14 KiB
Animorphs: The Reckoning Chapter 11: Tobias
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Author: u/ketura Organizer*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/11/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning
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Score: 33
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Created: 2015-12-03T16:42:09
Post:
Comments:
u/ZeroNihilist [+13] (3 hours later)
Twenty fucking hours under the sea,
The famous book by Jules Fucking Verne.
u/chaosmosis [+10] and with strange aeons, even death may die (8 hours later)
They just got memetically spam mailed, didn't they?
"hey its me ur brother"
u/ketura [+5] Organizer (8 hours later)
sir. sir i am need rescue.
u/chaosmosis [+7] and with strange aeons, even death may die (4 days later)
Good Earth-evening,
I am known by my people as War Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, and I come to you with the gravest of news. Beggars are despised in the eyes of the Elimist (praise be upon him), but I do not write for my own sake and tonite the fate of the very galaxy may be at stake. Due to an attack by vicious Yeerk slavers, my ship has take damage and crashes landed on a planet. In my possession is a secret artifact vitally important to the war against Yeerkish tyranny. This artifact has ancient powers beyond your imagination so I dare not describe more here. It must not be allowed to fall into their grasp, lest all be lost. I require a mere 100,000,000,000,000 barrels supply of your Earth petroleum in order to refuel and repair my ship, as well as may be a few tons of assorted metals for electronic. I shall refine all necessary plastics myself, in order to minimize the burdens I must place upon you and the time of repair.
Please hurry, as even now Yeerk fighters are searching for my position. The price is very low, compared to the costs of freedom. Generosity finds its own rewards in the universe's time. Delay not, or we are all doomed.
Your hopeful freind,
Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, son of Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf and Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen, belovid war hero, defender of the Andalite homeworld and freedoms throughout the universe, etc.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (7 days later)
All right, you clearly need to be a guest author at some point.
u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (10 days later)
I am very happy to get this offer and compliment, thanks so much! I really do love your work in this fic. You rock!
I would be willing to do so, but I don't want to "steal" your story at all since I love seeing you work with it, and also I don't think I have nearly enough skill as a writer. I will be happy to continue spitballing ideas your way, however. If I ever get the urge to write down a few paragraphs that might actually be usable, I will send them to you. Also, I am willing to be a full-fledged beta reader for you, if you want. I almost do this anyway, seems like, so might as well make it official.
I might not have reliable computer access in the next couple weeks, however, since the casing on the dumb Toshiba laptop I've been using broke yesterday and needs to be repaired. I'll try to send you a PM soon on some ideas I was playing with last night, regardless.
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (4 hours later)
Even though I glanced at other comments before reading the chapter, I did NOT see this ending coming. And now Tobias doomed all the humans to death by quantum virus. Yeaaaaah !!! (okay, probably not)
Otherwise, I wonder who the two next updates are going to feature. I hope we get to see someone new. The best parts of Animorphs were the host/yeerk POVs, and I really want to know about yeerk culture and how they deviate from canon.
And finally, a question for the author : are the animorphs going to meet the governor soon ? A major theme of the 'fic is how pressed for time the kids are, so they should try to coordinate with the military as soon as possible.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (13 hours later)
No spoilers re: governor, etc. =P
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (a day later)
Sad face.
As far as governments handling secret aliens invasions go, I thought Parasyte had a very fresh take on the subject. The government figure out that aliens are invading pretty early (makes sense, they're not exactly subtle about it) and decide to cover it up as long as they can. In the meanwhile, they study the parasytes, learn their weaknesses, figure out methods to detect them, and by the time they confront them, it's a (somewhat two-sided) slaugther, and the military wins quickly.
u/russxbox [+4] (an hour later)
And off it flew, into LEO, where it was shot to pieces by the Yeerks.
I'm ashamed to admit that I rushed through reading this one in the hopes that Erek would be reviving Jake at the end, in a "what's going on elsewhere" epilogue. Guess I'll have to wait for the 16th.
u/Salivanth [+4] (10 hours later)
Well. That was simultaneously completely unexpected, and left me feeling like I absolutely should have seen that coming. Perfect rational fiction.
u/iamthelowercase [+3] (6 hours later)
Waitaminute, waitaminute - did they just completely not even bother to check that the thing they found was the thing they're looking for? I mean, before you open the presumed telepathic escape pod, you check that is actually the telepathic whatsit that you are looking for. Right?
u/TK17Studios [+6] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (6 hours later)
Sorry—some things happen off-screen, and I was hoping that the sensible-signaling in the opening paragraph of the last section would ALSO imply to the readers that yes, they did due diligence in checking the beacon. Probably worth adding a sentence, though; I'll go do that now.
u/iamthelowercase [+3] (10 hours later)
I'm mostly just shocked because based on what I thought I understood, "checking" should have happened automatically, whether they did it on purpose or not. The Andilite form they use to open it is also the one they use to detect it, after all. I didn't actually think it didn't occur to them to check it. ...Although in retrospect that would be a valid interpretation of what I remember reading, huh.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (12 hours later)
You are correct. I went ahead and added in exactly what you are describing—explicit presence of the <ELFANGOR. BROTHER. HELP ME.> message is now shown in the text.
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (7 hours later)
Well, while what you suggest is commendably prudent, it's not that obvious. I mean, they were looking for an alien pod, they found something that looks a lot like an alien pod in the area they know it was in, and it's not like shipping companies spend their time dropping alien-looking ovoids in the ocean to trick foolish teenagers with attitude.
