Trill symbiont lifespan
- Thread starter Caesar753
- Start date
I don't think there's any canonical answer, but I would hazard a guess of around 800-1000 years maximum for a symbiont barring any disease & accidents, and supplied with hosts whenever needed.
Some novels have suggested that a thousand years indeed is about right, but that the symbiont slowly grows in physical dimensions and can no longer join with an average humanoid body in its later years...
How long an unjoined symbiont lives is another question with no canon answer.
Timo Saloniemi
How long an unjoined symbiont lives is another question with no canon answer.
Timo Saloniemi
...I do detest the novel (ha!) idea of tying the symbionts with other Trek parasites, biologically and historically. We could just as well invent a relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and the sehlat species, or IKEA and the Borg.
But it's quite possible the Trill symbionts are cosmopolitan. If I lived in a milk bath, never seeing anything but fellow slugs and those lactose-tolerant animals that came there to drink and fell prey to my kin, and suddenly managed to invade the body of a humanoid astronaut, surely I wouldn't settle with examining just planet Trill. I'd be out at warp nine, and then back with more humanoids for my family so that they could see the wonders, too. Depending on how long ago the first Trills got starborne, there could well be related cultures and even new, related species all across the galaxy.
However, if the Trill have been at it for more than a couple of centuries, it becomes all the more difficult to believe that they could have pulled off their galaxy-wide conspiracy of non-exposure. And in "a couple of centuries", nobody gets to spread through the entire galaxy - if the absolutely manic humans didn't manage it, nobody will!
Timo Saloniemi
But it's quite possible the Trill symbionts are cosmopolitan. If I lived in a milk bath, never seeing anything but fellow slugs and those lactose-tolerant animals that came there to drink and fell prey to my kin, and suddenly managed to invade the body of a humanoid astronaut, surely I wouldn't settle with examining just planet Trill. I'd be out at warp nine, and then back with more humanoids for my family so that they could see the wonders, too. Depending on how long ago the first Trills got starborne, there could well be related cultures and even new, related species all across the galaxy.
However, if the Trill have been at it for more than a couple of centuries, it becomes all the more difficult to believe that they could have pulled off their galaxy-wide conspiracy of non-exposure. And in "a couple of centuries", nobody gets to spread through the entire galaxy - if the absolutely manic humans didn't manage it, nobody will!
Timo Saloniemi
I got the impression that Trill and symbionts evolved together. I know you have other theories about this, and there isn't anything definitive to check this. But if they both come from the same planet and only Trills can be hosts, it seems to me a symbiotic relationship was evolutionary.
One possibility is that the symbionts don't actually age or otherwise have a lifespan - that they only die via accidents, violence and so forth.
We only have the biology of this world to go by, and it is pretty much a given here that all of the "higher" lifeforms age (though at very different rates). But, with some of the lower lifeforms, this question can be a lot more complicated. For other worlds, who knows?
Certainly, there may be physical limits on how many lives / memories one symbiont can cram in. Maybe. Once that limit is exceeded, perhaps they die. Perhaps they become incapable of taking new hosts and basically 'retire" back to the pond.
The impression I get is that, as a general rule, symbionts are unafraid of 'burning the candle at both ends', so to speak. This in itself may be significant.
We only have the biology of this world to go by, and it is pretty much a given here that all of the "higher" lifeforms age (though at very different rates). But, with some of the lower lifeforms, this question can be a lot more complicated. For other worlds, who knows?
Certainly, there may be physical limits on how many lives / memories one symbiont can cram in. Maybe. Once that limit is exceeded, perhaps they die. Perhaps they become incapable of taking new hosts and basically 'retire" back to the pond.
The impression I get is that, as a general rule, symbionts are unafraid of 'burning the candle at both ends', so to speak. This in itself may be significant.
Similar threads
