| For the Yeerk military rank, see Visser |
- "I was telling a story that was suicide to tell. My deadliest enemy was my prosecutor. My judge, one of them at least, was motivated by some impulse I could not fathom. And I had just called on a group of Andalites and morph-capable humans to attack my own people. I was crippled with pain, weak, surrounded. Visser Three; Garoff 168; my host's child, Marco. Any of the three might kill me. And all I could do was talk."
- ―Edriss 562
VISSER, published in October 1999, is the third Chronicles companion book to the Animorphs series, written by Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant. It takes place between #35: The Proposal and #36: The Mutation, although the events of the main story flashbacks occur after The Andalite Chronicles. The book is narrated by Edriss 562 and tells the story of how the young Yeerk began the invasion of Earth and rose to the rank of Visser One.
Synopsis
Her human name is Eva. There was a time when she had a loving husband and a son, Marco. When she had a wonderful career. But that was before she was infested by Edriss 562. Before the invasion of Earth. Now, Edriss 562 lives in Eva's head and controls her every movement. And through Eva, Edriss has become the highest-ranking general in the Yeerk empire, surpassing even her arch rival, Visser Three. She is Visser One.
But, it has become known that Visser One's tactics for attaining her current position were less than acceptable -- even to the Yeerks. Now she is on trial for treason. If she's found innocent she'll continue to rule. But if she's found guilty, she'll lose her life -- and possibly the life of her host, Eva. Which will mean that Marco will never, ever see his mother again...
Plot
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The story starts with Edriss preparing to fake Eva's death just before her impending promotion to Visser One. She walks out of her host's family's lives for what she believes is the last time.
Fast forward to the present, taking place shortly after Marco's dad has remarried to Nora. Edriss 562, recently demoted from Visser One, is on trial for treason. Edriss is ordered by the Council of Thirteen to recount past events, including how she found Earth, and its Class Five species, and founded The Sharing. Along the way the then-sub-Visser, and its partner Essam 293, took human hosts, male (Hildy Gervais) and female (Allison Kim), and had children from those hosts.
During the trial, there is an apparent attack by the "Andalite bandits" that have been thwarting Visser Three this whole time. They are defeated, but Council Member Garoff 168, and Visser One, are not fooled by this trick. Edriss thus decides to summon the real "bandits" by calling Marco on the phone. The team of Animorphs interrupt the trial just as Garoff and Visser Three were trying to get Visser One to kill one of Allison's children which had been brought to the pool by Visser Three. Visser One thanks them for their appearance and dismisses them, but Marco has other plans. He orders Edriss, on pain of death, to leave his mother's body so he can talk to her. She persuades the Yeerk to comply, who later gains knowledge of a conversation between Eva and the Animorph team in its absence, wherein the team learns about Visser One's human children, and how they're the reason the Visser actively opposed open war against the humans.
After Visser One's trial, and her stories and memory dumps, are over, the Council, through Garoff, decides on a verdict: death for both Vissers by Kandrona starvation. Due to their need for hosts, both sentences are suspended. Visser Three's suspension becomes permanent if he can conquer Earth, while Visser One is ordered to redeem herself in the Anati homeworld. The Council's hologramatic presence is shut off, and Visser One almost reveals the truth about the "bandits" to Visser Three, but decides against it.
Appearances
Protagonists
Supporting Characters
- Eva
- Essam 293 (Only Appearance) (Death)
- Garoff 168 (Only Appearance)
- Allison Kim (Memory) (Only Appearance)
- Hildy Gervais (Only Appearance)
- Marco
Antagonists
- Esplin 9466
- Alloran-Semitur-Corrass (Body) (Mentioned)
Other Characters
- Peter
- Jenny Lines (Memory) (Only Appearance)
- Lowenstein (Memory) (Only Appearance)
- Darwin (Only Appearance)
- Madra (Memory) (Only Appearance)
- Lore David Altman (Memory) (Only Appearance)
- Jake
- Rachel
- Tobias
- Cassie
- Ax
- Chee
- Various Gedd, Taxxon, Hork-Bajir, and human-Controllers
- Hedrick Chapman (Hologram) (Mentioned)
- Loren (Hologram) (Mentioned)
Locations
- Earth
- Middle East
- California, United States
- New York City, New York (Mentioned)
- Washington, D.C. (Mentioned)
- Olgin Base (Only Appearance)
- Yeerk homeworld (Mentioned)
- Sulp Niar pool (Mentioned)
- Andalite homeworld (Mentioned)
- Hork-Bajir homeworld (Mentioned)
- Taxxon homeworld (Mentioned)
- Anati homeworld (Mentioned)
Organizations
- Yeerk Empire
- Council of Thirteen (Only Appearance)
- Animorphs
In-Universe Historical Events
Items
- Dracon beam
- Yeerk scout ship
- Kandrona
- Memory Transfer Protocol
- Bug fighter (Mentioned)
- Andalite fighter (Mentioned)
- Jahar (Mentioned)
- Skrit Na Saucer (Mentioned)
- Quantum Virus (Mentioned)
- Anti-Morphing Ray (Mentioned)
- Dome ship (Mentioned)
- Dracon assault cannons (Mentioned)
Other Mentions
Characters
References
Major/Highlighted Events
- Visser One's name is stated to be Edriss 562.
- Marco's mother's name is revealed to be Eva.
- Edriss is placed under trial, interrogated by Esplin 9466 (Visser Three) and the Council of Thirteen, although Esplin himself is placed under trial as well.
