Anyone who grew up with these books is familiar with this story:
Five teenagers discover that parasitic aliens, Yeerks, are secretly infiltrating Earth by taking over people's minds and bodies. They encounter a good alien, an Andalite named Elfangor, who gives them the power to morph into any animal they have touched. Joined by Elfangor's younger brother and unable to trust almost anyone else, they begin a violent and secretive guerrilla war against the alien invaders.
Along the way, they find allies that they never expected, enemies that prove more dangerous (and bizarre) than the Yeerks themselves could ever be, travel to alien worlds, and confront their own inner conflicts.
This series did aliens right. While so much of scifi plays with humanoid extraterrestrials, the creatures in Animorphs are like nothing on Earth.
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[HEADING=2]KNOW YOUR ALIENS;[/HEADING]
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A yeerk can infest and take control of any living creature as long as it has a brain.
Biology
A Yeerk is a parasite that takes over the body of another being by infesting a host's brain through their ear canal. It resembles a small, grey-green slug. Yeerks in their natural state have decent senses of smell and touch, but they are blind until they enter a host, as they do not have eyes. They possess antennae-like protrusions called palps, as well as osmosis nodes, small organs that process nutrients in the Yeerks' native pools. Although the presence of a circulatory system of some kind is debatable, apparently Yeerks have no hearts, as evidenced by the description of a human morphing into a Yeerk, in which the human heart stops and dissolves away completely.
Yeerks communicate in their natural state using a language of ultrasonic squeaks, and use sonar to get a basic picture of the surroundings. In the process of infestation a numbing chemical is secreted to anesthetize and dilate the ear canal itself so that the Yeerk will not cause any physical harm to the host. It is able to manipulate and puncture a variety of alien ear canal structures including bone and membrane to reach the brain. As the Yeerk reaches the eardrum and other ear canal structures, it pushes them aside.
After the process of infestation, the Yeerk flattens itself into the brain. From there, all control is submitted involuntarily to the Yeerk (however, the host may fight and very rarely win). At this point, the host has no control over itself, no secrets, and no privacy. Since the Yeerk has access to all parts of the brain, it is able to pass flawlessly as its host (now called a Controller) so that nobody else suspects that there is, in fact, a secret invasion of their planet. The Yeerk can even play with the memories of its former host. Although control can be returned to the host by the Yeerk, this does not occur often as most Yeerks prefer their parasitic relationship to a symbiotic one.
Yeerks cannot stay within their hosts for more than three Earth days. After this period of time, they need to bathe in a Yeerk pool and absorb Kandrona, the rays of their home sun. Without these rays, a Yeerk eventually starves.
Yeerks reproduce through fusion. Three parent Yeerks merge into a single organism, which then breaks apart into hundreds of separate grubs, destroying the parents in the process; thus Yeerks have no living parents. Yeerks do not have different genders; presumably any three Yeerks can reproduce.
So far, Yeerks have enslaved about 18 different kinds of alien species, completely or partially, including Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, Gedds, the Nahara, Leerans, Garatrons, and of course, humans. According to a Yeerk named Temrash 144, the Yeerks may also have taken over creatures known as the Sstram and the Mak.
Homeworld
The Yeerk homeworld has various satellites, one of the natural ones is a moon called Madra. Yeerks inhabit a homeworld with a dark green and yellow, lightning-torn sky. The ground is largely dark rich soil, and roughly circular Yeerk pools dot the surface, presumably connected to each other somehow, but this is not explained. Yeerk pool water is a sludgy grey, filled with nutrients Yeerks need besides Kandrona rays. There are no more than a hundred animal species on the Yeerk homeworld, among them the Gedds, which became the Yeerks' natural host, nearly a symbiotic relationship. The Yeerk home world is surrounded by Andalite ships that stop anything from coming in or out.
Culture
Yeerk names end in numbers, which designate which number grub they are (i.e. Aftran 942 is the nine hundred forty second grub to emerge from the Aftran tri-parent). In the case of twin, both are given the same number, which ends in a double number. For example, Visser Three is Esplin 9466 Primary, and his brother is Esplin 9466 Secondary. The higher twin is considered to be superior to the other.
Taxxon
The Taxxons are a race of carnivorous insectoids and willing slaves of the Yeerk Empire. In exchange for the Taxxons agreeing to become Controllers, the Taxxons would get an endless supply of new, exotic meats.
They resemble giant, 10-foot-long (3.0 m) centipedes, with the forward one-third portion of their body held erect. They have twelve upper appendages that end in lobsterlike pincers and twenty needle-like legs. The front/top of their bodies end in a mouth like a lamprey, ringed with many razor sharp teeth. The area around their mouths (on what passes for a "head" on these creatures) is ringed with four red bulbous compound eyes on stalks.
Taxxons have an insatiable hunger for flesh. They eat anything dead, nearly dead, or for that matter anything that won't kill them while they're eating it. Taxxons are highly cannibalistic, and will quickly turn on each other at the first sign of weakness. This hunger is so strong that on occasion, when a Taxxon is cut in half, it begins devouring the other half in its death throes. The Taxxon hunger instinct is exaggerated by its sentience. The Taxxons are literally mad with hunger, out of an irrational fear of starvation. This may be because their planet, while apparently host to very large bodies of water (They are very fast swimmers) is largely devoid of life; this may have resulted in the Taxxon hunger developing as an evolutionary advantage, taking the opportunity of any and all food the moment it becomes available. They apparently eliminate waste from their foods as an ooze excreted through their skin, at least in the case of eating dirt, which they do for digging.
