Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: wolfev on August 14, 2009, 12:39:00 AM
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I've been trying to figure out a different way for the Animorphs to have succeeded more against the Yeerks. This the plan I came up with.
In an attempt to successfully stop all the Yeerk ventures into making new controllers, since it would be impossible to stop all the multiple projects the Yeerks were working towards, it would be necessary for the Animorphs to increase their forces. This conflicts with the guerrilla warfare they normally conducted. So how does one successfully conduct a guerrilla warfare campaign if your forces are larger than a single standard cell? Simple, multiple cells.
The multiple cell method has its obvious dangers:
1. How to successfully control a group of individuals with powers equivalent to your own
2. The security risks that ensues from soldiers being aware of who was issuing them orders
Here is my solution which works if one removes any morals from the equation.
Morphing technology is not without its obvious dangers. We all know about the 2 hour time limit. So if there is 1 risk why can't there be more? I know there aren't any, but who says new recruits have to know that. That is why all new Animorph cells will be informed of the health risk caused by morphing technology. Extensive morphing causes death within 1 week if no treated with an "antidote" which the central command controls.
If by chance a member goes rogue after realizing that this rule is fake they might conclude the 2 hour rule is fake. Ultimately they will spend over two hours in morph and become a nothlit. Your rogue problem is now solved.
The security risk of multiple cells being in on the secret that there are no Andalite bandits also poses problems. That's why they won't know that they are working for humans. The Animorphs have Ax. Simply reenact the construction site scene with Ax playing Elfangor. Then just have Ax tell them to follow the orders issued from the "Andalite Chain of Command", via the internet. That way, if there is a security breach, no other cells will be in danger of being made into controllers.
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I disagree with this. Though I approve of increasing their numbers, deceit is not a good thing. The internet should be used by the Chee, who have the technology to ensure the yeerks never figure out where they're operating from.
I don't approve of hidden rules like "health risks", but making erek and Ax the representatives would be good. Erek can use a different hologram to make him look like a random unidentifyable adult Human.
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Erek can use a different hologram to make him look like a random unidentifyable adult Human.
Or an Andalite.
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Yeah. An Andalite too.
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Actually, couldn't Erek make multiple Andalites appear as background to create the appearance that the entire group is made up of them?
On that note, why the heck didn't the Animorphs ever USE that to throw suspicion off? They had Erek's phone number. Why didn't they get him to cover them occasionally by projecting various andalite holograms to be seen 'demorphing' into?
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I don't know. And why did it take until book 25 before Erek and the Chee started covering for them at home?
It's been said before that there are many things that we veiwers thought about from the start, that they never did. Plus KA and the ghostwriters liked to have a lot of focus on the Anis, with little on the other groups.
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I don't know. And why did it take until book 25 before Erek and the Chee started covering for them at home?
And why did it take until book 51 until they decided to morph ducks for endurance flight? It would've been very practical for many missions, and it would allow them to fly to places in formation, which is convenient.
Why didn't Tobias get an owl morph? It would allow him to help significantly more during night missions, spy for more hours, and as living as a bird, he wouldn't have an issue using the body.
Why didn't they hoard and use Dracon beams? It would be far more effective in combat in general.
There is an endless list of "Should Have's" in this series. Things that would have made life easier for them, or increased their effectiveness. Still, we can't dwell on them.
Back on topic, I don't really agree. If it got out that they were lying, it would earn the resent of the new Animorphs, and resent between soldiers is not a good thing. I feel that adding people to the ranks would have been necessary, but it would be a very touchy thing to do. Personally, I would try not to add people in groups, and try to pick people without very large families or very large groups of friends. That would be for two reasons - if they join alone, it promotes bonding between the group as a whole instead of the formation of cliques, and smaller families are statistically less likely to have controllers in them. As we can see from Marco and Jake, having a controller of a person you love can seriously warp one's motives.
I would not just add people based on stereotypes or expectations (The handicapped kids...), but rather after intense research, and unfortunately, spying. Know they are not a controller, know they they do not have multiple responsibilities that could raise suspicion if interrupted, and even the right personality type. Make sure their families are not full of controllers. Follow people.
As you can see, this would be a large task that would take many hours and shifts, and leads to another "should have". I would have 'disappeared' far earlier. Set it up. Use morphs and the Chee's holograms to make deaths or other excuses seem realistic, and separate the events between the Animorphs by at least a month, as to not raise suspicion. This includes immediate family, and as such, kidnapping the controllers.
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I think with the Chee's huge non-violence thing, it'd be a problem for them to be any more involved. The more involved they got, the higher chance they'd be attacked and have to fight or die. Even holgrammed like they are, they'd basically be exposed. To make the morphing to andalites a good option, they'd have to know they were followed. The chee probably wouldn't put themselves in that position.
Really can't think of too many ways to do better that haven't been stated already. Some better morphs in general. Tobias as a hawk makes a good scout, and he does do others later on, but he could have gone bear/lion or something and done much more damage.
