Have the yeerks done anything wrong?

[sundi]

This is more sort of an ethical question than anything else.

Ok so the yeerks main arguments are that its unfair for a sentient, intelligent being to be so sensory deprived, which is why they infest other hosts.

Well thats the way they evolved right, so tough luck? But they also evolved the ability to infest other beings, so in actual fact they are just doing what they have evolved to do. This was just limited to the Gedds and thats the way it would have stayed, presumably since the Gedds were cumbersome and incapable of making any kind of technological breakthroughs.

So who's to say what the yeerks are doing is wrong? Would you say humans destroying habitats to provide for themselves is wrong, no because fundamentally its down to survival of the species. Sure humans don't go out of their way to harm other species but if there were ever a situation where we had to eliminate a dozen species entirely to save our own we would do it in the blink of an eye.

While I think its right for humans to fight back and resist the yeerks, I've gotta say they are just looking out for their own species, hell at least they're not killing each other to same scale that we have done.

[Mongoose]

It's also unfair for a sentient being to be enslaved and to have their freedom taken away. And I would say that hosts suffer more for being controlled than the parasite does for not having a host. The Yeerk can survive without a host, so having a host is not a basic right
However you can't really blame a species for the way they evolved, it's not something you ever have control over.
But on the whole the Yeerks make war and enslave that is not something they have a right to do. They committed genocide while searching for a host race. They may not be killing themselves, but they're doing a much better job at killing other races.  But at the same time you cannot hold every Yeerk accountable for the way the race acted.
The only answer is symbiosis, but it would have to be policed very closely. 

[Qwerty the Charliecorn]

Some Yeerks, yes. Like in many other books I've read, it's not the act itself that was bad, but the way the "bad guys" went about doing it. I mean, look at Visser Three. He definitely did wrong. But that doesn't mean all Yeerks were evil. They were just doing what they had to to survive. But some of them took it too far and turned it into something it didn't need to be.

[Chad32]

If they made a law that only voluntary hosts were taken, then I think it would be ok. I mean, there could be some benefit to having another intelligent mind in your head.

It's more the taking of involuntary hosts that is wrong. Seerow obviously wanted them to have spaceflight and explore the cosmos. Surely it would also be ok if members of another sentient species wanted to help out the Yeerks by letting one live inside them.

There are voluntary controllers. Chapman once tells Visser Three that 60% of Humans taken into the Sharing become voluntary. Heck, I'd probably be willing to live with a nice enough Yeerk if it meant I could fly a spaceship or something.

[morfowt]

They committed genocide while searching for a host race. 

Yeah, remember that race of aliens that had their brains spread out all over the bodies in nodes (don't remember what they were called)? the yeerks couldn't enslave them so they left them to drift in space.

of course, some yeerks aren't really bad. they're just too scared to disobey.

[esplin]

the yeerks seem to want to have more then they really need, am i right?

[sundi]

You could say the same about humans...

[Qwerty the Charliecorn]

Yes you could. Humans are never satisfied with what they have.

[esplin]

lol i didnt say we were any better 
the yeerks are just like us, except maybe a tad more evil and they got space ships and stuff.
id like to think that the number of humans who are basically good is more then the number of yeerks.

[CounterInstinct]

Most of the Yeerk leaders are power hungry... just like humans though. I think its a kind of symbolism thing, of howpresent leaders take freedom of their followers.. but anyway...

This debate is similar to book 19, Cassie's book where Aftran reasons to Cassie that the Yeerks did not do anything wrong...
But, as some of the others above said, taking involuntary hosts is wrong. Plus, why couldn't the Yeerks be satisfied with the Gedds? Or better, why not do what the Iskoort do? Like being in symbiosis with another species?

[morfowt]

well the yeerks haven't thought of what the iskoort did.

and the yeerks are already in symbiosis. paratism is a kind of symbiosis. one which the one organism gains and another loses.

[CounterInstinct]

my post was again, misleading...  I meant like the Iskoort. Kind of a mutualism symbiosis. Where both have something to gain from each other or one cannot survive without the other.... 

[morfowt]

I know what you meant. I also said that they didn't think of mutualism

[Toby]

YES.

[Duff]

well, yea what the yeerks doing is bad, but humans are almost as bad killing species for food and homes and all that stuff. I say tough cookies. Survival of the fittest. If they can do it and no one can stop them then it doesnt matter whether its right or wrong. But its still definately wrong lol