Does anyone know if there are any novels or off-screen stories, that explain the discrepancy with how the Trills look differently in TNG compared to DS9?
TNG's 'The Host' vs. DS9 Trill Makeup
- Thread starter Methuselah Flint
- Start date
I thought I heard there was a story saying the bumpy headed Trill were from a colony where people got mutated, but I can't find a source for this on Memory Beta.
The simplest explanation is that Trills always look the same: they are ugly worms of varying sizes but generally wrinkly complexion.
They may wear all sorts of sleeves, but the wealthy ones vastly prefer Kriosians, with those pretty spots of theirs. And the wealthy ones also spin this web of lies where only certain select types of sleeves can ostensibly fit. "The Host" already puts the lie to that, of course, showing at least two sleeve species that are not Kriosian.
The web of lies is an integral part of the Trill culture, and still persists in the 32nd century. Time and again, our heroes uncover the truth, but they are silenced to death one way or another. And the Trill go on, with Kriosians still lining up to be brutally possessed.
Timo Saloniemi
They may wear all sorts of sleeves, but the wealthy ones vastly prefer Kriosians, with those pretty spots of theirs. And the wealthy ones also spin this web of lies where only certain select types of sleeves can ostensibly fit. "The Host" already puts the lie to that, of course, showing at least two sleeve species that are not Kriosian.
The web of lies is an integral part of the Trill culture, and still persists in the 32nd century. Time and again, our heroes uncover the truth, but they are silenced to death one way or another. And the Trill go on, with Kriosians still lining up to be brutally possessed.
Timo Saloniemi
IIRC it's "Forged In Fire". The Klingon Augment virus managed to infect a Trill colony.
It's always the Augment Virus. I heard a virulent strain ran rampant through the Northern hemisphere of Romulus once.
I *think* one of the Vulcan's Noun novels dealt with that. Something about the ridged Romulans having some Reman ancestry.
They’re just from the North.
Lots of planets have one...
I don't think there should be a novel to explain it but I would love to read or see a story where two Trills of different kinds are involved and the two characters don't make anything of it. Black people and Asians appear different but they're still human beings, I would think Trills would and should see it as that, they're the same species, no matter the so-called discrepancy.
You could probably just have the explanation be something to do with the aliens from TNG "The Chase" and that ridges in humanoids are just a genetic possibility and be used to explain any other races that have ridges and not, like Romulans, or be tied into the Augment virus that took away Klingon ridges. I guess.
The boring explanation is that those ridged Trill don't really exist anymore in the same way that the Klingons from TMP or Tellarites from TOS or the Borg from "Q, Who" don't exist. They've all been superceded by improved designs multiple times. Trek isn't like Star Wars or Doctor Who where you have say the Cybermen from the 60s alongside modern designs or how you have the static design of the Millenium Falcon cockpit compared to the TOS Enterprise bridge vs the Discovery Enterprise bridge. I find it hard to believe we'd ever see a ridged Trill ever again.
The boring explanation is that those ridged Trill don't really exist anymore in the same way that the Klingons from TMP or Tellarites from TOS or the Borg from "Q, Who" don't exist. They've all been superceded by improved designs multiple times. Trek isn't like Star Wars or Doctor Who where you have say the Cybermen from the 60s alongside modern designs or how you have the static design of the Millenium Falcon cockpit compared to the TOS Enterprise bridge vs the Discovery Enterprise bridge. I find it hard to believe we'd ever see a ridged Trill ever again.
Other obvious rationalizations, specific and general:
- Odan's hosts were surgically altered for the purposes of his diplomatic mission, and were in fact born with (and, in the case of the latter one, perhaps died with) spots.
- These old Trills are racists at heart, and certain individuals or groups choose differently from others. The individuals and groups refuse to interact.
- Looks are like hairstyles in the future / out there anyway, and humans are ridiculed for their perverse clinging onto their natural bodies, this being considered infantile and comparable to wearing nothing but diapers for one's entire life. But again, Trills are little different there, even though Tellarites and Klingons have their self-esteem screwed on right and eagerly experiment with body modifications and improvements.
Timo Saloniemi
- Odan's hosts were surgically altered for the purposes of his diplomatic mission, and were in fact born with (and, in the case of the latter one, perhaps died with) spots.
- These old Trills are racists at heart, and certain individuals or groups choose differently from others. The individuals and groups refuse to interact.
