Dendrox

A race of parasites, bathed in blood and consumed by an unending hunger. A people of quiet suffering, drowning in a self-created sea of regret and directionless, impotent frustration. The dendrox are a difficult species to sum up neatly. Their history is that of the conqueror, but also that of the slave. Powerless to change or resist their ever-degrading biology, they commit a neverending genocide to survive. Their ancestors reached for the stars, and in doing so brought themselves longer lives and great strength. But they tampered with things they did not fully understand, and now their descendants live in the broken world they left behind. Truly, there are few sapients in the galaxy responsible for so much suffering, and of those, there are none who regret their actions more.

Biology
The dendrox are a quasi-predatory asexual parasitic symbiont species who are physically unable to survive without a host. Dendrox bodies do not possess a digestive system and, without a host to draw nutrition from, starve to death in a matter of weeks.

Contemporary dendrox physiology superficially resembles a pale green humanoid brain, but with many notable differences. The average symbiont stands at a height of 4" to 8" from the base of the body to the top, and can reach a length of anywhere from 5' to a maximum recorded length of 20' from the jaws to the tail-claw. The main body rarely reaches a length beyond 1', with the tail making up the difference.

Two pairs of black appositional eyes are located at the front of the main body, providing extremely limited conventional sight and the ability to see into the infrared spectrum when outside a host. This ability is primarily used to locate fresh host bodies for possession. A symbiont's mouth rests directly between its eyes, and hangs open when at rest. It features anywhere between six to thirteen jagged teeth on the upper lip, and one thickened "chiptooth" on the lower lip.

The underside of the body is lined with two rows of ten to twenty pairs of vestigial, chitinous legs which have extremely crude musculature, limiting the creature's mobility greatly, but providing powerful grip and crushing force. The legs are nearly useless for locomotion, and are primarily used to maintain a grip on the hindbrain (or equivalent) of a host body both during and after possession. Their "tail" is, in reality, a cord of prehensile muscle and neural tissue used to wrap around the host's spinal column. It is tipped with a multi-purpose claw-like structure primarily used for offense, for assisting in locomotion, and for interfacing with a host body's nervous system.

Note that dendrox blood has genetically metamorphic properties that are not yet fully understood by non-dendrox medical communities. As a result of these unique properties, rejections by a host body are extremely rare, and often non-fatal to the symbiont. Incidentally, donations of blood samples for use in medical transfusions are one of the ways a symbiont living off-world might try to curry favor with local populations, since many dendrox would be unwelcome otherwise. Such donations are costly to the donor, as an individual symbiont only has around three quarts of blood at maximum, and it takes several weeks to regenerate even a cup.

A typical symbiont lifespan ranges from 110 to 140 years, assuming adequate health and fortunate genetic mixtures. Rarely, a mutation can occur in a symbiont's gestation that delays or prevents the onset of senescence, sometimes indefinitely. Such dendrox can still be found alive today, many still occupying robotic casings and exosuits, though some have lost their grip on reality, and may pose a threat to the unprepared. Only approach a suited dendrox with extreme caution.

Reproduction
A typical symbiont is born with anywhere between 80 to 100 haploid cells in its body, and an individual will lay one fertilized egg at a time, taking approximately two years to gestate inside a specialized organ just below the mouth, and a further four to five months to hatch after laying. A dendrox nest in the wild can be found anywhere warm, wet, and dark. Hidden from view, but with ready access to populated areas. Note that most eggs are kept in special nurseries on Petriva, and any found in the wild should be approached with extreme caution.

The eggs themselves are spherical and fleshy, with a translucent white-green coloration. When laid, they are around 4" in diameter, before quickly ballooning to the size of an adult over the coming months. Once the organism inside is ready to hatch, it will scrape and claw its way out of the membranous sack, leaving it behind and beginning its search for a host. During this initial foray, the now-fully-mature newborn symbiont can survive off of its internal nutrient stores for much longer than usual; approximately two months before dying of starvation if a host is not found in time.

