Government:2019 East Pacific Coup Attempt

2019 East Pacific Coup Attempt
Date 14 October 2019 to 15 October 2019 Location The East Pacific Result Loyalist victory Cabal convicted of treason and Tim convicted of omitting to prevent treason
Belligerents
Cabal	East Pacifican Loyalists
Commanders and leaders
Fedele Davelands Aleister Funkadelia	Marrabuk Aelitia Bachtendekuppen Todd McCloud

The 2019 East Pacific Coup Attempt was a coup d'état attempt committed by Delegate Fedele.

On October 14, during the delegate transition from Fedele to Delegate-Elect Marrabuk, Fedele banjected Marrabuk and Vizier Bachtendekuppen and Funkadelia ejected Vizier Todd McCloud. Due to influence issues, Fedele was unable to banject Vizier Aelitia and simply ejected him instead. Aelitia returned to TEP before updating and Bachtendekuppen update surfed, both managing to avoid losing their endorsements to the update. Todd McCliud didn't update surf and lost his endorsements.

Mismanagement on the part of the cabal allowed Aelitia to overtake Fedele in endorsements, gaining the Delegacy and retaking control of TEP on the major update of the 15th of October.

Prelude

No one knows when or why the Cabal (and, in the early stages of the coup, Tim) decided to coup the East Pacific. While plausible theories exist, the fact is that no one besides the Cabal truly knows why.

The most plausible reason is this. TEP in 2016 and before was inactive. Aelitia's removal from the Delegacy by the Viziers resulted in him having to go through a legal challenge to get reinstated. An inactive region would allow the Cabal to quickly assume positions of power just by being active and, because the region is inactive, very few people will bother paying attention to what they do. Aelitia Delegacy being seized eroded trust in the government and gave the Cabal a window of opportunity to begin.

Fedele has hinted at the involvement of other people as well and while this is likely, we don't know who was involved and the extent of their involvement.

Beginnings

Tim had been in TEP since 2013. He was a former Citizen and former Magister who resigned from the Magusterium in 2014 and went inactive after that because of time commitments due to being a Pharoah of Osiris.

Aleister and Fedele both joined TEP in 2016 within a month of each other. Aleister introduced himself and went inactive after that, becoming active again in 2019. Whereas Fedele became involved in discussions of raising activity. His suggestions included ejecting nations that didn't contribute to TEP, saying that the Delegate ought to play the villain, and calling the government an oligarchy.

After this, Fedele becomes inactive and the cabal remain inactive until 2017.

In July of 2017, Tim applied for Citizenship and would also apply for the Magisterium a month later. He would be accepted for both and would proceed to be an active Magister for the remainder of his time in the coup. (Note: Tim first appeared in TEP back in 2013 and applied for Citizenship in the same year. He applied to the Magisterium in 2014. He resigned from the Magisterium due to time commitments as Pharaoh of Osiris. It's reasonable to assume that his TEP nation CTE'd during this time. This would forfeit his Citizenship and would require a new application.)

For unknown reasons, Fedele reapplied for Citizenship in September with the same nation as before. He would be accepted on the same day.

On the 2nd of October 2017, we saw Davelands for the first time when he applied for Diplomatic Status as a diplomat from The West Pacific. Also in October, Fedele applied for the Magisterium and was accepted under the name "Scardino" which was his forum name in the beginning. After being accepted, Fedele became an active Magister especially during the 37th and 38th Magisterium. During the 38th Magisterium, he became Deputy Provost to Provost Verdrassil/Drachen. The earliest known forum reference to this is on the 19th of August, 2018 during a vote.

In 2018, Fedele was nominated to run for Delegate in the May/June elections and he would accept. He then posted his campaign for the Delegacy and although he lost to Yuno, he did get 27% of the vote. After losing to Yuno, he was nominated to become a Vizier and he would be confirmed by the Magisterium.

In July 2018, Tim resigned from the Magisterium because he didn’t like the direction the Magisterium was going. A few months later, in early November, Tim reapplied to the Magisterium and was accepted. He stated in his questioning that this time, he would be less aggressive. He also said other rhetorics the Cabal was pushing for like ending protection "for some individuals".

At some point in mid-October, Drachen received an administration ban and Fedele became the Interim Provost of the 38th Magisterium.

