| The Andalite Chronicles |
Detailed Plot: This book opens in a prologue with Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul recording his last messages to the world as he awaits his death. He's downloading his memories into the computer on the ship so people will know his story. He mentions having been on Earth before for many years, and he refers to a mysterious Loren and a particular child, who is apparently one of the Animorphs (though the narration doesn't say who). Then we rewind twenty-one years to when Elfangor was an aristh (a cadet), and we meet his tail-fighting instructor, Sofor, and we also meet the only other aristh on the ship, Elfangor's not-really-friend Arbron. They're in the middle of talking about tail-fighting when the two arisths get summoned to the battle bridge, which is pretty much unheard-of. They're terrified but excited as they answer the summons. Turns out the captain, known as Captain Feyorn, summoned them to be part of a mission involving a Skrit Na raider. Apparently a member of this thieving alien species has visited Earth and "raided" it, and though the Andalites don't know humans, they can tell the sentient species on Earth is what they call a "Level Six civilization." The captain asks Elfangor and Arbron what their opinion is on what they should do, and Elfangor suggests intercepting them while Arbron says they should board the ship and check for violations because the Skrit Na sometimes serve the Yeerks. The captain agrees that this should take place and that the arisths should board the freighter because they are smaller and can fit aboard. Given their own ship (albeit an older model), Elfangor and Arbron are sent into their first battle, and because Elfangor claims four days' seniority over Arbron he dictates that he gets to be the pilot while Arbron has to take the weapons position. They have a rough start (accelerating too fast because of the old equipment), but they actually end up taking a shot on a prince's order and disabling one of the Skrit Na's engines (though a second Skrit Na ship gets away). They board, intending to confiscate anything the Skrit Na shouldn't have and download the information from their ship computer, but when they get in they find that two humans are aboard. One is an unconscious, wounded male, and the other is a female who has captured one of the Skrit Na's weapons and has taken the upper hand in her own kidnapping. The Skrit Na seem to think the Andalites will be on their side against the humans because the female disarmed them, and tries to make a deal with Elfangor to let them cage her again, but Elfangor just ignores the Na and talks to the female, finding out her name is Loren. Loren calms down when the Andalites are kind to her, and gives up her weapon after bonding with Elfangor a bit over some talk about their species' shared ability to dream. When the male wakes up they find his name is Hedrick, but he prefers to go by his last name--Chapman. Animorphs readers recognize that name as the future school administrator who is a Controller; this must be him in his younger days. Chapman is not very excited about the fact that they are now captured by a different group of aliens, even though these ones seem more civilized and friendly. Chapman is very suspicious, and Elfangor is a bit insulted because he feels Chapman should be grateful for not ending up in a Skrit Na zoo. Elfangor and Arbron take the humans to the dome area since they don't really know what else to do with the humans, but are disturbed that they can't eat grass through their feet like Andalites. In fact, when Loren takes her shoes off to run barefoot on the grass, at first the Andalites think she's pulling a body part off. They don't understand clothes. They're similarly puzzled, though impressed, at her ability to turn her head to look behind her (since they can do that with stalk eyes and don't need flexible necks) and at her ability to climb a tree with her strong arms. After this brief visit, they're asked to bring the humans to a holding room and report for debriefing. Elfangor and Arbron are assigned to do a mission with the disgraced Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. (They don't know why he's "disgraced"; they just know he is.) They're on a lowly mission to take the humans back to their planet and erase their memories. They're not happy about this assignment, but they do like Alloran's ship--it's called the Jahar, after the prince's wife. Chapman is impressed that Andalites have faster-than-light travel, but is quick to insult them by suggesting they're selfish for keeping such technology to themselves. Alloran points out then that they'd once shared this technology and the result was the spread of the Yeerk empire--and that the humans should be grateful that they're still untouched by this menace and happy in their obliviousness. Arbron wants to use the onboard computer to look through the data he recovered from the Skrit Na ship because he saw something that just didn't look right, so he becomes absorbed in this project during the journey while Elfangor mostly spends the time chatting to Loren. They