Animorph Positions

[Darth Revan]

There were a few missions that would've never happened, that's for sure.

[DraconianMe]

my mind was totally thinking d lounge material.

lols..yup
first thought: say wht? and then *mind flickers thorugh a whole bunch of random animals* and then you find yourself thinking which animal would..uh...nevermi nd XD

[Green armadillo ette]

One time, I think in the book where Ax and Tobias morph cows, Ax looks at a large lock on the door and instead of spending a bit on hacking it he just, well, hacks it into pieces.

[Toominator Z]

If Jake HAD to be replaced, I think Tobias would be best suited for the position as leader. Here's why:

Cassie: Simply wouldn't accept the title to begin with. She is openly uncomfortable with decisions over the safety of her comrades.

Rachel: Would probably accept the title, however I do not think she would have the full support of the group. Though an excellent soldier, she lacks the leadership qualities and strategic planning. She's more straight forward.

Marco: His decision making process is cold and calculated, where Jake always considered the human variable. He'd be very objective, but sometimes subjective decisions are necessary.

Ax: Would make an excellent Andalite leader, but have difficulty in this case simply because his level and manner of thinking significantly differs from his peers.

Tobias: Proven track record in several cases of being a successful leader. Though he can be as emotional as Cassie, he's shown he can be as objective as Marco. I think this shows he knows how to balance the scale when necessary. He's also shown he can make decisions quickly as well as under pressure.

[JohnBlaze]

I wonder if the above statement would have worked if Tobias was the leader to begin with.....

[Kotetsu1442]

I wonder if the above statement would have worked if Tobias was the leader to begin with.....

Or to take that a little further, what if Jake was never a part of the Animorphs period? We know that Cassie, Marco, Tobias and Ax were intentionally brought together through the Ellimist's planning and that Rachel was a lucky accident added on but it is never explicitly said either way whether he was part of the team by chance or not.

Without Rachel and Jake would the team have been capable of functioning in an effective, long term way against the Yeerks?

[Chad32]

It was never really said, but I believe many fans assume Jake was purposefully included for his leadership abilities. Without him, I think Cassie, Marco, and Rachel may have bickered a lot more. Cassie and marco definitely have differing ideas. Rachel has her own ideas, and even though she likes Cassie better than Marco, her ideas are different from both of them. Obviously Ax doesn't care for Rachel, and likely wouldn't follow her. He may have followed Marco, but he doesn't always understand Marco.

[JohnBlaze]

It all depends on the timing of discovering alliances, like Jake making a faction with the Taxxons, would that have happened if he'd not been involved?

Jake and Rachel also had the two most powerful morphs, so they were important as far as combat goes...w/o them, the Animorphs would have been infiltration mostly, like Tom Clancy wrote the books or somethin

[Green armadillo ette]

So are you telling me that a tiger, bear, or elephant is more dangerous than an Andalite (whith their tail-blades and all)? (Which Ax is, and Tobias has a morph of.)

[JohnBlaze]

the first 2 would probably lose, but Elephant vs. Andalite straight up? Unless he gets to the eyes, he'll probably lose. He'll have to run in circles or somethin, but head up....no more cinnabunzuh

[Kotetsu1442]

Yeah, Ax's natural form was very valuable in combat, but not completely superior to the Earth animal morphs; it's the fact that he has years of experience and training as a Andalite warrior that makes him potentially more effective in that form than if he morphed; as well as the fact that once they've infiltrated a place as a bug of sorts he can go straight to it while the other Anis (except Tobias) have to find secure locations to go human then battle morphs. Actually, back on the topic of this thread, that is another valuable position that Ax and sometimes Tobias plays on the team: keeping enemies busy/distracted so that the others don't need quite as secure/secluded a place to get changed from infiltration morphs to battle morphs.

