Also, Ax really hates Aldrea, doesn't he?
God, so much. He's basically accepted that the human Animorphs are peers (with the obvious exception of Prince Jake), but this is the daughter of the source of the Yeerk scourge that is ravaging the galaxy
and is someone who gave up their "Andalite-ness" to go native with a dramatically less advanced species? Combined with the fact rhat this genetic ghost is probably a threat to his comrade?
Yeah, he's got some capital I
Issues with her..
quote:
"We have to be a team here," Jake said in a voice so quiet it forced everyone to lean forward to listen. "We have to be able to count on each other. We're going deep into enemy territory. The Hork-Bajir planet is Yeerk-held. Ringed by Yeerk defenses.
It does feel super weird that this will be the
third alien planet they visit but the first time they're going there in a "normal" way instead of getting Z-space or Ellimist zapped, which somehow makes the stakes feel more "real." Like imagine if the Animorphs themselves go totally fine but the spaceship gets destroyed - oopsie daisy!
Andalites don't come across as a very subtle species to me, so I wonder to what extent they use that sort of intelligence outside of scouting/commando operations? I think we are told that most Andalite soldiers only know one or two morphs, and don't really use them outside of training.
It's something I'd be fascinated to see because the most they ever say is one or two allusions to "our spies" which is such a wonderfully vague word.
Andalites don't morph partially from arrogance I assume as nothing is superior to an Andalite. Is it shameful/childish to morph in a way for them? Also they have laser guns, all kinds of spaceships and weapons of mass destruction so in a shooting war being able to turn into Space Godzilla or something is of comparatively limited effectiveness.
Honestly the thing I find more interesting about morphing than the espionage (because of course you'd use it for espionage) is another way that Andalites use morphing. In book 8, Ax mentions professional estreens, who use their own bodies and morphing them as art.
Honestly the thing I find more interesting about morphing than the espionage (because of course you'd use it for espionage) is another way that Andalites use morphing. In book 8, Ax mentions professional estreens, who use their own bodies and morphing them as art.
For some reason I just thought of that blue singing alien in The Fifth Element.
Chapter 13
quote:
Three days had passed. Three days of having the strange, sad, secret Andalite-turned-Hork-Bajir in my head.
Sleeping with her on the hard, cold deck. Awakened shaking, sweating, wanting to tear my head open with my bare hands as I felt the awesome grief of her nightmares.
Eating with her, if you could call the concentrated nutrient pellets food. Going to the bathroom with her.
A lot more togetherness than I'd have preferred. Bad enough figuring out how to pee in a toilet designed for Hork-Bajir. Worse doing it with an audience in your own head.
We had gotten good at sharing control of speech. I controlled everything else. I had gotten used to it. I still didn't like it.
The Arn had stayed at the helm, ignoring us for the most part. I'd learned nothing more about him. Was this really some voyage of redemption for him? Aldrea doubted it. And she knew one hundred percent more about the Arn than I knew. Jake was talking with Quafijinivon when we translated out of the blank white nothingness of Zero-space into what now seemed to be the warm, welcoming black star field.
The Arn checked his sensors.
"Quafijinivon says we are now in Hork-Bajir space. We may pass the Yeerk defenses unnoticed.
Or not," Jake announced. "We should get ready. We don't know what we'll be walking into. I want everyone -"
Marco held up his hand like he was asking a question.
"Yes, Marco."
"Do we have correct change for the tolls?"
Jake blinked. Then he grinned. He and Marco have been best friends forever. Marco knows how to knock Jake down a peg when Jake starts taking his fearless leader role too seriously.
Jake sat down on the floor across from me/Aldrea.
"I don't see why we couldn't have gone Z-space the whole way," Marco whined.
Ax and Aldrea both laughed. Then they realized they were both laughing at the same thing and they both stopped laughing.
"Just say it," Marco told them. "I am but a poor Earth man, unable to understand the ways of the superior Andalite beings."
"Hork-Bajir," Aldrea corrected him.
<Aldrea, why do you -> Ax began.
A flash of green streaked by.
"Shredder fire!" Aldrea yelled, and suddenly I was up and running toward the front of the ship. She had taken control of my body! It was so sudden, so effortless.
Ax reached the "bridge" first. He leaned his torso forward and looked over Quafijinivon's shoulder.
<One of ours,> Ax said. Then he clarified. <An Andalite fighter. It must be on a deep patrol. Harassing the Yeerk defenses.>
"Can we outrun him?" Jake demanded.
"They're between us and the Arn planet," Quafijinivon answered. "We're smaller. It's possible we could outmaneuver them. But it would place us well within their firing range."
Tseeeeeew!
The Andalite fired again. A miss! But the cold, hard data from the computer made it clear exactly how close it had come.
"Fire back!" Rachel burst out. "Knock out one of his engines or something. Enough to keep him busy until we can land. They can't follow us down."
Quafijinivon's red mouth pursed thoughtfully. "Young human, that pilot is an Andalite warrior. One of the best trained fighters in the galaxy. I cannot hope to win a battle with him."
Ax and Aldrea both said roughly the same thing, which translated to human vernacular was, <You've got that right.>
<We can't fire on an Andalite,> Tobias said. He was flapping a little nervously, being tossed around as the Arn swung the ship into an evasive maneuver.
"So we let him shoot us down?" Rachel demanded. "There's one of him, eight of us. Or nine."
The Andalite fighter was coming back around in a tight, swift arc. In a few seconds his weapons would come to bear on us.
"Ax?" Jake asked.
<I cannot fire on a fellow Andalite who is merely doing his duty. Do not ask me,> Ax pleaded. <Maybe I could communicate ->
"No!" Aldrea interrupted. "If the Yeerks pick up a voice transmission, we're dead. They'll vector everything they have at us. We'll all be killed and so will the Andalites."
"Here he comes," Toby said.
I looked - and my stomach rolled over.
The Andalite fighter was on us. Seconds from firing.
This time he wouldn't miss.
Note that the two people who protest the idea of shooting down the pilot are Ax, who's an Andalite, and Tobias who's....not an Andalite, but sort of one. Note more that Aldrea don't protest.
Chapter 14
quote:
Ax leaped. He dragged the willing Arn out of the way and grabbed the controls.
<Computer, lateral thrusters, left side, full burn!> Ax cried.
WHAM!
I flew back into Toby. We both crashed to the ground. One of her blades nicked my arm and I felt a trickle of warm blood.
Everyone who'd been standing was pinned against the left side of the ship. An invisible force pushed me, forced the air out of my lungs, squeegeed my cheeks back against my ears.
Tseeeeew! Tseeeeeew!
The Andalite fighter fired.
A jolt of electricity, my hair tingled, Rachel's hair was standing straight out from her head, a blond halo. The air crackled blue. Then Rachel's hair dropped back into place.
The acceleration stopped instantly. I'd been straining forward and now, released, I tripped and fell like someone who's been tugging on a rope that snaps.
Marco landed sprawled all over me. He put his finger to his lips. "Shhh, don't tell Jake. You know how jealous he is."
<Left main engine down,> Ax reported. <And now he is angry. He is coming in slow.>
"Slow, that's good, right?" I said. I put my hand to my lip and saw blood on my fingers. I didn't even remember hitting anything.
"No, not good," Aldrea said. "He's decided we won't or can't shoot. He's coming in slow to make sure of his shot."
<Cutting lights, environmental and artificial gravity so I can give all power to the remaining engine,> Ax said.
The cabin went dark except for the glow from the control panel. And then I realized my feet were no longer glued to the floor.
"Ax, can we outmaneuver him? Yes or no?" Jake asked.
<No, Prince Jake, we cannot. But I cannot ->
Jake ignored his answer. "Aldrea?"
She knew what he was asking. I felt her ambivalence. Her hesitation.
"Yes or no!" Jake snapped.
"Yes," she said. She seized control of my body again, pushed off from the ceiling and floated weightlessly in beside Ax.
"Cripple him if you can. If not ..." Jake said.
<Prince Jake, we cannot -> Ax pleaded.
"My decision, Ax-man," Jake said gently. "Aldrea, it's your show."
