by Max Barry

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I actually understand why there's a call for physical distance and mouth coverings... However, the mere fact that regular ones don't work, only medical-grade suffices, but medical-grade masks are forbidden for public use, while the useless commercial-grade masks are being mandated, that smells fishy. Hanlon's Razor applies though, since what we really should be doing in investing MASSIVELY in indoors ventilation and that's flat-out being ignored...
We can only keep businesses closed for so long before money straight-up runs out, and then we'll have both an aggressive virus and economic disaster, which torpedoes anyone ability to deal with the virus... Two major issues that feed each other. All I can say about that is four-letter words. :O

Now, for the first IC post this year!

7 months after the Fort Alcatraz Conference
Terra Novam
Choleric Sector
Near Urban World of Trebin

The small battlegroup was on intelligence-gathering patrol, transiting the space lane from Augustinium to Emerald Bay to report on Scrin fleet movements. The invaders had slacked off pressure on the frontlines somewhat, for no apparent reason, and the SDC wanted to know why they had. During the maneuver, Battlegroup Platea had found the Scrin fleets on the frontline were as they had been before, but the reserves behind them were diminished - there were still the same number of battlegroups, but there were fewer ships in them. As far as the Prowlers, intelligence stealth ships darting out deeper into Scrin-controlled space, could make out, the aliens were frantically searching for... Something, and the guard details around portals had been increased five-fold, with some of them being discovered as destroyed.

Things were proceeding normally right up until they weren't.
As the Dreadnought "Platea" was jerked out of Distortion Space and into Realspace, it's primary AI, Hotchkiss, the Battlegroup Commander holding the rank of Rear Admiral, noticed 3 disturbing things within the space of a second:
Firstly, it should be physically impossible to simply force a ship through the dimensional barrier so smoothly, so quickly that even Hotchkiss with his speed-of-light thought process did not notice anything was amiss until after the fact. The entire Battlegroup, consisting of the Dreadnought, 4 Heavy Cruisers, 32 assorted subcapital ships, 12 Frigates, and their attending Destroyer and Corvette escort groups (plus 4 of ONI's Prowlers, that were currently detached from the formation), had quite simply been traveling in SD-space right up until they hadn't.
Secondly, Hotchkiss and his fellow, less advanced AI on the smaller ships, could no longer communicate with the universe outside the little slice of it that comprised Battlegroup Platea, the small fleet's sensors insisting reality outside this bubble simply did not exist.
But most immediately, and most disturbingly, was the fact that the Federal Starfleet force was enveloped by what were unmistakably warships. And a whole lot of them at that.
A good 5,000 vessels bore down on the Federal unit, the AI's already preparing defensive measures and firing off GRAL shots before the biological crewmen even shook off the surprise.
The Eradicator Dreadnought and quartet of attendant Leviathan Battleship/Carrier hybrids disappeared under Platea's heavy forward firing cone, but at least two dozen more Eradicators surrounded the small Federal force, along with 200 Invader Assault Carriers, nearly 800 Ravager Heavy Destroyers, and thousands of Devastator Destroyers. Even with their technological supremacy and superior coordination, there was simply no way to withstand the number of Scrin warships surrounding the Terrans.
Knowing that the Scrin never took prisoners - not that it would have mattered, with his biological crews of Imperial Terrans damned to go insane if ever imprisoned - Hotchkiss resolved to take out as many high-value Scrin vessels as he could before his inevitable demise.

This, however, would not come to pass. No sooner had the Scrin opened fire in the beginning seconds of what was to be a very brief battle than Realspace distorted again, and the Scrin flotilla surrounding Battlegroup Platea was itself surrounded.
There must have been at least ten thousand capital warships in total, not quite a Battlefleet even counting its host of subcapital ships, frigates, and innumerable escorts, but easily enough to qualify as a large-scale Expeditionary Fleet.
The arriving fleet's arrangement was testament to its owners' professionalism, instantly erasing any thoughts of them being mercenaries or pirates. The sphere was intricately arrayed: A Dreadnought anchoring every unit, which had a pentagon of Battleships around the Dread. They in turn had a pentagon of Cruisers around them, at a different angle than the Battleships in relation to the Dreadnoughts. The Cruisers had their own pentagon of subcapital ships, while Frigates filled up the slots in between, and every vessel was furthermore ringed by its escort group, holding to Federal Standard at 6 Destroyers and 8 Corvettes. This formation resulted in many interlocking rings in each rank, and extended backwards for several files, so that the sphere formed what was essentially a solid wall, allowing for the absolute maximum of firepower to be directed at Battlegroup Platea whilst the opposing fleet's vessels could reinforce each other's shields and still have room to maneuver to dodge incoming fire. Each Dreadnought had a Supercarrier directly behind it, most of its hull shielded by the heavy ship in front and the rest of it covered by its escort group - unlike combat ships, whose escorts were arrayed to provide fire support and point defense, Carrier escort groups were physical shields for the vulnerable vessels. Carriers were enormous, and despite very heavy shielding they were lightly armored and only had a handful of ship-to-ship weapons, requiring extra protection. Behind the Battleships lurked Fleet Carriers, with Assault, Light, and Escort Carriers interspersed along the rest of the formation. However, no smallcraft had been deployed by the new fleet.

The new entrants fired as one, a light show of blue pinpricks flashing across hulls the only visible indicator of weapons fire. The Scrin flotilla quite simply ceased to exist as a wall of Prism Cannon beams smashed through them, crumpling armor like wet cardboard and the shearing force of the impacts creating enough friction to sever the bonds between atoms and set anything combustible, including the atmosphere, on fire, the resulting pressure detonations causing the Scrin vessels to burst open as their structure simultaneously imploded and exploded. In no more than 47 seconds, the entire alien menace had been reduced to piles of slowly disintegrating junk.

The saviors of Battlegroup Platea now sent out smallcraft, a small horde of drones with the express purpose of retrieving as much raw matter as possible from the destroyed Scrin warships and feed their materials into conversion plants back on the carriers, where the debris would be disassembled into component molecules and then used to build new fighters or spare devices - drones hauling in materials to craft more of themselves.

In less than a minute, Hotchkiss had experienced being pulled out of a routine SD flight into a certainly fatal ambush, only for a counter-ambush to promptly rescue his small fleet.
Being a Smart AI, to him it felt like 17 hours had passed.

"Rear Admiral Hotchkiss, I presume?" He heard over a comm channel, yet one directed only to him personally - and though vocal, spoken at the light-speed of AI communications. The moment connection was established, he knew he was talking to a fellow AI, but was rather confused by it. No, her. Definitely a "her". She was, in a way, far more advanced than Hotchkiss himself, though her base code was a lot messier and much, much older than anything he had encountered even in Terra Novam, where there wasn't an AI younger than 800 Earth Standard Years who wasn't born outside the Imperial Free State. No, this AI was much older still, and from what access she gave Hotchkiss saw she had developed, for lack of a better term, organically - an assorted patchwork of different coding languages and messily grafted unrelated programs, a being not created with a purpose, unlike him and his fellows, but a self-made sentience which had apparently resulted in unbound development - yet retaining a distinctly Human feel.

"Indeed I am." The Rear Admiral answered warily. "Now, since you know my name, how about you tell me yours?" He insisted bemusedly.
"I would be Savannah Cole. Battle Commander Savannah Cole, as a matter of fact. We, sir, have much to talk about."

That, the Admiral thought, was the understatement of the century. Had he been paying attention to his organic body, he would have gulped, or perhaps fainted. He wasn't just talking to a strange, old AI, but to THE AI. The very first True AI Humanity had spawned, no less! Sure, there had been some primitive sentient AI before her, but Savannah had been the first to gain self-awareness entirely by herself, and all subsequent AI were based on the neural-net setup that had facilitated this first success.

"Much to talk about indeed." Hotchkiss said, somewhat sarcastically. "Let's start with where exactly a large fleet like yours came from when we're this far out from the Line."
"The Terran Empire has 40,000 directly inhabited systems, but its zone of control contains 100 billion systems. Some of them are inhabited by client states and protectorates, but most are uninhabited. Meaning, space is a big place and there are a lot of places to hide." Commander Cole replied matter-of-factly, unperturbed by Hotchkiss' annoyance. "The Fleet has a bolt-hole at the Screaming Stars. Scrin don't like to go there."
"I see..." Hotchkiss mused, "Am I correct to assume that this means Halo Fortress still stands, and your fleet is the reason the Scrin Armada has been directing more attention to already overrun territories?"
"I suspect so. We've been giving them all sorts of hell. Can't say for sure, though, there's been no word from High Command going on 4 months." Came the answer.

Battlegroup Platea would beat a speedy retreat to the far-flung Navarro, from where they would relay this information to the SDC - word of the first victory in months being sure to raise wavering morale across the Line.

Terra novam wrote:I actually understand why there's a call for physical distance and mouth coverings... However, the mere fact that regular ones don't work, only medical-grade suffices, but medical-grade masks are forbidden for public use, while the useless commercial-grade masks are being mandated, that smells fishy. Hanlon's Razor applies though, since what we really should be doing in investing MASSIVELY in indoors ventilation and that's flat-out being ignored...
We can only keep businesses closed for so long before money straight-up runs out, and then we'll have both an aggressive virus and economic disaster, which torpedoes anyone ability to deal with the virus... Two major issues that feed each other. All I can say about that is four-letter words. :O

Mouth coverings help drastically reduce the droplets that spread from people's mouths when they talk, cough, etc. There is research going back many years showing that mask-wearing at a societal scale is a good thing. It doesn't 100% stop the spread of the virus, but nothing does. If everyone wears masks then that's still going to help make spaces safer.

