Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

SirSamVimes posted:

I mean this book just demonstrated that there is infiltration and treachery occurring.

It would be great if every Andalite ship after this installs a Leeran Compliance Officer who is there to look out for traitors, but because they're so few and far between, actually just ends up reporting the most mediocre breaches of the rules like the worst kind of middle manager.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 14:18

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 21:48

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

freebooter posted:

(On the other hand I don't see how Leera could really have been that pivotal though, which everybody in this book says it is.)

I mean, I'd say, in addition to being fresh bodies for the Yeerk war machine, and ones that are equally comfortable on land and in water and can regenerate, they're also the only receptive telepath's we've seen, That's a pretty important weapon for the Yeerks to have.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 14:47

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Acebuckeye13 posted:

Also unlike a lot of these recent books, I remember almost everything about the next one, and I am hella excited for it because it is 300% bananas.

The Megamorphs? It also unfortunately features another KASU (as she points out in another Q&A), and it's a big one.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 14:53

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Whats a KASU, and got a link?

# ? Mar 5, 2021 15:28

e X: Feb 23, 2013; cool but crude

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Whats a KASU, and got a link?

Katherine Applegate Screw Ups. Plotholes, basically.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 15:29

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

freebooter posted:

It would be great if every Andalite ship after this installs a Leeran Compliance Officer who is there to look out for traitors, but because they're so few and far between, actually just ends up reporting the most mediocre breaches of the rules like the worst kind of middle manager.

I'm now imagining Toby from the Office as a giant alien frog.

"Uh huh... well you can't do that... I know the airlock is stuck but you can't :smith:

"

It is funny to see a traitor though because you'd think that is one area where the Yeerks would be absolutely hopeless. Away from Earth (where they can shock and awe us with ~we are the future this is the only way~) what incentive would anyone have to defect? The Yeerks don't seem to have cushy suburban cottages and a pension for old informants. It's just eternal enslavement all the way down.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:23

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

They promised he and his family would be safe. That's the usual trick.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:29

e X: Feb 23, 2013; cool but crude

Strategic Tea posted:

I'm now imagining Toby from the Office as a giant alien frog.

"Uh huh... well you can't do that... I know the airlock is stuck but you can't "

It is funny to see a traitor though because you'd think that is one area where the Yeerks would be absolutely hopeless. Away from Earth (where they can shock and awe us with ~we are the future this is the only way~) what incentive would anyone have to defect? The Yeerks don't seem to have cushy suburban cottages and a pension for old informants. It's just eternal enslavement all the way down.

That they never follow up on that traitor plot thread is a real shame, it would have been really interesting to see what exactly made the Captain turn, since he came across more as a true believer than a victim of blackmail or something similar.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:29

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

from a certain point of view, it's entirely reasonable to align with the yeerks. that is, if you are capable of ignoring the genocidal feudal nightmare that the yeerk-in-exile society has become, and instead orient your ideology around the events of first contact. the andalites did not handle things very reasonably, and are continuing to inflame tension by maintaining a blockade of the yeerk homeworld - which has been up since the first yeerks fled the planet, years and years before the war started. obviously at this point there is strategic value to the blockade, but at first? i wonder.

plus, the captain was (supposedly) a close friend of elfangor, and you have to wonder how much elfangor's xenophilic attitude, as well as his low-key skepticism about andalite society because he lived as a human for a long time, rubbed off on his buddies. maybe the yeerks showed him a nice video of voluntary human and taxxon controllers eating cinnamon buns together in the yeerk pool cafeteria

# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:06

Grammarchist: Jan 28, 2013

Ax's file at Andalite High Command is going to be so awesome by the time the series ends.

# ? Mar 5, 2021 22:36

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Grammarchist posted:

Ax's file at Andalite High Command is going to be so awesome by the time the series ends.

"And in conclusion, at least half of this must be purely fictitious because no one could accomplish all of this. However, as we have as of yet been unable to ascertain which half is true, we feel compelled to leave it all in."

# ? Mar 5, 2021 22:37

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Actually, the Andalite traitor seems very Crayak. From memory their games involve changing one small part of a situation, so I could see him choosing to place the traitor against Ellimist choosing to switch the group's consciousness. I could absolutely see him thinking "6 dudes with a limited time? No contest."

# ? Mar 5, 2021 22:43

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Animorphs-Megamorphs 2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs, Chapter 1
Marco

quote:

My name is Marco. And I�m the idiot who happened to be watching the news on TV, and happened to see the story about the nuclear submarine that went down.

Do you ever wish you could just learn to keep your mouth shut? I do. At least in this case I did.

Because if I�d just kept my mouth shut, I wouldn�t have ended up trying to suck air through my blowhole in the middle of a raging storm that kept dropping thirty-foot waves on my head.

But maybe I should back up. Maybe I should explain why I had a blowhole in the first place. I�ll make this quick: Things are happening here on good old planet Earth. Things most people would never dream of. Things that if you told people they�d say, �Yeah, right. Want to try on this straitjacket?�

We are being invaded. Not by spaceships from outer space firing ray guns. I mean, yes, from spaceships, but mostly the Yeerks don�t use a lot of ray guns.

Honestly, if I counted the number of times somebody's fired a Dracon beam in the series, I could probably prove Marco wrong here.

quote:

The Yeerks are a parasitic species. Like tapeworms or lice or certain gym coaches who think you can�t play basketball just because you are somewhat not tall.

But Yeerks don�t crawl on top of your head like lice. They crawl inside your head. A slug like a big snail slithers into your ear, oozes into your brain, flattens itself out, sinks into all the cracks in your brain, and from that point on, controls you. It can even force you to listen to Kenny G.