The scent of discarded egg membrane compels other dendrox to find and consume a portion of the "shell," leaving the rest for other symbionts to find and consume. Fragments of the genetic patterns of the egg's parent's previous hosts are spread throughout the population in this way, helping to stave off genetic stagnation. The process is far from perfect, however, and the dendrox's particularly malleable genome has led to advanced genetic instability in their species over the centuries, resulting in ever-increasing mutations, nonviable eggs, and other detrimental developments across their species.

When a dendrox is ready to spawn, it draws on an internal library of stored genetic material taken from previous hosts and consumed egg matter to form a functioning male gamete. This gamete is then paired with an egg, and after two years' gestation, the fertilized egg is ejected through the mouth. A specialized quick-drying mucus helps the eggs adhere to surfaces, and acts as a sort of rubbery protective outer layer for the egg when it dries, staying pliable as the egg grows within.

Possession
In its natural state, a symbiont's higher brain functions, such as critical thinking and decision making, are shut down to conserve energy and prolong the symbiont's vital functions until a host body can be found. The symbiont's natural impulses drive it to seek out sources of fluctuating heat and movement which might indicate a suitable host. Once a potential host is found, the symbiont will attempt to incapacitate its prey by injecting a paralytic venom with its tail-claw through the joints or softer parts of the victim's body. If outmatched, a symbiont will attempt to flee, but will rarely abandon its pursuit of a target entirely unless a different host is presented or if the heat signature of its target can no longer be detected.

Once a potential host is vulnerable, the symbiont will use its "chiptooth" to wedge open sections of the cranium until a large-enough opening has been made for entry. The average symbiont's body is spongy and can easily compress to fit through gaps as narrow as 3" in diameter, so the damage is usually not too extensive. Modern dendrox are quick to point out that today, this procedure is carried out with appropriate medical equipment in operating theaters, almost exclusively on anesthetized squoll who were raised with all the amenities an organism could want before their possession. The only times natural paralytics and chipteeth are employed in modern times are during accidental acts of desperation by isolated or injured symbionts.

Once inside the skull, the symbiont will rapidly and methodically consume much of the brain to make space for its body, slicing away large sections of gray matter with its teeth and swallowing them. The portions of brain are later regurgitated and shunted into the host's digestive tract for processing. The same mucus used to coat a dendrox egg is released during consumption of the brain and spread over the site of the injuries, sealing wounds and releasing a natural localized coagulant to prevent the premature death of the host by blood loss. The hindbrain and stem are left unharmed, and the symbiont then begins to integrate itself in place of the original brain. The time it takes a symbiont to fully consume a brain is directly proportional to the size of the host, but for a squoll- or human-sized brain, the entire process takes slightly under an hour. Eye movement and stress signs can be detected for the first half hour if the host is not first properly sedated by medical staff.

The claws at the end of a symbiont's tail are used to physically pierce the host body's meninges once the main length has coiled itself around the spinal column, and establish an electrochemical link with the host's body and remaining brain tissue. Once the connection is complete, a small orifice will open on the symbiont's back, just above the base of the tail, releasing a rapidly unspooling web of fibrous veins that spread throughout the host's body. These veins integrate themselves with the circulatory system of the host, and provide the symbiont with nutrients, oxygen, and metabolic energy.

When a host body dies or the dendrox is otherwise forced to vacate, the tail and tailclaw must be carefully extricated to avoid injury to the symbiont, but the vein webbing is detached at the base and left behind in the host, to be regenerated at a later time.

The damaging effects of possession on a squoll body are mostly negligible but for some aesthetic changes and a greatly reduced lifespan. But in other species, the presence of a dendrox symbiont can cause rapid muscular degeneration, body-wide necrosis of tissues and bone, and eventual death from excessive internal hemorrhaging and the structural collapse of most vital organs. A non-squoll host will typically live no longer than a month, and dendrox society tries to prevent the parasitization of non-squolls at all costs, not only to prevent the rapid loss of host bodies, but also to avoid worsening their already negative public image.