On their homeworld, the Taxxons lived in hives. As far as is known, they were extremely primitive and possessed little or no technology before the Yeerks arrived on their planet.
Hork-Bajir
The Hork-Bajir are a former peaceful alien race, who became enslaved by the Yeerks and used as shock troops.
The Hork-Bajir are bipedal, have hulking, strong reptilian bodies with hard and dark green-black leathery skin, at least two or maybe more hearts, snake-like necks with a sharp beak at the end of their heads. Their most notable feature is that they have huge, long blades all over their bodies: their elbows, wrists, feet, legs, head, and tail. Male and female Hork-Bajir are told apart by the number of blades on their heads; males have three blade while females have two.
They possess almost no technology of their own; Hork-Bajir brains have limited abilities (although it was suggested that they may simply be intelligent in different ways that they don't show.) They have excellent sense of hearing and smell. They also have incredible endurance and healing ability. In one book, a Hork-Bajir sliced his head open, exposing his brain, to demonstrate the absence of a Yeerk in his head. It immediately scarred over afterwards.
The Hork-Bajir homeworld was the first world the Yeerks reached out to for conquest. The remaining free Hork-Bajir were destroyed by the Quantum Virus, which War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass had programmed to kill all Hork-Bajir, from the Hork-Bajir Controllers, to all the free Hork-Bajir still alive on the planet to prevent them from becoming enslaved.
Andalite
The Andalites are centaur-like, with their lower body similar to that of an Earth deer and a torso similar to that of a human. The two arms on their upper bodies are relatively weak by human standards, and end with seven-fingered hands. Andalites are seen to be incredibly agile on their four hoofed legs. Their entire bodies are covered in fur, the males blue colour while the females have been depicted as being purple.
The head of an Andalite has a set of almond-shaped eyes, as well as a pair of stalk-eyes that endow them with 360-degree vision. A notable facial feature is the lack of a mouth. Andalites feed by crushing grass beneath their hooves, absorbing the nutrients from the plants, and communicate by means of thought-speech, a kind of telepathy. In the place where a human nose would be located, Andalites possess three vertical slits, allowing them to breathe. They have three hearts, giving them physical speed and endurance beyond what a human can achieve.
Andalites evolved as prey animals, but possess a formidable defense in the form of the single, scythe-shaped blade at the end of their long tails. The tail-blade is an important part of their culture, and is frequently referenced in poetry and rituals.
Homeworld
The number of suns in the Andalite star system is never specified, but the stars are always referred to in the plural sense. It is described that the Andalite homeworld once orbited two different stars 650 million years in the past before one went nova, the shock wave having unspecified results on the planet's orbit, pushing it further out, but making it habitable. The Andalite homeworld has four moons, at least two of which are visible from the planet's surface at any given time. The planet's sky is coloured red and gold. The Andalite homeworld is 82 light-years away from Earth.
Technology
The Andalites are a very scientifically oriented race, and boast a vast knowledge of the universe and advanced technology. A notable development is Zero-Space technology, which allows Andalite vessels equipped with "Z-space" engines to enter the region of Zero or Z-space, described as an entirely blank, void, white space, where real-space limitations on faster-than-light travel do not exist. Z-space transponder technology also takes advantage of this 'dimension' by shortening the travel time of messages through space, an advanced form of radio communication.
One of the more recently developed and most advanced Andalite technologies is their morphing technology. This allows Andalites to transform into any being whose DNA pattern can be absorbed through touch.
Seerow's Kindness
Named after Prince Seerow, one of the first Andalites to be stationed on the homeworld of a newly discovered species, the Yeerks.
They were capable, by some odd fluke of evolution, to enter into the brains of other species, interface, and control them. They had done so already with the weak species on their own world. Despite this, most of them never became aware of anything beyond the small, natural pools of their homeworld. Seerow felt sorry for the Yeerks, and taught them the technology they needed to travel beyond their world, and showed them the stars. He built them portable Kandronas, devices mimicking the rays of the Yeerk sun, allowing them to leave the confines of their world.
In return for Seerow's aid, the Yeerks betrayed the Andalites, attacking their outpost and slaughtering the minimal guarding force, and stole the Andalite fighters that were on the ground, escaping into space, but not before circling around to the far side of the planet to bring their fellow Yeerks aboard. Then, the Andalite ships, loaded with numerous pools full of Yeerks, left the homeworld, aiming to conquer the galaxy with the technology that Seerow had given them.
Ever since, the Andalites have fought against the Yeerks, trying to prevent them from taking over more innocent worlds. The Yeerks have already taken over numerous species, including the cannibalistic Taxxons, who voluntarily submitted to the Yeerks, and their ironically herbivorous shock-troops, the Hork-Bajir. Their ultimate prize would be the Andalites, for whom the Yeerks had developed a deep hatred, despite the species' initial kindness towards them.
Leeran
The Leerans are an aquatic/amphibious, sapient race from the planet Leera. They have four tentacles, analogous to arms. They have large green eyes, large flippers, and a head that slopes back to a rounded node.
The language of the Leerans is almost entirely monosyllabic words, most containing only two letters. The Leerans use a form of "thought-speak" to communicate. The "listener" can hear/feel what is being said. The Leeran thought-speak, however, is more intimate, being able to sense thoughts and emotions aside from what the other beings are telling them. Like most amphibians, they have the ability to regenerate severed or damaged tissue.
Leera, from which they originate, is mostly covered with water, with a single continent and several scattered islands. Leera hosts much aquatic and amphibious life. The oceans of Leera are clear like air, and one can see for miles in any direction. The Leerans make their homes underwater in huge, lavish cities near the coast.