Actually, it�s not funny. I tend to make jokes, especially about things that bother me. And the

Yeerks bother me. One of those people who has been enslaved by the Yeerks is my mother. We thought she was dead. She�s not. At least I think she�s not. When I last saw her she was still alive. Trying to destroy me and my friends, as a matter of fact. Which is a lot worse than just being grounded.

Anyway, there are the Yeerks, this parasitic species that rampages throughout the galaxy looking for new host bodies. They control the Gedds, a species from their home planet. They control the Hork-Bajir and the Taxxons. And their target now is Earth and humans.

What does this have to do with me having a blowhole? Well, there�s another species in on this with us. The Andalites. The Andalites are stretched thin trying to resist the Yeerks. An Andalite task force got hammered in orbit above Earth. One of them, Prince Elfangor, made it to Earth and happened to crash near my friends and me. He gave us the Andalite morphing power. The ability to absorb DNA from any animal, and then actually, literally become that animal.

We use that power to resist the Yeerks. �We� being Jake, who is our prematurely middle-aged, fearless more-or-less leader; Cassie, our animal expert and tree-hugging environmental wacko; Rachel, Jake�s fabulously beautiful but totally insane cousin; Tobias, who�s a mouse-eating bird; the Cinnabon-chomping Andalite scorpion-boy we call Ax; and me, Marco, the sensitive, sensible, smart, and good-looking one.

Also modest. And honest.

And did I mention cute?

This is the necessary "Lets sum up the premise of the books", which we've been seeing less of lately, but I guess since this was a Megamorphs book, KAA felt the need to include.

quote:

Anyway, I was hanging out with my dad around noon on a rainy Saturday, slumped down in the easy chair, staring at the TV, wondering if I had the energy to go into the kitchen to get more Doritos, when the news flash came on.

A nuclear sub was reported to have developed reactor problems. It was feared sunk. Rescue ships and divers were on the scene, but the storm was making it hard for them. They couldn�t find the sub, which could be dousing everyone on board with radiation.

�Oh, man,� I groaned.

�Yeah,� my dad agreed. He was slumped on the couch wondering if he had the energy to go to the kitchen and get his Cheez Puffs.

�Um �� I said.

�Are you going to the kitchen?� he asked hopefully.

I sighed. �Actually, I just remembered I�m supposed to help Jake with some work over at his house.�

�Oh. You�ll miss the game,� he said. �So before you go, could you grab me the bag of Cheez Puffs? And a soda? And a pillow? And give me the remote control.�

I carried about twenty-four items to my dad, then took off out into the rain to walk to Jake�s house. I had to tell him about the sub. I don�t know why, I just had to. I guess I thought we could possibly help.

Thirty minutes later, the six of us were assembled on a wet beach. There was absolutely no one in sight. No lifeguards. No little old ladies collecting shells. I mean, it was really raining. We were all soaked through and had wet sand caking our shoes. All except Rachel, who I swear has some magic ability to repel dirt, mud, and rainwater.

�Well, we have privacy, that�s for sure,� Jake said, looking around.

�What are we going to do with our outer clothing and shoes?� Cassie wondered.

See, we can�t morph clothing and shoes. Just things that are skintight. I was wearing bike shorts and a way-too-small, totally uncool T-shirt under my clothes. Those I could morph.

�I�ve said it before, I�ll say it again,� I said. �We have got to do something about these funky morphing outfits. We are a disgrace to super-heroes. Can you imagine us ever being in a comic book alongside Spider-Man? We�d look like the Clampetts.�

�The what?� Cassie asked.

�You know, the Beverly Hillbillies.�

�Marco, you do realize that Spider-Man isn�t real, right?� Rachel asked. �And even if he was, I don�t know what fabric that outfit of his is made from. Never bags at the knees or elbows. I mean, come on.�

�We�d better get going before someone shows up,� Jake said glumly. Jake hates dark, overcast days. It makes him grumpy.

We stripped off our outer clothes and shoes and stuffed them into a backpack. We stuck the backpack in one of the blue trash barrels they had along the beach.

�Maybe we�ll get lucky this time and they won�t pick up the trash today,� Cassie said.

�Yeah, it�d be a shame to lose those jeans of yours,� Rachel said. �If your legs shrink five inches those jeans would almost fit.�

Rachel and Cassie are best friends. But they don�t agree on the importance of clothes.

<Come on,> Tobias called down from above. <There are guys out there who might be dying. Let�s just get it over with already!>

Floating over our heads was Tobias, a red-tailed hawk. A wet red-tailed hawk. We heard his thought-speak in our heads. We also knew why he was anxious. Tobias does not like the water. But he was trying to act all macho about it.

We waded into the water. Jake, Cassie, Rachel, and me. And Ax. Ax was in his disturbingly attractive human morph. As opposed to his disturbingly, disturbing true Andalite body. He had to return to his own form before he could go into another morph. He�d picked up his newest morph at The Gardens - with Cassie�s help, of course. Tobias had to morph straight from his hawk shape.

Which, as you can guess, is not all that fun, since a hawk in the surf is pretty helpless.

I swam out a ways with the others. Tobias looked around once more with his hawk eyes and pronounced the beach definitely empty. Then he sighed heavily and plunged into the water.

I focused my mind on the DNA inside me. I formed the picture of the dolphin in my head.

And I began to change.

Now you know how I got a blowhole.

Ok, so it starts with the Animorphs, who, I have to remind you, have sworn an oath never to use their morphing power except to fight the Yeerks, looking for a lost nuclear submarine.

