Do you mean entomologists rather than etymologists?

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You know how we like put shoes on ants right feet and it makes them go around in circles because they don't understand what's going on. Like "Normally when I walked like this I get home just fine "

Now That's a fun curse

Seems almost Fey.

As you walk home your mind drifts to thoughts of what you want to do when you're home. And of your previous battles, you walk the path that you've walked everyday since your childhood.... You end up miles to the West

That's a story element in Babylon 5. Some of the ancient alien races had evolved to the level of gods. One of them guided several alien races, in our case creating the myth of angels.

Piquing a demigods's curiosity, returning to your home city and finding it's been turned to metal and everyone is fused into the walls/floors.

shows the cruel indifference of many of the gods

Just that so far no gods have materialized in our world to study or even interact with us :/

Here you go

So if you're lonely, you know I'm here waitin' for you

I'm just a crosshair, I'm just a shot away from you

I think it's widely accepted that it's a mix of:

Changing environment + being less competitive than homo sapiens (not sure "war" is the right word) + intermingling (Nenaderthals and HomoSapiens bred together into the modern day human) (yes, you're the analogue of a half-elf.)

Giving human history of treating humans of the same species with slightly different genetic features... I'm almost glad of not knowing what we would have done to a whole different species.

"It's the humans rights declaration, not the hominids rights declaration"

Ok, but this is more like if one of those was a bird.

Yes, but all from the same line. Less like fantasy and more like Rimworld.

Europeans fucked them into extinction

I think we also interbreed some of them out

In the long run? The colony that avoids open conflict unless it's absolutely necessary to spare lives and energy. Guessing that's how these two ended up like this.

I would say the ants.

Termites would be the equivalence to a hippo in or out of water (wood, for them) while the ants would be hyenas. One on one, the termite would win, but ants tend to have the numbers and their bodies are more built for tearing tearing apart flesh/exoskeletons. With termites, it only really the soldiers that are capable of attack/defense while most ants in a colony are capable of such.

I think they made that game recently,I don't recall the name, but I'm positive an any rts was released recently.

If you like fantasy the series Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky is basically that concept in book form.

I grew up with SimAnt and look how I turned out!