Everything We Know About the Trill 

This must've been a really long script, you had to read it all the way down

I think Odan suppressed Riker in order to protect him. Basically to stop them from merging which can kill the host if they aren't mentally compatible.

I can't believe Dax is 4 years old in the present day, I hope they're doing well. I think there was another non-canon novel out there explaining that the forehead ridges/spots discrepancy came about from a mutation of that virus from ENT that "explained" the more human-like Klingons in TOS, but ultimately I think it's best to just not address it onscreen and mentally attribute it to the constantly shifting timeline, Temporal Cold War, whatever explanation helps you personally move on from minor inconsistencies to enjoy the media at large.

I'd really like to see a comparison between the Trill species and their symbiont, and the goa'uld and tokra with their hosts.

It is amazing to me how you can keep all this information straight in your mind. Jadzia Dax was one of my favorite characters. I named a dog Dax but she dies of old age a long time ago. This is a good episode 👍🏼

I think we got spoiled with Jadzia. She is like a superhero because she is so capable. She is like a science swiss army knife. But, at least some joined struggle more to balance personalities (Ezri) and/or are more specialized in their expertise (Tobin). So I think if I was a Captain I'd have to look carefully at the Trill's resume and meet them in person before hiring them.

When you mentioned that odon wouldn't use the transporter, I understood that he didn't want the symbiont to be discovered

The "all the way down" spots actually made me wonder why they aren't on the arms too while they are on the legs.

I think the first joining was accidental-like some wounded people during a battle stumble into the caves, go bathe or fall asleep next to the pools and wind up joined.

The symbiont gains nutrients and experiences of bipedal mammals....and the host is given many lifetimes of memories from Trill that have bonded with the symbiont. Seems like a great symbiotic relationship. One gets mammalian experiences and the other gets memories. The symbiont shares its brain.....the host shares the body. Neither hurts the other....and both gain in meaningful ways. Best symbiote ever!!!!

Mate, as a Star Trek fan myself, your breakdowns are logical, analytical and epic af. You clearly spend a lot of time looking into these topics and promulgating the information. You deserve more than 35k subs! Keep the content coming my man ill be watching!

I can think of a few Watsonian explanations for why Dr. Crusher wouldn't know about the Trill being joined, despite them being Federation members with even some personnel in Starfleet: 1) HIPAA rules (or the 24th century equivalent) would've kept the fact that some Trill are joined a secret from everyone but those who are directly treating them. 2) Joined Trill were explicitly barred from Starfleet (by the Trill government) until fairly recently. This actually still works with Jadzia because she was only joined after the episode The Host. 3) The Trill didn't actively keep it a secret, but it also wasn't common knowledge because only about 10% of Trill are joined anyway and even fewer are in Starfleet.

It could also be a matter that the trill, having started out as xenophobic, only had unjoined members of their species (the overwhelming majority by population) associated with and serving with Starfleet until they as a culture felt they could trust this alien organization with their greatest treasure and secrets.

My explanation for the transporter thing, is because of the secrecy, the Federation did not know about the symbiont, so the transporter would recognize it as a parasite and kill it. After it was publicly revealed in The Host, they probably decided that since the secret was out they might as well tell the Federation about it. At that point, it would be simple to adjust the transporter to say "Trill symbionts ok" and no longer attempt to remove or harm them.

I love the longer video! I know it's a lot more work, but we really get a ton of information that isn't available anywhere else outside of research.

Loved this break down... all the way down.

When you think about what's involved in joining a Trill symbiont to its host... I can kind of understand why the Trill would be almost purposefully vague about it. Like, at some point, the first Trill host put the first Trill symbiont inside themself, and you've got to ask... what did they *think* would happen? "I'm-a just put this worm inside me real quick. Nah, it's cool, I found it in a milky puddle, what could go wrong?"

I did feel sorry for Ezri since the Dax symbiote was an essential player in the Dominion War. It didn't have the luxury of letting Ezri take her time getting used to this new life and basically hijacked her.

I do remember Dax talking about her host past in the 23 century and how she loved the skirts.

I see the Symbiont as a extra data storage (memories) pluged directly to the machine (host body), but the software (personality) is installed in both minds (the symbiont and host brain). If you need more data space, is not a parasite, is just a plugin expansion

Jadzia is my favorite Star Trek character ever.

