I mean the easiest option to avoid another resource drain is just hammer every moving army. Ends the war instantly and we do exactly what both want, ending the war. Playing softball is what cost the US both Vietnam and Korea in the cold war we seem to be roleplaying currently, instead of the restrictive ROE we are kneecapping our forces with, give them control and a few Red Lines instead of trying to backseat from a month away.
[X] OPLAN: High Ground
-[X] We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes; "encourage" a general ceasefire until our investigation is complete to avoid additional massacres on either side. Work with both sides to at least establish "no-fire" zones for refugees.
-[X] Request the Technocrats recover the downed shuttle and return it.
-[X] We should come to an agreement and expect our allies to ratify it!
I mean the easiest option to avoid another resource drain is just hammer every moving army. Ends the war instantly and we do exactly what both want, ending the war. Playing softball is what cost the US both Vietnam and Korea in the cold war we seem to be roleplaying currently, instead of the restrictive ROE we are kneecapping our forces with, give them control and a few Red Lines instead of trying to backseat from a month away.
Yes, because wars are so much more effectively waged when Star Sergeant Gallagher and the Blooddrinkers get to "do the whole village" without those pesky officers and senior noncoms telling them to have a regard for human life.
[X] OPLAN: High Ground
-[X] We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes; "encourage" a general ceasefire until our investigation is complete to avoid additional massacres on either side. Work with both sides to at least establish "no-fire" zones for refugees.
-[X] Request the Technocrats recover the downed shuttle and return it.
-[X] We should come to an agreement and expect our allies to ratify it!
I mean the easiest option to avoid another resource drain is just hammer every moving army. Ends the war instantly and we do exactly what both want, ending the war. Playing softball is what cost the US both Vietnam and Korea in the cold war we seem to be roleplaying currently, instead of the restrictive ROE we are kneecapping our forces with, give them control and a few Red Lines instead of trying to backseat from a month away.
I don't think remaining hands-off gets us much here. Better to seek greater involvement in the conflict, if it means we can exert more influence toward the shape of the peace. Not advocating to start shooting exactly, just to make our presence known.
[X] OPLAN: High Ground
-[X] We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes; "encourage" a general ceasefire until our investigation is complete to avoid additional massacres on either side. Work with both sides to at least establish "no-fire" zones for refugees.
-[X] Request the Technocrats recover the downed shuttle and return it.
-[X] We should come to an agreement and expect our allies to ratify it!
I mean they did flatten the north of Korea to the point that pretty much all the infrastructure and industry started from zero after the war. I wouldn't say "stopped crazy uncle Doug from opening canned sunshine on the Chinese" much more than the bare minimum of restraint.
Given the sheer amount of political handicapping in both those wars, yes it was restrained, we didn't turn every single neighboring nation funneling supplies in exchange for cash to them into a parking lot.
We also weren't allowed to follow troops raiding from neighboring nations back into said nations, despite being able to watch them meeting with that nations troops, repeatedly, to resupply and them continue raiding.
Given the sheer amount of political handicapping in both those wars, yes it was restrained, we didn't turn every single neighboring nation funneling supplies in exchange for cash to them into a parking lot.
[X] OPLAN Guardian Eye
[X] OPLAN: High Ground
-[X] We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes; "encourage" a general ceasefire until our investigation is complete to avoid additional massacres on either side. Work with both sides to at least establish "no-fire" zones for refugees.
-[X] Request the Technocrats recover the downed shuttle and return it.
-[X] We should come to an agreement and expect our allies to ratify it!
[X] OPLAN: High Ground
-[X] We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes; "encourage" a general ceasefire until our investigation is complete to avoid additional massacres on either side. Work with both sides to at least establish "no-fire" zones for refugees.
-[X] Request the Technocrats recover the downed shuttle and return it.
-[X] We should come to an agreement and expect our allies to ratify it!
[X] OPLAN Guardian Eye
-[X] We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes.
-[X] Force an FLF landing to recover casualties and equipment.
-[X] We should come to an agreement and expect our allies to ratify it!
[X] Other - We should hold a conference for those within our sphere of Influence to send delegates to. Of course Home shall send the most delegates but this matter must be something all have worked upon if it is to hold water.
[X] Plan Take No Sides
-[X] We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes.
-[X] Force an FLF landing to recover casualties and equipment.
-[X] Tri-partite conference regarding Rules of War should be conducted after the war in Xyri is over.
What is the HSWS position on potential Republican crimes? We should conduct research into the deaths and attempt to collate evidence of crimes. What is the HSWS position on the downed Shuttle? Force an FLF landing to recover casualties and equipment. What is the HSWS position on this? We should come to an agreement and expect our allies to ratify it!
