god and right on the heels of that intense david ark we're jumping into the HORK BAJIR chronicles. goddamn. shits gonna be intense. ~~~~~~~ I"m listening to the audio book of 19 btw and man, cassie's voice actor just can NOT do all the shit eating sound effects animorphs requires. but damn does she go hard on making sure every character gets their own voice. even aftran has a diff voice when she's speaking through Karen vs inside cassie's head. ~~~ man that cover art is seared into my brain. Starting....off with tobias? What? Okay I don't remember the frame story. I know that this one was like the andalite chronicls in that it doesn't have an animorph protag at all. I know that...somehow the animorphs do become aware of this plot? I think they meet the nothlith hork bajir andalite girl? at some point? .............. hmmm thats right, the ellimist has been making sure additional hork bajir make it to the valley? or is that not happening yet. in any case, they're reproducing. iirc, this is the genius seer Toby. tobias, its not hard to tell gender, they told you before. two horns vs three on the head. three for guys i think, cuz the cover art has three horns. and i remember its a dude hork bajir girl andalite love story. there, frame story is tobias is listening to a hork bajir story ritual. god. the hork bajir fell in 1966. that wasn't long ago at all. theres something insane about that. that it fell like, a human generation or two ago. like, in living memory. it feels like something eternal. that hork bajir have near ALWAYS been enslaved. what a strong start. this andalite, aldrea, becomes a curse or cruel joke to her people. oh god, seerow. thats right, he was her father. she was THERE when the yeerks escaped containment ``` Prince Seerow argued. ``` yeah. yeah. seerow's kindness was always something that made sense. what im wondering is, the yeerks escaped with ships, sure. and weapons. into z-space. but how are they EATING? were there already artificial kadrona ray sources? honeslty this is just the plot of jurassic park. creatues safely contained in an environment through a controlled food source unexpectly suddenly don't need it. ``` Alloran said again. ``` ah there you go. ```I am the daughter of Prince Seerow. My friends tease me sometimes. They call me “Seerow’s Unkindness.” You see, I’m not like most females. I’m not content to stay within the sciences and the arts, the traditional female occupations. I don’t want to be a Zero-space theorist or a grass-scape designer or a cloud artist. I want to be a warrior. I want to fight the Yeerks. I know what everyone says: Females are not born to be warriors. We have smaller tail blades. More like scalpels than like the great, curved scythes our brothers have. ``` she's not like other girls. the hork bajir home planet is so weird. if i recall correctly they were a biologically engineered species designed to teraform it. so most of the planet isn't really inhabitable cuz its still a work in progress. ```My name is Dak Hamee. I am Hork-Bajir. But I am different. Not like others. I have known this since I was too small to strip any but the most tender bark. ``` god, NOBODY is like the other girls. if i remember right, seers are a genetic abberation. their creator species did NOT want that. they wanted them dumb and docile and just doing their job. (and its a spoiler that they're created, no one knows ) ~~~ more reading ```I felt … I did not have words for how I felt. Things that are far away seem small. Even when they are large. This idea was like an exploding seed pod in my head. ``` i do like the exploration of... what is it like having a human level intelligence around those wihtout it? at suddenly being exposed to concepts you couldn't possibly have articulated in a vaccum? honestly 'human level' is probably a misnomer. iirc hork bajir seers are *very* smart. like, human genius level at least. god thats right, one of the pov chars is Esplin 9466 (aka the yeerk who would become visser 3) ```I have never lived on the home world. I was born in a sterile, titanium-alloy tank, beneath the warmth of a portable Kandrona. It was all I knew. Older Yeerks spoke of the pools of home. Of their smells and temperatures; of their size and spaciousness; of their traditions that stretched back for hundreds of generations. ``` makes me wonder what the yeerks left on the homeworld are doing. very certainly quaranteened by andalites... or... i mean, it wouldn't be the FIRS genocide the andalies had done and covered up. actually now this makes me realize theres a plot hole, sort of? Elfangor assumed that in the time cube thing or whatever it was called each of them had tried to return to their home world... so you got the three part fake world but if visser 3 had never been... ah i see. he mentioned he had pets from the homeworld. they must have taken it back after they got the hork bajir shock troops. gotcha. and the taxon homeworld fell shortly after, they had hork bajir hosts to claim it. ```Oh! How can I explain it? The power! The joy! The feeling that I had suddenly grown huge, vast, powerful.