Aug 11, 2023
Rita's studies on "Vampiric Cancers" and the health/(evolutionary) benefits symbiosis can bring.
seen from Jordan
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seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Japan
seen from Russia
seen from Uzbekistan
Rita's studies on "Vampiric Cancers" and the health/(evolutionary) benefits symbiosis can bring.
Why do you think controllers can morph, wouldn’t the yeerk get squished, and then wouldn’t there be two brains stuck in the animal, I love the series but that stuff has always bothered me
If I interpret the Laws of Applied Phlebotinum in this series correctly, the reason that yeerks don’t get smooshed when their hosts morph is because they get schlooped into z-space right along with the extra mass of the host’s original form every time the host morphs. The science here is of course sci fi, so laws of physics need not apply, but the basic principle is that the morphing tech “extrudes” the extra mass of the original body into z-space, which is sort of this anti-matter type dimension that, like, exists in the space between atoms.
The way Marco’s dad explains it in human terms during The Revelation is:
Well, the surface of a cone is the two-dimensional analog to the five-dimensional space we inhabit… The cone contains a singularity. The place where all the lines intersect. The place where you can head out in any direction, or in all directions at once. Where you can move in any direction without moving anywhere at all… We’ve been stuck on the surface of the cone all this time. When we want to go anywhere, we have to travel on the line. But now, imagine someone notices the singularity. A point with no size, no breadth, no extent. The physical representation of nothingness. By itself, it’s nothing. Yet it’s the starting and ending place of everything! A multiplier of real space! … Zero, I suppose. Zero-space.
Marco responds (not out loud, of course) with “News flash, Dad: my matter passes through the singularity several times a week. Every time I morph, my excess mass gets sucked into nothingness. A bubble in time” (#45).
Anyway, that would suggest that every time (for instance) Visser Three wills Alloran to turn into a human, Alloran’s entire original andalite mass, yeerk and all, gets schlooped through some kind of singularity. It then just hangs there in this non-space as this “big blob of blood and skin and assorted body goos” as Rachel so artistically describes it (#32). We know that an object passing through the same patch of z-space can also “yank” the morpher’s conscious mind into the original body for a time, as happens to all the Animorphs in #18, but that the rubber band of consciousness eventually snaps back into the correct alignment regardless of anything the morpher might do to try and prevent it.
We also know that intentionality is key when it comes to morphing. It’s impossible to morph while unconscious or asleep, and the very act of morphing involves creating and then sustaining a vivid mental image of the shape one would like to assume (#1). The andalites’ semi-telepathy ability appears to be the principle underpinning morphing, the way it is with most of their tech (mind-reading computers, translation chips, long-distance communication, etc.) so the key component here is willpower. And that explains why Esplin is able to change Alloran’s body at all: using the same intentionality that allows him to move Alloran’s tail or close Alloran’s eyes, Esplin can exert willpower toward shifting “his” body to become human. The morphing technology functions through that same exertion of conscious willpower as thought-speak, so that’s all it really takes to start the process. Alloran’s brain and body pass through the singularity into z-space as the human form he acquired passes out of that singularity and becomes expressed in physical space.
That principle of willpower also helps to explain why the Animorphs can attach clothes to their mental representations of their human bodies: with enough effort, they can conceive of their mental representations of selfhood to include minimal clothing. It also explains why in #42 the helmacrons and mini-Animorphs in Marco’s body get smooshed when he morphs, because they’re not exerting willpower, and they each have entirely separate z-space connections of their own. If they’d been (for instance) E. coli bacteria wandering around his intestines, or hair mites stuck to his head, then they might’ve gotten schlooped into z-space when he morphed. But they’re intentional creatures of their own, controlling their own bodies and not Marco’s. His z-space connection doesn’t override theirs.
I also assume that that’s how getting trapped in morph works: the connection decays over time. We know that it’s easier to reverse a morph before it’s been completed than after it’s done (#17, #45), and that as one approaches the two-hour mark it becomes steadily more difficult to demorph (#2, #21), and that the progressive nature of the entrapment means that it is sometimes possible to demorph after sliiiiightly more than two hours in morph (#3, #33). So I believe the implication there is that the connection through the singularity just naturally breaks down over the course of time, and that demorphing within two hours is the only way to guarantee safe return to one’s original body.
Anyway, it’s canon that some yeerks can morph (Aftran, Tom’s yeerk) and also canon that eventually lots of yeerk hosts can morph (Alloran, Tom himself, etc.) and we know that the mind which started the morphing process retains control of the connection. Marco describes a human-controller in eagle morph as “a golden eagle is almost three times as big as an osprey… Stir in a crazed Yeerk and a terrified human host, and we’re talking one seriously demented bird” (#51). So presumably the experience from Alloran’s or Tom’s or whoever’s point of view is sort of like Cassie describes with Aldrea morphing her body and then running around in her morph: “Morphing has always been creepy. This time it was terrifying. Each sensation felt magnified by a hundred. I wanted to scream as I felt my intestines shift and my ribs contract… I felt as if I was locked in a speeding car with no brakes and no steering wheel” (#34).
So I think what happens is this: Visser Three decides to take on human shape for a while. Esplin focuses the intentionality of morphing toward a shape he “taught” the “program” of morphing through earlier touching a human. Parts of Alloran’s original shape get schlooped through the singularity into z-space, human limbs and whatnot replacing andalite organs. The morphing tech registers that there are two sets of intentionality present — Esplin’s and Alloran’s — but yeerks have evolved in such a way that they can easily override the intentionality of their hosts, and thus Esplin’s desire to pass as a human for the duration of this Sharing meeting overrides Alloran’s desire not to be seen walking around as a Level Six mud monkey. Esplin’s and Alloran’s original mass remains in z-space for the duration of the morph, a bag of assorted goo hanging in space, but both their consciousnesses remain with the human shape currently expressed in real space, and Esplin’s consciousness remains dominant. At some point before the connection between that consciousness and the original yeerk shape can break down (i.e. within two hours), Esplin focuses his intentionality on Alloran’s original andalite shape, and the demorph occurs. Esplin’s mass schloops back through the singularity along with Alloran’s, and they return to their starting form.
Again: this process not in line with real physics. K.A. Applegate is writing a science fiction story, not a quantum mechanics textbook. However, the process is (mostly) internally consistent. And that is impressive as hell.
Once the noise-cancelling devices are shut down, Chip receives Martin’s call, prompting him to locate his human friend.
And, almost immediately, Martin projectile vomits on Chip because the microdevice in his throat was triggered, spilling a toxin that sticks to Chip’s feathers.
Since it turns out that in whichever year the contest is taking place,
Pudsey was long dead, so someone cloned him to help host the programme.
Movie Review: Batman vs. Two-Face
Movie Review: Batman vs. Two-Face (2017) directed by Rick Morales It is night at Gotham Penitentiary, and a small group of people have gathered to witness a bizarre experiment. Doctor Hugo Strange wants to use his new Evil Extractor to remove the criminal impulses from Gotham City’s super-criminals in order to make them not evil anymore. Present are Batman, Robin, Commissioner Gordon, Police…
The Sergeant loves to brandish his laser lance in a threatening manner,
even though every time he activates it, it backfires on him.
No matter how many times the Optic Pocketknife is ruined or destroyed,
the BOOTH can produce an exact replica to re-equip the Inspector at a moment’s notice.
The Third Inspector had this horrible tendency
to lose or forget where he’d laid his optic pocketknife,
especially when it would have solved the problem-of-the-week.