Animorphs is based on Star Trek

[Darth Zakryn]

Ok, some of you on here might have seen my other posts where I claim that KA Applegate based her series on the ever-popular Star Trek franchise, but I've never actually given any actual evidence to support my claims. Thus, I present to you this thread, where I will discuss said evidence.

The first indication that KA based her series on Star Trek comes from their weapons: They're not just ray guns or lasers - oh no, that would be too simple! No, they're frickin' vaporizing beams! As anyone with a rudimentary understanding in science knows, a vaporizing beam couldn't work in real life because the subject matter being disintegrated would generate all sorts of ill side effects. I could discuss the inconsistencies of Dracon beams and shredders till the cows come home, but that's neither here nor there for my discussion.

The second piece of evidence comes in their ground forces. You'd think that with all of their advanced technology, the Yeerks and the Andalites would invest in the development of some form of body armor or personal force fields to repel weapons fire. But no, Andalites and Yeerks eagerly rush into battle unarmored, NAKED in the case of the Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and Andalites, with only their sidearms, and NO support fire from things like artillery, mortars, armored vehicles, etc. Their only defense comes from air support or space. As anyone who's ever watched Star Trek knows, the Federation (hell, EVERY power in the Star Trek universe) HAS no ground forces. This is beyond the impossible, because as advanced as technology can get, there is no supplement for the basic ground soldier and support weapons. Sure, you can easily destroy a city from orbit, but capturing a city and holding it falls on the shoulders of the solder. This to me speaks volumes about the Andalites and the Yeerks in general, and gives support to my theory that more than anything the Yeerks and the Andalites were based on Star Trek.

My third piece of evidence is not anything technologically related, in fact, it is BEYOND technology; my third piece of evidence is the Ellimist himself. He is without a doubt based on the omnipotent Q in Star Trek, only much cooler. You could argue that he was based on other such beings, if you can prove to me that such ones exist. Since we already know KA watches Star Trek, it can be safely assumed that the Ellimist was definitely based on Q, although giving him a personal nemesis was a stroke of genius that moved him beyond the Q.

Oh, and that's not even mentioning the constant Star Trek references made by Marco and others throughout the series, and Temrash's infamous "Resistance is Futile" cliché used by the Borg.

Yup, I think it's safe to say KA Applegate based her series (not only, but primarily) on Star Trek.

She would have done better to have based it on Star Wars. Yup, I'm a Warsie, I should get that into the open right now, and as such I have a fairly dour view on those who claim the Federation (or similar powers) could beat the Empire in a straight-up, mano a mano fight. But on the plus side, at least KA restricted herself from using the technobabble that became so infamous on Star Trek. At least Star Wars has more basis in realism...

And that is my two cents! Anyone care to tear my review down to shreds, stomp on its piece, burn them, and then EAT THEM?

[MoppingBear]

all manors of laser beams, even disintigration beams, are common in all forms of scifi.  sure, if all you watch is star trek and star wars, then they are clearly more like star trek, but there are countless scifi strories out there.

the federation DOES have ground forces, the need for such does not come up often, but it does happen, most often in DS9.  the lack of armor or artillery, well its entirely possible that there is no goood armor for freakin laser beams, and the yeerks do use bug fighters for cover.  if you have easily maneuvarable armored flying vehicles that work in space or atmosphere, why would you bother with ground vehicles?

near omnipotent beings are also fairly common, the concept of 2 near omnipotent beings playing a game with each other not because they have to, but because they know that to go all out would likely destroy the universe which neither of them want is not, and has no parallel in star trek.  here are some examples: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityWarper

marco is a geek, why wouldnt he make star trek references?

if she had based it off starwars, the animorphs wouldnt have ever been in any danger since the dracon beams would never hit any of them.  erik might have gotten taken out of commision for a book or two, but then they would have put him back together.

[Darth Zakryn]

The Federation's "ground forces" such as it were are simply glorified policemen armed with ergonomically crippling weapons and no support weapons. Where's the evidence that they have artillery and armor? And there are sometimes when a ground vehicle could have a vast improvement over a fighter, which, as advanced as they can get, are still limited. And it logically follows that if technology gets really advanced, then armor that should be able to stop laser beams could be invented. I'm not saying it MUST exist, but you'd think the Andalites would INVEST in it as research.

[DinosaurNothlit]

First of all, I should point out that I don't watch much Star Trek, so I can't do a lot to counter specific Star-Trek-related points in the first post.  Just FYI.

And to be perfectly honest, I'm getting a little tired of hearing comparisons between Animorphs and Star Trek.  Yes, there are similarities.  That does not mean that everything in the Animorphs universe is exactly like everything in the Star Trek universe, and it also doesn't mean that K.A.A. ripped off Star Trek.  You can find similarities between anything and anything if you're looking hard enough.

That said, the Yeerks and the Andalites both have perfectly legitimate reasons not to know hardly anything about planetary warfare.  The Andalites have never had a decently advanced opponent until the Yeerks came along.  Even if they had had a military back then (which, I think they did, but I'm not entirely sure), the most exercise that military ever got was wiping out the Five, which Ax made it sound like it wasn't a hard thing to do.  So why would the high-and-mighty undefeatable Andalites invest in silly things like armor, ground troops, or ground vehicles, when they can simply nuke planets from space?  I'm not saying that it's generally a good idea not to have those things, but just that the Andalites are quite conceivably arrogant enough and inexperienced enough in (evenly balanced) combat that they would have thought their spaceflight tech, lazers and forcefields would be good enough to take care of any threat.

