The Empire vs the Empire

[tharkûn]

Now everyone here pretty much agrees that the empire can beat the living crud out of the feds without blinking, especially given "the Wong scenario" (1 wormhole randomly located appears suddenly, imps on the offensive, conquest is secondary to political concerns). However one thing I've always thought is that *nobody* can fight on the defensive side here. Even with initial technological, industrial, and military parity ... you are doomed.

So here's my ascertian:
Given the "Wong scenario" could the Empire defeat itself.

So here we go you command the resurgent Empire, and quite by happinstance you find a "wormhole" leading to an alternate universe (or whatever). Inhabiting that universe is an Empire identical to your own. Can you:
1. Destroy the majority of the enemy's capital ships.
2. Destroy/capture major strategic targets (shipyards, muntions production facilities, major population centres, etc.)
3. Prolong the war to keep pressure off domestic issues.

Special considerations:
1. No jedi (or anyone with similar "powers" this is a brute force war)
2. As noted the other side has no clue where the wormhole is.
3. No sun crushers, galaxy guns, etc. ... only cannon superweapons.

Now my plan is quite simple: bring a death star and say 1/5th of the total fleet through. If they don't come standard, get a good number of cloakable vessels, preferably of all classes (from a Darth Maul size ship up to ISD's). Bring several batches of bioweapons and antidotes as needed. Resupply is done with freighters who change course while in hyperspace (thus not allowing the enemy to backtrack to the wormhole).


Step one: Preemptive strike

Kill the ruling world (hype in the DS, fire, get your ass out). Given the time it took for the Rebels to bring down ships at Endor you should have more than enough time to fire the DS and then get the hell away.

The only reason not to attempt this would be if their DS was near the ruling world ... of course if one assumes that you have the advatange of surprise and DS's are not routinely kept primed to shoot ... hype in, blow their DS away, hype out, come back and nix the planet.

Yes you might want a causis belli ... fabricate it after the fact.

Step two:

Destroy any "large" enemy fleet formations that you have a massive numerical superiority against. I.e. a task force the size of Vader's in TESB would be space debris. The DS would of course be used to take out cap ships as needed.

Regardless of the strategic choices of the enemy he will have some portions of his fleet that are easily defeatable, mow them down.

The capture of numerous commercial vessels should be undertaken at this point. They can later be used to gather intelligence, deliver bioweapons, etc. If possible retrofit these so they can smuggle contraband (like say some high yeild bombs or a few nasty infectious agents).

Resupply is a problem, but you can just hype out of the galatic "plane" to some revendous point with your supply convoys ... which will have spent the entire transit in hyperspace and followed a highly erratic course to get there. You may lose a convoy or two ... so plan to have sufficient resources to last in the event of more lost convoys. Your supply network should also be several convoys deep (meaning if the first is leaving the wormhole, another is in transit from the wormhole to a revendouz, and another is at the revendouz ... chain depth can be greater as needed).

Step Three: Deprive the enemy of resources.

Follow scorched earth policies on any strategic locations. In particular anything that can refeul an enemy DS. At this point the enemy has a few choices:
1. Fleet concentration. Pull all of his ships into fleets that have numerical superiority to your own. In this event begin hitting undefended planets away from concentrations of enemy ships. Offer peace before destruction.

2. Fleet dispersion. In this case take on individual targets of oppurtunity as you see fit.

Just to make life more miserable ... send in small cloaked ships/probes to releasse bioweapons throughout enemey territory. Hope for something around 90% lethality in a few days ... offer antidote to those systems willing to capitulate. All ships/probes which land on a planetary surface will be wired to self destruct. All personal on such missions must be expendable with no sensitive data.

Noncapitulating systems get toasted. Not all systems need to be destroyed, rather target the industrial/military complexes and leave planet intact. Kill the majority of population if needed.

You can pick your battles here, hype in, do some damage, hype out. If any interdictors are present ... concentrate all fire power there and then get the hell out. You should always enjoy numerical supremacy here, in the rare event you get into a trap you want to do one of those famous "mini-jumps" and then cut loose and run. You have nothing to defend, they do. You are free to go wherever the hell you damn well please, they actually have to defend targets.

Step four: Attrittion
Eventually the enemy will run out of resources. With liberal use of scorched earth policies you will now enjoy a production capacity greatly exceeding there own.

Offer gratituitious bounties to any enemy officer who will destroy their ship or defect it to form an "auxillory fighting force". Use any intelligence to target the home systems of commanding officers of enemy capital ships. Offer them the choice of destroying their ship or their home planet/city.

