nerd-of-kittendom

[nerd-of-kittendom]

I think my favorite part of V3 giving raw eggs and lettuce to V1 is that he frickin knows what humans eat. His whole Aria act wouldn’t have lasted for most of book 23 if he didn’t know what and how humans eat. Ah, yes Tobias there’s your totally human relative eating raw eggs and lettuce.

Right!?!? It's so clearly just a mindfuck, like pretending not to notice that Eva needs medical care. Visser Three uses at least three different human morphs and has been on Earth for years at that point. There's no way that's an honest mistake, and Visser One knows it.

[nerd-of-kittendom]

It's descriptions imply that the Kandrona Particle/Wave Generators used on Earth are not widecast emitters, but narrowcast emitters that direct to an unknown something that concentrates the particles in the waters of the Yeerk Pool.

To use something smaller as a pool would require either a widecast emitter or a smaller or personal generator. They did try a widecast emitting generator that would have made such possible, but it was destroyed before becoming operational and likely caused massive monetary issues with its destruction and so was never tried again. The option of mass producing personal generators was also tried, but also failed due to destruction and was never tried again.

Combining the Yeerk Empire's severe logistics issues and the low priority of the Earth Invasion in the grand scheme of the war, these losses were probably too much for them to handle and so they were just left with the central pool with narrowcast emitting generator option.

Question for the Animorphs fans in the audience: considering Kandrona is a type of radiation, and the Earth-based Kandrona generator was at the top of a tall tower, why do Yeerks need the Yeerk pool? Why not just have a fellow Controller guard the host while the yeerk go feed in a bowl?

[nerd-of-kittendom]

Not explained, however it does use the same technology and energy source, so likely Z-space. However, it didn't follow the two hour limit or any normal morphing restrictions, so it's all debatable. Helmacrons seem to be much more advanced in morph field technology than even the Andalites.

wait a second what happens to your extra mass if the helmacrons shrink you. did they ever explain that one

[nerd-of-kittendom]

The Andalites genocided The Five. They told the next generation that it was because The Five commited crimes against life itself and systematically destroyed all evidence that could prove this point either way

The Andalites genocided the Hork Bajir. They denied their actions and told the next generation that the Hork Bajir were genetically programmed to murder each other at a regular frequency. They worked very hard to ensure that there was noone left to counter this claim.

The Andalites began making plans to "quarantine" the Earth. We're told this is the first step towards justifying genocide to the public.

A pattern emerges. How many other times has this played out?

We're told that destroying the Leeran continent will do no harm to the Leeran ecosystem, but there's no way that can be true.

The Yeerk Homeworld is "quarantined" but noone has broken this quarantine in either direction for years, does the planet even still exist?

[nerd-of-kittendom]

Dumpster is a brand name that has been genericised. The trademark over the "dumpster" name was cancelled only in 2015, so it's capitalised for using a trademarked brand name.

I really do have to ask at this point:

Why do Animorphs books always capitalize Dumpster?

[nerd-of-kittendom]

To be honest, I find the termite morph experience to be a lot more horrifying than the ant morph experience. The ant book deserves its reputation, but I also feel like the termite book is much more horrifying and rarely acknowledged. In the ant book, they lose their sense of self, but they at least manage to regain their wits and fight back against the other ants even if it goes terribly. In the termite book, they not only lose their sense of self, but they seemingly permanently lose their ability to exercise free will. The only reason they survive is that Cassie manages to fool the termite brain into killing the queen. She’s never able to truly overcome the termite mind—she basically does that thing where you squint and tell yourself that one thing looks like something else. Without that, they all would have been trapped as termites, forever without autonomy. Pretty horrifying if you ask me. How could you not have PTSD from that.

[nerd-of-kittendom]

The thing about the ants is that they were morphed into ants from another colony; that was quite probably their saving grace. If they had morphed ants from the same colony, it very well might have ended up the same way as with the termites.

To be honest, I find the termite morph experience to be a lot more horrifying than the ant morph experience. The ant book deserves its reputation, but I also feel like the termite book is much more horrifying and rarely acknowledged. In the ant book, they lose their sense of self, but they at least manage to regain their wits and fight back against the other ants even if it goes terribly. In the termite book, they not only lose their sense of self, but they seemingly permanently lose their ability to exercise free will. The only reason they survive is that Cassie manages to fool the termite brain into killing the queen. She’s never able to truly overcome the termite mind—she basically does that thing where you squint and tell yourself that one thing looks like something else. Without that, they all would have been trapped as termites, forever without autonomy. Pretty horrifying if you ask me. How could you not have PTSD from that.

[nerd-of-kittendom]

The Nahara, just like the Ssstram and the Mak from book 6, are species named as being controlled by the Yeerks and were never mentioned again. The Yeerk Cultural Rewrite starting from 16 including Hork-Bajir Chronicles pretty much entirely writes out the Nahara as the Hork-Bajir were the actual first species conquered by the Yeerks en masse (the others like the odd Ongachic were small numbers), making it look like Ax was mistaken, lying, or was lied to.

But then . . . a species called the Nahara . . . By the time we found out, it was too late. p. 153

Do we ever see the Nahara in the series or do we just have a name drop here?

[nerd-of-kittendom]

i don't have screenshots this time (there's not really any passages that capture it as succinctly as in other books), but The Conspiracy is definitely in the running for being The Jake Book That is the Most Jake™. i like that we see him fall apart here. it's a great contrast to The Reunion, it's immediate predecessor. Marco makes a plan to kill his mother('s body). he's ultimately unable to go through with it, sure, but he makes that plan, and he goes into it eyes open. Jake can't even really begin to consider doing that to Tom. he talks about killing the Yeerk in Tom's head, sure, but he hasn't yet reached the point of being willing to take Tom out as a part of that equation.

