Talk:Battles of the Magnate War

The Azadestan stuff will be removed as the nation doesn't exist anymore. --Andronicus 09:41, 22 September 2011 (PDT)

Sarreva Theatre

Background

"People of Sarreva, we have an enemy. And the enemy has a name."

It wasn't until two years after the first wave of attacks into the Sea of Solomon that any of the irregularly-conntected Rim powers began to seriously believe the idea of a large, organized invasion force pushing its way in from the Deep Beyond. Of the nations that would eventually form the League, Sarreva and Van der Teega were the deepest into the Rim and the first to recieve word of attacks on nearby worlds. The lingering echoes of the Eridanus campaigns of half a century before marhsalled fears of a resurgence of feral drone activity in the isolation of the Breakdown and built enough public will to begin defensive preparations. However it wasn't until a trickle of refugees fleeing towards the inner systems carried the first real accounts of the myterious invaders, whom they called Magnates. While the stories seemed entirely surreal, with dramatic living testament and some actual evidence, the accounts demanded to be taken seriously, although local governments were reluctant to believe they were in danger.

Early in 2162, the second Magnate push overwhelmed the defences of Miranda and Melian's Hope. While they proved doggedly resistant to pacification, efforts to defend the worlds ultimately failed. A number of limpdrive-equipped vessels were able to escape during the intial waves of attacks into the system and landed at Sarreva, where they provided the first military intelligence concerning the Magnates and the methods of their attacks. More disturbingly, it also solidified the near-mythical earlier accounts of monstrous acts performed on the captured populations by these invaders. From a vague threat, the Magnates were finally embodied as an entire civilization of extremist transhumanists, whose actions foreshadowed that their ultimate aims were beyond simple conquest or subjigation. They were out to eradicate the entire way of life of those they encountered and replace it with one that was entirely alien. The call to arms was finally sounded, and finally heeded.

Military strategists concluded that following loss of contact with Melian's Hope, that the Magnates already knew of the cluster of industrially powerful worlds that lay just beyond the Sea of Solomon, however action on Melian's Hope and Miranda would have confirmed to the invaders that at least some of these worlds were aware of their actions and were preparing to resist. A third wave of attacks was declared inevitable.

The Eve of War

Leading up to the middle of the decade, the timetable for any further Magnate actions was unknown and with negotiations for military alliance solidified between the neighboring worlds, plans were made for an eventual offensive into Magnate-held space as well as contingency plans for a pre-emptive strike by Magnate forces. The League as a whole knew, though, that they were badly unprepared for war and an attack would most likely come early. In past decades, local security was maintained by patrols from European Union. When the Breakdown struck, all able vessels withdrew back towards Earth, abandoning only a number of retired and derelect ships that had already been relegated to mothball yards. Some worlds were fortunate enough to have small local patrols that were marooned in-system, but by and large the vast majority of functional space-faring vessels were freighters and industrial ships that became stranded. But to have any chance of success against a Magnate attack, space-based forces would have to keep supply lines open to League worlds behind the lines and prevent Magnate reinforcements from isolating and eventually overpowering a besieged planet, no matter how well defended.

The crash-militarization that followed the formation of the League was the most epic project ever undertaken in Sarreva's short history, consuming all available resources and industry that had sat idle for the first years of the Breakdown. The recently formed Sarrevan high command began militarizing several asteroid, orbital and planetside locations and constructing defensive works as well as logistical infrastructure to refurbish and reactivate its mothballed Eridanus-era warships. In the interim until those ships became operational, any space-worthy freighter or industrial ship was armed. Cargo bays became missile bays, and long-obsolete technologies like electrochemical guns became the mainstay of the ad-hoc fleets for the simple fact that a ship didn't require a bigger power plant to use them.

By late 2163 news of Magnate movements in the Sea of Solomon alerted the beginnings of the invasion, and as expected the League was not yet ready to resist them. In the intervening years Sarreva had become a militarily powerful world, and although ground fortifications were largely complete its space fleet was almost entirely reliant on civilian craft. While the League General Council was reluctant to commit sizeable offworld forces to Sarreva's defence out of fear that the heavily defended world would be bypassed entirely and isolated, the Battle of Sarreva would be the first action for the Combined Fleet.

It was largely assumed that the Magnates possessed outdated and generally poor intelligence of the League worlds and most likely weren't aware of the extent of militarization, but the League Council agreed that even if the Magnates were aware, they could not afford to leave the frontier worlds with intact war industry or space forces behind their lines. This was particularly true in the case of Sarreva, where a sizeable fleet of formerly mothballed warships could be made eventually FTL-capable.

