Kadagidi Coup and Murini Proclaims Himself aiji

The Kadagidi Coup and Murini Proclaims Himself aiji is a coordinated seizure of power aimed at removing Tabini and controlling the routes and communications that connected the mainland to space. Tabini and Damiri escaped the attacks, but the coup drove them into a year of concealed survival and exposed the Assassins’ Guild to a prolonged crisis of trust and legitimacy.

Background and Aims

Before the coup, Tabini relied on information from the Assassins’ Guild and from ship-paidhi Yolande Mercheson. The Guild’s investigation produced only routine findings that did not lead to Shejidan; an unsigned warning from a source may also have gone unrecognized. As precautions increased and rumors spread, the conspirators may have feared that Tabini was close to discovering them.

Their plan joined a direct attempt on Tabini with a broader effort to isolate the mainland. They meant to assassinate him at his residence, but found he was absent. They correctly suspected he had gone to Taiben and tried to reinforce their assault there. At the same time, the plotters moved against the means of communication and travel to the heavens: the shuttles, Shejidan airport, and the dish at Mogari-nai. They seized shuttles undergoing service and took the radio station. Their assumptions about the absence of mines in the heavens and the effect of holding Mogari-nai led them to believe Lord Geigi could neither replace the shuttles nor communicate with the mainland.

Murini of the Kadagidi had already proclaimed himself aiji, although Tabini was still alive. The coup therefore depended not only on eliminating Tabini but on making it difficult for his supporters to reach the heavens or coordinate a response. Rumors that the aiji-dowager and heir had been kidnapped, or that the ship carrying them had never left and all aboard were dead, further clouded events.

The Assault and Tabini’s Escape

Tabini and Damiri narrowly escaped from Taiben. Their bodyguards did not survive. Rather than seek shelter at the neighboring Atageini estate and expose Lord Tatiseigi to danger, the pair crossed Kadagidi territory. Tabini drew on survival skills he had learned in Malguri, and they made no contacts for a year.

The choice of route turned the conspirators’ control of their own territory against their expectations: they were searching broadly, yet the Kadagidi least expected Tabini to be on their own borders. The couple’s silence and concealment allowed them to endure the year without creating a trail of contacts for their pursuers to follow.

The Guild’s Divided Aftermath

The coup’s consequences continued inside the Assassins’ Guild after Murini’s rule ended. Jago told Bren that senior Guild members had gone underground when Murini took power; some were recorded as dead despite being alive, and some had operated the network that helped bring Tabini back. The most senior had claimed retirement, while others maintained their recorded deaths. They had watched the Guild purge itself twice and repeatedly refused the current leadership’s orders to return, leaving a conflict over authority that persisted after the coup.

Jago described a current Guild Council in which two members drove decisions while a third complied. In her account, they rapidly approved Office of Assignments recommendations, including appointments of chief officers in Dojisigin Marid, while delaying the movement of Guild forces during trouble in the west. Tabini eventually took the field himself, his presence overriding the need to wait for the Council’s process. At another critical moment, the Guild sent a mission to arrest two senior retirees instead of assisting Tabini and his allies in the south. Jago said the mission distracted them and cost them an information source; she also stressed that, at the time, they lacked proof of what he and Algini had learned.

The exiled members were wary of humans and had never favored Tabini because of his association with them. Their stated commitment, however, was to the law. During Murini’s rule they had worked with humans on Mospheira to restore it; now they pledged to return, investigate the records, and reclaim the Guild. That return required them to abandon assumed identities for a second time, leave families, and break off marriages. Jago’s account presents their support for Tabini as part of a larger effort to restore lawful Guild authority, rather than an uncomplicated change of political allegiance.

Records, Accountability, and Restoration

The return of the exiles made a forceful assault on Guild Headquarters a dangerous choice. Jago warned that a head-on attack could kill innocent personnel who might join the opposition if they learned the truth, and could destroy the assignment records needed to establish the case. The stakes were institutional as well as immediate: without proof that the Council itself had broken the law, Tabini might have to uphold the opposition by decree and the power of the aijinate, weakening the Guild’s legitimacy.

The later confrontation ended with Shishogi dead after an incendiary fire at the Office of Assignments. The records were damaged but not destroyed, and one man was intercepted carrying several notebooks from the office. The reported cost included two of Bren’s side out of action, counting Banichi; two resistance members dead, three including the target; fourteen people wounded in the building; 147 people voluntarily standing down pending resolution; and sixteen under arrest for sorting and testimony. A new Council was to meet to establish a quorum, record the change, and close the meeting.

Tabini subsequently described the old Guildmaster as restored and the missing, presumed-dead, and retired members as having returned or rescinded their retirements. Five high officials installed in the previous year could not be found. The restored leadership began interviewing members, starting with assignments to Bujavid and examining man’chi, kinship, past service, references, and other testimony. The coup’s legacy thus became a test of whether the Guild could investigate its own compromised personnel while rebuilding authority through records, testimony, and review rather than relying on force alone.