Thought Speak

[Josh (J)]

OK, so I had a couple of questions/comments on thought speak. There are a few types of thought speak, right? Private, the one that the Animorphs use in missions, or public thought speak which anyone can hear. My question is was it ever explained how the Animorphs kept their thought speak to themselves when they were on a mission? And also, was there ever a specific time it was mentioned how far the thought speak limit was?

[Chad32]

If you concentrate on who you want to talk to, and who you want to keep from hearing you, only the person you're talking to will hear the thoughts. As for distance, there is a limited distance. I don't know exactly how far, but after a certain distance you can't pick up all the thoughts. What you do pick up will be faint. so while you can't tell where thought speech is coming from exactly, you can tell about how far a person speaking to you is.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     Jake and Ax communicated on different floors of a Aircraft Carrier. And those things are massive, so that says something.

[Darth Zakryn]

My question is how does thought-speak work? What's the basis for how thought communication works?

[NateSean]

The e-mail analogy often used in the books was the best explanation for me. You can send it to several people or you can send it to just one person.

As for the distance, that always seems to vary.

My whole question, and one I raised in my fanfiction, is why do we take it for granted that their thought-speak sounds like their normal speech? Granted, on TV and in movies it has to work that way because you're not going to pay different voice actors.

But this is a book. And thought speak doesn't require lungs or vocals to pull off. We even see that Ax can imitate Visser Three's voice convincingly enough to get a Hork-Bajir Controller to bust in to Visser Three's quarters in spite of the threat of death. Also, Eva clearly didn't recognize Marco's thought-speak because it took Visser One a whole book and a random Prince of Egypt reference to figure out that the "Andalite Bandits" were human.

[11:11]

Jake and Ax communicated on different floors of a Aircraft Carrier. And those things are massive, so that says something.

I've always thought of thought speak to also depend on how close you were to someone. Not physically. Ax and Jake had a close enough relationship, Mertil and Gafinilan were able to speak to each other anywhere on the same planet, even if it was a little faint at times, and when Ax was trapped underwater in the beginning of the series the two Animorphs who heard his thought speak was Tobias and Cassie. IDK.

[Chad32]

That's an interesting thing to bring up. Ax used a special form of thought speech called mirrorwave. V3 could hear it, so it's likely just usually picked up by people sensitive to it, or use it normally.

Mertil and Gafinalin may have a special kind as well because they're shorms. Or more than shorms if you want to interpret it that way.

[MoppingBear]

The e-mail analogy often used in the books was the best explanation for me. You can send it to several people or you can send it to just one person.

As for the distance, that always seems to vary.

My whole question, and one I raised in my fanfiction, is why do we take it for granted that their thought-speak sounds like their normal speech? Granted, on TV and in movies it has to work that way because you're not going to pay different voice actors.

But this is a book. And thought speak doesn't require lungs or vocals to pull off. We even see that Ax can imitate Visser Three's voice convincingly enough to get a Hork-Bajir Controller to bust in to Visser Three's quarters in spite of the threat of death. Also, Eva clearly didn't recognize Marco's thought-speak because it took Visser One a whole book and a random Prince of Egypt reference to figure out that the "Andalite Bandits" were human.

There is SOME identity to thought speak, but not necessarily the same sounding as their regular voice.  Ever listen to your voice on a tape recorder?  It sounds totally different than it sounds to you when you are talking.  There was likely some adjusting to do in the beginning, but they managed to pick up on who was talking eventually.  Ax mimicking Visser 3 was probably no different than someone mimicking someone elses voice.

[sublime88stang]

I always pictured thought speak as basically the same thing as e-mail, you could direct it to one person or 3 or 1000 depending on how you felt.

As for the distance, it seems to vary, like someone already said, in book 2 for instance rachel could barely hear tobias, in a tree outside chapmans house, when she was in the basement. But like TMP already said, on an aircraft carrier a diffrent floor is mostly likely a huge distance away, but Ax could have also been right above him. It would be nice to come up with a yard range for about how far it could be "heard" my vote would be about 50 yards max. 

