26 KiB
r!Animorphs Chapter 08: Marco
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Author: u/callmebrotherg now posting as /u/callmesalticidae*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/8/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning
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Score: 39
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Created: 2015-10-05T02:48:35
Post:
Comments:
u/ketura [+13] Organizer (16 minutes later)
FUGSDGHGYTDFHJYCH!!
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (48 minutes later)
The Yeerks delight in the sensation of your pain.
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
I wonder to what degree the sensation of fear or pain in a host organism can be considered pleasant. If humans can enjoy the fear which comes from a horror film, how much more could a Yeerk enjoy the fear response?
Imagine a Yeerk putting its host in a situation which appears life-threatening, but which the Yeerk (and the Yeerk alone) knows is safe.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
There is that thing where, like, the body's physical response to a rollercoaster is identical to the body's physical response to being chased by a ravenous dog or whatever—a LOT of our interpretation of the physical effects of emotion is in framing.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
The Yeerk's evolutionary history will be pretty different from that of any other species, so its likely they have developed different emotional responses.
They likely get some sort of positive feedback for exerting their will over their host, but also need to be aware of the hosts risk signals
u/PeridexisErrant [+11] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (3 hours later)
...I demand more filler before the bad ending. It's not true to the original without more filler between the nightmare-inducing parts.
u/None [+9] (11 hours later)
Don'y worry, the next chapter is all about tobias and his friend having fun at the beach
u/drageuth2 [+5] (18 hours later)
So you're saying next chapter is.... Polo.
u/ketura [+7] Organizer (22 hours later)
This joke convinced me we need the Yeerks.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (16 hours later)
And then Tobias' friend is revealed to be a Yeerk. Oops.
u/Salivanth [+7] (a day later)
Predictions for Tobias:
Ch 2: Tobias's friend is a Yeerk.
Ch 3: Aximili is a Yeerk.
Ch 4: Tobias attempts to blow up Ax's ship, but the bomb is a Yeerk.
u/callmebrotherg [+5] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
Alternately:
Tobias wakes up. It has all been a dream, a terrible nightmare. His distress summons his friends, who swim over to comfort him.
It was A Dream All Along, and Tobias is a Yeerk.
u/None [+4] (2 days later)
Then he morphs into the cedrics diggories....
u/None [+10] (4 hours later)
Very good at making the hork bajir, taxxons and general Yeerk pool experience genuinely terrifying. - Not that they weren't sometimes in the originals, but other times they were just mooks
u/Zephyr1011 [+8] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (3 hours later)
Does Jake's body survive now, but without old Jake's consciousness or morphing powers? I forget how it works in this fic
u/callmebrotherg [+7] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (4 hours later)
We just don't know. This is when we find out.
u/FeepingCreature [+5] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (8 hours later)
If the process acts as a backup, I hope they remember to each acquire each other.
As somebody who never read the original, I wonder how Andalites stand on original-vs-copy and all that. Their tech seems like it should enable transhumanism...
Religious restrictions?
u/glowingfibre [+7] (16 hours later)
In the original, you don't lose your consciousness when you're stuck in morph. Tobias spends the rest of his life as himself in the body of a hawk. In fact a ton of other things have changed about morph tech, so the original doesn't even matter really. This isn't really that similar of a world.
u/None [+5] (11 hours later)
As somebody who never read the original, I wonder how Andalites stand on original-vs-copy and all that. Their tech seems like it should enable transhumanism...
IT never really comes up in the originals, but the tech there is a lot more handwavey so teh transhuman oppurtunities are less obvious than in this one
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (a day later)
In the original morphing into a starfish and being cut in half is a valid way to create fully functional clones if I recall.