Engage the enemy whenever you have clear numerical and tactical superiority.

In a worse case scenario you have a safe manufacturing base ... the enemy doesn't. Your losses are replaceable ... his aren't.

Step five: divide and conqueor.

Encourage anyone who thinks about starting his own pocket kingdom, up to and including military assistance. If some would be petty tyrant wants to take over 5 (or whatever) star systems, let him. That's less ships the enemy can feild against you and possibly will force him to waste ships dealing with them.

In particular prop up any "rebel" troops hoping to overthrow the empire.

Eventually sufficient fracturing of the empire, capital ship attrition, etc. should allow you to engage the enemy and destroy any masses of ships left over.

Subjugate conqueored worlds using puppets drawn from among defectors, petty tyrants, etc. The more parties vying for power in this galaxy, the better off you are.

Step six: mop up
Only after having destroyed the vast majority of the enemy fleet (such that you can safely divert enough ships to hold the wormhole against any attacking force left in the enemy galaxy) then you begin bringing in settlers, attempting to hold territory, etc. Begin acting "humane" and propogandize any and all native acts of inordinate cruelty.

**Important** until any and all enemy superweapons are found and destroyed/seized ... do not reveal the location of the wormhole nor land troops on the ground. All ground fighting should be done by proxy (be it mercenaries, turncoats, or whatnot). All ships which stand to be captured should self destruct and all officers should commit suicide (just to be thorough, all escape pods should be ejected long before this is an issue). Leave the enemy no chance of capturing troops which:
1. May turn over the location of the wormhole.
2. Offer a route for biological attack against your forces.

The war can be prolonged indefinately by taking out small pocket empires one by one. Use the time honored tradition of backing one against the other (see the British Empire for examples).

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Basic ideas:
1. There are no choke points in space (excepting the egress point of the wormhole). Space is vast and hyperdrive is fast. You know where he is (near the planets) he has no clue where you are or from where you are coming. If he strays to far from the planets ... the planets are toast. Most, if not all, planets can be attacked from straight shots from outside the galatic plane. At a bare minimum defenders have to gaurd either side. The only strategic points are the actual targets ... if a target is too heavily gaurded ... skip it and move on to something else.
2. Having a secure industrial base is a good thing. Think back to WWII, Germany was dead once the US industrial base was set against her. So long as your enemy can't touch your industrial base, and yours is bigger than his (and will be once you raze targets) ... you eventually win.
3. Knowledge is power. You want to maintain the knowledge assymetry for as long possible ... keep the location of the wormhole hidden. By keeping your contact to a minimum and all personal transfer being one way ... spies remain an non-issue for you, as do most traditionaly intelligence gathering mechanisms. Illicit knowledge is a one way street. You have screened all officers coming into this galaxy, the ones likely to be bribed ain't coming with you. You have few if any resources in thise galaxy ... so you can jam the local airwaves preventing any incoming messages you don't want. You can place spies using the seized commericial vessels, the enemy cannot. You can capture a few prisoners and interrogate ... the enemy cannot. Bribery and torture are options for you, they are not for your enemy.
4. You have nothing to protect. You are supplied and reinforced from outside this theatre of operations. Conquest is a distant secondary objective compared to denying the enemy resources.
5. There are many more targets than enemy forces you can't handily beat. You presumably have 1/5th of the eney's total forces at the get-go. even if you want a 4:1 advantage that leaves the enemy with a maximum of 20 targets that they can "protect" the rest go down the tubes. Even if you split your fleet there still are many more targets than the opponent can possibly protect.
6. Tracking someone through a jump seems exceptionally difficult. Despite having jedi powers to use and a massive ship disparity with the rebellion ... the empire had to resort to bugging a ship to find a the well established Yavin base. The enemy should never be inside your ships and external bugs can be taken care of with "low" power ion shots. The fact that the rebellion could hide from the empire while maintaining a *planetary* base suggests that hiding in the vast emptiness of space should be dirt simple (likewise one could site the Katana fleet).
7. Without a strong central government the empire should have a power vacuum and multiple regional powers should arise.
8. Finding the wormhole is a needle in a haystack. Say its the size of the planet earth ... finding it in a galatic volume is about the same as finding a single marble on the surface of the earth (well actually finding the marble is good damn sight easier). Unless the wormhole gives off some ftl signal you simply aren't going to find it without supernatural luck.
9. Death Star trumps planetary sheilding.
10. n-squared is royal bitch to fight against.

