Even though it can out and out communicate, it seems to have a cruder intelligence than Taxxons.
I'd never expect to see Taxxons at MENSA meetings, I still think they can somewhat grasp all the space tech they work with, something that, the way Arbron introduces it, the Hive supposedly can't.
Hmm, that's an interesting point. But, maybe, since the Hive is immobile, it doesn't need to be as intelligent as the Taxxons do? I mean, what would it need that intelligence for if all it can do is sit there and move nearby things around? So maybe intelligence became a vestigial trait, a bit like the cerebral ganglion of an adult
tunicate. I still think they can't possibly be two different species. The Hive created the Taxxons (at least, it's assumed, because Arbron calls it the 'mother and father of the Taxxons' if I remember correctly, and I don't know what else that statement could possibly mean), and what evolutionary incentive could one species possibly have to create another? Evolution dictates that each species focuses on its own survival first and foremost, so why would any species ever evolve the ability to create a different one? And I don't know how else the Hive could have created the Taxxons except by some evolved biological process, since it's obviously no expert in bioengineering.
I never understand the metamorphosis thing anyway: They come across Cassie as a caterpillar, getting ready to go pupa: not as dramatic pupa to butterfly, but still a metamorphosis.
If someone would have explained that to Ax, they should have been able to save her right there
Hehe, well, I seem to remember Ax being totally surprised by the fact the Animorphs hadn't realized that metamorphosis would reset the morphing clock. He was all "well, duh." So he probably thought that, well, if Cassie had wanted to demorph when she went pupa, she simply would have.
Although, actually, didn't she say that she was barely conscious in the pupa stage? She describes it like a dream state of some kind. So, even if she'd been theoretically able to demorph, her mind wasn't really there to the point that she could concentrate on morphing anyway.
And while we're on the subject of fuzzy areas of this loophole, I've always thought that the whole idea didn't
quite make total sense in the first place. For one thing, it's not like DNA changes from caterpillar to butterfly. And, for another thing, the change itself takes a lot longer than two hours, since all that time in the pupa is spent slowly slowly shifting from caterpillar to butterfly. So, what happens if you were trapped in morph as a tadpole? At what point along the transformation to frog would you be able to demorph? How about if you're trapped in morph as somebody going through puberty?
It's funny that we go from Elfangor calling them just plain evil in the first book, to trying to make them sympathetic. It didn't really work for me. I can't sympathize with a giant centipede whose main traits is that it can't control its hunger, and that it's practically always hungry unless it's around the hive queen thing.
I realise Horks aren't exactly cute, but they are awesome looking, and have a normal state of mind that gives you some feeling of safety. It's like hannging out with a mellow vegetarian guy that happens to have a machine gun strapped to his back while he talks about his badass war career or something.
Yeah, I never really thought the sympathetic angle worked well with the Taxxons, either. [spoiler]Especially at the end of the series when they unanimously decided to trap themselves in morph. Come on, am I the only one who thought that was completely unrealistic? If they all really hated their lives that much, why didn't they commit mass suicide a long time ago? To look at it from another perspective, imagine that a race biologically capable of, say, teleportation, made contact with humans. They would pity us because us poor humans are comparatively stuck in one place, and they would think that our lives were a screaming hell of frustration from not being able to easily get from one place to another. From their perspective, our lives might seem unbearable. Kinda like the Taxxons seem to us. So, after this race makes contact with us, would the entire human race immediately see how much better their lives are then ours and give up our humanity to trap ourselves in the form of alien animals similar to our own human bodies? I don't think so. Why? Because we've lived the way we are for millions of years, and our bodies, however limited, are part of our identity as a species, and no species would ever
unanimously give that up. A few would, sure. Maybe even most, in the case of the Taxxons. But never ALL. /rant[/spoiler]
Sorry if this post rambled a bit. I seem to be in a somewhat rambling mood today.
