6
Dispatch → Bulletin → News
by 
The Goin' Silent of Zukchiva.
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152 reads.
A Brief on the Fedele Coup
ForewordSources include
The East Pacific forums, 
various posts by NSers (and some unlinked ones), and the log of the group chat made by the coupers sometime in June 2019. Some of the facts here are also supplied by my memory, though rest assured I do my best to keep to the facts.Anyone is welcome to correct any inaccuracies or notes (please provide direct links to resources).
This may get a bit messy since I'm trying to rush it, and just so much was going on! You'll notice that a lot of the brief focuses on legislative discussions, because that's mainly how they went about the coup.
Another thing that is important to note is that this source may be biased. I was not involved heavily in the coup until near the end, but it's enough to make it difficult for me to try and get this out fast without having to separate my emotion from the subject. Hopefully, one day someone can create a purely factual source, but for now this is the best we've got.
I wrote this out so that TEPers may have a resource to learn more about what Fedele and his friends did, and their actions. Hopefully, more information will be released, and someone will take time to write a more clear, non-biased source.
Beginning of the Soft Coup
(Where the cabal (name for Fedele and Co.) join the East Pacific and, based on their actions and statements, may or may have not already begun working together.)
2016
No one really knows when or why Fedele and company (Davelands, Aleister, Funkadelia, and in the early stages of the coup, Tim) decided to coup the East Pacific. While possible reasons and theories exist, the fact is that no one besides Fedele and Co. truly know why.
Fedele joined the East Pacific as a citizen under the nation "Enslaved Bigtopians" in 2016. He was accepted four days later. Following his joining, he became active in the discussions of improvement prevalent in the East Pacific at the time. Something interesting to note is that at this stage possibly much before the coup, he was already advocating for the banning of nations not contributing to the East Pacific and calling the government an oligarchy, both rhetorics which would be reused during his Delegacy and the coup itself.
Surprisingly enough, Aleister would also apply for citizenship during the same year in November. He would go on to introduce himself, make multiple arcade posts, and subsequently fall inactive for the next two years until sometime in 2019.
2017
For unknown reasons, Fedele reapplied for citizenship in 2017 with his former citizenship nation of "Enslaved Bigtopians" and was accepted on the same day. We also see Tim reapply for citizenship in the same year. (Note: Tim was a previous Magister who resigned due to time commitments as Pharoh as Osiris. It's reasonable to assume that his TEP nation CTE'd during this time, causing the new application.) Tim would also apply for the Magisterium in that same year, and would be accepted sometime in August, 2017. He would proceed to be an active Magister for the remainder of the coup.
Some time later, Fedele applied for the Magisterium and was accepted under the name "Scardino".
2018
After being accepted, Fedele became an active Magister, especially during the 37th and 38th Magisterium of the East Pacific. During the 38th Magisterium, he became Deputy Provost to Provost Verdrassil. The earliest known forum reference is found here.
Fedele would then later on accept a nomination to run in Delegate Elections of May/June 2018 and would soon post his campaign. While he would end up loosing to Queen Yuno, he gained a stunning 27% of all votes, foretelling future events. Soon after the election, Fedele would be nominated by Queen Yuno to become a Vizier, and would be accepted by the Magisterium.
A few weeks before the end of Drachen's term as Provost, we see the first appearance of Davelands in his Davelands forum account as an ambassador from the West Pacific. Within the next two weeks, Davelands would proceed to obtain citizenship, where he would vote on a Concordat referendum as a citizen. Following this, Davelands goes inactive for the rest of the month as well as November.
Following the administrative ban of Drachen for matters not related to the coup sometime in October (near the end of Yuno's third term as Delegate), Fedele became Provost of the 38th Magisterium.
In the following October 2018 Delegate elections, Fedele was nominated by multiple people and would accept his nomination. He proceeded to post his campaign, in which he made his famous promise to not run for re-election (and which he would later break). His campaign was consistent with the ideals of activity and work that he'd supported since he joined the East Pacific, and he was elected for his first term in the same election. He would end up winning Delegate elections this time, with a 68% majority of all votes.
Following in December 2018, we a sudden burst of activity from Davelands, where he spontaneously applies for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Magisterium. He would be quickly accepted into the Ministry as well as the the Magisterium.
