#gleet biofilter

[i-assign-you-animorphs]

id also like a happy meal with extra happy

Of course!!

[church-of-crayak]

hey. hey. ever think about how ax knows how to combine DNA on the fly and only does it once to create his humansona. and then as far as I'm aware this is never brought up again.

(also do you think K.A.A. was Aware they were creating a straight up intersex character, or)

the frolis maneuver is actually brought up one other time, when elfangor makes his human morph and becomes a nothlit to stay with loren on earth. i do think it's weird that i'd only have two nickels, though, because you'd think this kind of insane tech would be explained more or used in other contexts, but i guess there were just. not enough applications for it to matter??? i guess??? even though ax's human morph is commented on in pretty much every book he uses it in.

i feel like, using the frolis maneuver, you could pose as a random controller pretty easily for like, spy-work, at least outside the pool, but who knows. i also wonder how the gleet biofilter exactly works in the books, because from what i'm seeing from a gloss-through (i meant for it to be brief, but it just left me with more questions and now ive been at this for an hour), in the tv show it can sniff out the lack of yeerk in your brain, and in the books the biofilter can't actually detect anything inside the body of anything else??? even though cassie goes through the biofilter with tidwell in her brain, and says it detected "only yeerk and human", exactly ONE book before that the animorphs, confusingly, successfully negate it by sneaking in through the nostrils of a cow...! which seems weird, to me. if the biofilter can detect a yeerk through the scalp and skull of a human, why can't it detect a fly in a cow nose??

anyway, i think you could make potentially infinite random guys to morph into and pose as to sneak past the biofilter. depending on whether it allows non-infested humans through or not. which seems to be a big fat question mark. if so, more "fun" missions to drag tidwell and aftran into!

and as for applegate Knowing she was creating an intersex character, i think that's something you'd have to ask her. super cool that it turned out that way though!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

anitv Jake did WHAT

OP refers to these tags #4d chess psychological warfare#like that time in anitv jake acquires tom and successfully talks a bunch of controllers into shooting the real tom

The episode "Face/Off Pt. 3" is a classic combination of AniTV having some plot ideas with fascinating potential... and then executing those ideas so badly the show is nigh-unwatchable.

Various Animorphs are running around the yeerk pool in the season finale. (Rachel is in Tobias's brain as a yeerk to defeat the Gleet Biofilter, speaking of cool ideas that got wasted.) Jake drags Tom into a back room, and when the controllers break down the door, there are two identical copies of Tom standing there. It's kinda cool that the audience also doesn't know which one's Tom and which is Jake, because both of them immediately start shouting about how the other one is an imposter and the controllers should shoot that guy.

For the rest of the episode — which switches to focus on how Marco collapses the entire yeerk pool cavern by pulling down a single ceiling tile and throwing it against a pillar — there are two copies of Tom running around. There's some dramatic tension when we see one of the Toms get crushed to death by falling rubble and don't know if Jake just died, as well as in a later scene where one of the Toms walks in on Cassie mid-morph. That Tom demorphs into Jake, with the honestly funny line "Phew! My parents were about thirty seconds away from having a set of identical twins." Original flavor Tom is dead in the basement, but that's fine, because the Animorphs are off to a dance party. Also, Tom's back two episodes later with no explanation because Melissa Chapman needs a boyfriend. Sigh. So much potential, so badly wasted.

[regexkind]

Getting the ol' Kandrona-starvation for installing a Gleet BioFilter across the drive-thru window of this Starbucks. I know it's a breach of covert operations, but damn were there a fuckton of flies making their way past the air curtain

[that-yeerk-you-know]

🪱 Though I've never been to pool myself, I figure I might add my 2 cents as far as to what I can guess l. There's a lot of advantages to having a secret place such as the Pools, but I figure the reasons are threefold (with a bunch of smaller reasons), security, networking/socialization, and comfort

🪱Yeah digging out a giant fucking chasm underneath a city is kind of stupid, but that being said, during the war we desperately needed to be able to have a place to organize with others of our kind without having to operate under cover 24/7, it's a lot of effort keeping up a human persona day-in-day-out. Limited entrances with Gleet Biofilters, places to store weapons and equipment foreign to Earth, stuff like that. We didn't have Chee cloaking so best we could do is dig out a secret place to hold it. Then, if we're gonna go to all the trouble to dig out a place for our stuff, why not put a pool in there, right? Why eat your lunch in a closet or a warzone (portable kandrona or surface pool under risk of intrusion) when you can have a big park to meet others.

