question about yeerks and the arn

[Acalio-Laron-Jaham]

Ok, so the arn are introduced in the HBC. They were the ones who created the hork-bajir, and were maters of creating life. Their biological technology was super advanced, able to create an entire species of hork-bajir and other various monsters to keep hork-bajir from their valleys. It was mentioned that they were able to control how fast their creations matured too, the growth rate. From at the beginning of creating it, they could modify the cells or whatever to make it grow and reach adult faster and what not (think it was mentioned in HBC or #34 the prophecy).

When the yeerks invaded the Hork-bajir homeworld, they knew of the arn, and there were countless arn valleys/colonies spread all over the planet as Dak said. The yeerks definitely eventually discovered the arn, and then arn eventually began to modify themselves genetically to make them useless to the yeerks as hosts.  

And so, here is my question - Why didn't the yeerks simply use the arns technology to create more hork-bajir hosts and an entirely new species altogether for them to use as hosts?????!??!!? Surely they would have been able to capture some arn as successful hosts and use their arn memories and knowledge before the arn managed to alter themselves, I mean, it wasn't an overnight process (the arns modifying their ears or wateva) was it? And once the yeerks learnt that they couldn't use the arn as hosts, they used the arn as shooting target practice......surel y the yeerks could have made some deal with some arns to get them to create more host bodies or species for them to infest, or at least force them to do it aggressively or force them to teach their skill and craft to the yeerk scientists or yeerks who are smart. And even if this didn't work, the yeerks seemed already well advanced and educated by the time they invaded the hork-bajir planet in HBC. Couldn't their yeerk scientists or whatever salvage the arns computers/data/knowledge and begin trying to create more hork-bajirs and other life forms to use as hosts for themselves??

And in what is seen in #34 the prophecy, there are still arn laboratories left undamaged throughout the planet. Surely in the what, 60 years of staying on the hork-bajir planet, the yeerks could/should have been able to look into and explore the arns technology and knowledge. Based on the HBC, the hork-bajir planet was like first planet the yeerks successfully and totally conquered, even before the taxxon planet.
By the end of the HBC, we know that the yeerks are fully aware of the arn valleys and civilization.
In the years after, they should have been able to simply locate all the arn labs with their ships censors as they advanced.

Hard to believe that in all this time - with all the silly experiments that we see the yeerks on earth did, all the yeerks advanced technology and their scientific/technical knowledge, and all the smart yeerk scientists we see experimenting, creating and doing things throughout the main animorph series - that none of the yeerks thought or bothered to look into and use the arns life-form creating biotechnological/cloning/genetical engineering knowledge and capabilities. After all, as Ax said, the yeerks are scavangers, they steal technology from other species and learn it and modify it for their own benefits. With the arns knowledge and capabilities, they wouldn't have to bother go searching for and conquering other suitable host species at all - they could have simply made bodies for themselves and give whatever the heck they like the body to have! such as a body with three andalite tails, or a hork-bajir that could spit acid, or a multi-tentacled tall muscled flight capable uber creature or whatever, the possibilities are endless!.   I know its wouldn't be easy for the yeerks to do it straight away, and creating healthy specimens etc. would take alot of work to ensure and reach the point where it is free from abnormalities and defects. But we already see that its entirely possible cause of the hork-bajir and other creatures which the arn had created. And the Yeerks literally owned the hork-bajir home world, with the arn and their stuff at their disposal for all that time.

And We don't even know what became of the hork-bajir homeworld by the end of the series. nothing was mentioned in book 54. for all we know, it could still be under yeerk control.  

[anijen21]

I am totally with you. I think it's a huge plot hole that the Yeerks land on a planet, not just with terrifying tree-hunters who would also make perfect shock troops, but with a race of genetic engineers who could breed them all the hosts they want.

I mean, the dam is leaking but KA does her best to plug the holes, so here's her rationale--the Arn had already survived a planetary holocaust when that asteroid hit their planet and they had to breed the Hork-Bajir in the first place. They didn't want to go anywhere, so when the Yeerks landed, they were pretty much in "defend or die" mode. Also, in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles itself, the Yeerks don't even discover Arn-ville until the very end, when they take the Blade Ship down there and blow the crap out of it. Arn-ville was very well-defended, not just by the monsters that the Arn bred, but by the Andalites who kind of adopted it as home base.

But you are absolutely right. In the 30-year interim, there are AMPLE opportunities for a couple of Yeerk scientists to go down there in Taxxon bodies, or even in Hork-Bajir bodies with gas masks on, and bring up two or three Arn computers.

Now, we can probably rationalize most of this away. 34 basically told us that the Arn went extinct, so based on their prior attitudes about the Yeerks it's probably fair to assume that they destroyed all of their stuff so the Yeerks couldn't get a hold of it. But you're also right that Quefe had an underground lab somewhere that the Yeerks were just too dumb to find. It stands to reason that there are other hidden underground labs somewhere, and you think the Yeerks would devote some serious resources to finding these secret underground labs that had the potential to breed them all the host bodies they could ever want.

