I was going to ask these questions to my brother, who is a scientist and also used to read Animorphs with me when we were kids, but he only answered some of them before going to bed, so I turn to you, the good people of the Toast.
1. I assume you are familiar with Clarke’s law of science fiction writing, which states in part that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” With this in mind, does the blue box that the Andalite uses to give Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Marco and Tobias their powers violate the law of the conservation of mass?
By which I mean: when Cassie morphs into an ant, for example, are we to understand that her Cassie-matter has merely been CONDENSED into ant-matter, or somehow wholly transformed?
I think you’re right on about the conservation of mass thing. Clearly hawk-Tobias can fly whereas non-hawk-Tobias cannot, and no hawk has the wing speed velocity to carry a human’s weight.
So to answer the question directly, some Cassie-matter must get stored somewhere – probably in that blue box.
2. When the Animorphs morph, they are often described as having to struggle against the “animal mind” they will share for the duration of the morph, suggesting that their particular consciousnesses remain intact despite whatever form their brain takes. Is this evidence that immaterial souls exist in the Animorphs universe, or is there a biological explanation for this?
I’m a little embarrassed to admit I used to think about that when I read these books. If you turn into the animal, doesn’t that mean you have its brain too? Clearly you can’t take your human brain with you into an ant. Maybe your mind gets to remote control the animal’s mind from safely within the blue box (that theory is becoming more and more appealing), but sometimes the connection isn’t so great and the animal mind starts winning.
3. Apparently some of the later Animorphs writers cooked up the idea of “Z-space” to account for the excess matter left behind while in morph. Does it make any sense to you? How does this matter get to Z-space? Is there some kind of Dewey Decimal system that ensures the proper matter is returned to the proper morpher at the proper time?
That sounds a lot like my idea, except that saying there’s a “dimension…where neither time nor space exist” is like saying you discovered a sound that doesn’t make any noise. Also, whoever wrote this article directly contradicts themselves by claiming Z-space has routes (i.e. through space) and that they take up to ten years (i.e. time) to travel. You shouldn’t have to invoke a new theory on black holes and singularity points just to be able to morph into a animal – really.
4. Is it really biologically possible for an eight-to-ten-foot-long centipede to exist? (I refer here to the Taxxons.) Isn’t the physical structure of an insect poorly suited for such a size?
That would be horrible – and not just because of the inefficiency of the exoskeleton at the size, but there would be waaaay too many legs for an eight-foot-long creature to keep track of. But maybe that’s why the voluntarily gave themselves up to the Yeerks.
5. Centipedes on earth are solitary creatures. What evolutionary reason would lead the Taxxons to form hive-like colonies on their home planet?
I started to look up the page on Taxxons in the Animorphs wiki to help me answer, but got distracted by how disturbing the artist’s rendition of an eight-foot flesh-eating centipede is. The more important question is if you were a Taxxon, why would you ever want to be around your own race?
6. (This was brought up by a reader.) DNA doesn’t have a timestamp on it. Wouldn’t the Animorphs be just as likely to transform into themselves-as-fetuses as themselves-as-they-currently-are when returning from a morph?
I was actually very disillusioned to learn about this in my post-Animorph years. I remember hearing that scientists had cloned a sheep using its DNA, and that the sheep had to start out as a fetus. That crushed my Animorphs-based understanding of DNA. But I’m glad that happened before I had to take high school biology.
7. Since morphing allows the user to heal him- or herself from injuries (not to mention spontaneously generating extra mass), could this technology be used to achieve immortality? Why has that not been made a priority among the Andalites?
That’s a good question. To be fair, if I had the power to spontaneously will myself into an eagle, I would be too distracted to worry about immortality.
8. From the Animorphs Wiki:
It was speculated that the DNA is stored inside the body within a small, molecular sphere, supercooled to sub-zero temperatures, lying dormant until called upon for a morph. Therefore, the body would be capable of holding much more than would ever be conceivably necessary to a morpher. This is wrong, however, as it is stated many times, most notably in Book #49: The Diversion, the DNA simply floats around in the blood system until called forth by the morphing technology.