``` esplin describing his first host. constrast that with aftran, the yeerk from book 19 who was in cassie's head who focused so much on the beauty and joy of sight. power is all visser 3 focused on. ```And then I felt inside the brain, a place I had not been. A place untouched by my control. I opened that part of the brain. And in doing so, I opened the Gedd’s eyes. For a long, frozen moment of disbelief, I did not know what was happening. I didn’t understand what my brain was receiving. How could I? How could any Yeerk who has not had a host? Sight! Objects - not felt, not smelled, not reflected on sonar - but seen. It was like a sonar image, but oh, so much more. So much! The data assaulted my brain. I reeled, overwhelmed, unable to understand or accept. I looked through the Gedd’s eyes. I used the Gedd’s own brain to filter and interpret the eerie, insane input. And then, slowly, I understood. I was looking at other Gedds. I was looking around at the inside of the spacecraft. I was looking down at my own pool. So small, it was. So dark. So … insignificant. ``` okay he just hadn't opened his eys yet. valid. still, v much still on a power kick. ```Afterward I communicated with my friends and siblings. Many of them found the whole experience terrifying. Sickening. Awful. Not me. From that moment on, I swore that I would do whatever it took, pay any price, to have eyes again.``` yup. and then visser3 decides to become an andalite geek. aldrea speaking of her father: ``` He still preferred to think it was just the Yeerks who had stolen the ships who were guilty. He clung to the belief that the main population of Yeerks were in favor of peace with Andalites. ``` i mean. theres no reason to catastrophize everything. the yeerks could still just be trying to escape somewhere to live in peace. and the ones on the homeworld seem to be under andalite occupation still (so my time line of them taking it back after the hork bajir seesm accurate) ```I didn’t point out that the Yeerks on the homeworld had no choice - An Andalite fleet was parked in orbit above them, ready to shred anything that tried to come or go in the system.``` yeah, see? ``` my father said sadly. I said. My father frowned. ``` it WAS a very satisfying story to tiny me. the adults all think they know whats going on (and are wrong), but only because they refuse to talk to the children. she teaches dak hamee a secret. she's going to morph a native animal so its not so hard to get around. and im sitting here thinking, elfangor mentioned morphing being a thing you're taught in the ARMY, with the implication the technology is only given to soldiers. was i wrong about that? or is there a reason aldrea has it? oh i see, its a secret even from her parents (likely related to her wanting to be a soldier and them opposing) ```The morphing technology is so new that there are even Andalites who doubt its safety or usefulness. Fortunately, I had a friend back on the home world whose mother was one of the designers of the Escafil Device. She had shown it to me. I’d used it. ``` SERIOUSLY the yeerks escaped only decades ago. the andalites invented morphing only decades ago. so much happened so quickly ,galactically speaking. especially given andalite technology is millenia old. though. any time i wanna talk about plot holes regarding the broader plot. all i gotta do is remember the upcoming twists in teh Ellimist Chronicles. ellimist dared let the andalites develop l337 tech? welp, krayak is gonna break the yeerks outta containment. ```I found the mouth the strangest thing. It felt so wrong, having this gaping hole in the front of my face. It’s silly, but I felt like it was a wound. ``` this will never get old. ```I saw Dak. He was looking up and grinning - a thing Hork-Bajir do with their mouths. ``` NEVER. if i recall correctly inside "The Deep" is the species they're terraforming the planet for. they're encouraged to avoid it because the creator species don't wanna be bothered. ``` I had “seen” only for a few