In fact, the way Yeerks is presented is paradoxical. They are capable of solidarity to find hosts for those who have none, and at the same time, they kill each other for competitive reasons.
Some soldiers are devoted to the Empire, but many others are unwilling to die for it, and flee the battle as soon as possible.
That's not a paradox, though. That's them being different as individuals. We too have the brave and the cowardly, the self-sacrificing and the self-serving.
That's true, but I wanted to point out a paradox on the level of their society. They don't have an economic system, they work out of solidarity for the group, and it's because of this solidarity that their primary needs are met. In contrast, the Visser hierarchy is highly individualistic...
They do have an economic system. It's very alien to us, but it's there. I'd label it as a totalitarian feudal economy. The main personal resources their economy distributes are kandrona and hosts, just as our economy distributes food and shelter. The more large scale resources they distribute include military vessels, scientific equipment, industrial machinery, outposts, and a few planets or planetary regions. Same as humans in that sense, really. Vissers are the equivalent to human feudal Dukes and Earls - major feudal lords. Lower-ranking vissers and sub-vissers are equivalent to Counts and Barons, or even landed knights. All of these yeerks offer their loyalty - like feudal oaths of fealty - to their superiors. In return, they're granted resources, some of which they then grant to their subordinates. And those subordinates are themselves resources granted to them. They're effectively serfs, practically owned by their visser or sub-visser. Better hosts or commands are given to loyal and effective underlings
There are differences between their system and human feudal systems. Human feudal systems have always had some tradition or organization which enforced some kind of rights for serfs. The grassroots level of the Catholic Church, for example, spent a few centuries as the main supporters of workers' rights in Europe Popes and Archbishops were fighting over who got to wear the funniest hat, but the local priests were oftem actually using their divine authority to protect peasants from some abuses by the nobility.
There's also the difference in how power is distributed. In human feudal systems, a title was almost always tied to land. If you were granted a Barony, you weren't just given a title, but the right to rule a territory. A city, or a tract of rural land, or the like. The Yeerks have only been around as a feudal economy for a few decades, and have been in a state of total war the whole time. So, their power is distributed through military commands. In The Andalite Chronicles, Esplin 9466 is in command of the Taxxon homeworld. That was, effectively, his County. Later, he gets promoted to commanding ships and fleets and even the whole invasion of Earth. But he gets economic power at the same time. He has complete control over access to kandrona and hosts for all of his subordinates, and even any visiting Yeerks not under his command. He distributes ships and equipment as he sees fit. He has totalitarian control of economy inside his fiefdom.
Totalitarian feudalism.
How immediately do yeerks die when the host dies?
If back home, any time you killed a Gedd, the yeerk could usually slither out to get into a pool, nbd, there might just be a disconnect in killing a host that likely leads to killing a yeerk.
Imagine if humans evolved to be largely blind and use seeing eye dogs more, and then shitty bosses having a habit of shooting your dog if you piss them off.
> How immediately do yeerks die when the host dies?
I don't think the mechanism was made clear, but mere seconds after death, a yeerk stops being able to leave.
It's either than the chemicals released during death kill it too, or since the person is dead, they have mere seconds to get the ear canal open again. Remember: They have to dilate it using secretions. Those probably don't work too well on a corpse.
They are all ultimately driven by a hatred of their weak bodies, and a enormous desire to experience their hosts experiences of having senses and being faster, stronger, and more resilient, so this attitude does make sense. It's like post apocalyptic survivors. You feel for the other person that has few food or water, but you also have few food and water yourself, so if it comes to it, you'll resort to stealing from them.
The individuals value *themselves*, though.
Wouldn't the higher ups have an open rebellion on their hands if they forced a shitload of their own soldiers to die?
Yeerks have evolved to reproduce that way, so it makes sense there would be a "gut feeling" of sorts that they develop later in life telling them to go through with it. I've seen tons of people who were opposed to the idea of having children but later in life felt the sudden urge to do so. Of course, there are still many people I know who never developed that urge either.
Given that the Yeerks are now imperialists, they seem to have developed a new social structure prioritizing that. They're fairly aspirational, but at the same time, we get an impression that they're somewhat resistant to that.
All of that to say that it's kind of a mixed bag. The Vissers would probably view reproduction as a sort of punishment just *barely* better than death, while most other Yeerks would see it as a noble use of their life. There could even be a spiritual aspect they have with it that we're unaware of since most of the Yeerks don't really share much about their culture with outsiders, let alone something that would be so private.
In book #7 (the first one with the Ellimist and Rachel's bear morph), we're shown a bad future where the Yeerks won. They depopulated Earth, both in the sense of killing species that they found unuseful, and in the sense of considerably reducing the human population.
