65 KiB
[RT][FF] r!Animorphs, The Reckoning: Chapter 20, Ax
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Author: u/ketura Organizer*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/24/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning#
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Score: 53
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Created: 2016-07-08T00:47:07
Post:
Comments:
u/creatureofthewood [+18] (5 hours later)
I love the Ellimist too, very in-keeping with "winning with the lightest possible touch" theme of canon. Only because Erik prevents violence do the two yeerks who are the key to memetically infecting the rest of the yeerks with kindness surviving. Only because Marcos dad was the type who needed a Yeerk was any sort of alliance possible. Only because Ax is isolated does the alliance generate a second Andelite-Yeerk merge capable of destroying Alloran-Esplin's hegemony. The way it was set up, it looked like the Ellimist was saving them from loss, but really they've been handed a clear way to win.
I'm a bit puzzled by Cassie's death, though. I'm not sure how Cassie dying helped this outcome, and I bet he could have prevented that with some subtle manipulations without additional trouble. Do the rules of the game somehow necessitate her to choose a self-sacrificing path? Perhaps Cassie would've beat Ax to this decision and that would have ruined things.
u/TK17Studios [+16] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (13 hours later)
There are two gods, and they're both pulling the same strings. In canon, there was a black team and a white team ... certain pawns "belonged" to one or the other.
That never seemed realistic to me, so I'm having both gods play with the same pieces, and all the pieces are grey.
u/creatureofthewood [+4] (a day later)
Hm. So that must mean Cassie's death is important, if Crayak spent whatever game points he had just for eliminating her. Presumably this pushes things towards making Jake more militant, the rest of the team not trusting Yeerkified Ax, or something. But I imagine it's going to be difficult, as a writer, to explain why Cassie's death was important since we'll never get to see the counterfactual world where it wasn't.
u/scruiser [+7] CYOA (12 hours later)
The way it was set up, it looked like the Ellimist was saving them from loss, but really they've been handed a clear way to win.
Do we know that this is the Ellimist and not Crayak. It could be setting them up for a peaceful win... or it could be Crayak setting up the birth of the One spoilers epilogue of last Animorph book. Possible spoilers about things that may go wrong...
I'm a bit puzzled by Cassie's death, though. I'm not sure how Cassie dying helped this outcome
I bet she could talk Ax or the Yerk down from what they are about to do...
u/Aretii [+12] Cultist of Cthugha (45 minutes later)
Well, that was very, very interesting.
Though Ax's constant use of THEOREM is kind of annoying: these are possibilities he's considering, not things he has proven. PROPOSITION instead, maybe?
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (51 minutes later)
Convinced. Thanks.
u/CouteauBleu [+10] We are the Empire. (8 hours later)
...OATMEAL? ARE YOU SERIOUS?
EDIT: Okay, read it through. Feedback so far:
Why thank you for the shout out. Though I'll point out it spelled CouteauBleu. Do not taint my silly french pseudonym with dirty english words, please :p
I feel the inclusion of the oatmeal trick is a bit strange. For one, it might seem to come out of absolutely nowhere to people unfamiliar with canon (or even people who skimmed that particular book). Plus, it kind of... does come from absolutely nowhere. There have been no mentions or hints so far that any alternative source of yeerk nutrition, even portable Kandronas, existed. Besides, how did they learn about the possiblity? Did one their yeerks forget his three-day deadline and go "Um, I guess it's a good thing I ate this extremely specific brand of Kellogg's this morning!". Also, DRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGS!!!!!!!
"Right, I remember that bit about a robot army stopping the Holocaust-"... That made me laugh :p Though it does raise a lot of questions about what the Cheys were doing during, well any major war.
I like that moment when the yeerks hear Erek proposing to send them back to V3 and start going completely off-track. The little we've seen so far of yeerks was very constrained, we saw them take very little initiative. It's nice that they have occasions to do so now.
"Screw the larger war!" That's right man, go rogue! Do your own thing! Create your path! Forget conventions, forget hierarchy, forget your training, do what comes to mind!
Ax decides that his people was entirely at fault for the yeerk war, and commits major treason in what seems to be a few days. That's a bit rash, and really not something you should decide unilaterally. Marco or Rachel could probably have pointed out that, so far, they only have the yeerk version of the events, and no way to verify their claims or ask for Seerow's version.
And Marco's dad is a voluntary controller now. It's almost as if cosmic forces had noticed Marco was about to get his father back, and said "No. You shall angst so more." Which... well, it's Animorphs. Marco's life is suffering and angst. Man, now I can't wait until V1 shows up.
Ax berating himself for not listening in school/training is a nice nod to canon. The book that comes to mind is the one with the Sario Rip, where Ax goes <So, you see, the simultaneous firing of our weapons took us across space and time to this other location of your planet.> "How... does that make any sense?" <Well, in fact, there is a perfectly simple explanation, which is that... to be honest, I don't remember. I was mostly paying attention to a pretty girl when they covered the subject>
I don't know if anyone in the group has thought it through, but V3 only has minor responsibility for Astran's death. Most of it was probably already dead by the time the asteroid hit, killed by the pool's explosion. The kids have the excuse of not completely knowing what they were doing, though.
Garett's "If they all.. um... learned the power of friendship" made me chuckle.
In an alternate universe, space-faring humans discovered the yeerks, and instead of hoarding their knowledge, they gave them access to Wikipedia. Then everything went fine. Remember to donate to Wikipedia, for the sake of human kind.
The yeerks say there's never been a murder in their entire history. I'm not sure that makes sense. I mean, yeerk coalescions seem to live in unique circumstances, but there must have been occasions where waging war on the pool next door was a valid option? If you need resources and you can reproduce, at some point the resources become scarce and you have to find some way to allocate them. Inside one pool, that's easy, because the overmind can decide how to split resources between neurons (though there might be 'tumor' yeerks who defect anyway). But between pools, as soon as the resources become scarce, there should be coordination problems, prisoner's dilemmas, and overall times a pool decides that cheating and stealing the other pool's resources is better.
Which brings another question... how do coalescions reproduce? I imagine that, for a single coalescion, producing more yeerk mass would a process of eating and digesting nutrients and turning them into neurons, but what about macro reproduction? Does a coalescion split in two, then use gedds or other animals as transit to transport one of the halves to another pool?