This sounds plausible to me. Could that work?
All the human body can do to lower its temperature in any area is use evaporative cooling, so I don’t think it could keep the DNA balls sub-zero for very long. So maybe the floating DNA theory could work, as long as the liver/kidney know not to throw it out. Although I suppose that would mean there would have to be human DNA floating around when you’re an ant. I don’t think ants have bloodstreams that can hold human DNA.
9. Ax uses the Frolis Maneuver to create a human morph, essentially creating an entirely new, partially sentient human being, which exists only when he chooses to morph it. Has he developed a new type of asexual reproduction, or is this human form a mere shell?
I guess if you’re combining two humans’ DNA, that would be asexual reproduction. It’d be kind of fun for him to be able to see what people’s babies would look like without having to get them to voluntarily reproduce. A lot of combinations come to mind.
10. The rogue Animorph David once acquired Marco as a morph. When he morphs Marco, are there two Marcos, or only one? Tobias and Ax both morph Taxxons at one point; Taxxons are sentient, self-aware creatures, and yet they do not utilize the Frolis Maneuver. Does this mean they revive the individual Taxxon from death every time they use that morph? Would that not be remarkably similar to Yeerk behavior?
There would have to be one Marco with a David-soul (see question 2). I don’t know how that would affect the Taxxon situation though – aren’t the Animorphs being Yeerks over every animal they morph into? Maybe K.A. Applegate should have though through all these plot holes – she had to know her 9-year-old readers would grow up eventually.
11. Not technically scientific but such an enormous deal: What did Rachel do to David?
I would like to think she helped him assimilate into the mutant-rat world, and that things turned out to be not so bad in the end. Or that Tobias ate him.
Tags: animorphs, did you ever watch the tv show, i sort of hoped marco and rachel would get together, i stopped reading the series sometime after the hork bajir chronicles, johnny ortberg, k.a. applegate, scholastic book fairs, we take things seriously here, ya
RE: #2 – I like to call this “The Thing That Happened to Merida’s Mom” query.
Okay but where’s the Benedict Cumberbatch tag
The “Benedict Cumberbatch is Visser Three in morph” tag.
I don’t care about Benedict Cumberbatch; you are thinking of Nicole.
Something else I never found sufficiently convincing: the fact that Visser 3 didn’t need to leave his Andalite host body to feed in the nutrient pool because he morphed into another yeerk and fed that way. THAT WOULD ONLY REPLENISH HIS HOST MORPH BODY. I call shenanigans, KA Applegate!
Anyway, I’m not an expert on bugs but I’m pretty sure you’re right on number 4? I remember reading something once about how the immense strength to weight ratio of ants is only possible due to their scale, and if they were human sized they’d just be immobilized by their own weight. Obviously ants and centipedes aren’t the same, but I’m going to assume they’re close enough because I don’t know any better! TRY AND STOP ME, ENTOMOLOGISTS. I’m not afraid of you.
Yeah, the surface area: volume ratio plays a lot into biology and is what keeps things with exoskeletons from getting any bigger- I think essentially, past a certain size the weight of the insides is too great for an exoskeleton so they would not be able to support their weight.
THAT SAID, since the Taxxons are aliens, not that I know anything about alien biology, but I would imagine it’s possible that somehow their exoskeletons are made up of something far stronger than earth insects? Or their insides are lighter?
Relatedly, to answer 5. Because if they grew to be big and have bigger brains then presumably they needed to come up with some social structure, and whatever, hives are as good as anything. Basically aliens is a free-for-all when it comes to biology and behavior, amirite?
I think it’s really interesting to see how people develop alien species, because in reality they could be anything- there’s no reason why they’d have to eat, reproduce, look, or act like anything we know or understand, right? Like, does evolution even apply in space??? It seems like it would, but I don’t know? No but really, does anyone know? I’ve managed to confuse myself.
Evolution in the broadest sense would probably apply in space, because the idea that some individuals are more successful than others and more likely to pass on their traits isn’t earth-specific. But I mostly think about it in terms of sexual reproduction, which might not apply to aliens. So many questions!
