Quesadilla Island is still Communication Island. Just because there are schisms forming, and there's misunderstandings, that doesn't mean the community is falling apart. Disagreements happen. Specifics get lost the more people are told an order of events, especially with how many time zones and languages are at play.
President Forever is missing. He was already struggling with plummeting morale and finding answers to the missing Eggs and the black concrete. He was manipulated by the Federation to take an experimental treatment in the form of a drug, which further distanced him from the people who voted Forever into his position of power. His friends and neighbors still care about him, absolutely!
They also, you know, have lost some faith in him as a political figure and a go between with their desires and the Federation's machinations. You can still care about a person, still want to see them be happy and well, and not feel comfortable with them maintaining a degree of power given to them.
It also doesn't help that after Forever's disappearance, he left Cellbit to act as President. Jokes of rebellion and First Lady Roier aside, not everyone on the Island was on board with Forever's appointment of Cellbit. I can only imagine how south that is going to go with Cellbit being confirmed as the Federation Worker serial killer.
Which, my frustration with Bagi (as a character, mind) was centered around her sharing her suspicions of Cellbit being the serial killer without hard concrete facts. I couldn't see how she was connecting the dots, and it took me out of that part of the story a little. We do have confirmation that she was right, but the waters were muddied long before this reveal. How can the people trust in a President they didn't elect and a known serial killer?
...and since his "dream," Phil has been questioning his sanity. Only to have his worst fears played out in front of him. He sees the vines, the skull painting, and the book. Takes photographs of the evidence. He brings Fit, one of the people he trusts most on the Island, and Pac to bear witness. And everything is gone. The vines, painting, and the book, but worst of all the photographs.
The photographs that Phil took as much as evidence for the Order as it was for himself- that everything he was seeing was REAL.
Phil isn't a political figure. He's not the leader of an underground organization like the Order. He's "just a guy" who lives on the Wall, and who is respected because of his experience and his grounded approach. If he can't trust his own mind... then the Island has lost yet another pillar of their community.
Shit is fucked, but it's fucked in a totally understandable and compelling way. This isn't an exhaustive list, but it's where my mind has been for the past few weeks. So much for "harmony" on Quesadilla Island- if that was ever the Federation's intent at all.