2019
Following this, we see relatively stable and not startling activity from the coupers for the remainder of Fedele's term. Davelands participates in some Arcade games, responds to foreign updates, and participates in Magisterium functions. However, we do see a lot of legislative activity from Fedele on many matters, including: the repealing of Honorary Citizenship in the Concordat and Conclave reforms. An interesting note at this time is that here we can see Fedele advocating for Concordat reforms, which ties into Funk's 45 Theses, which would be published right before the hard coup. Tim, by this time, has already been fighting for Concordat reforms.
One important moment during Fedele's first term was the resignation of Minister of Immigration Pakitsk. This would allow Fedele to appoint Tim Stark (who has been serving as a Magister) as the Minister of Immigration. While Pakitsk would eventually void his resignation and serve as co-Minister for the Ministry, we see that this enables Tim to hold more power in the government.
Another important event that occurred was Davelands being instated as Minister of Foreign Affairs. This was done sometime in Janurary, as the previous Chief Minister of Foreign Affairs was promoted to Chief Minister of Regional Affairs. The importance of this move should not be passed over: with this, Fedele placed another (now or future couper) into a large position of power. This switcheroo occurs sometime in January of 2019.
In the February 2019 Delegate elections, Davelands nominates Fedele for the Delegacy, with the nomination seconded by many people. Fedele accepts his nomination. Davelands was also nominated and accepted his nomination. Interestingly enough, we can see in Daveland's campaign that he, like Fedele and Tim, were advocated for Concordat reform. Fedele would also post his campaign, though it was pretty much inactive with only three replies. But that did not have much effect, as Fedele would end up winning with a 67% majority of the vote.
Just like before, Fedele remained active within the Magisterium. He participated in discussions on the Viziership, Concordat amendments, changes to the Endorsement Cap Act, and other legislative discussions. One important thing to notice was that Fedele ended up nominating the current Provost of the time, Zukchiva as well as former Provost Asendavia to become Arbiters of the Conclave, as well as renominating Arbiter Hobbes. All three would eventually be voted into the Conclave, with Deputy Provost Davelands becoming temporary Provost. While it is unknown as to the reasoning of promoting Asendavia and Hobbes, it's plausible but not fact-proven that Provost Zukchiva was nominated to the Conclave for Davelands to rise to power.
Following this change, we see that Davelands becomes Chief Minister of Regional Affairs while Marrabuk returns to being the Chief Minister of Foreign Affairs. We also see that Tim has been appointed as the East Pacific Police Service Commissioner.
After these changes, nothing new happens for a while, besides Provost Davelands participating in a discussion in amending the Standing Orders, along with other legislative discussions. He also becomes elected as interim-Provost, at this time, serving the rest of Provost Zukchiva's term.
Whilst Davelands and Fedele are doing their things, we witness Aleister reapplying for citizenship and apply to join the Executive branch where he would be accepted by Marrabuk. He would proceed to become a bit active within the East Pacific's Executive, and join the Magisterium debate on the Standing Orders of the Magisterium as a citizen. A month after Aleister joins, Funkadelia applies for citizenship and also applies for the Executive branch (where he is accepted by Davelands) as well as joining Forum Roleplay.
The Cabal Unify
The Cabal form a group Discord chat on June 9, 2019 (the logs mentioned earlier). This chat becomes essential proof, showing that from this point forward, the Cabal/coupers were acting as one entity. From this point onwards, the events listed are confirmed by facts to be a coup.
NOTE: Much of the information listed below are from the "logs". However, due to personal OOC information, these logs are not public. However, they are heavily referenced during the writing of this section until the October 2019 coup.
June 2019
June Delegate 2019 elections soon get underway after Funk sets himself up in the East Pacific. In it, we can see the cabal nominating each other and other East Pacificans for the position of Delegate.
On June 9th, in the midst of nominations, Fedele creates a group chat with Funkadelia, Aleister, Davelands, and Tim. Voting opens on June 10th. In the chat, the cabal uses a few tricks in order to garner more votes. These include: having Davelands, who accepted a nomination, drop out of the race and support Fedele, question Todd McCloud, another candidate, about his inactivity issues, and stating that Marrabuk, yet another candidate, shouldn't be elected due to his naivety in gameplay matters. Something important to note is that these are very valid concerns and actions should they have come from a normal East Pacifican citizen. However, due to the cabal's goals, these "concerns" and actions all served to get more citizens to vote for Fedele. We also see the cabal vote stacking, with the discussion of bringing in Greyghost, Ark, Dalimbar, NeeNee, and Northeast Somerset to vote. Eventually, NeeNee, Dalimbar, Ark, Greyghost, and North East Somerset would all end up voting with Fedele as their first choice, and all besides Greyghost listing Davelands as their second.