I've been working my way through the Enterprise novels. Tobin Dax is in a few sections of the Romulan War novels, and features in 2 of the "Rise of the Federation" novels that I've been reading so far. Currently just starting book 2. I also took a break to read the sections of "Lives of Dax" up to Tobin. Trill are very secretive of their joined nature, and very protective of the simbiants in this era. They only receive medical treatment at home, and try to avoid getting any medical treatment from aliens. At one point, Tobin has to reveal himself to the the Pioneer CMO, under doctor/patient confidentiality. A Marsupial-like pouch or abdominal cavity is described in both. Ezri calls it a "pocket" at one point. This would seem to suggest co-evolution of the humaniod Trill and the simbiants. One of my favorite Trek aliens as well. Very fascinating.

The symbiont seems to be more of a tool used by the humanoids to create people with the vitality of a young person combined with the experience and abilities stored in the symbiont rather than a parasite. The symbiont “mind control” or “mind sharing” abilities seems to be dependent on the joining. Even if their mental powers are not dependent on the joining, the fact that they live in subterranean pools prior to joining means that it would be easy for the humanoids to avoid their mental influence just by not going to the pools. So maybe, the parasites are the humanoids, not the symbionts.

Hey man, really liked this. I’ve always just disregarded “The Host”, but people’s theories that Odan was sick or the transporter biofilters might’ve done something to harm the connection without it being known are both quite fun.

I always very skeptical as to how this works as a kid but learning medicine later about the Gut/Brain connection and our microbiome and things like the Vagus nerve gives it a decent sense of verisimilitude. Also quick issue fact check, did the Trill develop subspace communication before Warp and that's how they joined the federation?

I thought the highlight on retinal was great. Purple oceans would be cool.

Thanks for digging all the way down into this topic. Well done as always. Live long and prosper. 🖖

Very good video i allways enjoyed hearing and watching Jadzia and Ezri. The Trill society seems a very utopian one and i love how easy DAX referred to it's former life's without anybody having issues with it. Also i loved the insights into Klingon civilization thanks to Jadzia.

Great Video. I LoLed so much from the "all the way down" gag. You did a great job carrying it through the video. Keep these coming, You are one of my favorite Star Trek 'Tubers, I always look forward to new stuff!

I know one thing for sure... I miss Jadzia...

I think the relationship between the symbiot and the host in Trill society and evolutionary history started out as parasitic, but as the two species evolved together the relationship became more mutually beneficial. I think the different appearance between TNG and DS9 is due to it being two different species of hosts. (I wish they would give us a canon explanation for this.) The Trill are a unique species and I do like them. I really like this species. I liked this. Keep up the good work.

The trill are one (two?) of my favorite species in Star Trek, but there’s one thing I’ve never understood. If joining requires a delicate surgical procedure, how did the first pair join? In their normal state, the symbiont doesn’t seem to be able to communicate very well, so how did the first one convince the humanoid to take it in, let alone to figure out how to connect the two?

im glad i watched all the way

I don't think there's been anything to suggest that the symbiont itself is sentient. It kind of seems like they're more of a complex recording device. Because whenever they refer to the symbiont, they always refer to a previous host. There's nothing to suggest that the symbiont has much of an intelligence without a host.

Good video man I really enjoyed it. I look forward to the next one 😀

my head canon is that Odan himself and/or his symbiont were ill and the transporter could hurt them both. the way the symbiont moves in his stomach seems kind of unnatural and Dax never does that, so my personal conclusion is that Odan's symbiont was sick. i think that doesn't mess w canon too much, i really don't want to think Odan's episode to not count anymore, Beverly's phrase about our ability to love is beautiful and gives me hope in humanity. and symbionts *have* to be sentient, Dax in particular loves boozing and partying and fighting. it can't be a coincidence that both Curzon and Jadzia were into the same stuff.

Thumbs up all the way up. Thank you for this video. You have done a great job of doing all the scripting and researching. ezri Dax has always been my favorite character in Star Trek DS9.

The maths of the Trill joining process make for some interesting thought experiments: In the first combination the joined mind is 50% symbiote, 50% host#1. Presumably the symbiote retains this blend when host#1 dies, since we know that host memories are carried forward. So, in the second combo it's 25% symbiote, 25% host#1 and 50% host#2 In the third combo it's 12.5% symbiote, 12.5% host #1, 25% host#2 and 50% host#3 By the fourth it's 6.25% symbiote, 6.25% host #1, 12.5% host#2, 25% host#3 and 50% host#4 etc. We seem to see this with Jadzia, who is more often influenced by Curzon than her other hosts. I can certainly see the desire for more experienced symbiotes, since they would have a wealth of experiences for the current host to draw upon. I have to wonder what host#1 would get out of the experience though, since all the symbiote could bring to the blend would be a century of hanging around in an underground pool!

Being that so few Trill are joined, isn’t possible that Several unjoined Trill interacted with Starfleet for decades before joined Trills were “discovered”?

