Limits to thought speak

[SuperBlue]

They never really made this clear. Suppose the Animorphs had Visser Three locked in a closet and they send Ax to pose as him for a week. Since he'd be speaking via his thoughts and he knows V3's voice, would he be able to perfectly imitate it when he's talking to his subordinates? Or suppose the animorphs are in morph and Marco has a song stuck in his head, would he be able to project this song to the other Animorphs? What exactly is the limit to what you can and cannot do with thought speak?

[Chad32]

We can see in book 7 that Ax can pose as V3 to an extent, but he doesn't have that attitude. Once the real v3 showed up in book 7, it was obvious who the real one was.

[Cloak]

If Marco got a song stuck in Rachel's head, she'd probably beat him to a pulp.  I'm not sure that's possible though, unless Marco did it deliberately.  And that's the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

[anijen21]

thought-speech is wildly inconsistent throughout the series.

like you said, Ax can imitate V3's voice to a convincing enough degree to fool his subordinates, yet you don't hear everyone going "Hey, let's turn here. This is Jake, over." So they CAN identify each other through thought speak, but they also CAN fake other's voices.

Also, spatial limits are...just dumb, tbh. In book #17 Rachel couldn't get anyone's attention 25 feet underground, yet they routinely fly on missions up to a mile apart and can all still talk to each other. Not to mention Ax could get the attention of a space ship flying by in Zero Space in #18, and who knows how distance works in Zero Space?

Someone did sing in thought-speech iirc as well, but I can't remember which book. I think it was Marco, to piss of Rachel, but I can't remember the song.

[SuperBlue]

thought-speech is wildly inconsistent throughout the series.

like you said, Ax can imitate V3's voice to a convincing enough degree to fool his subordinates, yet you don't hear everyone going "Hey, let's turn here. This is Jake, over." So they CAN identify each other through thought speak, but they also CAN fake other's voices.

Also, spatial limits are...just dumb, tbh. In book #17 Rachel couldn't get anyone's attention 25 feet underground, yet they routinely fly on missions up to a mile apart and can all still talk to each other. Not to mention Ax could get the attention of a space ship flying by in Zero Space in #18, and who knows how distance works in Zero Space?

Someone did sing in thought-speech iirc as well, but I can't remember which book. I think it was Marco, to piss of Rachel, but I can't remember the song.

I know what song it was but Marco was singing it in his own voice. I meant would somebody be able to play the song exactly how they hear it(the real singer's voice plus music) and put it in other people's heads?

[DinosaurNothlit]

I've pondered this, too.  It would be pretty cool if it worked that way, wouldn't it?  I know I would have fun with it.

In HBC, Aldrea is apparently able to imitate Alloran's voice, but given that the computer asked for thought-speak identification, it seems to be the assumption that the voice came with the morph, and that Andalites cannot normally imitate each others' voices.  It would be pretty silly to have that sort of identification if any Andalite could trick it.

Also, in #17 (I believe that was the one, anyway), Marco does a Schwarzenegger (sp?) impression.  If I remember correctly, his impersonation is described as "decent" rather than "perfect."  Now, if he could do a perfect imitation of the Governator just by thinking about it, why didn't he?

So, all in all, evidence points to each person having a unique thought-speak voice that they can't really alter too much, at least not any more than you can alter your own voice.  And this makes sense to me, too.  The fact that they can all recognize each others' thought-speak voices is pretty telling.  I don't know about anyone else, but when I think to myself, the voice that narrarates my own thoughts is rarely (if ever) my own.  So if they all just spoke in whatever voice they happened to be thinking in at the time, nobody would ever be able to tell who was talking.

As for Ax imitating V3 in #7, that may have been simply because those controllers had not heard or seen V3 before.  I mean, it became very obvious once the real V3 showed up, which one he was.

[anijen21]

haha you know sometimes I convince myself that I imagined that thought-speech voice print thing because it was so dumb.

I guess you could argue that the morphing technology was still pretty new and Aldrea wasn't even supposed to have it, so it was probably a security technology that went obsolete pretty quickly after that.

but imagine if it had gone obsolete even quicker, there might not have even been a Hork-Bajir genocide.

STEW ON THAT

[SuperBlue]

  I don't know about anyone else, but when I think to myself, the voice that narrarates my own thoughts is rarely (if ever) my own. 

Odd enough, I can never tell when it's my own or not. you know how when you hear yourself speak, and then you hear a recording of what you just said and your voice sounds different then what you first hear? LOL yea so IDK exactly what my voice sounds like

[Chad32]

Yeah my voice is deeper than what I hear when I speak. Years ago I listened to a message I left on an answering machine. It was saying the same words I said before, but I was like "That's not my voice."

[DinosaurNothlit]

  I don't know about anyone else, but when I think to myself, the voice that narrarates my own thoughts is rarely (if ever) my own. 

Odd enough, I can never tell when it's my own or not. you know how when you hear yourself speak, and then you hear a recording of what you just said and your voice sounds different then what you first hear? LOL yea so IDK exactly what my voice sounds like

Yeah my voice is deeper than what I hear when I speak. Years ago I listened to a message I left on an answering machine. It was saying the same words I said before, but I was like "That's not my voice."

All that's true too, but that's not really what I meant.

Like, I'll watch a TV show for a while, then I'll get one of the characters narrating my thoughts.  I'll watch the Colbert Report for too long, for example, and then my thoughts will sound like Stephen Colbert.  Or if I watch House, my thoughts might start sounding like Cameron or 13.

Do other people do that, or am I just weird?

[anijen21]

good news, everyone! you won't be able to stop reading anything in professor farnsworth's voice for the next two hours!

[SuperBlue]

HA HA! that never happens to me! u guys are lucky

[Chad32]

That also happens to me. If I'm watching something on TV, the voice in my head will sound like that too.

[Phoenix004]

I always assumed it worked sort of like actual speech, in that you don't say everything you think. They aren't just projecting all their thoughts, just the ones they choose to project to others. They also seem to keep their own voice, but like with normal speech you can attempt to imitate others.

[DinosaurNothlit]

I always assumed it worked sort of like actual speech, in that you don't say everything you think. They aren't just projecting all their thoughts, just the ones they choose to project to others. They also seem to keep their own voice, but like with normal speech you can attempt to imitate others.

Yeah, that's kind of what I figured, too.  The only time someone ever said something in thought-speak without meaning to was Jake, that one time in #41 (was it #41?  I can't remember for sure.  Something about a picnic in the Yeerk pool.)  I would think that if it was just your thoughts, there would be slip-ups like that ALL THE TIME.

I always thought it worked based on the 'speech centers' of your brain.  You know how a very specific region of your brain lights up when you actually talk, that doesn't light up when you just 'think' words?  So, maybe, you have to figure out how to use that area of your brain without talking.  So, it's like you think you're talking, but you're not.

. . . I'm not doing a very good job of explaining how I think it works.  Basically, I guess, thought-speak is more like "speech that never makes it to your mouth", than just simple "thought."