Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: JFalcon on February 25, 2009, 10:41:28 AM
-
Having recently reread Visser I had a thought.
The Council of Thirteen sends Visser One to Anati because she/it is their most successful military leader, but am I the only one who thinks they might have made a mistake there?
Visser One was successful at infiltration, there's no solid evidence to show that that particular Yeerk was an adept fleet commander because unlike Visser Three whom we saw winning space battles Visser One is, seemingly promoted from Sub-Visser Four hundred something to Visser One just through commanding the until that time successful infiltration of earth.
The Anati planet was meant to essentially snap the spine of the Andalite space fleet by luring them into a trap, that's something Visser Three might have been better suited for, after all he took out the Galaxy Tree that way, and Alloran would have known Andalite tactics, might have known the fleet commanders and therefore had some knowledge of what to expect from them and so on.
Does anyone else think the Council made kind of a major mistake? I for one believe that simple decision may have lost them the war, we're not told how large the Andalite fleet is exactly but had they lost at Anati I'm willing to bet it would have hurt them pretty bad. Visser One knew the Animorphs' secret (granted the Council didn't know that she/it did) and could have taken them out in no time at all, or simply set up shop somewhere they couldn't follow (like DC!) how different would the series be if the Council had actually used their officers properly?
Visser One knew humans and subtlety, she/it was sent to fight Andalites in space.
Visser Three knew Andalites and star combat, he/it was ordered to continue subtly infiltrating earth.
If the council recognized this--which they should have if they bothered to, y'know, read military records--why didn't they act on it?
And sorry if this has been posted before, I didn't see it anywhere.
-
You're right. Maybe they did a misstake... :) Everyone makes misstakes... But in this case... Let's say I don't complain.
-
lol, true, their mistake was to humanity's benefit. :)
-
Maybe they where just hypnotized by the Ellimist...
-
We don't have hard evidence she couldn't command, true, but Visser only went over a brief time of her inflitating Earth, we don't see what see did before, and after.
She must have more skill than merely finding species, seeing as Subvisser still is a respectable rank, plus I doubt merely finding and preping Earth got her the promotion to top dog, there must be more to it than that.
Mistake....no, but maybe not their best move either
-
I think it may have been better for the Yeerks if the council sent V3 to anati. But it was better for our side that they didn't.
-
Our side? Visser 3 had his charm, being the one dimensional bumbling stereotype, I had moments where I felt sorry for his utter ineptitude.
-
Maybe the Council wanted her to fail. Or at least they wouldn't mind if she did. Isn't one of their biggest problems their shaky, backstabbing political structure? Losing Anati might cost them in the long run, but maybe they thought they'd pull through on sheer virtue of being Yeerks.
Just throwing it out there.
-
Maybe the Council wanted her to fail. Or at least they wouldn't mind if she did. Isn't one of their biggest problems their shaky, backstabbing political structure? Losing Anati might cost them in the long run, but maybe they thought they'd pull through on sheer virtue of being Yeerks.
Just throwing it out there.
Maybe you're right. Wanting her to fail makes a certain kind of sense if you consider that maybe they didn't see victory in Anati as a possibility regardless of who was commanding the defense.
Visser One might actually have been something of a Yeerk version of Elfangor. She found and engineered the capture of the human race, she went from sub-visser four hundrd something to Visser One in less than a decade, she showed us no tactical prowess but I agree that doesnt mean she didn't have any. To discover that Visser One, like Elfangor, had broken the laws, in this case falling in love with another species and shielding individuals of it, to publicly execute the most successful Yeerk in the military might have had a crushing blow to morale, but to allow her to die gloriously in a hopeless battle, to make her a martyr might have had the opposite effect, and no one would ever have to know about her sins.
Maybe Anati wasn't the chance for redemption she suspected, but rather a different sort of death sentence. When she survived she stole from herself that opportunity to be the Yeerk Elfangor, to see a Blade ship named after her, instead she showed she was incompotent and perhaps even a traitor, it was safe to execute her then because her popularity would suffer greatly after such a major loss, especially if it was misreported as having been less one sided than it might actually have been.
Hmm, great fanfiction material at least.
-
oh my gosh. that explanation sounds good.
Of course, who is to say that they needed Visser One as a tactical specialist? Maybe they sent her there to command respect in what otherwise might have been problems with insubordination. With Visser One caught up with feeling things for humans they didn't need her on Earth anymore.
Perhaps because of Visser One's background, she might have also known the whole Anati space a lot better than others.
Gosh i wish we knew more about Anati. Is it a place, designation, or species?
-
I for one sort of wondered about what was so significant about Anati myself. I believe they call it a planet but I mean I assume it's also a species. But what are their capabilities? What made the Andalites round up a thirty ship strong fleet for the purpose of liberating it? Why did they feel they needed every single ship for Anati when two or three dome ships could have easily overpowered Visser Three's force over earth?
What was on or at Anati that the Andalites would be so determined to go there and that the Yeerks, who are stated as being unwilling to fight unwinable fights, wouldn't back down? See why I wish there was an EU? :P
-
EU? european union?