Aldrea wrapped a restraining strap over our shoulder to keep from floating away. My hands moved, taking a large, ornately designed joystick obviously constructed to accommodate Hork-Bajir fingers or Taxxon pincers. Aldrea's eyes, my eyes, were glued not to the slowly growing image of the Andalite fighter, but to the tactical weapons readout.
"Computer, go to manual firing mode," my voice said.
I watched the crosshairs on the screen swing across the field of stars and come to rest on the Andalite ship. Dead on the cockpit.
<If you were not in my friend Cassie my tail blade would be at your throat now,> Ax said in thought-speak only Aldrea and I could hear. <Do not miss.>
Aldrea moved my fingers again, ever so slightly, gently, caressing the targeting crosshairs till they centered on the Andalite's right-side engine pod.
Had she retargeted because of Ax's threat? Or had she always intended to aim for the engine? In either case, a miss would likely mean a direct hit on the Andalite ship itself.
HMMMMMMMM ...
TSEEEEEEW!
A single shot. The red Dracon beam punched through the blackness. Stabbed at the Andalite ship. Then a pale, orange explosion. The engine pod blew apart. The Andalite ship spun wildly, falling away from us.
"Yes!" Rachel cried as she drifted in midair, almost upside down. "You clipped an engine!"
<Targets approaching!> Ax yelled. Multiple ... I count four!> He swung his stalk eyes backward to look at Jake. <Yeerk Bug fighters. They are coming to finish him off.>
"Can he fly?" Jake asked.
<Yes. He is regaining control. But he is as slow as we are, now. He will never outrun them.>
"They won't attack us," Marco remarked. "They see we fired on the Andalite. We're a bona fide Yeerk craft."
<How lucky for us,> Ax said acidly. <That warrior has bought us our passage.>
"We just keep flying, we're home free," Marco pointed out.
Quafijinivon said, "Yes, yes! Keep flying."
One by one we looked at Jake. "Nah, I don't think so," he said.
Marco smiled. "I had a premonition you'd say that."
"Ax? Aldrea? Four of them. If we fire on the Yeerks, will the Andalite figure it out? Will he join in?"
<Yes!> Ax said. <He is already wondering why we do not finish him off.>
"Okay," Jake said. "Wait. Wait till you can't possibly miss your first shot. Then, boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Four shots. Hit or miss it'll confuse the Yeerks, scare the slime off them."
Four Bug fighters loomed up from the brilliant crescent of the planet below, racing around their orbit toward us, engines blazing.
The Andalite ship seemed to be drifting now, helpless.
"Is he really -" Marco asked.
"No," Aldrea said. "He's hurt but not that badly. He's playing dead to draw the Yeerks in. He'll take one last shot. That's his plan. One shot and then die."
It was Tobias, the instinctual flier who saw the possibilities. <Hey, we drift left, get behind the Andalite, the Yeerks may hesitate to shoot, thinking we're friendly and they might hit us. They'll split left and right to get a safe angle of attack. At that speed, that angle, you hit the left-side leader and ->
"And the debris will shred the following ship!" Aldrea said enthusiastically.
Ax hit lateral positioning thrusters for just a second, then we drifted, seemingly without power.
The Yeerks saw us in their line of fire, split left and right, just as Tobias had ...
TSEEEEEEW! TSEEEEEW!
We fired.
BOOOM!
The left-side lead Bug fighter blew apart.
Tseeeeew!
The Andalite fired. The right-side leader exploded.
The left-side leader plowed into his partner's debris. An engine erupted. Ripped loose, sliced open the entire back end of the Bug fighter, which spun, then BOOOM!
Three Bug fighters down in less than ten seconds.
The Andalite fired his one good engine and went after the remaining Yeerk. But not before giving a slight roll to his ship. A sort of wave.
<Good hunting, brother,> Ax said.
Everyone started cheering.
"Good shooting, Ax and Cassie!" Rachel crowed.
"Yes, good work," Jake said much more quietly. "We may have just alerted the Yeerks, made things harder. So take five seconds to celebrate, then get ready to land. Be ready for battle morphs if needed."
<Cassie, I believe I like your boyfriend,> Aldrea said.
There's a lot to talk about here, about the conflict between doing what's right and doing what's safe, but I want to point out that it's Tobias who can think three dimensionally who comes up with the solutiion.
So much of the action in these books revolves around the chaos and incomprehensibility of combat. You get lots of sentences fragments and single words. It's interesting, by contrast, how slow and deliberate of a combat scene this is.
So much of the action in these books revolves around the chaos and incomprehensibility of combat. You get lots of sentences fragments and single words. It's interesting, by contrast, how slow and deliberate of a combat scene this is.
True. They're always fighting up close and brutal. If it was a real war, with guns and explosives, rather than that thing they're usually doing, there would probably be a lot more chapters like this one.
This is from a while back but I really like Marco's interaction with the Chee. When Marco jokes with other aliens they usually either ignore him or get annoyed. But Erek always throws it right back into his court. Makes perfect sense that they were created as playmates.
This is from a while back but I really like Marco's interaction with the Chee. When Marco jokes with other aliens they usually either ignore him or get annoyed. But Erek always throws it right back into his court. Makes perfect sense that they were created as playmates.
Also, he's been around thousands of years to pick up human culture and humor.
Sorry. Little thing going on here and I'm going to have to postpone until tomorrow.
Chapter 15-Aldrea
quote:
Down. Down through the clouds, through the atmosphere that made the hull scream. Down to my home. The planet I had never left, and yet now returned to.
"The Yeerk automated defenses appear to have accepted our codes," Quafijinivon said.
"That would be a good thing?" Rachel asked.
"If they did not accept our identification they would have targeted us with ground-based Dracon cannon. We have another threshold to cross when we enter the valley proper."
I hadn't seen it from space since I first arrived with my family. My father, in disgrace, but acting as though he didn't know that this was a dead end, irrelevant assignment for an Andalite whose name had become a derisive joke, a synonym for "fool."
With my mother, just happy to have new, unclassified species to study.
With my brother, who felt our humiliation so much more deeply than me.
All dead, of course. I'd seen them die in the blistering Dracon beam attack from low-flying Yeerk Bug fighters.
It was not a beautiful planet, at least not to Andalite sensibilities. An Andalite sought instinctively for the vast expanses of open grass, the delicate pastel trees, the meandering rivers and streams.
But the Hork-Bajir planet was scarred by the impact of the asteroid or moonlet that had erased its former character. The surface was barren, cracked, and fissured. The cracks were miles wide and miles deep, with shockingly steep sides. Life on the planet existed now only in those valleys.
There the giant trees soared. There the Hork-Bajir had once lived in peaceful ignorance, praising Mother Sky and Father Deep, harvesting the bark, avoiding the monsters that guarded the depths of the valleys.
We skimmed the barrens and then, suddenly, dropped into the valley. Dak's valley. My valley. I looked and was suddenly glad that Cassie had control of my body. If she didn't, I may not have been able to remain standing.
The trees! The trees! So many gone. The valley walls had been scarred, stripped. The Yeerks had cut deep gashes into the valleys to make level spaces.
"You must remember that it has been years since you last saw your home," Quafijinivon told me. But it wasn't the years that had ravaged the trees. It was the Yeerks. More than half of them, gone. Pieces of most of the others had been blasted away.
<I should have known ... I should have expected ...> I said to Cassie. Even before I ... before I died, some of the trees had been destroyed. But now it was as if the planet had been massacred. For the trees were the planet.
"We appear to have been accepted and registered by the inner-defense grid," Quafijinivon said, breathing a sigh. "This is fortunate. We pass within a hundred yards of Dracon cannon in the valley walls."
"I can't believe we haven't reached the ground yet," Jake said. "How tall are these trees?"
I knew he expected me to answer. But I couldn't.
"The largest are two thousand feet tall," Quafijinivon answered. "The trunks a hundred feet in diameter. They are a masterpiece of Arn bio-engineering."
<Aldrea, are you all right?> Cassie asked softly.
<Turn away,> I begged. I hated the weakness in my voice, but I couldn't bear to look anymore. <Turn our eyes away.>
She did. But then, she looked again. And I looked, too. Because even now, scarred and blasted, raped and despoiled, it was my home.
