| Megamorphs #2: In the Time of Dinosaurs |
Detailed Plot: Marco sees a newscast about a damaged sub that might be leaking nuclear radiation, so he decides to tell the other Animorphs so they can go help. They morph into dolphins and swim out to find the sub, and once they've found it they grab one of the divers from the search party and push her over to where the sub is sunk. But then a strange explosion occurs and they all wake up as dolphins in water that's very calm and clear, even though they were just in a storm. They notice there's an unexplained volcano where there wasn't one before, and suddenly they're attacked by what appear to be long-necked water dinosaurs. While they're trying to figure out how to get away, they split up, and an even bigger water monster appears and eats Rachel and Tobias. Jake and Cassie and Marco and Ax have to escape on their own out to land, while Rachel and Tobias are trapped in the monster's stomach. (Tobias later figures out that the long-necked ones are Elasmosauruses and the one that ate them is a Kronosaurus.) The group that escaped happens to witness a baby dinosaur getting eaten by a Tyrannosaurus, and Rachel and Tobias escape the Kronosaurus's stomach when Rachel morphs to her human body and then a grizzly bear so she can rip through the innards of the monster and get back out into the ocean. She saves Tobias and they get back onto land, which is where Tobias reveals to Rachel that they are in the time of the dinosaurs. Tobias is very messed up because of his trip through the stomach acid of the monster, so he morphs to human and then tries to morph back to his normal body to get rid of his broken wing. But this time he isn't healed by the process, inexplicably. Rachel has to set his wing for him by using twigs and a piece of her leotard. Rachel goes climbing up the bank of the river and Tobias tells her he knows about dinosaurs because he was into them when he was little. He determines they are in the Cretaceous period because of how many hadrosaurs there are and the fact that there are flowers. It's the period just before the dinosaurs all died out because of a catastrophic event. Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Ax end up targeted by a Tyrannosaurus, and Marco is the focus of its rage. He tries to outsmart it and squirms behind a tree to avoid it, then tries to morph something with wings so he can escape. But the Tyrannosaurus isn't stupid and it very nearly gets him until Ax attacks it with his tail and kills it. He makes sure to remind Jake that he cannot be depended upon to kill these creatures because that was very lucky. Cassie suggests eating the dead T-Rex because they need food and can use its hide for other stuff too; she's upset about Tobias and Rachel probably getting swallowed, and she doesn't want to let any of her other friends suffer. Tobias and Rachel continue to explore and end up seeing some smoke that is probably the other group's campfire. But then they get hemmed in by some smallish, fast dinosaurs called Deinonychus. These guys were hunting Triceratops originally, but Rachel and Tobias are easier prey. The larger Animorphs group is also worrying about becoming prey, and they figure out a plan for if they're attacked which involves Marco and Cassie and Ax trying to hold off the predators while Jake morphs a tiger. Their goal is always to escape, not fight. They cook their food, eat, and sleep in shifts. Rachel and Tobias escape to the woods by following a plan Tobias makes, and Rachel gets sick and throws up from exertion. This ends up coming in handy because it distracts the dinosaurs following them and makes them investigate the unfamiliar scent. Rachel throws Tobias up into a tree where he grips and waits, while she runs away. Then he drops down on a Deinonychus and acquires its DNA. Rachel morphs to grizzly bear and gets cornered by the pack, but then Tobias runs up in his dinosaur morph and attacks Rachel, having lost control of his morph. The leader of the Deinonychus pack finds this insulting and begins to fight Tobias. Meanwhile, Jake and the others discuss a comet that seems awfully close to Earth, and they see a weird flash of light whose origin they can't place. And then they have to avoid a stampede caused by a hunting Tyrannosaurus, which successfully kills a smaller dinosaur. But the Tyrannosaurus drops its prey almost right on top of Jake, and his legs get pinned. When the big carnivore moves the prey for a moment, he can scurry away, but the Tyrannosaurus notices him and eats him. Jake grabs its tongue and acquires its DNA, then slides down its throat while morphing, causing it to throw him up. Whatever he ruptured while growing in the dinosaur's throat seems to have severely incapacitated it. Jake morphs back to human and tries to recover. The rest of the group acquires the Tyrannosaurus just in case they need it. Jake passes out. In the morning, the group goes on a hike discussing the fact that the flash they saw the night before was artificial (according to Ax), and then they come upon a ravine which, inexplicably, has buildings at its foot and a flying saucer floating over it. Rachel and Tobias end up stumbling over some Spinosauruses that look pretty menacing, so they morph to the dinosaurs they have acquired and prepare to run. But then a very odd creature appears holding a weapon. It attacks and vaporizes one of the attacking dinosaurs, then demands that Tobias and Rachel should change to their other forms. The alien speaks English and claims that the dinosaurs, the world, and all things are theirs. Rachel feels that the alien's smell is familiar but she can't place it. She doesn't want to take orders from a ray-gun-holding alien, though, so she attacks it and finds that it dissolves into pieces when she hits it. The pieces are individual ants, which start attacking her. The larger group decides to investigate the city in the valley by morphing to birds, and Cassie wants to try to go alone because she is afraid of anything else