The Faction

**The Faction** is one of the influential alliances of *Simvivor: Selvadorada*. Created early on in the game, it witnessed most of its members attending nearly every pre-merge Tribal Council, exercising a great deal of power that assisted many of its members going far into the game.

Although most of its members made it into the the penultimate episode of the season, the alliance's high energy and individualistic ideals caused it to fracture relatively early, unable to eliminate both of its core enemies. When a close friendship devolved into a bitter rivalry between its founding members Finnegan Bloxham and James Melendez, the remaining alliance split up soon after.

### Affiliates

While The Faction was comprised of four main members, they utilized multiple "affiliates" throughout the season in order to hold a majority at Tribal Council and avoid elimination.

## History

### Formation

Early on, a connection was made between James Melendez and Finnegan Bloxham. Bonding over shared interests as well as similar ideals when playing *Simvivor*, the duo formulated an alliance between themselves. Soon, they added in new members Carey Samuel and Tulio Elwes in order to have control over their Belo tribe. Because the Belo tribe went on to lose multiple Immunity Challenges, they were able to control a good portion of the pre-merge.

James came up with the plan to add in an affiliate member Lucia Radu, but never confirmed the existence of the alliance to her. Her added number was a safe guard in order to prevent a possible flip, a fact that the rest of the alliance did not discover at the time.

### The Tribe Swap

After the tribe swap split Lucia and Tulio from the group, Finnegan made quick work at establishing a new affiliate in Darian Adamson. Their pre-existing friendship due to being on the original Belo tribe meant that although predisposed to working with each other, it also gave Darian the ultimatum: turn on us and you are the next one to go. Frankly, neither James nor Carey trusted Darian and they did not approve of Finnegan's selection.

At this point, Lucia and Tulio were on the new Misia tribe together. They became close, trying to work any angles they could in order to have a new alliance, but only Yves Miguel paid them much attention. Thankfully, Misia continued to win Immunity Challenges, strengthening the remaining members of The Faction. But Lucia spilled information to Tulio stating that James approached her with a sweeter deal than he was offering to the rest of The Faction, causing Tulio to question the trust he had in the founder.

### Mistrust in Carey

Because Belo continued to lose Immunity, they were frequent attendees at Tribal Council, much to Merissa Horvath's delight. Carey continued to build a close relationship with Antony Ciernik, going as far as campaigning for him to stay over their affiliated member Darian. This upset Finnegan but was almost tempting enough for James to pursue further, as he agreed that Darian was untrustworthy. Ultimately, James voted along with Finnegan, believing their friendship was paramount, exiling Carey.

Carey soon felt on the outs of the game and believed that her resistance towards keeping Darian was, at worst, just a matter of opinion. She felt that her opinion meant that she was kicked out of the alliance and felt vulnerable at the next Tribal Council. Trying to conjure chaos to save herself, she fell further out of the loop, but Finnegan and James were intent on saving their ally to keep up positive presentation to Lucia and Tulio. At the final Tribal Council before the merge, the group unanimously eliminated Darian.

### Finnegan vs James

At the merge, the alliance was reunited, but this did not come without its friction. Tulio informed Finnegan of James's lack of trust in the group stemming from the beginning of the game, which only seemed to increase as James often left Finnegan and Tulio out of important conversations he was having with other members of the new tribe. James also quickly turned on Lucia and forced his alliance to do the same, having discovered that Lucia was against him. Although The Faction respected James, his aggressive and reckless attitude began to wear down their relationships.

After the Final 8 Tribal Council which left the tribe drawing rocks, a massive feud erupted between founding members Finnegan and James. Tulio then quit his involvement in the alliance, going rogue and plummeting himself on the outs of the tribe. Forced to pick sides, Carey tried to hold the alliance together just long enough to save Tulio, focusing on siding with Finnegan but appeasing James for the time being.

### The Disbandment

With Tulio out of the alliance and another eruption brewing between the men, the group soon called it quits in a mutual decision. This later caused James to reconsider his allegiances, attempting to form a new alliance with Tahira Ridley and Tulio, but the damage was done and he was soon voted out in sixth place. With new horizons left to explore, it was Carey and Finnegan who ventured into the unknown with higher hopes than they had during the season.

## Trivia

* The Faction is one of the first alliances that dissolved but led to some of its members re-generating new alliances. Finnegan and Carey formed a new alliance called Project Final Three with Yves Miguel.