moments through the Gedd’s eyes. But I could try to imagine the life of a four-eyed Andalite. I had to stretch my imagination to picture what it was like to run. To live most of your life directly under the sun and the stars, with only a transparent atmosphere to protect you. How can a Yeerk, used to the warm intimacy of the Yeerk pool, truly understand what it is like to have four legs, to run, to see, to feel, to manipulate objects at will with delicate, precise hands? To have a deadly tail? It’s not possible. Not really. But I came closer to understanding than anyone else in the pool. I inserted my palps into the computer interface and I read with virtual eyes. And I used that computer simulation of sight to watch, again and again, every stored visual image, still or moving. Slowly, slowly, I began to understand my enemy. To understand their impressive strengths. But also to see their weaknesses. ``` seriously , the fact that visser3 eventually gets an andalite body must have been so gratifying to him. its like being a furry and being allowed to turn into your fursona. ```I opened the creature’s memory, looking for its own pictures of its life. I wanted to know what it could do. I felt a resistance. A mind within the brain. Stronger than the tired, beaten Gedd. This creature was attempting to fight me! There was only one possible response. Total and complete control. Get out! Get out! the creature screamed in silence. I sneered. ``` just in case we're tempted to empathize with visser3 after the whole aftran arc. yeah, the yeerk sare in a shit situation but some of them really are just evil ```“Yes,” I said in a harsh, guttural voice. “These creatures will be our weapons.” Akdor and Janath stared at me. “Then rrrr-we will take this-rrrr species,” Akdor announced. “We will make them ourrrrrs. This rrr-planet is wherrrre we make ourrr stand! On this planet rrr-we will build the foundations of a true Yeerrrrk empirrrre!” I was there. Do you understand what this moment was, what it meant? I was there when Akdor announced the birth of the Yeerk Empire. “So, what arrre these crrrreatures called?” Janath asked me. I was surprised. Neither Akdor nor Janath knew the name of the species whose doom they had pronounced. I searched my new memory, ignoring the pitiful, wailing cries that came from the shadow of the creature himself. “They call themselves Hork-Bajir, Akdor. Hork-Bajir.” ``` ~~~ back again. ```It was seven weeks since Aldrea had become a chadoo for the first time. Since then she had done it again, more than once. But this night she was Andalite. I liked it best when she was Andalite. I could not care about a chadoo. I did care about Aldrea, the Andalite. She had taught me. She had shown me an entire universe unknown to my people. I was still greedy for knowledge, but Aldrea had begun to say that I knew all she knew. Was this true? It didn’t matter. I needed Aldrea the way the leaves need Mother Sky. There was no one else for me to talk to. In many ways, I was no longer Hork-Bajir. But when we were together and I looked at her delicate shape, I knew that I was not Andalite, either. ``` why are the megamorphs always so interspecies shipping heavy? ```I’ll admit I felt a qualm at that. Unlike the others, I knew about Andalites. I knew how advanced their technology was, and how dangerous. I also knew that even without any other weapons, with tails alone, they were dangerous. But I would have died rather than admit those doubts. This was the path to power. To be there, in the first combat use of Hork-Bajir hosts, would be an important thing. ``` god it FASCINATES me that esplin displays the same traits he will as visser 3, but reversed. he doesn't tell authority when things might go wrong, because he's ambitious. then he wonders why his underlings don't fucking tell him shit when HE'S authority (and it doesn't help that he likes shooting the messenger) ~~~~ https://www.tumblr.com/jadedresearcher/708738390699442176 just found out everyone finds jake boring like what honeslty he's one of my favorite viewpoints maybe THE favorite? tobias is always best birb but he tends to be v much in his own head i love how much guilt jake harsh any case, back to reading its just hard getting thru the chronicles for me longer than the other books anyways visser 3 directly experiences a asshole commanding officer not listening to his better understanding of the situation and everything going to hell he becomes exactly the kinda boss he hates. dak and much like erek the chee...dak is forced to give up pacifism for the first time to go from being unable to even THINK of deliberate violence to enacting it. ```I’d known that the Hork-Bajir were peaceable. I’d had no idea before this that they simply did not understand the very concept of fighting. ``` ```Dak laughed. “My people do not understand ‘parasites.’ They will never understand that these creatures will steal their bodies. They will listen to what we tell them, then they will go on with stripping bark and playing and caring for their children.” “I hoped I had been chosen to show my people all the things your father tried to show the Yeerks. I wanted to teach them music. Writing. Art. I wanted to teach them to keep track of time, the passing of years. To make tools, to build. But your father gave those things to the Yeerks, and now we see the results. Maybe I was a fool to think that knowledge would make my people happy.” I said. “Yes, they do,” he said quietly. “Either they will learn to fight and hurt and kill, or they will learn to be slaves. Both will destroy them. Killers or slaves. They will be one or the other. Killers or slaves.”``` intense. ```I looked away. It is hard seeing disappointment in the eyes of someone you care for. And yet, his contempt for me changed nothing. He had no choice. His people had no choice. Would I help make them a race of killers in order to stop the Yeerks? Yes. A thousand times over, Yes. The creatures who had murdered my family would pay. No matter what. ``` okay yeah she is NOT doing this for the right reason. its not to save dak hamee's people. not really. its to get revenge. ``` I said. Even as I said the words I knew I had lied. It wasn’t us the Yeerks were chasing. It was me. All Hork-Bajir were the same to the Yeerks. It was the Andalite they wanted to kill. But Dak accepted my warning. He followed me down the hill, leaving behind the terrified HorkBajir. No time for guilt. I had to survive! Only I could reach my people and bring them to annihilate the Yeerks. Only I could ensure vengeance. What were a few scared Hork-Bajir compared to the need to kill the Yeerks?``` exactly. man i'd forgotten how much i disliked her. ```No, he would stand by me, I was sure of that. He would hate himself for making that choice. But that didn’t matter, not now. All that mattered now was destroying the Yeerks.``` 0/10 its especially interesting in the wake of book 19 showing us its not as black and white as you think i saw a tumblr post where it said the poitn of the series seems to be to make you hate the andalites, by the end. ``` I said. It was what Dak wanted most, I knew. To experience space. To fly up to the stars. It was a promise he could never refuse. A bribe. Dak stopped walking. I stopped and turned back to face him. “You did not have to say that, Aldrea. You do not have to hold out a ripe Nawin cone to make me stay with you. All this time together, Aldrea, and yet you don’t know that I would sacrifice anything for you?” I could only stare. Stare and burn with humiliation. He had seen right through me. I felt small and shabby. I should have said I was sorry. But that, too, would have been a lie. ``` meanwhile esplin is realizing that if he can take an ANDALITE host body he'll be high class also: i GENUINELY don't know how the "planets core" could be exposed i'm p sure that the outer layers of it would harden to rock and you wouldn't see that red hot glow outside that rocky shell maybe force fields? ```He’d said he would do anything for me. He’d said it in a way that … no, that was ridiculous. We were different species. Totally, completely different. And yet I enjoyed spending time with him. I enjoyed talking with him. I missed him when we were separated. Perfect, Aldrea, I laughed to myself. He’s covered with blades; he’ll soon be seven feet tall; he eats with his mouth; and he swings through the trees. I was just lonely, that was it. There were no Andalite males around, and I was at the appropriate age for an interest in males. If there had been an interesting Andalite around, I’d have cared nothing about Dak. ``` can not wait till we get to the ellimist chronicles and we can stop having romance in the chronicles. in any case, im glad dak hamee realizes that aldrea is compromised. ```I did not believe Aldrea was bad, not in the way the Yeerks were bad. But Aldrea had lied to me. Aldrea was an Andalite first, my friend second. And she was hungry for revenge against the Yeerks.