🧠 Also, as someone who has put her in a fish tank, she gets cranky when she has less than 100 gallons. Temperamental little things

🪱 I am not temperamental, your human tanks are inadequate to house us.

🪱 But yes, anyways, I'm sure there are more obvious reasons, but just a few from us :3

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?

[lorenfangor]

things that IMO deserved their own books that didn’t get their own books (that were implied or referenced in the actual series canon)

how they found out about the Yeerk-controlled TV station from #37

the throwaway line from #18 about how the Controller-dominated hospital was possibly doing genetic experiments down in the labs

Tom’s (presumed) graduation from high school

Cassie’s family history and how it ties into her ethical obligations to fight (she should have gotten a Civil War Flashback Book)

the fact that randomly by like book 50 they’ve figured out how to morph clothes, and we’re just told it took “a little practice”

the cold open to #42 with the Dunkin’ Donuts factory fight destroying a portable Kandrona manufacturing plant that has to be the culmination of months of research and planning and figuring out how to get past Gleet biofilters and new morphs and false leads and Erek banter and this should have been a book, this should have been the Jake book that #41 was, instead it’s like two chapters that lead into the fucking Helmacron Magic School Bus Book????? this is a major victory for them and it barely gets a glance!

as you can see I’m not opinionated at all.

[swan2swan]

“We don’t need to all morph cows,” Cassie said. “The Gleet BioFilter doesn’t eliminate organisms inside of other organisms.”

I was going to ask that earlier but passed on that, and yet, here it is!

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

How to Identify a Controller

In post-invasion America, the threat of the Yeerks returning remains in the back of everybody’s mind. Rumors of Yeerk warlords with delusions of grandeur, Yeerk pirates raiding the far-flung traderoutes between Earth and other friendly planets, and the Skrit-Na always talking about the “New Yeerk Empire” has led to the pioneering of several new techniques which may be able to detect Yeerks in a quick and timely manner.

So today, let us go over the ways that Humanity in 2020 might be able to detect Yeerk invaders, and what drawbacks each method has.

Method 1: Gleet Biofilters

Invented by the Andalites and made popular by the Yeerk Empire itself, the Gleet Biofilter began as a disease control system to limit the spread of illness among the Andalite population. The Yeerks, clever as they are, quickly realized that the Biofilter could be used to screen out other types of DNA such as unwanted animals, which could easily be Andalites in morph.

A notable drawback of the device is that while it can certainly destroy unwanted animals attempting to pass through the filter, it will not destroy anything located inside a verified user. This is a safety feature intended to protect the symbiotic gut flora many verified users have,, but it also means that if a Controller steps through the filter, it will detect the Yeerk but completely fail to stop the Yeerk from going through. Additionally, improper installation often leaves gaps in security that morph-capable Controllers could exploit. And lastly, due to the fact Gleet Biofilters rely on a database of acceptable and unacceptable DNA signatures, it is possible that this database could be compromised to allow Yeerks through without raising any alarms at all if the significant firewalls protecting the Biofilter’s internal computers were breached.

Method 2: Continuous Observation

A tried and true method, an observation period of 3 Earth Days can generally confirm if a subject is free of any Yeerks. The American organization known as the Center for Disease Control recommends an observation period of no less than 84 Earth hours, or 3.5 Earth Days, as it is impossible to determine exactly how long it has been since a suspected Yeerk last fed. While most Yeerks typically enter the fugue at around 72 hours, some Yeerks were known to have lasted as long as 80 hours without feeding during the war, which makes extensions past the traditional “three days” prudent.

It should also be pointed out that observation of a Yeerk can quickly reveal the Yeerk’s presence by exposing personality shifts that would be typically associated with Yeerk infestation, and in many cases may cause the Yeerk to expose itself out of sheer frustration.

A potential drawback of this method is the sheer amount of time it takes, especially if your subject is combative. In 2004, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Chapman v. California that a three-day hold in a jail cell under suspicion of being a Controller is a legal detainment under probable cause, but that the suspect’s combativeness may not be assumed to be proof of a Yeerk’s presence, as even innocent people can quickly become agitated and combative when detained against their will.

