Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Darth Zakryn on February 02, 2011, 07:01:07 AM
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What if the Yeerks DID take over? They control all species in the galaxy and wipe out others they can't infest. They force their hosts to mate and make more children. What will happen to that child? Will it be infested at a young age to ensure that it doesn't develop a rebellious mind, or will it be cared for until a certain age, and THEN infested? We see in #29 that the Yeerks WILL infest children as young as 5, but a human as young as 1 or younger is basically helpless, too much like the Yeerks' original bodies.
So........ thoughts?
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If I recall correctly, in the future seen by Jake in #41, the Yeerks raised children to the age of 10 before infesting them.
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And the children were conditioned to not feel. Because the Yeerks haven't quite got it into their heads that they can't control human emotions. On the other hand this was just a dream of Jake's, but it's the second time we see a potential "future" outcome.
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This is what it said the Yeerks did with children (of any species) in book #41
"The Yeerks raise children in large warehouses back in the city. Controllers like the ones you saw are picked at random to procreate. When children are born, they enter one of the wamps, or warehouses, where they are held from birth to age fifteen.
Their lives are controlled though their brains are left uninfested. Children are seen as weak and unworthy host bodies.
"During this captivity," she continued, ; "they're pumped full of vitamin supplements so the host bodies will grow strong. They're run on
treadmills so they'll be fit to fight and to produce. When instinct leads them to indulge in moments of uncontrolled, regular childhood, they are punished.
If they try to educate themselves, they are punished. Yeerks want minds as powerless as possible. So they raise children in a joyless, lifeless world where they wait for the day of infestation.
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Strangely enough, that whole explanation reminded me of a book by Garth Nix called Shade's Children.
It's set in a future where aliens or cybernetic creatures or some such raises children until their 14th birthday and then kills them to use their bodies to reproduce more cyborgs. They're raised in very similar situations.
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Child conditioning reminds me of Brave New World.
I don't completely understand though... obviously they're not as useful as grown hosts but, the Yeerks want host bodies and children as young as ten could work. Plus I've always thought the earlier a body was infested the less likely it would form any independence and notion of free will/rebellion.
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During the invation numbers were more important, because it was about being subtle. Once they'd taken over, they would preffer their hosts to be as usefull as possible.
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Oh I understand that. I just mean, they talk about the billions (possibly millions) of Yeerks that don't have host bodies in the series - I would have thought something was better than nothing. A child might be less useful but its better than life in a sludgy pool.
Then again, thinking about it... the more hosts you have the more facilities you need for holding bodies while the Yeerks feed. It's logistically smarter to purposefully restrict the number of hosts, and children are the first and most obvious choice for not infesting.
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changed the topic title. please make your thread names more specific.
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Oh I understand that. I just mean, they talk about the billions (possibly millions) of Yeerks that don't have host bodies in the series - I would have thought something was better than nothing. A child might be less useful but its better than life in a sludgy pool.
Then again, thinking about it... the more hosts you have the more facilities you need for holding bodies while the Yeerks feed. It's logistically smarter to purposefully restrict the number of hosts, and children are the first and most obvious choice for not infesting.
I dont know BennyBoy, I never thought there were billions of yeerks, especially after its stated that Jake killed off the bulk of the yeerk race when he flushed the 17,302 yeerks on the pool ship. I assumed that was one of the main bonuses of conquering earth, that every Yeerk would get a host.
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Maybe, but let's not forget how quickly the Yeerk population could reestablish itself. They do not mate often, but when they do anywhere between dozens and thousands of grubs are born. The Yeerks that fathered Visser Three and his siblings had around ten thousand grubs, at least.
I imagine Yeerks aren't too eager to mate, given that it is a death sentence, but I'm sure that the empire could find enough willing Yeerks if necessary to create plenty of Yeerks for all of earth and then some.
Or to make up for the 17k lost at the end of the war.
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Hmm... it's just one of those things that K.A. never really specified so we have to guess from what we've been given.
I thought there were still meant to be plenty of Yeerks waiting on the home world as well.
