This has inspired me to write the following, presented in the form of a report to her majesty Celestia of the Solar Empire. It might get horribly boring or simply horrifying, though:



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DOCUMENT DESIGNATION: CP-190-43-C



OPERATION THRESHOLD



FROM: Emergency Wartime Strategic Analysis Commission

TO: Her Imperial Majesty and Ministry of War



AUTHOR: Admiral Bucephalus, with amendments from High Admiral Star Talon, Admiral Prussian Blue

YEAR: 06/05/4215 (Solar Empire Calendar)



CLEARENCE LEVEL:MAGNETA – HER MAJESTY’S EYES ONLY





SUBJECT:

- Changeling Invasion of Solar Empire Space – Current situational analysis

- Contingency Plan Recommendation - Operation Three (3). Codename: “Threshold”



INTRODUCTION:



The Commission had conceive the following contingency plan, based upon data collected from the careful analysis of the Changeling Black Fleet’s tactics, strategy, strengths, weaknesses, goals, technology and force application, by means of retroactive analysis of their previous invasions of worlds in the Solar Empire and the Equestrian sector, war-gaming exercises, computer-simulations, and application of divination for all possible paths of the future, in order to provide a comprehensive view of the current situation that not just the Solar Empire, but the entire Equestrian sector of the galaxy, currently faces in the light of the current invasion by the Changeling Black Fleet forces, led by Queen-Matriarch Chrysalis.



The following recommendation is, in basic, based on the following assumptions made by current analysis of the situation, as summarized:



[ONE]:

The Changeling Queen-Matriarch’s forces’ currently controls 17% of all populated star systems that had fallen to the Black Fleet’s two-pronged advance into the Equestrian Galactic Sector within three months of the initial invasion, with an average rate of conquest of 2.6 planetary systems per week. This rate is expected to rise exponentially within the next two months to 7.8 planetary systems per week as the Changelings assimilates more resources and technologies for their own purposes and finishes consolidation of their newly acquired assets, allowing them to free up more planetary invasion forces and fleet battle-groups for further invasions. This is only considering the planetary systems under control of the Solar Empire, discounting star systems under control of the Crystal Empire, the rebel Lunar Republic, Twilight’s renegade forces, Warlord Sombra’s territory, and other independent interstellar nation states not under control of the Empire or any other ally or enemy forces.



[TWO]:

Following the catastrophic loss of the 3rd, 8th 9th Fleet and Imperial Army Group Alpha, Gamma, Zeta of Taskforce ‘Eclipse’ from the failed operation on the Lunarian rebel stronghold at the Seleucus star system (Re: Operation Moonfall, 11/10/4214), the recent mass mutiny of the 4th and 6th Fleet and Imperial Army Group Theta under Commodore Twilight Sparkle and establishment of the so-called ‘Twilight Zone’ in the Spinward periphery of the Equestrian Galactic Sector (Re: New-Manehatten Uprising report, 23/12/4212), and attrition losses of 7th Fleet and Imperial Army Group Epsilon at the relief operation for the Crystal Empire (Re: Sombra Campaign, 01/02/4213 – 12/02/4215), the Solar Imperial Fleet is currently in sub-optimal condition to halt or even delay the progress of the Changeling Black Fleet advance from the Trailing periphery, with only a projected 23.3% chance of success in all simulated major confrontations, 17.5% if taking account of recent data from Invasion and occupation of the strategic Epona province.



[THREE]:

The largely successful efforts by the Ministry of Foreign Relation and Her Imperial Majesty in establishing a truce between the Empire and the other hostile and rebel forces (Re: Neo-Neighvarro Conference, 01/04/4215), allowing access to Intelligence assets, military assets, material resources and co-operation of those factions in establishing a cohesive, effective defence against the Changeling invasion forces in the foreseeable future.



