If you were Trill, would you apply for symbiosis?
- Thread starter Danoz
- Start date
I would if it was a very old symbiont that had undergone numerous and very diverse joinings. Living on through the memories of symbiont and hosts is appealing, but more so I like the idea of being able to have walked in so many people's shoes, both literally and figuratively.
Think how much more rich and interesting your interactions with others would be if you can have shared many of the same experiences and perspectives they have? If you could discuss both a male and female or minority and majority or rich and poor perspective without one usually having to be in the abstract? If you can discuss from experience what it's like to have suffered and lost to a terminal disease in order to comfort or prepare another, or really share in understanding childbirth from a female perspective while comforting your wife in labor?
That would make for a very rewarding life I would think.
Think how much more rich and interesting your interactions with others would be if you can have shared many of the same experiences and perspectives they have? If you could discuss both a male and female or minority and majority or rich and poor perspective without one usually having to be in the abstract? If you can discuss from experience what it's like to have suffered and lost to a terminal disease in order to comfort or prepare another, or really share in understanding childbirth from a female perspective while comforting your wife in labor?
That would make for a very rewarding life I would think.
E
Elmo Dukat
Guest
I absolutely would apply for symbiosis. The kind of knowledge you can get with several other lifetimes of experience is impossible to get on one's own. Sure, you've got to share your 'space' with other memories, but you also get the assurance that your own life will be carried on, past the death of your body.
Hells no. I don't want the worm to move on carrying with it my memories and most intimate thoughts and whatnot. All that shit should stay in my crazy head and die with me, honestly.
Besides the fact I'd be rejected so fast...
Besides the fact I'd be rejected so fast...
If I was bird food...?
[Don't be stupid, Ravescene, no one's laughing at you anymore - ZR host #347]
[I disagree, your japes make me laugh - ZR host #592]
[I think you've made your point already, Zion, now it's time to move on to the next poster - ZR host #101]
Now wait a second, let me finish!
I don't think I would want it either. But mostly because I don't understand it.
I don't think I would want this body to be animated by somebody elses mind, if that's what it is like. To have my personality residing alongside another would be more like a disease, like if we ever had a disagreement then what?
To have my personality absorbed and reduced to a memory within the symbiont, well then I wouldn't really be alive anymore. So no.
For joining with a life form in such an irreversible way, love would be an important prerequisite. But I still think it would be a greater burden than it's worth.
My greater concern is over how much of 'me' remains. Would I still be a fully autonomous cognitive agent, or would I be compromised by the symbiont.
You'd still be a fully autonomous cognitive agent -- with the ability to draw on several other memories of a wide variety of people. Your memories would only be absorbed and pushed to the background once you had died and the symbiont was passed on. Your personality and all other forms of your self would still be the dominant force in "you." You may pick up a few new quirks, but you would be "you."
-nobody
-nobody
^Nobody, expect a visit from the folks at Temporal Investigations.
Ice Queen, I think Ezri proved, more than any other Trill, that the host remains in complete (and in her case, somewhat inept) control. There is certainly an adjustment, but that's to be expected when you haven't had years and years of preparation, examination and testing.
Remember, the Trill are symbiotic, not parasitic. Basically, if the symbiote just takes over the host completely, with no regard to his/her own personality, then it has gained exactly nothing. It should also be noted that the symbiotes can live perfectly natural lives apart from humanoid hosts, thus they have no inclination to become parasitic.
But all that is just the Trekkish stuff. It's important to understand that one does not have mutual congress of a single mind. Rather, you become a kind of "new person" with every joining. The individual lives lead by the hosts prior to joining is the only memory any joined person would have of "a separate life".
The equation works kinda like this:
Dax + Joe = Joe Dax
Dax + Ice Queen = Ice Queen Joe Dax
Dax + QCzar = Qczar Ice Queen Joe Dax
Odan + Joe (-Dax) = Joe Odan
In other words, whoever is Dax is one person, not three or twelve or twenty. That one person is composed of multiple personalities and life experiences (prior to joining). All of the experiences of 'Dax' while joined are of the one person. Ezri's memories of being married to Worf are Jadzia Dax's memories. Her memories of being accepted as a host are Jadzia's alone.
So I guess the answer to your question (Ice Queen) is yes, you would remain an individual in control of your own actions. But you wouldn't remain Ice Queen. You'd be subsumed into Ice Queen Dax.
Ice Queen, I think Ezri proved, more than any other Trill, that the host remains in complete (and in her case, somewhat inept) control. There is certainly an adjustment, but that's to be expected when you haven't had years and years of preparation, examination and testing.
Remember, the Trill are symbiotic, not parasitic. Basically, if the symbiote just takes over the host completely, with no regard to his/her own personality, then it has gained exactly nothing. It should also be noted that the symbiotes can live perfectly natural lives apart from humanoid hosts, thus they have no inclination to become parasitic.
But all that is just the Trekkish stuff. It's important to understand that one does not have mutual congress of a single mind. Rather, you become a kind of "new person" with every joining. The individual lives lead by the hosts prior to joining is the only memory any joined person would have of "a separate life".
The equation works kinda like this:
Dax + Joe = Joe Dax
Dax + Ice Queen = Ice Queen Joe Dax
Dax + QCzar = Qczar Ice Queen Joe Dax
Odan + Joe (-Dax) = Joe Odan
In other words, whoever is Dax is one person, not three or twelve or twenty. That one person is composed of multiple personalities and life experiences (prior to joining). All of the experiences of 'Dax' while joined are of the one person. Ezri's memories of being married to Worf are Jadzia Dax's memories. Her memories of being accepted as a host are Jadzia's alone.
So I guess the answer to your question (Ice Queen) is yes, you would remain an individual in control of your own actions. But you wouldn't remain Ice Queen. You'd be subsumed into Ice Queen Dax.
No, I wouldn't.
i feel that it would rob me of the one chance I get to live my own life and learn from my own experiences and make my own mistakes.
Sure, getting all that knowledge is a cool idea in concept, but it rob me of learning it all on my own.
you know the axiom, "To be old and wise you must first be young and stupid"
Well, I think I got the "young and stupid" part down to an art.
i feel that it would rob me of the one chance I get to live my own life and learn from my own experiences and make my own mistakes.
Sure, getting all that knowledge is a cool idea in concept, but it rob me of learning it all on my own.
you know the axiom, "To be old and wise you must first be young and stupid"
Well, I think I got the "young and stupid" part down to an art.