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I imagine Yeerks aren't too eager to mate, given that it is a death sentence, but I'm sure that the empire could find enough willing Yeerks if necessary to create plenty of Yeerks for all of earth and then some.
So interesting that you should bring that up. ;)
The Yeerk mindset is that even if they die, someone else will continue their work. And while Yeerks seem like the kind of creatures that enjoy living life to the fullest, they don't live forever. It's my theory that when they are close to the end of their natural life cycle they seek others who are also dying to begin the process.
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I imagine Yeerks aren't too eager to mate, given that it is a death sentence, but I'm sure that the empire could find enough willing Yeerks if necessary to create plenty of Yeerks for all of earth and then some.
So interesting that you should bring that up. ;)
The Yeerk mindset is that even if they day, someone else will continue their work. And while Yeerks seem like the kind of creatures that enjoy living life to the fullest, they don't live forever. It's my theory that when they are close to the end of their natural life cycle they seek others who are also dying to begin the process.
Doesn't Cassie comment on this in #19? Or is that Jake in #6?
Now, about this "future" in #41... The Ellimist states in #26 that eventually, the Yeerks meet the Iskoort and figure out that symbiotic life is better than taking hosts involuntarily. I believe that this may have already happened in #41 due to the existence of the Evolutionist Front. The question then becomes "How are the Animorphs still alive?" when the meeting is supposed to be 300 years in the future of #26?
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The Iskoort aren't present in #41, therefore the events in #26 are far, far ahead of #41.
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The Iskoort aren't present in #41, therefore the events in #26 are far, far ahead of #41.
I don't think that The Ellimist meant that Yeerks would be living with the Iskoort at that point. I think that he meant they'd see a better way of things, and that's what I think the Evolutionist Front represents.
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I think we are neglecting to consider the intricacies of time here. The events of #26 allowed for a POSSIBLE future in which the Yeerks would meet the Iskoort down the road. The Ellimist himself says several times that the future is constantly in a state of flux. There is a lot that can happen in 300 years, and the Animorphs only stopped one of the many possible events that could have prevented the meeting.
#41 is a dream, and I do not think it is unreasonable to assume that the Evolutionist Front was a device that was created out of Jake's prior knowledge pertaining to the Iskoort world. He (or whoever) took the idea of symbiosis and warped it to fit the dream. Hence, no Iskoort.
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I always wondered what happened to the voice at the end of that book... Was that Crayak, the Drode, The One or someone that KAA never alluded to?
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I always wondered what happened to the voice at the end of that book... Was that Crayak, the Drode, The One or someone that KAA never alluded to?
Most of that book was Confusing to me , but that was the icing on the cake bennyboy, especially since it is stated that it wasn't the ellimist or crayak
and I always figured the evolutionist front eventually became the revolution that turned the yeerks into iskoort.
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I can actually understand the book quite well.
It's The Ellimist Chronicles that confuses me.
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Well, if there are any individual books that you guys want to discuss in detail there's an entire child board for the book re-reads. There's a topic for each book, so you can post in there.
So, about the Yeerks winning....how do you think Yeerks would go about reshaping human society? Phoenix brought up a good point (I think it was in another thread though), there's nothing that says they need all of us. Do you think they'd take what they needed and wipe the rest of us out?
Also, I'm pretty sure the possible view of the future we get in #7 is not entirely accurate. I know the Yeerks are made out to be world killers, but they don't seem like the type to just go around blasting up the terrain for the sake of killing all life everywhere. It just seems like too much unnecessary work. I feel like perhaps instead they would just change the parts of the Earth they needed to utilize and let the rest go untamed. We see examples of this in both TAC on the Taxxon world and in HBC.
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Well, if there are any individual books that you guys want to discuss in detail there's an entire child board for the book re-reads. There's a topic for each book, so you can post in there.
So, about the Yeerks winning....how do you think Yeerks would go about reshaping human society? Phoenix brought up a good point (I think it was in another thread though), there's nothing that says they need all of us. Do you think they'd take what they needed and wipe the rest of us out?
