existences. As stated before the purpose of the a joined Trill is for the symbiont to always move forward and experience new things and lives. It's probably the highest price to pay in becoming a joined Trill and one of the reasons the few who are chosen must be psychologically fit. The consequence of reassociation is being expelled from the Trill society leaving the symbiont to die with whoever its current host is, which is unfair to the symbiont, making it a very shameful thing. It is dealt with in the episode Rejoined where Jadzia meets another Trill whom one of Dax's former hosts was married to. Lerana is also a different host for the symbiont that once inhabited Torias Dax's wife. So they're both in different bodies now.
At any rate, there's just so much to love about this race, the Trill. The material for a being this complex was actually endless and it was a shame they had to speed Dax's story to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt with Ezri. But even she doesn't stop my admiration of this brilliant piece of creative writing.
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