The Attack on HGO-44

The assault began in earnest in May, 2164, with a large-scale fleet engagement around a cluster of militarized mid-system asteroid bases known collectively as HGO-44. This installation protected Sarreva's mothballed warships as well as numerous construction yards, refueling stations and repair facilities constructed in the years before. Destroying or capturing it would have crippled Sarreva's defences, and possibly doomed the world to eventually fall. It was so important that the Sarrevan command had stripped planetary orbital defenses in order to boost those at HGO-44. It came as no surprise when the opening move of the war struck there.

In the close quarters of the asteroid complex, with local space transfixed by defensive fire from the fortifications and entire ship formations weaving about the massive rocks, fighting was chaotic and resistance frenzied. After little more than an hour losses began to mount, and with the possibility of a clean victory eliminated, Magnate forces disentangled themselves and exploited the chaos to withdraw before becoming completely committed. While many fleet facilities were damaged in the attack, the battle highlighted that Magnate ships weren't well suited to fight toe-to-toe with masses of overbuilt League ships. While disproportionate losses were inflicted on the Mangate forces, it's considered one of the greatest botches in the course of the war. If the defending forces had prevented the Magnates from escaping, they could have crippled the forces attacking Sarreva itself. Even in the light of retrospect though, the successful defence of HGO-44 and the mothball fleet without crippling losses marks it as a massive strategic victory in the face of a number of tactical blunders.

The First Battle of Sarreva

"You have to understand that there is no surrender to the Magnates. If we lose this, our nation is extinguished. For the sake of everything we've built, for the sake of your lives and the lives of your children I implore you to join the fight. Fight with anything. Fight with everything!"

Conventional wisdom from previous Magnate conquests suggested that once control of local space was lost, it was only a matter of time until masses of Magnate supersoliders, which had no equal in the Rim or anywhere else, eventually broke the back of conventional infantry and forced surrender. The Sarrevans had grimly acknowledged that a ground campaign would be horrific, but had made the hard decision that preserving the installations at HGO-44 was more important to the long-term campaign than preventing an initial landing.

Defensive actions over Sarreva itself in the opening day of the war were structured to deny orbital approaches over vital targets, but could not effectively blockade the planet. Unlike the attack on HGO-44, the battles over Sarreva itself became a series of isolated engagements as individual pockets of Magnate ships and landing craft attempted to punch through to objectives scattered all over the world. Space battles over Sarrevan cities were desperate and savage, but even in the face of heavy losses the Magnates were almost universally successful in punching through.

As they burned in towards their targets, assaulting Magnates came under intense fire from defensive guns and fortifications built in the militarization campaigns. Those that reached the ground near important centers were almost immediately engaged by waiting heavy armour and mechanized units. Magnate rearguard forces, support equipment, supplies and fabricators that dropped further into virgin territory landed mostly unscathed by contrast and were able to establish bases out of reach of the ground forces.

That first day sparked a decade of pitched, relentless and tenacious fighting. With masses of heavy armour and mechanized forces, the Sarrevan army was able to stem the tide of vat-grown replicants where no other had done so before. Given over fully into attrition warfare, the Battle of Sarreva became a bloody quagmire that consumed the lives of hundreds of thousands. With the League Combined Fleet still intact, the Magnates were never fully able to reinforce their assets despite constant skirmishing, nor prevent reinforcements from coming forward from the inner worlds.

The Second Battle of Sarreva

For the first three years of the war, the Sarrevan fleet had been incapable of preventing waves of Magnate reinforcements from landing. The untimely arrival of some of these surges had cost the Sarrevans dearly, culminating in the dramatic surprise attack and fall of the city of Vershire. It was not a sacrifice that was made lightly, and after entire campaigns of inconclusive skirmishes, running battles and deep space convoy raids, the modernized Sarrevan mothball fleet finally became operational. Centered around a number of lumbering Canopus class capital ships, the Sarrevan fleet was finally up to the task of taking the fight to the enemy.

With coordination efforts taking place between the League powers months beforehand, the first real offensives ran from September through October of 2167 and became known as the Second Battle of Sarreva. Well-established Magnate bases and a strong system presence proved tenacious opposition and both sides suffered heavy losses through a dozen individual engagements, however these were losses that the Magnates were unable to easily replace.

With the space corridors now hotly contested, the flow of Magnate material to Sarreva became irregular and League reinforcements increased. The Sarrevan army pressed their advantage and struck out at planetside cloning facilities and occupied cities in a massive campaign that simply became known as the '67 Push. While not as conclusive as the fleet engagements, it marked the first time since the beginning of the war that the whole of the Magnate front appreciably shrank.

