"Invasive Procedures" vs "Dax" and "Blood Oath"

[Detached Nacelle]

That could be an interesting backwards-continuity idea except that in the episode Odan has them contact Trill directly for a new host, so it doesn't really fit.

Yeah but we're no strangers to ignoring the odd line of dialogue here though it wouldn't surprise me if some are still beholden to TOS' lines about women on the bridge.

It could be spaghettied into sense anyway, "we contacted Trill who informed us to contact this specific world" headcanon is our superpower.

 

[Tosk]

Seems more complicated than "some Trill look different", but I ain't gonna stop you.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

I think a big part of the attraction of joining is the status it gains within Trill society, so most rejected applicants would probably not want a symbiont who would outcast them.

Verad would. If he had succeeded in grabbing Dax, and Jadzia had died, he'd have been outcast anyway.

 

[Captrek]

You're right. I said "most."

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

If reassociation is as rare as you say, the few Verad-types (who cannot stomach what they see as a mediocre life) would be enough to accommodate their slugs.

 

[Captrek]

Verad doesn't strike me as a particularly desirable host, though it's admittedly much better than no host. That's a guy with a lot of demons you're going to have to live with.

 

[Captrek]

I wonder how symbionts evolved.

My head canon: they evolved in the oceans, using marine mammals as hosts. When people figured out that the smart whales were smart because of symbionts, and that the symbionts could work in people (with some minor surgery), they took the symbionts for themselves. The symbionts had probably evolved an instinct to pass from mother to daughter and tried to avoid being hijacked by people, so people stole them by force. Verad was just resurrecting an ancient tradition.

And people probably passed them from parent to child as well until Trill society produced the Selection Commission and started giving the symbionts to the most deserving.