The Conspiracy is a little more than halfway through the series, and the series runs approximately three years (i'm pretty sure it's 1997-2000, based on some pop culture references, but it's been a while since i actually bothered to figure it out). we're not given many clear indicators of exactly how much time passes between books, but i'm gonna make things simple and assume it's been about a year and a half. Jake is fourteen or fifteen. in a year and a half, he's going to order Tom's death. as i read this one, i can't stop thinking about that.

[nerd-of-kittendom]

Not without knowing the Frolis Manoeuvre too.

At least here, the Furry community is pretty hard line on no quads to be clearly strong stanced against zoo. Anthro only.

after the war, marco maintains an email inbox on the animorphs' behalf. a good 70% of emails they get are from furries who just want access to the morphing tech themselves

[nerd-of-kittendom]

How in the world does someone explain game changer season 7 episode 1 with no background context. I feel like showing it to a normal person would be like giving a caveman meth

[nerd-of-kittendom]

I always figured it as wholly in the military sense.

The "names" of the Yeerks at this point were not names but instead military ranks; Iniss isn't at this point Chapman's Yeerk's name but his rank. Same with Temrash in book 6. Ignore any Yeerk naming conventions from book 16 and later for anything prior to book 16, the entirety of Yeerk history and culture was rewritten at book 16.

A century or centuria is a Latin term for a military unit consisting of 100 soldiers.

So "an Iniss of the Second Century" makes perfect sense here if you think of it more as "a Commander of Second Army Division".

"He showed me . . . he showed me how he destroyed Iniss One-Seven-Four." Ms. Chapman looked shocked. "He used a Vanarx on an Iniss of the second century?"

I have... I number of questions about how Yeerk naming conventions work. Like, this implies that the 1st number of their names refers to the "century" the Yeerk was born in (so Iniss Two-Two-Six - Chapman's yeerk - would be an Iniss of the third century, a first century yeerk would start with zero, etc.).

How long is a Yeerk century? If their planet circles their sun faster than Earth a "century" could be something like 20 Earth years or something, I guess. But even if their planet's years are shorter that still raises a lot of questions. We later learn that Visser 3's name is a four-digit number, for example.

I just have a lot of questions here and I wonder if at some point the worldbuilding that went into this line just fizzled out or what.

[nerd-of-kittendom]

spin this wheel for a length of fic. you have to write a fic that length

[nerd-of-kittendom]

Except the Mertil and Gafinilan situation explains that they do, precisely because of their situations.

Gafinilan explicitly states that Mertil can't heal his tail because he can't morph, and that nothliting is the only cure to Soola's Disease because the disease is genetic. They know that morphing heals, but that their situations can't be fixed this way.

Do you think that Andalites in general didn't know that injuries to your base body could be healed by morphing and that's why Elfangor didn't morph at the beginning of #1? And the Animorphs are simply doing Achievements in Ignorance?

This would explain so much about the way andalites use morphing (and don't) throughout the series. Like, #8 and #54 mention andalites with scars, and #18 implies that the T.O. thinks losing his tail is permanent. I love the idea that you have to intend morphing to heal your base form, and that if you don't specifically intend it then it won't happen.

So Rachel's ear piercings don't heal over, because she doesn't want them to (#32). Tobias's wing doesn't heal with a demorph, because he doesn't know how to make it happen (MM2). Asculan's missing an eye, apparently permanently, because he has no idea morphing could change that (#54). Mertil and Gafinilan are disabled because they believe the only alternative is nothliting (#40). And yeah, Elfangor dies because he assumes that morphing while that seriously injured would only serve to delay the inevitable (#1).

I love this idea. I'm incorporating this into my reality. Headcanon accepted.

[nerd-of-kittendom]

Point that out a lot. It is genocide, forced through threat of death on prisoners. Within one generation everything that the Yeerks ever were or ever would have been is dead; their people, their culture, their knowledge, gone.

HBC shows Esplin interacting with a computer. Yeerks can do palp interface with computer systems and connect fully to them. They can sift through computers with their mind with that connection, quite like the psychotronic control systems on Yeerk and Andalite ships.

Given that their symbiote-host connection is neuron to neuron interface hijacking, if you could construct a cybernetic neural network, they could probably control it directly in the same way as a host. Friend of mine has a little OC group that are working off the exact concept iirc, Yeerk controlling a cybernetic host through an artificial neural net I mean.

while giving morphing power to yeerks does indeed make a lot of sense for the end of animorphs i still cant get over how nothliting them all basically is like genocide ???? idk couldnt we have at least given a couple of them robot mechs or something. that would be pretty cool

[nerd-of-kittendom]

Are you focusing more on the sneaking aspect or the universe/aliens aspect?

I'm not too up on the former, though I put the question to my GM and they're recommending an adaptation of World of Darkness (Werewolf the Apocalypse), D20 Modern, Spycraft, BRPS, or GURPS (3rd or 4th ed.). For the latter, I recommend GURPS 4th ed. for how adaptive it is for aliens (I've made pretty decent Yeerks and Andalites on that system).

Let's say, for the sake of thought experiment, that I want to run an Animorphs style ttrpg campaign. Wat kind of system would I be best served by?

[nerd-of-kittendom]

Fanfiction?

I finished every animorph books in a month. what now.