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The Capture-Chapter 13quote:We demorphed as quickly as we could. When my human eyesight returned, I saw Ax, standing calmly in his Andalite form. Against the far wall was a man in a white coat, holding a clip board. He was crumpled and unconscious, but alive. Like I think we've talked about in the past here, Jake is trying to minimize harm to the host here quote:I took a look first at my own body. I was barefoot, like I always was when I came out of a morph. And wearing only my silly-looking bike shorts and tight T-shirt. (Even Ax can't figure out how to morph anything more than the most minima! clothing.) But I seemed to have all my usual legs and arms. Haven't really thought about it before, but "figure out how to morph clothing" probably isn't a priority for the Andalites, is it? quote:"You okay, Cassie?" I asked. So any takes on the morality of this? On the one hand, blind and pretty helpless creatures, who, in the pool, aren't a threat. On the other, waiting to get hosts and enslave humanity. quote:The door opened. A man and a woman, both wearing white lab coats. For a split second they just froze and stared. They're not....entirely concerned with minimizing harm to hosts here. quote:"Get backup to the pool area! Andalites!" the second guard screamed into a walkie-talkie. Then he drew his gun. The temperature is, we're told, only 120 degrees, so probably won't cause burns. Still, has to be unpleasant.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 00:16 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 01:55 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:When do they do their first 'official' war crime? Book Seven?
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 00:47 |
Epicurius posted:The Capture-Chapter 13 Knowing what they know now, it makes sense. I view it the same way as killing a soldier on a train on the way to battle. I want to emphasise this is based on their current knowledge.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 00:56 |
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Epicurius posted:So any takes on the morality of this? On the one hand, blind and pretty helpless creatures, who, in the pool, aren't a threat. On the other, waiting to get hosts and enslave humanity. It's undisputed that the Yeerks are the aggressors in this war, so the kids, as resistance, have a liiiiittle bit of leeway here. But man. As a general rule, the only guaranteed lawful way to kill an enemy combatant, especially pre-War on Terror, is during combat. But it's literally impossible to kill an unhosted Yeerk "during combat" (unless it's trying to escape from a dying host). So killing a Yeerk in combat always means killing a potentially innocent host. If you want to kill Yeerks without killing hosts, you have to kill a helpless Yeerk. If you want to prevent innocents from becoming hosts, you have to kill helpless Yeerks. It's some supremely hosed moral calculus that middle schoolers should not be expected to have to do.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 01:43 |
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If they're in the pool at the hospital, then they're planning on taking over people. The fact that they haven't already taken over people is immaterial. I view it sorta like... if you catch people preparing to ambush you, you're not ethically obligated to let them take the first shot.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 02:13 |
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I don't think boiling them in the pool is immoral. It's not a war crime to ambush your enemy or bomb their barracks or kill them in their sleep, and since those are all acceptable I don't see why this wouldn't be. I guess you could equate the Yeerks in their own bodies to an enemy that's too wounded to indicate that they are surrendering but that feels like a stretch to me. Both sides are going into it with open eyes that this is a "take no prisoners" type of war. If the Yeerks had a chance to take the Animorphs in their sleep they would do it without hesitating so that's another reason I don't think it's immoral to do the same in reverse.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 02:14 |
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What's the alternative, waiting for them to possess innocent host bodies and wait for them to start shooting? Then the host gets hurt too.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 02:25 |
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disaster pastor posted:It's undisputed that the Yeerks are the aggressors in this war, so the kids, as resistance, have a liiiiittle bit of leeway here. But man. Like, uuuuh... if they know about this plan and they do nothing, does that make them complicit? There's no option here for them to take the yeerks in the pool prisoner - they simply don't have the resources to get them out, a place to keep them, or the technology to feed them during that time, even if keeping them prisoners of war is probably the most ethical solution, since it'd keep the yeerks involved from taking new hosts and remove them from the war effort but not particularly harm them. But they're just a bunch of kids, they don't have that option.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 02:35 |
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OctaviusBeaver posted:I don't think boiling them in the pool is immoral. It's not a war crime to ambush your enemy or bomb their barracks or kill them in their sleep, and since those are all acceptable I don't see why this wouldn't be. I guess you could equate the Yeerks in their own bodies to an enemy that's too wounded to indicate that they are surrendering but that feels like a stretch to me.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 02:37 |
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quote:So any takes on the morality of this? On the one hand, blind and pretty helpless creatures, who, in the pool, aren't a threat. On the other, waiting to get hosts and enslave humanity.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 05:13 |
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The only good yeerk is a dead yeerk!