Chapter 2
Cassie

quote:

I love being a dolphin. How can you not love it?

I�m not crazy about morphing insects. Especially the mindless little automatons like termites and ants. But I�m convinced that dolphins have souls. Or maybe it�s just some arrangement of DNA-based characteristics that make them seem that way to humans. But whatever it is, whether it�s something mystical or something real, I like it.

We were in the surf, breasting the waves and staggering against the flow. When the cold water was up to my chest I pushed off and swam. It wasn�t easy fighting the waves. Humans are not very strong in the water.

As I dog-paddled, I began to morph. My fingers stretched out longer and longer. A webbing grew between them, like a duck�s feet. My arm bones shrank and drew this webbed hand toward my body till it was clearly a fin and not a hand any longer.

My legs softened. Like overcooked spaghetti, they twined together and melted into the long tail of the dolphin. At the same time my feet twisted outward and thinned to become the tail flukes. Then, as I gasped and spit out mouthfuls of salt water, my flat human mouth and face began to bulge outward. It was like something out of a cartoon. As if I were made of Silly Putty and someone was stretching my face outward.

My eyes moved to the side and now my vision was largely filled with my own grinning dolphin snout. More dolphin than human now, I sucked in a last lungful of air through my mouth. When I exhaled, it went out through the blowhole that had appeared where the back of my neck had been.

I dove below the churning surface. I was still in shallow water so I could see the sand and gravel and shells being tugged to and fro by the water.

Humans may prefer shallow water, but it makes dolphins uneasy. So I kicked my powerful tail and headed away from shore.

Think about the happiest day you�ve ever had in your life. Think of how you feel on a sunny day, with no school and no chores, your allowance fresh in your pocket and some really fun thing awaiting you. That�s exactly what it feels like to be a dolphin.

Then, to all that good feeling, add this sensation of power, ease, of being the perfectly adapted creature in the perfect place.

I've already expressed my opinion on what sort of monsters dolphins are.

quote:

<Come on, guys!> I yelled, giddy and goofy on the sheer joy of being a dolphin in the sea. And they came. All of them felt the same way. We were on a serious mission. But that didn�t mean we couldn�t have fun.

We raced out to sea, surfacing to deliberately plow into the rising walls of waves. We hurried, but we played the whole way.

And then we began to see the helicopters chattering overhead and the Navy ships patrolling back and forth across the sea. The waves were high, the winds, too. When we surfaced it was in the valleys between waves. We�d blow out our stale breath and suck in fresh air, letting the gray waves lift us up so we could see.

<We must be near where they think it is,> Jake said.

<Is anyone else sucking salt water every time they try to breathe?> Marco asked. <Is that good for you?>

<We are in the ocean, Marco,> Rachel pointed out. <There�s bound to be water in the ocean.>

<Fine, but do we have to be out here in the middle of a storm?>

<Come on,> Jake said. <Let�s go below.>

I nosed downward and kicked. It was much calmer and quieter below the surface. We were in maybe two hundred feet of water. It�s hard to tell, but it looked that deep, anyway. I was swimming about fifty feet down and could just barely see the ghostly glimmer of sand far below me. Mostly what I saw was murky blue. Not even many fish.

I fired an echolocation blast from my head. The sound waves spread out, then bounced back. My dolphin brain drew a mental picture of a seabed scarred by a series of deep fissures. I also �saw� divers in the water, and sensors being towed on long cables from the ships above us.

<Even with our echolocation we need to spread out,> Tobias said. <Those fissures are as big as small valleys. The sub could be in one of them.>

<Okay,> Jake agreed. <But everyone stay within thought-speak range of the person on your left and right.>

Easier said than done. You ever try and swim while keeping in line with dolphins on your left and right? Plus we had to surface to breathe, and each time we did the waves would push us forward or back.

Rachel was on my right. Ax on my left. We advanced across the ocean floor, blasting the water with our ultrasonic sound waves.

It had taken forty-five minutes of hard swimming to reach the site. We couldn�t go beyond two hours in morph. Not unless we wanted to spend the rest of our lives as dolphins.

Forty-five minutes to get there. Forty-five to get back to shore. That only left thirty minutes to search. Not enough.

But twenty minutes later I saw, or felt, a strange picture in my head. <Hey! Ax, Rachel. I think I got something.>

I fired a new echolocation blast and �listened� carefully. Yes, something weird. Something definitely weird. Something too �hard.�

<Yeah. I have something,> I said. <Rachel, aim a little to your left. Ax, just a hair to your right.>

In a few seconds, Rachel said, <Nothing. I�m not getting anything.>

 Ax said. <A hard, angular object that appears to be jutting up from the seabed. No, from one of the fissures.>

<I�ll take a look,> I said. <It could be just some piece of junk or garbage.>

I shot to the surface, filled my lungs, and went down. Down and down, till even my dolphin body began to feel the water pressure.

I kept firing echolocating bursts. And then I was certain. It rose just a few feet from the fissure.

But if I recalled my submarine war movies, it was a periscope. The sub�s commander must have extended it in the desperate hope that someone would see it.

Someone had. Although not exactly the someone he�d expected.

They found the sub, and with just ten minutes to spare.

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Mar 6, 2021

# ? Mar 6, 2021 04:27

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Epicurius posted:

Ok, so it starts with the Animorphs, who, I have to remind you, have sworn an oath never to use their morphing power except to fight the Yeerks, looking for a lost nuclear submarine.