They could have acted beyond morphing, such as homemade explosives, but that'd offer too much potential for civilian casualties.
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Well... They did use explosives, and large quantities of military grade ones at that.
Still though, I think the Chee would be in full support of the Hologram-to-escape scheme. If anything, they are protecting the people - preventing free people from any chance of being controllers, indirectly toward the removal of Yeerks from controllers, and helping the resistance, which they are.
Even if the Chee were not willing to cooperate, it's still possible to escape. Bear attack anyone? Still, it's more suspicious and risky. A sudden spike in animal attacks on specific groups when the Yeerks know their enemies can turn into animals... Someone smart might pick up. Also, it would require all members of the family to be given morphing abilities from to start, and for them to suffer severe trauma to leave a limb or two for realism. A realistic hologram of a severe car accident, followed by a hologram of an ambulance picking them up and taking them away would be more convincing, more commonplace as to not distrupt statistics, and allows for instruction and the showing of proof before just giving them the ability to morph.
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That strategy would have worked, it could have worked quite well if it were implemented properly. But it would have made the book series far more complicated and have less time to focus on character development. Plus, even had the Animorphs thought of having other "cells," they would have concluded that it was too risky, given what happened with David. That's my two cents.
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It would be easier to kidnap human controllers, kill the yeerk, have a bunch of holograms and Ax (need to know cell system so they can't betray the anis)give them the morphing technology and start operating under the cell system used by all terrorists used on earth. Also dracon beams are probably much more effective than wolves or polar bears. If the host turns out to be voluntary kill them for collaboration/treason like they did to traitors during the middle ages or after WW2. But lying about morphing would be dumb as well as dishonest.
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That's actually a very good idea. It crossed my mind, but I turned it down because if human controllers started disappearing and 'Andalites' start appearing, a smart Yeerk might notice the coincidence. Remember, the idea that the Animorphs are actually Andalite soldiers is incredibly important to their stealth.
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Would it matter? After book 23 they should've atleast tried.
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I have a plan. Contact the chee in the sharing, find the morphing cube. I will convince the chee to help me find the biological data of the yeerks bodies. Create a chemical compound that will drug the yeerk in the controller's body make it suggestible to hypnotism then get them to come out of the host body without killing them, thus limiting the casualties, use the morphing cube to morph yeerks and put them in the former controllers to infiltrate the yeerks. with eriks help i'll start a company get lots of money began developing nonlethal (shock gun- enough to take down even the toughest animal, paralyzing venom, sticky substances think spiderman. force field armor controlled by a efficient targeting system and non lethal missles etc) weapons under the pretense of making society better, they will be used to fight the controllers . I'll start recruiting people far away from yeerk infested places to start a revolution. Develope devices that can detect kandrona energy or x ray miniature items to find who is a controller. Contact the yeers in yeerk peace movement work together. I'll use erik or yeerk peace movement yeerk to convince the higher up vissers or council of thirteen to use non lethal means of aquiring hosts. I'll start searching for pemalite technology to find a ship to travel to planet of Iskoort or use zero space to arrive their faster, to get proof for yeerks that their is a better way. Once enough of the rebels have enter the yeerk base I'll set a trap, sabotage their security, lace the air filter with slow knock out gas , but before that the rebels and yeerk peace troops would lure the majority enemy controllers in a room for a speech assembly or something then the knock out gas would already defeat them the communications would already be sabotaged so no distress signal would be sent. That way minimal to no casualties would happen making the other yeerks and peace movement yeerks more cooperative. As a bonus I'll discredit visser three, give evidence that he is a selfish bastard , he does not care about his fellow yeerks, he cares only about himself and he is a threat to the yeerk empire with his selfish ambitions and the way he treats his workers, example making workers blind with fear that makes coordination between leader and team difficult, fear making the yeerk soldiers less patriotic and efficient even silenting those who could have made the earth campaign better. close minded and of course his lack of loyalty and care for the wellbeing of his fellow yeerks., again making the yeerks more reasonable to negotions. I'll show them the Iskoort as proof of a better way. the drug is just a way of infiltration. I'll probably need aftran's help and the chee to get passed the leeran controllers then Crayak would probably find a way to hinder the plan of ending the war with minimal or no casualties. To further weaken the yeerks along with my plan I'll study the taxons physiology find a way to help them get kandrona generator for prisoners during the infiltration phase. With the minimal to no casualties the yeerks would probably trust and cooperate with humanity more. The rebels are just to hunt down any stragglers not caught in the trap. As a bonus maybe there is a way to stop crayak with the time matrix or lead him into a trap with a bigger cosmic being in another dimension or trap him in mortal form, if possible using zero space and the rubber band effect. , I don't understand the nature of his powers. How is the plan?[/color]
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So, uh... I have a plan...
But I don't really feel like posting it right now... I just got done reading all of that... *sigh*
No, wait! I just figured it out! If Jake and the others could just find 200, then all of their problems would be solved!!!
