As specified in the contacts, this transmission is only open to the leadership. I will adress our options in terms of defense and survivability of Falster Station and Aland Shipyard in the following. Please consider reading this before responding to this communiqué the guild and her allies received.
Bretonia is currently at the brink of losing the war. Their actions are unreasonable, reckless and born out of frustration. They have forgotten everything about diplomatic finésse and subtle actions. The security team leaders and strategic experts under my command have had plenty of time on analysing the data of past and present, have thought through dozens of what-if scenarios and in the end we came up with a set of options available to us to react in case of this conflict going on.
Present Situation: Bretonia
From what information is available to us, Bretonia is cut off from Planet Harris in Tau-31 entirely since mid 823 A.S. - they lost their colony on Harris. This was the beginning of the economic destabilization of Bretonia, as shortly after it, Bretonia's two most important mining and refinery stations, LD-14 and Stokes, had been taken over, followed by the invasion of the ecumenopolistic Planet Leeds. While Leeds is still not 100% under control of Gallia, as keeping a multi-billion-sized population can't just get silenced or murdered that easily, Bretonia effectively lost all resource income from Tau-31 and Leeds. Not too long ago, Bretonia lost not only Birmingham Station in the Manchester system, which severely damaged the bretonian fuel supply, but has also lost their direct connection to Liberty via Magellan and Cortez since Freeport 4 was destroyed and Planet Curacao's orbit turned into a horrible battlefield between Liberty's Battlegroup Yukon and the invading Gallic Battlegroups reaching the system thanks to the surprisingly stable Leeds-Magellan-Cortez jump hole corridor, despite being engulfed by nebulae and asteroid fields. Not only is Bretonia cut off from military support from Liberty via the Cortez lane, with both Manchester's lane network being heavily damaged and Cortez being an active battlefield, but also has the trade extremely suffered from this.
Right now, Gallia is sieging the New London system with multiple battlegroups which were sent into New London by overriding the Newcastle gate from Leeds. A clever move that cut Bretonia off from all resources in the Newcastle system but also allowed to bring the so called Gallic Death March to New London. They destroyed Southampton, which is why we are at risk of losing Aland in first place - one way or the other - and the York Battlegroup lost their mothership, the wreck is still floating around there. Kensington Shipping Platform and Canterbury Station have been under heavy fire but are now reinforced by multiple fleets, as the loss of those two stations and the control over the lane node at Dover would be a catastrophe to Bretonia by removing any chance to rebuild the Manchester control again.
With the siege of New London, Bretonia also has a very hard time reaching the Dublin system, meaning any gold-related products from Graves need to break through the sieging fleet or somehow move all the way through the Omega-49 system, passing through Molly-controlled areas with minefields and patrols, to eventually reach Poole. Even with the Stirling Battlegroup in Omega-49, the Zoners are angry, the Corsairs are angry, the Mollys are angry and the closest defensive perimeter of Bretonia and her allies would be in Poole at the lanes.
That leaves Bretonia with three systems: New London, Cambridge and Poole. New London has lost most access to resources other than the planet itself can provide or anything coming from Cambridge. Whatever is produced on Kensington and Canterbury, it can't be of much significance. Cambridge was under the protection of Bretonia's most powerful, as in, not heavily weakened by the war, Battlegroup Norfolk at Ross, which controlled the system entirely, even with a very noticeable increase of Corsairs forces reported from Cardiff. Now that the Norfolk is on the move to take Aland, Cambridge is open to receive damage, should anyone decide to make a few bold steps in that direction.
The Norfolk Battlegroup is powerful. Probably multiple times more powerful than our assembled assets at Aland. Bretonia's strength are intimidating numbers and a higher level of technology. They are also trying to be intimidating at the poker table. What Bretonia is lacking are strategic finésse, resources, repair capabilities, support lines, time and allies as well as sympathy. Instead of focusing on the siege, Bretonia pulled two fleets away from their most important battlegrounds. The moment Liberty arrived with reinforcements through the Poole supergate connection, Bretonia sent the Stirling Battlegroup to Omega-49, while New London was already under siege. One could argue that the Stirling Battlegroup is old and outdated, the name of that Nessie being around almost as long as our Victoria in Dublin. The most important point of that entire assault on Canaria is the logistical effort they had to bear. The attack on Gran Canaria was everything but silent, and the Zoners used every chance to denounce Bretonia for their actions, which were quite detailed presented to the public. We know the take-over of a planet requires more than just a Battlegroup, but millions of people. Canaria's population was expected to be somewhat around a million at max, most likely much below, stretched over two major Zoner colonies, the bretonian Port Jackson and Corsair agricultural settlements. Bretonia not only had to mobilize the Stirling but also fleets of bretonian soldiers to occupy the planet. That means Bretonia has fleets of troop transports out there. Keep that in mind for later. It is likely that while the Zoners of Gran Canaria weren't said to be outright warmongering against the take-over, there have been casualties of the Bretonians during the take-over. Corsairs taking care of the Stirling, possibly intercepting troop transports. Chances are some of the rather bold Zoners shot down troop transports with the planetary defense grid established after the Corsair bombardement of Canaria more than five years ago. Reports said Zoners destroyed parts of the infrastructure to leave, partially, nothing but scorched earth for Bretonia.
