To: Zyktl Snalat, Chairman, Lyrece Committee on Extraterritorial Affairs, Enlightened Commonwealth of Lyrece
From: The Desk of Molnok Koln, Overcommander,15th Sector, Volnerak Empire
Subject: Preparations and Priorities in the event of Armed Engagement with Humanity
Chairman,
It would seem from the tone of your previous message, that you and your committee did not appreciate my response to your question. I admit that it was probably a briefer response than you may have expected. As such, I am more than willing to expand on that answer with references to my experiences in the field.
But make no mistake.
When asked the question "How to best prepare and engage in armed conflict with the Human Empire?"
The only appropriate answer is "don't".
Before considering engaging Humanity, you must be aware of the differences between human societies and our own. Humans while technically collectively grouped in an empire, are in reality a fractious race. They are constantly engaged in minor conflicts within their sphere of control. The only true escape from these incessant wars, is to establish your own bubble of influence elsewhere.
Due to this, humans, like all of the most insidious diseases, spread as far as they can. Hot or Cold. Dry or wet. If the humans can survive a landing there, they will live there. This proclivity towards migration has massively expanded the Human Empire's territory beyond what they are capable of accurately defending.
You might consider this a good thing. A nation that cannot defend its territory, will not hold it. Particularly if they spend most of their time fighting themselves.
This is your first mistake.
Humanity is a tribal race. Each strata of the species divided up based on beliefs, culture and appearance. Each group viewing the others as strange and unwelcome for their minor differences. This is a view that holds, right until the moment another species gets involved. At that moment, their definition of a tribe expands to include all of Humanity. United once more in their hatred of the "other".
This means that you will not be facing a disparate group of squabbling would-be nations controlling a few inconsequential planets. Instead you are facing a fearsome empire, forged in millennia of intraspecies bloodshed. One that will coalesce and fight with all it has.
So your intention of using "a minor border skirmish", to "shave off a few systems", is nonsensical at best. At worst, it is suicidal.
Chairman, I have seen your military. You are not capable of turning the full thrust of a human advance. If it ever even gets there.
The second mistake is the idea of even taking a human world.
You must remember that the human requirement for habitability is lower than most species. Their ability to infest is unrivalled. This means, as I have previously stated, that they can and will live anywhere they are able to. From a barren rock in an asteroid field, to a thriving exoplanet. It also means that they are both willing and capable of doing things to the worlds they live on, that most species could not countenance.
Take for example a human Colony ship. It is enabled with a warp drive for fast travel to far flung worlds. It even has the ability to be converted to a primary settlement for its inhabitants. To this end, it comes with warp engines and numerous nuclear generators. To get them there as fast as possible, and to provide power on arrival.
However this combination of engines and reactors can serve a secondary purpose. In the event of a hostile invasion, the human leaders of the new settlement can convert the colony ship into a bomb. One that is capable of doing enough damage to the surroundings to wipe out any nearby or occupying forces. They also primarily use a heavy metal fuel for these reactors. This is so that any such detonation will spread contaminants as far as they can manage. To pollute the earth and atmosphere of the planet enough, that no other species can take it.
This is what is used on their colony ships. Not even on their established worlds.
On an established world with an actual military presence, the situation will be different. Rather than simply detonating their settlements, they will instead force you to fight for every piece of ground they can. Even if you are able to take a settlement, you will find all of its resources destroyed. Its supplies will be poisoned. Its generators rigged to explode. All while the remains of their military rain as much death as they can, with whatever ability they have.
They will go to every extreme length you can think of. I have seen them burn their own atmosphere, just to ensure my soldiers' deaths. Planets laid bare to the solar winds. Mantles exposed by cracking the very crust itself. Worlds rendered completely uninhabitable, so that we gained nothing for all the lives paid.
The Humans refer to this policy as "Scorched Earth". I believe it is on account of what they did to their homeworld. A more accurate name would be, "If I cannot have it, no one can".
But say through some fortune you defeat the humans. You reef the controls from their claws before they can trigger their doomsday devices. You force them back before they poison their own atmosphere, just to watch you choke on the smog. You defeat them and successfully occupy the world.
Congratulations. This is when the true terror begins.
A concept to hold in mind is this:
You cannot truly "take" a human world. All you will ever be is an occupier.
Oh they will smile and seem to co-operate. Merchants and businesses providing services at cheap rates. The local government helps to keep order and the bureaucracy ticking. Even children give flowers to your soldiers. It will appear that all is blissful in the cities you garrison. This part of the war thankfully over. Peace at last.