Anyway, seriously, I've given it a lot of thought, and I should probably get it off my chest at some point... Just, uh... not right now... Gotta give peoples time to digest...
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To answer Chad on a couple of points;
In my mind, ducks simply didn't occur to them. Oversights are common among everyone, even battle trained warriors. As for Tobias going eagle? I guess (and it certainly is a guess) that he had become so much a hawk that anything else that was in the same category (e.g. bird) was just a bastardization of self. He WAS a hawk; why become something similar when he was essentially him on the missions.
To be fair though, there are still holes. Like why Tobias was usually hawk in battles, as opposed to Hork-Bajir or something else? Would have made a lot more sense than him ripping at the Visser's stalk eyes.
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hindered by the genre (young adult or children lit) they had to use child heroes. but the anis had some of the intellectual limitations of children and didn't ever bother to study up on strategy (how hard can it be to read che guevera or sun tzu?) one of the reasons the british aristocracy studied the 'classics' was too teach them strategies that would be useful to lead.
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Except for all the historical and biographical information that Jake boned up on... Patton and the like... The problem was Jake never applied strategy in a literal, strategic sense... He tried to apply it to individual battles, and sometimes missions, but was always hesitant about developing an over-arching grand plan for the war...
(the Animorphs always thought their job was to slow down the yeerks until the Andalites arrived, at which point they assumed that they would have the strategy and whatnot to defeat the yeerks...)
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When I was in high school, I took this Ancient and Medieval History class. We were studying the Romans, and when they were fighting the Carthaginians. For this one class we went online and did this "If you were Hannibal/whatever the Roman general was.. what would you do?" Sort of simulation.
I did Hannibal. I based my answers on a "What would Jake do?" kind of thing. :P I only answered wrong when Hannibal started messing up.
But yeah, I agree, in general. Battle-to-battle, Jake could do strategy. From that perspective, he was a good leader. He knew his people, he knew his enemy. And sometimes he got lucky. (There's a quote of Elfangor's a la Ax that I just read from #11. Basically, it's his (Jake) job to be lucky.)
He didn't need an over-arching strategy until near the end. They all figured that they were just there to keep the Yeerks at bay, and to stay alive, till the Andalites got there. When it became obvious that no help was forth-coming... well, at that point, hell was breaking loose, anyway. There weren't much options for dragging it out. I really don't think they would've lasted much longer in Hork-Bajir valley. They could hold it together enough to win, but they were falling apart.
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The thing in my mind is, what good would an over-arching strategy have anyway? The anis for the most part played a reactionary game throughout, and with a force of six (plus some decent allies a la chee and hork-bajir) you cannot effectively fight a war. We're talking Patton and Hannibal; the real comparison should be the Zulus against the redcoats (see anglo-zulu war). The yeerks were a trained empire, and as such had many flaws associated with a hierarchy. The Visser infighting, the rigid battle plans, the ego ect. The anis really didn't need a battle plan beyond "let's foil whatever the yeerks are doing" until the final story arc of about book 50. That's when it became army v. army, as opposed to basically a harassment force, always foiling, never going proactive. Patton was inspiration to Jake; not a source of battle tactics.
Just my thought
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With the understanding that the series would have been dramatically different in such a scenario, (and with all due respect to HA3) the Anis COULD have easily had an over-arching strategy... They just didn't because they assumed that the only requirement on them was to "foil whatever the yeerks are doing", and because they felt that that requirement was already a lot to handle...
In fact, after David, the Animorphs would have done well to rebound with more "experiments"... Instead of just picking whoever happened to be lying on the pavement in front of them at the moment, (i.e. David) they could have carefully controlled who they chose, and the surrounding circumstances...
They would have had to choose members (ideally from their own age group), that they knew they could trust... people they could watch for three days and be sure of their freedom... people who weren't on power trips, or were prone to psychosis...
Also, it would have been better to add them in small groups of three to five, so as to limit the "new guy" feeling... this would also immediately give the new members a feeling of belonging, as they would be grouped together as a team... kind of like an antithesis to the Sharing...
They could then continue this pattern, spreading out and using cell tactics... The sudden onset of multiple "Andalite Bandit" attacks would not be a problem... the yeerks could be free to assume that the Andalites had begun to recruit humans to their ranks... That doesn't change the fact that they don't have a clue who they could be...
With such a network, and yes, "army", at their disposal, the Animorphs could have gone on the offensive, especially if they stockpiled weapons and technology while they were growing their ranks... The yeerks would have been forced to either go public with the invasion (an unwise option with so many dangerous covert soldiers now saturating Earth's forces, or pull back and try again even more subtly (an option that V3 would never condone - but it's very likely that the addition of hundreds of "Animorph Bandits" would be a failure that would certainly merit the removal of the Visser...
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I wonder why this was never done?
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It would've complicated things... And probably added too many new characters...
(plus the war wouldn't have ended with a dramatic "final battle" in which lots of people on both sides died and the result is in question up until the very end...)