discuss war and Chapman is very disrespectful about people who have psychological issues after being in battles, and Prince Alloran tells him he does not understand. Elfangor is surprised the humans are said to fight each other in wars. Soon Arbron discovers something odd about the data that was in the Skrit Na ship: the ship that escaped had taken a Time Matrix that was hidden on Earth under a pyramid--an artifact that was thought to be a myth--and it's on its way to the Taxxon homeworld, presumably to deliver it to the Yeerks (who probably want to use it to go back in time and arrange things so the Andalites can't win the war). They have to abandon their mission to take the humans home and go after the Skrit Na immediately. They clue the humans in that they are going into terrible danger and warn them of the dangers of enslavement or death, but there's nothing they can do. The Skrit Na may be heading out to sell the Time Matrix to the Yeerks, and if they get it, there will be no one to stop the Yeerks from taking over the galaxy. Chapman concludes that based on what he's heard about the Yeerks, they sound like winners because they are ambitious, which fits in with his own ambition. Nevertheless, the group goes into Z-space and heads out to the Taxxon homeworld, planning to morph into Taxxons for camouflage. Deciding to take a Taxxon supplier ship to land in, they have to disable one of its engines. Arbron takes the shot and succeeds, while Elfangor pilots the Jahar to prepare for boarding. In they go and manage to kill or disable the Taxxon-Controllers piloting the ship, but soon Hork-Bajir join the fight--and it's Elfangor's first time being face-to-face with one. Alloran volunteers to take two in the middle, leaving one smaller Hork-Bajir to each aristh. Elfangor is scared, but defaults to his training, remembering what he's learned but not thinking about it, just fighting on instinct. He beats his Hork-Bajir, and helps Alloran with one of his, and makes short work of Arbron's too. When he realizes what he's done, he's sickened, and runs away back to the Jahar. Loren is there to calm him and puts her arms around him. When he comes back to himself he's ashamed, and though he's a bit in shock, he's able to obey orders the captain gives shortly after the wounded Taxxons and Hork-Bajir are incapacitated and Arbron's wound has been taken care of. Loren and Chapman are sealed up in the Jahar ship while the Andalites go on their mission, and Elfangor warns Loren not to touch anything on the ship while they're gone. She expresses doubt about Chapman and worries that he will "try something" because he doesn't like the Andalites, so Elfangor gives Loren a weapon set on a low charge to defend herself. He promises that after the mission they will take them back to Earth. Elfangor lingers with Loren long enough to collect a kiss on the cheek from her. They fly away in the stolen Taxxon ship, where Arbron compliments Elfangor's fighting. Elfangor is half proud of himself and half disgusted by the violence. They go to acquire DNA from the Taxxons so they can impersonate them. But when they go into the holding room, they find that the Yeerks that were in the Taxxon bodies have left them because the Taxxon instincts are causing them to try to cannibalize each other (after they've already eaten the other wounded), and the Andalites wonder where the Yeerks went. When they turn on the lights they find tanks of Yeerks just floating around waiting for arrival on the Taxxon world so they can get host bodies. Alloran asks Elfangor to put them in a bay and open the hatch, and Elfangor feels that would be immoral because the Yeerks are helpless. Alloran is angry because he believes war is not about being noble; it's about killing. Elfangor manages to talk Alloran out of killing the Yeerks because they are too close to the planet and the heat signature of them being flushed into space might be suspicious, but Alloran promises they'll flush the Yeerks later. After Elfangor has morphed into a Taxxon (despite not having much practice with morphing), it's all he can do to control the crippling, raging hunger that comes with Taxxon instincts. It's clear to him then why Taxxons became Yeerk allies; they don't really have freedom anyway, and Yeerks have weapons to help them eat more successfully. Fighting the hunger, the Andalites morphed as Taxxons land on the home world and search out the Skrit Na ship, which they spot about a mile away from their landing spot, but when a Taxxon falls and injures itself Elfangor can't control the burning hunger that makes him lunge toward the fresh meat. He was unable to stop himself from rushing to the frenzy, but he backs out of the squirming crowd that's gobbling up the Taxxon and this behavior attracts the attention of a Hork-Bajir-Controller called Sub-Visser Seven. This Yeerk is very interested in a Taxxon that won't eat fresh meat. The sub-visser tries to trick Elfangor into admitting he's an Andalite in morph, but he doesn't answer and just makes Taxxon noises. Then the sub-visser suggests maybe he's a mountain Taxxon who's rebelling. Elfangor