12y02m02w - Frigate Ogun arrives in Home, bringing news, information, and requests. Significant debates begin about how to respond to the position we have been put in by various parties involved. The Citizens Council generally considers this to be an ideal opportunity to simply drop rocks and sweep in to dispense a new kind of radical justice: ours. However, when it is pointed out that it would currently take us two months to put a company on the surface of Xyri, they wash their hands of it and leave it in the hands of the HSWS.
It is pointed out that with a war-load of ortillery missiles the HSWS could potentially conduct a series of targeted strikes to ruin or destroy the combatant units of every fighting force bar the Aslan mercenaries with whom we have no argument. A counter-point is made that we can enforce a ceasefire without the need to actually fire a weapon. A further argument is presented that it isn't actually our place to end this war, that the locals have a right to fight their little internecine conflict and that we are already protecting the things we care about.
It is this last point that quiets the others. The HSWS doesn't need to be involved in this war any more than it already is, maintaining a protective boundary and ensuring the war remains conventional at worst. The eventual decision is to send an investigative team to the surface, to look into reports of mass murder and executions, as well as to deploy marines to the surface to recover our shuttle.
Meanwhile, the situation in Xyri does not pause simply because debates are raging in Home. The lines never become static - there are not enough troops involved for that to be the case. There are only a few thousand frontline combatants on either side of the conflict and they both have come to terms with a kind of hit-and-run manoeuvre warfare that leaves the great plains of Xyri littered with the burning hulks of combat vehicles. Mining stations are raided, townships are assaulted, industrial suburbs are shelled. Every time a wing of grav-fighters sweeps across the battlefield the air becomes thick with SAM fires, radars and lidars trying to get hard locks on the oddly cold, strangely manoeuvring craft.
-
12y02m03w - Seven weeks into the conflict - five since the HSWS flotilla was on station - the HSWS force is finally approached by the Xyri space forces. A collection of missile carriers and fast response vehicles, they gather near the closest gas giant and begin a slow, circuitous path to drop into Xyri-propers orbits. Requests to communicate are met with stonewalling until the small force is on their deceleration burn, HSWS frigates already on an intercept course with locks established against the small craft.
They explain that if the HSWS forces are not going to enact a ceasefire, they will, and they begin broadcasting a call for a general pause of the conflict across all channels. Beaming it directly down onto the planet will surely fry some receivers, but enough will hear it to know it's backed up by force of arms. Dictatorship and Republican forces both order the small fleet to join one side or another, and the Xyrian fleet responds by dropping a missile on each sides forward headquarters, just close enough to let them know they mean business. Information is transmitted detailing the presence of nuclear warheads aboard the small fleet and a willingness to use them.
What follows is a recording of a conversation between Colonel Chey (CO HSWS Task Force) and Force Commander Villeneuve (CO Xyrian Combined Fleet): "I recognise your desire for a ceasefire, but our orders are to specifically deny the use of non-conventional weaponry in the battlespace."
"It's too late for that, son. You've seen the same reports we have , they have some kind of nuclear gun down there."
"Yes, the 'Plasma Gun'. It's a conventional weapon-
"Conventional shit, it kicks out a cloud of rads the size of my engine plume. I'm not about to let my planet get irradiated over some idiots dream of conquest."
"So you'll drop nukes? That seems counter-intuitive."
"The dust plume from a ground penetrator is minimal. If I have to put a sinkhole where there used to be a command bunker to end this war, so be it."
"I can't let you do that."
"You gonna order your ships to fire on mine? You have the tonnage, the guns. You could stop me any time. Are you going to, son?"
"I have my ROE, Commander. Don't test me."
-
12y03m00w - A convoy is detected approaching the site of the downed shuttle. Working back along their path of travel indicates it is a technocrat convoy. Attempts to make contact by orbital forces go unanswered. Multiple directives are ignored. Eventually the order is given and the frigate Alaz drops three disarmed missiles in the path of the convoy. Each impacts with the force of about forty kilograms of explosives, a few hundred metres in front of the lead vehicles. The convoy halts, waits for some time, and then turns around and goes back the way it came. Alaz reports no evidence that any elements of the convoy have split off or remained undetected.
HSLS Bá Kim arrives in system, escorted by two Frigates. She carries aboard her sixty-five souls, far more than her design-load of forty. This includes significant numbers of MIC representatives, a second full platoon of FLF rangers and a dedicated diplomatic team to relieve the embassy staff that have been bunkered down on the surface for the past two months. The ship is under crewed, and her biosphere and oxygen generators have been taxed to the maximum in the ten days of travel, but despite uncomfortable conditions those sixty-five souls have made it safe and sound to Xyri.