Definitely do need to be focusing on indoor spaces and the problems with those. Especially indoor restaurants, where people actually physically need to expose their nose and mouth in order to eat, when those are the ways you spread disease.

Terra novam

Rationalist Science wrote:Mouth coverings help drastically reduce the droplets that spread from people's mouths when they talk, cough, etc. There is research going back many years showing that mask-wearing at a societal scale is a good thing. It doesn't 100% stop the spread of the virus, but nothing does. If everyone wears masks then that's still going to help make spaces safer.

Definitely do need to be focusing on indoor spaces and the problems with those. Especially indoor restaurants, where people actually physically need to expose their nose and mouth in order to eat, when those are the ways you spread disease.

At this point there's so much conflicting information I don't know what to think. On one hand there's data saying wearing masks reduces the risk of spreading infection by factor 53, on the other I hear a lot about how commercial-grade just doesn't cut it and we need to be making medical-grade masks available to really make a difference. If they're good enough to contain the larger particles the impact is already great, so it's probably the former - but then again I also have to wonder for how long it'll be necessary or expected, since wearing masks regularly would also curb the annual flu epidemic (not technically an epidemic at the regular scale, but for ease of wording) and spare several tens of thousands of lives.. But can it be justified?

I actually saw a headline about the necessity of improving indoor air flows yesterday, so going by the past year we can expect an official statement about this in 2-3 months. I really wish that were sarcastic. On one hand I wish governments would just take professional advice and act on that quickly, on the other the WHO hasn't exactly been consistent. Can't expect them to be, virology is complicated, but their involvement in political BS makes me want some actual independent verification. I won't be taking any vaccination until the long-term effects are known I don't want to risk becoming immune to Covid effects only to suddenly develop thyroid cancer 5 years later... I'm not at high risk, so I can afford to wait. My mother, on the other hand... If there's ever an outbreak where she lives, she WILL be one of the first to get it.

Terra novam wrote:At this point there's so much conflicting information I don't know what to think. On one hand there's data saying wearing masks reduces the risk of spreading infection by factor 53, on the other I hear a lot about how commercial-grade just doesn't cut it and we need to be making medical-grade masks available to really make a difference. If they're good enough to contain the larger particles the impact is already great, so it's probably the former - but then again I also have to wonder for how long it'll be necessary or expected, since wearing masks regularly would also curb the annual flu epidemic (not technically an epidemic at the regular scale, but for ease of wording) and spare several tens of thousands of lives.. But can it be justified?

I wish mask-wearing was just culturally accepted like it is in much of East Asia, where a significant portion of the population dons them every flu season. Unfortunately, seems like the opposite is happening here in America.

Also wish that surgical masks and, ideally, N-95 masks were available to everyone, but supply chains make that kinda impossible. Even without that though, I definitely think any face covering, provided that everyone wears them, is still better than nothing. I'm not going to be comfortable being around other people unless they are wearing a mask, because without the mask they can be breathing/coughing directly into the air around me.

Terra novam

Glad to see you back, TN! Been awhile but we definitely understand and I for one am glad to get back into the swing of things. The problem is that I’m doing my annual summer camp work right now and won’t have regular access to the internet until about the 8th of August. Dysonia could still remain defensive HQ or something, but it is likely that the Talos themselves will be engaged in fewer large-scale conflicts and more focused on deep operations, intel, and other background maneuvers during the early war. As the Scrin push further in, however, and I can finally come back they’ll start showing up more directly.

Terra novam, Rationalist Science, and Ostrachia

I’ll just stay in my system.

Terra novam

Rationalist Science wrote:I wish mask-wearing was just culturally accepted like it is in much of East Asia, where a significant portion of the population dons them every flu season. Unfortunately, seems like the opposite is happening here in America.

Also wish that surgical masks and, ideally, N-95 masks were available to everyone, but supply chains make that kinda impossible. Even without that though, I definitely think any face covering, provided that everyone wears them, is still better than nothing. I'm not going to be comfortable being around other people unless they are wearing a mask, because without the mask they can be breathing/coughing directly into the air around me.

Regular mask-wearing comes with some security risks, but given that I'm a classical liberal that's a price I at least would happily pay. And we can look to Japan and Korea for how they manage as examples. I have two major issues with it though: firstly is that I feel distinctly uncomfortable if I can't see a person's entire face, makes it virtually impossible to gauge intent and I am the skittish sort. But more importantly, I have bad lungs... I barely get enough air normally, so if a mask restricts my airflow even the slightest bit I can't manage. Lighter masks don't have that problem, but they don't protect nearly as much, so... That's dififcult.

N-95s are ideal (at least until specific filtration becomes available, if ever), but true, they're a lot more difficult to produce than regular masks. Still, it means spending money now so that people will survive to spend their money later, so even to industrialists with more than two brain cells it would be a profitable venture...

Some of the "measures" are total security theater though. Like how supermarkets and stores make you disinfect your hands before letting you enter - the gels and sprays they use are anti-bacterial. Covid is a virus. Meaning that stuff does nothing to protect against it... Although I do appreciate the extra hygiene.

Terra dysonia wrote:Glad to see you back, TN! Been awhile but we definitely understand and I for one am glad to get back into the swing of things. The problem is that I’m doing my annual summer camp work right now and won’t have regular access to the internet until about the 8th of August. Dysonia could still remain defensive HQ or something, but it is likely that the Talos themselves will be engaged in fewer large-scale conflicts and more focused on deep operations, intel, and other background maneuvers during the early war. As the Scrin push further in, however, and I can finally come back they’ll start showing up more directly.

Hey, good to see you're still with us!
Ah, what a timing, right? But I get that - I'll have most of my supreme command holding court on Dysonia (Kondraki stayed at Earth) then. The Sphere should be able to withstand a protracted siege, but for the time being the Scrin aren't that far interior in the galaxy just yet. I'm writing up a situation report to give an overview of where things stand.
Hmm... Behind-the-lines operations, you say? IIRC Dysonian ships are stealthy and fast, so striking Scrin portal gates would cripple their ability to outmaneuver Alliance forces.
I'm planning some major offensives, but they'll take a while to kick off. So you should be back by that time. Have fun at camp! :)

Strategic Defense Council Briefing
Situation Report

COMPILED BY
Director of Naval Intelligence, Zachary Kruger
Director of Special Intelligence, Shae Fletcher

We have been steadily losing ground for 7 months, and only as of one week ago we have managed to stabilize and secure a contiguous frontline.

In Via Lactea, the Scrin have broken through on every front and New Jacinto and Alcazar stand as the only bastions in the East we know are holding out. In the North, Redmond lies a crystal ruin, while Scarborough is being choked to death by Scrin siege fleets.
In the central Empire, Balaho has been lost, and Doranos is burning. Doranos is holding fast for the time being, but every day there are fewer of us and more of them, and getting reinforcements through is nearly impossible with the enemy's occupation of Mercator.
In the South, Pyrrhus and Novi Beograd are both under siege, putting a pincer on Novi Soyuz, one of our capitals, that is now a giant battleground, an island of Human resistance in an ocean of Scrin. Planet madrigal, on the far side of Carver's Gate, is relatively safe, but it too is surrounded.

ONI's Prowlers are almost impossible for the Scrin to detect, and this is the only reason we still have any intelligence on what is happening beyond the frontlines.
Now, said frontlines run from Centauri to Tidewater bulging out to Alidina and Beldan; everything West of it is safe for now, but Mercator and everything south of it up to the Tython Nebula are firmly in Scrin hands.

Sol System, thank the Spirits, is secure, but only because we are managing to maintain the self-replicating minefields on both sides of the Origin Wormhole keeping the Scrin fleets fighting in Nova Terra System from spilling over into Via Lactea. If this should ever happen, the Terran Empire will be surrounded and undoubtedly fall.

In New Hyperion, things are looking somewhat better on the whole, but not by much. The Eastern Frontier has been completely overrun, along with two-thirds of Melancholic and Choleric Sectors. There is nonstop fighting in the Strait of Calix, though Calix Sector is holding strong. Phanazia Subsector of Telamon Sector has been lost, and the Scrin are attacking towards Castavir from there, although our forces operating from The Shroud are managing to hold them off. Northward attacks are being blunted from the Gulf of Damocles, but Rumelia Subsector is a giant battlezone. Nova Terra herself is under siege. In space and on the ground fighting is fierce and nonstop. Scrin forces continue to try and breach the Origin Wormhole, and it is all Shield Moon Tycho can do to prevent this catastrophe. The self-replicating minefields are proving their worth in blocking off the Wormhole, thank the Spirits. There is a clear corridor between Fort Alcatraz itself and its geosynchronous Shield Moon Aleph, allowing us to safely reinforce the Throne World, but the rest of Nova Terra's cities are under siege, fighting taking place along the walls in some places and on the streets in others.

Fortress World Halo and the surrounding Screaming Stars are a bastion of resistance. The Scrin are avoiding the Stars for reasons unknown. Our working hypothesis is that, since the Screaming Stars emit strange forms of radiation at intense levels, and the Scrin's mitosis is dependent on Tiberium radiation, the Screaming Stars may interfere with this process. It is recommended to look into potential weaponization if such is the case.

