The Yeerks vs. the Galactic Empire

[Darth Zakryn]

Okay, this is a simple question: Who would win in a war between the Galactic Empire of Star Wars and the Yeerk Empire in Animorphs? I think the Empire, and here are my observations to back it up. Whereas the Yeerks had only a few hundred ships, the Empire had MILLIONS of ships, including 25,000 Star Destroyers, one of which could reduce the surface of an entire inhabited planet to molten slag on its own. If we gave the Yeerks a few thousand years head start where they took over the entire galaxy, I still think that the Empire would win, at least in a straight-out fight. The Yeerks and other Animorphs species have been shown to have low numbers of ships. Worse yet, the Yeerks and the Andalites had very weak ground troops and unarmored soldiers! The Empire, on the other hand, knows that you can easily destroy a planet from orbit, but to conquer and hold a planet you need a respectable ground force, and to that end, they have speeders, AT-AT walkers, AT-ST scouts, repulsor tanks, and fully armored stormtroopers. The Yeerks might be able to destroy the surface of a planet from orbit (that is, if it wasn't shielded), but to take over planets in a straight-up fight, they would lose 99 percent of the time.

Now, here's the part of the war that gets interesting. The Yeerks' main power is their ability to infest other species. Assuming the Yeerks had taken over our galaxy, then they would naturally have Andalite hosts and their ability to create the morphing power, giving them an extra edge. I envision the Yeerks being able to slowly subjugate the Empire via infiltration, which is, quite frankly, their only way to do so. The morphing power helps in this regard. And since the Empire destroyed all the Jedi, there are no Force-sensitives for the Yeerks to infest, but I don't believe they'd be able to use Force powers even if they did infest a Force-sensitive. Then again, it goes both ways; there would be no Jedi or Sith to sense their presence in a host, although I'm pretty sure either the Emperor or Vader would be able to sense a disturbance in the Force, like they did with Luke Skywalker.

So... who would win? In infiltration, stealth, and covert tactics, the Yeerks have the Empire beat, but in raw power, sheer numbers, and ground forces, the Empire is clearly superior to the Yeerks.

[Blazing Angel]

The empire would completely destory the yeerks. Superior manpower would win out. And I'm sure they wouldn't even need to kill too many controllers. They could deprive the yeerk home world of kadrona by simply moving the death star in front of the sun. Theirs probably some heavy sources of kadrona on the yeerk homeworld from the sun, but after a couple weeks those would fade. It would either be a mass evacuation, where some of the thousands of ships could shoot down fleeing vessles or mass yeerk starvation.

Or the empire would create a yeerk killing disease. Of course, this would only affect the yeerks. They have a motive to not kill hosts, the hork bjiar would make amazing shock troops. They can take heavy damage and as demonstrated in the hork bjair chronicles, be taught to fight. ANd imagine how grateful the horkbjair would be to the empire for destroying the yeerks. Perhapse enough to join the army?

[Darth Zakryn]

Is that you, newBlazingAngel? And yeah, everything you said made sense. Forgot to add the Death Star. Only the Empire wouldn't waste time moving it into orbit; they would destroy the Yeerk's homeworld. If I recall once, only the Ellimist, after enhancing his body, had the ability to completely destroy a planet, and not in one shot, and even then, it was a small moon and took a few hours.

[DinosaurNothlit]

I'd agree that the Yeerks would win a stealthy invasion, whereas the Empire would win a straight-up fight.  But I voted for the Yeerks.  Because I think that it would be a stealthy invasion.  Note: I am operating under the assumption that the Yeerks do not get a thousand-year head start, since that would actually be a major disadvantage for them in this case.  See, the Empire is expansive enough, that if the Yeerks are only operating within a few systems, the Empire could easily be simply ignorant of their existence, whereas if the Yeerks had already taken over the galaxy, it would be very hard not to know they were there.

