Battle of Polss

"Polss was when we knew the war could not be won."- Col. Devin Weeks's memoirs.The Battle of Polss was a brutal engagement between the Galactic Alliance and the S'southi in the Covenant fringe during the Forefather War.
== Background ==
Prior to the Battle of Polss, the S'southi had been waging an incredibly successful and brutal campaign throughout the Covenant fringe, known as the Outer Worlds Campaign. In order to stop this invasion from being able to breach the fringe and bring the war to populated space, the Galactic Alliance gathered a large fleet at the fortress world of Polss. A large number of ground forces were brought in, including several teams of Spartan-IVs and many thousands of ODST Shocktroopers.
The S'southi were detected in the Polss system on the 1st of June.
== Engagement ==
=== Space ===
The S'southi launched a gigantic, unprecedented assault against the gathered fleet at Polss shortly after their arrival in the system. The Galactic Alliance Fleet was more than capable of holding off the attack due to sheer firepower, as the majority of S'southi vessels in the system were lightly-armed transports, but they failed to hold the flanks from which the S'southi were able to get multiple Ru'sevi Dreadnoughts behind the defensive barrier and attack from the rear, utterly devastating the Alliance fleet and causing it to rout entirely. 
=== Land ===
Following the destruction of the defensive fleet, a large sum of forces were evacuated off-world before the S'southi launched their invasion. The S'southi dominated the surviving forces on the surface within days, and wiped out around 90% of the civilian populace of the planet.
== Aftermath ==
The battle had a profound effect on the morale of the Galactic Alliance, instilling defeatism into a large portion of the officer corps and making the S'southi seem like an invincible, unbeatable foe. The battle proved that the tactics used during the Human-Covenant war were not going to be effective against the S'southi, though it would take much longer for the Galactic Alliance to accept this as fact.