On June 13th, we see an election complaint submitted by Candidate Todd McCloud about various issues with the election. From this complaint, the Viceroy decided to recount all the votes and check for any that were invalid. Despite NeeNee's, Dalimbar's, Ark's, and and Greyghost's votes being invalidated, Fedele would win the election, scraping by with 55% of all votes in the fourth round of counting.
After elections, we see the cabal in constant communication for the next few days, as they begin to deal with regional issues and trying to set up TEP for life in the long run. We also see Fedele active in Magisterium affairs, such as discussions about the Standing Orders of the Magisterium, with Davelands and Aleister also being active within the thread. Here, we also see Fedele's statement of the Magisterium being a brood of vipers. This statement would end up increasing tension levels to a new high as well as the resignation of Magister Bachtendekuppen from all Executive positions. This tension ends up making a re-appearance when Aleister applies for the Magisterium. The tension mainly appears in his question thread, opened on June 28th, 2019, where many citizens felt hesitant in letting someone with such an infamous history into the Magisterium. However, Aleister would end up becoming a Magister. We would also see Funkadelia joining the Magisterium as well around a week later.
The cabal would engage in many different legislative debates at the time, including but not limited to discussions about consecutive Delegate terms and a proposal to elect Ministers.
During this same month, we also saw the emergence of the Small Magisterium Cafeterium, a small group of TEPers who would begin running interference against the coup for the rest of Fedele's term.
July 2019
We also see Tim being nominated for Overseeing Officer of EPSA on the 2nd of July, further increasing the cabal's power over the East Pacific.
An important moment occurs early in July 2nd, where Bachtendekuppen submits a question to the Conclave about the ability of the Conclave to deny citizenship. The legal opinions laid out in this thread would end up saying that the Viceroy couldn't deny citizenship. This, of course, was a large issue at the time.
We see Magister Tim take quick action to propose a Concordat amendment in order to fix this issue, by allowing the Magisterium to define naturalization requirements. This amendment would end up passing both Magisterium and citizen vote. The most important part of this moment was that we begin to see Fedele's pattern of trolling, or breaking regional law, start. This is shown in an RMB post made by Fedele, trying to ratify the Concordat and thus attain citizenship on the RMB, which was against regional law at the time. This pattern of "misbehavior" would continue on in the future.
Also within this month, we would see a statement from the South Pacific against Fedele's marisupial purges, as well as the then-Delegate of the Rejected Realms, Kyorgia, reaching out to Fedele to levy private concerns of the purges. These actions indicate that the East Pacific's allies were beginning to be concerned about Fedele's actions, and mayhaps a possible coup.
August 2019
Falling into August, we begin to see mass-inactivity plague the Executive. Cabinet discussions become spotty, whilst nothing much happens within the Executive. The Cabal logs end during this month, and it's plausible that the cabal simply created a new group chat. We also see Tim ceasing to participate in the coup during this time (as made in statements from him), mainly since he believed the coup was failing and decided the better move would be to leave.
While this inactivity plagues the Executive, the Magisterium remains active with the cabal constantly posting in multiple threads to push legislative reform.
September 2019
September would simply prove to be another inactive month for the Executive, with nothing really happening. However, something important to note is that here we see Fedele telling his cabinet that they should exceed the endorsement caps and replace the Viziers, further showing Fedele's breakage of the law.
During September, we also see Delegate elections begin abnormally early (due to a mistake on the behalf of the Viceroy), with nominations beginning to open. As a result, we see Davelands open up his campaign, Fedele refusing to run this election term.
Delegate elections also open during this time, for a period of two weeks.
Build up to the Coup
The cabal begins to take extreme actions.
October 2019
October is where things begin to pick up again in terms of activity. On October 5th, we see Fedele remove Viziers from Regional Officers, another action which goes directly against East Pacifican law. This would end up pushing tension levels to an entirely new level.
