Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

nine-gear crow posted:

It's a shame that it doesn't get the chance to go mask off sooner in the series because of the status quo because I think Tom's Yeerk would have been a pretty good recurring villain with just what a shitbag he is. Even moreso than Taylor, the perfect blend of a shitlord teenager and a Star Trek-tier local galactic menace ala someone like Gul Dukat, the guy who's doing the "How do you do, Fellow Kids?" act purely because he's so able to perfectly pull it off otherwise that he now has to make a smarmy show out of it just to go "Yeah, we both get it, it's pure bullshit, but now I get to have FUN with it ".

Yes that is exact vibe I get from him. Gul Dukat vibes. Really would have been a fun recurring antagonist. I'm imagining if Jake and Tom had hit some unlikely Cold War MAD situation where they both openly knew about the other but had to playact to not let the Yeerks know. You could have like Rachel or Cassie or Marco doing some ill-advised covert op to gently caress with him, lots of fun family scenes, etc.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 00:35

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# ? May 25, 2024 19:06

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

That would have made a wonderful interplay, yeah. I can't really think how you could believably pull it off without being in the endgame phase of the war though

# ? Mar 17, 2023 00:43

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The problem is, the only time this Yeerk is a major part of the story until now is when Jake's great-grandfather dies, Jake and "Tom" do have a good conversation there about morality in war, though,

# ? Mar 17, 2023 00:43

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Yeah, for as important as Tom was to Jake at the beginning of the series he basically doesn't exist between book 6 and dead great-Grandpa book. Largely because Jake only gets 20% of the books amd we were stuck in ghost writer status quo for a long rear end time.

I think this last arc could have been extended a bit because there are A Lot of concepts and cool hooks that got slammed in here at the end without any room to breathe. Tom's a big one but the auxillery Animorphs and human allies are also like barely there before we're zooming off to the next thing. And you have things like the Yeerk Peace Movement that would have been worth a lot more than Helmecrons II. Easily could have cut a bunch of the MotW books and just had this stuff happen over a longer stretch of books.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 00:51

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

That would have made a wonderful interplay, yeah. I can't really think how you could believably pull it off without being in the endgame phase of the war though

You'd have to make Tom's Yeerk more of a wildcard with his own agenda, one that would be actively hampered by just turning Jake and the others over to Visser Three or just outright killing them, yet not hampered enough or even helped at times by letting them live and act freely as the Animorphs. Like Taylor, but even more of a canny ratfuck. With the counter balance being basically what it is in books, where if Jake tries to move against Tom directly, the whole house of cards collapses because he will out himself to the actual Yeerks as an Animorph. So they have to reach a Cold War equilibrium. To the point where when the series shifts to the endgame phase, the loss of the status quo is equally devastating to Tom and his Yeerk as it is to Jake.

E: You'd probably have to do a couple of Tom POV books interspersed every so often with the mainline books like how you got the occasional Dukat-centric episode of DS9 before things flew off the rails.

nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Mar 17, 2023

# ? Mar 17, 2023 01:24

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Epicurius posted:

Marco cares too much for his friends and his family to sacrifice them, even if that's the easiest way.

Stepmom's fair game, though :hehe:

# ? Mar 17, 2023 02:31

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Fuschia tude posted:

Stepmom's fair game, though

That poor math teacher. But that's another case of Marco letting his private emotions get in the way,.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 02:58

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 16

quote:

It took all day to get my chess pieces in place. The hardest one was Erek the Chee.

Marco found him. He found him after twice being spotted and shot by Yeerk forces. But it�s hard to kill an Animorph. A wounded morph has only to demorph to be reconstituted as a whole human.

Of course a dead morph is a dead Animorph, and Marco came very close to not making it. He was not happy by the time he dragged into camp late in the day. I had almost given up hope.

Erek is a Chee, one of a race of sentient robots created millennia ago by the Pemalites. The Pemalites were gentle, wise, intelligent creatures who were obliterated by the Howlers long, long ago. The Pemalites believed in peace. And the Chee they created, despite being unimaginably powerful and equipped with formidable holographic technology, were incapable of violence.

This was not to say that the Chee didn�t have a side in the war. They were our allies. They were the ultimate spies, able to pass as humans, as they had since arriving on Earth as refugees back in the days of the pharaohs of Egypt.

The Chee had spied for us, hoped we would win, but they would not help us kill. They couldn�t help or cause anyone to kill or even to be hurt. I counted on that.

Erek smiled at me with a human face that should belong to a guy my own age. Of course beneath the hologram was a machine that looked as though it was built of stainless steel and ivory, like a stylized dog walking erect.

�Jake, I�m pleased to see you still alive,� Erek said. �Pleased to see all of you.�

�And we�re relieved to see you, Erek. How are the Chee doing?�

He shrugged. �Well, our house is gone. But the underground facility is intact. All our people are safe. We�ve been through worse in five thousand years among your lovely people. I mean, I survived the Huns and they were quite unpleasant. The dogs are safe at least.�

The Chee carried on their master�s love of canine forms. They took in stray or lost dogs whenever they could.

�Erek, we need your help.�

�Always glad to help, within the limits of my programming,� he answered cautiously.

�We�re taking the Pool ship,� I said.

He hesitated, thought that over. �I don�t see how I�m going to be able to help you. We don�t have a lot of data on the Pool ship. Nothing you don�t already know.�

�It�s not information we need,� I said. �We need your skills. We need your active participation. We need you there.�

His eyes grew dark, a holographic but very real-seeming reaction. �I can�t do that, Jake. We both know there�ll be fighting. I can�t be part of that.�

I took a deep breath, not wanting to say what was about to say. �Here�s the thing, Erek, I know what you can and can�t do. So I�m going to use that to force your hand. I�m sorry. But we�re down to it, now. We�re right down to it.�

�What are you planning?� He switched off the � Erek� holographic facade and revealed his true self. Maybe that was to intimidate me. Maybe it was just a way of conveying anger.

�We know you can�t fight us. So we�re going to take you, carry you if we have to, put you in a position where you�ll cooperate because refusing to cooperate will force us to take lives. Your refusal to cooperate would be the trigger for killing. �Ax? Bring your prisoner.�

I had dispatched Ax and Cassie to take a prisoner, a known Controller, a human-Controller. Chapman.

And he was not happy.

�Ax, if I tell you to kill this Controller, will you do it?� I asked him.

<Yes,> Ax answered truthfully. <He is a ranking Yeerk, an enemy who has done great damage to human freedom.>

�This is low,� Erek grated. �This is so far beneath you, Jake.�

Weird blackmailing a creature you know is physically capable of obliterating you down to your individual molecules. Weird trusting that he won�t, can�t, do any such thing.

�Sorry,� I said again. �But we�ll keep you in a position where every time you refuse to help, we take a life. And I�ll make you this promise: Your help will minimize the casualties.�

Erek said a long string of words I didn�t understand.

�What?�

�I was offering you my opinion of your morals and your ethics and your sense of decency,� Erek spat. �I was speaking an ancient Mesopotamian dialect known for its wide variety of curse words.�

I nodded. �Tell you the truth, Erek, your being mad at me is the least of my problems. Marco? Erek is your property. He tries to leave, stop him. If he succeeds in leaving, Ax, you�ll execute this Controller.�

I shot a challenging, defensive look at Cassie. �Any comment?�

�No.�

I glared at my friends, all of whom were looking somber. Erek had been with us, an ally, a friend, for a long time. �Does anyone have any thing to say?� No one did.

