Species Discussion: Taxxons

[buffyangellvr23.livejournal.com]

Big, black, bloated worms that eat everything in sight. Their hunger never ceases, and they'll even eat each other or themselves. They made a deal with the Yeerks and are voluntary hosts.

My question is, what would make a species evolve to be so constantly, unsatisfiably (is that word?)hungry all the time?

There actually is a gene mutation that can cause a human to be born with hunger like a Taxxon...Prader-Willi syndrome. I find it difficult to imagine life like that, without the mechanism that turns off hunger and never being able to feel full. Food has to be locked up around them, because they also have a degree of mental impairment.

I wonder if the food at the Yeerk Pool had to be kept locked up. Although IDK what a Taxxon's normal diet is, only that it must be something underground, given the digging part.

Do you think they have a sort of hive-mind, like termites or ants were depicted to? The 'living hive' made someone else think so, and it makes me think it might be true also.

Comments

[rena-librarian.livejournal.com]

I don't think they functioned solely with hive-mind, since they're depicted as having higher thought processes, but I do think they have some degree of it. More like a news network than thought control.

[joking.livejournal.com]

I also can't help but wonder (awful as it is) what it was like for Arbron to be stuck as a Taxxon all those years. Not just in terms of dealing with the hunger/hive mind/etc., but what kinds of friendships he made among the Taxxons, if any.

[tobiahawk.livejournal.com]

KA said they were originally going to write a Taxxon Chronicles about Arbron but ended up not doing that. I'd love to see Applegrant do it as part of the reboot, however unlikely.

[tobiahawk.livejournal.com]

Taxxons are black?! I always thought they were green.

The Taxxons are sort of tragic to me in that they gave themselves up to the Yeerks in hopes of controlling their hunger only to have it not work and for them to ever hungry Taxxon slaves. I kind of surprised that the Yeerks preferred Taxxon hosts to their natural state, tbh.

Maybe the Taxxon's hunger kept them constantly digging, which sustained their ecosystem? Just a thought.

[joking.livejournal.com]

I guess it's hard to figure out the evolutionary rationale behind the hunger because for real animals we don't know the subjective experience of what it's like to be that animal. For all we know, sharks (for example) feel a hunger just as intense as Taxxons do. The problem isn't the hunger itself - there could be any number of evolutionary forces shaping that - but that the consciousness and free will of the Taxxons is completely beholden to that hunger.

[mattiris.livejournal.com]

I see the Taxxons as the real victims of the series. Impairment bordering on madness, then enslavement, then genocide. They're not nice creatures but they sure don't have any reason to be.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

I agree. I kind of feel like it's a symptom of the fact that they, perhaps only lesser than the Yeerks, are the most "non-human" race in the books. Andalites are humanoid, and so are Hork-Bajir, so they're easier to relate to, easier to root for. Taxxons are giant insects.

Kind of reminds me of how beautifully District 9 handled that issue, that THESE ARE NOT HUMAN-LIKE CREATURES but they are still worthy of respect and compassion. Taxxons, despite a few moments of potential, were depraved, soulless killers until the end.

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

okay I just had another thought but I'm not prepared to write a huge long screed about it, so I'll just ask:

is anyone else kind of bothered that the only perspective we get to view the taxxons and hork-bajir through is "Andalite"? I mean Dak kind of throws a wrench into this, but he was a *special* Hork-Bajir who spoke and thought like an intelligent race, not like the Hork-Bajir.

I guess I'm wondering what a book narrated by an ACTUAL Taxxon (not just Arbron) or an AVERAGE Hork-Bajir would sound like. We got that from the Yeerks, and honestly those precious few chapters of Yeerk perspective we get are really good. Why not Taxxons or Hork-Bajir? Are they just like second-tier aliens or something