To be fair this is a more noble cause than "scaring the circus ringmaster," "criticising the Rainforest Cafe," or "going to a concert for free" (twice)

# ? Mar 6, 2021 04:45

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

freebooter posted:

To be fair this is a more noble cause than "scaring the circus ringmaster," "criticising the Rainforest Cafe," or "going to a concert for free" (twice)

That concert had Offspring, Alanis, and Nice is Neat. That's a very important mission!

# ? Mar 6, 2021 05:15

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

spoiler alert:

everyone on the sub is dead by now

# ? Mar 6, 2021 05:18

ANOTHER SCORCHER: Aug 12, 2018

I loved this one so much as a kid who was into both animorphs and dinosaurs.

# ? Mar 6, 2021 07:37

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Whats a KASU, and got a link?

Yeah, looks like this is an archive of what must be the Q&A I read back then. Obviously, spoilers for this book and maybe #19 or 20

# ? Mar 6, 2021 08:59

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Animorphs-Megamorphs 2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs, Chapter 3
Jake

quote:

We�d found the sub. Now the question was: How could we get the Navy divers to find it?

<Kidnap one of them,> Rachel suggested.

Rachel almost always likes the direct approach. And in this case, she was right. We needed to get this done with fast. We needed to wrap this up and bail.

<Okay,> I said, <we kidnap a diver.>

<What?> Marco said. <You�re listening to Rachel?>

<She happens to be right,> I said. <Let�s go. But don�t hurt the person, okay?>

It was easy to find a diver. Their wet-suited bodies and stream of bubbles showed up nice and clear on echolocation.

The diver ignored us as we drew near. We were just a pod of dolphins swimming by. We weren�t what she was interested in.

I swam around behind her. The others followed.

<Okay, now, we can�t help but scare the poor woman, but be as gentle as you can be,> I said.

<Grab a leg or an arm. Rachel, help me push.>

One thing you can say about dolphins: There is nothing they can�t do in the water. The six of us moved like a well-drilled acrobatic team or something. Hand, leg, hand, leg, we had the diver before she knew what was happening. The others lightly gripped the wetsuit with their dolphin teeth.

�Mblo bio blm blmo!� she yelled. At least that�s what it sounded like.

Rachel dug her nose in the small of the woman�s back. I nosed her neck, and together the six of us propelled her through the water, almost standing upright, at a speed that must have seemed pretty amazing to her.

She struggled, of course. I think for a moment she thought we were sharks. I could see wide, scared eyes through her face mask when she turned to look back.

But maybe she�d heard stories about dolphins helping drowning people. Or maybe she just liked dolphins. Maybe it was just so obvious we were on a mission. After a few seconds, she relaxed.

We let her go and I swam up and offered a dorsal fin. She took it. Cassie came up on her other side. And now she cooperated with us, holding on to our dorsal fins as we raced more easily ahead.

We stopped directly over the sub. The diver couldn�t see it since it was way below us. But we made a nice show of racing down, then back up, so she�d know what we were doing.

Unfortunately, all this took time. Too much time. We had no choice but to demorph in the open sea.

We swam half a mile away from the search area and demorphed. Bad for most of us. Worse for Tobias, wallowing with waterlogged feathers in salt water. Ax, in his own body, could swim quite well.

We remorphed as soon as we could. And now, with plenty of time, we went back to the site. We had to make sure the divers were there.

<Hey, these guys work fast,> Tobias said when we got back to the site.

A small submersible was already pulling away from the submarine. I guess it was some kind of rescue vehicle for taking people off sunken submarines.

We hovered above the sunken sub. It was wedged deep in the fissure. It was hard to see how they�d ever get it out.

<May I ask a question?> Ax said. <What is the purpose of these submarines? This is a very large craft for simply looking at the seabed?>

A second small submersible was on its way down. It was zipping along. And the divers were all heading for the surface.
I winced. The purpose of this kind of submarine was a little embarrassing to explain to an alien.

<Actually, Ax, it�s a military submarine. See the rows of hatches along the back? It�s a nuclear missile sub. There�s a missile under each of those hatches. Armed with a nuclear warhead.>

<Ah. I see.>

<It�s deterrence. You know, in case the enemy uses nukes on us, we have these safe on our subs,> Marco explained.

<What enemy?>

<Well � okay, we don�t exactly have one right now,> I said, feeling fairly idiotic. <But we used to. And we may get one again.>

<We�re shopping all the sales,> Marco said brightly. <Enemies �R� Us, EnemyMart, J.C. Enemy. Don�t worry, we�ll find one.>

<Are those guys all in a hurry or what?> Rachel asked.

 Cassie said.

<And look, up above. The ships are all leaving the area. Going in all directions.>

I looked down. The rescue vehicle was already pulling away from the sub. But instead of heading up to the surface, it was simply racing away. Like it was desperate to put some distance between it and the sub.

 Tobias said.

<Outta here!> I yelled.

We turned and took off. We powered our tails and tore through the water like torpedoes. The rescue vehicle was a quarter mile ahead of us. I lost sight of it when we shot to the surface to breathe.

Up, suck in air, down and swim, and up, suck in air, down and swim. It was slower going on the surface, but we needed to breathe because we were straining every muscle in our bodies.

<This is probably stupid,> Rachel said. 

Flash! A light so bright it seemed to burn right through me.

WHAAAAAAM! The shock wave hit us.

I tumbled through a world that was being torn apart at the seams. And then that world went black.

Ok, I hope you enjoyed the series. The Animorphs, of course, were all killed when a nuclear reactor went critical. It's a way to go.

Wait, there seems to be another chapter....

