I think this is a really apt metaphor. (Also loving reading your words again and so glad you’re blogging this.) You’re right; there is no single “boss” signal really telling the body to assemble. No one thing snaps its fingers and it’s done. The formation of a system is the result of slow and consistent communication between a bunch of little signal-givers and gatekeepers and etc. I think that’s an apt metaphor for a C3N, at least the ones I have gotten to know. It’s all of us “small people” having to engage. No one cells thinks it is responsible for making the body be the body, but without that cell, the body wouldn’t be the same.