Ua Alliance

**Highest Ranked**: Sefa (Winner/18)

The Ua Alliance was an alliance from Survivor: Shipwheel Island.

This alliance was led by two strong strategists, who created a majority of four by firstly building two separate trios. They entered the merge as a united front, which initially painted a target on their backs. However, the mistrust amongst the other castaways caused the remaining alliance members to hold the majority at the Final Five. Ultimately, a member of the Ua Alliance won the season because they managed to use other players advantages to their benefit and threw hinky votes to protect his alliance throughout the game.

## History

### Kaia and Sefa Dominate

When the green Ua tribe landed on their beach on Day 1 of *Survivor: Shipwheel Island*, Kaia and Sefa bonded over their shared experiences growing up in a religious Pacific Islander family. Although the pair wanted to form genuine bonds with the rest of the tribe, they were determined to strategically take control over Ua. They built a three person alliance with Molly, and later built a second trio with Willow. The pair agreed to work with each other and even went searching for a Hidden Immunity Idol, though they were unsuccessful in their efforts. Molly used her visit to Shipwheel Island on Day 2 as a chance to gain intel on the twist for her friends, and protected her vote. This proved to be an invaluable decision because Ua lost the first immunity challenge of the season. Kaia and Sefa used their relationships with Molly and Willow to establish a firm majority, which led to Gordon's elimination at the first tribal council on Day 3.

Ua won the following immunity challenge, which allowed Kaia and Sefa to strengthen their bond to the point they promised to bring each other to the Final Two. On Day 8, Kaia found the Ua Hidden Immunity Idol. However, she had to give half the idol to another player for 24 hours in order to activate its power. Kaia shared this information with Sefa with the intention of giving half of the idol to him, but Sefa saw this as an opportunity to build their connection with Willow. Kaia agreed, pretended to find the idol again in front of Willow and gave her half the idol. This brought Kaia and Willow closer, and Willow returned the fully powered idol back to Kaia after 24 hours. After winning the immunity challenge on Day 9, Sefa elected to visit Shipwheel Island with Ian from the Yase tribe. Using Molly's knowledge of the island and the fact that Yase would visit tribal council that night, Sefa convinced Ian to protect his vote in order to gain an extra vote.

Kaia and Sefa continued to stronghold Ua's social connections and information about this season's advantages. When Ua won immunity on Day 12, the tribe elected to send Willow to Shipwheel Island and Sefa told her to risk her vote in order to obtain an advantage. Willow followed Sefa's instructions, returned to camp and shared this information with Kaia and Sefa. Ua then lost the following immunity challenge on Day 15. Kaia and Sefa managed to bring Molly and Willow into a four person majority against Cameron, where it seemed clear there would be a unanimous vote against him. However, Sefa became paranoid when he noticed Cameron was not scrambling to save himself. He feared that Cameron had an advantage, which caused him to place two votes on Willow using his Extra Vote in order to ensure he and Kaia would not be collateral. Ultimately, Sefa's extra move was unnecessary and the Ua women had the power to eliminate Cameron. Willow returned to the Ua camp and was upset that she received two votes. Sefa, knowing that Molly and Willow did not have a close strategic relationship, covered himself by saying that Molly used her Extra Vote from her visit to Shipwheel Island. Ua won the immunity challenge on Day 18, where Kaia was sent to Shipwheel Island with Andre from Luvu and Hazel from Yase. Kaia knew that Hazel had to protect her vote because she was going to tribal council that night, and decided to risk her vote to earn an advantage. Kaia returned to camp with an Extra Vote in her pocket, and chose to share this knowledge with the tribe to maintain her relationship with everyone.

### Short-lived Power

Although the Ua Alliance entered the merge on Day 19 against two other tribes with four players each, they were clearly the tightest pre-merge group. Kaia and Sefa felt that, between the other tribes, the Yase players had the greatest potential as physical and strategic threats. They held a meeting with Yase, where they suggested the Ua and Yase tribes work together at the first tribal council to pick off someone from Luvu. This group agreed to split their votes between Eugene and Perry because they were pereceived as the strongest Luvu duo. It seemed there would be a 4-4-4 tie between Eugene, Perry and Sefa at the first merged tribal council, but Eugene played an Extra Vote and Perry became the first member of the jury. The alliance was confident someone leaked information about their votes to him. Kaia and Sefa knew they were viewed as the leaders of their alliance and needed more people to work against Billy, Eugene, Ian and Paloma. They worked with Alecia, Andre and Grace to split their votes between Ian and Eugene. Although it appeared the group would eliminate Eugene at the revote, everyone but Kaia and Sefa switched their votes to Willow and she was voted out with an Extra Vote in her pocket.