Another potential drawback of this method is the possibility of the Yeerks modifying their host with implants which emit Kandrona, utilizing an injectable Kandrona-enriched solution, or otherwise finding ways around the three day time limit.

Method 3: Kandrona Imaging

Another method invented by the Andalites as a form of medical imaging, Kandrona Imaging functions similarly to an X-ray. A subject is asked to stand in front of a powerful Kandrona emitter for a brief period of time, and detectors measure the amount of Kandrona radiation that passes through their head. Any larger-than-predicted losses of Kandrona radiation, such as those caused by the presence of a Yeerk (which absorbs some of the radiation), immediately flags the subject as a potential Controller.

However, this method is not useful when dealing with Human-Controllers, as Human skulls are dense and thick enough to block most Kandrona radiation. This method is only useful in creatures with skulls that are transparent to Kandrona radiation, such as Taxxons.

Method 4: Kandrona Re-Emission Imaging

Similar to the above method is a method developed by the Yeerk Empire to counter Mak rebels. Members of the Free Mak Resistance were known to infiltrate Yeerk Pools by blending in with Controllers on their way in and out of the Yeerk Pool, and they were known to bypass Gleet Biofilters by smearing crushed Yeerks across their skin, fooling the DNA sensors.

The Yeerk solution to this problem was the Kandrona Re-Emission Imager. The imager worked by flashing incoming Controllers with a large burst of Kandrona and then measuring the results. When a Yeerk absorbs Kandrona, it re-emits the Kandrona at a longer “waste” wavelength, which can easily be detected by standard Kandrona measuring devices. The Mak Rebels, having smeared Yeerks across their skin, would then stand out from the Controllers because the Yeerk cells on their skin would re-emit waste Kandrona.

The drawbacks of this method are much the same as Method 3, with both Kandrona and waste Kandrona being unable to penetrate Human skulls.

Method 5: Lumbar Puncture- Cerebrospinal Fluid Analysis

This method, unknowingly discovered by Human doctors during the Yeerk War, is perhaps the most foolproof way to detect a well-prepared Yeerk. The methodology is simple and robust: a sample of cerebrospinal fluid is extracted via lumbar puncture and analyzed for Yeerk proteins. If processed immediately, results are available within the hour.

This method was first discovered in 1997 after a large number of people in the greater Los Angeles area came down with an unspecified neurological disorder, now known to be caused by exposure to Instant Maple and Ginger Oatmeal. Human doctors, unaware of the nature of the disorder, began administering spinal taps to try and determine what was causing these otherwise-healthy Humans to begin freaking out so suddenly. What the doctors discovered was a series of unknown and complex proteins completely unlike anything Humans produce.

CDC officials initially hypothesized that an outbreak of a previously unknown brain parasite might be responsible for the strange proteins before suddenly declaring that there was nothing wrong at all and that everybody should join The Sharing. The CDC’s investigation of the Yeerks is remembered by historians as the first attempt by the US government to uncover and counter the Yeerk invasion.

Later analysis of the unknown proteins in 2001 confirmed that they matched Yeerk proteins. The CDC, now free of Yeerks, quickly recommended the method to the World Health Organization as a vital component in Humanity’s defense against further Yeerk incursions.

The only notable drawback of this method is the extreme inconvenience (and possible pain) caused by a spinal tap, as the subject may not be able to function normally for several days after the extraction.

Method 5b: Lumbar Puncture- Yeerk Protein Antigen Injection

A proposed alternative to simply looking for Yeerks is to inject Yeerk Protein Antigens into a Human’s cerebrospinal fluids to induce an immune reaction. This allows the neuroimmune system to recognize the Yeerk as a hostile parasite, and  the resulting immune response would theoretically be enough to disrupt a Yeerk’s control of the host and possibly drive the alien out of the host entirely, either by stimulating the release of chemicals that irritate a Yeerk’s sensitive exterior lining or by directly attacking the Yeerk’s cells with white blood cells.

If it is unknown whether or not a subject is a Controller, this method could quickly expose any Yeerk while simultaneously providing the Human with some resistance to future infestation. In addition, this method could be coupled with cerebrospinal fluid analysis for guaranteed detection of a Yeerk regardless of the Yeerk’s response.

