Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: MoppingBear on August 21, 2009, 11:58:12 AM
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This one confuses me a lot more than andalite evolution. How did a species evolve to be intelligent with virtually no sense. Even if you grant convergent evolution on all planets leading to most species being infestable, how did the ability evolve in the first place? IIRC the gedds are the only infestable species on the homeworld, and they are clumsy and not very physically capable, so it would not have been too evolutionary advantageous. They are also described as not being intelligent, even at present, so they are not a likely source for yeerk intelligence.
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They'd have to involve some form of intelligence and cooperation for them to really grow as a species. They'd need to be at least semi intelligent to get into the head of a creature that stands a few feet above them, and as a race in general the more cooperative ones would spread faster into hosts.
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Well if you think about it evolution is all about efficiency: a species becomes parasitic for food or for reproduction, why would you become parasitic for eyes.
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at the beginning of Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Esplin makes pretty clear that he was born after the yeerks left the homeworld. they left Yeerk homeworld in 1966 and arrived on HB homeworld around 1968, which makes Esplin around 2 earth years old at the beginning of the yeerk war. but he makes pretty clear that he is an adult and has full intellectual capacity. one could say that this is a result of different levels of maturity for yeerks-that they reach intellectual maturity at 2. but this doesn't make sense: intellectual maturity doesn't just automatically happen as we age at least in sentient species.
When I was younger I always said that next year I will do well at school and grow up, but it never did: each year I was as hopeless as I had been the year before. Because maturity don't just happen as a result of age, though ageing plays a role as your emotions (which are based on hormones) become less intense with age, it is not the sole cause of intellectual maturity. The real causes of maturity are experience and education which must be gained over time. This has been observed by anthropologists who note that primitive people have a 'child like' way of thinking (politically incorrect as it is say so these PC times) a more tragic example would be Jaycee Dugard, who hasn't had any experience except trauma or education since the age of 11. Her step father noted that she said on the phone 'I have babies!" when her children were in their teens. her lack of experience and education has trapped her intellect at childhood. So how are Yeerks (like Esplin) able to grow up in such a short period of time.
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IIRC the gedds are the only infestable species on the homeworld, and they are clumsy and not very physically capable, so it would not have been too evolutionary advantageous.
Perhaps at one point in the Yeerks' evolution, which could be assumed to occur over millions upon millions of years, there were more types of species suitable for infestation on the Yeerk homeworld. Species which may have been more intelligent or physically capable than the Gedds. Then later on, some form of mass extinction wiped most of these other species out save for the Gedds, but the Yeerks still retained the ability to infest hosts.
As for the source of Yeerk intelligence, perhaps it evolved in competition. As Yeerks are useless in their natural states, their intelligence rather than their physical fitness is what enabled them to be competitive with other Yeerks, so it was a trait which was chosen for.
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except there is no reason for it. intelligence takes energy to maintain. the yeerks are "photosyntehtic" and spend their natural lives in a yeerk pool just soaking up rays floating around. since they have no real means to experience the world, barely any motion capability, and no need to find food, they dont really have a need for intelligence.
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And yet they are.
Which has made all the difference.
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Well they don't need intelligence, intelligence is high maintanaince and if you don't need it you won't evolve it. the reason smart people are stereotyped (Not necessarily accurately) as being weak on Earth is that intelligence fulfills the purpose of physical strength in industrilised societies in that it should enable you to earn more and have more children... if you're life is basically photosynthesising and swimming why evolve a brain?
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What i wonder is how the ability to infest occurred in the first place. Its not like Gedds, or some other animals, or just lying down in the pools by the masses, long enough for generations of Yeerks to start retaining that trait...
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How I look at Yeerk evolution is by noting that, between Gedds and Yeerks, the relationship is actually not a parasitic one. They have a true symbiotic relationship, beneficial for both species. The Yeerks get the Gedd's body, the Gedds get the benefit of the Yeerk's intelligence. Win-win.
What i wonder is how the ability to infest occurred in the first place. Its not like Gedds, or some other animals, or just lying down in the pools by the masses, long enough for generations of Yeerks to start retaining that trait...
Actually, they probably did exactly that. As I said above, it would actually be to the Gedds' benefit to be infested by Yeerks, since they're barely even self-aware otherwise. Thus, the Gedds that happened to fall down near Yeerk pools and get Yeerks in their ears would have an evolutionary advantage over ones that did not. Ergo, that trait would be selected for, and pretty soon you have a species that actively seeks out Yeerks.
