Part 33: Moskva's Endgame, Sirius System, Sol Sector (Bonus Nitpicking)

Rapier wins. Attempted update tomorrow, which you are expected to believe when you see given my track record with these things.


Well, it's more it has to go better in the game for that to be fun, though there's a narrative reason for it happening in the book, which is to make the Confederation desperate enough for what happens in the next episode to be vaguely plausible.

Anyway, here's the reason why the book and the game can't be quite the same battle. The image I used for the mission again:

Look at this and think a bit. What's odd about it?

Answer: The Kilrathi are between the planet and the Confederation strike force. That doesn't fit with the book's narrative where the cats are advancing on a broad front and Third Fleet is deployed to defend Sirius Prime. Now, you could argue that planet is actually Gilead, the other inhabited world in Sirius, but it can't be because the same world is still around and looking the same in the mission video that's coming tomorrow, and the Kilrathi Sr-90 nuke Gilead while this strike is going in.

So despite the Terrans being deployed to screen Sirius Prime from the Kilrathi, there is an enemy force between the planet and the TCS Firekka. Now this is probably just a minor oversight from the mission designers who just wanted to put the planet somewhere nice and visible, but let's run with it anyway. Instead of the broad front approach intended to maximise the Kilrathi numerical advantage at the cost of likely allowing the Confederation fleet to disengage, Thrakhath, his pride stung by Tolwyn's mostly irrelevant tactical victory at Warsaw against the vanguard elements and the loss of a carrier (this doesn't happen in the book), he goes all-out to encircle and eliminate the Terrans at Sirius. His operational plan is use a pair of Hakagas to encircle each flanking carrier, while his flagship with the majority of the cruisers threatens against the centre of the Terran line, keeping it pinned against the planet until the flanking operations are complete, at which point the middle carriers can be destroyed:


It doesn't work. Correctly gambling that the pride of the Kilrathi commanding the central Hakagas would not permit them to call in reinforcements to defeat an attack they could deal with themselves, Tolwyn orders Leyte Gulf and Moskva forward to delay the central advance while his flanking carriers fall back. The Tar'vakh commander, confident that the addition of two Snakeirs to his forces (posted there by Thrakhath to counter the Concordia, which he well knows to be the most dangerous of the Terran carriers), does not slow down and allows his group to outrun the main Kilrathi advance, while Reismann in the Firekka cuts his escort carrier in across the Tar'vakh's wake to provide his fighters with an angle to eliminate the destroyers and frigates racing to keep the Hakaga screened. Therefore, by the time the Firekka's second assault is launched, the Kilrathi carrier group is indeed between Sirius and the planet, and also quite isolated, explaining how the numbers were much closer to even than Kevin Tolwyn's much less successful attack in the book:



The fact that we're now racing to help the Moskva indicates things didn't go quite so well on the other flank...