Plot to Overthrow Government Discovered and Stopped!
"NO COUP FOR YOU! ONE YEAR!"
A large conspiracy to overthrow the delegate and the government was halted today in Lazarus. The plot involved a massive group, many of which hold important and powerful positions in Lazarus, but all of which were caught red handed.
A number of days ago an informant, who wishes to remain anonymous at this time, approached Delegate Funkadelia regarding an active plot against the government. The evidence that they eventually supplied him was both shocking in its brazenness and scope, and implicated the Vice Delegate, no less than three Guardians, a Prelate (Judge), and the disgraced former Archbishop of the Exterior.
From screenshots obtained by the source, it is now known that the plotters made a Discord channel called "La Résistance", to which they invited many prominent Lazarus members to discuss an active plan to overtake and ban Delegate Funkadelia then replace the current government with a new one. The full list of those involved in the “La Résistance" chat, and thus with knowledge of the plot, is as follows:
Curious Observations, Ike, Lenlyvit, Somyrion, Svezjacael, Vapid, Amerion, Andrew, Atlantica, Chanku, Doperland, Griffindor, Harmoneia, Kanglia, Moro, Omega, Phertt, Seraph, Thatcher, Church of Satan, and Wintermoot.
The initial "core" of this conspiracy was comprised of three individuals: Ark; who was just recently dismissed from his post as Archbishop of the Exterior for his open and personal hostility towards Delegate Funkadelia, Aumelodia/Somyrion; who just proposed a change that would conveniently change the language of the law allowing the banning of individuals “publicly charged with a crime” to “convicted of a crime”, and Ikania; who just recently started a party whose stated goal is to bring a PRL type dictatorship back to Lazarus. These individuals, after finding a common cause, then sought to find others willing to join in their bid to overthrow the Celestial Union of Lazarus.
And find they did. Amongst their co-conspirators are the the Defender of the Realm and three Guardians, all of whom are suppose to be protecting the region from outsiders threats, but instead abused their positions for their own agenda. These individuals are: Vice Delegate and Defender of the Realm Doperland, Former Delegate Harmoneia, Guardian Amerion (who, prior to this plot being uncovered, was already being charged with Conspiracy and Electoral Fraud), and long time citizen Wintermoot. All four can be seen partaking in the discussion which, lest we forget, was solely about the overthrow of the legal government. The most damning of these comments come from Amerion, who follows up his pending charge of treason with yet another act of treason, this time actively seeking to lower the endorsement count of the legally seated Delegate. “"I will send out tgs to the people i sent tgs to later, ask them to undendorse", he stated.
Also partaking in the plotting was Guardian, and former delegate, Harmoneia. She can be seen musing about how, from her view point, Delegate Funkadelia is idiotic not to illegal coup the region before her group can. “If funk were half as smart as [Evil] Wolf it'd be quite easy for him to coup.” She continues, “Endos too far from any of us, banject any incoming endorsees of opponents”. Soon thereafter Harmonia, along with the other corrupt Guardians, went on a massive endorsement run in an attempt to get closer to the delegate position.
The reasoning for the coup seem to vary slightly from person to person, but the general consensus seems to be the fear that Lazarus was being "taken over" by raiders, and that the only way to stop them was to coup the region entirely. Lazarus recently voted and successfully passed an amendment that changed the status of its military from being pure Defender to Independent. It would seem that the plotters thought that it was necessary to coup the region in order to prevent a coup, which presents several logical errors. It is currently unknown if one of the plotters was the author of the sensationalist and factually false article “Rampant Voter Importation in Lazarus”, posted last week, which made a similar allegation and presented flimsy and questionable evidence as "proof" of a larger conspiracy. It is known, however, that Curious Observations, the nation that posted the article, shares their name with a Discord user present in the Coup chat.
It is presently not known if the would-be-Coup has any foreign support, although the logs do extensively discuss the possible use of non-Lazarus citizens and militaries and many names were dropped. Plotter Atlantica had this to say on the matter "I said this to Ark and I'll say it here: the only way to stop the raider bloc is to get our own bloc. People who are connected to the NPO need to get NPO people; same with TGW, with TSP, with FORGE (although Lenny's already doing that), etc." Speaking of the NPO, their name was dropped many, many times by joint Lazarus/Pacific citizen and coup plotter Ark, who mentioned the NPO on a regular basis. "I [can't] guarantee NPO support," he said "but I can tell you some elements of TP would love to stick it to Funkadelia", no doubt partly referring to himself in that statement. One can only imagine how the NPO's leaders currently feel to be reading about how their region, without their knowledge or consent, was implied by their acting head of Foreign Affairs to be complicit in his private conspiracy.
In addition to the very real possibility of outside support, the conspirators attempted to subvert the Court in their favor. To aid in this effort, they enlisted the help of current Prelate Omega, who actively attempted to prevent the Court from pressing charges against one of his fellow co-conspirators, Amerion. Lazarus law states that the Court must have a minimum of three Prelates in order to rule on a case, and currently only has three. To prevent the Court from functioning, Omega was recusing himself from every case presented. This essentially attempted to shut the Courts down. This blatant perversion of the law is mentioned several times in the damning screenshots, including when Omega states "I am shutting his power on the court", referring to the elected Holy Prelate, Killer Kitty, who heads the Court. This egregious abuse of power was intended to protect the plot from any legal issues, such as the charges against Amerion, although this effort clearly failed in the end.
Due to the extreme danger the region was in, the Delegate was forced to eject several of the plotters in an attempt to lower their endorsement counts, specifically the three traitorous Guardians and the Vice Delegate. To this end, Guardian Killer Kitty was asked to assist with the ejections, since the four plotters had acquired massive amounts of endorsements over the course of their now poisoned terms. The other plotters have not been currently banned or ejected, since they do not pose the same threat to the region, but will be charged all the same, including Omega, the Prelate who attempted to shut the Court system down in an attempt to escape justice.
Currently Lazarus is in a state of emergency and is in need of assistance. An open call for help is being made for all who can afford to lend it. We ask all who are assisting to please endorse the delegate, Funkadelia, as well as following further instructions on the Lazarus World Factbook Entry. We thank all who come out to help us in these trying times.
