[TRIAL] The East Pacific v. Soramra (JoWhatup)

I hereby proclaim the opening of the Trial:

TEP v. Soramra (JoWhatup)

on the charges of High Treason and Omission to Prevent Treason

I open this trial with the reminder that this is a serious trial. Only the parties present and those allowed by the Court will be allowed to speak in this thread. Any posts made by people who are not involved with the case will have their message deleted from the thread. I encourage all parties involved to read the Standing Orders of the Conclave to help understand the process moving forward.

Date for Trial: 16th February 2025 to 2nd March 2025 (end date is Subject to change)

The Standing Orders of Conclave

2.16. Trial - The following steps will occur for a trial:

a. To begin the trial, the Presiding Arbiter shall state their name and the names of the parties involved in the suit. Only the parties listed to be involved in the suit may post in the trial.

b. The parties named in the opening statement (and those accepted by the Presiding Arbiter) shall declare their presence in a reasonable time frame (which cannot exceed four days) set by the Presiding Arbiter.

If a party fails to declare presence in that time frame, the Arbiter shall rule in favour of the present party. If this is the case, the verdict shall not be considered as precedence forming.

c. Plaintiff or Prosecution provides the reason for their claim, and brings forth evidence. Must be executed in the time allotted by the pre-trial. The Presiding Arbiter shall rule on the admissibility of evidence if it is objected to by an opposing party.

d. The defense provides the counterargument, introducing evidence for their argument. Must be executed in the time allotted by the pre-trial. The Presiding Arbiter shall rule on the admissibility of evidence if it is objected to by an opposing party.

e. Evidence and arguments are made and presented to the Presiding Arbiter until that Arbiter feels the issues have been properly addressed. Motions regarding addition of witnesses shall be heard and ruled upon at this time.

f. The Presiding Arbiter shall close the debate, and no further evidence may be presented at this time. The Presiding Arbiter shall review pertinent laws and precedence to render a decision.

g. The decision reached shall be presented at the end of the trial, and shall remain locked from that point. The verdict at this point shall form precedent and constitute a legally binding order for the relevant officials to enforce its provisions.

THE PARTIES

PRESIDING ARBITER: @Shadow

PROSECUTION: First Chair, @A_mean_old_man, Vizier and Magister; Second chair, @Dremaur, Grand Vizier and Magister

DEFENSE: Soramra/@Kingdom_of_Napels (JoWhatup) , Magister

The above listed parties have 72 hours (2025-02-19T18:45:00Z) from the opening of this trial to declare their presence in accordance with the SOC.

FOR THE SAKE OF CLARITY, only one listed member from either party needs to declare their presence.

Parties will refrain from posting any evidence, argument, or testimony until allowed by procedure or solicited by the Presiding Arbiter.

The Prosecution is present.

I am present.

The Presiding Arbiter has noted the presence of both parties.

The Prosecution is now given 2 days (2025-02-18T19:30:00Z) to present their case.

Requests for extensions will be considered.

Thank you. The Prosecution needs no extension. The Prosecution leads with the definitions of “high treason” and “omitting to prevent treason”, as codified by the Treason Act, punishable by up to lifetime banishment and up to five-year banishment, respectively, as determined by the Act, and of both of which the Defendant is being charged:

…3.1. Every one commits high treason who overthrows or attempts to overthrow the legitimate Delegate or the legitimate government of the East Pacific; within the East Pacific, levies war against the East Pacific or does any act preparatory thereto; or assists an enemy at war with the East Pacific or any forces against whom the East Pacific is engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between the East Pacific and the entity to which the forces belong to.

…7.1. Every one commits an offence who, knowing that a person is about to commit high treason or treason, does not, with all reasonable dispatch, inform the legitimate government of the East Pacific or make other reasonable efforts to prevent that person from committing high treason or treason.

Dates are posted in American format (mo/day/yr) but changed to [mo day, year] in attempts to accommodate. A portion of my introduction will be copied / reiterated from my Motion, as little I’ve said there requires changing. I will quote myself where doing so:

“[On Feb 6, 2025], Quebecshire forwarded me screenshots taken by Numero Capitan as their alias, “Haitianstates”, which had achieved a rank high enough within LWU to access the #command-room channel in their Discord server. Within this channel and from its downloaded dump file, Haitianstates / Quebecshire captured the following images:”

“Upon establishing a group DM with Q and Jeo (Numero [Capitan, AKA Numero, NuCa, Haitianstates]), the latter also provided the following:”

“Jeo: “This was 2nd March 2020”:”

“At the time (back in 2020), and bolstering the veracity of these logs as presented to TEP presently, Numero subsequently reached out to the Delegate of TEP, Libertanny, with as much information as could be safely provided such that the infiltration wasn’t blown:”

“Libertanny (Serge) confirms the receipt and veracity of these messages.”