"Two minutes," Quafijinivon said. "We will land just above the vapor barrier, within the former range of the monsters we created to restrain Hork-Bajir curiosity."
I felt the tension rise in Cassie. This was all alien to her, of course. A strange world.
For me it was familiar, and yet not. I had, in my mind, never left. The years had not passed. The change seemed sudden, massive, shocking. The destruction of decades in the blink of an eye.
But it was Toby who interested me. This was her ancestral home. A place she had never seen, but that must, in some way, be part of the substructure of her Hork-Bajir mind.
She was staring out of the window with curiosity, even fascination. But Hork-Bajir faces show little emotion. What she felt, if anything, remained a mystery. We would be landing, soon, and I didn't even know my own mind. I did not trust the Arn. I did not like the Andalite, but trusted him to be what he was.
I didn't know the humans, not even the one whose brain I shared. The one named Jake had performed well.
But I did not know what was ahead. I knew only one thing: Whether the Arn was true to his word or plotting some betrayal, it didn't matter. I had seen what the future held for my adopted world. And all my doubt, my cynicism born of exhaustion, was wiped away. I, who had never left, was back. And I would make the Yeerks pay. No matter the cost.
I sensed the human, Cassie, reading my emotions, listening for clues. I was being careless. I closed my mind to her and sealed off my emotions.
I really like the line, "I did not like the Andalite , but trusted him to be what he was.", for a few reasons. First, I think it's a wonderfully constructed sentence, especially after the previous one...."I did not trust...I did not like, but trusted." Second, by calling Ax "the Andalite", she's drawing a distance between her and him....if he's "the Andalite", that's not how she's identifying herself. One of the things these books have explored is duality and identity. The Animorphs are people and their morphs. The Yeerks are the controllers and their hosts. Tobias is a hawk and a boy. Rachel is Nice Rachel and Mean Rachel. And Aldrea is Andalite and Hork-Bajir. Above all that, the main characters are teenagers, not quite children but not quite adults. This series is, among other things, about identity and liminality, and about how you define yourself when you're not fully one thing or another.
Chapter 16
quote:
I felt the ship gently touch down. I felt the wall inside me go up.
I couldn't blame Aldrea. If the situation were reversed, I don't think I'd want to witness all the ways Earth had been violated by war and then have some second person reading my first thoughts.
"We have made it," Quafijinivon said with some satisfaction. "We are home. I will open the hatch and -"
"Hold up," Jake said. "What's out there? Should we morph to Hork-Bajir?"
Quafijinivon shook his head. "We're just above the Arn valley, in the no-man's-land. The Yeerks don't come here now that all the monsters are dead. And, of course, they think all the Arn are dead as well." He gave a sad, dusty-sounding laugh.
He led the way to the ship's exit bay. I couldn't help noticing that his legs were slightly unsteady.
When I stepped onto the ramp, I was struck by how bright it was outside. That's really all I noticed at first -the intensity of the light and the way the sky almost seemed to glow.
"I must start my work soon, or risk a degradation of the DNA I harvested," Quafijinivon said. "My lab is not far. Follow me."
He led the way across a gently angled space of scrub bushes and weeds that ended abruptly in a jaw-dropping cliff that went straight down seemingly forever.
"You may not be aware of this, but not all of us have wings," Rachel pointed out. "At least not at the moment."
"There are steps," Quafijinivon assured us without turning around.
I gingerly approached the drop-off and peered down. Straight down almost nothing could be seen. But across the narrow chasm I could see that the far side was carved with doorways, windows, archways, and walkways. They were cut directly into the stone. Sections had been blasted away by Dracon beams, perhaps long ago, but the Arn village was still beautiful.
Jake said, "Tobias?"
Tobias flapped his wings, took to the air, and soared out over the valley. He floated for several minutes, using his laser-focus hawk's eyes to look down and around. Then he swooped back.
<I don't see anything alive down there,> he reported. <Pity. It's a stunning place. It must have been something when it was all inhabited.>
"Yeah. It looks like those Anasazi cliff dwellings in New Mexico or wherever," Marco said.
Rachel gave him a look. "Since when do you even know the word 'Anasazi'?"
"I've told you guys before, every now and then I stay awake in class. Just for a change."
Quafijinivon led us down a narrow stone staircase. There was no guardrail.
<It's times like these I appreciate my wings> Tobias said. <I'd be real careful. You fall off and you'll have a long time to think about it on the way down.>
Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Ax, Marco, and Toby started down the side of the cliff after Quafijinivon. I fell in at the end of their single-file line. I wasn't happy about it. I'm not crazy about walking on cliffs. But it's not like I had a choice.
I locked my eyes on my feet, watching them as they moved from step to step. If Aldrea was feeling any fear, or any contempt of my fear, she wasn't letting me know about it. She'd sealed up the wall between us and every brick was still in place.
"What's that red and yellow gunk at the bottom?" Marco called. "It looks like it's moving."
"Oh, thank you, Marco," I muttered. "Right now I really need to be thinking about what's way, way, way down there."
"It is the core of the planet," Quafijinivon answered.
"The core," Rachel repeated. "You're talking core as in center?"
"Yes, of course," he answered. His tone made it clear that he thought she was a little on the slow side.
"So, it's like a volcano down there, with lava and everything," Marco said. "How hot is that lava? You know, in case we fell in?"
"You're not helping," I told him, without raising my eyes from my feet. "Really not."
<You do not have to worry about the lava, Cassie,> Ax comforted me.
"Thanks, Ax," I answered.
<If you fell, I believe you would be incinerated before you hit the actual magma,> he continued.
Sometimes I think hanging around Marco so much has given Ax a totally twisted sense of humor. Very un-Andalite.
Quafijinivon turned at one of the arches. One by one, we followed him into a long, narrow room, almost a cave.
For the first time since we started down the side of the cliff, I raised my eyes from my feet. I watched as Quafijinivon pressed a small blue pad set in one wall.
An instant later the whole wall slid open. A row of long, clear cylinders and an elaborate computer console filled most of the room.
"It took me years to piece together all the equipment I needed for a new lab," Quafijinivon said. "The Yeerk raids destroyed almost everything."
"I've never heard of Yeerks using Arn hosts," Toby said. "I understood the Arn spared themselves that by altering their own physiology."
"True, Seer," the Arn said. "The Yeerks did not kill us in pursuit of hosts. It was a game. A sport. My people were exterminated, our culture destroyed, because the Yeerks enjoyed using us for target practice."
The Arn's voice held only an echo of a bitterness that must go very deep.
Then the strange creature shuffled away. "I have work to do."
I sort of wish the Arn got explored more.
Chapter 15-Aldrea
I really like the line, "I did not like the Andalite , but trusted him to be what he was.", for a few reasons. First, I think it's a wonderfully constructed sentence, especially after the previous one...."I did not trust...I did not like, but trusted." Second, by calling Ax "the Andalite", she's drawing a distance between her and him....if he's "the Andalite", that's not how she's identifying herself. One of the things these books have explored is duality and identity. The Animorphs are people and their morphs. The Yeerks are the controllers and their hosts. Tobias is a hawk and a boy. Rachel is Nice Rachel and Mean Rachel. And Aldrea is Andalite and Hork-Bajir. Above all that, the main characters are teenagers, not quite children but not quite adults. This series is, among other things, about identity and liminality, and about how you define yourself when you're not fully one thing or another.
Very astute. I agree. I also like that she voices her approval of Jake, while withholding judgment on the other humans.
"I've never heard of Yeerks using Arn hosts," Toby said. "I understood the Arn spared themselves that by altering their own physiology."
"True, Seer," the Arn said. "The Yeerks did not kill us in pursuit of hosts. It was a game. A sport. My people were exterminated, our culture destroyed, because the Yeerks enjoyed using us for target practice."
The Arn's voice held only an echo of a bitterness that must go very deep.
Then the strange creature shuffled away. "I have work to do."
Fucking dark.
