If You Were Visser Three...

[Terenia]

How would you fight the war? We've talked about what you would do if you were on the human side of things, but what if you were a Yeerk? Personally, I think infiltration would have worked, if only it had been approached in a smarter way, with less regard for voluntary/involuntary hosts.


My strategy would first be to go after the youth first and work my way up. This would be painfully easy. Find a way to infest an administrator at a school....let's say the principal. The principal orders a mandatory staff meeting for his Assistant Principals, who all are then infested against their will (this is no more than 10 people, which I think a troop of well hidden Hork-Bajir's, or well-aimed Dracon's could handle). If there are too many AP's, the principal could simply ask for one-on-one conferences where they will be infested.

From there, the Assistant Principals (who, at my school are all over a set number of teachers, maybe 20-40) will call a department meeting, or one-on-one conference, where all of the teacher's would get a Yeerk-in-the-head. Once the entire administration is infested getting the students is a cakewalk. No matter what age students are psyched about a 'field trip'. You could practically walk them into the Yeerk Pool with little resistance. Or, failing that, each teacher would take their class to a computer lab or other room which 'just so happens' to have a bunch of Yeerks waiting. Also, teacher's have tutorials/conferences all the time where they could privately infest a student or a parent.

Being in a school myself, I think that if I were a Controller and I had enough Yeerks it would be absolutely elementary (pun intended) to get all 200 of my students infested within one week.

This then can spread out, like a virus. Some students are bound to have important parents. If one parent who is important becomes a Controller and he calls a meeting with all of his underlings, boom, they can be infested. If he has a meeting with his more important boss he can come prepared with a Dracon and a Yeerk.


I think the biggest problem with the infiltration method was the whole idea of The Sharing. They tried too hard to get voluntary hosts. They could have infiltrated, gotten involuntaries, and moved MUCH faster.



ANYHOW, if you were the Yeerk in charge of defeating Earth, how would you go about it?

[Chad32]

I actually like the idea of the Sharing, but it's true that if you get an important person in any kind of business, s/he can tell the employees to come to a certain meeting or whatever and be infested. I don't think I'd use hork-Bajir often. Most Yeerks do want voluntaries, and it's been said that 60% of people that join the Sharing become voluntaries, so it's not a bad idea. I'd just be concerned that people would think it's a cult, what with the full members never leaving and always going off somewhere every three days.

Infiltration would be best, but I would use multiple fronts. I would have underground pools in every developed country in the world. Once I control the developed countries, the others would fall quickly. Or I could just annihalate them because most people there are probably generally less healthy.

[Dameg]

Visser One's idea was perfect. Between the Sharing and the infiltration, they would win if the Animorphs weren't there. No resistance, nobody would know until they'd be Controller themselves. When you have some Controllers, the number up exponentially. A man who become a Controller can go home with Yeerks in a box and make his children and wife Controllers in a night. With some sleeping drug in the water during the dinner, he would have no resistance. Even a kid, using that way, could make his family Controllers in one night. It's surprising they didn't think about it ^^' Take a school as you said, or a group of adult with a stage or something like that, and the day after you have their family. Etc.
If they were smart, they would conquer North America in one or 2 years. 4 years for America, 2 more for Europe... well, maybe 15 years for the Earth.

The only problem was Visser 3 who kills the Yeerks who could think about who were the Animorphs and the best things to do to infest more people. And the Animorphs of course ^^'

[Alic]

You all make me sick sick sick.
Jk

[Terenia]

You all make me sick sick sick.
Jk

Oh, come on. Like you've never plotted total domination over the planet?

[Cloak]

[...] The only problem was Visser 3 who kills the Yeerks who could think about who were the Animorphs and the best things to do to infest more people. And the Animorphs of course ^^'

Probably doesn't help that Visser 3 has only a limited knowledge of humans, and looks down on them.

[MoppingBear]

The reason they went for voluntaries so much is that it makes it easier to control them.  An involuntary host can fight back, and probably not get back full control, but could make a quip at an inopportune time like Chapman threatened to.  Also, the more voluntaries you have, the less security you need during feeding time.  There were less than 6 billion Yeerks total, and that doesn't include the ones home and ones tied up somewhere.  They didn't need to conquer all of earth, so they went with slow and steady, getting hosts as they needed them.  All in all a good strategy from Visser 1.

[Dameg]

[...] The only problem was Visser 3 who kills the Yeerks who could think about who were the Animorphs and the best things to do to infest more people. And the Animorphs of course ^^'

Probably doesn't help that Visser 3 has only a limited knowledge of humans, and looks down on them.

Yeah, he was a specialist of Andalites. It'd be better if Visser One stayed on Earth, as he's a specialist of Humans, and Visser Three... does what Visser One did ^^' Like travel and find more planets...

[Gafrash]

I suspect things would have been A LOT different for the Anis, had Visser 1 stayed in command of the Earth invasion.
Visser Three and his followers had some quite ingeneous plans to speed up the invasion (infesting important human figures, investing on portable-Kandronas, etc... friggin, even eliminating human will the Yeerk experimented with). The unstable bearing was really 'the bandits'. He could devise plans, but somehow the Anis (being secretly rooted in human culture) would eventually come across it and foil it.
Ignorant as he was in the human ways, and biased on Andalites', Visser Three should have indeed focused more on capturing the bandits. AS HE DID for maybe 1/2 of his missions. There was always some attempt to capture or kill the bandits, but he seriously underestimated the Anis, to his own demise.