The only real danger I see is a damn lucky ambush. In which case I'd simply retreat any remaining forces and come again after rebuilding. I mean we are talking about what a year? Two?

The only actual danger to your galaxy is the enemy finding the wormhole ... in which case you either destroy it ... or rush everything you have to the chokepoint.

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well that is about everything I can think of, I'm sure anyone who is reading this far is damn bored by now, but does anyone think even the empire could hold off an imperial invasion in the "Wong scenario"?

Yes this isn't quite the steamroll that the Feds would be, but I fail to see how the agressor could lose (barring extremely improbable events).

[Robert Treder]

Aside from making some of the coolest motherfucking battles of all time, I think the scenario would probably prove anti-climactic:

Since both sides are at the same strength, the first fights would be over the wormhole territories (one on either side). The wormhole will probably be closed, either intentionally (Wong's suggested DS blast) or unintentionally (perhaps the wormhole-stabilizer-dealy gets taken out in the heat of battle). This would end the war before either side could completely conquer the other.

[Robert Treder]

If the battle somehow is sustained, the war will eventually turn into a sluggish cold war, because unlike in the SW/ST scenario, the attacking side does not encounter untapped resources to sustain the war effort.

Either that, or they don't fight and live happily ever after.

[tharkûn]

"the first fights would be over the wormhole territories (one on either side). The wormhole will probably be closed, either intentionally (Wong's suggested DS blast) or unintentionally (perhaps the wormhole-stabilizer-dealy gets taken out in the heat of battle). This would end the war before either side could completely conquer the other."

Part and parcel to the scenario is that *only* one sides knows the location of the wormhole. Quite frankly a realistic wormhole (as opposed to crap used in voyager and the like) is not terribly detectable. All "classic" forces (strong, elctro-weak, gravity) propogate at c. The chances of even one empire finding the wormhole are astoundingly low (even an earth size wormhole is a mote in the galatic eye).

In any event once you control the wormhole ... the other side is dead. You can destroy their production base ... they can't touch yours. Cold war only ensues when people don't want to fight directly and their are minor powers to fight by proxy ... neither of which exist in this scenario. Home court is distinct disadvantage when death stars are involved.

[Robert Treder]

Points taken; I was merely stipulating that, given equal military forces, the defending side might be able to beat their way to the source of the invasion (the wormhole). While it's possible that the attackers would move swiftly and efficiently enough for this to be rendered impossible or impractical, they sure have a hell of a lot more chance of doing it than the Federation does.

[Singular Quartet]

Points taken; I was merely stipulating that, given equal military forces, the defending side might be able to beat their way to the source of the invasion (the wormhole). While it's possible that the attackers would move swiftly and efficiently enough for this to be rendered impossible or impractical, they sure have a hell of a lot more chance of doing it than the Federation does.

Actually, do to the speed of Hyperdrive, that is immpossible. One could set up shop on an outter-rim world on the other side of the galaxy, that way the invaded empire would never notice. However, the opening move is still Hyper the DS in, blast corsucant, hyper out. As far as I can see, this plan is semi-foolproof.

[Robert Treder]

OK. Then are we all agreed that the Empire's offensive capabilities are better than its defensive capabilities (relative to an enemy of equivalent ability), and this fight would go towards the attacker as well?

[Captain Cyran]

Here's how i'd do it.

Phase 1: Hold most of your forces at the wormhole to secure that position as well as possible. Meanwhile send the DS and a compliment of ISD's Carracks, etc. to their core world and destroy their primary world. Hold that position as long as you can, remember you've got a DS and it is most likely that the opponent does not have theirs in system and with the fire power of say 1 DS, 5 ISDs, 10 Carracks, and 7 Interdictors you begin tearing through the fleets they have at that position. Once either all their forces in the area are destroyed. Or once their DS shows up. Then leave the system and split up sending the DS back to the wormhole and the other ships spread out among the outer rim BDZing planets at will to through off their persuit forces.

Phase 2: Within a few hours of the first phase have ISDs and their support fleets sent out too their major starship construction facilities. Losses will be heavy at this phase but when it works they won't be able to get reinforcements readily.

Phase 3: The DS will be remaining at the wormhole for now as it's services are no longer needed within the rest of the enemy galaxy and they will no doubt be sending their Death Star against our wormhole in an attempt to destroy it. Most of the invasion force will now be split up into as many safe groups as possible and strategic strikes against prime material worlds (where they get their resources) Losses here are expected to be minimal.