Society
If you were to ask someone on the street what the main facet of larger dendrox culture is, you might get a number of different responses. If you were to ask a dendrox, however, they would tell you without hesitation, "shame." Much of modern dendrox societal efforts revolve around repaying a debt that can never be settled to a prisoner who can never be freed, and all extant dendrox live in a state of regret, hating their own biology as they burn through multiple hosts throughout their long lives.

In the past, before the slow genetic degradation that led the dendrox to their current state made itself known, they lived as a species of primitive humanoid insect-like sapients on a planet called Petriva, a cold and dry world, slightly outside the Goldilocks Zone of their local star.

The dendrox were initially a species of scavengers, scrounging to survive on their world much as humans did on Earth before the discovery of fire. Their society apparently grew and developed at a much more rapid pace than that of humans, with the dendrox developing a mass-produced vacuum-tube analogue at around the same time humanity was beginning to harness rotational energy from watermills. The dendrox cultural focus drifted, focusing less on art and fulfillment of the self, and more on the longevity and physical comfort of their species as a whole. Medical sciences like biotechnology and biomechatronics took the forefront of their attention, leading to the creation of the first generation of exosuits called the Calliope Shells.

Calliope Shells were the earliest versions of large, bulky mechanical exoskeletons designed to assist the less physically able members of the species by providing enhanced locomotion, strength, and durability. The suits proved so useful, however, that eventually the entire species could be found occupying them planetwide. Dendrox biology changed quickly over the generations to accommodate their new lifestyle; limbs grew shorter, senses were discarded in favor of cognitive ability to manipulate the suits as second nature, and specialized structures like tail-claws and vein-webbing were artificially developed and inserted into their genome to aid in interfacing with more advanced versions of exosuits. Technological progress marched on.

But soon, dendrox began being born who were unable to interface with the suits. Their own modifications to their genetic line had destabilized their genome to such a degree that it became impossible for their own bodies to sustain them, or for their brains to connect to artificial neurocircuitry of any kind. Facing global extinction, a solution was found, but at a cost so great, many dendrox agree the path they took was almost not worth it. On Petriva's northern continent, there was another species of sapients called the squoll. Tall, porcine creatures with thick gray skin and large tusks. They lived in huts of mud and thatch, and wore animal hide for warmth, but were quite intelligent, if not societally advanced. Genetic sequencing suggested a long-divergent ancestor between the two species, something not otherwise seen on Petriva in the modern day. It is theorized that any other relatives of the two species were driven to extinction by their respective competitors in an evolutionary battle for resources, but the dendrox and squoll occupied such different niches in the food chain by that point that neither had to compete with the other for survival.

It was discovered that by surgically removing a squoll's brain and implanting the body of a dendrox host in much the same way a dendrox might link to an exosuit, their neural pathways could be artificially linked to the host in such a way that fine manipulation of the squoll's body became possible. Given the choice between the subjugation and subsumption of an entire species of sapients, or utter annihilation, the dendrox reluctantly chose the former. Most of Petriva's surface has now been converted into multi-tiered breeding farms, wherein the dendrox attempt to give the squoll lives of peace and joy to the best of their ability before their harvesting and possession at the age of maturity.

The fact that symbiont biology has now adapted to the process completely, no longer requiring extensive medical intervention to assist in the conversion, is helpful, but is in no way comforting to the dendrox.

Dendrox society at large has stagnated for the most part, allowing younger races to not only match them technologically, but exceed them in many areas. The vast majority of resources the dendrox are able to bring to bear are funneled directly into making their squoll hosts happier and more comfortable during their brief lives, mostly out of a tremendous sense of guilt and obligation. Though this is little comfort to the squoll, whose only desire is to see the dendrox wiped from existence for what they've done to their species. The dendrox governments acknowledge the plight of squoll refugees who have managed to escape Petriva, hitch rides off-world, and form resistance cells bent on destroying the farms and dendrox society as a whole, but they only have their deepest sympathy to offer, as releasing the squoll would mean their extinction.