Hey,
Terenia. I kinda missed these re-reads. Good to see ya back!
1) Okay, we all know that the buffalo and the ant acquiring the ability to morph defies all logic in relation to the morphing cube. So, here's my challenge. Can you create a scenario in which these two non-sentient animals becoming morph capable is logical and actually fits within the rules of the series? Good luck!
This is one of the biggest inconsistencies in the book series, and it can be attributed to the work of the Ghostwriter of this particular story. It's as if the writer was c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y oblivious to all the morphing rules in the book.
1 - The agent that is required to ignite the Escafil device to transfer the morphing technology.
2 - The amount of contact for the total transfer. It's NOT AS SIMPLE AS rubbing one of the blue faces in the cube.
3 - The acquiring process. Relatively simple, but the intent behind acquiring a subject requires the intelligence to do so.
4 - The amount of concentration to start and maintain the morphing process.
5 - The ability to the limitted telepathy that is thought-speech. Think this was also ignored in the non-sentient subjects.
I can't actually come up with any explanations for these to work with the previous morphing details. AND WE REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. Just overlook the lack of the ghostwriter's attention to detail and take this story for the filler that it is.
2) What do you think of the Yeerks idea to use the Helmacron ship?
We know that the Helmacrons charge their tec through the use of Morphing Energy. That's how they were able to find it in the previous Helmacron-stunt. But how the heck did the Yeerks get a hold of the Helmacron ship?! Was this done in outer space? Also, I find it hard to picture the Helmacrons collaborating.
I really didn't understand all this. The ship can track morphing energy. The book does nothing to distinguish between morphing radiation energy given off by the cube, and residual morphing energy given off when the Ani's morph. That seems like two different things to me, and if they really could track all of it, they would have figured out pretty fast that the residual energy spikes and disappears pretty quickly but the radiative energy is constant, so they would have found the cube basically instantaneously...
Totally. This is a good point. In the previous Helmacron story, the Helmacrons were able to detect the source but not the morphed energy. The Veleek kind of did the latter. But this story discombulates the whole thing.
...It also makes me think about the Veleek--what kind of morphing energy could it detect? Only the residual kind? Because if there is no distinction, which this book seems to indicate, Visser Three could have found the Escafil Device in the first Megamorphs book, since it wasn't hidden particularly well...
Also the ending sequence where Cassie tries the anvil stunt. I mean, where was the author's creativity in this book?!?!
...2. It was a good yeerk plan but bad storytelling. I agree that it was way too much like MM1. However, it seems like since book #35 there has been a lot of recycled plots. 35: weird morphing side affect like #12, 36: the Pemalite ship #27, #37 going to kill V3 while he feeds #8, 38 Andalite traitors and stopping the Yeerks via biological weapons #18 and HBC. However, I think 39 is the most obvious; it's like there's not even an effort to make it different....
Agree with ya.
3) Okay, putting aside the impossible, Cassie does bring up an interesting point about the buffa-human. When it is capable of morphing a human (Chapman, ew) is it also capable of crossing the line of sentience? It is obviously able to learn, but it is able to think cognitively? At what point does the creature stop being just a buffalo and become a sentient being?
Jeez, this is a hard one. The buffa-human definitely challenged everyone's concept of sentience.
We can't forget that this is a vice-versa process. The non-sentient creature is the one doing a sentient-morph.
I think the most important question to ponder here is, does its sentience come enconded in the human DNA?! The fact that a non-sentient animal 'comes upon' morphing a sentient animal, doesn't necessarily mean that it's human. The Andalites and the Anis (all sentient beings) were able to retain their human sentience during morph, even when morphing other sentient creatures. It is not the case with the buffalo or the ant. They wouldn't be 'mentally equipped' to the sentient morph, me thinks.
3) That's an interesting question. I don't think it was ever really Human because it never became a nothlit. That's like saying it's ok for david to kill the anis when in morph because they are less Human that way.
So do you think if the buffa-human had become a nothlit it could become human? Theoretically?
See, you gotta revert the human mind to its raw state, like Ax probably described early in the series.
Given time, the human-nothlit buffalo
could have learnt how to be a human, IN THEORY. But could a buffalo know what to do with human limbs, senses, inferior physical prowess, etc... The story showed Cassie TEACHING it to do small stuff. Left to his own devices in a human morph, without any directions to human concepts and lifestyles, I think we would find a clone of Chapman grazing and grunting naked somewhere.
4) Going off of the previous question, at what point does killing the buffa-human stop being a human killing an animal and become murder?
I think the buffalo was a buffalo, inspite of the human morph. Whatever way you apply the killing factor, it doesn't change the fact that that creature was a non-sentient being.
5) If the Yeerks hadn't taken the decision out of Cassie's hands, what should the Ani's have done with the Buffa-human?
Well, the most sensible thing would be to put it down humanely. There was a high risk the cloned-body of Chapman would turn into a nothlit and the Anis COULD NOT have the Yeerks get a hold of him. Cassie had the means to do it, and I believe she would have, had she had the time and circumstances.
PS: I may be tripping here, but didn't this buffalo also acquire Alloran at that point?!
...She didn't kill the buffa-human but she sure as sheet killed the ant-Cassie. Which, to me, pretty much voided any moral superiority she had about the whole thing. As soon as Ax or Tobias said "we can't let it survive because it saw us morph," that was it. That logic very nearly applied to human collateral as well.
Yeah, and this bit did feel cheap to me, too. Really making Cassie come off as the biggest hypocrite in the story, as she simply let the Yeerks pulverize the animal. Not like Cassie. Not cool, at all.
