When did Trill join the federation?

[Evil Ezri]

Weelllll... Earth is the capital of the Federation, among many other indications that Earth is a Federation member, so...

As far as canon is concerned, Trill's status as a Federation member world is just never addressed. No Trill ships are ever seen, this is true, and when Dax is training that Initiate, she suggests Starfleet as a potential career move, and it's presented as a "standard" move.

It's possible, but not likely, that Trill is a non-member protectorate of the Federation like Bajor, perhaps in a similar situation as Puerto Rico for the United States. The Trill we see in Starfleet might then be those who've chosen to go that route rather than the Trill equivalent, like Bajoran refugees Ro and Sito. Why Trill wouldn't join, who knows? Memory Alpha's got a really interesting talk page about this issue.

For what it's worth, TrekLit and the DS9 Relaunch present Trill as a standard Federation member world, and that's my personal opinion on the matter.

With three of the hosts as being Starfleet officers and with Curzan Dax being a Starfleet Ambassador it looks to be very clear to me that Trill was a member of the United Federation of Planets. Unless anyone would believe that President Obama of the United States of America would send an ambassador to help with a peace treaty from say Canada and a citizen of Canada as one of the primary American ambassador to a different foreign country. With so many posters pointing out that Curzan Dax was a Starfleet Ambassador, without thinking how politically incorrect it would be if President Obama did almost the same mirror move.

Also, unrelatedly Evil Ezri, where in East TN are you from?

You know the city that has the Neyland Stadium? Hmmm talking East Tennessee, let me get you a can of coke, than gives you a Mountain Dew. Now if you’re an old man, let me get you a can of dope. You are welcome Bud.

 

[Timo]

To nitpick, Starfleet doesn't have ambassadors, the Federation does...

..Including Riva, an impartial mediator in apparent temporary UFP employ in "Loud as a Whisper", but clearly not a UFP citizen, and K'Ehleyr, "special Federation emissary" who is an obvious Klingon even though the Empire is not a UFP member. And it's clearly established that our TNG heroes knew essentially zip about Odan's species. Apparently, the Feds aren't that picky about whom they employ for diplomacy.

On the issue of Trills in Starfleet, we have only seen Jadzia and Ezri Dax. There have been more Bajorans in Starfleet than that, and Bajor certainly isn't a member. There have been some other Starfleet personnel with spots on their faces, but we don't know if they are Trills. Hell, we don't even know if Jadzia or Ezri would be considered a Trill if she didn't have the slug in her tummy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Thestral]

With three of the hosts as being Starfleet officers and with Curzan Dax being a Starfleet Ambassador it looks to be very clear to me that Trill was a member of the United Federation of Planets. Unless anyone would believe that President Obama of the United States of America would send an ambassador to help with a peace treaty from say Canada and a citizen of Canada as one of the primary American ambassador to a different foreign country. With so many posters pointing out that Curzan Dax was a Starfleet Ambassador, without thinking how politically incorrect it would be if President Obama did almost the same mirror move.

It's certainly no problem to believe Trill is a Federation world; I do based on (somewhat) similar logic.

Also, unrelatedly Evil Ezri, where in East TN are you from?

You know the city that has the Neyland Stadium? Hmmm talking East Tennessee, let me get you a can of coke, than gives you a Mountain Dew. Now if you’re an old man, let me get you a can of dope. You are welcome Bud.

I know K-Town very well. I'm from just up in the road in Jefferson County. Good to see another Vol around.

On the issue of Trills in Starfleet, we have only seen Jadzia and Ezri Dax. There have been more Bajorans in Starfleet than that, and Bajor certainly isn't a member. There have been some other Starfleet personnel with spots on their faces, but we don't know if they are Trills. Hell, we don't even know if Jadzia or Ezri would be considered a Trill if she didn't have the slug in her tummy.

Timo Saloniemi

Err... that's just not true. You've got Ensign Perim (the ops officer from "Insurrection") and and an unnnamed background officer from the same movie, and an unnamed cadet from "Valiant."

Also, there are several times when unJoined Trill are referred to as Trill, including Verad and the doctors on Trill.

 

[Evil Ezri]

On the issue of Trills in Starfleet, we have only seen Jadzia and Ezri Dax. There have been more Bajorans in Starfleet than that, and Bajor certainly isn't a member. There have been some other Starfleet personnel with spots on their faces, but we don't know if they are Trills. Hell, we don't even know if Jadzia or Ezri would be considered a Trill if she didn't have the slug in her tummy.

