#esplin 9466

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

That is such a good point. Esplin 9466 would never willingly infest a small-bodied soccer mom whose advantages are:

Bilingualism

Excellent hair

End of list. At least from his point of view.

And Edriss 562 would fight tooth and nail not to give up a human host once she had one, but — if forced — would at least choose a parent more invested than Alloran. (He mentions having two kids in #8, but his job seems to take him away from them for months at a time, as in the Chronicleses.)

I also can't see a reason that the Council of Thirteen would ever force the issue of a switch. I guess they might give Alloran as a prize to whichever visser they like best that month, and we know they target Eva because of Peter, but I don't see them assigning Eva to someone who's already a single-digit visser. Esplin 9466 does okay at pretending to be Aria in #13, so maybe we're underestimating his passing-as-human abilities, but it's still hard to figure out how he got there in the first place.

What if Visser One infested Alloran and Visser Three infested Eva instead?

Visser Three infesting Eva: likely to end in divorce from Peter, but probably okay outside of that.

Visser One infesting Alloran: I can't figure out how this doesn't end in a total party kill. Anyone else have thoughts?

[kooldewd123]

the whole "andalite bandit" thing is actually pretty laughable when you take step back and look at it. because when you compare the animorphs' actions to the way that andalites actually act - they don't really do that good a job of selling it. "if we never talk, we won't give them any hints we're human!" meanwhile every single andalite who comes face-to-face with visser three immediately starts cursing him out. "let's fight them with earth animals!" as if any self-respecting andalite warrior (ax included) wouldn't just use his tail blade given the opportunity. "we must never let them see us demorph!" the andalites have basically no reason to worry about hiding their identities - as far as they're concerned, there's no way the yeerks could ever hurt them in a way that matters, anyway.

and the biggest irony of it is that visser three is the single yeerk who should have the easiest time seeing through this, seeing as how he is the yeerk's foremost expert on andalite behavior even ignoring the fact that he is currently infesting one, but he's such an arrogant blowhard that once he gets the idea of "andalite bandits" into his head he absolutely refuses to entertain the notion that he's wrong.

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Visser Three to Aftran in #29

[cyber54prime]

Last Animorphs sketch for now is Visser three

[axolotlandalite]

Hi I'm here to give you the most niche crossover you've ever seen

I would love any advice from either side of the fandom, it's been a very long time since I've written. I credit my dear friend Rat for drawing this for me

So far there are three chapters of set up, but I plan on writing the juicy parts soon

[pixelsilver]

Welcome to reality, there's no way back

[brightsuzaku]

My BFF and I have a recurring headcanon that if Visser 3 was a guy, he'd look like Varis zos Galvus Finalfantasy14.

Like, I know he's a Yeerk and is actually a lil gray-green slugboi, but Esplin 9466 has a Zenos personality and he'd have Varis looks, and I cannot purge it from my brain.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Why the hell was V3 such a bad politician and general in Animorphs?

Several things!

He gets put in charge of a planet he doesn't want, while forced to run his rival's playbook. Visser One is responsible for the covert infiltration, The Sharing, recruiting voluntary hosts, etc. Visser Three is a blunt instrument forced into a role that requires restraint and finesse. (Visser)

The reason he's in charge? He's more of a figurehead than a leader. The yeerks want their one and only andalite-controller highly visible, and so they give him an entire campaign — but he doesn't have a record of leadership, and he didn't put in the hard work to get good. (Andalite Chronicles)

Oh, and he's being sabotaged. V1 sends spies to observe and mess with his plans (MM4) because she's livid that he's "lost Earth, despite the fact that [she] handed it over in perfect shape" (#15). No wonder V3 has trust issues.

On top of that, Earth isn't the yeerks' priority. They view it as a slow frontier that will handle itself, where the bulk of their forces are on Leeran and Anati. Think of the U.S. sending its military against Canada in the War of 1812, while largely ignoring its war with the indigenous nations. Or focusing all power on Iraq because the invasion of Afghanistan was going so badly. For the yeerks, Earth is Oregon in 1812 or Afghanistan in 2003; their attention isn't there for 80% of the war because they figure it's a slow conflict of attrition and will sort itself out even without resources.

Almost every yeerk we see is in the worst sort of middle management: V3 gets inspectors (#37) but not a budget (#28), must finish others' projects (#25) but gets his expertise on Earth ignored (Visser). He's a public school teacher who can be punished for an infinite number of (arbitrary) infractions, but can excel all he wants without getting the tools to succeed.

So V3 is still the worst boss imaginable. And he doesn't exactly rise to the challenge of being an amateur general holding the line on a backwater frontier with severely limited resources and a debilitating need for secrecy (i.e. Jake). But he also has a ton of forces working against him, isn't allowed to play to his strengths, and doesn't have either the personal or the material resources to win the day.