The psychic powers and adaptibility of the Leerans made them a target of the Yeerks. Unfortunately for the Yeerks, however, the Leerans' psychic powers made it impossible to infiltrate Leera in secret, like Earth. Instead, the Yeerks invaded outright. Visser One personally oversaw the project and brought Leeran hosts back to Earth with her.
Howler
Howlers or Crayak's Children are the alien shock troops of the nearly-omnipotent Crayak.
Howlers have cracked, black skin that resembles hardened lava; beneath the black, in the cracks and creases of the flesh, are bright, red lines. Humanoid in appearance, their bodies are split in two at the waist, and the two halves tethered together by elastic skin; this bearing allows them to turn their upper body all the way around and keep themselves in the fight permanently, even when thrown away. They have two arms with humanoid hands, with retractable claws attached to the wrists and huge heads with large, expressionless, robin's-egg blue eyes, which have the ability to make out major organs within their prey.
Their most fearsome weapon is the howl that gives them their name. The howl is modulated to affect the complex, intelligent brains of sentient beings, and will almost instantly disorient and cripple those who hear it. Howlers are very fast, extremely resilient, and highly talented at combat. Their super-fast regenerative abilities allow them to quickly overcome even the worst physical damage. The Howlers operate as a hive-mind; the experiences of any one Howler are shared amongst all of them, so that every single one may become the best possible combatant.
Being the tools of Crayak, this race's sole purpose is to travel through the universe and destroy peaceful civilizations. But while Howlers may seem brutal in their killings, they are not a race of purely-evil beings (a philosophical point of K. A. Applegate's), for they are in fact unaware of the severity of their actions; they seem to be unaware that the people they are killing are actually real, sentient beings capable of feeling emotions or pain. The Howler mind is, in fact, similar to the mind of a dolphin in its playfulness. The Howler collective memory means that any experiences of victorious combat are shared throughout the race; but it will also share any experience of defeat among them, something Crayak cannot allow, which is why no Howler has memory of ever having lost a battle; Crayak does not allow those memories to poison the collective pool. The species is manufactured, and a Howler lives for only three years of its childhood before dying.
The Howlers are known to have wiped out several species, including the Nostnavay, Graffen's Children and most notably, the Pemalites. They can, in effect, be seen as the opposite of the Pemalites---who were created by the Ellimist to spread life---though both species, interestingly, are noted for wanting nothing more than to have fun.
Venber
A primitive race from a very cold moon, the Venber were hydrogen-based and would melt in temperatures above freezing. They're about eight feet tall, silver with streaks of blood-red or midnight-blue on their shoulders, waist, and hammerhead shark-like head. Venbers have arms that split at the elbows to make four forearms, the lower two of which could be used to propel their ski-like feet. They used echolocation.
The Yeerks had used Venber DNA from a few preserved specimens, and genetically engineered them with human DNA to make Human-Venber hybrids to guard their Arctic Kandrona base. As a Yeerk would freeze to death inside a Venber's head, the Yeerks had microchips put into the head of the new Venbers, making them completely obey the Yeerks, which leads to one of the most chilling moments in the series, where the Venbers follow their targets into a warm building, unable to stop chasing despite them melting to death.
Chee
The Chee are an ancient race of sentient androids that look like a skeletal dog with interlocking steel and ivory plates, and can walk on their hind legs. They were created hundreds of thousands of years ago by a peaceful and highly advanced race of dog-like aliens called the Pemalites.
The Pemalites created the Chee in their own image, using their technology to create friends that they could play with. The Pemalites were perfectly loving pacifists and they programmed the Chee, which means "friend" in the Pemalite language, never to allow a creature to come to harm. This proved to be their downfall when the Howlers attacked, and the Chee were utterly unable to protect them. So in order to keep part of the Pemalites alive, they harbored their essence into an Earth creature much like them - wolves. It is from that union that the modern dog was born.
The Chee possesses immense strength, speed and durability, capable of withstanding low-energy Dracon beam attacks and operating in the deep ocean. They can alter their programming by means of the Pemalite Crystal, which is in fact a computer of such advanced design that it would theoretically be able to control every computer on Earth, yet is only about the size of a marble or a pearl. They have extremely long life spans; Erek was over 50 millenia old, remarking that he has been alive since Moses wandered the Egyptian desert. The Chee can be considered benevolent Doppelgangers, as they can alter their appearance to match that of anything they wish, living or not. They accomplish this by means of a hologram generator.
The Chee blend into human culture by using powerful holograms to make themselves appear to be human, they let their hologram go old and eventually go away, to represent death, and then they take on the illusion of another person. They have a secret underground hideout where they take care of stray dogs, which remind them of their long dead creators.
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[HEADING=2]Space, the Final Frontier:[/HEADING]
It?s hard to say what the ultimate capacity of the Yeerk of Andalite fleets are, because they are generally spread throughout space, exploring and harassing each other while running at least eight major campaigns simultaneously. Earth, with a single Pool Ship, single Blade Ship, and double-digit Bug Fighters is considered a sideshow, and when unaware of the presence of the Blade Ship, the Andalites believed a single Dome Ship could easily clear out the Yeerks. Leera, on the other hand, was considered a significant campaign, the Yeerks committed 2 Blade Ships, 4 Pool Ships, and 'several hundred' Bug Fighters. The Andalites had 2 Dome Ships, a couple of assault ships and a third the fighters.
When the Andalites became serious about ending the war in later books, they assembled a fleet of 30 Dome Ships. The Yeerks believed this fleet could curb stomp them anywhere but in their most fortified systems, it was a serious strategic threat, but not treated as an immediate threat to the Yeerk leadership.