didn't even know there were Taxxons who resisted the Yeerk empire; he'd thought they were all willing hosts. But then the sub-visser again talks to him as if he knows he's an Andalite, and offers to let him live if he, the Yeerk, can infest his Andalite body. Elfangor is horrified, and feels that he has made a personal enemy of this sub-visser. He breaks down and tells him through thought-speak that his name is Elfangor and he will not be taken alive. With that he is pushed out of the ship and thrown to hungry Taxxons. Elfangor struggles to demorph before he's consumed, and manages to get back to Andalite form. With his tail, he attacks the Taxxons who were trying to eat him and they are drawn instead to the bleeding bodies of their own people. But Sub-Visser Seven's people are after him, so he morphs into the kafit bird, which is one of the only animals he has acquired back in his training. He flies out of the messy situation, and tries to get back in line with the mission (hoping to find Alloran and Arbron), but the sub-visser's people are trying to shoot him. Then something weird happens: the Jahar lands. Elfangor has no idea how this is possible because only the two humans are on board, but soon it becomes clear. Despite not speaking the same language, Chapman appears and manages to explain to Sub-Visser Seven that he wants to trade his planet away by giving them hosts--like Loren, who is tied up in his control. The Yeerk understands him because the language of greed is universal. As the morphed kafit bird, Elfangor reassures Loren that he will rescue her, then heads over to the Skrit Na ship to try to figure out how to get a hold of the Time Matrix. Elfangor becomes an Andalite again, then morphs to a Taxxon for camouflage. While he's in the middle of that, Arbron appears in full Taxxon morph and joins forces with him, though he doesn't know where Alloran is. Arbron keeps being weirdly snippy and rude to Elfangor even though he wants to help, and Elfangor has a terrible feeling that something is very wrong. But the two of them, posing as Taxxons, go forth and pretend they're on business. Some Gedds, which are the race the Yeerks enslaved first from their home world, are operating machines there, but one is suspicious and stops the two Andalites. He uses a wrist translator the Gedd has to tell him that they're there for computer repair, so they go about their business, but when it comes to sealing the door and powering the ship up for takeoff so they can steal it, Elfangor demorphs and Arbron cannot. He's been in the morph too long and is trapped that way. Nevertheless, they plow on with stealing the Skrit Na ship, and they find that there's something wrong with it and it's not going as fast as it should. They have to try to outrun Bug fighters while in the atmosphere, because their ship is actually faster than the Bugs as long as they're not in space. Arbron wants to use the Time Matrix but Elfangor insists that they don't know how it works, and he doesn't want to anger anyone--and he doesn't just mean the superiors in the Andalite race, but thinks perhaps even Ellimists are watching. They struggle to outrun the Bug fighters before the ship gets too hot and blows up, but they have to take a lot of risks, until finally Arbron says the only chance is trying to make a risky shot. Elfangor has to decide if he's going to let him do it despite being not at his best (with all the distractions and whatnot of being a Taxxon). He opts to let Arbron shoot, and they succeed. But after the fact, Elfangor says they have to go back and rescue the humans and Alloran, and Arbron disagrees. In his frustration and despair he lets the Taxxon instincts take him over and he tries to attack Elfangor. He doesn't feel he can attack his friend or kill him, but Arbron starts wrecking the ship with his sloppy attempts to eat Elfangor, so he wounds him so he can't attack anymore. Arbron doesn't want to be eaten, of course, and he knows what happens to wounded Taxxons, so he begs to be killed. Elfangor doesn't want to kill him and says he'll protect him, but wants him to shut up so he can land the ship. He threatens to stun Arbron, but Arbron wishes he was dead so he tries to trick Elfangor into shooting him with a Dracon beam on the highest setting. But Elfangor accidentally hits the wall instead of his friend, and blows a hole in the wall. When Elfangor awakens after being knocked out in the accident caused by the ship blowout, he's alone and sees tracks suggesting Arbron got dragged away by mountain Taxxons, along with the Skrit and cocoons that were in the ship. Elfangor worries that they might have been eaten, but doesn't really know what to do about it. He finds a car as one of the things aboard the ship that the Skrit Na took in their Earth raid, and he modifies it so he can drive it and takes off across the Taxxon desert. But then the ground unexpectedly opens beneath him and he falls underground. The place he falls into is called "The Living Hive," which is a sentient mountain that is credited with being "The Mother and Father" of the Taxxon species. Arbron has ended up being recruited