9.4 KiB
R!Animorphs chapter 19: Rachel
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Author: u/callmebrotherg now posting as /u/callmesalticidae*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/19/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning
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Score: 38
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Created: 2016-04-03T09:06:17
Post:
Comments:
u/PeridexisErrant [+11] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (39 minutes later)
Well. This should make team dynamics... interesting.
And ohgod, what a munchikinable power this has turned out to be.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+7] (5 hours later)
But hold on...hive mind...won't the entire pool know that something's up?
u/Marthinwurer [+8] (5 hours later)
It doesn't matter in the short term; no one will know until the next controller wakes up. Unless there's a communication method that I'm forgetting about.
u/callmebrotherg [+4] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (9 hours later)
It will. :<
u/CouteauBleu [+7] We are the Empire. (40 minutes later)
Waaait wait wait. Z-Space pockets are recursive? I feel like they shouldn't be.
EDIT: By the way, when Rachel is morphed, and her real body carries the flies, which themselves carry the other morphed bodies... do they count as additional weight her pocket carries, thus making her window shorter? Does their pocket keep collapsing when they're being morphed away?
u/redrach [+4] (14 hours later)
I don't think they need to be recursive for this to work, that is to say, I don't think Z-space pockets need to be able to hold other pockets in turn.
It could be that the way the morphing tech works is that every time you morph, a Z-space pocket is created somewhere in Z-space and the controlling intelligence placed within it together with everything it takes with it, and a morph is generated in regular space. If someone else were to take the morph along with them into Z-space they're still taking regular matter into a new Z-space pocket, not putting a Z-space pocket inside another.
It's not recursion, it's linked lists.
u/FeepingCreature [+3] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (14 hours later)
Yeah but what happens to the control?
u/booljayj [+6] (16 hours later)
The original bodies in Z-space are put into a kind of stasis, where they aren't effected by the passage of time. I believe this was established when the Animorphs noticed that they didn't get hungry very often when they spent a lot of time in-morph.
It's only the presence of the active link between the Yeerk tissue in the morph body and the original that allows the original's mind to keep functioning. If the link itself were placed in the same stasis by putting the morph body into Z-space, I would imagine the entire system gets put on standby. None of the signals are being received in either direction.
The originals would either go into complete stasis or would effectively be unconscious. If they do notice any passing time, it might be in a kind of complete sensory deprivation.
u/FeepingCreature [+8] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (16 hours later)
I'm reminded of that Stargate fanfic about the development history of the Stargate.
At some point, I'd love to read the story of the Andalite engineer who had to deal with supporting these corner cases.
u/None [+6] (2 hours later)
Tangentially related, I discovered some tumblr blogs from the perspective of the yeerks which are quite fun: http://selfdeterminedsymbionts.tumblr.com/ http://yeerk.tumblr.com/
u/4t0m [+6] Chaos Legion (6 hours later)
Excellent as always.
(If you agree, consider supporting the author's patreon.)
u/xamueljones [+5] My arch-enemy is entropy (10 hours later)
Wait I'm confused....
Why would the Yeerks have to wait until a Gedd dips their heads in the pool by chance? That's only true for the first ever Gedd, and after that the Yeerks could easily arrange among themselves to only enter the left ear and exit out the right ear. No need to wait for the Gedd to come back, just arrange to swap off hosts while a Yeerk is leaving for another Yeerk to take control through the other ear.
u/KerbalFactorioLeague [+10] (13 hours later)
I think a yeerk's intelligence is linked to how intelligent the host is. the Gedd are barely sentient so I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't think of it
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (12 hours later)
What? No, that's overly complicated and incomfortable. See other there? Yeah, the cages. What did you think we built them for?
u/MultipartiteMind [+5] (10 hours later)
(Had to revisit chapter 3 to remind myself of the tip-off.)
I think I'm missing something about the 'alphabetical order'--if I count correctly it should chronologically be A-C-J-M-R, but the fourth doesn't look like M's perspective and the fifth doesn't look like R's perspective (unless I'm misunderstanding). Another interpretation of the alphabetical order comment, plus the 'over's they're all making a point of saying leads me to expect they should be saying Aover, Cover, Jover, Mover, Rover, but they aren't--so I don't see where the order is being conveyed.
Tip-off conversations: Any particular reason why they happened so chronologically close to each other?
Advice/Second opinion: Wasn't that just acquired? Why a need to ask for it again, or wouldn't it be a third opinion by that point? (Even if different due to up-to-dateness, some thoughts on the answer at that time should already have been had and witnessed..?)
Quite interested to see what happens next!
u/ketura [+7] Organizer (14 hours later)
Asking Marco the person allows him to lie, allows him to filter info. Asking Marco the morph removes that; you get a complete picture. Maybe she wanted a perspective she's more used to, where there's a modicum of doubt.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
You also get a ctrl-z if Marco the morph freaks out and can't be talked down.
u/CouteauBleu [+5] We are the Empire. (2 days later)
I think the original question was "Why ask real!Marco anything if what you want is a different perspective? Why not ask backup!Marco?"
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
Ah. My intention was that Rachel was thinking "Hmmm. I should probably maybe tell them that this is all my fault. But maybe Marco will literally kill me. So ... I'll do a dry run of the conversation with backup!Marco."
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (3 days later)
Yes. But once she is done talking to backup!Marco, she goes talk to real!Marco, and then she tells real!Marco she needs a second opinion. Wouldn't she have already had this second opinion from backup!Marco?
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (3 days later)
Not if she asked them different things.
To backup!Marco: "I did Dumb Thing. What're you going to do?"
Conclusion: It is at least safe enough for me to tell real!Marco.
To real!Marco: "Oh, you already know. Hm. Um. Well, I guess the next question then is ... what should I do?"
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
Forgot to mention in author's note: Next chapter is Garrett. I'm a little nervous about that, because original character, so I'm giving a heads-up for people to get used to the idea.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (3 days later)
You basically made Tobias and Visser 3 original characters in everything but name and loose backstory, so I think it won't be a problem (or, well, not a new one).
u/eaglejarl [+2] (4 days later)
I'm finding the perspective switching pretty confusing, especially when it seems to switch in the middle of a chapter. (I think? I wasn't sure.) Could you label the sections?
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (4 days later)
Paging /u/tk17studios
u/eaglejarl [+2] (4 days later)
Thanks.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (4 days later)
Not sure what specifically you mean by perspective switching. Each chapter is entirely from a single perspective (in this case, Rachel's). At one point, she's morphed into Marco, and at another, she's in a Tidwell body with Illim in control, but at all times, she's the "I" of the chapter.
If there's a specific thing I can clear up, I'm happy to try.
u/PrimeV2 [+2] (5 days later)
I was able to grok that it was always Rachel, if that's at all useful to know.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (5 days later)
If you would just put, e.g.: "~ Rachel ~" at the top of each chapter, that would help a lot.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (6 days later)
It ... does? I mean, the top of the page says "Chapter 16: Rachel."
u/eaglejarl [+2] (6 days later)
checks
So it does. I have no idea how I missed that. Carry on! Nothing to see here!
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (6 days later)
<3