According to John Sorenson, Morianton envisioned taking over the territory beyond the narrow neck "covered with bodies of water" (Alma 50:29) and tried vainly to reach that area, which we have concluded would be in south-central Veracruz. Moroni feared that an alliance would be made between the people in that area ("the land northward"--Veracruz) and the people in the land Bountiful (Alma 50:32), probably located just on the other side of the Coatzacoalcos River. Joining those two regions into a single state would have revived the old territorial unit that the Gulf Coast Olmecs ["Jaredites"] had exploited so successfully centuries before. An ambitious man like Morianton (whose name was purely Jaredite, incidentally) must have seen potentials for building political power in the land of Desolation and beyond which could resurrect the old Olmec/Jaredite pattern. Others apparently saw similar possibilities. [John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, p. 265] [See the commentaries on the king-men . . . Alma 51:1-21]