eeeee i forgot how satisfying it is that its right on the heels of 35... or maybe i didn't know? i feel like i only had enough money at book fairs to buy the main books, and then SOMETIMES i'd get the other ones but i never knew when? ~~~ finally starting ~~~ "Marco was still asleep. Or pretending to be. A good-looking kid, but small. Already, in his early adolescence, the stamp of failure was on him. He was too sweet-natured and trusting to ever make it very far in a hard world. A world that would only grow harder for humans. " oh boy, ironic you should say that, yeerk ~~~ "Marco was still asleep. Or pretending to be. A good-looking kid, but small. Already, in his early adolescence, the stamp of failure was on him. He was too sweet-natured and trusting to ever make it very far in a hard world. A world that would only grow harder for humans. " yeah they really lean on the horror and more adult themes in this one. having an adult persepective is i think a first for the series ~~~ "Sailing was one of the best things about being in a human. It was such a perfect blend of power and subtlety, bending to the inevitable and yet resisting great forces. Dangerous and exhilarating. You skimmed along between sea and sky, a part of each, trusting neither." being in a human. i do like that yeerks are.... still people. not mindless facist enemies. they have hobbies. dreams. friends. visser3 likes keeping pets and is a geek about andalites. visser1 likes sailing. each person you kill in a war, is just as much a person as you are. no matter what evil they have done. cassie is the only one to let herself really live with that. all the ohters shield themselves with "they are evil, they aren't people" ~~~ "Eva’s human mind would still be with me, of course. Still blubbering and weeping and begging, no doubt. But I had written the book on human infestation. I would have no difficulty controlling this woman" seriously. ~~~ "I showed nothing on my human face. I was no longer able to show much emotion on my human face. The left side of my head was burned almost beyond recognition, bled and black and raw. My mouth was twisted from blows delivered while imprisoned. " just casual mundane horror, it must have been so scary and painful "The Visser’s threat was real. I knew that if the Council found against me, Visser Three would keep me in agony until I lost my sanity. But it could not be much worse than the last month of captivity. My broken bones, right leg, left arm and shoulder, ribs, and by burned flesh had been left untreated. All could be easily repaired. None had been. I could not cut myself off entirely from the pain my host felt. Not without releasing my host altogether. She felt the pain, and so did I" ~~~ "That’s the subtlety so many Yeerks miss. Threats are very useful. But for the more subtle, and thus complete control over your subordinates, you need the helping hand as well as the killing blade" and this is why, if visser 1 were still in charge of the earth invasion, rather than it being given to visser 3 before the books even started, humanity would have been *fucked* ~~~ "Two humans, three Andalites. And not just any Andalites. The leader of the expedition was an Andalite War-Prince named Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. Alloran the criminal who released the Quantum virus into the Hork-Bajir home world and helped to deprive us of the full fruits of our just victory there. The members of the Council murmured. They knew the name Alloran. Of course they knew that name. There was only one Andalite-Controller. One Andalite host. Nevertheless, I drove the point home. " i think its interesting that we hear her story in the form of propaganda against visser3 how much is true, how much is spin, we may never know ~~~ "I bowed my head in submission. I had scored my points. I had planted suspicion of Visser Three in the minds of the Council. And Visser Three knew it. The smug look was gone, wiped away. It was beginning to dawn on him that his own life was now at risk. " ~~~ "She laughed. She, better than anyone, knew my weakness. She, better than anyone, knew I’d die rather than hand Visser Three a victory over the “Andalite Bandits.”" memory says its her children, but i don't know why she worries visser 3 winning would risk them ~~~ ah i see, it won't be all propaganda, memory dump ~~~ "“I will make a complete memory dump available,” I said quickly. “The instant that Visser Three agrees to do the same.” A bluff, of course. Neither of us could afford a total memory dump. There are more than a hundred death penalty or exile offenses. In the course of acting as a loyal Yeerk Visser I had probably violated a third of them. And, of course, Visser Three had violated still more, beginning with summary execution of subordinates. Visser Three had slaughtered subordinates by the poolful" i think its so funny that all of visser 3's most evil acts were illegal even for yeerks ~~~ "But Essam was no fool. He knew better than to challenge me openly. I had chosen him carefully. He was a Yeerk of narrow expertise: a pilot and technician. He had at one point risen to the rank of sub-visser. But he had suffered demotion for an incident of poor judgment. While on patrol he had allowed a handful of Hork-Bajir to escape aboard a neutral Desbadeen ship. A Yeerk who failed to understand that diplomatic niceties like “neutrality” were nonsense was unfit for command. " like how the phrase "all cops are bastards" aludes to systemic pressure that makes non-bastards get pushed out of roles of power. i imagine the yeerk peace movement is mostly from those "unfit for command" ~~~ "It was bewildering. Absurd. Insane. Too much, far, far too much. Why would there be a need for communications this frequent? The only necessary communications are orders from above, progress reports from below, and basic logistical matters. The entire Yeerk Empire did not generate a thousandth of this data. " a lot of "wow humans are weird" in this series are from biology.... but this is just. the yeerks ... how to put it they're a facist empire of conquest, they value only strength but they're also refugees, barely limping along , exiled from their home and they're also... creatures with very limited native senses, with no real ability to tie their basic biological pleasures to technology. the way they get lost in the hedonism of being human is... a sign that they crave culture, crave experience, even as their home culture could not provide it. if they'd been left alone, uncontacted by andalites, i wonder what wonders they would have created. even if they never