Sloth's Secret Conquest

Dr. Frank Sloth is arguably Neopia’s greatest celebrity. He is known across the galaxy for his numerous domination attempts, starting with mutating an entire planet and using a mutated army to the more recent attempt of causing a civil war on Kreludor and taking the Virtupets Space Station hostage. Legions of Neopians adore him and celebrate Sloth Day every day, while even more Neopians hate every part of him, from the spiky hair to the green feet. Sloth loves to be in the spotlight, which is why he is never hidden when attempting a takeover. But is it possible that there are conquests that we don’t know about?

Neopian Historians have come to the conclusion that Sloth had another attempt at world domination. The attempt is by no means a secret one. Neopians everywhere have heard tales of the Tyrannian War, tales of courage, bravery, and hope in a time when all seems lost. The attackers were suspected to be invaders, possibly from another nation or a long-forgotten part of Tyrannia. Recent evidence shows that the war was the third domination attempt from none other than Sloth.

After Sloth’s first attempt failed, he went into hiding, carefully constructing a new plan. It was only a matter of days until some young Neopians had discovered the ancient city of Maraqua on a hunt for the legendary Battledome. Sloth, believing that the Battledome could be used to help him, observed the adventurers carefully. While reading up on Maraqua, he found an ancient story telling of a giant beats who protects the city, requiring a yearly gift from all the citizens. This beast was named Chiazilla. After exploring Maraqua for himself and observing Chiazilla, he built a giant fighting robot modeled after Chiazilla. Thinking of the Maraquans as simple, his plan was to earn the Maraquans’ trust and locate their underwater Battledome. After learning the secrets of the Battledome, he would then destroy the city, effectively “killing two birds with one stone”. But Dr. Sloth failed to earn the Maraquans' trust, as Chiazilla defended the city and destroyed his robot. Sloth was defeated once more, and all of Neopia celebrated their new Battledomes.

It is thought that Sloth went into hiding for an extended period of time before waging war on Sakhmet. But the new belief is that he was planning something else, and this was a takeover of a different land. Sloth would have been observing Tyrannia long before it was open to the rest of Neopia, and would use the opportunity to control a nation, giving Tyrannia gifts of technology and wonder. Sloth would have also been conducting experiments on Tyrannian wildlife, to see if any of the plants or animals could be used for weaponry or transmogrification potions. While experimenting, he accidentally caused a massive earthquake, leaving Tyrannia open to the rest of the world.

Sloth went into hiding in the Tyrannian Mountains, and it’s there where he assembled his army. A large group of Tyrannians had already taken Sloth as their master, and he used this to his advantage. Convincing these Tyrannians that the rest of the world was dangerous and that the other Tyrannians caused the earthquake was enough to rile them into leading an attack on the rest of the nation. Meanwhile, Sloth sat back and carefully watched the war unfold when a Korbat Scout told him the horror story of the Monoceraptor, a behemoth that supposedly destroyed several nations. Sloth, intrigued by the story, set out to explore the Tyrannian Badlands, a region of Tyrannia teeming with deserts and monsters. He found the corpse of a gigantic creature, which he later discovered to be the Monoceraptor. Using a potion he developed, he brought the Monoceraptor back to life and lured it to Tyrannia, tricking it into (hopefully) destroying Tyrannia and eventually the rest of the Neopians that defied him. Sloth failed and his army was defeated. Sloth went into hiding once more, carefully calculating new ideas he could use to rule all.

This idea is supported by a few pieces of evidence. Recently, archaeologists exploring the dense Tyrannian Jungle found abandoned buildings with broken down machinery and thousands of notebooks, which are presumed to be Sloth’s laboratories. The discovery of these buildings led to archaeologists carefully searching the rest of Tyrannia. They found numerous other labs not only in the jungle, but in the caves and mountains surrounding Tyrannia. All of these labs had a flickering light above it in the shape of the Virtupets V, which is taken as even more evidence.

The second piece of evidence is eye-witness reports of the Tyrannian “invaders” behavior. War veterans noted in journals that they acted in a strange, almost beast-like manner. The “invaders” also looked different from most Tyrannians, some of them even being whole Grarrls larger. This has led people to believe that the “invaders” were given special transmogrification potions to make them more efficient soldiers. Some were given gallons of transmogrification potions, making them horrendous monsters of fury.

The third piece of evidence lies in cave paintings all across Tyrannia. While a great deal of paintings just show a hunter battling some mythical beast, many cave paintings depict a green man, Sloth, giving gifts to the people of Tyrannia. After extensively studying the cave paintings, it was concluded that Sloth was the owner of the deserted labs and the force behind the Tyrannian War.

There are arguments against this theory, however. Questions like “Why didn’t he use robots?” and “Why didn’t he let himself be known?” Even these arguments can be argued against. It is believed that since Sloth didn’t want to be known for the discovery of Tyrannia, as something like that would put him in a more heroic light. Instead he hid from the rest of the world, manipulating a war. The answer is not concrete, however, and none of us will be certain who was behind the war except the true perpetrator. Despite the evidence discussed here, we may never be certain of the motivation behind one of the darkest times in Neopian History.

Whoo, I got in the NT!