Solution To Insane Oatmeal Yeerk Problem From The Underground!

[Tim Bruening]

The Underground: Numerous Yeerks have overdosed on Instant Maple and Ginger Oatmeal.  The Oatmeal have eliminated their need for Kandrona rays but also rendered them insane!  As a result, their hosts are driven partially insane, but there is no way to starve out the Yeerk!

Fortunately, I have a solution, based on events in books 2 and 54.  [spoiler]Book 2, The Visitor: PP 102-103: Visser 3 shows Chapman how he morphed into a Vanarx to suck a Yeerk right out of its host's head and ate it!  Book 54, The Beginning: Visser 3 is forced to exit his host Alloran, thus freeing Alloran.  I propose that Alloran morph into a Vanarx and suck out all the oatmeal addled Yeerks and thus free their hosts![/spoiler]

[guitarhero01234]

I don't remember exactly whether this happens, since I'm too lazy to look it up in my copy of book 2, but I believe that when the Vanarx sucks a Yeerk out of the host's head, it kills the host as well. Again, I could be remembering incorrectly.

[Tim Bruening]

I don't remember exactly whether this happens, since I'm too lazy to look it up in my copy of book 2, but I believe that when the Vanarx sucks a Yeerk out of the host's head, it kills the host as well. Again, I could be remembering incorrectly.

I was assuming that a sentient Vanarx could extract the Yeerk gently enough to save the host.

[Cloak]

I don't remember exactly whether this happens, since I'm too lazy to look it up in my copy of book 2, but I believe that when the Vanarx sucks a Yeerk out of the host's head, it kills the host as well. Again, I could be remembering incorrectly.

Actually, if I remember correctly, that was left a little vague in the book.

[DinosaurNothlit]

No matter how 'gentle' the Vanarx was, and no matter whether or not it would actually kill the host . . . you'd still be left with an insane half-human-half-Yeerk person.

Remember Hildy/Essam?  From Visser?  Yeah he's what happens when you try to pull a Yeerk from a host before the Yeerk is ready to detach. 

[Tim Bruening]

No matter how 'gentle' the Vanarx was, and no matter whether or not it would actually kill the host . . . you'd still be left with an insane half-human-half-Yeerk person.

Remember Hildy/Essam?  From Visser?  Yeah he's what happens when you try to pull a Yeerk from a host before the Yeerk is ready to detach. 

I have assumed that the Vanarx could remove the Yeerk completely, no matter how the Yeerk feels about the matter.  I also assumed that removing the Yeerk would remove its mental effects.

[DinosaurNothlit]

If you could actually manage to remove the entire Yeerk . . . you'd remove decent-sized chunks of brain-matter with it.  A Yeerk infesting a human has to tie itself to their neurons, cell by cell.  At which point the Yeerk and the brain are basically a continuous unit.  How else do you explain why the Yeerk dies when the host does?  It'd take no less than a surgeon's scalpel to separate them, and even then, that would have to be one heckuva surgeon.  It should be noted that Essam was dying, and therefore already in the process of detaching himself from Hildy's brain, when Edriss pulled him out.  If you pulled out a healthy Yeerk, the effects would probably have been even more severe.

And, do you honestly think a Vanarx would have evolved some kind of mystical ability to somehow separate the two, anyway?  Evolution has no reason to give a crap about the host's well-being after the Vanarx is done with it.  If the Vanarx doesn't get the whole Yeerk (or if it gets a few chunks of brain matter along with it), it just moves on to the next.  Gedds are not exactly hard to hunt. 

Hmm.  Yanno, now that we're on the subject, why did the Vanarx ever evolve this ability at all?  What nutritional benefit do Yeerks provide, that the Gedds they would be inside of, would not?  Can't be Kandrona, because this is the Yeerk homeworld we're talking about, there'd be Kandrona everywhere.  And, heck, why in the world wouldn't the Vanarx have just found itself a nice juicy Yeerk pool and gorged itself, without the need to evolve the oddly-specialized ability to pull Yeerks out of their hosts at all?

 . . . I think we just found ourselves a KASU, and it is an entire alien creature's existence. 

