So it's a good thing the Yeerk let Jake eat in book 6.

[Phoenix004]

I've also heard 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food, but that's more of an estimate. If you're in the middle of the Sahara, you might not last a day without water. As for the 3 weeks thing, I highly doubt people who are used to 3 meals a day plus snacks are likely to survive 3 weeks without food, but they'd easily last a week, possibly two.

Jake's Yeerk might have been able to kill him by refusing water (assuming the Animorphs didn't force him to drink) but why would the Yeerk do that? The Yeerk had every intention of escaping and was more than arrogant enough to assume that it would succeed. So why would it try to kill itself?

[Chad32]

Well, if he had accepted food up until the point where he gave up trying to get away, then the plan wouldn't work. Because that would have been a couple days of eating. So by the time he gave up, it would be too late to make Jake starve to death.

It worked in the roleplay because Kelran was a Gryphon. So he could just say that his body needed food quite often for whatever reason.

[Phoenix004]

Starving wouldn't have worked anyway because there's no way a person would starve to death from not eating for only 3 days.

[Azguard]

true that....maybe he could have impaled himself somehow...

[RYTX]

What do you think would be the quickest way for him to do that?

he could've morphed to ant and find another colony?
Interesting thread by the way Chad28!

actually, he did morph ant didn't he? Then freaked out and went human again after being attacked.

I think in general Yeerks don't do the suicide thing, they want to win, but if they know they're beat they don't go out in  blaze of glory, they get caught and hope for some redemsion later. Even in taking out someone else, he wouldn't hasten his own death

[senter.pat]

3 weeks seems like a very long time to go without food. I heard it took longer to go without food than water, but 3 weeks seems to be pushing it.

It would be painful to be sure, but you could survive of your own bodies nutrients, basically eating yourself...taxxonis h

[EmberGryphon]

What do you think would be the quickest way for him to do that?

he could've morphed to ant and find another colony?
Interesting thread by the way Chad28!

actually, he did morph ant didn't he? Then freaked out and went human again after being attacked.

I think in general Yeerks don't do the suicide thing, they want to win, but if they know they're beat they don't go out in  blaze of glory, they get caught and hope for some redemsion later. Even in taking out someone else, he wouldn't hasten his own death

*nods* I agree with this exactly. Here, have a quote:

I realized then that there is a very basic difference between Yeerks and humans.

A human will fight even when he knows he can't win. Maybe our species is just a little crazy.
But human history is full of cases where a handful of guys would fight an entire army. They'd get
stomped, but they'd fight anyway.

That's not the way it is for Yeerks. They are ruthless. They will do anything, absolutely anything
to win. But when the situation is impossible, totally impossible, they stop fighting. They figure
that other Yeerks will carry on the fight for them.

A kamikaze strike likely never occurred to poor Temrash. Either he fully intended to escape and win, or he had come to terms with the fact that he was dying and figured his brother Yeerks would carry on the fight.

Also, as far as I've been able to tell, most Yeerks do what they do in order to not be killed by superiors, or to get a promotion or a better host. Temrash had nothing to gain whatsoever by destroying Jake's body and also killing himself- doing so might have helped the Yeerk race out, but personally, Temrash wouldn't stand to profit.

Edit: Oh, and yeah, I've always learned the "Rule of 3's". Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food.
It varies, of course, from one person to the next, but that's the general rule as I remember it. ^^()

[Faerie Larka]

Also, by the time the yeerk realized there was no way out, it was weakened by the lack of kadrona rays.  So that may have had some effect as well.

[anijen21]

Did they even mention food and water in book 6? I just read it, not a week ago, and I don't recall them saying anything about feeding and watering Jake. It kind of skipped from the first night to the end of the third day, to my recollection.

It's an interesting question, though. And I remember in THBC, Esplin saying something along the lines of "We can make Kandrona starvation last for weeks" or something, and it would definitely be a painful death to keep nourishment from both host and Yeerk. However, I'd like to think the Yeerks are practical enough to want to protect hosts, since they're viable and important resources, but even keeping hosts healthy is a high cost. How exactly did Visser Three keep all of those Hork-Bajir and Taxxons fed? Taxxons eat each other, which seems impractical but it's an answer, and there was that water/air truck ship in book #3, but what about bark? Did they just unleash armies of Hork-Bajir into the National Park to strip as many trees as far away from civilization as possible?

[Chad32]

They never do say anything about giving Jake/Temrash food and water, but they must have given him something. There's no reason why they wouldn't. They skip a lot of that time. Maybe KA thought it would be boring to spell out all the mundane feeding and talking. You know one of them would try to make small talk during their watch hours.

As for the Horks, they may sens shipd out to retrieve food in very remote parts of the planet, in similar fashion to the truck ships. If they do just send the Horks down themselves, they likely drop them off in uninhabited forests or jungles to feed.

[Galladerotom]

Okay first point: the yeerk wanted to have jake as a host not kill him even when he was getting desprate he didn't kill jake. Second I'd wait until he was asleep and then stick a straw in Jake's mouth for water. As for stopping heartbeat a human has to have immense focus and skill to controll it and even though a yeerk is tied into the brain it is questionable if it can gain complete controll of the medulla (which is responsible for innvoluntary functions such as breathing and heart rate) since it spreads through the cracks in the brain.

[Phoenix004]

Yeah it doesn't seem likely that Yeerks would have the ability to stop their hosts heart, as that would kill them as well. It's unlikely nature would evolve a trait which allows an animal to voluntarily kill itself.

[Faerie Larka]

Right.  The survival instinct in the human would most likely overpower what the yeerk tried to do.

[Phoenix004]

Interesting point Faeria, I wonder what kind of control Yeerks have over the body's instincts?

[Mira]

I don't think the yeerk would be able to handle it. I was forced to don't drink for some days one time and ended up attacking my family and the doctors before I went too weak. I can't imagine that a yeerk could bring such strong wills down. That was pure sick desperation, more than when the Chapmans had to do when Visser3 wanted Melissa.