Timo Saloniemi

Only Bajorans I know that was in Starfleet was Ro and Kira, so it looks to be an even tie with Jadzia and Ezri. In fact, with Ro she was never on DS9 and only on TNG only. My feeling, the reason Ro was not on DS9 as it would make it weird having Starfleet going after Ro on a Bajorian station. On the other point, it would also be weird for a Bajorian being a Starfleet officer and assigned on DS9. With Kira, she was only accepted as a Starfleet officer only for a very limited time away from the station. In fact, Kira when she was a Starfleet officer never gave an order to anyone in Starfleet. Nobody witness Kira and Ezri in Starfleet uniforms, as Ezri was the lower rank officer.

Just like someone pointed about Odan, Ro was part of TNG and only in that series. She did develop the Bajorian culture and helped set up the background of the Bajorian society of the 2360’s and early 2370’s.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Is there canon that Earth joined the United Federation of Planets?

No.

We know that Earth's actual government is called United Earth (as ENT showed). There's no evidence that this ceased to exist when the Federation was formed. That wouldn't even make any sense.

ENT "Zero Hour" establishes that Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar are the four founding members of the Federation. I think that's pretty clear canon evidence that Earth is a member.

Also, I find it hard to believe that any state whatsoever would locate its capital or base its military outside its own territory.

As for the United Earth government - while we never see it in any fashion in any of the other series, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist any more. For example, the state of Virginia existed before it helped found the United States. When the state joined the new government it continued to exist, just with a new over-arching government that tied it to other pre-existing states.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

...Earth was a founding member of the Federation.

 

[Jono]

On the issue of Trills in Starfleet, we have only seen Jadzia and Ezri Dax. There have been more Bajorans in Starfleet than that, and Bajor certainly isn't a member. There have been some other Starfleet personnel with spots on their faces, but we don't know if they are Trills. Hell, we don't even know if Jadzia or Ezri would be considered a Trill if she didn't have the slug in her tummy.

Timo Saloniemi

Only Bajorans I know that was in Starfleet was Ro and Kira, so it looks to be an even tie with Jadzia and Ezri.

Tal Celes on Voyager was a Bajoran. Sito Jaxa on the Enterprise-D. There was an unnamed security guard and engineer on E-D and E-E respectively.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Yeah, there were comparatively tons of random Bajorans for no particularly obvious reason--they were a non-member world with what was likely a tiny population compared to any long-time space colonizer, yet they wound up much better-represented than some Federation founders (by a factor of infinity for Andorians and Tellarites, as far as I can tell). It admittedly does make some sense that Bajoran refugees would be overrepresented, since Starfleet would seem like the best and safest bet for killing Cardassians, but I also wonder if Bajoran just wasn't a "default" alien (easy makeup, nothing physiologically special).

We don't actually know that they were a member of the Federation.

Indeed. Canon doesn't really indicate either way. We know Curzon Dax was a Federation ambassador, so it's pretty standard to assume that Trill is a Federation world, but there's no clear answer either way. The only time the DS9 crew really interacted with the Trill government, it was as a separate entity, but that tells us nothing because Fed. worlds are self-governing.

It may just be that Jadzia wanted to avoid any questions whatsoever. On a ship that is apparently almost all-human, easier to blend in.

It's iffy enough as a human. The E was only staffed by ~400 people, and a hot giantess probably would be easily noticed.

 

[Evil Ezri]

^Yeah, there were comparatively tons of random Bajorans for no particularly obvious reason--they were a non-member world with what was likely a tiny population compared to any long-time space colonizer, yet they wound up much better-represented than some Federation founders (by a factor of infinity for Andorians and Tellarites, as far as I can tell). It admittedly does make some sense that Bajoran refugees would be overrepresented, since Starfleet would seem like the best and safest bet for killing Cardassians, but I also wonder if Bajoran just wasn't a "default" alien (easy makeup, nothing physiologically special).

When Data’s daughter was looking for a species and a gender, she had down as one of her finalist to be an Andorian female. Did not Counselor Troi say she would be the first Andorian in Starfleet? If the Andorian’s were the first members of the United Federation of Planets would they not be part of the United Federation of Planets? Then again, when the Andorian’s were made to be in the 1960’s with TOS, think we were fighting them so why would we be fighting a founding member of the United Federation of Planets. True, we are going off topic.

Could the reason we have seen a number of Bajorians in TNG is the fact they were going to be the center piece with the start up of Deep Space 9.

 

[Michael]

When Data’s daughter was looking for a species and a gender, she had down as one of her finalist to be an Andorian female. Did not Counselor Troi say she would be the first Andorian in Starfleet?

I hate to be a smartass, but nope ...

DATA: Computer, Lal gender sequence finalists. Begin. An Andorian female.
TROI: Interesting. You'll be the only one on board the Enterprise, Lal.

 

[Evil Ezri]

When Data’s daughter was looking for a species and a gender, she had down as one of her finalist to be an Andorian female. Did not Counselor Troi say she would be the first Andorian in Starfleet?

I hate to be a smartass, but nope ...