Also, I'm pretty sure the possible view of the future we get in #7 is not entirely accurate. I know the Yeerks are made out to be world killers, but they don't seem like the type to just go around blasting up the terrain for the sake of killing all life everywhere. It just seems like too much unnecessary work. I feel like perhaps instead they would just change the parts of the Earth they needed to utilize and let the rest go untamed. We see examples of this in both TAC on the Taxxon world and in HBC.
The question is, how would they react to our resource depletion?
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So, about the Yeerks winning....how do you think Yeerks would go about reshaping human society?
Out goes the oatmeal for starters.
And it seems that there are some aspects of human culture that the Yeerks didn't find entirely distasteful. They adapted the concept of a single place to eat and commune in their Yeerk Pool for example. The idea of a "dining room" seems largely human in the Animorphs universe so it's not a stretch to believe the Yeerks have adopted the idea and won't kick it out of bed anytime soon.
And Visser Three collects midevil torture devices like movie posters, so I wouldn't be surprised if they started breaking out iron maidens, the boot and the pear to add to their all ready considerably large arsenal of torture methods.
Also, I'm pretty sure the possible view of the future we get in #7 is not entirely accurate.
Mostly agree here. I think the major cities will be spared and smaller neighborhoods will either be ploughed over or replaced by spaceports and pools. I think botanical gardens and places where the Yeerk can take their host to calm it down would be preserved.
Now here's an even more interesting question. If the Yeerks take Earth, then there's no doubt in my mind that the Andalite homeworld may as well have the word NEXT painted all over it. How long after the conquest of Earth do you think it will take before the Andalite world becomes a Yeerk controlled planet?
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So, about the Yeerks winning....how do you think Yeerks would go about reshaping human society?
Out goes the oatmeal for starters.
And it seems that there are some aspects of human culture that the Yeerks didn't find entirely distasteful. They adapted the concept of a single place to eat and commune in their Yeerk Pool for example. The idea of a "dining room" seems largely human in the Animorphs universe so it's not a stretch to believe the Yeerks have adopted the idea and won't kick it out of bed anytime soon.
And Visser Three collects midevil torture devices like movie posters, so I wouldn't be surprised if they started breaking out iron maidens, the boot and the pear to add to their all ready considerably large arsenal of torture methods.
Also, I'm pretty sure the possible view of the future we get in #7 is not entirely accurate.
Mostly agree here. I think the major cities will be spared and smaller neighborhoods will either be ploughed over or replaced by spaceports and pools. I think botanical gardens and places where the Yeerk can take their host to calm it down would be preserved.
Now here's an even more interesting question. If the Yeerks take Earth, then there's no doubt in my mind that the Andalite homeworld may as well have the word NEXT painted all over it. How long after the conquest of Earth do you think it will take before the Andalite world becomes a Yeerk controlled planet?
As little as 3 weeks if they use the Terran idea of decimating their bio-sphere with fossil fuels. :P
Even shorter if they have hunters go nuts thinking the Andalites are nothing but alien deer.
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I wonder if it'd be like our Aftermath RP...(Anyone here from it?)
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I don't know. It depends on how they conquer humans. Let's say, for example, that some of Visser Three's plans DO succeed just one time, that he does succeed in doing something big like infesting patients in a hospital or infesting several world leaders, etc, and the invasion speeds up dramatically. I think they'll import more humans to do more laborious things, like help build ships and weapons. And as Earth gets more under Yeerk control, they'll probably be building in the open, using some of Earth's own resources and our own stockpiles to build even more ships and weapons. I estimate that late in the series, before the end of the war there were maybe a few hundred thousand or million Controllers. Visser Three was indeed a glory-seeking idiot to think open war would work when infiltration is the way to go.
Anyway, with so many ship-building and weapon-building going on, the Yeerks would probably attack the Andalite home world or other key places in about, or, a few weeks or months.
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I don't know. It depends on how they conquer humans. Let's say, for example, that some of Visser Three's plans DO succeed just one time, that he does succeed in doing something big like infesting patients in a hospital or infesting several world leaders, etc, and the invasion speeds up dramatically. I think they'll import more humans to do more laborious things, like help build ships and weapons. And as Earth gets more under Yeerk control, they'll probably be building in the open, using some of Earth's own resources and our own stockpiles to build even more ships and weapons. I estimate that late in the series, before the end of the war there were maybe a few hundred thousand or million Controllers. Visser Three was indeed a glory-seeking idiot to think open war would work when infiltration is the way to go.