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 05:38 |
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Mazerunner posted:The only good yeerk is a dead yeerk! ...I forgot how wretched that cgi lizard was
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 05:59 |
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Mazerunner posted:The only good yeerk is a dead yeerk! FWIW, the Yeerk homeworld is never named in-series but I've always just assumed that it's just Klendathu.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 06:05 |
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Mazerunner posted:The only good yeerk is a dead yeerk! i can't tell you where i'm from, and i say kill 'em all!
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 06:24 |
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The rules of war earth nations adhere to have been written assuming war will be armed conflict between groups of people, not slug aliens taking over people's brains. Trying to apply it to evil body snatchers just doesn't work. Honestly this whole thing should not even be framed as a war, the kids and the yeerks aren't soldiers.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 11:32 |
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Avalerion posted:The rules of war earth nations adhere to have been written assuming war will be armed conflict between groups of people, not slug aliens taking over people's brains. Trying to apply it to evil body snatchers just doesn't work. Honestly this whole thing should not even be framed as a war, the kids and the yeerks aren't soldiers. They're also written under the assumption that we're fighting over something relatively inconsequential, such as who gets money from who or whose flag flies over what clay. You know, conflicts where losing isn't nation-ending (let along apocalyptic). This? This is a struggle for the soul of mankind. We've already seen the other races the yeerks have subjugated, the hork bajir, the taxxons; mindless killing machines, all of them, presented as nothing more than a vessel for their controller. They are slaves to the brainslug and you can bet that the yeerks wouldn't have even bothered enslaving them if they weren't suitable hosts. That's what's on the line here, and that's why, when Jake boils a few hundred yeerks alive in their own sludge, I say "Good."
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 14:20 |
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I never realized the connection but in the very last Jake novel he makes the decision to flush tens of thousands of defenseless Yeerks into space and this contributes to his post-war depression. I think Visser 3 even specifically mentions that as being one of Jake's war crimes at the trial. Interesting to see that thread being developed even this early and also how these kinds of decisions start to both steel and wear on the characters.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 14:29 |
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ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:I never realized the connection but in the very last Jake novel he makes the decision to flush tens of thousands of defenseless Yeerks into space and this contributes to his post-war depression. I think Visser 3 even specifically mentions that as being one of Jake's war crimes at the trial. Interesting to see that thread being developed even this early and also how these kinds of decisions start to both steel and wear on the characters. the idea of visser 3 putting anyone on trial, much less for warcrimes, is laughable.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 19:21 |
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I feel like executing your subordinates because your own planning messed up is also a war crime, and that's just where Visser 3 starts.
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 20:21 |
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The Capture-Chapter 14quote:Facedown, unconscious, in the superheating Yeerk pool. I will say that I hate that. Ever breath in liquid before? It's a terrible feeling. quote:The second feeling was of pain in my head. Pain like nothing I had ever even imagined before. Yet again, Visser Three's management style saves them. quote:Even in my condition I could see that Ax and Cassie couldn't last. I needed to morph, to join the battle. But I could not seem to do it. The pain ... or maybe the lack of oxygen ... I couldn't concentrate. My brain was fuzzy, drifting ... More or less. quote:<Unbelievable,> said a voice in my head. <Can it be? Humans?> So how many of you saw that coming?
