What do you think of the Andalites?

[Andalite_Shorm]

Sometimes I could find them a bit arogant, but what about everyone else?

[yunyun]

I like them. Mostly Estrid. I mostly like how smart they are, but they are pretty arrogant. I don't mind that much, but still.

[Snakie]

Of the ones we saw?

Most of them were arrogant jerks without the ability or willingness to work with others, and with a lack of compassion for the races they supposedly fight to protect.

Of course, we didn't see many Andalites outside of the military ranks, and we're lead to believe that the Andalite civilians were different.

[Sirouth56]

They're my favorite species. I really enjoy their physiology and their intelligence. But I dislike their arrogance.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     Not as bad as the Helmacrons.

[Adam]

Reading back over the series now, the Andalites tend to come across as quite irritating and obnoxiously arrogant towards other species. They also seem quite blood-thirsty.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     ^Hardly bloodthirsty. The closest Andalites to come to that were the ones who turned out to be traitors or double agents...But I figured that was just because they were getting tired of the war.

[NateSean]

Like Snakie said, we really only see the Andalites working in the military. It's not fair to judge an entire people based on the attitudes and actions of a few. The first time we see uninfested Hork-Bajir should teach us that.

[Adam]

Perhaps you're right =P We never really saw many Andalite civilians from what I remember.

[RYTX]

Like Snakie said, we really only see the Andalites working in the military. It's not fair to judge an entire people based on the attitudes and actions of a few. The first time we see uninfested Hork-Bajir should teach us that.

Totally lost: didn't we only ever see a few uninfested Hork-Bajir. And as a general thing, didn't we judge the entire people by those few (simple, good hearted, ya-dah, ya-dah), while calling the seers atypical.
(I'm kinda just being argumentative at the moment, but still, there's a better example than this)

[TobiasMasonPark]

      But the Hork-Bajir chronicles and what we hear from the Yeerks pretty much says that the entirety of the species is good, simple, and pacifist, and that the seers are atypical. I think I read somewhere that every century or so, the Hork-Bajir do engage in war for whatever reason, but I'm not sure of the source.

[Adam]

      But the Hork-Bajir chronicles and what we hear from the Yeerks pretty much says that the entirety of the species is good, simple, and pacifist, and that the seers are atypical. I think I read somewhere that every century or so, the Hork-Bajir do engage in war for whatever reason, but I'm not sure of the source.

That was book #8. Read it recently =P But that is later contradicted in HBC and various other books, I believe, so it may have just been another KASU, or Ax/the Andalites being mistaken.

[RYTX]

yes that's why I'm saying the Hork-Bajir shouldn't be used in the "don't judge all by a few" example; it's friggin' true for them!
(though personally, I think their most have been a few scumbag Hork-Bajir we never see)

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Thing is, the Hork-Bajir are not like most species. Most species would evolve douchebaggery because competitiveness leads to greater survival, but the Hork-Bajir were engineered, rather than naturally evolved. The Arn wanted a peaceful people to tend the trees- there'd be no advantage to giving them ambition or aggressiveness or anything that would make them anything other than sweet tree-dwellers.

[RYTX]

Yes, the Hork-Bajir were designed, but they were designed 10000 years ago (I think), but the moment they are out of the lab, they become subject to typical evolution.
That's plenty of time for behavioral changes to start cropping up, especially in a species that learns: they aren't brilliant, but they could figure that out. It might not be a great advantage, but I'd wage it's enough to persist in the species.

I'm not saying it would, for canon's sake we can say it didn't, but again, I don't think it's good to use limited evolution as a  blanket explanation to uniformity of Hork-Bajir

And let's face it, the Arn can't engineer out competition any more they the can engineer out intelligence.  The former is almost a fundamental property of life forms. You'll have mutants for that just like you have seers


and we are now way off base, but I like it