Defending a primitive people. (RAR!)

[Cycloneman]

You are an intelligence officer in a sophisticated interstellar crypto-Empire. Space technology is extreme, medical technology is significant, and military technology is something quite close to modernity but with some significant advances (more and more effective computerization, marginally better firearms, more reliable artillery, etc).

You are assigned to try to deal with the "peaceful" side of conquest, making deals with locals to integrate them into your patron state. The locals are a species of intelligent humanoids, who are currently living in a basically hunter-gatherer state of existence, without domesticated animals. The particular region of this planet that you are assigned to is basically a thick jungle. Over several months, you come to the conclusion that their forcible integration is just wrong, and covertly align yourself with the natives.

Your assets are:

• A significant number of natives (several thousand warriors). They vary in experience from quite green (only experienced in hunting) to highly decorated (over a century of intertribal conflict), though they are all ultimately not professional soldiers. They have a reproductive cycle (birth -> sexual maturity) of about six Earth years, so you can get new ones fairly quickly.
• Thorough knowledge of local terrain.
• Ability to rely on other tribes to pass intelligence to you.
• Access to the internal intelligence and military movements of troops in your area (until they figure out you're a traitor, anyway).
• Knowledge of modern/future modern warfare tactics.
• Direct access to some small arms (guns, grenades) via trade with other tribes/the black market. Slightly more than enough to equip everyone, but without enough ammo to last many firefights.

The enemy's assets are:

• Tanks, bombers, jets, artillery, military jeeps, etc.
• Huge numbers of troops in total (tens of millions in total, including noncombat personnel).
• Some limited intelligence about the locals.
• Extremely dangerous special forces troops (cybernetic supersoldiers, basically), in very small quantities (numbering in the tens of thousands for conquest of a planet of hundreds of millions).

The enemy might eventually be convinced to leave, but it'd take a bigger quagmire than the American-Vietnam War. Your goal is to preserve the independence of your tribe (and any allied ones) for as long as possible. You do not honestly anticipate a total victory and achievement of independence, though that would be the ideal. Possible surrender might occur if terms are weighted sufficiently in your sides favor.

What's your plan?

[Bakustra]

Are the spacemen assets those on-planet, or those available? I'm afraid I'd need to know a few things before really putting together a coherent answer or an attempt at one.

1. The extent of spaceman assets on-planet, including the amount of infrastructure they've developed.

2. Their likely response and the extent to which they would deploy further military assets.

3. The speed at which other tribes would end up being culturally assimilated.

Initial thoughts would be to see, before I end up defecting, the extent to which a) I could convince others to do so with me and b) build up a stockpile of ammunition, supplies, or whatever to take with me.

[Cycloneman]

Are the spacemen assets those on-planet, or those available? I'm afraid I'd need to know a few things before really putting together a coherent answer or an attempt at one.

1. The extent of spaceman assets on-planet, including the amount of infrastructure they've developed.

Hundreds of thousands of troops in total and 20-30,000 in your "immediate" proximity (~500 km), some basic mines/factories/supply lines on planet to supply ammo/fuel/food. Very limited, fragile production chain.

2. Their likely response and the extent to which they would deploy further military assets.

Use guns on natives, basically indefinitely. Though they also would try very hard to avoid civilian casualties for propaganda reasons. This is the only war they've got going on, they can ramp it up as they need to.

3. The speed at which other tribes would end up being culturally assimilated.

Culturally assimilated, it would take basically forever (they're very different from humans), politically assimilated, maybe a year or two on average without outside aid.

Initial thoughts would be to see, before I end up defecting, the extent to which a) I could convince others to do so with me and b) build up a stockpile of ammunition, supplies, or whatever to take with me.

Pretty much nobody would defect with you, and your access to ammunition and supplies is very limited due to your position as an intelligence officer.

[Bakustra]

All right then, really the only means of attack is economic. Probably the first couple months will be spent teaching people how to mine, refine, and forge iron and other metals and see if there's anything to make explosives from. (If I can steal biological and geological reports, that would be a great help). Once we do so, probably the primary targets will be the nearest supply facilities. Scatter simple caltrops, dig holes in roads and landing pads if possible and cover them, and if possible make crude anti-vehicle landmines and conceal them in the road. We won't have the ability to do anything other than an crude pressure detector, so fancy tricks with programmable detonators are out of the question and we'll be nothing more than a nuisance after they start sweeping regularly. If they use local laborers, we could try and suborn them or institute commando units to sabotage. But with such a severe limitation on weapons and incredible risks towards getting any more, at best we can probably become part of the folklore of the planet after we're all shot and killed in a few years or so.

