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Master Plan for Freeing Tom and Fighting the Yeerks

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alaois:
Was just thinking about how I'd have fought the war if I were in Jake's shoes.  After you know about the yeerk peace movement and have acquired a yeerk morph, here's the plan:

Follow Tom's schedule so you know the best time to kidnap him so you basically only have to hold him one night.  Then acquire and morph Tom, have Cassie morph a yeerk and infest you, and together you go in to keep up Tom's cover that night.  Boom, after that, Tom is free and enlisted into the war effort--you make it clear to him he has to help in the fight, otherwise the yeerks will capture him. 

Once he's free, every three days one of the animorphs morphs a yeerk and infests tom, with his permission, long enough for the two of you to go into the yeerk pool and keep up Tom's cover.  While in the Yeerk pool you can use thought speak to talk to the peace movement, and spread the message that any yeerk that the andalite bandits are rogues willing to share morphing tech with any yeerk or taxxon who promises to help fight visser 3.  this will become even more believable to them once the yeerks know the andalite bandits are humans as most would be skeptical that any andalite would share tech, but it'd be too risky to spread that message quite yet.  perhaps you could arrange a demonstration by giving a yeerk from the peace movement the power to morph from his yeerk body to demonstrate and spread the message around.

boom--you now have Tom free AND he's a double agent, you have a regular trip into the yeerk pool to work on building a yeerk underground and keep an eye on what they're doing down there but which won't provoke suspicion because you're going in with your double agent, and you've planted the seeds for a yeerk civil war.  you'd have to deal with the creepiness of infesting Tom as a yeerk but it'd be a willing arrangement.

this would've given the animorphs a huge advantage--keep up the guerrilla warfare while dividing and conquering.  moreover, unlike what actually happened in the final arc, your promise to give the yeerks and taxxxons morph capability as part of a peace deal would be something you could actually follow through on because you still have the escafil device. 

DinosaurNothlit:
Or, heck, just do it during the events of #31.  You know, the book where Jake's family had to go to his grandfather's funeral, and Tom's Yeerk got so afraid that it was going to starve that he tried to murder the rest of his family?  A lot of people have wondered about that book, why didn't Jake just kidnap Tom then?  It'd solve more than one problem at once.

Side note: that was also the book right after the one where we find out that portable Kandrona generators exist.  So it wasn't like the Animorphs were the only ones being morons that time.  ::)

Anyway, as far as using Tom as a double-agent goes . . . yes, it makes a lot of tactical sense, but I can't picture Jake actually agreeing to that.  If he ever did actually manage to free his brother, I think he would be desperate to keep him as safe and as far away from the Yeerks as possible.  I don't think he'd be able to stand the thought of losing him to the enemy a second time, this time as a result of his own actions.  Now, I can picture Tom being the one to argue to go back to the Yeerk pool as a double agent.  The one and only time in the series we see Tom act as a free human being, he runs straight at Visser Three armed with only his fists, giving up his one chance at freedom to help the 'Andalite Bandits' escape the Yeerk pool.  That's a guy who would be more than willing to risk his life for the cause.  If Jake would allow him to do so, that is.

Although, it's also worth noting that this whole plan would be a HUGE security risk.  Suppose they tried to recruit the wrong Yeerk to the cause, and that Yeerk blew his cover to Visser Three?  He'd have an Animorph in his head, sure, but could that Animorph manage to morph and demorph in time to keep Tom from being infested by a different Yeerk, or killed?  Keep in mind, if they infest Tom at that point, that's pretty much game over.

Safest move is to get a random Chee to fake their current identity's death, and then take over as Tom 24/7.  If you're still set on the double-agent plan, maybe recruit one of the free Hork-bajir.  They'd be less suspect as double-agents because of their low intelligence (I feel like Yeerks wouldn't really take them seriously as a threat), and if caught, they'd be better able to defend themselves than a human would, giving the Animorph-turned-Yeerk at least a little more time to demorph and remorph before getting reinfested or killed.