Though it could have been a decoy pod set to explode in case it was found by the yeerks, with no way do differentiate it from a real one without andalite telepathy.
u/iamthelowercase [+2] (10 hours later)
Okay, that's a fair point. It's just that checking would be literally trivial if he waited a few more seconds. The telepathic signal you've been following is not coming from the pod in front of you? Well... crap.
u/nicholaslaux [+2] (50 minutes later)
Whelp. That was a thing that happened.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (14 hours later)
Not your favorite chapter?
u/nicholaslaux [+3] (20 hours later)
Probably just needs another reread or time to sit and think, because I don't feel like I have any clue what happened to the pod.
I liked the squid acquisition part, felt very Animorphs-y
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
In completely unrelated news, next chapter is Ax.
u/Kishoto [+4] (a day later)
In completely unrelated news, next chapter is Ax.
Dont try and just sneak that past us. I see what you did there. ^_^
u/nicholaslaux [+2] (a day later)
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
u/Salivanth [+5] (a day later)
My take on it:
You're an Andalite. You know you're on a planet with a Yeerk presence, and the presence of humans, who you probably know lack the technology to find you.
When a couple of humans with Andalite morphing technology find you, what's more likely? Some Andalite gave humans morphing technology, AND they managed to somehow find you when their only hint could have been advanced alien sensors or a message keyed only to Elfangor?
Or that the Yeerks have found the pod (whether by infesting Elfangor or with Alloran's tech), and sent Controllers to grab you and turn you into one of them?
Why would you stick around to find out?
So, naturally, you head into space. The Yeerks may still be able to hunt you down, but at least then they're much more likely to have to kill you to stop you in space, and we know the canon Andalites are willing to kill themselves in order to avoid infestation.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
Agreed. The squid fight was genuinely terrifying followed by the eerie calm of the exploration of the seabed.
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (4 hours later)
Typo thread !
There should be a separator between and "Okay, let's go over it one more time"
In chapter 5 (the first Tobias chapter), Cassie makes a list of dogs they could use to sniff out controllers. Then "Guys," Rachel called out, interrupting Marco mid-rant. "We could use a German sheperd to sniff them out." -> I think a line from Marco has been omitted here.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (5 hours later)
Thanks for the heads-up on the separator. FF is all screwed up with separators for some reason. Currently it's deleted a separator AND the line after [<Is that it?> Garrett asked.]
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (6 hours later)
What about the second one, in chapter 5 ?
EDIT : Oh, okay then. I'm going to re-read this now.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (6 hours later)
That one's not a typo, though perhaps the writing could be clearer. The thing going on there is that Marco and Jake are arguing, loudly, in the background, but Tobias is focusing on Cassie and Rachel whispering quietly. Then Rachel speaks out loud, interrupting whatever-Marco-was-saying, it-wasn't-relevant-therefore-it-wasn't-spelled-out.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (7 hours later)
Nevermind, it all makes sense now. If you want to make it clearer, I'd suggest inserting a short cut of Marco's rant between the two lines (like "-and seriously, we CAN'T afford to just-" "Guys." Rachel said, interrupting Marco mid-rant)
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (2 days later)
By the way, there's a weird line of commas and hyphens before "Is that it", and it was already here in the first version. What's up with that ?
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
That was where there was a dividing line that absolutely refused to show for a long time, so I added the commas and hyphens as a crappy hacked-together solution.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (3 days later)
Okay, why are you even posting on FF.net ? If it gives you so much trouble, ArchiveOfOurOwn seems like the obvious choice. (though posting on both gives you more publicity, I guess)
u/CopperZirconium [+2] (a day later)
Awe yes! You're using the art I made!
The ending was surprising. Why did the pod blast off into space after sending a distress signal? It could apparently handle rapid atmospheric movement but not operate in water? It seems odd that a escape pod couldn't handle a water landing. Something's not quite right here; this pod is not behaving like I expect an escape pod to behave.
u/Salivanth [+2] (a day later)
My assumption is that since Elfangor didn't show up to rescue him, Ax has assumed (quite reasonably) that the Yeerks have found him, not uninfested humans with morphing technology.
u/nicholaslaux [+1] (2 days later)
How did he immediately know it wasn't Elfangor? Tobias was in Elfangor morph.
u/Salivanth [+1] (2 days later)
My bad. Need to re-read the chapter. Okay, that hurts that theory.
u/LaNuitDuChasseur [+2] (6 days later)
Heyo u/TK17Studios,
Just wanted to check in and say I'm really diggin' your fic, here. It's just as good as published stuff out there; I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson's fairly popular Mistborn trilogy, and r!Animorphs: The Reckoning is stronger imo.
Also, in case it's of interest to you, I haven't actually read any Animorphs books, despite having had a handful on my shelf growing up. I get the sense that most of your readers have read the original series. I'm clearly not getting any of the references to the original series, but I have a perspective on whether or not the fic makes sense for someone who is unfamiliar with it. It has all been clear so far!
Keep up the awesome work. I really appreciate your contribution to the rapidly growing body of quality rational fiction.
Cheers,
LaNuitDuChasseur
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (7 days later)
Wahoo! Hooray for not being opaque to new readers, and thank you very much for the high praise.
u/iamthelowercase [+0] (6 hours later)
Waitaminute, waitaminute - did they just completely not even bother to check that the thing they found was the thing they're looking for? I mean, before you open the presumed telepathic escape pod, you check that is actually the telepathic whatsit that you are looking for. Right?