It seems likely that was only because they went first, and that if they'd gone second their reds would have rioted like everyone else's.

They did a test city and even after that they didn't have problems with that. People don't appreciate that about them but it's true!

It was very commendable to do a test city first. How're they planning to handle surrendering Yeerks, surrendering hosts who are probably unclean because they just had Yeerks in them, etcetera -

Orvaran theologians are working on whether it is possible to decontaminate a host. It seems like it might be hard without opening up the skull.

And what will they do if they conclude it can't be done?

Well, then it'll be like those people are red. Although it probably won't be hereditary unless they've been Yeerk slaves for generations, so not that bad. Orvara drove its reds away, it didn't specifically want them to be dead.

But it, uh, caused them to be dead. If he had friends who might be rendered red by Yeerks he would not necessarily want them in the hands of Orvaran allies, do they see the concern there?

What do captured Andalites do?

Well, it hasn't come up because Andalites have a hard-to-rob-them-of means of suicide but if an Andalite were captured then once the Yeerk was starved out of them they'd be fine and welcomed back among their fellow warriors.

So, they can send polluted aliens home to their alien buddies.

And polluted Orvarans? Drive them out to die?

They might skip the starving them out step. Seems like a lot of hassle for not much ROI.

Matirin anticipates headaches when his allies insist on killing their own people. He will not teach Orvara starships at this time.

What if they make their soldiers sign things asserting they'd rather die than hang out for three days containing a Yeerk.

Andalites would also rather that but often Yeerks can be coerced out faster than that and it seems like they'd also drive out to their deaths soldiers who had contained a Yeerk but were rescued from a pool, say.

...they will lean on their theologians.

He eagerly awaits the results.

Orvara's theologians have a fair amount of international respect.

Then perhaps pressuring them not to conclude that former Yeerk hosts are all unclean is worth having Orvara as an ally.

It will help if they know more about how Yeerks work.

They are slugs like so and they go in through the ear canal and spread out to intercept all electrical activity in the brain like so.

Orvara's theologians conclude that it may be possible to decontaminate an ex-host with extremely thorough lavaging of the ears and electroshock therapy.

He inquires of Anitam and Tapa and Voa whether this is their planned handling of anyone who has been captured and whether this may tempt Yeerks to briefly infest lots of Amentans just so they turn on each other in pollution hysteria or get distracted from the war electroshocking themselves.

They haven't even gotten as far as declaring Yeerks unclean yet. Like, they sound gross, but so are like, actual slugs, which are not technically unclean.

Oh good.

Matirin would like to talk to a red. And a Mioleen.