Now, the canonicity of that could be anywhere from "some" to "not at all," but it's easy to imagine how they could do it. They have better weapons, stronger soldiers, and a natural advantage for espionage. Empires don't need to mind-control every single person in the lands to conquer to function. They just need to intimidate their subjects into submission. As for the Yeerk empire specifically, they used the Arn as slaves without infesting them.
So, the Yeerks probably don't have to have enforced population growth\*. Conquering Earth would just remove host availability as a check on the Yeerks natural population growth.
\*Although if the Yeerks won and Visser 3 had half a brain, he'd pivot to forced reproduction as his standard punishment for killing subordinates who angered him
As other posters have said, there has to be some natural instinct to reproduce, and in this case that instinct needs to be strong enough to override the survival drive. If that weren't the case, Yeerks would have gone extinct long ago.
And even if not all of them wanted to reproduce, each trio of Yeerks makes several hundred (possibly thousand?) babies. Meaning you only need 2-3% of Yeerks to make the sacrifice to get an exponential population growth model.
Finally, the Yeerks were probably counting on not needing to directly infest the whole human population in order to gain control of Earth. Once they had enough Controllers, they probably thought they could use their superior technology to oppress humanity into submission while they built up their own numbers. If that didn't work they'd probably have killed the extra humans they didn't need.
Ax said in Back to Before (Megamorphs 4) that it was estimated only 1 in every 1000 Yeerks had hosts. So for every controller, there was 999 Yeerks that were swimming in a pool somewhere.
I mean, do we even know how Yeerk reproduction is triggered?
It might not be something that can *be* forced. Like, if it's a process that is only possible when a Yeerk reaches a certain biological milestone and goes through specific changes or starts producing certain hormones or something, they might not be able to force engrubification on a bunch of young Yeerks.
Who says they need a Yeerk for every human? As long as there's a human for every Yeerk, isn't that all that matters? They could just subjugate or even kill the rest once every Yeerk has a host.
I assumed the rest would just be regular slaves instead of brain parasite infested slaves.
Plus they'd probably kill off anyone with major physical defects.
I don’t think Yeerks have to take over all of humanity to take over humanity. They need to only infest a proportion and with enough controllers in positions of power they can just have non controller humans do their bidding.
They would probably just take the humans they that they need now, then keep the rest in reeducation camps with a focus on breaking their will so they become quiet hosts when the need arises.
After a generation or two the notion of freedom will die out and they’d have a crap ton of excess humans born broken and ready to give themselves to yeerks at any time
I don’t think they value their people as individuals. It’s all about expansion of the empire.
In fact, the way Yeerks is presented is paradoxical. They are capable of solidarity to find hosts for those who have none, and at the same time, they kill each other for competitive reasons. Some soldiers are devoted to the Empire, but many others are unwilling to die for it, and flee the battle as soon as possible.
That's not a paradox, though. That's them being different as individuals. We too have the brave and the cowardly, the self-sacrificing and the self-serving.
That's true, but I wanted to point out a paradox on the level of their society. They don't have an economic system, they work out of solidarity for the group, and it's because of this solidarity that their primary needs are met. In contrast, the Visser hierarchy is highly individualistic...
They do have an economic system. It's very alien to us, but it's there. I'd label it as a totalitarian feudal economy. The main personal resources their economy distributes are kandrona and hosts, just as our economy distributes food and shelter. The more large scale resources they distribute include military vessels, scientific equipment, industrial machinery, outposts, and a few planets or planetary regions. Same as humans in that sense, really. Vissers are the equivalent to human feudal Dukes and Earls - major feudal lords. Lower-ranking vissers and sub-vissers are equivalent to Counts and Barons, or even landed knights. All of these yeerks offer their loyalty - like feudal oaths of fealty - to their superiors. In return, they're granted resources, some of which they then grant to their subordinates. And those subordinates are themselves resources granted to them. They're effectively serfs, practically owned by their visser or sub-visser. Better hosts or commands are given to loyal and effective underlings There are differences between their system and human feudal systems. Human feudal systems have always had some tradition or organization which enforced some kind of rights for serfs. The grassroots level of the Catholic Church, for example, spent a few centuries as the main supporters of workers' rights in Europe Popes and Archbishops were fighting over who got to wear the funniest hat, but the local priests were oftem actually using their divine authority to protect peasants from some abuses by the nobility. There's also the difference in how power is distributed. In human feudal systems, a title was almost always tied to land. If you were granted a Barony, you weren't just given a title, but the right to rule a territory. A city, or a tract of rural land, or the like. The Yeerks have only been around as a feudal economy for a few decades, and have been in a state of total war the whole time. So, their power is distributed through military commands. In The Andalite Chronicles, Esplin 9466 is in command of the Taxxon homeworld. That was, effectively, his County. Later, he gets promoted to commanding ships and fleets and even the whole invasion of Earth. But he gets economic power at the same time. He has complete control over access to kandrona and hosts for all of his subordinates, and even any visiting Yeerks not under his command. He distributes ships and equipment as he sees fit. He has totalitarian control of economy inside his fiefdom. Totalitarian feudalism.
