How did the Yeerks lose the war? Thoughts?

[Gumby]

A battle lost is not a war lost, right? I have difficult believing that the Yeerks just folded over when Earth was lost. I mean, Earth was a bitter blow, yes. They lost a Pool ship, Bladeship, accompanying smaller craft, thousands of Yeerks and two Vissers. However, they still had the Taxxon and Hork Bajir worlds -among others- and some significantly large fleet that had been exhausting and seemingly outnumbering the Andalite fleet for the whole war. Did the loss of Earth just coincide with other major losses? Was it just a half-assed wrapping up of the story? Should the Yeerks have continued to be a significant threat? What be your thoughts?

[TobiasMasonPark]

     It's kind of like Germany in WWI. They controlled most if the east, but the western front was lost. That's here the whole "stabbed in the back" thing came from. One could argue that the Yeerk Empire was the same way: they lost Earth, a huge blow, but still ha foothold elsewhere.

     But I think it's fair to say the Yeerks lost.

     First: the Yeerks seemed to have put all their eggs in the big blue basket that was Earth. After they lost, all of their troops there were forced to become nothlits. That was a huge loss to their numbers.

     They also couldn't capture Leera or the Anati system, either. Which, I assume, was supposed to make their invasion on earth easier.

     An the while the controlled all of the Hork-Bajir and Taxxon home worlds, that's hardly much of a success anymore. The Hork-Bajir planet is pretty much ruined-- and we can only wonder hat happened with that Hork-Bajir resistance the Arn hoped to cook up. And the Taxxon world...is the Taxxon world; essentially a desert. Plus, all of the ones on earth became human.

     And it's said in the Invasion that the Yeerk population isn't even half that of Earth's. who knows how harsh 17,000 dead Yeerks was to the Empire.

[Gumby]

Well, there did seem to be at least hundreds of thousands of Yeerks. I honestly think the loss of host bodies would've been the most significant factor there. And yes, I would assume the Leeran and Anati campaigns were major contributors to their defeat -presumably the Anati campaign destroyed a good chunk on their fleet, freeing up Andalite forces.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     One could ALMOST feel bad for the poor Yeerks Almost.

     

[Chad32]

Yeah, it wasn't just earth. The Anis helped the Andalites win at other places, and started a resistance on the HB homeworld. The Empire couldn't recover from that much loss.

[Snakie]

I always thought the numbers used to describe the Yeerks were too small.

If they were concentrating so much of their population to earth towards the end, then there should have been a LOT more than 17 thousand Yeerks in that massive Pool Ship the animorphs took over and destroyed.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     I wonder if the Yeerks started mandatory breeding programs after the war to increase their numbers--for the benefit of the Yeerk race. I mean, how many Yeerks come from a single pairing? A few hundred?

     Force enough Yeerks to do it...

[Gumby]

In retrospect, I think the Yeerk command structure just couldn't deal with it all properly. I mean, the Yeerks didn't know how to properly fight a concentrated war with multiple generals. The Vissers were almost feudal-like, various war lords scrabbling for power. The Andalites had a concrete hierarchy and respect for said hierarchy was deeply rooted in the military. The Yeerks were on a power trip, like a kid in the candy store for the first time with unlimited money. They'd never had anything like a real command structure before in their slug state, and they'd been out and about in space as a government for what, under a century? Their government was formed under a 'first come first serve' basis and they were gobbling things up too fast, growing and growing, and they just organized things as they went along. This caught up with them at the end, with no real proper command structure and most Yeerks hungry for power after generations of living in pools and suddenly commanding soldiers in bodies with weapons and spacecraft.

Earth wasn't the turning point of the war, what where their losses really? Two generals, a pool ship, a bladeship and accompanying soldiers/fighters. A nasty blow, but not the end of the war. They still had the Taxxon and Hork Bajir worlds among other planets, and were still a dangerous force. However, with the power vacuum created by several high-ranking generals gone and the Vissers all scrambling for control, the Andalites would probably have an advantage. With the Andalites on one side and the self-destructive Yeerk hierarchy on the other, the Empire was doomed with or without Earth. And given another decade or so, I can easily see large numbers of human soldiers siding with the Andalites to finished off the Yeerks.

