Non-existant Doom

I just finished The Doom Machine by Mark Teague, which I found to be a relatively easy book after learning it's surprisingly for 8-10 year olds, though I still found a deeper meaning.

In The Doom Machine Jack and Isadora are abducted by aliens and travel across the universe to try and save Earth, which I found to be a pretty basic plot. Throughout the book I saw them being faced with moral challenges, where they could either save Earth, or succumb to an alien authority and let Earth be captured. Jack and Isadora's goal was to destroy the doom machine, created by Jack's uncle Bud. If the Skreeps were able to figure out how to use the machine, they would've used it to create tunnels in space to make it easier to capture and eventually colonize Earth. The overall purpose of the Skreeps existence is to ultimately take over everything that exists and rule with immense greed and apathy.

Throughout the book I noticed the Skreeps being unnecessarily cruel and repeatedly untrustworthy to their prisoners (Jack and Isadora) who at any point could've allowed the Skreeps to use the machine and just become one of them. The four human main characters in the book all showed their different views of how to deal with the challenge at hand. I think morally, Isadora wouldn't have succumbed because of what an intelligent character she was, especially compared to Jack. I think Isadora, believing strongly in science and knowledge, felt like she could've found a more logical way to overcome the Skreeps. I think someone like Jack on the other hand would've been more excited to try something ridiculous like infiltrating their land with aggressive force. Bud on the other hand had a mindset between Isadora and Jack, where he was up for an adventure, but also used science and logic to be able to *SPOILERS* save Earth. I interpreted Bud as a character who would be more likely to lean towards Jack and want to blow something up versus persuading the Skreeps to stop. I saw Isadora's mom, Dr. Shumway as someone who would just be an older version of Isadora, who through the story line was paired with Bud for the majority of the book, and I thought she treated him just as Isadora was treating Jack. I thought both of the female characters in the book treated the males as wild, unintelligent beings, whereas I felt like they were looking at themselves as the intellectual superiors (which I agreed with), though they never questioned what the doom truly was.

I feel like the moral dilemmas brought up in The Doom Machine can easily be extended to our world. I think a lot of the time people can be faced with something simple, where they can either just feel nothing for others and let these bad things happen to them, or stand up for others and really fight back. I think this could be simplified into bullying, where the Skreeps are the bullies, and they're bullying Earth. Part of Earth sees this happening, and can either side with the Skreeps, and let the rest of Earth be bullied, or stand up to the Skreeps and fight back to protect the rest of Earth, and in the book, Jack and Isadora do fight back and end up saving Earth.