In depths of an unusually cold January in 2019, Márkës Vinsëłmø-Ŕymè, the Lord High Chancellor, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, head of the Supreme Council and the de facto dictator of country, sat down for an afternoon coffee in his Chancellery offices, looked out the window at the winter squalls, leaned back in his chair, and suffered a massive stroke.
It took him almost half an hour to be discovered and rushed to the hospital, cared for by top military doctors who tried to discover the extent of the damage. Everything was conducted completely in secrecy. Of course the top members of the Supreme Council were informed, but for the next few weeks the Lord Chancellor was incognito. Not that state media would say anything, however: reused archival footage from older closed meetings was broadcast in snippets to present the sense there was nothing wrong. The facts of his condition would not be known until mid-February, when the news was confirmed to the Supreme Council in full: the Chancellor was unable to walk, or speak, and although he was not in a vegetative state his recovery would take years, decades even, and that he was incapable of fulfilling his office.
Behind the scenes the wheels of conspiracy had already begun to turn. The factions in the Supreme Council that had been held together, barely, by the Chancellor after the overthrow of Pairi Hantili in 2016 were already drawing up against one another. To foreign observers and intelligence agencies, it was agreed there were a few major divisions. The Chancellor’s brother and Minister of State, Šygmë Vinsëłmø-Ŕymè, headed one group, the “Army Clique.” Lord Admiral Ta’us Rata’a, had his own Navy Clique. Minister of Justice Zannanza, a retired general, had his own power base, called the “Royalist Clique” because of his membership in the House of Parshtatar-Luwas. The Ultraconservatives, a group of hard-line Aatem Nal theocrats, coalesced under the leadership of Grand Librarian Shan Parshtatar, and Wemiya Tarku, the imposing female former World Assembly Minister, was widely believed to be the eminence grise behind the faction of diplomats and functionaries led by Foreign Minister Severín vèl Ortóvenë.
By April 1st, though, the veil was too thin, and the absence of the Lord Chancellor couldn’t be concealed any longer. His retirement was announced, with little fanfare, and the thanks of a nation were given. Behind the scenes, the jockeying for power began in earnest, and the knives were out, with waves of recrimination spreading through the networks of influence and patronage overseen by the various members of government. By the end of May, the Council itself was in turmoil. Narmo Avoon, the Interior Minister, “retired for reasons of health” and sought medical treatment in Sabaristan. Tuliak, the Transportation Minister and Navy Admiral, fled to Aerion in advance of his arrest on charges of public corruption. Ta’us Broma’a, the former commando general, war hero, and Science Minister, committed suicide with wife and only son when word reached him the feared Public Security Bureau of Eged Boerkil was preparing to arrest him on charges of spying for the Kartlians.
Perhaps the most surprising downfall was Boerkil himself. He was last seen on June 5, leaving the capital for the Dayan countryside, and never returned to his post. His lieutenants were rolled up almost immediately, and his hated bureau fell apart almost by the end of the week, consumed mostly with watching their own asses instead of the citizenry.
Within the space of a few six months, the government of Snefaldia had nearly come apart at the seams, kept running only by the mass of civil servants at lower levels. The façade of a unified executive government, and the carefully balanced system created by the stricken former Chancellor, was collapsing. The Supreme Council itself, missing half its members, rarely met anymore; the major players retreated first to their ministry buildings, and then to their provincial powerbases to keep a hold on their factions. Only Ta’us Rata’a kept up the façade of legitimate government, gaveling the national legislature into session and holding debates on dead-end legislation.
Abroad, the dissidents, refugees, and political exiles forced out or tortured by first the fury of the Hantili regime and then by the iron grip of Vinsëłmø-Ŕymè’s were seeing the cracks and taking their chances. With the security services in sudden disarray, there was space for organization and planning. From over the border in Anahuac, exiled Snefaldian communists began to filter back into the western Korsahad province, believing the time had come for socialist revolution.
The first strikes against the state were initially small. Police chiefs and a few legislators were killed by bombs being thrown into their offices. The Mayor of Kand, a retired army colonel, was shot and killed on way to the office in the morning. A Brigadier in the Public Security Armed Police was killed by a car bomb in the suburbs of Mavateisnaya. State media blamed terrorists and foreign provocateurs, attempting to project a sense of strength, but it was a thin veneer.
On July 15th, the moment the government had feared the most came. In Luwatarna, a cadre of young army colonels launched a coup, arresting first the mayor, their commanding general, the entire High Circuit Court for Karduniash Province, and managed to arrest the commander of the Karduniash-East Military Region. The coup only faltered when the airforce branch commander refused to join the coup and warned the local Special Forces commander, who moved to quash the coup and lock down the communications in the city before it could spread. The country was on tenterhooks, seemingly ready to explode, and within the government the leaders of the various factions seemed to be almost waiting for the moment to consolidate power in their own hands.
In the moment, as events develop, it is sometimes hard to know when a tipping point has been reached, the exact second when things change and there is no going back. It is left up to historians to later delineate, explain, and understand. For Snefaldia, the moment was August 9th , at 7:30 in the morning, when soldiers from Šygmë Vinsëłmø-Ŕymè’s Army Clique broke into the Dayan country estate of Eshmunazor Naramsin, the head of the Strategic Missile Command, arrested him, and after a drumhead trial, executed him on the front lawn. They also shot his wife, seemingly for good measure. The major play was being made for Snefaldia’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, a play that had to be stopped. The Navy group responded by sending armed marines to seize the offices of government in Sargedain, and Ta’us Rata’a ordered the fleet to sea at high alert. Vinsëłmø-Ŕymè, with his army power base, immediately moved to combat Ta’us, and by the morning of the 9th there were running gun battles in Sargedain.
Years later, some historians would argue it began with the stroke suffered by the Lord Chancellor. Some would even say it had truly begun with the coup against Pairi Hantili, or even Hantili’s coup itself. In point of fact, though, August 9th, 7:30 AM, Snefaldia descended into civil war.
