So, one of my personal pet peeves with the Animorphs series is that WE NEVER FOUND OUT MORE ABOUT THE TAXXONS. At one point there were rumors of a possible Taxxon Chronicles (presumably focusing on Arbon) but it obviously didn’t happen.



So, I have a bunch of hypotheses and meta!things floating in my head about the Taxxons, but it’s kind of involved and complicated. That is this post. The read more is to save everyone’s dashes, ‘cause this’ll get long, folks.

Please note that this includes environmental, ecological, and genetic hypotheses on the Taxxons and their homeworld based on what science is known by an enthusiastically scientific individual with a BS in Biochemistry and yet really doesn’t want to look up sources right now so if something sounds factual and you think it’s interesting GO LOOK IT UP IT’S PROBABLY COOLER THAN WHAT I’M SAYING. Additionally, note that this is all Hannah’s fault, as she keeps wondering about Taxxons when we chat.



Please, also, remember: No one ever would want to be a Taxxon. These are not happy theories, and in fact they scare me a bit.

So, the factual things we know about Taxxons as a species are fairly short, and what we see most often is three things:

1. They are giant centipedes

2. That are ETERNALLY HUNGRY, to the extent of cannibalism and even in one case in the books, self-cannibalism.

3. They are fragile and easily injured, like rupturing a paper bag.

What we get glimpses of, mostly from The Andalite Chronicles and a bit #53 is:

- They are really good at underground work. They dig tunnels by basically eating dirt and have excellent night vision.

- There is a brief mention of a “Great Mother” and a hive. (I may be off on the wording; I’d have to double check Andalite Chronicles)

- Their homeworld is essentially a planetary desert.

So now comes in the hypotheses.

On the Taxxon homeworld, I find it really notable that we see no native life but the Taxxons. Yes, okay, they obviously forgot to write in some because WITHOUT ANY THE TAXXONS WOULD BE DEAD.

*cough*

BUT BASICALLY:

Not too long ago, the Taxxon homeworld was probably not a desert.



… Did you know that the Sahara Desert is growing? That it’s been growing for centuries, if not millenia? And solely due to humans?

Here’s what happens: Humans become herders, of goats, cattle, sheep, etc. Herd animals need grass, so forests are removed, and stay away because with the herd animals? They can’t grow back. But if a drought hits, there’s no grass to hold onto the topsoil, and it blows away in the wind. (FUN FACT: Dust from the Sahara lands in the Amazon.) So, the grassland turns to desert.

This is amplified because where there’s vegetation, there’s more rain. (Environmentalists are beginning to fight desertification throughout the world by restoring native ecosystems, especially trees and grasses. Most of the water consumed by plants actually is not used by plants, but is released into the atmosphere through transpiration when they 'breathe’ CO2 and O2. Transpiration is also how trees get water from their roots to their leaves: It creates the same effect as sipping from a straw.)



Now, I am not saying that Taxxons used herd animals; I think that’s pretty unlikely. But I do think that they inadvertently destroyed the environment of their home planet. Sound familiar anyone? (it wouldn’t be the first time KAA used the series as a soapbox.)

So here we go, hypothesis 1: A few generations ago (anywhere from probably 3-7 or so, I’d guess, depending on what a Taxxon’s natural life span is) the Taxxon homeworld was a relatively verdant (though not necessarily green). But something happened.

Maybe they had decreased predation and/or disease and their population exploded. Maybe they were living within their environment, but a natural disaster such as a supervolcano or comet or something happened. Maybe they industrialized and polluted.

But the result was this: The environment was devastated and couldn’t support the Taxxon population. The Taxxons were of such a population that they put even more pressure on the environment to try to feed themselves, and the whole system basically collapsed.

So we have this population that is globally going through the type of hunger levels that modern American humans would associate with the Great Depression. My grandmother survived the Great Depression. It was very, very bad.

(This is the point where I’m going to have trouble putting things into words because… Honestly this bit scares me more than a little.)

The thing about starvation and not having enough food and all of that? It has severe psychological and physical effects. People who have starved horde food, eat when food is there even when it’s full, etc.

But the really scary thing is how stresses like starvation have genetic effects.

Okay, so, here’s where it gets a bit more complicated. Because these effects don’t change your DNA itself, that stays the same obviously. But there’s this realm of information that science is just scratching the surface of, and that is DNA methylization. The bare bones of what happens is this: A methyl group can be added or deleted from parts of your genetic code to turn genes on or off. These changes can be handed down through generations, as well. It’s not understood very well yet.

So. You have this entire generation of Taxxons that has been through a massive starvation event, and a planet that can’t recover well enough to feed the population.

By the time the Yeerks hit, the Taxxons have been genetically and socially programmed to eat whatever they can, whenever they can, and are still always hungry. Even if they were sated, there probably would literally never be enough food for them to not want to eat when something’s presented to them. WE IN FACT SEE THIS IN THE SERIES ALL THE TIME.

(Now, a brief tangent here: There were probably at least some Taxxon families/clans/whatev who were able to have enough food or not starve. These are probably the ones that Arbon fell in with at the end of the Andalite chronicles. They may be hungry a lot, still, but not in the sheer 'literally-cannot-not-eat’ way.)

So, okay, I’m gonna swing back here for a minute: What were the Taxxons like before the environmental collapse?



Well, we have no real clues on what their society was like, though they are obviously sentient creatures. They may even have been just as diverse as humans in terms of culture, society, and technological levels. But okay, in terms of what humans originally were: Savannah hunter-gatherers, I have a hypothesis as to what the Taxxons once were.



I think that the Taxxons evolved to live underground, for the most part. They ate a lot of soil (which they still do), and probably also soil organisms. They came out from underground mostly at night and hunted small prey or possibly grazed plants.



So swing back. Taxxons. Starving. All the time. Malnourished, probably, too, missing vitamins and nutrients that were previously in their diet. Maybe even more so on Earth - different proteins, different mineral composition of the soil, different everything. Possibly missing some amino acids, and dealing with ones they don’t use in their biology.

Their membranes don’t form right. Their bodies are bloated and starving, all at once. And their skin is thin, and easily cut, especially surrounded by bladed creatures who look at you as scum. Surrounded by other species that only see you as weak, see you as something to be despised, see you as pathetic, while you fight the eternal hunger day after day after day, and cannot fill the emptiness inside yourself. Waiting for the day when you are cut and your guts spill out onto the ground, and your fellows eat you alive, as you’ve eaten others alive.

That is what I think a Taxxon is.