Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Estelore on December 18, 2008, 09:27:52 PM
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Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought, "Jeeze. They planned this SOOO badly! I could've TOTALLY done better!!", and then you mentally sketched out how it SHOULD have gone?
Seriously. Am I the only one who played mind-tactics midway through the books?
My favourite plan-to-pick-apart is when they were all fleas riding a dragonfly.
If they wanted it to go better, they could've gone with TWO dragonflies, dividing the team and improving their chances of survival. OR they could've been three sets of houseflies+fleas, much more common and less conspicuous, and even better chances of survival for the team if one pair got squished. Putting all the morphs in one basket, so to speak, was kinda' dumb. *shrug*
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Yea, they do have some stupid plans. I always wondered why they didn't just try and trap David in the morph body of Jake and Rachel's cousin. They probably would have worked out better. Plus they could have come up with a way to easily trap him. They could have morphed a doctor at the hospital and had him confined to his bed, or sedated while in morph.
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He still might have endangered the group. They wanted to get rid of him without killing him. Cassie came up with the plan, since of all the members, she was least able to kill him. She didn't have the guts.
I can't think of anything, other than the final battle. But we shouldn't get into that.
Probably the one revolving around saving the parents, or recruiting handicaps.
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You have to keep in mind that they ARE like, 14 years old or around there. I'd say 99% of their plans were thought up better then anything I could have thought up at that age. Now that I'm older, of course its easy to pick apart the plans and think of better ones, but keep in mind they were just barely out of their pre-teens.
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David was a liability to the group and should have been killed. The thing with the animorphs was that they were kids with emotional attachments. In a total war, in my opinion, it was necessary to apply total war to the Yeerks.
Several things:
Identify and kill key Yeerk leaders. Take down the organization and particularly go after soft targets (unlike Visser 3 who is a hard target). Chapman would be a perfect example.
Collateral damage WILL occur. Steps can be taken to minimize it, but the mission takes priority. In the Yeerk pool the voluntary hosts should have been killed to again through the Yeerks into disarray and keep them hostless.
Lure hard targets into the open where they can be eliminated. Much like when Visser 3 had to abandon Alloran in the meadow.
Conclusion: the ideal people for this situation would have been SAS, Delta, or Spesnatz soldiers. They are trained ideally for this kind of warfare.
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David was a liability to the group and should have been killed. The thing with the animorphs was that they were kids with emotional attachments. In a total war, in my opinion, it was necessary to apply total war to the Yeerks.
Several things:
Identify and kill key Yeerk leaders. Take down the organization and particularly go after soft targets (unlike Visser 3 who is a hard target). Chapman would be a perfect example.
Collateral damage WILL occur. Steps can be taken to minimize it, but the mission takes priority. In the Yeerk pool the voluntary hosts should have been killed to again through the Yeerks into disarray and keep them hostless.
Lure hard targets into the open where they can be eliminated. Much like when Visser 3 had to abandon Alloran in the meadow.
Conclusion: the ideal people for this situation would have been SAS, Delta, or Spesnatz soldiers. They are trained ideally for this kind of warfare.
i see yout point, but killing innocent un-infested hosts? thats just wrong man, just.... gah
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better, not really. I can't change it to my preference or so that I can insert an OC, but better, I can't really think of. Mostly, I thought their plans were brilliant, and others just obvious, and others still, stupid but morally right.
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You have to keep in mind that they ARE like, 14 years old or around there. I'd say 99% of their plans were thought up better then anything I could have thought up at that age. Now that I'm older, of course its easy to pick apart the plans and think of better ones, but keep in mind they were just barely out of their pre-teens.
I totally agree. We could do better, as older people... But they were only 14, the first persons who fight like that with morphing...
So I often thought "hey it's stupid, why don't you do that!?"... lol
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David was a liability to the group and should have been killed. The thing with the animorphs was that they were kids with emotional attachments. In a total war, in my opinion, it was necessary to apply total war to the Yeerks.
David != Yeerk. He's a kid with a totally screwed-up ego who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, was offered a chance to rise to the occasion, and instead set about trying to murder Earth's last, best hope for victory (bad! no B5!) only resistance. The moral thing to do would is to contain him with as little injury as possible. He has to become a nothlit because it's nearly impossible to imprison morphers (like we saw with Jake and the military at the end). He has to be trapped in a non-dangerous morph and prevented from contacting the Yeerks. Sure, they could of killed him, but at what personal cost? The Animorphs did just enough to ensure their safety.
Plus, that particular scheme was very satisfying to read. It was a good heist-plot. Like in Ocean's 11, when we've been wondering for a good hour at least how they'll get the money out of the casino
[spoiler]they intercept the casino's 911 call and show up dressed as the SWAT team.[/spoiler]
the part of the plan where Tobias lets the others out of the bottle is brilliant.