Phase 4: Leave the opposition with their large fleets to keep this war going as long as possible and just have small invasion attacks against them slowly wearing down their forces while keeping your wormhole heavily defended.

Phase 5: After enough damage has been done to their fleets you begin conquering small amounts of area and constantly push taking over the galaxy a small amount of time at a time. Build an industrial base and continue the slower then neccesary push slowly destroying the enemy and reporting false reports about the war back at home to keep the people thinking that this alternate universe is still a major threat. To make matters better BDZ a small outer rim world in your own territory to frighten your own citizens about the threat.

Phase 6: Prolong the "war" as long as you want and convince the civilians that this war is still going strong. When you're done move in and take over, use propeganda etc. and eventually you have two galaxys, the new one where you can continue to have problems with rebels to keep the civilians from realizing the strife that is going on about them.

[Tycho]

Technically, since one side would HAVE to win for the war to be ended, the Empire would beat the Empire.

Its like when I play myself in chess...I have a guaranteed win (and loss)...wait...I didn't say that...

[tharkûn]

"OK. Then are we all agreed that the Empire's offensive capabilities are better than its defensive capabilities (relative to an enemy of equivalent ability), and this fight would go towards the attacker as well?"
I fail to see how the war can possibly go towards the defender (the guy with "home court advantage". The speeds of the fleets render strategy worthless ... there is only one chokepoint and most likely only one side knows where the hell it is.

Due to the ability to hype in and out quickly coupled with having no targets to defend of your own ... you never need to fight a battle you aren't going to win.

Without astounding luck the defender should only be able to score minimal "victories" and ship loss should be "acceptable".

Cryan:
The problems I see with your plan:
1. Holding your DS in reserve means that you have to go through the painful approach of beating down theatre and planetary sheilds. That's just terribly impractical.
2. Leaving the enemy with large ship concentrations intact whilst attempting to hold territory ensures one thing ... that you will experience massive losses. N-squared favors whoever gets the most ships there the fastest.
3. Settlement and establishment of an industrial base open you up for security risks. From biological warfare (infecting somebody on a homebound ship) to spies, to sabotage.
4. The DS is an offensive weapon. Using it on defense is a good way to watch it be destroyed. The DS has monodirectional fire (yes I know the DS II can fire off axis, however it should have major trouble firing opposite the axis) ... if I hype in to so I the front of my DS is facing the back of yours ... yours is toast.
5. By leaving the enemy their fleets and de facto releasing the location of the wormhole you risk having them come through the wormhole in force. Say 50% of their ships die getting through the chokepoint, who cares? They can now employ the brutal efficiency of Nsquared with hyperdrive.

Tycho: cute, but irrelevant. Now I'm asking is there <b> any </b> way the <b> defender </b> can hope to win? Even given total parity at the start, the guys who control the wormhole will win ... unless I missed something.

[Captain Cyran]

The main reason i left their fleets intact and kept my Death Star at the wormhole is because one of the priorities is to prolong this war as long as possible. You can take losses but as long as they are either taking more or they are lossing something important i consider it an acceptable loss. I agree with you that it is an 'eh' tactic but as I said before it is meant to prolong the war not win it in a year or two. If i get it to a good cold war going between the two of us it's even better.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Err...why would there even need to be cloaked ships? Wouldn't it already be confusing enough for the Empire to see its own ships attack it? I think a good idea would be for the DS to hyperspace to Coruscant with whatever task force (if any) is routinely assigned to it plus all Executor-class ships with whatever ships accompanying them routinely, destroy the planet and all surrounding warships, and then hyperspace back to the wormhole and go back to the galaxy to let the other Empire wage its own civil war against their own Death Star and Executor-class Star Destroyers that are exact duplicates. All of the ships' that blew up Coruscant would have the same IDs as the ships in the other galaxy, so the Empire that was attacked would target those ships. Their capital world would be destroyed, their Death Star and Executor-class Star Destroyers would no doubt put up one hell of a fight against all of the other Imperial ships needed to destroy them, and then the entire Empire would be in panic and disorder. Maybe the entire galaxy would revolt against the Imperial government because like in RotJ, the Emperor died, there was no more Death Star, so that gave them the confidence needed to revolt against the Empire. But then when the other galaxy is confident in its defeat of the evil Empire, oror even if the Empire still exists but is preoccupied with their rebellion, YOUR evil Empire hyperspaces back into their galaxy and then you have two galaxies to control. They now have a new evil Emperor, a Death Star, and an unbeatable Imperial fleet. And so goes on the endless empire-building and oppression of people...