Nuclear Toys?

[Darth Zakryn]

Okay, recently it's come to my attention that some among the Animorphs community actually think the Andalites use nuclear energy in their toys, that Ax was speaking literally instead of just mocking the use of nuclear energy. Well, they might, they might not. My intention is to get to the heart of the matter and see what the truth is, as much truth as we can get out of something never seen. So, here's my two cents.

The Andalites had a lot of high technology, it is true, but when they were at home they lived in a very primitive manner, in a hole dug out of the dirt and partially exposed to the elements. This makes no sense socially, but then again, we could argue there is no winter on the Andalite home world, so I digress. They tried to combine high technology with no technology, so why would they use nuclear energy when much simpler physics will suffice? Just because you CAN use a high tech solution for a small task doesn't mean you SHOULD, and sometimes the low tech solution is better in many ways as well as being cheapter to use. For example, would having a portable force-field generator you can take to the beach replace an umbrella when it is so much simpler to make and use? All it does is show off high technology, and technology is not ABOUT being showed off, but used.

Discuss.

[Noelle]

*Pulls out the Bible*

I believe the exact quote was this (From Megamorphs 2)

Ax
[Fusion bomb?] I asked.  Then I laughed.  I know I shouldn't have, but you have to admit, it was funny.  [A fusion explosive?  That's what it was?  I assumed it was a small proton-shift weapon, at least.  Fusion is only used in children's toys.  You know, to make the little dolls speak and so on.]


I have always taken this to be literal.  Firstly, Ax, throughout the whole series, was constantly pointed out as having almost no sense of humor whatsoever until later on in the series.  Considering 75% of the time he wasn't able to tell when someone was being sarcastic, I wouldn't think he would, this early in his interaction with the humans, be capable of using sarcasm himself.


I would think that having something like a small source of fusion energy in a toy, given the way Andalites live, would make sense.  It was written in The Andalite Chronicals that, despite Andalites having rather few possessions, they did have toys for children, and it seemed implied it was more than something like just one or two.  (Elfangor, when he went to his weird, mixed up, time-matrix world he said he wanted to run home and play with his toys.  Which was a leetle weird considering I got the sense he was 16ish, but hey, I won't judge.  Guy had a rough time.)  Considering this, they must have had relatively high tech toys.  The few examples of toys I can think of were a couple dolls, one that spoke and one that wasn't really described (HBC) and some sort of sophisticated gaming console (HBC, Barafin.)  If they have the ability to use things like gaming consoles on the Hork Bajir planet, they would have to have a very sophisticated energy source.

Andalites have no cities except for space ports, which means they most likely don't have very many toy shops or areas of commerce or anything like that.  Any toy they had would have to have a very long lasting energy source, since they can't just run out and grab some batteries.  Because, who really wants to deal with a tail-whippy temper tantrum?  Since they are sophisticated enough to harness nuclear energy in a safe way, it makes for a very long-lived battery essentially.  (At least I think, I could be wrong, I'm into biology more than physics, lol.)

In reality, fusion is probably very low, simple tech for them.  We have it in power plants, so I'm sure it would cost Andalites fractions of pennies to create something like that.  I would think something like a shredder would be considerably more costly than a toy that had a fusion energy source.

The only other option I could think of would be something like solar energy, but it would be highly impractical to have a bunch of Andalite toys strewn about to soak up the sun to make sure they still work on cloudy days or something.

[Darth Zakryn]

Even in a more compact form such as a toy-sized object, nuclear energy would require a lot of heavy maintenance, more so than would be required from using a simpler and cheaper method. Remember, Andalites don't have money, so going to the nearest Wal-Mart to buy another one if it breaks down isn't an option, making it more likely they build these toys in their homes, and thus negates the possibility that they don't have to conserve energy when building something as small as a toy. Also, nuclear energy creates radiation. Something smaller doesn't. With a nuclear-powered toy, there is always the possibility it could irradiate the area, whereas with a smaller source it isn't even a possibility.

I contest the fact that Ax in the first few books doesn't have a sense of humor; Andalites are shown to have a predilection for Andalite humor than human humor, especially in The Andalite Chronicles and The Hork-Bajir Chronicles. Ax just didn't get into humor very much, being a serious guy like most Andalites, but he COULD joke at times, just not human jokes. Besides, this seems more like a case of being snide instead of making a joke or being sarcastic.

[Noelle]

Well, there's no doubt that he was snide, Ax had a pretty huge ego, especially when it came to Andalite superiority.  And I do agree that Andalites do have a sense of humor, however I still find in the books Ax was relatively serious about everything.  I just don't really see it in his character to make a non-literal remark about technology they would have, I can't think of any books in the first 20 or so where he ever spoke non-literally.  (Though I definitely could be wrong.)


And actually, Andalite currency is something that I've been confused about.  Actually, I do think they had a monetary system, because in book 38 Aloth was sentenced to life in prison for selling organs off the battlefield.  So unless he was trading it for guns or something, it would make sense that they have some sort of currency.  Did they say anywhere that they didn't have money?

[RYTX]

From Serway's Physics:
Advantages and Problems of Fusion
If fusion power can ever be harnessed, it will offer several advantages over fission generated power: (1) low cost and abundance of fuel (deuterium), (2) impossibility of runaway accidents, and (3) decreased radiation hazard. Some of the anticipated problems and disadvantages include (1) scarcity of lithium, (2) limited supply of helium, which is needed for cooling the superconducting magnets used to produce strong confining fields, and (3) structural damage and induced radioactivity caused by neutron bombardment. If such problems and the engineering design factors can be resolved, nuclear fusion may become a feasible source of energy by the middle of the twenty-first century.

