Allow us to fill in the blanks of the animorphs universe.

[Blazing Angel]

This is kind of a thread for filling little facts that were never brough up in the main series.

What is the diet of Gedds made up of?

How do andalite trees talk?

Does cheese taste green?

[Doomhawk]

Good questions!

Apparently Gedds are monkey-like and almost blind, so I figure there might be some small trees or maybe bushes with brightly coloured leaves they could eat.

Andalite trees... I think they recognise emotions and can broadcast them, though some can form very basic thought speech.

Well, I think for the third answer it could come down to synaesthesia.

[yunyun]

Gedds might also eat kandrona...? Like they have plently on the homeworld, and if yeerks eat it, why not gedds?


I always thought that it's more of a phykic thing, where you just know what' they're saying


And maybe it's like you relate a certain colour to a certain food...

[NateSean]

Gedds might also eat kandrona...? Like they have plently on the homeworld, and if yeerks eat it, why not gedds?

The Yeerks don't "eat" Kandrona. They absorb it along with other nutrients via osmosis.

The first generation of Gedds that were taken from the homeworld probably do need regular exposure to Kandrona which is why you never see them on Earth. But they may have gotten those rays through regular exposure the way you or I get Vitamin D by walking under the sun. They may eat vegetation, or whatever prey animals they can catch, or both.

[Blazing Angel]

I imagine Gedds might eat some ungerground plants, like forms of plums beets or potatoes.

Feel free to invent your own questions.

[RYTX]

Gedds might also eat kandrona...? Like they have plently on the homeworld, and if yeerks eat it, why not gedds?

I think this is brillant.
They may not need it to the same extent as the Yeerks, not as regularly or prolonged, but still need it, and if we imagine the Kandrona has to be absorbed from pools, it's a good stepping to how the Yeerks even got the chance to take them as host 

[Snakie]

Osmosis refers to the movement of WATER.

Kandrona are light rays, they aren't matter than can be diffused.  They are absorbed by yeerks the same way plants absorb sunlight.

[yunyun]

Osmosis refers to the movement of WATER.

Kandrona are light rays, they aren't matter than can be diffused.  They are absorbed by yeerks the same way plants absorb sunlight.

Well, I guess it is possible that some alien animals can do photosynthesis like plants.

[RYTX]

Kandrona are light rays.... They are absorbed by yeerks the same way plants absorb sunlight.

I've my doubts on that because: we know that the Kandrona need not be exposed to the pool. The pool is x distance away and underground. Plants that need light need at least some direct exposure. How could you focus light that distance without annihilating whatever it goes through, especially something biological.
Plus you can eat them (book 16) You can't eat sunlight

There, new question: what exactly are Kandrona Rays, and how do they get to the pool, into the Yeerk, and what is their specific biological function?

[Estelore]

We always pictured it as being something like phytoplankton. There are microorganisms in the water which synthesize from the Kandrona rays, and perhaps the specific wavelength of the rays isn't interrupted by standard building materials. Solid objects are typically still transparent to some light, just not necessarily visible light.

The Yeerks would then ingest the microorganisms and get energy from them, instead of directly from the Kandrona rays themselves.

[Blazing Angel]

I think Kadrona is a very weak form of radiation, that over thousands of years, is imbedded into the soil itself.

[yunyun]

Sorta like UV rays? Well, I'm not exactly sure what in the sun give us vitamine D, but if it's UV rays or something like that, then it would make lots more sense if yeerks can absorb kandrona without a pool. And can vitamin D be absorbed in water?

Kandrona are light rays.... They are absorbed by yeerks the same way plants absorb sunlight.

I've my doubts on that because: we know that the Kandrona need not be exposed to the pool. The pool is x distance away and underground. Plants that need light need at least some direct exposure. How could you focus light that distance without annihilating whatever it goes through, especially something biological.
Plus you can eat them (book 16) You can't eat sunlight

There, new question: what exactly are Kandrona Rays, and how do they get to the pool, into the Yeerk, and what is their specific biological function?

But doesn't Erek have a yeerk in his head?  I always thought that he didn't have the sludgy thing in yeerks pools in his head.

[RYTX]

True, Erek generates his own Kandrona rays, which may hurt the micro-oragnism idea, lest they are in the creatures themselves

Vitamin D isn't obtained from sunlight per se, it's made when a chemical in the body reacts with sunlight, making a new chemical from the old.
So you could make Vit. D in water, probably, so long as you were in shallow enough water to be exposed to light.

I'm still having trouble  with this, because low energy- infrared shouldn't be able to propagate through yards of dirt and concerte without some relay points. I figure that to get light through that much interfernce it'd have to be high energy, very high (X ray or higher)-too high not to damage the biology.

This circles back still to the Kandrona- the "Yeerk sun" So that is to say this sun, this star, is emitting a unique type of radiation that no one else's sun-cept maybe iskoort, is doing. Curious indeed

[Morilore]

Q: Why, in the context of the Animorphs universe, are humans and Earth so special?  Humans have an enormous population and Earth is reputed to be an exceptionally beautiful planet.  Why should this be the case?

My A: Humans and Earth actually aren't that special; it's just a massive coincidence that we encounter interstellar society at this point in our history.  It is known that right now, humans are depleting our planet's resources and destroying biodiversity at a dangerous rate.  It is known that in general, an organism that gains a sudden, enormous advantage in its environment will tend to overpopulate and deplete it's environment until it suffers a die-back.  It is known that in the distant past, Andalites built massive cities until they "realized something was wrong" and "returned to nature" or something (Andalite Chronicles).  I would postulate that many intelligent species in the Animorphs universe follow this pattern: when they reach an industrial age, their populations expand uncontrollably until they nearly destroy their own planet, and have to "start over" with an impoverished planet and a well-learned lesson about controlling population growth and resource consumption, and in most cases, this all happens before they develop z-space travel and contact other species.

[Estelore]

In the Ellimist Chronicles, it's stated pretty clearly that Crayak selected the Earth solar system as their last chessboard / battlefield, partly because it was just where they ended up next in the universal geography, and partly because Earth had a superficial resemblance to another (fictitious) planet that Ellimist had defended in the games back on Ket. Everything that happens in the series, from Elfangor's crash-landing, to the Time Matrix business, to the current Animorphs, was orchestrated by either Ellimist, Crayak, or to some extent both, with each having an ulterior motive for some move they agreed on making.

Ellimist himself stated that he valued Earth and found it beautiful because of its sheer biodiversity and geographic diversity. The Yeerk, Hork-Bajir, and Andalite homeworlds all have much lower biodiversity and, for the most part, all three are limited to a single habitable ecosystem. Considering both the Hork-Bajir and Andalite worlds were engineered respectively by the Arn and Ellimist himself to be what they are at the time of the story, and considering the Ellimist never lays claim to having started any new life forms on Earth, beyond encouraging human development and being the 'great-great-grandfather' of domestic dogs, through the Pemalites and Chee, it could be argued that Ellimist simply finds it interesting just how varied life became on a planet where sentient life and biodiversity did not have to be engineered into existence.