While it is most likely that Bretonia has regained some level of fuel supply by taking over Deuterium refineries planetside, that take-over surely was not as easy as one would assume when thinking about the rather underorganized Zoners.
Very recently, the Red Hessian Battlegroup Kassel took out the Gwent, a target of opportunity as the result of Bretonia's attempt to take over our stations in their desperation. Battlegroup Kassel was heavily damaged during that operation and escaped barely into the Omega-5 system, which we know because of their distress call. The Guild has sent a few logistical support ships stationed in Omega-47 to support the Kassel, yet our own participation in guarding and repairing it is limited by us being required to put all resources into the defense of Falster and Aland. Thankfully, while they are not assisting us here, the Coalition has lend their support to the Kassel in her weakened state. Right now, we can only hope that the Red Hessians will pull the ship deeper into the system, bringing the Hammen Hole between the jump hole and the damaged flagship. If the Corsairs can't cross the Hammen Hole, Bretonia, which has little to no experience in fighting in that region, won't be able to do much.
Now we are facing the Norfolk, which is the last bastion of Bretonian superiority. It is heading straight for us and only slowed down by the area of denial provided by the Wilkes Ice Field, our defensive installations and our assembled fleets. If Bretonia decides to go after the Kassel, they need to take assets away from the Norfolk and sent them for an extremely suicidal mission into the depths of Omega-5. If they do, Norfolk will be weaker. Depending on how resource-starved the Norfolk right now is, this might be a critical factor, given that Bretonia needs all resources at the front.
Present Situation: Defense
Again, Bretonia is running out of time and resources. Every single day means more deaths in space and planetside. Every single day means Gallia leeches more resources off from everything they took from Bretonia so far. Every single day means Gallia can bring even more reinforcements into Bretonia, directly from Leeds, uncontested to the best of our knowledge. They have no time. They are reckless.
The most successful strategy to take over anything that is fortified is to hunger it out. Bretonia has no time. So they don't go for the most successful ways here. Most likely, Battelgroup Norfolk will directly head for Aland in the most reckless manner necessary. Luckily, we are in our element here. We should not look at the numbers and technologies alone here. The best example of a minor faction winning against an entire house would be the 80 Years war of the Gas Miners Guild and Rheinland, won by the former. GMG used their well known territory to their advantage to hit Rheinland's superior fleets exactly where it hurt with a minimum of losses in comparison to what they had and what Rheinland had. While we can't go for another 80 Years War, this time IMG against Bretonia, we surely can be as clever as the GMG was in that historical example. In our case, all we need to do is stalling the Norfolk's progress into Aland's direction. Possible ways to do that would be disabling and cutting the trade lanes. We can do that, both by attacking the lanes directly and by moving big rocks in the way. The logistical effort for us to do that would be minimal.
We can destroy the lane rings. The negative impact for us would be way less significant than the damage we would do to them with that. The damage would be effective in the short and in the long run, as Bretonia will need these rings to reach Aland with damaged ships. But this is only the beginning. While we don't need to be worried about Falster Station right now, given it is more powerfully defended than Aland with the new defense grid, rendering Falster almost impenetrable as previous battles have shown - Bretonia, Crayter and Core didn't stand a chance, let's say it and be proud about it as long as we can - Aland is considerably bigger and more difficult to cover entirely. Our defenses cover it only partially. Erecting more defenses is something that will cost us more time and effort than we likely have right now. Luckily, however, we are surrounded by large ice asteroids and rocks, and we can make use of them here as well.
The Aland Shipyard is large. Should Bretonia make any move to breach through the Wilkes Ice Field, it will be very difficult to protect all sides of it. What we can do, however, is placing rocks in their way, not figuratively but in the literal sense of the phrase. We can cover the weaked points of the hull with obstacles and walls of asteroids. We can placed asteroids in the shipyard facilities. We could block off the hangar bays with rocks the moment we leave the station. Or, in the worst case scenario, we could blow up Aland Shipyard ourselves, forcing Bretonia to lose the war, which they will do anyway. The way I see it is we can either stall their progress or make their entire effort fruitless by leaving nothing they can work with in first place. The question is whether we want that. If we continue the conflict on our end, it is most likely we will never regain Aland, Cardiff and possible other lost assets. Many men and women will die. Not only ours, but those of our allies and, even while we are at war with Bretonia, theirs as well. This decision is not up to me, and I won't voice my opinion on possible regrets. I believe we have chosen our path already, and my job as well as that of those under my command is to ensure we either win this or cause as much damage as possible, to show our allies we were worth their losses.