[Tim Bruening]

DinosaurNothlit link=topic=11493.msg881944#msg881944 date=1439863362]
If you could actually manage to remove the entire Yeerk . . . you'd remove decent-sized chunks of brain-matter with it.  A Yeerk infesting a human has to tie itself to their neurons, cell by cell.  At which point the Yeerk and the brain are basically a continuous unit.  How else do you explain why the Yeerk dies when the host does?  It'd take no less than a surgeon's scalpel to separate them, and even then, that would have to be one heckuva surgeon.  It should be noted that Essam was dying, and therefore already in the process of detaching himself from Hildy's brain, when Edriss pulled him out.  If you pulled out a healthy Yeerk, the effects would probably have been even more severe.

Why DO dying Yeerks detach themselves from the host anyway?

And, do you honestly think a Vanarx would have evolved some kind of mystical ability to somehow separate the two, anyway?  Evolution has no reason to give a crap about the host's well-being after the Vanarx is done with it.  If the Vanarx doesn't get the whole Yeerk (or if it gets a few chunks of brain matter along with it), it just moves on to the next.  Gedds are not exactly hard to hunt. 

Hmm.  Yanno, now that we're on the subject, why did the Vanarx ever evolve this ability at all?  What nutritional benefit do Yeerks provide, that the Gedds they would be inside of, would not?  Can't be Kandrona, because this is the Yeerk homeworld we're talking about, there'd be Kandrona everywhere.  And, heck, why in the world wouldn't the Vanarx have just found itself a nice juicy Yeerk pool and gorged itself, without the need to evolve the oddly-specialized ability to pull Yeerks out of their hosts at all?

 . . . I think we just found ourselves a KASU, and it is an entire alien creature's existence. 

KASU fix: Lets blame the Elimist and/or Crayark!  Or maybe the [spoiler]infamous One from "The Beginning"![/spoiler]

Why would Visser 3 bother to morph a Vanark unless it had the ability to remove the entire Yeerk?  (I had assumed that Visser 3 used the Vanarx because he wanted to save the host for another Yeerk!).

[RYTX]

I could see a creature being able to remove a yeerk, some sort of chemical that would cause the yeerk to disengage, wouldn't have to hit the host system. Cause I don't think yeerks actually tie to the brain, what they have to do is control the neural activity, and most synapse are chemical anyway- proximity matters but touching not required.

I don't see a reason for a specialist of hosted-yeerks, but there are other things on that world, maybe there are other things that it feeds on, but we only know about it because of it's taste for yeerks. But there could be reasons to protect the host: if you only feed off things that are inside of things, and then kill off the hosts, which are generally fewer in number than your prey, you screw yourself. You leave the host alive so that it can be taken again, so you can feed again.

Come on though, the yeerks themselves seem to have no reason to have their parasitism ability. They don't need it to reproduce. Maybe it's a predator defense, but seeing how many don't have a host, it can't be that vital.

[Tim Bruening]

I could see a creature being able to remove a yeerk, some sort of chemical that would cause the yeerk to disengage, wouldn't have to hit the host system. Cause I don't think yeerks actually tie to the brain, what they have to do is control the neural activity, and most synapse are chemical anyway- proximity matters but touching not required.

I don't see a reason for a specialist of hosted-yeerks, but there are other things on that world, maybe there are other things that it feeds on, but we only know about it because of it's taste for yeerks. But there could be reasons to protect the host: if you only feed off things that are inside of things, and then kill off the hosts, which are generally fewer in number than your prey, you screw yourself. You leave the host alive so that it can be taken again, so you can feed again.

Come on though, the yeerks themselves seem to have no reason to have their parasitism ability. They don't need it to reproduce. Maybe it's a predator defense, but seeing how many don't have a host, it can't be that vital.

The Yeerks can't readily travel in their natural forms.  They need hosts in order to be mobile and thus reach more resources.

[RYTX]

What resources? Everything they need is in the pools. The Kandrona comes from sunlight, it's not in short supply, and they can swim for their various other nutrients well enough. It's not like they could use any of those resources while in a host anyway.

[Tim Bruening]

What resources? Everything they need is in the pools. The Kandrona comes from sunlight, it's not in short supply, and they can swim for their various other nutrients well enough. It's not like they could use any of those resources while in a host anyway.

What if a pool were to run short on nutrients?  If that happened, the Yeerks would need to move to another pool, which means that they would need hosts to transport them.

[RYTX]

I can concede that. I find it extremely unlikely that the would promote a form of parasitism that would allow you to take of the brain of another species, but that is possible