[kooldewd123]

Honestly the Hork-Bajir Chronicles gives such an interesting spin on Visser Three's character. He comes off as a bit of an arrogant buffoon most of the time, but actually getting a look at where he started, it's easy to see why. He's surprisingly smart, but insanely ambitious, and the latter tends to overtake the former. He researches Andalites endlessly before getting a proper host body, and seems like the most tactically knowledgeable Yeerk among his crew. And the big thing is - he keeps getting proven right. He knows that destroying Seerow's scoop is foolhardy. He starts out with a silent invasion of the Hork-Bajir, but his pivot to a guns-blazing attack is a major factor in their eventual victory. He successfully predicts Aldrea's actions multiple times and would have infested her had his ambition not gotten the better of him. And later, in the Andalite Chronicles, he quickly analyzes Elfangor's weakness and is able to exploit them to misdirect him and finally infest an Andalite, which was his goal from the very beginning. But because he's been right so many times, his arrogance has become so overinflated that by the time the main series actually starts, he can't even begin to fathom the idea that he's wrong.

[brightsuzaku]

THIS THIS THIS THIS

Though to be fair, Esplin 9466 did stand trial at the Hague, and was convicted as a war criminal so even if he didn't attend the Geneva Convention, he's.... He's still a war criminal!

“that character is a war criminal” that character is from a fictional fantasy world and did not attend the geneva convention

[princeseerow]

animorphs #2: the visitor: ch. 14 - 17

oh, yeerk names... i know applegate changed her mind at least once regarding what a yeerk's number means (looking at you, the capture), but if we ignore temrash and his promotion, i think calling iniss 174 "of the second century" can make sense if you assume two things: that a "century" is akin to a generation, and that iniss' number designation means that was the 174th yeerk hatched/whatever in his pool (with numbers 001 - 098 being the first century). also i like to imagine that iniss is just a particularly common name for yeerks. maybe mrs. chapman's yeerk is also an iniss. inisses, inisses, all around...

god, poor melissa. she thinks her own parents don't even love her anymore.

its honestly quite bothering me how much of a throughline in this book is "the other kids constantly question and undermine rachel's point of view", first with that adult man harassing her on the street and now to the point where they bug her (get it) because they dont trust her going into the chapmans' home alone. it sets up her future character development well but damn guys have a little faith her.

i went on a much longer rant about this originally until i remembered i'm terrible at articulating my thoughts. anyway, moral of the story is, tobias doesn't give a fuck about melissa either (/j)

also why is jake so surprised that visser three wants iniss to kill fluffer. the yeerk pool JUST got attacked by a bunch of wild animals so of course he would be extremely wary of animals. "guy who wants you dead says he wants you dead??" yeah dude no shit

also also im dying to know how jake's flea acquiring side quest went

ok wait visser three also using the term "controllers" is really messing with me. i mean i know elfangor did it first in book 1 but it's still weird.

[orodrethsgeek]

Inside you there are two wolves. One of them wants to see Alloran safe and cared for and given so much therapy oh my god someone get my man some therapy. The other one adores Esplin “Andalites are my passion” 9466 prime and thinks he deserves to have the body he wants, as a treat.

That’s how the quote goes, right?

[clitoris-maximus]

tobias and HIS MOM!! VISSER THREE IS HIS MOM.

basically just a like what if visser actually did adopt tobias in that one book

[brightsuzaku]

Bear with me now, as it's been a million years since I read or re-read these books in detail.

But, my favorite GLARING piece of narrative unreliability is when Ax is finally able to phone home to the Andalites, and reach his father, Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf. Now, Noorlin dismisses the urgency of Ax's predicament, his being trapped on Earth and in need of backup, and instead asks Ax to:

Agree to cover up who broke Seerow's Kindness and gave the Animorphs the morphing technology. Ax agreed to put on the record that he gave the Animorphs the power to morph instead of Elfangor doing so, to preserve Elfangor's honor. This is despite the fact that Ax is logically an aristh, merely a cadet, and would have had no reason to have an Escafil morph-cube device. (Elfangor's nonstandard tactics aside, the more standard Andalite tactics practiced at that battle had jettisoned the Dome away from the main ship anyway, so Ax probably wouldn't have been able to get near an Escafil, even if he was a full warrior.)

Noorlin asks Ax to take up the promise to avenge his brother. I mean this is normal by Andalite standards, they love their rituals, but Noorlin also encourages Ax to take it seriously. This isn't just, "You are doing what an adult would do", they way one is expected to play at being "the man of the family". He expected his child to fully follow through with the responsibility of being an adult, burdened by a mission to avenge his dead brother, when all that kid wanted was emotional support and reassurance.

Also, Ax now being just an aristh "who broke major Andalite law" means that Ax is apparently ridiculous and unable to make proper decisions. The fleet will get back to him in maybe a year. Apparently the war with the Yeerk Empire is happening in other places, and they cannot waste resources on one kid that phoned home, despite the apparent danger that Yeerks pose to countless humans.

And, haha, Point Number 3 is what bothers me the most.

Dismissing Ax aside, which the Andalites do regularly to anyone who is "not worth being taken seriously"... What other fronts?!

