"Visser One" redirects here. For information on the Yeerk who was known as Visser Three for most of the Animorphs series, see Visser Three

Visser Three

Visser Three, born as Esplin 9466 Primary and later known as Visser One, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the sci-fi book series Animorphs, written by K.A. Applegate. He is the leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth, having inherited the planet from Edriss 562, who was Visser One at...

.

Edriss 562 is a Yeerk that controls Marco

Marco (Animorphs)

Marco is a fictional character from the sci-fi book series, Animorphs, written by K. A. Applegate. His last name is never mentioned.-Biography:...

's mother Eva. For most of the series, her rank is Visser One. She is the subject of the novel Visser

Visser (novel)

Visser is the third companion book to the Animorphs series, written by K. A. Applegate. Within the continuity of the series, it takes place directly after the events of book #35, The Proposal, but is also in part a detail of the backstory of its narrator, Edriss 562, Visser One, whose host is...

, which describes her rise to and dramatic fall from power. She is the highest ranking of all the Yeerks in their military, and is only surpassed in importance by the Council of Thirteen.

Backstory

Edriss 562 first received information on the humans when she saw Loren and Chapman. At the time, she was Sub-Visser 409, and was a Hork-Bajir

Hork-Bajir

The Hork-Bajir are a race of aliens in the Animorphs novels.The Hork-Bajir are fictional aliens that are usually about seven feet tall. They are a dark shade of green and have three-toed theropod feet. Their necks are long and they have a mouth that resembles a falcon's beak with teeth. Their legs...

. The Yeerks were looking for a Class Five species, reasonably intelligent but defenseless and numerous. The Hork-Bajir had been good shock troops, but the Andalites killed most of the population in an effort to deny the Yeerks hosts. Edriss believes that humans are the ideal Class Five species, but her superiors refused to listen to her, and instead demoted her down to a Taxxon. Instead, she hijacks a ship and brings along a subordinate, Essam 293, to pilot it.

They travel to the planet Earth, first landing in a desert in Iraq. The year is 1991, and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and its allies are fighting Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 in the Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

. It is here that Edriss infests the first human host on Earth, an Iraqi soldier. She eventually disposes of the host and returns to her Hork-Bajir host. Edriss watches the battle for a few minutes and sees the clear superiority of the U.S. forces. Essam states that it would be easiest to infest the Iraqis, but Edriss says that it would be a waste of time, and believes that infesting the most powerful nation, the United States, would be more worthwhile. They fly up and begin searching for a place to land.

They land in Hollywood, based on the fact that it is the community mentioned the most in all the transmissions they pick up (along with "Washington DeeCee

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

", New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and "Ellay

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

"). This time, both Edriss and Essam infest human hosts, and destroy their original Hork-Bajir hosts. Edriss acquires a host named Jenny Lines, an unemployed actor and drug addict, while Essam acquires a host named Lowenstein, a TV producer. They begin to learn about the human culture. Later, at a pool party Edriss spots Allison Kim, a scientist. Deciding that she is a better host, she takes her down into the deep end and pulls her underwater. She transfers hosts and drowns Jenny Lines. Essam also takes another host named Hildy Gervais, taking all of Lowenstein's money before vaporising him.

They are at this point cut off from the Yeerk Empire, living as humans. It is at this point that Edriss, Essam and their two hosts all fall in love with each other, and they have twin children who they name Darwin and Madra. Eventually their ship's Kandrona generator begins to wear out and they know that they can never be accepted back into the Empire having had human children. In order to placate her superiors Edriss 562 reports her findings and states that she has found an ideal Class Five species with a population of five billion people.

Edriss begins leaving Allison Kim periodically to infest a man named Lore David Altman (formerly known as Lawrence Alter) who she chose for his charisma. She creates The Sharing, a front organization for a slow infiltration of Earth with Lore as its founder and leader. A man named Richard becomes the first voluntary Controller, and Edriss and Essam send the video tape to prove that a slow infiltration could and would work.

Shortly after the success of the Sharing, Edriss informs Essam that she will kill Allison and take on the body of Lore David Altman full-time. However, Essam refuses to comply and tells Edriss that he has chosen to die rather than carry out the rest of the mission, which he calls despicable. Essam starves to death from Kandrona starvation; at the point of death the Yeerk begins to crawl out of Gervais's ear and Edriss pulls it out the rest of the way - this causes bits of Essam's body to remain stuck to some of Hildy's nerves, rendering him insane. Darwin and Madra are at a hospital at the time, sick with a fever - Edriss decides to abandon them there so they'll be adopted. Allison Kim manages to escape from being murdered by Edriss, but Edriss knows she'll try to come to the hospital for the children and kills her.

Edriss then kills Altman so that he would be revered as the founder of the Sharing. She infests her last host, a woman named Eva (Marco's mother), and fakes her own death so that she can finally leave Earth and rejoin the Empire.

Animorphs

She first appeared in Animorphs

Animorphs

Animorphs is an English language science fiction series of young adult books written by K. A. Applegate and published by Scholastic. Five humans, Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias, and one alien, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill , obtain the ability to morph into any animal they touch. They name...