�Good. Now, Ax? In addition to keeping an eye on our friend, here, it�s time for you to phone the Andalite fleet. You tell them you succeeded in stopping our raid on the Yeerk pool. Tell them the Yeerks are all here on Earth like sitting ducks. But they can�t strike yet because you, aristh Aximili, are going to deliver a major Yeerk warship right into their laps. You�re going to hand them an entire, intact Pool ship.�

<You are asking me to lie to my people,> Ax said. <The Yeerks have stopped concentrating forces on Earth. They are awaiting the construction of a new Yeerk pool.>

�I�m not asking you to lie to your people, Ax. I�m telling you to. We need them close enough to be of use, but we also need to give them a reason not to start blasting away at Earth. Call the Andalite fleet. Tell them what I�ve told you to tell them. I�m your prince, Ax: Do it.�

I didn�t wait to hear his answer. I knew it. Or thought I did.

James and his people came flying in, landed and demorphed. �You called?�

It�s always disturbing for me seeing the auxiliary Animorphs demorphed. When we still had the morphing cube we decided to add some members. But it�s impossibly complicated and timeconsuming to make sure each and every person is Yeerk-free. So we figured out who the Yeerks would have never infested, who they would have overlooked: the handicapped. Plenty of fully functional human hosts around, why hassle with all the drawbacks of dealing with a handicap?

We knew handicapped kids would be Yeerk-free. We also knew they�d be even more willing than most people to accept a treatment that would allow them physical freedom in animal form.

We�d used them. And now they lay there rather than standing because for the most part they couldn�t stand. Or, if they could stand, they couldn�t see.

�Yeah, James. We need all your people. As you know, we�re going after the Pool ship.�

�Yes, I know.�

�It�s going to be as dangerous as it gets, and I have a very tough assignment for you.�

�Okay, well, you know I�m in. But I�ll need to talk to the others, see how they feel. I think some of them will want to sit this one out. I mean, after losing Ray � I mean, Jake, some of the young ones, you know, some of them are having -�

�James, we didn�t give them morphing power so they could have fun flying around. This is when we need them. All of them. You understand? You�ve taken on the role as their leader, so lead: I want them all. Every last one.�

�Jake, some of these kids, I mean, they�re all their families have, you know? They�re still just starting to deal with Ray�s death. It�s not like we haven�t fought. I can�t ��

�Look, if we lose this battle it�s over, you understand me?!� I raised my voice to be heard by everyone. �If we lose it�s over. This is the battle. This is the last stand. We lose and here�s what happens: The Yeerk fleet fights the Andalite fleet. If the Yeerks win they�ll be free to enslave every living human being and kill the ones they don�t want. If the Andalites win there�s a very good chance they�ll sterilize Earth: kill everything in order to end the Yeerk menace once and for all. So, you don�t like me telling you what to do, you don�t like your job, you don�t like me, period? I don�t really care. Before this night is over the casualties will be piled high and some of you standing here right now will be dead and I don�t care because we are going to win. Is that clear? We�re taking that Pool ship and before this night is over we�ll have Visser One right here.� I held up my tight-clenched fist.

I was ranting. I was trembling. I�d never done this before. Never put myself forward as some kind of Napoleon wannabe. I felt like a jerk. Like some kind of nut. My friends must have thought I� d lost my mind. But no one said so.

No one but Marco. �You know, you�re turning into Rachel.� He frowned. �Where is she, anyway?�

Jake is willing to burn all of his relationships here. But, if nothing else, he's made an enemy of the Chee here. That might not seem like much, as the Chee are non-violent, but they're also superintelligent robots with photographic memories who are virtually indestructible

Chapter 17

quote:

I was in falcon morph, floating high, high in the air, rising on the updraft of warmth that still came from the smoldering ashes of the center of town. Usually night is a bad time for a peregrine. Night air is cold air and cold air is dead air. But flying above the black destruction I had all the lift I
needed.

I could see the Pool ship, still resting beside the crater that had once been the Yeerk pool. Could they see me, Visser One and his Yeerks? They could if they tried. I wasn�t invisible. But they didn�t attack, didn�t send a Bug fighter up to Dracon me.

Why not? Maybe Tom�s Yeerk wasn�t ready to kill me, yet.

Or Maybe Visser One saw me, knew what I was, and waited, like the spider in his web watching the fly. He wanted me to come to him. He wanted me as badly as I wanted him.

Careful what you wish for, Visser.

Careful what you wish for, Jake.

I had visited General Doubleday. He was as shaken up as anyone I�ve ever seen, but determined. He�d followed our suggestion, reluctantly at first. He�d locked away as many of his men as he could. It was ten hours till the first Controller reached the point where he couldn�t hold out any
longer. He made a break for it.

�What did you do?� I had asked him.

�We warned him once. Gave him a direct order. Then the MP shot him.�

�That must have been tough,� I�d said.

�The MP aimed for a leg shot, but the private slipped. Bullet caught him in the head.� The general held out an empty bottle and showed it to me. �This thing crawled out of the man�s head. Crawled out through the bullet hole.�

A Yeerk lay writhing in the bottle.

�There�s your enemy, General,� I�d said.

Some of the Controllers had tried to work together to rush the door. Others had waited as long as they could. Seventeen percent of the general�s men had been infested. But now he had a strike force of almost a thousand men, Yeerk-free. Yeerk-free, and, having seen the enemy close-at-hand, they were
motivated. I�d given him all the details I safely could.

�They may come after you with Bug fighters - that would be the best we could hope for. The greater likelihood is that either the Pool ship or the Blade ship will attack you directly.�

�I�ve got what amounts to a scratch battalion, a few tanks, a few helicopter gunships. I�ve seen those Bug fighters in action. My men will fight, but they can�t win.�

�That�s right, General, they can�t,� I said. �But if they�ll fight, keep up the diversion, we can win. I have about a dozen of my people coming to join you. They�ll be right out front.�

�With all due respect to your people, son, they may be great in hand-to-hand combat, but you�re guerrilla fighters by nature. Your abilities are geared for that kind of warfare. You�re asking me for a good, old-fashioned cavalry charge, here. You�re asking me for the Charge of the Light Brigade.�

�We need the diversion,� I said. �Visser One has to believe the Yeerk traitor is telling him the truth. So you have to attack, but once the Yeerks come after you all you can do is dig in and take cover. The Yeerks only have one way of fighting: Attack with everything they�ve got. They�ll go right after you. Visser One doesn�t know tactics; he fights with a sledgehammer.�

�If you�ve got a big enough sledgehammer that�s all you need, son.�

I was hearing those weary, wry words as I flew above the Pool ship. It was a monstrous thing. Bigger than an aircraft carrier. More powerful than all the forces of humankind combined and multiplied a hundredfold. The Dracon cannon on the Pool ship could burn a hole through an asteroid. But it was a sledgehammer, a great, lumbering beast designed for war in the weightlessness of space. And, anyway, if we succeeded it would be our sledgehammer.