- It is disclosed that Edriss, along with her subordinate Essam 293, were the first Yeerks to arrive on Earth, landing in early 1991. Edriss and Essam, taking human hosts, lived human lives, fell in love and got married, eventually conceiving two children – a son named Darwin and a daughter named Madra.
- Edriss is revealed to be the creator and founder of The Sharing, which she based off of cults and propaganda.
- It is uncovered that one of the reasons that Edriss had decided on a slow infiltration as opposed to open war is to protect and prevent her children from being killed.
- Edriss calls Marco and requests the Animorphs to stage an attack to discredit Visser Three.
- Edriss learns that the Animorphs consist of five humans and only one Andalite.
- Additionally, Edriss remarks that she is aware that the 'Andalite bandits' consist of six members but that she had thought for a while that some of them must be humans because it was always one Andalite not in morph while the others were in non-Andalite morphs.
- Eva is temporarily freed, but having sympathized with her captor since she too is a mother, asks Marco to allow Edriss to infest her once more, in order to prevent Visser Three's open war plan and protect Edriss's children.
- Jake decides that keeping Visser Three in charge of the invasion would work best for them rather than having someone else placed in command, citing that Visser Three makes stupid mistakes and his mistreatment of his subordinates make them less effective.
- Edriss and Esplin are both sentenced to death, although the Council suspends both death sentences since they have no one to replace Esplin on Earth and because they view Edriss as too valuable. The Council elects to reassign Edriss to the hostile takeover of the Anati homeworld and for Esplin to expedite the invasion of Earth in a non-hostile manner, threatening to execute the death sentences should they fail.
- It is revealed that the Andalites are amassing a massive military force, which they will either send to the Anati homeworld or to Earth.
- Edriss is allowed to retain the rank of Visser One.
Morphs
| Morpher | Morphs acquired | Morphs used |
|---|---|---|
| Jake | — | Siberian Tiger |
| Rachel | — | Hork-Bajir (Jara Hamee) |
| Tobias | — | Hork-Bajir (Ket Halpak) |
| Cassie | — | Polar Bear (Nanook) |
| Marco | — | Silverback Gorilla (Big Jim) |
| Ax | — | Flea |
| Esplin 9466 | — | Unnamed Creature |
Trivia
- This is the second book in the series, including Chronicles books, where a new morph is not acquired, following The Conspiracy.
- When discussing Visser Three's incompetence and failures, Visser One mentions his attempt at creating a potion to eradicate humanity's free will (The Experiment), nearly exposing the existence of the Yeerks by attempting to infest several world leaders at once (The Threat and The Solution) and spending a fortune to create an Anti-Morphing Ray that did not work (The Separation and The Illusion).
- Visser One also mentions the destruction of the underwater base (The Escape) and the mountaintop battle with the free Hork-Bajir (The Reunion) when remembering the two times she encountered Marco during a mission.
- One of the main questions that fans have about this book has nothing to do with the story, but with the cover instead: Why exactly was Visser Three featured on the cover instead of Visser One? K. A. Applegate admits that she feels responsible for the mistake. One of the first things K.A. had to do for her books was create an outline for Scholastic. They used this outline to write the summaries on the back of the books, and to create covers and titles. The outlines for the books were generally vague, though, so she won't be so limited when writing. For VISSER, she implied in her outline that the book would be just as much about Visser Three as it would be about Visser One, which led Scholastic to choose Visser Three for the cover. But when K.A. actually sat down to write her book, she found Visser One's story much more interesting and the book ended up being all about her. By then it was far too late and too expensive to have a new cover created.
- This is the only book in the series that was only officially printed in hardcover, not paperback like the other books. However, a comparatively rare Scholastic School Market Edition was published in paperback.
Goofs/Inconsistencies
- In The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, the Council of Thirteen was left behind on the Yeerk homeworld, which was placed under quarantine by the Andalite military, who were ordered to destroy any Yeerks leaving their planet. Edriss 562 mentions that their homeworld is still under said quarantine, yet the Council of Thirteen are no longer on the homeworld, having somehow managed to leave, acquiring non-Gedd hosts as well as state-of-the-art Yeerk technology.
- However, it is possible the Yeerk Empire formed a new Council of Thirteen upon leaving their homeworld.
- Esplin 9466 states that he does not know what it is like to have a human host since he never infested one, with Edriss claiming that she was the first human-Controller in existence, although Esplin was indeed the first, having briefly infested Hedrick Chapman in The Andalite Chronicles.
- However, one of the rules the Council establishes is that one must not ally with subject species, with Edriss adding that the report of that particular sequence of events which led to Esplin gaining Alloran-Semitur-Corrass as a host are unclear. This is most likely because Esplin hid the fact that he had infested and had a partnership with Chapman in order to gain his Andalite host body. Additionally, Edriss does state that "to the best of [her] knowledge" she does not know whether a Yeerk had infested a human before, and thus considers herself the first.
- Edriss places a phone call to Marco for help, despite the fact that she would not know Marco's house phone number since he had moved three times since she last lived with him. She would have been unable to search for it after discovering he was an 'Andalite bandit' since she was captured and imprisoned immediately after.
- Edriss states that Darwin is nine years old at this point; Darwin was conceived and born shortly after Edriss had arrived on Earth (during the combat phase of Operation Desert Storm, January-February 1991), which would place his birth around late 1991 at the earliest. For Darwin to be nine, this would mean that VISSER takes place during mid-to-late 2000; however, based on the timeline provided in The Answer in conjunction with the books released thus far, the events of this book take place sometime around mid-to-late 1999.
Gallery
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"Someone took a picture of me? Not cool. Do you see what I'm wearing? I'm Spandex-boy. Totally not cool."
The image gallery for VISSER may be viewed here |