Deviating from / in addition to what was posted in the Motion, I personally can also confirm the receipt and veracity of these messages, as I was among the three people with higher-level security access (forums / IPs) that Lib very carefully notified at this time while avoiding blowing our ally’s intelligence-gathering operations and avoiding creating a sense of panic and distrust in a recently-restored and possibly vulnerable democracy in TEP:

I will be calling East Malaysia to testify as a witness later (as dictated by procedure), simply to verify this screenshot in addition to my own claims of verification.

“The dump file has also been shared, and I have scoured it for more information in addition to what was initially cropped and shared by Q and Numero, and found the following:”

The entire dump file has been provided to the Conclave privately as evidence in this case.

“The logs provided show this cast of characters communicating closely and privately up until December of 2021, until Haitianstates was removed from the channel. Not shown in the above screenshots, but featured in the output from this channel and privy to these discussions are / were Evil Wolf, “Blitz”, Kawaii . . ., and Sidoneia.”

“Who is Numero Capitan? Quebecshire provides some background / introduction:”

“Numero Capitan is a longtime freelance defender intelligence player. Around 2019 he began an operation that took him to LWU, reaching the command rank of Khalif. This operation was used primarily for information gathering.

In 2020, when Scardino was attempting to regain access to TEP and relaying this to LWU command, Numero consulted Libertanny on suspicious new citizens in TEP without providing detail that could compromise the operation.

Now that the operation is fully concluded and the infiltrator alias is public, this information can be shared and was relayed to TEP by its possessors.”

Again, as dictated by proper procedure and as requested by the Viceroy, I will also be calling Quebecshire to the witness stand to testify re: the legitimacy of these logs and regarding his relationship with the intelligence asset. I will also, as dictated by procedure, call HumanSanity, currently of our treaty ally TSP and former delegate of treaty ally 10000 Islands (AKA 10kI, XKI) to testify regarding NuCa’s character and professionalism.

“The damning nature of this evidence, and exactly who it implicates as having both omitted others’ intent to commit treason and having committed high treason himself, should be self-evident. For those for whom it is not, I will elaborate:

“A Bloodred Moon” is none other than Jowhatup / Soramra / Kingdom_of_Napels, etc., who has been a member of our Discord server since [Oct 15,] 2019, and who since early- to mid-2023 has ramped up his activity here in our Executive and Legislative branches of government, climaxing presently in a very serious bid for the Delegacy: the position that holds the most mechanical and governmental power and influence in the region. “Scardino” is Fedele, a former member of the Rahl “family” and LWU member who attempted a failed coup d’état in our region in October, 2019 (currently banned: convicted of committing treason). “Cain” is Dream Killers, AKA “Aeneas Rahl” (https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_past_resolution/id=456/council=2). Lamb needs no introduction … but again, for those new enough not to know: Lamb, or “Lamb Stone”, or “Aleister” was a conspirator integral to planning / perpetrating Fedele’s coup attempt in 2019, and who is also currently banned from our government after being convicted of treason for his role in this affair. “Green” is AKA Elysium Station II (https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_past_resolution/id=409/council=2), another participant in the coup, whose own WASC condemnation, frequently considered a “badge of honor” in the raider / NS villain community, was submitted by Jowhatup (via “Kingdom of Napels”).

For exactly five years (likely longer; the logs provided don’t go before 2/18/2020; at least from 2020 to 2021 as shown in the logs, and it is known that all of these individuals still share LWU membership / close connections), Jo has, behind closed doors, held or been privy to intimate discussions with our region’s worst enemies, and a number of said discussions were directly pertaining to influencing and infiltrating our region and government. He failed to report Fedele’s intentions and actions against us post-coup, which apparently include regaining citizenship here using some kind of proxy or VPS service that allowed him to sneak in using a clean, residential IP address, as well as evidently conspired with virtually everyone responsible for the coup attempt for at least two years afterwards in designs DIRECTLY pertaining to TEP, as well as less-specifically to Fedele’s “infiltration operation”, “sleeper”, and plans for [“1 year+ projects” ending in “a wolf flag [getting] raised over a GCR”], which I can only assume have something to do with TEP. Jo boasts numerous crafty, underhanded plans and devices in these conversations pertaining to infiltrations and manipulating game mechanics and interregional politics in LWU’s favor. One can assume that those designs are currently at play here in The East Pacific.”