I saw movement below. Hork-Bajir patrols. A pair of Bug fighters flying a loose figure eight low above the desolation. Closer in to the Pool ship the Hork-Bajir patrols increased till they formed a solid, shoulder-to-shoulder ring around the ship. Hork-Bajir and human-Controller snipers stood atop the engine pods.

Visser One was taking no chances with his crown jewels.

I wondered what time it was. No way to carry a watch, obviously, and I could no longer spot bank clocks. They�d all been destroyed.

I floated and waited. Floated and waited and went over my plan again and again. I could see holes in it now. I could see nothing but holes. It would never work. It would never work. I saw movement down below. A pair of Humvees approaching an outer ring checkpoint, headlights playing on wrecked, charred brick walls and burned out cars. Hork-Bajir- and human- Controller guards checked ID�s and passed them through.
Now I didn�t need a clock. It was go time.

I swooped down, diving faster and faster, matching speed with the Humvees. I dropped through the gaping window of a blackened home and out through the far side. That would throw off any sensors that might be tracking me.

I used all my falcon speed and aimed for the bouncing rear window of the second Humvee. I swooped through, landed hard with a bounce against the seat back. A human-Controller I didn�t know was driving. Tom was in the passenger seat. He turned to look at me.�
Very unsettling when you do that,� he said.

<Good,> I answered.

Cassie appeared to be lying on the backseat, handcuffed, ankles bound, a Hork-Bajir sitting beside her with a Dracon weapon leveled at her head.
Her face was bruised. One eye swollen almost shut. There were bloody cuts on her arms. Her morphing suit was in shreds.

�Gotta hand it to your girl back there,� Tom said nonchalantly. �She takes a beating pretty well. Hope I didn�t get carried away, Jake-boy, but it isn�t every day I get a chance to pound on an Animorph. She didn�t cry, didn�t say a word. Almost took the fun out of it.�

<Shut up, you Yeerk scum,> I snapped. 

No answer. I didn�t expect one.

�Bruised my fists,� Tom�s Yeerk said, displaying his hand.



�Whatever. Time to get small, Killer Jake. Security up ahead there.�

I demorphed, made a point of stroking the apparent wounds, made another angry remark to Tom�s Yeerk for verisimilitude, then went fly. Back in morph I used private thought-speak, audible to only one person. <Rachel?>

<I�m here, Jake.>

I zoomed around and then headed for Cassie�s bruised, battered face.

As I approached a landing, her swollen eye opened slightly. My compound eyes saw a hundred fragmented images of an eye opening. And of the steel-and-ivory machine beneath the hologram.

�Forward, the Light Brigade!�
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 03:19

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Tom ~~Yorke~~ Yeerk is very effective. Even with the twist that it's Erek/Chee, the image of Cassie beaten as a diversion is loving twisted.

Good chat with the general too-- "Hey General I'm less than half your age, but I need you to run a suicide mission. K? Thanks." The details about the Controllers breaking in the base could have been an entire side book of its own goddamn.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 04:07

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

"This thing came out of the bullet hole in his skull." Unreal.

mind the walrus posted:

Tom ~~Yorke~~ Yeerk

lol

# ? Mar 17, 2023 04:13

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Bruce Dickinson posted:

"Into the valley of death
rode the six hundred
cannon to right of them
cannon to left of them
volley'd and thunder'd...

THE TROOOOOOOOOOPER"

https://youtu.be/6leuyjRmCMA

# ? Mar 17, 2023 04:21

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Jesus, no wonder Jake thinks he's a monster. I forgot most of these details.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 12:36

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

Capfalcon posted:

Jesus, no wonder Jake thinks he's a monster. I forgot most of these details.

Epicurius posted:

quote:
�Look, Cassie, when this is over I�ll be done with it forever. I�ll go back to school, get an education, go to basketball games, get a driver�s license, go to college, figure out what it is I really want to do. And be with you. You and me.�

When Jake said this, you could argue that he hadn't yet done anything that would necessarily prevent him from being "done with it forever."

In, like, a day, he's now done three of those things.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 13:15

feetnotes: Jan 29, 2008

Jake posted:

I was in falcon morph, floating high, high in the air, rising on the updraft of warmth that still came from the smoldering ashes of the center of town. Usually night is a bad time for a peregrine. Night air is cold air and cold air is dead air. But flying above the black destruction I had all the lift I needed.

Even here, at the end of all things, there is still time to ride a thermal.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 16:46

pastor of muppets: Aug 21, 2007; We were somewhere around the Living Hive, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

mods please change my name to thermal of destruction

# ? Mar 17, 2023 16:58

JesusSinfulHands: Oct 24, 2007; Sartre and Russell are my heroes

Chapter 16 is unforgettable on the re read once you know how it turns out. It's hard to argue that the ends don't justify the means, but blackmailing the Chee into submission and forcibly sending the Auxiliary Animorphs into what ends up being a suicide mission is still incredibly hosed up.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 17:29

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

I don't know why his manipulation of Erik feels so much worse than killing however many innocents with the yeerk pool destruction, but it does.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 18:21

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Soonmot posted:

I don't know why his manipulation of Erik feels so much worse than killing however many innocents with the yeerk pool destruction, but it does.

I think a lot of it is that Erek is harmless. All of the Chee have been nothing but friends to the Animorphs, and he couldn't hurt Jake even if he wanted to, The Chee are innocents, who want nothing more than to take care of dogs in remembrance of their old masters and friends.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 19:06

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Soonmot posted:

I don't know why his manipulation of Erik feels so much worse than killing however many innocents with the yeerk pool destruction, but it does.

Unrelated people are faceless numbers. Erik a friend who had repeatedly helped them out and is being manipulated to act against a core belief by taking advantage of that same belief. It's incredibly cruel.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 19:18

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Yup. It's cruel as all hell, and while Jake is acting for the right reasons, he's lost all sense of proportion.

The Abyss is looking into him, big time.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 19:22

Soup du Jour: Sep 8, 2011; I always knew I'd die with a headache.

God, I had forgotten how loving intense this moment is

# ? Mar 17, 2023 19:57

Rochallor: Apr 23, 2010; ふっっっっっっっっっっっっｃｋ

Tree Bucket posted:

"This thing came out of the bullet hole in his skull." Unreal.

lol

I was ten the first time I read this book.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 20:19

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Glad you're on the mend Epicurius, and stoked for the end of the series.

Epicurius posted:

Chapter 14

Tom's Yeerk's proposal is interesting, because on the one hand, he's come to the same understanding as Aftran 942...that the Yeerks are trapped by their parasitism, and most Yeerks are hidebound and won't consider another way. Unlike Aftran, of course, what he wants in exchange for his help is conquest of another world where he and his followers can exploit the natives and live in luxury, really another kind of parasitism. Of course, all this assumes he's telling the truth, which is maybe a bad assumption,

This is the maybe the hardest consequence of the war - while morphing is a perfect solution to the problem inherent in the Yeerks' biology, they've now bred an entire culture of militant fascists who've never known anything but war and domination and aren't interested in that kind of solution.