I wonder if at some point, someone will consider calling Cassie's ghost for advice on how to handle the whole "yeerks want to be nice" thing.
How big is the Z-space rift separating Earth from everything? Because if the yeerks can travel between stars in a few days, but need several months to go through it and even longer to go around it, it must be pretty huge.
... Wait a sec, what happened to Ax's earplugs?
I hope that, in future chapters, we get to see yeerks talk with the kids about moral issues and war-related dilemmas, and explore those issues deeper than canon did. Like Yudowsky said, there's a lot more to be said about ethics than "sometimes things are complicated" and "most people are neither pure good nor pure evil", but canon Animorphs mostly stopped at that. I'd be interested if the kids bounced more ideas at the yeerks, and talked about things like prisoner dilemmas, multipolar traps, the ethics of killing innocents in a war, utilitarianism in general, etc. This stuff will be important to how the kids move forward anyway.
And I think I'm done for now. Uh, that was longer than expected.
u/TK17Studios [+11] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (13 hours later)
Ack ack bleu see, this is where I start to feel Axious, because I remember being very specific about not getting that wrong, and yet.
- The oatmeal (on top of the asteroid) is part of my ongoing campaign to get the readers to feel the whole "the enemy is also smart" thing. My hope was that it would startle/come out of nowhere, but that after thinking for ten seconds, readers would be like, oh, of course, I'd be working on a Kandrona substitute, wouldn't I, especially once I started having access to human chemists and nutritionists, the bionutrients available on Earth are incredibly diverse ... man, these guys are doing their homework ... uh-oh."
- re: Ax committing major treason and acting unilaterally, yup. Almost like the guy was unstable or something. It's been interesting to see the range of reactions to his choice, with some finding it incredibly beautiful and positive, and others on the edge of their seats with apprehension.
- There's never been a murder in Yeerk history because it's almost always easier to just eat/subsume the other pool. And yeah, in the process, "your" own views change, but this is just How The World Works for the Yeerks, and the idea of maintaining and defending a certain set of opinions (soldier mindset) versus being open and curious and just seeing what's out there (scout mindset) is one the Yeerks would find deeply weird. If you and I are pools, and you and I are competing for resources, you and I become one and then allocate resources sensibly. It helps that Yeerk exchange between pools is the route for both sexual and memetic reproduction, making not doing that extremely unappealing.
- Pools reproduce like beehives. The masses grow through the consumption of nutrients in the water (plankton, algae), and when they get too big, they send out hosts in all directions in search of a new un- or underinhabited body of water. Once they find one, a whole bunch of hosts all go there and unload at once, and a new mass forms.
- The earplugs can be turned on and off (plus one for noticing; I was falling asleep last night and was like CRAP I didn't make that explicit; oh, well, no one will think of it; CRAP what about chaosmosis and CouteauBleu).
- I think there will be more discussions of ethics, although without Cassie to pull the pendulum in one direction, it's not clear where the group will end up. I had a sentence in here that I struck, for awkwardness, where Ax basically thought, "Yep, this war is largely our fault and we definitely bear the responsibility for investigating the possibility of peace, AND ALSO we're still going to kill the fuck out of them as long as we're in open warfare, don't think I'm going soft or nothin'."
u/CouteauBleu [+7] We are the Empire. (13 hours later)
"the enemy is also smart"
I think that portable Kandronas would have made more sense. Or something like "What, you really thought we only had one Kandrona on earth? We have, like, ten of those in the mothership just in case one malfunctions". While reading this version, I mostly ignored the tactical implications and just went "Really? OATMEAL?", and I got the impression that all the kids except Ax did the same.
the idea of maintaining and defending a certain set of opinions (soldier mindset) is one the Yeerks would find deeply weird
I don't know. It's not like we've ever seen hive-mind alien species, so we're being as speculative as it gets, but I feel the "aggressive genes dominate and spread, passive genes disappear" dynamic would still be there, so hives would still want to defend themselves. In particular:
If you and I are pools, and you and I are competing for resources, you and I become one and then allocate resources sensibly.
Yeah, but I can choose to fuse with you in a way that is mostly me and not a lot of you, instead of dividing food/hosts/whatever equally. If I keep defecting and others keep cooperating, I do the same over and over again and cover the planet in "me", and the end result is a planet covered in defectors anyway. There is the mitigating factor that hives have an easier time checking for the other's intentions (capture the other hive's scouts and read their minds), so cooperation is easier to enforce, which means yeerks will have a greater tendency towards cooperation than other species. But there are still conflicts.
Although, whatever the context, "get eaten by another hive" is still super-different from "get erased by a friendly meteor strike to the face", so it's much more shocking to yeerks when the second one happens.
The earplugs can be turned on and off
Mhh nope, try again :p There's no reason the engineers designing those earplugs would put an off-switch in them, especially since it would make Andalites vulnerable to torture-then-infestation if yeerks ever figure it out.
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (14 hours later)
Eh, remember, in this AU Kandrona is something like a complex protein, not an energy ray. The Yeerks will obviously be able to synthesize and manufacture it eventually, but they only discovered space like four years ago and just got off their planet two years ago. It's on the list (high on the list, even), but it's not something they've managed to do yet, in part because from a Yeerk perspective, who would want to stay out of the coalescion for long periods of time?
As for the earplugs—there's a line of telepathically-activated technologies that the Andalites have that are theoretically Yeerk-proof. Think about the self-destruct on the Iscafil device, which the kids could trigger even if they got infested. The part of Ax that can turn the earplugs on and off is deep, deep within his personality, tied to his motive will in a way that the Yeerks can't manipulate.
That's still a HUGE GAPING HOLE, because there are other ways to manipulate a person besides raw compulsion. But it's a HUGE GAPING HOLE the Andalites haven't found, yet, because all of their anti-infestation tech is largely untested. Again, the war is young, and thus far only Alloran's been taken—they haven't seen the sort of mind-twisting that (e.g.) Ramsay pulled on Theon, which would be sufficient to cause them to do whatever you wanted "of their own free choice."
Considering tweaks re: murder; perhaps I can 80/20 it by just saying that murder is extremely rare, hasn't happened since the Compact, all pools unite to destroy murderers, etc.
u/callmebrotherg [+5] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
all pools unite to destroy murderers, etc.
