Bes Sakoov incident

The Bes Sakoov incident was an attempted military coup d'état in Terophan soon after the death of Vsevolod the Great, lasting from 30 Conservene 1970 to 6 Petrial 1971. Despite its significant effects on Terophatic politics, many of its details remain shrouded in mystery: its presumed military participants have mostly been divined only through tracing the disappearances among high-ranking Terophatic personnel that followed. The rebellion began at the Seranian barracks of Bes Sakoov, whence the name, and the putschists proceeded to temporarily seize control of the capital of Terophatic Serania, Besbelid, obtaining the collaboration of the Viceroy and issuing a proclamation by radio and television in the name of a 'Committee for the Protection of the Debates' that would ensure the continuation and fulfilment of Vsevolod's Cathedralist project by installing a different (but unnamed) Emperor to the Selected Heir, Spytihnev. The choice of Terophatic Serania was no doubt because the intensive surveillance of metropolitan Terophan offered little room for insurrectionary manoeuvre — in their own proclamation, the mutineers stated that Serania would serve as a 'platform to the world'. The attempt itself appears to have been motivated by a sentiment within the Terophatic armed forces that Vsevolod's death would allow the Terophatic Ascendancy to be threatened by concessionist civilian politicians in Axopol. It is very probable that the personnel connected to the coup attempt, many of whom appear to have served under Kvezous Nredasi in Anabbah at an earlier date and later transferred to Serania, received support from the Interim Authority in Anabbah.

The main opposition to the coup was organised by the Shakleem, acting as armed police and agents of the Imperial Court. Street fighting between mutineers, loyal units of the military, and the Shakleem continued in Besbelid for the following week, and strange but less spectacular events occurred in the metropolis. The Court placed the Elector Scholars under guard, in the process of which scattered instances of fighting were observed. The Debates in Axopol were accelerated, though proper ceremony was maintained, and Spytihnev was formally elected Emperor on 1 Petrial. An attempt to assassinate the Supreme Maintenant by car bomb was foiled on 4 Petrial, following which martial law was briefly declared in Axopol itself. By the morning of 6 Petrial, it was clear that the coup had been foiled. The Shakleem began to make mass arrests across the Empire. Though very few provincial leaders and officials of the Court were explicitly dismissed in the wake of the incident, perhaps to preserve the appearance of continuity at a sensitive time of transition — the Viceroy of Serania was a notable exception — many leading Cathedralists, including Nredasi and Hishora shelNzous, were quickly sidelined. The decline of the hardliners following the incident would later play an important role in allowing Terophan to lay down much of its unsustainable hegemony following the Constellation Crisis.