Author Topic: Could Arbron have demorphed?  (Read 1124 times)

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Offline DinosaurNothlit

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Could Arbron have demorphed?
« on: December 27, 2011, 07:03:41 PM »
So, there are several theories surrounding the Living Hive(s), since the books never really explain where it/they came from.  I, for one, have always been of the belief that it was an adult Taxxon.  All species can only reproduce within their own species ('tis the definition of a species, after all), so there are only two possible explanations for the existence of the Hive: either a Taxxon must metamorphose into a Living Hive at some point within their lives (and the reason they're so rare is that so few Taxxons survive that long), or Taxxons and Living Hives are different forms of the same species, like ant queens and workers.

The other day, it just suddenly hit me that, if the first explanation is the correct one, Arbron could have demorphed.

You remember the natural metamorphosis loophole in the two-hour time limit, mentioned in #19?  When Cassie was stuck as a caterpillar, and turned into a butterfly and demorphed?  Arbron could have, assuming he survived long enough, similarly metamorphosed into a Living Hive and then demorphed.

Man, this revelation just so completely and totally blew my mind that I just had to share it.  Like, holycrap.

[spoiler]Makes it all the more tragic that some idiot shot him, doesn't it?[/spoiler]

Offline Chad32

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2011, 07:15:51 PM »
I don't think I need to think about ways to make Arbron's fate more sad. Thank you.

Also I thought it was just multiple taxxons that merged to become one, and were able to control others somehow. Maybe pheremones or something. Not sure.


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Offline Stephquiem

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2011, 07:27:46 PM »
I always thought of the Living Hive as the sort of "queen taxxon" type thing. And now that you've brought this up, it makes me like the "queen" idea better, just 'cause [spoiler]the thought that he could've demorphed eventually makes me sad. D:[/spoiler]

Offline Noelle

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2011, 08:11:11 PM »
My guess is that it's probably not the way it was in the books, or KAA would have saved him.

At least...I would hope she would have...



[spoiler]But yeah, the thought makes me sad too.  He has my vote for the most terrible/tragic ending.  :(  Why the heck would a poacher want a taxxon anyway?  I hope his poachers got eaten by one of the boa-taxxon-nothlits.

Hmms, that sounds like a great ten word fanfic.

Arbron's revenge.

Arbron got poached by douchebags.

Then they got eaten by boas.  Taxxon boas.  They were tasty.

The end.

 Ok, so maybe like 20ish.

[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: December 27, 2011, 08:14:59 PM by Noelle_Winters »

Offline DinosaurNothlit

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2011, 08:32:54 PM »
Also I thought it was just multiple taxxons that merged to become one, and were able to control others somehow. Maybe pheremones or something. Not sure.

Huh, I wonder if the metamorphosis loophole would still have applied?  I mean, technically that's still a form of 'morphing.'  Sorta.  And, if that's the case, would the minds of those other Taxxons have been incorporated into Arbron's mind when he demorphed?

I always thought of the Living Hive as the sort of "queen taxxon" type thing.

The thing is, if the Taxxons are just workers, incapable of reproduction on their own, why would they be sentient?  I can't really think of any evolutionary advantage gained by giving sentience to anything that can't reproduce itself.  If they're workers and the Hives are queens, then the Taxxons' only purpose in evolutionary terms would be to further the survival of the Hives, rather than themselves.  On the other hand, that would explain why they're so, for lack of a better word, expendable.  And there's little enough reason for them to be sentient as it is, given that their own instincts pretty much negate their intellect.  :P

P.S. I think I've actually read a fanfic just like you described, Noelle.  Gah, I can't remember what it was called or who wrote it, though!

Offline Stephquiem

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2011, 08:38:54 PM »
Hmm. I hadn't really thought about that. Could there have been a need for either their hunger instincts or their intellect in the past that is no longer present, but the necessary adaptation (or insert right word. -_- I can't think of what I mean. :P) lingered?

...Not sure what the necessity would be exactly, or if that makes sense, but possible theory. XD

Offline DinosaurNothlit

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #6 on: December 27, 2011, 08:48:55 PM »
Hmm. I hadn't really thought about that. Could there have been a need for either their hunger instincts or their intellect in the past that is no longer present, but the necessary adaptation (or insert right word. -_- I can't think of what I mean. :P) lingered?

...Not sure what the necessity would be exactly, or if that makes sense, but possible theory. XD

You know, that's actually a really interesting idea.  It could be that maybe their planet was not always a desert world.  Maybe food was once plentiful.

And, you know, it is true that larger brains require more protein-rich foods than smaller brains.  Perhaps Taxxons had bigger brains than most sentient species, or at least, hungrier brains?  Maybe through some quirk of evolution, they needed more of that protein to fuel their sentience than most sentient species do.  Or maybe they just used to be loads smarter than they are now.

So, maybe Taxxons were once uber super smart, and ate tons of meat all the time to fuel those big brains, and they needed those strong hunger instincts just to keep them eating enough to keep their brains alive.  Then, there were too many Taxxons and they ate everything and turned their planet into a barren desert and they were left with the remnants of that sentience and that screaming hunger and the rest is history.

Eh, I know I'm getting off-topic, but it's my own topic so that's okay right?

Offline RYTX

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #7 on: December 27, 2011, 09:56:36 PM »
Quote
Eh, I know I'm getting off-topic, but it's my own topic so that's okay right?
No >:(
Yes?
Idk

I don't know what the Living Hive was supposed to be-I think I thought of it more like living Earth, kinda like Andalite trees crossed with energy eating asteroids. Maybe something like a primitive Father even, but not a true parent Taxxon.
Even though it can out and out communicate, it seems to have a cruder intelligence than Taxxons.
I'd never expect to see Taxxons at MENSA meetings, I still think they can somewhat grasp all the space tech they work with, something that, the way Arbron introduces it, the Hive supposedly can't.