We also see Davelands beginning to exceed the endorsement cap, and continuing to endotart, despite notification from the Viziers. This prompted the Magisterium to move for the removal of Davelands as Provost (with this push being supported by the Small Magisterium Cafeterium, the group mentioned earlier), which would end up forcing his resignation.
We also see Davelands appointing a new Deputy Provost, Brotherlands,. Brotherlands would end up helping to enact the first Provost elections after the coup and continue to serve as a Magister afterwards as well.
At the same time the Davelands-fiasco is going on, we see a Citizen, pressured by the situation, to attempt to amend the Concordat. However, he faces intense pushback from many East Pacificans who were unwilling to amend the Concordat during times of regional tension.
A few days after discussions on these matters end, we see Funkadelia post his 45 Theses against the laws of the East Pacific. In these theses, we can see a common rhetoric of the forum and government being an "oligarchy", an idea startlingly similar to those Fedele first revealed when he joined TEP in 2016.
In the midst of voting, Davelands submits an election complaint, detailing that he was attacked during the election and that him being ejected from the region (due to being above the endorsement cap) was a move by his opponents to discredit his campaign. The complaint forces the Viceroy-Designee to unofficially present the results of the election, which couldn't be officiated at the time in-case the complaint called for a new election.
The Coup
Or as what it really is, the end of the coup.
[NOTE: We have to go back a little bit in October to understand what was going on. Note that for this next part, most of what is happening is no longer focused around the forums, but rather NationStates itself as well as Discord. Also, since people may want to learn more detail about this part of the coup, you can check out Borimar's logs, as well as former TEP citizen the Vacationer's post. It's important to note that a lot was going on behind the scenes, with pretty much every single part of TEP running endorsement campaigns for people to unendorse Fedele. However, this is a brief, not an outline, so I can't include everything. :P]
On October 12th, we see that Fedele officially removes all Regional Officers from their positions, minus Marrabuk (who was winning the Delegate Election at that point) as Keeper of the Flame. This happens along with Funk posting his 45 Theses (as mentioned earlier).
October 14th sees more action coup-side. Early in the morning, Bachtendekuppen and Todd McCloud are ejected from the East Pacific by the cabal (who at this point are reappointed as Regional Officers). While Todd ends up updating in The Rejected Realms and looses his endorsements, we see that Bachtendekuppen successfully update surfs (meaning that he avoided the update by moving to a region that had already updated, which meant that the game hadn't changed his endorsement levels in the East Pacific).
We also see, later on in the day, the ejection and banning of Marrabuk from the East Pacific by Fedele. This action causes many allied regions, and a few non-allied regions, to release statements officially against the coup as well as closure of embassies with the East Pacific. It is at around this time that Marrabuk is officiated as the legal Delegate-elect of the East Pacific. At this point, Funkadelia has already begun banning nations who were endorsing Aelitia, including soldiers from regions who were fighting against Fedele.
At this point, we see various local resistance groups form within the RMB, forums, the Viziers, as well as the Small Magisterium Cafeterium.
Two hours after the officiation of Marrabuk, Fedele names a native nation, named the Great Cult of Cthulhu, as a security officer with RO. Cthulu would end up ejecting Fedele and clearing the ban list, which would allow Bachtendekuppen to return to the East Pacific, as well as the return of Marrabuk.
After this, we generally see the coupers begin to resign RO positions and leave the East Pacific. Aleister bans East Malaysia from the East Pacific before leaving himself, and the rest of the cabal leaves the East Pacific.
On October 15th, Aelitia seizes the Delegacy from Fedele, ending the coup.
Aftermath
What went on after the coup ended in terms of the trials and legislative reforms.
After the coup ended, Delegate Marrabuk quicky instated Todd McCloud as Commissioner of the East Pacific Police Service. Following his appointment, he filed charges against all the coupers, including Tim. In order to ensure the protection of the East Pacific, the Conclave ordered the ban of both Fedele and Davelands, who were still residing in the East Pacific.
Following this, the trials delayed for two weeks due to the Viceroy Aelitia suddenly going inactive. After an extension was granted for the pre-trial date, the trials would continue as normal. Eventually, Fedele, Funkadelia, Davelands, and Aleister would be charged with some form of treason and permanently banned from the East Pacific. Due to his assistance during the end of the coup as well as leaving the coup sometime in mid-August, Tim was charged with Omitting to Prevent Treason and was banned for three years.