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# ? Jul 26, 2020 23:31 |
PLOT TWIST: The bullet caused massive brain trauma and the Yeerk is in control of a functionally paralyzed host
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 03:37 |
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Epicurius posted:The Capture-Chapter 14
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 04:15 |
Radio Free Kobold posted:They're also written under the assumption that we're fighting over something relatively inconsequential, such as who gets money from who or whose flag flies over what clay. You know, conflicts where losing isn't nation-ending (let along apocalyptic). This? This is a struggle for the soul of mankind. We've already seen the other races the yeerks have subjugated, the hork bajir, the taxxons; mindless killing machines, all of them, presented as nothing more than a vessel for their controller. They are slaves to the brainslug and you can bet that the yeerks wouldn't have even bothered enslaving them if they weren't suitable hosts. That's what's on the line here, and that's why, when Jake boils a few hundred yeerks alive in their own sludge, I say "Good." At the same time, the life of any Yeerk is to be rendered blind, deaf, virtually senseless forever if they don't take a host. Their conquest was not born simply out of evil, but out of a desire to experience life. It's not just about acquiring resources like most conquering empires in fiction, but acquiring the ability to truly exist. If you were to ask a Yeerk why it did what it did, it would say that it's because otherwise existence is torture.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 05:00 |
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chitoryu12 posted:At the same time, the life of any Yeerk is to be rendered blind, deaf, virtually senseless forever if they don't take a host. Their conquest was not born simply out of evil, but out of a desire to experience life. It's not just about acquiring resources like most conquering empires in fiction, but acquiring the ability to truly exist. If you were to ask a Yeerk why it did what it did, it would say that it's because otherwise existence is torture. This sort of comes up later on, but the odd thing is that the peaceful solution to this was there all along, and is in fact central to the series. But while the Taxxons all get to go chill as anacondas in Brazil, the Yeerk homeworld I think just gets barricaded by the Andalites. I guess at that point there's too much hatred, animosity and mistrust towards them to ever let future generations of them perma-morph into something less unbearable.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 05:15 |
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chitoryu12 posted:At the same time, the life of any Yeerk is to be rendered blind, deaf, virtually senseless forever if they don't take a host. Their conquest was not born simply out of evil, but out of a desire to experience life. It's not just about acquiring resources like most conquering empires in fiction, but acquiring the ability to truly exist. If you were to ask a Yeerk why it did what it did, it would say that it's because otherwise existence is torture. Sure, but then that raises more questions. If my happiness is dependent on making you suffer, am I justified in seeking happiness? Every host of a Yeerk is a sentient creature who's being forced into slavery. The Yeerks have reasons for doing what they're doing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what they're doing is right. freebooter posted:This sort of comes up later on, but the odd thing is that the peaceful solution to this was there all along, and is in fact central to the series. But while the Taxxons all get to go chill as anacondas in Brazil, the Yeerk homeworld I think just gets barricaded by the Andalites. I guess at that point there's too much hatred, animosity and mistrust towards them to ever let future generations of them perma-morph into something less unbearable. Well, a few solutions for the Yeerks are out there. Book 26, The Attack, also sets up a possible, more benign long term solution. So does book 29
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 05:33 |
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chitoryu12 posted:At the same time, the life of any Yeerk is to be rendered blind, deaf, virtually senseless forever if they don't take a host. Their conquest was not born simply out of evil, but out of a desire to experience life. It's not just about acquiring resources like most conquering empires in fiction, but acquiring the ability to truly exist. If you were to ask a Yeerk why it did what it did, it would say that it's because otherwise existence is torture. They could be acquiring willing hosts only (which the taxons and aparently some humans are). If they conducted themselves cooperatively rather than dominating even more might be up for having a brain buddy. Or like, make a deal with humans to breed them up a bunch of animals of their choice.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 06:09 |
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Epicurius posted:Sure, but then that raises more questions. If my happiness is dependent on making you suffer, am I justified in seeking happiness?
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 06:54 |
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Avalerion posted:They could be acquiring willing hosts only (which the taxons and aparently some humans are). If they conducted themselves cooperatively rather than dominating even more might be up for having a brain buddy. Or like, make a deal with humans to breed them up a bunch of animals of their choice. I can't remember. Are Yeerks able to control nonsentient animals?
