Cassie's Greatest Hits

[Chad32]

Maybe it would, and maybe there would be a fan backlash. I don't know.

[wotw2112]

Yeah, morality changes, though you could say just because something is largely accepted doesn't make it right. Now obviously hosts have some effect on Yeerks. Taxxon controllers are more primal, Hork-Bajir controllers are sometimes less intelligent, and Human controllers can be more emotional. Yeerks know that a happy host is good for both sides. You don't have to tie them up or throw them in a cage if they're voluntary, though some restrictions would be in place even for voluntaries. Taxxons and Hork-Bajir are easier to ignore because Taxxons aren't much more than animals and Hork-Bajir have underdeveloped brains. Humans are different, and it's living with Humans that begins to change them.

I honestly did not consider that.  The bleed-through is an interesting point.  I was thinking of "parasite" in general rather than the specifics of the situation.  Taxxons, Gedds, Hork-Bajir...none are all that capable of grasping abstract concepts so it could make sense that the human hosts were the sudden tipping point.  I can totally buy that reasoning...interes ting.

According to this new line of thought, I also think the fact that Alloran was such a hard-a... contributed to Visser 3 becoming what he was.


Cassie being a voluntary controller would have been an awesome storyline but it would have been tough to work in for many, many reasons.

[Chad32]

I understand if you were just thinking in the basic sense of a parasite and host, but since both species are sentient and complex, it's not as simple. I don't think Cassie said anything to Aftran about the sharing, and how many of the people that come there are voluntary in book 19. Yeerks don't take involuntary hosts because they have to. they do it because they want to. Their government is a large part of the problem. At once point it;s stated that 60% of new hosts gotten through the sharing are voluntary. I don't know how many new members they get a week or month, though. If you just look, you'll see that if they had done things peacefully, they could have gotten what they wanted. It's just the council didn't want hosts for their people. They wanted conquest for themselves.

This is why I sympathize somewhat with the Yeerks. This is why I don't just ostracize voluntaries as scum. this is why I disagree with making the Yeerks species into nothlits, whether they like it or not. Nothlitizing the Yeerks, and Taxxons as well, was a Cassie idea. Even though some were up for it, it didn't make much sense. The taxxons who lived with the Living Hive weren't raging beasts. Yeerks can live with hosts without hurting them, as long as they respect their hosts. I know that the Taxxons came up with the idea to become nothlits, but to me it just came out of left field.

[wotw2112]

At once point it;s stated that 60% of new hosts gotten through the sharing are voluntary.

Totally believable which is kind of frightening.

this is why I disagree with making the Yeerks species into nothlits, whether they like it or not.

I think the idea was that it was a middle-ground option of an issue that I think KA thought was pretty black and white (the idea of "slavery" being an empirical bad).  (Note: I'm not advocating slavery, I'm pointing out that locking up criminals is a form of slavery at its most basic so clearly society doesn't see it as such a black and white issue.  Instead they make semantic arguments to make it seem "different".)  Maybe I'm wrong but there seemed to be a pretty clear undertone to the entire series that said that the voluntary hosts were fools who didn't know any better so the infamous "we" have to make sure they are protected from themselves.

[Chad32]

Prisoners still retain some rights, and sometimes are taken better care of than poor innocent people on the streets, so I wouldn't call it complete slavery.

Yeah, voluntaries are generally treated as filthy traitors. Nevermind that there could be a dozen reasons why someone is voluntary. Just the fact that there are voluntaries is sometimes treated as the worst thing down in the Yeerk Pool.