Operation Utopia

Operation Utopia (作戦名『ユートピア』) is the name of the project designed by Crocodile which consisted of taking over the Alabasta Kingdom's throne by disposing of King Nefertari Cobra and acquiring the ancient weapon Pluton hidden somewhere in Alabasta. The members of Baroque Works were mobilized for this operation. This operation ended in failure when the entire syndicate was defeated by the Straw Hat Pirates, and most of the members were arrested by the Marines.

Details
Throughout the Alabasta Saga, it became clear that Baroque Works was behind the problems in Alabasta. It was not until late in the story arc that the Rebellion leader Koza became aware of Crocodile's deception; by then it was almost too late to stop what had happened.

The Baroque Works Deception
There were several measures carried out by Baroque Works which caused the rebellion to occur:
 * Crocodile won the heart of the people through the use of public appearances as one of the Shichibukai, becoming a hero to the people by rounding up other pirates. This made it so that no one suspected that he was the mastermind behind everything.
 * Baroque Works secretly used Dance Powder to cause the capital city to have abnormally high amounts of rain. The people did not suspect a thing until it was noticed that other cities were getting below normal rainfall.
 * Baroque Works agents brought Dance Powder into the country and when questioned, they said it was a delivery for the king.
 * Baroque Works assigned several of its members to join the royal guard to aid in smuggling Dance Powder into the palace. When the powder was found, this pushed the people into thinking their king was behind the lack of rain. By this time, the younger citizens of Yuba were beginning to form ideas of rebellion.
 * To make sure the rebellion was pushed forward, several Baroque Works members joined their ranks, even going so far as to become close officers to Koza, who had become their leader.
 * The final spark that caused the rebellion to begin came from the aid of Mr. 2. First, Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas kidnapped the king of Alabasta, then Mr. 2 pretended to be the king and told the people he had used the powder. After Koza was hurt during the incident, the rebel army began its advancement on the capital.
 * A Baroque Works agent in the royal guard set off the rebels final assault by opening cannon fire on them "accidentally."
 * All efforts were made to stop Vivi from bringing the rebellion to a stand still. Firstly, by preventing Koza from seeing her, secondly by firing at Koza when he surrendered, and then by stopping the people from hearing Vivi shouting at them.

Rebels
The rebellion was led by Koza, Vivi's childhood friend. Among the rebels are even more of Koza´s and Vivi´s childhood friends from the Suna Suna Clan as well as various Baroque Works agents who infiltrated the rebel army's ranks to ensure that their organization's plans would come to fruition. The rebel army reached seven hundreds thousand members before the appearance of Mr. 2 as the king, at least 300,000 of them being defected royal soldiers. By the time of the attack on the capital city, they had become a force of "two million angry warriors" according to Chaka. In the anime, there are also several civilians that posed as rebel army soldiers.

Course of Events
Initially, the rebellion was simply a cold war with six hundred thousand royal soldiers vs. four hundred thousand rebels. However, as Vivi and the Straw Hats found out in a newspaper, 300,000 the royal soldiers, half of their forces, defected and joined the rebels, changing the numbers to 300,000 royal soldiers vs. 700,000 rebels, shifting the balance of power in favor of the rebels. This signals to the Straw Hats that the rebellion will escalate and soon blood will be shed.

Skirmish in Nanohana
The rebel army was getting ready to mobilize and attack Alubarna in a kamikaze attack. Meanwhile, a young boy, Kappa, asked if he could join the rebel army but they said he could not join them and explained that people in the rebellion are in real danger. Koza also told him they had not given up on the king yet. Awhile later, Mr. 2, disguised as Cobra, attempted to destroy Nanohana and frame the king for it, the real Cobra having been kidnapped by Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas. At the same time, Mr. 1 and Miss Doublefinger hijacked a massive weapons ship and crashed it into Nanohana, causing a massive fire that depleted the majority of the town's remaining water. Many citizens, outraged at what their king had supposedly done, joined the rebels. These citizens strengthened the rebel forces to around two million people, while the weapons ship that the Mr. 1 pair had runaground gave the rebels more than enough weapons to both arm their new recruits and launch their final assault.

Battle of Alubarna


It is in this battle where in the rebel army charged in to defeat the royal army to force the king of Alabasta to surrender, not knowing that the war between them was actually engineered and being set up by the Baroque Works, led by Crocodile. Vivi would have blown up the Alabasta palace to catch the attention of the warriors fighting to urge them to stop the rebellion, but had failed to do so because of Crocodile. Koza, the leader of the rebel army who knows the secret entrance to the palace, witnessed the commotion within and had found out that it was Crocodile who stole the rain. He and Vivi rushed to the royal army to make them surrender to the rebel army to stop the rebellion. But a Billions agent who had infiltrated the royal army shot Koza and thus continued the war.

On the other hand, the Straw Hat Pirates fought their own battle: Usopp and Chopper fighting with Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas, Sanji with Mr. 2, Nami with Miss Doublefinger, and Zoro with Mr. 1, each one ending with the Straw Hats victorious.

During the climax of the battle, Crocodile revealed that he planned to fire a bomb into the plaza, killing everyone. After searching the entire city, Vivi and the Straw Hats (sans Luffy) located it in the central clock tower, where the cannon was guarded by Mr. 7 and Miss Father's Day.Working together, the Straw Hats helped Vivi reach the top of the tower where she defeated the bombarders and put out the fuse. However, it was revealed that Crocodile had put a timer on the bomb which would cause it to detonate one minute after its failed firing. Alubarna was saved when Pell heroicly pulled the bomb into the sky where it would detonate harmlessly, seemingly sacrificing himself in the process (though it would later be revealed that he survived).

Despite the bombing having been stopped, the fighting continued, despite Vivi's cries and the Straw Hats attempts to stop them. Just then, however, Luffy finally defeated Crocodile in their third and final battle, in the Alabasta Poneglyph Chamber in the Tomb of the Kings. Upon losing consciousness, the effect of Crocodile's Suna Suna no M that kept the rain from falling was broken and the rain finally returned, calming the enraged battle.

With the threats of both the bomb and Crocodile neutralized, and the rain having returned, Vivi was able to quell the fighting from the top of the clock-tower, and with the help of Kappa, who had seen Mr. 2 change, cleared the King's name, ended the civil war, and disbanded the rebellion. The World Government could not ignore Crocodile's abuse of his Shichibukai privileges and he was dismissed from his position and arrested by Commodore Smoker and Ensign Tashigi of the Marines.

Aftermath
The downfall of Crocodile would have several lasting affects on the world:
 * To cover up the fact that the Straw Hats defeated Baroque Works, the World Government passed the credit onto an unworthy Smoker and Tashigi, who would be presented a commondation and a promotion in rank, much to their anger and grief.
 * Luffy's bounty of 30 million would be increased to 100 million, while Zoro received his first bounty of 60 million for defeating Mr. 1 (aka Daz Bones).
 * Crocodile's partner, Miss All Sunday (aka Nico Robin) would join the Straw Hats following Crocodile's defeat (due to Luffy saving her from the collapsing underground tomb when she wanted to die).
 * The biggest of all, however, would be that with Crocodile gone from the Shichibukai, the World Government had to fill his vacant title. Blackbeard would use this to his advantage in the first step of his plan to become the Pirate King.

Site Navigation
Операция "Утопия" Operación Utopía Opération Utopie