OctaviusBeaver posted:

I never really pinned Jake as the type that wouldn't be able to come home from war. I can definitely see Rachel having problems. And Tobias has literally nobody else in his life except the Animorphs. But Jake always seemed like the type of guy who comes home in 1945, marries his sweetheart and starts a successful Buick dealership.

Yeah I 100% associate him with the "repressed trauma" Greatest Generation grandpa type. Mostly happy family, successful career, white picket fence - but never, ever talks about the war and his wife knows never to ask him about it.

End book spoiler: It's interesting that Jake is the only one who sort of transitions. Tobias is at one extreme of "not coping," Marco/Cassie/Ax are at the other of "coping." Whereas Jake goes through a few years of hopeless self-loathing but is starting to get his life back on track by the end.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 00:39

Star Man: Jun 1, 2008; There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

I feel like Chapman should have been in Tom's place in this book. He was a constant presence in this whole series, and his Yeerk's been poo poo on just as much as Tom's Yeerk.

I suppose it being Tom makes it personal with Jake, because it gives him a chance to finally get his family out.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 00:47

Mazerunner: Apr 22, 2010; Good Hunter, what... what is this post?

I think we've talked about this before a bit, but yeah the nothlit plan for taxxons and hork-bajir is, effectively, genocide. I mean it's... a nice genocide, in that they aren't dead and is presumably voluntary... but yeah it's just 'no more yeerks/taxxons'.

and double is that it's 'become animals and live in the wilderness and be at the mercy of humans'. Like, taxxons can fly spaceships! I guess floating the idea of becoming human nothlits or hork-bajir would be too much though.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 02:16

Rochallor: Apr 23, 2010; ふっっっっっっっっっっっっｃｋ

Star Man posted:

I feel like Chapman should have been in Tom's place in this book. He was a constant presence in this whole series, and his Yeerk's been poo poo on just as much as Tom's Yeerk.

I suppose it being Tom makes it personal with Jake, because it gives him a chance to finally get his family out.

I don't think Chapman is enough of a credible threat to play this role. He's only a serious obstacle in one or two books early on before transitioning to annoyance and then punching bag. Which is why I love that he's the hostage here! He's pathetic enough to get captured (and not even get any lines!) show how far beyond this school poo poo they are.

It's not fair to hold a children's series to the standards of a style of TV that didn't even exist when it was coming out, but nowadays you'd want a series of escalating non-Visser One (nee Three) threats to deal with. Chapman for a couple books, then an enforcer maybe with a Hork-Bajir body, then the Yeerk equivalent of Internal Affairs fighting the Animorphs while investigating Visser Three, then tiny Helmacrons controlled by even tinier Yeerks, then Tom for a couple more books than he actually shows up in.

I would give anything for a prestige TV style redo of this series. You don't even need to make it a single shade darker; we've already had a slug slithering out of a bullet hole and our heroes threatening to shoot a hostage. You just need a slower pace and have an idea of where you're going from the beginning.

Mazerunner posted:

I think we've talked about this before a bit, but yeah the nothlit plan for taxxons and hork-bajir is, effectively, genocide. I mean it's... a nice genocide, in that they aren't dead and is presumably voluntary... but yeah it's just 'no more yeerks/taxxons'.

I wonder if those sorts of ideas might be too abstract for the series to tackle, in that there's not a neat real-world analogy at play. Cultural genocide is not quite the same thing, I think we're in totally sci-fi territory. The Taxxons hating dealing with the hunger and the Yeerks having to infest other beings to have a real existence mean that we're playing with different rules. For example (spoilers for later in the book): I think what Jake does at the end of this book is a justifiable act of war, even if his reasoning is not, for the simple fact that the way the Yeerks work mean that the only time you can kill one without killing an innocent being is when they're in the pool. It's basically the only time they don't have a gun pointed at someone's head.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 02:48

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 18

quote:

The Humvees approached the wall-to-wall line of Hork-Bajir around the Pool ship and came to a stop. A Hork-Bajir- and a human-Controller stepped over to the window like cops getting ready to hand out tickets.

They spotted Tom, and I could hear the formal stiffness in their voices. �Sir, you understand we still need to conduct a thorough search and check your identity.�

�You�d better,� Tom snarled. �Lax security makes me cranky.�

The human-Controller shined a powerful light around the inside of the vehicle. He introduced a sensor probe that to my fly senses registered as a fantastical wizard�s wand. I could see energy radiating in wild colors, invisible most likely to human eyes.

�I only read two complex life-forms,� the guard said. �I�m showing several insect readings, but only two complex life-forms: yours, sir, and the driver�s. The prisoner is not registering as a lifeform.�

It was already going bad. What was this new sensor? We�d never seen this instrument before. I tensed, ready to leap free and demorph. But in the enclosed space of the Humvee we were trapped, helpless. We wouldn�t be able to bring our force to bear.

Tom said, �Well, as much as I respect your new toy there, I count three: one, two, three.�

� Yes, sir.�

�You can count to three, right?�

�Yes, sir.�

�Do you know what that prisoner is? That�s an Animorph. You think maybe Visser One would like to see her just as soon as possible?�

�Yes, sir!�

�As for the insect life-forms, they�re endemic to this planet. But I�ll be sure to use the Gleet BioFilter before I enter the ship.�

The guard must have been satisfied because moments later we were on the move. I rested calmly on a titanium rod that, to me, seemed as thick as an oak tree.

No one said anything for a while, and I could see very little with my limited fly senses.

Then, in a calm, low-pitched voice, Tom said, �How�s it going, little brother? You still there?�

<I�m still here,> I said.

�Good, glad to hear it. And all your little friends are there with you?�

<Shut up, Yeerk,> I snapped. <We work together because we have to. We don�t make small talk>

Tom�s Yeerk laughed. �Oh, you�re a surly bunch, aren�t you? No one talks to me. No one but Rachel, who told me to � well, you can guess what Rachel told me to do.�

<Whatever she said goes for all of us,> I answered.

�Surly and unpleasant. Oh, well. Time to go see the visser. My plan is working perfectly, don�t you think?�

Tom thought Cassie was real. And he thought all of us were hiding out somewhere on her body.

His plan was working fine. Ours was working even better.

Another delay. And then, at last, I heard that thought-speak voice.

Visser One.

<What have we here?>

�One of the Animorphs, Visser. My people captured her and questioned her. Questioned her � forcefully.�

<So I see. Congratulations.> He sounded almost annoyed, like he wasn�t all that happy to see Tom succeed where he had failed. <Have you passed through the Gleet BioFilter? I don�t want any surprises.>

�Yes, Visser, of course,� Tom�s Yeerk lied. The Gleet BioFilter detects and eliminates nonprimary life-forms - anything �riding� on a human or Hork-Bajir body.

<One of the so-called Animorphs. This one would be � Cassie, yes?>

Now I could see him, a mosaic of him, in my compound eyes. He loomed close, leering down with his mouthless Andalite face, stalk eyes widening out.

Suddenly his tail whipped around and delivered a slapping blow. Fast. So fast that even my fly reflexes would not have saved me. But of course the blow never reached me. It was stopped by force fields that overlapped the hologram. Just as Tom�s torturing blows had been.

