Was the Council wrong in "Visser"?

[JFalcon]

 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.

[Mira]

You're right. Maybe they did a misstake...  Everyone makes misstakes... But in this case... Let's say I don't complain.

[JFalcon]

lol, true, their mistake was to humanity's benefit. 

[Mira]

Maybe they where just hypnotized by the Ellimist...

[RYTX]

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

[Chad32]

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.

[Starsword]

Our side? Visser 3 had his charm, being the one dimensional bumbling stereotype, I had moments where I felt sorry for his utter ineptitude.

[Aleron]

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.

[JFalcon]

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.

[Azguard]

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?

[JFalcon]

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? 

[Azguard]

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...

[Zues770]

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. . ."

[Azguard]

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. ^^

[JFalcon]

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.