It is really cool to see what people focus on when they come up with alien species. Julie E Czerneda writes good aliens.
Centipedes are like insects in that they breathe through little holes in their skin, and I’m pretty sure that plays a role in their size too – you can’t get past the surface area:volume ratio that allows too little oxygen exchange. Which would be why bugs used to be a lot bigger when there was more oxygen in the atmosphere. Maybe the Taxxon home planet had higher oxygen concentrations? Although they should have thus suffocated on Earth so they sound like pretty weak villains.
What thebellewitch said, plus I remember seeing something awhile back about how, in animals with exoskeletons, their joints become choke points for the transfer of nutrients/oxygen to their extremities, so they can’t get above a certain size at today’s oxygen levels.
Everyone here is so knowledgeable and helpful! I love this site and everyone on it, and especially you guys. Anyway, something else that occurred to me while browsing the Animorphs wiki: If morphers can transfer biomass to and from Z-space more or less freely and at-will, why do Andalite ships require engines to enter and exit Z-space? Either it requires energy or it doesn’t, but it can’t be both, right? Was there ever anything in the books about people being exhausted after repeated morphing? I don’t remember that being the case but it’s been so long since I’ve read the books.
There was definitely a talent element involved–Cassie was considered best at morphing, quickness and control and that sort of thing. Possibly there were instances of the Animorphs tiring out after morphing multiple times, especially considering they have to go back to human between morphs? I’m halfway through a series reread…the only thing I remember specifically in future books is the kids getting BETTER at morphing, as in at some point they develop the skill to morph actual clothing instead of the awesome leotards.
But how would that work???? CLOTHING DOESN’T HAVE DNA
shhh melis shhh.
HOWEVER that does bring up my perennial favorite thing I would do if I were an Animorph, which is give myself a new haircut every time I morphed back.
The morphing and clothing thing sort of reminds me of one of those Dan Simmons books where there’s a phasing machine/teleporter/thing and it turns out that the machine actually kills and recreates you every time you use it rather than moving your body from one point to another. Is it really Cassie.0 who’s morphing back from osprey? Or is it the immutable Cassie soul creating a new version of Cassie’s body every time?
Natural fibre clothing would. Do they become hippies?
4. Giant scorpions have been found to have existed, but it’s unlikely they’d be able to live/move around outside of a watery environment.
6. DNA does accumulate damage, and some people believe that it’s the reason for aging?
re: 6: yeah, i thought telomeres might be key, since they shorten over time! But the problem is not all your DNA ends shorten at the same rate, since some cell types divide more often than others. Maybe when DNA is acquired, the process like, samples the genetic material in every cell and creates some ‘average’ DNA sample with a baseline telomere length?
Okay but now I really want to see a scorpion the size of an alligator.
4. So have eight foot long centipedes.
i knew i would regret clicking on a link about giant scorpions, and then i did it anyway.
I do not know the answers to any of these questions, and part of why I had to give up reading Animorphs is because my dad (an engineer) was so exhausted by my questions about morphing and whether or not it could happen.
The other reason I stopped reading Animorphs is that I also read them concurrently with the children’s Left Behind series (a guy in my fifth grade class had a ton of both, and I would just read whichever newest book he had in his desk), and I started mixing up the details of post-Rapture Earth with Animorphs mythology. It was all just too out there, so I switched to Sweet Valley Senior Year.
I started mixing up the details of post-Rapture Earth with Animorphs mythology.
This is the greatest. THE GREATEST.
They actually blend together pretty well, except the Left Behind people seemed a lot more ruthless.
I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. All I want to say is that I distinctly remember in one of the choose your own adventure animorph books one of the endings is you morphing into a life jacket (or some other item of clothing? you were in the arctic somehow).
This is a very important post and now I want to go to my parents’ house and get all my Animorph books and reread them since I never got all the way to the end.
good news friend: the books are available online. i’d link but i’m not sure their onlineness is with the author’s permission. however, trust in your friend and mine google and your problems will be solved
I always just assumed that the morphing happened exactly like on the cover?