I also pictured a thoughtspeak voice as the same kind of voicover thing that we have in movies.

[invisiblecake]

The e-mail analogy often used in the books was the best explanation for me. You can send it to several people or you can send it to just one person.

As for the distance, that always seems to vary.

My whole question, and one I raised in my fanfiction, is why do we take it for granted that their thought-speak sounds like their normal speech? Granted, on TV and in movies it has to work that way because you're not going to pay different voice actors.

But this is a book. And thought speak doesn't require lungs or vocals to pull off. We even see that Ax can imitate Visser Three's voice convincingly enough to get a Hork-Bajir Controller to bust in to Visser Three's quarters in spite of the threat of death. Also, Eva clearly didn't recognize Marco's thought-speak because it took Visser One a whole book and a random Prince of Egypt reference to figure out that the "Andalite Bandits" were human.

I totally get what you're saying. Like, when I'm thinking to myself it doesn't "sound" exactly like how I sound when I talk, so why would thought-speak have to? But I guess for the most part it'd be similar enough for people who know you to recognize?

[11:11]

The e-mail analogy often used in the books was the best explanation for me. You can send it to several people or you can send it to just one person.

As for the distance, that always seems to vary.

My whole question, and one I raised in my fanfiction, is why do we take it for granted that their thought-speak sounds like their normal speech? Granted, on TV and in movies it has to work that way because you're not going to pay different voice actors.

But this is a book. And thought speak doesn't require lungs or vocals to pull off. We even see that Ax can imitate Visser Three's voice convincingly enough to get a Hork-Bajir Controller to bust in to Visser Three's quarters in spite of the threat of death. Also, Eva clearly didn't recognize Marco's thought-speak because it took Visser One a whole book and a random Prince of Egypt reference to figure out that the "Andalite Bandits" were human.

I totally get what you're saying. Like, when I'm thinking to myself it doesn't "sound" exactly like how I sound when I talk, so why would thought-speak have to? But I guess for the most part it'd be similar enough for people who know you to recognize?

Yep I understand what both of you are saying as well, but my reasoning was since it was all based on thought, they could kind of control the way they wanted people to hear their voice. As NateSean mentioned how Eva didn't recognize Marco's thought-speak, I think it's because he was trying to disguise his voice to sound more like an Andalite's. The way I've always imagined thought-speak to work is when the person does it, they're substituting in their mind what they cannot say out loud, but it's still in their voice. I don't know if that made any sense.

This just reminds me of a discussion I had in one of my classes last semester where we were talking about the different kinds of learning: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. One thing about auditory learners, for example, when they sit down to take an exam and try to think back on the material from a lecture they can sometimes get themselves to hear the the professor's voice in their head going back over the material. Kind of like in the same way a visual learner can close their eyes and image seeing the diagram or their notes. Or if you have a song in your head sometimes you can imagine the way the music sounds or how the vocalist sounds. IDK.

[invisiblecake]

^^^ OT, but I just looked at my clock and it is actually 11:11 right now. Creepy.

[11:11]

Did you make a wish?

[Josh (J)]

I've thought of thought speak sort of like it would echo back, and you could disguise it just as how you disguise your own voice. You can think in an arrogant tone, or in a squeaky tone, sort of. So if it were broad casted, that's how I think it would be disguised.

[LisaCharly]

My explanation for Eva not recognizing Marco's thought-speak is that thought-speak mimics how our voices normally are, and Marco's had dropped since he was eleven.

I do think that thought-speak generally sounds like what that person's normal voice sounds like, since otherwise there would have been trouble in the early books with the characters figuring out which teammate was speaking. Since that never really seemed to be a problem, I assumed either they sound like their voice or there's some mental tag, like your brain recognizes 'oh, _____ is speaking'.