 . . . Actually, you'd really only be risking them getting killed.  A Hork-bajir could slit their own throat if they were about to be infested.  Which, yeah, would be sad, but at least the Animorphs' identities would still be safe.

alaois:
Yeah I could see Jake not wanting to do it that way.  But the reason I figured Tom needed to be a double agent was in order to avoid suspicion, they can't just free Tom and have him disappear without the yeerks going in and infesting his family to figure out if they had anything to do with him disappearing.  The only other option is to free a ton of random controllers including Tom and have them all disappear, or use the Chee to fake Tom's death (but to what extent the Chee would consider that them aiding in the killing of Tom's yeerk would be a question with the Chee's ambiguous pacifist programming.  since Chee morality is basically plot-based, I think we can safely assume Chee couldn't help there because they knew Tom's yeerk would die in the plan, and there's no way to force the Yeerk in tom's head to voluntarily enter chee-head-prison without a threat of death they couldn't be part of).  I didn't envision doing the plan as early as 31, I was figuring it's a plan for the beginning of the final arc, once they're aware there's a possibility all-out war is coming and they're desperate.  Anyway, main point is freeing Tom doesn't work unless you enlist Tom, I could see Marco pitching this idea to Jake and pushing him into it finally convincing him, making it clear that every day you let Tom remain a slave he's already in danger, and the only way to free him is to bring him into the fight, there is no option for freeing him and getting him away.

The work within the Yeerk pool would be the biggest security risk, to be sure.  especially if we think about the fact Visser showed low level yeerks can sometimes be compelled to give memory dumps.  That's why I figured it as something in the start of the final arc, after Marco revealed himself to his dad.  Or else the book right after when they found out Visser 3 was Visser 1 now, because at that point they knew it was a waiting game for all-out direct war.  At that point they should've decided it was time to up their game.  Free Tom.  Give Tom morphing capability and an Ax morph (which they all seriously shouldve had in case they needed a battle morph but couldnt be seen morphing human to animal haha) in case there's a breech of security in the yeerk pool so he has a chance to escape or at least die trying.

The main thing is to spread the promise of morphing tech for yeerks who defect.  I'd say you get in touch with the YPM at the start to get them to spread that message, but subsequent trips into the yeerk pool to maintain Tom's cover are just about getting updates from them and just general observational intel.  You're of course in too vulnerable a position to be the one recruiting new yeerks.  Though since they can't tell where general announcement thought speak comes from, why not announce to every yeerk you meet, announce to the whole pool, that if they can successfully rise up in rebellion they will be offered morphing tech?  Heck, guess you don't even need the Tom double agent for that, I just remember even as a kid wishing they'd just free Tom and make him a double agent.  There was definitely a logic to them not freeing him because it'd be suspicious, but once they have the ability to morph yeerk, there was a solid pathway towards freeing him while keeping him undercover, but Jake and Tom was destined to be a shakespearean tragedy I guess, he was indecisive hamlet, had so many chances to do something like this, bring Tom in on the fight.  letting Tom remain a slave, constantly in danger of being killed by Visser 3 if he ever failed, vs freeing him and bringing him in on the fight?  there's really no question, right?  I suppose using some hork bajir double agents might have some more tactical sense, though you can't exactly bring an already freed hork bajir in without them wanting him to lead them to the valley, to set up a double agent you need a seemless transition so the yeerks never think the person was ever free--so in that sense Tom is probably the best choice if you did want a human double agent.  sure you could pick any other random controller but the real Tom's relationship with Jake as his brother would solidify the ability to trust and mesh him with the team (as soon as he figures out his kid brother has been one of the andalite bandits all along i'm sure he'd be more than willing to accept him as a leader, as he knows from the yeerk perspective just how effective a thorn in their side they've been)

haha anyway was just doing some re-reading recently for nostalgia sake and couldn't help but do some monday morning quarterbacking of a fictional war :P man i remember the days reading these as a kid when me and my friends would talk forever about these things.

Dogman15:
I would be happy to read a fleshed-out fan fiction based on these ideas.

Animorfer:
Sorry but that seems like an extremely dangerous plan. Sending an Animorph in Yeerk form (extremely vulnerable) to the Yeerk pool every 3 days? Not to mention Tom would have to play the part of his Yeerk 24/7. How good of an actor is he to be able to play that role? How long until he is asked to talk about some technology he has no clue about, or some non-Earth-related information that his Yeerk would know but he has no clue about?


The best solution for Tom was there right from Book 10. The Chee.
The plan: Animorphs kidnap Tom, have Ax give his Yeerk an ultimatum: Leave Tom and live, or die of Kandrona starvation. If Yeerk leaves Tom, give him to an android to imprison the same way Erek did to his Yeerk. The android can impersonate Tom for the rest of Tom's life, although I'm sure Tom's yeerk would eventually be involved in violence, so the best case scenario would be to stage Tom's death in the presence of other controllers, so they see that it really happened. Perhaps at a future battle, they can have a hologram of one of the Animorphs attacking and killing Tom, preferably with a Dracon beam so the body disintegrates. Jake's parents grieve, and the real Tom lives free w/ the Hork Bajir or Chee.

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