This seems like a ridiculously easy norm to establish, and after that's done I don't think it'd be anywhere near as easy to get away with breaking it. I like.
u/TacticusThrowaway [+3] (2 days later)
TK forgot to mention that the oatmeal is part of the original canon. I own the book in question, and it was never mentioned again afterward, as best as I can tell. It also had a tendency to drive Yeerks insane, but apparently not this version.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (2 days later)
Are you replying to the right comment or comment thread?
u/TacticusThrowaway [+3] (2 days later)
Whoops. I didn't realize you weren't the first guy.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
Changed to "in the past thousand years, there hasn't been a murder, not one." I dunno if the explanation will ever show up in text, but I think I'm going with the Dune-esque "if any pool is discovered to be a true killer (rather than an absorber or willing to nix a shard here or there), all the other pools will unite to kill it, and by kill it we mean scatter its shards in the dust, taking none of them into ourselves."
u/TacticusThrowaway [+3] (2 days later)
TK forgot to mention that the oatmeal is part of the original canon. I own the book in question, and it was never mentioned again afterward, as best as I can tell. It also had a tendency to drive Yeerks insane, but apparently not this version.
u/scruiser [+3] CYOA (3 days later)
but apparently not this version.
We don't know that for sure yet... we merely know it causes no immediate issues.
We also don't know if it was the Ellimist or Crayak that intervened in the previous chapters...
u/ketura [+8] Organizer (6 minutes later)
I considered entitling this post "" but didn't want it ending up too clever for my own good.
u/scruiser [+6] CYOA (12 hours later)
Making a joke about two minds joining... Or qre you worried about the entity from the last Animorph book epilogue also?
u/ketura [+3] Organizer (14 hours later)
The former, hadn't even considered the latter. And maaaaybe it would have set people's hearts racing if they thought for a moment everyone was about to die...
u/CoolGuy54 [+4] (10 hours later)
I don't get it...
u/MagicWeasel [+9] Cheela Astronaut (44 minutes later)
I HAVE BEEN VISITING /r/rational EVERY DAY FOR WEEKS WAITING FOR THIS.
I AM SO EXCITED. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
edit: so worth the wait. thankyou!! I loved the exposition, confirming many peoples' guesses and yet deepening them.
u/Matqat [+4] (5 hours later)
I've been in the same boat on the checking every day thing and I have to say this chapter was definitely worth the wait. I love the direction the plot is going and maybe I'll write more thoughts later but right now it's 2 a.m. and I need to sleep.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (3 hours later)
<3 <3 <3
u/MagicWeasel [+8] Cheela Astronaut (4 hours later)
Why are you sending me hearts??? You are the one who is writing the story I love so much. ThankYOU!!!!
<3 <3 <3
u/MagicWeasel [+2] Cheela Astronaut (a day later)
By the way - where's your patreon link?? I've been meaning to sign up for a while.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Fanfiction won't let you use the word "patreon" anymore. It's patreon.com/sabien
And thanks!
u/MagicWeasel [+2] Cheela Astronaut (a day later)
No problem at all! Like I said, been meaning to do it for a while - anything to get me my fix sooner :)
Just signed up! I hope I'm not the only one to do so this update.
u/MagicWeasel [+2] Cheela Astronaut (10 days later)
P.S.: I have just started re-reading the story and oh my goodness all the foreshadowing!!!! I love it :)
And the scene with Aftran, the cupcake, and the knife, eye-gouging and all that.... I forgot about that. I remember being deliciously horrified when I read that, it was so awful and so perfect and so logical all at the same time. Definitely my favourite-because-it's-so-awful scene in the entire story.
u/Alphanos [+9] The Bright Powers (7 hours later)
/u/TK17Studios, I continue to be impressed at the plot development in this story. I enjoy how you take what canon made into monster-of-the-week style throwaway story elements, and actually incorporate them as rational actors and elements into an overall interacting world. The result always seems to be plot twists which are at once both surprising and extremely logical.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+9] (14 hours later)
OHhhh my god I need a moment holy shit. Wow. DAAAAAAAAAMN.
Okay. Okay. I'm good. Phew.
YPM. Aftran, not the individual but the whole - oh that is absolutely brilliant. C/E has been pulling some serious strings here.
Controller-Ax? Whoa, left field, but you made it work. You also foreshadowed it nicely several chapters ago with the lack of eib. Seems like a mix of depression and anxiety, in regards to his behavior. Even got the compulsive eating thing going on (I started laughing the minute I saw cinnamon buns).
Peter Levy? Also a massive surprise, but the explanation of depression/alcoholism and how Essak has been helping him definitely works. You nicely foreshadowed how much a Yeerk is capable of doing behind-the-scenes to a human brain as well, when Rachel was running Illim back to the pool. Poor Illim.
Overall I feel this revelation regarding Aftran's remaining 2 members is really really well done. Lots of hints during previous chapters where the revelations taking place in this one aren't completely 'whoa, where did that come from?' but at the same time not blindingly obvious. More 'ooooooh, now it all makes sense and the puzzle pieces fit'.
Elfangor was right. They did (unintentionally) sacrifice a ton of Yeerks to get another Andalite host...
I'm really interested in the Yeerks NOT being 'one size fits all'. Makes sense, too.
Are the remaining 2 parts of Aftran going to re-establish a new pool? Will Temrash and Essak attempt to find a body of water where they can have a very small and sad coalescion?
How much of a coalescion could you feasibly stuff into a skull? For example, could Temrash and Essak form a new Yeerk that's dedicated solely to controlling Ax? Peter would be sad, of course. In more ways than one.
Earplugs and oatmeal insanity has already been covered. I'm hoping that the oatmeal does not cause insanity though.
Gonna need more elaboration on why the Yeerk morph didn't work. Does that mean that they were trying to morph an entire hivemind? Or was it that they didn't have a proper snapshot of the whole? Which means...if they acquire both Essak and Temrash, can they feasibly morph Aftran now that she's small enough?
With the way the pocket dimension works, how long can a Yeerk stay morphed for?
Holy crap, imagine if someone went nothlit as the Aftran hive mind...that'd put an entire pool in the debt of the Animorphs...and if anyone were to do that, Cassie would be the one. But she's dead. Welp.
If I wasn't already convinced of Garrett having ASD in the previous chapters, this cinches it. I love how he's the one who best teaches Ax how to read human expressions, as he's had to puzzle it through his entire life.
