Taurill/Legends

"These are the Taurill, semi-intelligent creatures, busy workers and good pets. They passed all quarantine scans when we arrived on Coruscant. They are insatiably curious and would like to explore. They intend no harm."

- Durga the Hutt

Taurill were small, multi-limbed, furry creatures similar to vermin. During most of their history, the Galactic community considered the Taurill to be a non-sentient or semi-sentient species. However, the Taurill had a hive mind controlled by the Taurill Overmind that gave them sentience. Any individual Taurill was really another set of fotoreceptors and manipulative organs for the Overmind. When one Taurill noticed something of interest for the Overmind, nearby Taurill ran to analyze that same object from different perspectives, feeding the Overmind with information.

Durga Besadii Tai the Hutt discovered the Taurill and made a deal with the Overmind. As a result, Durga began to travel in the company of his swarm of supposed pet Taurill, and sometimes used them as spies or saboteurs. At one point, Durga even used the Taurill to build a superweapon, the Darksaber, but his scheme was a disaster and ended in the death of Durga, the Overmind and all of the Taurill.

Biology and appearance
The body of a Taurill was covered in gray-brown fur, except for its two constantly-blinking, big, curious eyes and its six limbs. Four of those appendages were fingered arms,  characterized by their malleability and their sturdiness. The other two were commonly used as legs, but in certain situations they could be adjusted to be used as a third set of arms, as was readily apparent when the Taurill's movements were seen.

While the Taurill were Simiiforme and indeed retain several physical traits of apes, at the same time they also looked like lice.

Taurill were small creatures that stopped growing once a lenght of 120 centimeters was reached. They were flexible enough to squeeze their bodies if needed to explore through very narrow openings.

Society and culture
While there were thousands of individual Taurill, all of them were controlled by one single collective conscience, known as the Taurill Overmind or simply Overmind, to the extent that a Taurill "individual" was only a set of sensory and manipulative organs for a single organism that made up the whole species. This could also be expressed in a simplified form by saying that Taurill were eusocial.

The hive mind was interested in gathering information, using the Taurill bodies to do so. The Taurill thus were known to look intently in all the available directions, as if they were paranoid, to feed information to the Overmind, although each individual seemed to be trying to gather information for its own interests. The Taurill would swarm over, crawl over and touch anything or anyone in their range, unless some resistance was found. While in this process, Taurill bodies were known to move constantly in a vermin-like way. Taurill were also known to race around.

Individual Taurill did not have independent thoughts, recognizible emotions or abstract motivations, leading to the species being classified as semi-sentient  although, considering the hive mind, the Taurill fulfilled the requirements of sentience. Users of the Force scanning the Taurill for sentience only felt weak, blurred impressions from the collective.

As discovered by scientist Mammon Hoole, a Taurill had to be near a collective of other Taurill to receive instructions from the Overmind. Should a Taurill be far enough from the group &mdash; a rare circumstance in normal conditions &mdash; then that body would stop moving, as the brain would have stopped to send it any order. Although the body would remain biologically alive, it would probably eventually die of hunger or dehidratation &mdash; and would take no independent measure to feed. When Taurill did eat, their diet included shag ferns.

History
While the native planet of the Taurill was unknown, the species was already known, and labeled non-sentient, in the last years of the Old Republic. In 22 BBY, the individual Taurill Bortis showed a systematic skill to play the sport known as Greenputt which, along with the discovery of capable neek players, led to the creation of the Non-Sentient Professional Greenputt Tour.

At some point, a xenobiologist working as a scout discovered the hive mind of this species while researching in the Outer Rim Territories. This person sold this information to Durga Besadii Tai, a young Hutt. Durga, deciding to obtain a profit from the Taurill, first killed the scout to protect the secret, and then approached the Taurill to make a deal. Durga offered power and wealth, but the Overmind had no need for that. The Overmind instead asked Durga to scatter individual Taurill through a great distance in the galaxy, allowing the Overmind to grow. Durga readily accepted and was assigned thousands of Taurill. He trained the creatures to behave as his pets and to run whenever Durga clapped his hands. Taurills behaved excellently as pets.

