Reconstruction 5.4 (Fall 2005)
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The Trouble with Trills: Gender and Consciousness in Star Trek / Susan
J. Wolfe
Abstract: The Star Trek series, which have both praised for radical inclusiveness and criticized for their "neo-conservative agendas," de-essentialize identity, gender, and sexual orientation through their depictions of the Trill, an alien race in which humanoids "join with" symbionts, slug-like creatures each of which lives in the abdominal cavity of its host, with whom it then shares a single fused consciousness. Hosts are selected independently of their sex, so that a symbiont dwells alternatively inside males and females; each new host, as well as the symbiont, is heir to the memories of all previous hosts.
The notions of unified selves and essential genders are both disrupted in Star Trek-The Next Generation. In "The Host," Dr. Beverley Crusher rejects the advances of a female Trill who is hosting the symbiont previously hosted by Crusher's male lover. Here, passions are detached from bodies, placing sexual orientation and gender into question.
Likewise, episodes of Star Trek-Deep Space Nine featuring Trill officer Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax demonstrate that both consciousness and gender are fragmented. In "Facets," for example, Jadzia, current host of the Dax symbiont, participates in a Trill ritual in which the memories of each of the symbiont's seven prior hosts are transferred into one of Jadzia's current friends on the station so that she can interact with those hosts. The plurality of Trill consciousness, a plurality which researchers have attributed to human minds, is thus rendered visible and, as one male character plays former female host, his behavior illustrates the performativity of gender.
<1> As John Wagner and Jan Lundeen have pointed out in Deep Space and Sacred Time: Star Trek in the American Mythos, Star Trek "uses its science fiction frame to create thought experiments that problematize the question, 'Who am I?'" (64). In some episodes, identities are split due to transporter malfunctions: for example, in "The Enemy Within," an episode of the original Star Trek, Captain Kirk is split into two distinct personalities, one extremely gentle but indecisive, and one decisive but violent; in Star Trek-The Next Generation's "Second Chances," another transporter malfunction results in two separate but originally identical Will Rikers, only one of whom remains a lieutenant on The Enterprise while the other is stranded on a planet, and who, after seven years' separation, have evolved distinct personalities. In other episodes, characters are inhabited by alien consciousnesses, or surgically altered so that they resemble other, alien races. Taken collectively, such episodes destabilize the notion of a coherent, stable self while detaching the mind's moorings in the individual body.
<2> Perhaps nowhere in the Trek series is identity problematized more clearly than in those episodes involving the alien species called the Trill. Richard Hanley has suggested that the very name "Trill" is fraught with difficulty, because it is used to refer to both a symbiont, a long-lived slug-like creature, and to the humanoid beings who serve as its hosts. Once the symbiont is implanted into the body of its host, they are "joined"; after a certain period of time, physiological changes occur in the host body, so that it will die if the symbiont is removed. More interestingly, the "mind" of the symbiont is joined with that of the host, so that both share memories and skills, including those of any previous hosts.
<3> Trill society values the life of each symbiont more than it values the life of a host, perhaps logically, since the symbiont preserves the memories of any number of lifetimes. The nature of symbiont reproduction is never clarified, however, nor are we told whether symbionts have gender as we (humans) know it. (We learn in Star Trek-Deep Space Nine's episode "Equilibrium" that symbionts breed in pools, but we are not told how.) Trill hosts, on the other hand, selected from either of two sexes, are indifferently male or female; the most important factor in the selection of a host is his or her suitability for joining, not his/her gender. Thus, in its lifetime, a symbiont passes from male to female hosts and back again, becoming first a mother, then a father, for example, apparently creating no problem in Trill society.
<4> When Trills interact with humans, however, such "changes" are perceived as extremely disruptive, as indeed they are, since a Trill speaking "I" emerges only partially within a matrix of gender relations. The Dax portion of Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax is neither male nor female, evidently, and its history includes the memories of former hosts Lela, Tobin, Emony, Audrid, Torias, Joran, and Curzon, some of whom were male and some of whom were female. Thus, the fused consciousness of Jadzia and her symbiont is, as the title of Star Trek-Deep Space Nine's "Facets" insists, somehow also multiple, containing memories and thoughts of the host, the symbiont, and of all previous hosts. In this episode, the Curzon portion of the Dax consciousness, removed from Jadzia and temporarily residing in Security Chief Odo, a male shapeshifting Changeling, reveals that he has long been in love with Jadzia, the woman whose body would house his memories-but not, apparently, that one memory, until "he" allows it to enter "her" consciousness. That is to say, Curzon's emotions and memories, now resident in Jadzia, are in love with the body, or the Jadzia portion of the brain which now also hosts Curzon. An odd form of self-love indeed.
