Battle for Earth

The Battle for Earth is the ongoing conflict between the Scourge and the Triumvirate for control over humanity's birthplace. So far, the struggle has been the largest and most important battle fought during the Reconquest - the United Colonies of Mankind has committed the vast majority of their resources to this endeavor, with similar contributions from Kalium and the Post-Human Republic.

## Background

Though Earth is perhaps the single most important world in humanity's sphere of influence, UCM military strategists elected to ignore it during the planning for the Reconquest. The vast majority of Scourge void and ground forces - easily over 100 million troops, and the largest known fleet in the galaxy - were stationed in the Solar system, making any potential attack extremely risky. As a result, the UCM chose to focus on the less-heavily defended Cradle Worlds at the outset of the Reconquest, counting on the economic advantage gained from conquering those worlds to eventually allow them to besiege Earth.

However, events in 2673 would eventually change this mindset. The slow departure of 40% of Scourge void assets from the Solar system in May led to the UCM stepping up scouting missions around Earth, though no invasion was initially tabled. This would change after a recon patrol detected a massive radiation surge on the North American continent. An MR-F team was deployed to investigate and found that a group of Resistance operatives known as the East Coasters had sabotaged the missile halo nexus for North America, opening a massive hole in the Earth's orbital defenses.

This report triggered debate amongst the UCM High Council to make use of the opening, before the Scourge could rebuild, but projections only showed a 27% chance of victory, with millions of casualties suffered. The discussions only intensified after the Kalium Kabal made an offer to launch a joint assault on Earth, but wouldn't come to a conclusion until after representatives from the Post-Human Republic also offered their support. With the PHR and the Kabal on their side, UCM planners projected a 72% chance of victory - more than enough for the High Council to accept. An agreement was signed between the three factions on September 4th, creating the Triumvirate, and planning for the invasion of Earth began in earnest.

### Operation Bolero

The invasion of Earth was set for October 3rd, giving an exceptionally limited time for the Triumvirate to prepare. As a result of this - and due to the need for secrecy during the build-up - a highly classified, complex plan to ready the invasion force was put into play by the Triumvirate, code-named Operation Bolero.

The United Colonies of Mankind found it relatively easy to conceal their build-up, as preparations to invade Olympus Prime had been ongoing for the better part of the year. A range of live-fire exercises, drills, and changes in patrol schedules were arranged across UCM territories, ensuring a high state of readiness and secrecy amongst the ranks. When D-Day came, battlefleets from various systems would be able to immediately act on new orders and jump to Earth.

Kalium and the Post-Human Republic found their own preparations during Bolero significantly easier to hide, as the Scourge had no knowledge of Kalium's whereabouts, nor of the PHR homeworlds. Though Kalium proved to be quite willing to share its progress with the Triumvirate, the Republic extended few such courtesies to its allies outside of succinct reports. Despite this, UCM observation teams were able to witness the mustering of the PHR's Grand Fleet in the Tlalocan system, which included the deployment of over 300 capital ships.

On Earth, UCM and PHR pathfinders stepped up their efforts to coordinate, train, and equip local Resistance forces. Though these groups weren't informed of the coming invasion, they knew that something big was coming and made their own preparations accordingly. Multiple resistance groups began concerted partisan campaigns against the Scourge, mobilising even their most limited assets for the coming conflict. Meanwhile in space, the Triumvirate began a series of feint attacks in various systems, including a full-scale orbital bombardment of Olympus Prime. Despite being a vast expenditure of resources, the feint did its job, as the Scourge siphoned away even more ships from Earth to reinforce their beleaguered forces.

By October 1st, the Triumvirate's forces had been assembled - over 1,000 capital ships and 320 million human beings stood ready for the coming conflict. Best of all, no unusual Scourge activity had been detected, meaning Operation Bolero had been a success.

## Battle

### D-Day in the Void

Despite all of the Triumvirate's planning, the battle for Earth began with a setback. Minutes before Triumvirate forces jumped to the Solar system, large Shaltari taskforces arrived from foldspace in the Shangri-La and Elysium systems, opening fire on the UCMF ships stationed there. Worse, the Shaltari had deployed a new piece of technology aboard their dreadnoughts that emanated low power, wide beams of gravitic disturbances, preventing all nearby ships from making foldspace jumps. As a result of this development, UCM Supreme Admiral Halsey redirected the splinter forces that he intended to send against bodies in the Solar system to join the main offensive instead. This would sacrifice the element of surprise elsewhere, but would help compensate for the Shaltari interference.