Anyway, here's the point.  The Empire's main advantage is raw, brute power, right?  But the Yeerks' main advantage is their ability to infiltrate, and thus steal, other people's technology.  Keep in mind that almost NONE of their technology is originally theirs.  So, as long as they manage to stay unnoticed, they can work their way through the crew of various Empire ships, thus eventually negating the main advantage that the Empire holds over them in the first place.

Course, that's probably a best-case scenario.  If the Empire found out about the invasion and forced a straight-up fight, the Yeerks would have to turn to guerrilla warfare.  Which would probably work fairly well, actually, now that I think about it.  Space is really freaking huge, after all, there are loads of places Yeerks could hide out with their Kandrona generators, and it's really pretty unrealistic to think that the Empire could ever destroy them all.  Yeah, they could blow up the Yeerk homeworld, which would be a pretty devastating blow, but they couldn't possibly eliminate all Yeerks, especially when they can't even know what species they could be infesting.  And if they continue to build underground Yeerk pools like they did on Earth, probably now shielded to keep the Empire from finding a way to detect the Kandrona radiation signature, well, they'd be pretty much invisible.

And, even though they probably wouldn't be able to infest more than a few Imperial officials, the mere implication would breed distrust within the Empire's ranks.  The Empire's own size would work against it, because it would mean that they couldn't possibly use the three-day test against all of their own to make sure they weren't possible traitors.  Even if the Yeerks didn't defeat the Empire, it might eventually just fall apart all on its own.

[Darth Zakryn]

Those are some excellent points, DinosaurNothlit. I can picture there being three factions in this war: The Empire, the Rebels, and the Yeerks, with the Yeerks trying to infest both sides. Man, someone really NEEDS to write a fanfiction on this. Hell, the Andalites could even get involved and use the morphing power to their advantage. Sweet zombie Jesus, that would be the very definition of badass epic.

As an aside, I have a question for you: What do you think would happen if the Yeerks infested a Force-sensitive or if Vader or the Emperor or even Luke sensed a disturbance in the Force? They are basically the three most important Force users during this time, barring minor background characters, and would be the most likely to discover the Yeerk invasion.

[Blazing Angel]

They could totally sense. it. And im thinking that their could be yeerk force sensitives too.

[Darth Zakryn]

How? No Yeerks have ever shown a proficiency for Force ability, so how would they have it? Remember, a being's connection to the Force is dependent on their midi-chlorian count.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Keep in mind that I'm no expert on the Star Wars franchise.  I've seen the movies, and that's it.  So please take all my opinions with that grain of salt.

That said, I do think that a Yeerk would be able to infest a Jedi and possibly even use their powers (provided of course that they could get inside said Jedi's brain in the first place).  On the one hand, take a species with a somewhat lesser psychic ability, the Leerans, which the Yeerks were indeed still able to easily infest and use.  That fact suggests that any kind of psychic sense or ability provides little to no barrier to the Yeerks.  On the other hand, of course, Leerans have an inherent biological psychic ability that originates from their own brains, whereas Jedi powers originate from Midi-chlorians in the bloodstream, so I'm not sure if that would affect a Yeerk's ability to control those powers or not?  Although the powers don't originate from the Jedi's physical brain, they still do activate their powers at will, slightly like how the morphing power works, and Yeerks can control morphing.  Either way, I'm fairly sure that the Jedi could not resist infestation using their powers, or else the Leerans would also be immune (or at least resistant) to infestation, but whether the Yeerks would be able to actually utilize the Jedi's powers is a more open question.

As far as Vader or the Emperor or Luke sensing disturbances in the Force, that right there would probably be the downfall of the Yeerks in this hypothetical scenario.  I think that any Jedi would probably be able to sense a Controller, at least at close enough range, and powerful Jedi like those three could probably do so from greater distances, maybe even using the ability to find which planets the Yeerks had established bases on.  Perhaps the 'good' Yeerks might be able to hide better, but Yeerks like Visser Three, who was so evil that even complete non-Jedi could sense the evil radiating from him?  Forget it, he's dead.

