Fake Survivor: Africa
Three’s Company
What if the Survivor franchise lived in alternate reality? A reality where different players were cast on different seasons? The purpled players might rise to dominance and Survivor icons might be a simple blip in the history of a long-running show. This is the purpose of our Fake Survivor series, a reimagining of the franchise’s season in chronological order.
Last week, we followed along as Corinne Kaplan took home the Australian Outback crown. This week, 16 new castaways come in with the hopes and dreams of following in her footsteps, but only one can become the victor of Fake Survivor: Africa.
First, the established rules of this series:
•To decide any season’s roster, I will load up the season I am simming (in this case Africa), go over to the simulate tab, and choose random. This ensures that no bias will have gone into choosing my cast of players for the season.
•While the cast of players is random, I will follow a season’s theme to the limits of their possibility (IE: All-Stars will be all returning players from the first 7 simulations, Micronesia will have half returning players, Cambodia will be all second-time players).
•Speaking of which, returning player seasons is where there will be some bias because I will not be able to complete a roster by randomizing. I will hand pick players from past seasons to compete in those seasons and do my best to avoid preconceived notions from reality, simply abiding by their performance in Fake Survivor history. I will try to mirror the number of returning players from each season based on what happened in reality.
•I have not altered any player’s profile to make them better or worse than anyone else on the season. I have not adjusted any player’s relationship to other players in any way to impact a season’s results.
•For simplicity’s sake, we will assume all players are the age they were the first time they played real Survivor. Otherwise it would be weird to imagine an infant Will Wahl on like Survivor: Africa or something like that.
•No restarts if a player I like in real life ends up being a really early boot, that’s just the reality and likely kills his chances to return in the future. That’s life man.
So with all of that well-established, let’s get into… Fake Survivor: Africa!
*A quick note, I screwed up the save file for this simulation and thus, I can only ask that you trust me that this is how everything played out. Sorry about that folks.
Boran Tribe
Caryn Groedel
Cindy Hall
Cliff Robinson
James Clement
Kara Kay
Liz Kim
Matt Bischoff
Tom Buchanan
Samburu Tribe
Bob Crowley
Carl Bilancione
Colby Donaldson
J’Tia Taylor
Mike Borassi
Sarah Dawson
Sarah Jones
Vecepia Towery
This is our first cast to feature any real-world winners, in fact we get two of them and they share a starting tribe. Bob and Vecepia both go out to Africa with the hopes of being as successful at Fake Survivor as they ended up being in the real world. Will déjà vu from their reality help guide them to a victory? Other than the winners, Colby sure looks like he is going to have his work cut out for him in terms of challenge strength. Mike Borassi in particular seems worrisome in regard to his physical fitness.
At Boran, they seem like a tribe with some physically strong competitors. On paper, it looks like this tribe might have the advantage in challenges over Samburu but we might have said the same thing about Ulong over Koror, and we all know how that played out. Nothing matters until you actually play through the challenges.
Right from the beginning, Boran spit into two smaller groups. Cliff, James and Big Tom formed one alliance. Caryn, Cindy and Matt formed the other. That left Kara and Liz in the middle. We saw back in Fake Survior: Australian Outback that being in the middle like that can become dangerous if you play your cards incorrectly, which is exactly what Julia Landauer ended up doing in Australia.
Likewise, at Samburu, the alliances were a little undecided. In theory, the 4-person alliance of Bob, Colby, Dawson and J’Tia formed a majority of the trio of Carl, Sarah and Vecepia. Mike’s reluctance to choose a side initially means that there is still the possibility of a deadlock should Samburu face an early tribal council.
But that would be a thought for another day as Samburu thwarted the odds and won the first immunity challenge of Fake Survivor: Africa. It was a challenge in which tribes must push a chariot through difficult terrains so one must assume that Colby had a superhuman effort in besting a tribe with James, Cliff, Big Tom’s girth and strong women like Kara and Cindy.
Knowing that they were headed to a tribal council, Boran had to figure out their politics. This mostly meant seeing where Kara and Liz would place their votes or even if they would decide to vote together as a pair. The James/Cliff/Big Tom alliance chose to target Liz, which is an admittedly poor decision considering she is one of the swing votes. Unless they struck a deal with the other alliance to take out the swing votes, this could backfire on them. The Matt/Cindy/Caryn group decided to go after Big Tom… uh oh!