Well they don't need intelligence, intelligence is high maintanaince and if you don't need it you won't evolve it. the reason smart people are stereotyped (Not necessarily accurately) as being weak on Earth is that intelligence fulfills the purpose of physical strength in industrilised societies in that it should enable you to earn more and have more children... if you're life is basically photosynthesising and swimming why evolve a brain?
By that same token, though; why not? It's true that intelligence is an expensive trait, yes. And it wouldn't be evolved for no reason. But the fact that Yeerks photosynthesize their energy means that they would be able to maintain the energy needed for their intelligence much more easily than a species that had to find and eat their food. And, FYI, Yeerks did not spend all their lives swimming. They spent their lives inside Gedds, so their intelligence was hardly wasted.
You simply cannot look at the Yeerks' evolution and the Gedds' evolution separately. As separate species, neither of them would have ever evolved. Just as flowers and bees would never have evolved if the other didn't exist. It's the pairing between them that made both species possible. Yeerks, because they don't have to spend energy on finding food or developing a physical body, can devote all their energy to their intelligence. And Gedds, because they did not have to devote any energy to intelligence, could easily find food and develop their physical bodies.
Perhaps at one point in the Yeerks' evolution, which could be assumed to occur over millions upon millions of years, there were more types of species suitable for infestation on the Yeerk homeworld. Species which may have been more intelligent or physically capable than the Gedds. Then later on, some form of mass extinction wiped most of these other species out save for the Gedds, but the Yeerks still retained the ability to infest hosts.
That sounds very plausible. And that would explain why Yeerks can infest the wide range of species that they are able to infest.
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That's a pretty good analysis, DinosaurNothlit, of what's in it for the Gedds. You're right that an infested Gedd would have more reproductive success than an non-infested one, and it's easy enough to see why.
I'm curious about your thoughts regarding what the benefit was to the Yeerks, though. Only traits that encourage successful reproduction are passed down, and Yeerks reproduce through some kind of fusion in the Yeerk pool. Surely it would be easier for them to reproduce if they, well, stayed in the Yeerk pool, rather than infesting Gedds and wandering away from it? There's also no obvious reason why intelligent Yeerks would reproduce more successfully than non-intelligent Yeerks, unless Yeerks were prey for some creature that they had to continually outsmart. Even if that were the case it's unclear what the Gedds had to do with any of it.
One possible solution I came up with is that Yeerk reproductive hormones are environmentally dependent, and only kick in when the population density is low enough. When the population density of a Yeerk pool is too high, having babies would be a drain on the already taxed resources, so in crowded pools Yeerks simply don't reproduce. This is where the benefit (to the Yeerk) of being able to infest a Gedd comes in. Yeerks who can infest Gedds can use them to migrate across land to different, less-crowded pools, and reproduce there instead. Or they can use Gedds to escape a pool that's stagnating for one reason or other, or is suffering from nutrient shortage, or is afflicted by some pandemic, etc.
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Good points, Visser Phi, but I would think of it not just in terms of reproduction, but also of survival. Any creature as helpless as a Yeerk is would be EXTREMELY vulnerable to any kind of predator. Remember the Yeerkbane from book #2? It was said to be a predator from the Yeerk homeworld that sucks Yeerks right out of their hosts. Now, for a predator to go to such extreme lengths to eat Yeerks, I'd draw the conclusion that Yeerks are really, really, really tasty. And they're probably full of all kinds of nutrients, considering that they spend all day literally soaking in their food. A pool full of helpless slimy delicious wads of nutrients would be any predator's dream come true. Being in a Gedd gives a Yeerk protection from predators. Yeerk pools, full of unhosted Yeerks, are practically all-you-can-eat buffets.
And you also made the point that being in a Gedd would allow Yeerks to be more mobile, and that's probably true, too.
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pretty good points. it would even explain why gedds evolved with 1 leg shorter than the other, specifically to make them less stable and more likely to fall into the yeerk pool. perhaps at that point, the yeerks couldnt really control hosts, they were just along for the ride, but those that could control were more reproductively successful because they were able to move out to other pools.
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Nate the Ape made the argument that being infested by the yeerks caused the Gedd's to De-evolve.