Yeah, pretty messed up. There's some interesting parallels between the Arn and the Yeerks, as they both see the Hork Bajir as means to get what they want, not ends unto themselves. The Arn's benign neglect approach is admittedly nicer for the Hork Bajir, but it's a disinterest rather than kindness.
Another interesting note, the Yeerks' don't see that their own refusal to even humor the Arns' outreach for neutrality pushed them into the arms of the rebels and ended up losing them the "prize" of the Hork Bajir population. The Yeerks learned a lot from Andalites, including their arrogance towards "lesser" species.
Yeah, pretty messed up. There's some interesting parallels between the Arn and the Yeerks, as they both see the Hork Bajir as means to get what they want, not ends unto themselves. The Arn's benign neglect approach is admittedly nicer for the Hork Bajir, but it's a disinterest rather than kindness.
Another interesting note, the Yeerks' don't see that their own refusal to even humor the Arns' outreach for neutrality pushed them into the arms of the rebels and ended up losing them the "prize" of the Hork Bajir population. The Yeerks learned a lot from Andalites, including their arrogance towards "lesser" species.
The Arn's skill at bio-engineering would be precisely what was needed for the Yeerks to leave beyond parasitism and move towards symbiosis like the Iskoort did. Tragically missed opportunity for the galaxy.
Chapter 17-Aldrea
quote:
Home. Planet of the Hork-Bajir. My planet.
I was desperate to escape from the soft, slow human body and feel my true form again. I wanted to be Hork-Bajir.
"Okay, we aren't here to sightsee," Jake said. "We're here to retrieve the weapons Aldrea and Dak hid. We find them, we tell Quafijinivon where to pick them up, and he flies us all home."
"Toby is already home," I said.
Toby looked up sharply. The idea surprised her.
"This is your home world, Toby," I said.
<Toby wants to stay that will be her call,> the nothlit hawk said. <The rest of us, me, Ax, Jake,Rachel, Marco, and Cassie? We're all going home.>
The emphasis on "all" would have been impossible to miss. The creature named Tobias was warning me.
And what, I wondered, would you be able to do if I decide that Cassie stays here? But I said nothing. The humans and the obnoxious Andalite were already suspicious of me. Paranoid. Aximili was more concerned about me than about the Yeerks.
I had no allies in this group. With the possible exception of Toby. She was, after all, my greatgranddaughter.
<Aldrea, he's waiting for an answer.>
<What?>
<Jake asked you a question.>
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you," I said aloud.
"Are you ready? You're our guide. Take us to the weapons. Let's get this moving."
"Yes, I'm ready," I said. I tried to cover the uncertainty I felt, tried to hide it from Cassie.
I did not know the location of the weapons. I remembered Dak and I and the others, the few who still gathered with us, taking the ship. But I must have hidden them after recording my Ixcila.
<You don't know where they are!> Cassie accused.
<Nonsense!>
<Oh, my God! You don't! I can feel it. I can tell you're lying.>
<I know where I planned to put them. I know where they must be.>
<We have to tell Jake.>
<No!>
She opened her mouth. "J - ... unh ...
Ja ... "
<Let me talk!>
I released my hold, shocked at my own behavior. I hadn't meant to stop her, hadn't meant to battle for control. A mistake; I'd had no time to think it through.
Everyone was staring at me. All but the Arn who was busy elsewhere.
<Don't ever do that again, Aldrea,> Cassie said.
<l ->
<Don't ever fight me for control again.> Then she opened our - her - mouth and said, "She doesn't know where the weapons are. Not for sure. She has an idea."
Andalite facial expressions are subtle. But I had been born an Andalite. I saw the triumph in Aximili's eyes. The sense that he had judged me correctly.
Human facial expressions were still strange to me. Jake's face showed nothing. It seemed to be deliberately void of expression.
"That's something we should have thought about before we took off," he said mildly.
<May I use your mouth to speak?> I asked Cassie.
<Go ahead.>
"I am confident I can find the weapons. I know where I would have hidden them. Where I intended to hide them."
"That's great," Marco snapped, "but there's a big difference between getting yourself killed for a "definitely' as opposed to a 'possibly.'"
"No one will be in danger. I know the place. I know the trees."
Jake said, "No choice now. We're here. But, you, Aldrea, are no longer to be trusted. You're mad at the Andalites, mad at the Arn, and you don't treat humans as allies. I understand your anger. You're in a very strange reality right now. But we get in and out alive, that's what we do. So if you get in the way, make me doubt you again, we will put you down."
I bridled at the insult and the threat. "This is my world, human. My battle. Follow me, do as I say, and you will soon be able to scurry back to Earth."
Rachel said, "And you'll be back in Quafijinivon's bottle."
"That's right," I said.
Jake took a deep breath and then said, "We want to avoid Earth morphs if we can. No point announcing 'The Animorphs are here.' We'll travel as Hork-Bajir. All but Tobias. I want you in the air, man. But stay out of view if possible."
<On my way,> the nothlit said. He spread his wings, flew along the ground for a while, then flapped up and away into the mist.
"Okay. Now we morph."
So any bonds of trust there are gone. I do sort of think, if Aldrea had said at the beginning, "I'm not sure where the weapon cache is", maybe the Animorphs wouldn't have taken the risk to go to the Hork-Bajir planet, but, she'd still be in Cassie's body, so that still would have been a potential problem. Also, Jake's threat seems kind of hollow. There's no way he can unwillingly separate Aldrea from Cassie, so is he willing to kill Cassie? I mean, maybe, but I don't think so.
Chapter 18-Aldrea
quote:
<I assume you will control the morph,> I said to Cassie.
<Yes, I will,> she said.
I waited as she focused her mind on the Hork-Bajir DNA within her.
The changes began with surprising swiftness. Cassie was an experienced morpher, that much was clear. But as I watched the smooth, elegant transitions, I realized she was more than experienced.
She was talented.
Her five-foot-tall frame expanded upward, growing like a sapling, shooting up by a full two feet.
The muscles layered over her own weaker human musculature. The bones became dense. The internal organs shifted with a liquid sound, some disappearing altogether, others appearing, forming, finding a place, making connections, beginning to secrete and digest and filter.
Her heel bone grew a spur, the Hork-Bajir back toe. Her own five human toes melted together, then split and grew into three long claws.
The tail grew as an extension of her spine, adding link upon link, bone growing from bone, wrapping itself in flesh and blood vessels and skin.
Her flat mouth pushed outward, lips stretching into a hideous grimace then softening into the familiar Hork-Bajir smile.
Then she did something I did not know could be done: She controlled the appearance of the blades so that they appeared, one by one, rippling up one arm, down the other, down a leg, up the next.
The horns grew the same way, one, two, three. She was showing off. Trying to impress me. And I was impressed.
<You have a talent for morphing,> I said.
<Thanks.>
I saw the subtle evolution from human to Hork-Bajir eyes. Colors shifted as the spectrum of visible light moved toward the ultraviolet, losing color toward the infrared end of the spectrum.
I saw the planet of the Hork-Bajir as a Hork-Bajir. I was truly home. Myself once more. Not a female, a male, but that was irrelevant.
I was Hork-Bajir!
All the others were completing their morphs. I was back with my adopted people. Or at least the illusion of my own people. And in my life as it was, at this moment, nothing could be free of illusion.
<Lead the way,> Jake said, obviously preferring to use thought-speak rather than struggle with the difficult Hork-Bajir diction.
<Cassie, I want ... it would be best if i controlled this body, for now.>
<Okay. Do it.>
I pointed upward, out of the valley. "To the trees!"
We ran up the narrow stairs. Hork-Bajir did not fear heights. Up the stairs, across the barrens, feeling the slope grow ever more steep. Up through the mist. And then, still at a run, my head rose through the mist and saw the first tree.
Huge! It was a curved wall, a monstrous Stoola tree. My hearts leaped. I ran straight for it.
Cassie ran. The Hork-Bajir ran. Andalite, human, Hork-Bajir all become one in the excitement of running, running, then leaping up, digging blades into the soft bark.
I was climbing. The experience that was so strange for an Andalite had been so strange for me for so long and was now so familiar.
