how old is Alloran??

[Acalio-Laron-Jaham]

Something that I've always thought about was the age of alloran. He is a very intriguing character to me. Like esplin/visser 3, alloran has seemed to be around forever already. We know he was a warrior, acting all wise n stuff at the beginning of the HBC, so i assume he wasn't still a rookie/freshly graduated aristh into a young warrior at that time. He seemed to be already a veteran warrior. experienced.

then, near the end of the HBC, he was already a war-prince. Years after that, we meet him again in TAC, where he was still a war prince, and it was years/decade/s(?) or so years after the HBC. elfangor described him as a veteran with battle scars etc. Elfangor and Abron also refer to thier tail fighting intrictor named sofor as old sofor. he was also a veteran warrior. Notably, there was a warrior serving under war-prince alloran in the HBC named sofor as well. TAC sofor had a huge scar on one side of his face. I think its safe to assume that it is the same sofor who served under alloran in HBC.

I dunno who old elfanger is at the beginning of the #1 the invasion, but since he was a massive hero amonsgt his people, famous and high ranking, i woud think that he would be quite mature already. And Alloran is definitely way older than him. I think alloran is older then esplin/visser 3 and visser one too.

So, how old do you think alloran is in andalite terms? and in relation to human years, or if you translate it into human years? i know andalitres probably age at a different pace then humans and have different calender, but what do you think is the human age equivalent to alloran?

Here my guest:
(Alloran in human years)
beginning of HBC - late twenties, early thirties (27-32 years old)

end of HBC - mid thirties/earlt late thirties (35-37 yeards old)

TAC - somewhere in his forties, about 45 years old

#1 the invasion and rest of animorphs series - 49, and by end of war, 53 years old.

I dunno, maybe the ages don't really add up, but i felt he was younger than 50 during the series. probably in his mid forties cuz he was still fit and fighting well.



 

[Chad32]

I think he was a Prince before the war started, so I'd say he was an adult when the Yeerks went rogue. On Earth, I'd say he's middle aged at least. I wouldn't say he's old, although if he was kind of old it would help justify why V3 almost never fought in his Andalite form.

[ThinkAgain]

Does anyone know the lifespan of Andalites?

For all we know, 50 could still be the prime of an Andalite's life.

[RYTX]

I'd clock him around 50 earth years. Don't know how long Andalites live for, I picture them aging a bit slower, but I don't really think it's a huge difference; maybe an equivalent to mid-late 40's in biological Andalite Years
Some of the books call some of the older vets as being "centuries old" but I think that's either a KASU or a gross exaggeration.
besides, a practicing, trained fighter in their 50's, even sixties, who can still keep someone under 30 in line by force when they want right here on earth
Alloran was a serious solider, and V3 kept him in combat for a long time
I'd not be surprised he's still in fighting shape

[anijen21]

lol Andalite age is one of my favorite topics.

We should get the years right first: THBC started in 1966, ended in 1969. The Andalite Chronicle started in 1974, and "ended" in 1982. The Animorphs regular series started in 1996, and ended, with The One and kamikaze death scene, in 2002.

So really, the whole war, from beginning to end, is less than 40 years long.

No, I'm with Think Again, it's really hard to determine an Andalite's life expectancy. We get a couple of hints in #8:

"If I live 200 years, I'll probably still be known as Elfangor's little brother." 2
So this is an exaggeration in the sense of high-estimate. Living 200 years seems like an accomplishment, but if that's so, then what is normal? 190? Or still like, 70?

Later, Lirem-Arrepoth-Terrouss, the "Head of the Council" (president? general? idk) says to Ax: <Prince Seerow. Yes. He was my first prince. Did you know that? Many centuries ago when I was an aristh like you.> 111

This presents a number of problems.

First of all, it really seems to blatantly contradicted what was said earlier in the same book. I'm pretty hard on inconsistencies in this series, of which there is no shortage, but an inconsistency within the same book almost makes me feel like I'm missing something.

Second of all, "century," by definition is 100 years. What a "year" is, of course, depends on what planet you're measuring from. So maybe an Andalite year is like, two weeks.

Except KAA answered in some Q&A that an Andalite year is 84 months. So that, if anything, makes him at least 700 years old. Yikes. Not really working, especially if he was SEEROW's prince, and we already know Seerow had young children (Aldrea described herself as very young, and her brother was younger than her iirc) in 1966. Either this is like his seventeenth wife, or...KA has no better idea how long Andalites live than we do.

As for your specific question, Alloran was just a warrior in the beginning of the Hork-Bajir Chronicles. It sounded like he took over Seerow's command after he relieved him of duty, which makes me think he was a youngish adult, like you said, 27-32. We'll say 30. In that case, he was 35 in TAC, and like, 57 in the beginning of the regular series. Again, all of these ages are really analogous--maybe Andalites are still "children" well into their forties, and don't become "adults" until their fifties. Who's to say? I think "age" as far as labels is a cultural thing. People were mothers and fathers, getting married and starting careers in their teens back in the middle ages, and now they're waiting much longer to do all of that. I kind of think cultures tend to wait longer to "grow up" the more advanced they get, the longer their life expectancies. Hell, Ax might even be in his thirties. KAA did say he was "three or four," which makes him 21 to 28 human years old.