While subsequent battles reversed many gains of the '67 offensives, the Second Battle of Sarreva marked a turning point in the war from that of a holding action, to a contest with the first real possibilities of Magnate defeat.

The Third Battle of Sarreva

"This is it, gentlemen. I've waited a decade to say this. We're ready. Begin the counterattack."

With Finnegan's Folley and Van der Teega refusing to break after long campaigns of their own and draining Magnate resources, it became clear by 2177 that the Magnate positions at Sarreva were vulnerable. Following the tenth League Summit in March, masses of space forces began moving forward from Minkowsky and Azadestan in preparation for the final assault to eradicate the Magnate presence at Sarreva.

By October of that year the battle was joined, and the largest combined fleet yet assembled crashed against the Magnate outer system fortresses and their defending ships in a series of battles from October 1 through October 15. Realizing they were ultimately doomed, all able Magnate forces began to withdraw towards Finnegan's Folley. In the midst of the battles on October 14, a theta-drive equipped Magnate resupply convoy made a daring run through the gauntlet of League warships to reach a besieged asteroid outpost believed to have been the last refuge of the Magnate system command group. While less than half of the attacking ships survived to escape, it's commonly believed they were able to extract the VIPs and flee before the complex and was bombarded and stormed only hours later.

Sweeps of the system for hidden outposts continued for weeks, but the end result was the total destruction of Magnate space assets that were unable to flee the system. Sarreva itself was declared liberated six months later, paving the way for a new offensive to relieve beleaguered Finnegan's Folley.

Aftermath

The numerous atrocities committed against the Sarrevan people and other League member states has forever etched in the public memory that the Magnates are a force of megalomaniacal evil. The Solomon Treaties that put an end to overt fighting were met with outrage, even though it was clear by the end of the Breakdown that the war had taken a terrible toll on the economical health of the League member-state, and they were ill-prepared to begin an offensive campaign into Magnate space. Sarrevan officials largely don't believe the peace will last, and that the Magnates will remain a threat so long as they exist.

Van der Teega Theatre

The Invasion of Van der Teega

Van der Teega Militia
Commanding Officer: Magnus Wichelman

The Magnate Continuum's invasion of Van der Teega met with widespread and heavy resistance but the planet was unprepared for war and soon fell. Thousands of Van der Teegans, however, were able to flee the system and were among the first to provide warning to soon to be frontline worlds of Chatham's World, Saverra, and Ares. Amoungst these refugees were a considerable number of the planetary militia choosing to go into exile and continue to fight, instead of dying at their posts or melting into the woods.

The Battle of Midway

Result: Fleet Admiral Zhang wounded, Behemoth missing, Magnate retreat to Dogma.

Magnate Space Fleet
Commanding Officer: Grand Admiral Jeffery Vickers (Delten)

Behemoth, Leviathan

Many x Type 4 Parallel Movement With Coherent Goals Cruisers

Many x Type 11 Undeniable March of Progress Toward Mutual Advancement Parasites

League Grand Fleet
Commanding Officers: Fleet Admiral Zhang (Supreme Commander), Fleet Admiral Willem van der Dussen, Lord High Admiral Lebekin

Here to Help

Many, many, ships.

Many x Canopus class Battleships

Many x Faith calss Parasites

Two centuries ago, Humanity first breached the clouds to seek his destiny in space. They went in peace, for all mankind. And now two centuries hence it falls to us their inheritors to defend that dream. Each one of you is here not just for your crewmates, not just for your loved ones, not just for your nation, but for all humanity, to defend it against those who left the Earth with tyranny in their hearts. --- Fleet Admiral Manmohan Zhang.

The Invasion of Dogma

September 2nd 2179 - October 27th 2179
Result: League invasion of Dogma repulsed, Grand Fleet withdraws intact. Both sides claim Victory.

Forces

Magnate Space Fleet
Commanding Officer: Grand Admiral Jeffery Vickers (Delten)

Many ships!

Magnate Ground Forces
Commanding Officer: Dogmatic General/s, Exarch Castar

Regular Dogmatic Army

Eternal Dawn 4th Mechanized Infantry "Alshain Avengers", 6th Mechanized Infantry "Golems", 2nd Armored Division "Steel Vipers", 1st Armored Division "Face-Hardened Killers", 8th Aerospace Division "Silicon Vultures", UCW Assets

Millions of Indoctrinated Citizens

League Grand Fleet
Commanding Officers: Fleet Admiral Willem van der Dussen (Supreme Commander), Lord High Admiral Lebekin, Admiral Spica Glenn

Here to Help

Many, many, ships.