Chapter 4
Rachel

quote:

I don�t know how long I was unconscious. But when I came to I was on the surface of the water. I was lolling there like some kind of dead fish.

First thought: Where are the others?

Second thought: How long have I been in morph?

<Cassie! Tobias! Jake!> I yelled in thought-speak.

No answer. I moved my tail and flippers. Okay, at least I wasn�t injured. I dove below the surface and looked around. The water was clearer than it had been. Strange, given the fact that a nuclear warhead had just exploded.

<Marco! Ax!>

 Marco answered.

He glided up beside me.

<Have you seen any of the others?>

<No. But I was knocked out.>

I fired an echolocation burst. Fish. A pair of distant whales. No dolphins. Although if they were floating on the surface they might not show up.

 Marco said. <We dive down, then look up. They should be silhouetted against the sun.>

<Good idea. Only it�s raining. There�s no �> I�d been about to say there was no sun. But the golden rays were piercing the water around me. <Must have cleared up. Man, we may have been out a long time.>

We dove down deep. We looked up. And there, outlined against the sun, were four tapered shapes.

<Come on,> I said and shot toward them. I bonked one of them with my nose.

<Hey! What? What?> Tobias yelped. <Jeez! You scared me to death. Good grief, I thought you were one of those lousy wildcats.>

<Tobias, only you would wake up suddenly and worry about wildcats,> Marco said.

<Try sleeping in a tree in the woods,> he grumbled. <You�ll worry about them, too.>

We nudged each of the others. Ax and Jake revived. Cassie revived, too. But she woke up screaming in pain.

<Ahhh! Ahhh!>

That�s when we noticed the blood leaking from her eyes and blowhole.

<Oh, oh, it hurts!>

<Demorph!> Jake yelled.

<Trying � trying � oh, oh!>

Gradually the gray rubbery flesh melted away and a human girl emerged. As she demorphed, the dolphin�s pain was left behind. I nuzzled in close, giving her a dorsal fin to hang onto.

�Wow, that really hurt,� she said calmly, once her human mouth was back in place. She looked around. �Why is the water so calm? Why is it sunny?� She lifted herself up a foot out of the water, using Jake and me as support.

Then she settled back. �Um � am I awake?�

<Of course.>

�And this isn�t a dream?�

<Can�t be a dream,> Marco said. <There�s not a single Baywatch girl around. Carmen is always there when I dream.>

�You�re sure this is reality?� Cassie asked before I could make a crushing remark to Marco about the total impossibility of Carmen Electra ever even looking at him.

<Cassie, it�s not a dream,> Jake said.

�Okay. Then why is there a volcano over there?�

No one said anything for a few seconds. Then all at once we dove down under, leaving Cassie floundering and yelling, �Hey!�

I dove down twenty feet, turned and powered my way straight up. I exploded from the water, smooth and sleek as a missile. I shot up into the air, up where I could see beyond the tops of the short, choppy waves.

I took a look. Then, too stunned to line up for a dive, I belly flopped. The first dolphin in history to belly flop. <There�s a volcano over there! There�s an actual volcano! We don�t have a volcano. I would have noticed that.>

<That was a definite volcano,> Tobias agreed.

Spoiler, everyone. See the book title. But it raises the question. Why IS there a volcano there? How come the inevitable shortcut that books and tv shows use to show that it's the time of the dinosaurs is a volcano in the background? Usually the volcano doesn't even do anything beyond smoke ominously. Am I the only one who's noticed that?

quote:

<Is it some weird effect from the explosion?> Jake asked. <Like maybe setting off that bomb in the fissure caused some kind of sudden eruption?>

�We have to get back! People could be hurt!�

<Something is way wrong here,> I said. <Volcanoes don�t just suddenly erupt. Besides, look how high that thing was. That takes hundreds of years of lava and ash building up.>

<How do you know anything about volcanoes?> Jake demanded. <Did we do volcanoes in school?>

<No it was � some other place,> I mumbled. But they all just waited. Waited to hear how I knew about volcanoes. <Oh, all right. It was the Magic School Bus, okay? They went into a volcano.>

<Excuse me,> Ax said politely. <But something very large is coming toward us. A pair of creatures of some sort. I just echolocated them.>

<A pair of whales,> I said, dismissing it. 

<Not whales,> Ax said.

<Who cares? Maybe you missed it, Ax, but we have a volcano - a volcano! - right about where all our houses should be! Let�s get going. Cassie, you need to ->

�Uh � what is that?� Cassie asked. She was staring hard, but she started to morph back into dolphin.

<What?>

�That!�

I turned to follow the direction of her stare. We all turned.

It rose ten feet from the water. A very long neck. Like a gray-green giraffe. On the end of that neck was a sculpted, streamlined head about two feet long. And coming up, right behind it, was another tall neck and head.

<No way,> Tobias whispered.

<What is that, the Loch Ness monster?!> Marco cried.

<It�s Visser Three in morph!> I said. <No, wait, can�t be. There are two of them.>

<No way!> Tobias said again.

<They�re coming after us!> Cassie said.

<As I said,> Ax said smugly, <not whales.>

The answer is, it's the Loch Ness Monster and Visser Three in morph.

# ? Mar 7, 2021 06:13

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

This is hardly the biggest mistake in the book, but...

# ? Mar 7, 2021 06:29

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Was it actually the reactor or is that just what they assumed? My first thought would be it was one of the warheads.

Also lol if you think it's embarrassing to explain to Ax why the US has nuclear weapons in the 1990s, try explaining to him why Britain does.