Once Liz found out that one side was going after her, it became an easy decision. Kara agreed to go along with Liz and together with Matt, Cindy and Caryn, they voted to send Big Tom home. I must admit with my real-life biases in play, Big Tom going out as a first boot is the first time in Fake Survivor history that I wish I could just restart the simulation. So long Big Tom, you were just not cut out for this fake universe.
Samburu didn’t let the momentum they gained from their premiere victory slip through their hands. They swept the reward and immunity challenges, sending Boran back to tribal council for another date with Jeff. Obviously at a quick glance, this meant that Cliff and James were in serious peril. Unless, of course, Kara and Liz decided to swing back around to weaken the other trio and help conserve some challenge prowess.
What followed was a cluster fuck of a tribal council. James and Cliff took a shot at Kara. Matt, Cindy and Caryn voted for James. Inexplicably, the pairing of Kara and Liz turned on each other with Kara voting for Liz and Liz voting for Kara. This created a 3–3–1 vote in which Kara and James would not participate in the revote. Liz stuck to her guns and kept her vote for Kara in the revote, obviously so did Cliff. It just wasn’t enough as the alliance of three now had the majority and their votes sent James out the door. A brutal 1–2 punch of characters to lose for this Fake Survivor franchise.
In the reward challenge, Samburu kept up the winning streak, leaving many to wonder if Boran might even win a single challenge. To quiet the haters, Boran came through in the immunity challenge and clinched their safety for the episode. Boran would now have to figure out their own tribal dynamics in front of the fire. And the pressure proved to be a lot for some people.
Right before tribal council, the supposed Samburu majority alliance of Bob, Colby, Dawson and J’Tia dissolved. They must have been a dysfunctional group for them to go their separate ways right before they send one of their own out of the game. And who could imagine an alliance with J’Tia being dysfunctional in any way?
With a lot of uncertainty in the air, tribal council would be interesting for Boran. Would some of the majority alliance still vote together? Would they all be targeting each other? We got our answers quickly. Bob struck out on his own and recruited Mike to go along with him. Together, they threw two votes on Dawson. J’Tia, in her own little universe, decided to go after Vecepia. Colby and Dawson voted as a pair and chose J’Tia as their mark. That left the alliance of Carl, Sarah and Vecepia with a choice to make. Two votes on Dawson, two votes on J’Tia and their three would decide who goes home. They made what I would judge to be the sane choice and sent J’Tia home packing before she can get to that precious rice.
Continuing the hot streak, Boran won both challenges in episode 4. Samburu, with a now muddied tribe dynamic, would have to go back to tribal council to try and sort things out. But in my opinion, they would come out of tribal with more questions than answers.
Bob, who in the previous vote had recruited Mike to work with him, immediately turned on Mike and voted for him. Dawson, who had split off with Colby in the great alliance dissolution of 2001, joined Bob in voting for Mike. Everybody else, including Colby who seemed tight with Dawson just three days prior, voted for Dawson. She went home in a 5–2 vote, no word on if she sexually harassed Probst on her way out in this reality too.
As Thanos would want it, both tribes entered the first ever Fake Survivor tribe swap with 6 castaways, perfectly balanced. Boran chose Cliff, Matt and Kara as their representatives. Samburu chose Carl, Sarah and Vecepia. Despite Samburu’s bigger alliance collapsing onto itself, the smaller trio has been navigating this early game perfectly. By choosing all 3 members of their alliance, they will now swap to Boran with a tight 3 that is at least even with Boran’s numbers and could potentially sway a person or two over to their side considering the original Boran tribe members left are less unified.
At Samburu, the new members had a rockier road ahead. Cliff and Matt were part of opposing alliances at Boran camp and Kara had found herself in the middle. At their last tribal council, Cliff had cast his vote against Kara… twice. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which these three are able to survive together to the merge unless Samburu wins their way there. And that hope was immediately dispelled when Boran won the immunity challenge following the swap.
Knowing their backs were against the wall, the former Boran members of Samburu were not able to hold back some tension. Kara and Matt got into a huge argument before tribal council, probably over Matt using Kara’s hair ties for his beard. This signaled for the original Samburu members that one of these two probably had to go home. All they had to do was stick together, which up to this point had proven to be difficult for this section of Samburu.