created technology, what culture did they have back in their home pools? ~~~ "I spread further, searching for the real-time auditory input. Searching as well for motor control. Then I discovered something strange and disturbing. A huge, deep chasm. It seemed to separate the human brain into two halves. And between the halves was only a nerve bundle not much thicker than my own true body. Two halves? Why? Why would the human brain be divided in halves? It was irrational design. It made no sense. Unless … was this a fully redundant system that would allow the creature to function in the event half its brain was destroyed? Tentatively I reached toward the far side of the brain. I touched it. Made contact. Fascinating! It was incredible. This second half of the brain was an almost mirror image, but not. It could have functioned all on its own, if necessary, and yet it was in some ways radically different in its memories, its sensory interpretation, even its will. Two almost entirely functional brains in one skull, communicating across a channel of nerves. Not a fully redundant system, almost a second, dif erent brain! Why? It had to involve specialization, of some sort. And yet I found visual and auditory functions on both sides. I found memory on both sides. Found motor control on both sides. It was then that I knew I was seeing something new. This brain worked by dialectic. Each half of the brain saw and heard and smelled and touched a slightly different world. Each tended toward specialization, but not a hard, fast split. The left half had more language, but not all the language. The right side had more spatial perception, but not all of the spatial perception. Confusion! Disorder! Illogic! This mind could argue with itself. This mind could see the same event in different ways. It was insanity! A democratic brain, arguing within itself, with no sure, certain control, only a sort of uneasy compromise. A consensus of disputatious elements. This brain contained its own traitor! " this was so damn formative for me. This idea of the mind as something more than just my concious experience. my whole idea of identity, my eventual interest in psychology and cognitive science. "And, as I began to sift the memories I saw, again and again, the internal argument. The “Should I? Should I not?” debates. The paralysis of internal disagreement. But I also saw decisions improved as a result of uncertainty. Hesitation and internal discord leading to decisions that were wiser, more useful, than quicker decisions would have been. And yet that seemed a small compensation for the internal treason and confusion and conflict. No wonder they kill each other, I thought. They very nearly kill themselves! It was madness. Humans, as a species, were mad." spiral. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Once I could control motor functions I walked the human host back to the ship. Essam took us low and slow in pursuit of my Hork-Bajir host body. It was not hard to find him. He left tracks across the sand. Being Hork-Bajir it never occurred to the simple creature to try and conceal his footprints. He kept running as we approached. Essam piloted the ship and skimmed along the sand till we could hit the Hork-Bajir with a slow-speed blow that knocked the body to the ground. Essam tied and secured it and dragged it inside where it lay trussed in a corner, weeping and moaning in a most distracting way" absolute lack of empathy... but is it more or less empathy than european colonizers? or slavers? are humans better? or just differnet? ~~~ "I continued my exploration of the human. I understood his senses, now: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. I understood his motor functions. (Wonderful hands!) I understood his language. And with this came the inevitable awareness of the human mind cowering down in a far corner of the brain, crying, blustering, threatening, begging, and praying to what this human called “Allah.”" all i can do right now is imagine the human as clippy. something annoying and distracting, but ultimiately ignorable. ~~~ " The Memory Transfer Protocol faded. But my own memories of those glory days still played. No one answered Visser Three. They were all still lost in the direct, visceral sensation of having infested a human. The memory dump allowed them to see as I had seen, feel all I had felt. I was glad they had felt it, the seductive, addictive pleasure of controlling a human. Felt the nimble fingers and the sharp senses. " ~~~ "“So typical of you, Visser Three. You remain utterly ignorant of humans. Lettuce and raw eggs. Yes, just perfect.” I took the water and drank it down. My mouth, half-paralyzed by injury, dribbled the water down my chest. he said. I watched him cautiously. He was up to something. " treating human bodies as luxury commodities also there was only 5 billion humans then, compared to 8 billion now ~~~ "“No. Faster-than-light travel is an impossibility. Not even the Andalites can do it! That is why we tunnel into Zero-space.” I was puzzled. Confused. Was it possible … were the humans creating these images to frighten away potential enemies? Was that it? Was this all a complex bluff designed to intimidate potential conquerors? Then, it hit me in a flash of insight. “It’s all a lie, Essam. It’s not real. These are created events! Simulations! The humans, they … they invent these events.” “But what for, Sub-Visser?” “To intimidate us, Essam. Or … or perhaps for some other reason. None of what we see here in this data can be taken at face value. There are elements of artifice and deception in all of it!” “How can we differentiate? How do we know what’s real and what’s not?” “We can’t,” I admitted, once more frustrated. “Perhaps a human can, but it will take us years to sift data in order to determine which weapons systems and capabilities are real and which are simulated. Even the simple matter of human social structure is inexplicable. They have forms of interaction that defy analysis!” " its possible other species and cultures have fiction, but yeerks in this facist refuge camp definitely do not ~~~ "There is very little point in engaging in internal conversation with a host. One might as well be talking to one’s self, except in rare cases." interesting that she talks to marcos mom, then the sharing is created because one of visser 1's first hosts is an addled, weak, ignorant human and visser 1 sees a way to make such humans willingly turn themselves over. her ally, on the other hand, has a willful host and thinks it won't be this easy. ~~~ " Eva jeered inside my head. " yeah what was