Several things:
Identify and kill key Yeerk leaders. Take down the organization and particularly go after soft targets (unlike Visser 3 who is a hard target). Chapman would be a perfect example.
Or Tom, V3's chief-of-freakin'-security, who just happens to eat with Jake most nights. The problem is that the one thing that is holding Jake together through it all is the hope he can save his family. When he loses that hope... well, most fans were not happy with what Jake did then.
Collateral damage WILL occur. Steps can be taken to minimize it, but the mission takes priority. In the Yeerk pool the voluntary hosts should have been killed to again through the Yeerks into disarray and keep them hostless.
Voluntary hosts are combatants. Involuntary hosts are hostages, which brings us to a very sticky point morally. Usually, the answer is to avoid injury to hostages. The problem is that this rewards the hostage takers, and therefore paradoxically puts non-combatants at risk. It was a very grave strategic error to avoid killing human-controllers, especially when they had no qualms about killing (all involuntary) Hork-Bajir
Lure hard targets into the open where they can be eliminated. Much like when Visser 3 had to abandon Alloran in the meadow.
Conclusion: the ideal people for this situation would have been SAS, Delta, or Spesnatz soldiers. They are trained ideally for this kind of warfare.
Ah, yes, let's talk about strategy. First, we'll look at the resources the Animorphs have at their disposal, by the end of The Attack:
- First, they're human. Average, yet well-rounded, physical abilities combined with instant adaptability.
- They're surrounded by humans, potential allies, if they can just identify controllers. They significantly outnumber the Yeerks, by over 10,000:1
- Aximili may be a poor student, but even the scraps of Andalite tech are very useful. He's established z-space communication single-handedly. Imagine what a Manhattan Project could do with him!
- They've made contact with the Chee (Coincidence, that the Chee ended up on Earth? I think not...), with their incredible intelligence-gathering abilities.
- They've met the Yeerk peace movement.
Cassie has a Yeerk morph, too.
Correction: Cassie doesn't acquire a Yeerk until The Sickness. But, they do have Leeran morphs.
- Jake has a Howler morph for when it absolutely, positively must die. (Strange that he never uses it...)
- Don't forget the Escafil device.
- The Ellimist has given them the story of the Iskroot and, through Jara, the story of the Arn, Hork-Bajir, and Andalite.
The juxtaposition of those two stories screams "foreshadowing!" to me. The Animorphs now have a way, a slim chance perhaps, but still a chance, to bring peace to the Yeerks. They just need to find some bio-engineers, Arn, Andalite, or human, then convince the Yeerks to accept modification. A combination of a military defeat with a propaganda campaign conducted through the Yeerk peace movement should do it, especially since (it has been hinted repeatedly) most of the Yeerk population does not sympathize with the imperialists.
So, what is their first priority? Freedom of action. The worst strategic mistake the Animorphs made from the beginning was to try to keep the pretense of normal lives. Melt into the mountains. Don't give the Yeerks anything to work from, even if they do realize that the resistance is human.
Second, find trustworthy human allies in positions of power. There's no need to wait a full 72 hours to discover a controller. Cassie has a Yeerk morph, right? Three words: direct cranial examination. Correction: nope, but they can morph psychic aliens. >:D
Third, begin building Earth's defenses. Can you imagine if a task-force of, say, 10k known-clean humans got some better sensors, perhaps some sub-light fighters and shredder artillery? Of course, this means breaking Seerow's Kindness wholesale, but a surprise attack from Earth could quite possibly force a Yeerk surrender even without Andalite assistance.
Anyway, thats what I expected to happen. Now you can see why I find the ending so tragic.
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I don't think forcing David into a fate worse than death just so they could sleep better at night justifies not killing him.
You know, if it wasn't a group of young teens, the war could have gone much differently. Wildweathel has some good points.
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Second, find trustworthy human allies in positions of power. There's no need to wait a full 72 hours to discover a controller. Cassie has a Yeerk morph, right? Three words: direct cranial examination. Correction: nope, but they can morph psychic aliens. >:D
normally, I'd say something like not morphing sentient creatures unless absolutely necessary, but since you're talking about this from a strategic point, I'll let it slide.
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Second, find trustworthy human allies in positions of power. There's no need to wait a full 72 hours to discover a controller. Cassie has a Yeerk morph, right? Three words: direct cranial examination. Correction: nope, but they can morph psychic aliens. >:D
Third, begin building Earth's defenses. Can you imagine if a task-force of, say, 10k known-clean humans got some better sensors, perhaps some sub-light fighters and shredder artillery? Of course, this means breaking Seerow's Kindness wholesale, but a surprise attack from Earth could quite possibly force a Yeerk surrender even without Andalite assistance.