<5> Star Trek's treatment of the Trill has been criticized as "heterosexist." Daniel Bernardi (116-17) argues that heterosexism is but one of the discourses framing Star Trek-The Next Generation's "neoconservative" agenda, citing "The Host" as a clear example. In that episode (which introduces the Trill to the Trek universe), Dr. Beverly Crusher has fallen in love with a Trill ambassador, Odan, who has been sent to mediate a dispute between two moons circling a distant planet. Intelligent, sensitive, affectionate, and apparently one hundred percent male, Odan has won over "the formidable Dr. Beverly" (as he terms her) in a scant ten days. The writers of the teleplay carefully prepare us for Crusher's transformation as he explains that he, too, had thought, "This woman is ice," and has only now discovered that "there is fire," or passion. Her crewmate, Counselor Deanna Troi, has also noticed the transformation, observes that Crusher is in love, tells her so, and notes that Crusher's emotions are "no secret," strongly implying that the rest of the crew is aware of her affair.
<6> Troi has an inkling that Odan is more than "he" appears; she senses the fluctuations in "his" mind which represent the presence of the symbiont. When Odan is wounded, his medical readings suggest that he has a parasitic organism inhabiting his body, but Odan reveals that the parasite is him, and that it is the symbiont, not the host body, which must survive. Speaking through its host, the symbiont begs that the Trill home world be contacted to ensure its survival.
<7> After the death of its host body, the symbiont is temporarily transferred to Commander Will Riker's body; Riker's body assimilates the symbiont's body, but its consciousness assimilates his; his first words express solicitous affection for "Dr. Beverly," and his speech patterns have altered. Riker/Odan insists that the warring factions be told that "The man they knew as my father, the man who stands before them-both are merely hosts" and that he is Odan: "I have his skills, his thoughts, his memories." Beverly is torn initially, wondering whether it is bodies or minds that we learn to love. Troi urges her to accept the love shining clearly from Riker's eyes if she can, and, Crusher learns, albeit reluctantly, that her love for Odan transcends its transplantation.
<8> However, when the symbiont is transferred more permanently to a Trill host and she is decidedly female, Beverly balks. Humans, she demurs, are not accustomed to such "rapid changes," as she terminates the relationship. Bernardi condemns her response and attributes it to Michael Horvat's script and to Trek more generally, ignoring the fact that Beverly herself wonders whether it is not a human failing that she is unable to experience attraction to Odan while it inhabits a female body.
<9> Regardless of whether this episode is condemned as homophobic or hailed as a breakthrough for its courageous introduction of a love apparently lesbian-as the now-female Odan expresses her love for Beverly-it must be read as de-essentializing both gender and identity. The gender of the host body is irrelevant to the Trill, the continuity between biological sex and desire is severed, and Odan's "identity" continues regardless of the body in which it is housed because the symbiont's identity is maintained. Viewers witness the apparent detachment of mind from body as memories, emotions, and behaviors are transferred from one host-from one body-to another. The symbiont, first introduced to the audience as a parasitic entity ominously pulsing within Ambassador Odan's abdominal cavity, is revealed to be the greater part of his essence. Indeed, Odan is the name, not of the humanoid host, but of the symbiont within. The body is, as the script states, merely its host. Despite Odan's description of the Trill as a fused race, there is little evidence of fused consciousnesses; rather, Commander Riker seems to furnish a body and Odan a "mind"; nothing appears to remain of his skills, thoughts, and memories.
<10> In Star Trek-Deep Space Nine, the Dax story arc problematizes
across multiple episodes the notion of a unified self, of an undivided,
self-aware consciousness moored in a gendered body. Richard Hanley's book,
The Metaphysics of Star Trek, addresses the issues raised by Jadzia
Dax's fused identity in discussing Star Trek-Deep Space Nine's
"Dax" episode. Jadzia Dax is accused of crimes allegedly committed
by Curzon Dax, the previous host of the Dax symbiont. The ensuing trial
turns on whether identity is the property of the mind, or the body, or both,
since, if there has been a crime, Dax, whatever body it occupied, is culpable,
while Jadzia is not. Yet the new Dax has the combined knowledge of both
Curzon and Jadzia (not to mention the six previous hosts) and if punishment
is exacted, it will affect Dax and Jadzia equally, since they are now one.