When Ax first sees the Blade Ship, he calls it a Visser's ship. If every Visser gets one (not guaranteed) and there aren't any being used except as command ships for Vissers (also no guarantees) that would imply there are 42 Blade Ships in the Yeerk fleet.
Fortunately, some time ago Applegate supported some schematics of Yeerk and Andalite ships online, these were on the series official website back when everybody used dial-up.
Dome Ship:
For scaling purposes, the Galaxy Tree's Dome was estimated to be half a mile (0.8 km) in diameter. Crew of a thousand warriors, complement of at least 16 fighters. 2 Main Shredders, stated at various points to be capable of "blasting large chunks off a planet" "blasting a hole through a moon" and "incinerating a planetary atmosphere" with a single shot. The first two could be hyperbole, but the last is deadly serious. Shields capable of taking at least a few hits from their own main weapons, armored hull more than 10 feet thick, the least part of which can easily survive reentry.
Powerplant unknown. At one point in the Andalite Chronicles Elfangor claims it takes the power of a medium-sized star to move a ship through Z-Space. Andalites have expressed familiarity with the concepts of fusion and antimatter throughout the series, but never commented whether they use either one. Alternatively, the morphing process somehow draws energy from Z-Space to work, perhaps other Andalite technology utilizes this. Ax claims that nuclear fission is only used in toys, "make little dolls talk and so on."
The Dome Ship is the major, really the only capital ship we see the Andalites use. As per the usual sci-fi idiom, it acts as both a battleship and a carrier for fighters. Aside from the practicalities of Andalites being a race of claustrophobics (all Andalite ships have high ceilings, wide halls, and holograms of the sky) the Dome serves a symbolic purpose. The ship carries a chunk of the Andalite homeworld to remind every warrior what they fight for, and place it beneath an endless view of the stars to remind them how vast the universe is. Most of the time, the dome is not a huge liability, but when the ship needs to fight it separates the dome so it can be faster, more maneuverable, and have wider firing arcs.
Blade Ship:
The Yeerk answer to the Dome Ship, mostly seen in the series as the command ship of Visser Three. The Blade Ship is a Dome Ship's match in shields and firepower, and is significantly more maneuverable, at least while the Dome Ship still has a dome on. The Blade Ship carries at least 6 Bug fighters, and has a cloaking device that hides it from view and radar, though not from the advanced sensors of an Andalite ship. And yes, it can fire while cloaked.
Pool Ship:
The Yeerk Mothership. Shaped vaguely like a very rounded beetle, with a flat 'belly' and a tall sloping 'back' plus 3 large legs that go up and back down like a spiders, and dozens of writhing translucent tentacles dangling beneath it. Like the name implies, the Pool Ship mostly contains a very large Yeerk pool and kandrona, carrying enough Yeerks to get a planetary invasion well underway, at least 17,000 Yeerks are in such a ship at one point, and I doubt that was anywhere near its full capacity. In battle, the Pool Ship has a single forward mounted dracon beam powerful enough to threaten a Dome Ship or a Blade Ship, but compared to either of those, it's a tub. It also serves as a carrier for a large (sadly unspecified) number of Bug Fighters, at least a dozen.
Other:
Both parties employ a number of freighters, transports, even assault ships. Plus a few generic general purpose spacecraft. The Andalites apparently have a sizeable number of scientific and exploration ships they have mothballed as the war has come to dominate their lives. Most of these have at least a single energy weapon, and even a freighter can score a fighter-kill if the gunner is good or lucky. Yeerks have the trucking ship, which collects air and water under cloak, and is shaped like a manta ray.
Fighters:
Andalite Fighter:
Bug Fighter:
Fighters are a touch unusual in this universe. First off, unlike X-wings or Vipers, which are more-or-less like jet fighters that fly in space, Animorphs fighters are about 9 meters long, and as roomy inside as the shuttles in Star Trek. This is both because they are spacecraft, and because both fighter types are FTL capable and are equipped to spend weeks without seeing their mothership. This is frustrating because we can only hazard a guess whether the swarms of fighters at Leera came in the bellies of the capital ships or flew beside them the whole way. It also adds to their flexibility, since fighters can be used to shuttle people to and from orbit. You can also fit a dozen Hork-Bajir in the back of a Bug Fighter and airlift them anywhere you need to. The standard crew is one pilot, one gunner. Both Yeerk and Andalite use this arrangement.
In the 40 year Yeerk-Andalite War, the Andalites come up with at least 8 models of fighter, all using the same basic design, but with small upgrades here and there. We also see the Yeerks a few times experimenting and improving upon Bug Fighters, but the designs remain broadly competitive with each other. Andalite fighters have a single weapon over the main fuselage, like their own tail blades, Bug Fighters have 2 dracon beams, the long spear-like projections. Andalite fighters also have secondary shredders and bombs for attacking ground targets. Both ships can kill each other with a single hit.
There seems to be no limit on sublight speeds, besides how concerned the pilot is over relativistic effects. At Max Burn an Andalite fighter can accelerate from near-rest to 0.1 c (~67 million mph) in 3 seconds. In atmosphere, we see Bug Fighters burn and fly apart when pushing 3500 mph (5600 kph, or just about halfway between Mach 4 and 5) a few hundred feet above the ground. Then again, they aren?t really designed for atmosphere.
They also don't really go for tactical FTL jumps. Apparently there's a margin of error of about a million miles regarding where you come out when using Z-Space, enough to not be able to guarantee surprising the enemy before he surprises you.
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Thoughts and coments welcome
(I could probably drive some poor shmuck insane by rambling on for a couple hours about a sci-fi series almost no one remembers.)
