Technology's not the same!

[Darth Zakryn]

Ok, here's one thing that always griped me about Animorphs. Please put your two cents in for what I am about to say.

The Andalites and the Yeerks always made it seem as if technology is the same, i.e. that when humans became advanced enough their technology would have mirrored the Yeerks and the Andalites. I hate to say this, but that's NOT true. Technology is the result of the species that creates it, and it could end up being vastly, VASTLY different. I always hated how in Animorphs the technology was ALWAYS the same. The weapons the same. The shields the same. Nothing even SLIGHTLY different. Future technology will not be the same as the type the Andalites and the Yeerks employ, which is suited to THEIR design and form. Society A will have a completely different (not stronger or weaker) technology than Society B.

Of course, that's just my opinion. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Well, in the case of the Yeerks and the Andalites, it makes sense that it's similar since the Yeerks stole their tech from the Andalites.  They modified it a bit to make it look more evil and such, and to make Dracon beams cause more pain, but it's still fundamentally the same tech.

Now, in the case of Andalites and humans, that's just an assumption on the part of the Andalites.  And I can see why the Andalites would think that all species are striving to achieve Andalite-quality technology.  They're arrogant, and besides that they are the most advanced species in their part of the galaxy (thus they have no other advanced civilizations to compare themselves to), and so they think that any sufficiently advanced civilization will end up looking exactly like them.  Humans do exactly the same thing when it comes to evolution: we think that all evolutionary lines must be striving towards a large brain and bipedal build since that is clearly the best possible design ever.

But look at the Arn as a canon counter-example.  A very advanced race, but almost all of their advancements were in biology rather than machines, so their spaceflight capabilities weren't even good enough to get them out beyond their second moon.  Very different from the Andalites.

[Phoenix004]

As Dino already said, the Arn are a good example of differing technology among advanced alien races. The Leerans could be considered another, as they seemed to lack powerful weapons and sophisticated forms of transport, but it was never made clear exactly how advanced Leerans were in terms of technology.

I wouldn't say all species in Animorphs were the same anyway. Skrit Na ships were inferior to Yeerk and Andalite ships in almost every way (including speed, weapons and general space travel) but they were more efficient at flying fast within a planet's atmosphere.

[Darth Zakryn]

But it still seemed as though they operated under the same general guidelines... or am I missing something here?

[Cloudbreaker]

I think it might be helpful if you gave an example or two of what different technologies would be.  Because yeah, all spaceships use z-space to travel long distances, but that's like saying all boats use water.  It's expected.

Not everything is the same though.  Ax was amazed at the concept of paper books (and tasty foods).  Elfangor was surprised when he learned houses were hollow inside.  Visser One was astounded at the amount of pointless communication going on when she fist arrived at the planet.  Taxxons have tunnel networks that no other species has.  The leerans have underwater structures.  Ketrans had crystal-based... well, crystal-based everything.  The meccora had really advanced forcefield technologies and the arn had unsurpassed biology.  The pemalites had advanced androids and hologram technology.  The iskoort had outstanding architecture and impressive memory copying capabilities.

I'm still not certain what you mean by saying the technologies are essentially the same, but certainly they are not all equal.

[Aquilai]

I might be wrong but do you mean that all technology follows a certain path at some point or other? Imo, morphing itself is an example of something that is not predicted to be something humans would/may converge on. Key discoveries can lead to the creation of certain technology but there's no guarantee a species would focus in that area. Discoveries such as fire or electricity could be seen as inevitable but the use of them could be very different. In some parallel universe maybe fireworks were never created and instead only practical uses not entertainment purposes for explosives were used. So explosives technology would be advanced but not in the area of entertainment. Likewise, as has been mentioned telecommunications for Yeerks are used more practically and apparently were not used for entertainment.

One of the reasons that Ax was afraid of humans was their imagination in inventions. Our potential future technology could be much more unpredictable than Andalites and Yeerks (who stole from Andalites and others). IMO, it's because our race has so many people and ever improving communications that allow us to share information and invent more things to create new technologies. Unfortunately at one point in our timeline if we become satisfied and content with our lives then we'll stop creating new inventions and could become decadent. Consider Idiocracy (a movie) as an example of an exaggeration of what could happen...

[Darth Zakryn]

All I'm saying is I'd have been happier to see radically different technology, not technology that seems to have been cut from the same cloth as other species'. For example, in a science-fiction story I am writing that I hope to publish one day, one species uses one version of FTL propulsion technology, and the other uses a RADICALLY different one, which is more powerful but WAAAAY slower. Also, their force fields are different. One has frequencies and the other does not. Do you sort of see what I am getting at here? Then again, I am going through sort of an anti-Animorphs phase in my life; I don't know why, I go through these with certain animes, cartoons, TV shows, movies, from time to time...