Trials and Tribble-ations - Why did Dax hide her spots?

Not that we ever saw on the series.

Kor

 

From Star Wreck VI:Geek Space 9, though I would've preferred a nice game of "count the spots". Clearly making herself less conspicuous is a good thing with Kirk around.

 

No, they never said it was a Starfleet shuttle, nor that he was in Starfleet. Not in the TV show.

Weirdly enough, it seems this has been pointed out to you by others at least twice before in past threads over the years. (Sorry, not cyber-stalking you. I just happened to search here for "Torias + Starfleet" to make sure there wasn't something I'd missed from checking the episode transcripts and Memory Alpha.)

See above.

-MMoM

 

Correct. Starfleet isn't the only one with shuttles in the galaxy.

 

Would have made for a pretty akward explanation... "Oh these... Um yeah these are a birthmark... s.

 

But there's no indication that the crew was exactly 430 at all times. Yeah, they say 430 here or there, but given rotations and redshirt deaths, 428 might've been the entire crew including Spock at the moment Kirk gave that figure.

 

Sure, that's a good point, too. (Except I would tend to think the 428 wouldn't include Spock, because he's not human. But even that's fudgeable in context, I suppose.)

Likewise, there were also more than 430 aboard a few episodes later in "Shore Leave" (TOS):

MCCOY: The Captain has to come down.
SULU: He'd like it.
MCCOY: He needs it. You've got your problems, I've got mine. He's got ours, plus his, plus four hundred and thirty other people's.

But of course, there could be passengers figuring into that equation, even though we never heard about any specifically. I think it's all pretty open, and just depends on whether one wants to believe Spock was literally the only non-human in the crew at a given time or not. That's why I used the qualifiers "maybe" and "at most" with respect to that particular example. The various texts leave room for there to be (an)other(s), but don't require it, as you say—until we get to TAS, where we have Arex and M'Ress!

-MMoM

 

Why did Dax hide her spots? Because in the 23rd century Trills didn't have spots, they still had forehead bumps like in The Host.

 

Two things about that:

- we never saw any authentic 23rd-century Trill

- Who's to say both host appearances couldn't exist together? Some Trill had the spots, some had the ridges. No biggie.

 

I was making a joke

 

I actually do buy the explanation that's been propounded in the Trek novelverse:

Spoiler: Trill

The spots are the 'natural' appearance of Trill hosts. Ridges are the result of the Klingon augment virus managing to infect a Trill colony.

besides, in the early days of DS9, they did try the ridges on Terry Farrell but she was allergic to that kind of makeup. So that's the only reason the Trill have spots.

 

And going by "The Host" (TNG), the Trills would have particular need for them, given that at least some joined ones had difficulty with transporters due to a risk of damage to the symbiont...although going by later stories, others seem to not have had this issue.

Or she'd be too easily confused for a Kriosian, and thus too likely a suspect in the hunt for Klingon spies...Kriosians being subjects of the Klingon Empire at the time!

Sincere apologies to be nitpicking you once again, but while I do seem to recall a story of her having a bad reaction to the Klingon makeup she was supposed to don in "Apocalypse Rising" (DS9)—and so I don't doubt she could have had a similar one to the initial Trill forehead piece—the reason I've more often heard cited for the change was that it was insisted upon by the executives for cosmetic reasons.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Trill:

-MMoM

 

Even if there would have been some Trill serving in Starfleet (and on the Enterprise) in the 23rd century, it probably still would be safest to simply take cover in the largest group (Humans) for such an undercover mission. A 3rd Trill on board would have a harder time evading notice if anything happened than a 429th human ....

 

That allergy was also why Dax didn't on the mission in "Apocalypse Rising" despite being more useful on the mission than O'Brian.