Who would win - Yeerks or humans?

[Darth Zakryn]

So. Who would win in a long, drawn-out, global war? Yeerks or humans? There are over six billion humans, not six million, six billion, and maybe, what, only a few hundred thousand Yeerks controlling a meager ten thousand plus hosts? Sure, they have advanced technology, but there are hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions of humans, all with fair levels of technology, if not up to Andalite or even Yeerk standards.

I guess it depends on how it happened. The "open war" we saw in the last few books was disappointing to me. I imagined it happening VERY fast, lightning-fast strikes on major population centers, rounding up humans and their leaders to be infested, and quickly taking control in full view of the public. If they HAD done it that way, we'd be screwed. And really, that was the way Visser Three SHOULD have done it.

So, we're going to be creating a new fictional scenario.

If at the beginning of this hypothetical war humans learned immediately what was happening and were fully aware of their enemy's level of infiltration, they could better combat it. It also depends on if a good number of nations are allied. Will all NATO and western allies unite as one to fight the Yeerk threat? I think Yeerks impersonating the leaders of nations they want to take over wouldn't work as well as they think it might, because any military general or political leader acting even slightly out of character is going to be regarded with great suspicion.

And then there's the greatest advantage on our side: adaptability. If humans managed to capture or destroy a few Yeerk ships and secured some of the wreckage to study, they could create new technologies to fight the Yeerks by reverse engineering.

So, in the end, I think humans will win, but it will be a long, horribly bloody battle with massive casualties.

Oh, and I'm not even mentioning that as time goes on, the Yeerks would have to devote additional reinforcements to Earth to fight the humans, giving the Andalites time to push back (maybe even to form an alliance with the humans).

Thoughts?

BTW how DO you create polls? Any help?

[Andalite_Shorm]

Probaly the Yeerks, to be honest. 'Cos they have diffrent animals and all they can take over and aliens. PLus they could turn the humans against eachother (arn't I evil minded?  )

[Gumby]

They could just cook the whole planet from orbit.

[Nar Klawip]

They could just cook the whole planet from orbit.

If they did that they wouldn't have any hosts left to infest.

Honestly, I'd have to say the Yeerks.

Though Homo Sapiens would put up a dang good fight because one of the main differences between Yeerks and humans is humans never give up when things seem hopeless, and the Yeerks do.

"Give me liberty or give me death.' A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew before they came to conquer Earth that humans said things like that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew what they were getting into." -Aximili Esgarrouth Isthill" 

Humans may be technologically primitive, not to mention physically weak, what with tottering around on two spindly legs. But if you’re in a situation that requires instant adaptability to change, and boundless courage, you should always have a couple of humans along with you.” ~ MM#2

“I have a saying for you. I got it from a fortune cookie. ‘Fall down seven times, get up eight.’ You know what that means? That means you don’t ever just lie there. You always come back for more.  You never give up. You never surrender. Maybe you die, but you never surrender.” ~ Marco

At the time we thought it was kind of corny. But then, the more we thought about it, it wasn’t corny at all. It was…inevitable.”
I accessed the memories. “Live free or die?”
“Live free or die,” Marco echoed. “My mother walks out of here a free woman, or she dies.”

“They attack against insane odds. They defend what can’t be defended. Outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, hopeless, they will still fight, and fight, and fight, till they are each and every one dead.” ~ Edriss 562

“A human will fight even when he knows he can’t win. Maybe our species is just a little crazy. But human history is full of cases where a handful of guys would fight an entire army. They’d get stomped, but they’d fight anyway.” ~ Jake

[Darth Zakryn]

Am I the only one betting on Homo sapiens? Sure, the Yeerks have the potential to do all that, but who's to say they WILL? How many times have the Yeerks done something or NOT done something that could have turned the tide of the war?

Personally, if they did it like I said, super fast with lightning raids so that humans would be hit before they even knew what attacked them, then yes, the Yeerks would win. But hell, Visser Three is an incompetent brutal **** who can't think up a good plan and only cares about posturing.

Actually, I tend to compare Visser Three and Visser One to both ends of the spectrum of Slytherin House (aside from the fact that HP was created long after Animorphs): Pure ambition versus pure cunning.

[Cloudbreaker]

It's funny, I am actually part of an Animorphs RP site that takes place in a universe where the yeerks won.

I don't think the yeerks would ever get all the humans, but I don't think the humans would be able to drive the yeerks away either.  I think they would fall into a system where yeerks rule the cities, but free humans rule the wilderness and constantly cause trouble for the yeerks.

[BennyBoy]

I think it depends on too many inconceivable elements. Each person is imagining the war in different ways.

Personally, if it weren't "super fast with lightning raids" then I think we would have a fair chance. It certainly would be a bloody war with many lives lost, but if aware of the problem I think, depending on how humans fought back, we could put up a good enough fight.

But see, it's a lot of 'depending' and 'ifs and buts' - too unpredictable to just choose a side.

Plus, let's not forget about the damage the Animorphs were able to do as a small guerrilla force - if humans were aware of the problem they could potentially destroy Yeerk pools or Kandronas and really hinder the Yeerk invasion.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[NekojinCat]

I think it's somewhat relevant to point out that maybe the Yeerks only attempted the invasion of Earth BECAUSE they could do it via infiltration. Considering our society is more advanced than, say, the Hork-Bajir, we would be more prone to understanding our enemy's weaknesses and being able to combat them. As people have mentioned, our adaptability, numbers and sheer force of will would be somewhat intimidating if the battle began on an open playing field.