[donut]

If Jake wasn't there I think Rachel would end up filling the leadership role.  In my opinion she'd be the best of the remaining anis as a leader.  She was decisive enough and could lead people.  She didn't have the ability to plan well (at least compared to other anis), and got emotional at times though.  Marco Is the opposite side of the same coin, I don't think he could lead the others, even though he could plan very well.  He could remain unemotional during a fight, but probably wouldn't have the decisiveness in a fight that rachel would have (the ability to make snap decisions and not second guess himself).

I don't think tobias could lead them.  He can make the tough decisions and accept the responsibility, but like marco I don't think he could actually lead them.

I don't think Cassie could handle the responsibility of it.  As in I don't think she would be willing to make decisions that could get everyone killed, even if they did everything right.  Which would cause hesitation, that would get everyone killed.  I also think her reluctance to kill when it's necessary might cause problems (I think she'd do it, but there would be hesitation).  I also don't think she would allow them to take high risk missions most of the time, although I'm not sure on this, since whe went into the yeerk pool solo to grab a (potentially) heavily guarded prisoner out, but then she wasn't risking everyone else's lives, and the decision to go was already made.

I don't really know about Ax.  He did have military training, but without knowing how much they taught leadership in their basic training courses it's hard to say how much difference it would make as far as being a leader.  And I can't think of enough example's as far as leadership qualities go to really make a good judgement on him.  My gut readction is that he would not be a good leader, but I have nothing to really support this.

[JohnBlaze]

Ax would be lost too b/c of human functions....like certain events you have to attack certain ways on Earth.

[donut]

ok, I reread 37 since I couldn't remember anything at all about it, and wow, rachel screwed up.  I'm trying not to be too critical, since everyone sucks their first time, but wow.  I mean, I was left scratching my head going "what the heck?".  She did make all the mistakes I thought she would, and then a hundred more.  She was always impulsive and even reckless, but almost never downright arrogant.  And I never thought she'd violate the warrior ethos, and it astounded me that she broke the single most important rule a leader has to follow (even though it's surprisingly common for people to break): The commander's responsible.


As for comedy, they're all hilarious, when they don't try to be.  Except for Rachel, but only when she's responding to Marco, so if he goes, I don't think there'd be a good comedian in the team.

for survalience (yes I know it's misspelled, and yes I am so lazy I'm not looking it up), any of them could do it for a mission, ax could do it for the long term searching for pool entrances, and IDing controllers, but without any cultural context I don't think he'd be anywhere near as effective as tobias

For a moral compass, jake maybe, but it's hard to say how much he was influenced by cassie.  Tobais might be also able to take that role.

For knowledge of animals, they might be able to google it (yes google existed that long ago) but it woulnd't have been as good as having cassie around

For planning, jake's not too bad, but noone's as good as marco, it'd definitely suffer

For hacking, DIY projects, and knowledge of aliens ax is simply irreplacible

I'm not really sure any of them could be taken out and the team still be able to function effectively without new team member to replace that person

[Kotetsu1442]

For knowledge of animals, they might be able to google it (yes google existed that long ago) but it woulnd't have been as good as having cassie around

I don't know about this one really even being important beyond acquiring their initial battle morphs/travel birds (and even that they could have done pretty much the same way, but running around the Gardens where they shouldn't have been recklessly and getting away with it, Cassie really didn't get them effective clearance there). Basically, they never used morphs of the types of animals that she cared for in the clinic; her knowledge was never really important in ways that were not either common knowledge, easy too look up things that she wouldn't have known without looking up, or all stuff they figured out as soon as they got into morph anyways.

It's really a shame, because it was a very good plot-setup right from the beginning of the series that is very relevant to the entire premise, and the characters even occasionally take the time to remind us in their opening narrations: "Cassie's parents have a clinic where she takes care of sick animals, she knows about animals and the clinic is a convenient place to acquire morphs and Cassie's mom works at the Gardens, where we can get more specialized ones." But this very well placed plot-setup was never really utilized well.