Spoilers I finally exposed myself to The Animated Series

[Timo]

No real need for them to be "species on the Trill homeworld". The very point of "The Host" is that the Trill is inside, while the host changes. One ridged species is shown to be a competent host, but it turns out Riker isn't a bad choice, either; no doubt dozens if not hundreds of species are compatible to a degree.

That the Trills of DS9 prefer Kriosian hosts (or a species with spots closely resembling the Kriosian ones, at any rate) need not mean much. Kriosians may be the best possible hosts in the known universe, or then just a species with decent compatibility and a long history of coexistence with the symbiont species. Many may live on the Trill homeworld (and naturally identify as "Trill" by nationality); many may live elsewhere, say, on Krios.

Or, if we consider the slight difference in the spot pattern, perhaps on Valt, the arch-enemy of Krios, as no Valtese in "The Perfect Mate" were scantily clad and no specific spot pattern thus could be observed.

It is a separate issue that the Trills lie a lot to their potential (and perhaps also actual?) hosts on the compatibility thing. Or perhaps no so separate? Perhaps the lie includes the preferability of the spotted species, or at least exaggerates the advantages of this species, so that the line to the Trill caves becomes only one species long, rather than featuring fifty species of hopefuls...

But I digress. Although this might have something to do with TAS, in a sense. Or at least the only concrete development in the upcoming DS9 "season eight" animation project so far is art on the animated Trill host Ezri Dax...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Therin of Andor]

I use the same logic to rationalize the change in appearance in the Trill between the forehead alien on TNG, and Dax showing up wholly human, save for the spots. They're both Trill, just different species of hominids on the Trill homeworld. The difference was just never explained.

The novels had a simple explanation: in Forged in Fire, the ridged Trills are said to result from a strain of the Augment virus that managed to infect a Trill colony through visiting Klingon traders. However, those Trills did not seem to be interested in working on methods of restoring the original Trill look, with this "sub-group" having recently (at the time the novel was set) being re-accepted back into Trill society. This division among the groups possibly explains why Odan was so different from other Trills encountered in the series. [Memory Alpha]

 

[Christopher]

The novels had a simple explanation

Sounds like a rather convoluted explanation to me. I think the idea that the same cultural demonym can be applied to members of more than one species is much simpler. Heck, if there are five species that call themselves Xindi and share that common cultural identity, why can't there be two that call themselves Trill, or Caitian, or Ktarian?

 

[Nerys Myk]

That Augment virus sure gets around.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Sounds like a rather convoluted explanation to me.

The comics had a return of Odan issue. At first, they cleverly shadowed part of his face (in the flashback scenes) but when the female Odan was seen more fully, she suddenly had spots and a smooth forehead.

 

[Marsden]

That Augment virus sure gets around.

Handwashing must be a lost art in the 22nd century.

 

[Redfern]

Handwashing must be a lost art in the 22nd century.

Nah, it's a venereal disease spread by unprotected sex during all those cross species "one nighters".

 

[Forbin]

The whole augment virus thing was ridiculous in the first place - the simplest explanation for Klingons with different looks is that it's a vast empire with great ethnic diversity.

 

[Timo]

...But the idea that the diversity is courtesy of the Klingon urge to tamper with their own bodies for gain is cool - and the specific case of the Augment flatheads then is but one example of that urge to tamper, with other such cases implicitly possible as explanations for further diversity.

Sure, the Empire could be diverse by boring means such as conquest and alliances. But where's the scifi in that?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Noname Given]

That Augment virus sure gets around.

Human DNA must be VERY compatible with a variety of Alien species - no wonder Kirk got on so well with the alien 'babe of the week'.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Human DNA is as to Trek alien as Type O blood is to any other type.

 

[plynch]

So many things about Trek are real fantasia aren't they? It seemed so plausible in the seventies when I was nine.

 

[Timo]

Then again, and to the contrary, things I might have rejected offhand in the eighties seem barely worth lifting an eyebrow now. I see nothing particularly fantastic about the idea that a human wanting to look like a Klingon would soon be able to do so on his pocket money even when dad and mum both say no - and not in crude terms of plastic surgery, even, but the whole works including rearranging of internal organs and rewriting of genes. And if and when we here ITRW on a single planet can do that, then accepting the Trek premise of at least one technologically advanced civilization millions or billions of years ago inevitably results in a diversely populated yet madly interbreeding galaxy eventually...

Timo Saloniemi