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Zodiac System – Zodiac Group
2112.11.10
The Grand Fleet of the Systems Alliance had almost completed its transit through the relay from Theta to Zodiac. It's forward raiding groups had ripped through the turian supply convoys and patrol groups that had been present in the dead system, and once it had been confirmed as secure the rest of the fleet had followed.
As soon as all ships had transitioned and formed up, the fleet would set out for the active primary relay. Leaving this no mans land for the system the turian computers designated the Lryae, primary system of the Lryae Asteria. Citadel Council claimed territory and the turian Third Patrol Fleets original patrol area.
Pushing into enemy territory was risky, it stretched the fleet supply train more with every system they advanced. It also left the Grand Fleet vulnerable to counter attack from an enemy with the home field advantage and left them unable to repair damaged ships quickly due to the long trip home. But it had benefits as well, a trans relay assault was the most perfect ambush scenario that a defending force could wish for.
The more relays the Grand Fleet had to fall back through before reaching a position they had to stand and defend, the more disproportionate casualties they could inflict on an attacking force if pushed onto the defensive.
Lryae also held the Lryae Asteria's primary relays, one primary relay connected to Zodiac – which they would be using to get there – but the other connected to the Serpent Nebula. Lryae's secondary relay also connected all over the Krogan DMZ, including to the Aralakh Cluster. The Citadel itself and Tuchanka, both were on the other side of the relays in the Lyre system. One of them was the primary goal of each of the two hail mary plans that the Admiralty had come up with for if the Citadel wouldn't negotiate a peaceful end to this war.
One thing was certain, in space the defensive held only certain defeat in this war for the Systems Alliance. The Alliance's total naval strength of approximately 3,000 warships was outnumbered by more than 3:1 by the turians alone.
With the turians active fleet strength standing at over 10,000 warships, not even counting reserves or the active warships the asari and salarians could bring to bear, any defence strategy the Alliance could devise was doomed to failure, and that was before the tech advantage of the Citadel races had been taken into account.
If the Citadel Council refused to negotiate, the Alliance's only chance was total and reckless aggression. Hoping to fight through to an important objective before the Council races could move their fleets from a peacetime patrol style deployment, to a wartime battle fleets style deployment and activate their fleet supply trains.
This had resulted in the two hail mary plans of the Admiralty. Both dictated that Lryae needed to be taken but from there they diverged.
Battle Plan Checkmate called for a direct assault on the Citadel, to overwhelm the Citadel Home Fleet before it could be reinforced to wartime strength and gamble that they could land enough marines before the Citadel arms closed to capture the Council tower. Hopefully, with their Councillors as hostages the Council races would agree to a cease fire. The Admiralty gave this plan only an 8% chance of success.
Battle Plan Viking called for an attack on Aralakh and the liberation of Tuchanka. Promising the Krogan anything that they wanted to join the war, including a cure to this 'genophage' bioweapon.
The Grand Fleet would then disperse into stateless raiding parties, destroying commercial shipping across Citadel space and delivering the Krogan to the ground to sow terror and blood across the colonies of the Council races. The Admiralty gave this plan only a 4% chance of success, predicting that even if it worked against the asari and salarians the turians would be so incensed that they wouldn't stop until they had totally subjugated Earth in revenge.
But as trying to fight defensively resulted in a 0.1% chance of success in all scenarios, the Grand Fleet had no option but to fight through to Lryae and pray that the asari were the peace-loving diplomats that the turian computers said they were. And that they had enough leverage over the Turian Hierarchy to force them to the table if they refused to negotiate.
Admiral Drescher looked despairingly at the galactic map rotating in front of her, to have the most powerful force assembled in human history, and still have only an 8% chance of winning through force of arms. It was a rude wakeup call as to exactly how much growing the Systems Alliance had to do if it wanted to be able to secure the future of humanity against any outside threat.
She looked up at the other occupant of her office to take her mind off the appalling military situation. Flag Lieutenant Stephen Hackett looked like he wanted to punch the tablet he was reading, Admiral Drescher could guess what section he was on.
"The latest updates of the Earth political situation Stephen?" She asked kindly.
"It doesn't bother you Admiral? That we are basically fighting for a group of traitors that have instigated a coup with the full support of the military?" The anger was clear in his voice.
Katrine Drescher smiled wearily. "It depends entirely on your definition of traitors doesn't it? I remember in history class another political group committing treason and violating all of international law, they seized control – backed by the military – and removed all of their opponents from political posts and confiscated all government owned property."
"So why aren't we stopping them? Like that historical coup was stopped?" Lieutenant Hackett growled out.
"Stopped? Who said it was stopped? If it had been stopped then George Washington and the other founding fathers of the USA would have been tried and convicted of treason, the breaking of all international law, seizing private property, casting loyalists out of political office and seizing the property of the legitimate government. They would all have been hanged and the United States of America would never have existed."