In a fun 3–2–1 vote, the OG Samburus proved their strategic worth. They convinced Cliff and Kara that the vote was Mike because he was holding the tribe back with his challenge performances. Inexplicably, Matt decided to cast a vote for Colby. Bob, Mike and Colby put their differences aside and voted together against Matt and made him the game’s 5th casualty.
Samburu got a bit of hope when they managed to win the reward challenge in episode 5. Unfortunately for them, that didn’t translate over to winning immunity as Boran won their 2nd consecutive post-swap immunity challenge, 4th consecutive overall.
For once with this Samburu tribe, a vote was uncomplicated. Kara and Cliff tried their best to find a fracture in the OG Samburu majority but ultimately failed. Their two votes against Mike were not enough to counteract the three that came Cliff’s way and just like that, his game was over. Going out with three votes seemed fitting for one of basketball’s most prominent 3 and D players.
While it seemed like Samburu endured a lot of losing in the pre-merge, thanks to the swap they would enter the merge with a majority. Caryn, Cindy, Liz and Kara are all that is left of Boran. Two people who have been in an alliance since the beginning and two swing votes whose last strategic interaction was voting against each other. Messy.
Meanwhile despite their bumps along the way, the swap seemed to have unified Bob, Mike and Colby as reluctant partners. Carl, Vecepia and Sarah have been together from the very beginning and have done well to control the strategy at tribal councils they attended. Would the two Samburu groups come together to pick off Boran?
The answer, at least right off the bat from the merge, seemed to be yes, but in a complicated manner. Bob and Colby decided to split off from their group and vote against Kara. Unsurprisingly, Liz did the same thing because their feud from the pre-swap Boran dies has consumed her ability to think clearly. Caryn went along with Liz, and presumably Cindy in voting for Kara.
In a more surprising decision, Cindy decided not to follow her alliance mate in voting for Kara. Uneasy at the thought of forcing a tie vote, Cindy instead flipped with Carl, Vecepia, Sarah and Mike in voting for Caryn. Kara also followed along with this group and in a 6–4 vote, Caryn became the Fake Survivor: Africa merge boot.
Cindy had to know that there was a strong chance that she could be next but she was undeterred. In a tour de force episode, she won both reward and immunity challenges and got the chance to fight to see another day. The other obvious choices became Liz and Kara.
Sensing the walls closing in, Kara reached out to Liz and had a heart-to-heart. They were able to overcome their differences, and together with Cindy, chose to vote in a unified manner. They picked Colby as their target, for fear that he might turn it on and go on an immunity streak as the game started to wind down.
The tight Samburu trio responded by targeting Liz. It was never in doubt that these three would vote together. They seem to understand the strategy around this game and have done everything correctly so far to advance to this point. Which is more than can be said about the other three Samburu bozos, who continued to muddy up their own game.
This time, Colby and Mike decided to vote against Kara. It was only Bob’s vote for Liz, in a moment of clarity, that saved Colby from risking himself in a 3–3–3 vote. He likely would have been saved in a revote situation but still, these three guys have really shown their lack of strategic prowess throughout this season and it’s starting to look like our winner will come from the Vecepia, Carl and Sarah trio. In the meantime, Liz becomes Moto Maji’s second victim and the first member of our jury.
Finally, in the following episode, Samburu is able to get everybody on the same page. I don’t know if it took a come to Jesus talk with Colby, Bob and Mike but they all see a diminished Boran tribe and pick off another member. This time, Kara was the victim as she fought valiantly all game with a target on her back but was unable to find the room to hide as the numbers started to shrink.
Going into the final 7 with six members of Samburu and only Cindy as an original Boran, it seems obvious to me what needs to happen. Assuming Samburu is two alliances of three, which is honestly a big assumption at this point, Cindy would become the swing vote so that a tie vote doesn’t occur at 6. If I would guess which side of the Samburu 6 will figure this out, it would obviously be Carl, Vecepia and Sarah but this is the world of Brant Steele and you can never count on logic in this cold, fake world.
Only tribal council could tell us the truth. It was here that the strength in loyalty bore fruit. Whereas Carl, Vecepia and Sarah once again voted together, Bob, Colby and Mike could not get on the same page. Colby and Mike wanted Cindy out, a bad strategic decision unless the other 3 Samburus agreed, but Bob didn’t think the same way as his fellow stooges. He knew that voting with the other 3 Samburus was making his life more difficult down the road but in doing so, he was guaranteeing himself another round of play. Together they pilled four votes onto Mike, making Cindy’s vote for Bob irrelevant and ending Mike’s game at the final 7.