# ? Mar 7, 2021 06:53

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

To be fair, they specified it was a nuclear warhead that went off. I'm gonna be really kind to this book and say Visser Three learnt about the sub, sent troops down to recover the nukes, and one went off.

# ? Mar 7, 2021 06:57

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Actually, gently caress being kind. She could literally write 'they fell through a time hole' if it means DINOSAURS

# ? Mar 7, 2021 07:06

disaster pastor: May 1, 2007

You're both right, I'm sorry. I have issued a correction below.

(Seriously, they don't. Nukes are, for very good reason, designed to be useless when they're not intentionally armed and to become basically impossible to arm when they're damaged, specifically so that no nuclear weapon should ever detonate unless everyone in the chain of command is very, very sure they want it to be detonated at that place and at that time. A significant explosion elsewhere in the sub could disperse the radioactive material, but that's going to be orders of magnitude below an actual warhead detonation, and the water would contain the radioactivity pretty well anyway.)

But, again, I'm not going to fault KAA for not knowing how nuclear weapons work when it will become much easier later in this book to fault her for not knowing how morphing works.

# ? Mar 7, 2021 07:31

Shwoo: Jul 21, 2011

Epicurius posted:

Spoiler, everyone. See the book title. But it raises the question. Why IS there a volcano there? How come the inevitable shortcut that books and tv shows use to show that it's the time of the dinosaurs is a volcano in the background? Usually the volcano doesn't even do anything beyond smoke ominously. Am I the only one who's noticed that?

I have a few theories about this! It could be because one of the big theories about the extinction of the dinosaurs used to be that they were killed by volcanism. There were a lot of eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous that make that plausible, and I think it's still a kind of niche theory, but the volcanism was only happening in one part of the world (India), and it wasn't a rule for the entire Mesozoic era.

Or it started as a device to depict a younger Earth by implying it's more geologically active in this time. Or someone just conflated the period of Earth's history where the crust was still molten with dinosaur times. The Earth cooled four billion years before the dinosaurs evolved, but they are both prehistoric, so :shrug:

quote:

<We�re shopping all the sales,> Marco said brightly. <Enemies �R� Us, EnemyMart, J.C. Enemy. Don�t worry, we�ll find one.>

Well, he wasn't wrong.

# ? Mar 7, 2021 08:41

GodFish: Oct 10, 2012; We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.

It's because Dinosaurs are cool and Volcanoes are cool :v:

# ? Mar 7, 2021 09:05

wizzardstaff: Apr 6, 2018; Zorch! Splat! Pow!

Off the top of my head I'd guess it's maybe because of the volcanoes in the dinosaur sequence of Fantasia?

# ? Mar 7, 2021 09:34

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Also if you live in the English-speaking world instead of Italy or Iceland or Japan, volcanoes are ~Exotic~

edit - though in this sequence I think it's just a quick shorthand for the specific point KA needs to make, i.e., how could that landform possibly be there minus time travel.

Also lol I guess she's hand-waving the two minute morphing time away but it would be pretty funny if all the other Animorphs speed off as dolphins and Cassie is just treading water in human form as a literal monster surfaces.

freebooter fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Mar 7, 2021

# ? Mar 7, 2021 10:13

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

freebooter posted:

Was it actually the reactor or is that just what they assumed? My first thought would be it was one of the warheads.

Also lol if you think it's embarrassing to explain to Ax why the US has nuclear weapons in the 1990s, try explaining to him why Britain does.

Actually we have a better reason to have them than the US! No one could realistically conquer the US by land, but they could certainly invade us

# ? Mar 8, 2021 00:41

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Yeah but (not to derail) the only country that would feasibly ever do that is the USSR/Russia and I just don't see a post-WWII scenario, i.e. the only context in which nuclear weapons exist, in which Britain is fighting a war against Russia outside of NATO. Compare and contrast with Australia which is far more geopolitically vulnerable and has no illusions about the fact that it's reliant on American military power. Britain's nukes always just seemed to me a way to cling on to being a major power.

I suppose what's truly weird about explaining it to Ax - since the Andalites would have way more powerful weapons than nukes - is that this is a Star Wars/Trek sort of sci-fi universe where every other planet has a single world government, so no squabbling nations among themselves.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 02:49

WrightOfWay: Jul 24, 2010

I think one of the Ax books mentioned that Andalites used to fight among themselves, though it seems to be in the distant past and they've probably been united as a species for as long as they have been an interstellar civilization, if not longer. I don't know what the Taxxons were like before the Yeerks, but the decision to join them sparked some conflict, as seen in the Andalite Chronicles.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 03:15

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

WrightOfWay posted:

I think one of the Ax books mentioned that Andalites used to fight among themselves, though it seems to be in the distant past and they've probably been united as a species for as long as they have been an interstellar civilization, if not longer. I don't know what the Taxxons were like before the Yeerks, but the decision to join them sparked some conflict, as seen in the Andalite Chronicles.

i don't think it's ever resolved whether the taxxons were a singular hive before contact with the yeerks, or fractured into many.

i've also always gotten the feeling that the andalites didn't really know anything about taxxons before the yeerks showed up one day in taxxon bodies, and if they knew they existed at all, probably dismissed them as sub-sentient.

sometimes the kids just have trouble explaining poo poo to ax because they don't really understand it themselves, not because it would be hard for ax to understand if he read it in a book or listened to a lecture or whatever. i think the incoherent nature of their explanation also probably reflects KA's opinion that the usual justifications for the continued existence of nukes are inherently incoherent.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 03:29

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

I think another big part of it is that a group of teenagers are probably not the most informed people when it comes to talking about nuclear geopolitics. :v:

# ? Mar 8, 2021 04:21

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Animorphs-Megamorphs 2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs, Chapter 5
Tobias

quote:

I knew what it was. Or at least I knew what it looked like. But I wasn�t about to say anything. If I was wrong, Marco would tease me about it till the day I died. Besides, it was impossible. Totally impossible.