Anyway, with so many ship-building and weapon-building going on, the Yeerks would probably attack the Andalite home world or other key places in about, or, a few weeks or months.
They don't need to openly attack the Andalites like that. All they need is to send human hunters and tell them that Andalite meat is the same as venison.
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They don't need to openly attack the Andalites like that. All they need is to send human hunters and tell them that Andalite meat is the same as venison.
::)
I would say not long at all... Many times through the series it is stated that if the yeerks get the humans then that pretty much means war over.
On the other side of the coin, however, the Andalites are still the most powerful race in the galaxy and might be hard to take down. There whole culture is built around never surrendering and they do hate the yeerks very fiercely. Even if they did manage to gain control of the andalite homeworld, I have a feeling that the andalites would make terrific guriella fighters.
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Especially with that pesky morphing technology. It would also take a while to destroy every single Andalite spaceship out there. Like, hundreds. Maybe thousands.
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Well, you also have to remember that the Yeerks may have been making progress on the Andalite homeworld, or so Alloran seemed to hint at when he was temporarily free of Visser Three.
Of course, since the Andalites seem to favor the tactical nuke approach, they would probably engage in mass ritualistic suicide the moment it appeared that the Yeerks were winning.
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Lol, I never thought of that! But it's probably true.
Though that's not to say the Yeerks won't steal some morphing cubes and reverse engineer the morphing technology. If that happens, we're ALL screwed, because their abilities as infiltrators will greatly increase.
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Jeez. There's a thought.
If the Yeerks won the war on Earth and the Andalites didn't blow up the planet, then Earth would only be a shade of what it is now.
The Yeerks would definitely wipe out what they don't need, so they get space for their own expansion.
I can see them wiping out many of the crisis-hit 3rd-World nations, where a large number of humans are either defficient, infected (eg: AIDS, cancer). And, I suspect, a lot of the humans in the 3rd age wouldn't be spared either.
They would follow strict guidances in human diet and reproduction.
I would imagine things like fashion (clothing, hairstyle) and surpassed human media/tech (tv, internet) would be cut. Humans would be walking around with short-trimmed cut hairs and buildings such as malls, stadiums, government buildings would be destroyed, if they couldn't find any otherwise use for it.
I am unsure if the Yeerks would remove or leave important/popular landmarks such as an Eiffel tower or a Pyramid of Giza standing unkept. But I can certainly see the Yeerks using it as some sort of target practice between themselves, much like they did with the useless-as-hosts Arn.
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I think the Yeerks would've kept T.V. and other media, just censored it a lot. You know, fill it with pro-empire propaganda, and have channels like the local public access ones we have around here. They're filled with important community and statewide events, notices, laws and information.(eg: scheduled yeerk pool times, where to go if you need help with a rebellious host, a reminder that all maple and ginger instant oatmeal is contraband and highly illegal).
They might keep stadiums too, maybe shape them into gladiator arenas to make examples of escaped or unruly hosts, or Yeerks who messed up.
Maybe they would keep some government buildings, set up a puppet government run by the Yeerks, like Vichy France during WWII.(but you know some of the Yeerks have hosts who have seen the film Independence Day(no more White House).
I can't see them leaving big targets like the Eiffel tower, the nose of the Sphinx, or any other landmarks unscathed though.
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I think the Yeerks would've kept T.V. and other media, just censored it a lot. You know, fill it with pro-empire propaganda, and have channels like the local public access ones we have around here. They're filled with important community and statewide events, notices, laws and information.(eg: scheduled yeerk pool times, where to go if you need help with a rebellious host, a reminder that all maple and ginger instant oatmeal is contraband and highly illegal).
They might keep stadiums too, maybe shape them into gladiator arenas to make examples of escaped or unruly hosts, or Yeerks who messed up.