In 12 ABY, Durga decided to pay a visit to Chief of State Leia Organa Solo of the New Republic in Coruscant, as a cover to steal the schemes of the first Death Star from the Imperial Palace. Durga was to be in the company of ninety-eight Taurill that had already received specific instructions to behave. The strange creatures, being from a not-widespread species, surprised Organa Solo and her companions, something that did not happen with the more common entourage of the Hutt, including Gamorrean slaves. When directly asked about the creatures, Durga mentioned that they were harmless, semi-sentient pets. Durga signaled the Taurill to disperse, claiming that Organa Solo seemed to be distracted by the moving creatures crawling on Durga's body. This, of course, was even more distracting as the Taurill were handling any decoration, furniture, droid and person in his range. Durga proposed a trading alliance to keep his masquerade

Following their orders, two particular Taurill struggled with a guard, trying to seize his ceremonial rifle. One of the aliens tried to push himself in the barrel while the other "accidentally" pulled the trigger, killing his companion with a resounding blast. The guard was astonished at the situation and Durga pretended to be surprised, although Organa Solo noticed he was feigning. The remaining Taurill scattered, apparently scared at the explosion, with some of them hiding in shadows, pieces of furniture, doors or ducts. Durga again pretended to be worried about his pets and ordered to capture all of them.

The New Republic guards and Organa Solo's droid C-3PO began tracking the Taurill, as the Gamorreans proved to be inept for this task. Both Organa Solo and Durga knew that this task would consume some time. Meanwhile, three specific Taurill took advantage of the chaos to reach the Imperial Information Center, in a lower level of the Palace, dodging guard droids and accessing one terminal. Using special codes Durga had previously obtained, they accessed secret information, saved it in a small data cylinder and hid it in the fur of one of them. The Overmind knew of their success in no time and reported to Durga using another Taurill, one that had been re-captured. Durga stroked this individual, unaware at that point about the copied data being codified. Durga then ordered one of his assistant to blow an instrument to supposedly soothe the Taurill and summon them, with Organa Solo voicing his suspicions at that point.

Once the Taurill had be gathered, the Gamorreans attempted to count them, but their skills were limited and they required C-3PO's help. Durga attempted to blame Organa Solo for the accident, but she refused to submit and accused Durga of bringing uncontrolable pets to diplomatic meetings. Durga laughed at this and offered Organa Solo to officially visit his place at Nal Hutta.

Soon afterward, C-3PO found Taurill fur in the keyboard the Taurill spy had used, and it struck him because the room was to be kept impeccably clean. He deduced that the Information Center had unauthorized visitors and reviewed security recordings along with his complement, R2-D2, finding proof of the Taurill implication. This had not been done previously because nothing had been reported as missing. Once R2-D2 discovered the nature of the crime and the data that had been copied, C-3PO reported to Organa Solo. After this, Organa Solo wrote a report explaining the situation and the Taurill incident.

Meanwhile, Durga was en route to Hoth. Two of Durga's allies, General Sulamar and Doctor Bevel Lemelisk, agreed to use the stolen information to build a new superweapon in the safe environment of the Hoth asteroid field. Lemelisk developed the design and trained two individual Taurill to build it, having been told that the whole workforce would get the same knowledge, and provided them with customized space suits. Following Lemelisk's estimates, that kind of workers could build the superweapon in a fraction of the time that common sentients would require. The Taurill began to work as a swarm, following Lemelisk's outlines.

During a family dinner, the Solos decided that they could not ignore the theft performed by the Taurill, which, along with other clues, pointed to Durga masterminding an evil plot. Organa Solo then decided to visit Durga in Nal Hutta, as she believed that Durga knew of her suspects, something that was not true.

While the Taurill workers appeared to be productive, enthusiastic builders, they were easily distracted: Any novelty, such as a nearby moving asteroid or a visible starship, attracted the Overmind's attention, who then sent more individual Taurill to catch a new perspective of whatever it was. Once the event was over, the individuals took up their job again, but they were no longer in their intended position, and as such the construction was incorrect: The computer core was connected to a thermal exhaust port, the superlaser was ninety degrees wrong and several beams were welded to inappropiate places. Lemelisk discovered this disaster, but decided to not report it to Durga, as the Hutt could punish Lemelisk for it. Instead, he doubled the Taurill shift and supervised them to solve the mistakes. This was achieved in two days.