happening to her friends. They don't let her, though, figuring there's safety in numbers (and not much safety as humans on the ground), so off they go. But shortly after they spy crab-like creatures in the city, they are attacked by flying monsters coming from the cave walls: Pteranodons. Tobias and Rachel deal with the ants by stomping and/or eating them, but then a flying saucer appears and starts driving them toward something Tobias thinks is a trap. When he jumps high enough to see what they're headed toward, he realizes it's a whole wall of billions of ants, and they decide to jump off the edge of the land instead, hoping it isn't too high. But of course it ends up being five hundred feet or so. They fall, but happen to cross paths with the other group in their bird morphs. Tobias grabs onto a Pteranodon and uses it like a hang glider, and Rachel tries the same maneuver. They end up falling onto an alien force field and going no further. There they have their reunion, and Marco makes fun of Tobias for knowing all the dinosaur names. (Cassie as an osprey trying to hug Rachel as a Deinonychus is comical, too.) The group can't exactly leave because the swarm of Pteranodons above are unlikely to let them, so they have to figure out what to do. They discuss the alien city below and the fact that Rachel and Tobias met the Nesk, but then after they wonder if the city belongs to the Nesk, a thought-speak voice answers them that the Mercora aren't the same. They don't know what "Mercora" is. The crab-like aliens appear and begin to talk to them. Apparently these asymmetrical, odd creatures built the city and are from another planet where their sun was destroyed by a black hole. They're all that's left of the Mercora race, and they have decided to make Earth their new home, but they have to fight the Nesk, which are indigenous. Jake levels with them and announces that their group is human (except for the Andalite), and they all demorph to show them. They decide to be allies because neither group wants to join the Nesk. But the Mercora expect to be able to live on Earth forever, and since the Animorphs know the Cretaceous period ends catastrophically, they figure the Mercora won't escape being destroyed with the dinosaurs. Tobias insists that no one should tell them about their future, and then they go to the city, where the Mercora heal Tobias's wing and even make clothes for them. Discussing the possibility of going back to their own time with the Mercora yields disappointing results. A catastrophic explosion would need to occur to cause another Sario Rip, but the Mercora have no weapons of that caliber, and though the Nesk do, they're selfish and not interested in sharing. There are ways they could barge into Nesk territory and try to cause an explosion of the type they need, but Jake worries that such a thing could alter the future's timeline. Tobias points out that even eating the rat he just had for breakfast could "alter a timeline," so they figure maybe something they did is SUPPOSED to change the future. The Mercora escort them in a ground transport to a place about five miles from the Nesk base, happy to help them do anything that might deal a blow to the Nesk, and they go to morph dinosaurs. They notice that the comet they saw before is very bright in the sky, and Ax thinks the tail will make contact with the planet. The group morphs their dinosaurs, which means Tobias and Rachel are the smaller Deinonycus and the rest are using the untested Tyrannosaurus morph. When they are finished morphing, the four big T-rexes try to attack each other because they're caught up in the morph, but then they notice Rachel and Tobias and try to eat them, then get distracted by Triceratops. Eventually, through thought-speak encouragement, they all snap out of it . . . except Cassie. Her of all people being caught up in a morph is odd, especially since she is personally so nonviolent. She starts eating a Triceratops she killed, and the only way Jake can think of to snap her out of it is to morph to his true body. This actually works, and she immediately becomes repentant. They have a discussion about morality, and then they resume their mission. While looking around the storage sheds, they accidentally set off an alarm with their thought-speak. The Nesk realize they're being invaded but can't tell it's the dinosaurs doing it. They steal a weapon and try to get away, but Tobias gets hurt when the Nesk realize what's going on, and Cassie has to carry him. They're able to topple a tower and deal a blow, but the Nesk are back firing weapons. Ax tries to contact the Mercora, and they try to rescue the group. One ship extends its force field onto Jake to protect him from getting blasted, but the Nesk fire on the ship instead and kill a bunch of Mercora. They demorph and get picked up by the remaining saucer. The remaining ship's Mercora have to have a ceremony for the dead that involves ripping off their own legs. (The legs will grow back, but this is a way of showing their sorrow.) Apparently this battle convinced the Nesk to leave Earth, so there is a celebration with the Mercora. Ax says he can use their computers to figure out how to re-create the Sario Rip effect and send them back to their time. But then they figure out that the Nesk, in retaliation for losing the planet, did something to change the trajectory of the comet, which will make contact with Earth in less than a day. The Mercora think using the nuclear weapon the Animorphs stole will help them divert the comet, but it will rob them of a way home. They're asked to make the decision, and when they vote, it's Rachel and Marco who vote to keep the nuke for themselves and everyone else who wants to give the nuke to the Mercora to save their settlement. But Tobias and Ax discuss this privately and Ax has wired the bomb to be a dud. As they explain to the rest, the comet HAS to hit . . . because the dinosaurs need to die off in order for mammals (and later, Homo sapiens) to evolve to what they are in their own time. Jake is angry but knows Tobias was right to make this decision. They fly away in bird morphs to get as far from the comet's impact site as possible, then morph to dolphin and await the apocalypse. But the comet causes a Sario Rip effect and the group is sucked back to their own time. They find themselves back in the ocean near the nuclear sub, and when they go home, they wonder whether they were always part of the timeline that helped Homo sapiens evolve. Narrators: Marco, Cassie, Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Ax New known controllers:
