#there's something fascinating there

To me they're frustrating in that I feel like they're almost missing something that would tilt them into being a better element of the story, but it's not quite there.

I really want to know how the Pemalites defined violence in their programming (it would give us insight into the Pemalites themselves, too).

Or the limits of their AI in general. If they work like real "AI" they'd probably have some limits to how creatively they can think about getting around their problems. I know Erek says the Pemalites created them to be their equals rather than as robot workers, but he also says the Pemalites were the real creative force and doesn't say but sort of implies that the Chee don't make more of themselves. The only Chee around are the few hundred that the Howlers didn't wipe out. They are machines. In the end they are limited in the ways they can problem solve and I can't help but wish we'd gotten a better idea of what these limits were.

Maybe a better look into the limits of how Chee think could make them less frustrating an element? Barring that, maybe we could have gotten more of a look into the nonviolent sabotage they managed (taking longer to fix a downed communications system than needed, nudging people away from going deeper into the Sharing when possible)?

Heck, I wish it explored how the Chee feel about dogs being carnivores! Wolves hunt. Dogs hunt. They preserved the Pemalites through the Earth animal that looked most like them but that animal was a predator. Rotating the Chee programming to figure out what's going on in there.

Erek's reaction to the violence he could do was good. I can see why he wouldn't want to do more. He also knows that the human and Hork-Bajir hosts died just as violently as their yeerks. He knows he's killed innocents in his ten seconds of reprogramming. He knows he could do that again. I'd have loved to have had that scene address Erek wondering if he could trust his judgement on when and how to kill.