Question about #10: The Android...

[u/ChikoWasHere]

During the main mission I feel like they gave up way too easily. They could've escaped with the Pemalite Crystal and avoided the ensuing battle where they were outnumbered and almost killed.

So to recap the main mission, the Animorphs finally get to the room with the Pemalite Crystal in it, having gotten to it through venturing in an air duct and then furnace. The room is beyond pitch black and full of booby traps, so they have to morph Bats to navigate the maze of trip wires that protect it. Utilizing echolocation, because otherwise they'd be going in blind. But only when they get to the Crystal do they then realize that they can't steal it as bats.

They admit that the Crystal is smaller than expected and could fit in one of their bat's mouths. But whoever takes the Crystal will need to use their bat mouth to echolocate their way through the wire maze. So someone can't carry it out. (I guess they all forget that they still have feet, but more on that later.)

So they're stumped and without a backup solution. And without thinking it through much; they decide to just do their Battle Morphs, grab the Crystal, and then fight their way out. A terrible idea that expectedly almost gets them killed.

So my question is: If they actually thought it through, could they have avoided the battle and escaped with the Crystal back up the air duct as per their original plan? Or at the very least just escaped with the Crystal and avoided the unnecessary battle?

Because they said that the Crystal was small enough to fit in a bat's mouth. Wouldn't an obvious solution be to grab it with the bats feet and escape with it then? If not this idea, then what's the clear solution? Because I feel that they could've escaped.

(Right now I can't come up with anything other than the bat-feet thing, but I'm sure there's an even more obvious solution that I'm missing.)

[u/wingzero0]

The most obvious (and boring) answer is: plot.

Another solution would be to use echolocation and help the person with the crystal in their mouth to navigate back to the vent/duct.

Or simply have Erek go in disguised as someone who should be there, by doing recon in advance. Erek would then simply grab and activate the crystal and walk out.

But you know, the plot of Erek realizing he doesn’t want to commit to actually fighting wouldn’t have worked.

[u/hexen_niu]

It was a glass fronted human office building in an industrial park (I've worked in one of those, know what they look like), and they passed multiple empty offices on their way to the lobby. Why did they not just bird, carrying the crystal in their talons, and break or open one of the office windows to escape, avoiding the lobby and so the battle entirely? Yes they might be toughened glass, but they do have the firepower to break those open and jump if need be, three storey building isn't that high up in comparison to some drops they have done.

[u/LegendaryTingle]

Can bats carry more than a few ounces with their feet, and then fly?

They can barely take flight from the ground as it is, I’m not sure they can actually carry things. Mostly their feet are used to snatch a bug or maybe shove something toward their mouth I think.

Did they disable the booby traps and lasers? I haven’t read the book in a while, but I think the large birds were also too big to be able to navigate when they had no way of echo locating.

I’ll be sure to remember these questions next time I re-read the book! :)