So I had a flash of insight after reading the book where Cassie morphs a Yeerk to rescue Aftran. I think I've figured out the best possible way to end the war.
The Andalites should give the Yeerks the Escafil technology.
I know it seems suicidal, but bear with me for a moment while I walk through my thought process.
It starts like this: The war is raging because the Yeerks are conquering planets in order to subjugate new hosts. The Andalites are fighting the Yeerks, both to stop them from spreading throughout the galaxy, and because of the Andalites' sense of guilt for their part in creating the Yeerk threat (Seerow's Kindness).
But why do the Yeerks want hosts in the first place? Well, book 19 gives us great insight into Yeerk psychology and society. Basically, being a Yeerk sucks hard. You're trapped as a slug, with no chance to experience the beauty of the universe around you. Aftran notes that not all Yeerks enjoy subjugating a helpless host. Just like most humans don't enjoy seeing a pig or a chicken slaughtered. But we sure as hell eat bacon and wings. As she says "oink oink." BUT, Aftran (no pacifist herself) can't deny the immorality of what she does. She justifies it by pointing out (not incorrectly) that her other choice is to condemn herself to being "trapped" as a Yeerk. No-win scenario.
Now let's examine the Andalites. They like to think of themselves as the peaceful good guys, but as we've seen, they have plenty of dirt in their past. They've sacrificed much of their own morality fighting the Yeerks. And they will continue to sacrifice more and more (just like the Animorphs themselves) as long as they fight. Indeed, as Aftran rightly points out, what exactly does "victory" look like to the Andalites? Either they end up beating the Yeerks back to their home planet, forcing them out of thier hosts and back into the pools to be eternal prisoners, and if one of them so much as lifts their heads up out of the pool the andalites will laser it off from orbit. They will be generations upon generations of prisoners, with the andalites playing prison guards. Forever. OR, outright genocide. The andalites murder every Yeerk in existence. Probably needing to use their bio weapons again. No good for anyone.
But the Andalites are actually sitting on a far greater weapon than thier bio bombs. A weapon that could end the war in one swell foop. The morphing technology.
Instead of using it to wage war against the Yeerks, they could use it to remove the Yeerks reason for making war.
Incidentally, this all applies to the Taxxons as well, who are themselves "trapped" in their biological forms.
Yes, it would be dangerous. Yes, it would be risky. So is war.
And indeed, there would be Yeerks (Like Visser 3) who are simply evil psychopaths, who would continue killing, and who would use the morphing power for evil. But there will always be people for whom the war never ends. Hell, there'll be Andalites who will never stop trying to kill every Yeerk they see. And there will be humans (like Rachel and Jake) who will probably never be able to be peaceful with the Yeerks.
But, just like here on Earth, do we let a small number of unreconstructable individuals drag whole societies into an endless and unwinnable war? Maybe they will. But my point is that they don't have to.
The Andalites hold the power to free their enemies. Free them, and make them into allies instead. If they withhold that power, then they condemn themselves and the Yeerks and every other innocent race that gets caught in their war to an endless spiral of death and destruction. A cycle of hate and violence. As long as the Andalites hold on to that power, the Yeerks can rightfully say to their people "Look at the arrogant Andalites! They think they're so much better than us, but they condemn us daily to this life. They would see us all blind and trapped eternally in the pools. We MUST fight. You MUST take over the mind of a helpless host. It's the only way, not only to resist our Andalite oppressors, but to live any kind of life at all!" The propaganda writes itself, because it's all true.
Lastly, this is the only hope for the Andalites as well. We see in the books that in fact they are barely holding on against the Yeerks. The war is not going well for the Andalites, and I would argue that it'll only get worse. At best, they get desperate and start sterilizing innocent planets and using more bio weapons to try and stem the Yeerk tide. They become as evil as the Yeerks, in fact. Hell, maybe more so, since at least a Yeerk host is still alive. But I would also argue that it's only a matter of time before the Yeerks get ahold of the morphing technology themselves. Nothing stays secret for long. The Russians had the bomb shortly after we developed it. We nabbed the Enigma code machine from the Nazi's halfway through WWII. Eventually, an Andalite ship will be captured with an Escafil device on board, the Yeerks will reverse-engineer it, and they will get the power anyway.
Only, you can bet they wont at that point use it to simply go in peace. No, they will use it as a weapon in the same way that the Andalites do, and the war will rage on, worse than ever, until it finally reaches it's grim conclusion.
I am convinced that the only chance for a peaceful end to the war is for the Andalites to voluntarily agree to give the Yeerks the morphing technology on the condition that they, as a society, no longer have to live as parasites. Both sides will have to deal with bloodthirsty extremists for some time, but it's better than outright total war, and eventually those who suffered so badly at the hands of their enemies that they can never let go of it will eventually die off, and peace may yet come.
Appreciate any thoughts!
-J