Great video Tyler nice job covering the Trill one of the most interesting species in Star Trek. Oh and I knew those spots went all the way down lol.

I always felt the symbiont while sentient was a primal life form, only capable of existing, breeding and dying. They have no personality for themselves and don't appear to have any higher thought process .We've seen Jadzi, Ezri and Adira all interacting with with former hosts memories, but never with the symbionts itself. I don't give much thought to Odan because of the retcon, but that is the only example of the symbiont controlling the host while all others are just changed by different memories and personality homogenizing in the current host. For whatever the purpose of joining it seams the symbiont only acts as a secondary brain for the sole purpose memory storage in the hosts. Aside from the extra memories for the host and the ability for the symbionts to exist out of the natural environment. Joining to me seems to be a evolutionary neutral in terms symbiosis.

great video, loved the comprehensiveness, always thought the trill were part of the most interesting epiosdes in DS9.

Hey guys.....fan of Tylers here!

Love the deep dives with your fun sense of humour sprinkled in there. Enjoyed the longer video too ...had to pause a couple of times to get snacks but that was my lack of preparation! 🙂🖖 Also the comments were fun

Thank you great video please can you do more videos about the Time Lords thank you and level home and prosper🖖🏼

I was always aware of the Transgender metaphor, but my principle intrigue was the metaphor for reincarnation, and how the questions concerning the concept played out in them.

I wonder if there's something to the marsupial analogy Maybe the Trill humanoid species have a neurological connection to their fetuses, one that normally disconnects at birth just fine... but the symbionts latch onto and stimulate its growth to become an integral part of their nervous system. Under those circumstances, you might not need them to have evolved together over an extensive period of time. The Trill could be a very young society that's been able to jumpstart from Paleolithic up to Space Age in a fraction of the time it took humanity,, because of how much the symbionts are a gamechanger. The relationship could very easily be wholly symbiotic from the start, because having a joined Trill confers the same kinds of benefits that having grandparents did to our early homo sapiens ancestors (believed to be one of our key edges over Neanderthal). Social knowledge would be significantly easier to retain and build upon when you have members of your society whose memories stretch back to your own grandparents' grandparents' grandparents The symbiont might not even actually be sapient beyond the host, and that they're considered sentient because of the way in which Trill society prizes them. It could be that the symbiont alone is only as sentient as your cerebellum, only smart enough to be able to sever its connection to the host upon their death and navigate out. It might also be plausible that early Trill society did have an Aristocracy of the Joined, but a revolution caused a major realignment in how society distributed the rare and vital resource that is the symbiont. That might be an interesting time period to explore in a novel. I'd imagine that a society so devoted to the symbionts would undergo such a transformation only because of an ideological conflict within the Aristocracy of the Joined, and the winners of some civil war among them resulting in laws to prevent its re-emergence.

The transporter issue could have been easily explained. During Odan's visit, the transporters were unable to differentiate between the 2 minds, neural networks, etc..., but were improved by the time of DS9. As for the forehead ridges, it could have just been a cosmetic preference. Something surgically added.

Good video. I do find it amazing that it wasn't until "That hope is you part 2" that the Trill where confirmed to have been federation members. The episode "Strange New Worlds" of the same series seems to imply Trill is a Federation member by 2259 going of the map in the episode

I always interpreted trills as representative of Buddhists and Hindus due to their belief in reincarnation as it relates to the symbiot moving from one host to another carrying with it skills and knowledge from the previous host much like how both religions believe the soul carries the Kharma of the previous lifetime. But that was back before internet.

I would love if you discuss the bluegill! There are some parallels with the Avatar, from Avatar the Last Airbender. I would definitely have a Trill on my bridge. I personally feel like parasite might be too harsh, being the host gets access to so much information and can almost attain immortality in a sense, I would see it as more of a symbiotic relationship, like that of certain jellyfish.

Very well made video and the longer videos are always the best. Your Q&A and species videos are my fav from you which I think I have mentioned before.

Excellent Video , Thank you (:

this is fun! I've never really looked at Star Trek lore, and your videos are making it easy to go 'all the way' down this rabbit hole.

In the surgery to implant or remove the Dax symbiont through various hosts in DS9 I noticed that all the hosts had a fold or pouch in their abdomen. I interpreted this as the humanoid host’s anatomy having evolved to receive a symbiont over millennia; certainly their immune system had modified. I’ve always considered Trill Symbiosis to be a largely positive thing, whereby both the host and the symbiont are equally benefited, although having watched DS9 as an older adult I have noticed that the symbiont is considered more important than the host in the grand scheme of things.

This video is officially one of my top favorites all the way down.

