In order to be technical, I suppose you could say it all started with Seerow hanging over Andalite technology to the Yeerks. Or, you could say it started with the Peace Movement, who was not founded by Aftran 942, but rather by Tarash 514, who was then Visser thirty-seven. Aftran was a relatively early member of the movement, but she lacked the brains to be able to organize it. Although the Peace Movement Yeerks recognized her as a martyr to their cause –that is, until they found out she was a whale, in which she was simply "an example of their cause"—she did not start the whole thing.

Perhaps it was better that she was known in history for having done so. If the leader was killed, the movement would die, according to Yeerks who hated the movement.

Except, the small fact remained that the real leader lived on.

Tarash 514 of the Hett Simplatt pool was a Yeerk who everyone saw as an example to the Empire. They didn't realize that she was slowly working against it even as she was rewarded for working for it.

The Peace Movement started out with a group of Yeerks who felt it was cruel to take involuntary hosts. They opposed the empire, but were not in the majority. Most Yeerks were aware of their cause and sympathized with it, but were too scared to join the movement.

Death by Kandrona starvation was not a pleasant fate. Nor was death by torture.

Everyone thought that, when the Yeerks were given the power to morph and basically commanded to choose a form and become a nothlit as that, all of the galaxy's problems would be solved.

It wasn't that easy.

It started out with a small group of humans and (extremely few, but still existent) hork-bajir who hosted Yeerks willingly found that they did not want to be separated from their Yeerk. They had been a host for some time, in many cases, and were used to the company. They had found a way to form a symbiotic relationship. They were happy.

At first, people tried to keep this quiet and use spare Kandronas and so forth in order to feed. Or, since all Yeerks were given the power to morph, they would morph an animal and then demorph, which would restart their kandrona cycle. Tarash 514, however, saw that there was a group of people emerging and decided to try to bring them together. This was even riskier than the Peace Movement because there was a great fear of Yeerks, especially by former Controllers.

A few psychologists heard about this movement and wanted to do a study involving Yeerks and their effect on willing humans. The Peace Movement agreed to participate, since if the findings were positive, this could basically be their ticket to open organization and free infestation.

In particular, the study focused on the effects that happened when an involuntary Controller was freed of his Yeerk. The results were very controversial, but so accurate that they could not be denied.

People with Yeerks tended to be well adjusted, happier, and hold greater endurance during trials in life. For them, their Yeerk was their friend (often their closest one) who they could confide in and go to for help.

For involuntary ex-Controllers, there was no healing period. While some of the later Controllers moved on to live relatively happy lives, most were simply depressed and unable to recover. They were simply used to the presence in their mind, almost to the extent of an addictive drug, and while they were never actually happy under Yeerk control, it was what they knew.

Some people also had trouble mastering motor skills and speaking once they were finally freed, which resulted in quite a few people being fired from work. (Not being able to concentratenot being able to communicateboss who loses patience easilybeing laid off. Politely, of course) It was really more cruel to take the Yeerk out of the host than to put a Yeerk inside an involuntary host. Although some therapists tried to help, most had not been Controllers or had not experienced Yeerk domination in this way, so there wasn't much they could do to help.

Once these findings were released, some people got very annoyed...they claimed that these scientists were trying to reinfest the world, and others said that they must be Yeerks in disguise. When other scientists tried to refute the original ones by doing the same study but trying to prove the opposite, they found that they could not do so.

So, to make a long story short, the Human (or Host)-Yeerk Alliance was formed. By Tarash 514, of course. All people could be infested voluntarily, however, there were a few conditions.

1. Free permission to leave. At any time, the human can ask the Yeerk to leave, or the Yeerk can leave on its own. The human can then choose to be free or to try another Yeerk. Limit to this: Once every two weeks.

2. No torture. Self explanatory.

3. Operations: All Yeerks who choose to stay Yeerks must undergo a delicate procedure which basically forces them to withdraw from the human's brain (refrain from taking control) if the human being does not wish their Yeerk to do so.

After this, the Sharing opened, but they were honest this time. Now, a few years later, more Yeerks had to be transported from other planets in order to deal with the demand for infestation. Originally, there were 10,000 Yeerks who controlled 5000 people- now the number has spread well into the millions.

Another problem also became how to deal with the Kandrona situation. Many hosts were simply too busy to spend several hours waiting at the Yeerk Pool to feed, plus the additional driving time. As a result, all Yeerks were provided with a Kandrona and nutrient packets which were supposed to last a year.

If they broke, the host must pay a twenty-five dollar fine for a replacement.

The Kandrona Industry started up after this new demand for Yeerks, and is one of the wealthiest companies in the nation.

Even so, not many people are aware of Yeerks because it tends to blend with society as a sort of counter-culture. No one really says anything about it, and it's seen as a sort of dirty secret. A spreading secret would be a more accurate name for it.

Emily was one of the original humans and she hosted Tarash since nearly the beginning of the war. (Always voluntary- the two were inseparable. Except when Tarash had to feed, and then they were. Separable, that is.) Since going to college, she had been uneasy about her secret, and finally confided in her friends fairly recently.

She feared that her friends would consider her crazy, but, to her surprise, many sympathized. Some of them thought the idea was a good one, and wanted to become Controllers, or at the more politically correct way to put it was, "Members of the HYA."

What none of the Yeerks who infested (or "partnered", as was more polite to say) her friends knew was the stresses that college students went through.