League Ground Forces

Commanding Officers: General Annika Matus

Saverran Divisions, Malzulan Divisions, Outremondan Legions, the Van der Teegan Free Corps.

The Second Battle for Van der Teega (Summary and thoughts; by no means complete. Text in "[ and ]" is essentially a overview and placeholder for a developed narrative.)

"Men and women of the Grand Fleet and Army. Today we begin the liberation of the conquered worlds and the invasion of Magnate Space itself. From here we shall turn our guns to More, the heart of their unholy disease." --- Fleet Admiral Willem van der Dussen.

After the Battle of Midway the League Grand Fleet continued with its goal of reaching Dogma, or Van de Teega as all League records refer to the planet, and entered the system on August 20th 2179. Initial plans for the invasion called for the seizure of bases in orbit of the planet and the asteroid belt to prevent their use by the Magnate Space Fleet and to allow the Grand Fleet to establish a foothold in-system. Following the successful strategies that had characterized the war in Chatham's and Saverra it was hoped that after at the very least they could make any attempt to dislodge them prohibitively expensive for the increasingly loss sensitive Magnates, while on the other hand lowering the risks of losses for the increasingly loss sensitive League Central Committee. However during the burn in-system Fleet Admiral van der Dussen proposed a radical change in plan; they would make a run for the planet and begin the ground invasion at once. The Magnates, he explained, would expect them to do what the League and Magnates had been doing for the last fourteen years and such a radical shift in strategy would catch them off guard and before they had anymore time to prepare planetary defences. Post-war some had criticized the subsequent decision by the Council of War to compromise and do both; once intelligence had confirmed that their were no large Magnate space forces in the orbital zones the Grand Fleet was divided into a "Battle" group and a "Escort" group. The Battle group being tasked with the capture or destruction of Magnate bases and the Escort group covering the invasion transports. The risk to destruction en detail was considerable but this was taken into account as the entire fleet first hit the old Teegan Militia space fortress in orbit of the planet.

The Battle for HPRS-2 Delta begun on August 22nd by a long range missile attack on the asteroid's exterior from the battleships of the Outremondan and Saverran Battle line. Under the cover of the attack Admiral Spica Glenn's task force struck the station and within minutes eight thousand Mink Zero-Gee marines were infiltrating the fortress using old Teegan Militia access points and holes blown into the armor. After eighteen hours of brutal zero-gee fighting the base fell and Admiral van der Dussen gave the signal for the liberation of his homeland to begin. Throughout the campaign the fortress would serve as the staging point for planetary landings and would shelter the transports. Space engineers rapidly turned the fortress back into its old self; the Grand Fleet had been specifically carrying huge laser cannon and mass-drivers to be installed on an asteroid or Luna surface to protect an anchorage. While their were no large Magnate ships present they had not abandoned the system; small ships made constant hit and run attacks on any exposed League ship and the fortress itself suffered multiple impacts from missiles launched on ballistic trajectories over the campaign. By August 27th, however, most of the Orbital space of the planet was considered secure and a great deal of Dogma's asteroid infrastructure was either in League hands or simply destroyed. Despite these successes the senior officers of the Fleet could not help but be concerned. It was only a matter of time before the Fleet they had faced at Midway would make a return, and no doubt the Magnates had chosen to give up orbital control of Van der Teega because they expected to return shortly.

Initial landings succeeded beyond expectations and captured large beach heads. However, despite success, resistance from Dogmatic regular units were ferocious and it was apparent that the Dogma High Command is merely playing for time since they refused to become bogged down in defence of any particular objective. Several important cities and manufacturing zones were given up. The question is, what. Not long after the question was raised fanatic attacks on League positions by Dogma's own indoctrinated population, backed by the Dogmatic Army, and a general stiffening of defence lines across the front made it apparent that they had been playing for time to organize and move their new army into position.

I don't care if they're Van de Teegians or Dogmatics! Blast your way through that city! --- -Superior-General Kulinks, 34th League Combat Group.

The effectiveness of this new army was beyond what League Intelligence or Analysts predicted. While post-war stereotypes of screaming masses of civilians with knives, clubs, and the odd small arm had some basis in reality do to a number of initial encounters or deliberate actions of Dogmatic Officers to cover their own attacks or retreats the majority of the "citizens" army past the first few days were well armed; Dogma had acted as a major supply hub for the invasion of the League and material was not something the planet lacked. Never the less the psychological impact was widespread and significant amoung the least experienced troops. The Van der Teegan Free Corps was the hardest hit and was pulled off the line after reports from its commander of "wide spread refusal to advance" in sectors where they were confronting the indoctrinated. The regular League soldiers, especially the bloodied formations from Saverra and Malzula, however were the ones that tended to just roll ahead chewing up opposing Light infantry relentlessly. The entire landing, while generally successful, did not lack in its share of near-disasters or failures some of which were caused by League troops inexperience in fighting in tropical environments.