### Thriving Amongst the Chaos

Kaia and Sefa were upset they lost one of their closest allies, and started forming a plan to get their revenge on those who flipped on them. In speaking with Grace, Alecia was thrown under the bus and she became their next target. Although they had the numbers to eliminate Alecia, Paloma convinced her to play an idol and Grace was voted out with the second highest number of votes. There was tension when the castaways returned from tribal council, because Alecia and Paloma were both claiming this move was their own. This caused a rift, where both women approached the Ua Alliance with a plan to vote the other one out. The alliance decided to work with Alecia and Andre to vote out Billy because they wanted Alecia and Paloma to continue fighting with each other. Kaia had reached the Final Eight with an idol and Extra Vote in her pocket. She and Sefa agreed to target Andre, who had an Extra Vote in his pocket and was Alecia's closest ally. Ever the loyal ally, Molly readily agreed to follow through with this plan. Paloma was initially hesitant to make this move against Alecia because they had mended their broken relationship, but ultimately agreed because she was playing a flashy game in front of the jury. At tribal council, Andre voted for Kaia and Sefa cast a vote for Alecia in the event an idol was played for Andre. However, the rest of the tribe voted out Andre with an unused Extra Vote.

Despite having a 4-3 minority at the Final Seven, the Ua Alliance felt confident they would survive the vote because Alecia, Eugene, Ian and Paloma were a volatile voting block. Kaia tried to strong arm Eugene and Ian into working with the alliance, to the point that she gave Ian her Extra Vote as a sign of trust. This caused further mistrust between the voting block, which allowed Kaia and Sefa to switch their votes from Alecia to Ian in order to cause the greatest rift between Alecia, Eugene, Ian and Paloma. When they shared this information with Molly, she felt uncomfortable exploiting the personal relationship between the bottom players and started to consider whether she wanted to align her game with Kaia and Sefa. At tribal, Alecia and Paloma voted for Sefa as planned, Eugene and Ian showed their allegiance to Ua by voting for Paloma but Ua had the numbers to blindside Ian with Kaia's Extra Vote in his bag. The Ua Alliance realised it was almost impossible to convince anyone into working with them at the Final Six because of their immense threat level. Luckily for them, Kaia won individual immunity and still had her idol handy. Ua voted for Paloma at tribal council, whilst the outsiders voted for Sefa. None of these votes counted because Paloma and Kaia played their idols. At this second vote, the outsiders could only vote for Molly whilst Ua decided Alecia was an easier target than Eugene. This tied the vote once again because no player was willing to flip on their group. Eugene, Kaia, Paloma and Sefa were then given time to discuss and reach a consensus between Alecia and Molly. In the event this consensus could not be reached, Eugene would be eliminated by default as the only non-immune player. After some back and forth, Eugene and Paloma caved to the Ua trio and Alecia was their unanimous choice.

### Molly's Detraction

The Ua Alliance were able to manage their threat level and relationships with the rest of the tribe throughout the merge to ensure they could hold the majority at the Final Five. The alliance wanted to vote for Paloma because they believed she was a bigger jury threat than Eugene. However, Kaia and Sefa hit a roadblock when Molly asked them in front of Eugene and Paloma if they had a Final Two deal. Kaia could not give a straight answer, but hoped Molly would remain loyal by eliminating Paloma. However, Molly flipped to blindside Kaia, which left Sefa feeling like a sitting duck. However, Sefa manipulation Molly into thinking they worked better together, and she felt more comfortable with Kaia out of the picture. When Molly won her fifth immunity challenge of the season, she and Sefa wanted to honour their alliance by voting for Paloma. This forced Eugene to also vote for Paloma, because she would lose in a fire-making tiebreaker against Sefa.

At the Final Tribal Council, Molly explained that her strategy was to lay low and win individual immunity challenges so that other players who were seen as bigger strategic threats would be voted out. The jury grilled Molly on her choice to turn on Kaia and then not commit to her betrayal by voting with Sefa at the Final Four. Molly did not receive a single jury vote, and ultimately finished as the Second Runner-Up. On the other hand, Sefa explained the origins of the Ua Alliance, which was founded by him and Kaia but had Molly and Willow on the outskirts. He explained how he used his advantages, and the advantages from his allies, to ensure he would advance in the game. Sefa was praised for managing to overcome an 8-4 minority and for making it to the end by manipulating Molly. He was crowned Sole Survivor after earning seven jury votes from Willow, Grace, Billy, Andre, Alecia, Kaia and Paloma.