 Visser One grated. <The trouble these creatures have caused me.>

�Perhaps not just yet, Visser,� Tom demurred. � She may still be useful as bait. Why not hold her and hand her over to some worthy, loyal Yeerk as a host body?�

<They are hard to hold on to,> Visser One said. <If you even appear to be thinking of morphing you�ll die, Animorph. Of course, you�re likely to die either way.>

�Cassie� said nothing.

<But pleasure can wait,> Visser One said.

<Report what you have learned.>

Tom clasped his hands behind his back and assumed a respectful but casual stance. �The Animorphs� leader has made contact with human military forces. A combined force of human soldiers and Animorphs will attack very soon. The goal will be to use the attack as a diversion, to allow the
Animorphs to infiltrate this ship.�

Visser One laughed. <They would try to take a Pool ship? Are they such fools?>

�Don�t forget, they have an Andalite among them. They would use his skills to break our security codes. And there is more, Visser.�

<More? What more?>

�I � I�m not certain, Visser, but I believe my people may have penetrated a second conspiracy, every bit as dangerous.�

<Tell me of ->

�Visser!� A new voice. Human. I vaguely perceived a human-Controller, a woman.

<You interrupt me?>

�With your permission, Visser, this may be the report I�ve been waiting for,� Tom said smoothly.

�Visser � I apologize for interrupting,� the woman said, �but a party of Hork-Bajir have arrived at the perimeter with a Taxxon prisoner.�

<A Taxxon prisoner? If some Taxxon is giving trouble, kill it, don�t waste my time with disciplinary matters like this.>

Tom intervened again. �I believe this is a very special Taxxon, Visser. You may choose to hear what he has to say.�

Moments later the Taxxon, accompanied by Hork-Bajir guards, shuffled and writhed into the room. He was a hundred great worms in my compound eyes. But the colors were different. I saw the red jelly eyes as an almost psychedelic violet.

<Well?> Visser One demanded. <I�m not a patient Yeerk, explain the great mystery here.>

Tom proceeded to explain his penetration of a Taxxon alliance with the Animorphs. The Taxxon, straining to form coherent speech with its inadequate mouthparts, confirmed the tale.

�In a matter of moments now, Visser, this three-part attack will take place. Human soldiers will attack, the Taxxons will destroy the unfinished Yeerk pool, and the Animorphs themselves will use the confusion to attempt to penetrate this ship.�

Visser One nodded. But was there hesitation in his bleary-looking Andalite eyes? No genius, maybe, Visser One, but he had an instinct for survival. He was moving back and forth, pacing, hooves clicking on the deck, stalk eyes wandering randomly.

Tom said, �If we move swiftly, we will destroy all our foes in one swoop. The Pool ship and its Bug fighters can quickly eliminate the human soldiers, and simply by lifting off we can doom the Animorph attempt at infiltration.�

<And what of these treasonous Taxxons?>

�They must be stopped quickly but carefully: We don�t want to damage the new Yeerk pool. I respectfully suggest, Visser, that I take temporary command of your Blade ship and deal with the Taxxons personally. Never fear: I will kill only as many as I need to, and drive the rest back to their labor.�

So, here it is, I thought. The moment of truth. The Visser would buy it or not. The silence stretched on. Too long.

Visser One had smelled the rat.

 Visser One hissed. <I�ve fought to seize this planet for years. For years! And suddenly now everything falls into my hands? I don�t trust good luck. For all I know, this Animorph, this Cassie creature, has managed to carry her fellow bandits in with her.>

�But, Visser, the Gleet BioFilter ��

<They�ve beaten the filter before,> Visser One shouted. <No! No! There�s something wrong here, something very wrong� . Look how she stands there, beaten, whipped, cowed. No, it�s too easy. And this Taxxon, how can I be sure he, too, isn�t one of them? They can take any shape. How can I be sure?>

�Very simply,� Tom said calmly. �Order the Taxxon to eat the Animorph girl. If the Taxxon is an Animorph in morph, he will refuse. If not, then the girl - and any hidden morphs concealed on her person - will be consumed. Thus, we will be sure of both.�

<Yes!> Visser One cried. <Guards, watch every corner of this room, shoot anything that moves, do you hear me? Anything! Don�t wait for orders. If they�re here they�ll try to demorph and remorph. Shoot anything! And now, hungry brother Taxxon: If you are a true Taxxon, rid us of this girl.>

The Taxxon did not hesitate. It reared up, opened its lamprey mouth, and slammed itself greedily down, teeth bared.

i kind of like the fact that Visser One is just exhausted here. If the Animorphs have been fighting for 3 years, he's been trying to control Earth for longer, first carrying out the first Visser One's plan, which he never really believed in, and now trying his, which hasn't been all that successful. Meanwhile, he knows that there's a pending Andalite attack and that he can't do anything to stop it. The visser was always aggressive and paranoid, but now he's even more so.

Chapter 19

quote:

No! No!� Cassie cried. �NOOO!�

The Taxxon�s mouth ripped Cassie apart, chewed arms and legs, spilled organs out onto the deck of the Pool ship, and finally lifted off her head in one fatal bite.

The voice - really very like Cassie�s - screamed, cried, begged for mercy.

Tom waved good-bye. �If you are there by some chance, little brother Jake, bye-bye!�

I saw it all from inside the illusion, for illusion it was. �Cassie� was Erek, the Chee.

Tom had betrayed us, as I knew he would. He believed we were all hiding on the true Cassie. He believed he had beaten the true Cassie, and that she had submitted in order to make her capture seem real.

He believed he had now fed her, and me, and all of us, to the hunger-mad Taxxon.

But the Taxxon was no more a Taxxon than �Cassie� was the real Cassie.

Tobias in Taxxon morph gorged on an illusion. The Cassie hologram was a horror film directed by Erek. Bit by bit he replaced illusions of Cassie with illusions of empty space. Until, gory bit by gory bit, she was gone, consumed by the Taxxon who kept at it until not even a bloodstain was left on the ship�s deck.

It would never have fooled a true Taxxon - even Chee holograms and force fields cannot project taste. But Tobias acted his part to perfection and the two Yeerks, Visser One and Tom, bought the performance entirely.

Erek, now visibly nothing but deck, rolled away, out of range of any sudden movement by Visser One that would reveal his presence.

<You did good, Erek,> I said.

He didn�t answer. He couldn�t. And in any case, I knew what his answer would be. I had left him no choice. Any failure on Erek�s part would have been the trigger for my ordering a slaughter. Chee programming chose the less violent path.

<Very good,> Visser One said, laughing. <I�ve lived to see at least one of them die. That was very satisfying. Now, go, my good and faithful servant: Take the Blade ship. Kill the Taxxon rebels for me! Hammer them into submission!>

�Yes, Visser,� Tom said, barely able to conceal his glee.

He thought he had it all in his grasp, right then. His voice gave nothing away, but I knew the Yeerk inside my brother�s head was triumphant. Ecstatic!

He had killed me. Killed all of us. And now, he would take possession of the Blade ship. Then, if my guess was right, he�d wait while Visser One annihilated General Doubleday�s troops, and then, when Visser One was least expecting it, Tom�s Yeerk would strike a surprise blow and destroy the
Pool ship itself.

