Alloran

[NickDaGriff]

I wouldn't say an herbivorous background necessarily makes a species less suited to war.  I mean, some of the most violent and dangerous animals on earth are herbivores.  Take the cape buffalo, or the african elephant.  They've been observed actively hunting down and killing anything that could possibly be a threat to them.  They obviously aren't after food when they're stalking and running down another animal, they just want to be sure they're controlling the territory well, and that is the ultimate goal of any war.

Relevant post from the CinnamonBunzuh reviews:

[spoiler]

And regarding the psychotic decisions of the Andalite military, my explanation is: Herd Animals. Large, grazing, herd grouping herbivores are some of the most vicious and dangerous animals in the world. Three of the legendary Big Five most dangerous big game animals in Africa are herbivores, the Elephant, the Rhino & the Cape Buffalo. They are all known to attack on little provocation, to engage in premeditated stalking and killing of victims, and to act on revenge. And these are animals that kill without the excuse of food.

Meanwhile, military historians such as John Keegan, have noted the most natural military societies are not hunters or farmers or urban communities, but pastoral nomads, whose lifestyle of herding large groups of animals gives them practice in group tactics and subordination to a common goal, and makes them very casual about killing. Hunters, like Indians and whatnot, have all sorts of rituals about killing a deer, but the Mongols or the Arabs were just like *whack* - dead cow or horse, let's eat. They were very pragmatic & unsentimental about life, and these were the guys who made huge piles of skulls, and tore cities to the ground and killed every last child of their enemies' population.

Andalites are evolved from big dangerous grazing animals (by Andalite homeworld standards, anyway), and their lifestyle is influenced by herd mentalities like the pastoral nomads to some extent. That's why they can do the group suicide thing we saw back in book 18. Ax's survivor guilt manifests DURING his escape. IIRC, humans don't suffer survivor guilt until they are safe and have the luxury of second-guessing themselves, but Ax was bummed that he was not being allowed to go off the cliff with the lemmings at the time.

Andalites operate in groupthink. Ax's moral condemnation to Estrid is "the people would not approve." Think about that for a minute: "You cannot carry out this action. It will not be popular." W.T.F.? In the finale we will see another example of this when Ax & Alloran try to stop the Andalites from wasting Earth. This also explains why Ax is so adamant about needing a prince to follow, and why the Andalites are both so hung up on deviations, like the disgrace of breaking Seerow's Kindness (endangering the herd), or vecols(more on that in two weeks), and on lionizing heroes like Elfangor. He's a kind of propaganda alpha male they use to encourage/inspire the rest of the herd.

I think I may have explained elsewhere why Ax felt he was in disgrace for not killing Visser 3, but V3 was able to "retreat with honor." For a herd animal, falling to predators means giving sustenance to those who threaten the herd. By living to fight another day, V3 helped his group, while Ax was disgraced for failing to eliminate a threat to his own group, despite having advantageous numbers. He had to go after V3 in his first book, because he was basically the calf cut off from the herd and dead meat on his own. They were encouraging him to throw away his life, because by their perspective he was a dead man walking. Ax was able to change up and break out of that mindset by attaching himself to a new "herd," and after that, his actions and honor are measured (in his mind) by his service to this new herd.

At least that's my guess. IDK, probably overthinking.

[/spoiler]

[Chad32]

We know the Yeerks aren't always that bright. Partly because they're largely influenced by the host's brain, and most hosts are Horks or Taxxons. We find out in book 31 that the Yeerks don't have a contingency plan in case a controller needs to travel. Tom's Yeerk had that problem. Plan A was beg to be left behind. Plan B was kill Tom's dad.

I bet that the problems in book 31 were part of what motivated Tom's Yeerk to betray Visser 3/1 at the end of the series!

I wonder if Tom's Yeerk suggested smuggling a portable Kandrona generator up to near the cabin.

You'd think he'd be allowed to do that, or have other Yeerks come in a van with their own portable generator. It shouldn't be hard. This shouldn't be a panic inducing situation.

I think one reason he gave for his betrayal is a lack of promotion, but we all know what V3 is like. There is no loyalty, because he'll kill you on a whim.

[Tim Bruening]

We know the Yeerks aren't always that bright. Partly because they're largely influenced by the host's brain, and most hosts are Horks or Taxxons. We find out in book 31 that the Yeerks don't have a contingency plan in case a controller needs to travel. Tom's Yeerk had that problem. Plan A was beg to be left behind. Plan B was kill Tom's dad.

I bet that the problems in book 31 were part of what motivated Tom's Yeerk to betray Visser 3/1 at the end of the series!

I wonder if Tom's Yeerk suggested smuggling a portable Kandrona generator up to near the cabin.

You'd think he'd be allowed to do that, or have other Yeerks come in a van with their own portable generator. It shouldn't be hard. This shouldn't be a panic inducing situation.

I doubt that Tom would have been able to hide a portable Kandrona generator from his family, but it should have been possible for other Yeerks to come in a van with a generator.

[Chad32]

It would be safer for someone else to bring it separately. This is why 31 is my least favorite book. Even more than 53-54, and many people know I hated the ending with one or two exceptions. It's a plot that shouldn't happen, unless Jake is going to try to use it as a way to rescue Tom. Which he doesn't. I don't know if it even occurred to him, especially with the way it went. Sure it wasn't handing his brother over on a silver platter, but it was the best opportunity he had since book 1.

[Tim Bruening]

It would be safer for someone else to bring it separately. This is why 31 is my least favorite book. Even more than 53-54, and many people know I hated the ending with one or two exceptions. It's a plot that shouldn't happen, unless Jake is going to try to use it as a way to rescue Tom. Which he doesn't. I don't know if it even occurred to him, especially with the way it went. Sure it wasn't handing his brother over on a silver platter, but it was the best opportunity he had since book 1.

The idea should definitely have occurred to the other Animorphs, yet they made no attempt to rescue Tom either.  Marco could have grabbed Tom in gorilla form and hidden him somewhere.  Or the Animorphs could have had the Chee fly Tom to the HB valley instead of to town.

[Chad32]

I imagined they would starve the Yeerk, which the other controllers wouldn't find suspicious, and faked Tom's death, which they wouldn't find suspicious either. Tom was an involuntary host, after all. They might try to prey on his parents for their mourning, but I doubt they'd make it a priority.

[Tim Bruening]

I imagined they would starve the Yeerk, which the other controllers wouldn't find suspicious, and faked Tom's death, which they wouldn't find suspicious either. Tom was an involuntary host, after all. They might try to prey on his parents for their mourning, but I doubt they'd make it a priority.

Shall the RAF perform a Thread Split so as to give Tom his own thread?  How is a thread split done?

[Chad32]

We can either try to stop talking about it, or start a new thread and take he conversation there.