It's the last sentence that I want to stress, but I can't. Because, I don't know physics in depth.
The assumption has to be that the Andalites have resolved those problems and engineering designs.
For them it is low maintain and safe and easy to use and contain.
For you and me and all of Earth, nuclear energy=radiation and effort.
But the Andalites may have a way to negate that risk and work.
How? I don't know. KA doesn't know. That technology doesn't exist in our known universe.
But if it can exist, nuclear power is not a bad option.

And maybe it can be easy to get at too.

Your saying that just because you can use high tech doesn't mean you should, and I agree, but the point I want to make is that high tech can be made as simple as low tech. Boiling water can purify water. So can iodine tablets. Both are relatively easy. Now a-days both are readily accessible (in industrialized regions at least), but the method is vastly different (boiling water is primitive to a chemical purifier), and a lot of people will still just go with tech, despite that fact it one costs money, and the other can be done with sticks and pot. For nuclear physics and humans it's not that simple, but that's not to say it can't and never will be done.

Re Money: The only thing I recall comes from Ax, book 18
I should explain: Money is a sort of abstract human concept. You give amounts of money to various people in society and they in turn give you useful items.

That sounds like a no.
But seeing as we know that other races  trade with each other (Visser: a moon we’d actually purchased from the Skrit Na), it sounds like there may be classes or specific tangible goods that are bartered

[Darth Zakryn]

I'm reminded of poparena's arguments that since time travel can be achieved with just a nuclear bomb... Just because nuclear energy is primitive by their standards doesn't mean they couldn't use a more modern form that is not as powerful or as advanced as, say, electroplasmatic photonics, off the top of my head. I tend to think they've moved BEYOND nuclear power, where they don't need it anymore to due to EVEN more advanced forms of energy. But then again, this is just my opinion.

As to the currency, I think they do have some sort of barter system, but no paper money or gold. To humans gold only matters because it looks pretty, but the Andalites might have gone the different route and chosen a more practical form of currency.

BTW, is no one going to look at my other posts about psychic computers?

[Blazing Angel]

Oh I definitely think they had nuclear toys. I remember somehwere Ax mentioning the average andalite child could make a radio telescope out of their toys. I have no idea when or where I heard it, but I know i read it

[Noelle]

I should explain: Money is a sort of abstract human concept. You give amounts of money to various people in society and they in turn give you useful items.

That sounds like a no.
But seeing as we know that other races  trade with each other (Visser: a moon we’d actually purchased from the Skrit Na), it sounds like there may be classes or specific tangible goods that are bartered

Gah!  I've been deceived by the ghost writers!     I feel like I need to start sorting the cannon books into cannon and non-cannon for researching for my fanfics, rofl!

I know in TAC Elfangor mentioned that Galard was the language of international trade, and he also laughs at Chapman and asks him what he would do with human currency, so it confuses me why Ax would consider money an "abstract" concept, it seems to already be thoroughly understood by Andalites, even if they do not use it themselves.  Though I guess, technically, if all the other races they deal with only barter then maybe the idea of credits for bartering would be abstract...but now that's just getting into the semantics of the word "abstract." 

From 38:

Aloth:

[...Now me, I was caught selling organs.  Off the battlefield.  They are of no use to the dead, right?  Why should someone not make use of them?  And why should I not receive something for my trouble?]

Ax: The Andalite Battle Code prohibits the selling of organs off the battle field...



I suppose he could have bartered the organs for something.  Though I can't really think of what he would barter them for.  Maybe mass amounts of recreational Illsipar root, lol.

[Blazing Angel]

tail related goods obviously. I just have this image of a society completely obsessed with tails

[Noelle]

I think it's also important to note that there is A LOT in this series that you just have to suspend your disbelief about.  I mean, if you went literally disecting the science of this series it would be a total mess.  Whether or not it is practical that Andalites have nuclear toys, I can find no evidence that Ax was not speaking literally, so we just have to go with that, imo anyway. 

Personally, I cringe when I read the surgery scene Cassie does on Ax.  I could probably write you a 20 page dissertation on why Ax would have probably died, and in a medical sense she probably did as much good as stabbing him in the head with a rusty knife. (Prepping with JUST alcohol?  *faints*)  But do little kids know that?  No.  Do non-vet-techs/non vets/non doctors know that? No.  And that's fine, its the story that counts.

[NateSean]

Weighing in on the money aspect of Andalite culture: Elfangor states that different families have different functions that serve the Andalite Electorate as a whole. Perhaps trade on the Andalite homeworld comes in the form of "what I can do for you in exchange for what you can do for me".

Elfangor and Ax's family, for example, creates the heating systems for ships if I recall. So they whip up a few of these things and trade them to the ship builders for, say, a Z-space communicator for keeping in touch with our kids when they're off planet.

The fact that Andalites trade technology for human morphs at the end of 54 supports the theory.

[Darth Zakryn]

Interesting theory, Sean. It certainly is plausible to what we've seen. Mind if I incorporate it into some of my various fics? Full credit to you, of course.

[Blazing Angel]

That sounds plausible. If andalites live so simply why not barter goods

[Noelle]

tail related goods obviously. I just have this image of a society completely obsessed with tails

Heh Heh.


{I'm sorry darling...it's just...his tail is so much bigger!} 

[Darth Zakryn]

Getting back to the nuclear toys argument, I do know someone online who is a professional engineer and can probably shed some light on this. Should I ask for his advice?