Fedele would be nominated for the Delegacy again in the October 2018 elections and would accept. This was during Tim's self-imposed withdrawal from the Magisterium. He then posts his campaign a day later where he makes his famous pledge not to run for re-election which he would later renege. His campaign was consistent with his push for activity he made when he joined TEP. He would go on and win the Delegacy with 68% of the vote.

Remember, Tim reapplied after Fedele was elected. It could be that the Cabal didn't think their coup plan would work and began to withdraw. Then Fedele won the Delegacy, giving them a huge boost in confidence and causing their activity to build.

Whilst the election is going on, we see Davelands apply for Citizenship and he would be accepted in 11 days, after the election was concluded.

Fedele's First Term

In November, Pakitsk resigned as the Minister of Immigration but Fedele refused to accept it. Pakitsk voided his resignation after Fedele’s refusal but, by then, Fedele had already appointed Tim as Pakitsk's successor. Paki then served as co-Minister with Tim.

In the month of December, Davelands applied to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and he would be accepted on the same day. Just 10 days later, Davelands would apply to join the Magisterium and he would be accepted.

After this, the Cabal’s activity stabilizes for the rest of Fedele’s term. We see Davelands participate in a few arcade games, post foreign updates, and participate in basic Magisterium activity whereas Aleister was still inactive. Tim posts a few times but nothing particularly interesting however he was active in pushing for Concordat reforms. Fedele, on the other hand, was unusually active in legislative affairs. He was advocating for Concordat reform, repealing Honorary Citizenship, Conclave reforms, everything that would later tie into Funkadelia’s 45 Theses.

Another thing that happened in January was the promotion of Davelands to Chief Minister of Foreign Affairs after Marrabuk, the previous Minister, was switched to Chief Minister of Regional Affairs. This is a big change. Fedele placed another Cabal member into a position of significant power.

A month later, the February Delegate elections rolled around. Both Davelands and Fedele are nominated to run and they accept. Both post their campaigns soon enough. If we go back and look with hindsight, we can see the same themes of Concordat reforms in Davelands’ campaign. Fedele’s campaign received just three replies but the effect of this was minimal. In the end, Fedele received 67% of the vote.

Fedele's Second Term

As we saw before, Fedele remained active in legislative affairs from discussions about ending lifetime appointments of Viziers, Concordat reform, changes to the Endorsement Cap, and other things. An important thing to keep in mind is Fedele’s push against lifetime appointments of Viziers which may seem reasonable but, now that we have hindsight, heavily tied into the Cabal's plan to make vote-stacking the primary way they could hold power within TEP. By vote-stacking in the Magisterium, they could get rid of Viziers disloyal to the Cabal and instead elect loyal Viziers again and again.

We also see Aleister re-apply for Citizenship and he would be accepted quickly.

During the beginning of April, Fedele began his infamous “Marsupial Hunting License” program where Fedele would grant a nation with 200+ endorsements border control privileges for two days to ban or eject Marsupials. The program was most likely created as a unifying piece of propaganda and to encourage people to endotart. Most importantly, it got people to endorse Fedele and put pressure on the Magisterium to review the Concordat.

After the Marsupial purges begin, Aleister applies to join the Ministry Immigration, WA, Design and would be accepted two days later.

On April 20th, Provost Zuckchiva nominated Davelands to become Deputy Provost, he would accept his a week later on the 27th. Something else that happened just 11 hours after Davelands’ acceptance was Fedele’s nomination of the Provost Zukchiva, and former Provost Asendavia to become Arbiters. He also nominated Hobbes after Hobbes’ term ended. All three would be voted into the Conclave. A very plausible reason for Zukchiva’s nomination is so Davelands, a Cabal member, could become Interim Provost, as a serving Arbiter can’t be the Provost, which would further build the Cabal’s power and influence. It is unknown why Hobbes and Asendavia were nominated, it could have ulterior motives but then again, it could be benign.

Whilst the Magisterium is voting on Arbiters, we see Aleister change his Citizenship nation and Funkadelia makes his first appearance when he applies for Citizenship. Funkadelia would be accepted soon after.

We also see a change in roles. Marrabuk and Davelands switch roles becoming Chief Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief Minister of Regional Affairs, respectively. Tim is also assigned as EPPS Commissioner, further building the Cabal’s power.

