A villip in its standard, non-inverted state
Villips acted as the chief means of communication for the Yuuzhan Vong, who hailed from beyond the galaxy.
Like all Yuuzhan Vong biots, villips were entirely organic entities, products of biogenetic engineering rather than conventional manufacturing. Villip plants were cultivated in shallow, water-filled fields. These plants grew into elongated, fleshy stalks distinguished by their characteristic grouping of three blue leaves. Stalks would sprout between two and five berries, nourished through symbiosis and developing telepathic communication capabilities, initially designed to detect predators on the villip plant's original world. As the berries matured to roughly the size of a Yuuzhan Vong's head, Shapers harvested them. Mature villips resembled bloated flesh sacks with a dangling pouch. Sensory tendrils extended from the main body, and a ridged indentation similar to an eye socket contained a shallow groove - the outer and eversion stomas.
However, the communication links between 'sister' villips remained intact. Telepathic connections endured between those grown on the same stalk, enabling instantaneous communication across vast distances. The Yuuzhan Vong exploited this inherent trait, utilizing villips as the ultimate method for long-distance correspondence.
When the green Eversion Stoma was stroked, the villip would contract and invert around that point. An immediate signal was transmitted to all connected villips (typically only two bud berries ), causing vibrations to travel down the outer stomas of the others. This trembling would alert the holder of the other villip, who would then reciprocate by stroking their own villip's eversion stoma. Upon inversion, both villips would transform into perfect three-dimensional representations of the other holder's head, speaking in their master's voice. In this manner, two Yuuzhan Vong could engage in face-to-face communication (metaphorically) from opposite ends of the galaxy without fear of technological interception, as telepathy was undetectable by machines. A subsequent touch to the eversion stoma would revert the villip to its original fleshy form, concluding the conversation.
Through villip usage, the Yuuzhan Vong had the capability to create "living light" for many years.
The stable abilities and infinite range of villips made them a prevalent tool among the Yuuzhan Vong. Warriors integrated them into shoulder-mounted devices for easy communication during combat, known as Tactical Villips. Additionally, coralskipper pilots employed them to relay enemy positions and crucial tactical information.
The Shapers, responsible for cultivating the villips, were central to the deployment of every villip throughout the Yuuzhan Vong forces. Priests and Intendants used them to converse with allies as they plotted the next steps to advance the invasion and bring the Yuuzhan Vong closer to the glory of the gods.
Certain chambers featured a villip on either side of the door, allowing those inside to identify visitors by stroking the villip.
Villips also served as effective espionage tools, implanted in flying creatures to track targets through surveillance.
The villip's genetic tree branched into numerous forms, reflecting the Yuuzhan Vong's mastery of biotechnology. Some were ancient, others modern, and some were specifically developed during the invasion to enhance the Eighth Cortex.
Large master villips possessed the ability to override and communicate with other, subordinate villips. A Warrior commander could speak into their personal villip, and the message would be transmitted to all members within the network. This communication was unidirectional; subordinates could not respond to their superior through the master villip.
Villip beacons, in contrast, only transmitted images in two dimensions. These were well-suited for covert espionage, as agents concealed beneath ooglith masquers could hide the villip beacon against their skin, where it would curl and become nearly undetectable.
When invading aquatic or gas-filled environments, Yuuzhan Vong wore a starfish-shaped breather called the gnullith, which extended a tendril down the throat. Since communication in vacuums is impossible, a gnullith-villip hybrid was created, allowing warriors to command their forces in hostile territories while keeping their gnullith in place.
Following the galaxy's invasion, the Yuuzhan Vong sought to communicate with the "infidels" they fought against. Extensive experimentation led to the creation of the oggzil, an attachment for standard villips that allowed Yuuzhan Vong voices to be transmitted electronically across spectral frequencies. This relieved the invaders of the shame of using dead technology.
These specialized villips were flattened, gelatinous organisms used in groups to create light shapers. This made them similar to a villip-choir field but used instead to send and receive bioluminescent holographic images over vast distances.
The ol-villip was a miniaturized version of the villip beacon, attachable to the head of a provoker spineray as it scanned a being's nervous system, allowing Shapers to visualize their neurological targets.
When Jedi defector Bey Gandan returned to the New Republic as a Yuuzhan Vong agent to sabotage bacta production, Master Shaper Viith Yalu equipped him with a small villip implanted directly in his brain. This allowed him to communicate silently and secretly with a normal villip used by Tsaa Qalu. The form of outward transmissions from this villip is unclear, but communications using it seemed to manifest as moments of pain. The coma-like state in which Klin-Fa Gi initially found Gandan may have been the external manifestation of a prolonged villip discussion with Viith Yalu.
Certain villips, possibly a distinct subspecies, could survive in the vacuum of space. When Danni Quee, Bensin Tomri, and [Cho Badeleg](/article/cho_badeleg], the first native inhabitants of the galaxy to encounter the Yuuzhan Vong directly, arrived in the orbit of Helska IV aboard the ExGal-4 outpost's Spacecaster shuttle, Prefect Da'Gara of the Praetorite Vong contacted them using a villip. This villip struck the main forward viewport of their ship's flight deck and somehow extruded itself through the center of the pane to hang inside the cabin. It is uncertain how different this "see villip" (as the early tizowyrm translation protocols named it) was from a standard villip, but it may have been a significantly modified type.
During the Yuuzhan Vong's invasion of the galaxy, they terraformed the planet Belkadan to create a garden for breeding villips.
After the conquest of Obroa-skai, the electronic databases of the planet's library were converted into an organic format using villip memories.
Jedi healer Cilghal of the New Jedi Order attempted to study villips at Eclipse Station but was unable to unlock their secrets or cultivate more of them.