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pretty good points. it would even explain why gedds evolved with 1 leg shorter than the other, specifically to make them less stable and more likely to fall into the yeerk pool. perhaps at that point, the yeerks couldnt really control hosts, they were just along for the ride, but those that could control were more reproductively successful because they were able to move out to other pools.
I was just thinking about that. And actually, that's probably only why Gedds started evolving that way. After they 'learned' to seek out Yeerk pools, their instincts would eventually evolve so that they would lay down next to the pools, and have no more need to fall over. And, in fact, a Gedd-controller who still fell over all the time would be pretty maladaptive. I think it's probably more likely that they evolved that way so that they could support themselves with one arm, and manipulate objects with the other. Really, when you think about it, sentient creatures only really need one hand, anyway.
And having a hand to manipulate objects is, of course, extremely adaptive. Yeerks, intelligent as they are, once they evolved hands, would be able to build defenses around their Yeerk pools to protect their fellow, unhosted Yeerks from predators. They would need their hands to dig trenches, erect torches, or whatever it is they do to deter predators. And that's probably how the Yeerk pools are not just constantly attacked by hungry predators, because they're guarded by Gedd sentries. Which is, of course, yet another reason why taking hosts is adaptive to the Yeerk population.
Voodooqueen, that's probably somewhat true. I mean, look at humans. We became intelligent, and then promptly lost any physical features that might be adaptive. Fur, claws, sharp teeth . . . anyway, the Gedds probably did the same thing when they became 'intelligent' via Yeerks.
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ok, so here's my question. How long has the infestation been going on for? If it was a while, just how big are the Gedd populations? If it was a while, do you think nearly 100% of Gedds are infested?
And then also this, just how intelligent are Yeerks? If they weren't that intelligent, what does it benefit the Gedd? And if they were, how come the generations of Gedd infestation needed to evolve this relationship not have moved the Yeerks toward a more advanced civilization (in human terms, like cities, planes, maybe even spaceships)?
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http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5327164/1/The_Yeerk_and_the_Gedd_A_Natural_History
quite good explanation there.
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How I look at Yeerk evolution is by noting that, between Gedds and Yeerks, the relationship is actually not a parasitic one. They have a true symbiotic relationship, beneficial for both species. The Yeerks get the Gedd's body, the Gedds get the benefit of the Yeerk's intelligence. Win-win.
I disagree. The Gedds lose control over themselves, and while they may not be intelligent by human/Yeerk/Andalite standards, they are still a sentient species.
If you recall in Book 6: The Capture, the Gedd was described to be fearful and bewildered by his imprisonment, while the Yeerk ruthlessly crushed and subdued the Gedd.
That doesn't sound beneficial for the Gedd. Doesn't sound like a win-win either. It is no symbiotic relationship, it is a parasitic one. True symbiosis would be the Iskroot.
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How I look at Yeerk evolution is by noting that, between Gedds and Yeerks, the relationship is actually not a parasitic one. They have a true symbiotic relationship, beneficial for both species. The Yeerks get the Gedd's body, the Gedds get the benefit of the Yeerk's intelligence. Win-win.
I disagree. The Gedds lose control over themselves, and while they may not be intelligent by human/Yeerk/Andalite standards, they are still a sentient species.
If you recall in Book 6: The Capture, the Gedd was described to be fearful and bewildered by his imprisonment, while the Yeerk ruthlessly crushed and subdued the Gedd.
That doesn't sound beneficial for the Gedd. Doesn't sound like a win-win either. It is no symbiotic relationship, it is a parasitic one. True symbiosis would be the Iskroot.
did they ever explain exactly HOW it was symbiotic, beyond the isk just being voluntary controllers? either way, i am disappointed that nothing ever came of it, the elimmist was pretty adamant that they need to survive to the yeerks can meet them and see the error of their ways.
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did they ever explain exactly HOW it was symbiotic, beyond the isk just being voluntary controllers?
The Isk were "voluntary" because they were created specifically to be hosts for the Yoort and didn't have a life outside of that. The Yoort also modified their own biology so as to specifically require an Isk host (as opposed to just any host).
I don't think it's right to say that "nothing" came out of it; the implication was that the Yeerks would "discover" the Yoort "a long time from now" because the Yoort were pretty far away from the action. This implies that the Yeerk empire did in fact survive the war, but in a beaten state. They might have gone outward, away from our area of space, trying to regain their former power, until finding the Yoort.