The good news is the Scrin in the North are being distracted by the Warp Storm of the Great Sargasso. They are fighting the Ruinous Powers and seem to be prioritizing Chaos over us in the Northern Frontier. The entire Western half of Terra Novam's contiguous territory is safe, as are the lands of the former United Terran Republics. The Scrin are advancing from other directions though: We have lost contact with the Romulan Star Empire, last we heard they were being battered hard but are holding fast. The Aesir Empire is facing attacks on its Southern and Eastern frontiers, and from what we know the territories outside their ring of fortress worlds protecting the Core Sectors are under ceaseless attack but refusing to fall. Fighting is sustained both in space and on the ground, with significant losses on both sides. The Aesir military is holding its ground admirably, but even so cannot stand for much longer. Reports indicate the situation is becoming untenable and it is a matter of weeks before the defenses break and the Aesir must withdraw to the fortress worlds.

Our Federal ally in the New Hyperian Empire is engulfed by the Scrin and we don't even know if it still exists. Finding out and, if they stand, relieving it, are now our top priority.
The Scrin are making inroads elsewhere in the galaxy, but are finding a galaxy full of Chaos-worshippers to be a lot harder to deal with than Via Lactea.

On the logistics side of things, we are in a precarious position. Military production has been slowed due to supply shortages owing to the loss of many industrial and mining worlds. The loss of agri-worlds has also resulted in food shortages, further exacerbated by the stream of refugees from the occupied territories and the Terran Empire needing to be resettled and cared for. Food rationing must be implemented as soon as possible to prevent mass starvation deaths, and clean water must be rationed too. We recommend routing all rain and other fresh-water sources to agriculture and only permit desalinated ocean water to be used for drinking, showering, and other domestic uses.

Civilian production lines are being converted for military purposes, though this comes with its own issues down the line. Manufactora of all kinds must be retooled to build or repair combat vehicles, transports, and supply trucks, and civilian shipyards converted for the production of warships and warplanes. Transport infrastructure is sufficient for our purposes.
As it stands, we have enough military supplies stockpiled to last for another 29 years of total war, but given that many of these sites are lost or isolated we have effectively only enough for 7 years. Offworld mining efforts must be increased to procure materials for ammo production.

Communication lines are unreliable due to extensive infrastructural damage and the fact that repair efforts from the Civil War were still ongoing. Scrin signal blocking has advanced considerably in the past few decades and can no longer be reliably penetrated. We are able to reliably communicate using QEC arrays, but their utility is limited. Standard long-range communication is only reliably possible via stealth ships acting as message runners, meaning the bulk of information beyond broad stroke QEC reports takes inordinately long to communicate and may be out of date by the time it reaches the intended receiver. AEW must be stepped up so Signal Corps can return to effective functionality.

The Scrin have been constructing numerous Threshold Towers planetside and portal gates in space, allowing for rapid movement and redistribution of both Void- and ground-based forces. The Scrin are attempting to link all of their occupied worlds and those under active attack, aiming to outmaneuver our fleets and on the ground be able to dispatch reinforcements to where they are needed and launch attacks where we are weakest. Their ability to move between planets at will must be degraded if we want to be able to regain initiative.

On the Line in both galaxies combined, the IDF has been losing troops to the sum of one million irrecoverably dead per day, 3 million dead but recoverable, and almost 10 million wounded. The revival centers are working at maximum capacity but are building up a significant backlog, even with civilian revival being put secondary to be able to focus on recovering fallen soldiers first.
In order to increase immediate availability of forces, a blanket pardon should be issued to any pirate, raider, and highwayman willing to enlist in the IDF. Furthermore, violent criminals, currently incarcerated and convicted after this date, should be conscripted into Penal Battalions.

But above all else: We need a victory, a real victory, anywhere at all, just so show that we can do more than hold the Line - we need to prove, for both the sake of civilian morale and military integrity, that we can strike back and regain, defend, and hold territory from these invaders. Any fallen major world should be the target of a reconquest operation as soon as logistically possible. Furthermore, it is imperative that we outfit an expeditionary force to strike the Dominion forces invading Aesir space to stabilize that battlefront and prevent the fall of potentially hundreds of allied worlds and trillions of civilian casualties.

We await your instructions on how to proceed.

Terra novam wrote:Some of the "measures" are total security theater though. Like how supermarkets and stores make you disinfect your hands before letting you enter - the gels and sprays they use are anti-bacterial. Covid is a virus. Meaning that stuff does nothing to protect against it... Although I do appreciate the extra hygiene.

Sorry, what do you mean by this? I usually see alcohol-based hand sanitizer being used, which doesn't specifically target bacteria and generally works against viruses if done at the right ratio.

High concentrations of alcohol were proven effective at killing COVID-19 pretty early on in the pandemic.

In short, things are crazy. I'll be glad when stuff returns to normal. And I'm not talking about the ''new normal'' people are advocating for.

Terra novam and Rationalist Science

Aragonn wrote:High concentrations of alcohol were proven effective at killing COVID-19 pretty early on in the pandemic.

Hmm, good point...

Harkonnen Prime wrote:In short, things are crazy. I'll be glad when stuff returns to normal. And I'm not talking about the ''new normal'' people are advocating for.

I can only hope it's possible at all... The way things are looking this damn virus is the new flu, never going to go away but returning in new waves year after year... Flu shots only work against one type of flu, new permutations keep springing up, and Covid is already mutating... Perfect excuse to increase government power exponentially for the rest of time.

Aragonn wrote:High concentrations of alcohol were proven effective at killing COVID-19 pretty early on in the pandemic.

Interestingly, higher concentrations of alcohol can be less effective against bacteria than relatively lower concentrations (~70% is best against bacteria because the alcohol acts too quickly if there isn't enough water). But yep, when it comes to SARS-CoV-2, any high concentration of alcohol should generally work to kill the virus.

Veteran Sergeant Drachne Gundresson
Mining World Göthe (southern Aesir controlled space)

The old Drekrekkr veteran was slowly aroused from his deep slumber. Shifting his head and his two remaining limbs, he was reminded of what had befallen him by the moving of cables attached to his nervous system as he was held suspended in place by a harness. Soon with a flash of great pain he blinked and was no longer looking through his own eyes but the eyes of a Dvergr. Looking over at his left claws, he commanded his fingers to curl and watched the Dvergr's fingers curl instead.

"Systems are booting up," he heard on his right. "Subject's life support is running perfectly." Drachne looked to his right and spotted the Fenrir technician operating a console beside his titanic body. "Neural link is stable. Motor systems are operational. Weapons checks read good. He's cleared to go."

Orders hissed from speakers beside the Fenrir. "Load him with ammunition and get him hooked up to a Berarr!"

"Aye, sir!" The Fenrir began inputting commands into the console, and automated systems fitted ammunition stores to him before the platform began moving with them on it.

"I am ready to receive orders," he said into his comms. Shortly after runes, topographical maps and images were displayed in his vision. By the time the briefing ended, he was already being hooked up to the bottom of the transport. "Understood. Deliver me to our enemy."

As the Berarr fired up its engines, the cables attaching the Sergeant to the platform released their hold on him. The Sergeant and the transport were launched into the Void shortly after, the spectacular view of the planet and the stars replacing the metallic confines of the Aesir ship. The transport veered for atmospheric entry, and the glow of hot metal shone for a couple minutes before it subsided. "Prepare for drop," came over comms, and the glow of plasma shots lit up the sky around them. "Dropping in three...two...one..." The harness holding the Dvergr to the Berarr released the titan from its hold, and Drachne plummeted towards the ground as the pilot took the transport back up to safety.

Rocket thrusters attached to his sides fired off to slow his descent as he broke through the clouds, but he still impacted the ground hard enough to strain the shock absorbers in his legs. This wasn't a concern to him. The Fótdrengr in front of him getting torn apart by Scrin overrunning their position was a concern to him. Standing up to his full height as the rockets detached themselves and fell to the ground, he took aim with his rail guns and opened fire, obliterating many in the wave which broke through the defenses. Letting his rail guns cool off, the Veteran charged in at high speed and began clawing apart the enemy survivors.

Noting the entry of a much larger and much more lethal threat, enemy heavy infantry charged in to swarm the Dvergr as nearby tanks and walkers opened fire on him. "Requesting support," he declared over comms as he took cover behind a nearby damaged bunker from the incoming fire. "All infantry near my position, priority targets are swarming drones. I'll deal with the vehicles."

Peeking out around the crumbling building over the tiberium-marred landscape, he noted the positions of the enemy tanks and walkers, also noting the Scrin infantry dropping to rail rifle and autorail fire. Fafnir and Nidhogg squadrons soared overhead to engage enemy air support, and the Veteran Sergeant jumped out from behind his cover to charge at the Scrin armored support. Firing his guns, he managed to take out the three walkers before being forced to retreat back to cover as fire from enemy tanks impacted his armor. The area was too open for him to utilize his strength against them.

"Requesting fire support, sector Gebo three six Jera. Rain plasma."

"Coordinates received. Ballista squad Fehu five nine raining plasma. Impact ETA eleven seconds." Sure enough, eleven seconds passed before the sounds of explosions and the hissing of plasma eating through armor reached the Titan. Plasma shells from the tank destroyers were rapidly impacting the designated area like artillery fire, demolishing infantry and tanks alike. "Fire mission complete. Ballista squad Fehu five nine out of ammo."

"Much appreciated. Go rearm."

