Friday, February 8, 2013

CHAPTER 1

THE WRONG WAY: THE LANDING

WAR HAWK: Let’s start with the first large-scale military operation against Earth, the Gorgonian invasion of 1898.

(At this point the Gorgonians arrive making their distinctive sound as their slime coated tentacles scrape the auditorium floor.)

Ah, there you are. The Gorgonians. Find a seat in back, guys. Just clean up after yourselves. They say never trust a race that leaves a slime trail; you can never tell when they’re taking a piss.

MODERATOR: That’s insensitive.

WAR HAWK: Seriously? They may want to cover their aural orifices then because it’s not going to get any more polite. Your operation has served as almost a template for the subsequent big attacks on the Earth. So you guys have a lot to answer for.

To review, the Gorgonians set up a base on the Earth’s closest planetary neighbor, Mars. They then sent several invasion pods from Mars to the Earth, mostly the nation called England. The Earthlings’ first hints that something was amiss was when they saw the small flashes in the sky. They didn’t even have radio deflection technology at the time, so the landings took them completely by surprise.

Sounds like total success right?

Wrong! In fact, the Gorgonians had already screwed up by this point. Ten seconds in, and they had already made a fundamental strategic mistake. What is it?

The landing itself.

WHY THE HELL DID YOU LAND?

Yes, the humans are down on the surface. But there’s this little thing called the high ground. It’s a concept only as old as warfare. By entering Earth’s atmosphere and coming down to its surface, you’re giving up the high ground! The very first large scale Earth invasion began with a fundamental error, and all the subsequent invasions have repeated this error. When the Sondrak Imperials invaded nearly a century later, they landed in a more remote section of the planet. When General Dronn brought his huge ships, he had them hover over several of Earth’s major cities. But it doesn’t matter if you bury a pod in a remote desert or send dozens of craft to hover over the capitals and major cities. Just by leaving high orbit, you’re already surrendering the high ground. You are, in fact, surrendering the highest ground that is physically possible. The Earthlings haven’t even fired a shot, yet have already achieved a major victory.

On Earth, they have a saying: “It ain’t rocket science.” It this case, it literally is. High ground exists because of gravity. When an enemy is fighting uphill, he is fighting against both you and gravity. You will never expend as much energy against the force of gravity as when you are putting a ship or other object into orbit. For us, with our technology, it’s not such a big deal. Our ships easily generate enough energy to defeat Earth’s gravity. We even have systems that can negate gravity’s effects, making launches and landings as gentle as a breeze.

But Earth doesn’t have these technologies. Even after repelling countless invasions, they are still stuck at Tech Level Six for reasons I’ll get to later. For them, it takes considerable effort to place anything in orbit. They have only begun to create weapon systems capable of attacking an enemy stationed up there, and they are still primitive by out standards.

I can’t put this any plainer. Earth is in no position to attack an opponent that is in orbit, and they have few defenses against an attack from that position. So putting a weapons system in orbit causes a lot of problems for the Earthlings; you can fire down on an entire hemisphere; meanwhile they would struggle to launch any kind of counter strike. But if you never put a weapons platform in orbit, the Earthlings never have to worry about that situation.

It’s the same thing on a land battle. If you occupy a high hill that commands the surrounding countryside, would you just abandon it at the start of the battle? The humans don’t have to expend any time or effort recapturing the high ground of space, and thus they can focus their energies on other threats.

High ground, people. Look it up under B A S I C S H I T.

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