Plus the way it moves stuff around, I just see it more as active earth than ancient worm.

I never understand the metamorphosis thing anyway: They come across Cassie as a caterpillar, getting ready to go pupa: not as dramatic pupa to butterfly, but still a metamorphosis.
If someone would have explained that to Ax, they should have been able to save her right there
Something, something, oh crap I pissed everyone off again....

Offline Chad32

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #8 on: December 27, 2011, 10:11:18 PM »
It's funny that we go from Elfangor calling them just plain evil in the first book, to trying to make them sympathetic. It didn't really work for me. I can't sympathize with a giant centipede whose main traits is that it can't control its hunger, and that it's practically always hungry unless it's around the hive queen thing.

I realise Horks aren't exactly cute, but they are awesome looking, and have a normal state of mind that gives you some feeling of safety. It's like hannging out with a mellow vegetarian guy that happens to have a machine gun strapped to his back while he talks about his badass war career or something.


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Offline DinosaurNothlit

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2011, 06:55:40 PM »
Even though it can out and out communicate, it seems to have a cruder intelligence than Taxxons.
I'd never expect to see Taxxons at MENSA meetings, I still think they can somewhat grasp all the space tech they work with, something that, the way Arbron introduces it, the Hive supposedly can't.

Hmm, that's an interesting point.  But, maybe, since the Hive is immobile, it doesn't need to be as intelligent as the Taxxons do?  I mean, what would it need that intelligence for if all it can do is sit there and move nearby things around?  So maybe intelligence became a vestigial trait, a bit like the cerebral ganglion of an adult tunicate.  I still think they can't possibly be two different species.  The Hive created the Taxxons (at least, it's assumed, because Arbron calls it the 'mother and father of the Taxxons' if I remember correctly, and I don't know what else that statement could possibly mean), and what evolutionary incentive could one species possibly have to create another?  Evolution dictates that each species focuses on its own survival first and foremost, so why would any species ever evolve the ability to create a different one?  And I don't know how else the Hive could have created the Taxxons except by some evolved biological process, since it's obviously no expert in bioengineering.

I never understand the metamorphosis thing anyway: They come across Cassie as a caterpillar, getting ready to go pupa: not as dramatic pupa to butterfly, but still a metamorphosis.
If someone would have explained that to Ax, they should have been able to save her right there

Hehe, well, I seem to remember Ax being totally surprised by the fact the Animorphs hadn't realized that metamorphosis would reset the morphing clock.  He was all "well, duh."  So he probably thought that, well, if Cassie had wanted to demorph when she went pupa, she simply would have.

Although, actually, didn't she say that she was barely conscious in the pupa stage?  She describes it like a dream state of some kind.  So, even if she'd been theoretically able to demorph, her mind wasn't really there to the point that she could concentrate on morphing anyway.

And while we're on the subject of fuzzy areas of this loophole, I've always thought that the whole idea didn't quite make total sense in the first place.  For one thing, it's not like DNA changes from caterpillar to butterfly.  And, for another thing, the change itself takes a lot longer than two hours, since all that time in the pupa is spent slowly slowly shifting from caterpillar to butterfly.  So, what happens if you were trapped in morph as a tadpole?  At what point along the transformation to frog would you be able to demorph?  How about if you're trapped in morph as somebody going through puberty?

It's funny that we go from Elfangor calling them just plain evil in the first book, to trying to make them sympathetic. It didn't really work for me. I can't sympathize with a giant centipede whose main traits is that it can't control its hunger, and that it's practically always hungry unless it's around the hive queen thing.

I realise Horks aren't exactly cute, but they are awesome looking, and have a normal state of mind that gives you some feeling of safety. It's like hannging out with a mellow vegetarian guy that happens to have a machine gun strapped to his back while he talks about his badass war career or something.

Yeah, I never really thought the sympathetic angle worked well with the Taxxons, either.  [spoiler]Especially at the end of the series when they unanimously decided to trap themselves in morph.  Come on, am I the only one who thought that was completely unrealistic?  If they all really hated their lives that much, why didn't they commit mass suicide a long time ago?  To look at it from another perspective, imagine that a race biologically capable of, say, teleportation, made contact with humans.  They would pity us because us poor humans are comparatively stuck in one place, and they would think that our lives were a screaming hell of frustration from not being able to easily get from one place to another.  From their perspective, our lives might seem unbearable.  Kinda like the Taxxons seem to us.  So, after this race makes contact with us, would the entire human race immediately see how much better their lives are then ours and give up our humanity to trap ourselves in the form of alien animals similar to our own human bodies?  I don't think so.  Why?  Because we've lived the way we are for millions of years, and our bodies, however limited, are part of our identity as a species, and no species would ever unanimously give that up.  A few would, sure.  Maybe even most, in the case of the Taxxons.  But never ALL.  /rant[/spoiler]

Sorry if this post rambled a bit.  I seem to be in a somewhat rambling mood today.

Offline SkyMorpher

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Re: Could Arbron have demorphed?
« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2011, 12:00:45 AM »
Well, the millions part isn't for sure, but it's still a very good point. It works on the surface, but when you think about it more deeply, the big question of "why were they living that way for this long?" definitely pops up.  I've often wondered myself about the purpose of the intense hunger...I like some of the theories in this thread.