When House Cygnus betrayed the Empire with their synth rebellion, Hroa was not spared from the suffering the conflict brought. While the planet lacked the massive numbers of industrial synths that other worlds in the Empire utilized, the planet still contained a significant number of domestic and municipal synths and a full Aquilan legion with its Combat synth force.
Battle At Outpost Hydra[]
The first place to see widespread violence on Hroa was at Outpost Hydra, an Aquilan military stronghold on the outskirts of Aranath. Like all Aquilan Garrisons across Acheron Rho Outpost Hydra made extensive use of Synthetic legionnaires, with this particular base’s synthetic garrison taking up 90% of its direct combat roles, and 40% of the outpost’s over all population. In a single sudden burst of violence, Outpost Hydra transformed into a battleground, the synth surprise attack killing off an estimated 20% of the human inhabitants of the fortress in the first few minutes of the surprise attack. Aquilan forces quickly rallied, taking up positions in the most defensible positions in the garrison, its armory, medical facility, and vehicle depot.
Battle raged for five days within Outpost Hydra with the outside population completely unaware, as synths had captured the outpost’s communication network and had been actively rejecting calls for aid from the Fang. The Fang had been stretched thin by sudden outbursts of violence by synths that threatened to erupt into full blown riots, had been unable to send agents to investigate Outpost Hydra and their refusal to answer the call to arms. On day six of the siege a telepath embedded within the Aquilan forces finally managed to make contact with the Executors, who had been operating in a support role for the Fang, and relayed the drie situation of Outpost Hydra. The human occupants had been reduced to half their fighting strength in attempts to keep the Synths at bay.
The threat of Synths gaining access to the weapons, vehicles, and mechs stored at Outpost Hydra was too grave, and the chance to gain Aquilan reinforcements too vital to ignore. The Fang withdrew as many of their forces from the brewing riots in order to create a large enough force to relieve the remaining Aquilans, with an emphasis on teleporters, bio-psions, and any Fang with experience applying their powers to combat situations as possible.
What followed was a daring assault, coordinated telepathically across several fronts. The task force was focused on evacuation and sabotage, with Aquilan forces inside of the fort destroying any supplies they couldn’t carry while Serpens forces attempted to clear a path for the beleaguered defenders to withdraw along while teleporting out the wounded. This resulted in a successful rescue and retreat from the fortress to a safe barricade set up half a kilometer away along the main route to the outpost. Unfortunately for all involved, the rescue was not the end of the conflict. Biopsionics went to work restoring the injured for immediate redeployment, as the surviving defenders were given only a few hours of relief before being resupplied and assigned to the blockade, or to one of the hotspots across Hroa where violence had gotten out of hand.
The Week of Madness[]
Approximately two hours before the battle at Outpost Hydra reports began to pour into Fang law enforcement offices of synths lashing out violently, and even killing humans all across Hroa. While at first there were only a hand full of cases, within thirty minutes of the first call Fang dispatchers were overwhelmed with dozens of reports of violence in every major population center. Panic began to quickly spread through the general population the Fang could not keep up with the number of cases pouring in by the minuet. Day after day the situation deteriorated. On day two the Fang issued a ‘Kill on Sight’ policy for synths and had called in the support of the Executors and Arbiters to stem the tide. By day three serf gangs decommissioning gangs formed and began publicly killing synths. By day four synths had begun to organize and use stolen or improvised weapons in full blown roving gangs, as martial was declared. On day five they had begun widespread attempts to infiltrate the decommissioning gangs and turn them against authorities, some successful, others failed and created enough paranoia that these gangs began assaulting strangers. At the end of day six Fang officers were forced to turn their arms on Serfs as one of the decommissioning gangs assaulted a Fang outpost to seize its arms, it was later discovered that of the 20 killed, 4 were synths. By the dawn of the seventh day, a significant portion of the fang had been called to relieve the siege at Outpost Hydra, leaving the rest of Hroa to descend into panic and riots.
The Night of Slaughter[]
With their presence in population centers reduced, the Fang was forced to retreat to high value locations, while heavily armed patrols attempted to enforce a strict curfew while attempting to subdue rioters and respond to reports of synth attacks. They would prove to be underprepared and unready for the night to come. Several decommissioning gangs that refused to disband rallied together, under doomsayers and charismatic cult leaders the likes of which had not been seen since the days following the Scream. The Synths themselves had organized, no longer running as brutal gangs, they assumed full scale military formation, while they lacked any weapons more advanced than a laser pistol, this greater degree of cohesion and coordination was enough to transform them from dangerous threats, to a full scale invasion force.
At the last moment, under precognitive advisement the Fang pulled all street patrols save a few in heavily armed and fast moving vehicles. Fang agents in these vehicles harried synth movements, drawing their attention and Ire, distracting them from the constant sieges of defensive posts and herding them into the doomsday decommissioning gangs. These agents were under strict orders to focus on saving their amo to harass as many synth formations as possible while keeping themselves alive, and “not to waste ammo on those crazy bastards rioting in the streets, let the synths will handle them for you”.