Negotiation
While I am not much of a diplomat, I certainly have spent my fair share of time on analyzing the absolutely chaotic decisions Bretonia has made as of recent, in the panic of losing New London, which is probably already a fate sealed. Their only chance would be in taking all their fleets together and try to in some way breach the siege front to overwhelm the invaders. Bretonia is still able to produce snub-sized vessels planetside, both on Cambridge and on New London, and I would bet they militarized every single factory on those worlds to do exactly that. Bretonia doesn't lack the pilots. For anything bigger, Bretonia requires a spaceborne shipyard, or the invention of optimized, mass-produce capital-sized anti-gravity technology. In Sirius, few ship-classes support that kind of technology, one for example the Libertonian Bison-class Heavy Combat Transport. One can assume this technology is expensive and eating up so much resources that this technology has not been stuffed into every single warship they found.
Bretonia is trying to take Aland, however, not to produce snub-sized vessels, but possibly anything bigger. Gunboats and destroyers most likely, as producing a battleship will take so much more time than Bretonia has anyway. The issue with this is that Bretonia won't win the war with whatever amount of gunboats and destroyers they imagine they can pump out of Aland when having taken it. Producing new assets at Aland would be something Bretonia can do only in the long run. What Bretonia is more likely to do with Aland is establishing a back-end repair facility far away from the range of Gallia. It is most likely they are trying to establish a Norfolk-secured supply line from New London down to Aland to send damaged ships for repairs, refueling and restocking. That means, if we would allow Bretonia to take Aland from us without us initiating the self-destruction, it would mean Bretonia would be required to protect the absolutely easy prey that is damaged, dry and out of ammunition vessels down to the Cambridge gate, then either down via the longest lanes of Sirius to either Cambridge or Cardiff, then to Ross, then to the asteroid-nebula-covered gate to Omega-3, where they will once again be trapped in a nebula with asteroids, over to Freeport 1, then down to Aland. The Gwent is gone. All they have is the Norfolk. And we surely won't give them Aland in a perfect state.
Let's assume Bretonia sends a share of the fleet to chase the Kassel in Omega-5, take on the defending forced of Red Hessians and the Coalition, somehow survive the Hammen Hole to finish the Kassel off, I am certain the Red Hessians would have enough motivation to have Bretonia suffer for that in the worst way. Possibly, the Red Hessians could gather their allies to from that point on launch surgical strikes on whatever moves between New London and Aland. If Bretonia manages to invade Omega-5, nothing can stop the Hessians from returning the favor. An alternative would be contacting the Corsairs, as they could make use of this weakness as well. While I am fully aware the Corsairs and the IMG haven't been on good terms with another for a long time, even they couldn't turn a blind eye on that opportunity. And I believe this is something we can mention in possible negotiations.
My proposal is to make Bretonia reconsider by giving them something that means, right now, nothing to us.
Proposal
Bretonia is desperate and has become blind to opportunities they simply didn't think of. Right now, Bretonia is probably taking over what we left at Cardiff in Cambridge. Cardiff's most interesting capabilities are mining and processing of Beryllium, which we used to ship to Rheinland and Liberty. Bretonia doesn't necessarily need Beryllium, at least not in the mounts the station is optimized to produce. However, due to the special situation between the IMG and Bretonia right now, I believe we can negotiate for a compromise. We need to convince Bretonia that taking Aland is a horrible idea both in short and long run. We need to make them consider ending this conflict in the Omegas for the sake of winning the war. I believe we can do that. We can either make sure they don't get their people on Aland by blowing up our own station, or instead, we allow them to keep Cardiff. Bretonia does not benefit from a Beryllium Refinery, but from a Shipyard. If Bretonia is willing to cease hostilities and make the Norfolk leave Omega-3 to return to Cambridge, with the exception of a contingent to defend Sprague, of course, we can offer our help to turn Cardiff into a makeshift Shipyard facility. Who else knows the station better than us? Bretonia has the personnel, we have the knowledge and materials. If we combine that, we can have Cardiff produce ship components and erect a simple shipyard facility at Cardiff within weeks - especially since Bretonia has a logistical fleet they used to take Canaria. Utilizing that fleet would allow a quick deployment, material delivery and with the Norfolk not required to defend Aland, Sprague AND Cambridge, the fleet would be less vulnerable, and ships required to receive repairs, refueling and restocking would not be required to fly all the way down to Omega-3 but only to Cardiff. Two lanes and one gate instead of five lanes and two gates just to enter a system heavily raided by Hessians and Corsairs. That and it is most likely that they save time erecting a new shipyard at using Cardiff than trying to repair the lanes in the Wilkes Ice Field as well as what we leave there, if anything.
If they cease the hostilities, they wouldn't need to continue the new conflict with the Hessians. Hessians could focus on Corsairs, Corsairs couldn't focus on Bretonia. Bretonia would not only become good with the Guild again but have her two major enemies in the Omegas fight each other again. Possibly, Crayter and Core could also offer their assistance at Cardiff. With the cooperation of these involved groups on just one station to provide a shipyard, we could establish something useful within less than a month.
As an addition, you might want to remind Bretonia that ALG is on our side, and they can easily turn the Wilkes Ice Field into a radioactive nightmare should we lose.
I recommend negotiating this with Bretonia as soon as possible.
Hubert Adam
IMG Falster Station Defense Manager
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