In addition to the evidence and commentary provided in the Motion, I will provide comments from Jo in DMs with Feux / “Debussy” regarding the latter’s recent work in Lazarus, which were provided to us by New Rogernomics of Lazarus (Herald, top security council official) with the subsequent approval of Feux:

This is yet another window into the criminal mind of JoWhatup, who certainly appears to think extensively regarding the hypothetical capture and manipulation of regions as collectible assets.

“Some additional miscellaneous but pertinent details: Jo was Khan, AKA #1 in command of LWU from 2019 until [September,] 2023 - while I assume the relationship at their level is generally egalitarian, the people featured in these logs were all, by technicality, his subordinates: the question stands as to whether Jo, as leader of LWU during the time of these discussions, ordered this activity against our region / government. Whether he ordered it or not, he was obviously completely comfortable with it the entire time. Again, Jo resigned from the role of Khan [in September of] 2023, but remains an “Alpha Emeritus” on Lone Wolves’ Discord server - the same rank held by Lamb (yellow) in the previous screenshots, indicating that he almost certainly retains access to the same logs and any ongoing discussions in #command-room to this very day.”

Since posting the Motion, I have put additional effort into building a coherent timeline both of Jo’s activity here in TEP and “abroad”, in LWU:

I believe it behooves us to review a timeline of JoWhatup’s career, and career in TEP:
JoWhatup first attained citizenship on May 2, 2019 - just over five months before Fedele’s attempted coup, citing interest in the Ministries of Immigration and of Culture and Education. He applied for the Executive (Ministry of Immigration) on 6/30/2019. He joined our current Discord server on 10/15/2019, one day after its inception. He was active in casual conversation there until 10/24/2019. It was not until 2/9/2023 that Jo returned to being active in our Discord server, with his subsequent post being in the masking and verification channel for joining EPSA. The Record of Magisters indicates that he was admitted to the Magisterium on 2/23/2023. He exhibited sporadic activity for about a month and a half, then picked up again meaningfully on 6/6/2023. Some of his earliest conversations, at this point, unsurprisingly, were simple anti-defender, pro-raider meme behavior, and this theme essentially continues from then until now (I can’t cite every instance): it would also appear Jo resigned as Khan explicitly for the purpose of joining TEP, possibly to avoid being scrutinized for this connection:


04

Jo’s activity then consisted of Magisterial debates on a variety of subjects, general debates and conversations in casual channels, achieving EPSA membership, stepping up his activity in the WA channel in July and August of 2023, and stepping up his activity in FA around December 2023 / January 2024. He has become a part of recruitment and welcoming new members of the Discord / government. And what better path to choose from the very beginning than one with such a clear, possibly studied and well-advised understanding of both the soft- and hard-power dynamics of our government and society? The first face a newcomer sees is often associated with the whole of the region, and assigned legitimacy, trust, and loyalty. Succeeding in the Executive often precipitates leading the Executive. The WAD effectively holds complete dictatorial authority over the region, in terms of onsite game mechanics. A loud voice in WA+FA can influence our connections, embassies, and alliances, influence who is welcome or feels welcome in the region and its communications media, and possibly, via this influence, deter potential friends from delivering crucial intelligence to our security apparatus, if they’ve been effectively alienated. The Magisterium holds the power to transform the laws and the constitution. EPSA, when poorly looked after, can allow someone to sneak their WA around into other regions, organizations, and military operations despite our current citizenship requirements: not an illegal activity or a dishonorable one in every instance, but a loophole in our security apparatus that our enemies and former oppressors are likely currently aware of and willing to exploit.