I love the metaphor that Ax cannot see the path during his ritual of starlight. He tries, but cannot, and ultimately must make this decision while being completely alone and in the dark.
Okay. I think that covers it. We good. AAAAGH CAN'T WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT UPDATE.
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (15 hours later)
The remaining two parts of Aftran could definitely form a coalescion, but there isn't enough mass for whatever HANDWAVING biological stuff needs to go on to produce Kandrona.
We know that you can stuff at least two Yeerks into a human skull, because of the resonance/self-morph stuff (when Jake's wearing his morph armor, there's Jake-artificial-yeerk controlling a brain that's also got whoever-artificial-yeerk from the acquisition process). Unknown beyond that. It's heavily implied that Esplin is "more" than other Yeerks, perhaps on the order of 3-4x a human-Controlling Yeerk, given that Temrash isn't big enough to actually Control Ax (unless he was straight-up lying).
u/KnickersInAKnit [+5] (21 hours later)
I just thought of some more questions:
The Yeerk that Tobias has in DC should be from Aftran. Essak and Temrash are slightly less alone, if Tobias can retrieve it.
With all the discussion on how Kandrona is produced, would the ability to morph a coalescion allow them to get around the oatmeal reliance by using that morph as a source of Kandrona?
..which leads to the next question, if tissue/limbs are removed from a morph, what happens upon demorph?
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (23 hours later)
Yes, good questions. =)
u/KnickersInAKnit [+6] (15 hours later)
If you ever want to discuss a fairly-detailed biological system for how Kandrona works and is synthesized, hit me up. I'm a biology major with a love for molecular biology (covering proteins), and I'd be happen to try and design a system that works with your universe.
u/TK17Studios [+10] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (15 hours later)
I mean, I may have just written myself into a corner as far as realism goes? It has to be a molecule that could:
- Show up in instant oatmeal of one kind, but not others
- Plausibly make its way into the brain
- Not be actively toxic to an alien that's been able to eat at least some kinds of Earth flora
- Not be producible by two Yeerks, but by two thousand (this could be solved by some handwaving "eh, Yeerks differentiate when they're en masse, like stem cells or gender-changing reptiles" pseudoscience)
... I'm content with that being part of the accepted magic of the universe, for now, but if you do feel like spending some time on it and you come up with something (and if you want to ping me with questions), feel free. I'd certainly enthusiastically write it in if it's possible, but I was assuming all along that it was not.
u/scruiser [+8] CYOA (15 hours later)
- Show up in instant oatmeal of one kind, but not others
Given Ellimist/Crayak manipulation of human invention of preservatives and/or artificial flavor and/or Maple tree evolution, it could be a complex set of molecules that only very lucky/unlucky "coincidences" managed to get into a single set of oatmeal.
- Plausibly make its way into the brain
Human metabolism of some of the preservatives/Maple byproducts could be necessary in the first place.
- Not be actively toxic to an alien that's been able to eat at least some kinds of Earth flora
Ellimist/Crayak manipulation of the initial conditions that led to the development of that flavor and brand of oatmeal.
) Not be producible by two Yeerks, but by two thousand (this could be solved by some handwaving "eh, Yeerks differentiate when they're en masse, like stem cells or gender-changing reptiles" pseudoscience)
You could reintroduce the idea that Kandrona rays are a thing. Yerk tissue can act as a z-space antennae/control node for morphing to work. Kandrona could have some weird z-space component that lets the massive pool get a special type of energy necessary for the metabolic processes that produce the complex molecule set that the Yerk's need. Or it could just be regular EM spectrum, just at narrow bands of particular frequencies and the pool mass is just doing a photosynthesis-like process. You would still need special equipment to get the right frequencies at the right energy, but it wouldn't be impossible. You could keep the idea that they need the pool mass.
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (15 hours later)
Kandrona as Z-space radiation? How did I not even think of that??
+1. Not sure if I'll incorporate it this late in the game, but I for sure would have if I'd had access to that brain of yours a year ago. Weird specific EM bands could work, too, but that still seems too easy to produce to have caused the problems it caused in canon. Better in combo with the photosynthesis idea.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+4] (17 hours later)
Photosynthesis idea works great actually. What you could go with is that the EM/radiation of the Kandrona is necessary to synthesize the vitamin(s) needed for Yeerk health (they're vital, after all). Maybe the Yeerks call both the EM frequency/radiation and the vitamin 'Kandrona'. Makes sense, why not. Kandrona for Yeerks is as important as Vitamin C for humans, and the fugue is like scurvy turned up to 11. Hivemind needs to dedicate a select chunk of tissue for creating this Kandrona vitamin, so 2 Yeerks alone definitely cannot do this. Kandrona being a vitamin is also consistent with the way V3 is cannibalizing other Yeerks.
Yeerk tissue can alter or weaken the blood brain barrier (BBB) allowing select metabolites through. The particular oatmeal brand could have a higher amount of ginger and maple flavorings compared to its competitors (TWICE the flavor! selling point). The metabolites of the digested flavor molecules either directly function as the vitamin(s) required, or are synthesized into said vitamins. Pray that Andalite livers work the same way/similarly as human ones. In short, the Yeerks are swapping reliance on the photosynthetic portion of the hivemind (maybe it has a special name?) to reliance on the host's liver. Would lend some interesting support to this whole symbiosis deal.
u/MagicWeasel [+2] Cheela Astronaut (4 days later)
Pray that Andalite livers work the same way/similarly as human ones.
Not even necessary; it could be a unique quirk of human biology that allows the conversion to take place. After all, 7 billion host bodies with no need for the pool? Perfect.
Plus, it means that V3 can't just get his host to eat oatmeal and thus stop with the cannibalism thing.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+3] (15 hours later)
I've finished my huuuuuge list of comments now, so enjoy :D Hope it gives you some stuff to work with for your next update!
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (15 hours later)
"With the way the pocket dimension works" ... if a single Yeerk somehow got the morphing power (not clear how that works if it's constantly in-and-out of a pool, being dissolved and reformulated, but pretty clear that it would work in the case of someone like Esplin), it could stay morphed for a looooooooooong time. It's not strictly proportional to weight, since there's a sort of baseline "activation energy" for making a pocket dimension in the first place, but think something like demorphing once every day and a half. And given the way that puts one's "natural body" in stasis, it's also a pretty solid replacement for Kandrona, since it takes many, many, many morphs for you to use up three full days in the minutes in between.
