Previously: The Miesti (the butterflies) “stung” Aria, injecting her with trenat, which was supposed to allow them to control her more effectively. (This was supposed to be in the hovertext, but I can’t seem to get it to work…)
This page– if all goes according to plan– will be part of a two-page spread in the print volume 3. I’ve never attempted this sort of thing before, so I’m sure I’ll find it will be one of those delightful learning experiences, and if I ever have reason to do this again I’ll be better at it. (But of course the website update is the easy part– the hard part will be when we get the images ready for the printer!) Anyway, the second half of it will go up next week, along with a link which you can use to see how both pages look together.
Oh, and I made sure to correct the spelling of “symbiont” on this week’s page, with a nod of thanks to my crack team of editors who do their work in the comments section. 
I’m usually pretty careful about spelling, but this one was a big swing and a miss. Honestly? I’ve been spelling it “symbiant” for years and years. Yes, my software spellchecker has been telling me all this time it’s a misspelled word, but it also tells me “Miesti” isn’t properly spelled either. I just assumed I’d made up the word or something… how embarrassing!
I guess for the Miesti, it’s one of those ends-justify-the-means things…
I don’t trust spellcheckers (for starters, they can be obnoxious), which is why I don’t pay much attention to them. (Except when I was trying to spell the word “obnoxious” just now.)
So they came here by accident?
Hopefully that means that they’re aren’t any more Miesti coming, but it also means that they basically committed genocide juast so they could have tools.
Maybe. We still don’t know if it was the Miesti that started the war.
When you have superstitious aboriginals of an island nation, you can get wild paranoia… Especially when there’s religious beliefs that insist ‘souls’ are being stolen…
On that note… I looked up Orehu out of curiosity, and ended up finding a few pages on the Maori, the natives of New Zealand. I imagine the other word they are using may also come from the Maori, and they are speaking a variant of their dialect. That may be why the linguist recognized it, but couldn’t quite place it.
I suspect other comments on earlier pages (like when their name’s pronunciation was revealed) already made these observations, though…
“Symbiont” means that the relationship is mutually beneficial. I am waiting for any evidence that the correct word for the Miesti is not “parasite”.
The difference in this case is how it is viewed by the respective parties. The Miesti view it as a mutually beneficial relationship.
No doubt. In my readings on the American Civil War, I have encountered very numerous writings by supporters of the “peculiar institution” stating their position that slavery was mutually beneficial to both owners and their property.
I’m not sure the slavery comparison works here. The original symbionts may not have been sentient – even by our standards. Their relationship with the Miesti may have been beneficial in that the Miesti helped them to thrive while they provided the Miesti with a means to build things.
Even if the original symbionts were sentient, there may have been an equal-partnership thing going on (think of the Tok’Ra from Stargate SG-1; where both the human host and the alien symbiont work together and even take turns in the “driver’s seat”. The Trill from Star Trek:DS9 are another example.)
However, both original symbionts and the Miesti evolved together. Humans are literally a different animal altogether. I suspect the link between Miesti and human isn’t as good – like trying to run Windows 7 on a 386 PC (hence uuiath(?)’s line about us being “hopelessly awkward.”)
The Trill are a merging of personalities, and the symbiont and host could not survive without eachother after ‘joining’. I’m expecting the Tok’ra example will be closer.
It’s safe to assume– and I don’t imagine I’m giving too much away here– that the Miesti’s original relationship, the one alluded to in the above page, was indeed symbiotic.
Curious how they describe the ‘hosts’ as ‘symbionts’ in this instance… I suppose since they aren’t actually being implanted into the larger organism’s body, they’re both technically symbionts..?
Actually, Emerson, that’s a common misconception. Symbiosis is an umbrella term for a “close and often long-term interaction between different biological species” (as Wikipedia puts it), which includes parasitism. The mutually-beneficial type of symbiosis (which is what most people think of when they hear the word) is known as mutualism. (I teach biology, by the way.)