According to #41 (which might or might not be canon, but is supposed to be some sort of future) there is an "Evolutionist Front" 20 years from present time. Perhaps the Yeerks have already found the Yoort in this scenario, resulting in a divide between imperialists and evolutionists (who want to become like Yoort).
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How I look at Yeerk evolution is by noting that, between Gedds and Yeerks, the relationship is actually not a parasitic one. They have a true symbiotic relationship, beneficial for both species. The Yeerks get the Gedd's body, the Gedds get the benefit of the Yeerk's intelligence. Win-win.
I disagree. The Gedds lose control over themselves, and while they may not be intelligent by human/Yeerk/Andalite standards, they are still a sentient species.
If you recall in Book 6: The Capture, the Gedd was described to be fearful and bewildered by his imprisonment, while the Yeerk ruthlessly crushed and subdued the Gedd.
That doesn't sound beneficial for the Gedd. Doesn't sound like a win-win either. It is no symbiotic relationship, it is a parasitic one. True symbiosis would be the Iskroot.
Notice that I never said that the Gedds actually liked the arrangement. Only that it was beneficial from an evolutionary standpoint. Gedds are much less intelligent than Yeerks, therefore Gedds with a Yeerk in their heads are more likely to succeed and reproduce than Gedds that do not. They don't have to like it for it to be beneficial to their reproduction.
Evolution does a lot of things that animals don't like. As an example that's a little closer to home; humans' bodies store fat whenever we eat more than we need. Do we like it? No. Some of us spend our whole lives fighting that particular trait of our physiology. But is it evolutionarily beneficial to us? Yes.
All symbiosis really means, is something that is a mutual evolutionary benefit for both species. Do acacia trees like being protected by ants? Do ants like living in acacia trees? Neither species is even capable of 'liking' anything, yet that example is always cited as the classic example of symbiosis. Therefore, I still think Gedds and Yeerks count as symbiotes.
The Isk and the Yoort have a deeper symbiosis, of course, given that neither of them can even live without the other. Doesn't mean that Gedds and Yeerks are not symbiotic.
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Yeah, that's true. i guess it is beneficial for awhile for the Gedd. but after dozens of generations of enslavement, I think it might actually destroy the Gedds versus if they were left to naturally evolve. I mean, Yeerks take over minds for goodness sakes. Besides, the Yeerks can perfectly live in their pools without having to hurt anyone. But no, they had to go and become parasitic.
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How I look at Yeerk evolution is by noting that, between Gedds and Yeerks, the relationship is actually not a parasitic one. They have a true symbiotic relationship, beneficial for both species. The Yeerks get the Gedd's body, the Gedds get the benefit of the Yeerk's intelligence. Win-win.
I disagree. The Gedds lose control over themselves, and while they may not be intelligent by human/Yeerk/Andalite standards, they are still a sentient species.
If you recall in Book 6: The Capture, the Gedd was described to be fearful and bewildered by his imprisonment, while the Yeerk ruthlessly crushed and subdued the Gedd.
That doesn't sound beneficial for the Gedd. Doesn't sound like a win-win either. It is no symbiotic relationship, it is a parasitic one. True symbiosis would be the Iskroot.
Notice that I never said that the Gedds actually liked the arrangement. Only that it was beneficial from an evolutionary standpoint. Gedds are much less intelligent than Yeerks, therefore Gedds with a Yeerk in their heads are more likely to succeed and reproduce than Gedds that do not. They don't have to like it for it to be beneficial to their reproduction.
Evolution does a lot of things that animals don't like. As an example that's a little closer to home; humans' bodies store fat whenever we eat more than we need. Do we like it? No. Some of us spend our whole lives fighting that particular trait of our physiology. But is it evolutionarily beneficial to us? Yes.
All symbiosis really means, is something that is a mutual evolutionary benefit for both species. Do acacia trees like being protected by ants? Do ants like living in acacia trees? Neither species is even capable of 'liking' anything, yet that example is always cited as the classic example of symbiosis. Therefore, I still think Gedds and Yeerks count as symbiotes.
The Isk and the Yoort have a deeper symbiosis, of course, given that neither of them can even live without the other. Doesn't mean that Gedds and Yeerks are not symbiotic.
Before the Yeerks enslaved them, the Gedds seemed to be living just fine. There was no mention of unYeerked Gedds dying at a greater rate than those with Yeerks. By losing their freedom, that means the relationship between Yeerks and Gedds is NOT symbiotic and mutually beneficial. How can any sentient species think that losing their freedom is beneficial?