Another awesome video!!😊

I like in the end your answer is simple for the time line "the host just doesnt fit in the timline*

Great analysis. My personal favourite are the Vulcans.

I often wonder about the life and culture of the symbionts? Obviously symbionts have gathered vast knowledge. To what purpose for their specie do they seek out knowledge? What was the history of the symbionts before the first joining. (I would guess it was the symbionts who first theorized the possibility of their augmentation using the humanoid Trill.) I would guess at some distant point in Trill evoluntionary past both humanoid and symbiont had a common ancestor, but maybe not. How do symbionts reproduce? They apparently have a form of telepathy. Is the source of the telepathy primarily from the symbiont or the humanoid host? Does the rituals include agents that amplify Trill/symbiont telepathic powers? Could they force telepathy on others? Hmmm... interested in the having access to past lives and experiences without reincarnation? Then try... Zenna Henderson's series "The People: No Different Flesh" (not the movie, the books) or Alexander Scott Key's, "The Golden Enemy." Both seem to tap into the real world Jungian idea of collective knowledge we all have access to... or think "World Mind" of the Marvel universe Nova Corps.. or our own world mind linking humans concept, zeitgeist, the unique situations of paradigm shifting ideas occuring at the same time around the world among people with no contact to one another. Having said all of that.. myself, I'm in for sci-fi writer Zenna Henderson's views on accessing past/future ancestors and contacts experiences and knowledge. See: "The Pilgrimage" by Zenna Henderson.

Q: How far down in the comments should an individual read? A: All the way 😂

The Trill are very fascinating. And kind of erotic...I mean, they go all the way down, er, the spots. This was a really informative and entertaining video with a good quotient of whimsy. I liked it a lot!

As an officer in the military I think I’d like to lend some perspective to your question at the end about welcoming a Trill to your crew. It would honestly depend on the temperament of the Trill but ultimately it is the job of the officer in charge or command to make decisions. Any officer worth their salt wants to be surrounded by experienced individuals from all sorts of backgrounds so they can make the best decisions possible. A Trill who has lived several lifetimes and been in any variety of positions in life would be an irreplaceable asset. Take Dax for example, someone who served in a high enough position Cmdr./Capt. Sisko looked up to as a mentor that doesn’t have the ego to abuse that position and gave advice that helped him to make some very difficult decisions that he simply wouldn’t have been able to be prepared for otherwise. The right trill would be completely indispensable to have on your crew.

How was the transporter able to keep both host and symbiot separate? Wouldn't they become a Tuvix?

A Trill would be invaluable on a starship.

I've recently started watching this show and didn't understand what was going on with the symbiont and the trill. Thank you for the explanation on the subject.

Good morning, Thank you for sharing your insightful research on these races in Star Trek

i buy Odon not wanting to use the teleporter being the Trill wanted to keep the simbyote secret, so the teleporters were not calibrated to filter out the simbyote, it would have triggered the anti-parasite protocol....the transporter removes most parasites to prevent contamination....but not all viruses can be caught....once DS9 started, the Federation had calibrated the teleporters to make exception for the Trill simbyote.....for all we know all those times that Curzon was pal-ing around with Sisko, Collos, and the other Klingons....Curzon never used the teleporter?

Great video!

The Trill being a dual-species may have been something that Starfleet (likely Section 31) willingly kept classified, for various reasons (their longevity gave them 1st-hand knowledge of events that most would not have, perhaps it made Trill less susceptible to mind-control, etc., etc.). Thus, it was on a "need to know" basis, and Picard & crew did NOT 'need to know'... until they did. Also, saying there is a sub-species of Trill (perhaps an aristocracy?) is not uncommon in ST galactic lore. IN fact, the (later) Trill may not even be indigenous to their world; perhaps the 'spotted' Trill are descendants of the ancient 'vast Kriosian Empire' (Hey, you mentioned them, may as well _use_ them) who had settled/colonized/conquered Trill in millennia past. This would resolve several pieces of problematic lore, including a BIG one you missed - Who the heck did the 1st Trill/symbiont operation? Like, who thought it was good idea and said, "Hey, lets take some of these ugly giant worms and have them surgically implanted inside of us!" On the other hand, if Trill itself was a subjugated planet at some point in the distant past, then sticking wormy things (for control?) inside the locales may have been a thing. Heck, the Goa'uld did it... but thats a different franchise (or is it? Dun Dun Duhhhh!)

Dax💖

Another great video on a popular race in Star Trek, I would like a Trill officer on my bridge BECAUSE it is like having multiple crewman in one

I strongly recommend you check out All Tomorrow's (C M Kosemen). The Trill seem like an intermediate evolutionary stage of the Parasite post-humans.