Anyway, thats what I expected to happen. Now you can see why I find the ending so tragic.
The problem that I see here is that 10k humans is a lot for the 'morphers to keep track of. It would be very easy for the Yeerks to infiltrate them if the numbers are that large. You can't check everyone constantly. They may have been clean going in...but they may not stay clean. And you only need one Yeerk infiltrator to ruin everything.
Of course, an easy solution to that would be to force the allies to live/eat/sleep/work in the same facility which was protected by Gleet BioFilter's. But then...you still have the problem of free humans who may be Yeerk sympathizers (voluntaries).
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They were six teenagers who had normal lives to feint. The missions they got done as is are impressive.
Total War?
They're not Nazis ::)
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Could they still morph Leerans? It's hard to say, since they were weird Z-space manifestations at the time.
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Total War?
They're not Nazis ::)
The Nazi's did not practice total war. The main practitioners in the post 1850 era were the Union during the American Civil War (employed on the Southern resources) and the Bolsheviks during World War II (on the own areas before they were captured). You also lose the argument by invoking Godwin's law :D
Total war is simply denying resources to your enemies. It's quite ironic the only practitioner of total war is Alloran and he mostly succeeded in his objective.
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You have to keep in mind that they ARE like, 14 years old or around there. I'd say 99% of their plans were thought up better then anything I could have thought up at that age. Now that I'm older, of course its easy to pick apart the plans and think of better ones, but keep in mind they were just barely out of their pre-teens.
I'm 11 years old and I was rethinking the plans. i even came up with an elaborate way they could've saved Elfangor. Not to mention a way they could've saved MANY others. I'll get a drawing up in a few.
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There's always more than one way to reach a goal.
The 'morphers did what was best with:
1) What was available to them
2) What they felt was within their moral boundaries
3) What would best maintain their secrecy
Remember that for awhile they weren't fighting to win...just to hold the Yeerks off long enough for the Andalites to arrive. They had no need to be offensive. They wanted to do what had to be done and get back to being ordinary kids.
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Remember that for awhile they weren't fighting to win...just to hold the Yeerks off long enough for the Andalites to arrive. They had no need to be offensive. They wanted to do what had to be done and get back to being ordinary kids.
And that's exactly the strategic error. By around the time of the David fiasco it should be eminently clear that the Andalites aren't in position to save Earth, only contain the infection; that they can and will burn the planet as soon as Z-space reconfigures. They've seen Andalite forces use weapons of mass destruction on Leera, and at least Tobias knows about the biological warfare against the Hork-Bajir. Andalites are fickle allies at best, and really present humanity with two options: survive on their own merits or be destroyed.
That's really the greatest irony of the series: in the end, one species subjugates another. The galaxy takes another step down Crayak's path. Ellimist, for all that he's invested (retemporating Elfangor, sending the Chee to Earth, sending the last Arn, risking appointing the Animoprhs as champions for the Iskroot, giving Tobias the ability to morph, etc.), only wins the victory of allowing the Hork-Bajir another chance.
There is on Earth, and actual country that has this defensive strategy: they train all adult male citizens, they've dug into their mountains, and they avoid becoming entangled in foreign affairs. Still, they are a small country with well developed high-tech manufacturing infrastructure. Should a military power decide they want to invade, they probably could, successfully. So here is there strategy: if invaded, they make the invader pay for each kilometer of mountain, each tiny valley in blood. When forced to retreat, they destroy infrastructure behind them: bridges, dams, factories, power lines. It is possible to take Switzerland at any cost, and there is nothing the Swiss can do to change that fact. But what cost? Hundreds of thousands of casualties to take scorched earth which comes with a complementary insurgency?
That is why Switzerland hasn't fought a war in two hundred years: total defensive warfare. That is why the Nazis never executed Operation Tannenbaum. What would a half million Swiss militia do against an invading army of one million? Take two shots and go home.
By wanting to be ordinary kids, they jeopardized their families and themselves. It was only a matter of time before a clever Yeerk noticed the lack of human casualties, the preference for weekend activities, and put two and two together. They could have disappeared from their lives without raising Yeerk suspicion--it would have been painful, yes, but would have protected their families much better than their shaky attempts at secrecy.
Personally, I blame pacifist education. When faced with a situation calling for violent action, they perform admirably, but never even realize how much they don't know. They found themselves a guerrilla resistance, but never take the time to learn from the guerrilla leaders of the past. They cling to tight to normalcy, but in that way nearly lose everything.