I'm not sure what the storing fat example has to do with the Yeerks evolution. Storing fat is beneficial to ourselves, but it does not involve taking over another species and causing them great harm. *shrug*
I also disagree with the trees/ants example, because those do not involve two sentient species. Trees and ants are not capable of making the choices that Yeerks and Gedds make.
:)
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How I look at Yeerk evolution is by noting that, between Gedds and Yeerks, the relationship is actually not a parasitic one. They have a true symbiotic relationship, beneficial for both species. The Yeerks get the Gedd's body, the Gedds get the benefit of the Yeerk's intelligence. Win-win.
I disagree. The Gedds lose control over themselves, and while they may not be intelligent by human/Yeerk/Andalite standards, they are still a sentient species.
If you recall in Book 6: The Capture, the Gedd was described to be fearful and bewildered by his imprisonment, while the Yeerk ruthlessly crushed and subdued the Gedd.
That doesn't sound beneficial for the Gedd. Doesn't sound like a win-win either. It is no symbiotic relationship, it is a parasitic one. True symbiosis would be the Iskroot.
Notice that I never said that the Gedds actually liked the arrangement. Only that it was beneficial from an evolutionary standpoint. Gedds are much less intelligent than Yeerks, therefore Gedds with a Yeerk in their heads are more likely to succeed and reproduce than Gedds that do not. They don't have to like it for it to be beneficial to their reproduction.
Evolution does a lot of things that animals don't like. As an example that's a little closer to home; humans' bodies store fat whenever we eat more than we need. Do we like it? No. Some of us spend our whole lives fighting that particular trait of our physiology. But is it evolutionarily beneficial to us? Yes.
All symbiosis really means, is something that is a mutual evolutionary benefit for both species. Do acacia trees like being protected by ants? Do ants like living in acacia trees? Neither species is even capable of 'liking' anything, yet that example is always cited as the classic example of symbiosis. Therefore, I still think Gedds and Yeerks count as symbiotes.
The Isk and the Yoort have a deeper symbiosis, of course, given that neither of them can even live without the other. Doesn't mean that Gedds and Yeerks are not symbiotic.
Before the Yeerks enslaved them, the Gedds seemed to be living just fine. There was no mention of unYeerked Gedds dying at a greater rate than those with Yeerks. By losing their freedom, that means the relationship between Yeerks and Gedds is NOT symbiotic and mutually beneficial. How can any sentient species think that losing their freedom is beneficial?
I'm not sure what the storing fat example has to do with the Yeerks evolution. Storing fat is beneficial to ourselves, but it does not involve taking over another species and causing them great harm. *shrug*
I also disagree with the trees/ants example, because those do not involve two sentient species. Trees and ants are not capable of making the choices that Yeerks and Gedds make.
:)
My point about the storing fat example is simply that species do not always like what is evolutionarily beneficial to them. Evolution and symbiosis has nothing at all to do with personal freedoms or happiness.
And there was no mention of unYeerked Gedds dying at a greater rate, simply because there weren't enough free Gedds left at that point for it to matter. I mean, the Yeerks pretty much had completely taken over their own planet by the time the Andalites got there, right?
Anyway, I think maybe I'm not being very clear, and that's why you're misunderstanding me. We seem to be operating under different definitions of the word 'beneficial.' I'm saying that it doesn't matter if the Gedds prefer, in their own minds, to be free or not to be free. If evolution selects for Gedd-controllers, then Gedds will evolve in that direction, whether they like it or not.
And, I would even go so far as to argue that some Gedds probably actually did like to be infested. Otherwise, why would they seek out Yeerks in the first place? And if they didn't seek out Yeerks, then how could the Yeerks have found them? And besides, evolution grants all species the desire to do what is beneficial to their survival (in the Gedds' example, putting Yeerks in their ears), so it wouldn't be totally illogical to think that Gedds had perhaps evolved a deep-seated need for companionship, maybe even so strong that they couldn't function without another mind alongside theirs. The example that you cited in book #6 was one example, perhaps an aberrant Gedd, or maybe even a KASU (lord knows there are plenty of those). I don't think that it's a very good argument against symbiosis, though, even if it is true.