I think you're right. And I think your thesis kind of parallels one of mine, which is, why did we never hear about Yeerk breeding programs or anything to make more host bodies?

We heard about Andalite population controls, which was entirely pointless and exactly the opposite of what we needed to hear. And there was also a throwaway line in #41 about how they bred human hosts, which just seemed kind of dumb if I can remember (kind of reminded me of the Giver, but less organized). One of the Animorph's side missions should have been to destroy some Hork-Bajir breeding facility, which would have given Cassie a perfect opportunity to whine for a few pages, or the plot of a book should maybe have even been what to do about Yeerks breeding humans for hosts. Now I know this is pretty dark, maybe too dark for a children's book series, but considering some of the other things the books covered (torture, mutilation, mind rape) I really don't think it's that off-focus.

With the number of resources the Yeerks had, and a predilection towards intelligence, the Yeerks really should have had no problem overwhelming anybody. Of course the number of resources the Yeerks had ITSELF was sort of...inconsistent.. .but this is another fine piece of evidence that really shows the Yeerks should have won imho.

[Acalio-Laron-Jaham]

Yeah Quajiji-watshisname says in #34 that he was the last of the arn. In the hork-bajir chronicles, its mentioned that once the yeerks having invaded the other arn-ville valleys (only the arn-ville which dak, aldrea and the andalites took refuge in remained safe and yeerk free for a while) found out that the arns were unable to be infested, they simply made them for hard labor such as mining, and when the arns become to weak and frail to work any further, the yeerks used them as creatures for target practice fun. This makes it seems like the yeerks totally owned the arns. I mean, if you are able to make another creature to be your slave, and then be the object which you use to leisurely practice your weaponshooting accuracy on, would it seem too far fetched for a yeerk to have simply been able to waltz into one of the numerous arn computer labs before the arn would have the chance to destroy anything and simply go "im taking this bit of info biach, oh btw, your ass is gona be my bullseye today"    

but yeah, jokes aside, its possible like u said, that the arns destroyed everything they had rather than let it fall into yeerk hands, but its also viable that the yeerks could have been able to salvaged at least something to work on from/with, at least before the arn realized that the yeerks weren't simply going to leave them be after they find out that the arn weren't infestable. Because of this, the arn wouldn't have destroyed everything straight away yet - cuz they still thought that they would be allowed to exist as they are. It would have been sometime into the hork-bajir/yeerk war that the arn would fully realize that the yeerks weren't gona leave them alone and would use them for labor and then target practice. So in the time it took for them to fully grasp that its the end for them, for them to get that 'got nuthing to lose and destroy everything rather then let the enemy have it mentality' i think there would have been a good amount of time and opportunity for the yeerks to salvage some of the arns technology/knowledge and data.

[anijen21]

I think you're definitely right. That the series never even EXPLORED or MENTIONED that genetic engineering was a solution to their problem is unforgivable. They had a vendetta against the Andalites, so I can understand the fact that they WANTED to go to the Andalite Homeworld and infest everybody, but like Karen said in #19, humans are just meat. And if you can grow meat on a tree rather than having to hunt it through a slow-moving, often-breached front organization, economically there's no other choice.

[DinosaurNothlit]

I've actually been considering the possibility, that maybe, some Yeerks simply like being Yeerks.  What if they just like the 'thrill of the hunt,' so to speak?

Or, perhaps more reasonably, the idea of slavery and conquest was so entrenched into their society, that even if an alternate solution practically beat them over the head, they wouldn't take it unless they were pretty much forced to see it.  So it's not like they didn't see the way out that the Arn offered them, it's more like they just didn't care.

As a comparison, take a familiar example.  Oil versus wind/solar power.  Yes, we know that burning fossil fuels is slowly killing our planet.  Yes, we know that it would be better for ourselves and everyone involved if we changed over to better sources of energy.  But still we don't.  Why?  Because our society is built up around gas powered cars and oil companies.  We could change if we really wanted to.  But it would require a complete overhaul of how we live, and we just aren't ready for that yet.

This would explain why the Iskoort were supposedly so important in book #26.  They had a ready-made infrastructure that could have helped the Yeerks rebuild a new society if they chose a symbiotic lifestyle.  The Arn alone didn't have that, so it wasn't enough.

It also explains why, once the Yeerks got ahold of morphing technology, they didn't all immediately switch over to morphed bodies and give up on trying to infest hosts, which would seem like the reasonable thing to do.

But, I agree, it was pretty poor to never even explore the possibility, or at least to explain WHY it was never explored.

[anijen21]

I think you have a point, but my problem with that is Yeerk motivation.

I mean, if we're being real, we never really get an overall *THIS IS WHAT YEERKS WANT* statement, besides "they want bodies." If bodies is all they want, then the original point is completely valid. But then we get specific testimonies--Visser Three in THBC wanted an Andalite host (which, if we're being honest, the Arn probably could have made for him.) Aftran wanted to see, to experience life through the senses she was normally prevented from using.