The Yeerks' only chance would be to infest any known Jedi very quickly, before they had the chance to blow the whistle on them.  And given that a Jedi would be able to sense the Yeerks coming for them, and given how powerful a Jedi is, the Yeerks would pretty much have no choice but to send a huge chunk of their forces and just massively overpower each one.  Which wouldn't mesh well with the "guerrilla warfare" angle, to say the least.  It might work if the Yeerks played all their cards right and struck at the right moment, but it'd be a close call.

[Blazing Angel]

It has been shown that their are jedi from nearly every species. Anybody can be born with midi chlorians. Darth vader lost a significant amount of force power when all his limbs were replaced. SO logically one in every ten million yeerks should have force powers, or at least minor ones.Or they would find a jedi hork bjair and do blood transfusions to everyone

[Darth Zakryn]

I don't know, I find it hard to picture the Yeerk being able to use Force powers, and like Dino said, they'd still have to get close to them or knock them out, and very few beings have been shown to be able to take a Jedi alive. The Sith would be even more difficult. That said, even if a Jedi or Force-sensitive IS infested, they'd STILL have to leave them once every three days, giving the Jedi/Force-sensitive plenty of opportunity to rebel. Unless, of course, they used the Jedi's connection to the Force to strengthen themselves without needing Kandrona rays? When I think of a Yeerk infesting a Force-sensitive, I think of a Yeerk trying to take control of the body of Darth Sion, a Sith Lord who was ONLY keeping his smashed, cut, broken, slashed, and mangled body together through his sheer hate and use of Force power. Could a Yeerk really subdue a being like that?

[DinosaurNothlit]

Eh, I really don't think that "sheer force of will" is anywhere near enough to make anybody completely immune to infestation.  While, yes, willpower probably helps the host take control on rare occasions, as seen in book #2 by the Chapmans, nobody has ever been able to wrest control from a Yeerk for more than a few seconds.  Granted, I'm not trying to compare the Chapmans to anybody who can hold their own body together by the sheer power of hate, but of all the people who have been made into controllers in all the world, you'd think that there would be at least a few extremely strong-minded individuals somewhere in that population sample.  And yet, not one has overpowered their Yeerk for so much as one minute, and even taking control for a few seconds mentally exhausts any host, no matter how strong they are.  Just look at Alloran, an Andalite, a member of a species renowned for their mental willpower and hatred of Yeerks (the latter of which Alloran himself exemplified in spades), who not once was able to wrest control from Visser Three.  Not even once.

Perhaps Jedi would be strong-willed enough to exert much more pressure on their Yeerk than any normal host.  So they'd probably break free from the Yeerk's control at least a little more easily than most people.  But I'm fairly certain that they would not be immune.

As for the Yeerk having to leave every three days, well, Jedi can still be sedated, can't they?

[Blazing Angel]

easilly.  Also, I'm thinking the rebel allienace could be a helpful ally for the yeerks. In exchange for hosts the alliance gets alot of ships and extra troops

[Darth Zakryn]

DinosaurNothlit: True. Maybe the Force-sensitive in question can sometimes rebel using the Force, and take control for long stretches of time, but they would probably succumb for 95 percent of the time. The only exception to this might be Darth Vader, since he literally HAS no open ear canal and the Yeerks don't want to waste efforts with a cripple, anyway.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi: Seriously, why did you change your name? I can understand changing it, but changing it so completely like that made it so that I almost didn't notice you. That said, I can definitely see the Yeerks striking an alliance with the Rebels under the guise of a rogue Imperial faction and promising ships and soldiers with the end result being that they infiltrate the Rebellion, in order to get to Luke... damn, someone needs to write a fanfiction on this!

EDIT: Here's a picture of Darth Sion for those of you who don't know him. Be warned, the image IS quite gruesome. Can a Yeerk really infest somone like THIS?

[Blazing Angel]

I really like the character Rikki Tikki Tavi from the short story with the same name. He's a mongoose that kills twenty eight snakes in two days!

[Darth Zakryn]

Ah ok. Understandable, then.