bluefox4

[bluefox4]

Book 17, The Underground, had a total thermal count of 0.

The total thermal count remains at 72 times.

Thermal Count

So, having knowledge about Animorphs without reading it before, I know that the word thermal is a thing in the fandom. I figured that I'd track every time the word is said.

In The Invasion, the word thermal is said a total of 4 times. Three times in chapter 12 on page 87; and one time in chapter 13 on page 95.

[bluefox4]

I kicked the rest of the barrels into the pool, just so Marco couldn't possibly miss. Then Cassie went off to free the others. The Hork-Bajir, the Taxxons, and the human-Controllers were still busy being very, very still. If any of them had shown initiative, they could have probably taken us out. They might well have been able to get Marco before he could hit one of the barrels. But you know what? Terrified underlings never show initiative. The Yeerks there may have hated us. But they were terrified of Visser Three. p. 154-155

A little joke about Marco's aim. And then the meat of this passage.

If your minions are terrified of you then they can't think for themselves when they need to. This seems to be a design flaw. I wonder if this is true for other Vissers?

Rachel, Cassie, and Marco were able to throw a random plan together on the fly; in part because they aren't terrified of Jake getting upset with them for not waiting for his orders.

[bluefox4]

It turned out yes, yes, he cared. Visser Three would sacrifice hundreds of his fellow Yeerks to the oatmeal madness. After all, it was war, and sacrifices had to be made sometimes. But those sacrifices obviously did not include him. p. 154

Just as many leaders before him. The foot soldiers can be sacrificed but someone important like him, no. Never. He is too important to meet that fate.

[bluefox4]

He was writing off five hundred of his own people. Condemning them to madness. He didn't care. It would be a setback, but that was all. Beyond that, he didn't care. Visser Three cared for nothing. Oh, wait. Visser Three did care about one thing. p. 151

Rachel has a plan.

I ignored her. No time for pain. No time. I had to play this out. Fortunately, I know just a little about Andalite physiology. See, they eat and drink through their hooves. Right now the Visser was absorbing the water of the Yeerk pool. I glared with my one remaining eye at the Visser, floundering in the pool. <Now do you care if we blow up that barrel?> I asked him. <Now do you care?> p. 152-153

If Visser Three possibly shares the same fate as his fellow Yeerks in the pool he might care about the threat.

[bluefox4]

"Grizzly bear. It's butt-kicking time!" "No, wait!" Cassie said. "The stupid oatmeal! That's the key. If that was in the pool, they'd all go nuts. At least it would be a huge distraction." "We have to get out the front door of this place, around the building, back to the shed where they store it. A long way." Marco nodded, like a wise gorilla. <Doesn't that mean it's right back here?> He pointed through the wall. I smiled. "Come to think of it, it would be a lot shorter trip if we went through the wall." "Through the wall. Then through the two Hork-Bajir guarding the oatmeal. Then what?" Cassie asked. "Then . . . " I began. I sighed. "I don't know." <Good plan,> Marco said. p. 144

I get the feeling that Cassie and Marco both kind of walked Rachel into knowing what they needed to do. Like maybe not on purpose but they sort of built on each other here.

Cassie points out that the Oatmeal can be used as a distraction and stops Rachel from going grizzly bear. Then after Rachel has laid out the path that they would have to use to get to the oatmeal with grizzle Marco points out that there is a shorter method to getting there. Rachel is the one that puts the pieces together to go, we need to go through the wall. But it feels like Marco and Cassie sort of teamed up there.

It's planning on the fly either way.

And we know that Rachel is smart, but once she has an idea she can be stubborn about it if she doesn't think of it or has a course that she was planning. So redirecting her from that plan to a more sensible one might have been needed.

[bluefox4]

The Hork-Bajir dragged the girl into the building. The older man handed the Rubbermaid to another human-Controller. "Too many of our people going host-happy. These human hosts can be insidious. Check this in with the contraband locker." "They're running out of room over there. They've taken in over two hundred human pounds of this stuff." p. 134-135

The human hosts are the insidious ones here? I guess they assume that its a combo of human host + instant maple and ginger oatmeal = addiction. But really, you're going to blame the people that you're taking over for this?

Also, I was wondering how they were going to get the chemical weapon down here with how close to the end of the book I've gotten. They were originally just making sure that they could get down here and figure out how to get the oatmeal to where they needed it when things went off the rails. But luckily for them, there's already 200 pounds of the stuff. I guess Marco didn't have to go a buy a bunch of oatmeal.

[bluefox4]

I looked inside. Then I smiled. I reached in and lifted out a hand-sized Dracon beam. "Cool." The grip was weird. Designed for Hork-Bajir hands. But that was okay. Right by my thumb there was a slide. It went up and down. "Power settings," I decided. I had to use my middle finger to reach the trigger. Sudden light! A door opened. A Hork-Bajir warrior was framed there. He blinked once in the darkness. I raised my hand and squeezed the trigger. TSEEEEEWWW! The Hork-Bajir dropped like a sack of dirty laundry. I stepped over to him. He was still breathing. I was breathing, too, in ragged gasps. "So, that was the low-power setting," I said. p. 127

Luckily the Yeerks store the deadly weapons without the safety on AND on the lowest setting. Otherwise Rachel wouldn't have been able to knock them out so quickly. And might have killed someone by accident.

[bluefox4]

best part of KPop Demon Hunters is all the ridiculous faces the girls make

[bluefox4]

Well, Rachel, I thought, you sure don't wan to end your life as a one-winged bat. I began to demorph. There, floating amidst the enemy, I began to emerge back into human form. I was under the pier! I reached, hoping i had something like a hand. Rough, stubby fingers scraped along the steel underside of the pier. I thrust a face that was half-human and half-bat up into the three inches of air space. p. 119

Hey, this is just a thought, but maybe you guys should test to see if you can morph earplugs if your going to keep falling into the Yeerk pool? And having to demorph in it?