While building a timeline of Jo’s activities in TEP has been relatively straightforward, building a timeline of his positions in LWU has been considerably less easy, and certain events pertaining thereto appear to have been unannounced: specifically, it has been difficult to determine exactly when Lamb Stone / Aleister stopped being Khan and when Jo took his place, and it has also been difficult to ascertain when Jo achieved positions in or access to LWU high command, possibly prior to the coup in October, 2019 (although I’m sure he will deny this). Dec 22, 2019: Roughly two months after the coup, Miss Bad Life Choices (Salem) reports on a TBH op that included LWU and lists Jo as Khan - this seems to be the first instance I was able to find on the NS forums: https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=36555819#p36555819 - Scouring the NSGP Discord server, I was then able to find Xoriet mentioning that “Jo is Khan of LWU now” as of “last month”, on Dec 10, 2019 - indicating that the transition occurred sometime in November of 2019, one month after the coup failed: Discord - if we go back further in NSGP, Jo mentions being a member of LWU back on 2/13/2019: Discord

This transition from Lamb to Jo had exceptional timing relative to the coup attempt in TEP.

It was then initially very confusing for me to determine exactly when Jo stopped being Khan and Chef Big Dog (AKA Tom) “took over”, since my screenshot from TEP’s Discord shows Jo claiming to have resigned before 6/22/2023 (maybe he had simply discussed plans to resign?); meanwhile, forum posts from various raider militaries and from LWU themselves (including posts by Jo) list Jo as Khan repeatedly, on the following dates (American format: mo/day/yr): 6/19/2023 (Miravana: RAIDERCON), 7/15/2023 (A Bloodred Moon: LWU’s thread), 7/24/2023 (Anchorus: Ijaka’s thread), 7/26/2023 (A Bloodred Moon: LWU’s thread), 7/31/2023 (A Bloodred Moon: LWU’s thread), 8/14/2023 (Anchorus: Ijaka’s thread), 8/16/2023 (A Bloodred Moon: LWU’s thread), again on 8/16/2023 (Chef Big Dog, LWU’s thread), and, finally, once more on 9/1/2023 (Chaotic Sparkles, Sparkalia’s thread). FINALLY, an official announcement is made by Scardino (Fedele…) on Sep 6, 2023, posted in quasi-RP’d tone, and states the following: “JoWhatup’s gaze wandered across the sleek, minimalist décor that lined the room, his mind filled with visions of a criminal empire expanding and flourishing beyond his wildest dreams. . . . “Tom,” JoWhatup’s voice resonated with a touch of excitement, "It’s time. Time to let you take the reins. El Wu [(LWU)] is stronger than ever, and I’ve got my own plans, places to go.” . . . In that moment, the room - suffused with the essence of modern furniture, criminal ambition, and tobacco smoke - held the unspoken truth: The Lone Wolves were united and thriving, and the torch of a flourishing crasher enterprise had been passed to a steady hand eager to guide it onward.” https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=40881394#p40881394

I may not believe his answer, but I ask Jo to clarify regarding when he achieved the position of Khalif, or its equivalent, in LWU, which should have had access to the channel we have been shown in the evidence and should have had access to intimate, high-level conversations with Fedele, etc., (assuming these were not already happening in DMs that we will never see) and I ask for clarification regarding when, precisely, he first joined LWU. I also ask for the date when Lamb stepped down and Jo took his place. It seems as though all this may have been deliberately unpublished; however, maybe I simply do not know where to look. Jo mentioned being a Khalif in LWU in our server on Oct 23, 2019, only nine days after the coup failed: Discord

Again, from the Motion: “I shudder to think what conversations are happening right now that we don’t have access to, either in command channels that intelligence assets like Haitianstates no longer have access to, or in 1:1 or group DMs, and I fear there may be an operation to infiltrate and subjugate our government underway that has been over five years in the making.” I encourage the Conclave to consider the optics of these logs with grave concern, consider who exactly is featured in them, consider these individuals’ and this organization’s long and storied past of organizing or supporting attempted coups / attempts to sway and manipulate politics and policy in their favor, and remember that there is practically no limit to the deceit that is employed by Jo’s closest colleagues against their targets. Whatever is said by the Defense in this trial, I ask that you remember the dirty games that were played against us by these very people, and to believe in yourselves: to believe in your own intuition and in your judgment as we all witness whatever is about to be said in defense of this chicanery. The Prosecution rests and awaits the next step(s) as dictated by the Viceroy and the Conclave, be they opening statements of the Defense or calling of witnesses.

A correction: I will not be editing the post, but please replace the two instances of “Viceroy” with “Presiding Arbiter”.

The motion to call East Malaysia, Quebecshire, and HumanSanity as witnesses for the prosecution has been heard.

@Kingdom_of_Napels you have 24 hours to objection to the relevancy of the witness or relevancy of any testimony they may provide. If no objection is made in the timeframe or if the defense has none, the trial will procede.

