THE OPPOSING FORCES
THE SYSTEMS ALLIANCE
Task Force Wizna, Legio V Europa
Elysium was a free colony, one of the few in existence at the time of the Verge Conflict. It owed its allegiance to the Systems Alliance alone. As such, the colony was permanently garrisoned by an Alliance Army task force of one hundred thousand troops, the origins of which rotated according to availability of troops. In the year leading up to the attack, Elysium was defended by Task Force Sherman of the 18th Legion, a competent but relatively untested formation that maintained the colony's defences well. Either by luck or design, the batarian attack was due to take place mere weeks after the next garrison change. It has been suggested that Haliat intended to catch the new garrison troops offguard before they were familiar with the terrain of the colony, but no solid evidence of this has been found. As it was Europe's turn to provide the ground forces for the defence of the colony, the Fifth Legion was selected for the counterattack against the batarians. Task Force Wizna was to lead the initial defence, and was to be the lynchpin of the entire Alliance plan.
In 2176, Wizna was organised into ten divisions, consisting of four armoured divisions, five mechanised infantry divisions and an orbital assault division. Its soldiers were from EU colony worlds with large Polish populations, and continued the proud military traditions of its constituent units. Morale was high, and the sense of élan rose once the soldiers were informed of their mission. Of all the professional forces marshalled for the defence of Elysium, only the soldiers of Wizna were told of their true purpose before fighting commenced. All others would mobilise and go to battle under the impression that they were drilling until the last possible moment. The awareness that they had what amounted to a sacred duty would lend itself to an attitude of extreme determination among the troops. Alliance High Command and the Consuls planned as much, as they knew the numbers against Wizna and its supporting forces would be utterly massive.
The rest of the Fifth Legion's combat units would be landed in increments as soon as the Navy arrived, two task forces at a time. These would be deployed where they were required most, and the enemy would be progressively surrounded after they were pushed away from the cities and into the wilderness, where local irregular forces would be lying in wait for them.
Colonial Defence Forces Elysium (CDF)
In addition to the Alliance professional forces garrisoned on Elysium, the colony had also raised some armed forces of its own. In terms of ground troops, these were recruited under the guise of Alliance Army reserve units and armed police forces, as required by Alliance law. Reservists were sent back to Earth for basic training, given two weeks leave to explore their ancestral home and then returned for garrison duty, making service quite popular for young Elysians, who flocked for a free trip to the homeworld. There were millions of these potential combatants, though exactly how many is not known. The best of them were the security forces' armed response units and the veteran reservists whom had retired from the Army but were still bound by their oaths. However, most were weekend soldiers, or police officers whom did not carry lethal weapons for the majority of their duties. Morale in these forces was considerably worse than among the professional troops, as batarian sabre-rattling had terrorised most of the border colonies for years after Mindoir, but most expected the Alliance to do the heavy lifting for the defence of the colony anyway.
Alliance High Command expected that if the fighting lasted longer than a day, these forces were likely to break in the absence of Army command authority. In retrospect, this seems like a harsh evaluation, but the memories of Mindoir and the paramilitaries slaughtered before they could reach Alliance lines coloured all considerations. As such, these "troops" were assigned to shepherding civilians away from the fighting and maintaining the interior lines between areas of combat to keep logistics safe from attack.
Alongside the colonial ground forces, Elysium had also had a sizeable number of torpedo-corvettes, numerous fighter squadrons and a dozen orbital monitor ships for the defence of their space. There remains some controversy over their role in the battle. The Alliance could not afford to allow anything to seem out of place where the defences of Elysium were concerned, and the colony's own flotillas were not informed of the batarian attack plans under they were already well under way. Regardless, they were to play a crucial role in the early part of the battle. Their effectiveness was noted, and the Alliance itself would begin a corvette privateer programme after the battle, under the name "Corsairs", to harrass Terminus shipping to the Kite's Nest.
Combined Battle Fleet Hiryū
For the relief of the colony from the batarian orbital siege, the Alliance committed its Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Fleets in a combined naval formation under the command of Admiral Ches Giáp. This was the Combined Battle Fleet Hiryu, and it would be tasked with breaching the batarian blockade flotillas by direct assault, relying on speed and force to shatter the enemy naval elements before they could concentrate to resist. It would then turn its attention to supporting the ground campaign, hunting down the retreating enemy, and eventually, seizing control of the enemy staging areas. While in orbit of Elysium, the naval task elements would fall under the supreme command of Orzeski.
