The Faction
This article was last updated on: February 4th 2023
The first messages sent in The Faction group, a Discord group dm.
Lore
The Faction was a secret rebel group founded on 23rd September 2022 against Dictator Izzy Beckhorn. Made up of members of Izzy's own administration, as well as disillusioned citizens, it was perhaps the largest rebel faction in Willemstan's history. The Faction formulated several different plans to remove Izzy from power. Most of these were civil, aside from the proposed "WillemBomb" which ultimately did not come to fruition. Rebellion plans were pushed back several times until the Faction decided not to act at all, citing the Winter 2022 Election as an opportunity to gain power with the least controversy. The Faction had been unofficially disolved by November 2022, and became obsolete on January 1st 2023.
The existence of The Faction was not publicly revealed until February 4th 2023, when the first draft of this article was made public. Prior to this, this article sat in a "redacted" state from January 2nd 2023 as an easter egg.
Members
The Faction was founded by Ian Hampton and Collin Key. Other members included:
- Aidan Stubblebine
- Charlie Nolan
- Hunter Stern
- Jacob Keith
- Kendal Hampton
- Sean Kavanagh
- Ty Keesler
Note that both Charlie and Ian were members of Izzy's administration during The Faction's existance. It is also worth noting that Aidan, Charlie, and Jacob joined the group later.
Motivations
The Faction was founded based on the idea that Willemstan was declining due to a lack of action by Izzy Beckhorn during her second term as Willemstan Dictator. This was blamed as being the source for inactivity in the server, as Dictatoral actions often cause drama or events which boost server activity. However, in retrospect, it is unclear if anyone could have boosted Willemstan's server activity during this time.
Blaming Izzy for the lack of server activity in Willemstan, members of The Faction sought to remove Izzy from power and put one of her rivals in power (for the funny). Candidates considered for a replacement Dictator included Kendal and Collin, though neither really wanted to take on the role.
History
Vote of No Confidence Proposal & Planned Protest Actions (September 2022 - October 2022)
On September 23rd, Ian created The Faction group dm, in which he posted propaganda and declared that "it is time we resort to extreme action in Willemstan once again." His initial plan was to submit a Vote of No Confidence proposal in Izzy's Citizen Survey, where the citizens of Willemstan could then vote to remove Izzy from power and replace her with a new Acting Dictator through what would be an emergency election. If his proposal was suppressed, Ian stated that The Faction would "begin formulating plans for more active demonstrations". Essentially, this would have been spreading propaganda and spam in Willemstan to rally the citizens to The Faction's cause.
Ian submitted the Vote of No Confidence proposal on the same day he founded The Faction. Additionally, he told its members that he was in talks with Charlie to join The Faction, and proposed that Kendal should be The Faction's nomineee should Izzy loose the Vote of No Confidence. Ian also stated that he considered inviting Andrew to the group, but decided not to due to his earlier actions with The Revolution. On September 29th, Ian instructed members of The Faction to vote against Joey's proposal to disband the political aspects of Willemstan, for the reason of: "we can't do our revolt if there's nobody to revolt against".
On September 30th, Ian sent several propaganda images in The Faction for use in future demonstrations. They were all based on the Mike Freeman with a Gun Image. The same day, he shared government messages from Izzy, in which she said that she had censored suggestions she didn't like. This possibly included the Vote of No Confidence, but Izzy refused to confirm that even to her administration. Also on September 30th, Charlie joined The Faction and wanted all members to resubmit the Vote of No Confidence, in an attempt to force the issue.
The Faction propaganda created by Ian.
The Willembomb (October 2022)
See also: SuS
By October 4th, Ian had commented that the server voting was taking forever, and he was concerned that the server votes had come to an abrupt end despite the fact that the Vote of No Confidence had yet to show up. In response, during early October, Ian formulated plans with Charlie to create a SuS command called the "WillemBomb". The idea was that should Izzy refuse to hold the Vote of No Confidence, The Faction would unleash the WillemBomb on the Willemstan Discord Server. The WillemBomb was a permissions nuke, it would create hundreds of administrator roles in seconds and assign them to every member of the server. This would create total anarchy and be very hard (if not impossible) for Izzy to counter, as she would have to delete these hundreds of admin roles manually. The implications of releasing the WillemBomb on the Willemstan Discord Server could only be speculated.
Throughout October 4th, Charlie conducted several tests of the WillemBomb, including a test on the original SuS & Gere testing server. However, he quickly discovered that the Discord API was limiting the WillemBomb's effectiveness, allowing the creation of only a few roles rather than hundreds. It was unclear if this was simply a coding issue, or if this was a hard limit that could not be bypassed.
On October 14th, Ian declared that waiting time was over, given that it had been over a week since the last server vote. He began rallying The Faction members for a joint protest action. However, he soon decided to hold off the protest until the WillemBomb was completed after talking with Charlie. This decision would stall The Faction's plans indefinitely. On October 16th, Charlie declared that he was officially stumped on the development for the WillemBomb.
End of The Faction (November 2022)
With the development of the WillemBomb hitting a brick wall, there was no additional planning in The Faction server. It seemed that without the threat of the WillemBomb, the protest actions would yield nothing but Salt Mine sentences for The Faction's members. On November 2nd, after there had been no activity in The Faction group since October 16th, Ian declared the WillemBomb a failure, and that there was no point rising up this close to an election. However, he did propose that members of The Faction should rally behind either Kendal or Collin during the upcoming Winter 2022 Election. This did not happen either.
On January 1st 2023, Charlie was declared the winner of the election and assumed power as the 9th Dictator of Willemstan. With Izzy no longer in power, The Faction was entirely obsolete.