Stephen Hackett's mouth moved but no sound came out.
Katrine hid her amusement at the young lieutenant's excellent impression of a fish out of water. "The same is true of the founding fathers of the French Republic and dozens of other states. Radical changes rarely come peacefully Stephen, and whether their instigators are seen as traitors or heroes is largely determined by whether they win or not."
Indignation and despair warred on Lieutenant Hackett's face. "Which do you think they are?"
"Neither." Admiral Drescher said kindly. "Heroes are the creations of perception; the two sides of this coup represent different ideas and paths the world can take. The old way of competing nation states is represented by the USA and by China. The new way of humanity united under one federal superstate, each with their own cultures and states but also members of only one nation, is represented by the coup launched by India, the EU and the other members."
"Decide which route you want humanity to take and you will find your heroes, and your villains."
"ACTION STATIONS! ACTION STATIONS! SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE SHIP! ACTION STATIONS! ACTION STATIONS! SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE SHIP!"
Their discussion cut short, both officers were through the office door and into the Flag CIC as soon as the alert claxon had sounded.
"Report!" Admiral Drescher snapped out as she took her place at the central plot table and looked at the display of the system.
"Activity from the second primary relay Admiral, ships emerged and destroyed one of the scouts monitoring it, the SSV Talikota was destroyed with all hands by that monster." Tactical reported angrily, the frustration at watching comrades die when they were too far away to help showing through.
"At least that makes the decision about whether to send the first contact package moot." Damage control muttered despairingly. As someone who knew all of the technical aspects of the Alliance's ships, they knew just how outmatched they were by the Citadel Fleet. And what the life expectantly of the Grand Fleet's crews had just dropped to.
Admiral Dresher kept her shock well hidden. The ship leading the new arrivals pouring through the relay was clearly an asari ship, the oval hole in the centre of its hull was unmistakable. The four spokes also marked it out as a dreadnought rather than the 2 spoke frigates or 3 spoke cruisers, but its size was like nothing any human had ever seen before.
The new ship was 4 kilometres tall which was its longest axis, over 4 times the size of her own dreadnoughts along their longest axis.
"I thought asari dreadnoughts were only 2 km high." Comms whispered in shock, awe and fear."
"Tactical: Analysis on its guns!" Admiral Drescher snapped. The asari ships had a strange design, they had a gun in each spoke, trading length and firepower for more guns that gave them a bigger field of fire. There was undoubtedly more to their battle doctrine, but the tech's hadn't cracked the most secure turian files yet, and there was nothing more but basic armament and profile of Citadel warships in the less secured files and turian troop's omitools.
They were working on supposition and extrapolation based only on profile and stated number of guns.
"The hollow oval makes up 500 m of the ships Hight. Based on extrapolation the port, starboard and ventral spokes are likely to contain mass accelerators 1.2 km long, estimated firepower of 87 kilotons. The dorsal spoke is significantly longer than the others, it looks like it's their main gun."
Tactical's voice shook at the idea that three 1.2 km long guns weren't the ships main armament before steading themselves and continuing. "Likely to contain a 2.2 km long mass accelerator, estimated firepower of 293 kilotons Admiral."
The CIC fell into stunned silence. The main gun of that monster superdreadnought could rip through the barriers of any ship in the Alliance fleet, it could one shot their own dreadnoughts and their own firepower of 44 kilotons looked paltry in comparison.
Hiding her own shock and fear, Admiral Drescher tried to instil some confidence back into her crew. "Well that is concerning, but unless I'm mistaken there is not a snowballs chance in hell of them hitting a frigate with those guns, and torpedoes are a great equaliser. Remember Pearl Harbour people. Sometimes the bigger they are, the harder they fall."
Calm fell over the flag CIC once more as the crew stood straighter, remembering the stories from their home nations when a small dedicated force had won against impossible odds. Admiral Drescher allowed their confidence to grow for a few moments, then she started issuing orders again.
"Comms: Alter the formation. Given the pathetic nature of their fighter tactics I want three quarters of our frigates in a spear, we're going to punch a hole and they are going charge through and Bismarck that bastard."
"Admiral." Sensors spoke up in confusion. "Their emergence, I didn't detect any weapons fire, nor did they fire on the other three frigates of the scout group."
"But they did destroy the Talikota?" The Admiral questioned intently.
"Aye Admiral, it exploded right next to them. No damage to the enemy ship from a collision."
"Then they have a weapon that we either can't detect firing, or can detect but don't know what to look for. Keep a close eye on them Sensors, it must be short range if they didn't use it on the other frigates, but we need to know what it is." Admrial Drescher nodded decisively, changing her plan off attack to stay out of close range of the asari ships. If they did mount such a weapon, she didn't want to lose any more ships to it.
"Aye aye Admiral." Sensors replied grimly, staring intently at their console.
