Arrival of Virtupets

The Arrival of Virtupets is the name given to the plot in August 2000 in which super villain Dr. Sloth first began to interact with the world of Neopia and the accompanied the release of the Space Station. It began on 15th August 2000 with the release of publicity material involving a Mutant Grundo, although the plot only formally began on the 17th. The plot ended on the 25th.

Plot summary

Details about the plot are to a degree sketchy - a considerable amount of the plot material has since been removed, but what is available has been recorded.

The plot commenced with the Space Faerie revealing that she had received an encoded message from space. Feeling a great evil approaching, she made a plea for help to the population. Shortly afterwards, a mysterious celestial object eclipsed the sun: a giant space station had just entered orbit.

Reports came in from different areas around Neopia about strange Neopet mutations being sighted, and Dr. Sloth made a public announcement that he would replace Neopets with Vitrupets, creatures of his own design, and even commanded users to abandon their Neopets to ready themselves for the future of Neopia.

The Island Mystic - who had been released with Mystery Island only shortly before the plot - managed to decode the message and revealed that not only did the doctor not have his own race of pets after all, but intended just to transfigure the existing Neopian population. Furthermore, it revealed that he held Grundos - first mentioned to have been discovered on another planet, later confirmed to be the moon Kreludor - in order to practice his experiments on them, and used them as strong arms.

At an abandoned launch pad, Neopians gathered to scour the lands for the items needed to rebuild a space fleet to get the the Space Station, on the orders of the Space Faerie. The Space Faerie herself was captured by Sloth as she attempted to liberate the alien species, but managed to use the last of her strength to broadcast an emergency message to Neopia: the Grundos must be liberated and adopted, or she would not be strong enough to break out.

Dr. Sloth was unconcerned: he would be enslaving the entire planet in short order. He readied his mutation ray gun in orbit - a separate construction from the Space Station itself - and prepared to conquer the world. The ray gun fired, but Neopia was saved by a hair as the Space Faerie burst from her captivity. She managed to divert the beam directly back at the mutation ray gun, which overloaded and exploded.

The space fleet hurtled out of the way of the blast back to the planet, leaving the abandoned Space Station, adrift around Neopia.

Plot participation

While there was no Battledome portion to this plot - occurring some time before its release with the Tyrannian Invasion - users still participated. The Island Mystic required a large number of Codestones to decrypt the message the Space Faerie received, which were being discovered via Random Events throughout the planet, and users were set to acquire these for him.

Later, users also were needed to fetch supplies for the Launch Pad, and adopt twenty thousand Grundos to liberate the Space Faerie.

Trivia

• After Sloth was defeated, a colony Moehogs were found in the detention level the Space Station, being held captive. They were released, making them available to adopt, and removing the Moehog from limited edition status.
• Codestones were officially released to the public as part of the plot, although their use as training items would not be cemented until the release of the Battledome.
• For part of the time this plot was running, a website known as Virtupets was up as a contrary to Neopets; designs for the Virtupets monsters were made available through this outlet and through the (now deleted) shop of the user drsloth, an account set up by The Neopets Team that has since been disabled.

External Links

• Plot Info: Plot homepage (defunct), Plot Trailer, Plot Comic (defunct), Final Plot Comic (defunct), The Space Faerie's plea (defunct), Destruction of the mutation ray gun, The Space Faerie's rallying of Neopians, Space Faerie's emergency broadcast, News report, Second news report, The Coded Message (defunct), Ask Dr. Sloth (defunct), Dr. Sloth's declaration (defunct), Transfiguration details (defunct), Transfiguration details (page two, defunct), The Launch Pad (defunct)