``` its a good way to put it. huh neat i'd forgotten the creator species were the NATIVES their planet was destroyed by a disaaster and they did bio engineering to restore it all this time i'd been thinking this was some terraforming project. ```Quatzhinnikon gave Dak a hard look. “Of course. You’re one of the smart ones, aren’t you? A seer. We never could entirely eradicate that one bundle of genes. We did our best, but still, from time to time, one of you will arise.” “Yes, I am a seer,” Dak said calmly. “You’re a freak, is what you are,” Quatzhinnikon said. “A dangerously unstable element. It was our one great failure: One in ten thousand Hork-Bajir is born with intelligence that rivals that of the Arn.”``` i think its so fascinating how this trope is disrupted usually creator species in fiction are wise and placid this is just a petty lil jerk ```“In saving them, I may save yours as well. The Yeerks will not be frightened off by the blue mist and children’s stories of Father Deep. They will come for you next. Help us now and you may live.”``` you know i wonder if the yeekrs DID find the creator species? if they did there weren't enough of them to matter but still i vaguely recall dak either dies or... i don't think he becomes enslaved? so they'd never find out lets find out ```I was standing by the edge of the pool, joking with my twin. Yes, of course, I am a twin. But I am the primary. He is the secondary.``` werid that he somewhat gets along with his twin back then ```Yes, there was something beautiful in that small, delicate, dangerous creature. Someday, I would tell her how I’d felt at this awful moment. Someday, I would live inside her head and I would tell her that I had admired her on this day. Someday, when she was my host``` fucked up gotta sleep for now ~~ oh hey, in describing these monsters, a lot of them are ones visser 3/esplins later acquires. good for him takes a former enemy, subsumes its will and makes it an ally definitely not a problem or a theme for esplin ```There was a monster called a Lerdethak, a bizarre tangle of living vines surrounding a ravening mouth.``` this one in particular i recognize from the one where jake had a jaguar morph and everyone was back in time and in the rain forest and using moneky morphs to get through the vines i do like that it neatly handles "how is earth a death world which MUCH dangerous predators than most planets, yet visser3 has all these monsters to morph" cuz the monsters were genetically engineered hell, that explains why the horkbajir are physically incapable of conceptualizing violence. ``` I said. He gave me a look I’d seen more and more often from him. A look of sullen anger, resentment. That was to be expected. I understood. He resisted turning to violence. That just meant he was a decent creature. But he would come to see the necessity of fighting. He would see I was correct. When the Yeerks were destroyed and his people were free once more, he would see.``` yeah wow dislike her more and more ```“Have you ever killed a fellow Andalite?” “You ask me to kill my own people today and to lead my people in killing their brothers,” Dak said. “You say they are not Hork-Bajir, but Yeerks. But when the dead have given up their souls to Mother Sky, there will be Hork-Bajir bodies lying dead.” I exploded. “Be quiet, Aldrea,” Dak said. He didn’t shout. He said it calmly, in a low voice. “These are my people who will die today. Be quiet, Andalite. Be quiet.” ``` savage he has a lot in common with cassie ```We had been created by one brilliant species, invaded and enslaved by another. And now a third was using us. But as I marched I saw no way out. That was what made me feel as sick as someone who has eaten yellow bark. There was no other way for us. We had become tools to be used by smarter, more powerful species.``` god dak hamee describing his people leaving their pacificstic ways as "the final horror" is intense such a strongly anti war pro pacifism series that nevertheless acknowledges that sometimes war is the only option but that war isn't a way to RESIST the violence done to you its not a way to return to a prewar society its merely the best of two horrors available to you oh man, esplin didn't even KNOW about morphing how intense to find out about this even AFTER esplin wanted an andalite body so badly ```I had practiced the morph. I knew how to dominate the monster’s instincts.