This method shares the same drawback as the cerebrospinal fluid analysis method, as lumbar punctures can often leave Humans unable to move without pain for several days.

[brotheralyosha]

“Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco, and Tobias exist in my memory as real people who endured unspeakable horror. I may not remember the details of the Animorphs’ trip to the rainforest, but I recall with absolute clarity the crushing dread suffered by Jake, the reluctant leader with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I don’t remember why Rachel had to morph into a giant squid, but I will never forget Rachel herself, the popular fashionista turned unstoppable killing machine—how much she loved the war, how deeply disturbed she was by her own newfound bloodlust, how her fellow Animorphs increasingly relied on her to do their dirty work even as they quietly speculated that she was a psychopath. (She’s the character who tends to get invoked nowadays as a feminist role model, a flattening oversimplification that I think does her a disservice.) I still can’t decide whether Cassie, the idealistic pacifist, was brave or naive for sympathizing with the Yeerks and occasionally trying to compromise with them. I still choke up when I think of Marco, who discovered that his mother’s body was possessed by the highest-ranking Yeerk and that he would have to kill her. (“I love you, Mom,” he whispered as he pushed her off the cliff. My heart!) I could talk about all of this forever.”

“But if you didn’t read them in the nineties, I have little hope of convincing you. The books are long out of print. You can dig up crumbling old copies here and there, but I doubt you’ll see past the sans serif font, the barrage of sub–Star Trek sci-fi babble (Kandrona rays, Gleet BioFilters, Z-space transponders), the cartoony onomatopoeias littering every page—hawk-Tobias screeching Tseeeer!, Yeerk laser blasters going TSEEEW! TSEEEW!, our heroes constantly screaming “AAAAHHH!” Can I really demand, in good conscience, that you read fifty-four of these? Even if you did, it wouldn’t replicate being twelve years old at the supermarket in 1998 and reveling in the sheer abundance of it all. These books were designed for that twelve-year-old, not for you. They were made to be disposable.”

“To be an Animorphs fan today is to witness for a cult religion that will never gain another convert. We live in a different world now, a world in which publishers pay a single author to write a handsome show horse of a hardcover once a year, rather than employing dozens of ghostwriters to crank out flimsy assembly-line paperbacks all day long. In such a world, Animorphs will always fall short of the aesthetic standard set by Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. This is unfair, since by many other standards it’s the superior series. It certainly deserves its own movie franchise. But as the Animorphs knew too well—as all twelve-year-olds know—life isn’t fair.”

“The mystery of Animorphs is not why it’s been forgotten, but how it managed to be so good in the first place. How did it happen that the Scholastic factory, grinding out book after book after book, squeezed out a diamond amidst the coal? What made Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco, and Tobias leap off the page and stay with us forever? I’m about to get a graduate degree in fiction and I still don’t know how that part works. I know it’s no likelier to happen in literary fiction than in science fiction, or children’s fiction, or fiction written very quickly for a faceless corporation. As far as I can tell, a novelist has very little control over the aliveness of her characters: either they spring to life on their own, or they don’t. I’m grateful to Applegate et al. for showing me that all you can do—all any writer can do—is write. The rest is alien technology.”

[thenixkat]

Things I gotta figure out for my crossover/working on

So, this is a crossover b/w Animorphs (semihard/semisoft? scifi) and Ben 10 (soft sci-fantasy) and since Ben 10 shares a world with The Secret Saturdays (full sci-fantasy) also crossing over with that.

And for the purposes of things the city Animorphs takes place in is going to be made the same city as Bellwood. Both share plenty of features ie.

-A beach

-Lots of forests

-close to the Badlands/desert

-Not terribly far from a government base in the desert/Badlands that has rumors of alien stuff

that means that we have the Yeerks invading, Vilgax looking for the Omnitrix, Limax kidnapping the elderly, the Great One tries to devour the Earth, the mushroom people attempting to devour folks and spread their spores, Forever Knights being dicks, robo squids in the Bermuda Triangle, Ghostfreak (who’s real name I can’t spell) attempting to terraform the Earth, the Naga and VV Argost trying to take over the world, ‘cryptids’ around the world getting increasingly aggressive all to account for. Ans other things.

(plus all of my hcs)

So differences for the Animorphs side of things:

--There’s literally an underground secret town full of aliens, hybrids, mutants, and monsters near the city. Far enough that the yeerk pool stuff and facilities won’t run into it but still close to the city.