DATA: Computer, Lal gender sequence finalists. Begin. An Andorian female.
TROI: Interesting. You'll be the only one on board the Enterprise, Lal.

Smartass interest me! Can I see it?

 

[doctorfoto]

To further muddy the waters with facts, I'll point out that while Ezri is a Trill, she was born and raised on New Sydney, a non-Federation world.

Personally I believe that Trill has long been a member of the Federation, but that their relationship with the symbionts has been largely a private matter - the protection of the symbionts being one of the major foundations of their society. I think that the Trill people are a lot less active in the Federation and Starfleet than other member planets like say, Vulcan - so knowledge of the symbiontic relationship of a few members of that species is limited unless you happen to know a joined Trill personally.

Remember, the Federation involves billions of life forms from hundreds of planets so to keep track of the cultural and biological differences of each species would be a daunting task to say the least. Like here in the 21st century you probably are aware of the people you're around from day-to-day but don't really think much about thousands of cultural differences of everyone on the planet.

 

[Evil Ezri]

To further muddy the waters with facts, I'll point out that while Ezri is a Trill, she was born and raised on New Sydney, a non-Federation world.

Think you hit the nail in the head about Ezri Dax being born on a planet that is a non member planet of New Sidney. Still, she is a Trill and we have very little understanding of Ezri Tigan before she joined Starfleet. We still do not know the name of her father.

Still I do believe that the Trill home world was a member of the United Federation of Planets at the time of Jadzia Dax, Ezri Dax, and before their birth with Curzan Dax.

 

[Myasishchev]

The "150 member worlds" line may suggest a the hard upper limit on Fed species, however (and it's probably fewer than that). 150 species is not a whole lot to get the broad strokes of--think of how many animals you could identify, surely more than 150. And sapient animals are a lot more interesting than a common octopus, zebra, or tuna.

I'm also very dubious about any species of at least hundreds of millions and more likely double-digit billions could restrain information about their culture and physiology without being the kind of monstrous, totalitarian society the Federation would never let in. Ordinary curiosity would compel others to demand information; even in socially backwards worlds, rebels would be on hand to offer up common knowledge to the interested scientists and laypeople. Take pon farr--for every person who answers the question of how Vulcans pound with Kirk's line "I always assumed they'd do it logically," there would be thousands of researchers who would never have rested on assumptions and millions of quasi-deviants getting off to Vulcan Love Slave.

I mean, we discuss it, and they're fictional. Imagine how irresistible the need to know would be if a real alien species were discovered.

Especially in a world where everybody and their brother has a tricorder capable of scanning at ridiculously fine levels. "You know you have a gut slug, right?" "No, I don't, shut up!"

And, anyway, it's really bad not to disclose it. Spock didn't disclose, and he wound up beating his captain to death. If Odan hadn't been a crybaby liar who didn't want to use transporters, maybe he wouldn't have 1)gotten shot down and 2)lost a perfectly good shuttle.

This is a short vignette relating to a Trill who has successfully kept her gut-slug secret:

"Ms. Tigan, we know you prefer the shuttlecraft, but that was a sticky situation there and there just wasn't any time for your crazy transporter-phobia. Okay, fine, whatever--according to you, you're dead and all we did was revive a copy, but that big, hairy guy was gonna eat you anyway, so let's just split the difference and call it even, right? Anyway, while you were getting beamed up, the biofilters found this nasty tapeworm-kind-of-thing and totally screened it out. It's halfway to the sun by now. The xenobiologist guy is all pissy because he wanted to study it but I told him it was just some standard issue neural parasite, nothing too special, and certainly nothing to get all worked up over. Dime a dozen ever since that thing with Remmick's head... hey, did you just fall over?"

 

[doctorfoto]

Someone mentioned Tal Celes on Voyager. In her episode, Good Shepherd, she mentions that the Fed's desire to have Bajorans in Starfleet gave her "sympathy votes" in getting through the Academy, and presumably other Bajorans as well.

Voyager had a few other Bajorans as well, including Seska (or so they thought) and the guy who refused to take off his earring for Tuvok - but they were Maquis originally and didn't count. Still, I think that enlisting members of a suffering world like Bajor would have been a lot easier than a planet like Trill who between the symbiosis commission, science commission and diplomatic arm seemed to be a pretty well-developed world who were able to keep many of their best and brightest for themselves.

 

[DevilEyes]

To be sure, we don't know if TOS era ships had such monospecies crews as a general rule, or if Kirk's ship was a glaring exception from the norm. We only saw glimpses into the crews of the Exeter and the Defiant, although admittedly we couldn't spot any obvious nonhumans in those glimpses.