I think since this science is more functional that would actually not work at all in the fic.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Yeah, that particular hack has been made impossible.
u/Salivanth [+4] (12 hours later)
When re-reading Chapter 7 in preparation for this chapter, I got to wondering how the "overwrite" process would work with intelligent creatures. If Jake does get his consciousness back from this, I came up with an exploit; someone can morph Elfangor (or a civilian can be forced to morph Elfangor), and stay in there until Elfangor's mind overwrites their own. Then they have his knowledge and skills.
I think there's a reasonable chance this is a possibility, because that would explain why the author made the "resonance" exist; it ensures that they can only have one Elfangor, not dozens or hundreds.
However, I also wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work, because it would fit into the current "You're all fucked" mood of the fic.
u/FeepingCreature [+5] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (13 hours later)
You could recreate Elfangor that way, but you'd be down a human. Pigeonhole principle; you'd be playing musical chairs with bodies.
u/TK17Studios [+7] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (16 hours later)
I was surprised at how many readers have offered this to me as a solution, along the lines of "just force some rando to morph Elfangor and then trap them past the time limit."
I can't tell if they've considered the moral ramifications/logistical difficulties surrounding this proposed plan and just dismissed them, or if they just haven't thought it through at all.
ó.O
u/callmebrotherg [+8] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (16 hours later)
I would not be surprised to learn that your readership is dominated by consequentialists. That being so, it's easy to conclude that a resurrected Elfangor is more valuable than a random human.
Heck, depending on what the size limit is, you could just grab a toddler and do it. Kids are cute, but the replacement cost on a two-year-old's minimal life experiences is, well, minimal.
Edit: if there weren't the resonance problem your best bet would probably be to just kidnap a bunch of people and turn them all into Elfangor. These people would come to shitty ends anyway if the war were lost, so you may as well kill them. You could make a hundred copies of Elfangor, and the minds you destroyed would still pale in comparison to the millions and millions that you saved (or, as Tobias points out, the quintillions in the rest of the Galaxy who would be saved by denying Earth to the Yeerks).
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (17 hours later)
Fair point. That falls in the "just dismissed them" category—dismissed for good reasons, but basically just "yep, don't care." =)
u/callmebrotherg [+5] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (17 hours later)
Hm. Now I'm wondering how intelligent you have to be to morph. Could you turn chimpanzees into Elfangor? Probably not easily, at least, and the time to train them would probably make the process costly, especially at this juncture, when you have seven billion humans, most of whom would need little training.
u/Salivanth [+3] (20 hours later)
Oh wow, that's a really good question. In canon, an ANT was able to morph a human after it acquired the morphing cube by accident, but I imagine this is not Reckoning!canon; morphing does require an actual act of will to both morph and acquire. So canonically, any animal can morph. In practice, not every animal will morph; and you can't force an animal to stay morphed with threats / idealism like you could a human.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (21 hours later)
But the animal wouldn't know there's a reason to change back.
For that matter, neither would a human, unless you said something.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (18 hours later)
On thinking about it for a while, I'm surprised none of them have gone "So all of you have acquired me, so let's bring back Elfangor and hope that when this is all over there'll be a body left over to bring me back." Morphs have resonance, but I presume there's no problem with (eventually) mindcloning an ordinary (trans)human(ist) and only giving one version the morphing power, who then would sacrifice themselves to resurrect some other acquired shape.
You'd have to do a bit of a dance - you can't acquire from morphs, so designate the person who has the original sacrifice backed up "backup one", designate our sacrificial fork "throwaway" - Throwaway would acquire Backup One, then Backup One would permamorph into the original sacrifice, resurrecting them - then Throwaway would permamorph into Backup One, resurrecting them in turn.