Though Scourge forces were caught in patrol by the Triumvirate invasion, they were able to respond swiftly and formed up wherever possible. These speartips were able to inflict horrendous damage against the invaders, despite suffering appalling losses of their own. Kalium suffered the brunt of these attacks, as the Kabal had insisted on being the vanguard. Meanwhile, the Post-Human Republic suffered relatively light casualties by comparison, their own forces performing a creeping advance while maintaining overlapping fields of fire.

The Triumvirate's primary targets on day 1 were the enemy's mightiest ships, in order to better clear a path to their intended drop sites. Fighting would end up concentrated around the hole in the defence grid over North America - without the damage that the East Coasters had managed to inflict, the Triumvirate's fleet may well have been annihilated. As it was, return fire was still intense, but uncoordinated. It had also been determined that combat drops had to occur on day 1, lest orbital debris rob the invasion of all surprise as it had over Olympus Prime. Hundreds of troopships and almost two thousand strike carriers broke through the Scourge blockade and began landing operations across the globe, despite the threat posed by the orbital grid.

By late in the day, it became obvious that the Triumvirate would succeed in the void. Rather than sacrifice their forces piecemeal as they usually did, the Scourge instead pulled back all of their remaining ships, jumping out of the Solar system to parts unknown. Over 65% of Scourge shipping successfully escaped the attempted Triumvirate blockade.

### The First Month

The rest of October proceeded largely as planned for the Triumvirate. Though the debris from the battle had choked Earth's orbit, strike carriers were still able to punch through and deliver forces to the ground, or send dropships after orbital installations. Learning from their experiences over Olympus Prime, the UCM led the Triumvirate in a series of strikes to wrest control of Earth's orbital grid from the Scourge, putting it in their hands rather than outright destroying it. Towards the end of the month, the first major surface battles were fought, with the largest of these being the Battle of Michigan. The Kalium 2nd and 3rd Legions, despite suffering over a million casualties, would defeat the Scourge and conquer Chicago - the first major metropolis to be returned to human hands.

Meanwhile, the UCM's armies had slowly trundled across the globe towards their objectives, unable to secure a similar large-scale, decisive victory as Kalium had. However, by the end of the month, the UCMA had moved into position to threaten New York, Rio, Hong Kong, London, and a hundred other major cities. The Post-Human Republic, on the other hand, had remained largely static beyond securing their initial dropsites.

By early December, major progress had been made at reclaiming the orbitals - 35% were destroyed, 20% captured, and 45% still in enemy hands. With things proceeding according to plan, the Triumvirate dispatched elements of the UCMF and Grand Fleet to begin surface bombardments against targets on Mars, Titan, Ganymede, and Callisto. December also saw major assaults begin against some of Earth's largest cities, such as Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Berlin, Beijing, and Sydney. The casualties suffered during these assault led the UCM's President Belaque to authorize conscription for the first time in the coalition's history - a wildly unpopular move, though protests were muted at first.

### Battle of Sol

Since conceding void superiority to the Triumvirate, the Scourge had been executing hit-and-run attacks throughout October and November, generally focusing on troopships and strike carriers. These elements were identified as former members of Earth's garrison, meaning that the survivors of the battle had not merely fled. This activity spiked sharply in early December, heralding the eventual battle to come.

On December 15th, a Scourge fleet - fully twice the size of any human formation at that time - arrived at Earth's outer marker, swiftly gaining orbit over Earth and inflicting horrendous casualties on the emplaced defenders until reinforcements from elsewhere in the system arrived. The battle raged for two full weeks, with losses eventually forcing the UCM to pull elements from Cradle World garrisons to supplement their forces. Despite this, the Scourge's superior control of Earth's orbital grid saw them slowly gaining the upper hand in the conflict.

December 24th would mark the turning point in the battle, as the Vega Scrapfleet arrived in the Solar system on the side of the Triumvirate. After two more days of fighting, the Scourge began to withdraw, saving their remaining forces for the same kind of asymmetric warfare they'd pursued in previous months. With the Scourge gone - and with more debris beginning to choke the Earth's orbit - the Triumvirate had a scant few weeks to land more troops and provide orbital support. With that in mind, the decision was made to launch full-scale assaults on several major cities while the fleet could still assist.

## Current State of Affairs

As of January 1st, 2673, the major theatres of the Battle for Earth are as follows: