Analysis: Animorphs

[RecklessPrudence]

WHich is pretty impressive, since Alloran is still killing record numbers of Yeerks despite being a controller.

Actually, that raises a question for me. It's been awhile since I read the books. Was the-Yeerk-who-would-be-Visser-Three anywhere near as saturday-morning-cartoon-villian until he got into Alloran's head? I'm wondering if Alloran has been subtly influencing the Yeerk sharing his head, convincing him to off his underlings and forgo all subtlety in favour of stupid plans...

And it's also interesting that Tom shared headspace with one up-and-coming Yeerk, the one Jake got infested with in Book Six, and after that got a perceived nobody, who relatively quickly became important in the Yeerk hierarchy.

Leads me to wonder how much the head the Yeerk is in influences the Yeerk itself. While it has full control over the body, we know that it can hear thoughts directed specifically at it, as well as rummage around at will in the host's memories. We also know that under certain conditions, and not just the Yeerk being near death, the host can get some of the Yeerk. There has to be some unconscious bleedover, and it's quite possible a strong-willed host could "whisper" things to the Yeerk.

[Ahriman238]

WHich is pretty impressive, since Alloran is still killing record numbers of Yeerks despite being a controller.

Actually, that raises a question for me. It's been awhile since I read the books. Was the-Yeerk-who-would-be-Visser-Three anywhere near as saturday-morning-cartoon-villian until he got into Alloran's head? I'm wondering if Alloran has been subtly influencing the Yeerk sharing his head, convincing him to off his underlings and forgo all subtlety in favour of stupid plans...

And it's also interesting that Tom shared headspace with one up-and-coming Yeerk, the one Jake got infested with in Book Six, and after that got a perceived nobody, who relatively quickly became important in the Yeerk hierarchy.

Leads me to wonder how much the head the Yeerk is in influences the Yeerk itself. While it has full control over the body, we know that it can hear thoughts directed specifically at it, as well as rummage around at will in the host's memories. We also know that under certain conditions, and not just the Yeerk being near death, the host can get some of the Yeerk. There has to be some unconscious bleedover, and it's quite possible a strong-willed host could "whisper" things to the Yeerk.

No, before taking Alloran as a host, Esplin was pretty clever, and yes, exceptionally ruthless. When he first infested a host, an elderly Gedd kept for training purposes, he became obsessed with getting another host via whatever means necessary. To accomplish this, he spent every waking hour studying the Andalites, figuring an Andalite expert would always be useful. This turned into an obsession for getting an Andalite host specifically.

We meet a Yeerk later on who became a conscientious objector because of his host's constant internal begging/screaming. We also see Yeerks develop some very human-like notions of love.

[Tanasinn]

Yeerks are definitely affected by their hosts. Some of them go native to varying degrees, and I seem to recall at least two of them going crazy thanks to their host (one of them captures and tortures Tobias to near insanity at one point, if I remember correctly).

[Ahriman238]

Okay, real quick last prequel (not really planning on doing the Ellimist's backstory, and if I do I'll do it after the main story) Visser tells the story of Edriss, the Yeerk who would eventually infest Marco's mom and become Visser One. She was also the Yeerk who discovered Earth, sometime during the Gulf War. She did the initial recon of Earth, waiting at least 2 years to call home, and founded the Sharing as a way of finding lonely people, desperate enough for acceptance to become voluntary hosts.

Visser One, I have mentioned before, is Visser Three's rival in the complicated politics of the Yeerk's high command. She is the Yeerk's foremost expert on humanity, which naturally explains why she runs around the galaxy and hardly ever comes to Earth (and even then, half the time she does so as part of a scheme to discredit Visser Three.) It's not generally clear what she's doing out there, she oversaw the shark-controller project, but was not in charge at Leera. At least part of the hostility between her and Visser Three is that she is a strong proponent for the masquerade and the slow secret invasion. He wants to burn cities from orbit, claiming that a billion human hosts should be enough for the Empire's needs, and he can deliver right away. Basically, Visser Three is like the milwankers who get up in arms about Avatar, if the Na'vi were the resource being extracted.

There are 42 Vissers, each appears to command a single planetary invasion or major campaign. As a Visser's number decreases, his rank and status grows- Visser Three technically outranks Visser Four who is still higher than Visser Five, etc. If Visser Thirty dies, every behind him jumps up a number. There are 300 sub-vissers, Elfangor compares them to colonels, who use the same numbering system. We only see one sub-visser on Earth, connected to an R&D project, but when Visser Three was still a sub-visser he governed the Taxxon Homeworld, a secure area.

Above the Vissers sits the Council of Thirteen, an institution predating the coming of Seerow and their becoming an interstellar empire. The Council consists of the Yeerk Emperor and a dozen of his closest advisers, drawn from the ranks of the Vissers. As a security measure, no one outside the Council knows which of their number is the True Emperor, so any external assassin would have to get them all. A cynical person would note that this arrangement would make it laughably easy to stage a palace coup. I'm not really sure if they have some sort of precaution or rule against that sort of thing, if they run on the honor system or, hell, if they figure anyone who'd let himself be deposed like that was an unworthy Emperor anyway.

Per ancient tradition, the Council all wear red robes with face-concealing hoods. Some rather... extreme modifications had to be made to make the look practical for Taxxons and Hork-Bajir. We only really see the Council once, presiding over the trial of a disgraced Visser, apparently only sub-vissers and higher even get trials. On that instance, the trial was played before a hologram with none of the Councilors being physically present, which does raise an interesting question of whether the Councilors were in the same room or even on the same world as one another.

The Yeerks, we learn from Edriss' early work seeking out new life to conquer and enslave, divides life into 5 broad categories. Class 1, hosts with serious physical handicaps, sub-par senses, no hands, only breath ammonia and so on, like the Gedds and the Taxxons. Class 2, physically incompatible with infestation. This can happen because their body temperature is too high or low for the Yeerk to handle (Venbar) because their brain is too simple and doesn't use the resources to sustain Yeerk life (most animals) because they don't have a centralized brain, or other issues, like the Skirt Na life-cycle or the Arn modifying themselves to have an aneurysm if infested. Class 3, otherwise ideal host species, exists in limited numbers and cannot be quickly bred, like Hork-Bajir. Class 4, otherwise ideal host species, technologically advanced and well-informed enough to make both secret invasion and overt warfare dicey, such as the Andalites and the Leerans. Class 5, ideal host species, possess no serious physical handicaps, exists in the high millions-low billions, is unaware of or actively rejects the idea of alien life. Can you think of an example?

[Ahriman238]

Books 20-22, the Discovery, the Threat, and the Solution form a trilogy with a linked story. The A plot is that a new student at the Animorphs' school discovers the Escafil device (aka the morphing cube aka the blue box aka dat thing wot gave the kids their powers) and he tries to sell it online after the Animorphs fail to steal it, convincing him it is valuable. So Visser Three shows up at his house and makes his parents Controllers, the Animorphs get him out with the box, and press-gang him into their group. Unfortunately, David is something of a psychopath, immediately focusing on the possibilites of his new powers for theft and murder. He turns on the Animorphs, tries repeatedly to kill them, with a bullshit rationalization that as long as they are in morph, they're just animals to be killed without remorse.

The B plot is that the Animorphs' home town is hosting a secret face-to-face summit between the presidents, PMs etc. of the US, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, China and Japan to discuss peace in the Middle East (something that's actually become a lot more topical since '98. I notice no one from the actual MidEast is involved.) The Yeerks naturally plan to use these world leaders gathering in their greatest terrestrial stronghold to enslave them. Just to add to the fun, one of the above leaders is already a Controller, but the Chee don't know which. Before you ask, we never find out and the plot thread never goes anywhere beyond these 3 books.

The Animorphs with their untested addition must try to infiltrate the event, save the world leaders, and expose the secret invasion. Naturally it goes to pot, the kids are "ambushed" by a holographic army (it's nice to see the Yeerks using their technology intelligently) and David turns shortly after their first attempt. Their second solution is to swim up to the beach as dolphins, morph pachyderms in the surf and physically wreck the hotel. This plan goes much better, and our heroes foil the Peace Conference! Wait, that didn't come out right.

David wants the Escafil device, so he can create his own group of criminal Animorphs, he seems confidant that he can keep them from betraying him through careful selection of dumb and greedy kids. He "kills" Tobias (it was another hawk) overcomes Jake in his Tiger morph, and when they withdraw from wrecking the Peace Conference he ambushes them as an orca. He really cross the moral event horizon though, when he kills Rachel and Jake's comatose cousin Sandler and takes his place, being "miraculously cured."

The Animorphs final solution to the David problem is to trick him into a trap, and trap him in a rat morph for the rest of his life. They then maroon him on a tiny island crawling with rats, so there must be some sort of food source. It's a pretty terrible part, David never stops screaming, and we end with one of the Andalite's classmates saying he sailed by the island and it's haunted because he's still screaming. It's also pretty jarring, probably because we didn't see the normal scene with anything questionable, where the Animorphs debate morality. We just see them doing the deed.

You could argue, fairly well, that it would have been kinder to simply kill David. They didn't have a lot of options. Still, in retrospect this feels like the beginning of the darkness of the series.

[Ahriman238]

Book 23: the Pretender

A woman pops up out of nowhere looking for Tobias, she claims to want to adopt him, being his father's cousin. It seems ol' Al Fangor's will is going to be read shortly, and his lawyer realized Tobias hadn't been in school in a while. At the same time, the free Hork-Bajir have been raiding the Yeerks to increase their number, but a small child named Bec has wandered out of their hidden valley and they're worried the Yeerks will find him, and he will lead them home.

Oh yeah, and Tobias is having this problem where he's slowly starving because he empathizes too much with his prey. Or something. Every time he's about to kill he has a vision of being the animal and it throws him off. So for the moment, Tobias is stuck eating roadkill and pity-food from Rachel. Glamorous is the life of a superhero.

So yeah, the woman, Aria by name, turns out to be Visser Three in morph. Seriously, learn to delegate. It seems the lawyer-controller came to him with the news that Elfangor had a human son who mysteriously a couple days after Elfangor died and 'Andalite Bandits' started attacking them. The Animorphs rescue the Hork-Bajir kid, Elfangor didn't leave Tobias any money, but I guess the Ellimist decided to let him leave a letter in which he honestly tries to explain who he is and why he had to leave. Tobias plays up the high school dropout angle enough for Visser Three to scoff at the idea of making him a controller, even just in case. How out of character for him not to do it (or kill him) just as a final "screw you" to Elfangor.

No new technologies. At one point, Visser three morphs an acid-spitting beast, which is kind of cool. Story-arc wise this book exists so Tobias can discover his heritage, already known to the audience. The other Animorphs can find out about Toby and Hork-Bajir Seers, and for the retroactive humor in Visser Three's chosen disguise. The genocidal world-conqueror is in a dress.

Book 24: the Suspicion

As if one alien invasion wasn't enough, two warships of the mighty Helmacron Empire attack earth. The Helmacrons are matriarchal and megalomaniacal and are firmly convinced it is their destiny to rule the universe and enslave all lesser races. They are also 1/16 of an inch (0.3 cm) tall, and their ships are about a foot long with weapons that can take out your eye, but are otherwise more annoying than harmful. They want the Escafil device, a potent power source, and one ship dies trying to steal it.

Using the Escafil device, whether just for power or manipulating the morphing technology, the Helmacrons are able to use a shrink ray to bring the oversized aliens down to their level. Worse, the morphs scale with their new baseline size, at one point Cassie and Marco morph flies and are able to see individual cells (unlikely, but there it is.) Tobias, Marco and Cassie are the first shrunk, and while Tobias escapes, the Helmacrons capture the other two and bring them before their captain.

The Captain is dead, the Helmacrons having long ago realized a dead figurehead is preferable to a living leader. They are commanded to grovel before the captain "in the manner of your people" and Marco has much fun. They sick the Helmacrons on the Yeerks. It seems Visser Three and the Helmacrons have some history, and they actually surpass him in arrogance and ability to ignore reality.

Eventually everyone gets shrunk, including Visser Three and his inner circle of controllers, except for Ax, who is in harrier morph. A three-way battle breaks out on Ax between the Animorphs, Yeerks and Helmacrons, but Cassie figures out that newly acquired DNA might not result in a shrunken morph, so Ax flies them to the zoo and the Animorphs and Visser Three morph anteaters. Dealing from a position of power, they get the Helmacrons to undo the shrinking and all parties withdraw. Marco introduces the Helmacrons to men's lib, and they fly off bickering about who is actually in charge and will rule the galaxy with an iron fist.

The book doesn't advance the overall plot at all, and doesn't make a lot of internal sense. But it's so much fun I find it hard to care.

[Ahriman238]

Book 25: the Extreme

Erik pops up to tell the Animorphs that those wacky Yeerks are experimenting with Kandrona generating technology, hoping to alter the rays so any body or cup of water will serve as a Yeerk Pool. The experiments are being carried out in a secret base in Alaska.

Of course, getting to Alaska can be quite challenging, particularly when you have a curfew. They ask the Chee to replace them at home for as long as they're gone, and curse themselves for not thinking of that a lot sooner. Then they stow aboard the Blade Ship when Visser Three flies out to inspect the research station.

Visser Three's personal quarters on the Blade Ship are full of torture devices from around the galaxy, because Visser Three is a subtle and complex character like that.

They get discovered, bail, almost freeze to death, constantly, for about the next third of the book. They survive the first night by morphing wolves, burrowing into the snow and huddling together for warmth, taking turns to demorph. In the morning, they acquire seals, and almost die several times before deciding it's time to climb up the foodchain a bit.

The whole time, they are hunted by freakishly-strong, four armed, hammer-headed, bright purple aliens. Whose feet are skies, and their lower arms combine praying mantis with ski poles. Ax identifies these as Venber, the first alien race discovered by the Andalites centuries ago. He's also somewhat puzzled, since the Venber are long extinct (a race called the Five harvested them because their melted remains were useful for super-computers) and anyway, would be completly unsuitable as hosts, since they'd die horribly at room temperature. We never really get a lot of answers. It seems the Yeerks somehow restored this lost sentient species just for security for this one outpost, it also seems like they control the Venber with some sort of remote, and someone mentions "reprogramming" the Venber when they finally make their play for the base.

Anyway, the group finally trade up to polar bears and attack the base. A pair of Venber (the first pair, who saw them morph and know they're human, are still out there looking for them) casually slap around the Animorphs til they breach the heated base. The Venber then do their best impression of the Wicked Witch of the West. The Animorphs steal a Bug FIghter and turn it's weapons on the research station. The Blade Ship shows up to casually destroy the Bug Fighter, but the kids have already bailed. There are also two last Venber wandering the wilderness, but who cares about them, right?

They fly home, and stow aboard southbound trains or trucks when feasible. Apparently they spend a lot of time talking about the mission and the disturbing things that came from it, and we end on Marco turning down ice cream in favor of a hot shower, and finding out his Chee doppleganger cleaned his room and did his homework, and generally set up an unreasonable expectation in his father's mind.

This was the first book done by a ghost writer. All but 3 books from this point on (and 2 of those are the big series finale) and the Megamorphs and Chronicles prequels were drafted by a stable of almost a dozen ghostwriters. However, Applegate did maintain strict editorial control, and went over every book, adding her personal touches and fixing continuity errors. Apparently this happened because Scholastic wanted her to focus on the real cash-cow, Everworld.

[Ahriman238]

Book 26: the Attack

The Ellimist pops up again while the kids are watching the stage version of the Lion King. He has a small problem, Crayak is adamant about destroying a particular world full of (mostly) peace-loving people, and the Ellimist is equally implacable about saving this world. Impasse. So they've decided to settle the matter through proxy combat, seven champions for each god-like being, dumped on the world they're fighting for. Crayak sends seven Howlers, the ones who destroyed the Pemalites, an army of killers unlike anything else in the universe, created by his own hand. The Ellimist sends the Animorphs, plus Erek King.

The planet Iskoort is something like legoland meets Dr. Seuss meets Ankh-Morpork. The surface is an unlivable swampy morass, but their are wonky arches dozens of miles high (like Dr. Seuss) with thousands of thin platforms forming distinct levels and, naturally, having no safety rails. As for the locals themselves, take a basic humanoid shape, give it a vulture-like head and neck with vestigal horns, longer arms, arrange the legs so it looks like it's always kneeling but is somehow able to spring up and forward with them, and replace the gut with an accordion. The Iskoort have a million and one guilds, a Shopping Guild, because the economy cannot function without mindless consumers, an Advertising Guild and Merchant Guild to pander to them. A News Guild to tell people how it is, a Rumor, Gossip and Lies Guild to tell them how it isn't. A Warmaker Guild that picks fights with off-worlders and creates incidents for the Diplomacy Guild to have great fun in sorting out. All very cosmopolitan, since Iskoort is very reachable by most Z-Space capable cultures.

Their pride and joy, for Iskoort thrive on novelty, is the technology that records memories and lets others experience them. Exotic memories, whether of a bar-brawl or a night with an alien woman, can fetch a very high price. Oh, and the Iskoort are an offshoot of the Yeerks, taken from their Homeworld long ago. The Yoorts tried their hand at conquest, but eventually decided to use genetic engineering to create a host, the Isk, they could live in true symbiosis with. The Isk require a Yoort to live, and the Yoort eventually modified themselves so they were physically dependent on the Isk and could take no other hosts. They still have to separate every 3 days for a soak in the Pool and some Kandrona Rays. And the penny drops, Crayak will not chance the Yeerks discovering a better way, though the two will not encounter each other for centuries.

Within minutes of arriving on Iskoort, the Animorphs meet a single Howler, who casually defeats them. Their howl is a potent sonic weapon, they're fast and strong, can swivel their torso 360 degrees, each carry a small arsenal of advanced weapons, and according to Erek, a genetic memory that gives each and every one over a million years of experience in combat. In short, they're fucked.

The only reason the Animorphs survive the first night is that the Rules of Engagement for both groups forbid civilian casualties, so the Howlers don't blow up any buildings Iskoort are in or fire into crowds to get one of the Animorphs, who spend the rest of the book alternating between hiding and running for their lives. And the Howlers are smart, adapting quickly to the kid's tactics (after the first time they escape by morphing flies, the Howlers bring insecticide to every encounter.) The status quo only changes when Jake foolishly runs through a bush and off the edge of the platform. The Howler leader follows and Jake is able to acquire him on the way down, before morphing a falcon.

Their new plan, it seems the shared memory of the Howlers isn't something that passes down with reproduction or along genetic lines. Every Howler has the memories of every other Howler across the universe, updated every couple of minutes. Jake morphs the Howler and uses the memory-recording technology to add the memories of all the Animorphs into the mix, hoping to teach them empathy and compassion. It mostly works. The Howlers have a three year lifespan and regard all the stalking, hunting and killing as a great game, it simply never registers to them that anyone else has feelings or worth, they're just NPCs. Crayak unmakes the Howlers on Iskoort (so proximity must be some part of the memory process) to keep the kids' perspective from infecting the wider collective memory, conceding the planet.

He then manifests to the Animorphs to make them wet themselves and tells them he will not forget this insult. Jake, terrified beyond all reason but still sort of flush with victory, morphs the Howler again. It seems the evil god was a touch slow on the trigger, and the Howlers did get the memory of Cassie running up to hug and kiss him when she found out he hadn't fallen to his death. The Ellimist confides in them that the Howlers will embrace this as a great new game to play with the aliens Crayak will sic them on.

The Animorphs return home, weary but victorious. And hey, Jake now has an obscenely powerful morph that's stronger than a grizzly bear, can quickly identify the weaknesses of whatever monster Visser Three turns into, has a wide-area attack capable of disabling large numbers of human-controllers without lasting harm, and will give him the tactical knowledge and instincts of a veteran of a thousand millenia of unholy war. Surely with his new battle morph the fight for Earth is as good as- nah, just screwing with you. In the next fight Jake will morph a tiger, just like he always does. The howler morph is never used or mentioned again, just like the Leerans.

This is the last main-line book written by Applegate, except for the last 2. From here on out, it's all ghostwriters.

[Ahriman238]

Book 27: the Exposed

Somebody hacks the Chee. Every Chee, everywhere, is first frozen in place, and then drop their hologram. Fortunately, the Cassie and Rachel are on hand to smuggle Erek out of the mall, and Chee-net (the Chee-internet, clearly) is still working. The only way to hack the Chee is with a signal from the Pemalite Ship that brought them to Earth (it's not like, say, they formed a network of linked computers or something) but the Chee have hidden it in one of the deeper parts of the ocean.

They have a filler bit to rescue a helpless Chee caught in a crack-house undergoing a drug sting. Then they're told them have a few hours until one who works in a nuclear power plant will be discovered at the shift change. 'Luckily' a sperm whale is beached near their town, Tobias and Rachel acquire it so they can hunt a giant squid that everyone can acquire and use to get to the Ship. Jake reminds everyone to recall the passcode: 6.

They reach the ship just ahead of Visser Three (turns out Bug Fighters are submersible) and disable the the freezing and hologram lockout, but are suddenly informed that the Chee will now self-destruc within a couple minutes. They morph to fight off Visser Three when the Drode turns up. The Drode, a weird black bipedal dinosaur-thing, is a servant of Crayak given powers second only to his master and the Ellimist's to sow chaos, discord and death within the limits of the rules agreed upon by Crayak and the Ellimist. Crayak may have moved Jake to the top of his shit-list, but he isn't above delegating his revenge, so the Drode will now be responsible for screwing with the kids on Crayak's behalf. The Drode is not allowed to directly kill Jake or anyone else, but can set up hazardous situations like this as long as there is a potential way out.

The Drode has another purpose here. Recognizing the darkness in Rachel's character, he wishes to recruit her to be another demi-god minion of Crayak. Rachel says no, but the Drode makes it clear this is a standing offer. Anytime she wants to have the power to destroy the Yeerks, all she has to do is kill Jake. Erek shows up, having apparently made his way there within a couple minutes, disables the self destruct and activates a system that gently restrains everyone on the ship and forces them to leave in separate groups. The Pemalites were playful pacifists, but they weren't morons. Everyone goes home, the kids relieved to live another day, Rachel with that offer hanging over her head, and Visser Three swearing he'll kill them all and dismantle the ship for it's secrets.

The Chee move the ship somewhere else that supposedly only they would be able to access it.

[Ahriman238]

Book 28: the Experiment

Ax discovers tv, and becomes enchanted by the sweet siren song of advertisements and soap operas. In other news, Erek tells the kids that the Yeerks have recently purchased a research lab in the downtown and a slaughterhouse. Their initial investigation of the lab is foiled by them having tighter security than the Pool, the whole building is within a forcefield, single door with a Gleet Biofilter.

So they intercept a shipment of test animals and morph chimpanzees. To get inside a laboratory. Where the do animal testing. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this plan?

Ax meditates on the purpose and morality of animal testing. He has the poor judgement to ask Cassie about it, so we get treated to the great lecture on how evil it is. They learn nothing meaningful, except that whatever project the Yeerks are working on, they're shutting down the lab and moving to stage two at the meatpacking plant. Oh, and Marco gets to fling poo at Visser Three, so I guess the fearless resistance spent their time wisely.

But the plant has similar security to the lab, and they certainly can't get in by morphing monkeys so... they morph cows. To infiltrate a place where cows are killed in as quick and efficient a manner as humanity has been able to devise.

Actually, only Ax and Tobias go in as beef, the others morph flies since the Biofilters aren't perfect against parasites much deeper than the skin, they'll fry every flea, tick and louse on you, but won't touch a tapeworm or stomach bacteria. So the others figure they can morph flies and crawl as deep as possible up the nose of their Trojan Steer, get through the Biofilters, find a quiet corner, demorph, remorph and rescue Ax and Tobias.

Why not just hitch a ride on any old cow going in?

This plan actually works, despite some wrinkles like Ax and Tobias turning out to have bull morphs (the morph, being based on DNA, is not neutered.) And they discover the great secret. Visser Three has come up with a drug to suppress human free will! Horror! Angst! They'll distribute it through hamburgers and just order everyone to report to the infestation pier!

Hahaha... no. What actually happened is Visser Three made a series of logically impossible demands, and his loyal scientists humored him. Sure, he'll kill them horribly for lying to him, but he'd do the same if they tried to tell him what is and isn't possible or practical, if they suggested this wasn't the best use of resources, if they failed to deliver, if they failed to get less than 100% results, if they took too long, or if he got bored with the whole thing. By complying with his demands and spoofing the results, they get at least a couple more weeks of life. Which they spend looking over their shoulder and wondering if today is the day the boss figures them out. Wise move guys.

[Ahriman238]

Book 29: the Sickness

Ax catches a disease or condition called yamphut. Basically, the Andalite immune system involves a sort of filter/quarantine organ, the Tria gland in the brain. It's never really said whether that's all there is to the immune system or it's just a large part, but the yamphut condition causes Ax to have a fever, delirium, and the Tria gland swells and will eventually burst, killing him. So they need to perform some home brain surgery. One idea I heard of on Cinnamon Bunzuh is that the yamphut is just Ax's reaction to the common terrestrial flu. Morphing has no effect on the yamphut, though it cures rabies later in the series.

The other plot is that Aftran, the Yeerk Cassie struck a seperate peace with back in book 19, has since been living in the Pool and spreading her non-violent anti-slavery teachings, starting a group of conscientious objectors to the invasion. Visser Three isn't having any of that though, he has arrested Aftran (stuck her in a tiny cage inside the pool) and will kill her after torturing her to learn everything she knows about the peaceniks and the "Andalite Bandits" and she knows everything.

The Animorphs try, their first plan is breaking into a water tower and morphing eels to infiltrate the Pool via the plumbing, but Jake spaces out and they get diverted by the flow. Jake is first, but one by one all the Animorphs are struck down with flu-like symptoms, except Cassie. Who morphs one of the Yeerk Peaceniks to infiltrate the Pool (as a Yeerk, no less) then takes a host to tackle Visser Three and dump Aftran back into the Pool, bail and remorph an osprey and fly off with Aftran in her claws.

She gets back just in time to operate on Ax with Erek's assistance. She has to stick Aftran in Ax's head to figure out where the Tria gland is, but the surgery goes beautifully, and all the damage up to and including regenerating the Tria gland, should be fixed the first time Ax morphs. Next problem is Aftran and her inevitable slow death of starvation. Cassie uses the Escafil device to give Aftran morphing capability, and she willingly traps herself in the form of a humpback whale and swims off to sea, her part in the war done.

We learn that Andalite blood is blue, and open the door for a lot of speculation about Andalite physiology. To be honest, the species eats by crushing grass and absorbing the juices through their hooves, and just evolved broadcast telepathy. I don't think anything else about their bodies is likely to make a lot of sense.

The book does introduce the Yeerk peaceniks, but they're very rarely used from this point, and whenever they're mentioned it's in the context of the Animorphs needing to protect them, or keep the peaceniks out of the line of fire for one of their plans. The peaceniks aren't interested in funneling information to the Animorphs or acting as a fifth column, they want the war to stop, but are committed to doing so non-violently. The permanent morphing of Aftran is the first time we actually see a reasonable compromise, where the Yeerks don't have to enslave other sentients OR live as deaf and blind slugs. That'll be important, but not for a while.

[Ahriman238]

Megamorphs 2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs

Yeah. A nuclear sub is in distress offshore near the Animorphs' hometown, and the crew is being slowly evacuated. Jake and the others decide to help by morphing dolphins and guiding lost sailors to the rescue ships, nothing suspicious there. But the sub blows and they wake up in a strange place.

Yes, we are back in Sario Rip land, where large explosions transport you to a random point in time because... fuck knows! But my god, history must be littered with action-movie villains.

Like you probably guessed from the title, they're back in the late Cretaceous Era, the final age of the dinosaurs. Bit of a problem that, since the only way home is to duplicate the explosion that sent them back (or die, at least, it worked last time) and even Ax can't whip up a nuke from rocks and sticks. Tobias and Rachel get eaten by a plesiosaur-like beast, but everyone is remarkably shill about it and in denial since, for this book, Tobias is the only one who knows anything about dinosaurs.

Denial runs out when they meet T-Rex, and Ax is able to kill it with the element of suprise and some skillful blade work. The kids acquire it before it dies, of course. You would to. Cassie spots a comet and worries about it striking the earth, and Ax laughs at her and tells her it will miss by a generous margin. Because Tobias is the only one who knows anything about Dinosaurs.

Speaking of Tobias, he and Rachel escape and acquire Deinonychus, which isn't a T-Rex, but is a hell of a consolation prize. Um, every morph possesses it's native instincts, so when they morph birds they can fly and when they morph spiders they can spin webs, they don't have to figure it out from scratch. The downside is that the animal instincts can be overpowering, and the Animorphs sometimes lose control, forget who they are and behave as the animal for a time. Sometimes they'll morph mice or roaches and have to desperately suppress the reaction to run when something as big as a human approaches, even though they know it's a comrade. By this point in the series, losing control rarely happens anymore, but all the dinos I suppose have superpowerful instincts and everyone loses control the first time, and has to really struggle as long as they're morphed.

Anyway, both groups encounter strange phenomena and eventually meet up. It seems that 65 million years before the birth of Christ, the earth was home to 2 sentient species: the Nesk are galactic conquerors, nasty ants that link up to form larger bodies (like army ants, if army ants became people or dinos) and the Mercora, peaceful guant crabs who fled the destruction of their homeworld and just want to raise good crops.

Oh yes, and broccoli is an extraterrestrial plant introduced by the Mercora. Then again, they introduced it 65 million years ago, so it may be plausible.

The Mercora have mastered forcefield technology to a degree the Yeerks and Andalites can only dream of. In fact, all their furniture are forcefields that can be reconfigured or turned off with a thought-speak command. Yep, Mercora also do thought-speech. The Nesk will not leave a species unsubjugated, but cannot penetrate the Mercora's forcefield, not with their strongest weapon. The Mercora are unable and unwilling to flee, and have no weapons or true desire to strike back at the Nesk. Stalemate.

Except the Mercora have no nuclear weapons to send the Animorphs home, and the Nesk do. So a massive dino-attack is arranged, after Cassie loses control in a big way, killing a triceratops and defending her kill from the others. They get the nuke, the Nesk base is trashed and the evil ants flee the earth in shame. Except they develop that annoying "if we can't have the planet, no one can!" attitude and redirect the comet Cassie noticed earlier to strike the Earth.

The kids give up the nuke so the Mercora can enact the prequel to Armageddon, but Tobias (the only one who knows anything about dinosaurs) has Ax quietly sabotage the nuke to preserve the timeline. So the thing that killed the dinosaurs was actually a time-traveling teenager trapped in the body of a bird and his alien friend. I would not have called that.

The comet impact is either enough to send them back or kills them and sends them back (that may be how every 'duplicate the explosion' plan actually worked) and the others, Cassie in particular are a bit hacked off at Tobias for backstabbing a tiny community of peaceful broccoli farmers just to allow the human race to exist. This time everybody remembers what happened, but like last time they lose all morphs acquired in the past, so no going T-Rex the next time Visser Three morphs a rancor knock-off.

It wasn't until I discovered the small online Animorphs community that i found that a couple people consider the Megamorphs books non-canon. Hell, I'm pretty surprised that there's an Animorphs canon at all. My position is clear, they're all sidelines to the main plot, and sometimes pretty silly, but they were all written by K.A. Applegate, and are debatably higher canon than half the series.

And now for something completely different: I assembled what I could find of the Andalite rituals in the hops of starting some discussion over some element of the books. <This> is how Applegate writes thought-speak, the rest is stage direction.

Morning Ritual (done every morning)

dip hoof in water.
<From the water that gives birth to us>
crush a tuft of grass with same hoof.
<From the grass that feeds us>
spread arms wide
<For the freedom that unites us>
all 4 eyes pointed to rising sun
<We rise to the stars>
bow head
<Freedom is my only cause. Duty to my people, my only guide. Obedience to my Prince, my only glory. The destruction of my enemies, my most solemn vow.>
assume fighting position, legs spread, tail cocked, stalk eyes roaming for threats
<I fill in name Andalite fill in rank offer my life>
hold tail blade to own throat on last 3 words
relax, moment of silence to contemplate ritual vow, and how well you're keeping it

Death Ritual (for when you're pretty sure you aren't going to make it)

bow head
<I am the servant of the People. I am the servant of my Prince>
look up with stalk eyes
<I am the servant of honor.>
face towards the sun
<My life is not my own when the People have need of it. My life is given for my People, my Prince, and my honor.>
hold tail blade to throat (seems it's a big symbol of self-sacrifice)

Wish-flower Ritual fragment: (for when you're expecting an addition to the family)

entire ritual is done while facing a wish-flower raised and tended to give luck to the new child
<We welcome our hopes embodied. We welcome a new branch to the tree. We welcome...>

There is also an evening ritual mentioned once or twice, but never shown. The rituals are not exactly religious, but they are pretty symbolic. It is unknown if civilian Andalites use these or other daily rituals, but the morning and evening rituals are a part of military life, and skipping or rushing through them gets you a verbal reprimand the first time. It is unknown what punishment may follow a second failure to observe the rituals.

[Darmalus]

If I remember right, Andalite soldiers are supposed to be warrior-philosophers (or was it poets?), and there is friction between those who want to dump the "philosopher" part and those who want to maintain the current traditions. Maybe that's why they punish ditching the rituals, the old guard think it's a sign of this "pure warrior" subversiveness and seek to stamp it out.

[Ahriman238]

If I remember right, Andalite soldiers are supposed to be warrior-philosophers (or was it poets?), and there is friction between those who want to dump the "philosopher" part and those who want to maintain the current traditions. Maybe that's why they punish ditching the rituals, the old guard think it's a sign of this "pure warrior" subversiveness and seek to stamp it out.

Quite possible. In theory every Andalite male is supposed to be a warrior-artist-scientist, focusing on whichever particular section of art or science suits them, while it's just artist-sceintist for girls. But there is some conflict. Alloran, for instance, is all warrior, all the time. He claims to disapprove of the "new model" of liberal arts warriors, but he himself served under Prince Seerow, probably the least martial Andalite in the entire series, and we saw how it grated him to take orders from an egghead with no interest in security or tactics.

For that matter, in Elfangor's book he said it's actually a slight insult to compliment a serving warrior on his artistic or scientific skills, as though you're implying they're less of a warrior, even though you're supposed to be good at all.

[Ahriman238]

Book 30: the Reunion
Visser One is back on earth. It seems that Visser One saw the Animorphs sparing her life 16 books ago, came to the logical conclusion that she's a traitor, and got the Council to issue a kill on sight order. Visser One decides the only way she's going to survive this one is to discredit her accuser, say by proving the existence of a hidden colony of free Hork-Bajir that sprang up under Visser Three's nose. And then anhilitating said colony, of course.

The Animorphs agree to betray the Hork-Bajir, and lead her to an isolated area where the Chee can create a convincing holographic facsimile. Basically luring her and Visser Three to the same spot where they hope to assassinate the both of them. Marco set up the plan and the others are rather concerned about his apparent eagerness to kill his mother. Of course, both Vissers escape and Visser One is taken captive, but is brought to trial because of her ad hominem attack on Visser Three.

This book is mostly character study, many of the next few are, with few tech notes. This book introduces the portable Kandrona, which is only good for one Yeerk, one use, but can fit inside a large metal briefcase. High-ranking Controllers have them as backups. Visser One has a "Nova-class Empire Ship" that is a fat cylinder with eight pods around the sides and four glowing engine on the back. The ship can stand off the Blade Ship, even with fighter support, but nothing calcable is mentioned and the ship is never seen or referenced again.

Finally, Visser One figures out the Animorphs are human, and that Marco is one of them.

Book 31: the Conspiracy
Jake's great-grandfather, a decorated WWII veteran, dies and the family has to leave town for the funeral. Which will take more than three days. So Tom's Yeerk will starve and die unless it can figure out a way to not go. For some reason, both Tom and Jake fixate on the idea of Tom's infesting or killing Jake's father.

In fact, after Jake and Marco thwart the first infesting attampt, the next thing the Yeerks try is a daylight drive-by shooting. Mostly this book exists to show how Jake is starting to crack under the pressure of his living arrangements, his leadership of a desperate band of guerillas, and the immediate threat to his dad. Finally, the other Animorphs get tired of his whining and just break Tom's leg, requiring him to be medievaced home.

Book 32: the Seperation
Rachel morphs a starfish to retrieve an earring lost in a tidal pool, and then a 3-year old cuts her in half with a plastic shovel. This causes both halves to demorph into a seperate Rachel, but one half is a raving psychopath with no notion of future consequences who wants to kill everyone who is even mildly annoying or inconvenient to her, and the other is a simpering airhead and coward who cries at the thought of anyone not liking her and tries to go tell daddy about all of her problems so he can make it better. The Animorphs name them Nice Rachel and Mean Rachel, I'll let you figure out which is which. Also, wasn't this a TOS episode?

Well, the Animorphs don't actually have time to deal with the latest weirdness in their lives, because the Yeerks are working on a raygun that disrupts the morphing field, forcing anyone caught in it's effect to demorph. They're just putting the finishing touches on the prototype after months of computer modeling, because Erek couldn't mention it before they got to prototype. The Animorphs raid the initial research site, for once leaving the obviously compromised member(s) at home. Which doesn't stop Mean Rachel from following and killing everything in sight anyway.

Then they try and take Nice Rachel to intercept the moving of the AMR (anti-morphing ray) to a more secure location. For security purposes, the Yeerks send out three identical trucks to three different sites, and the Animorphs split up. Jake and Nice Rachel get caught in a trap, and Mean Rachel blunders into it to. Nice Rachel discovers her stones, morphs a bug, and crawls into Visser Three's ear, threatening to kill both of them if he doesn't let them go. Then the two Rachels acquire and morph each other while Erek hits them with enough electricity to kill a small pachyderm, and somehow they fuse back into one person.

I think this story was based on an early, flawed concept of the left-brain/right-brain difference, though I'm not entirely sure. I don't know why Rachel was apparently brain injured when she morphed a creature without a central brain, if anything, her DNA should include everything needed to build a healthy fully functional brain. Of course, the book also introduced the AMR which will be important to the next book.

Book 33: the Illusion
The Yeerks are done with the AMR prototype, and require only a test subject. Visser Three is out, he won't take any chance of getting hurt, so the Yeerks are looking out to capture one of the Andalite Bandits. The Animorphs decide to allow Tobias to be captured during an aborted raid on the new Sharing community center. Rachel will be on him, morphed as a fly so once they take him to a proper holding area she buzzes off to tell the cavalry where he is. The Yeerks test their toy on what they presume to be a morphed Andalite, but hawk is Tobias' default state. The Yeerks give up on the AMR, and the others rescue Tobias before he can be tortured into insanity or executed or something. Ax even lets Tobias acquire him and teaches him how to tail-fight, in case it would help the ruse at any point.

Well if you ever read the series, this thread, or cinnamon bunzuh, you know that things never go according to plan. No sooner has Tobias flown into the Pool entrance (in a child's playground) then he gets hit with a paralytic gas that causes Rachel to fall off. A gas that came from a girl's arm. Meet Taylor, she'll be the really disturbing psychopath for this series.

Taylor was an incredibly popular girl in high school, cheerleader, prom queen generally living the dream. Then she lost her arm and was horribly disfigured in a house fire. All her friends and minions left her, causing her to reflect on what a shallow life she'd led and determine to do bett... nah. She swore revenge and sold her soul to the Sharing to restore her lost beauty, because she sees beauty as power and can never get enough of that. So the Sharing turned her into a revenge-fueled cyborg, with a pleasing flesh-colored coating, and stuck the most insane, ruthless and ambitious Yeerk they could find in her head. With their madness combined... they are sub-visser 51.

Seriously, both Yeerk and host seem to fuel each other's insanity in a sort of bizarre MPD. The Yeerk wants power at any cost, and Taylor is determined to never be weak in any way ever again. They're both kind of pathetic, and creepy as all hell. They sometimes swap out which one is in control, and you can't tell the difference except for the use of personal pronoun when discussing Taylor's pre-Sharing history. And this woman outranks both Tom and Chapman, being second only to Visser Three in the invasion hierarchy.

So they wake up Visser Three to test the AMR, which as planned does nothing. Visser Three is feeling generous, so he lets the scientists try twice before feeding them to the Taxxons. Then he gives Taylor 2 hours to break Tobias and convince him that demorphing and becoming a Controller is better than being in her power for another minute. Fortunatly, the AMR was built into an existing Yeerk machine that allows direct stimulation of the brain's pain centers, and makes them relive traumatic experiences at the same time. When Tobias retreats into himself to let the hawk brain deal with the pain, she figures out the trick and starts alternating pain with pleasure, memories of beatings with memories of kindessness show to him, agony and ecstasy.

She broke him. He would have told her everything, if he were functioning on a level that would let him speak. But he wasn't, he couldn't even remember who or what he was (and he had a weird hallucination of Elfangor that ties into ancient Andalite mythology, unless you prefer to believe the ghost of Elfangor came to ease his suffering.) But he doesn't demorph inside two hours. Now figuring she's dead unless she can give Visser Three something really good, like a location for the Andalite Bandits, Taylor decides to see what happens when you hit the pleasure and pain buttons at the same time, but by that point the Animorphs finally show up to rescue Tobias.

Taylor almost manages to kill Tobias by dumping him off a ledge, but he manages to go Andalite enough to grow arms. Rachel in Grizzly morph corners Taylor, but Tobias does the generic hollywood 'not worth it' speech and lets her go to menace them later.

Well they dealt with the AMR, which probably also saved a lot of Andalites somewhere out there. But they let Taylor go which, spoilers! turned out not to have been a great idea.

[Ahriman238]

Book 34: the Propphecy.

Quaf, the last dying Arn, steals a ship and comes to earth because he heard a rumor there were free Hork-Bajir here. Quaf wants to take DNA samples from the free Hork-Bajir and raise a mighty clone army to retake Hork-Bajir (the planet, not the species.) The Hork Bajir agree to this, and Quaf is suprised to find a seer among them, he mentions how the Arn tried so hard to prevent seers from happening and gives the line about their frequency I used earlier when discussing Hork-Bajir. It also turns out the Arn have technology allowing them to easily locate any of their creations.

Of course, the Arn can clone new Hork-Bajir for decades and not get anywhere as long as all they have to fight with are pointy sticks. Fortunatly, shortly before she died, Aldrea (from the Hork-Bajir Chronicles) had stolen a large weapons shipment from the Yeerks and stashed it away for her own resistance to use, but never had the chance. Quaf has an Ixcila, sort of a memory-recording, of Aldrea but can't interface with it technologically. They need to let Aldrea possess a sentient host so she can speak to them and help them find the weapons, meaning a trip to the Hork-Bajir homeworld. They have an eerie ceremony and the glowing vial picks Cassie as the host.

The thing with Aldrea is both well and poorly done. She feels underutilized in the story, doing exactly what they brought her back to do and otherwise serving as a distraction and a burden to the group. Cassie is a bit starstruck by Aldrea, Ax is openly distrustful and slightly contemptous of any Andalite who would choose to become something else permanently (which is an oversimplification, Aldrea had no choice in becoming a nothlit, but has certainly embraced the Hork-Bajir culture. While Elfangor DID choose to become a human) and the others are cautious around the mostly unknown force that sometimes pulls the puppet strings on their friend. Aldrea sees the Animorphs as naive children playing at being soldiers and innocent enough to crack stupid jokes, as for Ax... she warns Cassie about Andalite friends and the sort of support they give. Aldrea is traumatized by her past, but that's more implied than seen. So a lot of the story is about how weird both Cassie and Aldrea find it to be sharing control of a human body.

They fly the stolen Yeerk transport to the HB Homeworld (I'm just going to call it that now) and are almost killed by an Andalite fighter on the way. Luckily Bug Fighters show up to rescue them, and they rescue the Andalite, leaving no witnesses. Aldrea finds the hollow tree they stashed the ship full of weapons in, but now it's part of a dam containing an open-air Yeerk Pool. Umm, from this point things go a bit nuts. The door to the tree is on the wrong side, beneath the surface of the Pool, held shut by the pressure. So they decide to abandon stealth and have Cassie Operation Anvil the place for no discernable reason, while a couple of the others go shark to keep a bunch of Taxxons off her back and the others spread confusion. Aldrea freaks out with the Operation Anvil and tries to take full control of Cassie's body, but is easily defeated. The dam gets smashed, they fly the ship to Quaf, Aldrea acknowledges the Animorphs and particularly Cassie as warriors, and they go through an elaborate ruse to trick Toby into leaving (she was totally prepared to stay and lead the clone army) before Aldrea goes back into the vial to sleep until needed again.

The book did pretty well in answering all the questions it raised, but there is one small doubt that lingers. How the hell is there still an HB Homeworld to go back to and fight for? If you read the HB Chronicles, even just upthread, you know the HB Homeworld was devasted by a comet's impact, the entire atmosphere was stripped away, except in the series of deep equatorial valleys formed by the impact. If it helps you to picture it, HB Homeworld is described as looking like a slightly squashed melon or egg, with cracks around the middle region. Even there, the Arn had to micromanage the chemical balance of the atmosphere with hundreds of species of GE'd trees tended to by the Hork-Bajir. We see in that book and this one that the Yeerks went for deforestation and strip-mining in a big way, so how is the planet even sustainable after forty years as part of the Yeerk Empire?

[MTC]

I’m surprised you didn’t mention Cassie’s unusual morphing feat in book 34.
During the book, she flies up high above the open-air Yeerk pool in osprey morph, then demorphs while keeping her osprey wings (nothing unusual there, Cassie is always able to control her morphing like that), then begins to morph into a whale, while keeping her osprey wings. Such a feat (morphing parts of one animal and parts of another) had never been seen before and is, as far as I know, never referenced by anyone despite it, I would think, being useful in several other situations.

In addition, this event also involves Cassie going from one morph to another, via her human form, in seemingly full view of the Yeerks, which is also very strange, as it should have revealed to the Yeerks that not only are there humans with the power to morph but also that they are on the Hork-Bajir homeworld.

This “multi-morphing” technique is used at least once more in a later book, which I will place in spoiler tags because I’m not sure of the rules for that in this topic Spoiler

In a later book Tobias uses the same technique to go from Taxxon morph to Andalite morph, or possibly the other way around, when in the presence of a controller. During this he shows much greater control of the morphing process than I recall Cassie ever showing, which raises the question of why Cassie is considered the most able to control her morphing out of the whole group on all other occasions.

Of course, if I’m mis-remembering all of this, feel free to ignore me.

[Ahriman238]

MTC: you're dead accurate. Cassie was the best morpher, what calls estreen or morph dancer, able to morph quicker, easier, and with actual control over how she changed. With the others the process was a lot more random, sometimes they'd sprout extra human limbs that would shift into bug legs, sometimes the bug legs just explode out of their guts or over their shoulders. Sometimes they'd shrink first, sometimes last, and so on. It's really described as something that'd be fairly traumatizing if there were less trauma going on in their lives. I think Tobias pulled off this feat through sheer willpower, and it was clearly difficult for Cassie here to.

Megamorphs 3: Elfangor's Secret

Visser Four, disgraced commander of the failed invasion of Leera, makes it to Earth in a human host (Visser Three being a political ally of his) and accidently stumbles over the Time Matrix Elfangor buried decades ago. A Yeerk with a time machine is clearly bad news, so Crayak and the Ellimist declare a truce to deal with the problem, but instead of just making it not so with their godly powers of temporal manipulation, they "tune the molecules" of the Animorphs so they'll be pulled through time and space to wherever, whenever the Time Matrix goes, and remember the true timeline whatever changes get made. Oh, and since Crayak is still an evil dick, the price for this ticket to save the timeline is that this time one of the Animorphs will definitly die.

So naturally, the first thing Visser Four does is wipe out the cave-Andalites (more like plains-Andalites, but meh.) right? No. Fix Leera and other pivotal battles? No. Do anything at all to benefit the Yeerk Empire in it's 40+ year war? Yeah, no. He's just going to dick around with purely human history to try and create totalitarian states more easily infiltrated and subverted.

So the first stop on the time bus is the Battle of Agincourt (1415) where Visser Four intends to assasinate Henry V. This actually has nothing to do with his objectives, we find out later, it's just that his host memorized the entire play Henry V and recites it endlessly to annoy the Yeerk who wants to shut him up but 'had no idea how to get to Shakespeare.' Tobias catches the arrow that would have killed Henry, but gets shot down because the sky is full of arrows. So a Hork-Bajir on a horse runs out to frighten the superstitious peaseants and rescue him.

Then Visser Four goes to the crossing of the Delaware (1776) to stop the American Revolution. The Animorphs provide close security on Washington, but Four has changed tactics and instead informs the Hessians the rebels are coming (quite a feat, I understand the Hessians own spies were unable to get word to their commanders) and they are ambushed at the shore. Jake catches a bad case of musketball to the forehead and Cassie has a breakdown and flees.

Next Visser Four goes to the battle of Trafalgar (I want to say 1805?) and manages to sabotage HMS Victory with the cliche powder trail leading to a keg in the magazine. Rachel is blown in half with a cannonball, and we find out how the Ellimist screwed Crayak this time, after their one death to satisfy Crayak, the Animorphs have become immortal.

Next is Princeton University in 1932, where Visser Four hopes to assasinate Albert Einstein and create the Empire of the Rising Sun. However, by now enough changes have occured to make his knowledge of history worthless, Einstein is still in Germany. Cassie rejoins the group.

Finally, they catch up with Visse Four again at D-Day (you know damn well when it was, June 6, 1944) to warn the Nazis about the invasion. Well, there aren't any Nazis, but there is still an invasion, English against some sort of Franco-German alliance (which could sort of describe historical D-day, but trust me, it's different) Rachel kills a tank with a bird morph and a grenade, while Tobias runs into Adolf Hitler (now just a French general's jeep driver) and kills him on general principle. The Frech have arrested Visser Four until they figure out who the hell he is and how he knows so much, so they finally catch him. The Yeerk bails, but Marco picks it up and throws it into a burning tank.

After chatting a bit with John Berryman (the host) to find out where the Time Matrix is, what all Visser Four changed and why, they go back to fix each of these... just kidding. They go back in time to prevent Berryman's parents from even meeting, because having anyone else become Visser Four's host will somehow result in him not finding the Time Matrix? They debate whether they even have the right to change everything back, at a minimum the altered timeline has no Holocaust and no nuclear weapons, but the choice gets made for them as they distract Berryman's mom at the crucial moment, and they all end up in the barn, with Jake who's very confused.

The book ends on an odd note for this series, very self-aware.

"Oh, my God," he whispered. "Did...I mean, in the end, did we do it? Did we put it all back right? Did we make it right?"
I went to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
"No. We didn't make it right. But we put it back, Jake. Leave it at that. We put it all back."

Maybe we should get Thanas here in here to enjoy some of the rage at the history and projected changes.

[Ahriman238]

Book 35: the Proposal

Marco's dad has finally gotten over the apparent death of his wife those many years ago and has been dating Marco's math teacher. Now he wants to marry her, while Marco is still unsure if his mom is dead or alive after he head-butted her off a mountain. Now his stress is screwing with his morphing powers and causing random hybrid morphs, as he discovers when he morphs the bastard child of a bird and a lobster.

But anyway, the Yeerks have enlisted a self-help guru to recommend desperate people to the Sharing, and it's horrible and they have to stop this monster right now! Eh, I'm not feeling it, the Sharing has tried celebrity endorsements before and I really don't see this Dr. Phil wannabe doing that much damage. The guy, William Roger Tennant, is living an extremely annoying 90's picture of a charmed life, he eats healthy, jogs for 40 minutes every day, wears a ponytail, and his show consist of him sitting in a comfy armchair surrounded by lava lamps (I have no idea) and dispensing advice from on high. The Yeerk, by contrast, is a nearly psychotic frustrated warrior who is so sick and tired of listening to other people's problems.

The Animorphs infiltrate his house, where he nearly kills Marco on suspicion of being an Andalite, (Marco later morphs a trout with Gorilla arms) and learn that his show will soon be moved to a UPN prime-time slot. Horrors! They also embarrass themselves stalking him at a black-tie dinner where Marco morphs a skunk/spider monster.

Finally Marco decides to discredit Tennant by publically provoking him, so he morphs his dad's fiance's mini poodle, and begins a campaign of harrassment, attacking, barking at and once or twice peeing on Tennant whenever he leaves the house. Since he's such a stand up guy, he's apparently not allowed to kick a dog thats gnawing on his leg. I'd forgive him, and I say that as a dog-lover. Marco has great fun venting his frustrations on the man. But the first night of the new timeslot show, Marco screws up again and becomes the dreaded poo-bear, or "a poodle the size of a Volkswagon." He nearly kills Tennant, but Cassie talks him down and he rights the morph. The show goes on air just in time for the world (and UPN guy) to see Tennant strangling a cute little puppy. This all somehow resolves Marco's issues, and we next see him at the wedding reception teasing Rachel for crying during the ceremony.

Until his mom calls.

Visser

Visser One now gets her trial. The prosecution will obviously be done by Visser Three, the Sol system's resident master of hammy speeches, the judges are the Council of Thirteen, and there's no such thing as lawyers in Yeerk court (or, in fact, trials for anyone below sub-visser in rank) so Visser One will defend herself. Apparently Yeerks also have memory-recording technology, and all Yeerks below the rank of Visser are required to submit regular memory-dumps, either for viewing by their superiors, in case they witness anything important, or say they die suddenly by standing around when Visser Three is angry and their replacement has to be brought up to speed on how to complete his duties right away.

We see that Visser One (or Edriss, since she wasn't a Visser back then) was assigned to a survery group looking for new species to conquer for the glory of the Empire after interest was raised by first contact with humanity during the events of the Andalite Chronicles. Edriss and a subordinate eventually stole a ship to confirm a wild guess and discovered Earth around the time of Desert Storm, and after a couple of days hanging out in orbit, eavesdropping on radio and tv and accessing the internet, they are very confused. They take a host, an Iraqi, and learn throguh him that the world is divided into nations and the Americans are the most powerful. Some more study in orbit reveals that the center of power within America is the city called Hollywood. I'm sure all alien invaders make that mistake.

Edriss takes a bimbo wannabe-actress as a host, then an actually intelligent woman. She puts off reporting to the Empire for a couple of years, wanting to claim all the glory by providing complete intelligence and a blueprint to victory. She falls in love with and has kids (through their hosts) with her subordinate, who eventually betrays her to try and protect their children from being killed or enslaved by aliens. Naturally she kills him for this. But first she founds the Sharing, explaingin to a kid everything she's going to do by putting a Yeerk in his head, but saying that he will then be one of the special, chosen few, and he will never be alone again. It works.

She kills off that host, figuring a martyr will do the Sharing more good than a living, fallible leader. She takes Marco's mom for a time before faking her death and going off in search of new worlds to conquer.

In the present trial, things are not going well, Visser Three seizes on every weakness, every doubt. Edriss retaliates by accusing him of incompetence, allowing the Hork-Bajir to build a community under his nose, and letting a small group of Andalites run rings around him. Visser Three responds by having wild animals released into the room and handily killing off the "Andalites" while the Council cheers. He then snarks at Edriss and makes a speech about how he can deliver Earth within a week if the Council will just fit to give him a free hand.

Edriss asks for a bathroom break, then palms a cell phone on the way to the toilet. She calls Marco (the end of that last book) and begs him to put in an appearance. When she gets back, Visser Three calls the host of her old subordinate, now a crazed wino, to testify that she loved him and their children. When she denies this, he gives her a gun with one bullet, and sticks her son in the room. She can't do it, but that's ok because the Animorphs arrive and kidnap her.

They talk a bit, Edriss leaves Eva's (Marco's mom) head so she can convince Marco not to kill her, on the basis that Edriss is more use alive and anyway, "she's a mother to." The Animorphs rough her up some for appearances and ditch her in a tunnel. When she gets back one of the Councilors uses a somewhat different technology to let him see into her head and view all her memories and emotions. The Council deliberates, then delivers guilty verdicts to both Vissers, One for her borderline treason, Three for trying to pull a fast one.

They both get a suspended sentence. The Council announces the Andalites are assembling the greatest fleet yet seen in the war, 30 Dome Ships. The Council tell Visser Three he is absolutely not to deviate from the plan of secret invasion. Visser One is assigned to another war, in the Anati system. Apparently there are craploads of asteroids, and a clever tactician with a large number of Dracon cannon (much cheaper than ships) could turn the system into a highly efficient Andalite-meat factory even this mighty fleet would be hard-pressed to escape. Her continued survival is contingent upon her performance there.

Vissers One and Three part surprisingly cordially, and Visser One even briefly considers telling him all about the "Andalite Bandits" before deciding it's too much fun to watch him struggle.

EDIT: Visser is the second to last of the Chronicles prequel books. The last one is the Ellimist Chronicles, which I'm not sure I'm doing, but I'm not getting to in a while in any case. That also means this book, unlike the last 9, was written personally by K.A. Applegate personally.

[Ahriman238]

Book 36: the Mutation

Jake gets a call in the middle of the night to come to Cassie's barn, where she is desperatly trying to save the life of a Hork-Bajir. Apparently Visser Three thought it would be funny to graft some gills and webbed hands onto a bunch of Hork-Bajir, there were fifty test subjects, all died, including this one who made it far enough to warn them.

Erek turns up in the morning to provide exposition. It seems Visser Three has gotten a trifle obsessed ("What?" you say "he always seemed like such a laid-back, live and let live kind of guy") with the Pemalite ship form 9 books ago. Apparently, the fact that a hyper-advanced spacecraft is sitting on the ocean floor somewhere keeping all it's secrets troubles the good Visser. So he tried creating aquatic Hork-Bajir to search for the thing, actually to help his true plan wherein he built a second Blade Ship that doubles as a submersible with no depth limits. He calls it the Sea Blade and is geeting ready to launch it and scour the ocean one meter at a time.

Rather than celebrating this huge waste of time and resources on the part of the enemy, the Animorphs agree that this must be stopped. So they pick up some orca morphs at Seaworld, and when the Sea Blade launches, they attack by ramming it repeatedly. Their battle is interrupted however when blue fish-men show up and drag the Sea Blade into a cavern.

Following, the Animorphs find a vast cave full of ships, from Spanish treasure galleons to luxury yachts to a Japanese WWII aircraft carrier. All occupied to varying degrees by stuffed crewmen.

Further in they find the city of the blue fish-men, the Nartec. They get captured and hauled before their Queen who tells the story of how long ago their island home sank but the walls grew faster than the sea, the glowing rocks provided light and eventually everyone ended up blue and amphibious. Ever since then, they've been scavenging resources and technology they get from surface-dwellers, trawling the ocean floor for wrecks. When they find survivors, they question them on their culture and language, take their DNA (first through the traditional matter, now by liqueying everyone's organs and sucking them out with a syringe) then they stuff them and stick them in the museum.

The Queen has decided they will use the Sea Blade to conquer the surface world, but half an hour in the Nartec's library convinces Ax she's putting a brave face on. It seems the Nartec have always hung on a thin line between inbreeding, and including so much DNA from surface-men they lose their distinctive traits. Looking over the statisical data Ax asserts the Nartec are doomed and they know it. Which doesn't stop them from trying to extract the DNA form the Animorphs until Tobias (the only one not captured earlier) rescues them.

Ax actually seems a little offened they didn't want his DNA. It's so cute. I'll tell you what Ax, convince me you can have viable offspring with a human and we'll talk aobut the mutants.

The kids go out to stop the Sea Blade again, and form a brief alliance with Visser Three, until the time comes to scuttle the ship. They let a few torpedoes hit it and it goes down. Visser Three escapes, the kids escape. Jake points out that most of those ships were sank in wars, and we're really not all that batter than the Nartec. He adds that someday when the war is done, they'll have to tell people about the Nartec. "Why" Cassie asks "So we can start another war?" "No. To bury them."

[Ahriman238]

Book 37: the Weakness

Jake is out of town, but the other Animorphs get solid intel on where to find Visser Three's new feeding ground, so they set out to ambush and assasinate him. To facilitate this, everyone morphs cheetahs, but a blue blur runs rings around them, casually foiling the attack.

This is the special Inspector for the Council of Thirteen, here to check up on Visser Three's progress after he got caught lying to the Council about having killed those pesky Andalite bandits. Continuity! The Inspector's host is a Garatron, the newest race the Yeerks are in the process of subjugating. It's... exactly like an Andalite, without stalk eyes or a tail blade, and with a somewhat different shaped head (the Garatron's is described as being like a racing bike helmet) and all the powers of the Flash. As has never seen or heard of such a species so we have what I think is a sci-fi first, convergent evolution used to explain why the alien has a bizarro duplicate rather than why the universe is populated by humans with funny ears. The Inspector is not very impressed with the Andalite bandits Visser Three has blamed every delay and setback on, and the kids escape while the Yeerks bicker like a married couple.

Back at the barn, the Animorphs decide this is a great opportunity to further discredit Visser Three and maybe get him replaced with a less dangerous opponent. Or they could get someone who actually understands counter-guerilla tactics. Rachel is named Acting Leader in Jake's abscence, their plan is to conduct blitzkrieg. Hit every controller-owned business, front, and some houses, create the impression that they are everywhere and attack whereever they want and Visser Three cannot protect his own assests. Rachel is up most of the night before they begin meditating on learning the word hubris in English class, and how she'll have to avoid that. Which she promptly forgets in the morning.

First they hit the local morning news show, with the controller-anchor. Marco wants to take fifteen minutes to recon the studio, since it's somewhere they've never been, but Rachel orders the attack. They go in, wreck the place and tell the anchor to <go home, Yeerk. Go home.> Real intimidating guys. A tour group comes in and the sight of wild animals seemingly about to eat a woman gives an old man a heart attack, so the Animorphs bug out.

They spend the morning hitting various places: bookstore, sports store, office supply store, cigar shop, always with the same pattern: cause some property damage, then seize a controller by the front of the shirt and tell him to go home. After splitting up for a lunch break, they reconvene to plan their most ambitious raid: the Sharing Community Center. Again Marco wants to recon, or maybe skip this one entirely since it has a Yeerk Pool entrance and can get Hork-Bajir reinforcements, but Rachel calls him a coward and orders that they all go in as polar bears for "maximum firepower!"

Fun fact, Polar bears live in or near the Arctic. In that enviroment, they have adapted an incredible ability to survive and function in extreme cold. What they have NOT adapted is the ability to function during a summer afternoon in Southern California (where the last book revealed the series takes place) they overheat, the inspector shows up to casually manhandle them again, and Visser Three morphs a noxious slime monster. The others tumble out a window and flee, but Cassie is captured.

With a ticking clock and unassailable proof that she screwed up, Rachel has a nervous breakdown until Marco tries the "tough love" school of therapy and convinces her they actually have no time for his usual subtle methods (she told Marco he could be in charge now) so she has them steal a plane and fly it into a skyscraper. I checked, this book was published in 1999. Just... wow.

Okay, the skyscraper is actually empty, no one lives or works there, it's just a cover for a shaft allowing Bug Fighters to access a landing pad in the Yeerk Pool cavern. This raises more question, like who thought a skyscraper in the middle of the downtown area was a good cover for this. Whatever. The kids morph birds and drop down the shaft, preceeded by a hundred tons of flaming wreckage. Cassie is naturally in the Pool in plan sight, chained down while they wait for her to lose her nerve and demorph. The Inspector shows up agian, running over the surface of the Pool to disrupt them, before dashing back to Visser Three's side to call him pathetic. Visser Three challenges the Inspector to capture or slay the Andalite bandits himself, if he thinks it's so easy, and the Inspector does pretty well for himself until Marco tags him with his cobra morph. The Garatron circulation system must be pretty brisk, because the venom takes almost immediate effect. Visser Three lets the Animorphs go because he's too busy taunting the dying Inspector.

As a coda, Rachel goes to the funeral of the old man who died from his heart attack. She tells the trauamatized grandson who was there that she was at the studio and is deeply sorry. Jake shows up, having heard bits and pieces of what happened from the others and wanting the full story from her. She confesses to being a screwy leader, and he consoles her with the notion that there are exactly as many Animorphs now as when they started, and on his worst days he finds that victory enough.

I'm sorry Jake, but you really need to have better rock for your self-worth than that you've never lost one of your soldiers. That's impressive, no doubt, but that might not always be true. Also, how the hell did Visser Three talk his way out of letting the Council's Inspector die? The one sent to find out all the things he's been keeping from them? He is still under a suspended sentence of death.

Book 38: the Arrival

The Animorphs get caught in a trap, the bait for which is a captured Chee, who was investigating the citie's primary newspaper to see how thoroughly the Yeerks had penetrated it, which is very. Foolish Yeerks, print news is half-dead and fading fast. But this actually has almost nothing to do with the main plot, for in this darkest hour, four Andalites pop out of nowhere and rescue the Animorphs.

Earth is saved! No, no it's not. It seems that 30-ship fleet mentioned in Visser has been sent to the Rakkam Garoo front. What we have here is Unit Zero, a unit that doesn't officially exist, comprised of Andalites listed as KIA, assembled to assasinate Visser Three. Their commander is Arbat, a 'retired' spymaster form the very top of the Andalite Intelligence food-chain, who is also Alloran's brother. Gonrod, the pilot, was charged with cowardice. Aloth, the sniper, was in prison for selling his fallen comrade's organs on the black market (Andalites have a black market?) and Estrid, the girl Ax starts crushing on immediatly, is apparently part of a pilot program testing the feasibility of females in the service. Clearly, Andalite High Command has sent their very best agents on this crucial mission.

After being told the mighty Andalite fleet isn't coming to save the day, the Animorphs fall apart in such an obviously staged manner I called bullshit at the age of nine, but our elite commandoes buy it without question and welcome Ax into their fold.

First, the Andalites infiltrate the Community Center (why does every book suddenly take place there? I'm a huge believe in continuity but this is ridiculous) to snipe Visser Three while he's giving a speech. So far, so good. Except Arbat fires a poorly aimed shot right before Aloth, the team's actual sniper, and give Visser Three enough warning to get off the stage. WHile the team fless, Aloth becomes surrounded and cut off, so Arbat shoots him rather than risk his capture.

This prompts Ax to dig deeper, and he has the Chee hack the ship's computer while he takes Estrid on a date, thus learning that everyone on the ship is listed as dead, except Estrid who doesn't exist. Ax goes to the deck Aloth said was sealed off to save on life support and finds Estrid. It seems she isn't a test program, the Andalite military still requires a Y chromosone (or whatever shape it is in Andalites) also, the ship and unit have a real mission kept scret even from Aloth and Gonrod. Estrid is a science prodigy who has revolutionalized bio-warfare and created a deadly disease the Yeerks cannot cure or counter (the Quantum Virii didn't already do that?) the mission to assasinate Visser Three was a cover for their real mission to kill craploads of Yeerks with illegal weapons. The only reason they haven't already done so is that she hasn't fixed the problem where the virus can spread to a Yeerk's host and mutates to kill that species off to.

Arbat announces his prescence by trapping them both in force-field cages, revealing that he has no intention of waiting to make a virus that won't also wipe out humanity. He gives a true supervillain speech, leaving no dobut that he really is Alloran's brother, before fleeing with evil cackles while the Animorphs demorph and free Ax. They chase Arbat to the Yeerk Pool (through an entrance in the Community Center besides the one we already saw, why should they need multiple entrances?) Just as Arbat in huma morph is about to dump the vial in the Pool, Estrid disintegrates the vial (and his hand) with a Dracon beam before pointing and screaming "Andalite!" and Arbat is eaten by a Taxxon. yay? Gonrod and Tobias burn away part of the ceiling of the Pool cavern to rescue them with the ship, in the process anhilitaing the McDonald's with the Pool entrance.

Estrid and Gonrod go home to report on the mission failure, and the ground situation on Earth, and absolutely not to die in a suspicious shuttle accident or disappear forever. Estrid offers to take Ax with them but he declines, and gives her a cinnamon bun as a parting gift. The ship pulls away into the night and end with Ax crying silently in the night while Cassie holds his hand and the others chatter obliviously.

[Ahriman238]

Book 39: the Hidden

In 1818, Mary Shelley published her famous novel Frankenstein, subtitled the Modern Prometheus. It was about a man who tried to reverse death, and some of the terrible consequences that resulted. One of the movie adaptations, I believe the 1932 Boris Karloff one, best summarized the book's theme: "There are things man isn't meant to know."

It is in this spirit, and with respect to unholy abombinations of science everywhere, that I present to you this book.

We start with Cassie receiving a hasty phone call about a new and most urgent crisis. Recall that there were two Helmacron ships back in book 24? And how one got wrecked? The Yeerks have salvaged the ship, just enough to utilize it's advanced sensors, the ones that can get detect morphing energy like is given off when in morph, in brusts when morphing, and from the Escafil device always. They've stuck the ship in a chopper to direct ground teams and are heading towards Cassie's barn where the device is hidden.

Cassie hides the device under her shirt and convinces her mom to take her to work at the Gardens. While trying to lose the controllers in the crowd, she accidently climbs into a trailer with an angry Cape Buffalo named Aka the Widow Maker. I'm sure he's friendly. She manages to acquire the beast before it can gore her, and while it's in a trance scoots behind it, brushing it with the blue box in the process. Then she morphs the buffalo and grabs the box in her mouth (can buffalo even do that?) just in time for the controllers to open the trailer door and find two angry Cape Buffalo (Buffaloes? Buffali?)

So, for the first time ever, we have the morphing power given to a dumb animal. The buffalo acquires everything it touches and thinks about, beginning with Chapman, and morphs him when it sees Cassie demorph. Though its still a buffalo in a man's body. It morphs itself in imitation when Cassie morphs a buffalo again, for now. The rest of the book is Cassie trying to stay ahead of the Yeerks tracking her while, for whatever reason, trying to keep the ambombination safe. Maybe she feels responsible for it, but the worst is yet to come.

During a rest break, Cassie absent mindedly flicks an ant off the device, and a minute later flicks what seems to be a different ant off her leg. Until the ant starts to turn into her, growing and shifting into a horrible ant-human hybrid, and as soon as it forms a mouth it starts to scream... Luckily it reverses the morph before going completly human, and Cassie promptly stomps on it. Thank you, Mrs. Applegate for all the nightmares I'll be having.

Controllers eventually catch up, Cassie flys away with the box, but the buffalo is disintegrated by Dracon beams. Regrouping with the others, they decide that they have to get rid of the Helmacron ship, and since no one has a better idea, they go with Operation Anvil yet again. Lure the helicopter over water, have Cassie fly high above it then morph bird-to-girl-to-humpback whale, see if the chopper can survive having a whale dropped on it from almost a mile's height (spoiler: it can't) and if Cassie can survive the rotor and impact with the sea (she can.) Nothing was learned, except to keep the device the hell away from animals. Nothing was gained, except a little safety from foiling the latest Yeerk plot to discover them.

...

If anyone needs me, I'll be in my bed. With the covers up and lights on.

[Ahriman238]

Book 40: the Other

Ax finds another Andalite on Earth, being suspicious after Arbat, Ax follows and finds this Andalite living in a quiet suburban home (with a forcefield) and working as a college professor, using a human morph obviously. I've always wondered, Ax blended DNA from the Animorphs to create his human morph, and presumably Visser Three did the same with a few controllers, but how did Elfangor and Arbat and Gafinilan (this guy) ever acquire multiple people? Also, Gafinilan is easily the largest Andalite in the series, described as having a lower body like a clydesdale and a torso to match.

