Stepping it Up a Notch

[Leroy]

When I first started this site, I figured that people would build upon each others threads and some serious competition would emerge for the animorphs (Like how the original animorphs had the yeerks as competition). It may be happening a little bit, but not very much. So how about we change that officially and give ourselves some real adversaries?

Here are a few ideas I had, based off of what is going on right now in each city. Any of this can be changed at any time, and it doesn't really even have to be planned out beforehand.

Mariposa: Here, Jeremy's history combined with Jamilan's presence makes Mariposa a good place to have an anti-alien group.

Hemington: The Hemington group is currently dealing with some poachers, so maybe that could lead them to a huge black market smuggling ring? And who knows who or what the black market is helping to supply.

Arbella: Maybe another group similar to The Sharing could have started up here and the old group of animorphs (the group Sarah was from) could have originally been sent to investigate. But I would suggest the group have a different 'gimmick' than The Sharing had. Maybe a group interested in interstellar peace or something?

That's all I got so far. Any other ideas? We can change the course of existing threads or start new threads in order to start this up. Either way works for me.

[Jamilan]

Definitely. I like the idea of bringing some adversaries. I'm confused about your "Sharing" idea, however. How would they be an adversary?

Also, eventually, some "dark" themes would be interesting. Really serious, dangerous things that the characters have to deal with.

[Leroy]

Oops. I forgot to mention it would be run by yeerks, just like in the books, too. I'm thinking a small group that managed to avoid being caught at the end of the war. Maybe they were out in some random location in space? Or they were in hiding in some sort of secret underground facility? And now they would be trying to rebuild some sort of resistance.

[Nancy]

Or some voluntary Controllers could've hidden a few dozen yeerks away to restart the Sharing.

I agree with you Leroy. We do need opponents. If you want, Charlotte could keep popping up everywhere, but always being coincidentally being foiled by the Animorphs?

The Hemington idea works. The ivory thieves can escape but get followed to a hideout where they get busted and the animorphs can learn of the whole situation. That can lead to a string of break-ins and thefts all over Hemington (like museums, rare pets, jewelry shops, etc.) and surrounding cities

I'm not so sure about the Arbella one, though. are there really that many aliens in Arbella that would result in a (possibly violent) anti-alien group? Like, are Andalite tourists popular there? We could even make up new aliens...but probably not. Other than that it works.

We could always have an international group of top-notch thieves and crime-lords who tangle with a city. I can't think up anything else right now, though.

[belnoah]

i'm not sure i understand the idea of yeerks pretending to be anti-alien, because then it seems like they would be drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. i also don't understand what their purpose in putting up an anti-alien front would be.

however, an anti-alien group made of regular humans, possibly with yeerk leadership (again, unnecessary attention is confusing me) seems like an adversary that i could love to hate

[Leroy]

Nov 18, 2009 17:17:34 GMT -5 Nancy said:

I'm not so sure about the Arbella one, though. are there really that many aliens in Arbella that would result in a (possibly violent) anti-alien group? Like, are Andalite tourists popular there? We could even make up new aliens...but probably not. Other than that it works.

There aren't really many aliens there right now (at least not that we have established) but that doesn't mean there can't be. Maybe Jamilan has been spotted in the area, or maybe a community for nothlited yeerks is being set up, or maybe the hork-bajir territory is being expanded to include a nearby forest. There are other possibilities too, I'm sure.

Nov 18, 2009 22:44:31 GMT -5 @belnoah said:

i'm not sure i understand the idea of yeerks pretending to be anti-alien, because then it seems like they would be drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. i also don't understand what their purpose in putting up an anti-alien front would be.

however, an anti-alien group made of regular humans, possibly with yeerk leadership (again, unnecessary attention is confusing me) seems like an adversary that i could love to hate

I had meant that the anti-alien groups would be made up of humans. Not yeerks or other aliens. I figured it could be whatever group it was responsible for killing Jeremy's parents, so I thought I could leave the exact details up to you, Jeremy. (I thought I read that in Jeremy's history somewhere on this site, but if I am misremembering, I apologize)

[belnoah]

no no, u read it right. jeremy is looking for a terrorist group that killed his family. i just thought u meant that u wanted all these enemy factions to be yeerk-based.

when i have time, probably net week, i can try to sit down and make up a terrorist group and pm it or post it to somewhere... (so.... government ppl are prolly watching this site now, since we've mentioned terrorists a bunch of times.... teehee. i feel important ^_^)

[Jamilan]

LOL! Once they learn our characters are fighting terrorists, they'll figure we're okay. By the way, I like the idea of using criminals/terrorists as some of the baddies. There's a lot of potential for those "dark" themes I love so much. <3

[belnoah]

Well, Mariposa, we have a nemesis. The organization's name is "Erde Premier" and it wants all the aliens gone. That's the basics, all i got so far...

[Ivrim-Escoriath-Winwall]

Hope it's ok to revive a really old thread.

I was trying to think of opposition based on stuff already present on the site, and two things occurred to me related to the anti-alien idea. Both would probably require travel if they're even usable.

Anyway, since the Hork-Bajir were introduced into Yellowstone, I imagine there are probably purists who are opposed to the idea, since the whole idea of a National Park is to preserve an ecosystem, as unaltered by humans as possible. Introducing Hork-Bajir into the area sort of violates that, not to mention that if there are enough of them they could be damaging to the environment.

Which brings me to the second point: Taxxon and Yeerk nothlits. Taxxons especially. If populations of them are high enough, they could also damage fragile ecosystems. When lots of new predators are suddenly dumped into an existing population that's probably going to throw things out of whack.

The more reasonable people would probably be willing to work with the Andalites, Hork-Bajir, etc. to find a good solution to the problem.

And then there will be the crazies who just say "Kill 'em all."

ETA: Oh, and that reminds me, what ever happened to the Nartec?

[Leroy]

All those ideas sound useable. I could definitely see the hork-bajir thing happening sometime.

As for nothlits, we have introduced a few (as well as a couple non-nothlits) but we haven't addressed the environmental aspects of the nothlits yet. I see some potential there. However, do you have anything a little more specific in mind? Like, what might the animorphs do to try and fix the ecosystems?

And the Nartecs. I think that at the end of their book, their city collapsed. Their society was on the decline, and with the destruction of their home, there may not be many left. But they are probably still around, just in hiding like they always have been. There are plot possibilities here too.

[Ivrim-Escoriath-Winwall]

Well, the thing about the ecosystem issue is I don't actually know a good solution to it. (Not sure if that's why it appeals to me or not.)

Inserting the Hork-Bajir/nothlits into an Earth ecosystem maybe good for the aliens but it probably would have a detrimental effect on that environment. If you save one, it'll be at the expense of the other. Personally I like that it's not a clear-cut decision of what's the right thing to do.

There are maybe some potential compromises for the Hork-Bajir, like placing strict limitations on breeding, but even that could be viewed as a right violation or something. The Hork-Bajir themselves might not realize it but someone like Toby Hamee probably would. I can't immediately think of any for the nothlits but anybody else is welcome to give it a try.

As for the Nartec I'm rereading the series right now and I haven't gotten around to that book again. I don't remember much of anything but Wikipedia and Seerowpedia both said it was sort of implied they died off but never addressed. It just seemed like something interesting to bring up to keep it from all being about terrorists or Yeerks.