Warfare 202: Coup d’État
Greetings and Subnubilar! You know, we’re all that all the time, unless we’re flying. Anyway, hi and welcome! I hope you’re doing well and had a delightfully spooky October! Now, it is November and time to… checks notes apparently Anne scheduled us for a coup! Anne is usually a fan of revolutions, which is why she is a big fan of She who Sparks Rebellion, but not today! Despite her picking the topic…
Definition
As always, a good definition is a good start, so what is a coup?
A coup is when a small subset of keys attempts to replace the current government without changing the governmental structure.
So what is a key? Well, read the post and you’ll know! But the short version is, people or institutions that are important to maintaining the power that a person or institution possesses.
Civil war vs revolution vs coup
What is the difference, exactly? Well, revolution is generally easy, if you read my post; it is often the keys vs the population. But if you read my civil war post, you see that a civil war is a war between factions of keys within a nation. So what makes a coup different?
Well, for starters… there is no actual outright war going on. You don’t have a prolonged war going on where lots of people die as militaries clash. A coup can become a civil war, but it isn’t a civil war. So what is the real difference? The difference is, I’d say, that a coup is surgical and sudden. Sure, it takes a long time to plan an actual coup, but for the government, it is often very sudden and out of the blue.
And more importantly, it is precise. Members of a coup generally do not want to change the system; that is, they want to change the who and what of the system. So they surgically strike to remove those currently at the very top because they no longer fit for some reason. So in short:
Revolution: Keys vs People
Civil war: Key faction vs Key faction
Coup: Keys vs government.
War: Government vs government
Not the most precise one, but it easily captures the main differences, I’d say.
(Anne: And don’t forget the Quarrel, when it’s Old Lady Hensworth smacking her umbrella against Bob’s car because he ate two of her cookies instead of one!)
Mounting a coup
So you don’t like the government, maybe their mustache is just too bad looking and needs to be replaced; how does one do it? First of all… 🤫 secrecy, keep everything you do a secret. Yeah, secrecy is very important because if any key or person not in on it gets to know, it can blow immediately. After all, you are often heavily rewarded for telling about suspected coups.
Then you need to find the right moment, when is the right moment? The moment you can get all relevant government people, including the head honcho, in your grip immediately. If anyone of the closest ones to the leader is not taken they can mount a counter and then you might be getting a civil war instead of a coup. So it is often good to do it when the important people are all gathered in one location, or very small number of locations, so you can strike it all at once!
It is generally good to also strike the media centres as well because once the coup is under way, it is important to control the narrative. I have said it before, which blogpost was it, Anne? That people care more about stories than truth. And when a coup happens, it is no different. You need to control the narrative so that it looks good for you; if you don’t get the population on your side for the coup… you guessed it, you might get a revolution on your hand!
And you equally need to convince the keys that are not in on the coup that you are not an immediate threat to them. If the majority of keys suddenly thinks you are going to purge them if the coups succeeds, they will try to stop you! Unless you’ve captured them, at which point, who cares what they think? But if they try to stop you, you get a civil war on your hand if you cannot counter-stop them.
But if you succeed in getting the right keys on your side, you grab the ones you don’t want along with the relevant members of the government, control the narrative so they look bad and you look like a saviour, congratulations! You are the new supreme leader!
They kind of suck
I went through the how in rough steps, but the question is also, why? Well, if you read my post on keys to power, you know that keys are important for rulers! But you know what is even more important than having keys? Having them happy. Because unhappy keys are the ones that start coups.
And how do you keep keys happy? Well, money is a big one, but also giving them power that fits, and privileges that they can use and maybe a little abuse. As long as you keep keys happy, they will see no reason to start a coup against you, the new supreme leader!
But keeping so many keys, from dozens to potentially hundreds keys (usually in a democracy there are more keys) happy is, how should I say this… a giant pain in the behind, and you will inevitably fail with some unless you are a mastermind, or in my case, a mistressmind. But let’s face it, you are neither a mastermind nor a mistressmind so some keys are going to start grumbling and be displeased and eventually some of them will start saying that you…
Kind of suck and there can be a much better order of things! Possibly with them at the top… just like you did some 15 years ago (or previous section of this blogpost).