[FOUR]:

Taking into consideration of the recently passed and ongoing execution of the national military preparations by the Solar Imperial Court (Re: Total War Act, 04/05/4215), analysis by the Department of Military logistics indicates that a crucial six months window is required in order to meet the minimal requirements of the planned all-out counterattack, which demands a 300% increase in mobilization levels (Minimum +50 million Imperial Army and Navy personnel) and completion of the planned 10th, 11th and 12th Fleet (90,000 vessels in total), whereas projections indicates that the Changeling Black Fleet have a 91% probability of reaching the inner Core Worlds within 2 months and 78% probability of overrunning Imperial Capital New Canterlot within 3 months.



Operation THRESHOLD is hereby compiled to address these critical points.



ABSTRACT



Theatre:

The main theatre for execution of Contingency Plan Three Codename THRESHOLD would be set in the Comanche Province, where Naval Intelligence analysis had indicated is the most likely target of the Changeling Black Fleet’s advance due to its strategic location at 100 light-years distance from the Castel-Neighvo Defence Perimeter that surrounds the Solar Empire Core Worlds, at a spot where it is notoriously at its weakest. It is believed that the Comanche province will not be attacked within 1½ months thanks to delaying actions by the rebel Lunar Republic’s and Twilight’s fleets, providing a limited time period to prepare.



Nevertheless, the invasion of the Comanche province is considered inevitable and extensive loss of life and territory is expected.



For the purpose of the plan, the outer halve of the province, facing the Changeling Black Fleet advance, will be designated as Red Zone, while the inner halve facing the Defence Perimeter will be designated as Blue Zone.



Content:



Contingency Plan Three calls for the following actions to be undertaken:



[ONE]:

It is recommended that the Solar Empire initiates the evacuation of all Solar Empire military forces and assets to the Blue Zone for the purposes of consolidating defences. The Comanche province’s large size (473 inhabited star systems) is ultimately impractical for the Solar Fleet or Imperial Army to defend in its totality due to the limited assets currently available, while the Changeling Black Fleet have abundant amount of force to invade and occupy those worlds. It is therefore recommended that all efforts at defences should be concentrated at the Blue Zone, with particular focus at fortifying regional capital worlds in the interstellar province.



The enemy would be allowed to invade the Red Zone of the sector for the purpose of Recommendation Two, as will be addressed.



It should be noted that no effort should be divert to provide even minimal defence of any inhabited star systems in the Red Zone. And also there would be insufficient amount of time for the Empire to evacuate all military assets and groups from the Comanche province Red Zone, and some forces would be left behind as a result. For the purpose of achieving objective TWO, this could be worked to our advantage; these would be addressed in points TWO and THREE.



[TWO]:

The Solar Empire Military is to initiate a strategy of severely disrupting the Changeling Black Fleet’s logistic ability when they enter the sector. One of the major advantages, besides ability for achieving mass Infiltration and fanaticism of their soldiers, which allowed the Changeling Black Fleet in achieving such significant success over our forces and ally forces, based on analysis by Department of Naval Intelligence, relies on sheer size of the force under Queen-Matriarch Chrysalis’ command. It is estimated that the amount of military space vessels and planetary invasion forces in the Black Fleet outnumbers the currently combined Allied Forces by a ratio 5-to-1, off-setting any inferiority in quality of training, technology and equipment, and as seen had won engagements by sheer attrition alone.



However, such a large force requires MASSIVE logistical support to maintain at optimum efficiency. Data provided by Commodore Twilight shows that this is achieved, by assimilating captured population by the millions and industrial facilities in the worlds conquered by the Black Fleet for supplies of food, material and replacements, but the logistical situation is actually much more fragile than originally believed.