The books show us a few other fronts in the Yeerk Empire's war, but where are the Andalites fighting?!

What we know about Andalite military superiority, and what we also know about the current status of the Yeerk Empire, is that the Yeerks may have the numbers, but they do not have an equal number of hosts, to seriously fight and defeat the Andalites at multiple fronts.

It likely just isn't there, and that's how you get some big-wig high-rank single-digit-number Vissers involved with the invasion of Earth like Vissers One and Three.

Now, the greater Yeerk Empire is expected to be able to fight back against the Andalites for just long enough that the first Visser One we are introduced to is allowed her strategy of a long and subtle invasion. That's fine and well.

And yet, here we are, at the end of the series, after years of guerilla warfare on Earth (that also involves a gorilla morph, haha, thanks Marco). But, the conclusion is treated as a form of total victory over the Yeerks. A complicated victory, but a victory nonetheless. Is it a victory for Earth-only, as one of the fronts for the Yeerk Empire?

Yet, that hardly seems so, considering this victory also eliminated millions of noncombatant Yeerk lives and included the imprisonment of Visser One (formerly Visser Three), the 14th-most-powerful guy in the entire Empire, in solitary confinement. What are the other Vissers doing, flying around scrambling to join a destroyed fleet? Dead? We don't really know, but the Empire is apparently in shambles, and the imprisoned Visser grows hopeless and mad by his predicament.

Visser One himself dreaded the judgement of the Council of Thirteen just enough that he turns himself in to be imprisoned after all, as if this was a complete loss for the Empire. Questions about the Council aside, I gotta say, WHAT A BLUNDER.

If Earth was the single last front that resulted in victory over the Yeerk Empire, what does that mean?! Did the Andalites eventually win over the other fronts? Why was the apparent strategic importance of Earth not enough to warrant a stronger response way back when?

Humans represented billions of intelligent, capable, adaptable hosts for the Yeerk Empire, and if that thread was taken seriously in the first place, the series would have been a lot shorter. Chalk it up to the need of narrative to draw things out, for sure.

Or, maybe promoting Esplin 9466 Prime to Visser One and having him break things was just the kick the Andalites needed to actually do something.

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING WELL, SO MAYBE I'VE GOT MORE HOLES IN THIS RAMBLE THAN SWISS CHEESE.

But boyooooo, whew, I don't trust the Andalites watching over Earth one bit, especially if they were to ever come to realize that we humans? We're Space Orcs and a possible threat.

Unreliable Narration, Propaganda, and Myth in Animorphs

I’m assembling a list of instances of unreliable narration, propaganda, and myth in Animorphs: cases that show some characters are less credible sources of information than you might, at first, believe. I’m omitting cases like Cassie, Tobias, Rachel, and Ax not understanding before book #15 what Marco’s motivations are; in those cases we obviously understand, because of Marco’s and Jake’s POVs, that there’s no way they could know that Marco’s mom is alive and host to Visser One. I’m talking about when at the time you first read the narration, it seems credible, but information later in the story makes you realize it was false.

Much credit is due to this essay for most of my evidence for the last two points. Any additions or revisions are welcome.

How Tobias got trapped in morph

Jake, Rachel, and Tobias all present this as an accident throughout the series, both in dialogue and narration. In fact, Jake views this as partly his fault. Ax figures over time that it was not entirely an accident, and gives us his interpretation that Tobias did it on purpose to escape the misery of his human life. I can’t remember right now if Marco or Cassie ever presented the same interpretation in their narration.

Yeerk behavior in their natural state

Erek says in book 10 that Yeerks interact very little in their natural state, which is how he’s able to get away with only releasing a hologram of a Yeerk into the Pool when he poses as a Controller. In 29, Cassie also seems to view the Pool as an indifferent, quiet place. However, we get a very different picture from Esplin in THBC. He describes the Pool as a place of “warm intimacy,” with strong oral traditions passed down from older Yeerks, and rumors that get passed “palp to palp.”

Esplin is a much more reliable information source for Yeerk life than Erek or Cassie. I conclude that Cassie’s POV was unreliable because she couldn’t understand whatever mode of communication Yeerks use in their natural state, and that it’s a miracle that Erek got so much information from the Yeerks and never got busted, given how little he knew about how they functioned. Somebody must have noticed that the Yeerk he kept prisoner was never seen or heard by anybody in the Pool.

Read More

[waffle-sorter]

Question is, is it just to try Esplin 9466 for war crimes?

Granted that he and/or his subordinates are clearly depicted doing every "grave breach" on the list. Certainly the yeerks would, at the least, be familiar with the concept by the time the series started. And by the end they certainly had access to specifics.

But the Yeerk Empire isn't a signatory to any relevant treaties with any Earth nation. Further, there was no declaration of war (in either direction) and little armed conflict until very late in the game.

[thestormypetrelofcrime]

borrowed the hork-bajir chronicles audiobook and… ngl esplin 9466 sounds kinda hot