<11> The episode rearticulates and advances Beverly Crusher's conundrum
in "The Host," since the debate centers not only upon the continuity
of psychological identity in Trills, but also upon the broader question
of whether personal identity inheres in the mind or in the body. Hanley
(164-166) diagrams the "slices" of persons existing both before
and after Jadzia has joined with Dax, arguing that, while two distinct persons
exist before Jadzia is joined with Dax, only one exists afterward, since
the other original person, Curzon, is now a lifeless body, and Jadzia now
consists of Jadzia's body, the symbiont Dax's body, and the conjoined mind
of (at least) Jadzia and Curzon. Whereas before the joining there were two
living bodies and two psychologies (Jadzia's and the symbiont's), only one
consciousness remains after fusion.
<12> Surely the Dax symbiont and its previous seven hosts constitute the majority of Dax's consciousness, yet the (outer, prior-to-fusion) body is Jadzia's alone-and it is the identity of the body and the pre-existent mind (or, to use Hanley's term, "psychology") that seems persuasive. Yet, as Hanley points out, Jadzia Dax represents the joining of two consenting adults; thus, in consciously accepting the Dax symbiont, she has presumably accepted responsibility for any prior actions committed by Dax. Fortunately, Curzon proves to be innocent. Hanley's conclusion, based on the ethical result of Jadzia's having consented to be joined, neatly sidesteps the question at hand: Where, in fact, does Trill identity-or human identity-reside?
<13> In Star Trek on the Brain: Alien Minds, Human Minds,
Robert Sekuler and Randolph Blake discuss the fact that even a so-called
unified brain contains two distinct memory systems, the declarative or hippocampal
system, and the procedural or neocortical processing system. The declarative
system stores conceptual and factual knowledge, the procedural system learned
skills. The existence of these two systems is implicit in "Equilibrium,"
an episode in which Dax, who has previously demonstrated no musical ability,
is haunted by a melody she somehow knows to be unfinished. The music turns
out to have been composed by Joran Belar, a long-dead composer all of whose
memories have been suppressed in Jadzia, and thus hidden from her. To regain
her equilibrium, and to slow her rejection of the symbiont, she must be
introduced to Joran Belar, who appears to her as she submerges herself in
the pool of symbionts.
<14> The episode de-essentializes identity by revealing that even
one mind or psychology-say, that of Joran Belar Dax-consists of multiple
systems, so that, for example, procedural memory may surface even when all
narrative memory remains submerged. That is, one can play the piano even
if unable to remember one's own identity. Philosopher Daniel C. Dennett,
citing the research findings of psychologists and neurologists, argues convincingly
that brains and therefore minds are segmented into subsystems that work
cooperatively or competitively. Consciousness, he contends, is the result
of a committee which is temporarily harnessed by a virtual narrator, and
the so-called selves of which we are conscious are illusory, projections
of the computational behaviors of the brain. He agrees with the theory of
Robert Van Gulick, whom he quotes at some length, that
I, the personal subject of experience, do understand. I can make all the necessary connections within experience, calling up representations to immediately connect with one another. The fact that my ability is the result of my being composed of an organized system of subpersonal components which produce my orderly flow of thoughts does not impugn my ability. What is illusory or mistaken is only the view that I am some distinct substantial self who produces these connections in virtue of a totally non-behavioral form of understanding. (van Gulick 1988, 96 quoted in Dennett 279)
In short, according to Dennett, a body of evidence exists which not only
substantiates post-modern views on the constructedness of self, but which
also argues that a self so constructed remains fragmented, with each part
contributing first to one system, then to another, as it is recruited to
perform a variety of psychological and physical tasks.
<15> As its title suggests, the "Facets" episode of Star
Trek-Deep Space Nine demonstrates the plurality of a joined Trill mind:
a joined Trill consciousness carries the memories, emotions, and skills
of each of its previous hosts, each of them acting in concert with the mind
of the most recent host-when all goes well. Thus, a Trill consciousness,
functioning like a committee with a particularly strong leader, illustrates
Dennett's theory in action. In "Facets," Jadzia Dax performs the
Trill Rite of Closure, the Zhian'tara, a ritual which transfers the memories
of former hosts into others. The rite allows a Trill to interact consciously
with the other portions of her joined mind so that she may learn about her
new self. The Guardian, the unjoined Trill who facilitates the Zhian'tara,
serves as a telepathic bridge by means of which the Dax memories housed
in Jadzia are temporarily removed to her closest friends on The Enterprise.
