A Question re "Trials and Tribble-ations"

[Richard III]

Dax makes many references to having lived in the TOS era; the affinity with the old school tricoders, the uniform, being felt up by McCoy, etc.

So we know that a previous host (Torias) was in Starfleet and another (Emony) has wandered about on Earth playing hide the sausage with the good Doctor. Trills, clearly, aren't that alien in that time.

So why, as Jadzia is preparing to board the Enterprise, are her Trill spots being masked? If Trills were happily wandering around the galaxy in the TOS era and before, why was it necessary to de-Trill her?

[MacLeod]

Because whilst they might have been wandering the Galaxy, seeing one might not be that common. So masking Dax's spots made her less likely to stand out. They were supposed to be going for covert after all.

[CorporalCaptain]

^ Exactly. I don't recall seeing any Trills serving aboard Kirk's Enterprise.

Or, maybe there were, but their lack of spots was something else that wasn't discussed.

[Timo]

We really don't know whether Emony or Torias had spots to begin with...

We know Emony Dax was on Earth and passed for somebody Earthlings would welcome in their Olympic Games and McCoy would subject to his surgeon's hands. But Dax might have been wearing a body that did not differ noticeably from those of Federation member species - either as a deception, or because Emony always looked like that.

As for Torias, what makes us think that he would have been in Starfleet? Merely the fact that he did space service of some sort, flew shuttles, fought battles? That need not have involved Starfleet in any way.

Timo Saloniemi

[Richard III]

Good point on familiarity with "spotted" Trills. The TNG Trill looked very different to Dax after all.

Timo wrote:

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As for Torias, what makes us think that he would have been in Starfleet? Merely the fact that he did space service of some sort, flew shuttles, fought battles? That need not have involved Starfleet in any way.

This page specifically references Torias as being in Starfleet:

Torias Dax is the first Dax host to join Starfleet serving as a shuttle test pilot. He is piloting a new Starfleet shuttle when it suffers a catastrophic system failure and crashes, costing Torias his life. After Torias' death, official Trill records indicate that Dax is held in stasis for six months and is then transplanted into Curzon (Equilibrium DS9 episode); this is actually a cover-up by the Trill government since Dax's next host is Joran, a psychopath and a murderer.

...and we can assume Dax has TOS-era Starfleet experience from her fetishistising of the tricorders of the time, so this presumably came from Torias.

[Loskene]

Fact, non humans were rare on the Enterprise, they were at Security Alert. Someone who knows the species breakdown of the crew spots a Trill and if there are none serving on the Enterprise then they might do a background check and after finding nothing a few folks from ships security drop by to "talk" with her.

Do as 98% of the crew do and be human, it is the safest option not to be picked out of the crowd as suspicious.

[Timo]

This page specifically references Torias as being in Starfleet:

...But it appears to be in error. Nothing in the episodes suggests the shuttle crash was related to Starfleet, and Torias went to a Trill hospital afterwards. Or more exactly, the Trills were able to pretend that Torias had gone to such a hospital, while in fact he died and Joran got Dax. Had Starfleet been involved, especially as the employer of Torias, the odds of this happening would have been low indeed.

Being spotted would mean standing out amidst Kirk's crew. But being spotted doesn't mean you would be immediately recognized as Trill. We have seen at least two spotted species, the Kriosians ("The Perfect Mate" and "Precious Cargo") and the DS9 era Trill hosts. Or perhaps those are one and the same species..?

Timo Saloniemi

[Dover]

I think the saddest thing about that episode is that Kira is the only one who doesn't get to have fun and mingle with the TOS cast. Not much way to hide a pregnant Bajoran, I guess.

[Melakon]

Another question is why Worf was put on the away team. Even though they were unfamiliar with 23rd century Klingon's predominant appearance, they knew relations with the Empire were strained, and Klingon merchants were apparently uncommon near Federation territory. If they were trying to blend in, they could have put Worf in an old style Klingon uniform, which would have raised even more questions.

[SchwEnt]

It happens a lot in the latter ST series. Something is introduced in an eps (Trill, Borg, Ferengi, holodecks, El-Aurians) and comments are made about how mysterious or new or unknown it is.

Then, later eps tell stories of those same things having been around or encountered decades past.

What can you do? Retcon reset wayback machine?

[Timo]

It does make a kind of sense: there would certainly be rumors and unofficial contact with an alien species decades or centuries before anything official took place - involving thousands or perhaps millions of people before the folks from Starfleet got to it. But once the official cat was out of the official bag, the old dots would be retroactively connected.

I'd find it less believable if our primary heroes were aware of every species in or around the Federation, or even possessing sufficient knowledge and insight to look them up in the databanks.

Timo Saloniemi

[Silvercrest]

The writers should have kept better track.

Jake, to Nog: Has there ever been one of your kind and one of my kind who were better friends?
Me: Jake, documented contact between your "kinds" only goes back about six years. What kind of stupid question is that?

[lurok]

Maybe the Trills were on lower decks with the Caitans and season 1 Chekov.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Dover wrote:

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I think the saddest thing about that episode is that Kira is the only one who doesn't get to have fun and mingle with the TOS cast. Not much way to hide a pregnant Bajoran, I guess.

Maybe Kira was just afraid she would kill Kirk if he tried to hit on her, which of course he would.

It does bring up one other question, that is: when was first contact between the UFP and Bajor. We have absolutely no idea when this happened, do we?

[Timo]

For all we know, official first contact between the UFP and the Bajoran government was seen on screen, as prior to Sisko and the Provisionals shaking hands, there had been no official Bajoran government for the UFP to contact...

In "Ensign Ro", Picard makes it sound as if Bajor had been part of Cardassia's sphere of influence basically forever, even if things had only turned nasty fairly recently. This is reinforced by the DS9 insistence that Bajor is the closest star system to the native Cardassian one.

Individual Bajorans, groups of Bajorans, and unofficial representatives of Bajor might have been swarming the galaxy for a long time, both before and during the 24th century occupation, but actually contacting the planet Bajor might have been impossible back in Cochrane's time already, unless one got permission from the Cardassians.

Timo Saloniemi