Symbiosis

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Symbiosis describes the intrinsical connection between a sentient headspace (such as a symbiospace) and a living being (such as a headmate) in a system/sisasystem. The beings that are connected are called symbiotics.

This connection may be described as a mental and emotional link that makes both entities "resonate" with each other as if they were in symbiosis, to the point of feeling like twins or even "made of the same stuff". As such, protective sentispaces are often subject to symbiosis.

A living being may not be aware that a sentispace has created a symbiotic connection with them. (The opposite may be rarely true, as many sentient headspaces rely more on their population to exist than a headmate relies on a headspace to exist, such as a canvaspace for example.)

Use of the term
This Symbio- term mainly describes a single connection between a sentient headspace and a living being. But multiple connections between multiple beings may potentially happen, potentially ending up in creating a whole network of symbiosis.

However, it is highly unusual for sentient headspaces to have more than a few symbiotics (but still possible nonetheless).

Causes
Various reasons might explain this phenomenon:
 * the sentispace may feel that one of its symbiotics is stressed, so it acts as a space-soother to help them relax.
 * the sentispace may have brought a living being to life (e.g, an artfulspace creating art could potentially give life to its art; a spawn-regulator may have produced Symbio-PCs that became symbiotives, etc.), thus sharing 'cells' with it;
 * a symbiotic may be a fragment of the sentispace (it could have form as a headmate through an artisan for example);
 * the sentispace and symbiotic may be versions of each other from alternate realities/timelines;
 * the sentispace and symbiotic may be a reincarnation of the other's past life;
 * etc.

Related Terms
Vivien and viva refer to systems and headmates that may experience symbiosis.

A symbiotic system refers to a system in which there are only symbiotics. This type of system may potentially be also qualified as a network of symbiosis, if there is a lot of symbiotics.

Resonance is the headmate counterpart of symbiosis; the bonded headmates are called resonants. Similarly, Synpath is a term that refers to having a similar deep connection/bond with something, such as strongly relating to it, acting like it/understanding it, but not quite being it; typically a fictional character.

History & Etymology
This term has been coined on November 25th, 2023, by Pluralpedia user Oceanic-Lanterns, to describe a connection they experienced. It was created as a sentient headspace counterpart for the Resonance term.

The term Symbiosis has been chosen because it refers to "a relationship of mutual benefit, especially among different species" or "a close, prolonged association between two or more organisms of different species, regardless of benefit to the members", which seemed to describe very well the term.