into the group because despite being a Taxxon-bodied creature he has an Andalite mind and can add some knowledge of technology and strategy to the free Taxxons' attacks. Arbron wants to help them fight for their planet. Elfangor is discouraged because Arbron is planning a mission that seems really suicidal, and he thinks he's not going to make it, but he promises to tell Arbron's parents that he died in battle, not that he's living as a Taxxon. Arbron warns that during the battle between Taxxons and Taxxon-Controllers (with some Hork-Bajir thrown in), Elfangor isn't going to be able to tell which are Arbron's forces and which aren't, and Elfangor's supposed to just do what he has to do. But at least Elfangor can tell which Taxxon is Arbron--the legs he sliced off when he was defending himself are growing back but noticeably shorter than the others. Elfangor doesn't want to hurt his friend in battle. Arbron, for his part, seems to be enjoying his role in planning this battle, like a general. When the battle begins, there is violence everywhere, but Elfangor just tries to drive his Mustang to the Jahar to rescue the humans, using the car like a battering ram to stop any attacks that come his way. Somehow Arbron has managed to guard the door of the ship so Taxxons don't get inside and eat the humans, but then he loses control himself and begs for Elfangor to stop him before he gives in to his Taxxon hunger. Elfangor manages to stop Arbron from eating Chapman by barking orders at him like a general does to a soldier, which is a temporary fix. But then some Hork-Bajir--one Sub-Visser Seven--barge in and take over. The sub-visser is delighted to have the opportunity to take Elfangor out himself. But then one of the Hork-Bajir turns out to be Alloran in Hork-Bajir morph, and he takes Sub-Visser Seven prisoner by threatening to slice his throat unless he calls his forces off Elfangor. Loren manages to get herself over to Elfangor and presses her hands on a wound on his chest, and tells him she was worried. Alloran gets the sub-visser to order his men out of the Jahar. They leave Arbron behind because he wants to go back to serving the Living Hive and doesn't feel there's a future for him in the Andalite military, but the rest of them escape, carrying Sub-Visser Seven with them--planning to throw him out of the ship when they make it back to the sky. Elfangor doesn't like killing, but he obeys orders to throw the Hork-Bajir body out into the hatch and he sees it fall. But then Alloran wants him to blow up the Yeerks in the tank--the defenseless ones--and Elfangor still believes he shouldn't. Through that action, Alloran gets angry and says it doesn't matter how the enemy is destroyed, admitting finally to having released a quantum virus on the Hork-Bajir home world, which is how he earned his disgrace. For some reason Chapman sneaks up behind Alloran while he's distracted and hits him on the head, which is long enough for Elfangor to knock Alloran out. He panics at the thought of having attacked his prince, but he's got to figure out what to do next. He still needs to get the Time Matrix. So off he goes to try to dig it out with the Jahar's tools, but soon he realizes everything was a bit too easy and begins to suspect that Sub-Visser Seven had a plot. The Hork-Bajir they'd thought was the sub-visser was only a decoy, and the Yeerks have infested Chapman, Loren, and finally Alloran. Sub-Visser Seven is the first Andalite-Controller, and Elfangor was the one who made it possible. After using his hand weapon to temporarily disable the sub-visser, he decides his enemies probably won't know one Andalite from another and contacts them via the communications screen, giving them orders to chase and kill the other Andalite while pretending to be Sub-Visser Seven. They fall for it and comply. It's not long before they figure out they've been tricked, but by that point Elfangor has managed to get the Jahar out of the atmosphere and into space. He escapes with the two humans. The Yeerk that had controlled Chapman was Sub-Visser Seven, so he was no longer possessed once the sub-visser had crawled into the Andalite host body, but Loren still had a Yeerk in her head. Elfangor makes a deal with it and says either it can die of Kandrona starvation while Loren is tied up or it can come out willingly and be frozen. It chooses to come out and Elfangor keeps his word, then ejects it into space knowing that it's probably going to die. He feels like listening to his morals had made a fine mess of things, so he doesn't really know what's right anymore. Chapman suggests that Elfangor take the ship out of Z-space and use the Time Matrix to go back in time and kill the Yeerk species, but he realizes it's a trap and the Yeerks just want Elfangor back in normal space so they can track him. He realizes no matter where he comes out the Yeerks are going to track him, so he decides to try to reappear where there is enough Andalite firepower to stop whatever Yeerk forces arrive. Loren seems concerned that they'll never get back to Earth, and they spend some time talking about space-time and morals and