- Looks are like hairstyles in the future / out there anyway, and humans are ridiculed for their perverse clinging onto their natural bodies, this being considered infantile and comparable to wearing nothing but diapers for one's entire life. But again, Trills are little different there, even though Tellarites and Klingons have their self-esteem screwed on right and eagerly experiment with body modifications and improvements.
Timo Saloniemi
Who was the first Trill that ever joined with a symbiont? What was going on there...?
I still insist the symbiont is the Trill: an aquatic predator that initially used its electric organ for hunting and killing, and eventually learned to just stun and enjoy a parasitic lifestyle where the electric superpowers would help manipulate the victim, ultimately in very intricate ways. The table thus was catered for the Trill to capture their first bipedal prey, possibly an alien astronaut...
With sufficiently many such humanoids enslaved, the Trill society could grow to go grab more, in the process absorbing the humanoid lifestyle and learning to manipulate that, too. In the end, the victims would willingly be lining up!
Timo Saloniemi
With sufficiently many such humanoids enslaved, the Trill society could grow to go grab more, in the process absorbing the humanoid lifestyle and learning to manipulate that, too. In the end, the victims would willingly be lining up!
Timo Saloniemi
It's a TV show and they updated the makeup because they wanted to keep Ferrel "pretty" for the heterosexual male audience. No other explanation needed imo.
Also the reason why Betazoids and Bajorans hardly have any alien makeup.
Attempts to "explain" it in-universe just end up like that terrible "Klingon Augment Virus" nonsense from Enterprise.
Though it's worth noting that originally the Science Officer of DS9 was not meant to be a Trill, but an alien from a low-gravity world who got around the Station with a wheel chair, but they thought it would make filming in the sets too difficult.
When this character was instead used a guest character in Melora https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Melora_Pazlar
she had make-up that very much looked like the TNG-version of Trills.
If that was on purpose then it's a neat little in-joke.
Also the reason why Betazoids and Bajorans hardly have any alien makeup.
Attempts to "explain" it in-universe just end up like that terrible "Klingon Augment Virus" nonsense from Enterprise.
Though it's worth noting that originally the Science Officer of DS9 was not meant to be a Trill, but an alien from a low-gravity world who got around the Station with a wheel chair, but they thought it would make filming in the sets too difficult.
When this character was instead used a guest character in Melora https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Melora_Pazlar
she had make-up that very much looked like the TNG-version of Trills.
If that was on purpose then it's a neat little in-joke.
I can't possibly agree more but it seems like a cottage industry on this board, and by extension writers, to want to come up with in universe explanations and justifications about EVERYTHING. And people wonder why trekkers get the geek rep that they do.
I don't disagree. I was merely asking if an in-universe text was available that I could read up on. I never insisted there *should* be, rather I asked *if* there was. That's what these forums are for, after all.
Some fans like to join everything together, others have a looser interpretation. We can't all be the same.
I don't think "geek" should necessarily be a negative thing. Some fans are, others aren't. We are all different.
Of course, what you described might be true, but it's a fine line between parasitism and symbiosis. This process occurred many millions of years ago (probably), but the present-day Trill Symbiosis just accepts that both species co-exist together, and it's just a matter of philosophy whether they are victims or heroes. DS9 reconceptualizes Trill a little more into a joined society, whereas TNG seemed to show us that the hosts were pretty much killed (in mind, if not in body) when a symbiont crawled inside, with one outstanding exception (Riker) perhaps due to his alien(er) biology. Is Jadzia Idaris the same person as Jadzia Dax just with some added memories and life experiences and a non-removable creature in her belly? Or is it Dax (the creature) that gets to absorb Jadzia Idaris's memories into its gestalt as it gains a new shell and funny new name? Probably somewhere in between.
By the time of DS9, the Federation might know everything that you describe, and it's just an interesting facet of their biology. Just like the Kaelons killing off their sixty-year-olds or the Bynars lobotomizing all their infants, it's just a quirk of this funny alien society they have no control over and accept wholeheartedly. Morality is not a universal constant. The Klingons are still genocidal cannibal slavers even as they are the Feds closest allies in the Dominion War.
Just to clarify, I wasn't saying that people shouldn't be allowed to have those theories or anything, just that to me they are all unsatisfying (at best) when it comes to "explaining" changes in makeup.