After these changes, Funkadelia applied to the Ministry of Immigration and was quickly accepted by Davelands on the same day.

Not much happens after this. The cabal posted a few things but nothing relevant.

That is until the Delegate elections for June roll by. Both Fedele and Davelands accepted their numerous nominations and posted their campaigns.

On the 9th of June, Fedele created the Cabal’s group chat on Discord and included Funkadelia, Aleister, Davelands, and Tim. Since voting would have opened two days later, on the 11th, the Cabal immediately began discussing how they could gather more votes. The Cabal begins by having Davelands withdraw from the race to ensure Fedele gets elected. Next, they get Funkadelia to raise concerns about Todd McCloud’s activity although Aleister was the one to carry this out. It’s worth mentioning that Todd McCloud is a famous and old school TEPer who accepted their Delegate nomination. They also discuss getting Cain, Dalimbar, Greyghost, Ark, Minineenee, and Northeast Somerset to vote, showing that the Cabal was willing to vote stack to retain power. Dalimbar, Ark, Minineenee, and North East Somerset would all vote for Fedele as their first choice with Davelands as their second choice. Greyghost chose Fedele as their first choice and Marrabuk as their second. The Cabal next began to work on convincing other people to vote for Fedele. They also begin an attack on Marrabuk for being naive in gameplay matters, a threat to TEP if he is elected, and for including Yuno, a former Delegate who was banned for OOC reasons, in an advisory council formed of former Delegates. Some of their concerns would be genuine if we didn’t know of their planned coup and, given the effort they put in to get Fedele elected, it isn’t a stretch to believe that the Cabal was worried about their power.

On the 13th of June, Todd McCloud submits an election complaint about the issues with the election. The Viceroy decides to recount and check every vote which invalidated the votes of Funkadelia, Minineenee, Dalimbar, Ark, and Greyghost but despite this setback, Fedele still won in the fourth round of counting with just 55% of the vote.

Fedele's Third Term

After Fedele’s victory, the Cabal became a lot more active and began to plan on setting TEP up for the long run. A huge part of this is legislative work which is why they planned on getting loyal and active Magisters to bolster the Magisterium's legitimacy. As part of this, both Aleister and Funkadelia applied to the Magisterium and both would get accepted. Funkadelia would also apply to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and would get accepted. The Cabal also began a heavier push for legislation during this period. Previously, the Cabal pushed for ending lifetime appointments of Viziers. This time, the Cabal pushed for decreasing entry requirements into the Magisterium and electing Ministers which both heavily tie into the Cabal’s plan of controlling TEP through a loyal voting block in the Magisterium.

Because Fedele began wrenching pressure on the Magisterium by pushing for new legislation and his infamous comment about the Magisterium being a “brood of vipers”, Bachtendekuppen, a prominent Magister, resigned from all his positions in the Executive. Sometime during this month, the Small Magisterium Cafeterium emerged and began resisting the Cabal’s legislative pushes.

At the end of June, a thread was opened discussing consecutive Delegate terms, a topic the Cabal was indifferent about if not slightly against.

At the beginning of July, Fedele nominated Tim as Overseeing Officer of the EPSA who, after a lengthy questioning by the Magisterium, was accepted and gave the Cabal another prominent and powerful position.

On July the 11th, a forum thread was opened discussing Resident Rights, an issue that is still controversial. The Cabal was against giving Residents rights.

A very important note is that Fedele encouraged the Cabal to begin breaking the endocap to test the Viziers, something that is completely illegal.

During this time, there was an issue over Citizenship which isn’t particularly relevant to this but, amid the confusion, Fedele created a dispatch that said people could ratify the Concordat on the RMB which was illegal at the time. Why Fedele did this isn’t known but it stabbed him in the back as it became a point of contention.

Another thing in July was a statement from The South Pacific against Fedele’s Marsupial purges as well as The Rejected Realms’ Delegate at the time reach out and privately contact Fedele over the Marsupial purges. Highlighting the tension TEP’s allies had at the time over Fedele’s behavior.

In mid-July, the nominations for the 42nd Magisterium opened up and the only candidate to accept was Davelands. He obviously won. Davelands also appoints Aleister as his Deputy Provost, giving the Cabal more power.