We're here to save these people. We can't just butcher them. Fall back. --- Major Reza Karn, 351st Grenadiers.

The XI Outremondan Legion and the 4th "Bayonet" Division from Ares landing zones themselves came under relentless attack early on and did manage to secure themselves. They were however forced to retreat, the Bayonet Division to Orbit and the XI Legion thirty kilometers east through poorly cleared tropical forest to the Saverran zone, thanks to the massed attacks by indoctrinated troops supporting by Dogmatic and Dawnie troops moving into the area. Other units had been dropped outside their dropzones due to interference by Magnate aerospace forces and were either able to link up with friendly forces or in the case of three battalions of an Malzulan mechanized division right in the middle of rough terrain that soon became the full of indoctrinated troops. They were subsequently overrun. Because of these setbacks, and others, much of the second wave of the League ground forces were landed in existing zones or much closer to existing ones then originally planned. By the end of the second week of the invasion the rapid advance was halted at the town of Steenwijkerland when advance units of General Manfeld Kulinks XII Corps met with elements of the XXII Corps under (Dogmatic or Dawnie General here) outside of the town, starting the Battle of Steenwijkerland which would see the League advance on the regional capital of Zwolle halted.

For Dogma we live, For Dogma we die. Please try to understand, brother. Apocryphal Indoctrinated Soldier to member of the VdT Free Corps, The Folly of Opposition, 2183

Logistical strain had increased to the point where League forces were running out of steam and the effective check at Steenwijkerland forced the first halt to "consolidate". After the Battle of Steenwijkerland the successes of the first two weeks could not be repeated as by this time the Magnate High Command had finished redeploying its forces to face the invaders; for much of the first week significant reserves were held back in case of landings elsewhere on the planet. By the time of Steenwijkerland the Dogmatic High Command, and Exarch Castar, decided that the League wasn't trying anything so ambitious and felt confident enough to shift forces away from now-secondary regions while maintaining the appearance of keeping well-guarded. Post-war it was determined through the publishing of several memoirs and the release of official files that many of the assumptions made by the League High Command about Magnate troop deployment were false due to literally thousands of fake soldiers (some of which wore quickly manufactured Replicant armor) and the usage of older or captured vehicles to simulate several whole armoured formations in areas garrisoned only by military police. While both sides prepared for the resumption of fighting the situation in Space had changed with the arrival of the Magnate Space Fleet from More.

[On week three of the invasion the Magnate Fleet arrives in-system having underwent repair and reinforcement. (Persumably the loss of the Behemoth was accepted as likely permanent) While the Magnates on more then one occasion threaten a decisive fleet battle the Grand Fleet consistently attempts to avoid one. With their forces spread out to protect long supply lines through Midway to Ares and Outremonde and the need to defend their landing zones orbital zones Admiral Williams and Lebekin decide the risk is far too great, especially considering the Magnates would likely have a superiority of ships and smallcraft.

"Surely they didn't expect we wouldn't defend our planet?" ---Fleet Arbitrator Sauer, during the arrival of the Magnate Fleet.

The Grand Fleet and the Magnate Fleet engaged in many skirmishes and limited attacks on each other's positions. Eventually the League High Command determined that the cost of invading Dogma would be at this point be unacceptably high, as at this point in the war they were increasingly loss sensitive. These factors combined with the shock that they would not have a large planetary population to raise up against the Magnate occupation the decision to withdraw now, before they become unable to do anything other then engage in attrition warfare on what appears to be Magnate terms, was made.

The withdraw generally succeeds even as more Magnate ground forces arrive on-planet and increase the pressure on the landing zones.
The Grand Fleet is hampered by a need to protect a great many troop transports.]

Aftermath
After the withdrawal from Dogma the reality of any future attempt to liberate Dogma was made apparent. It would be a war of attrition against a population that seemed to support its Magnate government fanatically. While there were no illusions about why this was so the very fact served as a grave disappointment. Much of the pre-invasion planning hinged on large populations behind Magnate lines that could be relied on to act as a filth column or at the very least be disinterested. The failure of the invasion would lead to both sides to embrace the long-running peace process at Solomon rather then holding out for a battlefield victory to increase their bargaining power.