Like Ben pointed out, humans would be capable of destroying Yeerk pools and Kandrona. An open war would prevent the Yeerks from hiding these underground or disguising them as something else, limiting their ability to construct and maintain a Yeerk pool and a system of rejuvinating the Yeerks inside hosts. It took the secrecy at the beginning of the Animorphs' war to allow the Yeerks to have their pool already up and running, with hosts moving smoothly in and out. That made it more difficult to attack. If it could never get established? I think that would be a huge blow to the Yeerks ever gaining enough power to take us on openly. Afterall, every single Yeerk with a host needs to feed every three days - if humans were constantly aware of the process and were able to attack when the Yeerks were at their weakest, we'd have an advantage.

With that said, the technological advantages, the weapon-like hosts - especially Hork-Bajir, and Visser Three's morphing abilities could all be used to their full extent in open warfare. No need to hide your bladed troops - send them out among our squishy population! And no need for Visser Three to blend in, he could just morph something enourmous and stomp around Godzilla style, if it would subdue us humans. Dracon beams, spacecraft and their weapons - all of this would be far more effective if it wasn't hidden. At the same time, our military power would be used openly.

I still think it's a toss up, just thought those were some interesting things to think about.

[Shock]

Probaly the Yeerks, to be honest. 'Cos they have diffrent animals and all they can take over and aliens. PLus they could turn the humans against eachother (arn't I evil minded?  )

never underestimate human ability to adapt and humanity's brutality.

those two traits have what moved us up to the top of the food chain and kept us at each other throats ever since.

[Blaise Zebrataur]

Wow...that is a tough one...but I would have to save humans would win.Yes the yeerks would have better weapons and such but humans have one things yeerks don't have: Faith/Hope

Humans will fight even when there is a chance that they might die or lose,but they will at least give it a try and say"Hey we did the best we possibly could."

[Phoenix004]

Humans would fight, we'd fight to the last man, but that's hardly the same as winning. Depending on how the invasion happened, I think we'd manage to do some serious damage if we had the time, but realistically we weren't going to win.

For one thing, some of you are seriously underestimating the strength of the Yeerk's stronghold on Earth. They had enough power to basically build a small city under a decent sized American town without anyone knowing, and God knows how many other cities they might have infiltrated. The Chee themselves told the Animorphs that at least one major world leader was a Controller, which not only means that they had an incredible amount of influence, but also implies the possibility that the Yeerks weren't solely based in the US. The general lack of a real response by the US military in the final books might actually be due to powerful members of the government or military being Controllers.

Okay so let's assume for a minute that by some miracle we were able to mount a successful counter-offensive against the Yeerks. We start to fight back, starve some high ranking Controllers to get important intelligence, maybe even take out some Bug Fighters and ground-based Pools. Big deal, they have hundreds of fighters at least, not to mention a Blade Ship and Pool Ship. They also have ship-based Yeerk Pools so destroying ones are the ground will barely weaken them.

You're also forgetting that the Yeerks don't need all of us. As I believe Marco pointed out in the later books, just because their are 6 billion of us doesn't mean we're all worth the effort. If they take 1 billion and we start causing trouble, what's to stop them wiping out the rest of us from orbit? Nothing we can really do about that, and the Yeerks still win.

One final thing we have yet to consider: the Andalite military. The reason they didn't come to our rescue as the Animorphs had always hoped is because by the time they knew how bad things were on Earth and sent backup, they had already decided we were a lost cause. Their plan wasn't to try and save us, but to annihilate us and take the Yeerks out in the process.

So yeah, not to sound pessimistic, but humanity would be screwed either way. 

[TobiasMasonPark]

You're also forgetting that the Yeerks don't need all of us. As I believe Marco pointed out in the later books, just because their are 6 billion of us doesn't mean we're all worth the effort. If they take 1 billion and we start causing trouble, what's to stop them wiping out the rest of us from orbit? Nothing we can really do about that, and the Yeerks still win.  

     I always wondered, Phoenix, if the Yeerks would have bothered with the infestation of third world countries--which, ironically, seem to have the most numbers.

     Any thoughts on that, or do you want me to make that into an individual topic?

[Phoenix004]

We have no way of knowing if they did or not, but based on what is said in Visser, the Yeerks seemed to be concentrating on taking over America because it was considered to be one of the most powerful nations on Earth. This does have advantages, but lesser developed nations would've been more ideal targets in a way, as many are highly populated and also less likely to be able to mount a resistance.

Based on what we know of Yeerk psychology, I would say it's doubtful they attempted large scale infestation of third world countries. They were trying for voluntary hosts where possible and organisations such as The Sharing wouldn't have been practical. On the other hand, the Yeerks could've tried posing as some kind of charity group. It's an idea to consider for a fic perhaps.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     But what about places in Africa? I've heard things about aids and other epidemics. Despite the large numbers and how quickly the Yeerks would be able to infest these third world hosts, would they want to?

     And I was talking about this hypothetical world where the Yeerks win. After gaining access to more human hosts than ever before woulds they even bother to infest the third world? Or would thet simply pick off undesirables to limit Earth's population? And, by undesirables I'm speaking from a Yeerk way of thinking--damaged hosts (to them, of course) are not fit for infestation, as seen with the Auxilaries.

[Baranth]

Personally, I think the humans win because we've imagined so many different versions of your typical alien invasion.

We could simply use the tactics that best suit the situation. In the case of the Yeerks, this calls for something out of Independence Day.

Let's just hope that we have better computers than Goldblum and Smith had in that case.