The Molvarian government long admired the oil producing countries in the Middle East, and aspired to replicate their success by selling crude oil. However, these efforts were hampered by the fact that Molvaria has no naturally occurring crude oil anywhere within its borders.
This was only viewed as a minor setback by the Molvarian Minister for Energy, Yuri Turgenev, who instructed a group of engineers to create a 4000km oil pipeline that could carry oil from Yemen’s oil fields into Molvaria. The most important part of this plan was that it was to remain completely undetectable by the Yemeni authorities.
On the 18th October 2004 a team of 80 Molvarian civil engineers and 40 soldiers entered Yemen, disguised as a travelling circus. They headed for their first ‘performance’ near a large oil field and, under the cover of darkness, the engineers got to work, successfully drilling into the existing Yemeni pipeline. However, some local Yemeni oil workers, excited at the prospect of a circus visiting an oil field for the first time in history, arrived at the big top and demanded a performance.
Despite none of the engineers or soldiers having any formal circus training, they began to put on a show for the oil workers, following circus instructions stored on a military computer. The oil workers, having little experience of visiting circuses, enjoyed what they saw: a clown; a tightrope walker; a man with a whip taming another man who was dressed as a lion. However, the computer then instructed the Molvarians to bring out a fire breather.
The explosion was heard as far away as Egypt. There were only three survivors.