“My fellow scientists, I bring you astounding news. I have discovered an intelligent species on another planet. In form they are little more than a network of pipes filled with fluid. But these Pipeworks have created a rudimentary civilization, complete with art and scholarship. More remarkable still is their ecology. Though they interact with various other species including prey, pests, commensals, decomposers, and so on, those can largely be ignored as superfluous details. The overarching narrative of Pipework history is one of an ongoing battle with a single other life form. This second creature is smaller, less brainy but more elusive, resembling a rounded pellet. The Pellets and Pipeworks have been at war for tens of thousands of years. Pipeworks have been slaughtered by Pellets in such monstrous numbers that death by any other cause, including murder by other Pipeworks, pales in comparison. The Pipeworks have both invented and evolved striking tactics for evading the Pellets, but always with mixed success. The conflict touches all. The great stories of Pipework history. The fates of their societies. The Pipework nations that have prospered while others have crumbled. Everything has depended on when and where Pellet sieges have been the most devastating. To this day, despite all of their technological advances, the Pipeworks have been unable to win the war, and hundreds of millions of them suffer Pellet attacks. However, for the first time in Pipework existence, victory seems to be within their grasp. If they unite as a species and face their ancient enemy, they may succeed in driving the Pellets to extinction. If they do, it will surely be their single greatest achievement, a vindication of all of their struggles. Simultaneously, it will be a bittersweet loss of their steadfast partner in the coevolutionary dance. Regardless, it will usher in an era of relief and resolution that will define them from that point onward.

“Following protocol, I also provide the relevant terms in the local dialect. The Pipeworks refer to themselves as Humans, the Pellets are called Plasmodium, and affliction with Pellets is a condition known as Malaria.”

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