that about it being pointless talking to hosts, visser 1? ~~~ "“It would seem that Essam was more correct than you in his assessment of humans,” Garoff prodded. “While many humans have come willingly to us, many more do not. And we see reports of large numbers of host problems with humans. We have reports of Yeerks driven to lose control under the constant internal pressure of a resistant human host.” I bristled at his criticism. “At that early point we did not understand humans. I had encountered only two humans through infestation: a defeated soldier, and a weakling in thrall to a chemical.” Visser Three jumped in. " yeah visser3 is.... how to put it visser3 is incompetent and a terrible boss but he is ALSO being forced to pursue a strategy he is UNIQUELY bad at if he were allowed this from the begining, the "andalite bandits" never would have been able to be as damaging as they are. similarly visser1 being forced to spearhead an aggressive war would probably get distracted being clever and not actually do well... Fascinating ~~~ "“But I was still more right than wrong. Humans are riddled with exploitable weaknesses. Humans, at least some humans, will believe anything: They will surrender their free will to addictive chemical compounds, to strong-willed leaders, to their own greed for power… . It was from this insight that I realized the concept of The Sharing. How many thousands of humans have in fact come to us voluntarily? Submitted to us for empty promises of happiness or wealth or status?” Visser Three mocked. So that was it. That was Visser Three’s goal: all-out war. No! I couldn’t allow that! It would result in the deaths of millions, which was irrelevant to me, but it also might result in the deaths of two. Two humans I would not allow to be killed! " yeah, visser 1 is compromised. evil and selfish but compromised ~~~ oh thats right, these aren't real andalite bandits, its a fake. real tiger to frighten ~~~ "Only one way out, now. Marco. My host body’s son. Marco, the gentle, sweet child who had obviously become something more. But I would never be allowed to communicate with him. " ~~~ "! Living in Jenny’s mind had been like living in a shipboard pool with none of the detail, the sensory appeal of a true Yeerk pool." I wonder if... If that might be why Aftran, the yeerk cassie met, had the opinions she did. Most yeerks never knew a "true yeerk pool", so to them the options were "artificial pool (boring , understimulating) or infesting a host" so many more options would have been available to them in a different culture i mean hell, we see those commerce not-yerks in that howler book ~~~ "Allison fought me. What a glorious fight she made of it! I used to toy with her, withdraw some small bit of my control, just to see how long it would take her to find the weakness and attempt to exploit it. " evil. ~~~ "“There are more than five billion of them, Visser,” I shot back. “And you may deride their projectile weapons, but a nine-millimeter bullet will kill a Hork-Bajir host body quite effectively. And Taxxons or Gedds? A Taxxon can be killed with a can opener!” " that line stuck with me too, the sheer damage "every human" could do ~~~ " Visser Three cried. “Ignorant fool! Humans have fought thousands of wars. Thousands! We as a race have fought a mere handful. They run straight into the bullets, Visser Three, again and again. Did you know that? They attack against insane odds. They defend what can’t be defended. Outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, hopeless, they will still fight, fight, fight till they are each and every one dead. Something you might know if you stopped posturing long enough to learn something!” I forced a derisive laugh. “It’s ironic, Visser Three, that you, you of all Yeerks, you who rose to prominence by studying the Andalites when no one else would, have turned so stupid when it comes to dealing with humans.” Visser Three blinked his large Andalite eyes. He knew I’d made a point at his expense. He had no answer" yeah v good point ~~~ " Visser Three said bitterly. I wanted to scream. My hand clutched at a nonexistent Dracon weapon. It was the ultimate violation. It would make me no better than … than … my host mocked. That silenced her. But she was not my real problem. " ....wow. ~~~ "Allison Kim pressed for an explanation. She was trapped, helpless, but she still cared about learning. It was something we shared in common. She wanted to understand. And if that meant being pleasant to me, she was willing to do so. We spoke a great deal. About physics. History. About biology. She was fascinated by Yeerk biology. I was fascinated by human history. All her memories were mine to command, to open or close as I chose. It wasn’t necessary for me to converse with her. But I found it pleasant. Yes, it was pleasant. " man ~~~ "knew what was coming next. Knew, and couldn’t stop it from happening all over again. The ball flew. A man on the other team slammed it back. Hildy ran for it. I ran for it. Slipped. Fell in the sand. Hildy fell atop me. Face-to-face. Sudden silence. All the world outside was moving in slow motion. I looked into his eyes. Knew that those eyes were being aimed by Essam. But knew, too, that Allison was looking at Hildy. Yeerk looking at Yeerk. Human looking at human. None breathing. No heart beating. Slowly, strangely reluctant, he pulled away. I climbed up, brushed the sand from my lower back and legs. Garoff stared at me, grim. “You experienced human emotions that were not derived from the host. It was you, Edriss, feeling a sort of exaggerated sympathy for Hildy, and for Essam within him.” Eva whispered. “No, Council member, I was merely simulating human … human exaggerated sympathy … as a way to … to understand, Council Member Garoff. I never -” “Forward one month!” he snapped. Dinner. Candles. Lobster. " she is literally going to be tortured to death, visser 1 is, because she fell in love with another yeerk. wow. and all from an anime esque mishap ~~~ " Allison said inside my head. “They will live,” I whispered. Essam/Hildy looked puzzled. Then he nodded. Essam and Hildy conferred within their shared brain. Then he said, “One thing we swear, the four of us, the children will survive.” “Stop,” Garoff said. “Stop! Memory stop.” The memory disappeared. So sweet a memory, those small faces. So sweet a moment. The pain of it twisted my insides. Eva said. " i wonder how formative this was for me. ~~~ "I was pleading. For what? Mercy? From a Council member of the Yeerk Empire? “I was the first! We were the first, Essam and I. No one knew what humans held