Theoretically, Ax (and any other aliens for that matter) could get a ride home. If he had money. Or something valuable enough to trade for either a ship or trip.

-- Undertown is staying out of things b/c the mayor and the majority of the inhabitants don’t really give a singular shit about what happens to the humans. Also wars are costly in lives and resources that they aren’t really willing to give without getting something in return. 

They also aren’t worried about being invaded or infiltrated by b/c the city has the magical equivalent of a gleet biofilter over it. As in a shield that keeps out uninvited yeerks and humans.

-- Monsters from cryptozology, folklore, folktales, and mythology/religion are generally real. They are descended from the god/dragon/eldrich abomination Kur. Kur has been reincarnated as a 12-13 yr old Black kid who’s a genuinely good person and also friends/friendly with Kevin.

‘Cryptids‘ are generally all sapient and somewhat immortal unless killed. This is more likely to be true the smaller a species population is given that the magic of the species is divided evenly between all members. ie. Zon has lit been around for several million years. 

Bigfoot is real. As are ghost deer. As are the giant dragons capable of swallowing the moon that sleep at the bottom of the ocean.

The mayor and the magical native inhabitants of Undertown aren’t worried about aliens b/c of the giant fucking dragons have fended off alien invasions before. Ya lasers don’t mean shit to giant snakes that can breathe in space and spit fire underwater.

Any space ships hanging out in the atmosphere will have to deal with atmospheric jellyfish that can shoot lightning. The sky jellies are absolutely capable of wreaking most ships if agitated.

-- There are human people who know about aliens on Earth. 

The Plumbers. Who are a military/police group that enforce the Galvan interplanetary treaties and agreed upon laws. They do not believe that Earth is ready to know about aliens and would try to keep things either on the down low or erase the evidence. Not terribly liked due to corruption and biases that plague most chapters.

The active Earth chapters are dying out b/c of low to no recruitment. ANd the majority of the human members either retired or headed there.

There are bases littering the US specifically with ships and weapons sitting in them.

The Secret Scientists and allies. WHo are a collection of fringe scientists and secret agents who are aware of aliens, magic, monsters, super tech, supervillians, and etc and are keeping this information hidden from the general public and certain governments for various reasons.

While they don’t have the numbers they do have ships and tech capable of fighting aliens.

Dr. Beeman’s specialty is aliens and he got Earth included in the Galvan Milky Way peace treaty. He may attempt to negotiate with the yeerks. (hc: he is immune to pretty much all forms of mind control)

-- Supervillains exist

There is a vampire zombie clown that robs towns with his circus and he also steals people to eat after the show.

Honestly, Peicemeal would def try to eat an andalite, hork-bajir, taxxon, or yeerk.  

VV Argost would probably be interested in the town with all the action and weird shit sightings.

--Andalites have a terrible reputation

Listen they’re tied to multiple genocides, are generally dicks to the more ‘primitive’ species, and are wannabe space cops. 

No one actually likes them.

--Every planet has more fucking biodiversity b/c fuck these half-assed worlds.

Wibbly things?

Combine Z Space with Ledgerdomain? Or make it associated?

What the fuck are the Animorphs doing b/c I’m def not paying attention to them?

The Pack and Animorph interactions? I have no idea b/c the Pack would pretty quickly decide that they don’t wanna work with them.

How long would the war actually last with free horks, taxxon rebels, yeerk rebels, and freed human hosts working together to take them down?

[ihasafandom]

And it adds such a fun dynamic when Tom's Amazing Morphing Controllers show up. Cause THEY can't do any of that. But the Animorphs have been unlocking the weirdest cryptid bermuda halfPress glitch-tech they can fumble into with teenage boredom an Ellemist assist for the past X years. Thought-speech across planets in human form and half-morph into 3 different things to change the speed of relative physics and then teleport past an active gleet biofilter broken hecking techs up in here.

i have no idea if you were the account that i said this to so if you’ve read it before i apologize.

but picture this: one day ax sends the gang telepathic images of cinnabons all day while they’re at school and they’re all sick of it, until marco concentrates really hard and sends ax an image of a middle finger and accidentally unlocks thought speak as a human

Headcanon accepted!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

How do you think the Chee got past Gleet BioFilters?