whatnot. They also tie up Chapman so he can't make any more mischief. Before the big battle begins, Loren has promised to take Elfangor to Yosemite on Earth so they can see some of the places he got to see in the cigarette ads in magazines the Skrit Na stole. When they come back into normal space, they try to contact Elfangor's original ship, but they find it is under attack by living asteroids that were previously undocumented by the Andalites. They begin attacking and eating the fleet of fighters. They realize the asteroids are attracted to power signatures, and power down their ships, but the Yeerks don't know about that as they start to come into real space as well. A Blade ship obviously carrying Sub-Visser Seven is one of them, and he calls Elfangor's ship. He claims he has been promoted and is now Visser Thirty-two. Elfangor gets Loren to pretend she's still a Controller and she stages shooting him while the new Visser can see it happen. Then they cut their power and wait. But Chapman manages to attack Loren and they have to struggle to get the shredder weapon away from him. But Elfangor is hit and part of his body is numb because of the low-powered hit he took. The Blade ship crew boards Elfangor's ship. In the meantime Elfangor manages to destroy the Blade ship by firing into it, but dangerously exposes the crew to space and they lose oxygen. An asteroid is also sucking on the ship. Elfangor starts to lose consciousness. But seeing Loren unconscious inspires him, and he tries to get to the panel where he can restore the environmental support systems. But he can't get to it . . . then Loren wakes up and does it herself after she sees what Elfangor is trying to get to. This solves the immediate issue, but the asteroid that sucked on the ship ate their power and they are falling toward a black hole. Elfangor has to agree to work with the Visser to get to the Time Matrix outside the ship. Through a compromise, they manage to retrieve it, but then it's a race to see who can program it first. The Visser touches it and starts giving it instructions before Elfangor can, but soon he counters, and even Loren comes in to add her input. The next time Elfangor is aware of where he is, it's a strange scene that looks like his home world. But the sky and various artifcats reveal that this is a mix of three worlds, input from Andalite, Yeerk, and human. Elfangor is relieved at first, but disturbed when he realizes this isn't home, and he manages to reunite with Loren by a waterfall. Neither know what's happening, but then they find Visser Thirty-Two with a couple of thugs called Mortrons (he suggests they're his pets), and he sics them on Loren and Elfangor. They seem easy to beat, but unfortunately they regenerate when they're cut into pieces, so Loren gets on Elfangor's back and they run away. After a disturbing experience finding Loren's house copied in this new place (complete with a fake reproduction of her mother), they decide this must be a universe the Time Matrix created for them out of confused instructions, and they decide they need to find it to put things right. Elfangor notices a pattern in the sky and believes it to indicate a hyper spiral, which means the Time Matrix will probably be at the center of the spiral. They set off to look for it. As they travel through the odd mixed world, they talk about liking each other's worlds, and realizing they're different but the same in many ways. Loren expresses regret that Elfangor is going to erase her memory after they get out of this mess, and he says he doesn't have the tools to do that anyway, but admits that if he did have them, he no longer wants Loren to forget him, nor does he want to be the only person who knows the truth about what happened. They admit that they care for one another, and then are unsure of what to do with that realization. As they get closer to the center of the spiral, they start to notice odd signs that time is moving faster--like that Elfangor's hooves are growing, and so are Loren's hair and nails. When they get to the center of the vortex the Time Matrix is indeed in there, but Visser Thirty-Two gets there at the same time and sends his Mortrons after them. Loren fights back with her softball bat and ends up choking one of the Mortrons, while Elfangor ends up tail-fighting with the Visser. (And having access to Alloran's memories, he has reason to be frightened.) But when a Mortron and Visser Thirty-two's tail blade come at him at once, Elfangor knows he can only block one blow. Loren saves him by throwing a Mortron at the one attacking Elfangor. Elfangor could easily kill the Visser, but he points out that killing any of them will result in the collapse of the timeline, which will return them to where they were before this universe had been created. Elfangor says he doesn't care whether the Visser dies here or back on the Jahar, but he is going to die. So Visser Thirty-two leaves and lets the Andalite have the Time Matrix. Elfangor directs Loren to send them back in time to about an hour after the Skrit Na took them, which keeps the timeline intact but gets them back to safety. And that's