The HSWS task force on station finally leaps into action, now that they have new orders from Home. A shuttle plunges into the atmosphere, firing off decoys and chaff, screaming down in the best approximation of a hot drop that the pilots can manage. They hit the crash site like a rocket, forty-five FLF infantry spreading out around the site, covering for their medics and recovery personnel. What they find is... grim.
Of the eight personnel who went down on the shuttle three weeks previously, there are two survivors. Only two died in the crash, the other four passed away in the intervening weeks due to injuries sustained during the crash. Medical reports detail how easily they could have been saved had action been taken sooner. Of course, both the Dictatorship and the Republicans protest against this breach of their air space, and suggest that if the local forces would like to get involved, they can do so for one side or another.
The war does at least slow. Probing attacks between forces become the main thrust of the fighting, nobody willing to take action that might draw the ire of the orbiting Xyrian space forces. They have yet to do anything that would force intervention by the HSWS Task Force, but everyone is clinging to the edge of their seats every time a missile is fired or a tank goes on patrol.
-
The investigation into mass deaths is ongoing. Our forces remain in orbit, with regular resupply and rotations for every ship except the MMV being established. The Xyrian forces have become a normal part of the sensor ops day, seeing them separate but nonetheless station keeping with the HSWS forces. The question for the HSWS at home regards the rules of war previously discussed. Several questions must be asked:
The rules of war must include provisions regards (select as many as you would like):
[ ] The usage of nuclear weapons - when it is allowed and when it is not
[ ] The usage of chemical weapons - when it is allowed and when it is not
[ ] The usage of orbit to surface weapons - what is considered a valid use and what is not
[ ] The usage of weapons against domed cities where is cannot be expected that civilians would be able to survive
[ ] Rules on the treatment of the sick and wounded in ground combat
[ ] Rules on the treatment of the sick, wounded, or shipless in space combat
[ ] Rules on the treatment of prisoners of war
[ ] Rules on the treatment of civilians in war time and what constitutes a civilian
[ ] The establishment of a right to safe passage for medical personnel clearly identified
[ ] The establishment of a series of guidelines on how to treat neutral parties, especially merchants and diplomats, in times of war
[ ] The establishment of a protocol on the treatment of merchant and civilian vessels in war time, especially enemy merchants in disputed territory at the time of wars declaration.
[ ] The establishment of certain rules and limitations on the deployment and usage of specific kinds of weapons in war time, and their research in times of peace.
[ ] Other - write in
Sorry about the late nature of the vote, I really wanted to get this out today. Please present any votes as a plan. Voting opens at
So it's easier to talk about what I'd like to exclude.
[ ] The usage of chemical weapons - when it is allowed and when it is not
Don't think this needs to be included. With space age technology chemical weapons won't be used much anyway, so there's no point in establishing a "red line" over something that will come up only situationally and then the commander can consider case by case.
[ ] The establishment of a series of guidelines on how to treat neutral parties, especially merchants and diplomats, in times of war
Not so sure about this one either, to be honest. Again it sees very dependent on the exact nature of the conflict and not something where there's always a "right answer". Sometimes neutral parties aren't as neutral as one would hope.
[ ] The establishment of a right to safe passage for medical personnel clearly identified
Not convinced this should be an absolute right.
[ ] The establishment of certain rules and limitations on the deployment and usage of specific kinds of weapons in war time, and their research in times of peace.
This one I do not feel fits with the Home ethos, which puts a lot of importance on letting people arm themselves as they please.
Medical reports detail how easily they could have been saved had action been taken sooner. Of course, both the Dictatorship and the Republicans protest against this breach of their air space, and suggest that if the local forces would like to get involved, they can do so for one side or another.
The choices are all sensible (beaides the usage of chemical weapons), but it's a war, and there's always some that may found some options to be a no-go.
Don't think this needs to be included. With space age technology chemical weapons won't be used much anyway, so there's no point in establishing a "red line" over something that will come up only situationally and then the commander can consider case by case.
Huh? What is this about chemical weapons not needing to be banned in a high tech setting? Higher tech makes chemical/biological weapons more terrifying, not less. High-tech chemical/biological weapons could include stuff like man-eating self replicating nanomachines or a weaponized biological agent targeting specific ethnic groups. That is freaking terrifying, abd must be banned and the ban enforced with extreme prejudice.