Two related theories:

That they're not technically alive, so the filter reads them as bots

That the filters themselves are so error-prone that no one finds the chee showing up as bots to be suspicious

Both of these come from the moment in #53 when Erek is pretending to be Cassie. A human-controller uses "a sensor probe" on a car containing fellow controllers, Erek-as-Cassie, and two insect morphs (Jake and Rachel). "'I only read two complex life-forms,' the guard said. 'I'm showing several insect readings, but only two complex life-forms: yours, [Tom], and the driver's. The prisoner is not registering as a Iife-form'" (#53). What's notable is what doesn't happen: no one gets dragged out of the car for further searches, no one gets shoved through a Gleet BioFilter, and Tom's yeerk doesn't even question why "Cassie" is showing up as "inorganic." Instead, the yeerks assume the scanner isn't working correctly, do a visual search ("I count three: one, two, three.") and wave the car through.

If that's the state of security around the Yeerk Empire — that any unusual output on a scanner is treated as a computer error rather than real intel — then that says a lot. If the head of security for the invasion force (Tom's yeerk) can't explain an error and dismisses an alarm, that's not a great sign for yeerk tech as a whole. It suggests that all that reverse-engineered andalite tech isn't working out so well for yeerk users. It implies that everyone is used to malfunctions, to the point where all alarms are treated as false. I've always assumed this moment means that yeerks with andalite tech are less like most bicycle riders (who can easily diagnose and fix almost all problems with their equipment) and more like most smartphone users (who face constant problems but have no recourse more nuanced than restarting the device).

Anyway, there's a difference between Gleet BioFilters not registering that any living being walked underneath, and registering that a morphed living being walked underneath. "Morpher" when none is present is a more serious error; "inorganic" when there's clearly a guy standing right there is a less serious one. If your car's "don't back up" sensor beeps, you turn your head, confirm there's nothing there, and then back up anyway while grumbling about the overengineered piece-a-crap you got talked into buying. It's not the "check engine" light, so fuhgettaboutit. You wouldn't assume you've got a ghost behind your car, you'd assume the stupid beepy thing is beeping without reason again.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Do you think Yeerks would show up on an MRI or something similar? Be interesting to see THAT used in a AU somewhere. (And whether a Yeerk possessing a morph-capable human Controller could get around it simply by morphing another human.)

I've always assumed that a yeerk would show up. It's a fleshy object the size of a large slug or small fish, and it's inside the person's skull. Animorphs is deliberately vague about exactly where it goes once in there (smushing around in the ventricles?) but it seems to be this giant extra mass that would show up on most scans. That might even be how Gleet Biofilters work — they shoot some kind of ray through the skull and go into zap-mode if no yeerk is detected.

I think the only reason we don't see brain scanning as an anti-controller mechanism is that it's a) expensive, b) finicky, and c) time-consuming. A friend who runs an fMRI lab once told me it costs ~$10,000 per day just to turn the machine on and use it to take a few brain photos, and anything beyond that (e.g. research or diagnosis) becomes even more expensive. There's a reason doctors don't recommend those things unless they suspect a potential emergency, and even then a lot of uninsured patients opt out. Lining up a few hundred potential controllers to scan them would be unfeasible, and for many people in line it would be faster just to watch them for three days.

An MRI or PET scan would almost certainly see a giant parasite inside the person's skull, but an MRI or PET scan can be sabotaged as easily as shaking your head slightly or moving your jaw around. Heck, a motivated controller could simply hide a piece of metal in their hair and destroy the entire MRI machine — you always get scanned with a metal detector before you go in, but metal detectors aren't perfect.

EEGs are cheaper, easier, and generally more pleasant (if you don't mind goo in your hair) but an EEG wouldn't necessarily pick up on a yeerk. EEGs are kinda like polygraphs: they're excellent at measuring mood and concentration, terrible at telling anyone where your mood is coming from or what you're concentrating on. CT scans can't penetrate the skull unless they irradiate the fuck out of you — again, only really done to prevent medical emergencies — so a CT scan probably wouldn't pick up on a yeerk unless they cranked the X-rays high enough to harm the patient.