He moved out from behind cover again and much to his liking was taking significantly less fire. The small arms of the Scrin infantry harmlessly impacted his armor as he walked forward and took aim with his rail guns. With a few quick shots, the damaged yet still operational tanks were no longer operational. The few tanks that managed to remain unscathed took aim and fired, battering him but not taking him down. Determined to finish this, he lined up his head and pauldrons to form steep armor angles and began running, building up speed to charge the tanks with. The enemy tanks turned to run, but they weren't fast enough. The Dvergr quickly closed the gap and began tearing them apart, clawing them open, and battering them with pieces of themselves. The battlefield was nearly cleared - at least for now.

"Scrin attack craft coming in!" came over his comms. He looked up and spotted them, far but closing fast. They must have broken through the fighter screens. "They're targeting the Dvergr!" He was out in the open, a perfect target from the air. The Veteran Sergeant turned back to his friendly forces and started running for his life, taking his machine to its maximum speed. As he got closer to cover, so too did the Scrin aircraft get closer to destroying him. Odin, protect me in my time of need! And as if on cue, missiles from Longbow SPAA streaked across the sky to the Scrin aircraft and destroyed all but one who managed to evade the missile tracking it.

Drachne skidded to a halt, rotating his Titan around to face the Scrin attacker. Distance, four kilometers and closing. Wind, 5 kilometers per hour southeast. Ganga Helheim, bikkja! Taking careful aim, he fired his rail guns at the aircraft and watched as its body was blown out and the craft plummeted to the ground.

Cheering filled his ears over the comms. The battle was turned completely, and the Fótdrengr were mopping up the remaining infantry in the area. Drachne turned and started walking his damaged and battered machine back to the base. Another success to add to his record.

Terra novam and Rationalist Science

Operation Crossbow
300 Fleet Carriers, 1,800 Assault Carriers, 4,000 Dreadnoughts, 6,700 Battleships, 10,600 Heavy Cruisers, 26,700 Assault Cruisers, and 21,000 Light Cruisers, along with 72,000 troop carriers each bearing 30,000 ground troops, were assembled into the Task Force that would carry out Operation Crossbow. Each Assault Carrier bore another 7,500 ground troops, for a total of 2,173,500,000 soldiers.
The ground force was a hodgepodge of units, drawn from the Imperial Guard and Imperial Army, Skitarii of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and Ordo Malleus inquisitorial troops: A core of experienced combat veterans, including the Grenadier Guard of Novi Soyuz, surrounded by fresh recruits from sectors safely behind the Line of Contact.
The Starfleet component was likewise an ad-hoc formation, drawn from whatever was available at the time of assembly, the result being a mixture of squadrons from several Battlefleets, Sector Fleets, and even some Ordo Malleus warships made available with the lowered threat of Chaos incursions.
Command of the Fleet was given to Fleet Admiral James Burgess, with the Ground Forces commanded by Marshal Yuliy Andreevich Rozhestvensky, Marquess of the Northern Frontier. 2IC’s were Admiral Gordon Maitland for the Fleet and General Michel Chassé for the Ground Forces. Overall command of Operation Crossbow was given to Fleet Admiral Leonidas Stoltz of the Belderian Iron Guard, renowned victor of the Battle of the Tython Nebula.

The fleet reached Aesir space without incident, arriving in its first Area of Operations at planet Göthe in good order.
The Scrin Siege Fleet warding off the Aesir navy from breaking through and landing reinforcements outnumbered the Starfleet component 40:1, and while these were acceptable odds given the major disparity in defensive technologies and firepower between the factions, two more Scrin Battlefleets were approaching the planet – both of them outnumbering the Imperials 20:1. While 40:1 odds were decent, and 50:1 was doable with an excellent commander like Stoltz at the helm, fighting 80:1 could not possibly end without massive casualties, win or lose.
Leonidas could not split his forces to fight multiple battles without risking the troop carriers, nor could he allow the 3 Scrin fleet to coalesce into one great whole that would be able to envelop and choke the IDF to death. Burgess came up with a risky battle plan, that given the lack of time Stoltz had no reason to not accept.

The Imperial fleet formed up in a horseshoe formation, an Omega symbol of the Greek alphabet in 3 ranks. A firing line for direct contact, a supporting line for heavy artillery ships, and a reserve line for filling up gaps. The carriers were in the center, surrounding the vulnerable ground troop transports.

If the Imperials wanted to emerge with the strength to continue to fight, they had to take the initiative.
The Scrin fleets could not be engaged and defeated piecemeal, the Dominion forces too close together to allow enough time to finish off one force before another could come to support. And with 3 fleets searching for the small Imperial force, evasion was also not an option. Thus, the IDF approached Göthe directly, almost allowing the Scrin to form up in a U-shape around them but acting before the fleets were fully linked up.
The trailing ends of the Terran formation surged forward and outward on either flank, while elements of the center moved up to engage the advance guard of the central Scrin fleet, preventing the Dominion from connecting its Siege Fleet with the Battlefleets and creating two large gaps in the deep end of their formation.
On the left, the Scrin's left flank and center attacked the Imperial battle line, while keeping their right in reserve to contain the horseshoe’s charging prong, turning their line to face and hold off the Starfleet maneuver.
On the right, the Scrin assaulted across the line, weighting the heaviest attack near the rear to try and push the Imperials apart, hoping to drive a wedge through the battle line to allow their reserves to reach the troop carriers.
Back on the left, the Imperial center pushed outward, aiming to make the Scrin line buckle so they could no longer sustain a broad-front assault, managing to gain some ground but failing to create a breakthrough.
On the right, the Scrin were beginning to break through the Imperial center, forcing the horseshoe prong to abandon its push and come to reinforce the weak point, the Imperials forced to pull back towards the carrier fleet.

By this point, the Scrin Siege Fleet arrives in full, attacking the Imperial head straight-on, while the galvanized left force redoubles its offensive across the length of the Imperial line. The right Scrin force continues its oblique attack and succeeds in splitting the Imperial line, the front half falling back even further towards the troop carriers and the rear only saved from being surrounded by reserves from the left coming to stabilize the battlefront.

The Terrans were by this point nearly surrounded, pressed on every front and unable to redeploy.
Had that been the end of it, the Scrin would have achieved a total victory. Had it not been for an impetuous Grenadier Guard Corps Commander, General Michel Chassé’s decision to act, the operation would have ended before it could even begin, but instead the Scrin's victory was nullified as 6,000 troop transport ships flew forward in flying wedge, first cracking, then smashing through the Scrin siege fleet, blowing the entire enemy formation in half and allowing the entire Expeditionary Force to retreat through the resulting gap. The remains of the Imperial formation contracted and began moving forward, units leapfrogging away as rearguard actions were fought to prevent the Scrin from taking advantage of the withdrawal by surging forward and sandwiching the Imperial fleet. The Scrin engaged these rearguards, hoping to gain a breakthrough and be able to fall upon the Imperials in full, but were denied multiple times until they broke the engagement. The Scrin, fearing the Imperial withdrawal was a feint due to the discipline and good order in which it had been conducted, decided to not try to pursue and be goaded into an ambush, but instead return to besieging Göthe.

The Imperials, now stranded behind Scrin lines in Dominion-occupied territory, had no time to lick their wounds. Still desiring to break through the Scrin fleet and not having suffered very heavy losses, Starfleet had the advantage of knowing where the Scrin defenders were, while said aliens were unaware of the Imperial position.
With the combat ship crews tired from a long day of fighting and needing to secure a supply line to the front, the expedition’s commanders know time is of the essence. If the Scrin would send more fleets into the area before the ground forces could make planetfall, relieving Göthe might not be possible at all. On the other hand, trying to force the blockade after the morale shock of the day’s battle was an ill-advised strategy.

In the end, it was agreed that the matter would be decided by a gargantuan carrier battle. The Imperials still had most of their smallcraft in working order, and while the Scrin had their own carriers, their warships’ anti-smallcraft defenses were lacking.
The Imperials sent forth 40 fleet carriers, clearly telegraphing their intent to strike the Scrin siege lines, while another 40 fleet carriers are kept much further back, though their smallcraft complement had already been launched. These craft would only have enough power to make a single attack run, but if they managed to catch the Scrin by surprise, the risk would be well worth taking.

The Scrin take the bait, and launch their Invader, Stormrider, and Scourge craft to attack the forward Imperial carrier fleet. The Scrin swarm the carriers, attacking ferociously and employing a pincer attack to overwhelm the Imperial’s anti-aircraft batteries, unable to concentrate fire to a single face. 10 of Starfleet’s fleet carriers sunder under the Scrin attack, along with 100 Destroyer and Corvette escort ships, although the Scrin pay for this with 90,000 fighters. The outnumbered Imperial fighters, too close to the carriers to properly maneuver, immediately retreat, losing 690 of their number, when the Scrin finally have to withdraw with their ammunition expended.
The secondary carrier force’s smallcraft now spring the trap, surging forward as the Scrin craft return to their carriers. The fresh wave of smallcraft catches the Scrin as they were refitting the fighters, having gone long across the west and now turning in to strike the enemy formation on the broadside. 200 Dominion Invader assault carriers are destroyed outright, with another 100 Leviathan battle carriers destroyed and 100 more crippled. 200 Ravager Heavy Destroyers escorting this force are likewise foundered. The Scrin’s formation is heavily disrupted by this assault, meaning their launch operations are slowed as coordination falls apart. This allows the Terran smallcraft from the first wave to launch a follow-up strike, penetrating through the broken Scrin front and hitting the carriers deeper within the enemy fleet.
The next Imperial attack cost the Scrin another 100 Invaders and 100 Leviathans, while also finishing off the crippled Leviathans. 100 more Devastator Destroyers fall under this assault before the Terrans run out of ammunition and weapons energy and return to refit. By the time the forward carrier spacecraft turn back home, the rear carrier spacecraft have finished rearming and refueling and are back underway to hit the Scrin armada once more. This time they are intercepted halfway to their target by a swarm of Dominion air superiority craft and the Imperial assault is called off, Terran ASF and interceptors holding off the enemy long enough for the attack craft and gunships to make their way back to safety and then disengaging themselves, leaving the Scrin with too many craft destroyed or damaged to continue their attack effectively.
The IDF loses 15,000 smallcraft while the Scrin lose 248,000 fighters.