So I didn�t say anything.

But oh, man, I hauled my dolphin tail out of there.

<They�re too fast,> Jake said. <Man, they�re fast!>

We were plowing up the now-placid water. We were going flat out. But the creatures were gaining on us. And the whole time in my head I was going, No way, no way.

And yet with each glance at those long necks, with each flash of those snake heads, I became more convinced.

The creatures were no more than a hundred feet back.

<We can�t outrun them,> Jake said grimly. <We either have to split up or fight.>

<Fight!> Rachel said. <They�re just some kind of big squid or something probably. Let�s get them!>

I liked Rachel even before I became a hawk. But now I really like her. She could be a bird of prey. She�d be a natural.

But she was wrong this time.

<Split up,> I said. 

<We haven�t tried yet,> she said.

<You don�t understand. Look, I know this will sound crazy, but ->

SHWOOOOSH!

Coming up from below. Like some weird, massively oversized dolphin. Forty � fifty feet long!

An impossibly huge jaw open wide.

We�d been watching the creatures chasing us. All I had time to see of this new threat was the flash of teeth.

<Aaaahhhh!> It had me. No time to move. Up, up, up I went! High into the air, trapped in those massive jaws as it broke the surface.

It tossed me up. Just like I�d seen seabirds do with a fish. Tossed me up, opened its massive jaws, and swallowed me whole.

I was being swallowed!

I was unconscious, then conscious again, then unconscious.

I hit water. No, not water! Too warm. Hot. Burning! My skin was burning!

I was blind. Deaf, except for the sound of churning. And the steady bass drum of a heart beating.

Then, something else beside me. My dolphin sense knew. It was another dolphin. <Who is that?>

<It�s me!> an enraged voice cried.

<Rachel!>

<Who did you expect? Jonah? We have to get out of this thing. Ahhhh! My skin is itching and burning.>

<Stomach acid,> I said. <It�s digesting us.>

<It�s not digesting me!> Rachel said. <I�m gonna morph! I�m tearing a hole out of here.>

<You have to pass through human to morph,> I said. <The stomach acid!>

<No choice!>

I could already feel her changing. I felt human fingers pressed against me in the gnashing, enclosed space. She was right. No other choice. And I wasn�t going to let her do it alone.

I had very few morphs available to me. And only one that would help here. But first I had to revert to bird form.

Something like a rock was in the stomach. It was grinding against me with the movements of the stomach wall. And as I lost the tough hide of a dolphin and regained the fragile hollow bones of my own hawk body, the beating became deadly.

In case you're wondering, the formal name for a stomach rock is a gastrolith. If you don't have molars, it's not always easy to grind up food, so certain animals, like seals and alligators, eat stones, which then sit in the stomach, and crush and grind food they've swallowed to help the animal digest it. More to the point, paleontologists have discovered that the animal that ate Tobias (and I'm wondering if any of you who haven't already read the book can figure out what it is) also used gastroliths.

quote:

Even Rachel�s body was crushing me, as her elbows and fists and knees were shoved against me, time and again.

But all that was nothing compared to one simple fact: I couldn�t breathe.

Suffocating!

<Air!> I moaned.

Rachel couldn�t answer. She was human again. But I knew she must be suffocating, too.

My left wing was broken. My tail was a mess. I was wracked with pain. But none of that mattered because I was going down now. Sinking and swirling down a long, black well.

Too late to morph again. I knew it. I was done.

And my last conscious thought was a flash of myself, years earlier, back when I was still completely human. I saw myself playing with the little plastic figurine - a plastic toy model of the animal whose belly I was in. A booklet had come with the figurine. I�d memorized all the facts in that booklet.

<They were wrong,> I thought as my mind shut down. <It�s bigger than they said.>

So, we leave with Tobias and Rachel being digested.

Chapter 6
Jake

quote:

<It has Rachel and Tobias!> Cassie screamed.

I knew. I�d been on the surface when the monster had snatched them up and tossed them down its throat. But I couldn�t think about that. I still had three people with me. I had to save them.

The long-necked creatures were behind us, the larger one in front. Which would eat us?
\
<Everyone dive!> I said.

<What about - ?> Marco began.

<Do it!> I roared.

Down we went. Down fifty, sixty, seventy feet. The monsters were like ships overhead. The two long-necked ones started to dive after us. Then they hesitated. The larger creature, the one that had gotten Rachel and Tobias, was closing in.

<Now! While they�re arguing over who gets to eat us,> I said. <Let�s get out of here!>

<We can�t leave Rachel and Tobias,> Cassie said.

<Can you beat that thing, Cassie?> I demanded. <You want to stay here and try? Sooner or later those creatures will decide who we belong to. We have to run while they�re fighting over us.>

<Rachel!> Cassie cried in thought-speak. <Rachel! Can you hear me? Rachel!>

<Now, Cassie! Marco, Ax, get her!>

Marco and Ax each bit down on a flipper and dragged Cassie away.

<Let me go! Rachel! Rachel! RACHEL!>

I felt sick inside. Mad at Cassie, scared, beaten, and for some reason even mad at Rachel and Tobias. But mostly I felt sick. What was happening?

