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Is that the insert from the lobster version of book five's cover that was released in some regions? That's amazing. Love the random woman on the left.
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 00:50 |
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# ? May 26, 2024 07:41 |
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We can't tell you who we are. We can't tell you where we live. We must keep absolute secrecy. But we can morph into lobsters in front of random old ladies at the grocery store and it's fine. They've gotten really lucky with non-controllers seeing them morph/hearing them thought speak. Like if that lady from book 5 ever gets yeerked...
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 01:21 |
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Ravenfood posted:I somehow stopped before the Chee were introduced and I'm still pretty sure i remember this one well. I definitely remember that opening scene. post itt if you know marco's entire rant about hewlett aldershot iii's name off by heart
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 01:29 |
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SirSamVimes posted:post itt if you know marco's entire rant about hewlett aldershot iii's name off by heart Time for the next chapter. Lets see if you really remember it. Animorphs-Book 18:The Decision-Chapter 3 quote:<I have a question,> Marco said. <If you already have a Hewlett Aldershot and a Hewlett Aldershot, Jr., what kind of parent is going to go and inflict that name on a third kid? He must have gotten beat up after school every single day of his life.> Always with the threats for this guy. Also, just as a note, Andalites always show up in the art as blue, but like this points out, they're blue and tan. You never see any tan parts of the Andalites in the art. quote:The doctor said something. Something very respectful, very careful. It just seems to me that "I want this person injured but not too badly" shouldn't lead to the conclusion, "And that's why I'll have him get hit by a car." I mean, you're commanding Yeerk forces on Earth, most of your troops are human-controllers. Learn the limitations of the human body. Chapter 4 quote:Visser Three moved away, out of sight. So, just like vertebrates on earth have 4 limbs, Andalite vertebrates have six. We already knew this from seeing the Andalites, but it's a nice touch that this bird has six wings. quote:The kafit shook off the glass shards and banked sharply back toward me. Its razor-sharp, killing beak was aimed at me like a missile. One thing about Visser Three....he has a sense of self preservation and doesn't like putting himself at risk.
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 04:15 |
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Epicurius posted:It just seems to me that "I want this person injured but not too badly" shouldn't lead to the conclusion, "And that's why I'll have him get hit by a car." I mean, you're commanding Yeerk forces on Earth, most of your troops are human-controllers. Learn the limitations of the human body. I mean, are you going to be the one to tell Visser 3 that he has a bad plan? The universe's worst boss strikes again!
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 04:40 |
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One of the coolest things about this series was always the juxtaposition between the crazy high concept sci-fi secret alien invasion of Earth, and the hum-drum late '90s suburbia of southern California, and I don't think anything exemplifies that better than "Andalite duel on the roof of a McDonald's."
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 05:52 |
WrightOfWay posted:I mean, are you going to be the one to tell Visser 3 that he has a bad plan? The universe's worst boss strikes again! Visser Three knows the limitations of the human body anyway. Remove the head and they die. The head didn't get removed, so what's the loving problem?
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 05:57 |
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Epicurius posted:I should explain: Money is a sort of abstract human concept. You give amounts of money to various people in society and they in turn give you useful items.