in their minds, no one knew. They weren’t intellectual inferiors. They were impossible to dismiss as sub-Yeerk, not when you knew them.”" suddenly i wonder. *suddenly i wonder* if the ellimists GOAL was to reveal the existence of humans to the yeerks. he always was an optimist. always thought "if you see a better way you will take it" in this intergalatic 5d chess game he is playing with crayak, was this a TRAP, a way to neutralize the yeerks before they spread too far? give them the PERFECT species. but make it so that the easiest way to take them is to learn about them, LIVE as them, be corrupted by them. krayak banked on human weakness being steam rolled by the yeerks. the elimists banked on human kindness showing the yeersk that there was a better way, even if it was only as whales. cassie was not the only one fighting this war for peace. how many other hosts were integral to their yeerks choosing the peace movement... ~~~ "I felt Garoff leave my mind. Felt the probes being withdrawn. It was all over. Over. My children … not mine, Allison’s, but yes, mine, mine, too, mine! Lost! Visser Three would unleash his war on Earth. The humans would resist. The violence would escalate. Out of control. The humans would lose every battle, every confrontation, and yet, they would fight on. And we, proud Yeerks, we could not let them survive to make fools of us. I saw it all, as clearly as if it had already happened. Humans exterminated. Earth a blasted, blackened cinder. My children, my twins, my little ones … I waited for the sound of Eva’s crowing triumph. But she was silent. " eva suddenly understands that as evil as visser1 is, as much as she hates her... she was always the "lesser evil" visser1 WANTS most humans to survive and live in peace. enslaved yes, but in peace. honestly if visser 1 had been given the option to become a whale way back when, she would have taken it. but facism breeds evil. i think not only if visser1 had been in charge of the earth invasion when the animorphs were created... not only would she have outmanuvered them.. but... it would have been harder to view the yeerks as "pure evil" visser 3 is an easy enemy for a 13 year old to understand. he turns into a big monster and he eats people, even his own people, because he is Bad. but visser 1... how many people would choose to do terrifying, traumitizing things, to kill, to risk being killed, all to oppose someone who... makes it all sound so reasonable? visser1 focused on taking people like Jenny Lines, addicts, the weak... but if the yeerks had been in a stronger position I could see another path, a more dangerous one. aliens are here to 'uplift' humanity, to offer them a path of peace and prosperity, to end all war, to end all suffering, and all we need do is agree to share our minds. but of course, as we see literally next, its not visser1 that is the master tactician, but eva, however unwilling ~~~ "All awaited Garoff’s statement. For a long time he was silent, staring at nothing. Then, at last, he shook his head and apologized. “I’m sorry to delay,” he said. “We will now proceed with Visser One’s statement.” I stared. What? Continue? From what point? Why? Why? I was convicted. I was guilty. my host said. I argued. But I didn’t have an explanation. It was absurd! I wasn’t an Andalite spy, but a traitor? Yes. Or had been. Eva said. “Marco,” I whispered voicelessly. " ~~~ "I was lost. Confused. My human stomach was twisting. Head swimming. “I … the progeny, the humans?” What? My host was now making demands? Impossible. Visser Three said. Eva shouted. " eva shows where marco gets it ~~~ finally we catch up to the last book: "“You know who this is,” I whispered. “Yes.” “Your mother.” “No,” he said flatly. “Not my mother. A Yeerk.” “Okay. Granted. But she needs you. She needs you and your friends.” “My friends?” “Don’t play stupid, Marco. I know you. What you are. What you do. You are needed. Now. As quickly as you can. You need to be seen.” “By who?” “Visser Three.” Silence. “It’s not a trap!” I whispered urgently. “I know. Like you said, you know me. If you wanted me dead it would be easy. You could take me, infest me, and have all of my friends within a few hours. So you need me. This is about your little personality conflict with Visser Three. You’re desperate. But you won’t give me up to Visser Three because you hate him more than you hate us.” I almost choked. From almost no information he had painted a very cogent picture of the situation. Then I almost laughed. “I once thought you were too soft, too gentle.” “Yeah, well, things change.”" ~~~ "“Marco, I’m out of time!” I hissed. “Will you do it?” “Where?” “The pool.” “Forget it. Too tough a target, Visser.” “It’s your mother’s life on the line, he’ll kill her, too! He’ll use her to torture me.” “The Yeerk pool is too secure,” Marco said calmly. My mind was racing. Incredible! The little monster was cold-bloodedly writing off his own mother! “They … they deliver fresh meat for the Taxxons later today. This evening, I guess. In an hour and a half! Comes in by transport ship. They open the dome ingress.” He hesitated. Visser Three roared. “Where’s the dome opening nowadays?” Marco asked laconically. “I think we kind of messed up the last one.” I told him in quick, spare detail. Then “You’ll do it?” He didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Mom, I know you can hear me. I don’t know if I can save you. You understand that, right? I’ll do what’s right. I’ll do what I have to do.” It was his only show of emotion. His voice cracked when he said “Mom.” Eva said, silent, a prisoner in her own skull. “Marco, your mother loves you,” I said. But if I’d been expecting him to soften, I got the opposite result. “I know my mother loves me, Visser,” he said. “And let me make one thing clear: There’s no deal between us, you and me, Yeerk. I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to her and to my dad. Count on that.”" incredible, i love seeing visser 1 marvel at marco's ruthlessness ~~~ "Preposterous! A scrawny teenager threatening me. I was a prisoner of Visser Three, already all but condemned to a death by torture and starvation. Did the child think he could frighten me? It was laughable. " ~~~ "Even now, even here in this terrible situation, I savored the memory. “It was a sub-visser Ninety-two I spoke with first. ‘I have located a Class-Five species,’ I told him. ‘A Class-Five species with superior dexterity and above average sensory capabilities.’ “‘Numbers?’ the sub-visser demanded. “‘Five billion. Give or take.’ “I remember the way the sub-visser sat bolt upright. I believe he cut himself with his own HorkBajir blades. “He repeated it back, cautiously. ‘You mean five million, Sub-Visser?’ “‘No, Sub-Visser,’ I said. ‘I mean five billion. As in five thousand millions.’" i just loved how WEIRD humans seemed from the alien perspective. it was my first exposure to it, and its something i liked in homestuck, too "“I went home from that contact elated and found Essam/Hildy caring for the children. They were infants, of course. He was changing their diapers. I told him, casually, that a new Kandrona was on the way. He became irrational. Emotional.” “What was the cause of his irrationality?” Garoff asked. “He said I should not have contacted the Empire. We could, according to him, fly our ship back to Yeerk space, invent some story of being lost, and obtain a new Kandrona generator before returning to Earth. He’d wanted to talk to me about it. He was angry that I’d gone, on my own, to make contact.” Visser Three cried." like, the terrible thing is, i don't think she is. i think she genuinely made this mistake. ~~~ "“I had used the time to understand humans. To learn their strengths and weaknesses. I had already started The Sharing. I was a spy, Visser Three. A secret agent working undercover. It was me and Essam, alone. What did you expect me to do? Use our one ship to attack the White House?” “A spy,” Garoff said thoughtfully. “Yes, a spy would want to blend in with the surrounding world. Might even need to simulate certain sympathy with the local populace.” I saw Visser Three’s tail twitch. A gesture of surprise. Garoff had just shown his hand: Garoff was on my side. Garoff had performed the live memory interface, and now he was defending me, however indirectly. I enjoyed that moment. I enjoyed the frisson of fear that traveled along Visser Three’s Andalite spine. " "I adjusted my damaged arm, easing the pain just a bit. “Essam had become irrational, as I said. But I was able to convince him of the necessity and rightness of my actions. So I believed, anyway. I told him the children were irrelevant. We were Yeerk officers, representatives of the Empire, we had a duty, we had a joyful duty.” Eva said. Now my host was giving advice. Helping. Trying to save me. It was the ultimate humiliation" ~~~ "“He said, ‘Yes, you’re right, of course.’ And I, for my part, continued to cajole and reason and explain. I still needed Essam’s assistance, if I could get it. I told him I understood his concerns. And yes, I freely admit that the long time alone, cut off, and living as a human without the counter-balance of Yeerk companionship, had drawn me into an unprofessional sympathy with humans. With my host. And, through her, with the progeny. The children.” " ~~~ the fact that she is litearlly.... what a fun narrative conceit. k a appalegate wants to show the humanity of the yeerks, as a FOCUS not an afterthought. so visser1 is literally put on trial for being too human, so we get a whole book of looking at the evidence for and against. ~~~ "“Where are you going, Essam?” I demanded. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave you the Kandrona,” he said. “I won’t starve you. I … I actually thought I loved you. And for that I’ll not hurt you now.” “What are you babbling about?” “I’ve just fed. I’ll last three days. I’ll release Hildy at that point. He’ll be safe with the children by then.” “You think you’re leaving?” I cried. “Yes, Allison. I -” “I am Sub-Visser Four-hundred-nine, not ‘Allison’!” I roared. “Yes, Sub-Visser,” Essam said. “But I am no longer a member of the Empire. I have chosen death over a continuation of this despicable mission.”" oh god. from her point of view, him going off is a SECURITY risk but from his point of view... he really does just want the children and hildy to be safe, and he really is willing to die to get there. but we KNOW he doesn't die peacefully, doesn't die after leaving his host voluntarily. he was *starved* out, like hildy, like that crazy old lady rachel met when she had amnesia (after the oatmeal incident and the kadrona being damanged) ~~~ " Eva said. " god. so now we can hear the lies she's telling the council, about her own inhumanity ("you think i care if the children die") but we here the real version she reveals to her host. it COULD be a lie to her host as well (making her seem more sympathatic than she is) but we know hosts get echoes, emotions, it might not be easy to lie to your own host. ~~~ "I waited till the echoes of Visser Three’s thought-speak faded. Then I said, “You know, I was wrong about Visser Three, he’s not a dupe of the Andalites. Rather, with all this bluster and raving he sounds as if he’s been spending his time with Helmacrons.” There was a bark of laughter from some member of the Council. The Helmacrons were the tiniest sentient species known, barely bigger than a grain of sand, but with enormous egos. " burn ~~~ "I held the gun. And Darwin, my son, calmly took the barrel in his right hand and pressed the muzzle against his own heart. I understood. Darwin was a Controller. The Yeerk inside his brain was holding the gun so that I couldn’t spin around and shoot Visser Three. Holding the gun so that the only person I could kill was Darwin. The Yeerk’s host body would die, my son would die. The Yeerk might be rescued in time. It was dangerous for him, though. Visser Three must have threatened him terribly to get him to do this. " suprirsied the council isn't intervening, you aren't supposed to kill yeerks tho visser 1 did point out everyone had broken rules ~~~ " Eva said. " BURN. ~~~ i love this visser 1 goes "hey can you attack the pool? no okay what about the dome?" and then the fucking 'andalite bandits' instead infiltrate the meeting itself and discredit visser 3 live in front of the council. ~~~ "Darwin released his grip on the gun barrel. I swung the gun toward the polar bear and fired. The bullet hit. But if the polar bear even noticed, it showed no sign. “HHHUUHHHRRROOOOAAARR!”" is that tobias? god imagine showing up to help visser 1 and she shoots you to "prove" loyalty. ~~~ "“Andalite filth!” Darwin took a futile swing at the young Andalite and got the flat of a tail blade against his head in return. He went down, unconscious. Not dead! Safe! A Hork-Bajir talon stepped on his back. That would bruise but not cause permanent harm. " can't fake caring more about her son than anyone else in the room. ~~~ "Now the Council saw the truth: This was what it meant to fight the so-called Andalite bandits. Not the ludicrous shadow play Visser Three had staged earlier. This was the reality. I was almost afraid it would excite