17 KiB
r!Animorphs: Chapter 19(a): Tobias
-
Author: u/TK17Studios Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning*
-
URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/23/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning
-
Score: 27
-
Created: 2016-06-05T07:49:15
Post:
Comments:
u/CouteauBleu [+17] We are the Empire. (3 hours later)
I don't think that Tobias's strategy up to this point was a good one. Jumping at every shadow and refusing to move until you have 100% confidence it's not going to backfire is a textbook case of over-optimization. This is the same trade-off the yeerks face: being cautious means you reduce the risk of making mistakes or leaving weaknesses for your enemy to exploit, but it also means giving your enemy more time to prepare and plan and exploit the few weaknesses you leave.
Spending weeks doing background checks and looking for spies is a waste of time; Tobias could have started with recruiting intelligence agents right away, with the fastest process that was still reasonably safe; something like: find identity of agent, morph them, read their mind, unlock the morph and simulate the conversation a first time, if it goes well, do the actual conversation, ask them for the identity of superiors and better placed agents, maybe give them the morphing power, rinse and repeat.
Anyway, really liked this update. I'm not sure how to describe it (other than "it's well written"), but you have this thing were things I would expect to work easily are hard and painful, and things I would expect to be hard and challenging work very smoothly, and it makes a lot of sense in retrospect.
That's kind of the opposite of the canon "Animorphs talk to army people" scenes. The canon authority figures are ridiculously overskeptical, and dismissive of the main characters, like that scene where Jake tries to talk to General Doubleday and gets thrown in a cell three or four times, and nobody bothers to monitor it to learn how he escapes, or wonder the point of putting away someone who proved he couldn't be contained, or think that a fly transforming into a teenager is super weird and important and maybe we should listen to what he wants to say. On the other hand, as soon as the adults learn Earth is being invaded, they immediately become complacent and ready to accept the authority and tactical acumen of a group of ragtag teenagers. "Oh, so you want me to send a platoon to their deaths to distract the mothership for, like, five minutes while you execute your commando mission that I haven't approved or even been briefed on? Sure, go ahead."
Anyway, I'm not used to authority figures as compelling characters, but you're doing a good job on that point. Jeremiah is both suitably open minded and willing to listen, and reasonably cautious. He makes good points too, about the "we don't know who's the bad guy" thing.
u/360Saturn [+12] (3 hours later)
What I did find compelling while reading though is that Tobias is not Marco. Marco would be able to know or work out the best strategy by trial and error, quick thinking and if necessary, improvisation. Tobias is more likely to know his own limitations and thus be overly cautious. It's good to see the canon characters powered-up (logicked-up?) but not too OP.
u/CouteauBleu [+7] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
Agreed. I think it's something that the fic' conveys very nicely, that the kids are in a terrible situation and cannot afford to make mistakes.
u/TheJamesRocket [+4] (a day later)
"Oh, so you want me to send a platoon to their deaths to distract the mothership for, like, five minutes while you execute your commando mission that I haven't approved or even been briefed on? Sure, go ahead."
Actually, general doubleday was able to put together a full battalion for his diversionary attack. As far as fictional battles go, that one was pretty interesting. After the animorphs blew up the yeerk pool, they torched the entire city and landed the pool ship on its ashs. This fact made doubledays mission alot harder because even if he launched the attack from los padres forrest, his troops would have needed to cross at least 2 miles of open ground. Terrain that was completely devoid of cover, and crawling with thousands of yeerk soldiers. Never mind the not inconsequential fact that the pool ship itself was shooting at them!
Another interesting fact: The pool ship was so enormous that no human weapon could conceivably destroy it. If it had the same dimensions and density as the [borg sphere] (http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvolumetrics.html#mozTocId697772) (that is to say, 600 meters in diameter, and built like tin foil), it would have a mass of 126 to 489 MILLION tons. Considering the inability of [anti-ship missiles] (http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/8838/Battleship-durability-vs-antiship-missiles#.V1X1ueTSR1E) like the harpoon or exocet to threaten even a 50,000 ton battleship, there is no possibility that they could damage something that is larger by 3 orders of magnitude, and probably built of far stronger materials than ordinary steel. (A valid assumption, considering the pool ship doesn't collapse in an earth gravity well)
u/CouteauBleu [+5] We are the Empire. (a day later)
Yeah, canon Animorphs handled the power disparities between modern and space-faring militaries pretty realistically. On the other hand, the Animorphs's effectiveness was super buffed, with a Batman-like tendency to go through perimeters, security measures, guards and fortifications like they're not even there. It helps that the yeerks never seemed to use passwords, security booths, surveillance cameras, satellite tracking, or any form of security more complex than locked doors and "shoot at the good guys when you see them".
u/CoolGuy54 [+1] (21 days later)
Without disputing anything relating to spaceships, I had a conversation about Battleships versus AShMs recently, and I think you (and that 5th poster) seriously overstate their invulnerability.
