Matirin is imagining how he would react if he were the prisoner of a Yeerk who asked him what color of artificial skin he wanted his body clothed in while he helplessly watched all his skills put to use on the destruction of his civilization. Because this was the recommended approach to get him to calm down enough he wasn't unpleasant company. He - respects Alloran immensely, actually, for holding to who he was for twenty years, for putting none of himself up for sale. ...of course, maybe if Alloran had liked Yeerks better - but that's not a fair thought. Matirin would not be thinking vaguely sympathetic things about how being a Yeerk must be very hard if he were a prisoner, he'd be thinking about how intensely he hated them.
<I see> he says. <That is encouraging. I have been considering what a reasonable solution for voluntary hosting is, and I do not know, though perhaps your input will be helpful. One problem is that different species seem to - vary, a great deal, in what circumstances make hosting a Yeerk tenable for them. And in general that is a situation where their own governments could set rules, and our role would just be ensuring that those proceedings are not unduly influenced. But - several human governments have been in your hands for years, which complicates their legitimacy and the attitudes of their rulers, and also I believe that many human governments would immediately decide things like that political dissidents should get Yeerks to help them be more law-abiding and I am not comfortable enabling that.
Beyond that - having good standards of informed consent is hard. No one does it in wartime. I do not remotely expect that I would be impressed with your existing standards for considering a host voluntary. If there are long term effects of having a Yeerk, especially ones that make it very hard to live independently without a Yeerk, it seems they are underexplored. I'm glad it is not usually as bad as it is for Alloran, at least. And humans have a bunch of problems they might be tempted to solve with a Yeerk that could instead be solved with the end of material scarcity, and while if I'm not going to manage that I have no right to not let them at least accept Yeerks about it, I might be able to manage that. Especially if I convince my superiors that the alternative is people turning to Yeerks.>