From a legislative standpoint, a lot of important changes went about as well, including legislation on Regional Officers, a large amendment to the Concordat, and changes to law dealing with regional security. The most prominent rising from these changes is the formation of the Viziers as a fourth East Pacifican branch, and many functions being given over to the Viziers (like "ownership" of the East Pacific Police Service from the Delegate, and the ability to oversee citizenship naturalization from the Viceroy).
In the Executive, Marrabuk has managed to incite activity that disappeared under Fedele, doing many things like finding active Ministers and increasing relations with the East Pacific's allies.
That's the end of the brief. If you want to learn more, do some research yourself! Look around on the TEP forums, and in terms of Nationstates gameplay forums, check out threads made from October 9th- October 17th, 2019.
Below, I leave links containing notes + theories. When I feel that the notes are complete, I will publish them in a sister thread right here on the forums, but for right now they will remain in dispatch form as I work on them. Please note that, unlike the above, I stray AWAY from facts and rely more on my memory and tidbits of knowledge I know and have come across in logs and such. The above is mostly fact, the below is mostly theories, thinking, and feelings. Read at your own risk! ^-^
NOTE: This is also probably short in the sense that I can't write pages of material. X.x
LAST NOTE: This is simply my thoughts and thinking. Some of it will be theories, which is why it is not within the brief that I created, which tries to stick to the facts. Some will be explaining why I included what I did in the brief, aka why was a particular event was important. And etc.
Why did the Cabal try to coup?
This is probably an interesting question for many.
The first thing we should probably consider is who was the ringleader of this coup? And the answer, I believe, is Fedele or Davelands. If nothing else, for the simple fact that both Davelands and Fedele they were both more active within the coup before Aelister and Funkadelia ever joined.
As show in my brief, Fedele first joined TEP in 2016. So if we look to that time period, we can see various improvement discussions and drives trying to revive activity in the East Pacific (Examples here and here.) This is probably the first reason in which the cabal decided to coup later on: inactivity is the best time for a coup to be attempted.
Why? Because when inactivity is the state of affairs within a region, less people will probably care/notice that anything is going on. And, by being active in an inactive region, the cabal would stand out and thus be able to get into positions of power easily without much work.
However, I also propose a second, more controversial reason along with the first. That reason being when Delegate Aelitia was removed by the Viziers and was set for a trial based on the idea of voter fraud. As a tldr;, Aelitia had a roomate/friend who they helped join TEP as a citizen and the Magisterium. What ended up happening was that the friend would vote in ways similar to Aelitia since they felt comfortable following Aelitia's opinions. (Note that Aelitia didn't ask, the friend did it themselves). Obviously, this was a large error on the part of the Viziers of the time. The tensions provoked by this event was further exacerbated when Aelitia was forced to engage in legal debate to get back the Delegacy.
The reason this event could be another reason the Cabal decided to coup was because this event most likely caused a sort of breakage in the trust of government. With the government taking vast measures based upon a misunderstanding, and thus creating a regional drama and ultimately did nothing, many people's trust in government was most likely broken.
An inactive region that was under pressure and tension from internal affairs? One of the best regions to attempt a coup in.
The Cabal has later claimed post-coup that they wished to coup in order to make TEP more "democratic" with a government that follows more on-site principles, as well as wanting to fix up TEP's OOC moderation environment, which in late 2018 had resulted in a largely toxic regional environment. While it's very likely these statements may not be true, the fact that moderation did well enough clean up its act in many ways during Fedele's delegacy, alongside Fedele's and Daveland's historic ties to the Rahl family which was known for being a part of the meritocratic sphere, could lend credibility to these statements. Tim has been recorded as saying he only couped to help the region.
So when did the coup start?
Following new theories, this section needs revision.
Why was Fedele and the Cabal so into legislation?
We see that Fedele and Co. were pretty much involved heavily within legislation, to the point that they would neglect Executive duties in order to participate actively in the Magisterium.
The reason Fedele and Co. did this was simply so that they could twist legislation to fit their own benefits. For some examples (and my personal reasoning as to why):
- Proposal to remove life-time appointment of Viziers.