New drinking game, take a shot everytime Dax says "all the way." I'm pretty sure no one can win.

Excellent video! Trill are indeed very fascinating, and one of my favorite Star Trek species as well. To answer your query; yes, I would like to have trill officers on my bridge. In fact, in STO, one of my bridge officers is trill (I also consider them non-binary).

The question I always have about the Trill is two fold. One how did the symbiots evolve with the humanoid Trill, was it a coevolution process or were they all perhaps the same species billions of years ago and for whatever reason part of the species diverged heavily from the majority of the sentient species on the planet. Also how did the two groups eventually learn to understand one another, since for example, humans would normally not willingly allow a parasitic lifeform to basically feed off of them. It begs an interesting question as to how either humanoid Trills came to understand this relationship. Or if the limited psychic ability of the vermiform Trill allowed them to both be more intelligent then the humanoid version and they were able to explain it to humanoid Trill researchers, eventually. Either way I have always liked this species since there is so much interesting history in how they might have evolved.

The differences in Trill is a result of changes in their make up. That is the real explanation. On the other hand, I think there being two different Trill species could make a lot of sense. So I think that can work. Also, the spots being a result of sexual selection makes a great deal of sense. Could be similar to the decorative feathers of male peacocks. Also, would the compatibility be the same for both subspecies of Trill? As for the Trill Hosts not using transporters, I think there is a simpler explanation that will work to reconcile the retcon in Deep Space Nine. Prior to that episode the Trills' secrecy meant that transporting hosts on board Federation ships using transporters was a danger to the Symbiont because they weren't sensitive enough to be used safely. Once the cat is out of the bag, the Trill fess up and Starfleet modify their transporter technology to recognize the Symbionts of Trill hosts. By the time of Deep Space Nine that retrofitting was complete (which amounted to a software upgrade, no new hardware needed, simplifying the retrofitting).

Fantastic delivery of comedy as per usual! I'd definitely recruit a trill if they looked like Jadzia, if you know what I mean, her spots actually go all the way down.

Such a great Video - thank you very much for making it. Also, love your humor :D

Paramount really said “aliens not hot enough, try again”

A very nice and fleshed out narrative. Thanks

It tracks that there were Trill (unjoined) who emigrated to other worlds.

So good a post, i feel I needed to comment before finishing to offer an explanation for the ridge variant: they are just another species who migrated in the ancient past to the Trill home world. So long ago was their diaspora that their integration into even Klingons is complete to the point that Klingons and Trill and others consider them to be a native. Just seems like a tidy possible explanation in-universe for the ridge variants in a few species. This might be comparable to our species and those Neanderthals - maybe our Neanderthals were Luddites from a space faring species. I kinda want that to be true

I hope you do a video on the Goa'uld and maybe even rhe Tok'ra

You are awesome dude! Thank you for this cool ST documentary. DS9 is one of my FAVORITE shows

The Trill figured out subspace communications before warp travel.

Im Trilled to learn more on the Trill.

I love watchin content on one of the most underrated lore channel on RU-vid. Thanks Tyler! Also maybe a video idea... The Time dude with the alternate universe mirror thingy that helped Giorgiu in Discovery and originated in TOS. Do a video on that please.

Worlds of Trek had a pretty good story about the trill in the DS9 Expanded Universe. I highly recommend it.

To date, this is my favorite episode

Would it make more sense biologically that darker skinned Trill would have lighter shade of spots? It would also make it more pronounced on screen.

“Down unduh”, oh my god lol

I would jump at the chance to have a joined Trill on my crew. It'd be like getting multiple officers in the place of just one!

Spots are one of the traits that aper more readily apparent and more prominent in domesticated animals ( the others most commonly being floppy ears/extremities, smaller bodies, smaller and smoother brains ) its not unreasonable that the selective pressure of from the existence of symbiont ( a much longer lived species) would have an effect on the evolution of the host species.

Ahhh yeah! Here we g… wait, am, am I late?

I appreciate you pointing out that not everything has to fit "canon." Especially regarding older episodes that were produced before everyone started focusing on in-universe consistency. Not everything can be retroactively made canon. It can be frustrating yes but not worth fixating on too much.

One thing that wasnt quite clear Just how far do the spots go?

You did the Trill justice, brother. Well done

I’ve never liked the fan theory or novel canon of the troll and bluegills being connected. They are so biologically different and their methods of interface with humanoids so different that it would be like claiming humans and octopuses where closely related just because we both use tools.

The Trill were very fascinating as characters, it would've been nice to learn more about Trill culture through the various series