So, if the Yeerks just want BODIES, the Arn making bodies for them doesn't really disrupt their infrastructure very much. You'd have to completely rebuild every single car in the United States to use solar power, but it's not like a genetically engineered body would be any different to infest than a freely born body. Not only that, but there are corporate interests at heart, people that make a lot of money drilling for/processing oil, or making gas-run cars, that would like to keep making money. There doesn't seem to be any of that individual motivation here, besides "we want to **** up the Andalites" and "we want bodies," neither of which is contradicted by the Arn making bodies.

And that whole thing with the Iskoort...I missed that reread, but I really don't understand how that symbiosis works anyway. It seems to be a physical symbiosis, but the physical aspect of infestation was never the problem. It was the mental aspect, the enslavement. Who runs the body on planet Iskoort, the Isk, or the Yoort? You could say they need both parts, but then what happens when the Yoort has to feed in the Yoort pool?

Whatever I agree that it's dumb, they should have forced the Arn to make them bodies end of story.

[DinosaurNothlit]

I'm not really talking about individual Yeerks making bodies for themselves, though.  Sure, one or two might have, but that's not the point.

My point was that Yeerk society is based on conquest and battle.  Yeerks who are good in battle, or who carry out orders well, ascend through the ranks.  For Yeerk society, their military structure is essentially the only form of society they had.  Andalites at least had something to fall back on after the war was over.  The Yeerks did not.

So the Yeerk leaders didn't want any of the lower Yeerks to find out that there was any other way to live, because without the war, the Yeerk leaders loose all their power.

Hmm, wow, that's sounding more and more like good ol' earth oil companies, now, innit?

Anyway, I'll bet that the high-ranking Yeerks knew about what the Arn could do for them.  Maybe even contemplated getting special bodies 'commissioned' just for themselves.  But maybe they would have gone against it, for fear of the lower-downs getting ideas, and then possibly turning society on its head?

Eh, well, maybe.  I guess my argument doesn't really hold water, since most of the Yeerk higher-ups didn't seem that good at planning ahead like that.  Plus, they obviously aren't too worried about lower-downs getting ideas, because V3 gave morphing powers to his minions.

Oh, well.  S'what I get for trying to explain something that doesn't make sense, I guess.

[anijen21]

yeah you're right it would be kind of dumb for the Arn to take orders from Yeerks...potentiall y profitable, but it's not like KA's verse ever followed economic laws.

I guess the problem I have with this whole infrastructure thing is that the Yeerks never really had one. They were making it up, on the fly, as they conquered the Hork-Bajir homeworld. Vissers and Sub-Vissers were invented during an Esplin chapter in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles. And before that, who knows? I'm of the opinion that the Yeerks HAD NO infrastructure, no civilization to speak of at all before Seerow got to them. The Council of Thirteen existed before the war, but what purpose it served and what jurisdiction it had is never discussed. If the Yeerks could invent a brand new war-based society in all of two years, I really don't think it would take that much effort to switch gears if the opportunity for BODIES FOR EVERYONE presented itself.

[Acalio-Laron-Jaham]

Great points. And I have no doubt that the yeerks would have known of the Arns genetical capabilities either during the HBC or after. I mean, aside from the yeerks simply discovering the arns lavbs for themselves when they took over the numerous arn valleys, its mentioned that the Andalites - Alloran, was working with the arn technology and laboratory to create the hork-bajir quantum biological weapon, he must have known that the arn were the ones who created the hork-bajir and how they were masters in genetical engineering. If the yeerks didn't know that yet, Esplin simply would have anyway when he infested alloran for all those years.  

Whichever visser or sub-visser it was that was in charge of the Hork-bajir planet should have been pusnished for severe incompetence for overlooking and losing such a potentially important opportunity to solve their lack of host bodies problem haha. I mean, the arn's capability was HUGE - defeats the whole purpose of the series of yeerks needing to take over other peoples bodies, when they could have created their own. And that knowledge of how to go about it was right there for them, heck, they even made slaves and target practice out of the people who they could have learnt from/could have done it for them. Visser one was executed for losing the anati system, and we've seen more yeerks getting punished for less.  

[Phoenix004]

It's easily possible that no Arn ever became host to a Yeerk. They all lived in the Deep which was filled with monsters and that weird mist stuff which made Shredders faulty. The Yeerks wouldn't have been able to reach the Arn very easily, so it's likely that by the time the Yeerks were in a position to infest one, they had already been altered to reject infestation. Personally I always wondered why they couldn't just have found a way of preventing infestation instead of just dying...

If the Arn biological knowledge was complex as it seemed, then maybe it was simply beyond the understanding of Yeerk scientists. The Arn probably would have destroyed most of their work to stop the Yeerks getting hold of it, plus the Yeerks are bound to have destroyed a lot of it when they invaded the Deep.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

*shrug* Early Yeerk leaders were overly impulsive and ordered the Arn killed when they couldn't infest them and found them uncooperative. Arn computer language was incomprehensible to Yeerk engineers even if they found an Arn computer. It's definitely possible to conjure a situation in which... some of that makes sense.