The four things that kept Caecilius from being anathema'd were:
1. Darvoderis had a bit of a short timers attitude from the get go
2. Regardless of the coup, Darvoderis still liked Caecilius a lot, and they were still both tattooed Destuvians (which actually provided more complications than simplifications in interactions)
3. I still have not decided if you were being subtle or brazenly upfront, which is really a testament to how well you were pulling everything together.
4. Caecilius is a lot of fun. I had played outlander for most of the year prior to Darvoderis, so I got to see him from both sides.

On the coup - This was my fifth vote and third coup, but the first time I had organized one, so I was really in the dark on how everything worked. I was frantically reading through old descriptions and really only found Sivhy's, where the Emperor definitely did not have a vote, and Merf's, where Soviatos was complaining about his early deletion throwing off the vote suggesting that the Emperor did have a vote. I was pretty sure I had two votes, so if it was the first scenario, I was good, If it was the second, I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out where the third council vote would go and where your vote would go, but in the end voted with the first scenario in mind.