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By wanting to be ordinary kids, they jeopardized their families and themselves. It was only a matter of time before a clever Yeerk noticed the lack of human casualties, the preference for weekend activities, and put two and two together. They could have disappeared from their lives without raising Yeerk suspicion--it would have been painful, yes, but would have protected their families much better than their shaky attempts at secrecy.
That would have completely ruined the legitimacy of the series and the characters, though. Sure, Jake could have become a little general boy, they could have run off into hiding and started recruiting an army, but how many scared 13/14 year olds would actually do that.
Those of you on this forum who are 14 and under....how easily would you abandon your families, cut all ties, and dedicate your lives to fighting a war you just learned about?
Personally, I blame pacifist education. When faced with a situation calling for violent action, they perform admirably, but never even realize how much they don't know. They found themselves a guerrilla resistance, but never take the time to learn from the guerrilla leaders of the past. They cling to tight to normalcy, but in that way nearly lose everything.
So kids should be educated in such a manner that prepares them for all types of warfare? Just in case?
Maybe they should have researched guerilla warfare more once they began using the tactic, but none of them had the mind/personality to do that sort of research. EXCEPT maybe Marco or Jake. But still....I can't see it.
Let's say it's 23. Post-David, the YPM is known, the Chee are known, there's a Hork-Bajir colony, they have the Escafil device. That's a lot of assets. But It's still them versus the might of the Yeerk Empire. Which is pretty mighty.
I agree that near the end things could have come about in a better way. By that time they had enough experience that they should have known better. But only 20 books in, they're still getting a feel for it. You can tell just by the voice when you read it. They don't fully understand what they've gotten themselves into.
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By wanting to be ordinary kids, they jeopardized their families and themselves. It was only a matter of time before a clever Yeerk noticed the lack of human casualties, the preference for weekend activities, and put two and two together. They could have disappeared from their lives without raising Yeerk suspicion--it would have been painful, yes, but would have protected their families much better than their shaky attempts at secrecy.
That would have completely ruined the legitimacy of the series and the characters, though. Sure, Jake could have become a little general boy, they could have run off into hiding and started recruiting an army, but how many scared 13/14 year olds would actually [/i]do[/i] that.
Those of you on this forum who are 14 and under....how easily would you abandon your families, cut all ties, and dedicate your lives to fighting a war you just learned about?
hmm...cut all ties, yeah I guess i could do that if I really wanted or absolutely had to...but fight a war...no way. as I've answered in the "how would you have done as the new animorph", I would've broken down after just the first major battle..
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Have you ever been reading Animorphs, and you thought, "Jeeze. They planned this SOOO badly! I could've TOTALLY done better!!", and then you mentally sketched out how it SHOULD have gone?
Seriously. Am I the only one who played mind-tactics midway through the books?
My favourite plan-to-pick-apart is when they were all fleas riding a dragonfly.
If they wanted it to go better, they could've gone with TWO dragonflies, dividing the team and improving their chances of survival. OR they could've been three sets of houseflies+fleas, much more common and less conspicuous, and even better chances of survival for the team if one pair got squished. Putting all the morphs in one basket, so to speak, was kinda' dumb. *shrug*
Yea but two dragon flys isnt much better than 7, a single one is much better than noticing two of them together. A human sees one its like oh a bug, they see two or more its like oh we have a bug problem. So they could have split the team up and sent two different dragonfly teams in different directions but they didnt really need that. If the interest is risking the smallest number of people then they should have only brought a few people in the first place, for what was really just a recon mission.
And flies wouldnt have the eyesight necessary to move around the compound and see anything and they couldnt even get to the compound from the distance they had to start from.
You have to keep in mind that they ARE like, 14 years old or around there. I'd say 99% of their plans were thought up better then anything I could have thought up at that age. Now that I'm older, of course its easy to pick apart the plans and think of better ones, but keep in mind they were just barely out of their pre-teens.
Exactly, and I think most of us could find a better way through a situation after reading the book, but would we be able to come up with something using just the facts they had before any plan was even established. They came up with some pretty brilliant plans, even if they had slight faults, which were usually just necessary faults for the story.
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Put simply peeps, this is 6 14 year old kids, so they don't have formal training. They come from a society that espouses violence (it IS the left coast after all). If Elfangor had met 6 Delta or SAS or Spestnaz soldiers things would have been completely different.
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No. But now since you've said it, I will :p
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I didn't make any other plans that I can recall, but that might have been because I'm only 11! :P But I did start saying things like, "That is OBVIOUSLY a trap."
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what i thought when i read number 52 is.. stupid cassie!!!!!!!!! if she didn't let tom go, maybe rachel wouldn't end up dead
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...are you sure that's book 52? when they destroyed the yeerk pool?