Oh well, Marco and Ax morph bees, which are apparently cool to morph despite being social insects, because Gafinilan keeps a large greenhouse and the bees can fly a short maze through the forcefield to pollinate the flowers. Gafinilan busts them, says he's a survivor of the Galaxy Tree and is uniterested in further fighting, and sends Ax away demanding to meet his Prince. Ax notices that Gafinilan is cultivating herbs used to treat Soola's Disease a progressive, invariably lethal genetic disorder which is one of the rare things that can't be fixed with morphing. From this, the kids infer that Gafinilan is dying and wishes to acquire and trap himself in an Andalite morph. Ax is still an early adolescent, so he was likely hoping for an adult Andalite.

The Animorphs go to the meeting ready to spring a trap on Gafinilan when he springs his on Jake and Ax. When the dust settles and Gafinilan is sort of their prisoner they explain themselves and Gafinilan is shocked and outraged that they'd accuse him of such a thing. Permanent morphing just to escape a fatal disease is dishonorable and distasteful, he just wanted to capture Jake to turn him over to Visser Three.

Yeah, seems Gafinilan was a fighter pilot on the Galaxy and his wingman, Mertil, was shot down and wounded, his tail severed. Mertil is one of the rare Andalites whose physiology is incompatible with morphing technology (so it works on aliens from a completly different galaxy but not on some of their own people?) and is thus crippled for life. Overcome with guilt, Gafinilan has dedicated the rest of his life to protecting and providing for Mertil. Let the alien slash fanfiction begin.

Ax by the way, is shocked and disgusted by Mertil. The Andalite attitude towards disabilities (I think I've mentioned this upthread) ranges from "ignoring their existence so they keep some dignity" to outright abuse. In this regard, at least, Ax is very much a product of his culture and childhood, and the idea of a proud warrior becoming nursemaid to a cripple offends him. Out of universe, Applegate said she wrote this in to remind everyone that Andalites are alien with an alien culture, introduce some moral ambiguity in the simple Andalites=good Yeerks=bad premise the series began on (because we really needed more grey areas) and show the Andalites aren't perfect (we got that message some time ago.)

Recently however, the Yeerks captured Mertil while grazing. The Yeerks aren't really any more PC on the disabilities issue than Andalites, and a tail-less morph-less Andalite isn't terribly useful to them. But infesting him led them to Gafinilan, and the knoweldge that he has only a couple months left to live. So the Yeerks decided to use Mertil as a hostage, trading him back to Gafinilan for one healthy adult Andalite. So... taking an obvious route to avoid a slow and painful death and continue to watch over your friend? Dishonorable. Betraying a comrade (or former comrade since he's made it clear he doesn't have a stake in the war for Earth) to the Yeerks? Fine. Andalites have a really strange concept of honor.

The Animorphs agree to help, though Ax is clearly having trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of risking his life to help a cripple. Gafinilan contacts Visser Three to say he's caught one, and they meet in a rail yard to exchange prisoners. The kids find and free Mertil in a running battle through the rail yard, at one point a train comes through but everyone gets away.

Marco offers to come over the house sometime after Gafinilan dies and play some video games or something with him. Though literally all Gafinilan has to do to live and hide Mertil for decades is use his college professor morph and never morph back.

[Ahriman238]

Megamorphs 4: Back to Before

There's a brainbug that circulates endlessly around writers of long-running speculative ficiton series. Tvtropes would have a clever punny name for it, I just call it the "Wonderful Life" story. A character, through magic or magic thinly disguised as technology, experiences a world in which they were never born, died young, or never became a superhero/companion to the Doctor/joined IASA, generally where the premise of the series is invalidated and all this character's adventures and accomplishments are gone. Everyone's done it once or twice, I think the Stargate franchise holds the record at 5, though in 2 of those the missing 'character' was actually the stargate. But that's fine, because when these stories are written well, they serve to remind us of the heroes' triumphs without seeming tacky, they make a point about how little changes infulence our lives and our character, and the difference one person can make. I defy you to tell me that 'Tapestry' wasn't one of the best episodes of TNG.

When this story is written poorly, it can be the last Megamorphs book.

I know you hear critics say this a lot, but all the elements of a great story are here, except for suspense or any sort of emotional payoff. It boggles the mind. They even made the premise work inside the setting, without seeming silly or contrived.

We begin with the Animorphs in the aftermath of another desperate, gruesome battle. This time to prevent the Yeerks form taking over the fashion industry. I have no idea. Comically/tragically ignoring a dying controller begging for comfort while they check their wounds and dig an unconcious Tobias out from under a pile of dead Hork-Bajir. Jake, dead tired and emotionally drained, goes home to find the Drode in his bedroom. That's creepy.

The Drode has an offer from Crayak, all Jake has to do is ask, and history will be rewritten so the kids never walked through the construction site, never met Elfangor. After exhausting the ways to tell the Drode to piss off in a PG manner, Jake gives in, because it's just been that kind of day.

So, the world without the Animorphs. About a week after not going through the construction site, and leaving the social group after being subtly deterred by Marco, Tobias joins the Sharing. Two boys make the inspiring recruiting offer of just standing watching Tobias get his ass kicked, then giving him a card and telling him he doesn't have to be a punching bag. Wouldn't it help recruitment more to actually stop the guys beating him? Well, I snark but it is sort of cool to see firsthand how the Sharing ensnares people. After the first meeting Tobias is given a mentor who helps him experiment with a variety of games and activities til they find something he's good at, namely pool. They throw some rhetoric at them, mostly collectivism, with some bits about moving beyond racism,sexism, ageism, etc. In a month or so, they require you to make a choice, join for real or stop coming to meetings. You say yes you get led into a spooky cavern where a man asks if you are ready to surrender yourself to the Sharing, then you place your hands in the ceremonial shackles and they hold your head under the pool. You emerge from this 'baptism' a new man.

It seems at this time, Vissr Three has only weeks before taken the reigns of the invasion from Visser One. It seems he immediatly requests leave to conduct the war his way, and was denied. In truth, the original rejection of his plan was a fabrication of Visser One's so he wouldn't get impatient and start burning cities before the Council actually rejected his plan. In this timeline, maybe because he isn't distracted, Visser Three figures this out and decides that forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission and the Council couldn't hurt him after he served up a world swiftly and judiciously conquered.

Tobias, as host to the Council's messanger, naturally dies.

Ax, after three weeks beneath the ocean (setting an upper limit on the time between the first and fourth books) realizes no help is coming and departs. He does comment that the Dome is reinforced with a forcefield, and there is power enough to keep it going a hundred years. His first move after escaping the asylum he got stuck in within hours of morphing a human the first time, is to hijack a news station to warn Earth about the Yeerks.

There's some Hardy Boys stuff with Jake, Rachel and Marco trying to figure what's wrong with Tom and why Marco ran into his mom, but we already knew the answer to both questions, so that's just tedious. Cassie keeps having weird dreams, seeing a hawk out of the corner of her eye and cannot shake the feeling something is terribly wrong.

But the kids eventually meet up with Ax as Hork-Bajir are storming the Mall, and Marco and Cassie get killed. Ax and the surviving Animorphs steal a Bug Fighter and kamikaze the Blade Ship. Unlike when a similar event happened in Andalite Chronicles, this lets them board the heavily damaged Blade Ship. Ax fights Visser Three and loses an arm, but Cassie comes back from the dead and shoots the Visser. When asked how the hell she's alive, Cassie says it's falling apart, and no, she can't explain what 'it' is.

As they line up the Blade SHip to destroy the Pool ship, the Drode shows up again to bitch at Cassie for being sub-temporally grounded and the Ellimist for cheating to arrange all this. Yes, it seems history cannot be altered around Cassie, except for when it can, and all the logical inconsistencies, like Visser One being teleported down to earht, were a result of her prescene unraveling the artificial timeline.

The Elllimist claims he never technically broke any rules, the Drode storms off in a sulk, and the Ellimist explains that only Cassie will dimly recall what happened, and she probably shouldn't mention it to the others, lest she hurt Jake and Tobias' feelings.

We go back to Jake's bedroom, the moment he was about to cave and the Drode tells him to forget the whole thing and disappears. Every person has the power to make you happy, some when they enter a room, and some when they leave, so Jake's day is looking up a bit.

The end, like I said, there's really no payoff or catharsis or satisfaction in anything. Actually, you can argue the altered history was better than the mainline, since just 41 days after Elfangor crashed they were poised to wipe out the invaders.

Oh, and one note of interest that sets up things to come. Ax mentions in this book that the Yeerk's greatest limiting factor has always been reproducing fast enough there aren't hosts to go around. In fact, Andalite Intelligence believes less than 1% of Yeerks have a host at any given time, which makes Earth with it's billions of potential hosts possibly the turning point for the entire war.

[Ahriman238]

Book 41: the Familiar

Coming right after Megamorphs 4, this book is incredibly similar. The kids begin in a perilous, doomed retreat from a failed mission, another desperate fight for their lives. After they escape, Cassie has a minor breakdown over all of the killing and moral compromises they do, Marco and Rachel fight over her aggressivness putting the objective and all their lives at risk, and Tobias checks out as soon as it becomes clear nothing important will happen. Jake notes the Tobias has been a bit flaky since being captured and tortured as part of a mission. But Big Jake is just too damn tired to deal with his team.

He goes home, goes to bed, and wakes up in a dystopian future where the Yeerks won. Which is amazingly disimiliar from the last dystopian future where the Yeerks won. There's a crumbling, but high-tech version of New York. Marco is host to Visser Two, who is planning on turning the Chrysler Building into a magic raygun that will turn the moon into a sort of mini-sun giving off Kandrona rays. Cassie and Tobias, members of the future resistance and bloodthirsty terrorists, want Jake's help to divert the beam enough to just blow up the moon and kill millions of people. Weird stuff keeps happening, people Jake are told were dead keep popping up because SPOILER: this whole book is a dream.

And yeah, Jake explores the future enviroment some, and helps attack the Chrysler villain where Marco has degraded into a cackling pulp villain. None of it is actually that interesting, and if it were it wouldn't matter since none of it is real. In the end, Jake is made to choose between rescuing Cassie or saving the world. We aren't told what he picks, but I think I have a shrewd guess. A mysterious booming voice comments on the complexities of the human psyche and notes that we warrant further experimentation. This is never mentioned or made important again, and we never find out if aliens were messing with Jake or if this is what every night is like for him.

Jake wakes up and immediatly grabs a phone to do what he should have done immediatly, and check up on Cassie. The end.

Yeah, there are a lot of good books and some okay books in this series. This one is just bad. The only interesting thing in it are Marco's alien enforcers, the Orff.