Guys he woke up and answered some of my questions! Editing gleefully now.
It is Very Important that you all read Vegemorphs: The Fungus Among Us” by Leif E. Green
“I can’t tell you my first name—or my last name, either. And I can’t tell you where I live. But I might be lying in your refrigerator’s vegetable bin or in the produce section of your local supermarket right now.”
“Once I give you the special power, all you have to do is smell a vegetable deeply, and you will discover its essence. Your body will be in tune with the vegetable. Then, once you put your mind to it, you can turn into one.”
http://downloads.animorphsforum.com/books/pdf/Veg…
Now I’m a little disappointed that I just accepted all of the Animorphs rules without question when I was reading them. I guess I wasn’t a very curious child.
(Seriously, though, what was up with the Howlers? With the lava skin and lazy-susan midsections?)
Since I’m not a scientist, I’m going to pull an Applegate and refer these mysteries to the Ellimist. HE KNOWS. PERHAPS HE MADE IT ALL HAPPEN
Does anyone want to talk about how good The Andalite Chronicles was?
SO GOOD
So great, but Hork-Bajir Chronicles was my fav. I cried so much.
Oh Dak and Aldrea ohhh DON’T LOOK AT ME
THE ANDALITE CHRONICLES FOREVER. Perfect summer camp reading.
Loren and Al Fangor
LORD YES
I’m STILL shocked!!!!
The spirited Twitter discussion last night lead me to this horrifying link: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFu…
So much body horror, and yet it took about twenty-five books for two characters to kiss, and Marco’s idea of a naughty word was “butt.”
Also, does anyone remember how they were all really into Nine Inch Nails, and Cassie told her mom that NIN stood for “Nice is Neat?”
Yeah, but do you also remember that part in Megamorphs 3 where it’s implied that somebody calls Cassie a racial slur and she decides to turn INTO A POLAR BEAR to tell the guy off? Because that was awesome as hell.
Megamorphs 3 was always my favorite, actually. Can we talk about the science in that one? Because’s it’s pretty dang nutballs. I cried over Jake’s for literally hours before I kept reading and realized they could just bring him back to life with time travel or whatever.
I NEVER FORGOT THAT. Probably because I had never heard of Nine Inch Nails before I read Animorphs? Anyway, now I think “Nice is neat” literally every time I see/hear the name Nine Inch Nails.
And Cassie liked Boyz II Men, too! I’d forgotten all about that until now.
WOW WOW WOW how thoughtful of them to compile all the most horrific parts in one place
I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, as I was not very sciency as a kid.
I do have an Animorph anecdote, though! In 7th grade we had a new kid who looked EXACTLY like I’d imagined Jake; it was very uncanny, and I could not stop looking at him. Unfortunately he was super weird and troubled, and everyone accused me of having a crush on him (which I didn’t!), but I couldn’t exactly tell anyone the new kid who made everyone uncomfortable looked like the living embodiment of a character in a scifi series I’d been secretly obsessed with for three years. He got sent to juvie a few weeks after he came to our school, and I never saw him again.
I’m pretty sure that, if the books have a flipbook cartoon in the corner of the pages depicting exactly how the transformations happen, there is absolutely no way that anyone can doubt the scientific merit of the Animorphs’ transfiguration. (Also, Tobias 4 lyfe.)
I will be camping out in this thread all day. So pleased that this exists. SO PLEASED. A lot of my money, time, and life generally have been devoted to these wacky kids and their alien friends. However, I am shit at science and so will be enlightened by everyone else’s theories and knowledge.
I think my favorite “thing that Rachel did to David” was her jamming a fork into his ear and threatening his family. RACHEL.
This is my dream thread. MY DREAM. I own every single Animorphs book ever published, all purchased the month of their release (except the one I had to replace because I left the original in a Golden Corral when I was ten) plus the upsettingly bad computer game.
Thank you, Mallory.