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (22 hours later)
Remember that based on what's been written so far, they have no reason to expect that there's anything "inside" a morph to save. None of them, for instance, have experienced any sensation of an internal monologue belonging to Elfangor's body when they morphed it.
u/Salivanth [+5] (a day later)
Indeed. It's one thing to sacrifice your life or the life of an innocent person in order to gain an advantage in a war. That's hard enough. To sacrifice a life in order to do an experiment? I don't think the Animorphs could possibly be that cold. I don't know if even Marco or Tobias would do that.
u/GreenSatyr [+1] (2 days later)
I mean, that does seem the sort of thing Marco would say, right? Greater good. I seem to recall canon Marko making that sort of call several times. He's the most clever and ruthless consequentialist of the bunch.
u/MugaSofer [+3] (a day later)
Heck, depending on what the size limit is, you could just grab a toddler and do it. Kids are cute, but the replacement cost on a two-year-old's minimal life experiences is, well, minimal.
Eh? I'm pretty sure it's either "infinitely high", as HJPEV put it, or super low for every human because kids are easy to make and they grow up into adults.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
It's the actual life experiences that I'm talking about though. A pair of two-year-olds from the same city will be more similar to each other than a pair of forty-year-olds from the same city. I don't advocate manufacturing our ammunition out of toddlers, but if I had to choose between sacrificing a toddler and sacrificing an adult, and achieve the same effect either way, then I'd pick the toddler.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
This thing has some relevant philosophy on the difference between those two evaluations:
u/Salivanth [+4] (20 hours later)
I haven't thought about the logistical difficulties, but I have thought about the moral ones. Yes, it's murder. The Animorphs would have to be desperate; but they are actually trying to win, and the situation IS desperate. As Marco and Tobias have both said, what's one life compared to the entire world? It's nothing.
That said, it's still a large step to make. My prediction; even if this does work, they won't do it until at least one of the six dies. Then they'll overcome their reluctance to sacrifice a human, or one of the Animorphs will sacrifice themselves.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
The human would still be "backed up" though if someone else acquired them. So you've essentially got immortality on a timeshare
u/noggin-scratcher [+3] I am a happy tree (a day later)
My memory is supplying "if you stay morphed too long then the pocket dimension with your original form collapses and disappears and only the morph-form remains"
But how that works when you've morphed into yourself is as yet undefined. Whether we'll have a blank-slate new Jake from the moment he was acquired (maximum optimism), or an even blanker slate with the mind of a child (as a default for 'human') or if something else will happen... seems likely that it can't be good though, or Elfangor would have had reason to try it.
u/None [+8] (4 hours later)
Reminds me a bit of the troll in HPMOR, you don't get nice safe ability appropriate encounters in real life, sometimes you're just killed
u/PeridexisErrant [+13] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (9 hours later)
Oh, phew, Jake will come back as a magic gorilla-andalite-lich hybrid via extremely dubious circumstances involving a morphing accident.
This chapter had me worried for a while.
u/ketura [+8] Organizer (12 hours later)
WAIT GUYS HE'S GOING TO BE AN ANDALITE PRINCE(ESS)!
u/PeridexisErrant [+4] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (12 hours later)
War Princess, you say?
^(I have to sleep, it's 3am here)
u/Kishoto [+7] (2 hours later)
...I'm not crying......
u/TimTravel [+5] (16 hours later)
Nice!
If those were taxxon-controllers, they're going to remember seeing them there.Actually the only witnesses died so it checks out.
u/chaosmosis [+2] and with strange aeons, even death may die (18 hours later)
Are taxxons typically controllers? I thought Yeerks didn't go inside them, because they hated feeling the hunger.
u/TimTravel [+3] (18 hours later)
Pretty sure. There was definitely a point where Andalites were posing as Taxxon-controllers in one of the extra books.
u/chaosmosis [+2] and with strange aeons, even death may die (18 hours later)
Oh yeah, I remember that. Poor guy.
u/nicholaslaux [+5] (20 hours later)
So to counteract the terrible mood of this chapter, let's list out the possible positive sources of help that haven't been explored thus far:
Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, and whatever remains of the crashed dome ship. (Personal expectation: He could very well be dead, the Andalite structure could be different and he not have been left alone, or the Yeerks could be en route to recover the Andalite technology from the remains. Outlook: Not good.)