TMS isn't technically a type of brain scan — it's sort of zapping your brain with magnets to temporarily turn off some of its electrical signals in certain areas — BUT I also think TMS might be a really interesting avenue for yeerk detection. If you could figure out how to use TMS to target just the yeerk and leave the human brain alone (this would take a lot of trial and error), then you could probably "turn off" the yeerk in a controller's brain while leaving the host's actual brain capabilities intact. So you hit the person with "yeerk-turn-off rays" from your TMS wand, and then ask them outright "Are you a controller?" while there's no possibility of a yeerk stopping them.

[ihasafandom]

Could also put Cassie as the telepath. She works well with that. That or like, luck manipulation or future vision. Jake on the other hand, you could give something that works with the everyman thing by having him be a poor man's Rogue. He uses a weaker version of whichever powerset is most important this mission, or a little of each of them. I could also see some kind of sonic powers maybe? not sure why I feel like that, but having him yell at a building and it collapses, and more importantly having to whisper all the time when he doesn;t want to use it, seems right. Ax, meanwhile, could have either glamours instead of outright shapeshifting, or have him be a technopath. Sneak him into your house on a floppy disk, use the internet to get access to the latest yeerk place and shut down the gleet biofilters. Turn off all the security cameras so the gang doesnt get caught.

Okay... Fun AU ideas... Instead of animal shapeshifting, the not-animorphs ended up being given an experimental piece of Andalite technology that gave them a grab-bag of X-men esque superpowers. (e.g. intangibility, ice generation, psychic abilities, etc, everyone with a different powerset)

This is a fun idea; I just don't know what to do with it. Does anyone else have thoughts?

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Okay but if we actually did have a POV from a yeerk about the events of the main books specifically (that is to say, not including the events in Visser), which yeerk would you say would be the most interesting to follow? Visser Three? Visser Seventeen*? Chapman's yeerk? Or maybe even Visser One?

I guess I’d say not Visser One or Visser Three, because we’ve already got their points of view in Visser and Hork-Bajir Chronicles.  I want to hear from one of the yeerks who hasn’t had the chance to narrate anything yet.

Tom’s yeerk (Visser Seventeen) or Chapman’s yeerk could work.  Especially if it’s a pre-#49 plot so we can get hilarious dramatic irony where there are simultaneously hyper-competent “andalite bandits” destroying everything and also dumb kids named Jake and Rachel and whatnot being useless and annoying in the background.  I would love to know what Iniss 226 (and the real Hendrick Chapman, for that matter) think about the endless parade of middle school drama and angst they’ve got to put up with all day.  Again, I think there’s a lot of comedy potential if the whole book (#12, maybe) is just an endless string of characters wandering in to the vice principal’s office to complain about each other or about totally inane problems.

Although if I had to choose any yeerk, I think I’d want one about whom we know nothing or almost nothing.  If we got to see a day in the life of a yeerk working the day shift in the Yeerk Pool cafeteria, or a Yeerk Peace Movement organizer just going about YPM business, then I think that would have by far the most potential for showing us a side of the yeerk invasion we don’t get to see.  

That said, I think this premise would be less comedy, more horror.  The ordinary yeerk in question might be a true believer in the cause who thinks of humans/taxxons/etc. as mere cattle.  The ordinary yeerk might not believe in the cause at all, but might see no way out of the situation given that the Yeerk Empire is the only source of kandrona on the entire planet.  The ordinary yeerk might even be actively resisting the Yeerk Empire and trying to help the hosts in some way.  No matter what, the ordinary yeerk would be directly in the line of fire for the events of pretty much any Animorphs book.  

That idea could explore the Animorphs as monsters: they’re these ultra-powerful beings who kill without hesitation, whose power specifically means that they’re impossible to contain.  They can be anywhere, at any time, and they can be anyone.  They’re capable of ripping entire warehouses in half with their brute strength, and they’re capable of slipping into security weaknesses as minuscule as the bathroom sinks.  They cannot be killed or even neutralized, because all wounds are momentary inconveniences for them.  They’re capable of hiding in plain sight, stealing DNA with a brush of the fingers and then using it with devastating consequence.  They’ve defeated hunter-killer robots, Gleet Biofilters, Vissers One and Three, the veleek, and entire armies of hork-bajir-controllers.  They’re an unstoppable force of destruction, and they’re coming for a yeerk pool near you.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Am I the only one who feels the end of the series was a bit rushed? I mean we spend almost 50 books where the yeerks and animorphs are fighting a secret war (with quite a lot of ultimately pointless side quests I might add) and then when the actual open war starts it's over in like 3 or 4 books. I just feel there could be a whole lot more drama if the climactic war was more than just one or two battles.