Since the persistence of memory is normally perceived as an essential component
of an individual's identity, the audience witnesses Jadzia lose portions
of her (fused) "self" in the form of an energy flow which enters
the body of each temporary host.
<16> As Commander Bejamin Sisko, Dax's superior officer, informs Quark (a Ferengi bar-owner who is one of the central characters on Deep Space Nine) each host's normal self is present, conscious, while the mind of a former Dax host interacts with Jadzia Dax. Meanwhile, because we are accustomed to the roles each actor usually performs, we become acutely aware that we are witnessing a performance, or masquerade. That is, Nana Visitor, who normally portrays Colonel Kira Nerys, performs the role of Dax's first host-or, rather, is seen to host the mind of the first host-Lela. Visitor's posture, gestures, and accent change; she is suddenly transformed into a more relaxed, calmer, and older woman. We learn, as does Jadzia, that Jadzia's habit of walking with her hands clasped behind her back is one she has acquired from Lela, who consciously adopted the mannerism to curb her tendency to gesture dramatically during legislative sessions. That a behavior affected by one host has become "natural" to another after joining demonstrates at once the separation between declarative and procedural memory, a separation which the Zhian'tara will bridge.
<17> Kira's transformation into Lela not only reminds us that Nana Visitor is enacting a role, but also suggests that identity is performative rather than essential. Judith Butler has advanced the argument that gender is performative, both enacted and described by our gestures. That is, gender is in no way natural, according to Butler; rather, genders are continuously and repeatedly enacted, contingent upon and constructed by repeated acts. "Facets" suggests that all identity (or identities) are enacted, by demonstrating that Kira can enact the role of a woman long dead, while Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney), a normally confident engineer, can enact the role of an apologetic, nail-biting mathematician, one who has provided a brilliant alternative solution to Fermat's last theorem [1] . Nana Visitor and Colm Meaney are, of course, actors, each of whom is portraying two partially distinct roles. If, however, memories create behaviors and behaviors memories, identities are continuously constructed and reconstructed, performed on both the gestural and the neural level, and in Star Trek at least, psychological identities are also separable from the bodies in which they are continuously enacted.
<18> The constructedness of gender is a secondary theme in "Facets," for the notoriously sexist Quark, played by Armin Shimerman, agrees to host Ardred, one of Dax's former female hosts. Gently brushing Jadzia's hair while fondly recalling her baby at her breast, Ardred, once head of the Symbiosis Commission, states that motherhood was her greatest accomplishment. Quark, angered by the role he performs, interrupts her discourse. As Jadzia calms him, we recall that he has been persuaded to host Ardred only after Jadzia has flirted shamelessly with him, hinting that Quark's participation will bring them "closer." Shimerman's ability to alternate between playing a male character himself and playing that character embodying a female consciousness, and Jadzia's differing responses to the two roles, suggests that genders are performed and we ordinarily respond to and interact with genders as they are performed, rather than to essential genders.
<19> A later episode of Star Trek-Deep Space Nine plays with the notion of the stability of identity even as it de-essentializes gender by detaching desire from bodies, and therefore sexual orientation from gender. In "Rejoined," Jadzia Dax encounters Dr. Lenara Kahn, the current host of the Kahn symbiont. A former Dax host, Torias, had been married to Kahn when it inhabited another host, Nilani. Quark's summary seems logical enough; for the benefit of the audience as well as to clarify matters for the character, Shimerman recites the list of prior hosts in chronological order, concluding, "And now, Nilani is Lenara and Torias is Jadzia, so that makes Lenara Jadzia's ex-wife." But, of course, as Julian Bashir states, "It's not that simple." Nilani is not Lenara, any more than Jadzia is Torias; rather, the mind of Lenara, or whichever portions of that mind remain in Dax's-and therefore Jadzia's-memory, is now housed in the body of the Jadzia host. In this new host, the Dax symbiont can-and according to Trill society, must-acquire new knowledge and skills and form new relationships. To facilitate the symbiont's ability to "accumulate experiences from the span of many lifetimes," it must "move on," detaching itself from past relationships in order to form new ones.