``` yup, andalites have NOTHING in common with yeerks and then aldrea fires on the pool itself, just like the decisions that jake struggles with over and over. ```“To the trees!” I roared to my people. “To the trees!” They pulled back reluctantly from the slaughter. But they obeyed. Obeyed. Me. Hork-Bajir who had never known the word “obedience” now obeyed me. Because I was the seer? Because I was wiser than they? No. Because I had destroyed their past and now they had no choice but to follow me into a future they could not imagine. The monsters in our valley were destroyed that day. Only a very few survived. But that was all right, because we didn’t need monsters anymore. We had become them. ``` so intense. ```Seven months passed, during which Dak Hamee and I learned the techniques of guerrilla warfare: 1) Strike with the element of surprise at the enemy’s weak point. 2) Withdraw before the counterattack can begin. 3) Use the population for support, regardless of reprisals. ``` oof. ```“We have altered our own DNA,” Quatzhinnikon said complacently. “We have altered our own physiology. We have weakened a blood vessel in our own brains to the point where any increase in cranial pressure will cause the vessel to rupture. Should a Yeerk attempt to enter any Arn brain, the vessel will rupture and the Arn will die. A dead host is of no use to the Yeerks. Therefore they will leave us in peace. All Arn in all the valleys of this world will be altered this way within days.” For a moment, I stared. Then I laughed. Quatzhinnikon shrugged. “They will have no use for us.” “Exactly,” Dak said. “And what they do not need, they destroy.”``` okay so thats why i hadn't heard of arn controllers ```Had Kalpak``` i think Kalpak was the last name of Jara Hamee's wife in the book where tobias freed some hork bajir ```I laughed. I laughed and laughed and danced around. I cried. ``` haha yup its going to be JUUUUST fine definitely not a terrible prophecy of just WHY we don't want the andalites to actually show up on earth and "save" us! ``` “Of course it’s what you meant,” I said bitterly. “You Andalites have more respect for the vicious Yeerks or the cowardly Arn than you have for the Hork-Bajir who fight and die at your sides. All that matters to your people is intelligence. Well, I’ve learned enough about Yeerk and Andalite and Arn intelligence to make me sick.”``` ```She looked at me then, with all her eyes. I smiled. I appreciated what she’d said. But I didn’t believe it. ``` if she does, i'm willing to believe its because she's been disillusioned with what her own people even are i think it might be hard to keep vengence up to that level of obsession after so many setbacks ```Alloran had always been arrogant. Now, after months of hopeless battle, he was brutal, distant, and above all, exhausted. I pleaded with him. I even took his hand in mine. The morphing technology was still so new that most people didn’t know how it worked. It never occurred to Alloran, as he felt the strange calm and lethargy steal over him, that I was acquiring his DNA.``` ```I went over to Delf and took her claw hand in mine. I released Delf’s hand.``` memory says she becomes a hork bajir nothlith , in this form. and then yup, she discovers alloran is planning to genocide the hork bajir with a virus ~~~~ i am very tired. work has been hard (both jobs) and im moving soon AND i managed to get sick but i think i can finish reading these last 14 pages. even if i don't have the spoons wto work on the like, three zampanio wips i have (maze sim needs to finish rivers endings and parkers secret, plus it was yongkis bday so i gotta write fic for him in witherby's diary) you know i don't remember if the virus got USED i know it cost alloran his reputation i know his increasing anti yeerk mania was set up back in the adalite chronicles. but if it got used, well, clearly the yeerks DO have their shock troops. also i find it interesting that like when she morphs allloran, she had his thought speach. which implies that i dunno, you should "sound" like whatever you're morphing, even in your head hand wavy whatever i feel like andalites shouldn't be susceptible to the morphing spy aspect, same reason leerans aren'tail cuz if a species is psychic, they're a LOT harder to fool ```I smiled, despite everything. Alloran had failed us. My people were doomed now, either way. But in the end, Aldrea was my true friend. She had lied to me, used me from time to time, and yet now, here, in this black moment, she was my true friend. ``` i still don't like her tho ```“I didn’t believe you,” I admitted. “When you said if you were forced to choose, you’d choose me.” Aldrea said. “You and I alone, going against the Yeerks and the Andalites,” I said. ``` ```I cared very much for her then. I probably had before that, but that was when I finally realized it. With all her lies, all her inbred Andalite arrogance, all her manipulations, I loved her.