Five teenagers discover that parasitic aliens, Yeerks, are secretly infiltrating Earth by taking over people's minds and bodies. They encounter a good alien, an Andalite named Elfangor, who gives them the power to morph into any animal they have touched. Joined by Elfangor's younger brother and unable to trust almost anyone else, they begin a violent and secretive guerrilla war against the alien invaders.
Along the way, they find allies that they never expected, enemies that prove more dangerous (and bizarre) than the Yeerks themselves could ever be, travel to alien worlds, and confront their own inner conflicts.
This series did aliens right. While so much of scifi plays with humanoid extraterrestrials, the creatures in Animorphs are like nothing on Earth.
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[HEADING=2]KNOW YOUR ALIENS;[/HEADING]
[hr]
A yeerk can infest and take control of any living creature as long as it has a brain.
Biology
A Yeerk is a parasite that takes over the body of another being by infesting a host's brain through their ear canal. It resembles a small, grey-green slug. Yeerks in their natural state have decent senses of smell and touch, but they are blind until they enter a host, as they do not have eyes. They possess antennae-like protrusions called palps, as well as osmosis nodes, small organs that process nutrients in the Yeerks' native pools. Although the presence of a circulatory system of some kind is debatable, apparently Yeerks have no hearts, as evidenced by the description of a human morphing into a Yeerk, in which the human heart stops and dissolves away completely.
Yeerks communicate in their natural state using a language of ultrasonic squeaks, and use sonar to get a basic picture of the surroundings. In the process of infestation a numbing chemical is secreted to anesthetize and dilate the ear canal itself so that the Yeerk will not cause any physical harm to the host. It is able to manipulate and puncture a variety of alien ear canal structures including bone and membrane to reach the brain. As the Yeerk reaches the eardrum and other ear canal structures, it pushes them aside.
After the process of infestation, the Yeerk flattens itself into the brain. From there, all control is submitted involuntarily to the Yeerk (however, the host may fight and very rarely win). At this point, the host has no control over itself, no secrets, and no privacy. Since the Yeerk has access to all parts of the brain, it is able to pass flawlessly as its host (now called a Controller) so that nobody else suspects that there is, in fact, a secret invasion of their planet. The Yeerk can even play with the memories of its former host. Although control can be returned to the host by the Yeerk, this does not occur often as most Yeerks prefer their parasitic relationship to a symbiotic one.
Yeerks cannot stay within their hosts for more than three Earth days. After this period of time, they need to bathe in a Yeerk pool and absorb Kandrona, the rays of their home sun. Without these rays, a Yeerk eventually starves.
Yeerks reproduce through fusion. Three parent Yeerks merge into a single organism, which then breaks apart into hundreds of separate grubs, destroying the parents in the process; thus Yeerks have no living parents. Yeerks do not have different genders; presumably any three Yeerks can reproduce.
So far, Yeerks have enslaved about 18 different kinds of alien species, completely or partially, including Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, Gedds, the Nahara, Leerans, Garatrons, and of course, humans. According to a Yeerk named Temrash 144, the Yeerks may also have taken over creatures known as the Sstram and the Mak.
Homeworld
The Yeerk homeworld has various satellites, one of the natural ones is a moon called Madra. Yeerks inhabit a homeworld with a dark green and yellow, lightning-torn sky. The ground is largely dark rich soil, and roughly circular Yeerk pools dot the surface, presumably connected to each other somehow, but this is not explained. Yeerk pool water is a sludgy grey, filled with nutrients Yeerks need besides Kandrona rays. There are no more than a hundred animal species on the Yeerk homeworld, among them the Gedds, which became the Yeerks' natural host, nearly a symbiotic relationship. The Yeerk home world is surrounded by Andalite ships that stop anything from coming in or out.
Culture
Yeerk names end in numbers, which designate which number grub they are (i.e. Aftran 942 is the nine hundred forty second grub to emerge from the Aftran tri-parent). In the case of twin, both are given the same number, which ends in a double number. For example, Visser Three is Esplin 9466 Primary, and his brother is Esplin 9466 Secondary. The higher twin is considered to be superior to the other.
Taxxon
The Taxxons are a race of carnivorous insectoids and willing slaves of the Yeerk Empire. In exchange for the Taxxons agreeing to become Controllers, the Taxxons would get an endless supply of new, exotic meats.
They resemble giant, 10-foot-long (3.0 m) centipedes, with the forward one-third portion of their body held erect. They have twelve upper appendages that end in lobsterlike pincers and twenty needle-like legs. The front/top of their bodies end in a mouth like a lamprey, ringed with many razor sharp teeth. The area around their mouths (on what passes for a "head" on these creatures) is ringed with four red bulbous compound eyes on stalks.
Taxxons have an insatiable hunger for flesh. They eat anything dead, nearly dead, or for that matter anything that won't kill them while they're eating it. Taxxons are highly cannibalistic, and will quickly turn on each other at the first sign of weakness. This hunger is so strong that on occasion, when a Taxxon is cut in half, it begins devouring the other half in its death throes. The Taxxon hunger instinct is exaggerated by its sentience. The Taxxons are literally mad with hunger, out of an irrational fear of starvation. This may be because their planet, while apparently host to very large bodies of water (They are very fast swimmers) is largely devoid of life; this may have resulted in the Taxxon hunger developing as an evolutionary advantage, taking the opportunity of any and all food the moment it becomes available. They apparently eliminate waste from their foods as an ooze excreted through their skin, at least in the case of eating dirt, which they do for digging.
On their homeworld, the Taxxons lived in hives. As far as is known, they were extremely primitive and possessed little or no technology before the Yeerks arrived on their planet.
