TYSOG Incident

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TYSOG (Tymarian Security Operations Group) was a special operations (i.e. covert and espionage) branch of the Tymarian Defense Forces. It has become synonomous with the 2002 TYSOG incident, when both Tymaria and Babkha, acting independent of one another, attempted to infiltrate the government of Morovia.


The TYSOG Incident

From Scott Alexander's micronational history, Microscope:

TYSOG’s second operation was more ambitious but more dangerous. Morovia, the ancient and glorious nation founded by King Vincent III, had reached a nadir by this point. Most of its citizens, including Vincent himself, had gradually drifted away, and the country was by this point reduced almost to nothing. A new Morovian, Yarl Berg, took matters into his own hands by founding a republic. A few of the remaining citizens, including new Morovian Bob Kee, went along; a few others objected; they would prefer that Morovia die completely (which it showed every sign of doing) rather than leave the hands of the monarchy. Babkha offered to help Berg and his republic grow to prominence again. TYSOG decided to thwart them by supporting the monarchists. In an operation code-named Triple Motives (although history is silent as to what the three motives were) they infiltrated Morovia with double logins, started the Morovian Loyalist Army, and finally proclaimed a particular double login (of Diga Makonnen) to be King Vincent IV.

Due to the later importance of this incident, many people hold many different theories as to the relative justifications for Babkhan and Tymarian action in Morovia. According to the Babkhans, they saw a fellow country that had fallen into hard times and wanted to offer it help. According to the Tymarians, the Babkhans were hoping that they could turn Morovia into a puppet state and gain an extra vote in the League of Secessionist States (LOSS). According to the Babkhans, the Tymarians wanted to turn Morovia into a puppet state if not destroy it completely. According to the Tymarians, they were just helping ferret out Babkhan spies. While it might be tempting to accuse the Tymarians of the standard Atteran anti-Babkhan paranoia, later conversations with Babkhan officials suggest that they did, in fact, have plans to subvert the Morovian government.

No matter what the justifications, Edward Conway, now a high ranking TYSOG member thanks to his success in Babkha and still upset with the Prime and his leadership, felt it was unethical to covertly attack a nation with whom Tymaria was officially on good terms. He alerted the Apollo Fireball, and along with his fellow Apollonian TYSOG member Bill Dusch sent the Fireball documents proving his case. The Fireball published them the next day. After a week of heated debate and political maneuvering the likes of which were never seen in micronationalism before and have not been seen since, Austi Scott was impeached, Diga was removed from his position as Secretary-General of the LOSS, and the Rasinate/Interland monopoly on power was completely destroyed.

An unintended consequence of TYSOG was Morovia's revival and return to prominence in the Anglophone sector.