Note that, if Ax's hypothesis is correct, you wouldn't restore the Aftran mind by going nothlit as the Aftran coalescion—that mind, in its entirety, wasn't properly scanned in the first place.
Thanks for noticing re: Garrett. This is the point at which I'd stereotypically say something like, I had a best friend or a little brother who was autistic, and I wanted to put him in my story, but—nope. I just really like the character, and I'm working hard to do him right.
I was trying to come up with the Andalite word/concept/handle for "the Milky Way" for like five straight minutes before it was like OH RIGHT DUH THE GREAT PATH IN THE SKY.
u/ketura [+10] Organizer (15 hours later)
So it occurs to me that back in the Aftran interlude, Aftran the pool was "farming" compassion from Aftran the Yeerk. Put the Yeerk in the kid, let it develop a sense of love, and during the coelascion strip those developed neuron threads out and distribute them elsewhere, bringing the average compassion of the entire pool up somewhat.
Until the farm burned down, so to speak.
u/TK17Studios [+7] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (15 hours later)
Wasn't really doing it on purpose—even with self-awareness as to how the personality shift works (pools have been pooling for a while, now), the sheer flood of rich experiences sort of took Aftran by surprise. It may have reacted differently, if it had known in advance (e.g. by "gerrymandering" those traits and keeping them contained in a smaller subset of its identity). But yeah, "farming" is a good metaphor, and that's explicitly how I was trying to make "let's cooperate" even possible as a thing-Yeerks-could-think.
u/TK17Studios [+10] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a minute later)
Also available on Archive Of Our Own
Also I still really really really really really like long-form feedback.
u/scruiser [+8] CYOA (12 hours later)
Also I still really really really really really like long-form feedback.
I don't quite have a single coherent review but a bunch of individual thoughts...
Love your clever reuse of bits of canon...
Aftran being the one to develop the Yerk peace movement, giving the peace movement a much more thought out development than canon.
This is the darkest interpretation of Cinnamon Buns I have seen yet. Seeing the way you show, it makes me wonder why canon treated alien super stimulus as a joke and source of tourism instead of a compulsive hedonistic indulgence.
The Oatmeal thing is much more logically used than in canon... the yerk pool was cautiously testing it for safety. I note that they didn't quite say they finished testing it... Also, as I am familiar with canon it seems reasonable, but for someone unfamiliar with canon Oatmeal replacing Kandrona may seem like it is coming out of left field a bit.
Good job making Ax's mind actually seem alien. Makes it awkward to read in a few places, but overall I think the effect achieved is worth it.
Is the reason for 3 shredders not one so that the user of the survival kit can improvise a Sario rip? Seemed like an odd detail that stuck out to me.
I totally called it about Visser 3, well... at least partially called it... I actually thought that the other Council of 13 might be like Visser 3... knowing that he is unique makes him even scarier. Curious that the other Yerks never realized his level of betrayal.
Were the Pemalites afraid of runaway AI, or are they just overly Pacifistic like in canon, or both...?
As I said in another comment... I don't think you are giving us a happy ending yet. possible spoilers if my guess is correct, and spoilers for canon's final epilogue
Edit: wrote Chee, instead of Pemalites, the creators of the chee
u/Dwood15 [+5] (4 hours later)
This was an amazing, fantastically done chapter! At first, I was extremely doubtful someone could pull off Animorphs rewrite, but I have become convinced you have something special!
Also, Cinnabons.
u/sixfourch [+6] (6 hours later)
It's sort of hard to generate long-form feedback for something that's so uniquely perfect. I think you've nailed this entire story.
I sort of don't get how the Yeerk hierarchy is going to look given this latest chapter, but I have utter faith that I'm going to be pleasantly surprised.
u/MagicWeasel [+8] Cheela Astronaut (7 hours later)
u/4t0m [+4] Chaos Legion (3 minutes later)
Thanks for the shout out :). You can list Adom H and 4t0m together, or remove one of them though. Looking forward to reading!
u/NotUnusualYet [+9] (an hour later)
This story continually exceeds my expectations.
u/DaystarEld [+6] Pokémon Professor (6 hours later)
As soon as the woman offered him a free sample, I knew... and as soon as she said "Cinnamon buns," I couldn't stop grinning.
Awesome chapter, as usual, and great development of the yeerk culture and Esplin. Can't wait for the next one.
u/etarletons [+6] (7 hours later)
Gaaaahhh I had opinions and then I closed the wrong tab and now I will reconstruct them from memory.
Rachel was always the most relatable, for me, and when your Rachel foo it became clear that R!Animorphs passes my internal criteria for Animorphs fiction. Sufficiently dark, and dark in the right ways. Additionally, foo a second time and I'm insufficiently convinced that consciousness gets "switched on" rather than... noticed by the morpher for the first time. o.O
Cassie struggling with her ethics in a way that doesn't involve extensively carrying an idiot ball :D This feels very true to form. When I was small and reading these, it was like... my thoughts tended much less towards recounting experience and heuristics, a lot more towards actually trying to figure out what's going on -- with ethics, with the invasion, with the group etc. You capture that well.
I like base-7 (and how it's pervasive but not lampshaded). I like Esplin/Alloran thinking of probability in terms of light -- it feels like how I think about things.
Garrett is strongly relatable and he is a positive addition.
I am continuously more convinced of this as the story goes on.
Also I have to get that tardigrade tattoo at this point.
I predict that the autobiographical parts of this fic, whatever they may be, will oft be considered the least realistic. :P
Speaking of, nice grocery store scene.
EVERYTHING IS SO TROUBLING AND UNFORTUNATE
u/CouteauBleu [+7] We are the Empire. (9 hours later)
I'm insufficiently convinced that consciousness gets "switched on" rather than... noticed by the morpher for the first time
It is. Jake had no memory of his weeks of coma after his control tissue was destroyed.
u/etarletons [+5] (9 hours later)
...Eh, I don't 100% buy that that has direct bearing on what goes down when a person's around to drive the body, but I accept that it's compelling evidence.
Morphing is certainly horrifying enough as is.
ETA: Cassie doing the thing with her tail for Elfangor is what really got me started questioning this. I mean, it could be Ellimist BS, but anything could be.
u/TK17Studios [+7] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (13 hours later)
EVERYTHING IS SO TROUBLING AND UNFORTUNATE is how I felt when I first started imagining an Animorphs universe where everyone at least tried to think it through. Last update, I think u/Salivanth summed up the story as "And then it got worse."