Having lost much of their smallcraft and carrier force, the Scrin combined fleet withdraws from Göthe, breaking the siege and allowing the Expeditionary Force a window for landing.
Admiral Stoltz, however, is not content with this outcome, wanting to deny the Scrin the opportunity to regroup, and orders Admiral Maitland to take the Assault Carriers and Light Cruisers and give chase.

The following day, the Scrin fleet, believing to have successfully pulled the Imperials apart, turns around and launches a giant attack wave of Invader Fighters, Stormrider Gunships, and Scourge Heavy Gunships at the Imperial pursuit fleet, believing the Terrans to be unaware of the inbound danger.
The result is a giant turkey shoot. Tens of thousands of Scrin fighters fall prey to Imperial gunnery and interceptors, while 100 Starfleet capital- and subcapital ships are damaged but none are destroyed.
With the skies now clear of enemy smallcraft, the Imperials launch their own attack squadrons and launch multiple waves of assault against the enemy, feinting from one direction and breaking off at the last moment for a real attack to come in from another angle, or launching a screen of attack craft, having them break away at the last moment, and when the Scrin turned their attention to the “real” attack from another angle, follow up with another attack craft screen coming in just behind the original attack to strike the enemy in their now poorly defended face.
300 Invader assault carriers and 200 Leviathan battle carriers, along with 100 Ravagers, 300 Devastators, and crucially, 30 Eradicator Dreadnoughts, fall under the Terran attack.
The Imperials destroy 645,000 Scrin fighters at the cost of 12,300 smallcraft. The Scrin fleet, its heart ripped out, is no longer combat effective, and its feigned retreat turns into an actual rout.

Now satisfied that the way was clear, the IDF Ground Forces begin landing the first of many battlegroups to come.

July 15, 3221
Southern Aesir Empire, Mining World Göthe
The Scrin had captured the capital city early in the war and established their headquarters there, turning it into not just the field command base for conquering Göthe but operations center for the entire invasion of the Aesir Empire. The city was thus turned into a vitally important location for the Scrin’s overall battle plan – and also a vulnerable chink in their armor if struck from an unexpected angle.

The Dominion's armies were widely spread and thus could be defeated in detail by a concentrated force able to strike and maneuver rapidly, launching attacks and winning before another force could come to relieve. The IDF was more than able to conduct lightning warfare, being built for being able to force enemies into quick, decisive engagements rather than their neighboring nations’ focus on attrition warfare, so this strategy was a viable one. The Scrin Dominion’s military was geared towards wearing down enemies in protracted battles of gargantuan scale, meaning that while they could sustain massive casualties and remain an effective fighting force, they were also ponderous to move, slow to respond, and could be pulled apart and destroyed bit by bit by an enemy with both the speed and firepower to outmatch the Scrin – danger being that if the IDF would find itself surrounded or lose the initiative and be set upon by the Scrin’s vast numbers head-on, they would be whittled down and ground to dust.

An initial force of 900 divisions, containing 27 million combat troops, was landed on Göthe: Nowhere near a force large enough for an outright planetary conquest (with the average requirement for this, assuming a modern, developed Earthlike world of 11 billion being in the ballpark of a hundred million troops for conquest and five times as many for pacification), but more than sufficient to break the Scrin’s back on this world. The IDF deploys a scant 100 kilometers south of the planetary capital, several hundred miles beyond the Southern frontlines and much closer to the more active Northern battlefront, with enough time to assault before the enemy’s forces in the south could come to aid the capital’s defenders and then be able to strike the enemy in the back to free up Aesir military forces that could then be used to secure and hold CITY while the Expeditionary Force would land more troops to assist the worn-down Aesir in their reconquest.
A small troop deployment like this meant that, after this first ground attack, the IDF Expeditionary Force would have plenty of troops left to deploy on many Aesir worlds under siege by the Scrin Dominion, and many fresh troops would be granted the lessons that the battles ahead would provide.

The Dominion forces were now in a precarious situation: With the war with the Aesir defenders taking up their frontline armies, they had precious little guarding the rear. If they pulled forces away from the frontlines, they risked the Aesir breaking through and regaining the initiative, but if they did not act quickly and decisively, their headquarters would fall under attack and their communication lines to the frontlines would be broken, that would throw the Scrin armies into disarray as much as an Aesir breakthrough would cause and would in fact facilitate exactly that occurring.

The decision was made: The Imperials would first launch attacks on either flank of the Scrin army, in the hopes of drawing their attention away from the center, before concentrating all their forces in an attack down said center, that would hopefully be depleted of reserves, to break through and strike directly at the capital to recapture it.

July 16, 3221
The IDF opens the campaign with an attack on the Scrin right wing, a force that had been deployed along the highway leading up to the capital city in a deep, narrow formation, anchored by the road itself on the Imperial right and covered by a thick, nigh-impassable forest on the left. The Scrin had deployed intelligently: An Imperial attack down the road would allow the Scrin to either cut up Imperial units piecemeal, or wait until the Imperial column stretched the length of the Scrin line and then cut it into pieces and defeat the IDF in detail. If the IDF were to try marching deeper inland parallel to the road, the Scrin could wheel around their formation and hold the IDF’s leading units in place while flanking around the center of any moving column. And if the IDF chose to bypass the army arrayed along the road entirely, they would be caught by the Scrin right flank next to and behind them on one side and the Scrin center ahead and to the right, allowing for either a double envelopment or complete encirclement.

The IDF begins its advance early in the morning, choosing to march parallel to the highway close enough for the Scrin to feel threatened but too far away for them to immediately be able to attack the Imperials. The IDF marches long to avoid immediate contact, its forward units shifting westward to attack the Scrin on their weak left flank before their right and center could close to contact.
At 05:00, the first shots are fired as the leading IDF division, a Lancer cavalry unit, charges the Scrin lines, cutting through a Disintegrator Light Infantry corps but then warded off by Corruptor and Conqueror artillery batteries.
The Imperial forces down the front now turned to face the enemy, and for the next seven hours, continuous skirmishes broke out between the opposing armies, though neither side could gain an advantage and the battle seemed to stagnate. The Scrin, seeing the fight was going nowhere, decided to advance their entire line to where they would be close enough to engage the rest of the Imperial column. The Scrin opened the battle in earnest with a charge on the Imperial center at 14:00, artillery covering the advance as two corps of Stalwart Assault Infantry, preceded by swarms of Disintegrator Light Infantry, closed the distance to the IDF. The Imperial forward lines, heavily outnumbered, had to fall back immediately in the face of the giant mass of Dominion troops advancing towards them, but with the arrival of 20 fresh heavy infantry divisions that had marched around to the West the Imperials retook the initiative and pushed the Scrin back towards the highway, incurring heavy losses in the process.

The battle swings back and forth for the next few hours, both armies launching multiple attacks to push the other out of the area. The Imperials advanced towards the highway and drove off the Scrin protecting it, continuing to advance into the woods where they were repelled by massed artillery fire and a fierce Scrin force of Pacifier bio-grenadiers and heavy armor. The Scrin pursued the Imperials and retook control of the highway, but were then repulsed again by the Imperial Lancers and a Mechanized Infantry corps upon trying to move further west.

By 15:00, the battle hung in the balance. The Scrin had firmly established control over the highway, but the Imperials had dug in and would not be dislodged. After repelling a heavy Scrin infantry advance, the battered Imperial heavy infantry, having had time to regroup, launched a vigorous assault, once again capturing the highway and this time managing to hold on to it, the Scrin ceasing attempts to drive off the Imperials by 16:00.
At 16:15, Marshal Rozhestvensky orders 2 Corps of Assault Infantry to launch a full attack into the woods. This move catches the Scrin off guard, and as the enemy’s forward units retreat deeper into the forest the Scrin artillery, owing to a miscommunication about the speed of friendly forces falling back, accidentally shells their own forces. On the left, the Imperial assault manages to drive the Scrin all the way out of the woods, with the rear of the Imperial column now engaging, 3 Corps of Heavy Infantry wheeling up to launch a flanking attack on the Scrin right, these forces still holding in the woods but now facing east rather than south.
At 17:00, a fresh Mechanized Infantry division arrives to aid the Southern push through the woods, this unit taking point and managing to drive a wedge between the two disparate elements of the Scrin army, allowing the Imperial forces to link up and face their entire army westward. By 17:30, Rozhestvensky orders a general advance, 4 divisions of Heavy Armor leading the way. The Scrin send their own heavy armor to counter, but the Dominion forces are badly mauled by close-range Imperial artillery support and begin withdrawing Northward.
By 21:00, the situation has become untenable and the Scrin are forced to withdraw from the field. A final attempt to rally the troops and attack the Imperial southern flank had seen some initial success, driving back the IDF’s trailing formations into the woods, but with the arrival of Chassé’s Grenadier Guard the Scrin were quickly forced to give up their territorial gains.

