Why was Visser 3 on Earth?

[Blazing Angel]

It's crucial to have a strong leader leading your attack but he had alot more potential fighting andalites. In the Hork Bjair chronicles he states that he was the Empire's leading authority on the subject of andalites. In a dogfight over the hork bjair homeworld he was abel to predict the specific tactics that andalite pilots would use.

So the point I'm getting at is that he should have been in space, fighting the actual war instead of the andalite bandits.

[goom]

he had alot more potential fighting andalites

fighting the actual war instead of the andalite bandits.

well, he fought what he thought were andalites.

[strawberry banana]

it was because he had major issues with elfangor, and their fight is personal, which is clearly demonstrated in the andalite chronicles. so he ends up following elfangor to earth, eats him, etc. but then the yeerks hears the animorphs, mistake them for andalites (andalite bandits) and tries to catch them to finish what they started. but they don't, so visser 3 probably wanted to stay to kill the rest (i mean it would look really bad if he couldn't even take out a few young andalites) so visser three probably asked for control of earth so he could take them out, and with each battle tht he loses, it makes him look worse, so it starts to get personal. and he ends up staying there to try to kill them. i'm mean there was nothing really saying tht he was in control of earth before he killed elfangor or started to fight the andalites

[Darth Zakryn]

Visser Three was stationed on Earth before Elfangor and the other Andalites ever arrived. Deconstructing the canon events into a workable timeline supports this.

---Visser One arrived on Earth druing the time of the Gulf War, specifically Desert Storm, meaning early 1991, around January or February.
---It was mentioned Visser One spent 14-15 months on Earth. No more than 16 at the maximum. This places the time frame near March or April of 1992, with May as the longest cutoff date.
---It was mentioned in #10. The Android by Marco's dad that Eva had been acting weirdly for "a year" before she disappeared, which took place "two years" before the series started.
---The series started in 1996, but that's a debate for another time.
---Thus, Edriss landed on Earth in 1991, Essam died in 1992, she found Eva as a host in 1993, and a year later, in 1994, she faked her death to become Visser One, leaving Earth in the hands of Visser Three.

Now, my theory for why Visser Three came are several. Maybe he volunteered when Edriss left, thought that he could conquer humans single-handedly and become Visser One in the process. This actually fits his character, when you think about it.

Maybe there was an admissions process and his name was selected randomly, though I can't imagine that happening in something as structured and militarily ordered as the Yeerk Empire is.

Maybe he was assigned at a later date.

Maybe the Council thought, since he had given them information on Andalites that helped, he could do the same with humans, but this is questionably flawed since Edriss had done basically same thing with much greater success, although if this is true, it would mean the Council of Thirteen dropped the ball spectacularly.

Well, those are my opinions.

[NateSean]

I'll throw in my two cents now.

Visser Three did provide useful information to the Yeerks which landed him the position of Visser Three. But in terms of long term functionality, Edriss proved herself to be the more useful of the two Yeerks, namely because she found the long coveted Class Five species that would help lead the Yeerks to victory over the Andalites. But also because she had the tenacity and the drive to study and be certain that humans would be useful for the project.

Whatever information Alloran had in his brain was outdated by the time Elfangor, Ax and company went to Earth and since Andalites are known to commit suicide when captured it's a fair assumption that Visser Three wasn't bringing anything new to the table.

Visser One not only presented the empire with Earth, but she continued to be useful long after the fact with the beginning invasion of Leera. Her ability to see the strengths of each different species made her a valuable asset.

Earth was a crucial enough win for the Empire to both make Visser Three happy and keep him useful.

[Darth Zakryn]

Ditto with the Visser One remark. Here is a Yeerk you could actually envision succeeding in the plan to take over the world leaders. In fact, someone should write an AU fic on it - what would the war be like if Visser One was in charge? For one thing, Marco's mom never has to fake her death and... ohh, the possibilities are endless.

[strawberry banana]

maybe it was just tht he was fighting the andalites off in space somewhere and did something wrong. so to punish him (because the counsel didn't really want to kill him since he was good against andalites but they couldn't just let him do whatever because they're still incharge) sent him to earth saying, prove to us tht u can at least handle something easy like earth before we even debate sending u back against the yeerks

[Darth Zakryn]

Interesting: The idea of it being a punishment masquerading as an assignment would be quite unique. It would also explain the animosity between Visser One and Visser Three; she went on to much greater and glorious things while Visser Three was marooned on Earth taking care of her project. In many ways, that would be kind of tragic; she really wanted to stay on Earth and finish the infiltration while Visser Three was more suited to a large-scale war situation and got off on it like some nerdy kid playing Gears of War. Actually a valid theory in my opinion.

[Noelle]

Well I think they had him on earth because the Yeerks thought there was going to be Andalites there.  I don't think the Yeerks ever knew that the Andalites had basically written earth off, and I imagine they had the idea that the Andalites would have thought earth was worth saving because humans were such a huge boon to the Yeerks.  With such a treasure trove of hosts being found, I would think they would want to nip any Andalite problems in the bud and have Visser 3 there to deal with it before the Andalites got set up and dealing with the humans in a cooperative fashion.  (And in reality, he did just that by hiding the blade ship on the moon when it killed the dome ship.)

[NateSean]

In fact, someone should write an AU fic on it - what would the war be like if Visser One was in charge?

She would have had the insight to treat and infest Elfangor instead of killing him in a grandiose display. The Yeerks gain an Andalite prisoner, a boatload of new information and tactical data, five morph capable humans oh and the morphing cube. And possibly the Time Matrix.

[Noelle]

An au fic with elfangor as visser one?


That is....just so brilliant!   Someone must write this!   I would feel too guilty to do it because it wasn't my idea but id love to beta it.

[Darth Zakryn]

Oh, if you want to try to write it, Noelle, go ahead. I don't think I could do the idea justice. Suffice to say, I think the Yeerks would win. The only way the Animorphs could win is by running away and hiding.

Back on topic, that also raises the question just WHY the Andalites never made Earth a priority, if to annihilate it or save it. Just ignoring it raises some serious questions about the competence of the Andalite military. But then again, they lack very powerful ground troops, so I guess that's no surprise...

[NateSean]

For the same reason they didn't make the Hork-Bajir homeworld their priority. They didn't think it was a threat or that anyone could want a planet with such inferior technology.

[Darth Zakryn]

So it translate into more arrogance than stupidity. Got it. But still, that means the Andalites are even more in need of a desperate wake-up call, which they never got in the series. Too bad. I guess the only avenue left is fanfiction.

[Gafrash]

We know that Visser One had ulterior motives for going for the infiltration. She would have preferred to have a non-human Controller commanding the invasion. And since we know Visser 2 to be human and to 'Visser Three was the top of the fool's list', she would have eased into the Council's decision.

Slightly off track, it's a real pity we don't know what really happens between The Visser Chronicles and The Revelation, it felt like Visser Three would have called Visser One out on more stuff, hence the torture and final execution set on the ground-based pool.