Elfangor's shame: he ran away from the Yeerk/Andalite war to be with Loren. Elfangor absorbed several humans' DNA to combine them and become his own person, and then he stayed that person to have a human life. He went to college, got a job, and married Loren. They encountered Chapman once, but don't know why he's there because he should have died in space in a black hole. But Elfangor, finished with wars, preferred not to think about it. One day Loren wasn't home because she was at the doctor, and Elfangor came home to find an Ellimist in his living room. So the Ellimist tells him that Visser Thirty-two became Visser Three, and that Loren was meant to marry a different human, and that he has a time and place he belongs. Elfangor is supposed to have a brother, and is supposed to be taking his place in certain wars. But the Ellimist tells him he did some very good things, like not killing defenseless prisoners and kept the Time Matrix out of the hands of both species in the war. The Ellimist just wants him to repair what he shattered by using the Time Matrix. So he agrees that Loren will not remember him (though he will keep his memories), and that he will allow himself to be put back where he should be. He sees that he has a brother--Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill--and that his friend Arbron is still a Taxxon fighting for freedom, and . . . that Loren is now mated with a different person, but pregnant with his own son. He wants to go back because having a child changes his mind, but that is not to be. Still, he can see that his son will have a rough life, but amazingly, his own brother's timeline intersects with his son's, along with four other "bright" lines. Obviously, he's seeing the Animorphs, though he doesn't know the details. And then he awakens on a ship in the middle of a battle, just a lowly aristh again, and since he's been missing no one has any idea who the heck he is. But he speaks up and decides to try a strange technique. He hails the Blade ship that's attacking, speaks to Visser Three and reminds him of their vendetta, and then he goes on a suicide mission to ram into him. He doesn't die, amazingly, and while recovering from his injuries he gets treated like a hero and put on a trajectory to become a full warrior. He tells his captain everything about how he really got there, admitting his great shames, but the captain puts everything in perspective and reminds him that this war needs people like him to fight. So he does, for many years, until finally he loses his life in the battle that involves getting eaten by Visser Three. But before he does that, he connects with the children who come to the construction site--the Animorphs--and figures out which one must be Loren's son. Tobias was the one who stayed longer at the Andalite's side while he was dying, and when prompted tells Elfangor that his mother disappeared when he was young because supposedly she never got over his father. Elfangor tells Tobias that his friends are his family now. And that's about where the log of his memories ends, with a message of hope. Narrator: Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul New known controllers:
New morphs acquired:
Arbron: Taxxon Alloran: Taxxon Notable: In the beginning of this book the narration says that Elfangor was "too weak to morph," which is a bit surprising since the Animorphs appear to have managed to morph themselves into life-saving alternate shapes in order to erase their injuries. Despite the fact that Elfangor can think clearly enough to give technology, information, and instructions to the Animorphs when he meets them, he's "too weak to morph" because of his injuries. It seems in previous books the Animorphs have morphed while practically unconscious and also mortally wounded, so it's unclear what kind of injury could have put Elfangor in that position. It's understood that this is supposed to be coming from an alien's perspective and that it's limited in that it must use the English language to tell us about their adventures if it wants to communicate with English-speaking readers. But despite that, there are many Earth-centric language uses that probably could have been avoided for more realism. The narration is peppered by such Earth references as comparing Yeerks to "slugs" or a ship to a "spider," a field measured in "miles," and a dome made of "plastic." We're introduced to the alien species the Skrit Na, which are odd creatures that go into cocoons. In their pre-cocoon bug-like phase, they're not very intelligent and they're called Skrit, but after they come out of the cocoon they're transformed into Na--slender gray aliens with four limbs--and they have a propensity for stealing creatures and artifacts from other planets for their own amusement. The "Maximum Burn" setting is used several times throughout the book to accelerate quickly, but for some reason Elfangor elects not to use it when returning Loren to Earth because he says relativity would have caused three years to pass on Earth while taking only hours from them. It's unclear why he doesn't seem to be concerned about this eventuality the