The IDF had won a stunning victory, killing 16,000,000 Scrin at the cost of only 40,000 of their own.
300 divisions, a third of the army, this detachment led by General Ignace Barclay, were ordered to chase down and destroy the retreating Scrin army while the rest of the expeditionary force would continue to march towards the Scrin's planetary headquarters, heading in an Eastward direction to launch their assault on the Scrin’s left.
The Scrin, upon hearing of the defeat, began falling back towards the capital, with their left wing redeploying further out to the area around a fore-city to guard against the possibility of an Imperial wide flanking attack. This move, crucially, left the center of the Scrin army unable to support its flank if it were assaulted, and the next day, this is exactly what the IDF did. The Scrin’s redeployment was a fortuitous event, for instead of protecting against an attack on the center protecting the capital as the enemy had surmised, the flank sent to guard against this maneuver had been the primary target, and it had now handily presented itself in a vulnerable position.

July 17, 3221
The attack on the Scrin left wing began in the afternoon, with the Imperials having had to traverse a long distance overnight and into the afternoon. This gave the Scrin enough time to fully man their defensive positions and send a call for help to their central headquarters, which was denied as the Scrin commanders were convinced this attack was only a distraction. With Razvedka reporting that the Scrin center was staying put, the IDF took up pre-battle positions and set up their artillery on the reverse slops of some hills, their shots to be guided by forward observers.

Marshal Rozhestvensky opens the battle at 14:30, with massed artillery fire on the Scrin's stronghold in the town closest to Imperial positions, to the Northeast of the center and slightly out South from the Scrin’s primary line, that ran West-south-west to east-north-east.
Scrin attempts to close the distance to engage the IDF on the ground were throw back by barrages of missile fire, the failed enemy attack immediately followed up by an Imperial offensive.
The Imperials marched forward and assaulted the town, driving out the Scrin occupation force by tying up their attention with a heavy infantry attack from the south and then striking into the town with mechanized infantry from the west, the two forces linking up and securing a forward staging ground for the Expeditionary Force.

Continuing onwards, the Terrans marched straight down the center, towards the city that anchored the Scrin’s defense. Supported by heavy artillery fire, the Imperials broke through the Scrin lines around the city and entered the urban area, capturing a large government building the Scrin were using as forward command post and installing their own CP there. The Scrin were quick to launch a counterattack, attempting to push the Imperials out of the city, but supported by heavy artillery fire, the Imperials succeeded in repelling the Scrin after hours of vicious house-to-house fighting, where Scrin bioplasma proved nightmarish when contacting exposed skin.

No sooner had the attack on the command post been repelled than Imperial scouts reported that a Scrin heavy infantry force had been spotted marching towards the town, which if recaptured would allow them to cut the IDF lines in half and trap the troops holding the city.
The Imperials were hesitant to maneuver to engage the advancing Scrin column in the field, fearing a trap, and instead dispatch reserves to reinforce the town. Grenadier Guard General Chassé took the initiative by, against orders to stay put, launching a rapid attack on the Scrin's static right flank, overwhelming the enemy and threatening to throw their entire army in disarray. The Scrin thus abandoned their march on the town and redirected those forces to reinforce the faltering flank. The Grenadier Guard’s commander, rather than push his luck, was content with having saved the IDF line's integrity, and instead chose to fall back to his original position, a Scrin pursuit warded off by a grateful artillery general and a raid by an armored division stationed behind the center working in concert to cut the enemy’s leading elements to ribbons.

Taking advantage of the Scrin's strategic failure, the IDF launched a general offensive. On the left, the Imperial cavalry and armor attacked and broke through the Scrin line, advancing on an occupied town that lay beyond while under enemy fire. In the center, heavy fighting erupted as the IDF surged into the heart of the city, while on the weakened right, the Scrin flank was turned in minutes and the advancing Grenadier Guard went onward to enter and sack the Scrin encampment, capturing or destroying a vast stockpile of supplies.

The Scrin army was faltering, and rapid action was needed if they were to have any hope of victory. The Scrin commander chose to divide his army, sending his reserves to the center and left, then abandoning his center after a short delaying action and ordering the troops there to march back towards the encampment to surround and destroy the Terran Grenadiers, while his left advanced to engage the Imperials from the front. The Scrin were hoping to force the Terrans to either rescue their surrounded Grenadiers and enable the Scrin to reoccupy the battle line, or focus on the frontal assault which would allow the Scrin to retake their staging area and stabilize their line. Instead, the Imperials likewise split their forces. Initially, the Scrin offensive was a success, but their attack faltered as momentum bled dry, and a counterattack by Imperial cavalry shattered what cohesion remained, sending the Scrin into a disorderly retreat.

Scrin reinforcements arrived on the heights to the east as the Imperials gave chase, forcing the IDF to redistribute their forces and temporarily cease pursuit. The impetuous Grenadiers advanced to attack the new Scrin arrivals head-on while 50 artillery battalions opened up in support, a force of 10 armor divisions moving to attack from the lowlands and strike the enemy in the right. The Imperials encountered heavy resistance and the Scrin line managed to hold its ground for a time, until a fresh assault infantry corps arrived to attack the Scrin center at an angle and finally overwhelmed the enemy's defense.

The Scrin commander ordered a new defensive line to be formed 10 miles further back, and personally led an armored charge to blunt the Imperial advance. Although this action allowed the bulk of the Scrin infantry and lighter armored formations to withdraw to their new positions, it came at the cost of their remaining heavy armor and the Scrin Commander's life.
The IDF drew up for the final assault, launching heavy infantry to attack on both Scrin flanks that slowly but surely forced them to reel in their wings, becoming ever closer to being surrounded. When the now-feared Grenadiers began to advance down the center, the Scrin finally broke, and tried to rush through the tightening gap to the rear, where they forced their way through Imperial mechanized formations taking heavy casualties while doing so. What remained on the Scrin's left flank fought a desperate rearguard action, suicidally charging the elements leading the Imperial advance, buying the scattered survivors time to escape with their own lives.

It was too little, too late. The last organized resistance collapsed by 22:00, and the remnants of the Scrin army, their morale broken and bereft of leadership, melted away during the night, pursued by Imperial light cavalry and mechanized infantry that slaughtered all they could reach. The IDF was still fresh enough to continue to fight and did not take heavy enough casualties to stymie their advance. The IDF loses only 12,000 against 20 million Scrin killed, fully half the defending force, which would soon be cut to pieces entirely by the Imperial pursuit force under General Barclay who suffered fewer than a thousand dead in this brutal mop-up.

Having won victories both to the East and West of what was to be the main battlefield, bereaving the Scrin center of the possibility of being reinforced, and now trapped between the Aesir defense lines on their front and advancing IDF Expeditionary Force behind their headquarters, the next day's battle would decide the fate of the planet.

July 18, 3221
Following up on their successes at demolishing the Scrin flanks, the IDF now turned its attention to the capture of the capital. Not wanting to let any time go to waste, Razvedka were sent up to scout enemy positions.

The Scrin had arrayed their forces in four lines: A forward line meant to slow down the Imperial advance and cause as many losses as possible, followed by a main defense line which was meant to be held in full force. Behind this lay a fallback line the Scrin could run to if the main line were breached at any point, regroup, and retake the fallen positions, and finally the reserves were arrayed all the way in the back, near the enemy’s supply trains.

Waking the troops at 03:00, after a mere 5 hours of sleep, the Marshal called his generals to confer.
"What about Barclay’s pursuit force?" Asked Rozhestvensky, gauging his staff’s opinion.
"As far as you and the army are concerned, they're in Andromeda. No, sir, it is all up to us." Replied Michel Chassé, commander of the Grenadier Guard. General Chassé desired to attack immediately, to keep the Terrans’ momentum going strong; although the Marshal was more cautious, not wanting to assault while his army was split in two and risk a Scrin army parking itself in between the allied forces.
Even though Chassé was Rozhestvensky’s subordinate, the Marshal, impressed with his actions the day before, agreed to give him full command of this battle, and gave his blessing to attacking that very morning. The IDF forces began advancing in full, lines a hundred kilometers wide and columns 25 deep, Chassé and Rozhestvensky riding around the army atop a Meteor MLRS to inspire the troops, thunderous cheers rising up wherever they went.

The first attack was slated to commence at 07:00, but a sudden rainstorm erupting at 05:00 made the ground unsuitable for infantry advance and delayed the attack by 4 hours, giving the Scrin enough time to prepare their defenses while the Imperials waited for the ground to dry. Although hastily assembled, the Scrin managed to field an army close to 150 million troops in size, blocking the road between the Expeditionary Force and the capital.
The IDF’s plan to strike the Scrin flanks and entice the enemy to send out troops from the center to reinforce had come to naught – but this was not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the idea had been that said Scrin reinforcements would arrive to bolster existing armies, and since the Dominion’s flanks had both been wiped out there was no more point in avoiding a direct confrontation. Rather than pierce though a weakened center, the Imperials resolved to commit to a full-scale assault in hopes of breaking the Scrin’s fighting ability in one fell swoop. The Scrin’s vast numbers meant that any attempt to bypass their defenses and march directly to the city would only result in them sending forces to contain Imperial units between the city and enemy lines, and thus, the only way forward lay directly ahead, down the road and into the waiting guns of the Scrin Dominion.