The Solar Empire should facilitate the evacuation of as many Red Zone worlds as possible within the limited time frame, and directly eliminate the value and availability of these planetary systems for the Changeling Black Fleet by orbital bombardment,. While many of the colony worlds are of little to no economic or military importance, up to 40% of the worlds (Est. Average Population: >100 million ponies and non-ponies) are of sufficient value to warrant conquest. Destruction of these worlds and their infrastructure as part of a province-spanning, interstellar ‘Scorch-Earth’ strategy, while causing incalculable damage to the empire and could potentially hurt morale, would in the long run cause even greater damage to the Black Fleet, denying these assets to the enemy for usage. They would had to resort to using supply lines which could potentially span over several hundred light years in order to continue supporting their forces, which would be vulnerable for attack and disruption. This is expected to be capable of severely interfere the Black Fleet’s advance.



Referring back to Recommendation One, some of the many military groups that could be left behind during the retreat would be given orders to evade the advancing Changeling Black Fleet and organize into guerrilla/insurgency groups to exploit that vulnerability. Rebel Luna Republic forces can provide bases of operation in undisclosed locations beyond but close to the star systems of the province while Twilight’s renegades is expected to provide the intelligence and help co-ordinate hit and run attacks to disrupt the supply lines. Also, the Changeling Black Fleet would have to divert significant amount of naval assets to defend their supply lines and allocate more resources to consolidation, further slowing their advance.



Strategically unimportant star systems and their population would not have sufficient value warranting evacuation and orbital bombardment, and would be left untouched. Some worlds, however, would be left untouched for the purpose of Recommendation Three.



[THREE]:

Possibly the most crucial and controversial recommendation of the Contingency Plan: some of the most important worlds in the Red Zone would be deliberately left behind for the purpose of tying up as much of the Changeling Black Fleet resources as possible, with no possibility of relief or rescue for both the military garrisons or the civilian populations.



Given the limited time frame, not all Red Zone planetary systems could be evacuated and destroyed, and would be among the first targets of the Changeling Black Fleet incursion; again, this could be turned to the Empire’s strategic advantage. The plan calls for the regional capital worlds in the Comanche province, among them New Stalliongrad, Foalorn Hope, Third-Gallopolli, to be fortified to the absolute maximum by any specifically assigned Imperial Army or Solar Fleet forces. All planetary systems around the regional capital worlds are to be stripped of every available resource and transferred to the designated ‘Fortress Worlds’ to bolster their supply.



The naval groups are ordered to engage the Changeling Black Fleet invasion forces should they appear, doing as much damage as possible to the Black Fleet forces, but as they are not adequately prepared for prolonged engagement with the Black Fleet they are instructed to retreat when situation becomes too untenable and join the space-borne guerrilla units.



Planetary military garrisons however are to hold out as long as possible against the expected military invasion or siege, by any means necessary. They will not and cannot be rescued or relieved, and the planetary commanders and governors, but not the wider garrison or civilian, would be informed that the Solar Empire would be in no position to help, and irrefutable evidence of standard Black Fleet procedures on conquered planets would be provided to ensure the population understands surrendering to the Changelings would not yield any beneficial results. Additional use of propaganda would ensure motivation for maximum resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.



All contact with these worlds will be terminated as soon as the Changeling Black Fleet enters the Comanche province. However, for the purpose of stage II, guerrilla units behind Changeling Black Fleet advance are to monitor these worlds.



The most conservative estimates indicates that most of the these ‘Fortress worlds’ could potentially hold out for an average 4-8 months before exhaustion and the Changeling Black Fleet could neutralize them. The entire plan hinges on three critical flaws in the Changeling strategy concerning planetary conquest –

(1) As part of their rapid, blitzkrieg invasion strategy, the Black Fleet naval battle-groups only remain within a star system for long enough to neutralize all orbital defences and space-borne resistance; once this is accomplished, the fleet would immediately withdraw and move on to the next planetary system, leaving behind planetary invasion force and support vessels, weakening their orbital defences against even a light naval raid.

(2) If the worlds in question are of important strategic value, for purposes of logistics the enemy makes extensive effort to preserve the infrastructure and population for assimilation, and will minimize the use of orbital bombardment to support their planetary invasion forces, massively increasing the longevity of the garrison forces.