Tom�s Yeerk would be left in command of the heavily armed and very fast Blade ship - almost surely the hiding place for the morphing cube. Tom�s Yeerk would take his new command into Zerospace to reemerge far, far away with a hard core of loyal followers and the power to morph. He wouldn�t have to stay behind to face the likely arrival of the Andalites. He would be safe and in control.

It was a neat plan. And if I had trusted him I�d be dead, along with all my friends. <Tobias, you okay?> I said.



<Marco? Cassie? Ax?> I called.

<We�re all okay, Jake,> Marco reported. <The good thing is that at least this flea morph I�m in has no interest in sucking Taxxon blood.>

<Still no sign of Rachel,> Cassie said. 

<I�m sure she�s okay,> I said. <Rachel takes care of herself. Now, you guys get to work. We need navigation control, and we need it as soon as possible.>

Marco said, <Do you think we should even try the codes Tom gave us?>

Ax answered for me. <Since he has, as predicted, betrayed us, it is likely the so-called codes he gave us are not only useless, but may well be self-destruct codes.>

<Ax is right,> I said. <You guys have to do it the hard way. Get going.>

Visser One helped us out inadvertently by ordering the Hork-Bajir guards to <Take that filthy Taxxon out and eliminate him. He�ll give you no trouble now that he�s been well fed!>

The Hork-Bajir led the Taxxon away. But neither Tobias, nor my friends hiding on his morphed form, had any reason to fear. The Hork-Bajir guards were Toby and twelve of her people.

My brother left the bridge of the Pool ship. He would be taken by Bug fighter up to the Blade ship in orbit. The Pool ship lifted off, a slight vibration being the only evidence. Off the earth to the safety of the skies, or so Visser One believed.

Five Animorphs, twelve free Hork-Bajir, and one Chee were now aboard the Pool ship, unsuspected. The plan was on track.

<Doing good, huh, Jake?> Rachel said, her thought-speak voice already fading with distance.

I couldn�t answer.

First, a little math mistake here. There are 13 free Hork-Bajir....Toby and 12 of her people.

More importantly, Jake says he "couldn't answer". Is that because he figures she's too far away, or he's overwhelmed by his decisions? Or something else?

# ? Mar 18, 2023 03:47

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Crossposting from the cursed thread:

https://i.imgur.com/zvwZVxL.mp4

Epicurius posted:

Chapter 19

And we hit reason #holy gently caress for why this is never getting a proper adaptation lmao jesus christ that was brutal.

I agree that forcing a pacifist to act as a tool on your behalf is worse than killing the defenseless Yeerks, but only just. I think the Taxxon genocide is one of those things that is technically true but it's a voluntary genocide because these creatures just shouldn't... be. It's a net good for literally everyone outside of some basic bitch ethical arithmetic that says that Life Population must extend in all cases where it conceivably could.

So glad to have blood bank back and running with this. It's really sprucing up my evenings.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 04:22

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Credit where it's due. Yeerk Tom had a great plan that would have gotten everything he wanted including revenging himself on his two most loathed enemies.

Jake only just saw through it.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 04:26

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Tom underestimated the allies the Animorphs actually had, and was counting on their desperation to make a foolish deal, which Jake saw and played into. Only question I have is how they ensured that the Taxxon defector could be their own and how to convince Tom of that. I either missed it or the inference that explains it.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 04:34

kiminewt: Feb 1, 2022

I don't think it's mentioned. Yet another thing they could've expanded on if they had more time.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 08:51

Star Man: Jun 1, 2008; There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Having a cheat code like a Chee is what made this entirely possible.

# ? Mar 18, 2023 20:59

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

While they don't have specifics, the Yeerks know that there's something weird going on in town beyond the normal Andalite bandit shenanigans.

That weird super computer crystal that was hooked up to be studied, then the whole lab was torn apart and every guard brutally slaughtered by hand.

The weird alien Dog ship down in the ocean that the "Andalite bandits" knew suspiciously well.

Not to mention all the times they showed up on other planets while still being present on Earth. That one is a bit backwards looking, to be fair.

But yeah, even within the strict pacifist limits of their programming, the Chee are honestly so ridiculously powerful that the mind boggles how one would even prepare countermeasures.

# ? Mar 19, 2023 01:10

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

Throw a stick in the opposite direction?

# ? Mar 19, 2023 02:22

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Star Man posted:

Having a cheat code like a Chee is what made this entirely possible.

It does read as a bit contrived but it's thematically justified because the Chee have been built up to be the ultimate non-aggressors, and Jake is deliberately crossing ethical boundaries to get their help. If it weren't for that, I'd agree it's a narrative cheat, but because it holds a cost that pays off both in terms of world logistics and characters, I'm not really bothered.

Definitely feels like this whole book could have been 3-5 books though.

# ? Mar 19, 2023 02:59

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 20

quote:

The Pool ship rose from the earth, bigger than anything human eyes had beheld in the skies. Up and up, but not so high yet. I could see little of the room with my limited senses. Impossible to understand large spaces with fly eyes. So I searched out relative darkness. I searched out a space where the air motion was minimal. I had used the fly morph many times before and I was good at interpreting the fractured data of its senses.

I landed upside down on an almost horizontal surface and hung there for a moment, trying to assemble a picture of the Pool ship�s battle bridge.

It seemed to be an oval in shape, though I couldn�t be sure. There were dozens of Controllers, mostly Hork-Bajir, with a scattering of humans. They sat or stood before glowing display screens.

Others stood at attention, awaiting the visser�s orders.

The visser paced back and forth, nervous or just feeling a rush of anticipation, I couldn�t guess which.

�There, Visser!� a human voice sang out. � Human military forces on the move.�

<On main screen,> Visser One ordered. <Magnify.>

�We have a preliminary estimate. Seven hundred and nine humans. Twelve of the tracked ground vehicles the humans call tanks, Visser. Nineteen rotary wing vehicles. Threat analysis: minimal.�

I could see the main view screen. It was upside down from my perspective, and a dizzying array of weirdly distorted colors, but I could make it out. I could see what Visser One could see: General Doubleday�s forces, moving forward through the burned debris below, still moving forward,
following orders, despite the fact that their target, their objective, the Pool ship now hovered a thousand feet over their heads.

A Hork-Bajir voice jumped in. �They were deployed to attack us on the ground, Visser. They seem at a loss.�

<Brilliant insight,> the visser said with acid sarcasm.

�Now showing fixed wing aircraft on approach,� another human voice said calmly. �Nine total.�

�Visser, I recommend allowing the Bug fighters to take out the aircraft. We can use our Dracon cannon on widest possible dispersion and destroy all the ground forces with a single sustained shot.�

<Yes,> Visser One said. Then, sounding almost regretful at being cheated of a real battle, he said, <Simple creatures. Did they really imagine they would accomplish anything?>

Where were Erek and Ax? Surely it had been long enough. Surely the Chee had penetrated Yeerk security by now. We should have control of navigation. I didn�t want to bother them, they were surely doing their best. But neither could I watch wholesale slaughter of the troops on the ground and do nothing.

�Dracon cannon configured, Visser. Permission to fire?�

If they fired the main Dracon cannon on widest dispersion it would not kill the men on the ground quickly. It would kill them slowly. They would cook. They would grow warmer and warmer, as the diluted Dracon energy heated them up. Hotter. Hotter till some began to pass out. Others would go crazy as their brains fried. And then the men, those already dead and those who still clung to life, would burn.