Why earplugs might work

Skin tight: its in your ears

It did take a while for any of you to figure out how to morph clothing; so maybe with practice you could morph them

it would act as an ear guard against accidental Yeerk infestation

Why they might not

Morphing order could somehow mess that up

Last book we did see that the bullet that entered Jake did just fall out when morphing. Admittedly Jake wasn't trying to keep it

It could also be like the incident in The Escape with the chips and could prevent them from morphing to small

Just maybe worth a shot? Try to test it out sometime? Maybe?

[bluefox4]

THUD. A Yeerk bumped into me. I froze. Nothing. SLOOP. A Yeerk brushed against me. Nothing. It hit me then. <Oh, man. They're blind. They can't see when they're in the pool. They can't see without using some host's eyes.> So how did they find their way back to their host when it was time? Smell? Sound? Some other sense? p. 117

Interesting. I'm sure that this will be answered later. It seems like too much like a Chekhov's Gun to not be brought up later. But good to know that they can't see in their natural state.

[bluefox4]

<Hey,> Tobias said. <I think we have company. Over there.> I looked around. I saw two shiny steel balls. Each was about the size of a beach ball. My echolocation confirmed their size. And they were moving toward us through the air. <Hunter robots!> Ax yelled. <We should leave.> <Why?> I asked. But at that very moment, I had my answer. TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW! TSEEEEEWWW! Three narrow Dracon beams fired from the balls. I felt a sharp pain in my right wing. I smelled something burning. And when I looked, I saw a neat, round hole the size of a quarter burned through the leather of my wing. p. 111-112

So, when Visser Three upped the security around the Yeerk pool he went all out, huh?

Are Hunter robots something that the Yeerks made or tech that they acquired elsewhere?

And how much trouble are these going to be in future books?

[bluefox4]

<Now we figure out how to get that oatmeal in here and feed it to a bunch of human-Controllers,> Tobias said. <You know . . . maybe we don't have to give it to human-Controllers,> Cassie said. <I don't know why it didn't occur to me before. But it's the Yeerks that can't resist the stuff, right? So why don't we dump it right in the Yeerk pool itself?> <Would it work?> Tobias wondered. <I thought all Yeerks ate was Kandrona rays. Do they even have mouths?> <Yes,> Ax said. <Yeerks have mouths. Or what humans would think of as mouths. Actually, if I remember my exo-biology classes, and sadly, I sometimes - > <Feel asleep,> I said. <Yeah, we know. You didn't like exo-biology class.> <I didn't fall asleep,> Ax said, sounding injured. <I merely let my mind wander, and became very calm and restful and not completely alert.> <Did you snore when you got all calm and restful and not completely alert?> <The point is, on occasion I would pay some attention in class. And I believe that Yeerks have something called osmosis nodes. It's what they use to absorb Kandrona rays, but they absorb other nutrients as well. They absorb from the liquid of the Yeerk pool.> <So if we dump enough instant maple and ginger oatmeal in this Yeerk pool, they should absorb it, right?> Jake asked. <Yes, Prince Jake. At least, I think so. Maybe.> p. 110-111

Cassie, the reason that you didn't think of it before was that you were having a bit of a moral crisis. I imagine that during parts of that discussion you were zoning in and out of it. Possibly spiraling.

But Cassie brings up a good point. Why subject the host to having a permanent headmate if you could just dump it into the Yeerk pool itself? They are still on the chemical weapon track, but maybe they don't have to subject the innocent hosts to the weapon as well.

And Ax gives us some much needed knowledge about Yeerk biology and what the liquid in the pool even does. Yeerks can absorb other nutrients from the liquid in the pool passively. They just have to swim around and whatever is in the water they will absorb. Probably whatever stuff is in that liquid is just as important to Yeerk health as the Kandrona rays are. Its just that the Kandrona rays have a more pressing need.

[bluefox4]

hes getting his own spinoff you guys!! did you know this?

[bluefox4]

be pro-aging but wear sun screen. sun protection is not beauty industry propaganda it will save you. wear it. or else.

[bluefox4]

Everyone in a group has a role to play. At least that's how it always works out. My role was to say, "Let's do it. Let's go. That's what we came here for." But I was tired. And I'd had a really, really bad few days digging down to this stupid cave. So I said, <Let's do it. That's what we came here for.> Sometimes it's hard to get out of a role once you've started playing the part. p. 108

The only part that Rachel dropped was the 'Let's go' part.

But here it is again. The kids on some level acknowledging the role that they play in the team and what they are supposed to do. Marco did this in The Escape; where Jake spelled out his role and how him not joking around was unnerving everyone else. We're had this in the past two Jake books: The Forgotten and The Warning, where Jake looks at his role of leader and what he is supposed to do.

And now we have Rachel acknowledging her role in the team. She isn't allowed to back down because to the rest of the team she is fearless. She is the one that wants to get things done now and not put them off. So even though she doesn't want to; here she is saying let's get this show on the road.

[bluefox4]

"Ah, MAN!" Marco moaned. "Buried in bat - " "Guano," Cassie said, supplying the word. "Yeah, guano. That's what I was gonna say. Guano." p. 102

Marco being actively prevented from swearing this time. Because we all know what he was about to say there was shit.

[bluefox4]

Please reblog for larger sample size :)

Propaganda : You saw that scene with the DJs in Detective Pikachu.