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 07:52 |
https://twitter.com/spacecoyotl/status/1362817836540780544?s=20
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 19:29 |
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Well that tweet has doubled Mattingly's sales in just under two days from the look of it. https://twitter.com/spacecoyotl/status/1363550477372194817
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# ? Feb 21, 2021 22:54 |
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Animorphs-Book 18:The Decision-Chapter 5quote:It had been a very long time since any Andalites fought tail to tail, except as part of military training or as a sport. So when it came down to it, Visser Three ran, really. Or, jumped off a McDonalds into a Dumpster, which is pretty much the same thing. Chapter 6 quote:That night I ran across the far pastures of Cassie’s ranch and tried to figure out my emotions. It was a wet night. Rain was falling, although not hard by Earth standards. The grass was wet and moist. I could feel my hooves picking up the worms that come out of the ground when it’s wet. There would be extra protein in my diet, which was the last thing I needed. Too much protein keeps me awake. See, he's trying to work through his actions here....did I do the right thing, confronting him? Would I have won? What happens next time? quote:I realized I’d come to rest, standing beneath a particularly tall pine tree just back from the edge of a meadow. Tobias’s meadow. The problem for Ax is that, Visser Three might not have honor, but Ax does. quote:<I should let you go back to sleep.> Poor Ax.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 04:34 |
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Epicurius posted:It had been a very long time since any Andalites fought tail to tail, except as part of military training or as a sport. Being the first Andalite in maybe centuries to engage in an actual, serious tail-to-tail fight makes this even better. (Although... do they not have crime? Mutinies?) I think I've said before that it sucks for Ax that he's stranded and cut off from his people, but being an embedded guerilla warrior with a group of aliens on a weird planet makes for way better war stories in the long run. The Animorphs all haranguing him with their own questions and conversations reminds me of Dunkirk when Tom Hardy keeps talking to the other pilot as he's steeling himself to ditch. Shut the gently caress up, he's trying to concentrate! Also I feel sure now that K.A. must have jotted down the idea for the kafit morph stressing Ax out well before she wrote this book, and before she wrote the Andalite Chronicles and decided that most warriors would already have that morph. Even as a kid it seemed pretty obvious to me that Alloran would've just had that morph already before he was ever infested.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 04:55 |
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freebooter posted:Being the first Andalite in maybe centuries to engage in an actual, serious tail-to-tail fight makes this even better. (Although... do they not have crime? Mutinies?) I think I've said before that it sucks for Ax that he's stranded and cut off from his people, but being an embedded guerilla warrior with a group of aliens on a weird planet makes for way better war stories in the long run. Well, they have guns, which I assume is generally the go to weapon.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 05:06 |
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Yeah but I mean so do we but we still have punch-ups. Also the series understandably shies away from guns because a grizzly bear might be able to take on a Hork-Bajir, but not a Hork-Bajir with a laser gun. Although in this very book we'll see a character dismissed as no longer a threat because his tail blade has been chopped off, who promptly turns the tables with a gun.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 05:17 |
freebooter posted:Being the first Andalite in maybe centuries to engage in an actual, serious tail-to-tail fight makes this even better. (Although... do they not have crime? Mutinies?) ax's perspective on his own people is always very interesting, because you're sort of left wondering how much of it is even real. ax has never known life before the war put the military in charge of society, and we already know that if there's one thing andalite high command really loves, it's cover-ups. how deep does their information control reach into andalite society? with their complete lack of population centers even so big as a town, i'd imagine that anything criminal tends to have few witnesses. is andalite society genuinely idyllic, or is ax unwittingly feeding us a load of poo poo designed to assure cadets of their moral superiority?
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 05:19 |
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Very good point. The fact that he's facing off against Andalite Enemy #1, even if he's only Yeerk General #3, also raises the fact that it feels a bit weird Earth seems to be considered a bit of a side theatre of the war from the Andalites' point of view, as far as we can tell? (I think?) From memory, reading them as a kid, it wasn't until the Visser Chronicles that it gets explicitly spelt out to the reader that Earth's a pretty critical prize for the Yeerks, and I'm not sure if we ever get an idea of how much time the Andalite strategists devote to thinking about it. But I guess the broader scope of the galaxy and the war is always kept deliberately vague.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 05:31 |
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Jazerus posted:ax's perspective on his own people is always very interesting, because you're sort of left wondering how much of it is even real. ax has never known life before the war put the military in charge of society, and we already know that if there's one thing andalite high command really loves, it's cover-ups. how deep does their information control reach into andalite society? with their complete lack of population centers even so big as a town, i'd imagine that anything criminal tends to have few witnesses. Just as a note, the military isn't actually in charge of Andalite society. They have an elected government headed by an executive who's elected by majority vote, and appear to have a legislature called the Electorate (which voted around the beginning of Andalite Chronicles, if you remember, to increase the number of children Andalites were allowed to have). What seems to be happening, though, as the war's been going on longer and longer tensions have started developing between the military and civilian leadership, and the War Council is doing more and more stuff the Electorate doesn't know about.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 05:42 |
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Ax is a lot like Worf in that he 100% believes in a system of honor and bushido which only theoretically exists and nobody else holds themselves up to it as highly.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 08:30 |
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That doesn't strike me as all that different from an idealistic American/British/Australian military cadet, or civilian, who thinks their soldiers are paragons of honour and bravery when on the actual war front they're cutting off Afghan limbs as war trophies etc. Although we don't see that grubby low-level stuff from the Andalites, just the extremely high-level and more interesting morally grey choices about the greater good. (Alloran did nothing wrong, probably, all things considered, glad I wasn't in his horseshoes etc.)