As the three surviving scout frigates raced away from the growing Citadel Fleet, the last of the Alliance ships fell into formation. As one, their engines lit up and the Grand Fleet surged forward into battle once again, but this time victory was far from certain.
Codex Entry: Humans – Systems Alliance Marines: Ground Deployments
(Citadel Codex, First Human SPECTRE Collector's Edition, 2183)
Codex users please be aware that this structure is POST the major redesigns of Systems Alliance navy ships following the Relay 314 Incident (First Contact War) in 2112. For the pre-reform structure of the Systems Alliance marines please see appendix 6 subsection 4 of this codex.
The Systems Alliance Marines are a specialised force that exists to provide the ships of the navy with dedicated soldiers for shipboard security and boarding actions. Following the Relay 314 Incident (First Contact war) the responsibility of creating and securing a beachhead during planetary assaults was transferred from the army and given to the marines in addition to their shipboard duties.
As such the only truly unique marine role is the marine assault force, created following the Relay 314 Incident (First Contact War) for planetary invasions. The rest of the marine's units are focused around the Alliance navy and how many marines they designed their ships to carry. The marines us a squad (2 fireteams of 4 marines each) as the building block for their formations as that is the compliment of marines that the smallest ship they are ever assigned to, the navy frigate, carries as standard.
As a specialist force their officer/solider ratio is higher than that of the reformed post First Contact War army and the colonial guard.
Fireteams: Marine fireteams consist of 4 marines, all of them will hold the rank of private first class or above as marines do not use the rank of private due to their specialist training. Unless deployed on a navy ship fireteams are led by a lance corporal or a corporal.
If deployed on a navy ship or base, one fireteam will be commanded by a sergeant and the other by an officer.
Squads: Marine squads consist of 2 fireteams totalling 8 marines and are commanded by a sergeant unless they are on naval deployment.
A marine squad is issued with one Mako class Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV). 1 fireteam will operate the Mako (1 driver, 1 gunner, 1 ECM operator + engineer and one commander) while the second fireteam travels in the Mako's troop compartment awaiting deployment. Whether the CO (lieutenant or sergeant depending on deployment) commands the squad from the deployable leg fireteam, or as the IFV commander is at the discretion of the individual officer.
Platoon: A marine platoon consists of 3 squads (24 marines) and 3 Mako IFVs. It is commanded by a lieutenant.
Company: A marine company consists of 3 platoons (72 marines) and 9 Mako IFVs. It is commanded by a captain.
Cohort: A marine cohort consists of 3 marine companies (216 marines) and 27 Mako IFVs. It is commanded by a major. This is also the level at which specialised vehicles are attached instead of Mako IFVs. A cohort is commanded by a major.
If equipped with specialised vehicles, a cohort fields 36 specialised Megalodon support vehicles (self-propelled artillery, anti-air, tank destroyer, signals, mobile command vehicle, medical transport, etc…) or 54 Mosasaurus tanks.
Battalion: A marine battalion consist of 3 marine cohorts (648 marines). 2 cohorts will be equipped with Mako IFVs allowing the battalion to field 54. The third cohort will be a specialised attachment point, providing either 36 Megalodon support vehicles OR 54 Mosasaurus tanks to the battalion. A lieutenant colonel is the commanding officer.
Regiment: A marine regiment consists of 3 battalions (1,944 marines). 2 of those battalions are a standard marine battalions (x2 standard cohorts + x1 support cohort) while the third is an armoured marine battalion (x2 standard cohorts + x1 armoured cohort).
As such the regiment is equipped with 162 Mako IFVs, 72 Megalodon support vehicles, and 54 Mosasaurus tanks.
Planetary Assault Brigade: A marine brigade consists of 2 regiments (3,888 marines) and is the compliment of a single marine assault ship, which is specifically designed to deliver a marine assault force to the surface of a hostile planet via dropships and Makos while providing air and orbital support. A brigadier general is the commanding officer.
Marine brigades are equipped with 324 Mako IFVs, 144 Megalodon support vehicles, and 108 Mosasaurus tanks.
Planetary Assault Division: A marine division consist of 4 brigades (15,552 marines) spread over 4 marine assault ships. A lieutenant general is the commanding officer.
Marine divisions are equipped with 1,296 Mako IFVs, 576 Megalodon support vehicles, and 432 Mosasaurus tanks.
Planetary Assault Corps: A marine corps consists of 4 marine divisions (62,208 marines) spread over 16 marine assault ships. It is the largest marine unit and the one with the task of taking and holding a beachhead on a hostile planet, allowing the army to deploy. The commanding officer is a captain general.
Marine corps are equipped with 5,184 Mako IFVs, 2,304 Megalodon support vehicles, and 1,728 Mosasaurus tanks.
Timeline Changes So Far
First colony on mars: 27 years earlier than canon
Discovery of Prothean ruins: 64 years earlier than canon
Founding of the Systems Alliance (council of nations version): 63 years earlier than canon
First Contact War: 45 years earlier than canon