But partisans will strike your supply lines wherever possible. Your garrisons will be bombed. Your soldiers will be ambushed by apparent civilians, who then melt back into the crowd. The businesses that provide goods do so to gain information. The government maintaining "order", never can find where the rebels are. The smiling child handing a soldier a flower, has a bomb beneath his jacket.
It will be a hell like nothing else.
All around you will be smiling faces, clutching knives behind their backs. Just waiting for the moment you make a mistake, so they can begin the cutting. They will aggravate and provoke. Disgrace and outrage. Underhanded tactic followed by underhanded tactic. They will needle away at your soldier's discipline, chipping it away bit by bit. Eventually, all rationale will be lost. Reprisals will become necessary to prevent complete military breakdown.
They will make you do the unthinkable simply to gain breathing space.
They will force you to commit atrocity after atrocity, massacre after massacre. All in a vain attempt to instil terror and gain order. But each atrocity committed carries a price. Every massacre and example made, make a hundred new immortal martyrs. Undying patriots to be held up against the human flag. Shining beacons of humanity at its "finest". Examples to follow. And follow they will. Each martyr dragging a thousand more passive rebels into open defiance. Havoc and chaos will be the only constants in your occupancy of a human world. Good soldiers lost, fed like pointless scraps to dogs. Whole divisions driven into the mouth of the human thresher.
In summary, occupying a human world is like holding a ball made entirely of blades. You can hold the ball. As long as you are prepared to bleed for every second you do.
Of course, the greatest terror of the human rebellion isn't in its perseverance where others would break. Neither is it in the cost it incurs in lives lost and morale broken. No, the true terror lies in the purpose behind such seemingly futile actions. No planet can truly resist the full might of a fleet. But what it can do is steal from you the most valuable commodity of all.
Time.
Every moment you spend engaging rebel forces and local planetary resistance is a moment they are preparing. Every day passed under a scorched sky, holding a now valueless rock, is a day more they have. Every second spent quelling a volatile population is one more second the humans have to prepare. One more moment, to train another soldier. One more day to build another ship. One more second to arm another civilian.
By the time you finally shrug off the planet in question, and move to deal with the Empire as a whole, the Empire is ready to deal with you. And deal with you they will.
Where before you faced skirmishes of local defence fleets and traders turned missile carriers, you now face the unquestioned might of an empire that has turned its gaze and resources to you. While you were bleeding in the sands of some hellhole, the shipyards of their shieldworlds were building fleets. While you were gasping for breath in a smog ruined pit, their strategists were conniving plans to ruin you.
When they come for you, and they will come for you, they will hit you as hard and as ruthlessly as they can. Your previous advances will evaporate like steam in the wind. Gone in no time. Your planetside armies shelled from orbit. The survivors driven out, street by street. Your grand fleets wrecked in grander battles. Ships swarmed by vessels twice their number. No matter how many you destroy, more will appear eager and vengeful.
Before you even realise it, you will be on the back foot. The border home you left so far behind will rush to meet you. Soon you will be fighting not in their territory but your own. There, your past hubris will come to haunt you. You felt the humans were ruthless in defence, uncaring of their own worlds.
Imagine how they treat yours.
Continents ravaged in nuclear fire as oceans boil in flames. Atmospheres burnt to naught, as ships catch fire trying to flee. Planets cracked and broken like pebbles beneath a hammer. Cities levelled from orbit.
Devastation backed by justification.
Justified by your own offences. Every atrocity they forced you into, every punitive measure made necessary by continued resistance, will be held up as an example of your monstrosity. Every terrible mistake paid for, in the lives of your countrymen. Your every "needs must" and "greater good", will be used as excuses to purge systems of your kin.
At the end, your people will beg for their lives. You will offer leaders to the humans. Politicians and generals, bureaucrats and admirals. The best of your people. Show trials will be conducted to assuage their wounded hearts. New treaties will be written up and signed. New agreements forged as you look each other in the eyes and say "never again".
You will mean every single word.
All wars cost. Money, lives, time and more, are offered up in the pursuit of victory. A war with the humans will cost you more than that. It will cost you your nation's very soul. It will cost you every night's sleep from then till the day you finally die. You will crawl away from the conflict, utterly broken. Irreconcilably different to when you entered.
No one truly survives a war with the humans.
Chairman, I must confess that I have erred. Drafting this missive has led me to re-examine our previous messages. On foot of that, I would like to apologise for my earlier response to your query. On further reflection and consideration, it was indeed lacking. I would like to retract it and offer more salient advice than simply "don't".
Chairman, I advise you to find the nearest airlock you can. Then, take yourself and your committee and throw yourselves out of it. It is a gentler and easier fate than what the humans will give you.
Your people will thank you for it.
Regards,
Molnok Koln
Overcommander,
15th Sector,
Volnerak Empire