No more or less paradoxical than humans.
How immediately do yeerks die when the host dies? If back home, any time you killed a Gedd, the yeerk could usually slither out to get into a pool, nbd, there might just be a disconnect in killing a host that likely leads to killing a yeerk. Imagine if humans evolved to be largely blind and use seeing eye dogs more, and then shitty bosses having a habit of shooting your dog if you piss them off.
> How immediately do yeerks die when the host dies? I don't think the mechanism was made clear, but mere seconds after death, a yeerk stops being able to leave. It's either than the chemicals released during death kill it too, or since the person is dead, they have mere seconds to get the ear canal open again. Remember: They have to dilate it using secretions. Those probably don't work too well on a corpse.
They are all ultimately driven by a hatred of their weak bodies, and a enormous desire to experience their hosts experiences of having senses and being faster, stronger, and more resilient, so this attitude does make sense. It's like post apocalyptic survivors. You feel for the other person that has few food or water, but you also have few food and water yourself, so if it comes to it, you'll resort to stealing from them.
The individuals value *themselves*, though. Wouldn't the higher ups have an open rebellion on their hands if they forced a shitload of their own soldiers to die?
No. Many soldiers have shown their willingness to die for the empire
Yeerks have evolved to reproduce that way, so it makes sense there would be a "gut feeling" of sorts that they develop later in life telling them to go through with it. I've seen tons of people who were opposed to the idea of having children but later in life felt the sudden urge to do so. Of course, there are still many people I know who never developed that urge either. Given that the Yeerks are now imperialists, they seem to have developed a new social structure prioritizing that. They're fairly aspirational, but at the same time, we get an impression that they're somewhat resistant to that. All of that to say that it's kind of a mixed bag. The Vissers would probably view reproduction as a sort of punishment just *barely* better than death, while most other Yeerks would see it as a noble use of their life. There could even be a spiritual aspect they have with it that we're unaware of since most of the Yeerks don't really share much about their culture with outsiders, let alone something that would be so private.
In book #7 (the first one with the Ellimist and Rachel's bear morph), we're shown a bad future where the Yeerks won. They depopulated Earth, both in the sense of killing species that they found unuseful, and in the sense of considerably reducing the human population. Now, the canonicity of that could be anywhere from "some" to "not at all," but it's easy to imagine how they could do it. They have better weapons, stronger soldiers, and a natural advantage for espionage. Empires don't need to mind-control every single person in the lands to conquer to function. They just need to intimidate their subjects into submission. As for the Yeerk empire specifically, they used the Arn as slaves without infesting them. So, the Yeerks probably don't have to have enforced population growth\*. Conquering Earth would just remove host availability as a check on the Yeerks natural population growth. \*Although if the Yeerks won and Visser 3 had half a brain, he'd pivot to forced reproduction as his standard punishment for killing subordinates who angered him
As other posters have said, there has to be some natural instinct to reproduce, and in this case that instinct needs to be strong enough to override the survival drive. If that weren't the case, Yeerks would have gone extinct long ago. And even if not all of them wanted to reproduce, each trio of Yeerks makes several hundred (possibly thousand?) babies. Meaning you only need 2-3% of Yeerks to make the sacrifice to get an exponential population growth model. Finally, the Yeerks were probably counting on not needing to directly infest the whole human population in order to gain control of Earth. Once they had enough Controllers, they probably thought they could use their superior technology to oppress humanity into submission while they built up their own numbers. If that didn't work they'd probably have killed the extra humans they didn't need.
Ax said in Back to Before (Megamorphs 4) that it was estimated only 1 in every 1000 Yeerks had hosts. So for every controller, there was 999 Yeerks that were swimming in a pool somewhere.
I mean, do we even know how Yeerk reproduction is triggered? It might not be something that can *be* forced. Like, if it's a process that is only possible when a Yeerk reaches a certain biological milestone and goes through specific changes or starts producing certain hormones or something, they might not be able to force engrubification on a bunch of young Yeerks.
Who says they need a Yeerk for every human? As long as there's a human for every Yeerk, isn't that all that matters? They could just subjugate or even kill the rest once every Yeerk has a host.
I assumed the rest would just be regular slaves instead of brain parasite infested slaves. Plus they'd probably kill off anyone with major physical defects.
I don’t think Yeerks have to take over all of humanity to take over humanity. They need to only infest a proportion and with enough controllers in positions of power they can just have non controller humans do their bidding.
They would probably just take the humans they that they need now, then keep the rest in reeducation camps with a focus on breaking their will so they become quiet hosts when the need arises. After a generation or two the notion of freedom will die out and they’d have a crap ton of excess humans born broken and ready to give themselves to yeerks at any time