General Trek Questions and Observations

[MAGolding]

What was the reason, if you don't mind telling us?

I had an overbite, so the dentists removed eight teeth 4 each from upper and lower, 4 each from right and left, to reduce the number to fit into my jaws, and I wore braces to pull my upper teeth back to fill the empty spaces, and after a few years and the upper teeth moving back as far as they could, they broke and reset my lower jaw to it would extend farther forward and the lower front teeth would reach the upper front teeth.

The way they broke my lower jaw wasn't perpendicular but very slanting so there was a lot of overlap between the back and the front sections, and they moved the front section forward a little and then bolted the jaw back together so the bone would grow back together at the new length.

I imagine there was some sort of medical device to break the jaw the proper way. I wonder what the patent office examiner thought when he read an application for a jaw breaking device,. Did he think at first that it was supposed to be a torture device?

 

[WildManWizard]

I myself had an operation to increase my lower jaw length when I was considerably older than a teenager.

my boss just paid a fortune for his daughter to have the same procedure, he said it was due to teeth crowding and some sort of soft pallet issue. in fact he said it was some sort of genetic condition seen in families where both parents have pure Irish lineage on both sides, which sounded kind of unusual to me.

 

[Discofan]

Have you noticed how often Archer in the middle of a conversation starts talking as if he was making a speech before a congress or something? Who wrote those dialogues?

 

[Tracy Trek]

So as far as I recall, the episode (I can't recall the title at the moment) where the Trill Ambassador Odan is attracted to Dr. Crusher was the first time that anyone in Starfleet knew about the the Trill symbiotic nature.

But it seems like from watching DS9, where Dax and Sisko were talking that Sisko knew about the symbiotes a long time before that. Was anything ever mentioned on DS9 that contradicted the earlier TNG canon about this.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

So as far as I recall, the episode (I can't recall the title at the moment) where the Trill Ambassador Odan is attracted to Dr. Crusher was the first time that anyone in Starfleet knew about the the Trill symbiotic nature.

But it seems like from watching DS9, where Dax and Sisko were talking that Sisko knew about the symbiotes a long time before that. Was anything ever mentioned on DS9 that contradicted the earlier TNG canon about this.

It kind of implies that, though I'd guess there's some wiggle room since all the TNG episode really says is 'we know so little about them' which doesn't necessarily mean no one in the Federation knows about them.

Realistically, though, the Trill were just straight up rebooted after that TNG episode. The look was completely altered. The TNG episode claims a trill can't be transported without killing the symbiote, yet that was never a problem for Dax. And DS9 made it clear Dax was living in the Federation for over a hundred years before the TNG crew 'knew so little' about Trill. It's just a retcon.

 

[UnknownSample]

The Next Gen episode was disturbing because it appeared that the symbiant took over the host body completely, rather than sharing it, and that the host enters into this willingly. Obviously that was changed. fortunately.

 

[Nyotarules]

The Next Gen episode was disturbing because it appeared that the symbiant took over the host body completely, rather than sharing it, and that the host enters into this willingly. Obviously that was changed. fortunately.

I like the idea of the Trill being more like the Tok'Ra of Stargate SG1, with two species sharing one body. Maybe the Trill inspired the SG writers?

 

[NCC-73515]

I like the idea of the Trill being more like the Tok'Ra of Stargate SG1, with two species sharing one body. Maybe the Trill inspired the SG writers?

The Trill and the Founders

 

[Tracy Trek]

The Next Gen episode was disturbing because it appeared that the symbiant took over the host body completely, rather than sharing it, and that the host enters into this willingly. Obviously that was changed. fortunately.

I know what you mean about the Next Gen. episode. Didn't Odan the host say (as he was dying) "This body is just a shell".

 

[Nyotarules]

I know what you mean about the Next Gen. episode. Didn't Odan the host say (as he was dying) "This body is just a shell".

OR there were two races of Trill, the spotty ones shared the body, the ridged head ones were taken over by the belly worms.....

 

[matthunter]

Alternatively, Odan was the FIRST host of that symbiont, and thus saw the survival of the slug as the best way of preserving BOTH their personalities?

He might also, being therefore relatively naive for a joined Trill (no past lives to draw on), be more likely to buy into the somewhat cultish aspects around Joining and the training involved in such, like believing the survival of the symbiont to be paramount.

 

[Tosk]

Alternatively, Odan was the FIRST host of that symbiont, and thus saw the survival of the slug as the best way of preserving BOTH their personalities?

Odan completely overrides the personalities of the next two hosts too.

 

[Orphalesion]

The hosts in the TNG episode almost seem like they were empty shells without the symbiont. Odan's new host is pretty wooden/emotionless when she introduces herself but later acts more lively when she approaches Beverly about continuing their relationship.
When I first watched the episode as a child I sure had the impression that the hosts weren't sapient on their own, and only the symbionts were. Of course that opens up a whole lot of questions.
The DS9 Trills were definitely more thought-out.

But if one wants to reconcile the "we know so little about Trills" from TNG with the Dax symbiont gallivanting Federation Space for centuries, then it's still possible that the Trills simply kept their symbionts a closely guarded secret. There were people like McCoy and Pulasky after all who refused travelling by transporters whenever they could, maybe Trills in contract with the Federation did the same.
After the "secret" was out in the open its possible that engineers were able to adjust the transporter process to work with the symbionts, allowing Jadzia to use the transporter on DS9.

 

[matthunter]

Odan completely overrides the personalities of the next two hosts too.

Riker is human not Trill, so that might be a side effect. As for the lady, we've seen that "just joined" hosts find it difficult to stop the previous memories running the shop for a time, as with Ezri basically just doing a greatest hits of Jadzia and the others until she found her own "voice" in the mix.

 

[JLBTucker]

I finally saw reunification for the first and oh my god! Before i thought just the Romulan navy and the Tal shiar had the stupid shoulder pads but no even the civilians, juts regular people walking around have them!

 

[Tosk]

Maybe it was just the height of fashion to wear military-style clothing around the time that Unification is set.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

Discovery S1 is better than Picard S1. So far.

 

[Discofan]

I finally saw reunification for the first and oh my god! Before i thought just the Romulan navy and the Tal shiar had the stupid shoulder pads but no even the civilians, juts regular people walking around have them!

To quote Garak: "They are either lost or in desperate need of a good tailor."

 

[Tracy Trek]

Is there anything in canon other than the 4th Trek movie that refers to T'Plana-Hoth the matron of Vulcan philosophy that tells us who this was. I believe I read that the Vulcan ship in First Contact was named that.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The hosts in the TNG episode almost seem like they were empty shells without the symbiont. Odan's new host is pretty wooden/emotionless when she introduces herself but later acts more lively when she approaches Beverly about continuing their relationship.
When I first watched the episode as a child I sure had the impression that the hosts weren't sapient on their own, and only the symbionts were. Of course that opens up a whole lot of questions.
The DS9 Trills were definitely more thought-out.

You could take a Trill who had a brain injury/other condition that stripped them of their personality and preserve their still-functioning body/skills for whatever field they're in.

You could even have a well-trained symbiont intelligence agent who borrows bodies for the purpose of remaining incognito, sort of like a humanoid motor pool.