Coalescent organism A coalescent organism was any organism ( usually microscopic in size ) capable of mimicking another organism down to a ular level upon physical contact . Not only did such creatures absorb and mimic the host ' s DNA , they could also absorb memory engram s from the host . When Kahless the Unforgettable was reported to have returned at Boreth in 2369 , Beverly Crusher speculated , among other scientific explanations , that he might be a coalescent organism . ( ) Few such organisms are known to exist due to their need to frequently absorb a subject ( and therefore change form ) in order to survive ( with smaller coalescent organisms , this is only a matter of seconds ) . A substantially larger coalescent organism had killed and absorbed Starfleet officer Keith Rocha in 2369 , while he was on a deep space mission in the Triona system shortly before he was to transfer to Relay Station 47 . In Rocha ' s form , the creature transferred to Relay Station 47 and was able to assume his form for several weeks until it needed to absorb another organism . The only other two compatible organisms aboard Relay Station 47 were Aquiel Uhnari and her pet dog , Maura ; the creature , still in the form of Rocha , attacked Uhnari , beginning the process of coalescence causing Uhnari to lose her short term memory . Uhnari was able to escape the creature and injure it before fleeing the station via a shuttlecraft , leaving the creature to coalesce with Maura , which would later attack and attempt to absorb Lt . Cmdr . Geordi La Forge . Geordi was forced to destroy the creature in self - defense . ( ) Background information . The coalescent organism has been an early application of CGI techniques in the television franchise . Visual Effects Supervisor for the episode , Ronald B . Moore , commented on its application , " " Sometimes , things really work good and you are very happy with the way they came out , and sometimes you are not . And in " Aquiel " there were things in it that I was very , very happy with , and things that I wasn ' t . One of them was the monster . CGI was kind of coming into prominence , it was still very early . We had done stuff earlier in some of the first couple of seasons . " Aquiel " we got into and it just became a real time crunch , early CGI just took forever . I finally got this stuff , the CGI stuff that I composited in the bay " [ remark : Moore is referring to the post - production editing bay at Digital Magic ] " , kind of at the end of our schedule , had no time , and I put it together . And there were a lot of funny names given to that monster when it came up , " Mr . Peanut " was probably the kindest one that I had . But , you know , it wasn ' t terrible , it was just for us it was something that we wished would have been a lot more better , with other words , the CBB could be better . " " ( " TNG Season 6 DVD " special feature " Select Historical Data Year Six : " To CGI or Not to CGI " " , disc 7 ) The " CBB " , Moore referred to was industry idiom for rendering and animation , which he had wanted to finetune for texture and motion , but was not able to because of time restraints as the effect was only delivered in the nick of time . ( " " , 3rd ed , p . 233 )