Hork-Bajir
The Hork-Bajir are a former peaceful alien race, who became enslaved by the Yeerks and used as shock troops.
The Hork-Bajir are bipedal, have hulking, strong reptilian bodies with hard and dark green-black leathery skin, at least two or maybe more hearts, snake-like necks with a sharp beak at the end of their heads. Their most notable feature is that they have huge, long blades all over their bodies: their elbows, wrists, feet, legs, head, and tail. Male and female Hork-Bajir are told apart by the number of blades on their heads; males have three blade while females have two.
They possess almost no technology of their own; Hork-Bajir brains have limited abilities (although it was suggested that they may simply be intelligent in different ways that they don't show.) They have excellent sense of hearing and smell. They also have incredible endurance and healing ability. In one book, a Hork-Bajir sliced his head open, exposing his brain, to demonstrate the absence of a Yeerk in his head. It immediately scarred over afterwards.
The Hork-Bajir homeworld was the first world the Yeerks reached out to for conquest. The remaining free Hork-Bajir were destroyed by the Quantum Virus, which War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass had programmed to kill all Hork-Bajir, from the Hork-Bajir Controllers, to all the free Hork-Bajir still alive on the planet to prevent them from becoming enslaved.
Andalite
The Andalites are centaur-like, with their lower body similar to that of an Earth deer and a torso similar to that of a human. The two arms on their upper bodies are relatively weak by human standards, and end with seven-fingered hands. Andalites are seen to be incredibly agile on their four hoofed legs. Their entire bodies are covered in fur, the males blue colour while the females have been depicted as being purple.
The head of an Andalite has a set of almond-shaped eyes, as well as a pair of stalk-eyes that endow them with 360-degree vision. A notable facial feature is the lack of a mouth. Andalites feed by crushing grass beneath their hooves, absorbing the nutrients from the plants, and communicate by means of thought-speech, a kind of telepathy. In the place where a human nose would be located, Andalites possess three vertical slits, allowing them to breathe. They have three hearts, giving them physical speed and endurance beyond what a human can achieve.
Andalites evolved as prey animals, but possess a formidable defense in the form of the single, scythe-shaped blade at the end of their long tails. The tail-blade is an important part of their culture, and is frequently referenced in poetry and rituals.
Homeworld
The number of suns in the Andalite star system is never specified, but the stars are always referred to in the plural sense. It is described that the Andalite homeworld once orbited two different stars 650 million years in the past before one went nova, the shock wave having unspecified results on the planet's orbit, pushing it further out, but making it habitable. The Andalite homeworld has four moons, at least two of which are visible from the planet's surface at any given time. The planet's sky is coloured red and gold. The Andalite homeworld is 82 light-years away from Earth.
Technology
The Andalites are a very scientifically oriented race, and boast a vast knowledge of the universe and advanced technology. A notable development is Zero-Space technology, which allows Andalite vessels equipped with "Z-space" engines to enter the region of Zero or Z-space, described as an entirely blank, void, white space, where real-space limitations on faster-than-light travel do not exist. Z-space transponder technology also takes advantage of this 'dimension' by shortening the travel time of messages through space, an advanced form of radio communication.
One of the more recently developed and most advanced Andalite technologies is their morphing technology. This allows Andalites to transform into any being whose DNA pattern can be absorbed through touch.
Seerow's Kindness
Named after Prince Seerow, one of the first Andalites to be stationed on the homeworld of a newly discovered species, the Yeerks.
They were capable, by some odd fluke of evolution, to enter into the brains of other species, interface, and control them. They had done so already with the weak species on their own world. Despite this, most of them never became aware of anything beyond the small, natural pools of their homeworld. Seerow felt sorry for the Yeerks, and taught them the technology they needed to travel beyond their world, and showed them the stars. He built them portable Kandronas, devices mimicking the rays of the Yeerk sun, allowing them to leave the confines of their world.
In return for Seerow's aid, the Yeerks betrayed the Andalites, attacking their outpost and slaughtering the minimal guarding force, and stole the Andalite fighters that were on the ground, escaping into space, but not before circling around to the far side of the planet to bring their fellow Yeerks aboard. Then, the Andalite ships, loaded with numerous pools full of Yeerks, left the homeworld, aiming to conquer the galaxy with the technology that Seerow had given them.
Ever since, the Andalites have fought against the Yeerks, trying to prevent them from taking over more innocent worlds. The Yeerks have already taken over numerous species, including the cannibalistic Taxxons, who voluntarily submitted to the Yeerks, and their ironically herbivorous shock-troops, the Hork-Bajir. Their ultimate prize would be the Andalites, for whom the Yeerks had developed a deep hatred, despite the species' initial kindness towards them.
Leeran
The Leerans are an aquatic/amphibious, sapient race from the planet Leera. They have four tentacles, analogous to arms. They have large green eyes, large flippers, and a head that slopes back to a rounded node.
The language of the Leerans is almost entirely monosyllabic words, most containing only two letters. The Leerans use a form of "thought-speak" to communicate. The "listener" can hear/feel what is being said. The Leeran thought-speak, however, is more intimate, being able to sense thoughts and emotions aside from what the other beings are telling them. Like most amphibians, they have the ability to regenerate severed or damaged tissue.
Leera, from which they originate, is mostly covered with water, with a single continent and several scattered islands. Leera hosts much aquatic and amphibious life. The oceans of Leera are clear like air, and one can see for miles in any direction. The Leerans make their homes underwater in huge, lavish cities near the coast.