Strategically it was a victory and defeat for all sides. The League had clearly shown its ability to take the War to the Magnates. While the Magnates had shown they were unable to make an attempt impossible they ensured that the League High Command was under no illusion that any invasion would entail enormous losses, and the possible destruction of the very peoples the League desired to liberate. The Magnate defence of Dogma shown that their homelands were in no danger of falling, a fact perhaps not entirely appreciated in the minds of their opponents or the most weary of their ranks but one certainly firmly believed as a fact, a fact no validated, in by those that made their policy.

Both sides were exhausted but neither side was exhausted enough that a collapse seemed imminent. In total terms the single power that gained the most out of the Invasion was Dogma itself. It had empirical proof of its successful social policy and dashed the hopes of the League for a quick or easy reconquest of the planet while improving its status within the Magnate Alliance itself. Effectively they gained enormous security.

Due to the voluntary withdraw by the League and the successful Magnate defence of the system (Both actions having only a relatively small cost to both sides effective war power) both sides could avoid characterizing the campaign as a defeat. Both therefore portrayed it as a victory to anyone who might listen. Happily for the peace process neither side could realistically portray it as a decisive victory to anyone but those who read their propaganda. Thus the invasion posed little in the way of a challenge to the peace process, which the long-suffering diplomats on Solomon considered a blessing.

Billy's Stand

"Our home may be gone, for the moment, but the tides of history shall recede. As long as the League of Outer Stars maintains its strength the millions left behind in Magnate slavery still have hope. It is our duty to ensure that this flame of hope never goes out." --- Fleet Admiral Willem van der Dussen, Attributed before the Battle of Billy's Stand.

Fleet Admiral Williams leads the rear-guard and not only successfully delays the Magnate pursuit but bleeds the Magnate Space Fleet. The Fleet Admiral gives his life in battle. Counted as a tactical Magnate victory but a strategic League victory.

Finnegan's Folly

(All Stuff Tentative for Peer Review)

Magnate Ground Forces (Early-War)
Commander: Asset Realization Leader Charles Starborn

1st-8th Alshain Volunteer Regiments

Replicant Assault Forces

Initial Invasion

The success of the Miranda pacification led to an attempt to the repeat the same efficient, successful offensive action on the world of Finnegan's Folly. The disorganized colony, often embroiled in a dozen minor secretarian wars and with a nonexistent central government, looked on the surface to be easily taken.

Initial landings met little to no resistance, and a provisional government was installed with little issue, with only a few hundred losses total, the majority Series VIIs. This illusory victory made the Eternal Dawn's then-militia overconfident, and quite a few forces were diverted off to other theaters. This would later prove to be a deadly mistake. The Dawn had expected that the individualist attitudes of Finnegan would neuter any effective resistance the inhabitants would put up, and furthermore its analysts had dismissed as exceedingly unlikely that an effective leader would be capable of uniting the populace against it. An event on that scale was considered to be something that would happen perhaps every several hundred years, minimum.

Unfortunately, barely six months into the invasion, that leader appeared, a stroke of serendipity for the planet.

The Dragon of Finnegan

Johnathan O'Connor, known early in his life as "Jawsmasher" and later as the man who united Finnegan's Folly under one banner for the longest time it had ever been united, was an unlikely leader and unifying presence. A tough-talking hard-bitten miner, he had a natural charisma and a sharp mind. Combined with his technical education, his legendary raids and escapades inspired many, and his presence inspired more. Initially starting with a small group of followers, he dedicated himself to throwing out the Magnate presence in his town, which he did so with great relish.

This was not unexpected-the Dawn had suffered setbacks of this sort before. However, SOP was to come back in with overwhelming force, and that was stymied by his example, and his pirate messages, inspiring others to do similarly.

Martyrdom

To: Psychological Operations Commander Elena Cortez, 1st Volunteer Regiment Commander Douglas Schaefer
Cleared By: Asset Realizations Leader Charles Starborn
Orders:
You are hereby tasked to assemble a team to:

• Locate the Dragon of Finnegan, Johnathan O'Connor
• Localize his primary base of support, including civilians with close ties to him
• Simultaneously eliminate all of his primary supporters and
• Modify the resulting media such that his postmortem effect is minimized, or preferably, negated.

The Alshain Volunteer Regiments were made of hard-bitten veteran insurgents and terrorists, people who could play the same game O'Connor did and play it as well, and although they lacked charisma and native sympathy they had the advantage of extensive enhancement. The 1st was particularly modified, virtually 100% exhumans with a high level of synthetic grafts and genetic tweaking, barely classifiable as human.

Psychological Warfare quickly localized the organized resistance movement to Johnathan O'Connor, and with permission from leadership, worked with the 1st to eliminate him and undo his work.

