Salem listened to Trey's story with growing interest, and surprise. For the most part, his face remained expressionless, save a few moments when his eyebrows raised involuntarily. From what he'd seen, there should be no way the Andalites were capable of winning the war against the Yeerks. Where he was from, the six 'bandits' that Temrash had mentioned had indeed driven the Yeerks from Earth temporarily, but the decimation of the Andalite fleet in the Anati system had served to turn the war completely against the Andalite empire. The Yeerks were an adaptive, capable, cunning species. The only advantage he'd seen the Andalites had was a lead in the technological race.
The fact that the Yeerks were even physically capable of being given the morphing power also surprised him. He shrugged internally and attributed it to his lack of understanding of Yeerks. It wasn't really the question that was at the forefront of his mind right now.
The genocide of intelligent species- it had been a long time since he'd heard of a situation like that. The slow, painful elimination of Yeerks from the reproductive cycle that Trey was describing was almost worse than the Verrim or even Faseracens were capable of.
Salem listened as Jasper and Temrash responded- Jasper seemed very impassioned. He was obviously close to this war. Salem had been lost in though and had missed his comment that revealed his true species. Temrash had claimed to be working towards some sort of compromise end for the war. Salem had all but taken it for granted that no middle ground could be reached in this particular conflict, but now he started wondering if there was a way. Not that it was really any of his concern.
He shook his head, "That is twisted, even for the Andalites. If I'd known they were capable of that kind of thing, I might've thought twice about taking their side in this war. Jasper's right. Every species has a right to life and survival." He caught himself and stopped talking. Lately, it wasn't like him to have strong opinions on the affairs of other species. Still, his days aboard the Esprit had left him with nothing if not a sense of justice, in addition to the myriad of skills being a space pirate tended to require.
"I guess I can see them approving such an action, when they let people like Jamil-Herifas-Halennen become part of the Electorate. I'm a little surprised the humans of this time would okay the nothlitization of the Yeerk race." Humans of this time period had always struck him as impulsive, unintelligent, backwards, and naive- one of the few opinions he shared, at least in part, with most Andalites. Genocide was not something he could really see the Human race at large condoning. Again, he shrugged internally and chalked it up to his lack of knowledge about this time period.
Salem looked at Trey as he spoke, "The Yeerks must be viewed as more of a threat than I'd realized. That, or as less 'people.' Until I came here, I never really knew a Yeerk, and even I could tell that they... that you... are a race deserving of, at the very least, a certain degree of respect."