The psychic powers and adaptibility of the Leerans made them a target of the Yeerks. Unfortunately for the Yeerks, however, the Leerans' psychic powers made it impossible to infiltrate Leera in secret, like Earth. Instead, the Yeerks invaded outright. Visser One personally oversaw the project and brought Leeran hosts back to Earth with her.
Howler
Howlers or Crayak's Children are the alien shock troops of the nearly-omnipotent Crayak.
Howlers have cracked, black skin that resembles hardened lava; beneath the black, in the cracks and creases of the flesh, are bright, red lines. Humanoid in appearance, their bodies are split in two at the waist, and the two halves tethered together by elastic skin; this bearing allows them to turn their upper body all the way around and keep themselves in the fight permanently, even when thrown away. They have two arms with humanoid hands, with retractable claws attached to the wrists and huge heads with large, expressionless, robin's-egg blue eyes, which have the ability to make out major organs within their prey.
Their most fearsome weapon is the howl that gives them their name. The howl is modulated to affect the complex, intelligent brains of sentient beings, and will almost instantly disorient and cripple those who hear it. Howlers are very fast, extremely resilient, and highly talented at combat. Their super-fast regenerative abilities allow them to quickly overcome even the worst physical damage. The Howlers operate as a hive-mind; the experiences of any one Howler are shared amongst all of them, so that every single one may become the best possible combatant.
Being the tools of Crayak, this race's sole purpose is to travel through the universe and destroy peaceful civilizations. But while Howlers may seem brutal in their killings, they are not a race of purely-evil beings (a philosophical point of K. A. Applegate's), for they are in fact unaware of the severity of their actions; they seem to be unaware that the people they are killing are actually real, sentient beings capable of feeling emotions or pain. The Howler mind is, in fact, similar to the mind of a dolphin in its playfulness. The Howler collective memory means that any experiences of victorious combat are shared throughout the race; but it will also share any experience of defeat among them, something Crayak cannot allow, which is why no Howler has memory of ever having lost a battle; Crayak does not allow those memories to poison the collective pool. The species is manufactured, and a Howler lives for only three years of its childhood before dying.
The Howlers are known to have wiped out several species, including the Nostnavay, Graffen's Children and most notably, the Pemalites. They can, in effect, be seen as the opposite of the Pemalites---who were created by the Ellimist to spread life---though both species, interestingly, are noted for wanting nothing more than to have fun.
Venber
A primitive race from a very cold moon, the Venber were hydrogen-based and would melt in temperatures above freezing. They're about eight feet tall, silver with streaks of blood-red or midnight-blue on their shoulders, waist, and hammerhead shark-like head. Venbers have arms that split at the elbows to make four forearms, the lower two of which could be used to propel their ski-like feet. They used echolocation.
The Yeerks had used Venber DNA from a few preserved specimens, and genetically engineered them with human DNA to make Human-Venber hybrids to guard their Arctic Kandrona base. As a Yeerk would freeze to death inside a Venber's head, the Yeerks had microchips put into the head of the new Venbers, making them completely obey the Yeerks, which leads to one of the most chilling moments in the series, where the Venbers follow their targets into a warm building, unable to stop chasing despite them melting to death.
Chee
The Chee are an ancient race of sentient androids that look like a skeletal dog with interlocking steel and ivory plates, and can walk on their hind legs. They were created hundreds of thousands of years ago by a peaceful and highly advanced race of dog-like aliens called the Pemalites.
The Pemalites created the Chee in their own image, using their technology to create friends that they could play with. The Pemalites were perfectly loving pacifists and they programmed the Chee, which means "friend" in the Pemalite language, never to allow a creature to come to harm. This proved to be their downfall when the Howlers attacked, and the Chee were utterly unable to protect them. So in order to keep part of the Pemalites alive, they harbored their essence into an Earth creature much like them - wolves. It is from that union that the modern dog was born.
The Chee possesses immense strength, speed and durability, capable of withstanding low-energy Dracon beam attacks and operating in the deep ocean. They can alter their programming by means of the Pemalite Crystal, which is in fact a computer of such advanced design that it would theoretically be able to control every computer on Earth, yet is only about the size of a marble or a pearl. They have extremely long life spans; Erek was over 50 millenia old, remarking that he has been alive since Moses wandered the Egyptian desert. The Chee can be considered benevolent Doppelgangers, as they can alter their appearance to match that of anything they wish, living or not. They accomplish this by means of a hologram generator.
The Chee blend into human culture by using powerful holograms to make themselves appear to be human, they let their hologram go old and eventually go away, to represent death, and then they take on the illusion of another person. They have a secret underground hideout where they take care of stray dogs, which remind them of their long dead creators.
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[HEADING=2]Space, the Final Frontier:[/HEADING]
It?s hard to say what the ultimate capacity of the Yeerk of Andalite fleets are, because they are generally spread throughout space, exploring and harassing each other while running at least eight major campaigns simultaneously. Earth, with a single Pool Ship, single Blade Ship, and double-digit Bug Fighters is considered a sideshow, and when unaware of the presence of the Blade Ship, the Andalites believed a single Dome Ship could easily clear out the Yeerks. Leera, on the other hand, was considered a significant campaign, the Yeerks committed 2 Blade Ships, 4 Pool Ships, and 'several hundred' Bug Fighters. The Andalites had 2 Dome Ships, a couple of assault ships and a third the fighters.
When the Andalites became serious about ending the war in later books, they assembled a fleet of 30 Dome Ships. The Yeerks believed this fleet could curb stomp them anywhere but in their most fortified systems, it was a serious strategic threat, but not treated as an immediate threat to the Yeerk leadership.