But Kirk had a crew of only 430, most of them apparently stuck in the same tin can for the whole five years, and he could plausibly have known each and every one of them by sight at least. Our heroes needed to look as generic as possible; it's in fact a bit odd that Kirk didn't notice the new black officer when there were so few black servicemen on the ship in general, and IIRC no black Lieutenants save for Uhura and the late Alden were shown... (Stunningly good-looking caucasian female Lieutenants were a dime in a dozen, of course.)

Wasn't Boma ("Galileo Seven") a lieutenant? He was, according to Memory Alpha. And so was Shea ("By Any Other Name").

There could have been many more. If we didn't see them, it doesn't mean that there weren't others. It's not like we saw all 430 crewmembers on the show.

 

[doctorfoto]

Thanks for bringing up Pon Farr - exactly my point. Again I don't so much think that the nature of joined Trill and symbiont as a super secret - as much as it is simply a private matter. If the symbiosis commission was so well at withholding the facts about joining to it's own people, keeping the practice from becoming common knowledge off-world was probably not especially difficult. Mostly because I think that other worlds simply didn't care.

Again, those who knew Curzon, including Sisko, the Klingon d'Har Masters, the woman he'd had an affair with - all of them knew about the multiple lifetimes, but it seemed that few of them really got their heads around it, most of them essentially saying "This is going to take some getting used to". When Worf met Jadzia, he says right off the bat, "Hey, You used to be Curzon!" but perhaps his previous experience with the Trill, and having never met Curzon personally made it less of a big deal with him.

I think if FANS found themselves in the Starfleet Universe, yeah, we'd probably be gathering everything we could about all the species and ships and tech - but it's all pretty common if you're raised in the SF universe. Fans would probably be scanning everyone with medical tricorders and stuff, but I imagine if it were true, that it would be considered extremely bad form to do so (like Quark scanning Kira for the holosuite in Meridian) unless you were given permission (like Yedrin permitting Jadzia in Children of Time) or a doctor. Again I think people are rather non-chalant about species differences in the Trekverse. I mean Kirk didn't know about his best friend's Pon Farr which Spock could have died from. Eddington forgot that Jem'Hadar could shroud in Blaze of Glory. Garak had to remind Bashir that Cardassian hearing isn't as good as humans. And the biggest one - Bashir, despite having been genetically altered and having a medical degree which included studies in xenobiology - had no idea how far the spots went down until the last episode, despite having operated on Jadzia and other Trill several times. Funny. Though perhaps they were all just preoccupied with not dying every episode.

 

[Evil Ezri]

To debunk the argument about Dr Crusher not knowing about the symbiont with Odan in the Starfleet medical records: is because of the Trill Symbiont Commission not releasing information about the practice of joined Trills. Since the comment is that joined Trills are uncommon to be off the home planet, also with the fact that the stated lie that only half of the population could accept a joining then the low number that is pushed by the Trill Symbiont Commission. If the records was known to Dr Crusher it would have been understood with anyone being in Starfleet Medical. It would not take long before people not a Trill and not on the Trill planet to know that the comments from the Trill Symbiont Commission was a lie. If Starfleet understood this, it would have been a problem for Trill if they wanted to join the United Federation of Planets.

 

[Timo]

If the Trill government really was that worried about the secret of the true number of compatible hosts leaking out, then Ambassador Odan really screwed up. He (She? It?) went to UFP public record on the slugs being compatible with humans and another, ridgeheaded host species! Now what should that tell about the compatibility of individuals from the spotted species..?

Well, more or less compatible. The slug wasn't doing any good to Riker's guts. And since Odan was callous enough to go in there anyway, perhaps he (She? It?) was also doing harm to the two ridgeheaded hosts, and counting on only utilizing them for very short periods of time. But it did seem as if Odan's first ridgeheaded host had been his source of legs and opposable thumbs for several years, enough for his negotiation partners to remember his face.

Perhaps the species of the host isn't such a big deal, but the spotheads are a favored host species because they have these nice pouches on their tummies? I still think the spotted ones aren't Trills in the sense of representing the Trill species - but merely Trills in the sense of being citizens of planet Trill, just like Riker or Spock would be if they took that planet's citizenship. The slugs are the Trills, the planet is Trill, but the hosts come from a variety of species, and don't specifically hide their dirty secret but don't advertise it much, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Evil Ezri]

In all fairness, now I have to really reject Odan as the proper joined Trill. Odan never changed from going to host to host with the feeling for Dr Crusher. The first host was killed but had sexual feeling for Dr Crusher. When Riker was joined for a short time, it was not Riker persona it was Odan that took over Riker. When the next host came to take over for good, it was a female Trill that after the joining that kissed the hand of Dr Crusher and left.

Odan because of the writers made being a joined Trill to lose all control of your personal lifestyle as a host and since joined Trills will change genders does make it look like joined Trills would have to be comfortable being bisexual.