I have no objections to East Malaysia testifying if that is procedure or decorum. However, primarily for the sake of time and keeping this to the relevant information, I object to Quebecshire and HumanSanity testifying on Numero Capitan’s character - this strikes me as irrelevant for two reasons: one, as I have submitted them to the Conclave, my own screenshots support that the logs are unaltered to the best of my knowledge, and two, the character or professionalism of Numero Capitan strike me as irrelevant so long as it is accepted the contents of the logs submitted are unaltered. As such, I believe the witnesses in that regard are not relevant to the proceedings of this trial.

@A_mean_old_man Do you have an objection to the objections?

A portrait of NuCa’s character and how the evidence was obtained by the one who forwarded this evidence to TEP and by our ally who helped manage their work as an intelligence asset still seems relevant to the case, and I would prefer not to deprive the Prosecution or the Conclave of any benefits provided by my witnesses’ testimony in making a fair ruling in this case. Even though Jo does not, apparently, contest the accuracy of the logs, I would still like to allow these individuals an opportunity to describe the intelligence asset and the operation, in case any and all information in addition to my statements and the evidence itself helps paint a clear picture of exactly what happened. I believe this is for the benefit of the court and defer to the judgment of the Presiding Arbiter.

I will take time to deliberate on the motion for Quebec and HumanSanity.

At this time however, I instruct the Prosecution to call @Emjay to the stand. I will give them 48 hours (2025-02-19T01:30:00Z) to make their presence known.

Once they are here, I will allow the Prosecution to question the witness and then allow the Defense to cross-examine. I will have a ruling on the admission of Quebec and HumanSanity by tomorrow at the latest.

Thank you. I call East Malaysia to the stand and ask of them one simple question: do you verify that the screenshot in which, you, McStooley and I are together informed of a hostile operating under an alt by Libertanny via TSP on October 7, 2020 is real, and that you were a member of this group DM and a recipient of this warning?

While we await for East Malaysia’s response, I am allowing the addition of Quebecshire and HumanSanity as witnesses.

Same process as with East Malaysia, both sides will be given a chance to question and then cross. The stated witnesses cannot be called forth until East malaysia’s time has expired.

I also issue a pre-emptive warning. This is a trial thread, not NSGP. Posts not germane to the Trial will result in the poster being held in contempt.

Yes, I can confirm that I am in that group DM, and that the information shared is real.

Thank you, EM. The Prosecution is satisfied and has no further questions / requests for the witness, and allows for cross-examination by the Defense / further proceedings of the Conclave.

@Kingdom_of_Napels you have an opportunity to cross-examine the witness if you so choose.

I have no questions to ask the witness.

@A_mean_old_man you now have 72 hours to call your next witness and have them present for questioning

The Prosecution calls Quebecshire, AKA @Rhaza to the stand, who forwarded these logs to the Praesidium after receiving them from NuCa, to speak regarding his relationship with Numero Capitan, the source of the intelligence, and to comment regarding the operation through which these logs were gathered.

I have had a working relationship with Numero Captain since spring 2021 when I became a defender, leading The League’s Defense Forces. In my earlier career this took the form of both of us serving in Libcord Update Command.

As I became more experienced and climbed ranks, we began working more closely on intelligence matters. I personally served in numerous operations made possible by Numero-provided intelligence. We would discuss suspected invader activity and he provided guidance on my own intelligence projects, be they ones I was overseeing or my own raider infiltrations. We discussed the transfer of the subject matter evidence to The East Pacific’s government together before electing to provide it to the East. Numero is consistently honest and as another former FRA colleague once said, “commands cross-border respect for his achievements and conduct”.

I should note that the Haitianstates alias provided us with reliable, truthful intelligence that allowed us to defeat invaders in numerous fields of battle. I can testify as to specific operations if questioned to that end. Some of them occurred before my access to intelligence venues, but I have retroactive evidence of the conversations that took place due to my addition to those spaces after the fact. I can confirm firsthand that Haitianstates provided demonstrably reliable and truthful intelligence that led to operational success through at least December 27th, 2021. This intelligence asset was instrumental to many high level, high stakes defender successes in military operations during the operational time period, particularly in 2020-21.

I also authored Numero’s Security Council commendation in 2023 - I mention this to provide additional context in that I am well familiar with his history and career beyond the average player due to the researching needs for that project, and feel I can reliably speak to his accomplishments and their reliability as a result.