Prevention of coups
So how does one prevent coups from happening once one is the supreme leader? Well, keeping keys happy is the easiest one and that prevents them from ever starting… but you know, not smoking prevents lung cancer, yet we have people to this day who smoke! So, how do we remove this cancer called a coup after we smoked a billion cigarettes of angering the same keys?
Well, one way is regular purges. Building up enough connections and people supporting you to start and do a coup takes time, a very long time, we are talking years. Anyone knows that if a coup fails, you won’t be needing a hat ever again! So for them to trust you enough to actually help with a coup takes a lot of work and trust and that takes time. So if the supreme leader regularly just purge the most likely keys when they least expect it, tada!
Another way to help prevent coups is to make it so lucrative to snitch on people that in almost all cases, it is more beneficial for anyone to snitch on a coup planner than to join the coup. I don’t know about you, but if I get a billion shells for snitching vs a million for joining, I am snitching! And to this, create a snitch and distrust culture among your keys. If everyone cannot trust each other, then they cannot work together! DIVIDE AND CONQUER!
Purging keys
I have discussed in the last section that purging keys is a way to keep people in line. I have also said in others that when a new government comes in, keys are purged because the keys useful to get INTO power are not the same as the keys useful to KEEP the power. But how do we go about purging keys here without getting the other keys to suddenly revolt against you because you are now purging them all? After all, if one key disappears, they might be next on the chopping block if you’re a key!
Well, step one is control the narrative. If you can convince other keys that the key you are now killing–I mean removing their need for hats!–deserves it because of some treacherous act, then clearly the other keys are safe! They would never betray you, Great Supreme Leader!
Or you can arrange it so that they have to work at a specific spot and BOOM, explosion happens, and everyone is conveniently dead all of a sudden. Big benefit with this plan is that you can now blame another key you want to get rid of! They killed their fellow keys and have to pay the ultimate price!
In short, the way to purge keys is in general to control the narrative in such a way that the remaining keys do not see a problem with the removals you are doing. It always comes down to maintaining the keys, even as you purge them.
Foreign help
You know what costs a lot of money? Well, everything, but especially coups, because you need weapons, you need loyalty (which costs money!), you need vehicles, you need people who can do everything you need, and it all costs a lot of money. And sure, the previous leader did give a lot of money to keep you happy, despite the failure in the end, but that money is hardly enough most of the time.
Foreign entities are often quite happy to help, though! They can have a lot of money and resources, and as long as you align yourself with them in the aftermath, they are more than happy to give you what you need. This is why politics is so important if you are the supreme leader. If foreign nations find you too much of a problem and think that removing you would make it better for them, and if they have the money, they will throw it at your keys to remove you.
But that is for future supreme leader you to figure out! Now, you are getting their support because you promise that they can get your cocaonanas plantages cheaply and make billions selling it to the lazy natives of their own country who are only concerned with endless consumption instead of finding something meaningful to do with their lives, like your people who probably are doing the most meaningful thing ever of almost starving so they are focused on survival!
Just remember, do not go back on your deals!
Summa Summarum
So, this is in most contexts what a coup can be viewed as and the essentials of it. While the keys are important, what happens to the actual previous government? It’d be no surprise to anyone that they are made unable to wear hats! Once their usefulness is at an end, which is not a long time.
One important thing to notice however is that while this blogpost focuses on governmental coups, those are not the only kind of coups. A more generic view is that a coup is any time keys takes out the head of anything, instead of just a government. So it can be… Anne, what were your examples?
(Anne:) Scene: a corporate boardroom. An older red-faced person, the president of the megacorp, blusters about reigning in excessive spending, and then the key enters: cool, suave, with a perfectly tailored suit. They hand out information on the deals they’ve made in the last year versus those of the president, proving that the company would be better off in their hands. The other keys murmur, nod. Some have been paid off, some are loyal to the other key, some are angry at a failed promotion they totally deserved that the key might give them.
Five minutes later, the megacorp president is unceremoniously dumped outside the building and told they can collect their possessions the following day. The press obviously sees this but right as they’re about to question the old president, the new one sends out a press release that’s far more glamorous and attention-grabbing than anything some former megacorp president could say. End result? Coup accomplished.
And She who Sparks Rebellion? Well, this isn’t a revolution, but there’s plenty of rebellion! She and I give coups four hats off!
(Vivian:) Well, that was a scene, but yeah, that is all for this time!
