Oh wait, yeah, good point. I realise my previous post was unrelated, because the Andalites weren't trying to exterminate the Yeerks in 54, they were trying to stop their invasion of Earth. They wanted all the Yeerks dealt with, is probably more accurate. But anyway, I agree. I can’t see them just... leaving humans to deal with the remaining Yeerks by themselves.
This is a guess, but maybe there's a sense of race-guilt about the Yeerk invasion that won’t allow the Andalites to consider alternatives? Like, "We screwed up with Seerow's Kindness, now we need to fix this whole invasion before it gets out of hand.” There's a lot of history there, and strong resentment on both sides, that IMO doesn't allow the Yeerk/Andalite relationship to be anything but that of sworn enemies. I think a lot of Andalites would've been brainwashed into an anti-Yeerk mindset because of that (and vice versa). If Andalites (as a society) had acknowledged that Yeerks were an intelligent, sentient race who were capable of peaceful coexistence, compassion, etc., it would've needed the Andalites to step back and admit that hey, Yeerks might actually have some reason for infesting other species. I think it was much easier to other (”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other”) the Yeerks, like “OMG they’re evil technology-stealing parasites who’re trying to take over the world!”, than try to understand their motives. Of course, as people have pointed out on TV Tropes, the Yeerks could’ve handled their conquest very differently and much less antagonistically. I like nyxelestia's suggestion of Iskoort-type symbiosis, for example.
Following on from that, I can't see the military Andalites (whom I imagine would be very conservative, much like military leaders on Earth), embracing the idea of voluntary hosts. They'd see it as a horrible fate because they themselves wouldn't be able to bear the idea of being Controllers. So their mindset would be "All Yeerks are bad, they need to be dealt with as efficiently as possible." I don't even know if it crossed their minds that some Yeerks and humans might be okay with voluntary hosting. Or if it did, they didn't care. Obviously that sucks for the Yeerks as a whole, but… these are Andalites we're talking about. Does canon say how much impact the Animorphs had in deciding what happened to the Yeerks?
And they haven't trusted anyone at all with anything since Seerow.
I don’t know that Seerow had much to do with it… I think that law about Seerow’s Kindness was more to do with not passing on state secrets/classified technology. And maybe they loosened up a bit, because according to Wikipedia they href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_(Animorphs)”> gave humans a single Escafil device against terrorism.
Re: Brilliant!
This is a guess, but maybe there's a sense of race-guilt about the Yeerk invasion that won’t allow the Andalites to consider alternatives? Like, "We screwed up with Seerow's Kindness, now we need to fix this whole invasion before it gets out of hand.”
There's a lot of history there, and strong resentment on both sides, that IMO doesn't allow the Yeerk/Andalite relationship to be anything but that of sworn enemies. I think a lot of Andalites would've been brainwashed into an anti-Yeerk mindset because of that (and vice versa).
If Andalites (as a society) had acknowledged that Yeerks were an intelligent, sentient race who were capable of peaceful coexistence, compassion, etc., it would've needed the Andalites to step back and admit that hey, Yeerks might actually have some reason for infesting other species. I think it was much easier to other (”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other”) the Yeerks, like “OMG they’re evil technology-stealing parasites who’re trying to take over the world!”, than try to understand their motives. Of course, as people have pointed out on TV Tropes, the Yeerks could’ve handled their conquest very differently and much less antagonistically. I like nyxelestia's suggestion of Iskoort-type symbiosis, for example.
Following on from that, I can't see the military Andalites (whom I imagine would be very conservative, much like military leaders on Earth), embracing the idea of voluntary hosts. They'd see it as a horrible fate because they themselves wouldn't be able to bear the idea of being Controllers. So their mindset would be "All Yeerks are bad, they need to be dealt with as efficiently as possible." I don't even know if it crossed their minds that some Yeerks and humans might be okay with voluntary hosting. Or if it did, they didn't care. Obviously that sucks for the Yeerks as a whole, but… these are Andalites we're talking about.
Does canon say how much impact the Animorphs had in deciding what happened to the Yeerks?
And they haven't trusted anyone at all with anything since Seerow.
I don’t know that Seerow had much to do with it… I think that law about Seerow’s Kindness was more to do with not passing on state secrets/classified technology. And maybe they loosened up a bit, because according to Wikipedia they href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_(Animorphs)”> gave humans a single Escafil device against terrorism.