Arn (Animorphs)

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The Arn are fictional creatures from the Animorphs book series. The Arns' physiology somewhat resembles that of birds. It is possible that the Arn were the galaxy's masters of biological innovation. Interestingly, this race created an entire ecosystem after a calamity destroyed much of the life of their planet. The Arn then decided to shield themselves from any more such catastrophes by moving their settlements into the deep chasms caused by the disaster.

In old Norse, Arn means eagle.

They created the Hork-Bajir in order to support the vast jungles of high-rise trees. The Arn also created the creatures of The Deep to ensure no intrepid Hork-Bajir enters the Arn settlements deep in the planet's chasms, known to the Hork-Bajir as 'The Deep'. The Arn controlled the murderous creatures with chips implanted in their heads, that allowed them to give the creatures simple commands. As mentioned by Aldrea, the Arn seem to be distantly related to the chadoo.

When the Yeerks invaded the Arn/Hork-Bajir world, the Arn denied the Yeerks any possibility of being made into Controllers, or any Yeerk acquisition of the Arn's advanced technology. The Arn achieved this by altering their body by making an already weak blood vein even weaker, so that when a Yeerk enters the brain, the vein will pop, thus killing the would-be host and controller. Upon realising this, the Yeerks used the Arn for slave-labour and target practice and eventually exterminated them through mass murder, exhaustion, and starvation.

However, one Arn who played a major role in the battle for the Hork-Bajir, Quafijinivon, travelled to Earth on a stolen Yeerk light freight ship and studied and absorbed every human language. He found the Hork-Bajir colony and the Animorphs. There, Quafijinivon used a technique known as ixcila, whereby a dead individual's 'soul' or 'essence' would find a host and become alive again. In this case, that person was the Hork-Bajir nothlit Aldrea, Seerow's daughter. Quafijinivon solicited the Hork-Bajir and the Animorph's help, and they travelled to the Hork-Bajir world to help the dying Arn create Hork-Bajir in his lab.

Cassie, one of the Animorphs, has to share her mind with Aldrea's memory so they could find something. This also allowed them to read each other's thoughts and memories. Cassie learns all about Aldrea and her lover, a seer in the Hork-Bajiir race, who died when the Yeerks enslaved the Hork-Bajiir. Aldrea had landed in the Hork-Bajiir planet with her family and later voluntarily became a nothlit, just so she could be with her husband.