I guess my feeling about the middle-end of the series is that it is one of the few places where the first-person narration becomes a limitation rather than a strength.  Because, if you pay attention, the war effort does develop continuously throughout the series — but you have to pay close attention to realize that it’s happening, and it’s easy to miss some major developments.

We know that, from the perspective of the Yeerk Empire, the events of canon look something like this:

There’s a major battle with a Dome ship over Earth’s atmosphere, but the andalites come underprepared and the yeerks defeat them, killing all but a few stragglers who are stranded on Earth without their army.

The handful of surviving andalites make assorted trouble for the Yeerk Empire, most notably destroying a ground-based kandrona generator and causing massive food shortages throughout the invasion force for months to come.

Visser One lets the andalite bandits go after Visser Three captures them.  Multiple yeerks witness the andalite bandits protecting Visser One.  Visser One attempts to cut a deal with the andalite bandits to discredit Visser Three, and gets caught doing it.  Visser One gets put on trial for treason, and eventually executed.

The andalite bandits regularly destroy property, sabotage war efforts, discredit the Sharing, and free hork-bajir hosts.  This not only makes the yeerks look bad, but it also forces Visser Three to pour tons of resources into efforts — Gleet Biofilters, logging initiatives, helmacron tech, hunter ‘bots, veleeks, Anti-Morphing Rays, etc. — to try and do something about them.  It’s almost impossible to go on the offensive when the yeerks have no information about their attackers, and even defending takes way more effort than it should given the morphing tech.

The Yeerk Peace Movement grows steadily, as yeerks are ever-more disgruntled with Visser Three’s and Visser One’s constant backstabbing and the general bad leadership tactics within the invasion, as exacerbated by the andalite bandits.

During this time, the war is also happening on several other fronts.  The andalites and yeerks fight on Leeran, Anati, and other fronts; the Earth invasion is the only one that appears to be going well, mostly because humans are a Class Five species and therefore ideal for infestation.

The yeerks find out that the andalite bandits are human.  Human children.  Five human children, and one aristh.  Six children with no backup.  Suddenly, bringing down the hammer on Earth seems like a damn good idea, especially because there are no andalites to get in the way.

The yeerks get the morphing cube, and a few hundred of them gain the power to morph.  In spite of The Visser Formerly Known As Three attempting to contain the technology as much as possible, discontented yeerks are suddenly a) as powerful as him, and b) no longer reliant on hosts.  A splinter cell develops, and the first morph-capable human-controller — Tom’s yeerk — becomes its leader.

The taxxons decide that if yeerks can morph, then they should be able to do the same.  The free hork-bajir by now have sufficient numbers to be a threat all on their own.  The rebel yeerks start to plan a coup d’etat, and in the process conceal the fact that the andalites are coming to destroy the Earth.  The andalites decide that they can take out most of the yeerks if they just destroy this one measly little planet, and that the whole of humanity is a sacrifice they’re willing to make.

Those six kids without a clue cut a deal with the yeerk splinter cell, and with the taxxon rebellion, and with the hork-bajir force, and with the human army.  Visser One, Visser Three, and now Visser Seventeen* have been playing Jenga with the Yeerk Empire; the Animorphs come along and give the whole block tower a big ol’ push.

Anyway, a hell of a lot of that happens indirectly, or through implication.  A lot of what does happen between Visser Three and Visser One we only see later, or learn in overheard yeerk transmissions.  The andalites’ plan makes sense, but Ax doesn’t learn about the andalites’ plan until it’s already in motion, and the rest of the kids don’t learn about it until well after that.  There are hints upon hints in #43 - #49 that the yeerks are headed for open war before it finally happens in #50, and even then the process isn’t complete until #53, but the kids don’t have a ton of insider information on the yeerk invasion force.

So, I think that the war effort develops fairly steadily throughout the series, but that some really crucial things by necessity happen off-screen.  And I agree that that contributes to the rushed feeling, but I also love the narration so much that I’d be hesitant to ditch it, or even loosen it, enough to get more yeerk perspectives into the series.