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 07:00 |
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Fuschia tude posted:I can't remember. Are Yeerks able to control nonsentient animals? Probably, I remember Visser musing about how it's a shame cats are so small which makes me think the only limitation is size.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 07:56 |
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They do need a specific kind of brain to infest. IIRC at one point they start trying to genetically modify sharks to make them viable hosts
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 08:49 |
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Jake is a controller so it's a great time for a completely unrelated question - we know skin tight clothing can be morphed, but what if the human in question has a piercing or a tattoo? I guess it kind of falls under the "haircut" rule where they can change their hair if they want to, I guess, shut up, I know DNA doesn't work that way, but it seems to be a different category to me. Not that it matters as our teens are not of inking/piercing age. I guess I'm just happy, for multiple reasons, that Elfangor didn't stumble upon a group of five mall goths.
QuickbreathFinisher fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Jul 27, 2020 |
# ? Jul 27, 2020 08:57 |
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QuickbreathFinisher posted:Not that it matters as our teens are not of inking/piercing age. I guess I'm just happy, for multiple reasons, that Elfangor didn't stumble upon a group of five mall goths. I just remembered there's a Megamorphs book that's an alternate universe story about what would've happened if they'd never gone through the construction site that night. I remember it being the bleakest and least fun of the whole series.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 10:26 |
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freebooter posted:I just remembered there's a Megamorphs book that's an alternate universe story about what would've happened if they'd never gone through the construction site that night. I remember it being the bleakest and least fun of the whole series. If I recall correctly, it's also very good.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 10:29 |
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Spoilers for the finale.freebooter posted:This sort of comes up later on, but the odd thing is that the peaceful solution to this was there all along, and is in fact central to the series. But while the Taxxons all get to go chill as anacondas in Brazil, the Yeerk homeworld I think just gets barricaded by the Andalites. I guess at that point there's too much hatred, animosity and mistrust towards them to ever let future generations of them perma-morph into something less unbearable. Note that this peaceful solution implicitly entails the extinction of the Yeerks as a sentient species. The Taxxons might have been cool with that all along, because their natural existence is a hive mind situation and independence means being overwhelmed by their hunger, but until they're no longer in a position to win, the Yeerks undoubtedly feel like continuation of their species is much more desirable on the grand scale even if individuals would be OK with being stuck in a morph.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 12:40 |
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chitoryu12 posted:At the same time, the life of any Yeerk is to be rendered blind, deaf, virtually senseless forever if they don't take a host. Their conquest was not born simply out of evil, but out of a desire to experience life. It's not just about acquiring resources like most conquering empires in fiction, but acquiring the ability to truly exist. If you were to ask a Yeerk why it did what it did, it would say that it's because otherwise existence is torture. Yes, they need hosts to make existence worthwhile, but they choose to be conquerers and slavers. I might be okay with having a brain-buddy to do this whole 'life' thing with, but consent is very important.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 13:31 |
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Avalerion posted:Probably, I remember Visser musing about how it's a shame cats are so small which makes me think the only limitation is size. While I'll never stop finding Visser Three's love for cats adorable, remember that his body can morph, and I think when he's evaluating cats, he's doing so as a potential new morph. As far as I know, we never see the Yeerk infest anything nonsentient.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 13:34 |
And cats are a pretty loving good predator. Mister Visser definitely values that.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 13:42 |
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Yeerk brain: The terran feline is a remarkable animal, a highly-refined hunter with cunning, tenacity, camoflauge and deadly natural weapons. Truly an admirable specimen! Also Yeerk brain (but they will never admit it): hee hoo floofy kitty pspsps
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 13:54 |
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I wanted to get people's thoughts on something. So far I've been posting a chapter a day. While I think that's going ok, I was wondering what people here thought about the pace. Am I going too slow? Too fast? I know these are short chapters, so do people want 2 chapters a day?
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 14:43 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 01:55 |
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I'm happy with the pace so far, but you do whatever's comfortable for you.
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# ? Jul 27, 2020 15:04 |