What would you trap David as?

[Aquilai]

Mid-morph nothlit is also a unique case in the sense that during the transformation all manner of body parts go through changes very rapidly yet there is no pain. Clearly something is happening that isn't normal. Who knows if you can become a nothlit mid-morph (it might have been mentioned but I question it anyway). You could use mid-morphing as an excuse for a strange fanfic scenario technically anything can be a fanfic but you know what I mean.

[Zero_Messiah]

It's never been completely shown, however their constant run-ins with the two hour limit have pretty much shown that they are explicitly afraid of being trapped in a morph, much less mid-morph.

I remember when Marco started crying after he was approaching the time limit as a flea, and while demorphing, apparently stopped (because he couldn't continue) as a dog-sized flea. Furthermore, if the animorphs couldn't be stuck in Mid-Morph, that actually adds roughly 3 minutes to their total morphing time. Even if they started demorphing with 1 minute left to the clock, they'd still be free to complete the morph (cos they couldn't get stuck in midmorph) so they would have virtually nothing to be afraid of.

[Aquilai]

Even if they started demorphing with 1 minute left to the clock, they'd still be free to complete the morph (cos they couldn't get stuck in midmorph) so they would have virtually nothing to be afraid of.

As long as they're midmorph before the 2h limit. If you're fully an animal before and pass the 2h then ask Tobias what happens. (You find the nearest superbeing to fix you up!)

[DinosaurNothlit]

Well, if it weren't possible to be stuck in mid-morph, that would make way for loads of ways to 'cheat' the 2-hour limit.  Suppose you were morphing wolf, and stopped it right before the morph was done (and if you were Cassie, you could make any human bits really inconsequential and inconspicuous, such as, say, a teeny patch of human skin on the wolf's stomach).  Then you could remain in morph indefinitely!

Plus, the only real evidence for the idea that it's impossible to be stuck in mid-morph is in book #48 (remember the scene where Rachel is demorphing, the clock hits zero with her in mid-morph, and she keeps demorphing anyway?), but that has to be taken with a grain of salt since it may or may not have actually happened.  And because it seems to contradict the scenes from books #3 and #20.

However, I think there may conceivably be a small 'grace period' during morphing, where the time limit is stretched.  Keep in mind that even natural metamorphosis resets the time limit, right?  So a 'partial' metamorphosis might at least stretch it, therefore while you're changing during the morphing process, the time limit is constantly changing too.  Not by much, but at least a little.

Anyway, to go back to the subject at hand, I do think that trapping David as a rat was cruel.  Granted that it would have been hard for the Animorphs to kill him, and I'm not sure that I would have been able to do it either, but that would have been kinder to him than trapping him as a rat.  Although, the dolphin idea is interesting.  They'd have to sedate him, but it could work.  I believe in second chances, and if anything has a shot at changing David's view of the world, it's being trapped as an eternal optimist. 

[TobiasMasonPark]

     I think it has to do with will power. Whenever the Animorphs have gotten stuck in mid-morph, they were freaking out and needed Cassie to calm them down (except in Animorphs 48: The Return, where Rachel was alone). Once Cassie calmed everyone down, they were able to push the morph further. So, maybe it isn't possible to get trapped mid-morph.

[Zero_Messiah]

I'm pretty sure the andalites said 2 hours and meant two hours. I mean, wouldn't Ax just have brought it up if the time limit wasn't completely set?

Ax: <Do you have to worry about the time? You can just demorph when we're close, because you're not going to be trapped in midmorph. Marco, don't worry about it.>
*Marco is subsequently trapped as a gorilla*

[Aquilai]

Ax has a habit of assuming humans know things. Example: Butterfly and resetting of 2hour morph timer

[TobiasMasonPark]

Ax has a habit of assuming humans know things. Example: Butterfly and resetting of 2hour morph timer

     That was hilarious.

[Blazing Angel]

remember that its ABOUT two hours. Ax says your hours for a reason. They don't have the same way of measuring time as us.

[Zero_Messiah]

I'm pretty sure the Andalites who built it meant two hours in their own time, or just two standard hours. Elfangor even goes right out and says 2 hours, without bothering to split hairs and mention if they have a few minutes extra, and Elfangor, unlike Ax, is very familiar with humans.

There have also been several times where Ax (and the Animorphs) are close to the limit, And Ax has to mention they are close to it, often sounding worried.

I don't actually recall Ax ever saying the time limit is two earth hours, though. It's always just referred to as two hours; even way back in HBC and TAC, the morphing time is fixed at two hours; there would be no point saying 'two earth hours' then.

[Blazing Angel]

Its always been about two hours and about three days I doubt that mother nature and the andalites perfectly created things right by human time.

[Dogman15]

A fly, stick him out in the woods. Yeah its way crueler, seeing as how he'd be dead in like a day, but the whole point is needing him dead but not being able to kill him, better make it quick.

In Alternamorphs #2, The Next Passage, one of the bad endings has the Animorphs see you as a traitor or at least not a very good Animorph, and they trap you as a fly.

Actually, this thread got me thinking about something: Did David ever morph a dolphin?

David morphed an Orca/Killer Whale in book 22.

[Zero_Messiah]

Its always been about two hours and about three days I doubt that mother nature and the andalites perfectly created things right by human time.

No idea how 'mother nature' fits into this, but I'm sure when the andalites made the escafil device, they believed they would be the only species that would ever have it. It was more or less cemented the moment Seerow set the Yeerks free; Seerow's Kindness was a highly important law that basically mandated no technology from andalites would go to another species.

That basically means that when it was built, they either had the time set to two 'standard hours' (though we are never told how this relates to earth time) or more likely two 'andalite' hours. (it'd be like your computer telling you it'll take 4 mars hours to finish downloading; you're not on mars, so using 'mars hours' is redundant)

A third option exists; there is no such thing as 'andalite hours' and that the andalite follows intergalactic time; just like how there is an intergalactic language (Galard). This would be normal on a dome ship (since andalite concept of time is irrelevant there; day and night depend on the nearest star)but on their homeworld would be a lot stranger since their concept of 'time' would depend on the planet's rotation. It is entirely possible though that they simply use intergalactic time, though I doubt it; you would have developed your own planet's time system before you'd discover there is life on other planets, and subsequently, a universal set of time. Even after discovering it, you wouldn't just stop using andalite time system, especially if you're still living on the homeworld.

While it is entirely possible that two hours to the andalites is two hours to the humans, it's a little unlikely. Hours are made up of minutes, and minutes are made up of seconds. Unless andalites and humans had the same exact distance from their sun, with the same planetary size, and the same rotation, you're bound to get two different meanings of an 'hour'.

[Blazing Angel]

Weirder coincedinces have happened in the animorphs world and by mother nature I meant that there was no way the yeeerks could have evolved with EXACTLY three days between feeds.

[Zero_Messiah]

I don't think it was ever a complete three days for the yeerks, because when Jake got infested, he got infested when they busted in sometime in the afternoon. Jake's yeerk had infested him after climbing from the yeerk pool, so his 'max time' should have been three days, but the yeerks ends up dying a few hours after the sun rises, 3 days later (but not 72 hours later).

See, for days, you can be pretty free with the expression, but for two hours, that's extremely specific. that's 120 minutes or 7200 seconds. Even having a + 5 minutes grace time is pretty much a life time to demorph.