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 08:37 |
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horseshoes
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 08:48 |
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They're part of the full dress uniform
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 08:59 |
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Pwnstar posted:Ax is a lot like Worf in that he 100% believes in a system of honor and bushido which only theoretically exists and nobody else holds themselves up to it as highly. He packs a lot of disillusionment into the interactions he does get with other Andalites, though. I thought the reason Visser Three ran away from Ax was that he knew he was Elfangor's brother, but I don't think Ax actually mentions that to him, except in his imagination. Maybe he's just seen Ax fight and knows his chances weren't great. About Visser Three having access to the kafit morph, maybe the morphing training was only mandatory for cadets, and Alloran was already a warrior when the technology was developed? I think the writers probably just forgot, but that works as an explanation after the fact.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 09:00 |
freebooter posted:Very good point. earth is not yet the critical prize for either side...i mean, the yeerks really want it eventually, but they already seem to have the population advantage over the andalites; the andalites, on the other hand, don't seem to know how densely populated earth is. it's not even clear how long ago they (setting aside elfangor) last visited, although the andalite toilet tells us that at least one visit was quite a long time ago, since it had to have been jettisoned inside our solar system. leera is the main front at the moment because a few leeran-controllers in a base can totally eliminate the andalite espionage advantage by detecting morphs, and, well, telepathy is just sort of generally useful
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 09:01 |
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Jazerus posted:earth is not yet the critical prize for either side...i mean, the yeerks really want it eventually, but they already seem to have the population advantage over the andalites; the andalites, on the other hand, don't seem to know how densely populated earth is. it's not even clear how long ago they (setting aside elfangor) last visited, although the andalite toilet tells us that at least one visit was quite a long time ago, since it had to have been jettisoned inside our solar system. leera is the main front at the moment because a few leeran-controllers in a base can totally eliminate the andalite espionage advantage by detecting morphs, and, well, telepathy is just sort of generally useful The thing I just really remember from the Visser Chronicles (with a delightful Star Trek vibe) is some sub-visser laying out the categories of species the Yeerks have devised, and in fact I still remember these from memory because I'm a huge nerd and because, helpfully, we already know most of this as readers by that point: 1. not suitable for infestation (Skrit Na) 2. serious physical drawbacks (Taxxons and Ged) 3. suitable but small in number (Hork-Bajir, because Alloran genocided most of them) 4. suitable but too militarily/technologically powerful to attack (Andalites) 5. suitable and militarily/technologically weaker than Yeerks (humans) And discovering Earth - the first place with a species in that last category - is what rockets Visser One up to being Visser One, like how getting an Andalite body is the reason Visser Three is Visser Three. It nonetheless still feels like a backwater although the Andalites clearly have an eye on it because they lost a Dome ship there, and... super-duper end of series spoilers! ...Earth is ultimately the pivotal battleground.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 09:17 |
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Visser spoilers That was Visser One who laid it out! She was head of... some kind of department for finding new host species, and she was briefing a new set of underlings.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 09:23 |
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Shwoo posted:Visser spoilers That was Visser One who laid it out! She was head of... some kind of department for finding new host species, and she was briefing a new set of underlings. Oh, I'd forgotten that! The other thing I remember is they get to number four and nobody wants to say it out loud. Totalitarian managerial culture in Yeerk society goes deeper than Visser Three!