It was the largest naval fleet ever assembled for a single operation by humanity until the Battle of the Kite's Nest two and a half years later. Alliance High Command committed ten of its twenty fleet carriers to the fight, as well as three dreadnoughts. However, the majority of the fighting was to be done by the cruisers and frigates, hundreds of which would fill the skies over Elysium. These would be organised into naval task forces with specific objectives drawn up to counteract specific parts of the batarian plan. Frigate wolfpacks would hunt down logistics vessels, troop transports and damaged ships. Cruisers would form up and push their designated enemy formations away from Elysium by closing to broadside or even knife-fight ranges, where local superiority of numbers would decimate them. The carriers and dreadnoughts would concentrate on their own counterparts, and the Alliance expected the batarians to field all six of its dreadnoughts for the battle.
In addition to the three fleets to directly assault the Vetus System itself, the Eighth Fleet would be dispatched through salarian space to cut off the batarians from behind their own relays. The Eighth Fleet did not yet possess its full complement of ships, consisting mostly of frigate wolfpacks around a core of cruiser patrol groups. Despite this, it would play a crucial role in the closing moments of the naval battle.
THE BATARIAN-TERMINUS COALITION
Batarian External Forces
The External Forces in 2176 were a very different beast to the one that had successfully attacked Mindoir almost six years previously. Drawing heavily on the lessons of that triumph, General Gadnalak had pushed a reform-heavy programme and changed almost every aspect of the force. The soldier's motivations were augmented by promises of social and economic advancement, service in the External Forces was now motivated by aspiration as much as ideology. Equipment standards, particularly in small arms and infantry fighting vehicles, were raised considerably. Indirect action and battlefield adaptability were added to the sparse toolbox of its commanders, joining the traditional mass shock assaults and terror tactics. Most of the changes would have been familiar to any human military officer; they were modelled directly on the Alliance military itself.
These changes did not come without a price however. Gadnalak had to plough through centuries of traditionalism, and even more resentment at his place in the military given his low origins. Records are incomplete as to how he dealt with his many detractors, but his proximity to the Arch-Hegemon makes it a safe guess that he had them destroyed politically. A purge of the lower ranks certainly followed, leaving only those loyal to the general. This did not cripple the formation, as the majority of those opposed were political postings in the first place. Those that remained were the hard core of professional soldiers, willing to live by the maxim that "it is proper to learn, even from one's enemies." For the campaign, almost the entirety of the External Forces field formations would be deployed, some one hundred and eighty thousand men. These would be the first batarian troops deployed to the ground, to be landed alongside Haliat's own mercenaries.
Unlike Mindoir, the External Forces would not take the lead role in the assault on Elysium. Their purpose was to deal exclusively with the Alliance Army bases that dotted the planet, and they were almost an afterthought in the endeavour. The fleets would do most of the heavy lifting in terms of destroying the Alliance strongpoints, with the elite ground formations only containing the enemy within. According to batarian rebel legend, this frustrated Gadnalak to the point of rage. His failure to take the pockets of resistance on Mindoir haunted him, and he sought another chance to fight the Alliance in honourable battle. This was compounded by the fact that Haliat was an alien, unworthy of the level of influence he wielded in the Hegemony no matter how competent he was. The General could do nothing however, Ar'dra considered Haliat to be extremely valuable to his ambitions. However, it is important to note that Gadnalak could not have changed the outcome regardless of whether or not he attacked the Alliance bases immediately. The humans had their own plans.
Batarian Army Verge Strategic Command
By far the largest ground formation of the Batarian Army, the three-and-a-half million soldiers of the Verge Strategic Command were not the best the galaxy had to offer. The vast majority were conscripts, young batarian males undertaking their national service. Although many did serve with pride in these circumstances, many more had plenty of other places they would have preferred to be. Unlike in the External Forces, where merit could make a competent soldier into a fast social climber, the Batarian Army enforced strict caste hierarchy within the ranks. Officers were selected from the noble classes, NCOs from the merchant classes, and enlisted troops were conscripted from the serf classes. Slaves, batarian or alien, could not enlist in the Batarian Army, and the main purpose of the force other than external defence was to put slave rebellions down with utmost brutality. This was a role they fulfilled with great zeal, and it formed an essential part of the glue that held batarian society together.