Maybe they would keep some government buildings, set up a puppet government run by the Yeerks, like Vichy France during WWII.(but you know some of the Yeerks have hosts who have seen the film Independence Day(no more White House).
I can't see them leaving big targets like the Eiffel tower, the nose of the Sphinx, or any other landmarks unscathed though.
I totally see them blasting Lady Liberty into atoms, maybe the same with Big Ben and the Kremlin. The Taj Mahal still stands, but as a headquarters for the Yeerks in India. The Sydney Opera House is totally perverted, turned into a giant viewing area for executions, the same with the (ironically rebuilt) Roman Colosseum. Vatican City still holds the Pope, oddly enough, as the Yeerks see religion as a way to control humanity. Mount Rushmore gets brain surgery and is turned into a holding chamber for prisoners. Alcatraz is re-opened for the same purpose. NORAD... I have no idea. Cheyenne Mountain is massive. Massive enough to be used as a giant Yeerk pool or the biggest prison on the planet.
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Do you think they would go ahead and try to turn the moon into a Kandrona? Or going with their North Pole plan?
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Do you think they would go ahead and try to turn the moon into a Kandrona? Or going with their North Pole plan?
They'd probably do the Moon plan to make sure Earth was permanently conquered, since sentient life doesn't exist on Earth without the Moon to stabilize it's tilt.
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We know that when the Yeerks escaped their homeworld, they took a quarter of a million of their kind with them. A large number sure, but probably not a huge fraction of their entire species. I always assumed that including their homeworld, they had a population in the hundreds of millions, which would be enough to give them all a host even without taking all 6 billion of us.
As somebody already said, they would eliminate any hosts they saw as useless. With billions of hosts available, they can afford to be picky. We know they don't see the use in disabled hosts, so anyone with a disability would go, along with any debilitating or highly infectious diseases (especially genetic ones). Once a host reaches an age where they they are no longer useful, they'd probably go too.
I suspect they would keep some of our media (TV, internet) but use it for their own purposes. Buildings related to education, religion or entertainment would be destroyed or converted into space for accommodation, storage, research, spaceports, etc.
If they took Earth, they would've been able to beat the Andalites through sheer numbers, but the Andalites certainly wouldn't go down without a fight. Eventually the Andalite homeworld would be overrun and their major colonies (assuming they have any) would either be destroyed by the Yeerks or abandoned by their inhabitants. Small colonies would most likely survive, hiding from the Yeerks on small moons or planets. Maybe they would become space nomads, spending their whole lives aboard their ships, on the run from the Yeerks.
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The Yeerks are scrupulous when they can't be somewhat simple in their plans but always cold and methodical with their designs. Their Empire's sole purpose was to spread throughout the universe, adopting what was convenient from their enslaved species and using it to strengthen their own, so they can continue to spread.
Anything less than that on Earth, would have been 'living as a human', and it simply isn't the way they run things.
The reason I said things like the human media would have been removed, is because the Yeerks already have the technology that surpasses all those things. I am not even sure suburbian houses would have been kept. Indeed, I can see them building cities with high-as skyscrapers that are triple the size of the human's tallest one. Accomodating Controllers sort of like the walls in a hive of bees. This would be more practival in a Yeerk-owned Earth and they certainly have the tech to do it.
Not even hospitals, heck, they've got their own equivalents.
And the human-made landmarks wouldn't be used, unless they could make some political statement against the human civilization (like Baranth stated above), to put themselves up or bring the 'human spirit' down within the individual hosts. Keeping in mind that a landmark in America would mean nothing to a landmark in Botswana. If they weren't destroyed, they would have been left to nature. The city of Petra, Macchu Picchu, Uluru would just be irrelevant rocks on the Earth's surface and the Parthenon, Great Wall and Stonehenge would just be derilict human constructs, IF the Yeerks didn't feel like testing their Dracon cannons.
And, though I think the Yeerks seek some sort of entertainment, they are also some highly-advanced species with other concepts of entertainment. So, I don't think we would see the Yeerks sporting any sort of world cup or playing uno when they were stuck indoors in the winter cold places, just because they would need to clamp down on their human hosts' esteem. They wouldn't really need to tame their hosts, even if they're voluntary ones at this stage.