Erek King and the Chee. (Personal expectation: Might not exist, might not be friendly, or might be restricted from interfering in any way due to their programming. If they exist in any form similar to the originals, this might be their best bet. Outlook: Unknown, but possibly positive.)
Visser One/Visser Three political infighting. (Personal expectation: I actually thought the original series was pretty accurate in terms of showing a large organization dealing with political in fighting, from my experience with corporate culture. That having been said, given everything we've seen, the author seems willing to change enough from canon that this simply might not exist or they might just work together. That said, the focus on Marco's mother this chapter makes me think Visser One is likely to play a part in the future of the plot. Outlook: Could go either way.)
The Ellimist and the Crayak. (Personal expectation: Probably doesn't exist, if they do, it remains to be seen what if any impact on reality they have. Outlook: Probably irrelevant.)
Things that could help the Animorphs but likely won't:
Yeerks in their native form are vulnerable to high temperatures and oatmeal. (Unknown how this information would be acquired.)
Kandrona Ray requires a high amount of power, possible to disrupt the feeding source by knocking out the power feed and somehow disrupting the generators.
Yeerks may not be intrinsically evil, so maybe they'll encounter that one host/symbiote species to allow them to stop the spread of abduction?
That's what I've got so far. Amy other ideas from others who have read the original books?
u/Salivanth [+6] (20 hours later)
The Ellimist almost certainly exists in The Reckoning, and has already affected the outcome of the story twice, probably three times.
Elfangor said the seven of them (Elfangor + Animorphs) had been moved into place by what the Animorphs might call God. If even half of the coincidences in the original book (Cassie has unusual morphing powers (True), Tobias is Elfangor's son, Visser One is Marco's mother (Probable)) are true, this is too unlikely to be coincidence.
Even in canon, this is not coincidence; when Crayak agreed the Ellimist could have six champions, the Ellimist stacked the deck. Then Tobias randomly finds a sperm whale of all things just lying on the beach. In addition, the Ellimist deciding that the six should have unusual cognitive abilities is probably a thing.
The other thing that could help is the Time Matrix, but that's so OP that I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist in The Reckoning.
u/TK17Studios [+7] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (20 hours later)
Kind of makes you wonder which times Crayak has already affected the outcome of the story, right? I mean, if they're actually playing fair chess, and the Ellimist has already made moves on camera, then it follows that Crayak has, as well...
u/Salivanth [+5] (a day later)
Agreed. It seems pretty obvious that Crayak would have set up Esplin and Alloran during the 'setup phase' so to speak, given the unlikelihood of such a thing occurring. Not only is an Andalite-Controller nigh unheard of in canon, Alloran himself is literally the worst possible Andalite for the Yeerks to have captured, at least among the set of Andalites Esplin has met. It screams of a Crayak move: "The best Andalite mind in your army is captured by the Yeerks, and is mine now. Your move Ellimist. No tagbacks, remember?."
As for moves 'on camera' ... I may have to read what's been done so far again. It may also be possible, as I mentioned earlier, that the Ellimist gets more 'moves' than Crayak, as he clearly controls the weaker side in this conflict. Depending on your definition of 'on camera', I wouldn't be surprised if Crayak disabled Elfangor's planet-killer to prevent an Ellimist win. Or perhaps both sides agreed this would be done in order to set the stage for the conflict.
I love the fic so far, by the way. The combination of rationality, speed, and lethality is amazing. I follow along with very few fics, normally preferring to read it when it's completed, but I'm definitely looking forward to participating in the ongoing theorycrafting with this one. This is something I NEVER do, for fear of spoiling the story, but I don't think that'll be a problem here. Even if we solve some of the mysteries, the story itself will still have twists and turns we couldn't or didn't see coming.
u/nicholaslaux [+3] (20 hours later)
Oh right, I forgot about the time matrix. If Cassie actually has unusual morphing powers (has that actually been shown?) then I expect that will make a difference at some point in the series.