Are you on Tumblr? There’s a fairly active and non-horrible Animorphs fandom there. Good art and discussions. My BFF and I have been rereading the series and podcasting about it, which is fun. We were both very, very devoted Animorphs kids. :B
Also: I met K.A. Applegate this year and she was so sweet and great, which you can also see from her reddit AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gzhau/iam_k…
I feel like I haven’t read nearly enough Animorphs now. I didn’t even know about the Andalite Chronicles!
All the Chronicle books are great, and I actually liked them more than the regular series.
Oh god so amazing. All the Chronicles books were like special gifts, except HEART-WRENCHING.
The largest fossil centipede was 8.5 ft long or so (Arthropleura). Insect size is restricted by their respiratory system- basically a bunch of holes in their sides that allows oxygen to diffuse in. They lack a pumping system like our lungs. The gigantic ancient centipedes were helped by the higher oxygen partial pressure during the Carboniferous. Perhaps the Taxxon have evolved a more efficient respiratory system.
There’s a nice article by Michael LaBarbera that discusses scifi movie biology like whether giant insects like Mothra could exist.
Social colonial insects have evolved more than once, so is stands to reason that centipedes could too (or anything, given naked mole rats, etc). There’s a working theory now that social insect societies are basically queens enslaving their own offspring so the queen can be polyandrous instead of monogamous.
I don’t know enough about the animorphs to answer anything else (and I have to go to work). Sorry.
I don’t want to fangirl too much, because what if he has a Google Alert on his name? But ~~~LaB!!!~~~
“There’s a working theory now that social insect societies are basically queens enslaving their own offspring so the queen can be polyandrous instead of monogamous.”
:O
I don't want to fangirl too much, because what if he has a Google Alert on his name? But ~~~LaB!!!~~~
Re: #2, I think I assumed that the animal “mind” was the instincts of the animal that are hardcoded in their brain, not the consciousness of the individual animal. This would mean that when you morph into a sentient animal, you just get human/taxxon/hork-bajir *instincts* but not their individual mind. (Although I wonder if they had some genetic quirk of the brain, would that come through, too? Were genetic disorders ever addressed?)
Anyway, this would mean no ethical problem with morphing into a taxxon, there is only one Marco and then a David with Marco’s instincts, and the Frolis Maneuver is mainly useful so none of the kids have an inexplicable twin.
However, it’s been YEARS since I read the books and this theory may have been contradicted.
re: question six – DNA does sort of have a time stamp on it! not all of your genetic material is expressed in every cell constantly – many genes are only turned on in certain cell types during development, for example – due to a variety of factors including stable, epigenetic markers like DNA methylation, histone modification, stable RNAs etc. basically your body sticks all kinds of proteins and shit to your DNA to keep it locked up and inaccessible, so that it can’t be transcribed. conceivably, this could be a mechanism of preserving the correct age when you morph back. a bigger question is why do things like hair length – which isn’t in genetically coded at all, – stay the same when you turn back. UNCLEAR.
SO! morphing back to being a human could also involve the preservation of these epigentic and regulatory states. but that makes this “DNA simply floats around in the blood system until called forth by the morphing technology” pretty much the biggest bullshit. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU HAVE DNA FLOATING IN THE BLOOD SYSTEM, or as most of us call it, ur blood. that DNA would get degraded so fast. also if you had to store precise epigenetic information from each and every cell in your body in the blood of like a fucking ant you would be fucked because 1. that’s a lot of information 2. ANTS DON’T HAVE A “BLOOD SYSTEM.” or blood. at all. so it kind of makes more sense for their to be some sort of external DNA/RNA/epigenetic memory system, rather than having it internally preserved somewhere.
basically, as a biologist, none of this makes any sense. also i made an account just to post this. could not be prouder of my years of education.
I think it makes more sense to be magic ;). Since lots of genes are faaaaiiirly similar across many, many species, maybe it makes more sense that they just have bigger genomes with all the extra genes (FOR ALL SPECIES EVER…uhm…) added in and kept silent until needed. And somehow all the cells in the body are preserved, they just change their shape/size. Or go to Z space. OR SOMETHING I GIVE UP I TRIED.
actually that could work! biologists already kind of do stuff like that – well, inserting copies of genes from other animals into different cells and animals, and silencing them when needed – so why not have it on a larger scale? it makes more sense than having random dna floating in your blood all the time.