The Yeerks are a little harder to explain, since they are much more adaptable than the Andalites are, but again, you've got a race that's completely new to warfare, and hasn't encountered any opponents besides the Hork-bajir (who were laughably backward enough that ground troops weren't needed), the Taxxons (who surrendered) and the Andalites (who typically fight the Yeerks in space rather than on the ground, with a few exceptions).  The only opponent that the Yeerks have ever faced that would provide a significant ground-based threat would be the humans.  And they were already in the process of adapting our technology to their purposes when we won the war.  They had stolen tanks and trains to use to corral citizens into Yeerk pools, and I'm assuming they would have used those tanks in ground battles had they ever gotten the chance.

[Darth Zakryn]

I'm not claiming KA ripped off Star Trek, I am just saying out of all sci-fi stories she's watched, she seems to have based a lot of it on Star Trek. Just the way they say computer in my mind screams STAR TREK! Of course, I'm kind of anti-Star Trek now, so I guess I'm not really the best person to talk about this subject.

[Blaise Zebrataur]

Hmmm I don't think Animorphs is based off Star Trek.Somethings might be like it,but that doesn't mean she really watched it.

[RYTX]

It's also based on Lord of the Rings. bfd.
Most authors tend to enjoy certain big name things, and to an extent almost any work of fiction nowdays is rooted in a few "classic" tales: The odyssey, LOTR, Narnia, Star trek, this things come to minds and almost any story you lay hands on is going to share elements somewhat

[goom]

sure, she might have been influenced by - and even made a few allusions to - other sci-fi sources (including star trek), but to say based on is far too strong.
you could go as far as to say that the harry potter series was based on animorphs, since the animagus wizards can turn into animals.

[Morilore]

Zakryn: StarDestroyer.net is fun and interesting, but it's a little silly to take Wong's arguments about how the Federation is technologically inferior and stretch them into a condemnation of the entire franchise.

I do agree that disintegration beams in written science fiction are silly.  Disintegration beams in televised sci-fi exist for the simple reason that it's easy to do the effect: instead of expensive pyrotechnics you just make the guy disappear.  KA took advantage of the written medium to make truly alien aliens, but she didn't take advantage of it to make more meaty weapons - imagine a "realistic" ray gun which made things catch fire and explode, instead of just "disappear."

You'd think that with all of their advanced technology, the Yeerks and the Andalites would invest in the development of some form of body armor or personal force fields to repel weapons fire. But no, Andalites and Yeerks eagerly rush into battle unarmored, NAKED in the case of the Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and Andalites, with only their sidearms, and NO support fire from things like artillery, mortars, armored vehicles, etc.

Read #18 again.  The Animorphs walk through the wreckage of a large ground battle and see wrecks of support craft.  We never really see pitched ground battles anyway; the closest we get is a Vietnam-type situation on the Hork-Bajir home planet where superior Andalite technology didn't save them because their leaders were idiots and sent a drastically undersupplied force.

As for the Ellimist, come on.  Trickster wizard characters are older than dirt.  The dynamic between the Ellimist and Crayak makes me think of the Cold War more than anything else.

Finally, as for Star Wars, KAA has said that she has a distaste for Star Wars because of the lived-happily-ever-after ending of ROTJ.


Seriously.  Animorphs is based on "what would happen if kids could turn into animals" followed by "oh crap we need to give them some kind of conflict to make this a story."

[MoppingBear]

sure, she might have been influenced by - and even made a few allusions to - other sci-fi sources (including star trek), but to say based on is far too strong.
you could go as far as to say that the harry potter series was based on animorphs, since the animagus wizards can turn into animals.

and dont forget the bad guys take control of the minds of people.  and the leader is partoiculalry fond of his position but does it anyway.  and one of the main characters is a blond thats kinda crazy.  and the leader of the group gets temporarily possessed by the bad guy.  really you can make comparissons like this for any two things that are remotely related.

[anijen21]

At least Star Wars has more basis in realism...

lol

[Blazing Angel]

basing off star wars would be interesting....ligh tning hands instead of animal chnaging.....but then what would we do for the covers?

[Dogman15]

At least Star Wars has more basis in realism...

Taken by itself, that sentence is really funny. 

[Galladerotom]

The continual references to Star Trek definatly show that KA Applegate was influneced by it.

However your evidence is loosely held together to say that Animorphs IS BASED ON STAR TREK. Would mean that Applegate made an effort to heavily emulate the series.

Flaws in theory:

Q and the Ellimist are both omnipotent beings but with entirely different personalities. Q is a chaotic trouble maker, like the drode, and does things to amuse himself, while the Ellimist is struggling to protect sentient life throughout the universe. Q is part of an ominpotent race, Elliminest is the last of a simple people who were wiped out.

As for Dracon beams, they are completely different from the phasers use in Star Trek. They are shaped much more like guns and for another would cause imense distruction, in Star Trek the Phasers aren't "vaporizing beams" or disintegrate they can cause damage to life forms and such but aren't really designed to kill.

The rest works for an influenced by...