I'm going from the strict, scientific definition of symbiotes, which is merely two species that aid each others' evolutionary survival. And the Gedds and the Yeerks seem to fit that definition. You seem to have a different definition, though, and I think that's all we're really arguing about. I'm not saying, after all, that being a controller is in any way preferable, from a single individual's standpoint, over being free. But it's beneficial to the species, and to evolution, that's all that matters.
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Well the point about the Gedd’s losing their intellect over the years is important.
Think of the importance of intelligence in human evolution: intelligent people, until the 19th century, generally had more children and more of their children survived to adulthood and spread their genes, because intelligence gives you greater access to resources (food, shelter etc). As more intelligent people are born and survive this should result in a more intelligent species. However if someone did your thinking for you and therefore provided you with resources (like food and shelter etc) you wouldn’t need intelligence to ensure the survival of your children. Indeed in some situations or culture intelligence might be a disadvantage. For example Theodore Dalrymple, in his cataloguing of the lives of welfare dependents in English slums, notes that children who dare to be intelligent and hardworking (and therefore shame and show up their lazy, stupid classmates) are bullied mercilessly, they may as well be dumb. Margaret Mead (whom I despise and was basically wrong about everything) describes incidents in her ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ (rather than relying on hearsay as she usually did) where boys who were too ambitious were excluded by their peers. Arguably, thousands or millions of years of being controlled by the Yeerks would make intelligence a disadvantage: being a controller would drive an intelligent person insane… so arguably the Yeerks have been a huge disadvantages to the Gedds, basically stunting their intellect, the same way that machinery and computers have stunted human physical strength.
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on a very blunt note, im going to point out that yeerks would have enjoyed their hosts making babies (also a basis for a very smutty fanfic) so reproduction isn't a issue.
however, what isn't know is the venerability of a Gedd fresh out of the womb. growing a kid is a timely investment from a evolutionary standpoint. are they like sharks? where they are ready to survive all alone? or are they like early humans? totally and completely depended on a group to survive?
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hmmm.. DN has a point about evolution. because evolution isn't a real living breathing thing. It doesn't consciously think. its a theory, and its luck. so from "evolution's" point of view, it doesn't matter if the Gedds liked it or not, evolution was just trying to do the best for each species. What we'll never know is how much the Gedd's would have evolved if the Yeerk's didn't infest them, whether they would have gained full sentience or not.
and about the Gedds seeking Yeerks, maybe it was just the Yeerks seeking Gedds? Maybe by the time this whole infestation thing was occurring, it wasn't even natural evolution. who knows?
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oh sure, DNA/evolutuion has no point and doesn't value what we value.
Question: who is more successful?
a)Nadya Suleiman and the brood mares at Centrelink with 10 kids to 10 different men.
or
B) Albert Einstein and women university graduates with their 2.5 children born in their late 30's (as they say: the more educated a woman the fewer her children)?
Answer: A, because their genes are more spread out and prevalent (their stupidity has turned into an advantage):(
Of course until the 19th century success and children usually correlated the ultimate example being Genghis Khan with more descendants than any other human on earth.
However people are arguing that the Yeerks are symbiotic with the Gedds because the yeerks enable the Gedds more reproduction, whilst i am arguing that the yeerks stunted or even regresssed Gedd evolution/intelligence by the very act of controlling them for so long.
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Well, if Yeerks did stunt the Gedds intelligence by their presence, then the Gedds would have needed the Yeerks even more, and it would have become a vicious cycle. Gedds rely on Yeerks to think for them, Gedds get stupider, Gedds rely even more on the Yeerks, and get stupider and stupider.
It's a good point about intelligence eventually becoming a drawback. But comparing humans to Yeerks may not be entirely accurate. I mean, humans don't really need to be intelligent to survive anymore. Sure, we used to, but now we can just rely on other intelligent people to take care of all the stupid ones. Ergo, stupidity becomes the more beneficial trait.
Yeerks never seem to have built any sort of advanced civilization (which seems pretty strange in itself, for such an intelligent race), so they would still need to rely on their brains to survive. Which humans don't, anymore.
As weird as it is that they never created a real civilization, that may actually do something to explain why they are as intelligent as they are (intelligent enough to very quickly grasp Andalite technology, which is pretty darn smart). They had to keep evolving their intelligence beyond what humans did, just to survive.
on a very blunt note, im going to point out that yeerks would have enjoyed their hosts making babies (also a basis for a very smutty fanfic) so reproduction isn't a issue.