The issue with having the Ellimist/Crayak is that you either end up with a Rube Goldberg contraption of events leading to the finale, which seems unlikely to make sense in an explicitly rational fic, or he's vastly underpowered for some unknown reason.
But I suppose we'll see as it continues.
u/Salivanth [+5] (a day later)
In Cassie's viewpoint chapter, she morphed an elephant in a very specific series of steps in order to hide it from her mother for as long as possible.
Technically, it has not been determined that this is not a standard feature of Reckoning morph technology, but I'd say there's an excellent chance this is a nod towards Cassie's canon ability.
In canon, the Ellimist and Crayak agree to rules in their contest, as they almost destroyed the galaxy in their battle during the Ellimist Chronicles. I imagine similar rules apply here. My current guess:
Each side is allowed a certain number of setup moves, which have occurred before the fic began. The Ellimist, having the weaker side, might be allowed a certain number of extra moves within the game itself, or perhaps he set up the sperm whale during the set-up phase, and it didn't finish until the 'game' had already begun.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Also, no one has mentioned the Arn or the Skrit-Na.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (20 hours later)
Without commenting on these or the ones above ...
There were, in canon, two other Andalite crash survivors on Earth (Gafinilan and Mertil)
The Leerans exist, and if canon timelines hold at all, are actively fighting the Yeerks
u/nicholaslaux [+4] (20 hours later)
The alien species I was thinking of was the Iskoort, not the Leerans. They biologically engineered a species that required the parasitic species to live, but similarly engineered themselves to be dependant upon that species, preventing them from taking over any other species.
Seems a bit of a long shot, but I figured I'd cover any/all bases I could think of that existed in canon.
If there are any of these that we're both unlikely to encounter in the story and also don't exist, feel free to share if you'd like.
u/TK17Studios [+4] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
Ooh! Hurrah!
/likes that second bit
/increases likelihood of his WMG!
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
Oh God. I had managed to suppress the memory of those.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
^^WE ^^ARE ^^THE ^^RIGHTFUL ^^RULERS ^^OF ^^THE ^^GALAXY
u/MugaSofer [+2] (a day later)
The Leerans exist
And ... are they anything like canon? Because canon Leerans were perfect telepaths, and broken as all hell.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Currently all the reader has is an oblique reference from Visser Three:
If the Andalites had indeed managed to overcome three (possibly four!) of the morphing technology’s largest weaknesses, then the Leeran morph (with all of its disadvantages) was now the only method of determining which of his subordinates could be trusted.
u/IWantUsToMerge [+3] (21 hours later)
I have no idea what I'm talking about but: How about the people in the cages? Say they got a little bird into the weapons locker, changed into a gorilla, gathered up as many weapons as they could then ran them over to the cages. Some of the people in those cages would understand immediately, start shooting. The ones who didn't get it could be used as cover. The demons would be quickly outnumbered.
u/None [+3] (23 hours later)
The Ellimist and the Crayak. (Personal expectation: Probably doesn't exist, if they do, it remains to be seen what if any impact on reality they have. Outlook: Probably irrelevant.)
The weird coincidence of the whale washing up on the beach at the exact right time was called attention to already, i think thats likely ellimist inerference as in canon
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Small question: in canon, that was actually Crayak, acting through the Drode, was it not? Ellimist unwilling to kill an innocent whale, and all that?
u/nicholaslaux [+2] (23 hours later)
I should maybe have re read some of the earlier chapters since I suppose I'm missing some things. Thanks for pointing it out.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
Yeerks may not be intrinsically evil, so maybe they'll encounter that one host/symbiote species to allow them to stop the spread of abduction?
In canon there is a Yeerk peace movement who want a more symbiotic lifestyle, or use the morphing technology to leave their bodies and become other creatures permanently, i could see something like that happening given the emphasis on Yeerk internal politics already