I'm really, really glad that Rachel and Cassie are passing muster; as (in some ways) the least "rational" characters, it was really important to me that I do something approaching a steelman version of each.
Yay people like Garrett! I waited a whole extra cycle to give him his first viewpoint chapter because I was nervous about including original characters in pivotal roles. He emerged from brainstorming re: "Well, Tobias can't be a hawk, now, so..." and then my thinking about how weird it was that someone as empathetic and loyal as he was didn't have anybody from his earlier life to care about?
<3
u/None [+8] (11 hours later)
[deleted]
u/confettibin [+5] (a day later)
From what I understood, they had difficulties morphing into Yeerks because each Yeerk is only a small part of a very large, singular entity. They're unable to accommodate a form like that without a pool, so they end up morphing into a big glob of Yeerk matter instead.
u/CouteauBleu [+5] We are the Empire. (a day later)
They already knew peace and harmony. What humans taught them is veganism.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (16 hours later)
Chee: it is a part of the overall plot.
u/FeepingCreature [+9] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (12 hours later)
So.
Here's the big question.
How much of that stuff the Yeerks said was true?
u/scruiser [+7] CYOA (14 hours later)
Crap... what if they did learn love and harmony, but instead of believing it themselves, they are going to use it as just another tool to control their hosts... what if their understanding of these things lets them hijack human religious and worshipful feelings so they can make a human loyal even after they leave their mind. It would explain why they are willing to try to prove what they said. I wonder what Cassie's death means though... she would definitely offer to let them prove their case...
u/TK17Studios [+7] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (14 hours later)
"Indeed, now that you have pointed it out, I have just now thought of some nice things I can do this very day, to further my agenda."
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (a day later)
The guy who said that kiiiind of died two hours later, partially because in his newfound niceness he gave a super-important buff to a non-essential piece instead of buffing himself.
u/chaosmosis [+7] and with strange aeons, even death may die (3 hours later)
Oh, I see. Crayak's endgame here is building the ultimate mimetic superweapon. Well, gg.
u/scruiser [+5] CYOA (14 hours later)
I thought I might be being paranoid, but it looks like several other people saw the same worrying hints I did...
u/creatureofthewood [+8] (5 hours later)
Chills. This is just amazing.
u/None [+6] (9 hours later)
Just something I'm trying to clarify in my head; in one of her chapters, Cassie realizes that if she morphs holding her breath, when she demorphs, her main body is still holding her breath and concludes that if her true body isn't breathing, than how are her neurons firing. This eventually leads to the realisation (at least this is what I got from the story so far) that when you morph, you essentially morph a yeerk like creature in a host, created body, and when you demorph the experiences of that yeerk like creature are reintegrated back into your body. OK, if I'm right on those fronts, then my quesiton here is this; howw does the mind relate to the brain in this situation? When Ax morphs a human, his Andalite brain isn't working anymore; he's essentially a yeerk creature in a human brain. How can he think in 7 strands of thought anymore, when the human brain doesn't have that capability? Or was Cassie just wrong?
u/CoolGuy54 [+4] (10 hours later)
I think he explicitly said in a Garrett chapter, or maybe I'm just assuming here, that your body paused and your mind is run on a computer in the same location as your body, with the Yeerk thing in the morphs head acting as an antennae, not the actual location of thought.
Otherwise there's no connection between morph and original body at all, and we get into even more philosophical issues...
u/TK17Studios [+7] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (13 hours later)
There's something extremely sketchy and not-yet-fully-explained going on with your mind when you morph.
u/Gd8909 [+4] (12 hours later)
Amazing.
First of all, thanks for introducing me to that song, it does work well with the chapter. Second...there's something weird about your story that no other has ever done for me. It's like, every chapter is my new favorite one, each update brings a new paradigm of mindblowing awesomeness. I'm at a loss at this point, because prior experience tells me whatever you make next will be even more amazing than this.
I'm really feeling for Ax here. I kind of have been the entire story, but now seeing the suffering from his perspective makes it even worse. On the other hand, I loved The Cinnabon Incident. It seemed almost out of place amidst all the drama and angst but no complaints from me.
And now, with Ax's decision I'm once again in the position of waiting anxiously for your next chapter. What will Ax's be like? What will the reactions from the other Animorphs be (I can sort of guess a bit)? Anyway, great chapter, answered a lot of questions. The only thing I didn't get was, Ax seemed to think all of this explained why the Yeerk morph didn't work?
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (13 hours later)
I may need to go back and tinker with the cinnamon bun scene. I was trying to play it as a horrifying loss of self and self-control that would be REALLY DISTRESSING TO EXPERIENCE and would only make sense if your brain had been unraveling for weeks.
But everyone found it funny (in part, I guess, because it was always played for jokes in canon).
u/scruiser [+7] CYOA (14 hours later)
But everyone found it funny (in part, I guess, because it was always played for jokes in canon).
I found it a horrific deconstruction of canon. I think everyone that just found it funny was failing to empathize with Ax or else they were too stuck in a canon oriented mindset...
u/ketura [+7] Organizer (15 hours later)
You're like the third person to call it horrifying, and while I understand why that's the case I just can't view it that way. I'm probably guilty of both your observations, but there's just something about this line:
I simply consumed, was meant to consume, was fulfilling the central purpose of the universe, which had come into being for the sake of cinnamon buns, had evolved morphing technology so that I could devour them.
It just makes me break out in a grin imagining such a universe, and it colors the entire section, for me. Also nostalgia for BUNZZZAH.
u/TK17Studios [+6] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (15 hours later)
Yeah, but imagine how you'd feel, post-binge, to look back on the experience and realize that you had actually believed that, in the moment. That your value set had been wrenched so far out of alignment with anything reasonable, that quickly, and that completely.
Imagine if I rewrote your utility function with Egeustimentis to "cinnamon bun consumption maximizer," left you there for five minutes, you seriously wounded three other humans, and then I snapped you back and you had to own it ... that's the sort of horror I always felt, when I saw Ax (in canon) reduced from a real person to a mindless mouth-masturbation machine.
u/ketura [+10] Organizer (17 hours later)
Like I said, I understand it, from an intellectual standpoint. I can extrapolate and imagine all that, but it's not shown here sufficiently powerfully to overwrite how I viewed it in canon. What we see is that Ax is having the time of his life eating bunzah, and he wants nothing more than to want to eat more, and we're caught up in the same thoughts. In the moment, it's not scary, because that's obviously what the whole universe is built for; his situation is conveyed far too well to be able to view it with any perspective, as that's exactly how he is reacting to it.