<20> We have already been cued to the fact that this is not exactly possible, either for Jadzia or those who work with her. Commander Benjamin Sisko, former friend of Curzon Dax, affectionately calls her "old man" in earlier episodes; in this one, he chides Dax for her lateness and reminds her that he? she? had been habitually late when the symbiont was embodied in Curzon. As has been demonstrated in the "Facets" episode and many others, Trill hosts retain many of the memories and emotions of prior hosts. Thus, despite Jadzia's pronouncement that she "can handle" the reunion with Kahn, her confidence in her professionalism and detachment is belied by the dewy look in her eyes as she gazes upon Lenara Kahn for the first time, and by the fact that their handclasp is held a trifle too long for a conventional greeting.
<21> They flirt with another during a formal dinner reception, and we know, as do Kahn and Dax, that they are both flirting with danger because of the Trill taboo against "reassociation." A joined Trill who violates the prohibition places the symbiont at risk, because it will not be rejoined after the death of the current host, and Trill ethics give the highest priority to the continuation of a symbiont. Regardless of the constraints imposed by Trill society, Torias Dax and Nilani Kahn still feel deep love for one another, and that love endures; the symbionts, and consequently their hosts, still long for each other. Their passion is untempered and unbuffered by the fact that Dax has been joined with several hosts since Torias's premature death in a shuttlecraft accident. Nilani apparently never remarried, nor is Lenara married; it can be inferred that her love for Torias has excluded other romantic attachments. Neither has Dax's passion diminished over time.
<22> Dax and Cisco debate the wisdom or necessity of Dax's resuming a relationship which will result in the demise of both symbionts, both ignoring the fact that Dax's host, and therefore the only embodiment visible to the audience, is female. As a result, when Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn exchange a sensuous, passionate, on-the-air kiss, they appear to be two women making love. That is to say, they embrace as lesbians. Earlier, through Quark's summary of the sequence of hosts, we have been reminded of the fact that some of Dax's prior hosts have been female and some male, and, of course, earlier episodes of both Star Trek-The Next Generation and Star Trek-Deep Space Nine have dealt implicitly and explicitly with the Trill disregard of bodily sex in host selection. Discussing "The Host" and "The Outcast" episodes of Star Trek-The Next Generation, Bernardi has contended that their narratives affirm heterosexism-that, in fact, heterosexism is "another discourse framing the plurality of The Next Generation's neoconservative play" (116-17). This episode, regardless of its outcome, affirms the possibility of lesbian desire simply because of the human tendency to believe our own eyes.
<23> One could of course argue that it is the male portion of Jadzia Dax which responds to Lenara (or is it Nilani?) Kahn, but to human observers, the image of two women kissing is a vivid one; viewers of this episode will tend to categorize the kiss as a lesbian one. Moreover, the narrative of "Rejoined" insists that the biological sex of one's partner is irrelevant in matters of sexual desire. Since Lenara Kahn, a woman, still desires Dax although Dax is no longer in a male body, heterosexuality and sexual orientation have both been put into question. What, then, is the nature of desire? Of love?
<24> Critics have maintained that the stricture imposed by the Trill taboo against reassociation, because it prevents a comedic resolution to the love shared by Dax and Kahn, also constitutes encoded heterosexism. Yet it is difficult not to regard the Jadzia story arc, taken as a whole, as destructive of the myths of male-female polarities and unified (and immutable) identities-unless, as Wagner and Lundeen would have it, we read Jadzia as "a sort of serial hermaphrodite and, over time, a bisexual person in the most far-reaching sense" (96).
Endnotes
[1] Pierre de Fermat, though an amateur mathematician,
is today considered one of the most famous number theorists who ever lived.
His last theorem states that for the formula xn + yn = zn , there are
no non-zero integer solutions for x, y, and z when n > 2.
The theorem was not considered proven, however, until 1995, when Andrew
Wiles, working with Richard Taylor, arrived at a collaborative solution.
Even now, however, the proof is of such complexity that there is no guarantee
that it is correct, but most mathematicians appear to accept the proof.[^]
Works Cited
Bernardi, Daniel Leonard. Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1998.
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex." New York and London: Routledge, 1993.
Dennett, Daniel C. Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991.
Hanley, Richard. The Metaphysics of Star Trek. New York: Harper Collins, 1997.
Sekuler, Robert and Randolph Blake. Star Trek on the Brain: Alien Minds, Human Minds. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1998.
Wagner, Jon and Jan Lundeen. Deep Space and Sacred Time: Star Trek
in the American Mythos. Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 1998.