Thanks for posting this because that question was giving me a headache and I kind of wanted to say all of that ^^ but I was busy doing IRL biology.
happy to! I had a long incubation this afternoon and therefore plenty of time to think about Animorphs science. XD
Re: #2, I think I assumed that the animal “mind” was the instincts of the animal that are hardcoded in their brain, not the consciousness of the individual animal. This would mean that when you morph into a sentient animal, you just get human/taxxon/hork-bajir *instincts* but not their individual mind. (Although I wonder if they had some genetic quirk of the brain, would that come through, too? Were genetic disorders ever addressed?)
That is a good question about genetic disorders, it would have made a really interesting plot point.
As for the hardcoded part, consciousness isn’t really physically separable or identifiable in the brain, at least to the extent that we understand it now. Some scientists have tried to identify a neural region that represents conscious thought or the stream of consciousness, but it likely doesn’t work quite like that. Stream-of-thought-style thinking (e.g. daydreaming) reliably recruits a whole network in the brain, and that network changes as you age, so it isn’t linked directly with DNA. As for instinct: even the neural structures that subserve more basic functions can vary widely based on environment/ experience. The development of the visual cortex, for example, isn’t entirely coded in the DNA, but rather relies on environmental interaction to develop “typically.”
Nonetheless, your explanation probably is a lot closer than mine to what KA Applegate was actually thinking! And just because we haven’t isolated these different forms of cognition in the brain doesn’t mean they aren’t separable in some unknown way.
You probably weren’t looking for this geekfest, but this is a really fun and complex question.
I am ALWAYS looking for a geekfest. <3
I generally assume that consciousness is physically located in the brain, but I don’t know if we can assume that’s true in the Animorph world, because “you” are still there when you morph, but physically you have an animal brain… I’m trying to puzzle out how it would work in a physical sense- like, if you scanned a person while they were morphed as an animal, would you see different areas of the brain working? Except some animals don’t even have those brain parts, right? Like ants or clams or whatever. So then is the human (or Andalite) consciousness housed remotely? It’s a tricky question.
ALSO INTERESTING: you bring up that much of how the brain works is based on the environment/developement. That applies to some other things, too- like, how muscular you are is based (in part) on how you use those muscles. But their muscles aren’t atrophied from lack of use when they morph, so something has to simulate that, right? So if you morph into a strongman or something, would you have all their muscles? Or if someone was really out of shape? That’s not all dictated by genetics- it’s also how the person acts. And we know things like wounds are healed, so you don’t absorb all their experiences. But then the alternative- that you’d become, what, some platonic ideal of their genetic potential? Seems implausible as well. Expand that to the brain… weirdness.
HE ANSWERED THE REST OF THE QUESTIONS POST IS NOW FULLY UPDATED
I like this Johnny Ortberg. I would now like to know whose DNA he would combine for funsies.
Maybe K.A. Applegate should have though through all these plot holes – she had to know her 9-year-old readers would grow up eventually.
SASS.
PS I love this thread and everyone in it.
While we’re speaking to K.A. Applegate-related matters, did anyone read her teen romance series “Making Out” (written under the name Katherine Applegate, because you’re allowed to be a woman when the series is both called and about Making Out)?
If so, did you have a crush on Benjamin?
I would have been too scandalized for a series called “Making Out” but I’m very into the idea of it.
Just looked it up on Amazon. The first book appears to be called “Zoey Fools Around” and the first sentence of the description is “They’ve all grown up together on a tiny island. They think they know everything about one another. . .but they’re only just beginning to find out the truth.” So, ordering that now.