(3) Possibly due to a psychological feature in the Changeling mindset, or just their leader Queen-Matriarch Chrysalis, no planetary invasions that were observed are ever aborted. When the Changeling Black Fleet invades a planet, they would not stop regardless of cost and losses until all opposition is neutralized, and they would devout as much resources as it takes to accomplish this. It is unlikely then they would ever abandon a planetary campaign or resort to planetary sterilization to minimize losses.

The overall effect would be causing a massive accumulation of Changeling planetary forces within the Red Zone. Once 90% of all the designated Fortress Worlds either have an invasion in progress, on the verge of being overrun, or had been overrun but not consolidated, Stage II initiates: With most of the Black Fleets’ planetary invasion forces concentrated in the invaded worlds, many of them predicted to be the veteran forces of previous conquests, Stage II would involve the eliminating the brunt of the Changeling planetary invasion capacity in a series of synchronized, surgical strikes, by sterilizing all the invaded planets using special weaponry provided by rebel Luna Republic.



In the Battle of Seleucus during Operation Moonfall, the Luna Republic’s overwhelming victory against Solar Empire Taskforce involves the deployment of a number of improvised, controversial weapons, known as the Warp Bombs, that were planted in asteroid debris, which the Luna Republic fleets used to devastating effect against the fleets of Taskforce Eclipse (65% casualties within one minute of detonations, nearly all commanders killed in action). Reports by Naval Intelligence and the Imperial Canterlot Academy indicates that Warp Bombs are, in essence, star-ship Telewarp Engines, the heart of FTL ability in the Equestrian sector, that had been modified to deliberately undergo an instantaneous total meltdown that would result in a massive, explosive outflux of arcane energy, with a projected blast radius of roughly 6.5-7 Li-Sec (Light-Seconds, or around 20000 kilometres) and total disruption of all arcane-technology (Communications, weapons, life-support, etc.) in the vicinity to varying degrees.



The simplicity of constructing these weapons of mass destruction with limited resources (Can be converted from a corvette engine within less than 12 hours), and the lack of prohibition of which in the Kratos Convention, allows legal and effective means of completely sterilizing the besieged worlds. One device is estimated to be sufficient to render an entire planet uninhabitable (Est. Requirement: ten full hours of orbital bombardment from one standard fleet, 30,000 ships).



The plan in essence requires the sacrifice of entire planetary populations and military forces that had been left behind to defend those worlds, in order to destroy as much



With the bulk of the Black Fleet naval forces elsewhere the orbital resistance from Changeling support vessels would be light, allowing even a raid group (standard: 200 ships) to break through and deploy the devices. It should be noted it may not even be necessary to engage Changeling ships



FURTHER ANALYSIS:



Solar Empire estimated losses:

- Extremely High for Red Zone, Total for Fortress Worlds, Medium to High for Blue Zone

- Military Casualties: 10 million

- Civilian Casualties: 18 billion (12.2% population of Comanche province, majority in Fortress worlds)

- Main causes: Starvation, thirst, warfare, mass suicide, Windigo outbreaks, and planetary sterilization.

- Credit Costs: 10 trillion

- Success rate: 76% [Optimistic, highest of all considered Contingency Plans]



Changeling Black Fleet estimated losses: Medium [Conservative] to High [Optimistic]

- Military Casualties: 60 million+

- Support Casualties: 15 billion+

- Main causes: warfare, Windigo outbreaks, planetary sterilization.

- Credit costs: Unknown (Changeling economic structure unclear), High.



*Addendum:

The main author, Admiral Bucephalus, had stated he is acutely aware of the exact magnitude and consequences of the proposed operation, and if the plan is accepted he will volunteer to lead the operation and take full responsibility in executing the plan.



For specific details concerning Abstracts, please refer to pages...