While this may seem like a sensible proposal, the fact is that it ties heavily into the Cabal's plan to make vote-stacking the primary way they could hold power within the East Pacific. By enabling vote-stacking within the Magisterium, they could possibly get rid of Viziers not loyal to Fedele/not-in-on-the-coup, and instead confirm and reconfirm Viziers loyal to Fedele over and over again.
- Nominating then Provost Zukchiva and former Provost Asendavia into the Conclave.
At the surface, it would make sense for these nominations to have occurred. Who best to lead the judicial branch besides those most experienced with tangling the law?
But what I think is that the coupers probably had a more nefarious intention. By removing two Magisters from the Magisterium, they simply just made it for themselves to take control over the Magisterium itself. Also, by removing Provost Zukchiva from the equation, it allowed Davelands to assume the Provost spot (since he was already Deputy Provost, he was the obvious choice for the job), thus giving the cabal more power.
- Attempting to increase restrictions for applicants trying to enter into the Magisterium.
The reasoning behind this, in my opinion, is simply to restrict who can enter the Magisterium. The harder the Magisterium is to enter, the less number of natives who would enter into the body. This would give the cabal more control over the Magisterium.
While the restrictions would end up being lessened in the final draft, this shows another way the cabal tried to solidify their power.
Interestingly, the cabal was either against or neutral on this matter. The reasoning for this was probably simple: they wanted to make sure that they could switch Delegates at their leisure, not when forced too by law. So they managed to successfully debate away the proposal.
The Cabal was heavily for this proposal. While not explicitly stated within the logs, it was most likely because doing so would strip power from the Delegate. Which means that even if the Rahls would end up losing the Delegacy for a period of time, they could attempt to vote stack Ministers of their choosing into power and maintain a grip on the East Pacific's government.
So I think it's clear why the Cabal focused so much on legislation! They focused on legislation so that they could change the East Pacific's legal structure to match their own needs.
Why did Davelands file the election complaint in October 2019?
What some people may wonder is why Davelands filed an election complaint during the case of October 2019, on the basis of his ejection "ruining" his image.
While I do believe it's obvious, it's most likely he was trying to get the election to be invalidated. This would buy the cabal more time to find out some way to try and get Davelands into the election spot a second time.
Whether this would have worked or not, should the coup have not ended so abruptly, is another matter. Personally, I don't believe it would've worked. It was obvious that Davelands' endotarting was something that needed to be taken care of, and he had repeatedly refused to listen to warnings of his being above the cap. Due to this, it was really Davelands forcing the Viziers to "ruin" his chance at winning the elections, and thus the complaint probably wouldn't have been successful.
What was up with the marsupial purges?
For those who don't know, a quick cap of marsupial purges is that they were Fedele's policy where he would banject and encourage banjection of new nations, who were no World Assembly, and had not changed their flag. This was regardless of whether they had just joined or not.
In an overarching sense, I do not believe there was a real purpose for them. They seemed to be just something to incite conflict, twist the legislature into making new law the cabal could corrupt, and in general just something to play around and troll the native population with. However, there were probably some benefits to the purges.
1. Drain high-influence natives of their influence
Per this statement and this statement by Tim, a former Cabal member, it's pretty clear that the marsupial purges were used to drain TEP natives of their influence. This would make it easier for the Cabal to conduct their coup by making it easier to ban natives and eventually the Viziers.
2. Unifying propaganda
While nonsensical, the campaign against the "marsupials" was an extremely good propaganda piece. It would help unite the East Pacific under Fedele and become a strong characteristic of his Delegacy. And it served its purpose well. By giving the East Pacific a common enemy to rally against, many East Pacificans became absorbed within the propaganda and also within the government. It was a useful and fun theme, despite its nefarious purposes.
3. Encouraged people to join the WA
Another thing that the marsupial campaign did was encourage people to join the WA, which in turn would mean more endorsements for Fedele. This would happen through Fedele's "Marsupial Hunter" policy, in which he would grant any nation with 200+ endorsements two days as an RO, where they could ban multiple marsupial nations. This probably helped encourage many nations to begin endotarting.
What was up with removing the Viziers from RO slots?
I think the main purpose for this was simply to ensure that the cabal could prevent the Viziers from turning around and banning them before the coup even began.
