Trill symbiont

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Trill Symbionts are small animals which can live either within Trill humanoid hosts or Symbiont pools on Trill.

A host of a trill symbiont gains access to the memories of the symbiont and therefore those of all the previous hosts.

[edit] History

The existence of the symbionts was for centuries a closely guarded secret (DS9 anthology: The Lives of Dax) and well into the 24th century the relationships between Trill humanoids and symbionts was a source of much political and social upheaval on the planet Trill and beyond (DS9/TNG comics: Divided We Fall)

[edit] Overview

When a symbiont was not inside a host body, they made use of electrochemical signals to communicate with another through the liquid they lived in. A host symbiont was also capable of communicating with its non-hosted counterparts by being submerged in the fluid breeding pools on the Trill homeworld. This provides a direct form of communication between the two but not on the same level of sharing knowledge as that a Joining was capable of providing.

While typically symbionts only communicated and took Trill as hosts, it was possible for them to communicate with Humans at least through extended contact. This was done so through matching the symbionts bioelectric patterns with that of the other individual. However, this required direct tissue contact between the nerves of the person with that of the symbiont. (DS9 novel: Time's Enemy)

The parasites are genetically modified offshoots of the symbionts (DS9 novel: Trill: Unjoined).

See Also: Trill symbionts for a list of symbionts.