To my surprise the human Cassie was both afraid of the growing height and, at a deeper level, strangely comfortable racing up toward the lowest branches a hundred feet or more up the trunk.
Of course. I should have realized: the arms that hinge through three hundred and sixty degrees, the strong hands with opposable thumbs, the feet with vestigial fingers.
<You humans are a brachiating species?> I asked.
<Of course. Our ancestors, the species that came before humans evolved, lived in the trees.>
<I felt that you were more at peace than an Andalite would have been.>
<Yeah, as long as we don't fall.>
<Hork-Bajir do not fall from the trees.>
Up and up, toes and blades biting the bark, racing straight toward "Father Sky."
<These are some seriously big trees,> Marco said. <This one tree could be lawn furniture for the entire country.>
<Why are we climbing?> Rachel asked. <I mean, we want to go somewhere, right? Not just straight up?>
<This is the way to travel here,> I reassured them. <Go up to go left or right.>
<I've been telling them that for a long time,> Tobias remarked. <Altitude is everything.>
<How's it look, Tobias?> Jake asked.
<I don't see any Hork-Bajir, or anything else except some small, fuzzy, monkey-looking things.>
<Chadoo,> I said.
<Whatever. Aside from that I just see some really, really large trees. I mean, these trees are up in my face. I don't mind flying through branches for a while, but I'm used to the air above two hundred feet being wide-open.>
We reached a long branch that ran almost level toward the south. Toward the valley's end where Dak and I lived. Had lived. Had given birth to Seerow.
If I had hidden weapons, it would be there. And it was my home. A week ago, to my mind, it had been home.
I had to see it.
I think this is the first time in the series we''ve seen actual climbing and brachiating.
I think this is the first time in the series we''ve seen actual climbing and brachiating.
I think with the monkey morphs in the rainforest we saw it a little?
Chapter 19
quote:
Run!
We raced along the branch. Ran at full speed on a curved, uneven, knotted branch.
Ran like giant squirrels, sure-footed, and yet, within a few inches of falling and falling and ... The end of the branch!
<Aldrea, the branch is - AAAAAHHHH!>
Leap! Fly! Falling, arms outstretched, falling, wind whipping by, a flash of Tobias, leaves the size of circus tents.
She stuck out a hand. Grabbed a thin branch, I could close my hand around it, too small to hold us, oh God, we were going to die.
Falling, the branch bending down and down and down and then, slower, slower, uh-oh, uh-oh, we were going back up! Spring action now whipped us up at dizzying, insane speeds, a giant rubber band, a slingshot, and at the top of the arc, she released.
<Aaaahhhhhhh!>
We flew, somersaulted, and fell, down, down, THUNK!
My Hork-Bajir feet bit into a new branch, a new tree.
<Okay, that was nuts!> I yelled. <Let's do it again!>
The others were following, move for move, more or less.
We took off again, more businesslike now, but still swinging wildly from branch to branch, tree to tree in a trapeze act like no one on Earth had ever seen.
Aldrea stopped finally and rested. She watched the others catch up. More specifically, she watched Toby. The young Hork-Bajir seer was blazing through the trees, smiling, laughing.
<She's all I have left,> Aldrea said.
<You must have relatives,> I said. <Andalite relatives.>
<She is all I have,> Aldrea insisted. <And I don't even have her. I have oblivion.>
I felt a chill. Aldrea was right. This person, this Andalite or Hork-Bajir, whatever she was who shared space in my brain, had nothing. She was not alive. Not truly alive.
Unless ...
Unless she refused to return to oblivion.
It occurred to me then, for the first time, that Aldrea could live, through me, if I permitted it.
No! No, this wasn't up to me. Was it?
She was alive, now. Alive in a way. She spoke and thought and felt and experienced and even learned. She was alive, but only by my grace.
Oh, my God. Was it my decision to make? Would I have to tell her when the time had come to return to nothingness?
Was I going to be the one to kill Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan?
The realization took my breath away. Aldrea felt my emotions.
<What is the matter?> she asked.
I couldn't answer. What could I say? If I'd realized before I accepted the Ixcila I'd never have agreed to go along. It was impossible. It was immoral. Aldrea was alive, and if she died again, if she ceased to exist, it would come from my own selfishness.
There it was, I thought, the fatal weakness that had drawn Aldrea's Ixcila to me. At some subrational, instinctive level, Aldrea's spirit had sensed the weakness in me. She had known that I could not, would not, demand her death.
Tobias came swooping past. <Aldrea, how much further in this direction?> he asked.
<Another quarter mile, no more,> she said. <There is a place where the valley grows so narrow that the trees reach across it and touch each other.>
<Not anymore there isn't,> Tobias said. Then, to Jake, he said, <Trouble ahead, fearless leader.>
<What's up?>
<You'll see for yourself in a few minutes,> Tobias said grimly. <Just keep your heads down.>
Cassie, who worries a lot about ethics, is worrying about ethics.
Chapter 20-Aldrea
quote:
Hearts in my throat I raced through the trees. All familiar, a path I had traveled a hundred times, a thousand, with Dak beside me, with Seerow hanging onto my belly as we moved.
Home. It was just ahead. Home.
And somehow, somehow, he would be there, Dak, strong, smiling, holding his arms open for me.
My son, my little one, my Seerow, he would be there in his nest, waiting, smiling happily to see his mother.
Impossible. I knew. I was not insane. I knew. And yet, the hope ... irrational hope. An emotion not touched by all that I thought I knew.
Home!
I swung faster and faster, leaving the others behind, with only the hawk for company, now.
I stopped. A clearing where there couldn't be a clearing. An open space between the branches ahead. Sky rather than leaves.
No. It couldn't be. I would die rather than see it. No.
I crept forward and now the others caught up. They stayed back, cautious, knowing something terrible had happened.
At last I did not need to go closer. I saw. A hundred trees, gone. The earth was scarred, bare. A huge, open space, naked beneath the sun.
The Yeerks had destroyed most of the valley's end. It had been dammed up. A muddy gray sludge filled a crudely constructed lake. Tree trunks formed the sides. Bisected branches formed the piers that extended out into the lake.
Only it was not a lake.
My home, my valley's end where the branches reached across the chasm to touch, was a Yeerk pool.
The others caught up to me. We all stood amid the high branches and gazed down at the devastation. The humans did not understand, of course, not really. This was my home. Not from decades ago, but from just the other day. Just the other day I left my husband and my son there. Just the other day they were alive.
<I'm sorry, Aldrea,> Cassie said.
It was true. I was dead. I saw, I heard, I touched and felt, and yet, I was dead.
This life was no life at all. This life was an illusion created by the Arn. My life was Dak. My life was Seerow. Everyone who had made up my life with theirs was gone.
I looked for any last clue to what had been. These had been trees I knew. Trees that had personalities, at least to me. They didn't have the near-sentience of some Andalite tree species, but they were individuals nevertheless.
Stoola, Nawin, Siff trees, all gone, most burned away by Dracon blasts. Those that remained had been used to form the dam. Four of them laid lengthwise, stacked, then buttressed by saplings.
Behind the dam a billion gallons of the sludge Yeerks love. I knew Yeerk pools. I had spent my youth on the Yeerk home world with my parents. This had to be one of the largest Yeerk pools in existence. It might be home to ten thousand Yeerks, even more.
Then I spotted something I knew. Barely visible from this range. A minuscule patch where the bark had been cut away. Nothing unusual: where there are Hork-Bajir, there is scarred bark.
<Friend hawk,> I called. <I understand your sight is very powerful.>
<Better than human,> Tobias answered. <Better than Andalite or Hork-Bajir, too.>
I told him where to look. And he described what I'd known he would see: The wood where the bark had been scraped away was cut with symbolic branches entwined. A bit of Hork-Bajir graffiti. A love letter.
<The Hork-Bajir symbol for undying love,> Toby told the others. <it sounds as if it contains the Andalite letters "A" and "D," as well.>
<The weapons will be there,> I said firmly. <Inside that tree. It has a hollow base. Dak and our fellow fighters used it as a hideout. There is a chamber inside, all smooth wood, silent and dark. The chamber is forty feet, almost round. Large enough to conceal a small transport ship. We cut a wide entry, disguised, grown over with new bark after each use.>
<You said you were not sure where the weapons are,> the Andalite said.
