Little wrinkled ones?

[Bootlebat]

something I've wondered about: in #5 the predator when they are on the pool ship being chased by the yeerks Cassie says <More Hork-Bajir back here! And some of those other ones. The little wrinkled ones!>. What species are the "little wrinkled ones" Thought maybe gedds but they aren't described as wrinkled anywhere else. The only aliens that match that description is the Drode's species and that can't be right since Ax didn't recognize his species.

[Chad32]

Early installment weirdness.

[NothingFromSomething]

I love that they never bothered following up on some stuff like this.  It makes the universe feel so small and arbitrary when everything has significance, it's cool having just that little moment of seeing some weird alien that the Yeerks probably only conquered in small numbers, and they're not a big deal.  Just background scenery, serving to make the universe seem more vast and there's other stuff going on out there.

Like all the nameless background aliens in Star Wars and stuff.  Give 'em all a backstory and significance and it just feels too convenient and thought-out.

[RYTX]

I'd stick with gedds. In six when Jake is seeing Temrash's memories he says saw they abroad the mothership (Note, hadn't come up with Pool Ship yet), without knowing what they were. Everything else sounds like it was accounted for.

I agree in part that if you explain everything the world gets to small, but there are some things that I would have had fleshed out more. Like the Drode. And Crayak. And the motherf***ing Skrit Na.

[NothingFromSomething]

Crayak's pretty much just Sauron, or Thanos/Death, that sort of archetype.  What needs fleshing out?  He just kills for the eff of it, he's pretty much the physical embodiment of death, like anti-matter is to matter he's the anti-life to life.  The Drode's pretty much just a sycophantic fanatical henchman/sidekick.

I sort of felt like the Andalite Chronicles did flesh out the Skrit-Na.

[NickDaGriff]

The question is, how did Crayak get to where he is?  Sauron and Thanos both generally give us an idea of how they got so ridiculously powerful, but Crayak just kinda showed up out of nowhere and started playing Saw with planets.

The Skrit-Na don't need much fleshing out, because they're supposed to be the mysterious Roswell/Area 51 Greys who just show up in their flying saucers and do inexplicable stuff like cow mangling or anal probing just for the lulz.  Trying to explain it would kill that reference.

[Chad32]

It's stated in one place that he's wiping out species just to see which one is the best. Like some cosmic social darwinist. Then it turns into him just killing things to kill them. Then when Ellemist does the impossible and merges with space time, Crayak just does that too like it's no big deal.

Some mystery is good because it leaves room to explore different things, but by the time the series is definitely over I would want pretty much every loose end tied up. As many as possible, at least.

[NothingFromSomething]

Honestly, it's been years since I've read whichever book (Ellimist Chronicles?) deals with all of it, but wasn't there some sort of rudimentary backstory to him?  He sort of came up through the cosmic ranks over millennia the same way Ellimist did (different initial species, but same "conquering death and eventually time itself" history, and migrated to our galaxy (universe?) from some other one?  Hell, I may even be pulling that out of my butt, it's been so long. 

I think the perverted darwinism thing was more just "survival of the fittest" in terms of the species he'd use to do the wiping out, the Howlers being his finest creation/manipulation.  His end goal was extinguishing life itself, but he wasn't above using helper-monkeys along the way to do that, rather than handle it all personally.

And yeah, the Skrit-Na are obviously just a fun spin on the usual "grays".  I actually loved Katherine & Michael's angle on them, they're like these transient junkers & scavengers, not all that powerful/dangerous in the scheme of things, but almost like enigmatic space-gypsies, everybody's given up trying to figure them out, they just cruise around doing their thing.

[Bootlebat]

There was no backstory for Crayak. He just appears driving a planet/spaceship

[SmartGirl333]

When did this thread become about a backstory for Crayak?

[NickDaGriff]

When did this thread become about a backstory for Crayak?

Because it is physically impossible for a thread to stay on topic with any amount of time.  That's like, the 37th law of thermodynamics or something.

[redtailedsaffa]

When did this thread become about a backstory for Crayak?

Because it is physically impossible for a thread to stay on topic with any amount of time.  That's like, the 37th law of thermodynamics or something.

Besides I think we've pretty much solved the mystery of the little wrinkled ones (which damn, I don't remember, reread time!). Lighten up girl, it's good for health

[Bootlebat]

I actually was thinking the wrinkled ones might be the Ssstram or Mak that Temrash mentioned in #6. I've always wondered about them

[WeLeadTheLost]

One my little pet peeves with this series is that the Yeerks have apparently spread through most of the galaxy, conquering race after race, and the only controllers we ever see are Hork Bajir, Human and Taxxon...Oh and that one Garatron.
I guess Applegate didn't want to throw a ton of different races into the mix and over-complicate things, but I do wish she would have given us all a LITTLE more information about the more obscure aliens.
....especially the Garatrons. I kind of liked them. 

[DinosaurNothlit]

Oh, hey, didn't the Yeerks capture that one Ongachic ship in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles?  Possibly more, thereafter?  And doesn't Ax describe Klingons as looking like "Ongachic females" in #8?  Klingons are kinda wrinkled in the face-region, and if they're standing next to a Hork-bajir they could be called 'little,' so if that's what Ongachics look like then they could be the 'little wrinkled ones' mentioned.

They'd be rare enough to explain why they're never mentioned again in the series (being a nomadic race, the Yeerks would never have been able to conquer them in large numbers), but it's also possible that the Animorphs would have seen one or two of them prior to #5, explaining why Cassie speaks as if she's seen them before.

Also, keep in mind that even if other aliens aren't mentioned, that doesn't mean they aren't there.  Animorphs is a fast-paced, action-oriented series, and the authors generally try to minimize unnecessary description.  They mention the aliens that they know the names of, or that they interact with (Hork-bajir being the main combat troops, and Taxxons who can't help but to get involved with battles as soon as they smell blood), because to describe every alien in the background would take too long, and there isn't much point.  Hey, the poor kids are already juggling superhero life with schoolwork, you want them to start compiling encyclopedias of alien life forms, too?  Consider how rarely Gedds are mentioned, even though we know they're there.  They just aren't as important to the story, and for the most part the Animorphs didn't know (or care) what they were.