Well, i think Anati was a strategic military location in space. Perhaps it had a wealth of minerals, and was fairly easy to guard. I think they said something about an asteroid field in that area...
-
The Council of Thirteen's decision seemed to me as if K.A. couldn't think of a good one. It was like the lame excuse you gave back in high school as to why you were late to class "Um, what had happened was. . ."
-
well. there's two things. if we want to just stay within the animorphs universe it would be fun. or we could go outside the series...and just say KA Applegate made mistakes. its not as fun. ^^
-
EU? european union?
Well, i think Anati was a strategic military location in space. Perhaps it had a wealth of minerals, and was fairly easy to guard. I think they said something about an asteroid field in that area...
EU=Expanded Universe.
And yes, they wanted to use the asteroid fields to plant Dracon cannons and other defenses, still there must have been something really important there to make the Andalites as determined to go there as earth, maybe indeed minerals, towards the end of the series I wouldn't be surprised if the Andalites put natural resources over the freedom of humanity.
-
yeah, we need an Animorph's EU.
Anyway, yeah, natural resources may be good. we never really know how many Andalites there really are (I'm thinking it would be low because it usually is when you look at geographical graphs of high tech or advanced populations) and how many conflicts they were fighting. They might have been fighting several.
Aside from natural resources, maybe the Anati had some special abilities that made them useful to the Yeerks (sorta like the psychic ability for the Leerans). Maybe it was hardened armored carapaces, or natural camo/cloak skins.
-
I think the Council, or the Emperor at least, was like Hitler. He didn't care how good his commanders were, he sacked and hired them at will, or even took charge himself. That's just an idea though..
-
Perhaps, especially if he/she/it were commanding a failing empire (they collapsed shortly after Anati and Earth) fighting a losing war (they got their butts kicked at Earth and Anati) the stress and worry could have made him less stable.
-
well it's been awhile since I read it (over 10 years) but I think that one guy on the council liked visser 1 and knew or suspected that she had some sort of conflict of interest at earth. He knew hat if she were to remaine there it would possibly undermine their efforts.
As far as tactics go, the OIC isn't really that involved in the tactics, that's operations' job, there's just too much for the commander to do to plan everything on her own. she could have been an amazing leader but a lack luster tactician, like Washington, or she could be an amazing tactician and we just might not have known about it.
As far as Visser 3's invasion of earth goes (I have to admit, I never read past somewhere in the upper 30s in the series, stumbled on this place and started rereading them as ebooks), we, or I, don't really know how well it was actually going at this point. The animorphs had hurt them, but without actually knowing how strong they were overall we don't know if it was that significant. we know they devoted a lot of resources to fighting the animorphs, but they were the only resistance around. Maybe despite the setbacks, they were still making good progress.
-
Well, if V1 doesn't have any great tactical skill that we don't know about, then the OP's argument that V3 should have handled the Anati invasion and V1 the Earth infestation is a very good one. Explanations like that she did display some high space-battle tactical skills throughout her career but not narrated in Visser is also possible.
In any case, I would say 'mistake' or not, that she was successful with in preparing the battle in the Anati system but betrayed by the counsel. The sentence of to both her and V3 of "Death by Kandrana, but you can earn a pardon by performing well" allows them to still be useful to the counsel, but allows the counsel to dispose of them anytime they are no longer useful (or more potentially dangerous than useful). V1 wondered whether Garoff (her mentor) acting as the speaker for the counsel would be good or bad for her, possibly because Garoff knew her level of ambition well; so stringing her along just as long as she was useful then using the criminal excuse to get rid of her as a threat.
So the scenario in my mind:
The counsel passed its judgment at the end of Visser. This got V1 into the Anati system, where she devised the attack on the Anati homeworld which involved laying a brilliant hidden trap of Dracon cannons amid the asteroid fields, so that should the Andalites come to the Anati aid, they would be wiped out in an ambush (maybe it wasn't that brilliant of a plan and anyone else leading the battle could have done it just as easily, in which cause V1 was sent there just to provide more authority and get her considerable personal troops and ships into the area).
Then, someone among the counsel (Garoff? The Emperor?) or the counsel as a whole betrayed her, deciding to carry out the Kandrana starvation even though she had set up a good battle plan and clever ambush. A further sign that this was a personal, malicious act is that rather than having the starvation carried out in the Anati system where V1 already was, or bringing her before the counsel to execute her before her superiors, they bring her before not only someone inferior to her rank but her personal enemy to make the execution personally humiliating.
We know that it wasn't an actual failure in the Anati system on V1's part (which is what Taylor seemed to believe in #42, The Test) that caused her to be executed, because in #46, The Deception, when the Animorphs contact the Andalite fleet they have information from Marco's mom that V1 had set up the ambush and that the Andalites would be wiped out if they got caught in the trap.
The irony is that if V1 set up a battle plan and ambush that would have been successful, then was removed from power and sentenced to execution by the counsel, then the counsel inadvertently provided the Animorphs with the info from Marco's mom to save the Andalites from the ambush.