<I said I knew where we had most likely hidden them. That is the place.>
<it is part of the dam. It will be heavily guarded. Seven of us? It would be suicide, and for what? To learn that you made a mistake?>
<We mess with that tree,> Marco said, <the whole dam may come crashing down.>
<That's what she wants,> Rachel said. <Revenge.>
I said nothing.
<The entry you talked about, can you get it to open again?> Jake asked.
<Yes. It will still work. It was precisely constructed. And the water pressure will have kept it shut.>
<Water pressure?>
<Yes. The opening is on the far side of the tree. It is beneath the surface of the Yeerk pool.>
And I guess revenge she'll have.
EVERY ANIMORPHS BOOK
chapter 1: my name is jake. I can't tell you my real name, because I'm the leader of a special group of kids... we're called the Animorphs. Because we morph into animals and fight aliens.
chapter 16: 'god, please don't do this,' i begged on my knees. Visser Three had all of my loved ones hanging from his claws in his multi-armed alien morph and was slowly squeezing the life out of them. 'you must either choose them, jake, or the rest of your planet.' i couldn't take it. i started to morph into a cockroach.
chapter 23: as i felt my own brain slither down my throat and into my torso to reform into my digestive system, my bones also began to dissolve into dust inside my skin. my eyes shrunk back into my skull and i could see into eternity- i could see my own mind, taken over by the yeerk. i had already taken my last breath as a free creature, now i saw my last vision as a being of this dimension. suddenly, i was gone. and my parents would never even know i had died. was saving the world worth this? i wondered, if anyone on this planet could be forced to prioritize one life over another, what choice would they make? how can any decision be right, or wrong? i closed my mind off, and fell into eternal sleep, my last echoes of thought being of how humanity continued to live on, but not truly alive.
chapter 26: 'hey, bro, wanna go to mc d's and grab some fries?' marco asked, riding by on his skateboard. 'yeah, that'd be totally radical!' i answered, whipping out my own razor scooter. as i pulled a nasty kickflip, i felt eyes watching me. turning around, i saw my own dog, and thought of the horrible truth only i knew. we went to the mall to get big macs. it was a good day to not be dead.
Ah. the Animorphs movie script has leaked early, I see....
Ah. the Animorphs movie script has leaked early, I see....
Is that still moving forward? Has there been any more info since Applegrant washed their hands of it?
Is that still moving forward? Has there been any more info since Applegrant washed their hands of it?
There hasn't been any news in the past year. Some of it might just be COVID delays, but personally, I'd be surprised to see it get made.
There hasn't been any news in the past year. Some of it might just be COVID delays, but personally, I'd be surprised to see it get made.
Despite its barely-surface level ubiquity name recognition among millenials and Gen Xers, it's still a niche thing and a super hard sell, especially in a live action capacity. And with the YA movie craze now thoroughly dead at least for now, I think the ship has sailed on it. Especially when you have a pair of living hand grenade authors in Kathrine Applegate and Michael Grant who don't give a fuck about PR and will gleefully torch any adaptation of their work that they think blows ass--while it it in the process of blowing ass live.
animorphs can really only exist in a visual medium in an animated episodic capacity and if you're going to be faithful to the text actually showing the violence inherent to the series is going to gate it pretty hard behind ratings restrictions so it makes sense that it's never gotten an adaptation and likely never will
Plus the enormous PTSD
animorphs can really only exist in a visual medium in an animated episodic capacity and if you're going to be faithful to the text actually showing the violence inherent to the series is going to gate it pretty hard behind ratings restrictions so it makes sense that it's never gotten an adaptation and likely never will
It's weird to me that in the golden age of streaming TV shows, there's still an insistence on trying to turn exceptionally long IPs into movies rather than TV
It's weird to me that in the golden age of streaming TV shows, there's still an insistence on trying to turn exceptionally long IPs into movies rather than TV
Don't be silly. I'm sure it'll work out great, like the Last Avatar movie.
In all seriousness, I think an animated TV show, as was mentioned, would work better than a live action film. And while the YA movie craze is dead, I think there's still a market for "millennial nostalgia", I guess I'd call it. They're making a live action Avatar: The Last Airbender tv show, there was a Magic School Bus reboot, there's currently a Babysitters Club series, and while it's a little older, they just did remakes of He-Man and She-Ra. So I think there's a market out there, it's just a question if they can tap into it.
Chapter 21
quote:
It was not an easy plan to work out. We needed to get into the Yeerk pool itself. We needed to be able to function underwater. Aldrea needed to be in Hork-Bajir morph in order to open the tree.
Then, if she opened it, we needed to be able to get inside, enter the ship, and figure out how to fly it out of the middle of a log a hundred feet in diameter.
The plan we hatched was pure insanity. I knew this, not because Marco pronounced it insane, he thinks everything is insane. But I knew we were in trouble when Aldrea said it was insane.
"You have a better plan?" Rachel demanded. "Because we're all ears, here."
"What you are proposing is suicide!" Aldrea argued, speaking through me.
Marco laughed. "You've got my vote."
"We need a whale," Jake said. He looked at me, at Rachel.
"I'll do it," Rachel said. "Hey, it'll be -"
"No," I interrupted. "A sperm whale has a very narrow mouth. And I'm better at controlling a morph. Faster."
Rachel argued. Jake hung his head. He'd known it had to be me. I snuck my hand into his and he squeezed it briefly.
"This is not how morphing powers are used," Aldrea said. "Let's take our time, raid the Yeerks, take weapons, perhaps capture some Hork-Bajir and starve the Yeerks out of them, then, when we have an army -"
<You and Dak Hamee, all over again?> Ax said.
"I want this attack to succeed!" Aldrea shouted. "I don't want a wasted, futile effort. You humans are just children! What do you know about fighting the Yeerks?"
"They know quite a bit, Great-grandmother," Toby said.
Jake held up his hand, cutting off debate. "The Chee can't cover for us forever. We need to get this done and get out of here. Aldrea, yes, it's crazy. But we've been doing 'crazy' since Ax's brother showed up."
There was a vote. Aldrea pleaded with me to vote against.
<I trust Jake,> I said. <If he thinks we can do it, we can do it>
That's what I told her. What I felt was a whole different story.
<Cassie, don't be stupid,> Aldrea urged. <it is you who will die. The others will survive, but you will be the target.>
<I know.>
<If your timing is off by a few seconds ... too much speed ... too much mass too early ... Cassie, you won't just kill yourself, I am in here, too! If you are killed ... I won't have the option of returning to a bottle and awaiting some new chance at life.>
<I know that,> I said.
She was still arguing as I morphed to osprey. Still arguing as the others all morphed to flea or fly, all as small as they could get. Only Toby would not be coming along.
Once I was completely osprey, I picked the insects up, one by one. They crouched inside my beak. Not roomy or pleasant maybe, but safe enough.
I took to the air, released my grip on a high branch and floated out over the valley, out into the Hork-Bajir night. The narrow valley tunneled heat upward, an almost continuous thermal that made flying easy. I turned in a spiral, flapped, rested, flapped again, higher and higher.
I flew up till I could see the barren lands beyond the chasm. There the thermal failed, dissipated by horizontal winds. I was as high as I could go.
<That's it, boys, girls, and etcetera.> I said. <I can see the Yeerk pool. The dam is brightly lit. There's a Bug fighter more or less hovering at the far end. Hork-Bajir are patrolling the dam, walking along the top. Both banks of the pool. They have guards everywhere. So. You guys need anything before I start?>
I was trying hard to sound nonchalant. I was scared to death. I was so far up, but not far enough.
<I could use a soda,> Marco said.
<We're not the problem, Cassie,> Jake said. <Just don't open your mouth and we'll be okay. We'll start demorphing as soon as there's room.>
<Okay.>
I took a deep breath. I picked my aiming point: near the dam, but not too near. I didn't want to hit wood. I didn't want to hit as a full-fledged whale, either. A whale at that speed would be crushed by the impact.
Speed. It was all a question of speed.
