Hork-Bajir

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The Hork-Bajir are a race of aliens in the Animorphs novels.

The Hork-Bajir are usually about seven feet tall. They are a dark shade of green and have feet that resembles a T-rex's feet. Their necks are long and they have a mouth that resembles a falcon's beak with teeth. Their legs are long and their knees bend backwards. They have blades at the wrist, arm, knees, and forehead; plus spikes on the tail. Marco describes them as "Walking salad shooters" when they are first seen in the first book because of their spikes. The number of horn blades, as they are often called, vary if it is a female or a male. Males have three horn blades and females have two. The Hork-Bajir were taken over by the Yeerks. Despite their fearsome looks, they are peaceful herbivores that utilize their blades to harvest tree bark. Different blades have specific jobs for cutting bark. Elbow blade for a straight cut, wrist blade for taking strips of bark off, and knee blades for cutting bark close to the ground. Unlike the traditional idea of aliens, they are not super-advanced; in fact, the average Hork-Bajir intelligence is said to around the level of a four-year-old human, except for Seers (see below). They possess no technology of their own; owing to the genetic limits on their intelligence. Hork-Bajir do, however, have incredible endurance and healing ability. One, named Jara Hamee, once sliced his very head open, exposing his brain, to demonstrate the absence of a Yeerk in his head. It immediately scarred over afterwards.

In combat, an Andalite tail is faster than a Hork-Bajir blade.

[edit] History

Hork-Bajir did not in fact evolve naturally: they were genetically engineered by the original dominant race on their planet called the Arn. After an asteroid struck the planet several millennia ago, most of the planet was left uninhabitable apart from deep valleys that were ripped open by the impact. The Arn, who were adept at genetic engineering, created enormous trees with which the atmosphere could be maintained in the valleys. Not willing to become a race of tree-herders, they created the Hork-Bajir as being naturally suited to tree-herding. So that the Hork-Bajir remained unaware of their existence, the Arn also created a layer of blue gas halfway down the valleys: the Hork-Bajir lived above, the Arn lived below, and several types of genetically engineered monsters lived within the blue mist to scare away any Hork-Bajir.

When the Yeerk forces discovered the Hork-Bajir homeworld, they saw not a race of tree-herders but shock troops. They began to kidnap and take the Hork-Bajir as hosts, at first covertly but later openly. For seven months a guerilla resistance was headed by the Hork-Bajir Seer Dak Hamee and the Andalite Aldrea, until the Andalite forces arrived. But even then the reinforcements were small and ineffective. The Andalites and Hork-Bajir were losing the war fast. Eventually the Andalites used a quantum virus to kill the majority of the Hork-Bajir population in an attempt to prevent the Yeerks from taking more as hosts. Consequently the Hork-Bajir now exist in limited numbers.

When the Yeerks were defeated and driven from Earth, some of them chose to morph into animals permanently, and the Hork-Bajir were given Yellowstone Park as a new place to live.

[edit] Culture

Hork-Bajir culture centers mainly around the harvesting of bark from the trees, as well as something close to worship of "Mother Sky and Father Deep". Mother Sky is the general reference of the sky, and revered for the obvious rain that it brings. Father Deep was the location of the blue mist where monsters ate the Hork-Bajir who wandered too close. This was more feared and respected than revered.

[edit] Seers

The Hork-Bajir Seer is a genetic anomaly in the Hork-Bajir race the Arn were never able to eliminate. They are abnormally smart for Hork-Bajir, and usually serve as leaders of their groups. The only Hork-Bajir Seer the Animorphs ever encountered was Toby, the child of the freed Hork-Bajir Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak. Toby was named after Tobias, who helped Jara and Ket escape the Yeerks. Her great-grandfather, Dak Hamee, was a Seer from the book The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, and her great-grandmother, Aldrea, was an Andalite nothlit (a morpher who remained stuck in a morph forever; in this case, she willingly trapped herself in Hork-Bajir form). Their child, Seerow Hamee (named for Aldrea's father, the Andalite Prince who gave the Yeerks space travel), was as far as anybody knows a normal Hork-Bajir who fathered Jara.