Then, Durga obtained some computer cores and asked Lemelisk to go with him to Nar Shaddaa to analyze them, as Lemelisk had no real reason to remain in the building site as far as the Hut tknew. Durga believed the Taurill were performing nicely and Lemelisk could not correct him without risking his wrath. Thus, Lemelisk told Sulamar about the situation, and both of them worked to keep under control the delays caused by Taurill's short attention span. When Lemelisk returned, he saw a passing spy ship and he could only think on the Taurill being distracted about that.

The superweapon Lemelisk was construction was useless, partly because of the Taurill's faulty work. There were other problems with it, including defective materials and components provided by Durga and Sulamar, but the Taurill incompetence would have been enough to prevent the superweapon from working. Anyone with a training in technology would have noticed, and noticed, that it was so; Lemelisk only managed to keep a timetable by writing false results. The doctor eventually declared the construction finished, and the Taurill stopped working, instead simply inhabiting the inner rooms of the so-called Darksaber.

The New Republic infiltrated several agents in the Darksaber, but one of them, General Crix Madine, was captured and took to Durga in the bridge. Durga executed Madine. Several Taurill intentedly watched the event until Lemelisk shooed them away. The Taurill then went back to other decks, joining the Overmind.

Durga, still believing that his Taurill had done a good job, attempted to use the Darksaber to destroy an asteroid. The Darksaber did not work and was destroyed by the collision of two planetoids against its frame. Durga died, apparently taking all of the Taurill with him.

Taurill in the galaxy
"With the confirmation and certification of consistent game-play skills of three Ambrian neeks and a Taurill named Bortis, the Greenputt Governing Council today announced the formation of the Non-Sentient Professional Greenputt Tour (NSPGT)."

- HoloNetNews report, 22 BBY

In the times of the Old Republic, the existence of Taurill was known to the general public, as exemplified by Bortis. At that point, the Taurill were believed to be non-sentient. Only after Durga discovered the hive mind and made a deal with the Taurill, did they had a chance to expand through all the galaxy as was the Overmind's wish. From that point onward, the Taurill were mostly seen as Durga's personal pets.

The collective mind of the Taurill was an important advantage when trying to create a unified Taurill workforce: The foreman only had to train one Taurill, and all of available Taurill would take advantage of that time. Although the Taurill would then work tirelessly, moved by an untiring Overmind, they would easily distract with any available novelty, which could lead to spoiling the work. Other racial limitations include the inability to develop advanced technology themselves, and their strange appearance that could confound the foreman.

Behind the scenes
"While some believe a million monkeys on a million typewriters might some day produce Hamlet, it turns out thousands of simple-minded Taurill workers can't construct a working deep space cannon."

- "Checklist: 10 Star Wars Superweapons" (article at StarWars.com)

The Taurill first appeared in the novel Darksaber, by Kevin J. Anderson, first published in 1995, and then they were mentioned in Stephen J. Sansweet's Star Wars Encyclopedia (1998). They were first graphically depicted in The Essential Guide to Alien Species (2001) with an illustration by R. K. Post.

The Essential Guide to Alien Species unambiguously list the height of an adult Taurill as 120 centimeters. In Darksaber, Leia Organa Solo considers that one of those creatures has the approximate size of her forearm which, analizing archive photographs, could not have been longer than 30 centimers.

The novel Darksaber does not specify the moment when Durga met the Taurill. As Durga was born in 105 BBY, this could have happened before the events told in the website HoloNetNews about Bortis, dated in 22 BBY. However, Durga was known to be considered a pre-adult until 5 BBY; thus, it is unlikely that he could make so important deals and decisions before that point.

In Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse, the narrator compares a character's eyes moving with Taurill racing about. Should it had been said by a character, it could mean that, at that point, knowledge about Taurill was more extended.

Appearances

 * Darksaber
 * Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial
 * Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
 * Millennium Falcon
 * Millennium Falcon