Actually . . . I don't know, but that's something else I wondered about. Yeerks seem to frown on letting their hosts have babies (in Visser, Visser One was basically put on trial for it), so how the heck did they keep the races they controlled from going extinct?
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maybe they have specialized Yeerks who do that sorta thing... ? although, if the Gedds reproduce slowly, that'd be a crazy job.
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on a very blunt note, im going to point out that yeerks would have enjoyed their hosts making babies (also a basis for a very smutty fanfic) so reproduction isn't a issue.
Actually . . . I don't know, but that's something else I wondered about. Yeerks seem to frown on letting their hosts have babies (in Visser, Visser One was basically put on trial for it), so how the heck did they keep the races they controlled from going extinct?
she wasnt put on trial for having babies, she was put on trial for hiding it from the empire, and basically losing herself to her host. if they were producing babies to serve as controllers, then i am sure the yeerks would accept it.
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Perhaps Crayak took note of the Ellimist's trick with spreading life, and tailor-made the Yeerks. But he made them too adaptable: they developed empathy.
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I agree with dasada, despite Nate's wonderful explanation yeerk evolution is far too convuluted to be natural. i mean a species parasises to reproduce or to eat, not because they desire metaphorical things like 'freedom'!
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Of course, there is no path from the ear canal to the brain. The ear is watertight; if it weren't, then swimming would be very different.
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who knows? The Yeerks are crazy. why are they so war hungry anyway?
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who knows? The Yeerks are crazy. why are they so war hungry anyway?
they arent, most of them are just host hungry.
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don't they want recognition, fame, and advancement?
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but those are metaphorical abstract things (fame advancement, freedom etc) which works fine once your sentient. But the process of evolution is mostly about maximising reproduction which involves 'getting more food' 'more territory' 'surviving predators etc' for instance the parasitic creature with mind control (link to come short) on Earth (real life) does so to feed and then controlles its grass hopper host to drown itself so that the parasite can continue its life style.
Apparently my crack at Octomom got reported, any tips on how to rephrase it in a more politically correct way?
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yeah...but what drives them now to be so competitive?
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the competiveness could be natural to parasites... this the cracked (therefore funny) description of parasites, note that these mind control parasites are all about reproduction and food.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17199_p2.html
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Your crack at Octo-mom got reported? I think it was a good example of how evolution doesn't always necessarily select for intelligence, it selects for who can reproduce the most. I didn't take offense, maybe someone else did though.
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Apparently... I mean I got sent a message saying 'tone down what you are saying on yeerk evolution. and it linked the page where i said that about octomom...So I am assuming that it was that. It's a bit spanish inquisitiony that you are unable to know the identity of your accuser, of course one of the tragedies of authoritarian censorship is that people, in order to survive, must publically agree with the tyrants, and thus become slightly evil themselves. (Dalrymple and I think George Orwell said this not original thought) Perhaps this is what lead Wildweathel to say, in the post on censorship, 'it is ultimately dehumanising to everybody'. Anyway moving along before I get reported again...
Evolution doesn't value what we value: It doesn't aim to make a species sentient, intelligent or appealing but rather that the species in question should have as much food and as many babies as possible. I think it was Richard Dawkins who wrote a wonderful book called 'the selfish gene'.
So why are the yeerks sentient at all? all they needed to do was float around in their little pools soaking up the sun and nutrients, they didn't even need to move vary far to get that food. Humans desire abstract things like success, fame, recognition etc because it makes us more attractive to more and more potential mates, no doubt if Walrus/seals/and other harem animals were sentient they would too in order to get as many mates as possible.
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the competiveness could be natural to parasites... this the cracked (therefore funny) description of parasites, note that these mind control parasites are all about reproduction and food.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17199_p2.html
wow that is crazy. i didn't know about how complex this was!!
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yeah but it's fascinating isn't it: the motives and modus operandi of real life yeerks.
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Real life Yeerks?
Well, I ain't sleeping tonight.
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dang...i just spent the last like 6 hours on cracked... @_@
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Hugs Azure! :D I am no longer alone, I once spent so much time on cracked.com it is laugh outloud funny!
The yeerks are real fortunately they only infest grasshoppers, caterpillars, and crabs or do they? >:D
Alright back on topic, so knowing what we now know about parasitism, any viable theories for the yeerks other than Crayak did it?
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I'm not sure but...
Maybe survival and moving for reproduction. The live in a Pool, who can be destroyed, or their people in the Pool can be destroyed. To reach another Pool with other Yeerks they can reproduce with, they (maybe) needed to take the control of other species...
