Star Trek

And that's why Trills put such a premium on being "joined", unlike the Borg, identity isn't sacrificed. A joined trill adds to the experience and personality, like Sisko said (quoting Curzon) "each host is a link in a chain".

In contrast, the Borg simply consume, suppressing emotions and anything "irrelevant" and using only the knowledge. Infinite Regress shows the horrifying flip side as poor Seven of Nine experiences all the memories of those she'd assimilated.

The Trills blend and combine their past lives in such a way that, even a serial killer can experience harmony.

That does beg the question of the Borg trying to assimilate a joined Trill: would they do it or would they just discard the poor being and "inferior"?

What Could Have Been: What if the Dax symbiont had gone to a male Trill after Jadzia died? That would have thrown Worf for a loop.

Of course Star Trek producers of that era shrank away from anything Gay like a vampire from sunlight.

Dax as a male would have been an absolute hoot. Because you KNOW that Dax wouldn't care if he was a male, he'd still flirt his pants off with Worf.

They wouldn't have done that UNLESS Worf would have been cool with it. Otherwise it would have been a rehash of the Beverly Odon Affair in reverse genders. I don't recall DS 9 copying TNG the way TNG did the original, so I doubt they would have accepted retreading that old ground.

Indeed. I'd imagine they'd ship Worf with Kira if Dax was male.

Actually, they never gave Worf a chance to say which side of the subject he was on. If Trek were really progressive, they could totally have made him bi and given him a relationship with a male Dax. Would have been ten times better than the angst they gave him with Ezri.

More likely they wouldn't have. TNG at least, as a way to show how "progressive" it was, would often use Worf as the foil to show how Fed culture was better than the rest.

Honestly if there was someone to not give a damn whether Dax was male or not in terms of romance, it'd probably be Bashir. Hell it might have been entirely worth it to go down that route just to feature a brief reaction shot of Garak giving a disappointed sigh to the news before moving on.

edited 1st Aug '15 2:06:33 PM by BorneAgain

Innuendos that went completely over my head until today, "Half a Life":

"I wonder how Timicin likes green."
"That's not very telepathic of you."
"Oh I tried that, he's the wrong species. Right species for everything else though. You should try that too sometime."

I'm a bit uncomfortable with these episodes that start days or weeks after the inciting incident. If TNG were made now, we would have seen Odan and Crusher falling in love in the background at least during "Half a Life", maybe even in "Drumhead". And the warp core explosion that's already old news at the start of Drumhead would have been the cliffhanger of the episode before.

Also the Trill changed so much between The Host and Deep Space Nine they might as well have come up with a new joined species that's mildly disgusted by the way the Trill's symbiosis works.

They probably took one look at Terry Farrel and thought "we're not hiding that behind all that makeup. We'll just put spots on her instead."

Also, I thought of something today. The idea of a Star Trek/Star Wars crossover isn't implausible. No matter if the GFFA is just in another Galaxy, or in another Universe, Star Trek has built in ways to get there. Even the time difference between the SW we know and love and the Trek future we're looking forward to can be bridged as easily as slingshotting around stars in Trek.

edited 1st Aug '15 7:19:30 PM by Journeyman

According to what I've read, that's exactly the thought process.

But also they radically changed the mechanics of the symbiosis. The Host treats it as a total takeover, with barely anything of the host's mind left underneath the symbiote's parasite's identity, which has unfortunate implications for the humanoids of Trill. And the slug was also heavily redesigned.

edited 1st Aug '15 7:26:00 PM by TParadox

They've done retcons like that in the past. Klingons come to mind.

They also created a character inspired by Nick Locarno, and cast the guy who played Nick Locarno, but chose not to actually reprise the character.

The writers from The First Duty would have gotten royalties. Instead they created a new character that was Locarno in all but name.

I think that after the Ferengi they realized that too much make-up on a guest actor made it difficult to connect with them as nuanced characters. TNG from about season three on when it came to alien make-up there was a standing order of "We hired a pretty girl, please keep her pretty." The Trill make-up for Jadzia was literally taken from the spot design for Famke Janssen as Kamala in "The Perfect Mate." The Bajoran nose ridges were a similar compromise.