However, one additional purpose could be for the cabal to push its propaganda that TEP's legal system was extensively flawed. In the hours before the coup, Fedele constantly argued that his removal of the Viziers from RO slots was meant as a legal point, to show that TEP's legal system needed to be fixed. This could have been a last-minute tactic to convince TEP citizens that maybe change for the region was needed.
This would ultimately end up failing, mainly because most Citizens despised the move and refused to do anything until the Viziers were re-instated.
Why didn't Davelands win the elections?
Now this is an interesting question. Because it is, without a doubt, why the coup ended spectacularly horribly. If Davelands had won the election, there's no doubt in my mind that the coup would have continued onward.
My thinking:
1. Marrabuk was much more active than Davelands.
I think that any citizen who wants to be elected should, after being efficient in their work, by active within the East Pacific and it's various sub-communities, whether it be forum rp, RMB rp, the government, or just the gang who hangs out on Discord. And this is probably Davelands's first fall-through.
In the months leading up to October, Davelands was generally extremely inactive. Besides his newspaper (where he mentioned an interesting national holiday), he wasn't on at all. While Marrabuk, who wasn't as active, was still hanging out in the Discord and the RMB, making sure his presence was known.
This ultimately meant that Marrabuk was much more friendly and relatable than Davelands.
2. Davelands was resigning as Provost after the Magisterium created a motion to remove him.
Due to being above the endorsement cap, Davelands was facing removal as a Provost. Instead of being forcefully removed, Davelands decided to save face by resigning the Provostship within the next two days.
However, this was not a good look for him at all. Resigning as a regional leader due to your own law breaking, in the midst of an election where another regional leader was being voted in, is not a very good look for Davelands.
3. The Executive was extremely inactive... besides Foreign Affairs.
Back when Fedele was Delegate in his third term, the Executive fell extremely inactive. Well, besides Marrabuk and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which probably helped Marrabuk win over the hearts of more voters.)
Guess who was the Chief Minister of Regional Affairs? Davelands. So it's most likely that this is another strong reason why many voters didn't vote for Davelands. If he couldn't handle the Executive as CMoRA, he probably couldn't handle the Executive as the Delegate.
4. Marrabuk was a familiar face in Delegate Elections.
We've seen Marrabuk run twice before in a less serious manner yet still trying to get voted in. By the October 2019 election, any seasoned voter would've seen Marrabuk's campaign multiple times and would've been very familiar with it. Based on the previous factors, this fact probably helped many voters vote for Marrabuk instead of Davelands.
Why did Davelands make Brotherlands Deputy Provost before resigning?
So before he resigned, Davelands named Brotherlands as Deputy Provost. Now, this may not make much sense to people reading about the coup years into the future, so let me explain why I think he did this:
Brotherlands is not the most active Magister in terms of debating proposals. However, he is very much consistent in voting. Thus, it's plausible that Davelands pushed Brotherlands into the position because he thought Brotherlands's "inactivity" would slow down the Magisterium.
And why would Davelands do this? Simple... probably because he just felt a spike of saltiness/hatred at that time towards the Magisterium. And thus, tried to hinder it for no other reason that just because he could.
However, and luckily for the legislative body, Brotherlands was very active on the forums despite not debating proposals many times. So when he saw this happen, Brotherlands quickly took control over the reigns and made sure that the next Provost was selected in a timely manner. Good work :D
What about the Rahls?
Honestly, a lot of people tend to say that the Rahls are those who couped TEP. I think it would be asinine to deny that the Rahls were, at least as loosely associated individuals, involved in TEP in some capacity. However, the Rahls were not responsible for the coup as an entity.
Instead, based on both the logs corroborating vote-stacking as given by Tim as well as additional evidence I've received elsewhere (but sadly can't share), I think it's very probable that many Rahls knew about the coup effort (and has been claimed by Tim in the NSGP Discord server). However, due to apathy or noting the OOC environment in late 2018 TEP at the time, it's very plausible that many Rahls supported or at least turned their eyes from the coup.
Or they could've just been excited to see a coup. Either way, what is clear is that many Rahls were called upon to vote-stack by Fedele, corroborating that many Rahls played some role in the coup, even if it was as low as a clueless friend helping out in an election.
[LINK TO TESTIMONIAL DISPATCH]
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