...Infiltration would be best, but I would use multiple fronts. I would have underground pools in every developed country in the world. Once I control the developed countries, the others would fall quickly. Or I could just annihalate them because most people there are probably generally less healthy.

I liked this idea. This concept was only hinted at back in the David Trilogy, where one of the NATO heads was said to be a Controller. This opened it up to the strong possibility that this was Visser 3-loyal Yeerk, most likely of Sub-Visser rank, who was already expanding the invasion on a different place in the globe.
The more Yeerk pools the more the Yeerks could have spread their resources.

...I think the biggest problem with the infiltration method was the whole idea of The Sharing. They tried too hard to get voluntary hosts. They could have infiltrated, gotten involuntaries, and moved MUCH faster...

We all know why the Yeerks were opting for an infiltration type of invasion on Earth. I liked the whole idea of accomplishing their task without firing a single weapon. So I advocate for The Sharing. However, I think, they never got to the point where the voluntaries could overwhelm the involuntaries, because of the Anis. That may be why it feels like they wasted a bit of their time, but picture it without the Anis' involvement, don't you think they would have ultimately been successful?

As Chad28 was saying, and it sounds like he understands network design, you know that the most popular nodes get the most frequency, and those are the ones hackers and VIRUSES (ref. Yeerks) attack. Much like the case with the Yeerks, who tried to get a hold of popular and important humans, such as the NATO leaders, the governor, friggin, they eve had that Jeremy Jason McCole douche...


I would have put more effort into eliminating the growing threat of the Andalite bandits throughout the invasion.

[Shock]

lol, time to crack open my Hunter the vigil:night stalkers (a RPG game that deals with this stuff)...

anyways.

first off, you want to hit the brain, heart, and the defenses of the city that your in.

go after the police, government, banks (you want to kill us? fine! say goodbye to your house!) and gangs.

after that, go after the cultural centers. artist, T.V. stars, anyone who can grab a 14 year old child's attention (which most of America is) and set up fonts to say how going to certain organizations are cool and they should join. also cover the new's media so that if any incident gets out, it does not get reported.

after that, begin to spread out and do the same to another city.

[Cloak]

[...] The more Yeerk pools the more the Yeerks could have spread their resources.[...]

And they possibly wouldn't have to pull the Pool Ship from orbit with multiple Yeerk Pools, after the destruction of one.

[Dameg]

[...] The more Yeerk pools the more the Yeerks could have spread their resources.[...]

And they possibly wouldn't have to pull the Pool Ship from orbit with multiple Yeerk Pools, after the destruction of one.

It's one of the last KASU, I think. Logically, the Animorphs couldn't win at the end. The Yeerks would have a lot of other Yeerk Pools. If they didn't, they made a big mistake. Concentrate only in a place is stupid...

[Chad32]

Well the ending was contrived in general. I don't know why they would only have one pool at that point in the invasion.

[.: Asmo]

Whew; here goes. Role-playing as Esplin 9466 for quite some time now, I've thought about this question time and time again.

Now, let me make a few clarifications about what you believe to be Esplin's ignorance on the human race.

Esplin was the first Yeerk to meet a human. Way back in the Andalite Chronicles, and he knew their weaknesses and strengths right off the bat. How else do you think he was able to do what he did as a Yeerk to obtain his status? He was no fool. Later in the book series K.A. turned him into a plundering Nimrod, but how else was five stupid teenagers going to beat the power of the Empire, and Visser Three who at the time controlled some of the most fearsome morphs in the Cosmos? K.A. had to make him arrogant, ****y, and stupid in the later books.

Esplin 9466 was a thinker, he organized battle plans, reshaped DNA, created reverse morphing technology, was able to keep an Andalite in check for at least two decades. He owned two of some fearsome pets. He could always get the information he wanted to out of his victims. (Except the Animorphs who were those 'lucky' heros always able to get out of his clutches.) There was no underestimating the Animorphs, there was K.A. taking five teenagers and having them overcome nearly impossible obstacles time-and-time again.  

Now, for my wall of text rant to be done ...

What would I do as Esplin 9466; Of course, I would also start in multi-places, not just one starter town.

Simple. Watch Earth for three years in space. Find their weaknesses, know their day to day routines.

For the larger cities, I would make my move first. First a bum or two from the back allies. Then those bums would start going through the hospitals. From the hospitals, it would go to the children of the nurses, then through the schools. The parent's of those children would be next. It would then spread like a cancer through businesses and organizations without ever calling attention on a sort of invasion.

As for third world counties, drop down, scoop them up like a herd and mass-infest. They would then lead other raids on other small villages.

After at least 1 billion people have been infested, I would then go after all world leaders. Once that is done, the world would be mine. For it would go into the military (which some of it already would from the children), more into politics. World legislation would slowly change with more controllers in office.

Once the world military is under Yeerk control, it would be open invasion at that point to run around and clean up whatever mess or leftover humans remain.

It would all be done in three year's time. The reason behind having several starting locations is you start small, and work out like a plague. That way there would be no suspicion. Even with the Animorphs ruining one city, I would have operations going on in all the large cities around the World. In the series, there was plenty of Yeerks to go around. Just not proper time management.

[Azguard]

ok guys. I don't want you to take me the wrong way...

... but I thought about this. What if we infested and infiltrated volunteer organizations? The one example I will use is.... the Red Cross. Infest the Red Cross, then as they travel the world, and care after the sick and poor, and devastated... infest those people at their weakest moment. Weak resistance and shock would be enough for submission. The only problem would be what you would do with so many people who have just been devastated and hold no real economic or political power. but hey, its a place to start right? And no one suspects the Red Cross.