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 09:25 |
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Epicurius posted:
I remember these. Doesn't he complain about accidentally eating a snail in a later book? And it giving him indigestion for a week?
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 11:01 |
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Shotgunned this thread over a few days after finding it, thanks for all the material and discussion. RE: The perennial "who needs these recaps at the beginning of each book", my first introduction to the series when I was... seven, I want to say, was book #16. Not sure what that means beyond an individual data point, but it does mean some of my strongest memories of the series are of the internet book. Always liked the fan theory that Visser Three was just broadcasting malice low-key at all times, it seems suitably theatrical for him... but anymore this just means I think of him as being constantly surrounded by the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime "menacing" sound effect writing.
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 23:38 |
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freebooter posted:
Time for a new prequel, The Morpher Who Came in from the Cold. It's a gritty spy procedural about andalite intelligence (Le Carre spoilers I guess) getting all Visser 3's rivals gulaged because as long as he is there no one competent can take over the conquest of Earth
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 23:58 |
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Animorphs-Book 18:The Decision-Chapter 7quote:We met at the barn where Cassie and her father care for sick or injured nonhuman animals. It is called the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. It is a large, dark building made of wood. Within it are numerous cages made of steel wire. And within the cages are the sick animals. True. This also goes back to a fairly consistent debate they have with each other about the morality of morphing humans. I also like the idea that Ax realizes his friends are sometimes not willing to do the things it takes to do to beat the Yeerks, and then admits to himself that sometimes he's not either. It's more of that, do you win at any cost, or do you set moral lines for yourself you're not willing to cross. Chapter 8 quote:“So how do I acquire it without it acquiring me at the same time?” Prince Jake asked nervously. I mean, maybe, but he's also Deputy Director of the Secret Service. He's pretty high ranking himself. quote:<So how do we get in?> Marco wondered. Honestly, if this were real, I'd question your ability to actually defect to the Yeerks....at least not without being taken over.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 04:11 |
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<Please tell me a third time and I will pay attention.>
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 04:31 |
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quote:My human friends attend school five days in a row, then do not attend for two days. They don’t know why. This is a cute line.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 04:34 |
I'm honestly wondering what Visser Three's standing orders re: bandits are. Obviously he wants them gone, but I'm genuinely curious if he'd be satisfied knowing some idiot minion of his killed them, or whether he wants the glory for himself.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 05:34 |
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If you absolutely have to have an Andalite bandit chop your hand off, this is the place. Probably good chances of reattachment, too, since it would be a clean slice.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 06:28 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I'm honestly wondering what Visser Three's standing orders re: bandits are. I am sure Visser 3 would be swift to reward initiative and bold, independent thought
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 06:44 |
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I didn't remember the name of the Andalite bird so until now I had assumed they were talking about two different species. The bird they used for morph training I imagined was analogous to a sparrow or a pigeon and the one Visser 3 used was like a raptor.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 07:07 |
based on elfangor's experience, the kafit bird is not a standard morph acquired in training; many cadets pick it up because obviously flying is cool, but it's a practice that their officers tolerate but don't endorse. alloran was already a war-prince when the morphing technology was developed, so it's pretty much impossible to know whether he picked it up before or after his infestation; either is equally likely.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 07:17 |
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While Alloran was a bit of a stick in the mud, it still seems pretty likely that it was something he picked up before he was taken by the Yeerks, if only because he saw the strategic use of being able to fly occasionally.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 07:21 |
The Kafit bird is now extinct after Alloran war-crimed them.
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 07:35 |
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# ? May 26, 2024 07:41 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:The Kafit bird is now extinct after Alloran war-crimed them. Eat. Sleep. Wipe a species out of existence. Repeat. - Alloran-Semitur-Corrass
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# ? Feb 23, 2021 07:52 |