This is pretty off topic so I won't expand, I'm sure your linked thread will get there somewhere in it's 19 pages anyway.
u/TK17Studios [+10] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 minutes later)
@u/TheJamesRocket has a pretty amazing analysis of the link between canon locations and real life, available here; I'm adopting this for r!Animorphs going forward, as demonstrated in this chapter.
It's only half! I fell prey to planning fallacy again. I'll post the second half (hopefully) within the week, and then combine them back into a single entry later (at which point I'll also post on ao3).
Because it's being posted in the middle of being written, it's particularly ripe for your critical feedback; if you've had negative things to say about the story thus far and have been holding back, well—I'm literally asking for it.
u/Agnoman [+8] (an hour later)
I know it's not the useful feedback you might be looking for, but I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying this story, and thanks for putting it out there. It's great stuff.
u/TheJamesRocket [+2] (a day later)
Thanks for the shout out. I'm glad to see my work referenced by other fans. Its too bad that ventura county is going to be cratered by that asteroid, though :(
u/philophile [+8] (12 hours later)
I love your story, and I'm starting to think I'm getting a bit too invested. This is because I really wish I'd had either a bit more or a bit less information about when the update was coming (I'm bitter because I was so looking forward to the update that I spent half of yesterday refreshing ff.net, but eventually had to give up and go to sleep before the update). Not complaining- I realize that's my own problem and will be taking steps not to feel that way again, but I also wouldn't be surprised if others felt the same. Take it as a weird kind of achievement maybe? Your fans have graduated to "clamouring" status!
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (13 hours later)
If it makes any difference, I really am sorry (and in retrospect, I'm also glad I chose to post a half-update rather than nothing).
u/philh [+2] (a day later)
Eliezer partly solved this problem by saying what time updates would be posted, but not what day. E.g. if he said "some wednesday, 7pm PST", then readers only had to check for updates once a week.
u/Agnoman [+4] (a day later)
Apparently this created huge issues for him though, and he sees it as a mistake.
IIRC, he talked about how as he approached "7pm" he'd end up rushing through the end of the chapter, with the aim of getting it up that day. Alternately, he'd end up finishing, then have to sit there and wait to post, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a lot longer. I can't remember the exact issues he said this led to, but he attributes this method as one of the reasons that the writing of HPMOR slowed down.
The bottom line was that he ended up thinking that that inflexibility was a Bad Idea.
u/XerxesPraelor [+5] (14 hours later)
Conclusive evidence that Ellimist/Crayak didn't actually teleport the animorphs to the place where Garret was about to die, as that would be way too Expensive, but rather just changed what their senses detected.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
May not even have done that, could have just simulated their reactions until an appropriate set occurred and then overwritten their short term memories.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Go one step farther. How?
u/Aretii [+6] Cultist of Cthugha (a day later)
Everyone was in morph at the time of the god's little show, right? The obvious answer is "by interfacing with their true bodies in Zero-space."
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
^KEEP. ^GOING.
u/Aretii [+3] Cultist of Cthugha (a day later)
;_; someone else is going to have to keep going, I'm afraid; I haven't read any real Animorphs in over a decade and only read r!Animorphs once. My story physics knowledge is lacking.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
u/XerxesPraelor [+3] (a day later)
I'm going to guess not by changing anything physical inside the true bodies, but rather just overwhelming the signal between the true body and the yeerk tissue. Since it's not too energy-intensive to create radio waves, it's probably also not too Expensive to create the special Z-waves or whatever. The seeming teleportation would be practically free then.
