Jadzia Dax
Seven lifetimes of memories, one young woman's voice.
Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, played by Terry Farrell, is a fictional character from the science-fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jadzia Dax is a joined Trill. Though she appears to be a young woman, Jadzia lives in symbiosis with a long-lived creature, known as a symbiont, named Dax; Jadzia is Dax's eighth host. The two share a single, conscious mind, and her personality is a blending of the characteristics of both the host and the symbiont.
As such, Jadzia has access to all the skills and memories of the symbiont's seven previous hosts. Prior to the symbiotic joining, Jadzia earned academic degrees in exobiology, zoology, astrophysics, and exoarchaeology. Jadzia Dax is the chief science officer of the space station Deep Space Nine and is close friends with station commander Benjamin Sisko. Later in the series, she becomes involved with the Klingon character Worf, and they marry during the sixth season of the show.
In the sixth-season finale Jadzia dies but the Dax symbiote survives, and in the seventh-season premiere returns with a new host Ezri Dax, played by Nicole de Boer.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Star Trek
- First
- "Emissary" (1993)
- Last
- "Tears of the Prophets" (1998)
- Portrayed by
- Terry Farrell
- Species
- Trill
- Occupation
- Chief Science Officer
- Deep Space Nine and
- Commanding Officer USS Defiant (season 6)
- Affiliation
- United Federation of Planets; Starfleet
Lore & Background
Jadzia Dax is a joined Trill. "Jadzia" is the name of the young Trill woman, while "Dax" refers to a slug-like symbiont that resides in her abdomen; Jadzia's actual family name was never revealed on the show. While Jadzia is 28 years old at the beginning of the series, the creature Dax is roughly 300 years old, having previously been hosted by seven other Trills. Prior to Jadzia, the Dax symbiont had been hosted by Lela, Tobin, Emony, Audrid, Torias, Joran, and Curzon.
The burden of seven lifetimes' worth of memories is not always a positive one; several episodes of Deep Space Nine focus on Dax's struggle with her dual nature. In the first-season episode "Dax", the previous host Curzon Dax is accused of murder, leading to an extradition hearing to determine whether Jadzia can be held responsible for crimes committed during another lifetime. In the second-season episode "Invasive Procedures", an unjoined Trill named Verad attempts to steal the Dax symbiont.
In the third-season episode "Equilibrium", Dax begins to experience unsettling mental problems and learns that the Dax symbiont had been previously joined with Joran Belar, a psychologically unstable host candidate who later committed a murder. In the fourth-season episode "Rejoined", Jadzia Dax encounters Lenara Kahn, the current host of the symbiont Kahn, who had been previously joined to Nilani Kahn, the wife of Torias Dax.
Did You Know?
- The Trill spots makeup was suggested by Michael Westmore after Rick Berman disliked the Odan forehead appliance on Terry Farrell, saying 'What did you do to her head, she used to be beautiful?'
- Michael Piller wanted to add lines to Star Trek: Insurrection acknowledging Jadzia's death and its impact on Worf, but Rick Berman overruled this.
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