Group Re-Read: #25 The Extreme

[Chad32]

Maybe it was fanfic?

[ThinkAgain]

I doubt it. The only fanfic I can recall reading was Dino's #55, and he called it a chip there.

There's a chance though. I know I've read it, just not where.
Stupid source amnesia.

[Terenia]

Translator chips are able to morph with you, just as clothing is. It's probably made of an Andalite material that takes the morphing technology into account (and I am 98% positive there is never a mention of a translator cell in the canon series. Could be wrong, though).

Morphing spandex clothing takes concentration and practice. Originally they were unable to. So perhaps, morphing inorganic substances comes with several requirements:
1) You know its there and concentrate on having it become part of the morph
2) It is close to the body.



.....or it could just be a plot device so that the Ani's weren't running around naked...

[morfowt]

I actually don't recall Ax having a translator chip either...

[Brad the Brit]

i have my doubts he would need a chip. Andalites are awsome so i doubt they would need a translator chip. But how would Ax have learned English.... andalite intersteller cultures class...?

[Phoenix004]

The thought just occured to me that Ax shouldn't be able to morph flea. I mean, how small is that translator ship in his head?

The only real solution is probably suspension of disbelief.

Ax does not have a translator chip. I forgot which book, but it's said that his generation of arisths has a translator cell. As in the size of a single cell, somewhere in the brain, not a chip.

Are you sure? It's been a while, but I don't recall that being mentioned. Either way, I assumed that the translator chip morphed along with them, like skin tight clothing or (in Visser Three's case) a Yeerk in the brain.

On the subject of translator chips, we never figure out for sure if Ax actually has one. I assumed he did since he knows English, but on the other hand there has been one or two occasions when Ax had to translate an alien language for the others and was sometimes unsure of the exact translation, which is unlikely if he had a chip. On the other hand, it's likely that the chip doesn't work while in morph.

[JFalcon]

i have my doubts he would need a chip. Andalites are awsome so i doubt they would need a translator chip. But how would Ax have learned English.... andalite intersteller cultures class...?

Actually Andalites do have translator chips, Elfangor states that they're standard military issue, at least for his generation, as for how he learnd English, well his thoughtspeak works on a level higher than actual language, so if his translator chip translates English he can still speak Andalite and be fine . . . of course then again he does speak it when he's in human morph.

[ThinkAgain]

...Or it could be a plot device. The idea of a translator anything is far fetched. Just hearing sounds won't translate a language if there is no base. You need to have an existing idea of what at least some of the words mean before you could crack the code, so to speak. If I randomly spoke gibberish, but in an organized fashion, would a translator chip be able to pull a language out of it?

[Brad the Brit]

if there is a chip (and i dont there is) then mabey they programed it useing human radio transmitions(spelling) but that would mean that they had been studying human cultuer for years....
even though the andalites where inteligent i dont think they would have a translation chip for a cultuer they would never visit... cuz of the whole seerow thing...

[Phoenix004]

We seem to have gone a bit off topic with the translator chip discussion. If anyone wants to continue talking about it, feel free to make a thread.

[dolphin4077]

1. Game over

2.  Yeerks were worse

3.  I agree that the kid was comic relief and a plot device, and since the Yeerks never found out about him, it was ok to let him.  (Hindsight is everything.)

4.  Yes Cassie can be way to moralistic, but I've never doubted that she wouldn't do anything to survive. 

5.  Well, if food doesn't carry from morphs, I've think we've figured out why Ax doesn't weigh a 1,000 lbs. 

[RYTX]

I like this one, but all I can think about it is how it starts a chee saga. The next like, four books, all have relatively high amounts of chee appearances.
Don't know why, but I've been thinking about that for days

[dolphin4077]

I like this one, but all I can think about it is how it starts a chee saga. The next like, four books, all have relatively high amounts of chee appearances.
Don't know why, but I've been thinking about that for days

Definitely agree.  From #25-34 the Chee have some sort of role in each book.

[anijen21]

I remember a translator cell from somewhere.

This book wasn't bad. It wasn't one of the best ones, but it was solidly paced and moved pretty well. I liked the idea of the Venber, however organically unlikely they were, and there was some mysterious talk about The Five or something that I was intrigued by, but that's not an unresolved plot thread I can be too unhappy about.

There's some interesting discussion on tvtropes about how exactly the Animorphs were still able to think and reason in really primitive forms, and basically the theory is that the mass in Zero-Space, which we know is still at least recognizable as the original form, somehow remote-controls the morph from there. So even if they're an ant, they're still using their human brain, just distracted by the ant's instincts in real space. If that makes sense.

So, therefore, even if it wasn't a translator "cell" and was a "chip" instead, Ax could still use it since he can still use his Andalite brain.

Of course, to me at least, this begs the question of why the Andalites aren't just using Zero Space as a huge organic or inorganic storage unit, programming medical equipment to draw from vast supplies of blood or medicine, programming weapons to draw from vast supplies of fuel or ammunition...but idk. I think about Animorphs way too much.

[Terenia]

Yayz, you're here! *hugs anijen*

Ahem. Anyhoo.

I actually love that this is the start of a long Chee involvement. I don't think we see enough of them in the series, so when we do I really enjoy it. I often think that the Ani's could have been more involved with their allies. Even if they can't fight, they are hugely useful for holograms and whatnot, but they rarely use that advantage except #26 (which we'll talk about this weekend ).