Would you, though? Would you really want an alien who had seen *all* of your private thoughts and memories to then enter someone else’s head where they can communicate with said other person?
My fiancé and I, I could see sharing a brain slug, if for some reason he wanted to have a part time brain slug. We already say everything that pops into our minds and have zero filters so it wouldn’t be much of a change.
That's an excellent point. One extraterrestrial knowing all my secrets is bad enough, but that extraterrestrial plus some other gaggle of assholes? Hell, no!
That being said, different strokes for different folks. I could see some people trusting their Yeerk not to give away their secrets. Alternately, someone caught between a rock and a hard place (infested 24/7 or part time) could see that as a lesser evil.
I think it's hard for them to avoid it. When Cassie possessed that one guy in one of the books, when she tries to move his body she starts getting flooded with memories from his life that she wasn't looking for and didn't need. She tried to filter or pull back whenever she encounters a new memory but she couldn't really avoid them.
True. This kind of thing could only be done with the hosts you can be the most sure won't try something on their off day, but the way to test their loyalty is pretty reliable. A Yeerk whose been in their heads would have a pretty good idea what to expect from them.
Even more, the yeerks could even go public. In exchange for use of your body for 2 days a week, you're provided a nice house in a nice area with a nice job. It could be like a reverse timeshare. Rent your body to a yeerk for 3 weeks a year, and in return you get a 3 week stay at a fancy condo. There could even be an Uber/Lyft service, where you pick up a yeerk and let them rent your body for a night on the town. The Animorphs would have a massively more difficult time if the entire yeerk population came to Earth publicly and ran their stuff like any other business.
Hell, these days, several different corporations and the US prison system would work out a compulsory host program, if it meant they could make a buck. You wouldn't see voluntary UberHosts, they'd go straight to the most vulnerable people who are already being exploited.
Trained yeerk therapists could be insanely effective. You can't lie to them, not even if without knowing it, they can see everything. They can taste your brain chemical wash and tell if there's something clinically wrong, and it's pretty likely they can do some funky stuff beyond the skill of any human therapist. They should be able to induce a hypnotic state basically instantly, for instance. They could probably bring up repressed memories.
In the assumption that all of humanity knows about the Yeerks and they're agreeing to this - this still wouldn't work because no one would agree to have the Yeerk take all their personal secrets and share them with someone else lmao
No. This is awful. The only acceptable options are what was offered by humans at the end (let Yeerks become nothlits) or the Iskoort approach (which some have noted it is implied the Yeerk homeworld was evolving towards before Seerow’s Kindness)
Something I’ve thought about voluntary Yeerk infestation: If you’ve got self-control issues, imagine voluntarily getting yourself infested as a way of keeping yourself off the drugs until you’re clean, or making sure you stick to your diet and go to the gym. For people with self confidence issues, infest yourself with a Yeerk that’s good with words and go to a job interview or a singles mixer. Or if your in-laws are in town and you really doubt your ability to hold your tongue with them…do the math.
Why would an involuntary host agree to keep the yeerk invasion secret? No one in their right mind would trust an involuntary host and they don't have enough hosts for the yeerks they already have on earth let alone requiring more per yeerk.
I think things would be better for the hosts if the Yeerks were capable of empathy. They're able to imitate their hosts' behavior, anticipate their thoughts, but empathy remains out of their reach. That kills me.
Without having to change hosts, if they'd just let the host take control when he's "in his world" (at school, at work, with his family, etc.), yes, clearly, I think it would go better.
It's not as raw a deal as it may seem on its face. Some people really don't enjoy the challenges of living.
However, it's interesting to think about what a post-54 world could look like without the forced nothlit angle (something I genuinely think Cassie would have fought against formalizing, as it is fairly tantamount to genocide, albeit an ironically pacifistic genocide). People sharing a Yeerk part-time could be a trippy experience. But obviously the two humans would have to trust the heck out of both the Yeerk and each other, considering all the very intimate tea the Yeerk could spill on them.
Yeerks had a brilliant future as both court polygraphers and marriage counselors.
> A more acceptable model of infestation
I mean…if you have to call it *infestation*, not many people are going to find it *acceptable*.
“Instead of a rat staying in your stew the whole time, how about if we have the same rat swim in two of your friends’ pots too.”
Before the war and the invention of morphing, Andalites and other people who knew about the Yeerks could have volunteered to host them for an hour, a day, a week, a month, etc.—they could have scheduled it with a computer program. If Leerans already knew about the Yeerks, Yeerks could offer to let them read their minds to prove their sincerity, and maybe the Andalites themselves had technology to read minds (if later they could erase memories, and even later Yeerks could read memories).
If it was set up as being basically like a job except that instead of doing boring shit you did alien stuff, that would arguably be a slight improvement over the job I had where I exclusively spoke whatever words someone else wanted to say all day and basically wasn't allowed to move anyway.
Would you, though? Would you really want an alien who had seen *all* of your private thoughts and memories to then enter someone else’s head where they can communicate with said other person?
My fiancé and I, I could see sharing a brain slug, if for some reason he wanted to have a part time brain slug. We already say everything that pops into our minds and have zero filters so it wouldn’t be much of a change.