It's the aftermath that is lacking, I think. We need those same realizations that you've laid out in your comment here from ax's perspective, something more than "I'm sorry" and "I'm a fool". Something elucidating his horror at having his values completely and utterly overwritten, by what can only be labelled his own weakness, and a fear that if it happened again he'd be just as powerless. That sickening self-loathing that comes from the dual knowledge that past you betrayed present you, but if present you had the same chance it would bend over future you in a heartbeat.
No one ever regrets the high, just what they exchanged to get it.
u/TK17Studios [+6] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (20 hours later)
+1 to all of this; what I'll do is expand that very short scene afterward, where Rachel is berating him.
u/The_Magus_199 [+4] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (4 days later)
For what it's worth, it struck me as sort of darkly humorous but also kind of horrifying at the same time. I mean, it's definitely freaky how far and suddenly he snaps and how he acts during the event, but there's nonetheless something intrinsically funny about it being cinnamon buns of all things, you know? Like, just the thought of the universe running on a "bunthropic principle" is just too entertaining, you know? I know it's canon's fault, not yours, it's just... Still.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (4 days later)
Darkly humorous, I'll take. I just didn't want it to be, like, uproarious laughter.
u/The_Magus_199 [+3] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (4 days later)
Yeah, I get that. Probably helps that for me Animorphs are mostly just a distant memory of some books I read out of order in my elementary/middle school library over five years ago, so while I remember some bits - particularly the ending, the big reveal about Tobias, the Ellimist/Crayak stuff, and the Yeerk sister species the Ellimist sent them to meet in one book that really ought to have featured more in the final conflict than they did, I'm not as primed to remember stuff like the cinnamon buns gag.
Also, I must say that I'm intrigued by Ax's hypothesis about the Yeerk morph failure. My running guess was that it had to do with the morphing Yeerk tissue, since it doesn't seem like there would be space in a Yeerk for the Yeerk tissue used to let the morpher to control the body to be...
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
Edited. I tried to stick with the minimum viable change, rather than redoing lots-and-lots. I added some 100 words to the cinnamon bun scene itself, plus a couple hundred more in the aftermath.
u/callmebrotherg [+4] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
Imagine if I rewrote your utility function with Egeustimentis to "cinnamon bun consumption maximizer,"
Cinnamon bun consumption maximizer.
The new unfriendly AI?
u/scruiser [+5] CYOA (16 hours later)
Imagine it was a human trying a really potent and addictive drug for the first time, stops being funny then doesn't it?
u/ketura [+5] Organizer (17 hours later)
Sure, once you're off the high. But during? Its obviously going to be the most biologically satisfying thing imaginable, and that's what we saw: the high, and not the crash, so much.
u/KnickersInAKnit [+5] (15 hours later)
I'd maybe draw parallels between his eating compulsion and the pressure from the shoes. His thoughts hyperfocus on one thing alone - eating - and he finds himself unable to stop. Maybe compare it to the unconsciousness fear, where when he snaps back to reality he realizes with horror that that's the second time he's been unconscious in X days.
If anything, I find the consumption scene to be too close to canon Ax. r!Ax on an eating frenzy...if we're going with the ASD theme, I'd suggest making all 4 trains of thought focus on the /food/. Ex
'glucose with a microcrystalline structure' for the icing,
'amylase in the saliva turning starch into more sweetness',
and for his shadow thoughts 'acrylamide as a carcinogen, causing long-term damage to the body'.
Or maybe have them simply focus on different aspects of the flavor 'sweet', 'chewy', 'melting', 'more', showing the readers how far gone Ax gets when he's presented with food.
u/None [+6] (13 hours later)
My second comment of the day; between the Andalite ability to think in multiple strands at once, and the newly discovered possible super intelligence of the yeerk hive-mind... does anybody have an idea for how, in a post war, peaceful universe, humanity could ever hope to compete with these two species? What advantage, if any, does a human brain hold, compared to the minds of yeerks and andalites?
u/TK17Studios [+10] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (16 hours later)
For one, there are a lot more of us than there are of them. We outnumber Andalites seven to one, and that's after they became a spacefaring race and presumably spread to (at least) permanent outposts, if not full-on colony worlds. And given that pools are individuals rather than shards, there were only a few thousand "people" on the homeworld, and a pretty sharp intelligence/personhood/class distinction between larger (and therefore more powerful) pools versus smaller ones.
Humans (in my mind) have an edge in the explore-exploit dichotomy on the explore side. Any one Andalite outstrips basically any human in the abstract, but when you take into account the fact that there's extreme social pressure and pseudohiveminding going on, nobody can outdo humans as a whole when it comes to generating and testing a million different strategies at once.
That being said, I did write both Yeerks and Andalites as dominating humans in a strict sense, and I will stick to that. There's nothing I hate more than stories where humans defeat Skynet through plucky cleverness. If Skynet is even just 10x more intelligent, Skynet wins unless there is a lot of other stuff advantaging the other side.
u/None [+4] (2 days later)
OK it is now clear to me that I phrased my question wrong. What I truly meant was, in this story, what is unique about the human mind? From what I've been reading, Ax, when he morphs human, only really notices the new sensory inputs and how weird having to speak with words is, while the human animoprhs, when morphing Andalite, seem to go into detail about how using an Andalite brain felt different than using a human one. Perhaps Temrash can explore this, as a yeerk going from a human controller to an Andalite one, he would perhaps have a more outside view on the nature of both minds, and could point out differences. Sorry if this is annoying, but the idea of humans as just individually scaled down versions of Andalite's doesn't sit well with the little I know of evolutionary biology. Surely our very psychology and neurology must be different, given that we came to be on different planets. Do Andalite brains even have two hemispheres? If not, how does that effect their thoughts, given that each human hemisphere function as two arguably sentient partners rather than non-sentient parts of conscious whole? Or maybe you've actually written about this in the story and I just didn't see it :) Thanks for the awesome story, hope you find the time to answer this question without spoiling any future plot points. :)
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
Ah, gotcha. Your question is more "an encouragement to refine my own thinking" than it is a thing-that-I-can-answer.
u/None [+4] (2 days later)
Though of course, I would like to know where you would possibly think of going with the 'idea-thread', if any, my question prompted. As a freshman neuroscience major, I always loved how Animorphs approached the whole idea of alien and animal minds, and I especially love it when fics dig into the topic with the same enthusiasm :)
u/scruiser [+5] CYOA (14 hours later)
Ax thinks of words as an unnatural and imperfect way to think, but I think our ability for conceptualization and abstraction are actually very useful. But for our main advantage...