After a prolonged coordinated siege of over three hundred locations over the course of twenty hours, the remaining fang had lost 65% of its armed distraction teams, and just over 35% of its entrenched ground forces. Reinforcements from Outpost Hydra began to pour in, and turn the tide of battle. Over the several days order was restored as the combined arms of the Fang and Aquila put down the remaining coordinated synth forces.
Operation Hercules[]
With Outpost Hydra successfully isolated all that remained to ensure the safety of Hroa was to neutralize remaining forces within the stronghold. Frontal assault was deemed to risky, and thanks to the fortress’s location in the mountains moving artillery into place as too costly. After several meetings it was decided that an unorthodox tactic was to be employed against the stronghold. In the fighting withdrawal from the fortress, anti-air, and anti-orbital weapons had been disabled, however the planet’s air force was woefully under-armed to enact a prolonged bombing campaign against the structure, so a simpler solution was devised. Enlisting dozens of civilian transport ships, the joint arms task force had these cargo haulers lift several hundred tons of rubble and stone to high altitude locations predetermined by Serpens Precogs, before dumping their payloads onto the fortress. As the tons of rock and chunks of rubble hit terminal velocity, they crashed into the Outpost with enough force to cause serious structural damage, and in some cases obliterate entire structures. After a week of bludgeoning, what was left of the outpost was successfully assaulted and reclaimed, with the last synth defenders, officially putting an end to the Synth threat on Hroa.
Post Crisis Strategic Analysis[]
Estimates and records indicate that over all, the population of synths on Hroa had a numeric advantage over the number of Fang lead defence forces present at the time. While exact numbers are impossible to calculate due to the loss of several Fang outposts and the destruction of Cygnus records with Gats, conservative estimates place the Synth rebels at two to one advantage over Hroa’s defenders. With those numbers in mind, it would seem at first glance that Hroa was doomed to fall during the crisis thanks to Cygnus breeding even basic domestic and civil service model synths to be stronger, faster, and more durable than the average human, making the triumph of Hroa’s valiant defenders nothing short of a miracle. While that view of the conflict has a certain romanticism about it, it is an inaccurate one that fails to take into account several factors in humanities favor.
First, and perhaps most importantly, was the effect that psychics had on the battlefield. Serpens precogs were able to correct battle strategies and react to synth movements before troops were even deployed. Whatever afforded the synths their enhanced cohesion and coordination was countered by the presence of telepaths who could control the flow of battle, sense thoughts and tactics of their opponents, and even suppress fear and pain in their comrades long enough to hold out and push through vital challenges. A well trained telepath could rip the strongest synth in half with a thought, regardless of how well they were built. A biospion could take a soldier on the verge of death and get them back into fighting shape in a matter of minutes. Teleporters could outrun and outflank any synth maneuver. Last but by no means least Metapsions take these incredible powers and make them last stronger and hit harder. For all the near supernatural strength built into the synth rebels, Hroa gave her defenders the perfect tools to counter them.
Second, while the Synth forces may have had a numeric and physical advantage, the vast majority of their forces lacked the arms and equipment that the human defence forces had at their disposal. Outside of Outpost Hydra, few synths had access to any weapons of higher caliber than a laser pistol, knives, or improvised weapons. Their defensive tools were limited to padded layers of clothing, and at best crudely improvised riot-shields made from stripped vehicle parts and steel doors. Within the outpost itself the situation was fire more dire, though the synths were yet again lacking in resources. True, they had access to laser rifles, magnetic weaponry and reinforced heavy armor, however thanks to the action of the Aquilan forces trapped within the base with them, these synths only had whatever ammunition they had on their person when the battle broke out. The Fang on the other hand could make use of their equipment, as in all but the most heavily sieged locations supply lines had managed to stay open.
Many analysts of the conflict have come to the conclusion that the entire synth battle plan revolved around seizing as much weapons and armor as they could to stage a full scale armed attack on planetary defences before subjecting or purging the remaining human population. In fact, it is theorized that the widespread murders at the beginning of the conflict was a tactic to keep the fang occupied and stretched beyond their limit, so Synth forces inside of Outpost Hydra could seize the garrison’s armament and distribute it among the planet’s synth population. It was that very theory that lead to the Fang withdrawing from the terrorized urban zones to relive the defenders at the outpost in the first place.
“We learned two things in those weeks. We learned just how much a threat these things were, and more importantly we learned how to kill them. You have three choices: out man and out gun them, send in Reticulum bravo to match their skill and outclass their gear, or send a Psychic with as much heat as they care to carry and they’ll cheat their way to a win.”
-High Executor Serpens Mordax
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