New morphs acquired:
Cassie: Marco: Rachel: Ax: Dolphin, Tobias: Notable: It's a bit ridiculous to imagine that a nuclear bomb could have gone off right next to a populated area and this doesn't appear to have any repercussions, nor is it brought up in the series again that an event which would be heralded as a catastrophe happened right there in the water. (Being that this is science fiction and sometimes very silly with its scientific justifications, perhaps we can just ignore that nuclear bombs don't rip through the time/space continuum to send people back in time, but that's ridiculous too. The very few nuclear explosions we've endured on this planet did not cause time travel. The sub's crew and rescue team also inexplicably did not come with the Animorphs to the past. It's unclear why the Sario Rip "picked" them to go through it.) There's no reason their morphing abilities shouldn't work as they always did to heal wounds, but in this book, morphing doesn't heal them. This is never explained, and seems inconsistent because this is the second time they've experienced time travel by Sario Rip and during the first time they had no such problem. It's interesting that Cassie immediately jumped into survivalist mode after she thought Rachel and Tobias were dead. She said some things that shocked Jake and Marco (such as suggesting they do various things with the dead body of a Tyrannosaurus to serve as clothes, shoes, and meat). It's never been said anywhere else in the story that Cassie has survivalist training--just animal-related medical training--but it makes sense that if she knows how to heal animals, she might know how to butcher them. A new kind of creature is introduced in this book: An alien creature called the Nesk. It's made up of millions of ants. There's a point when Jake overhears the thought-speak of Tobias when he is calling to Rachel. It seems odd that Tobias would randomly be using public thought-speak if he didn't think any other sentient creatures were around. That's not explained; it seems usually when they're talking just to each other they use specific, private thought-speak. Another race called the Mercora emerges in this book--a race that has seven legs and is highly asymmetrical and slightly crab-like. In describing them, Ax also mentions a race called the Korla that the Andalites know about, and they've never been mentioned before. It's revealed in this book that broccoli is not indigenous to Earth. It was brought to the planet by the alien Mercora race. Toward the end of the book, the entire group morphs into birds and starts flying away, but there's a bit when Ax is said to have been keeping watch on something with his stalk eyes. He shouldn't be able to have stalk eyes while in a bird morph while they're all flying away. Seems this is a continuity glitch. During the last time a Sario Rip happened, it makes sense that the morphs they acquired disappeared because that whole timeline was made to not exist based on Jake changing his mind about a choice they made. But in this book, the morphs getting erased doesn't really make sense because they did not undo anything they did and presumably they actually did have a lasting effect on reality. They should really be able to morph dinosaurs. It's unclear because of time paradoxes whether the Animorphs actually changed history or were always there/had always been part of it somehow. Their influence was what inspired the Nesk to aim a comet that wasn't going to hit Earth straight at the Mercora settlement. If that comet was the only one that hit Earth during that time and it wasn't actually supposed to, then the Animorphs influenced history before they were born. There's a note from Tobias at the end that seems tacked on, saying that even though Spinosaurus is said to have been extinct by the time the Cretaceous period was ending, Tobias wants you to believe otherwise because he was there (and almost got eaten by one). This seems like a case of patchwork editing pointed out late in the game rather than an intentional afterword by Tobias; seems more like a fact-checker caught the error and the editors decided to change it by making an excuse instead of making it match the known fossil record. This is the only factual error the book attempts to acknowledge but excuse, even though there are dozens of others--such as the water dinosaurs not really being dinosaurs and which ones were actually around during that time. Best lines: Marco: The Yeerks are a parasitic species. Like tapeworms or lice or certain gym coaches who think you can't play basketball just because you are somewhat not tall. Ax: I believe his tone of voice indicated something the humans call "dry humor." I have not heard any wet humor, so it is difficult for me to tell the difference. Marco: "You saved my life. Don't undo it by killing me with algebra."
Tobias: "You think getting eaten by a Kronosaurus was going to kill us? Nah. Or being chased by a pack of Deinonychus?"
Marco: "There would be this primitive tribe and because of my superior knowledge I would become their ruler." Rachel: "They think we're intelligent. So, Marco, keep quiet. We don't want them to learn the truth." Tobias: Who would have guessed that so long before the humans and the Andalites and Yeerks would even appear on the screen to play out their own life-and-death struggle, there had been an earlier war for Earth?
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