an internal abdominal pocket of the host body. Most of the personality and memories of the
Trill reside in the symbionts, which are extremely long-lived, although the host also contributes
personality traits to the joined life-form. Upo the death of a host body, a trill symbiont is usually
transplanted into another host. For a joined Trill, nothing was more important that protecting
the life of the symbiont.
Trill hosts enter voluntarily
into their association with the symbiont, and in fact there is intense
competition among potential
hosts to determine who will be accorded this high honor. Only one
Trill in ten is chosen to
be joined with a symbiont. The decision of who is to be allowed to be
joined is the resposibility
of the Symbioses Evaluation Board. Although this Board tells the
Trill people that improper
joning is believed to cause damage to both host and symbiont, friends
of Jadzia Dax, when
she fell ill in 2371, learned that nearly half the Trill population was
capable
of being joined. This fact
is concealed by the Symbioses Commision though, for fear that the
symbionts, available in
limited numbers, would become commodities to be bought and sold.
Dax's friends agreed to
keep this secret in order to gain commision assistance to save her life
Children are directed by
their parents towards becoming a host. While the influence of the
symbiont is very strong,
good host candidates can balance the influence of the symbiont with
their own interests, and
hence produce the best possible merge of the two personalities.
Hosta are accepted i their
mid-twenties. once joined, the host and symbiont become biologically
interdependent, and after
93 hours, neither can survive without the other. The resulting new joined
life-form is considered
to be another person, although it retains memories of previous joinings.
Despite the fact that a
symbiont retains memories in subsequent joinings, Trill society very
strongly disaproves of reassociation
of subsequent hosts, in cases where previous hosts had
been married
Trills' hands are naturally
cold. Sometimes friendships with other species don't survive when the
Trill moves
to the next host. Trills are highly allergic to insect bites, as the toxins
released interfere
with the
biochemical connections between the host and the symbiont. Trill hosts
sometimes have
sexual feelings, but they
do their best to rise above them. They do not have to uphold commitments
of the previous hosts.
