Because they think they can save the world...and that kind of hubris simply gets under my skin. 
- — Tao
Coup d'État: Sleeper #1 is an issue of the series Coup d'État (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 2004. It was published on February 4, 2004.
Synopsis for "Coup d'État, Part 1"
Tao, an old member (and then enemy) of the WildC.A.T.s and one of the most powerful men in the world, had acquired a phase engine, an alien device powered by a tiny black hole, from an unknown source. Tao's purposes and goals had always been sinister, but what he did with the engine was something not even his own people could have predicted. He staged an elaborate attack on a secret American base all as a cover to get the engine into government hands without them knowing it. Once they did, they realized that the engine could be used to travel into the Bleed, something that until then, only the Authority could do with any measure of success.
As soon as the government realized this they, after months of work and study, used the engine to launch an unmanned probe into the Bleed. The scientists had not figured out how or why the engine functioned, and they were too eager to test the device to consider the consequences. Tao had known what was coming next. Upon the probe breaching the Bleed, the engine's black hole became unstable and tear and enormous hole in the Bleed. At the same time the engine destroyed an enormous alien shiftship (5 or 6 times the size of the Authority's Carrier) that had been nearby. The effects were disastrous and in moments burning pieces of the ship and its passengers (members of a race of giant beings called the Vigil) were falling on Florida. The Authority arrived to help but there was basically nothing they could do but teleport away the people who were still alive while the Doctor slowed the ship's descent enough to minimize damage. The ship fell and much of Florida was destroyed.
After the dust had settled, the Authority tried to learn all they could about the Vigil and what had happened. The Vigil were the first beings to ever use the Bleed and are "knowledge gatherers" whose purpose is to secretly observe and record everything that happens in the multiverse. The destruction of their ship was especially bad because it had been a return trip to their home, bringing with it a millennium of information to be added to their main database. After finding this out, and the fact that this loss of information might drive the Vigil to a full scale war against Earth, the Authority discovered whose fault it was.
They monitor a government inquiry on John Lynch (who had awaken from his coma) regarding to Holden Carver's infiltration in Tao's organization. The shadow council grills Lynch for failing to foresee Carver siding with Tao and helping to let the phase engine into government hands that led to the disaster in Florida. But Lynch immediately see the council shifting the blame on the disaster to him in which he lashes out at the government for being manipulated into taking Tao's bait and without assessing the situation in a way that would have shown that Tao was behind it.
Realizing that they need an immediate plan to approach the Vigil and make peace before the situation could get more worse, the Authority must make a bigger decision in order to achieve this. Hawksmoor later makes a televised announcement to the American people in which he reveals the U.S. government's role in the disaster and had been many times warned to stay out of the Bleed. The Authority have decided that they cannot trust the U.S. government that has risk the lives of everyone on their planet and they can only correct this by taking over America.
Appearing in "Coup d'État, Part 1"
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Other Characters:
- Vigil
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