�Visser!�

<Yes, what is it?>

�Visser � the display � I believe there are morphs down there with the attacking human troops.�

The viewscreen veered wildly, rushing in for a close-up like someone taking home video.

I clearly saw a lioness loping along, a squad of soldiers hurrying beside it, weapons at the ready. I could see faces as they looked up fearfully at the Pool ship. Some stopped to fire up at us. Another morph, a rhino came lumbering into view. It was comical. Pitiful. Men with guns and a handful of fugitives from a zoo trying to attack a ship that could blow asteroids out of the sky.

<The rest of the Animorphs!> the visser cried gleefully. <Hah hah hah! I guess they�re having a hard time infiltrating my ship, eh?>

Nervous, toadying laughter all around. Someone reported that Tom had reached the Blade ship. The Blade ship was reporting readiness to join the attack.

<Yes, yes, tell him to go deal with the Taxxons. This, however, is all mine,> Visser One crowed.

Then, in a much different tone, almost wistful, <How long I have waited for this moment. The bandits out in the open, targeted, on-screen, unable to escape �>

�Permission to fire Dracon cannon?�

<No, no, cancel wide dispersion,> the visser ordered. <I want to see them burn, one by one. Move us in. Use narrow beam. Forget the human soldiers, they�re irrelevant. Rid me of these Animorphs, one by one. Close-up! Maximum magnification. Let me see them die!>

I couldn�t be patient any longer. <Ax? Marco? What is keeping you?> I cried.

<Had a fight,> Marco answered. I could hear the pain in his thought-speak voice.

At that same moment a new report reached the bridge. �Visser! Casualties in engineering!� a Hork-Bajir voice said.

<What is it? Another plasma explosion?> Visser One asked.

�No, Visser, all engines are nominal. All systems are nominal.�

<Well, find out what�s happened down there then,> Visser One said, sounding petulant rather than concerned. <Now target the morphs. Begin firing.>

�Firing,� the neutral voice reported.

The shot caught the hindquarters of the rhinoceros. For a horrifying moment the front legs kept running. The creature - a girl named Tricia - toppled forward, dug its horn into the dirt, rolled over, and was dead.

<Hah hah! Good shot! They burn well, these Animorphs!>

I felt sick inside. I should do something. I should stop this. That was the auxiliary Animorphs down there on the ground dying. Burning.

<No, no, you have to lead them a bit. Look! You can get two at � good shot!>

<Marco,> I pleaded. <Marco, they�re killing James�s people.>

<Erek�s doing his best, so is Ax,> Marco answered.

<How long?>

A moment�s pause while Marco queried the Chee and the Andalite.

<Three minutes,> he said at last.

It was a death sentence. Three minutes. More than enough time for the sharpshooters on the bridge. Too much time.

They fired.

If I demorphed here I�d be seen. Nowhere to hide. I�d be shot. Killed. Accomplish nothing.

Couldn�t die. I was in charge. It was my plan. No time for gestures. Win, that was all I had to do: Win.

Visser One said, <Look, it�s trying to repair itself by demorphing. Get it now! No, fool! There.Yes!>

�We�re taking fire, Visser. The fixed wing aircraft have launched missiles.�

<Destroy them,> Visser One said, too distracted by the murder of Animorphs to care overly much about minor matters.

The Hork-Bajir voice spoke again. �Confirm casualties in engineering, Visser. One Hork-Bajir. He appears to have suffered some sort of animal attack.�

That news made the visser sit up and listen. He spun his stalk eyes around to the speaker.

<What?>

I used the moment to push off and swoop down. I landed between his stalk eyes. Ax had admitted it was one of the very few spots on an Andalite�s body that he cannot easily see. I rested very still on Visser One�s head. The stalks were like snakes to me, impossibly thick, but flexible, bending this way and that, high over my head. The eyes floated up there, glaring daggers at the Hork-Bajir crewman.

<Animal attack?> Visser One grated.

Then, another human-Controller reported in, �Visser, we�ve contacted engineering and they are responding that everything is normal. The wounded Hork-Bajir was a disciplinary matter.�

Of course: Someone down in engineering, one of my friends, had morphed and was now passing as a Yeerk crew member.

<Don�t bother me with any more disciplinary matters,> Visser One said. <There! Look! Another morph! Get it! Get it!>

<Marco!> I yelled. <It�s now or never!>

<You missed! No, wait, there, he burns! He burns!>

�Visser, that appears to be the last of the morphs.�

<Ah, well, all good things must end,> Visser One said. <But it was a good ending. Be sure to save the recorded data - I will wish to play that scene over and over again. Now, set Dracon cannon for wide dispersal, let�s end this game.>

�Dracon cannon configured, Visser.�

<Fire.>

�Firing.�

<Ah, the humans have begun to notice, eh? Ah hah hah! Look how they squirm!>

�They will suffer one hundred percent casualties in thirty seconds.�

<Marco!> I cried.

<Got it!> he answered.

<Then do it! Now!>

<They burn, they burn!> the visser exulted.

Finally, �Visser, the helm is not answering.�

<What do you mean the helm is not answering? We�re drifting off-target! Get us back over the target!>

�Helm is unresponsive, Visser!�

He bounded over to the helmsman�s position and seized the controls himself. I had a perfect view. <Engineering! That fool in engineering must have �>

I could practically see the wheels turning in his brain. I could almost see the thought process, as one by one the clues fell into place.

<They are on board!> Visser One said, aghast. <They�re here. They�re on board! They sacrificed the girl and used her as a Trojan horse!>

He still hadn�t quite gotten it, but he was getting there. He still had not figured out that Tom had betrayed him.

�Visser, we appear to be heading toward a low orbit�

 Visser One raged. <Do we still have communications?>

�Yes.�

<Then raise the Blade ship. Order it to approach. If necessary it can fire to disable our engines.>

It was almost too perfect. Visser One was actually going to invite Tom to approach. He was all but sealing his own doom.

 Visser One said.

He was trembling, I could feel it so clearly. I savored his fear and rage. I had watched, helpless, while he murdered James and his people. Watched while he gloated. Now I wanted him to feel afraid.

<This ends now,> Visser One said harshly.

And silently I replied, Yes, it does.[/quote[

Apparently, Michael Grant regretted how they dealt with the auxiliary Animorphs....they didn't give them enough attention or characterization ahead of time that their deaths meant something. Applegate, on the other hands regrets what they did with Arbron and the Taxxons....she had proposed a Taxxon Chronicles book about the rebellion of the Mountain Taxxons against the Yeerk, but it wasn't approved.

Chapter 21

[quote]I hunkered down and held on as Visser One raced through the Pool ship. Hork-Bajir flocked to him, fell into step behind him. Down gloomy hallways, across open, hangarlike spaces, and then cramming into seemingly endless stairwells. Descending, always descending.

<Marco! Cassie! We�re on our way down there. Visser One and a whole bunch of his people.> I was beginning to understand why it had taken Marco, Cassie, Tobias, Ax, and Erek so long. Engineering was quite a distance from the bridge.

Three corridors converged together at a pair of wide blast doors. Hork-Bajir- and human- Controllers pressed close together.

