| SOMEWHERE IN NEOPIA - Things have been pretty quiet here in Neopia lately. Almost
too quiet, if you ask me. Hubrid Nox hasn't invented a weapon for the sole purpose
of torturing Lupes in ages. The war with Meridell is over. The last time Dr. Sloth
tried to conquer Neopia, the Pant Devil was known as the Diaper Devil. Something
tells me trouble is brewing, and I figure I'm the perfect guy to stir the pot.
I guess I started getting really really worried a couple of weeks ago when
I read the editorial section of The Neopian Times. Someone asked what Dr. Sloth
thought of Lord Darigan's plan to rule Neopia. The answer was, "I don't think
Dr. Sloth would lower himself to be concerned with the triflings of Lord Darigan.
He is far too busy working on his own mastermind plans." Since the same
people who answer the editorial questions are the same people who deny that
Jelly World exists, I was suddenly scared out of my wits.
The first thing that ran through my mind was, "What if Dr. Sloth does
care what Lord Darigan is up to? What if his mastermind plans include
Lord Darigan? I must confess that I actually expected Dr. Sloth to step in and
help Meridell defeat Darigan as a kind of "If I can't be the supreme dictator
Neopet-hating overlord of Neopia then nobody can" sort of thing. When he didn't
do that, I figured that Dr. Sloth was waiting for all of Neopia to be weakened
by the war, especially since half of Neopia fought for King Skarl and the other
half fought for Lord Darigan. With everyone worn out and all the Sticky Snowballs
in Neopia used up, he could just waltz in and take over everything. But he didn't
do that either. Personally, I find the fact that Dr. Sloth seems to have been
snoozing through an extremely rowdy civil war very suspicious.
Then I started noticing some interesting similarities between Dr. Sloth and
Lord Darigan. This is what the Neopedia has to say about Dr. Sloth:
Dr. Frank Sloth is a brilliant, insane evil scientist hell-bent on the
total destruction of Neopets and Neopia. Arriving at Neopia in his Space Station
in year 2, he was narrowly defeated by the Space Faerie. Sloth is best known
for enslaving an entire planet of alien creatures, Grundos, and mutating them
into stronger forms to draft into his army. He has vast technological resources
at his disposal, including evil robots, killer clones, space ships and ancient
artifacts of major destructive power...
Somehow, all of this seemed vaguely familiar. Isn't a space station a large
thing that hovers over the planet? Isn't a space station a place where a large
group of creatures live in an artificial environment? If memory serves me right,
Lord Darigan sort of floated into Neopia in a large gravity-defying thing. No
one knows what powers the Citadel, but it sure isn't the Orb. After all, Lord
Darigan came to Meridell in the first place to get the Orb back. So what exactly
is the Citadel? It looks like a large thing that hovers over the planet to me.
And it definitely has a large group of creatures living in it. Okay, maybe this
is just a coincidence. Kind of like it's a coincidence that Meaty Lupe Treats
look like Chias.
But what about the next part? Dr. Sloth tried to take over Neopia with a huge
army of mutants. This is totally different from Lord Darigan who tried to take
over Meridell with a huge army of mutants. Oops... I guess we hit another coincidence
there.
Okay, what about the bit that says Dr. Sloth has vast technological resources
at his disposal like ancient artifacts of major destructive power. If this doesn't
sound like Darigan's Orb then I'm a Headless Vonroo Plushie.
But the icing on the Caramel Volcano Cake is the way that these two guy look.
Both are extremely tall, both are fairly green and both of them seem to buy
their matching black robes from the Evil-Garbs-R-Us shop. It's true that Lord
Darigan has horns and Dr. Sloth has spiky hair, but I'm not saying that they
are twins. What I am saying is that they are-- hold onto your Red Cracker Hats--
BROTHERS!
Okay, you can stop laughing hysterically now, I'm serious. I have a theory
about this that at least clears up some of the questions about why Dr. Sloth
never jumped into the Meridell war for either side. This is my theory on how
this whole thing came about:
Dr. Sloth is pretty upset about not being able to take over Neopia. Just when
he thinks he can't feel any worse about it, a whole new world pops up-- Meridell.
Well, he wants to crush this new world before it becomes too popular with the
rest of Neopia, but he hasn't had much luck in just declaring war on anybody.
It seems that people get really worked up about fighting AGAINST evil. So Dr.
Sloth comes up with this brilliant plan. What if he could get Neopians
to fight Meridell so he wouldn't have to wear out all of his mutant Grundos
with a lot of marching and stuff? All he would have to do is convince Neopians
that they are fighting against evil and they would toss on their Hypno
Helmets faster than you could say diabolical plot.
Dr. Sloth calls up his brother, Dargian, on his Virtu-phone and says, "Hey,
Dar! You busy for the next couple of years or so?" And Darigan says, "Well,
I was planning on polishing my horns, but I guess I could come over if you make
me a lord or something and name a citadel after me." So Darigan hops on the
first spaceship and pops over. They sit down together and work out the details.
First of all, there is the question of who gets to rule all of Neopia. Since
the whole "conquer the world, annihilate the Neopets and make a killing in the
Neopian Stock Market" was Frank's idea, he gets 90% of the place. Darigan gets
to keep Darigan and the brand-new little spot called Meridell. Darigan was happy
enough to agree to stage a war with Meridell because it was better than spending
the next millennium waxing his head.
The next thing they have to do is come up with an army that is NOT made up
of mutant Grundos. Dr. Sloth just happens to have an enormous laboratory filled
with transmogrification potions that turns Neopets into mutants. Since there
are plenty of Skeiths, Moehogs, Scorchios and Grarrls wandering aimlessly around
Neopia, they figured they would zap them. The next step was pretty easy, seeing
how they were dealing with Skeiths and such. All they had to do was brainwash
them into believing that this mismatched bunch of mutant Neopets all belonged
to the same country and it wasn't their fault that they were incredibly ugly.
So suddenly this whole country named Darigan appears out of nowhere, claiming
that King Skarl stole their Orb. This thing just happens to be an ancient artifact
of major destructive power exactly like Dr. Sloth had sitting in the back of
his closet.
Darigan manages to win the war with Meridell with the help of a lot of Neopians.
Unfortunately, no one catches on that this is an evil plot to take over Neopia
because it took the Neopets staff a little longer than they expected to finish
making the flash video of Chapter 12. As I see it, Dr. Sloth hasn't jumped in
yet because he knew everyone would automatically fight against whatever
side he was on. So he's waiting until his kid brother gives him the all-clear
sign.
I know this theory may sound a little far-fetched, but there is still one
more little nagging question in the back of my cluttered mind. Why does Dr.
Frank Sloth have a last name, but Lord Darigan doesn't? Maybe the reason he
has never mentioned his full name is because his full name is Lord Darigan Sloth.
And if all of this isn't the most sinister, vile, nasty plot ever devised, then
there is definitely one more thing that is. The Darigan Paint Brush. Now THAT'S
evil.
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