The only thing that would save some of the animal species of Earth is if they could use them on other planets they intend to invade. Much like Visser Three used his Veleek on the Anis, or Visser One with the tiger sharks in the Leera campaign. The Yeerks could win over the Andalites by sheer numbers, indeed, but I suspect, with the strong possibility of Visser Three would being in the reigns, following his success on Earth, he would have thrown in mind-controlled Earth predators let loose on the Andalites for some of his sick distraction. A crockie in their waters, a golden eagle in their air, a funnel-web spider in their scoops all would provide decent psychological damage.
Do you think they would go ahead and try to turn the moon into a Kandrona? Or going with their North Pole plan?
The North Pole Kandrona idea revolved around the Infiltration factor, me thinks. With that gone, I don't really see why the Yeerks would do their artificial sources of food any differently than in their other enslaved-planets.
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We shouldn't forget if a Yeerk takes over they take not only our resources, land and people but also our unique way of thinking. In a sense the more highly intelligent sentient species a singular Yeerk takes (assuming the Yeerk is a good learner) the more adaptable and potentially dangerous they could be. It hasn't been mentioned much because the general propaganda is that Yeerks are the superior race blah blah so those they inhabit are beneath them (Parasitic not Symbiotic) but being able to learn to think in a different way could mean the Yeerks potentially have the greatest potential for whatever they want to achieve.
It's in my estimation, greater numbers doesn't mean just greater military power. You have an infinite number of monkeys, infinite amount of time and eventually one of them will recreate the entire works of Shakespeare. WW2 wasn't ended by just sheer numbers. Of course most of the futures depicted by Applegate show the Yeerks remaining steadfast in their conquering and suppressing ways so everyone assumes the Yeerks never learn (without higher level interference eg Ellimist/Crayak or other).
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We shouldn't forget if a Yeerk takes over they take not only our resources, land and people but also our unique way of thinking. In a sense the more highly intelligent sentient species a singular Yeerk takes (assuming the Yeerk is a good learner) the more adaptable and potentially dangerous they could be. It hasn't been mentioned much because the general propaganda is that Yeerks are the superior race blah blah so those they inhabit are beneath them (Parasitic not Symbiotic) but being able to learn to think in a different way could mean the Yeerks potentially have the greatest potential for whatever they want to achieve.
It's in my estimation, greater numbers doesn't mean just greater military power. You have an infinite number of monkeys, infinite amount of time and eventually one of them will recreate the entire works of Shakespeare. WW2 wasn't ended by just sheer numbers. Of course most of the futures depicted by Applegate show the Yeerks remaining steadfast in their conquering and suppressing ways so everyone assumes the Yeerks never learn (without higher level interference eg Ellimist/Crayak or other).
In an alternate universe where FDR didn't die on Apr. 12, 1945, WW2 WAS ended by sheer numbers instead of nuclear weapons, as FDR advocated an invasion of Japan, and Truman preferred The Bomb.
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I imagine Yeerks aren't too eager to mate, given that it is a death sentence, but I'm sure that the empire could find enough willing Yeerks if necessary to create plenty of Yeerks for all of earth and then some.
So interesting that you should bring that up. ;)
The Yeerk mindset is that even if they day, someone else will continue their work. And while Yeerks seem like the kind of creatures that enjoy living life to the fullest, they don't live forever. It's my theory that when they are close to the end of their natural life cycle they seek others who are also dying to begin the process.
Doesn't Cassie comment on this in #19? Or is that Jake in #6?
Now, about this "future" in #41... The Ellimist states in #26 that eventually, the Yeerks meet the Iskoort and figure out that symbiotic life is better than taking hosts involuntarily. I believe that this may have already happened in #41 due to the existence of the Evolutionist Front. The question then becomes "How are the Animorphs still alive?" when the meeting is supposed to be 300 years in the future of #26?
Cassie and her Yeerk were members of the Evolutionist Front. I assume that the EF got the idea of artificial symbiotic hosts from Cassie!