The Beginning (Animorphs)

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Animorphs Books
The Beginning
Narrator	Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, and Ax
Number	#54
Release date	May 2001
Cover art	The silhouettes of each of the Animorphs within each other
Cover quote	It began with six. It will end with five...
Author	K. A. Applegate
Illustrator	David B. Mattingly
Pages	156
Preceded by	The Answer

The Beginning is the fifty-fourth and final book in the Animorphs series.

[edit] Plot summary

Continuing on immediately from #53: The Answer, Rachel attacks the Yeerks in control of the Blade ship, and kills Tom, before dying at the hands of his Yeerk allies shortly after. Tom's morph-capable Yeerks escape in the Blade Ship, abandoning the disabled Pool Ship to the Animorphs. Visser One, defeated, releases his grip on Alloran-Semitur-Corrass after being knocked unconscious by Ax. The remaining Animorphs, as well as Alloran, contact the Andalite fleet, and after hours of negotiations, the Andalite fleet promotes Ax to rank of Prince, and declares the war over. The Animorphs attend Rachel's funeral, and Tobias flies away with Rachel's ashes.

The remainder of the book plays out over the course of three years after the war. Jake, Marco, and Cassie become instantly rich and famous, while Ax returns to the Andalite homeworld. Surrendered Yeerks are allowed to choose an animal form in which to become a nothlit, and similarly Arbron's Taxxons are granted their wish and become nothlit anacondas, relocated to the Amazon Rainforest. The free Hork-Bajir colony is moved to Yellowstone National Park, and are protected by Toby Hamee and Cassie; while humans and Andalites develop an alliance, based mostly around Andalite access to human junk food.

A year after the conclusion of the war, Esplin 9466 is put on trial in The Hague, Netherlands for war crimes and is found guilty. Jake has slumped into depression in the year since the war ended, having minimal contact with his friends and not morphing at all; however with the help of Marco, Cassie, and Ax, he is able to overcome it.

Two years after Esplin 9466's sentencing, Ax is charged with finding the Blade Ship. He notes that the military is being shrunk back, and that he easily has the most interesting assignment. The ship crew finds a mysterious DNA sample, a polar bear. Ax leads the investigation team. As First Officer Menderash-Postill-Fastill later recalls, the ship came alive and attacked. Menderash broke off from the ship, but they were then attacked by pirates. He is the sole survivor.

Meanwhile, Jake finally concedes and agrees to train some special ops teams to use the morphing power. After a few months of meetings, two Andalite officials approach him. Menderash relays his story. Jake agrees to help. He approaches Cassie and Marco. Cassie is now a government official. With her boyfriend, Ronnie, she scouts out new areas for the Hork-Bajir to inhabit. Cassie offers to come, but Jake declines, saying that her role is over, and that she is doing what she wanted the most. He gets her to find Tobias, who has since shut himself away from the world. Marco agrees to come. Jake selects two of his students (Santorelli and Jeanne Gerard) to come as well. They were picked due to their lack of close family and relatives.

As the mission is top-secret and unauthorized, Jake and the others concoct a very elaborate plan. Marco knocks out two Andalites who are guarding a shuttle. They use the shuttle to take off and board a former Yeerk cruiser. Then they crash the shuttle into the ground. The official story would be that terrorists overpowered the Andalite guards but could not pilot the ship and crashed.

The ship is an elegant cruiser. Before boarding, the crew names it The Rachel after their former Animorph. After several months in space, the Animorphs find the Blade Ship, only to discover that Ax has been assimilated into an entity only known as The One. The One threatens to consume the Animorphs, as it had done to Ax. Ambiguously, Jake gives the order to ram the Blade Ship.

[edit] Morphs

No morphs were acquired in this book.

[edit] Trivia

• Katherine Applegate modelled the end of Animorphs after the end of The Lord of the Rings, leaving the characters - for the most part - alive and victorious, but left with a bittersweet, less enchanting world.
• The Beginning also contains the last references to Star Trek in the Animorphs series. They are:
  • In chapter 10, Marco comments that people were relieved that the Andalites weren't like the Borg, a popular Star Trek villain.
  • In the final chapter, the crew of the Rachel come across the renegade Blade Ship. When the Blade ship asks what they are doing, they reply that they are the Enterprise from the United Federation of Planets. The Yeerks, possessing human hosts, instantly recognise the deception and ask where Captain Picard is. Santorelli then replies, "I've always thought of myself more as a Captain Kirk."
  • The One are similar to the Borg in that they assimilate other species.