<Dracon weapons on medium power,> Visser One ordered. <When the door opens begin firing. Fire until your power cells run dry, do you understand me? >

�Visser, there are surely some of our own people still alive in -�

The visser spun, whipped his Andalite tail, and decapitated the Hork-Bajir who had interrupted him.

<Medium power won�t damage the machinery but it will kill every living thing in there! You! All of you, form three rows right here. First row of Hork-Bajir kneels, second row of humans stands, third row of Hork-Bajir fires above the heads of row two. Am I clear?>

He was clear. And if he wasn�t, no one was going to say anything.

I spotted Toby, recognizable only by virtue of the fact that she was a bit shorter than the average Hork-Bajir female. Presumably her companions were in the crowd as well.

I called to my friends. <Hey, guys, they�re going to fire blind. They�ll saturate the room with Dracon beams on medium setting, kill everything. Are you ready?>

<Yep. We�re good,> Marco reported.

I launched, flew down and away, zipping through rapidly shuffling legs. The visser�s troops were forming up, strangely reminiscent of the kind of array you�d have seen in the Revolutionary War.

They might as well have been redcoats ready to fire volleys.

<Open the doors,> Visser One ordered.

The blast doors slid open on the main engineering station, a semicircle not so different from the bridge itself. But the room was on a vastly larger scale, as much as ten stories tall, dominated by three huge pillars of something that looked like glowing red clay.

The instant the doors opened the three close-packed ranks of Hork-Bajir and humans began firing. They poured energy into that room. There were cries from Hork-Bajir, humans, and Taxxons within, quickly silenced.

<Keep firing!> Visser One urged. <Assault teams ready. As soon as I order the firing to stop, rush the room!>

I flew away from the scene, propelled by a tail wind of hot air coming from the oven that was engineering. Down a corridor, left down a side hall.

<In here,> Ax said. A small door slid open.

I zoomed through and the door slid shut behind me. I demorphed and stood facing Ax, Marco, Cassie, and Tobias.

�Well, Jake,� Marco said cheerily. �Imagine meeting you here.�

<There is a very convenient conduit pipe leading away from engineering,> Ax said. <We had no trouble getting away. Though a few more seconds� time would not have been resented.>

�Yeah, you don�t want to be in engineering right now,� I said. I fought a desire to sit down. No time to rest. No time to show them how I felt. � Erek stayed in engineering?�

<He�ll be safe,> Tobias said. <It would take a full-power, sustained Dracon blast to hurt him.>

�What happened on the ground?� Cassie asked.

�I don�t know if Tom went after the Taxxons or not,� I said evasively.

�No, I mean the men on the ground. The soldiers. James�s people,� Cassie clarified, knowing perfectly well that I�d deliberately misunderstood her question.

�I think we were fast enough to save most of the soldiers,� I said. �James�s people � I don�t think many of them made it.�

Cassie grabbed my arm. �Jake, was Rachel down there with them?�

�No.�

�Then where is she? Why isn�t she with us? Why won�t you tell me?�

I sighed. No way to avoid it any longer. �She�s with Tom.� I wanted to keep my eyes on the floor. Cassie was Rachel�s best friend. Tobias, her boyfriend, if that term could apply to a hawk. I couldn�t look at either of them.

�Oh, Jake �� Cassie cried.

<You son of a �> Tobias began. <You arrogant, ruthless � What have you done? What have you done?!>

�I can�t let him get away,� I said dully. �Tom�s Yeerk � A Blade ship, probably the morphing cube? You were right, Cassie, I can�t let that happen.�

�Had to be,� Marco said quietly. My friend Marco had seen the same necessity I had seen. He didn�t like it any more than I did, but he saw the need, the inevitability.

�There has to be some other way,� Cassie whispered.

<Erek will not help us gain access to the weapons systems,> Ax said. <He has degraded the helm controls so that this ship can be kept flying but cannot effectively be brought into any action. It is as if someone were trying to control the flight of the Pool ship with an oar. The Pool ship will enter orbit and not leave it until the Yeerks can perform a major system overhaul requiring many hours. The Pool ship is useless as a weapons platform, except perhaps for one or two quick shots.>

�Which we can�t take because we can�t access weapons controls. Our blackmail only goes so far,� Marco agreed. �Erek�s down to core programming, no discretion: He cannot enable a major weapons system. Flat cannot. We�ll be sitting ducks if Tom turns the Blade ship against us, and we all know that�s his plan.�

I exploded. �It�s not Tom! It�s not Tom, don�t call him that. It�s the Yeerk in his head. It�s the Yeerk, not my brother!�

No one even looked shocked at my reaction. No one was in his right mind at that moment. Tobias hated me, hated me, I could feel it, and I hated myself.

Had to be another way. I couldn�t kill Rachel. Not my cousin Rachel, not after all the times she had saved my life.

�One chance and one chance only,� I said. �You said it, Ax: one or two quick shots, if we had access to weapons. One or two shots, maybe we could disable the Blade ship.�

�We don�t have access to weapons,� Marco pointed out.

I nodded. �Yeah. But Visser One does.�

�Use Visser One to disable the Blade ship?� Marco frowned.

I took a couple of deep breaths. Tried to focus. There was a clock in my brain going tick tock, tick tock, time�s up. Had to stick to the plan.
�It�s time,� I said. �I have to call Toby.�

I began to morph tiger. I needed the morph and more importantly, I needed the thought-speak.

<Don�t let her die,> Tobias said quietly. <Find a way, Jake. Don�t you let her die.>

Once I was ready I called to Toby. <Toby, we�re on track and on schedule. By now the bulk of available shock troops are in the engineering section, along with Visser One. Get into position: Close the engineering doors and shoot anything that tries to get out. And Toby, hold that position, no matter what. To the last person, Toby.>

�Anyone who can morph can escape that room,� Cassie pointed out. �And Visser One can morph. He can get past Toby�s people and take them from behind.�

I nodded. <Yeah. But he won�t go after Toby�s people. He�ll come after us because he�ll know we�re after his precious bridge.>

�He doesn�t even know we�re here,� she said.

<Battle morphs, everyone. Let�s inform Visser One of our presence.>

Poor Tobias.

# ? Mar 19, 2023 05:12

kiminewt: Feb 1, 2022

The auxiliary animorphs scene was worse than I remembered.

It they had really wanted they could've shown James though, that's a character we definitely cared about.

# ? Mar 19, 2023 08:10

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Yeah everything about that was just... awful in the best way.

# ? Mar 19, 2023 08:51

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Not complaining but this book seems really long - is it the longest in the main series?

edit - I checked and someone on Reddit put together a wordcount. This book is comparatively long but the longest in the series is, surprisingly, #1.

freebooter fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Mar 19, 2023

# ? Mar 19, 2023 09:25

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# ? May 25, 2024 19:06

JesusSinfulHands: Oct 24, 2007; Sartre and Russell are my heroes

I think watching the Auxiliary Animorphs burn to a painful death (granted through fly eyes) and being helpless to do anything about it is the most awful thing to happen in the series. Yes even worse then upcoming events.

From an authoral pov, I agree that not building them up and simply having them being used as cannon fodder is something that could have been improved.

# ? Mar 19, 2023 09:40

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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