YES. I could probably recite that description. The series is really fun and good for like 8-12 books and then the ghostwriters run it into the ground, but I loved it. Even the requisite teen ice queen (Claire, perfect hair) is kind of awesome and wants to be a climatologist. Zoey is a wet blanket and a half but whatever
Making Waves was even better! Six 18-year-olds sharing a beach house and causing more juicy drama than Sweet Valley. But also, AIDS and racism and drug addiction, because K.A. always puts a healthy dash of dark WTFery in her fluff.
Hi, did anyone else also read and love Everworld, despite David basically being the same character as Jake and Christopher basically being the same character as Marco?
I tried to describe the series to my boyfriend, and came up with “Misfits, except a bunch of apathetic teenagers fight off crazy gods instead of crazy people with superpowers”
*rests chin in hands* HERE FOR EVERWORLD DISCUSSION. April singing “Killing Me Softly” to a bunch of Vikings is still one of the greatest things to ever happen in literature.
OH MY GOD YES
I often remember Jalil’s angsty handwashing with great sadness, and out of nowhere. Like, I’ll be lying in bed, and my brain goes, “Hey, remember Jalil”
April was my fave as a kid, but I’m pretty sure Jalil would be my favorite now. Time for a reread! I never started buying that series, though…and apparently my public library only has two of the books. TO EBAY.
Yes! Everworld! They were better than Animorphs even, I think.
Not that that stopped me from reading this aloud to my boyfriend over lunch today. I think Animorphs were actually the only thing we both read as children (I read all children’s lit; he only read nonfiction books about vehicles and natural history.)
I remember reading them and being fascinated by them, but I don’t remember much about what happened.
Did anyone read Remnants? I read the first few and then lost track of them. I have them all as a pdf somewhere and I keep meaning to read them- they’re short and there are only 14 (as opposed to the 60-some Animorph books)
Man, I need to read Animorphs
GUYS also did you know that a lot of them were ghostwritten, but in such a way that it makes ghostwriting seem like an acceptable and useful way to force authors to churn out books at a much higher rate? And KA and her husband (who co-wrote Animorphs) were already ghostwriters so they basically knew what was up when it comes to organizing a whole army of middle-grade sci-fi authors to do their bidding?
This is calling up so many memories I did not remember that I forgot (does that make sense?) until now, specifically of the way I would try to steal copies of the Animorphs books from my fifth grade classroom and then got too scared I would be found out and always put them back anyway.
the summer between 3rd and 4th grade i barely showered or swam (quite a feat in puerto rico) because i was afraid of yeerks entering my brain. it was a rough summer for my parents. so, good thread.
ALSO I would just like to share the fact that in middle school my best friend told everyone she was an Andalite. We were clearly meant to be friends because I told people I was a werewolf. Oh, how we were mocked. But people would get confused about which of us were which and we would SO INDIGNANTLY correct them. Possibly with growling. I have no idea how we survived sixth grade.
good news friend: the books are available online. i'd link but i'm not sure their onlineness is with the author's permission. however, trust in your friend and mine google and your problems will be solved
Ok, no, I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure that asexual reproduction is by definition reproduction wherein the offspring inherits the genes of only one parent – there is no genetic combining.
Other than that this is great.
I’m not sure if this is all accurate, but this is what I’ve always assumed:
1 – If Cassie morphs into an ant (why would she do that it’s terrifying?) her remaining mass is “extruded” into Z-Space, where it floats, connected through like a tiny hole between dimensions or possibly sort of “wirelessly” to her transformed ant body. In one book, they morph mosquitos and there is such a small amount of mass to anchor them that they end up being pulled into Z-Space.
3 – Since they are still somewhat connected to their excess matter, there isn’t a problem of getting it back. I suspect that if they were somehow separated from it they would wake up in a vacuum and die.
8 – I think I remember a book where the Yeerks suspect that they may be looking for Humans so they have a blood drive and everyone gets kind of nervous about it, so I guess the floating around the blood theory is it.
My childhoood…maybe I should try rereading some of these books…Yep. I’m definitely going to do that.
I’m assuming that when Cassie transforms into an ant that the bulk of her matter is transformed into energy, badly burning everyone and everything around her.