__I tend to center my understanding on PotS, bad as it was story-wise.
__I liked PotS' depiction of symbiotes in a technological society. To me, their ability to decipher alien anatomy and language means they have an entirely different consciousness than ours- they are aware of the processes, I suspect, by which they and we are conscious, and how mechanical many of our "preferences" are. These abilities have to shape the values of symbiotes. They'd be pretty materialist, and it's not surprising that they wouldn't be interested in learning the perspective of hosts- species not conscious of themselves as symbiotes understand self-consciousness. It felt natural to see them so intimate with computer technology, and so unified, and uniform.
__Vsym and its spawns are so different, however, it's suggestive of a case of abberrant psychology. Its wiring is BAD, by its species' standards. I don't think you can extropolate directly from it to the probable origin of the species.
__I could see them originating in a lab, as suits for space exploration- kind of like a HAL you would wear. 😄 I can see such a mistake being made. I believed it in Blade Runner, where the mistake was those nifty personal servants, the Replicants. Who wouldn't want one of those- just as we all want symbiotes? 😄
__I could also see them evolving as predators...but not peaceful herd animals. LOL
__Do you not take PotS as canon, Sym?
__I have always interpreted the Vsym as well-meaning but dysfunctional, Red as something of a feral child- raised by an animal, I say, on wild, unsettled planet, with no exposure to sym civilization- and now Toxin as something with only slightly better chances than Red...
__How long can Toxin consider Pat a viable authority figure? Any longer than it takes Toxin to figure out how blind Pat is to the working of his own brain? Or how difficult Pat finds it to make adjustments to himself that would improve his outcomes? Would you take moral instruction from someone not aware of himself in the way you understood self-awareness? I think you'd turn and begin to regard Pat as the child, deserving a voice, yes, but a non-compelling one. In the long run, that wouldn't be good for them, because as Red knows (and the Vsym once seemed to know), this isn't a symbiote's world, it's a man's world. It's best to let the human do a lot of the navigating.
__I mean, LOOK as how well Kasady has done for Carnage. If Red were leading, I'm sure they'd end up at odds with human society more often. Every five minutes, instead of every ten, perhaps.