An unintentional side-effect was that the aliens that were supposed to be unrelatable meant they looked more inhuman, like the Borg, Nausicaans and Cardassians. Some character focus for DS9 managed to cut through the "spoon-head" make-up for Cardassians, but it took some time. A rather clever use of this came in the Voyager episode "Nemesis" where Chakotay is trained to hate the more reptilian aliens and side with the human-like ones, which turns out to be a ruse by the human-like aliens to stay on their side.

Oh right, royalties. But the official explanation was "Locarno was irredeemable."

As much as we like Worf (he's actually a fine tactical officer on the station and the Defiant), Michael Dorn isn't actually setting the world on fire with his talent... Neither is Teal'C, but at least he doesn't talk as much, as we relate to his black & white moral code. eh says "indeed" and doesn't afraid of anything.

Worf is just a big bore and I can't fucking stand him. And I *hate* that I can't stand him. He should be the most complex and sympathetic character on the show, with 11+ years of history behind him. At most he elicits a raised eyebrow or two from me but rarely leaves an impression. Sometimes I just get so disgusted with this stupid asshole... his possessive treatment of Dax and Ezri for instance.

Compare to Kira. She is similar to Worf in a theological aspect... Kira has a code of honor, a belief system which is basically beyond challenge (In the Relaunch she became a secularist for no real reason). But Worf is rarely afforded the same benefit of a doubt. In a theological debate with O'Brien (in "The Ship", when Worf practically begs the Chief to clock him), we're not going to side with a bully against a helpless human in any case. Kira would not call someone weak and stupid for not believing in the Prophets.

I think this is why Worf was later paired up with Garak. Proving that Garak (along with The EMH) is the greatest character ever and can work with absolutely anybody.

Okay fine, they didn't have any footage yet.

But could you maybe say something about the show other than "here comes more Star Trek"?

Worf is amazing. And anyone who can read Worf's dialogue without bursting into laughter is a top-tier actor.

Nothing wrong with disliking Worf. I love him, personally, but there's definitely some regression on his character. In TNG he grew on the Enterprise. But then he went to the Empire after TNG ended, and spent a few years there. It undid the good relationship he had with Alexander by the end of TNG, and heightened his sense of tradition, which is why he felt so possessive towards the Dax women. He never got that way with Troi during their courtship.

Relation Ship Writing Fumble: As much as the courtship was fun to write, married life seems to flummox some writers. Look at comic books, they can never let the idea of Everyone Is Single go, even causing a massive internet firestorm over it.

So while Dax and Worf in love was a fun ride, when the couple tied the knot, it became "Worf is the jelly clingy type." He went all one dimensional when Jadzia died, due to DS 9 Season 7 having a "We ran out of idea"-itits that hit their secondary plots and character threads.

Was never all that interested in Dax and Worf. Always seemed forced to me, especially compared to Worf and Troi, even if the latter was pretty much destined to break for Troi and Riker.

Even though I only suggested it as an example, thinking about it, Worf/Kira might have actually made sense, especially now that others have commented on why...

edited 2nd Aug '15 5:41:44 PM by FFShinra

Maybe. I was going to say about as much sense as Rom/Leda but those two made a cute couple that really made sense. They both suffered the pokes and jabs of working for Quark, and Rom wasn't enough of a traditional Ferengi to keep Leda from falling for him. Worf's a traditionalist Klingon. Him and Kira probably made more sense than him and Dax, but neither of those made a Hell of a lot of sense. Better for him to have overcome his dishonor and then courted Quark's Klingon paramour.

Fair point.

Never did like that Worf just gave up on the House of Mogh entirely BTW. I get that they wanted to go darker, but there is darker and then there is going against the grain of prior action....

Hell, if they wanted him to go dark, they should have had him take up Gowron's offer...

edited 2nd Aug '15 5:47:38 PM by FFShinra