sympathy for Visser Three. Now the Council members saw for themselves what a handful of morph-capable warriors could do. But no, no, it was too late for Visser Three now. He had lied to the Council. Worse yet, he had treated them like fools. And now he had been caught in that lie. " yuuup ~~~ " Marco said to me. I nodded slightly. The gorilla, without turning its eyes away from me, slammed a cinder-block fist into the face of a Hork-Bajir guard. Then he knuckle-walked over to me. He drew back his fist and, a split second later, everything went black." or maybe this WAS her plan and not them routing around her plan. ~~~ "Marco sat on his haunches, human now, wearing bike shorts and a T-shirt. He watched me, his expression unreadable. “You need to see a doctor, Visser. That damage wasn’t all my doing.”" can you imagine how hard this is from his perspective. punching his mom, seein ghow injured she already was. ~~ " " ironically the higher power is probably the ellimist. and genuinely it could be. giving the first yeerk here the mother of someone tangientially related to the son of elfangor. a host that would sabatoge and fight her at every turn, and whose child would be a powerful obstacle for the yeerks. marco ONLY joined this war, REALLY joined, when he found out about his mom. how much is the ellimist, how much was chance, and does it even matter anymore? ~~~ "“Here’s the deal, Yeerk. You leave my mother. You do it right now. We’ll throw you into the pool. Let you live a bit longer.”" and you know what. even if they do this. even if it works. they're compromised. the yeerks will wonder WHY the andalite bandits stole that particular host and didn't kill visser1. ~~~ "“Live free or die,” Marco echoed. “My mother walks out of here a free woman, or she dies.” I told Eva. “Ten seconds,” Marco said. “Ticktock. Ten … nine … eight … “" ~~~ " " That is. So much faith she has in him. He was like. Ten years old the last time she saw him, and she was a controller then. ~~~ "“I will release your mother!” I said. “I’ll believe it when I see your nasty, slimy gray body come out of her ear,” Marco said. All lost, I told myself. All my hopes. All my great dreams. All come down to this pathetic hope: the mercy of two humans who hate me. I began to disengage. Moments later I crawled from the ear canal. I felt myself lifted up in a human hand. I saw nothing. Heard only distant rumbling. Waited for the strong human fingers to close around me, crush me, helpless as I was. What now of all my power? I was helpless. Utterly, utterly helpless. For a long time I waited for death. And then, I sensed again the ear canal ahead of me. Eager, giddy, afraid I rushed to crawl back inside her. Yes! Yes! I was in touch with her brain. Safe! Yes, her eyes were mine, her hands, mine, her voice, mine! I saw tears running freely down Marco’s face. The others, Andalite and beasts, looked away. For a long time, as I rummaged frantically through Eva’s most recent memories, trying to figure out what had happened, no one spoke. " god the mystery eva knows what she's doing though, and the fact that visser1 trusted her... i mean she was backed into a corner but she DID. she trusted eva to get her out of that mess, too. ~~~ "“Marco, you don’t understand. If she turns up without a host, without me, they’ll know something went on. They’ll dig till they get the answers, Marco.” “She needs to die, Mom. You need … Dad and me … we need you back!” Through Eva’s eyes, through her memory, I saw myself, small and harmless in Marco’s grip. “I know you do, sweetheart. And, God, I need you more than life itself. But she’s the one pushing for a nonviolent invasion. Visser Three wants all-out war! He wants to incinerate cities from orbit, kill and kill till we submit!”" god. how hard must it have been for both eva and marco. they both know what has to be done. they'll both fucking do it. but god are neither of them heartless while doing it. ~~~ "“Doesn’t make sense,” he said at last. “If open warfare would work, Visser One would support it. So, either the Yeerks have reason to believe open warfare would fail, or Visser One has some other reason for going with the slow, infiltration thing.” Clever, clever boy, I thought. I’ll enjoy the day I see the end of you. Standing there, smug, reveling in my weakness, imagining yourself invulnerable. I’ll find the way to make you scream." hmm, just in case we were feeling TOO much sypathy for visser 1. constrast that with cassie's yeerk who genuinely was only ever following orders and never really hurt anyone. never even killed. ~~~ "The tiger spoke again. Surely that succinct summary was from an Andalite mind. It was flattering, in a way. And true, of course. " the idea that jake 'has' to be an andalite because he's so competent is so funny to me. okay yeah polar bear is cassie, rachel and tobias ar ethe hork bajir. fun mystery ~~~ "Marco looked to the tiger. “What do we do, fearless leader?” By the Kandrona itself, the tiger was human, too! Were they all humans? All but the lone Andalite? " god. ~~~ "At last the boy lost his composure. For a moment the self-control that made him seem so old, weakened. “You can walk away now, Mom, we can get you out of here. You could move somewhere far away, disappear. We can make it happen. We have the power. We have allies … friends, who have the money it would take.” Eva hugged him close, squeezing with all her might. I lay there, still, in his fist. “We each fight this war in our own way, Marco.”" god. ~~~ "“Okay. My call. Then, here’s the deal. Tell Visser One when she … well, she’ll know, won’t she? So, Visser One? The deal is this: If we hear that you have retaken control of Yeerk forces on Earth, we drop the dime on you. We contact Visser Three, the Council directly even, and we tell them how you reached out to us. We’ve recorded this little meeting. The recording goes to your bosses, and that’ll be it for you. Other than that, this whole thing never happened. That’s the deal. You don’t know us, we don’t know you, we were never here.” A recording? How? I looked around, searching for a recording device. Futile, of course. We were behind a hologram. With a hologram emitter this sophisticated anything could be hidden. “And by the way?” Marco added. “If you get to thinking we can’t contact the Council of Thirteen, guess again. Not all your fellow Yeerks are loyal.” " they hinted at the existence of the Chee, they outright admit the yeerk peace front.... they risked thier lives. they sacrificed *so much* for this, and what they got was the status quo. isn't that just a fucking summary of nearly