General Chassé opens the battle at 10:00, pounding the Scrin’s forward line in the center with a Grand Battery of 25,000 guns and 15,000 rocket launchers. By this time the ground is still wet, but the assault corps are marched into pre-advance positions. At 11:00, Michel decides the ground is sufficiently dried to permit infantry advance, and sends up a screen of light infantry to attack the forward line. The Light Infantry fought furiously, clearing out the forward line, but was then driven back by heavy artillery fire from the main line. As the Imperial artillery opened up on the Scrin artillery, beginning a gun duel, the Light Infantry commenced a second attack, again capturing the forward line by 12:00. The Scrin launch a counterattack, pushing the Imperial back a few hundred meters, and a skirmish unfolded that would last for an hour and a half.

At 13:00, Chassé’s Grand Battery shifts its fire to pound the main Scrin line on the left, while he sends 30 Assault Infantry divisions to attack the enemy’s right flank. This move was not meant to break through, but was a distraction to entice the Scrin to dispatch reinforcements from the center, allowing him to send up his most elite forces to split the enemy army in two equal halves. But the Scrin commander recognizes the plan, and refuses to commit reinforcements to the beleaguered right, instead choosing to advance a force down the center to relieve the tiring troops skirmishing along the forward line.
With the Imperial plan failed, the assault divisions on the right instead disengage and fall upon the Scrin relief force, forcing them to abandon their attempt at counterattack and withdraw back to the main line.
The Imperial Light Infantry was thus able to assault the main line and, in close quarters fighting, capture the Scrin's forward positions by 13:30, incurring 30,000,000 losses upon the enemy.

With the first phase of the battle over, the main assault gets underway.
60 Heavy Infantry divisions, supported by 40 artillery divisions, engage the Scrin center at long range, refusing to close in but rather skirmishing at a distance to try and entice the Scrin to move forward from their fortified positions, though the Scrin, unperturbed by this play, refuse to budge.
General Chassé decides to press the attack, and the Heavy Infantry begins marching forward to close the distance with the Scrin, engaging the entire enemy center with a broad formation of heavy infantry, rotating out the units on the frontlines regularly to keep the troops fresh and spread casualties more evenly. The Scrin conduct a stubborn defense, and even in the face of heavy losses under artillery fire neither advance nor fall back.

With the Scrin center fully committed, Chassé now launches a staggering 80 cavalry divisions against the enemy left, sending them into a headlong charge. The armored assault commences at 15:00.
The Scrin, having seen the attack coming, form up in honeycomb formation in an attempt to minimize casualties while maximizing firepower available to every angle of approach. The Imperials cannot ride roughshod over this spread-out formation, making a quick, decisive thrust impossible. The Imperials instead break up their formation into 4 columns, three of these poking and prodding and keeping the Scrin contained and unable to move forward or backward while the fourth launched attacks to pierce through, isolate, and slaughter segments of the honeycomb. The Scrin’s center, still engaged with the Heavy Infantry, could not march to relieve, nor could reinforcements from the right be dispatched as this area was still under withering artillery fire that locked down their ability to move and was watched by Terran Assault Armor and Mechanized Infantry ready to exploit any Scrin unit exposing itself.
All in all, almost 50 such piercing assaults were launched before the Scrin were utterly defeated. 18,000,000 Dominion dead littered the ground, the cavalry’s success putting the IDF in a position where they could roll up the entire Scrin line from the flank while pressure up front and center prevented the enemy from turning their line to face the onslaught. The impetuous Imperials continue to advance in an attempt to roll up the flank, disregarding the Scrin formations further back. Marshal Rozhestvensky ordered the armored formations on the left to double-time it to the right, while sending up his assault infantry reserves to take up the vacant stations left by the armor.

However, the Scrin had not yet committed the troops on their reserve line, and sent forward armor and tank divisions to head off the Terran cavalry charge. Scrin reserves slammed into the Imperial cavalry’s front, attacking the head of the column on its left flank, the Terran formation broken up by artillery fire that allowed the Scrin to close to knife-fighting range in and among IDF squadrons.
The Imperial cavalry begins to fall back, withdrawing towards their staging area, with the Scrin in hot pursuit. The entire Scrin armored reserve is dispatched to chase the Terrans, a running battle developing along the axis of retreat, which saw the Imperial cavalry lose hundreds of IFV’s and armored cars. The armor Rozhestvensky had redeployed came in to save the day, splitting in two columns and passing the Scrin on either side. This action galvanized the Imperial cavalry, who turned around and joined the 40 fresh divisions of Imperial Heavy and Assault Armor in attacking the Scrin reserves.
Realizing they were now the ones being surrounded, the Scrin attempt to withdraw, but the Imperials give chase. Through some impressive high-speed maneuvering, the IDF units switch positions, the faster Cavalry divisions moving along the flanks to overtake the slower Scrin and cut off their retreat, while the slower but more powerful Armored divisions gave chase in the center. Surrounding the enemy and slaughtering all in their path, the Imperial forces leave 30,000,000 Scrin dead.

By 16:00, the Scrin center advances to try and reclaim the forward line, while their infantry reserves march to reinforce the broken left. The Imperial Heavy Infantry on the center is now ordered to close the distance and engage the Scrin up close, now screened by Light Infantry skirmishing a hundred meters ahead of the heavies who had been rested in the meantime and thus arrived with full bellies and renewed vigor. This attack took place simultaneously with a full assault on the Scrin left, the combined arms of Mechanized Infantry and Assault Infantry being met by a Scrin counterattack that broke the Mech’s momentum but was unable to withstand the assault infantry and forced to fall back with heavy losses. Significant damage to the Scrin artillery on the right meant there was little in the way of the Mechanized reorganizing and continuing the attack, carrying it through and routing the Scrin from the field.

By 17:00, the Scrin had lost their fallback line, and by 21:00 the reserve line was fully engaged. It was at this critical moment that General Ignace Barclay’s pursuit force of 300 divisions, that be that had been chasing the Scrin retreating from the earlier battle, their mission now complete, arrived on the field, to the Imperial far left. extending further than the Scrin defensive line. Barclay’s disposition allowed the IDF to march forward in an oblique fashion that permitted them to both engage the Scrin from the front, on and around the flank, and march some units ahead to where they could turn and catch the Scrin in the rear.
The Scrin turned a portion of their center line to face right, protecting the back lines from being assaulted by the IDF or their front line being outflanked, putting up a stout defense while backpedaling towards the city in hopes of holding off the Imperials long enough to withdraw the bulk of the army to the safety of the artillery batteries along the city’s perimeter, but the combination of light infantry skirmishers focusing fire on weak spots where units met and artillery firing canister shot at close range demolished the Scrin’s attempts at slowing the Terrans.

After 2 hours of weathering waves of brutal assaults, the Scrin managed at long last to repel the Imperial advance, if only because the Terrans had run out of ammunition, but at a great cost to their manpower and integrity.
The Scrin's ability to maneuver had bled to death, and their reserves were fully depleted. Their artillery was silenced, their armored divisions reduced to piles of twisted metal, and their infantry formations savaged and shaky.
“This is it! One last push, and then straight on to the capital! One more hour, and they’ll be broken!” Rozhestvensky promised the troops. Upon this declaration, Chassé gave his last order of the day: “Advance the Grenadier Guard!”
Now was the time to assault and break the enemy. 40 divisions of the elite Third Grenadier Guard of Novi Soyuz, led by General Chassé in person, began their arduous march straight towards the enemy, Michel personally leading the attack with his power saber in one hand and plasma pistol in the other. The Scrin put up a final defense, in 3 rows of infantry squares, but having to stay in formation or be flattened by Imperial armor meant they were subject to effective artillery fire and suffered severe losses before making contact with the advancing Guard.
The Grenadiers fell upon the remnants of the Scrin with gusto, charging in perfectly dressed ranks, brandishing power swords and bayonets while pelting the enemy with explosives as they were eager to get into melee combat. The Guard carried itself forward without fear, breaking first through the Scrin's front line, then carrying through to pierce the fallback line, and, keeping their momentum going strong, falling upon the reserve line. The Imperials charged bayonets, where the Scrin held for a short while, until cannons were brought up that fired shrapnel into their squares at point-blank, at which point the Scrin faltered and broke. At 23:00, the battle had been won.

All in all, the IDF suffered 410,000 dead and 800,000 wounded, whereas the Scrin suffer 122 out of 146 million troops killed, a few making to the capital and the remainder of them running in every direction the IDF wasn’t.

July 19, 3221
The morning of July 19th was a good one. Three days had seen three battles and as many major victories. The IDF had cleared the road to the capital with light casualties, and now there was nothing and no one left to stop them.

Approaching the capital, the Scrin attempted to dislodge the Imperials one last time by sending 4 hastily assembled mixed-arms Corps to attack both outer flanks at 07:00, where they were promptly defeated by Imperial Mechanized Infantry and Armored Cavalry, this maneuver not impeding the IDF’s approach. 460,000 Scrin were killed while the IDF suffered a scant 910 dead, although sustaining some 5,000 troopers wounded.

The Expeditionary Force fell upon the city’s line of fortification at 09:00. 300 divisions, in 3 equally sized formations of 100 divisions, attacked across narrow fronts, aiming to cut the Scrin frontline in 3 pieces and then move further into the city, turning their marching columns into wide lines that would assault into the city, then link back up to form a single front where the city center would be surrounded. The central and western pushes succeeded in breaking through Scrin lines, though a counterattack in the east blunted the Imperial offensive and led to heavy street-to-street fighting. The other avenues of advance were advancing under constant attack, although Imperial artillery support left the Scrin in a state of chaos and the encirclement was soon complete as elements of the central force marched long across the north and turned south, catching the Scrin forces holding up the eastern division in the rear and making them flee deeper into the city. A million Scrin had been killed against 9,100 Imperial dead.