I'm still having a hard time figuring out the rules, though, because the haggling etc that the animorphs did, along with Ellimist/Crayak needing Cassie to willingly sacrifice herself as her own idea, doesn't fit into what I'd expect if the rules were as simple as he says they are. I'm looking forward to clarification on that front.
u/Aretii [+3] Cultist of Cthugha (2 days later)
Good thought. The ostensible timepause would still need to be explained, though.
u/CoolGuy54 [+1] (21 days later)
Just speed up their perception, and/or start the conversation a bit early and run their actual bodies for them while you have the hallucinatory conversation.
u/CoolGuy54 [+1] (21 days later)
If we assume she's actually dead then it could be for the influence knowledge of her death has on some future decisions the others will make.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+2] (2 days later)
So does this mean that the Ellimist/Crayak...did something to Cassie's body still stuck in Z-space?
u/thedarkone47 [+3] (6 hours later)
is the title of your story supposed to read as are not animorphs?
u/NotUnusualYet [+7] (8 hours later)
It's supposed to be read as "Rational Animorphs".
The [trait]![name] format is pretty common in fanfiction, although usually it's used for characters, e.g. rational!Harry or good!Lex.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+5] (9 hours later)
I spy a programmer...
u/noggin-scratcher [+2] I am a happy tree (a day later)
The use of ! to disambiguate between things with the same name but in a different namespace is also drawn from programming though.
Only being familiar with using it for negation says "familiar with formal logic" to me, moreso than a programming background.
Well... that or a programmer who's not familiar with the namespace thing.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+2] (a day later)
TIL, thank you. Never knew about that until today.
u/noggin-scratcher [+3] I am a happy tree (a day later)
Now that I say it, I can't actually track down which language or convention uses the !
Lots where you separate a namespace identifier from the name within the space by using dots or colons or slashes in various combinations, but I can't place the use of ! specifically.
u/philh [+3] (2 days later)
u/noggin-scratcher [+2] I am a happy tree (2 days later)
Ah, excellent; I'm not crazy. That seems likely to be what I was thinking of... although I've never had any particular contact with that protocol, so I'm guessing that's the origin point for where it seeped into general nerd usage.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (2 days later)
D also uses exclamation marks for templates.
Ie. Rational!Animorphs would be a template called "Rational" instantiated with the type "Animorphs", which is appropriate.
u/alexeyr [+1] Steersman (14 days later)
Logic normally uses ¬ or ~ as the negation symbol, rarely -. I don't remember ever seeing ! used for negation there (which of course doesn't mean it's never used).
u/philh [+3] (a day later)
Could Rictic be 72407 from the last chapter? If XerxesPraelor is right that Ellimist was just editing people's senses, maybe he included Rictic for some reason?
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Rictic is 72407. It might not get clarified in the text, but Rictic was right there in Jeremiah's office when Tobias started talking about the asteroid, and passed the message along to the rest of the Chee.
u/philh [+2] (a day later)
Aha, I was confused by the fact that they didn't find out until a bit after Erek got teleported, but didn't make the connection to Tobias talking about it.
u/CoolGuy54 [+2] (21 days later)
Seems to me that Paul should have learned about the Chee from Tobias's mind, (although I guess that doesn't change too much at this stage).
I completely missed the part where Tobias got Rictic to accompany and help him, not sure if this is my fault or just the nature of reading incredibly information-dense writing spread over a long period of time.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (21 days later)
Paul definitely has access to knowledge about the Chee. But he had only a couple of minutes in Tobias-morph, so far—enough to verify that Tobias believed everything he'd been saying, but not enough to dig through his brain for everything. So he doesn't know about them as of the events of this chapter (much like how Rachel and V3 have access to some knowledge about one another that remains to be processed).
u/TexasJefferson [+2] (10 days later)
I felt the beginnings of another crazy laugh, and squashed them mercilessly. Not now, dammit. Raising the shredder again, I popped the catch to release the charge canister and set both of them on his desk. Reaching into the bag, I drew out one of Ax's spare earplugs—he'd given me eleven once he realized we didn't have similar technology of our own, having used up three on something he didn't want to talk about—and explained what it was for.
Any idea what Ax did?
u/CoolGuy54 [+1] (21 days later)
Well he had a few little adventures of his own hunting controllers didn't he?
u/TexasJefferson [+1] (21 days later)
Ah, yeah I had forgotten about that.
u/CoolGuy54 [+2] (21 days later)
FYI Glocks don't have safeties that you can switch on or off, the safety is disengaged when you pull the trigger.
If you wanted to get the same effect you could say "a loaded Glock 19 with a round in the chamber"
I'm loving this by the way, just wish I'd found it after you finished so I didn't have to wait!