But it isn't a very good explanation ^^' I know that... Only trying...
Edit: Reading "The 7 Most Horrifying Parasites": Did you see #4? It's horrible... The most horrible to me ^^' because I DOES infect Humans!!! >_< ...and all the mosquitoes who took my blood this year in Japan... T_T
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yeah. oh gosh. Cracked has me hooked. they are hilarious. thanks voodooqueen...just when I thought I could study really hard this year...
anyway. what about this theory? What if the original hosts were not actually Gedd, but rather a Gedd ancestor which lived in pools?
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Alright back on topic, so knowing what we now know about parasitism, any viable theories for the yeerks other than Crayak did it?
Hah. The RAF equivalent to "Wizard did it".
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yeah basically, the crayak and ellimist are really just deux ex Machina.
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In a quite literal sense; Ellimist is definitely a "God from a machine". ;)
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yeah basically, the crayak and ellimist are really just deux ex Machina.
Only correcting your latin ;) "deus ex machina"
deux = 2 in French :p
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In a quite literal sense; Ellimist is definitely a "God from a machine". ;)
Only correcting your latin ;) "deus ex machina"
deux = 2 in French :p
Oh, I feel ever so cultured.
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but in french it is deux=2. ooh I get it because Dios, and Dieu is Deus...I haven't studied french since 2006.
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but in french it is deux=2. ooh I get it because Dios, and Dieu is Deus...I haven't studied french since 2006.
Haha, yeah, I understand. It's about the same words, so you can do the mistake.
French:
deux = 2
dieu = god
Latin:
deus = god
I don't know for 2 ^^'
Latin/French/Italian/Spanish... so many words with tiny differences...
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that's why you study Mandarin chinese...
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Why am I always the person who goes off topic?
What else is there about yeerks that can be put down to evolution? why do they have a government, parasites are social animals...
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Edit: Reading "The 7 Most Horrifying Parasites": Did you see #4? It's horrible... The most horrible to me ^^' because I DOES infect Humans!!! >_< ...and all the mosquitoes who took my blood this year in Japan... T_T
yeah, i was reading that too. i'd seen the snail parasite before, but the wasp was new to me.
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Why am I always the person who goes off topic?
What else is there about yeerks that can be put down to evolution? why do they have a government, parasites are social animals...
lol you're far to be the only one who goes off-topic ^^'
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;D
but...i dun get what you just said voodoo queen...
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I am just theorising that any form of government/politics is an evolved chimpanzee troupe with alpha females etc etc..Yeerks just swim in pools, why do they have a council of 13?
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well....maybe they adopted it from primitive Gedd behavior and government when they infested them,.
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maybe they used to be a smart, good sighted species, then they didn't need sight anymore and somehow ended up as how they are in animorphs.
Maybe...
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Much like the generic answer for questions asked in church, "God did it." I'm going with, "Crayack did it."
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Much like the generic answer for questions asked in church, "God did it." I'm going with, "Crayack did it."
a: thats a boring answer and its more fun to try and come up with natural ones.
b: the crayak and elimmist are actually fairly limited in what they are allowed to do, and as was described in another thread (what is crayak to the yeerks) the yeerks dont seem like a species the crayak would like due to how much he favors raw power.
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Yeerks don't just swim in pools. They have to screw two other people in order to survive as a species and they swim with close to a million other Yeerks at the same time. The reason they evolved this swarming behavior makes perfect sense if we go with the "Yeerks are easy prey" theory: they evolved it for the same reason swarming fish did. It's harder to catch an individual Yeerk in a crowd of them.
With this in mind, they would likely have evolved forms of cooperative prey evasion and reproduction when they developed intelligence. From there, it's only a few million years until they begin to need a form of government in order to dictate who reproduces, who protects the pool by infesting, and whatever else they need to accomplish. Intelligence for different reasons.
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somehow that just makes everything even more complicated. Did yeerks develop society and government AFTER they infested gedds? Or before in the pool? And if in the pool, how did they communicate? They certainly can't really build anything until Gedds infestations came along
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"how did they communicate?"
forget which book, but it's send they have ultra sonic squeaks to communicate.
I'd guess they coevolved with the gedds, probably had them before being truly intelligent, maybe even impeded the gedds from getting further than they are, but they didn't really build at all. Least till Seerow