``` seriously so much more romance in the side stories well untili rachel and tobias get together in a doomed sort of way okay like, i get that aldrea is doing a noble gesture and all, what with destroying the current amount of the virus but can't they just make more? i guess this is step 1. if they survive, they'll figure out what to do next. you know. it is awfully CONVINEINT that the yeerks just happened to attack during this desperate moment. by which i mean, i know its the reason why alloran gets taken by esplin. which means krayak and the ellimist DEFINITELY have their fingers in this pot. ```Then Dak pressed his forehead horns to mine, and I felt the tingle of a sensation I had not guessed Hork-Bajir could feel. It was a Hork-Bajir kiss, I suppose. What we Andalites do when we stroke another’s face with our palms.``` well glad we now know how two alien species kiss. you know, theres a reason why theres all those "are andalites monster fuckers" posts. this is TWO books in a row where an andalite went native and fell in love with an alien ``` I cried, sensing that she was aware of me in her mind. I could not wait to get completely wrapped around her brain. I had to see inside her memories, all of them. And I opened my own mind and memories, too, letting her see all that I was, all that I had been. I wanted her to fear me, to understand how hopeless her life was now. ``` seriously this is *intensely* evil for a childrens book. aldrea is spared the fate though, because esplin is a huge fucking power hungry idiot and didn't think to have anyone secure his former host so the hork bajir rampaged around a bit and then freed her by just pulling esplin out before he could get in ```“Are you all right?” I asked her. She nodded. “I am now.” But there was something wrong with her. I could tell. Something had changed. She noticed me staring. “The Yeerk. Esplin-Nine-Four-Double-Six. I saw inside his memories,” she said. “I guess … I guess nothing is ever as simple as it seems.”``` so he wanted her to FEAR him and feel helpless and it sounds like instead she pitied him. ```And yet in my powerless rage, there was a part of me that still could think of nothing but that sweet memory. Of the overwhelming beauty of an Andalite running free.``` was his last thought before he was pulled out he really just is an andalite furry, prove me wrong. she becomes a nothlith because she gets knocked out for more than two hours (when an andalite ship attacks them because they're in a yeerk bug fighter) oh yup, the virus got out. they survive (for now) by staying down wind of it . ```We stood there on the edge of that cliff, knowing the Quantum virus was spreading on the wind, and knowing that the Andalites were leaving forever. The end had come. The war was lost. ``` ```“There are valleys the virus will not reach for a time,” I said. “Some will survive. Surely some will survive. And … and there are still the trees.” “And us,” Aldrea said. “For now, for a while, we will have us.”``` we know their children get enslaved. then freed. jara hamee even has a seer child (they're about to reveal) named Toby (after tobias) oh right, alloran doesn't get caught in this book. maybe he never gets caught on screen . maybe esplin just happens to find his unconscious body in that stream. what luck! ``` Jara looked slyly at me. “Tobias knows Esplin-Nine-Four-Double-Six.” Yes. Of course, I did. The Yeerk who was obsessed by Andalites. The Yeerk who had managed to survive despite everything. “Visser Three.”``` ```It wasn’t a good story for a person already wondering what the point of his life was. The Yeerks had won. Evil had triumphed. The Hork-Bajir, all except this small band, were enslaved.``` right? ``` Jara and Ket didn’t answer. Instead, the Hork-Bajir girl herself looked up at me and smiled a very serious smile. “Yes, Tobias, friend of the Hork-Bajir. Yes, I am dif erent.” The wind picked me up then, and I soared up and away. But with my hawk’s eyes I watched them for a long time. And at some point, I started feeling really good. I felt happy because Jara Hamee was right. Stories have no end. And my namesake, Toby Hamee, the descendant of a brave Andalite girl and a Hork-Bajir seer, was going to write the next chapter``` i like how both toby and tobias have andalite.... well i won't say blood...or dna, but, uh. heritage? that's a cute connection i hadn't considered as a kid. and there we go. dint' exactly read this one in a week, but i did it