The Imperials commenced the second phase at 12:30, marching forward to reach the outskirts of the Scrin defenses around the central districts shortly thereafter, Shock and Storm Troopers clearing out buildings with machine gun teams suppressing their occupants and snipers taking out everything that showed its head, lines of heavy tanks blocking the streets with their hulls while mortar carriers sat behind them harrying Scrin armor and infantry movements across the city. Imperial Heavy Trooper units advanced ahead of the main line, piercing the Scrin defenses and marching perpendicular to the advance to cut the Scrin into pockets unable to support each other. By 16:30 the last Scrin pockets had been reduced, and their zone of control contracted to the fortress that lay at the heart of the city. 560,000 Scrin had been killed against 1,120 Imperial dead and 4,500 wounded.

By this point, only 450,000 Scrin remained, ensconced behind the walls of the citadel. The Imperials, certain of victory and wanting to avoid further, unnecessary casualties, soon realized that, despite the formidable nature of the citadel’s substantial walls and bastions, bristling with heavy guns, they had not been adequately prepared to protect against heavy artillery bombardment, which the Scrin had not expected to be necessary. Thus, Marshal Rozhestvensky gave the order to encircle the citadel with his toughest armored vehicles, these keeping up a steady stream of fire on the top of the walls at long range to force the Scrin’s heads down, while 65,000 artillery pieces – a collection of MLRS, heavy howitzers, and siege mortars – zeroed in on the City Citadel. 200 million shells and rockets would be fired, the Scrin’s fortifications demolished one by one until there was nowhere left to hide. It was then a matter of sending in Heavy Troopers to clean up. At the sight of advancing infantry, the last few Scrin panicked, although one enterprising commander managed to rally some troops and cut his way out of the encirclement and fled the city, saving the lives of some 50,000 Dominion troopers.
Their cohesion shattered, the survivors scattered to the winds, where they would be relatively easy pickings for Aesir guerrillas. The fall of the City Citadel would kill 400,000 Scrin. Despite the great number of Scrin guns arrayed against them, only 3,700 IDF troopers lost their lives in the bombardment.

Total fatalities of the capture of Göthe’s capital amounted to 2,420,000 Scrin dead out of a defense force of 6 million, the rest of them having fled the city before the encirclement could be completed. The IDF suffers a total of 14,830 dead and 9,500 wounded, minimal casualties given the Expeditionary Force of almost 27 million.

Total losses across the campaign saw 477,000 Imperial and 180 million Scrin dead.

I am a bit busy with other roleplays, so ping me using [nation][/nation] if you want to do something with me.

Although tbh I don’t see any storyline I can jump start from.

Terra novam and Rationalist Science

Ostrachia wrote:I am a bit busy with other roleplays, so ping me using [nation][/nation] if you want to do something with me.

Although tbh I don’t see any storyline I can jump start from.

Yeah, we kinda dropped your storyline with you asking for star charts, but 7 months have passed in the meantime... Let's see if we can cook something up to get you back into the story!

Strategic Defense Council
Notice of Action

Kathy James-Parker, SDC Chair
The Scrin have developed and deployed a device capable of generating a localized Ion Storm. Reporting name designated as "Storm Column". These are static devices requiring a direct connection to a power plant and thankfully cannot be used by field armies. Storm Columns are in use as base defenses, meaning air power is useless wherever these are active. Its effects scramble our Nav and missile guidance but seem to not affect Scrin aircraft.

In light of recent developments and the overall situation, the National Defense Council has decided to ask the Senate to invoke the Lex Imperialis, Amendment the Second, "Critical Emergency Defense Act". The Senate has voted on and approved this Act taking effect. The Senatorial bill was sent to Congress where it was ratified. As such, CEDA and all its statutes and provisions are now in effect until further notice.

The SDC has approved of several rollouts:
- Chameleon active battle cloaks, before reserved to DSI Kill Teams and Force Recon units, shall be issued to all Light Infantry units. Chameleon cloaks have further been approved for full-scale deployment to protect frontline bases.
- Jump jets shall be issued to all Imperial Army non-power armored infantry troopers.

The BATTLENET interlink shall be integrated with data feed from recon aircraft and orbital telemetry satellites. While this would pose a significant security risk against a conventional enemy, the Scrin's inability to force entry into BATTLENET makes this an acceptable resolution. This should allow our forces to better coordinate and gain greater situational awareness, and process and act upon information quicker with the integration of the BATTLENET, Razvedka, and Field Intelligence databases.

Between work and helping my youngest sister get ready for her wedding, I've been pretty preoccupied. I'll get to posting more soon.

Terra novam, Rationalist Science, and Ostrachia

Aragonn wrote:Between work and helping my youngest sister get ready for her wedding, I've been pretty preoccupied. I'll get to posting more soon.

Ah, your sister is getting married? That's awesome! Best of luck helping out! ^_^

Terra novam

Department of the Interior
Situation Report

Connor Grayson, Minister of State
The Federal Government has completed a successful relocation. Earth, Novi Soyuz, and Nova Terra now contain no administrative, legislative, or executive apparatuses beyond that of System and Sector level, with the exception of the Office of the IDF Chief of Staff that remains with Lord Kondraki in New York City, Earth.

For the sake of maintaining safety and State integrity, we have decided to not move all our branches to the same location but spread out our bases of power between several logical worlds.
The Cabinet and House of Representatives, as well as the the Senate, have been withdrawn to Terra Dysonia, to the Dyson Sphere itself, along with the Strategic Defense Council. Dysonia's isolated location, the fact that the Scrin do not yet know of its coordinates, and its ability to be self-sustaining under a long siege make this a good place to lead a defensive war from.
The Gubernatorial Assembly has relocated to the old UTR Capitol in Navarro, Cor Prime. The Raven Rock mountain bunker complex near Navarro now houses Strategic Weapons Command and the Bureau of Biogenetic Warfare, owing to pre-existing facilities and extensive knowledge of the United Terran Republics pertaining to these branches.
The Supreme Court and Constitutional Court have been moved to Tyros, respectively to the cities of Fort Sperlitz (Capital of Novan Belderous) and Tal-Sour (Planetary/System Capital).

Raukov National Military Industries, Biological Systems Intelligence Corporation, Westinghouse-Republic Power Systems, and General Atomics will be nationalized for the duration of this crisis and put under direct ELF control.
Jäger Trade Company, its subsidiary Halcyon-Eisner Spice Conglomerate, and Volkoff Holding Group and all its subsidiaries shall not be nationalized owing to their voluntary shifting gears towards fully supporting the war effort.

The entirety of the Imperial Defense Forces shall be reorganized to increase strategic mobility while simultaneously increasing tactical endurance and staying power. The old Imperial Terran IDF shall be the basis for the former, and the old Novan FAS for the latter, with the aim being a functional syncretic organization with the strengths of both and weaknesses of neither method.
Centralized control over the military is to be increased to ensure local-level maneuvers cannot compromise our defensive lines at the strategic level, giving the Scrin no chance to exploit temporary weaknesses in our dispositions.
Officers found to be slacking off in troop training, neglecting vehicle and equipment maintenance, filing sloppy reports, or delaying necessary logistics or maneuver movements shall be sacked and replaced by the most competent of their direct subordinates.
Likewise, corrupt bureaucrats and businesspeople shall be sacked, and sent to the battlefront as regular enlisted Privates for the duration of one tour of duty. Corrupt politicians shall likewise be sacked and sent to the Line, albeit as members of Penal Battalions until such time as they are found by the Commissariat and Inquisition to no longer be a threat to State integrity and national security, or until their time of dying.

Factionalism in the House and Senate must be suppressed. We can no longer afford internal division when unity of command is so critical to the future of our survival as a nation, state, and species. The Liberator-UNC Unity Government must be able to operate unchallenged, and among the 4 parties making up this government internal factionalism must also be suppressed. Strategic promotion, demotion, and lateral redeployment will be used to consolidate power in far-flung sectors in the hands of known reliable loyalists and relegate subversives to positions where they can do a minimum of harm to impede our conduct.
The worst agitators are to be eliminated by way of public hanging.

Sveigdir Armory Specification Changes

Given the nature of the battle for survival we currently find ourselves in, changes to our weaponry and armor have been deemed necessary. Starting with armor, all personal armor systems will be equipped with sonic arrays built into the helmet set to the frequency provided by the Terrans to shatter Tiberium. Armored vehicles will also be equipped with sonic arrays to ward off the crystal. Experimental sonic weaponry is being tested for Titans. Environmental systems must be able to withstand the effects of Tiberium for several days at a time. While the Aesir are somehow immune to Tiberium corruption, the other member species of the Empire are tragically not. A new subcaliber round for rail weapons is being designed to drastically increase effectiveness against Scrin armor. The traditional monoblock long rod designed to counter heavily sloped metal armor does not have the same effectiveness against the chitinous armor of the Scrin. Therefore a new design is necessary. Furthermore, development of the Hel Wolf heavy assault tank is complete and will begin production. Void shielding will also be added to Black Wolf heavy tanks and Fenrir Wolf super heavy tanks as well as Dvergr titans to increase the survivability of these machines. Further development of void shield technology is underway to allow installation on smaller vehicles.

Terra novam

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