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Trill
The Trill are a joined species comprised of a humanoid host and a small vermiform symbiont that resides in an internal abdominal pocket of the host body. When joined, the Trill incorporates personal traits from both the host and the symbiont, to create a wholly new and unique personality. This personality differs from prior combinations of the symbiont, which is the longest living part of the joined Trill species.
The Trill are humanoid in appearance, with a series of brown spots that start at the temples and work downward along the side of the Trill’s body.
Some Trill have a slug-like creature called a “symbiont” implanted in their abdomen. The Trill consider it a great honor to be joined with these creatures but very few Trill are considered “compatible” for such joining.
When a humanoid Trill (called a “host”) is joind with a symbiont, the two beings function as one in all respects. Humanoid trills without a symbiont are basically identical to humans except for the spots. The symbiont lives for about 500 years and during these years is joined with many hosts as the symbiont far outlives a humanoid Trill. The symbiont retains the personality, memories, and skills of all its previous hosts and these traits are passed on to any future host it may join with.
A symbiont will die within twelve hours if seperated from its host, unless it is returned to its natural environment on the Trill homeworld (a silty, subterranean pool). The host usually dies within a few days and welcomes death as the emotional trauma of being seperated is usually too much for the humanoid host to bear. Today, the joining of a symbiont with a host is managed by a group of sages called "The Symbiosis Commission," a branch of the Trill government. Many trill never receive a symbiont as they are not considered “compatible”, and many symbionts spend their lives in the silt pools underground.
The joining of a host and symbiont usually occurs during the early adulthood of the humanoid host, though it could occur at any time after the host reaches physical maturity.
Trill hosts enter voluntarily into their association with the symbiont, and in fact there are is rigorous competition among the potential hosts to determine who will be accorded this honor. Once joined, though, the host and the symbiont becomes biologically interdependent, and after about 93 hours, neither can survive without the other. Also, in the event of danger to the joined Trill, the host will usually be sacrificed in order to save the symbiont.
A Trill symbiont can live for more than 300 years, usually outliving many host bodies. The knowledge and experience of its past hosts, however, is not lost, since the symbiont retains most of it. The body of a Trill host is of a somewhat cooler temperature then that of a normal human, and the brains of the two parts work in combination as one.
The symbionts reproduce in a series of interconnected underground breeding pools that span many kilometers beneath the surface of the Trill home world