 The Predator

The Predator (Animorphs)

The Predator, published in 1996 and written by K.A. Applegate, is the fifth book in the Animorphs series. It is narrated by Marco.-Plot summary:Ax wishes to return to the Andalite home world, and to do so, he needs a ship...

(#5), after her rival Visser Three

Visser Three

Visser Three, born as Esplin 9466 Primary and later known as Visser One, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the sci-fi book series Animorphs, written by K.A. Applegate. He is the leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth, having inherited the planet from Edriss 562, who was Visser One at...

 captured the Animorphs. She freed them in order to make her archrival, Visser Three

Visser Three

Visser Three, born as Esplin 9466 Primary and later known as Visser One, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the sci-fi book series Animorphs, written by K.A. Applegate. He is the leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth, having inherited the planet from Edriss 562, who was Visser One at...

 seem incompetent. During this book, Marco (in morph) discovers that his mother is still alive but controlled by a yeerk. Marco, who had thought of quitting the Animorphs, is now prepared to fight all the way until he frees his mother.

Her next appearance was in The Escape

The Escape (Animorphs)

The Escape is the fifteenth book in the Animorphs series, written by K.A. Applegate. It is narrated by Marco.The cover quote reads, "The Yeerks are out there...."-Plot summary:...

(#15), where she commands an underwater facility to infest hammerhead shark

Hammerhead shark

The hammerhead sharks are a group of sharks in the family Sphyrnidae, so named for the unusual and distinctive structure of their heads, which are flattened and laterally extended into a "hammer" shape called a "cephalofoil". Most hammerhead species are placed in the genus Sphyrna while the...

s so that she can more effectively invade the Leeran

Leeran

The Leerans are a fictional race of aliens from the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate. They are described as a yellow amphibian species with tentacles for arms that resembles a manta ray or frog...

 home world. Her project fails when both Visser Three and the Animorphs thwart her plans. A Leeran-Controller tries to tell her that Marco, in gorilla morph, is human, but she misunderstands, thinking the Leeran is saying that the animal is human. After she explains that it's only a similar animal to a human, the Leeran attempts to clarify, but is knocked unconscious by Marco before he can explain.

One of Edriss 562's most prominent appearances was in The Reunion

The Reunion (Animorphs)

The Reunion is the thirtieth book in the Animorphs series, authored by K.A. Applegate. It is known to have been ghostwritten by Elise Donner. It is narrated by Marco.-Plot summary:...

(#30), who at that time had been demoted to Sub-Visser rank due to her failure in the project destined to create shark-Controllers for use on planet Leera. She makes a deal with the Animorphs in order to eliminate her rival Visser Three once and for all. The Animorphs, posing as ruthless Andalites, have offered to expose the free Hork-Bajir colony in order to discredit Visser Three. The Animorphs trick both her and Visser Three by leading them to a massive hologram (projected by Erek the Chee) portraying dying Hork-Bajir. The Vissers then turn on each other. Visser One, after learning that her host's son was one of the "bandits", appears to fall to her death.

In The Proposal

The Proposal (Animorphs)

The Proposal is the thirty-fifth book in the Animorphs series, authored by K.A. Applegate. It is known to have been ghostwritten by Jeffrey Zuehlke. It is narrated by Marco.-Plot summary:...

(#35), Marco's father remarries a woman named Nora Robinnette. At the end of the novel, Marco receives a phone call from Visser One. This was an event later described in the book Visser. She appears as the central character in that novel, on trial for treason by several means, including incompetence, sympathy with a subject species, and needless killing of hosts. The book chronicles her explanation to the Council of Thirteen (including their speaker, her former mentor Garoff, who she came to suspect may be the Emperor) how she began her invasion of Earth and why she believes a slow inflitration of Earth would be more desirable to open war.

It is revealed that part of the reason she would not prefer to risk open war is due to the presence on Earth of two children, born of her host Allison Kim and conceived during her control of Allison. She fails to keep this hidden from the Council. Both she and Visser Three are condemned to death by Kandrona starvation; however, both sentences are suspended on the condition that they solidify the Yeerks' power on a planet. Visser Three is charged with Earth, while Visser One is charged with defending the Anati homeworld from the Andalites.

After failing to secure the Anati home world for the Yeerks, she returned to Earth in book 45

The Revelation (Animorphs)

The Revelation is the forty-fifth book in the Animorphs series, written by K.A. Applegate. It is known to have been ghostwritten by Ellen Geroux. It is the first book in the ten-book arc that finalized the story of the Animorphs...

 to be questioned and executed. She frantically escapes from Eva's body during the Animorphs' attempt to rescue Eva. Eva fails to crush the slug, but it is eventually stomped on by Marco, ending Visser One's life. As a result, Visser Three

Visser Three

Visser Three, born as Esplin 9466 Primary and later known as Visser One, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the sci-fi book series Animorphs, written by K.A. Applegate. He is the leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth, having inherited the planet from Edriss 562, who was Visser One at...

takes over as Visser One, and begins to wage open war on the humans.