Insurgency And Occupation

The martyrdom of the Dragon of Finnegan would have later consequences down the line, but it had been too late and far too little. With a superior psychological warfare operation in place it would have worked, but the Alshain volunteers were too used to being the underdog rather than the superior invading force to be truly effective against them. Whereas their brutality against collaborators worked when they were fighting for their home, it backfired against the hard men of Finnegan's Folly. Although they respected strength and the power to do violence, neither were they particularly cowed by it, used to the constant warfare of their planet.

A decades-long arms race started between the Dawn and the locals. The locals learned to fight the exhumans where their advantages meant little, learned to use the low intellect and autonomy of the early Series VIIs as a tool to win, assisted by soldiers from the League and tools they provided. The Dawn upgraded its soldiers and its doctrine. Many of the Dawn's enhanced veterans gained their first major enhancement grafts when they were crippled by IEDs on Finnegan's Folly, choosing upgrade instead of regeneration treatments.

If the war had continued unabated, without the rest of the League to interfere, the inhabitants of Finnegan's Folly would never have won. But the other fronts were similarly brutal wars, and the units on Finnegan's Folly had the honor of being the Eternal Dawn's test subjects for warfare-oriented upgrades, but also the detriment of having a technically pacified world, rather than the brutal meatgrinders of other stalled invasions. They had to make do with what they had, a hodgepodge of untested prototypes and outdated weapons.

The Reformation

"I can't fight a war with stockholders betting on my profits like I was some kind of banking crisis in the making." -Charles Starborn

To: Asset Realization Leader Charles Starborn
From: No-Reply: Automated Political System Message

Your affiliation with the non-market affiliated enclave, the Eternal Dawn Armed Forces, has been noted and accepted. Welcome to the Eternal Dawn Armed Forces, Bishop Castar. Under ex-Asset and Resource Confiscation Manager (now Cardinal) Irina Maklakov you will now be assigned to command the pacification efforts on Finnegan's Folly.

The moment the insurgency reared its vicious head, it gave credence to the ex-Alshain soldiers and the hardened warriors of the Chinese exhuman insurgency's call for an independent military, rather than just bioroids and volunteer militia. The restructuring took time to draft up doctrines and bureaucracy, and more time to train reinforcements, but in a mere handful of years the Dawn had a semi-professional fighting force, and in very little time on Finnegan that force was hardened into a very professional one.

But the united Finnegan was a tough nut to crack. The rebels quickly learned to stay away from forests, where the Dawn's life experience gave them an edge in counterinsurgency, and do their fighting from the craggy mountain ranges. They rapidly learned how to build IEDs to disable even the superhumanly tough Series VIIs, learned their blind spots and methods, and learned to survive.

With the Dawn units on Finnegan's often understrength, it was never possible for the commanders of the Templars to ever manage to score a decisive blow against the insurgency and shatter it. It was a slow war of attrition. Either the Dawn would eventually kill enough of the experienced insurgents so that there would be no effective resistance, or the insurgency would manage to tie up the soldiers on Finnegan for long enough that they could be relieved by actual ground forces.

Aftermath

Had Johnathan O'Connor survived the assassination, perhaps Finnegan would be in a much different position today. But after the peace accords, the unified front broke apart again, into dozens of small survivalist towns.

Magnatic Front

Raid on Rebirth

May 2175
Result: Disaster

Forces

Outremonde Commonwealth
Commanding Officers: Captain Hierius Kriijecks, Senior Tribune Harry Lulsury

512nd Reconnaissance Company, 25-man detachment from OEST

Backdrop
From 2173 onwards League Intelligence had been benefiting from the capture of several Magnate senior-officers and the defections of several key personal; while the debriefing of captured officers provided a nominal amount of information the defection of [classified] and [classified], afterwards called TRUMPET and LUCY, on purely personal motives provided a wealth of previously unknown facts about Magnate Society and Politics but details on research infrastructure which had eluded normal League intelligence operations for years. TRUMPET for example provided some of the details of the new Series Dawnie Replicant and LUCY the specifications for late-war [classified]. The sum of the knowledge was in all accounts probably no greater then what Magnate Intelligence was gathering on the League through its own coups. Combined TRUMPET and LUCY were able to point out the location of one of the major Replicant development centers on Rebirth, and with their usefulness as information sources coming to a end it was determined to act on discovery of the center. (From "Magnate Defectors: The Shocking Truth" and "Magnate Collaboraters: The Secret Treason" by Edward White and "The Silent War" by Victoria Ross)

Politically the League policy makers were in debate over the course of the planned counter-attack. One line of thinking held out for an offensive towards Magnate Space via Miranda. While ultimately rejected due to distance concerns the same policymakers approved a raid on Rebirth which would not only destroy a important Dawnie research base but provide a enormous morale raising victory. Unfortunately only Outremonde's chief of Strategic Operations endorsed the operation which his counterparts backing out. After some lobbying General Bellgarde managed to convince the Coordinator to authorize the raid using only the resources of the Commonwealth.