[donut]

Well, the yeerk command structure always struck me as reminiscint of Soviet command structures.  I mean, there were even generals who commanded while under yet to be carried out death sentences (visser 1 and 3, anyone?), and they took the term getting fired quite literally.  It made for plenty of problems for certain, and made an extremely rigid military, but it did function.

It's really hard to trace how the war was going, but I'll try.  Andalite Chronicals and the opening of Visser were roughly at the same time.  In both of those I get the impression the war was at a stalemate at that point.  Elfangor mentioned that the andalite people thought they were winning, but they were wrong, while Visser mentions needing the hosts to gain the advantage, without seeming to think they needed them to survive.  So at that point it seems they were at a stalemate, and the yeerks were under the impression that the deciding factor would be whether or not they could get more hosts.

At the beginning of the series, the andalites only expected a pool ship at Earth, and they had only sent 1 dome ship to stop the entire invasion of Earth.  It didn't appear unusual for the yeerks not to have a battleship in the invasion, and the andalites thought a single dome ship could stop the invasion, the capitals ships would appear to be powerful and few and far between. Since the andalites didn't send any form of capital ship to stop the yeerks in HBC, it would support that the capital ships were both very powerful and very rare (the blade ship in HBC anniliated the andalites.)

Leera, to me, seemed more about denying the andalites a resource that could detect any yeerk infiltration, rather than something the yeerks could use in the war.  But the yeerks did have a significant ground force present on the planet when the continent was destroyed, which would have to had hurt them more than not getting leeran hosts.  Considering that the andalites didn't think they could win that fight with normal tactics and having more firepower, it suggests at least at the begginning of that battle, the yeerks could at least mass more forces than the andalites (which they then lost).

So to recap, a single capital ship was very powerful, neither side had too many of them, and the yeerks must have lost significant ground forces at least on Leera (maybe ships if they were on the ground or near it).


Toward the end of Visser, the yeerks seemed much more desperate for hosts.  It would fit with the yeerks losing a significant number of people on Leera.  Then the council told the vissers that the andalites had prepared a fleet of 20 domeships.  It was pretty clear the yeerks didn't have the ships to defeat that.  They directed visser 1 to set up an ambush at Anati to destroy them.  That failed, and visser 1 was going to be executed for it.  From a communication from the andalites, the andalites at least believed the yeerks had become desperate and put everything into Earth at that point.  The andalites knew the yeerks didn't have the combat power to stop their fleet when they attacked at that point, so enough domeships must have survived to destroy the entire yeerk fleet.


I agree the end seemed to come a bit suddenly, at Leera the andalites were on the defensive then Visser the yeerks are about to get the butts kicked with nothing in between, but it does fit that at least the major war could be over at Earth. 

[TobiasMasonPark]

Earth wasn't the turning point of the war, what where their losses really? Two generals, a pool ship, a bladeship and accompanying soldiers/fighters. A nasty blow, but not the end of the war. They still had the Taxxon and Hork Bajir worlds among other planets...

     Yea, but what does that mean at the end of the day when the majority of the Hork-Bajir population is on earth after the near genocide inflicted by Alloran? The Taxxons weren't desired host bodies, and were mostly allies than anything. As for these supposed other planets, that could just be the Yeerks boasting. We never see any of the other races they've claimed to have taken, so we can assume that they a) they did infest these other races, but they are not suited for the invasion purposes, or otherwise are unable to leave their home worlds, or b) they never infested these races.

[Gumby]

When though did they ever say the majority of Hork Bajir were operating on Earth? I don't remember reading anywhere that the Yeerks were concentrating the bulk of their forces on Earth, I always took it as that Earth was a major operation, but not their sole biggest theatre of the war.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     The fact that they sent four high ranking generals to Earth, invested so much time and effort, and the Empire had begun to collapse thereafter is some evidence of this.

[Gumby]

Four? I only recall Visser 1, 2 and 3.

[donut]

Visser 4 went.  He had the weird host that was faster than any of the others.

The andalites said the yeerks were concentrating their forces there near the end of the series when Ax set up the communication relay.

[TobiasMasonPark]

      Actually, no. The Inspector had the fast host (Garatron). Visser Four was in charge of the Leeran world, got demoted to a human body on earth, and travelled through time.