Even as he was making his own plans to deconstruct the Acorn Kingdom and craft the planet of Mobius to his own vision, Julian found that he was not the only one in the palace who wished to remove the King from his post. Signal taps that Snively had placed all across the palace's central computer network showed several secret communiques between Warlord Kodos and the reclusive Minister of Sciense Ixis . . . communiques that showed their roles as co-conspirators against the crown.
Deciding to take advantage of this situation, Julian decided to make use of this knowledge. He confronted the two Mobians and offered to help them. Kodos readily agreed, though his elderly chimpanzee cohort seemed rather reluctant at first.
Ixis, Julian learned, had originally been partners with Max Ocelot, the self-proclaimed instigator of the Great War. Ixis had been the main developer of the virus, while Ocelot had merely provided the Chaotic elements needed with his abilities as a magician. The two had remained well behind the scenes for some time until Ocelot's megalomania got the better of him. He ditched Ixis at the first available opportunity, took all the plans and virus-creating machinary, and ran off to the Lesser Mobian Continent to run the Great War on his own. Ixis knew the cure for the virus and had momentarily considered giving it to Acorn as revenge, but had decided to let the war continue for a bit longer, so the kingdom would weaken even further and make a takeover all the easier.
To replace Ocelot, Ixis had taken Kodos in as a new partner. Eventually, the war would further and further demoralize the people and it would be easy to turn them and - most importantly - Kodos' troops against the King. When this happened, Ixis would "miraculously" find the cure for the virus and end the war. This act as well as the support of Kodos and the armed forces would ensure that he could easily have the King removed and anyone he wanted put in his place . . . someone easier for Ixis to control.
Kodos, meanwhile, merely wanted to kill King Acorn. Apparently, the Warlord had sworn a blood oath to kill the King. He had spent many years pretending to be the King's friend and had even managed to rise to his high office thanks in part to this friendship, all so he could learn all about the man before he killed him. It was a complicated ritual that Julian never fully understood . . . not, in the end, that he cared to.
Julian, of course, had no intention on letting either of his new co-conspiritors live to see their plans come to fruition. He spent time plotting with them, but most of that time was also spent studying them, their weaknesses, and the resources they had at their disposal that he could use to further his own plans once they were gone. And once he felt they had outlived their usefulness, he eliminated them.
Deep within Ixis' private laboratory within the walls of Acorn Castle, the Minister of Science had several different experiments running that he had not released knowledge of to the public. In fact, many of them were not even known to the King or the rest of the Royal Council. Among these experiments was a permenant artificial Zone.
Julian had learned early on that Zones were small dimensional pockets that appeared from time to time all across Mobius. Their brightly colored portals led to miniature alternate realities whose landscapes could be wonderfully facinating or frighteningly leathal. Mobian scientists had long ago developed a process to create Zones artificially and shape their internal reality to their own designs, but these creations were generally even more unstable than the often-flaky natural Zones. Ixis had apparently found a way to stabilize a Zone, one which he called the Zone of Silence due to its unusual auditory properties . . . unfortunately, he wasn't quite sure how he had managed this feat, and all attempts to recreate the experiment had ended in failure. Also, it seemed that the Zone of Silence was immune to any attempts to alter its properties . . . it couldn't be shaped the way other artificial zones could. In the end, it seemed that except for its permenance, it was of little use to anyone.
Julian found a use when it came time to rid himself of Ixis. During a slow period during the Great War, the Minister of Science decided to take a short jaunt into the Zone to further study it's unusual properties. Julian, having caught wind of this trip, stole into the chamber containing the Zone and shut the portal. Later, with the help of several newly constructed SWATbots, he forced Warlord Kodos to take a similar one-way journey. Because no one else knew of the Zone of Silence's existence, it seemed almost as if Ixis and Kodos had completely dissappeared without a trace.
Suddenly without two of his most important Royal Council members, King Acorn had to find replacements as quickly as possible. Sir Charles Hedgehog became Minister of Science. Who was to become Warlord was a much more difficult choice, but Julian managed to grab the job. Early on, he had decided to learn as much military strategy from Kodos as he could before banishing the brute to the Zone of Silence. He had learned with amazing rapidity, and he also knew more about the new SWATbot army's strengths and weaknesses than anyone else. He managed to show the King that he would be perfect for the position.
Having managed to gain access to all of Ixis' private experiments, placed himself in control of all the armed forces in the Acorn Kingdom (robotic and Mobian), gotten Sir Charles into a position in which he'd have more resources to finish the cybervitalizer with, and thouroughly ingratiated himself to the King, there was only one more major obstacle to overcome before Julian could proceed with his plans to assume complete control of Mobius.
He had a war to win.
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