I began to demorph.
So it's true that an Andalite wouldn't morph that way, but, as I think someone mentioned, the Animorphs have more experience with morphing than anyone else. Also, what I'm thinking about Aldrea and her argument for "Let's not do this, lets fight a guerilla war instead" is that she makes the argument if the plan fails, Cassie dies and so does Aldrea, which is true, but if the plan succeeds and they find the weapons, Aldrea probably dies too. A guerilla war is her best chance to stay alive for a longer period of time.
Chapter 22
quote:
<It can't be done!> Aldrea warned.
<Yes, it can,> I said. <I can do it. Now please, shut up. I need to focus.>
I began to demorph. My talons became pudgy and grew into toes. My feathers melted together like wax under a blowtorch.
My face flattened, my beak softened into lips. My sensitive human tongue could feel the five insects inside my mouth.
Don't open your mouth, I reminded myself. But that was only my secondary worry. That part was easy.
The hard part was keeping my wings.
I fell. Down and down through the night. Down and down toward the bright Yeerk pool below.
Down toward the still-oblivious sentries who could burn me out of the air.
I fell, more and more human. But my wings, my osprey wings, I kept.
Morphing is never logical or rational. Things don't happen in a neat, predictable sequence. No one can ever be sure how it will happen. But I could, with some part of my mind I couldn't even feel, some part of my brain with which I could not even communicate, shape the way the morphing happened.
Ax says I have a talent. A gift. It wasn't my doing, and I don't know where it came from or why I have it. But, as I fell and demorphed and fell, my human body, my short, pudgy human body had wings that grew and grew and spread wider than osprey wings can spread.
I couldn't flap them or even turn the edges or control a single feather, but I could hold them stiff, and as I fell, I fell ... slowly.
<You're doing it!> Aldrea cried. <Impossible!>
I fell slowly, reusing the accelerating pull of gravity. And then, only a hundred feet above the Yeerk pool, I began to morph to whale.
My feet twined together, like fast-acting ivy, or spaghetti twirled on a fork. They melted, and fused and my flesh grew thicker, fatter.
And still, I kept the wings.
Now I was within visual range of the Hork-Bajir guards. Now they could shoot at me, any moment, if only they looked up. One head raised to look at the stars and I would be -
Tseeeeeew!
A red beam appeared five feet from my face, then disappeared.
<Let go! Fall!> Aldrea cried.
<No! It's too early!>
<Jake, they're shooting!> I reported.
<Are we close enough?>
<I don't know!> I cried. <No. No, we're not.>
<Your call, Cassie. I trust you.>
Tseeeeew!
A second shot, this one behind me. More and more Hork-Bajir were looking up, goblin heads tilted back to see me.
They would not see a human. That was vital. We could not be here, certainly could not be humans. Humans on the Hork-Bajir home world? It would cause a galaxy-wide alert and bring more pressure than ever on Visser Three to find us, at all costs.
When the Hork-Bajir looked up they saw a melting, shifting thing with wide white wings and a whale's tail.
<Let go, tell you!>
<Not yet,> I grated.
Tseeeeeew! Tseeeeeeew!
<Aaaarrrgghh!> A hole the size of a quarter appeared in my tail fin, smoking.
Tseeeeeew! Tseeeeew! Tseeeeew!
Red beams everywhere, left, right, some so near I smelled the air burning.
<I am taking over,> Aldrea cried. I felt her will surge, a tidal wave inside my mind.
<NO!>
She was trying to fold my wings, trying to drop, reaching to take over my mind.
Tseeeeeew! Tseeeeeew!
A shot burned a seven-inch slice into my side. The pain was staggering.
My wings were ... closing ... losing the morph ...
NO! This was my body, this was me!
I shoved against the tidal wave of Aldrea's will, weak hands holding back a cataclysm. But my wings stayed firm. I fell, faster, but not too fast. Aldrea fought me, I fought back, but I still owned this body, this morph. We fell, the strange, sad Andalite turned Hork-Bajir, the dead creature with a will of iron, and me. And all the while I morphed. Morphed till my osprey wings grew heavy with flesh that was as much whale as human.
The ground fire was a wall of flame.
At last, close enough. I demorphed my wings and plunged.
Welp....
Yeah even as a kid I thought it was incredibly stupid that the TV series went with live action over animated. Maybe they did it because the target age was like 10-12 when I guess kids start aging out of "cartoons" or whatever, but looking at a book series that has a bunch of weird-alien species and people transforming into animals every single episode and going "yep we've definitely got the SFX budget for this" was insane.
Yeah even as a kid I thought it was incredibly stupid that the TV series went with live action over animated. Maybe they did it because the target age was like 10-12 when I guess kids start aging out of "cartoons" or whatever, but looking at a book series that has a bunch of weird-alien species and people transforming into animals every single episode and going "yep we've definitely got the SFX budget for this" was insane.
I don't think it's even anything as deep as the fear kids that age are aging out of cartoons or whatever. Scholastic was in a relationship with Protocol Entertainment, the low budget Canadian studio that was making a tv show out of Goosebumps for them, and got them to do Animorphs too.
quote:
Cassie, you won't just kill yourself, I am in here, too! If you are killed ... I won't have the option of returning to a bottle and awaiting some new chance at life.>
Oh for sure hon, that's definitely how you were planning on ending that sentence when you started it
Don't be silly. I'm sure it'll work out great, like the Last Avatar movie.
In all seriousness, I think an animated TV show, as was mentioned, would work better than a live action film. And while the YA movie craze is dead, I think there's still a market for "millennial nostalgia", I guess I'd call it. They're making a live action Avatar: The Last Airbender tv show, there was a Magic School Bus reboot, there's currently a Babysitters Club series, and while it's a little older, they just did remakes of He-Man and She-Ra. So I think there's a market out there, it's just a question if they can tap into it.
I know the ATLA Nickelodeon show also had a 20-something fanbase, but can it really count as "millennial nostalgia"?
I know that Cassie has been described as being really good at morphing before but is that the first time she (or any of them) has been able to morph without fully returning to human? She's pretty close to just morphing straight from osprey to whale there, though I suppose the technicality is that each part she's moving is going from osprey -> human -> whale.
I think it definitely is, and probably got listed somewhere as a "goof" when in fact it feels like a deliberate choice by the writer because she really is that good, and it harks back to the comment a few chapters ago about how the Animorphs probably are now better and more experienced with morphing than any Andalite.
I was talking to a mate about the Divergent series, and YA in general, and despite being aimed a younger audience I'm struck by how much better and more mature Animorphs is. Yeah, the plots are kinda simple and a bit Saturday Morning Cartoon, but the themes and characters are so much better than more modern crap.
It feels like modern YA wants to make a big deal about *ideas* but comes at them so hamfisted and adolescent. They want to be about eugenics and politics and war, but never seen to actually have anything to say about them. I've seen all the Hunger Gameses and I've no idea what they're actually trying to be about. Reality TV is bad, but also good? War is bad because your boss might do a terrorism?
With the caveat that I've never read Divergent, the impression I got (especially from the title tbh) was that it was strongly YOU ARE SPECIAL AND DIFFERENT which set a bit of a trend for YA and obviously taps into teenagers' mentality, especially the kind of teen likely to be reading books, which is perfect from a publisher's point of view. Harry Potter isn't dissimilar with the whole "chosen one" thing, and I think it's ultimately an unhealthy overall message even if those books (and Divergent, probably!) have other good morals in them.
Whereas Animorphs is basically: everything's fucked, the system is fucked, you're all probably fucked, which is much more true to real life and probably one of the key reasons it still resonates with adults who read it as kids, like most of us. I guess Tobias is "special" but that hasn't exactly helped him except to give him the mental fortitude to get by during very fucked-up moments of his fucked-up life. But the other part of the books are basically: hey, look, maybe we're all fucked, but you just have to try to do the best you can for yourself and your friends and society at large even if you're not sure it will make a difference in the big picture. Which I think is the better story than telling kids about the Saviour they can pretend they might be one day, or doing a Hunger Games style thing where war is awful but also thrilling and exciting.
