Ketrans: Survivors?

[Unknown User]

Toomin overtly states several times throughout TEC that he is the last of his race, the last Ketran, but I wonder... Do you think that other ketrans survived the Capasin's attack? I always pictured a few members of the ketran species surviving and maybe finding some tiny unpopulated crystal on which to feed and live.

Thoughts?

[Darth Zakryn]

One of my planned fics that never got off the ground was the Ellimist and Crayak planning for THAT VERY THING as the first move in their final 'game'. Unfortunately, I was also planning to make them evolve into the Mercora, and the last Mercora... well, you guys know what happened to them.

[Unknown User]

Yeah, bloody shameful death is what...

It is hard to imagine the winged, taloned, podded ketrans turning into crabs.

[Darth Zakryn]

It's like Toomin mused: They COULD change over the millennia, and millions if not BILLIONS of years would have passed.

[DinosaurNothlit]

That's a very good point, Unknown.  It's assumed that they're all gone, but there's no definite proof of such, and Toomin never goes back to check.

Which I always thought was a little strange.  He becomes nearly all-powerful, and yet he never even tries to find a way to start re-building his homeworld?  What, he can create the Pemalites from scratch, but he's not even going to try to re-create the Ketrans?

As for the Ketran-Mercora connection, I doubt it.  For one thing, no matter how much time passes, evolution cannot turn a horse into a beetle.  Some things are just too far apart.  And for another thing, the Ellimist would have had to have been aware of the relation, and he would not ever have allowed his species to die twice.

[Darth Zakryn]

It was just a vague idea I was toying with. It was supposed to detail their "final" game before the Animorphs got involved, maybe after too.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

I actually really doubt the possibility of other Ketran survivors. The Ketrans that survived with Toomin took off on their superspecialawesome crystal space ship, and I got the impression that the spacecraft was so revolutionary for them, there was no possibility of there being another one. All the other crystals would have been wiped out when the Ketrans at the docking spars were killed. I guess some might be able to survive by moving to smaller crystals without being spotted or whatever, but it strikes me as a long shot.

[Baranth]

This exact question is what bothers the heck out of me.

Especially if during the big battle with Crayak, he lost his Ketran body, yet APPEARS TO TOBIAS IN #13 AS A KETRAN!

[DinosaurNothlit]

I actually really doubt the possibility of other Ketran survivors. The Ketrans that survived with Toomin took off on their superspecialawesome crystal space ship, and I got the impression that the spacecraft was so revolutionary for them, there was no possibility of there being another one. All the other crystals would have been wiped out when the Ketrans at the docking spars were killed. I guess some might be able to survive by moving to smaller crystals without being spotted or whatever, but it strikes me as a long shot.

There's another possibility, although it might also be a long shot.  The whole 'eradicate-the-Ketrans' thing was all just a great big misunderstanding on the Capasins' part, right?  So what if, at some point before they finished the job, they somehow realized their error?  Perhaps it finally occurred to them that there was no way the Ketrans were technologically advanced enough to be able to toy with the evolution of other species, when they couldn't even fend off the Capasins' attack.  Perhaps they picked up enough of the Ketran language (through translator chips or whatever, it's possible) to hear one of the panicking Ketrans say, "It was just a *$&%ing video game!  Stop shooting us!"

This exact question is what bothers the heck out of me.

Especially if during the big battle with Crayak, he lost his Ketran body, yet APPEARS TO TOBIAS IN #13 AS A KETRAN!

For one thing, I don't recall him doing that at all in that book.  He appeared as a half-hawk-half-human creature (because that's what Tobias would 'identify with'), didn't he?  Are you thinking of another book, perhaps?

For another thing, though, I was under the impression that the various forms he took after losing his body were just illusions that he produced, which had nothing to do with anything real.  The guy is nearly all-powerful, after all.  If he wants to appear as a long-extinct species, well, that isn't any weirder than a glowing blue person (#7), or a half-hawk-half-human (#13), both of which are beings that not only do not exist, but which have never existed.

Does that make sense, or did I just completely miss the point you were trying to make?

[Darth Zakryn]

Yeah, maybe the Capasins finally realized their error with a big, "Ah. Whoops. Oh well, they'll get over it."

[theburningone]

I don't think so really, I'm pretty sure Toomin would have looked into it at some point when he became Omnipotent.

[Aquilai]

Coin toss. Remember aliens are alien. This is evident from Crayak and Ellimist's view on life and the universe. I was about to write "even amongst humans" but really we have nothing else to compare against. Anyway, even we have people who will refuse to go home or to visit a friend/relative's grave because of the memories or feelings it might bring back. Not going back to find out if there were more Ketran survivors isn't a necessity and it's wrong to assume that our/majority way of decision-making is the inevitable one.

I just re-read the Ellimist Chronicles and felt it was worth pointing that out. Bare in mind also by absorbing so many minds of so many species his own species could start to pale in existence. When you think of your friends and family you don't think of "humans" you think of the individuals and how they affect you which is the level that I understood how Ellimist thought. He/She/It has stopped thinking in terms of 1 race that is clearly more significant or important than another because he has become joined so many races that it is their minds and thoughts that are treasured: the lover, the friend, the realist, the engineer, the rebel, the Brilliant Loser.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;" - Shakespeare

[Baranth]

Has anyone besides me ever thought that The Ellimist Chronicles isn't supposed to make any sense on purpose?

[theburningone]

Has anyone besides me ever thought that The Ellimist Chronicles isn't supposed to make any sense on purpose?

it makes sense. It just didn't talk about a lot of things we wanted it to imo. We wanted to know where the Ellimist came from and how he came to basically be a God, but we also wanted to know more about the Time Matrix, the rules of the game Crayak and he played, and the back story of the Crayak himself.

[Blazing Angel]

Whats never explained is what the ketrans ate. seriously they liive on a crysyal. What do yougrow or hunt there?