On Elysium, it was expected that this huge army would face similar resistance to that of a slave rebellion; badly armed civilians, albeit determined to fight for their freedom. As such, the army would be equipped to fight a disorganised enemy, both in terms of the equipment to be used and the mentality drilled into its soldiers. The worst the troops would have to face would be determined Alliance veterans or police forces, both of which could be overwhelmed with the blunt, massed assault tactics which conscript armies have used since time immemorial.
The Batarian Army was considerably less well equipped than the External Forces. The limited resources of the Hegemony meant that priorities had to be maintained, and as no aliens had access to batarian military sites, the elite got the best equipment. However, the army still possessed many effective weapons, even if they were outclassed individually. The force did have the potential to win the ground war and cause huge casualties if not opposed correctly. Some of Gadnalak's reforms had effects beyond his own unit, and modern small arms were mass-produced by the Batarian State Arms factories for the entire batarian military. Many of these were copies of human weapons.
Terminus Mercenary Army
Elanos Haliat, knowing that the operation against Elysium was his great gamble, opted to go all-in to assure its success. For the ground war, he had no shortage of volunteers. With promises of fortune and glory, he managed to raise a little over three hundred thousand troops for the campaign against the humans. These were varied in origin, but the majority were recruited from Haliat's own domains. He favoured turian recruits, as the military culture of his people created a natural sort of discipline in their ranks. However, among the forces mustered, there were asari biotics, krogan platoons, vorcha packs and salarian engineers. These were tasked for special duties, for cracking any particular nut that offended Haliat in the course of the battle. The rest would fight with the batarian army on the front line, bolstering assault forces where required.
The Terminus forces were as well equipped as the Batarian External Forces, perhaps even better equipped. The battle occurred just when personal kinetic barriers had started to become economical on a mass scale, and mercenaries had snapped up as many of them as possible for their own use. Custom weapons and armour were commonplace, lending a powerful variety of firepower to Haliat cause at the expense of some logistics problems.
Morale in these forces was good, though very few knew before the battle of the full scale of the operation they were about to take part in. The Alliance identified Haliat's forces as a weak point to strike, as the motivations of the soldiers were questionable. They were not true military forces, regardless of their equipment. This would show in the course of the battle.
Batarian First Fleet
The Batarian First Fleet was the pride and joy of both the leader and the people, overshadowing the two other fleets of the Batarian Navy in its reputation. Its traditions stemmed from the chaotic time when the batarians first entered the galactic community. The Krogan Rebellions were in full swing, and the batarians were forced to defend their space from sporadic krogan attacks across wide frontiers. The reality of the force in 2176 lived up to these heights to a large extent. The most modern batarian ships were assigned to the fleet, including the Fang of Khar'shan, the new flagship.
The fleet boasted two dreadnoughts and two carriers, as well as a large number of cruisers and frigates operating together in fleet "clusters" designed to counteract the human wolfpack system. The batarians had not responded in the same way as the other species of the galaxy to the arrival of the carrier onto the naval scene. Instead of constructing more large ships designed to handle fighters, the batarians simply equipped their cruisers with the capability to carry more of them. While this allowed them to compete with an Alliance fleet, it had distinct disadvantages. The first of these was that command and control of the fighter squadrons was decentralised, and so, disorganised. This was deliberate, as fighters were still a defensive weapon in batarian eyes. They still favoured the dreadnought as the primary weapon of pitched battle. The second of these was that the fighter had evolved from a short range weapon to one that could duel with cruisers, thanks to the development of the EXALT torpedo. This meant that recovery and rearming of fighters for combat became far more important than in previous centuries. Line cruisers could not effectively recover and rearm fighters in the course of battle, and the batarians had not developed an escort carrier class based on a cruiser hull. These disadvantages would prove extremely costly indeed.
The fleet was organised along more traditional batarian lines, and was larger than an Alliance fleet. A strict chain of command was in place, as batarian naval thinking dictated that the admiral was the only one allowed to make command decisions, that he was in a battle of wills with the enemy commander and required the absolute coordination of all his available forces. Individual initiative on the part of captains or even squadron commanders was suppressed. Admiral Dhark Ar'dra, the Arch-Hegemon's cousin, was a true believer in this idea. In a galaxy without the new human naval weaponry or effective ECM, he could have dominated any force in such a manner, but the new reality of naval combat would leave him and the First Fleet behind at Elysium.