...and yes not every intelligent animal has any easy means of manipulating objects but that's beside the point, I don't think the yeerks had any interest in anything that couldn't manipulate objects intelligent or not, well except for the horses.
I totally agree with you there. Even though "ability to manipulate objects/tools" isn't explicitly mentioned in the Yeerk '5-classes of hosts' classification system it is pretty much implied with their objectives. My only objection to your earlier thoughts on the Yeerk infestation choices was that this ability implies intelligence more as a rule than as an exception; but yes the 'manipulation ability' basically has to be a given for their explicit objectives.
As far as grabbing a species and breeding it until it reached significant numbers, they still have to have a take a good number of them, hence if they're spread out it makes it difficult, and they were already in a war with the andalites since they left their planet they had been in a constant state of war, They were looking for the quickest way to gain numbers, it's possible that if the virus hadn't been released that the yeerks would have defeated the andalites well before earth.
Time would be the biggest factor for the yeerks, they needed bodies right now, not in 5 or 10 years. They were taking earth too slow and it was giving them more hosts than could be bred. If the yeerks had a high preference for taking intelligent species without being in a state of war then that would answer that argument, but they had never been in anything except a state of war.
Another, maybe less important factor is that the necessary infrastructure would already exist to support the host population, rather than the yeerks having to produce it themselves as would become necessary in a breeding program.
I still don't think this and your earlier assertion, that the Yeerks were looking for a specie that defended itself with intelligent means to reach high numbers rather than "outproduce-the-dangers" to reach high numbers. All other things being equal in terms of a physically capable host, 'out-producing' as an evolutionary trait would have been highly preferable to 'intelligently defending' to reach the high numbers you mentioned. Yes, they wanted numbers for a current war, not a distant project, but the way they were spread out in so many directions that the Andalites couldn't ever take them down, postponing a final conflict indefinitely, allowed them to commit to a slow, gradual infestation of Earth's Humans over a period of years; they wanted hosts soon, but were not desperate for them
right now, 5 or 10 years was by example an acceptable infestation route.
In any case, if the Yeerk target was a species that, again meeting the aforementioned physical necessities (both explicit and implied), had a lifespan of less than a dozen months rather than more than a couple dozen years, and reproduced by in several dozens or even hundreds rather than only a few in a given reproductive cycle; then using Yeerk intelligence to remove natural dangers would cause this species that survives via "out-produce-danger" to multiply to far greater numbers in less time than the campaign on Earth; this would be a much more ideal target strategically than an intelligent species that produces in less numbers and has high numbers because it uses intelligence to defend itself (which is what made the infestation of Humans a subtle and gradual thing). This is why I agree with the earlier supposition of Myitt's that the preference for humans was not because intelligence is implied in their needs for a species, but that it was entirely a social desire brought about by an Empire geared for domination.
maybe on smaller things, maybe even fighters, after producing the various mining and refinement tools, large as they are, but they began production of blade ships shortly after arriving on the HBHW a significant feat considering they were fighting a war there at the same time.
See, again I don't think "mining and refinement tools" would be something they would even have to make from scratch; I would think that larger ships like the transport ship would come with everything necessary to make it completely independent of the Andalite home-world, equipped to utilize resources from whatever planet they happened to be exploring in order to be a docking place and 'home away from home' to any small fighter or larger command ship in need of resupplying.
As far as beginning to produce these new things shortly after arriving on the HBHW 'considering they were fighting a war' I would say that the war is what makes the rapid rate of production to be expected as a matter of course, war has been shown to be a great motivator for innovation both in new ideas and in learning how to rapidly produce implementations of those new ideas; as the saying goes "necessity is the mother of innovation."
I think seeing it as it did is also a good view of the evolutionary trait of "highly adaptable intelligence" that we have begun to discuss on this thread. They may have seen basic Andalite design methods that have been commonplace for decades, but in combination with some piece of technology they took from another race, say the Skrit Na, they found a clever and innovative way to use an old idea in a brilliant new application. After spending a couple years puzzling through technology from a few different races that think in different ways, from their own unique perspective, I see the Yeerks getting out of their ships on the HBHW eager to begin trying to produce all these new things as not only plausible but a very cool image.
They never really had a significant engagement until fighting the andalites at the HBHW, they had attacked a few ships and taken them, but they weren't well organized or armed. Whereas the andalites were had professional military, fighting them would be completely different... They also would still have had no experience with infantry or joint ops except as fighting against a Guerrilla force.
The point I made before is that they wouldn't have to be; they could pause long enough to send out handfuls of troops and even purely robotic drones into space, let the majority of them get crushed while the surviving limp back to their main ships (like the originally stolen transport ships and other major vessels seized from the unexpected along the way), then leap on through Z-space to a new location. Even if the Andalites took no losses, they would get spread thinner and the Yeerks will have gained more knowledge of space combat through observing them.
As long as the Yeerks still have plenty of numbers to infest new bodies picked up along the way while seizing new victim ships that aren't prepared to put up a fight then they are spreading and multiplying in all directions like an uncontainable virus while the Andalite fleet is merely spreading thinner. It was this operation, as a parasite of the galaxy, that gave them a strategic advantage in conquest that didn't require an actual superiority in battle for some time; and I think it was really clever the way that KA referred to this operating as a parasite due to their own nature rather than as a predator conqueror that we are used to thinking in terms of when we think of alien conquerors.
It also seemed somewhat implausible that the andalites could not mass effectively to launch a second attack after failing in their first attempt. So this either implies an extraordinary ability to learn on the part of the yeerks, or a massive failure on the andalite's part.
I would say that it is a combination of both, the Yeerks proved very intellectually adaptable, but the Analites did fail. However, I think that it wasn't so much that they
could not mass a sufficient attack; but that they strategically chose not to (whether this was a good strategic decision or not). Both with Aldrea on the HBHW and the Anis/Ax planning to follow Elfangor's urging to "hold them off until the Andalite fleet can arrive" there seems to be the belief on the part of the Andalite individuals that if those in command of the fleet chose to they could muster enough numbers to wipe out the Yeerks at the present location.
But if you assume that the Yeerks were spreading in different directions and mounting these infestations on various small but useful targets (planets with Class Three targets by Yeerk terminology); then from the Andalite commanders' perspective, there may have been any number of people with pleas exactly like Aldrea or Ax saying "Show up here in greater numbers then you already have or all is lost," they might have decided that showing up in a few places would have allowed them to win more of these individual battles, but that it would have allowed the Yeerks to multiply unopposed elsewhere into many truly unstoppable targets; while allowing themselves to be spread thing and never winning anything decisively allowed enough grassroot resistance that the Yeerks never become completely unstoppable anywhere (like the token resistance at the HBHW allowed the command to know that there would be enough resitance among the natives that the Yeerks would be tied up there for a while in skirmishes and even when the Hork-Bajir were completely conquered it would gain the Yeerks too few of numbers of Hork-Bajir hosts to be completely unstoppable).
So yes, though the Yeerks were particularly adaptable in their fighting, I agree that the Andalites failed to win battles that they could have, but I contest that the losses may have been willing partial-concessions rather than concentrating in sufficient numbers to gain all out victories but allow the Yeerks to multiply and spread unchecked elsewhere, in the way that was implied in Ax's communications with the Andalites in 'present day' earlier in the series.