times he used Maximum Burn before and after this. It's in this book that we find out Andalites have a translator chip that figures out languages by listening to them and can translate, which explains their ability to understand alien species. It does not work on written language. The Andalite government is said to be run by an organization called the Electorate. In this book we learn that Andalite families are normally permitted to have only one child, but in times of war when they may need more bodies, some families are allowed to have two. Elfangor marvels over the thought that some might even be able to have three or four in the future but doesn't think it will come to that. Continuity glitch: Elfangor refers to "both his hearts" in this book, which suggests Andalites have two hearts. But in a previous book, Ax's narration refers to having three hearts (because two of his have to stop beating to make a body for a single-heart organism). The Time Matrix in this book is said to have been created by the Ellimist, which is odd since the Ellimist himself is capable of manipulating time through his own devices. But this is not a continuity problem because he may have had some kind of reason behind creating it for others' use, and that is unclear. An Andalite home-world animal called a djabala is mentioned in this book as an animal they use for morphing practice. It's small and has six legs. They also practice with a kafit bird, which Elfangor also has in his repertoire. Elfangor describes the Taxxons as "nauseating," which is odd because Andalites can't throw up. The Yeerk government is also explained in this book: they have a "Council of Thirteen," and one is the Emperor of the Council but no one knows which one because they fear assassination. Below that Council are the Vissers. We also find out that there is a standard language between interstellar species called Galard. Chapman in this book is of course the teenage version of the guy who grows up to be a host for an important Yeerk who uses his position in the community to influence folks to join The Sharing. He must be a hateful person to be able to use his entire planet's population as a bargaining chip for personal gain, but oddly enough, he seems like a decent guy in the future (when he became a Controller because the Yeerks promised they wouldn't infest his daughter if he did). There's no evidence that someone could be that selfless if they were willing to do what Chapman did as a young person in this book. This really should have been an unrelated character since there was no significance to choosing him for this role, nor were there any future repercussions. Toward the end, the Time Matrix created a new world from the mental input of three characters' home worlds as they wished to go there: the Andalite home world, the Yeerk home world, and Earth. But this is a bit hard to believe since the Yeerk involved had never been to his own planet. Another Chronicles book states that the Yeerk who later became Visser Three was born in a tank on a ship, and that it was "all he knew." It's hard to imagine that a realistic Yeerk home world could have been created from his memories, with a full pool and the green sky, if he did not have those memories and should have been imagining someplace he'd actually been. This book has cheeky references to "Bill" and "Steve," friends of Elfangor's in college when he studied computers. Of course, he's suggesting that Bill is Bill Gates and Steve is Steve Jobs, and that his own hints inspired them to become the pioneers they were. This book was originally released as three separate small volumes, so once it was released combined it was rather awkward because there were many rehashings of previous sections' happenings even though it was the same book. Editors ought to put on their glasses: Chapman said "who's side are you on?" and it should have been "whose side." Best lines: Arbron: "It fires an energy beam which causes an exceedingly painful death. Which is why we'd really prefer it if you didn't fire it." Arbron: "Earth must be hysterical. Humans falling forward and back, falling all over the place. No wonder they are so primitive. They probably spend all their time just trying to stand up." Chapman: "We're not going to be kept out of a place just because the weather's bad. We adapt." Alloran: "The new ideal: warrior, scientist, artist. It's not enough to be a fighter anymore, eh? They want a gentler, more balanced, more intellectual warrior nowadays." Elfangor: Loren did a thing she called "sitting." It's funny to see at first. But of course very practical for a two-legged creature. Alloran: "Even those who return from war may never really come home." Alloran: "It's your first time. You fought well. Both of you. It's always hard the first time. And it never gets easy. But I need you both. Now." Alloran: "War is not about striking brave poses and playing the hero. War is about killing." Elfangor: "I don't think I could stand to be the only person alive who knew the truth. And I don't think I could stand having you forget me, Loren."
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