When Ax first sees the Blade Ship, he calls it a Visser's ship. If every Visser gets one (not guaranteed) and there aren't any being used except as command ships for Vissers (also no guarantees) that would imply there are 42 Blade Ships in the Yeerk fleet.
Fortunately, some time ago Applegate supported some schematics of Yeerk and Andalite ships online, these were on the series official website back when everybody used dial-up.
Dome Ship:
For scaling purposes, the Galaxy Tree's Dome was estimated to be half a mile (0.8 km) in diameter. Crew of a thousand warriors, complement of at least 16 fighters. 2 Main Shredders, stated at various points to be capable of "blasting large chunks off a planet" "blasting a hole through a moon" and "incinerating a planetary atmosphere" with a single shot. The first two could be hyperbole, but the last is deadly serious. Shields capable of taking at least a few hits from their own main weapons, armored hull more than 10 feet thick, the least part of which can easily survive reentry.
Powerplant unknown. At one point in the Andalite Chronicles Elfangor claims it takes the power of a medium-sized star to move a ship through Z-Space. Andalites have expressed familiarity with the concepts of fusion and antimatter throughout the series, but never commented whether they use either one. Alternatively, the morphing process somehow draws energy from Z-Space to work, perhaps other Andalite technology utilizes this. Ax claims that nuclear fission is only used in toys, "make little dolls talk and so on."
The Dome Ship is the major, really the only capital ship we see the Andalites use. As per the usual sci-fi idiom, it acts as both a battleship and a carrier for fighters. Aside from the practicalities of Andalites being a race of claustrophobics (all Andalite ships have high ceilings, wide halls, and holograms of the sky) the Dome serves a symbolic purpose. The ship carries a chunk of the Andalite homeworld to remind every warrior what they fight for, and place it beneath an endless view of the stars to remind them how vast the universe is. Most of the time, the dome is not a huge liability, but when the ship needs to fight it separates the dome so it can be faster, more maneuverable, and have wider firing arcs.
Blade Ship:
The Yeerk answer to the Dome Ship, mostly seen in the series as the command ship of Visser Three. The Blade Ship is a Dome Ship's match in shields and firepower, and is significantly more maneuverable, at least while the Dome Ship still has a dome on. The Blade Ship carries at least 6 Bug fighters, and has a cloaking device that hides it from view and radar, though not from the advanced sensors of an Andalite ship. And yes, it can fire while cloaked.
Pool Ship:
The Yeerk Mothership. Shaped vaguely like a very rounded beetle, with a flat 'belly' and a tall sloping 'back' plus 3 large legs that go up and back down like a spiders, and dozens of writhing translucent tentacles dangling beneath it. Like the name implies, the Pool Ship mostly contains a very large Yeerk pool and kandrona, carrying enough Yeerks to get a planetary invasion well underway, at least 17,000 Yeerks are in such a ship at one point, and I doubt that was anywhere near its full capacity. In battle, the Pool Ship has a single forward mounted dracon beam powerful enough to threaten a Dome Ship or a Blade Ship, but compared to either of those, it's a tub. It also serves as a carrier for a large (sadly unspecified) number of Bug Fighters, at least a dozen.
Other:
Both parties employ a number of freighters, transports, even assault ships. Plus a few generic general purpose spacecraft. The Andalites apparently have a sizeable number of scientific and exploration ships they have mothballed as the war has come to dominate their lives. Most of these have at least a single energy weapon, and even a freighter can score a fighter-kill if the gunner is good or lucky. Yeerks have the trucking ship, which collects air and water under cloak, and is shaped like a manta ray.
Fighters:
Andalite Fighter:
Bug Fighter:
Fighters are a touch unusual in this universe. First off, unlike X-wings or Vipers, which are more-or-less like jet fighters that fly in space, Animorphs fighters are about 9 meters long, and as roomy inside as the shuttles in Star Trek. This is both because they are spacecraft, and because both fighter types are FTL capable and are equipped to spend weeks without seeing their mothership. This is frustrating because we can only hazard a guess whether the swarms of fighters at Leera came in the bellies of the capital ships or flew beside them the whole way. It also adds to their flexibility, since fighters can be used to shuttle people to and from orbit. You can also fit a dozen Hork-Bajir in the back of a Bug Fighter and airlift them anywhere you need to. The standard crew is one pilot, one gunner. Both Yeerk and Andalite use this arrangement.
In the 40 year Yeerk-Andalite War, the Andalites come up with at least 8 models of fighter, all using the same basic design, but with small upgrades here and there. We also see the Yeerks a few times experimenting and improving upon Bug Fighters, but the designs remain broadly competitive with each other. Andalite fighters have a single weapon over the main fuselage, like their own tail blades, Bug Fighters have 2 dracon beams, the long spear-like projections. Andalite fighters also have secondary shredders and bombs for attacking ground targets. Both ships can kill each other with a single hit.
There seems to be no limit on sublight speeds, besides how concerned the pilot is over relativistic effects. At Max Burn an Andalite fighter can accelerate from near-rest to 0.1 c (~67 million mph) in 3 seconds. In atmosphere, we see Bug Fighters burn and fly apart when pushing 3500 mph (5600 kph, or just about halfway between Mach 4 and 5) a few hundred feet above the ground. Then again, they aren?t really designed for atmosphere.
They also don't really go for tactical FTL jumps. Apparently there's a margin of error of about a million miles regarding where you come out when using Z-Space, enough to not be able to guarantee surprising the enemy before he surprises you.
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Thoughts and coments welcome
(I could probably drive some poor shmuck insane by rambling on for a couple hours about a sci-fi series almost no one remembers.)