This sucks, and Jake knows it, but he also knows that part of leadership means realizing when you have to accept you lost people. That being said, Jake has a bad record in not losing his teammmates during a Sario Rip.

quote:

We swam away as fast as we could move. I heard a screeching roar of rage reverberating through the water. The monsters were fighting. We swam toward shore. And after a while Cassie swam on her own.

The sea floor beneath us sloped up and up, rising to meet us. When we were in no more than five feet of water, we began to demorph. I hoped we could do it. I didn�t know how long we�d been in morph.

I gratefully resumed my own body. I lifted myself sluggishly out of the water and staggered up the beach. I flopped facedown, then rolled over.

Cassie and Marco came seconds later. Ax took a few extra minutes and appeared in human morph.

�Something is very wrong, Prince Jake,� he said.
I didn�t answer. Of course something was wrong. Rachel and Tobias were probably dead. So something would always be wrong now. Forever.

�Jake, Ax is right,� Marco said. �Get up. Look at this!�

I stood up. Marco, Ax, and Cassie were all staring, openmouthed, across the beach toward the boardwalk.

There was no boardwalk.

No hot dog stands, no Ferris wheel, no video arcades. No buildings at all. No people. Nothing but a line of trees pressing right up against the sand. And off above the trees, the cone of the volcano with a tall plume of smoke.

�This isn�t home,� Marco said.

�What is going on here?� I wondered. I slogged up the beach toward the trees. I expected to see something behind the trees. But behind the front row of trees were just more trees. Far off, through gaps in the tree trunks, I caught glimpses of an open space. But I was seeing grass and flowers there,
not a city.

Marco and Cassie came up behind me.

�Listen,� Marco said.

�Listen to what?�

�The quiet. Just the breeze in the trees.�

Cassie said, �No seagulls. There are always gulls.�

I had noticed something else. �There�s no trash. No old soda cans. No candy wrappers. Nothing. I mean, nothing.�

�So, what happened?� Marco asked. �That explosion blew us halfway around the planet to some desert island somewhere in the middle of nowhere?�

I shrugged. Most of my brain was still focused on Rachel and Tobias. I wasn�t tracking. And yet

I felt a nagging sense of urgency. A little voice telling me to get it together. A little warning voice telling me we were not safe.

I turned around. �Ax! What are you doing?�

He was about a hundred yards down the beach. �I�m trying to understand something, Prince Jake.�I headed toward him. The sand was darker and rougher than I remembered. But then, who knew where we were? The tracks I saw in the sand seemed to have been made by large birds. I got this sudden, illogical rush, thinking maybe they�d been left by Tobias. They looked like they�d been made by talons.

But of course that was impossible. I had gotten Tobias and Rachel killed. If only I�d been watching ahead instead of looking behind, I could have seen the threat coming. I should have had everyone morph to shark. Then we could have fought.

Should have, should have.

�No footprints,� Cassie said. �No human footprints, anyway.�

We reached Ax. He was staring toward the trees. I followed the direction of his look. There was a sort of alleyway through the trees. Some were bent aside. Some had the branches on one side broken, hanging limp with dying leaves. Other trees were simply snapped. Broken. And all along this �alleyway� the top third of the trees seemed to have been stripped of leaves.

Marco stared, too. He bumped into me and shoved me into a hole in the sand. I was going to shove him back, but this was no time to be playing around.

�I am still unfamiliar with some Earth creatures,� Ax said. �Cuh-ree-chers. Tell me, what sort of creature can do that?�

�Probably a tornado or something,� I said vaguely. �I�ve seen things like that on TV when there�s been a tornado.�

�Ah,� Ax said. �Does a tornado have feet?�

I almost smiled. �No. A tornado is a wind storm.�

�I see. Then this was not caused by a tornado. Whatever did this has feet.�

�How do you know?� Cassie asked.

�Because Prince Jake is standing in one of the footprints.�

I looked down. It could have been the footprint of an elephant. Except that the toes were more like claws.

Plus, the print sank at least six inches into the sand.

And oh, yes: It was about four feet across.

Right. Not a tornado. Of course, the Animorphs have the disadvantage of not knowing the title of the book.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 05:50

WrightOfWay: Jul 24, 2010

What kind of self-respecting 90's kids have never seen Jurassic Park? It shouldn't be that hard to figure it out.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 06:14

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

WrightOfWay posted:

What kind of self-respecting 90's kids have never seen Jurassic Park? It shouldn't be that hard to figure it out.

I'll give Jake a pass here, since he's almost certainly in shock at losing two people.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 06:32

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

disaster pastor posted:

But, again, I'm not going to fault KAA for not knowing how nuclear weapons work when it will become much easier later in this book to fault her for not knowing how morphing works.

Yeah.

Again, I wonder whether the non-series books may have been written much earlier than their release dates would suggest, since the mistake in question is pretty fundamental.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 08:02

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Fuschia tude posted:

Yeah. Again, I wonder whether the non-series books may have been written much earlier than their release dates would suggest, since the mistake in question is pretty fundamental.

Honestly, I think the mistake works. It adds to the strangeness of this situation.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 08:06

Pwnstar: Dec 9, 2007; Who wants some waffles?

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

Honestly, I think the mistake works. It adds to the strangeness of this situation.

Yeah when I was a kid it was like a raising the stakes situation, something was fundamentally wrong even beyond time travel.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 18:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 28, 2024 21:48

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

I'll give Jake a pass here, since he's almost certainly in shock at losing two people.

And in shock at 'what the hell just happened?'

They'll probably figure it out quickly once they get a moment to think.

# ? Mar 8, 2021 18:49

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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