Ok, I know it's been a while since this thread was discussed, but at the risk of starting a flame war, I'm going to revive it with some new information on the Yeerk versus human debate.
In KA's work, the Andalites, and the Yeerks (and most ALL other spacefaring fictional species) seemed to be based on Star Trek, more specifically, the Federation. This is a HIGHLY erroneous decision in my opinion, as the Federation is shown to HAVE NO ARMY. None. Whatsoever. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They have VERY powerful ships that they assume can and always will be available to be used for air support, but if they run into sensor jamming, shields, environmental conditions, additional warships, etc, that aerial support will quickly be cut off and the ground forces (such as they are) overwhelmed.
KA makes it seem as though ground battles are going to be pointless because of space/air support, which again lends credence to her basing her series' technology mainly on ST and the Federation. But ground support is just as vital and NECESSARY as a fully equipped mobile aerial/space force. We've seen a few examples of ground battles, such as in #18. The Decision, and those were AWFUL. The opposing forces wore NO ARMOR, they had no artillery support, no armored vehicles, no mines, and they basically just THREW THEMSELVES, unarmored, at the enemy to be devoured (in a Napeolonic era mass-charge effect) while small picket and support ships with transpolar/low-orbit/high-orbit capability provided cover fire. But again, this is not surprising considering the feudal nature of the Andalites. Yeerks (and Andalites) may sneer at tanks, mortars, grenade launchers, minefields, and nuclear weapons, but if we were to employ those same principles with much more advanced technology behind them I bet they wouldn't sneer at them for long!
Now, back to the orbital battle. Like I've said before, since the Yeerks were tied up elsewhere, they had a limited number of ships to use at Earth to subjugate a species of
billions, which to me is just
slightly less stupid than invading Nazi Germany with only 100 troops while you devote the bulk of your army to other locations! In any event, only TWO of those ships are shown high destructive power: the Blade ship and the Pool ship, which provide the role of capital ships. Bug fighters simply would NOT be able to generate the kind of power needed to cause significant damage from orbit, used as they are in an anti-fighter role. Now, let's examine the Blade ship and the Pool ship, shall we?
Like I have said in this reply, Animorphs (at least their technology) seems to have been based heavily on a Star Trek/pro-Federation stance. The destructive capacity of Star Trek ships is limited to MEGATONS, not GIGATONS. And no matter how many battles are going to be started from space by the Yeerks (i.e. raining down destruction on massive population centers), they are STILL going to have their hands full since they want at least a few hundred million to at most a few billion hosts, and too much collateral damage would hugely impede that. Thus, a good percentage of the battles are going to be fought on the ground.
Then there's also the possibility that we can ally with other countries (even ones we hate if it got desperate enough) to launch a coordinated strike of nuclear missiles and other WMDs against the most powerful ships in orbit. It's been stated the Yeerk and Andalite spaceships are shielded, but they don't seem to act like normal force fields seen in other sci-fi, but let's just say they work like Federation shields (since, as I've said, KA has based the Andalites/Yeerks on the Federation). I've been looking up the shield capacity for Federation and other Star Trek ships, and they can only handle so much before they collapse. I believe they can shield on orders of terawatts to gigawatts, but I'm not sure. In any case, there's THOUSANDS of nuclear weapons around the world, and launching those THOUSANDS would eventually drop the shields long enough to score massive hits. And even if all of the Bug fighters in orbit are Draconing those incoming missiles along with their Pool ship and Blade ship commanders, they STILL can't stop ALL of them. Then there's also the untold possibility of some of this debris drifting to Earth and humans getting ahold of it and reverse engineering the technology...
And to the final argument in this debate. The Yeerks' ability to infest and pass as other humans. Well, if humans were AWARE of the Yeerks' ability to control a host body, that would just increase suspicion and paranoia to levels previously unseen around the world. Anyone acting in even the SLIGHTEST suspicious manner during a wartime situation such as this would be detained for three days until their innocence was determined and they were proven to be Yeerk-free. They might even be killed in some of the lesser, more hostile Third World nations.
So. There you have it. What do you think? I want a good, healthy debate. Opinions, people, opinions!
P.S.: It's a shame KA didn't base her weapons on
Star Wars as opposed to
Star Trek, as those shows are all about war and destruction...