In August, we see a steep decline in activity of the Executive with cabinet discussions becoming fewer and lower quality. While the Executive stalls, Tim withdrew from the Cabal, presumably because he believed the coup would fail. Aleister resigned from the Magisterium and his position as a Minister. Our logs end here.

September would also be an inactive month in the Executive. Despite this, Fedele did continue his illegal behavior by ignoring Davelands’ endocap violation and going one step further by telling the cabinet he’d do nothing if they went over the endocap as well since they act as Viziers already.

In mid-September, the Delegate elections open early due to a mistake by the Viceroy and nominations open. Davelands, Funkadelia, and Fedele were nominated but Funkadelia and Fedele declined to run. Davelands accepted and posted his campaign.

The Cabal’s activity builds up as they prepare to coup. Fedele’s first act is to remove all Regional Officers including Viziers except for Marrabuk who was kept as “Keeper of the Flame”. Although he reinstated the Viziers a short while later, this act was completely illegal and raised tensions to an incredible new level. In a reaction to this, a Magister, ArenaC, called for a fix to the Concordat but this was stopped by a Magisterium boycott and the Small Magisterium Cafeterium.

Following this, Davelands had his Provostship motioned for removal due to continuing to break the endo cap though he would spare himself the vote and resign the same day. However, before resigning, Davelands appointed Brotherlandprez1 as his deputy who would assume the Provostship on his resignation. The most plausible reason for naming Brotherlandprez1 as deputy just before his resignation is to slow down the Magisterium since Brotherlandprez1 was inactive in debating legislation. Although Davelands may have wanted to slow the Magisterium, Brotherlandprez1 became active to get a new Provost elected quickly.

A day later, Davelands was ejected by Todd McCloud for still being over the endocap and submits an election complaint about this. It’s suspected that Davelands wanted to get ejected to burn Todd McCloud’s influence, so the hard coup would be easier if he lost the election.

Two days later, Funkadelia posts his “45 Theses”, a document that becomes a prominent meme but also ties together all of the Cabal's rhetoric since the beginnings of the soft coup.

Fedele removed the Viziers again sometime before this but appointed Funkadelia as “Hall Monitor”.

Coup Attempt

On October the 14th, the hard coup begins. As the minor update came by, Funkadelia made the first move. As he still was a Regional Officer, he ejected Todd McCloud and began the hard coup. Todd McCloud lost his endorsements before he could update surf. Fedele then followed and banjected Bachtendekuppen but Bachtendekuppen avoided losing his endorsements and influence by successfully update surfing from The Rejected Realms to Fukuoka and then to Indonesia. Funkadelia then began his mass banjection spree. Fedele next banjected Marrabuk, who was set to win the Delegacy against Davelands. Fedele next ejected Aelitia but just ended up burning his influence since Aelitia moved back and saved their endorsements. After this, the Cabal and States of Carolina are all appointed as Regional Officers with border control.

During the chaos, Marrabuk is declared the legitimate Delegate on the forums and formally brings Fedele’s Delegacy to an end.

On-site, Fedele appoints The Cult of the Great Cthulhu as a Regional Officer with border control because he asked nicely. Fedele was then ejected and the ban list was cleared. This highlighted how desperate the Cabal became as they took a gamble by appointing a random nation to help as the hard coup began to fail. Fedele moved back and dismissed The Cult of the Great Cthulhu as a Regional Officer but the damage was already done.

After the ban list was cleared, Marrabuk and Bachtendekuppen moved back. Fedele effectively wasted influence to banject them in the first place and his situation became dire.

Davelands, probably seeing the coup as a failure, ejected Funkadelia, Aleister, and States of Carolina before resigning as a Regional Officer and moving to The Sportsbook.

After this, Aleister banjected East Malaysia, a prominent TEPer and admin, as his last move before he resigned from the World Assembly and his position as Regional Officer and then moved to Sinope. States of Carolina also resigned as Regional Officer. Funkadelia jumped ship shortly after by resigning from Regional Officer and moving to Taijitu.

A day later, on the 15th of October, Aelitia seized the Delegacy from Fedele and ended the coup.

External links

The East Pacific during the coup The East Pacific just after the coup Documentation of the coup