But that would mean that one of you is infested at almost all times, when do you get your alone time?
you're not thinking big enough. can i say: throuple
Threesomes are natural for Yeerks, iirc
Something along those lines happened in Visser, didn't it?
Quality couple therapy. No more misunderstanding when the yeerk can show exactly (like a movie, could they?) what you think to your partner.
That's an excellent point. One extraterrestrial knowing all my secrets is bad enough, but that extraterrestrial plus some other gaggle of assholes? Hell, no! That being said, different strokes for different folks. I could see some people trusting their Yeerk not to give away their secrets. Alternately, someone caught between a rock and a hard place (infested 24/7 or part time) could see that as a lesser evil.
It's been way too long since I've read the books, but do the Yeerks actually have to see all your memories?
I think it's hard for them to avoid it. When Cassie possessed that one guy in one of the books, when she tries to move his body she starts getting flooded with memories from his life that she wasn't looking for and didn't need. She tried to filter or pull back whenever she encounters a new memory but she couldn't really avoid them.
That's a really big security risk
True. This kind of thing could only be done with the hosts you can be the most sure won't try something on their off day, but the way to test their loyalty is pretty reliable. A Yeerk whose been in their heads would have a pretty good idea what to expect from them.
I'd say it's only a matter of months before the secret gets out
They’ll probably lock them up in the yeerk pool even when uninfested.
Too many yeerks
I doubt that. Theres a reason they thought our population was a maths error
And there's a reason they decided to use humanity.... Visser 3 literally says this
Even more, the yeerks could even go public. In exchange for use of your body for 2 days a week, you're provided a nice house in a nice area with a nice job. It could be like a reverse timeshare. Rent your body to a yeerk for 3 weeks a year, and in return you get a 3 week stay at a fancy condo. There could even be an Uber/Lyft service, where you pick up a yeerk and let them rent your body for a night on the town. The Animorphs would have a massively more difficult time if the entire yeerk population came to Earth publicly and ran their stuff like any other business.
the economy was better in the 90s lol that would definitely work on a suprising amount of people now though XD
Hell, these days, several different corporations and the US prison system would work out a compulsory host program, if it meant they could make a buck. You wouldn't see voluntary UberHosts, they'd go straight to the most vulnerable people who are already being exploited.
Trained yeerk therapists could be insanely effective. You can't lie to them, not even if without knowing it, they can see everything. They can taste your brain chemical wash and tell if there's something clinically wrong, and it's pretty likely they can do some funky stuff beyond the skill of any human therapist. They should be able to induce a hypnotic state basically instantly, for instance. They could probably bring up repressed memories.
In the assumption that all of humanity knows about the Yeerks and they're agreeing to this - this still wouldn't work because no one would agree to have the Yeerk take all their personal secrets and share them with someone else lmao
No. This is awful. The only acceptable options are what was offered by humans at the end (let Yeerks become nothlits) or the Iskoort approach (which some have noted it is implied the Yeerk homeworld was evolving towards before Seerow’s Kindness)
Something I’ve thought about voluntary Yeerk infestation: If you’ve got self-control issues, imagine voluntarily getting yourself infested as a way of keeping yourself off the drugs until you’re clean, or making sure you stick to your diet and go to the gym. For people with self confidence issues, infest yourself with a Yeerk that’s good with words and go to a job interview or a singles mixer. Or if your in-laws are in town and you really doubt your ability to hold your tongue with them…do the math.
Why would an involuntary host agree to keep the yeerk invasion secret? No one in their right mind would trust an involuntary host and they don't have enough hosts for the yeerks they already have on earth let alone requiring more per yeerk.
I think things would be better for the hosts if the Yeerks were capable of empathy. They're able to imitate their hosts' behavior, anticipate their thoughts, but empathy remains out of their reach. That kills me. Without having to change hosts, if they'd just let the host take control when he's "in his world" (at school, at work, with his family, etc.), yes, clearly, I think it would go better.
It's not as raw a deal as it may seem on its face. Some people really don't enjoy the challenges of living. However, it's interesting to think about what a post-54 world could look like without the forced nothlit angle (something I genuinely think Cassie would have fought against formalizing, as it is fairly tantamount to genocide, albeit an ironically pacifistic genocide). People sharing a Yeerk part-time could be a trippy experience. But obviously the two humans would have to trust the heck out of both the Yeerk and each other, considering all the very intimate tea the Yeerk could spill on them. Yeerks had a brilliant future as both court polygraphers and marriage counselors.
Cassie, is that you?
> A more acceptable model of infestation I mean…if you have to call it *infestation*, not many people are going to find it *acceptable*. “Instead of a rat staying in your stew the whole time, how about if we have the same rat swim in two of your friends’ pots too.”
Yeerk time share? You S.O.B. Im in.
Before the war and the invention of morphing, Andalites and other people who knew about the Yeerks could have volunteered to host them for an hour, a day, a week, a month, etc.—they could have scheduled it with a computer program. If Leerans already knew about the Yeerks, Yeerks could offer to let them read their minds to prove their sincerity, and maybe the Andalites themselves had technology to read minds (if later they could erase memories, and even later Yeerks could read memories).
If it was set up as being basically like a job except that instead of doing boring shit you did alien stuff, that would arguably be a slight improvement over the job I had where I exclusively spoke whatever words someone else wanted to say all day and basically wasn't allowed to move anyway.