What advantage, if any, does a human brain hold, compared to the minds of yeerks and andalites?
Myself and several others have speculated that this chapter is actually Crayak's memetic weapon, not the Ellimist's attempt at peace. If so, human's stupidity, lack of hivemind, lack of thought speak, lack of hyper detailed modeling of other minds, and sheer stubbornness in the face of reality may be very useful aspects for resisting memetic contamination.
u/ketura [+7] Organizer (14 hours later)
Personally I'm rooting for a Yeerk/human alliance. They've got the brains, we've got the...smaller brains. Dial the individual yeerks back to where they can control if needed but not dominate, and we're good to go.
u/Kishoto [+6] (22 hours later)
Ho. Ly. Shit.
This was stupidly well written. I enjoyed the entire thing. Yet again, you prove to do some amazing things to the Animorphs universe. I was very impressed throughout the entire chapter and I'm loving your portrayl of the aliens we've come to know from canon.
A take on Yeerk culture that makes a startling amount of sense while also being completely unexpected.
A plausibly done example of what might happen to a telepathic race in a socially isolated, high stress environment.
The Chee knowing their programming is flawed and doing their best to help the protagonist avoid the pitfalls of it. While also being constrained by it. Done really, really well.
Visser Three...wow, Visser Three. The borderline megalomaniacal actions make a startling amount of complete and utter sense. Any sane, rational being that's intimately familiar with the self sharing culture of the Yeerks should be well and truly terrified of memetic threats. Of course, now the question is just what Visser Three's end game is. An obvious side benefit is Esplin's ability to exist independently and indefinitely by being that guy that helps in the war. And now I'm curious as to why he's Visser Three and not Visser One considering he's a sort of super Yeerk.
Anyway, great work man. Really enjoyed it :)
EDIT: Also question u/TK17Studios, is this the first time Ax has tasted something in human morph? I ask because his reaction seems very excessive (although that could be attributed to his fraying mental state)
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Roger: first experience with the sensation of taste.
u/Kishoto [+3] (a day later)
Ah. And of course, it would be the dreaded cinnabun. Oh dear, Aximili. Oh dear.
u/None [+6] (3 days later)
/u/TK17studios
Hey, I just caught up with the story and wanted to thank you. It's a wonderful retelling of a story that meant a lot to me as a child, a very fine blend of consistent and different from canon. Thanks for keeping in and enhancing cinnabonkers!Ax. Seriously, to move the story in such a way that him accepting a Yeerk into his head seems not only feasible but wise without making any of the steps along the way even remotely jarring is an impressive feat.
So yeah. Your plot is great, characters are great, voice is wonderful and world building top notch.
Don't want to get you too big-headed, so here's some criticism: non-human PoVs should capitalize Human the same as Andalite or Hork-Bajir! That's all I've got for now. Don't worry, I'll probably reread and find actual criticisms, I'm completely infatuated with the story right now.
u/redstonerodent [+5] High Council of Gallifrey (17 hours later)
Typo thread:
missing a close parenthesis in
((Counterpoint—Erek could not have been present at the Yeerk pool without being forced by his programming into courses of action which are inconsistent with his presence here—)
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (20 hours later)
Thanks.
u/philophile [+4] (23 hours later)
In the spirit of The Moment When People Decide to Share r!Animorphs... there's now a facebook page. Is this something you would like to continue existing /u/TK17Studios? To be honest I was just surprised there wasn't one already.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (23 hours later)
Wahoo! Liked it. Pls continue it to exist. I dunno how to help?
^(I suppose my main contribution will be to keep writing.)
u/philophile [+3] (23 hours later)
Yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing :D
Never created a page before. Oh well, let's see where it goes!
u/TacticusThrowaway [+5] (2 days later)
You know, if I didn't own the book where the oatmeal is introduced (I even remember that it's #17), I'd think you were making that up.
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
One of the benefits of fanfiction. I only sort of have to justify the most ridiculous stuff.
Still no Helmacrons, though. Never. Never. Never.
u/ketura [+4] Organizer (2 days later)
Not even a
^^^tiny ^^^bit?
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 days later)
^^^^NO
u/TacticusThrowaway [+3] (2 days later)
That was also the only book I owned. I just read others from my classroom library, and just looked up the ending on Wikipedia a few years ago. I don't think I made it past #30. Let me just Google Helmacrons-
Okay, what was even the point of those? From the writer's perspective?
u/ketura [+7] Organizer (2 days later)
A good amount of the animorphs series was ghostwriters...KA Applegate wrote the first few, the last few, some of the more impactful ones in the middle, and was involved with the overall plot, but a whooooole lot of 'em were written by one-off authors telling one-off stories. Most were never brought up again in spite of the story impact (oatmeal, starfish cloning) while some kept coming back in spite of how dumb they were (helmacrons, friggin SARIO RIP).
Honestly, part of the advantage /u/TK17Studios has is that he's one guy trying to tell one story, so he's free to pick and choose what he puts in, regardless of publishability or general appeal or any metric besides what he thinks makes a good story. Ms Applegate had none of those freedoms.
u/MagicWeasel [+5] Cheela Astronaut (2 days later)
and just looked up the ending on Wikipedia a few years ago.
Do yourself a favour and acquire the last 5 or so books (where the back covers start saying "they know exactly who we are and exactly where we live"). They get surprisingly dark, a very different overall tone to the first few. I would definitely recommend them to a former fan.
edit: fogot to close a bracket
u/royishere [+2] (7 days later)
Do yourself a favour and acquire
Can't slip that one by me!
u/MagicWeasel [+2] Cheela Astronaut (7 days later)
I didn't mean it as a pun actually, I meant it as in, you don't necessarily have to locate the physical copies at a book store, there are other ways.