WHO KNOWS.

[Acalio-Laron-Jaham]

haha its feels weird to imagine Ax as 30 years old as human. imagining a 30 year old dude hanging out always with junior high kids. cool guy. but yeah, i can live with him being 30 in andalite years, which, the '30's' for them culturally is equivalent to the 'teens' phase for humans.

yeah with that Lirem-Arrepoth-Terrouss situation, how he says seerow was his first prince and it was centuries ago that he was an aristh, i think it is possible that the andalites have a different interpretation of century than us humans. maybe like i think u said, its based on their own years or something.

[zaprowsdower]

I always figured that Lirem was just being figurative with the centuries, to me it sounds like being in a position of authority for so many years in the seemingly endless war has left him pining for his youth like it was a long lost time ago.

Call it fridge brilliance or fanwankery, that is what I think of it.

[Terenia]

Okay. If an Andalite year is 84 months. That means one Andalite year is approximately 7 human years. Which, if Ax was 3 or 4 a la Andalite terms, makes him about 21-28 in human terms. Still a bit on the old side to be hanging out with a bunch of 13-year-olds, but I guess it's possible. It would make sense if he was more like two, though.

As far as what Lirem said, maybe since an Andalite year is so long they measure centuries as 'a hundred months' instead of 'a hundred years'? Seems kind of far fetched, but possible. I also like the idea of Lirem just being old and war-torn and hyperbolizing the situation.

Ah, Alloran. Down to the meat of it. I got the sense that he was a bit of a young warrior in the beginning of HBC. Not incredibly young, but not a completely seasoned vet. I'll go with the 27-32 assumption from earlier, but that raises a problem. If Alloran is, say 28, then that means he is possibly around the same age as Ax who is still a rather untrained aristh. So, I'll back it up a bit. Let's (to keep the numbers even) say that he is 35 in human years, aka 5 in Andalite years at the beginning of HBC (1966).

There's about 8 years between the beginning of the Hork-Bajir Chronicles and the beginning of TAC. That works out well. So Alloran is now 43 human years, or 6 Andalite years with some change to spare. I'm going to skip ahead to the beginning of the regular series, and I'm going to ignore those two 'extra years' more or less. TAC begins in 1974 and regular series begins in 1992, that's a total of 18 earth years, minus the two random years that I'm going to say the Ellimist deleted, so 16 Earth years or 2.3 Andalite years. That puts Alloran at 59 in Earth years and about 8 1/2 in Andalite years.

Now, I've always been of the opinion that Andalite lifespans are about double or triple of human lifespans. That would be thanks to Ax's comment in #8 about living to be '200 years'. Clearly he was exaggerating somewhat, we don't know how much though. But if 9 Andalite years = approx. 63 human years, then 200 Andalite years would be 1400 human years. Yeah, unlikely. I'm going to go with the reverse. I'm going to pretend that Ax's '200 year' comment was using human years, not Andalite years. That means a exaggerated and lengthy Andalite lifespan would be about 28.5 years.

Phew. I just made my head hurt.

[Acalio-Laron-Jaham]

huh? wha? I just woke up.

lol . great explanation of the andalite years terania.

so how old do you think alloran was at the beginning of #54, when he was freed from visser three, Terenia, based on your theory?

[Terenia]

Well, if the war lasted three years then he would have been 62 in Earth years....just under 9 Andalite years. But then again, I'm an English teacher, not a math teacher, so my math is probably way off.....

[zaprowsdower]

Meh, I think Andalites live as long as they would in their natural niche, if you remove predators.
The whole 200 years thing to me was just like saying "If I live a thousand years..." you know? I may not have fancyschmancy math, just common sense. 

(lol I couldn't dislike you Teach, you're the only Buckeye here!
Go Bucks! Beat Ducks!)

[Fwahm]

I'm going to have to ask for a source on the 84 month thing.  The Hork-Bajir Chronicles unequivocally states that an Andalite year and a Human year are approximately the same length.

[Terenia]

Well, this is from wikipedia. I don't know what the original Q&A it was from was though. I'll do some hunting and see if I can come up with it:

Andalites use a different calendar than humans, although it still is in years (The Hork-Bajir Chronicles gives the Andalite date). Andalite years are in ten 'periods' or months, and are given like this: 7544.2. One Andalite year is equal to 84 Earth months, or about 8 1/2 Yeerk cycles; as a result, K.A. Applegate has stated that Ax is only three or four Andalite years old, though this is equivalent to the ages of the other Animorphs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalite#Time

[voodooqueen126]

I put his birth year as being 1936... cos that just fitted (warrior in HBC Chapter 1), War Prince in HBC later on, Veteran in TAC.
Having said that Andalites seem to mature/or time passes differently on Andal, for instance in the two years between HBC chapter 1, and HBC chapter 2 Aldrea has gone from toddler to late adolescent, this could be attributed to quick maturation, except that it seems the whole of andalite culture has changed: to them it seems the war has been going on for 14 years instead of two years, likewise Ax and Elfangor talk about the war as being constant and longstanding, and yet it has only been going since the late 1960...