Bluegill

Parasite
Planet of origin:	unknown
Affiliation:	None
Warp capable:	unknown
Biology
Classification:	Parasitic lifeform
Environmental requirements:	Humanoid body or Class M conditions
Typical lifespan:	unknown
Sexes:	Asexual
Telepathic abilities:	Telepathic control by spawnmothers and queens of soldier parasites
Blood coloration:	unknown

Physical Description and Abilities

The Parasite aliens are bug-like creatures that take control of their victims by crawling down his or her throat and tapping directly into their brain and spinal cord. The process is eventually fatal to the victim.

In addition to an impressively fast crawl speed for such small creatures the parasites are capable of jumping the height of most humanoids to quickly gain access to the mouth. The parasites have a large set of strong pinchers which they use to force there way into more resistant hosts.

The parasites can access the short term memory of the host, but not the long term which can give them away. However, even once uncovered, the host is immune to phaser stuns due to the parasites ability to neutralize their victims pain receptors and controlling adrenalin levels. This also gives the host increased strength, making subduing a host difficult. The parasites can function independently, but it's believed that they prefer to work in hives with a queen telepathically communicating and controlling other 'soldier' parasites, and possibly communicating with other queens. The parasites can be removed from their hosts, but only within three-four weeks of bounding (or less, depending on the species), after which the neurological connections become to complex and the host-body would be killed - permanent connection with a joined trill takes less than a day, Cardassians are apparently imune to infection by the parasites. The exception to this is when the queen parasite is killed, and the soldier parasites release control of their hosts and are then relatively easily removed or indeed leave there victims voluntary with no harm to the host.

Neurological Connection

The parasites share the same kind isoboromine neurotransmitter links with there hosts as Trill Symbionts but unlike Symbionts they take complete control of their host. The only physical clue to a parasites existence is a small barb that protrudes from the back of the hosts neck, but in later incursions the parasites had learned to cover that up by plastimasking it onto the hosts skin. The bard acts like a gill expelling spent gases taken from the hosts blood absorbed through pores in the parasites exoskeleton, the parasites have neither eyes or a mouth.

A parasite infected host can be detected by changes in behaviour, hosts tend to develope trembling fingers and rapid eye movement as well as a taste for Klingon and Ferengi food, both of which include vermiform invertebrates.

Breeding Hierarchy

The parasites breed with a structure similar to that of colonial insects. Each encounter with the parasites has been the result of the efforts of one spawnmother. A spawmother can create thousands of offspring to do her bidding and can use her telepathic abilities to effectively remote control the hosts of her spawn. The spawnmother can produce both queen and soldier parasites. The queens born with implanted young can then spread the colony further infecting more hosts as necessary or desired. The soldiers are incapable of reproduction and take commands from queen or spawnmothers.

Types

• Soldier parasite
• Queen parasite
• Spawnmother parasite

History

Creation

The Parasites were created from genetically modifying Trill symbionts on an ancient Trill colony on the planet Kurl (DS9 novel: Trill: Unjoined).

First Contact

In 2265, a team that included Starfleet Captain Christopher Pike, and Trill representatives Audrid Dax and Jayvin Vod investigated a comet heading towards Trill that was inhabited by a previously unknown lifeform. The team discovered a parasitic lifeform, which took control of Vod, eventually resulting in his death. Also killed were three of the Starfleet officers also on the expedition.

The Vod-parasite revealed to Dax and Pike that his species had a hatred of all humanoid life, and the Trill in particular. After the Vod-paraiste was defeated, it was discovered that the parasites were almost genetically identical to Trill symbionts, and that they were en route to Trill in the first step in a long-reaching plan for vengence.

The Trill government covered up the incident by destroying the comet and allowing the parasite-infected Vod symbiont, whose identity had been destroyed by the Parasite, to die rather than be placed in a new host. (DS9 The Lives of Dax short story: Sins of the Mother)

Starfleet Conspiracy

In 2364 several members of Starfleet started to become increasing suspicious having noted unusual orders coming from Starfleet Command and uncharacteristic behaviour from other members of Starfleet. These suspicions cumulated with the USS Enterprise returning to Earth, there the crew of the Enterprise discovered a parasitic alien race had gained control of much of Starfleet HQ. Having uncovered the conspiracy Captain Jean-Luc Picard and this First Officer Will Riker confronted several parasite infected Starfleet personal and located the spawnmother. Together they killed the Parasite spawnmother ending the coup. (TNG episode: Conspiracy). Later analysis of the Parasites tactics revealed they were placing heavy fire power near to the planet Trill in preparation for an attack (DS9 novel: Unity).

Onglaatu

In 2368 the parasites attempted to start a civil war on the planet Onglaatu, whatever their motivations were, their plan was stopped by lieutenant commander Geordi La Forge of the Enterprise.(TNG comic: The Broken Moon)

Bajor

In 2376 the Parasites began another ploy, this time to take over the Bajoran sector. The Bajoran First minister Shakaar Edon on a tour of federation space was on the planet of Minos Korva when he stumbled across a lone spawnmother parasite who had thought she was the last of her kind, she took the opportunity to take Shakaar as host and travelled as him back to Bajor. On Bajor she started to spawn and takes control of hosts all over Bajor and Deep Space 9, using Shakaar she instructed Asarem Wadeen to make peace talks with the Cardassians difficult and prolonged to prevent Cardassian interference with her plans. Hiziki Gard's assassination of Shakaar alerted Starfleet to the situation and the Bajoran system was locked down - At some point prior to the assassination she presumably left Shakaar leaving a soldier or queen parasite in her place, this also gave her the opportunity to start a mass spawn, growing far larger than Shakaar would have been able to contain. Even when Starfleet successfully captured a queen the parasites remained confident that they would win and demanded all humanoids to leave the Bajoran system to them. The spawnmother's eventual goals were to use the knowledge and power of the Bajoran Orbs to strike out at Trill and her allies. It was, however, the orbs that were her eventual undoing. She was located by Kira Nerys in the orb room at Ashalla and, facing unwinnable odds, Kira opened all the orb arks, exposing the spawnmother to all eight. In the ensuing orb experience she was sent by Benjamin Sisko to a void of a realm inhabited by a small number of Jem'Hadar. With the disappearance of the spawnmother, the remaining parasites abandoned their hosts, ending the attack. (DS9 novel: Mission Gamma, Book 4: Lesser Evil; DS9 novel: Unity)

External Link

• Neural parasite (TNG) article at Memory Alpha, the canon Star Trek wiki.