Execution
In short order the ONS Protagoras was assigned to the mission along with a small elite strike force. The Protagoras was a specially refitted Congress-class cruiser. Its hull was covered in radar absorbing foam while its lines were modified to present the smallest radar cross-section as possible. In addition it had several bays in which a dozen insertion landing-pods could be launched or recovered. Due too the nature of its modifications only internal weapon bays were retained leaving the ship entirely reliant on its engines and stealth capabilities to evade detection. But most importantly was the installation of a fully functioning priceless pre-breakdown Jump Drive which in a stroke allowed the Protagoras to literally outrun pursuit from the regular space fleets of both the Magnates and League once it made a jump.

After a particularly vigorous series of raids on Magnate frontline bases and positions Captain Kriijecks slipped through odd Magnate patrols in the Sonmi system and taking the long route via S-147 to Rebirth. Entering the outer system Kriijecks, "[I] endeavored to avoid Magnate Space Forces by taking a ballistic course towards the inner system for five days and then after De Gussein [his navigator] determined the best jump-zones to take us close enough to the planet that we could drift towards our launch point in only a few days, with a minimum of risk of being detected. Each hour was nerve straining. Each moment we expected to be detected and attacked but the enemy never came close. Finally when it was time to let loose the flock [the pods] we breathed a sigh of relief. We expected none of them to return and that our wait to be a short one." (Page 458, "From Obscurity to Heights of Service")

Zero-Hour

Unused Material

Azadestan Theatre

Azadestan Campaign

Result: Draw. Azadestani orbital infrastructure was damaged in the year long campaign, along with forcing the RAN to limited operations. With the lack of

Forces

League Combined Militia & Azadestan Armed Forces
Commanding Officer: President Delshad Dariush, Azadestan Armed Forces Commander in Chief

49th, 3rd, and 1st Vertical Calvary divisions using the Peltast class Mobile Suit

10 Wings of Mughal Aerospace Fighters

Entirety of the Republic of Azadestan Navy

League Combined Militia ships.

Magnate Continuum Invasion Force
Commanding Officer: Exarch Antonia Savina, Eternal Dawn Templar

Losses

League Combined Militia & Azadestani Military
Losses:

Magnate Continuum Invasion Force
Losses:

Finnegan's Folly Theatre

The Battle of Finnegan's Folly

June-July 2176
Result: Magnate pyrrhic victory. Magnates forced out of system but League fails to prevent theft of the Citadel.

Forces

Magnate Continuum Joint Operations Fleet
Commanding Officer: Fleet Arbitrator Sauer

lots

League Combined Fleet
Commanding Officer: Admiral Rakesh Zhang, Minkowski National Guard

more

Losses

Magnate Continuum Joint Operations Fleet

Significant elements of Expeditionary Force lost

League Combined Fleet

more

Aftermath

The Battle of Finnegan's Folly was the defining event of the Magnate war: very long, very slow, and ambiguous in result. League ships and fabricators began trickling into the system through the month of June and it rapidly became apparent to the quagmired Magnates that their position was untenable. They accelerated plans to activate and evacuate the Citadel and departed with it in the early days of July, mere hours before the League fleet breached their defenses and reached Near Orbit in force. The Magnates, having limited FTL capability deployed the bulk of the Fleet assets of the Expeditionary Force in the system in a desperate holding action to contain advancing League forces, while remaining fleet assets escorted the Citadel out of the system.

The battle left the Magnates with a significantly diminished Expeditionary Force, but they had achieved their strategic objectives. In the wake of the battle and the other concluding actions of the war, neither side could marshal enough force and transport to initiate a new operation before the Breakdown ended and the threat of Core support forced the Magnates to abandon their plans for conquest.

Minkowski Theatre

The Heaven's Stair Campaign

November 2172 - July 2177
Result: Minkowskan infrastructure and logistics damaged and disrupted.

Forces

Magnate Disruption Fleet
Commanding Officer: A maddened wookie or something

Several raiders

Minkowski Navy
Commanding Officer: Admiral Rakesh Zhang

Several more patrollers

Losses

Magnate Disruption Fleet

Everything

Minkowski Navy

A bunch

Aftermath

The Magnates snuck some raiders and fabricators into Minkowski and set up shop in the asteroid belt. Minkowski spends years fighting a gruelling anti-piracy campaign amid hungry hungry hybrids.