Primidux Statue

The Primidux Statue.

Miles Edgeworth

In order to save the queen, King Primidux put his life on the line and went to war.

— Inscription on the statue "King Primidux and the Battlefield", Turnabout Ablaze

The Primidux Statue is a national treasure of Cohdopia whose likeness is based on the legendary King Primidux, who is said to have founded the country. A different statue of King Primidux, called "King Primidux and the Battlefield", also exists in the rose garden of the Cohdopian Embassy in the United States.

History

Legend has it that the founders of Cohdopia built the statue in honor of King Primidux. The relic was then passed down from generation to generation, until Cohdopia fell into a civil war and was divided into Allebahst and Babahl. After the conflict settled, it was found that both countries possessed a Primidux Statue. The importance of having the real statue drove both countries to insist that its statue was the genuine historical treasure.

Role in the reunion

Main article: Turnabout Ablaze

In 2019, Manny Coachen, the secretary at the Babahlese embassy in the United States, organized a goodwill event between the two countries at the shared Cohdopian Embassy building. As part of the event, both Primidux Statues were brought to the embassy, and the intention was to determine once and for all which statue was the real Primidux Statue. However, the Babahlese embassy knew already that its statue was fake, so Babahl's ambassador, Colias Palaeno, struck a deal with Allebahst's ambassador, Quercus Alba, to announce that the test results were inconclusive. Unfortunately for him, a larger plot was at play.

Alba was the head of an international smuggling ring and enjoyed extraterritorial rights that made him immune to prosecution from all countries other than his own. Coachen, another member of the smuggling ring, sought to switch the two Primidux Statues and ensure that Palaeno became Cohdopia's ambassador to America, effectively usurping Alba from his position and replacing him with a puppet. To this end, he hired a thief, Ka-Shi Nou, to steal the real statue. However, Alba was on to Coachen, so he killed Coachen during the event in the Theatrum Neutralis between the two embassies. Desiring to dispose of evidence of the smuggling ring on Babahl's side, Alba then had a co-conspirator burn Coachen's office and arrange a switch of the two Primidux Statues, because the fake statue was hollow and contained plates used to make counterfeit bills. By the time Ka-Shi Nou invaded the Ambassador's Office in Allebahst, the statues had already been switched - for entirely different reasons - and Alba killed him with the fake statue.

Because the statues were so important to the conditions of the reunion, only the ambassador and his secretary at each embassy could touch and grant permission to touch his respective statue. Nonetheless, when the investigation into the two murders tried to determine the weapon used in Nou's murder, Shi-Long Lang defied Alba and inspected the statue to confirm that the statues had been switched, and that this statue was the murder weapon. Eventually, Alba's entire plot was exposed.

After Alba's forced resignation and arrest, Cohdopia was reunited with its American embassy placed under Palaeno. Palaeno sent the fake statue to an art collector, having no more need for it himself.