[Ahriman238]

Really, I'm thinking it's time to disappear into the jungle and go 2nd Seminole/Boer War/San Blas/Vietnam on their asses. Make alliances with other tribal groups, get them to raise the population, for the love of god provide some training. Numerically and/or technologically inferior forces win by being impossible to completly destroy and too expensive to keep fighting.

Pass instructions to your friends in the jungle, but keep the job as intelligence officer as long as you can. You're more valuable there, if only for the ability to throw misdirection and misinformation at your enemies. In the meantime, see if you can quietly recruit for the cause and gain access to things like heavy weapons or medical supplies. You'll need a lot of both.

[Forgothrax]

Grit my teeth and let the spacemen start the integration process. Spend time and effort expanding my own position, recruiting, etc to build a powerbase within the military so I can try to influence policy decisions towards uplifting the natives quickly. I can't take stone-age primitives, give them a very limited weapons supply, and then kick the asses of a more advanced military than the modern US who is much more willing to take casualties. Space Vietnam requires massive support from the populace and generalized resistance, which I don't have right now.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. This one seems... stupidly unbalanced. There's no combination of tactics that would lead to a reliable win, or even a reliable way to inconvenience the enemy, here.

[Darth Tanner]

I see no means by which a few thousand natives are going to be anything but a mess on the front of the first tank that rolls past.

The only strategy of resistance would be to disperse into the jungle and pick off lone patrols/resource extraction teams and make it too expensive for the space men to continue with their aims on the planet. The fact they have so many millions of men already present however kind of makes that redundant as they can simply either bomb the jungle flat or flood it with men and wipe you out. Alternatively they already have the numbers to simply endure my attacks, even at a ridiculous kill ratio in my favour I’ll run out of men before they do.

To actually achieve victory a technologically inferior force needs either superior numbers , superior ability to focus their forces or the ability to outlast the enemy. The natives in this situation have none of these, their so massively outnumbered its silly, the enemy has massive logistical and mobility advantages and the enemy is able to easily absorb any casualties they can inflict.

Any active resistance is going to get the natives I want to protect wiped out, if I actually cared about them I’d be better served ensuring their economic and cultural future in the space man society.

[sirocco]

3. The speed at which other tribes would end up being culturally assimilated.

Culturally assimilated, it would take basically forever (they're very different from humans), politically assimilated, maybe a year or two on average without outside aid.

I'll wait somewhere around 5-6 years and make anything possible to convince my superiors that the planet is now under their control. I'll need some courageous tribes to play the guerrilla game, so that the empire won't have any other choice but to start recruiting natives and arming them.

And in no time there will be potential spies and terrorists everywhere in the empire. When the time is right (and if we haven't been executed yet), simultaneous attacks will be launched, to take the whole organization in one strike.

[Korto]

Use guns on natives, basically indefinitely. Though they also would try very hard to avoid civilian casualties for propaganda reasons. This is the only war they've got going on, they can ramp it up as they need to.

That's an interesting statement. They have a reason to fear public opinion? If so, it may become a question of "How many women and children am I willing to sacrifice to win?"
With access to enough weapons, and the enemy movements, a few ambushes should be easy enough to organise. I've got skilled warriors who are used to a stealthy, ambush, fighting style. They just need to be trained in the new weapons, and the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. Get the natives to pick some people to advise me, I may think I'm brilliant, but they'll think of things I never would.
I'm thinking set up some kind of info feed to the media, provoke the military into atrocities, and then send through pictures and reports. Video footage can work wonders.
It's fortunate my side reproduces fast.

Bakustra, as for teaching the hunter-gatherers to mine, refine, and forge iron, do you have any idea how to do those things yourself? If not, why do you assume an intelligence officer does, or if he got books on it, would understand the material well enough to teach it in a few months? What about the infrastructure? Copper's all right, can be done over a small fire (sorta), but iron requires much higher temperatures. Would you recognise iron ore if you saw it? Basically, you're trying to replicate thousands of years of trial and error in a few months.

[Elheru Aran]

Is it cheaper to simply move the natives offworld to a different but similar planet? If not, then there's not much way to win beside playing the guerrilla/propaganda game. That's about it.

[Dwelf]

Is there any particular resource that the Empire is after on this planet. If not there is some hope that selective wording/omission of reports and key leaks of information could get things to a state where the higher up just see no value in controlling the populace and pass the planet to the scientific community for long term non interactive study of a developing species. Public outcry combined with little of value might just achieve the goal without killing the majority of the population.

[Starglider]

Probably the first couple months will be spent teaching people how to mine, refine, and forge iron and other metals and see if there's anything to make explosives from.

You personally, a spook in a late 21st century military, are going to advance an early stone age society to the late medieval / early modern period in two months?