every animorphs book. what was it cassie said "weak hands, holding back the tide", when she fought off her andalite brain ghost? but "slows an alien invasion to a CRAWL, such that things don't change very much once they get involved" is nothing to sneeze at. i sure fucking couldn't do that. ~~~ "I simply wanted to shape the invasion of Earth to allow me to maintain control over the tactics and the strategy. We could enslave the people of Earth gradually. They would never need to know that we were there among them. Until we were them, and they us, and all under my power. " ship of theseus. how long was eva a controller. how young was marco the last time he spoke to her? does he even know WHO it is he's trying to save? (and also that andalites call them "controllers" dehumanizes the enemy, focus on the yeerk in their brain and not the puppet on the outside) "I would make a haven for the weak, the inadequate, the fearful. I would wrap it up in all the bright packaging that humans love so much. The Sharing would never be about weak people being led to submit to a stronger will, no, no, it would be about family, virtue, righteousness, brotherhood and sisterhood. I would offer people an identity. A place to go. I would give them a new vision of themselves as part of something larger, erasing their individualit" daily reminder not to join cults. don't sacrifice your health (financial, physical, mental, social or anything) to a group in exchange for belonging. zampanio needs you to live a long life. ~~~ "This was what Essam, who had infested only Lowenstein and Hildy, would not credit: that humans would surrender their freedom in exchange for empty words. But I had infested the lost soldier, and the even more lost Jenny Lines. I had tasted human defeat and superstition and weakness. I knew." humanity is strong and weak and brave and cowrdly, sometimes all int he same brain we contain our own traitors ~~~ ", a part of me, a small part of me was like Essam and did not want to believe that humans could be this easily fooled. Part of me, a small part, was disappointed that I was right" thats something i think is hard to write. if humans are special for having split brains, for containing our own traitors, then how could the yeerk have two opinions on the same thing? its just hard to WRITE somethign truly alien. ~~~ "“Why?” I asked him. “Why do you want to join?” “Because I really believe in all the things you’re saying.” “You can believe without being in the Inner-Sharing,” I said. “Why is it so important to you?” It took a while, but in the end he told the truth. “Because I want to be a part of something. Something big and important.” Part of something. Anything, so long as he could be a part, and not be himself alone. “If you join the Inner-Sharing it will mean losing all your individual will,” I said. He shrugged. “It will mean that you will never again be free of The Sharing.” “I don’t want to be free of it! I love The Sharing. I love you, Brother Lore!” “You will be apart, different.” “Yeah! That’s what I want!” He was so willing, so eager, I suspected some sort of clever trap. It couldn’t be this easy. Humans could not surrender their own individuality for nothing but a promise that they would be “special.” It was insane! " man don't i know it, belonging is such a strong drive. it drives me, thats for sure, but i have to keep reminding myself to stay in balance (and, hopefully, remind everyone else too) ~~~ "One, final test. Essam had left his host, agreeing to help me with this experiment. Poor Essam, he thought he would win the bet. I raised Essam from a small jar half-filled with water. I held him in my hand. I knew how we looked to humans. Slugs. Worms. Leeches. The reference points were never flattering. The human, Rich Huntley, recoiled. The sight of Essam in his natural state sickened his human sensibilities. “Rich,” I said, “this is a Yeerk. To become a member of the Inner-Sharing, you must allow me to put him in your ear. He will enter your brain. He will take over your life.” He was nervous, afraid. “But then I’m in, right? Then I’m in the Inner-Sharing, right?” “Right.” “Does it … does it hurt?” “No.” “Okay. Okay, then. Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s do it.” We did it. Essam found himself looking out through Huntley’s eyes at me. “You win, Sub-Visser,” he said." god. i wonder though... does she just kill Rich Huntley, after? they don't have a third yeerk to keep in hi, and we know essam dies inside of the dad of her children... "Essam left the host and we disposed of the human. " yup. i think its interesting that even though essam is more pro human, gentler and kinder... he still doesn't seem to feel bad about murderer i guess when what you're trying to prevent is an arguable genocide, one death , and of a stranger no less, doesn't hit the quotidians were like that. anything less than a genocide didn't really parse to them ~~~ "I contacted the Empire. Essam knew I had contacted the Empire. And he agreed. That was not the point where Essam and I parted ways. I misled the Council on that. I couldn’t tell him that I had every intention at first of keeping the children. The rupture between Essam and me came weeks later, when it became increasingly clear to me that I no longer had any use for Allison Kim. I needed to spend all my time now as Lore David Altman, spiritual guide of The Sharing. “What will you do with Allison?” Essam asked. “What do you mean, what will I do? We will have to kill her and destroy the body. And while we’re at it, we’ll need to erase Hildy Gervais, as well. Hildy is tied to Allison and it will be better if it seems that both have simply moved away.” “You would kill the mother and father of these children?” “Essam, we have no choice. Our new hosts will simply adopt the orphaned children. They’re young. The children will be fine!” “Yes. As you say, Sub-Visser.”" damn. so yeah, the difference always was that it was never someone he knew... ~~~ "I was too caught up in my own visions of power to spot the warning signs. The rest of what I’d told the Council was true. Or mostly true: Essam had overpowered me, starved me till I left Allison Kim. He’d left me with access to Lore David Altman. I did go in search of Essam. But not to kill him. He had my children. I wanted them back. I still wanted them back. " yeah.... ~~~ "Visser Three’s large Andalite eyes hovered above me. The rage was a banked fire, for now. The fear was fresh and bright. he said dully. I rose, groggy, woozy from blood loss, from injuries old and new, from the aftereffects of unconsciousness. We walked