There might have been one more chance to take a shot at the dominant Samburu 3 at the final 6. If Colby and Bob could have simply come together and roped in Cindy, they could have at least forced a tie. Instead, they let Cindy walk over to the majority alliance and that meant four votes going against Bob and ending his time in the game.
Samburu showed one more sign of loyalty by choosing to spare Colby over Cindy at the final 5. Both had demonstrated some challenge acumen but the Samburu alliance felt like Colby had earned a chance to go to final 4 simply for being on the right starting tribe. Cindy, whose game had started off with a lot of potential on Boran, was unable to overcome the lack of numbers she entered the merge with. On paper, it seemed like a risky choice to allow Colby this lifeline but time would tell.
In Fake Survivor: Africa’s season finale, the first vote would be uncomplicated barring one provision: the alliance could not let Colby win immunity at final 4. Colby, while not displaying a lot of strategic skills, had been a people person the whole way through. When the immunity ended up being Fallen Comrades, it fell right into Colby’s wheelhouse and before you know it, he had the immunity necklace around his neck.
Samburu’s 3, which had done so well to get here, would go no further. Now was the time for Carl, Vecepia and Sarah to turn on each other. Throughout the game, Sarah and Vecepia seemed to spend a lot of time together outside of their alliance. Would that bond be enough to carry each of them into the final three or would Carl find a way to overcome this perceived disadvantage?
When Probst read the votes, everyone got their answer. Carl targeted Sarah. Everyone else felt like Carl was the one to go. For Colby it was simply making the choice of whom he thought he could best in the final immunity challenge. For Sarah and Vecepia, it was one last sign of their commitment to each other.
It all came down to the final challenge. There was a real fear for Sarah and Vecepia that if Colby bumbled his way to the end, he would be rewarded with the win. While Colby hadn’t pulled off many impressive strategic moves, he had always been a likable figure at camp and hadn’t betrayed many people.
The only way to prevent Colby from reaching final tribal council was by beating him in the immunity challenge. That’s exactly what Vecepia did as she outlasted Colby on her way to the final immunity of the season and the ability to cast the sole vote to decide who she would bring to the end. It was never in doubt that she was going to bring Sarah. Both out of their friendship and because of the belief that Colby would have beaten both in the final two.
So, came to an end Colby’s adventure in Africa. While he hadn’t brought a lot of strategy to the season, he did bring a lot of chaos with his flip-floppy nature and bad decision making. Mix in challenge competency and some quick wit in front of the camera and you’ve got yourself a player who will be remembered for a good time.
While the Samburu alliance had made a lot of moves together, it seemed to me like Vecepia had been the true shaker. She won the most challenges out of her group and she seemed like the one to call the shots (admittedly, my bias for her as a real-life winner is likely coming into play here). I was interested to see how this would play out in front of the jury.
Outside of Kara, the jury agreed with my assessment as Vecepia was handed the Fake Survivor: Africa title in a 6–1 decision. No doubt that her 3 individual immunity wins and 2 reward wins helped the juror in their choice. Vecepia becomes a truly historic figure for winning both a real season of Survivor and one in this fake reality. It will probably be difficult for her to decide which title she is most proud of.
For missing out on the final 3 in heartbreaking fashion, Carl was named Fake Survivor: Africa’s fan favorite. He was the heart behind the Samburu alliance where Vecepia proved to be the brains. Once again, an alliance formed on day one proved to be strong enough to hold together through an entire season. The impressiveness of this alliance was that going into their first tribal council, they should have been in the minority. Instead the bigger group folded on itself for lack of stability and the carefully chosen trio could take control of the tribe.
At the swap, they continued their impressive gameplay by rightfully choosing all three members to represent Samburu. That meant that they would swap together and control the old-Boran tribe should they ever go to tribal council. Then, entering the merge with numbers, they were able to seize the dysfunction of every other alliance in play to get the results they wanted at each tribal council. It was truly a master class in gameplay for an alliance that should never even have made it out of the pre-merge together.
It’s interesting to note that so far, each season has been dominated by the women. No man has even made it to final tribal council. Over three Fake Survivor seasons, the ladies have shown dominance in their strategic ability and their willingness to slit throats. Come back next week to see if the trend will continue in Fake Survivor: Marquesas!