(Also this isn't to say I think the purpose of YA fiction should be to impart good morals to children like stuffing a dog's medicine into some meatballs, which is also how YA has got itself into the weird fucking situation it's in today; but I do think that subconsciously going down certain narrative paths is probably indicative of other issues.)
I know the ATLA Nickelodeon show also had a 20-something fanbase, but can it really count as "millennial nostalgia"?
Maybe? It came out in 2005, which is around the time the youngest millennials were turning around 9-12 and in 2020, it was the most popular kid's animated show on Netflix.
Chapter 23-Aldrea
quote:
I had lost.
We fell, fell toward certain death, plunged tail first into the Yeerk pool, and still, all I could think was that I had lost.
Lost to a human child. I'd assumed the only question was one of self-restraint. I'd believed I could seize this body if ever I chose. But the little human female had held me at bay even as she performed an act of morphing that would have made her a hero among the Andalites.
No time to think about that. No time to think about how she could have ... no, there was a battle to fight.
We plunged deep in the Yeerk pool and now Cassie was growing with a shocking speed, growing so huge, so fast that the body was creating little whirlpools.
<Now I need you,> Cassie said.
I almost laughed. It was outrageous. Now she needed me?
<I am here,> I said. What else could I say?
<Use my eyes. Use my echolocation. Take us to the log and the opening.>
We swam, almost blinded by sudden, seething groups of Yeerks in their natural state, But the firing was done. The Hork-Bajir-Controllers could not fire on the pool. As the human Marco had predicted. Once in the pool we were safe. Until the Yeerks could evacuate their brothers, call them to the far end of the pool.
Then they would heat the water to steam with their Dracon beams and boil us alive.
Minutes. No more. Maybe less.
<I can't see,> I said.
<I'll fire echolocation clicks,> Cassie said. <You'll see a sort of sketchy picture. Relax into it. Let it happen to you, don't strain for it.>
She fired a series of rapid sonic hiccups. I read the picture. The sketch, really, as she had said.
<Left. A hundred yards. I think. I don't know.>
We were already moving, huge tail whipping the water, scattering lingering Yeerks.
In my vast mouth, the whale's mouth, Cassie's, I felt the others demorphing, growing. <Need some air soon,> Jake said.
Cassie kicked, changed the angle of her fins, and skimmed the surface. <Whales don't breathe through their mouths,> she explained. <I'll need to travel on the surface, keep my mouth open.>
As soon as we surfaced, the firing began.
Tseeeeew! Tseeeeew!
Misses that caused eruptions of steam. And hits that caused agony.
<Diving!> Cassie warned. <Everyone breathe deep!>
And down we plunged, turned, and stopped. <Jake. We're there.>
<We're ready.>
Pah-loosh! Pah-loosh!
<I heard something,> Cassie said.
<Taxxons. They're sending Taxxons in after us.>
<Rachel and Jake will take care of them. Demorphing, now! Jake! Three ... two ...> Cassie was confident that her two friends could stop a small army of Taxxons.
We raced toward the solid wooden wall ahead. We surged, dived, then suddenly rocketed up to the surface.
Into the air! Mouth wide-open. Amazing that this monstrous beast could almost fly!
<One!> Cassie cried. <Go! Go!>
Aximili and Tobias leaped. One real Andalite, one morphed Andalite. Marco bounded, in Hork-Bajir morph. They landed atop the dike wall battlement.
We crashed back into the water, used our momentum to race along the wall toward where I'd heard the Taxxons. <Now!> Cassie yelled. She opened the whale's mouth again for Jake and Rachel.
<Jake, Aldrea says we have Taxxons,> she warned.
<Yeah, I can smell them,> Jake answered.
Jake and Rachel, a pair of streamlined, dark-gray aquatic creatures with sharply raked fins and a head that seemed squashed and flattened.
<Hammerhead sharks,> Cassie said.
Pah-loosh! Pah-loosh!
<More Taxxons!>
<it doesn't matter. Taxxon versus shark isn't even a battle, it'll be slaughter. None of the Taxxons will live to tell their masters anything.>
<You sound sad.>
<I'm worried for Jake and Rachel. It will be horrible for them.>
"Sreeeeee-yah!"
A Taxxon's scream resonated through the water.
<Worse for the Taxxons, from the sound of it,> I muttered.
<Okay, Aldrea, our turn.>
Cassie had already begun demorphing, building up the smaller, subtler changes so that she could finish in a rush. This part was critical. The humans were determined that the Yeerks never know they'd been on the Hork-Bajir planet.
And yet, Cassie had to be human, at least for a moment between morphs.
It happened quickly, but not instantaneously. We shrank, shriveled, wasted away at a shocking speed. Human arms and legs emerged from the vast tons of blubber.
Whale lungs became human, and Cassie kicked for the surface.
<They'll see you!> I warned.
<Have to breathe,> Cassie said. <Trust my friends.>
Her head, our head, broke the surface. Deep breath. Again. Battle just over our heads atop the dike wall. Two Andalites, tails whipping, slashing, cutting. Hork-Bajir-Controllers backing away and running as one of their own kept yelling "Run! Run! Andalites everywhere! Thousands of them, run!"
Marco, of course.
The Hork-Bajir guards broke and ran. None was interested in a human face poking up from the filthy muck of the pool.
Cassie steadied herself. I felt her exhaustion.
<You're tired.>
<Yeah.>
<It's a miracle you're alive!>
<Yeah.>
She began to morph. Hork-Bajir features appeared, but more slowly now. Too many morphs too quickly. And each a work of art.
As soon as the first blade appeared I said, <Cassie, slam the blade into the wood. It'll help keep you from sinking.
I heard the sounds of Hork-Bajir-Controllers being rallied above, the shouts and threats of their sub-vissers.
The water echoed with the horrifying screeching of Taxxons.
<We are likely to be overrun within seconds,> Ax said calmly.
<He means, hurry!> Marco cried. <Hurry or we're toast!>
So while they're in the Yeerk pool, do you think Yeerks could infest them?
Only one chapter today, I'm leaving you on a cliffhanger, and the last two chapters of the book are tomorrow.
quote:
Her head, our head, broke the surface. Deep breath. Again. Battle just over our heads atop the dike wall. Two Andalites, tails whipping, slashing, cutting. Hork-Bajir-Controllers backing away and running as one of their own kept yelling "Run! Run! Andalites everywhere! Thousands of them, run!"
Marco, of course.
Probably may as well be speaking German as far as the Hork-Bajir Controllers on the homeworld are concerned
With the caveat that I've never read Divergent, the impression I got (especially from the title tbh) was that it was strongly YOU ARE SPECIAL AND DIFFERENT which set a bit of a trend for YA and obviously taps into teenagers' mentality, especially the kind of teen likely to be reading books, which is perfect from a publisher's point of view. Harry Potter isn't dissimilar with the whole "chosen one" thing, and I think it's ultimately an unhealthy overall message even if those books (and Divergent, probably!) have other good morals in them.
I'll actually give HP credit for its handling of the Chosen One - it kind of gets lost in all the prophecy-wanking, but in book 5/6 Harry is explicitly called out as kind of a shit chosen one. He's not the strongest or the smartest, he knows like two spells. But he's stubborn and driven, and will do what's right even if it's a terrible idea. That's some good stuff for kids.
quote:
(Also this isn't to say I think the purpose of YA fiction should be to impart good morals to children like stuffing a dog's medicine into some meatballs, which is also how YA has got itself into the weird fucking situation it's in today; but I do think that subconsciously going down certain narrative paths is probably indicative of other issues.)
Also very true. But if your book is overtly talking about politics and morality I think it's very fair to criticise it for the position it takes on things. Or, as seems more common, their complete lack of positions.
quote:
Of course. I should have realized: the arms that hinge through three hundred and sixty degrees, the strong hands with opposable thumbs, the feet with vestigial fingers.
<You humans are a brachiating species?> I asked.
I really enjoy outsider perspectives on humans, and looking back, stuff like this (and half the Andalite Chronicles) must have really shaped that as I was growing up. It's like when I look back at
A Series of Unfortunate Events and see the origin of almost my entire sense of humour.