toward the chamber. The guards walked with us. As before. But with one difference. It was clear now that we were both being watched" visser one is crafty, but more so with eva on board ~~~ " Eva said. " because knowing is pitying... i think thats why theres this vocal subset of people online that think... acknowleding the humanity of someone evil, an abuser or whatever, is the same thing as forgiving them, or excusing them? because to them, if they let themselves see the humanity they won't be able to see the evil? its why people enable their friends or families horrible horrible actions because THEY are human, they're not evil soulless monsters like THOSE people... they can only see one at a time, so view with suspcion anyone who claims they can see both. how can you see the humanity of someone but still lock them up in prison forever, they wonder? but if you can't keep both in your head at once, you'll miss abuserers, you'll miss evil actions, specifically because "well i know they're human, so therefore they are safe" ~~~ "Strange. Much as we hated each other, Visser Three and I were in the same boat, as the human expression goes. A boat that was heading for the rocks of a lee shore. " and that is something fascinating to me. they say that people overestimate how miserable losing major limbs would make them. and also how happy winning the lotto would make them. people are... people. we acclimate to just about anything. even while enslaved down to the point she could not even blink of her own will... eva found moments of peace, moments of joy. i think that specifically is why "live free or die" doesn't hit with me, exactly? if you're alive, you can still win. only the living can win. all the dead do is fail. when you're alive, theres hope? even if you can't possibly expect relief, something you don't expect could still happen. i mean, hell, for a negative example, look at the covid pandemic, you know? the future is not just an endless march of more of the same as the present. *ever*. as long as you're alive, you can find moments of peace, moments of joy. its inevitable. and maybe, eventually, freedom from whatever plagues you now. ~~~ "I never let Eva see my children. Never let her know. I watched them through other hosts, but not through her eyes. She hated me so for what I was doing to her family, her son. Somehow I never could stand the possibility of her knowing that I, too, had children" "I knew she would come back for the children. I relied on it. She was very clever. She came back disguised as a doctor. A wig, colored contact lenses, so on. But I knew her too well. I killed her. " pity or not, visser 1 is someone who will choose, over and over again, cruelty. ~~~ "“Finally, when I judged the time was right, I eliminated Lore David Altman. Humans will tear down a living leader but revere a dead one. I left behind sufficient writings … vague nostrums, platitudes, absurdities, prophecies, the sorts of transparent nonsense that humans pore over so endlessly" ~~~ "“The time was right for me to change hosts. I found this body. I took it. And I continued running The Sharing from behind the scenes, building facilities, creating false fronts, infiltrating, swelling our numbers, all with never a Dracon beam fired.” I smiled, amused by my own persistent pride. I had done great things. “Is that everything, Visser One?” Garoff asked. Everything, I thought. Everything but the years of missing Essam, missing Allison. Regrets. Rage. The thrill of seeing my power grow as my plan came to fruition. The impotent despair of watching my children from afar. Half Yeerk, half almost human. I had taken this final host because, at least unconsciously, I wanted to know the life I could never really know. The love of a spouse, an equal. The love of a child. But none of it had ever really touched me. I’d had my fling with humanity. I was Yeerk once more. I was Visser One." she took a mother on purpose. ~~~' "I sat there, broken in body, friendless, defeated, with no company but the voice of my host. She was sickened by her own temporary compromise with me. she said. I laughed. " the fact that she regrets her decision is heart breaking. the thing is, its still the right tactical move. but god, the fact thtat it had been easier to make that decision thinking visser 1 was on the verge of redemption and finding out you're wrong... ~~~ oh nice. an explanation for why they're still going with visser 1's plan. now they're trying to avoid drawing andalite eyes. ~~~ "“You are too valuable to dispose of just yet. You remain the most successful military officer in the Empire, despite your illegal and troubling methods. You are ordered to proceed immediately to the Anati system and take over the subjugation of her sentient race or races, and prepare to resist an Andalite attack. Succeed, and you will live. Fail, and -” Eva’s attack was sudden, wild, and unexpected. “NO!” She cried with her own mouth. “NOOOO! Kill her! Kill her! You have to -” I clamped down on the speech centers and stifled her words. “What’s the matter, human? Sick of my company? Ah hah hah hah! A new planet! A chance to redeem everything!”" yup. visser1 is too succesful to be killed. they take her away from her addiction, send her somewhere else, and use her they don't take her human host from her because they probably know very well how important a host can be for success. ~~~ " I closed my eyes, held them shut, then opened them again on a whole new world. A whole new world of hope! A new planet! A new race! No more troubling humans. And this time, this time, I would do it right. The children? Visser Three had made Darwin a host. Darwin, my son, was lost to me. But what about Madra? Was she still free? Could I … No. I couldn’t. Someday, not yet. But someday she would know me. I would tell her all about me, all about who I was, how she had come to exist. And she would love me, as a daughter loves a mother. And if not, then I could always infest Madra, place some well-trained Yeerk in her head. Then she would love me. She’d have no choice. Yes, it was all going to work out fine. It was a great, big, lovely galaxy full of opportunity. " and THAT is the problem. visser 1 is a mother who loves her children, but that kind of possessive, selfish love humans are all too capable of. who cares if the object of your love is HAPPY who cares if they are thriving, it simply matters that you possess them and they do the things that make you happy.... what a mundane type of evil they leave us with. ~~~ and there we have it. god, best animorphs book, hand down, surprisingly stand alone.